Jan. 19, 2021 -- Some Shifting Sands

One of my favorite things about the last couple months has just been getting to be in a lot of meetings with President Rodarte and various stake presidents.  I think every now and then I start feeling like I kind of have things figured out, but then you spend a little time with all these spiritual giants and you can practically see the Holy Ghost radiating off of them and I realize I still have a long ways to go. But I love learning from so many powerful leaders. 

Our English classes are coming along! It amazes me how much it allows us to build connections with people that then make teaching them the gospel so natural. A little service truly makes a big difference. Our mission had a super awesome opportunity come up where a nonmember internet TV producer came to and enjoyed an English class and wanted to film a live weekly TV segment on their station! We were super excited to see what happened with it. Then our mission president called Elder Gastelum and I and asked us to teach the class, so we were still super excited but also way more nervous, haha. We went to the studio, and he had movie cameras, microphones, lights, a green screen -- the works. We went live last night and taught a half-hour class with a 'motivational thought' at the end (although we snuck in a little scripture verse without saying that that's what it was).  We've already hit over a 1000 views since last night, and that was just episode 1! So anyway. It is pretty exciting. The idea is that hopefully we can reach thousands of people in Las Vegas, and in the live lesson, we tell them about the in-person classes we have in the chapels. I'll put the link at the bottom if you're curious to see what it looks like.

But we have been loving things here. Elder Gastelum is a great missionary. One of our English students came to church just a week and a half after we met her, and afterwards we gave her a building tour with a recently returned missionary and someone from the relief society and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! She is super awesome and always asks us what part of the Book of Mormon she should read next. 

My trainee Elder Parker went to Mexico this morning! I love that man and was super excited for him.

We got some sad news yesterday. Our companionship was ready to lay down some heat, but we are being separated! President called and asked me to be one of the assistants. I'm not actually even sure what the assistants do, but so far I know that we get to drive a red Tacoma, which seems awesome, and that we have to take missionaries to the airport tomorrow by 4:00 am, which was a little less awesome, haha. But seriously I am just very grateful and humbled to be able to work a lot with President Rodarte and his family. There is work to be done! I'm also super excited because the other assistant is Elder Stewart, who was my zone leader when I first got here. He is from Canada and is an awesome missionary. Here we go, I guess!

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

https://www.facebook.com/kctvnetworklv/videos/252806896203727/

Jan. 12, 2021 -- English Explosion

"Elders, I have good news!" It was the first counselor. "What is it?" we asked. "You're speaking on Sunday!" Haha, so it was. It was funny because just about a month ago, one of the stake high councilors called me and asked me to be his speaking partner in our ward, and now we spoke again! With how busy we have been teaching, the only time we had to prepare was from about 9:45 to 10:15 on Saturday night, but I think it went well. But Sunday was also super awesome because our main man and recent convert Andres blessed the sacrament. He was pretty nervous but did great. He is so solid.

My companion this week got a friend request from someone in the Philippines who said, "Hi Jared, can you teach me a little about your religion?" We kind of thought it was just a robot or someone trying to mess with us, but we set up a Zoom call (even though he is 16 hours ahead of us) and he is one of the most sincere and prepared people I have ever met! When we started the call, he told us a summary of the first vision, how we believe in a living prophet, and how he is interested in the kingdoms of glory and the spirit world. He had been trying to do some research to learn more by himself but didn't want to just Google things because he would find lots of incorrect information as well. We retaught the restoration, and before we even brought it up, he said, "I guess now I'll just have to read the Book of Mormon and pray about if it is true!" Haha, it is amazing. Hopefully we can help him find missionaries in the Philippines soon.

We also got a call out of the blue from someone we met in the park one time and had sent an occasional text to or called once or twice. She started crying and telling us about many stresses and problems she was experiencing. We tried to listen sympathetically and be supportive for about 7 minutes. Then we shared a little scripture. She told us, "Through all of this, I've felt like nobody has been there for us or really cared about except for you guys, always checking in on us and seeing how we're doing. My church is so big, I just feel lost in the crowd. So, I was thinking I might want to be part of you guys. Is that possible? How would I do that?" We were blown away! From our perspective, we made some pretty small efforts to be friendly and say hi to this family, but it meant the world to them and when they started going through something difficult, they thought to call us and now even have desires to come and be part of the church. 

