Feb. 22, 2021 -- The Finish Line

Today I gave my first haircut! Neither Elder Stewart nor I really know anything about cutting hair, but he had some clippers, so we decided we'd give it a shot. We had another missionary staying with us while his companion flew to Utah and back to get his Visa, and let me tell you, nothing makes you more nervous than seeing him standing behind you in the mirror grimacing now and then, along with the occasional comment, of "that doesn't look right..." and "oh, well that part will grow back." But in the end I think it turned out alright. 

Whenever we send a message to someone, we have to confirm it with our companion before we can send it. So sometimes it has felt like the scene in the movie "The Martian" when there is the accident, and they have to take off from Mars but lost someone on the surface. One guy is like, "Captain! Should I launch?" The captain doesn't respond, and he says, "Captain, I need verbal confirmation before I launch!" So sometimes it is like, "Elder! Can I send this message? Elder, I need verbal confirmation!" Makes us laugh. 

There is a convert in our ward that got baptized about three weeks before I got here. He had a kind of crazy life, but is so converted to the gospel. We always see him wearing shirts with Brigham Young or the church logo, and he told us that a big part of his coming to the church was just hearing its name and seeing it around, so he hopes others will see his shirts and ask him about it. He is so cool. 

There is a priest that recently moved into our ward, and he actually called the bishop and asked him how he can come out and do visits with us. We had him come to a lesson with another recent convert and her husband, who is a member who started coming back when she started learning about the church. The priest came looking sharp in a suit, and it was a great first experience for him. We went over to review the plan of salvation, and we saw she already had the pamphlet out on her table! She said she just found it earlier that same day and had studied the whole thing! Throughout the lesson we just saw how so many seeming coincidences were just coming together in their lives. God's timing really is perfect. 

We have been working really hard to help members share the gospel. The Church has a new 'share' page on its website that talks about how anything we do to help anyone take a step towards making covenants with God is sharing the gospel. It is so amazing to see how excited people get when they do something simple to love someone, share something with them, or invite them to something. People have been inviting friends to meals and lessons or to watch church online, giving away pass-along cards or the Book of Mormon, and sharing inspirational quotes on social media. When I think about members doing missionary work, I love thinking about the quote, "You don't have to do things perfectly, you just have to do them intentionally."

We had another really cool experience with a lady that saw an ad on Facebook for missionaries offering free service. She asked for helping moving some new furniture into her apartment, and we did and brought a member couple to help finish the move. She was so grateful and said, "you guys are my angels!" We helped a little the first day and she asked us what we were doing after, so we told her how we were going to study the scriptures with people later that day. She told us how she loves reading the Bible and praying, and we invited her to study the scriptures with us and the relief society president who lives just down the street. She was really excited and actually called the relief society president before she could call her! Then when we finished with the member couple they asked about if she had heard about our church and if she had ever visited. She said, "no, I don't know much about Mormons, except that you're really helpful! You're doing just what Jesus would do!" We invited her to come and she said yes! Sunday rolled around and we texted to see if she could still come, but never got an answer. About halfway through the meeting, she came through the door! She loved the meeting and got teary-eyed during the musical number. There was also a member who came that I had never seen before, and it turns out she lives in the apartment right across the hall from the person we were teaching. It was really amazing just how so many little things came together to help her enjoy church.

One last thought to end on. When Elder Christofferson was here, he gave us his blessing that if we found a quiet moment and prayed to know how the Lord feels about us and our labors, we would receive an answer. I prayed for a couple days and didn't really feel much. I was pondering about it one day, and then suddenly realized he had answered my prayer without me even realizing! Let me explain.

After having taken returning missionaries to the airport, and become somewhat more aged myself, I sometimes reflected on how a mission ends. It seems like before, I kind of assumed that you end your mission in a glorious burst of light and triumph and angels trumpeting as hymns play in the background. Almost like there is some very visible finish line or end to the path. But it seems a little more like you are a normal missionary . . . still a normal missionary . . . normal missionary in the airport, and tomorrow you will still be a normal missionary . . . and then you're done! But while sitting in a meeting, I took some notes and had lots of thoughts come together that just seemed like an answer to that prayer, even though I didn't realize it for a few days until I was looking back. Anyway, I wrote and thought about how there is no on or off switch to being a missionary. A servant of God. A missionary tag does not make or unmake a missionary. It is who I am now. Doctrine and Covenants section 4, the famous missionary section, wasn't written to a full-time missionary. Just to someone who wanted to do the work of God. I think, perhaps, it is okay if the work doesn't necessarily feel completely done at the end, because it shouldn't be. I will still be called to the work, just assigned to labor somewhere new.

