Christmas is Over-Back to Work

Hey everybody! It was great to be able to talk to you guys a few days ago.

Christmas was great but I'm excited it's over! Now we can get back to work.
Elder Rangel and I had a miracle yesterday. Elder Wallis and I had bee searching for a former investigator and we ended up leaveing a note on the door we thought was hers. Yesterday we got a call from a man named Robert who said that he was a less-active member of the church and that his wife was close to being baptized once but had a bad experience in Safford (I don't believe it) and so she had decided against it. Well they want to try again so we're seeing them today. We're really excited to be able to have the opportunity to teach someone!

Other than that, all our other investigators are kind of in the same boat. The Zarows are coming along really well. Roy is participating more and more in the lessons every time and Kathy is coming around too! We had Christmas Eve dinner with Gary and Janie and in a lesson a little before that Janie told us that she wanted to make sure she was getting baptized for God and not for her husband or us. We have some great investigators but they just want to be sure. Everyone comes at their own pace.

Well I don't have alot of time. We're with a member in a classroom at the university because the library is closed. He's a teacher here and was nice enough to let us come in here for a little bit. Love ya! Bye!

ELder Harris

Merry Christmas‏

Hey Everybody!

So transfers have come and gone and here I am once again with another greenie. His name is Elder Rangel from Idaho Falls, Idaho. He seems like a good guy whose excited to be a missionary. We should have a great time together, allthough I was sad to see Elder Wallis go. My dream of having 3 companions for more than one transfer was dashed but the Lord knows whats best for all of us.

Sunday night was really fun because we got to go to the Messiah presentation at the church. All the missionaries in Tucson were there and it was good to see them all there. The show was great, the music was really well done, especially for how small of an orchestra and choir it was. Also, on Christmas, President has invited everyone over to his house, so we're excited about that. We'll get to see a bunch of missionaries again there at his house. It's wierd that Christmas is allready here again. Time has cruised by this last year.

This year we're helping the ward out with some secret santa stuff for a few people in the ward. It's going to be pretty sweet.

Things are going well for us right now. We' still have the same investigators as before. We found out that Gary is already a member but we're still working with his wife Janie. The Zarows and Kathy are still coming along and Gail is doing great. The work here is good. I'm glad I get to finish my mission here.

Love you all. Talk to you soon.

Elder Harris

Happy Birthday!

Happy 21st Birthday Andy!!

We Love You.


Mom and Dad

The Baptism on Saturday was Awesome

The baptism on Saturday was awesome, but at first we were sweating a little though. Because they are re-tiling the North Stake Center font we had to do it at the Tucson Stake Center. Because of that, our baptismal candidate didn't show up until half and hour late and the person baptizing her, Bro Andrews (who doesn't have a cell phone), didn't show up at all. Even though I know we told both of them to make sure they went to the Tucson Stake center and not our normal ward chapel. Because Bro. Andrews never showed Elder Wallis had to fill in. Thankfully there was an extra towel in the bathroom but he was a little wet going home because he didn't have an extra change of garments. Bishop Stewart was convinced that I made Elder Wallis baptize for that reason. He's been bugging me everytime I see him since then and I don't think he's going to drop it anytime soon. I really just wanted Elder Wallis to have the opportunity to baptize her. My intentions were benign I swear.

One of our investigators, Kathy was able to attend with a mutual friend of both her and Gail's named Joyce. Elder Wallis made an interesting observation last night. Apparently when he and Elder Elton started teaching Kathy, Joyce would constantly tell her not to talk to us because we were from the devil, but over time she's mellowed out and realizes that we're not too bad. Which is good because when she found out that Gail was going to get baptized she tried to convince her not to. But Gail was able to tell her that it was what she really wanted and so Joyce gave her blessing. She seemed really skeptical at the baptism but after Elder Wallis and my talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost, completely centered on Christ, plus the spirit that was there seemed to soften her. Kathy will be baptized soon and then it's a matter of time before Joyce is also baptized. I know it!

The temple trip this last week was also pretty awesome. I'm excited for you to see the Gila Valley Temple. It really is awesome. Tiny though, not much bigger than a stake center but still gorgeous inside.

Other fun stuff that is coming up here: President Walker invites all the missionaries in Tucson to his house on Christmas for a party so that should be cool. I didn't know that he did that because I was in Safford last Christmas. Also the North Stake is doing a presentation of "The Messiah". I heard them practicing last night and it was awesome. They have a 30 piece choir and 20 piece orchestra. It's a community thing and all the missionaries are going to be ushers and hopefully we'll find some investigators through it!

Other than that, not much else is going on.

Love you guys

Elder Harris

Temple Day

Wow what a day. Elder Wallis and I just got back into Tucson. We left this morning at 6:30 drove 2 hours, to go to the Gila Valley, went through a session, visited a couple of the missionaries there, and then drove the 2 hours back.... ugh I'm tired. The session was awesome. I was able to invite Terrell Taylor and it was good to see him again. He's excited about us visiting in February.

This last week ended up being really awesome. I don't know if I told you about Gary and his wife Jane, but my first or second day we met Gary on a bus stop and he invited us over. This last week we finally got a chance to teach them and Gary is really excited about getting baptized. His wife just got out of neck surgery and she's still confused as to why she needs to be baptized again. We're going over again tomorrow night to hopefully help them to understand. It should be good.