We went to visit some members who recently moved into our ward this week. They are a super cool young couple with two kids. We shared a quick thought after getting to know them, and then as we were going to leave, we asked if there's anything we could do to help their family. The husband said, well just to come back and keep teaching us because my wife hasn't been baptized yet. That happens to be our specialty, but it was a funny surprise!

A sister missionary in our zone got to return to her reassignment in Chile, but when she got there, her COVID test had been turned in too early or something, and she got deported! So now she is back here and is going back to Chile this week. But that would quite the story to tell.

So, we are the zone leaders right now, but our district leader also got sent to Chile. We were excited to see who would replace him, but instead his old companion got put into a trio and we are the new district leaders as well for the rest of the transfer, haha. We're scrambling around so much it's crazy.

So, we have been having some miracles with English classes! With some trial and error we finally figured out how to Facebook advertise really well and got about 500 messages responding to our ad. We developed a whole system where we had a document with a pre-written response depending on the english class location that gave the person information, so we were copying and pasting like lightning. We sent around 150 referrals from that to missionaries around the mission for their English classes and got a group of over 50 people that wanted to come to our class. We had 13 nonmembers, most of which we had never met, end up coming, and several more had tried to get on our Zoom link but just couldn't with technical difficulties. We always teach English and share an optional spiritual thought at the end (no baiting and switching allowed), but everyone always stays for it. Then during the week, we would set up individual lessons with our students and teach them more along with a more individualized spiritual thought. We have gotten a lot of compliments on how people love that we also speak Spanish so we actually understand them and explain things well, and how the classes are professional. 

But it is crazy how easy it is to teach the gospel with the classes! As we get to know them in English, they feel very connected to us and comfortable with us. With more than one person, all we said was "We'd like to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon, have you ever heard of it?" and then they told us about how they have gone to some churches before but don't have a church now, and it was super easy to invite them to come and see ours. One person came this Sunday with us, and after the closing prayer, I noticed her wiping some tears away. She said that she felt something really special in her heart. Another lady after our lesson asked where she could go to buy a Book of Mormon and how much it would cost. We assured her that for the low low price of $11.99 -- haha just kidding, we assured her that we would love to bring her one for free.

Also, this week I passed up 18 months! All the sisters in my MTC district are gone. A member asked us how long I had been out, and I automatically said, "a little over a year," because it still feels like that. But I only have 6 months left! There's too much work to do! Ahhhhhh! 

So anyway! That's that for now. 'Til we meet.

Elder Harris

Jan. 5, 2021 -- Haven't emailed since last year...

Haven't talked to you guys all year! That's crazy.

One funny story that happened is when we talked to a member that said he got a text from someone from our ward. He said that the text was in English, so he didn't understand 100%, but he was positive that this member said he'd strayed away from the church but was ready to come back. He didn't actually know the guy's name, but he had us call him to bring him back to church. We called and said, "Hi, this is the missionaries. We're calling for Hermano so-and-so, do you know him?" He confirmed, so we asked if he was part of our ward, and he said, "I'm the High Councilor for your ward." Suddenly we recognized the voice and we said, "Ohhhh, well Hno. So-and-so thought you were inactive, but I guess not. See you later!" 

Lately I have eaten some kind of interesting things! We've eaten cactus a couple times, and on New Year's Eve, a member cooked us a goat! I love Hispanic culture. We can't eat as fast as the members can cook. They are way too good to us. 

It was an exciting New Years Eve! We had to have an earlier curfew, so we were inside at 8:00. Then we watched a mission-wide talentshow on Zoom and went to bed at 10:30. It is crazy that it's 2021. I'm coming home this year. It is pretty surreal.

This Sunday was awesome. Our recent convert Andres came to church early, asked us to show him how to pay his first fast offering, and then also bore his testimony during the meeting and passed the sacrament. All the members are so impressed with him. He's the best. It made me super happy as we sat with someone that was visiting church and watched Andres do all these things for the first time. What could be more meaningful than that? 