So. I still have a while left. But God blessed me that day to know that it is okay to not have a finish line. This is God's work, and it will not be complete if there is even one person left to save. It is an honor to be part of His cause.

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Feb. 15, 2021 -- A Prophet of God

So, believe it or not, my companion Elder Stewart was my very first Facebook friend! I guess you never know what happens in life. Careful who you friend on Facebook. 

I have been loving Las Vegas! Turns out Las Vegas in February is super nice. It is in the low 70s almost every day and is just beautiful outside.

I loved an experience we had teaching the same young guy that came to church last week. We were sitting on some camping chairs in his tiny garage and said, "Today we wanted to read a little bit in the Book of Mormon about life after death and God's plan for us." His eyes got really big and he held up the Book of Mormon and pointed at it, saying, "THIS talks about life after death?" It is so amazing to see the beauty of the gospel click for people. I don't think there's anything more exciting. 

We spent a little time calling and getting to know a member of our ward who is 89. He had some cool stories to tell, and you could tell he just really appreciated someone from the church reaching out. He went to Weber State back in the day, so we made that cool connection. 

We also went and helped a man who has not come to church for several years. He lives alone and it was easy to see that he had some challenges that made life difficult. His big passion is putting together puzzles and then gluing them together and he had dozens of them hanging on his walls. We went over and helped him fill up lots of trash bags of bottles and boxes and things to clean things up. At the end, this humble man handed us a carefully glued together puzzle of the Mandalorian. It was so cool how he gave us something so special to him and how much a little service and attention benefitted his life. 

This morning we had a really cool opportunity to go and do some service at the Las Vegas temple grounds. I have seen it from outside the gates twice, but with the wind storm that came through this week, there was some debris that had come off the trees that needed cleaning up. We went to the mission office, switched our truck for the mission van, and then went to the mission president's house, where we picked them up. He and his family came and helped clean up along with some other missionaries. It is just a very reverent and beautiful place. At the end, the temple worker thanked us all for the help, and with some emotion in his eyes, said, "When the Lord comes to Las Vegas, this is where He comes, so we have to do our best for Him."

Yesterday was also the best Valentine's Day of my life! Elder D. Todd Christofferson did a Zoom call with just our mission, along with Elder Godoy, Elder McKay, and their wives. At the start he said, "Elders and Sisters, we in the twelve look at you as our companions. First we go to the seventy, and then to you." He talked for a minute or two, and then he just took questions from the missionaries that we had submitted the week earlier. Sometimes when teaching people about prophets, we say, "If you could ask a prophet anything, what would it be?" Here we actually got the unbelievable chance to do so. So we got on the meeting, and you could see Elder Christofferson with a wall of 6 TVs in front of him so he could see everyone. What I was really amazed by was just how we were talking to this powerful witness of God, but he was also a completely relatable, normal person. He would joke around a little and was really nice, and just seemed like such a real person. Anyway, part-way through, I got called on to ask him a question. I actually spoke to a prophet! I thought I might die. Nevertheless, I said, "What advice would you give for times in life or on your mission when despite righteous effort, success just seems far away?" Elder Christofferson said, "You know, Elder, I think you're the only one who's ever experienced that." He had a big smile and was just joking, but it was so funny to hear that from an apostle. Made my day. Then Elder Godoy (gave the recent talk "I Believe in Angels") laughed too and said, "Welcome to our team!" But then they actually gave some really good insights. I think it is something sacred for me that I will always remember because it seemed so personal. But he said, "Don't worry too much, Elder Harris," (at this point my head jumped up from my frantic note-taking, and Elder Christofferson seemed to be looking me right in the eye) "if you don't see success immediately. You don't often see all the fruits of your labors during your mission, or even during your life. They reverberate, they roll on, like ripples in a pond."

I leave you with that in the name of Jesus Christ, who I know lives and is aware of us.

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Included in the pictures are the oddly sticky walls of Las Vegas.

