Sahuarita‏

Pronounced Sow-Rita Is a nice little place south of Tucson. It's starting to heat up down here and life is interesting. The area has two types of people. Young married couples and lots of them living in Rancho Sahuarita, a really nice neighborhood full of cookie cutter stucco homes, and then crazy old people that live out on the ranches full of dirt roads and trailers. It's lots of fun out here. I miss Safford but it looks like Sahuarita is going to be a good place.

Right now we are teaching a young girl named Alexis Vault. The Vaults are both converts to the church and are super kool. They are foster parents and have had Alexis for about a year and a half now. She loves primary and loves the church. On wednesday the Vaults were able to get permission from her real mom to adopt her. Kind of sad but great at the same time. Alexis is going to be baptized on May 7th! we're really excited for her.

There really isn't a whole lot else going on here but we've got some great Bishops and great ward mission leaders who are going to help us get this place jump started!

Oh and my new companion is named Elder Hansen. I replaced him in my first area with Elder Burt and served next to him for 3 months in Las Cruces so I already know him which helps a lot. We're going to be doing some great things out here in Sahuarita.

Well we'll talk to you all later!

Love ya

Elder Harris

(I'll send pictures next week, my computer is stinky)

Tranferred!!

Andy has been transfered to Sahuarita, Arizona for his next area in the mission. I'm sure he'll give us more information in his email on Monday.

Good luck in your new area!!

Hey everybody!‏

Sorry about last week, P-day got all mixed up with running errands and so e-mail time was pretty short.

But Davaunte was baptized this last Saturday! It was such a great baptism and I was glad that I got to be a part of it. Seeing his dad come up and hug his son with tears in his eyes after the baptism was such a great sight. It's moments like those that make this whole mission thing a real blessing and not a sacrifice at all. There really isn't anywhere I'd rather be right now than here in the Gila Valley. If it weren't for you all staying in Utah, I would live down here in a heart beat, and I would not miss all the snow.

Unfortunatly tonight are transfer calls and it's really up in the air as to whether I'll be staying or going. I've been here for 3 transfers so I could be up for a change anyways, also with new mission leadership and some mission cheese that has been happening, Elder Davis thinks that President will step me up to be a zone leader. On the other hand, our Stake President here is really pushing for all his missionaries to stay put so that they can reap the blessings of the temple that we've been working so hard with members to produce. We'll see though, I really can't tell. I'm trying not to think about it because whenever I've been confident I'm leaving then I end up staying and when I'm confident I'm staying I end up leaving. Such is life here in the mission field. I'm hoping for one more so that I can stay here for the open house and the dedication. We'll see what happens.

We've been teaching a lot lately and we've found some pretty good investigators.

One is named Travis Ziggler. He is married to a member and wanted to take the lessons. At first it seemed that his desire to learn was more a desire to fit in with the family but as he's been learning, a testimony has been growing and he's really enjoying the Book of Mormon and the church. He has a baptism date set for the 8th of May!

We're teaching a handful of other people right now and we'll keep you updated on them as things progress. No one else, besides Travis, has a baptism date as of right now but we're going to be setting some new ones this coming week.

Well, tell everyone that I miss them all and hope they are all doing great. Send my love to all those in the Taylorsville 16th Ward and the Taylorsville South Stake. Oh and Glen Roundy from the 26th ward is here in the mission right now. He's waiting for his visa so he can go to Argentina. I haven't gotten a chance to see him but I've had President Walker tell him hi for me.

Love you all

Elder Harris

No Time

Hey everybody.

P-day got a mooshed up and i don't hardly have any time.

I'll write more next week i promise.

Love you all

~Elder Harris

Things are still plugging along

You know how I said to expect more next week? Well I meant expect more this coming week. A lot of the awesome stuff that we had lined up got pushed back until this coming week but this time it's going to go through!

Davaunte is still doing really well. He's set to be interviewed this Saturday and then next Saturday he'll be baptized! It's really exciting to see him progress in the gospel. Because of him, his less-active family is coming to church as well, as is his brother-in-law who is not a member and is interested in meeting with us too!

We've also gotten a few really good referrals from some other missionaries and we're really excited to finally sit down and talk with these people. They've been busy and out of town for the past forever! But now we're finally going to be able to meet with them now.