One cool thing this week was when we brought a Bible to someone who requested one. He was from one of the same cities I lived in in El Salvador! Man, it is crazy how much that comes in handy. I am always meeting different people from there and it is just an instant connection. 

Anyway, this might have been the shortest weekly yet! Time flies. Out skeleton got an American flag cape!

'Til we meet

Elder Harris

Dec. 29, 2020 -- The End of the Periodic Table

It was an exciting day, yesterday. We've been trying to get creative in order to find new people, and so we thought we would give a virtual Bible study a shot! We put out some Facebook ads, but when the time came, nobody had joined the zoom meeting. We were just about to give up when I got a notification that said, "'Random Guy' has entered your waiting room." I said, "No way! We got one!" and hurried to admit them into the meeting, only to see my companion's face on the screen. The jokester had jumped on the meeting on his phone.

Being on a mission can definitely have some ups and downs of emotions. We are teaching a family that was supposed to be baptized tomorrow, but they had to come to church in order to do so. On Saturday night, the son had gotten off work, and everything seemed good to go. Sunday morning we texted them early to make sure they were still good to come, and then we left our missionary correlation meeting to go have them follow us over. We called on the way, but still no answer. We got there and their car was there, but after a lot of knocking, they didn't answer. We knocked for half an hour and called them half a dozen times to give them every chance to come to church and get baptized. Finally the son answered the phone and said he had gotten called into work, and then they answered the door and had just woken up and weren't going to make it. We finally got to church late, and nobody else that said the would come made it either. Then they announced from the pulpit, "This week we are going have a baptism, right elders?" We just had to shake our heads. "Oh, sorry, nevermind." It was just kind of an awkward and discouraging morning. To top it off, we got home to change out of our suits, and when I went to turn on the lights, the last big chunk of the white Christmas lights that are only lights in the room burnt out. Sigh. Later we found out the family had been out late the night before visiting family that had been hospitalized with COVID, so they have definitely been going through some difficult times. They'll get there soon. I think that the occasional times of sadness and frustration that come as a missionary are because from our perspective, we can see how much the gospel will help and bless people and give them everything they need, but sometimes they just don't realize it. It truly is the recipe for happiness. 

But! There are always way more good times than bad. Our funny recent convert Andres recently got exposed to COVID, but had to wait on a test result. We asked him over text how he was doing, and he sent us a voice recording in a soft, weak voice that said, "Well . . . here I am . . . on my last breaths . . . Nah, I feel great!" He's the best. We did a videocall with his wife, who is in Guatemala and met her, which was awesome! Unfortunately, they live in a spot that is pretty far from the church. But he told us how he already showed her the gospel library app and has been reading the Book of Mormon with her.

We are living in luxury now. After weeks of persuading, my companion finally convinced me to let us get a new shower curtain since the old one was pretty gross. I was sad to say goodbye to our faithful periodic table shower curtain. I may never have a shower curtain quite so awesome again. But the new one is nice. And I finally retired my sacred (because they're so hole-y) sheets and bought some new ones, and they are mighty fine.

Maybe to make up for the sad Sunday, yesterday it started raining for the first time in months! It was so pretty outside and smelled like rain (instead of smoking), We jumped on our bikes with some english flyers we'd printed and went out to hang them up. It was some nice fresh air, and it is always fun to see how many Hispanic restaurants let us hang up the flyers. And to use any possible excuse to ring my new bike bell. We always try to talk to the people we pass by. We went by one Hispanic family at the bus stop and said hi, but then kept going. My companion after a minute said, "Elder, I think we should go back." It is always a little awkward, but they say that regret lasts longer than rejection. We went back and talked to this awesome young family that recently arrived to the States. Their three year-old son gave offered us a fist bump and we were able to talk to them. We talked to another older gentleman who showed us pictures of his old marathon running days and let us pray with him and set up a time to visit.

We also put another free english class ad on Facebook! They are crazy because we get hundreds of messages for days, so it makes us feel like a crazy, under-staffed call-center. But we end up sending referrals all over the valley and finding some for our own class, so that's really nice!