Feb. 8, 2021 -- Blast from the Past

So a while ago I found a candy bar in our freezer that expired before I started my mission! I guess that is a testament to how dedicated missionaries are to cleaning out their apartments. Yes, I did eat it. 

Another fun fact, my current companion was my first ever Facebook friend. What are the odds?

We got to go to a new missionary training and have also been pretty busy with all the missionaries going back to their original assignments! We're taking another missionary to the airport to go to Mexico bright and early tomorrow morning. The last time we did we got back to our apartment around 4:30 and crashed back into bed for a few hours. I mumbled something to Elder Stewart like, "We can't forget to do (something or other) tomorrow morning." He replied, "You mean today?" Yes, I suppose so! What a life we live.

This week I saw a prophet's words change someone's life. There was a less-active member that the missionaries had contacted a little before I got here. She never answered her ministering sisters, and when the missionaries called, she said she was not interested in talking. However, she told us that then the missionaries just asked, "why not?" and she was able to start a dialogue and express her different concerns. Later I got to jump into the story. We had another phone call with her, and she was super nice but just had some doubts about things like prophets and how to know they speak for God and about whether the Doctrine and Covenants was really scripture. She is an English teacher and wanted to really be able to check sources and prove that it was true and everything. She was super friendly and just had some sincere questions, but we were kind of stumped on how to help. We did a little studying and decided to send her a talk by Ezra Taft Benson that talks about the Doctrine and Covenants. When we called her next, she said, "So, I read the talk." She then proceeded to go through and highlight herself every point of the talk that we had wanted to bring up and talked about another talk that she searched up after. She was just answering all her own questions and was so excited about it. It just made sense! You could almost feel the spirit of revelation. It was a super neat experience to be part of. Prophets truly do speak for God. Their words have power.

The attentive reader may remember that probably about four months ago, I came on exchanges here for an evening, and after a long experience of street contacting very unsuccessfully, we found one really cool young man. The missionaries taught him for a while and later lost contact. Well, fast forward to now, we called him up and had a super powerful lesson on the restoration. He loved it and told us after that he felt so much better after we came by. We invited him to church, and were a little worried when the meeting was going to start and he still hadn't made it. Then we got a text and he told us that he had been trying to get to church so fast that he got pulled over. He did finally make it a few minutes late. He was blown away by how high-tech the Gospel Library app is and after the meeting sincerely thanked us for helping restore his faith. It was so much fun, especially because he is just a year or two older than us.

One last exciting thing was something that happened in my last area. We had tried being modern missionaries and finding people to teach on Facebook, but after a while we were pretty unsuccessful and gave up in favor of teaching English classes and the gospel, which we were much better at. There was only one person we almost started teaching on Facebook. I had found them on a group of people from El Salvador in Las Vegas, but every time we were about to set an appointment, something came up. Now, a month or so later, my old companion reached out again and this time, the guy came to church! After church, they taught him the restoration in the chapel, and later the same day they visited his house where they taught him and his sister-in-law, and they both said they wanted to be baptized! He actually asked if he could serve a mission, even though he's a little old now. 

I think from all of these stories this week, it just hits me that truly "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." A small thought to send someone a general conference talk helped someone find an answer. A night of mostly unsuccessful street contacting helped one young man have a powerful experience at church. And what I thought was some totally failed efforts to share the gospel online actually could help an entire family be baptized. God really can consecrate our small efforts for our own and others' good. We plant a lot of seeds that we may never really know about, but when you can see one start to grow, it is a pretty special thing.

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

P.S. - saw this Chicken Shack surrounded by like three different types of sin.

Feb. 1, 2021 -- Driving Solo on the West Side

So, there I was, driving 70 miles per hour in a car without a license plate, church tracking system, or my companion, outside of the mission. It made for an exciting way to start off preparation day. The senior missionaries actually just needed help picking up some new cars, so we all got in a van and went to the Chevrolet dealership (which is outside our mission) with them. There we picked up a bunch of cars that you could count the mileage on with one hand. Then we drove back companionless, which was pretty odd. It was kind of a fun adventure. 

Also, this morning, my companion cooked us bacon. But if a Canadian cooks bacon, does it just become ham?