Cool Story I heard in Ward Council yesterday:

All the temples built by the church follow a naming pattern. Example : Mesa Arizona Temple. With this one the offical name of the Temple is :The Gila Valley Temple. It's the only temple in the world with THE as part of the name. The reason being, whenever President Kimball would talk about The Valley. He never meant the Salt Lake valley but The Gila Valley. This temple is above and beyond anything you can imagine and President Kimball no doubt is happy it's here.




Well love you. Talk to you next week.

Elder Harris

Church Bulletin Comics

Andy sent me some pictures of a bulletin board at a ward he attended. I thought it was definitely funny enough to share! If you can't read the captions, I've typed them out below the pictures.

Enjoy!!

"High Priests are like old Jeeps. They can't carry much, but they're reliable and will never leave you stuck . . ."
"Relief Society women are like Lamborghinis. They are very beautiful, move really fast and are lots of fun, but you had better spend time and money maintaining them or you'll be sorry."

"Elder's Quorum brethren are like freight trains. They can carry a lot and work hard, but it takes a lot of energy to get them going."

"Young Men are like bullet bikes. They can go 200 miles/hour and are lots of fun, but one mistake and they'll wreck fast."

"Young Women are like Miata Clubs. Cute little cars that look like they're having fun, but they're always in tight packs and can't seem to figure out where they're going."

"And Primary . . . " (picture of a bunch of kids in bumper cars!!)

Another fun week in the Gila Valley!‏

I love it here so much!

Last night was a fireside that we, as missionaries with the stake president came up with, to get people ready for the open house. It was way awesome! They had a floor plan of the temple there and President Herrington (former stake president of Safford stake) told us a little about what it looked like inside. Blue and gold, murals everywhere, including in the baptistry. It's going be a session where you move through it like the older temples and I can only imagine how beautiful it looks inside. I need to stay one more transfer to be able to go through the open house and be there for the dedication. Transfers are the Wednesday right after the dedication so chances of getting to go inside and do work are slim to none so I would have to stay another transfer to be able to actually do work inside. I would love to be able to participate in the ordinances of the temple again. Kiana asked me to be baptized for her dad and I would love to do that, but just to go through and feel the spirit inside would be enough for me. You feel the spirit just passing by the temple. It is so beautiful. I never really appreciated the temple when I could go but now that I can't... I miss it so much.

I'm just praying that i'll be here at least one more. Elder Davis, our zone leader thinks that i'm going to step up and be a Zone leader this next transfer. I really don't want to, i just want to stay in the Gila. It's so awesome here.
On Saturday was Gary and Jessy's baptism! Sitting in my white clothes didn't help the Temple desires any, but it was still a great baptismal service. The spirit was way strong! I baptized Jessy and then Gary was baptized by a friend from Orem who came down for the baptism. When I went into the water with Jessy I started the prayer but accidentaly called him Jessy Wayne Harris instead of Herrin. Thankfully I caught myself and redid it but it was still kind of funny. I'm glad they were baptized, it was a good experience to teach them.

As for new investigators, in the Safford 6th ward the deacons quorum president started to fellowship an unbaptized kid in the ward. 7 years ago his dad was accused of not sustaining the branch president in the spanish branch and he said "forget that" and left. Took about half of the branch with him too. Well his son Davaunte started coming to church and wanted to help with the sacrament but couldn't... for obvious reasons. So bishop Taylor went over to their house and talked with his dad and set it up for us to go over and teach him. We scheduled his date for April 10th! He's a way kool kid. He has some learning disabilities but he's excited to learn. His dad even came to church yesterday which was awesome to see!

Our other investigators are still in the same boat as before but we've got some great things in the works! Expect more next week!

Today we just got back from a hike in Box Canyon. The Gila Valley has so many great places to hike it's great! It was so green and covered in little orange poppys. Inside we found beehives and honey comb, a sweet natural arch that we climbed up on top of, and then a crazy slot canyon that was a blast to hike up in. Over all a really fun P-day activity. So many fun things to do here, the best of course being missionary work!

I love you all, and hope everything is going awesome for you guys!

Elder Harris