I love when you start to talk to someone in english, and they say, "No hablo ingles," confident that that will end the conversation. When a couple white kids say, "Perfecto! Hablamos español!" they are trapped and always look like deer in the headlights. You can always start a conversation just because they are taken off guard and can't seem to think of another rejection line. Once the opposite problem happened though, when my comp started talking to someone in Spanish and they said, "No hablo español." It was pretty awkward. 

We got a phone call a few hours ago from someone who said, "I don't know if you remember me, but you gave me a picture of Jesus Christ while I was at the bus stop several months ago. I've been going through a divorce and some difficult things and thought maybe I could call you guys to help me feel closer to God again. You're the young guys with shirts and ties and bikes, right?" It was such a cool thing to see that no effort is ever wasted. This poor man that I didn't even remember saved that card for months, and later, when he was going through some difficulties, remembered a few young men that talked about God. We set up a time to visit and are really excited. 

No te canses de luchar. 

Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Dec. 25, 2020 -- I'm Dreaming of a White Boy Christmas

I've been waiting to use that subject line for an entire year ever since Uncle Rob suggested it last year when I was in a different place that doesn't see snow, although back then I did stand out a little more for my less-than-dark complexion.

Last week on the night after P-Day, we were chatting under the Christmas lights just before going to bed when we got a mysterious phone call -- it was the assistants telling us that our son was getting emergency transferred the next morning! We were sad to see him go. Several missionaries have received news that they are returning to their foreign mission original assignments, which was part of the reason things were getting shuffled around. So for now we continue as a normal companionship with only an empty top bunk to remind us of Elder Shepherd. 

Last night to spread some Christmas Eve cheer, we took a bunch of Christmas cards we made and delivered them to a bunch of members and people we're teaching that we thought might be a little lonely. Sometimes when we knocked on the door, we heard some funny comments on the other side. One house we knocked on had some little kids come peer through the glass. There was a five or six year old girl that ran back into the house and squealed, "It's the missionaries! I'm so excited!" Another house had someone who wasn't a member answer and go to get his elderly sister saying, "The pastors are here." I think my favorite was when we heard a little kid push a stool across the floor and climb up to peek through the hole. Someone asked who was there, and he said, "I dunno . . . two guys. One of them is really tall!" 

Christmas has been awesome. A week or so ago we had a Christmas zone conference where we painted ornaments for someone we're teaching. There is a family here in the ward that brought us all Cane's chicken yesterday along with a giant stocking full of snacks. We are having a really hard time eating as fast as the members can cook. Today we also did a white-elephant and a ginger-bread house building competition with the district. 

Things are going well in our area. There is a family of four that wants to be baptized on the 30th, so we are really excited for them. We have continued to have our english class (even though it is online for now) and someone that came for the first time last week also came to check out church. It continually blows me away how much more open people are to accepting invitations after being served a little bit.

One awesome and kind of funny experience was when we went to a member's house. We had talked to them in our last appointment about sharing the gospel with their downstairs neighbor by inviting them to church or to a family home evening. They were excited, but a little nervous, as all their past conversations had pretty much been greetings in passing. We were going to follow up on how it went. When we walked in the door, though, they had their friend already in there and where explaining pretty much everything anyone could ever need to know about the gospel. They taught her about the restoration, the Book of Mormon, prophets, life after death, the temple, and a dozen other things, but it was just so fun to see how excited they were to share the gospel and how much it meant to them. When we introduced the Book of Mormon, I mentioned how it answers questions we have, such as what happens after we die. We read a scripture about it, which she liked, and then said, "Sometimes I also wonder, what is the purpose of life?" It was awesome just how perfect the question was and how easy it was to say, "The Book of Mormon also talks about that!" It was just a fun experience.

We also decked out a Halloween skeleton that Aunt Kathy sent a while ago with some Day of the Dead drawings and started using it as a zone travelling trophy. Everyone who wins the challenge of the week gets to decorate a bone. It is a lot of fun.