This week we had all the mission zone conferences, so for three days we had a ton of meetings every day. They fed the missionaries the same thing for all of them, so we had Cane's fried chicken and fries five times this week. It was pretty good.

I've also really enjoyed going to church. I think I only got to go once while I was waiting to be reassigned, so going to church in English for almost the first time in 18 months was really strange. Everyone was just so normal. But there are a ton of really cool members and both wards are really big! It'll take some time to get to know everybody. There is one family that knows the Harris family really well and another member that I've met that graduated from Weber High. Always lots of connections. 

Our wards have a lot of different geography. One ward is pretty much entirely in a really big and fancy gated community where all the members live. The other ward has some apartment complexes, and some parts where you take little side roads and you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. Lots of empty space and houses spread far apart. 

Someone from the mission department did a video training where they showed us lots of statistics that were pretty mind-blowing. I think it shows how the pandemic and hard times open people up. They compared referrals from members received in the last quarters of 2019 and 2020, and they were almost exactly the same. Same thing for referrals found through missionary efforts. But referrals through social media and websites like Come Unto Christ's web-page were almost insignificant the year before, and last year probably quadrupled in size if not more. People were just reaching out with many many questions. It was pretty crazy to see. I think it goes to show that God is preparing many people for the gospel. We just have to find them.  

I loved reading in the Doctrine and Covenants this week. It is so powerful. I especially like when it says, "The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught," and then later when God tells Joseph Smith, "...thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work." God is so patient with us. He expects a lot, but he takes us where we are and even though we are certain to make mistakes, have lots to learn, and fall short, nothing can get in the way of the plans he has for us as long as we keep on trying.

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

Jan. 25, 2021 -- Bermuda (Ward) Triangle

What a week! My first day this transfer started off at 2:15 AM. We had spent the night in a hotel with all the departing missionaries and had to leave at 3:00 to get them to the airport. We dropped them off, which was kind of surreal as we saw the very last moments of their missions. It was transfer day too, so there was no time to rest! We ended up working the whole rest of the day and finally finished right at 10:30, making a nice 20-hour work day. We were able to eat lunch at a Great Harvest that gives missionaries food for free! For dinner I just had time for a handful of gummy bears, but it seemed like a worthy snack. We also took another missionary to the airport today at 3:00 to go get his Visa, so we haven't had an abundance of sleep.

But! It does have its perks. Such as our red Tacoma and our mini-fridge. Also, on days we go to the airport, instead of taking the Tacoma, we get a Tundra because it has a special airport parking pass. There's also a local McDonald's that gives missionaries free meals, so life is pretty good. 

One of my other favorite things is that every Sunday night we get to eat dinner with the mission president and his family before we have our correlation meeting with him. They still have three kids at home and are just a super cool family. 

We cover two English wards, called Stonegate and Bermuda, so I broke out my English tag for the first time. Going to church in English was also pretty odd. I keep making different comments to Elder Stewart in Spanish forgetting that he can't understand me.

Today a member gave us haircuts, and her husband showed off his tarantula collection! It was pretty sweet.

Even though I got transferred, Elder Gastelum and I are still assigned to do the English class broadcast together every Monday. The only sad thing is that we just barely switched our P-Day from Tuesday to Monday, so now we are filming and our P-Day is cut a few hours short.

I love the wards we cover a lot. They seem to be full of bearded men with tattoos and they're all super cool. There are some incredible conversion stories we've heard. 

We also started teaching a man from Hong-Kong when I got here! He is really cool. We had one lesson, and he told us that after so many years of focusing on work and material things, he decided he wanted to find something more meaningful. He talked to a friend who is a member of the church, the friend put him in touch with us, and it is a lot of fun. He came to church on Sunday and afterwards we had a lesson with a recently returned missionary and him. It went super well. He is very open, and it is rewarding to teach him because he has a pretty limited knowledge of religion in general, so everything is very basic. 

Anyways, we are always running! There are frequently missionaries sleeping with us in order to go to the temple or the airport or something, and there is a lot of work to do, not to mention just trying to be normal missionaries! But it is very rewarding and I think God must bless us a lot. Even though we don't ever have time for anything, we are always happy and never too stressed.  

It is a rainy day, which is a rare thing in Las Vegas! I am loving it. Makes me happy. Count your blessings.

'Til we meet,

Elder Harris

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