The other day we called a lady that we had met in the street. We asked if she was ready for Christmas. She told us that it was just going to be a normal day and that she couldn't wait until it was over. She sounded like she would spend it all alone and told us about a recent loss of a loved one she had experienced. We felt like we should share Mosiah 16:7-9, which are some of my all-time favorites about Christ and life after death. She seemed really touched and asked, "Where is that? I would love to study it on my own." We told her about the Book of Mormon and sent her the link to the app. She told us that it had brought her a little peace on an especially difficult Christmas. And I think that is what Christmas is all about. Christ is the gift. Because of him, we can all live again. We have something to hope for. And I think there is nothing that is more beautiful to share with others than that.

Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Pictured is a blurry picture of the Christmas star, me with a chameleon, and our awesome skeleton mascot.

Dec. 15, 2020 -- When Boys Become Men

Today we were at a park waiting for our district to arrive to play some spikeball. We started talking to a guy who asked if we would come sing a Christmas carol to his wife and say a prayer. They were nice and we were happy to oblige. As we were about to leave, the sister missionaries pulled up on the other side of the park. He asked, "Who are they? Are they your girlfriends?" 

"No, of course not," I responded, "those are my three wives!"

Just joking, I did not say that last part. It would have caused some confusion about church policies, haha, but I thought the joke was kind of funny.

So this week I had my last ever day as a teenager! I thought I needed to do something awesome to go out with a bang, but after much thought, the only things I could think of was to either do (A) a lot of pushups or (B) a lot of squats. I compromised and did a lot of pushups on my last day of 19 and matched it with squats on my first day of 20. I guess that is how you celebrate on your mission. 

The night before my birthday at around 9:30, the elders' quorum president called and told us that the next day the ward was doing a combined fast for the bishop, because he had just been taken to the hospital for COVID and was doing pretty bad. Now, I definitely shouldn't have, but at first I was kind of thinking, "Aw man! I was looking forward to some birthday food!" My big plan was to go to a pupuseria for lunch where they sell a dozen pupusas for $15. Now I wasn't sure how I was getting some pupusas. I wrestled with it for a little, but finally as I went to bed I humbled myself and figured, "Oh well, I'm sure if I fast, God will provide a good birthday."

So anyways, the birthday continued with the fast. And it was really good! The assistants called in the morning to sing happy birthday, and about a million of you guys sent me some awesome emails. Thanks so much! Lunch came and went and it looked like pupusas were going to have to wait for another day. We went to visit a member later on who asked us to come help with some service. When we walked in, they turned on, "Mañanitas," the classic Spanish birthday song, and they had a cake, balloons . . . and pupusas! Man, that family is the best. They were so nice. And so it was, that we both fasted and got pupusas! It is probably a lesson in humility for me. It is definitely very true that as we put God first in our lives, everything else seems to work out. And he uses normal people--like that awesome family--to bring little miracles to other peoples' lives. 

We continue to teach the super cool family with the dad and three teenage kids. They are super awesome and really want to be baptized, but needed to develop some better scripture reading habits. We decided that to help them, we would do a lesson where we just read and talked about Lehi's dream. We were able to read it and compare everything to their lives. The next day we called the dad to check up, and he said, "Hey, last night I caught my son reading the Book of Mormon by himself!" We were thrilled! We talked to the oldest son, and he had previously been probably the least excited about baptism. Now he is on chapter 11 of 1 Nephi and told us how he notices that he wakes up feeling better every day when he reads it. He is such a solid guy. Nothing is more exciting than when people read their commitments.

The dad has also had some miracles as we help him overcome an addiction. We decided to start calling him every morning to check in and help him out. The first morning when we called, he said, "Man, I got the goose bumps when you called! It was just at the exact right moment."

Lately they reimposed more COVID restrictions, so right now only people without the priesthood can come to church, which is a little disappointing. It was so much fun to help get the whole ward excited about going and to see everyone there. But! Soon enough, soon enough. 

The gospel is true here in Sin City.

Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Merry Christmas with my awesome LEGO nativity from Aunt Kathy, the Christmas lights from home, and the Christmas card we made.

Dec. 8, 2020 -- The London Bridge is in my Mission

So, it turns out, once upon a time, someone bought the London Bridge, took it apart, shipped it to the United States, and rebuilt it entirely in Lake Havasu, Arizona, which is in our mission. Who knew?

The other day we were joking that Andres, who got baptized just a couple weeks ago, is now more active in the church than we are. His Facebook profile has his CTR ring and a Light The World banner. He also went to a member's house for a family home evening without us yesterday. On Sunday, we asked if he wanted to watch the Christmas devotional with us and said we would come over at 8:00 to watch it with him. He texted us a couple hours early and said that he was already watching it live without us. We didn't even tell him how to find it, haha. He also was able to get the priesthood this Sunday, so we are so excited for him. He came with us to help in a lesson, and when somebody asked him how he knew the church was true, I was interested to hear that he said it was when we took him to visit different families in the ward. He could see that they had something special. 

The other day our trainee Elder Shepherd told us that several times he has woken up in the night to hear Elder Gastelum and I sleep talking in Spanish to each other. Man, we're some weird roommates. 

Most people are so nice here, but there are still those people that drive by and yell about those "(bad word) Mormons." It is so ridiculous. How crazy would it be if someone did the same thing to, like, some nuns walking down the road? Haha, it makes me laugh thinking about it. 

This week to keep the zone excited during the last week of transfers, we started a Book of Mormon challenge to see who could hand out the most from last Wednesday through Monday. The three districts ended up handing out over 200 copies. It was a ton of fun! We all tried different creative things. We set up a table in a park with Christmas music, hot cocoa, Christmas videos, and the Book of Mormon. It was a lot of fun, but only medium successful. Next time we're thinking about trying a busy street corner. It was kind of funny, though, because we set up next to a little walking trail, so people would pass us several times. I accidentally offered the same lady cocoa more than once after she had already given a firm no.

After that, we got creative and tied a Book of Mormon and nativity DVD together with ribbon and a candy-cane and gave out as many as we could carry. We jumped on the bikes and would give them out to everyone we saw. It was awesome how a little presentation made people just so much happier to accept it. Just felt like spreading Christmas spirit everywhere.

One other cool experience was with a family we are teaching. The dad was talking about how he wants to change his life. He said that he always notices the discipline the missionaries have. He mentioned that he could always see that we have our hair combed and clean socks, and you could tell we'd showered that day. He also mentioned our strict schedule that we follow. Little things like that made him want to change his life to have more of that. It is pretty amazing how even those really little things can have a big influence on someone. 

There is another guy we are teaching that is an older fellow, but he is just so cool. He was in the military and showed us a clip where he was filmed when he was 19 by a war photographer decades ago. He also studied thermo-nuclear physics and visited Chernobyl before it all went south. We had invited him to be baptized in his second lesson, and he accepted, but had a question about why we don't drink coffee. We only had time to give a very brief explanation, so we came back the next time ready to teach the Word of Wisdom in all its glory. When we were done and we invited him to live it, he said, "Oh, you see my coffee machine back there? I washed it out after last time, and I don't use it anymore." He just quit without us even asking him to directly after drinking it every day for years! It was an awesome experience. I love seeing how many people there are that are just so ready for the gospel, and just don't know where to find it. 

We got our transfer calls today, and we will all stay here in our trio! It'll be my fifth transfer here, which will put me at about seven and a half months here in Paraiso! It will definitely be the area I've been in the longest.

One last cool thing that happened was when we were passing out our Book of Mormon DVD combos. We went past a park, and a guy running around the track stopped and talked to us. He told us that he had been a missionary and asked if we had anywhere to eat that night. We asked what ward he was in, and he said he actually hadn't gone to church in a long time. But anyway, he gave us his address, and we went over. He was just the kindest man ever, and it was easy to see that he had just been terribly lonely. He only had one big plate, because he never has visitors. All he has for company is two cats. But he bought us a bunch of pizza and ice cream. We ate and watched President Nelson's gratitude message. Afterwards, he asked if it would be okay to have a blessing. We could tell that the visit was very meaningful to this lonely man that had not had any contact with the church for years. It was another testimony to me of how awesome God's plan is. If we had gotten to the park even thirty seconds earlier or later, we wouldn't have seen that guy. He really does put us where we need to be when we are about His business. 

Anyway, life is good, and God takes care of his children.

Till we meet again,

Elder Harris

And the pictures!

Including an awesome Christmas package from Aunt Kathy! Thanks so much!