Then there is the Zarrow family: Roy and Erika (dad and mom), Jenny (20), Willie(18), Charles(17), and Uma(14). They'rea are such a great family. I haven't gotten to know them too much because every time we have a lesson set up with them I seem to be on exchanges. The Zarrows have been coming to church for about a year now and for the most part are ready to be baptized but for some unknown reason Bro. Zarrow isn't "ready" and so the family won't move forward without him. Willie is probably the most ready. He's really excited to serve a mission and has already finished the Book of Mormon once and he always speeds through his dinner so he can read to the rest of the family while they finish dinner! On Sunday night we had the great opportunity to teach the family with President and Sister Walker accompanying us. It was so sweet! We talked about eternal families and the restoration to accomplish the fact. The spirit was so strong, probably one of the best on my mission. After we left Sister Walker suggested a special fast for the Zarrows and so the 4 of us have been fasting for them. After we got out of the temple, Sister Zarrow called us and talked to us about how Roy might be ready to accept a baptismal date! We're seeing them tonight and we couldn't be more excited! God is so cool.

Finally, Gail is getting baptized on Saturday and everything is all set for that! Things are going so nice!

Hope everyones Christmas season is as good as mine!

Love you all

Elder Harris

BRRRRRRR. the cold is not very fun - Just Wait Andy

Thanks again for the package that you sent me. I went out and bought the stuff for chip dip and it's been like home munching on it. This year for Thanksgiving it was kind of wierd. We really didn't have any legitimate invites for Thanksgiving, just a bunch of people who said that if we didn't have anywhere to go we could go to their place. Kind of awkward. We ended up eating with the Sinema family. It was pretty nice but mostly we sat around all day and relaxed. It's been freezing lately though. Temps get down in the 40's at night and I've had to break out my sweater again. BRRRRRRR. the cold is not very fun.

Our investigators are doing really well. Gail is all set to be interviewed on Tuesday. When we taught her all the commandments this week she was all fine with everything. When we taught the Word of Wisdom she told us, "well whenever I buy coffee anyway, it takes so long for me to drink it that it turns into a rock anyways. I haven't had coffee in a month or more so that shouldn't be a problem." She really does have a lot of faith and it's great to see her accept the gospel.

Kathy is still dragging her heels. It kind of frustrating... :( it makes me sad.

We found a few new investigators this week too but we really weren't able to teach them much. We'll be seeing them here soon and so hopefully they'll start progressing soon.

Other fun news, Elder Wallis and I are going to the temple on the 7th so next week I won't be writting on the 6th. When we go to the temple, we have to move our P-day to whatever day we're going. So I'll talk to you all next Tuesday!

Love ya

Elder Harris

Thanksgiving Week

So these last few weeks it's started to cool down here in Tucson. It's usually in the 40's in the morning and evening and gets up into the 70's during the day. My companion has been making fun of me because I'm so cold in the morning/evening. I'm going to freeze when I get home.

This last week was kind of a fun, one of our investigators, Gail, accepted a baptismal date for December 11th! She's doing really well, she came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. Also one of our other investigators, Kathy, who has been investigating for 3 months is starting to make some progress. She likes a lot of the doctrine of the church but still isn't sure if it is the ONLY true church. Mostly I think she just doesn't want to give up her coffee. We had a great lesson with her and her fellowshipper and during the lesson I had a thought. I looked at Kathy and in a serious but loving way I quoted John 7:17 and told her that she could NEVER find out if this is the truth unless she tried living the word of wisdom. I bore testimony and promised her that if she lived it she would get her answer. Her response was "Damn Good Argument." It was so hard not to smile. I was trying to be all epic and she had to make me laugh just like Kathy always does. Anyways, she hasn't smoked for a few days and we think she's giving up the coffee too. I love teaching Kathy. She's so much fun. I know she knows it's true but for what ever reason she wants more. She's getting close though. Elder Wallis is especially excited. He's been teaching her for the past 3 months and she was one of the first investigators that he found on his mission. I hope she gets baptized before he has to leave. Anyways Life is good.

Hope you all have a great thanksgiving!

Love ya!

Elder Harris

It's fun being back‏

It's good being back here in Casas Adobes again. The area is a little different because they added another block when they redid boundries and a lot of people have come in and a lot have left, but there are a lot of old faces that are good to see again. It's sad that they split the area though, Bro Nicodemus, the WML from Coronado ward, saw me riding around the other day, and chased me down to talk for a second, then last night at a fireside I saw a few families from Coronado that were excited to see me again but sad that I wasn't in their ward too. I'll at least see them on Sundays at church, so thats pretty kool.

The fireside last night was great. It was put on by a sister and I forget her name but she was the first of Joseph and Emma's direct descendents to join the church. She told of her experience and her and her husbands "mission" to reach out to the whole Smith line and try to bring them into the church. It really wasa great fireside. If you ever hear of it in Utah I would definitly suggest you go to it. Yesterday was also exciting because it was a regional stake conference broadcast from Salt Lake for all of Arizona. The talks were really good. Bishop Burton spoke on Gratitude, Sister Thompson spoke about the Book of Mormon, Elder Cook spoke on finding strength in the storms of life and President Monson spoke on Rescuing those who have wandered. It was a great conference.

The work in the ward is going pretty good right now. We're working with quite a few people who think they believe that the church is true but for various reasons they haven't joined the church. One is a family of 7 who have been coming for a long time. The mom and two of the kids know for sure that it's true 3 more of the kids are pretty sure, but they're all waiting for the dad. He's dragging his heels on the matter. He has no problem with the others getting baptized but they are waiting out of respect for him. It really is a great family but it's too bad that they haven't been baptized yet. They are meeting with President Walker tomorrow night so we're excited about that.

We're going to be working hard to find some more investigators so we can keep this ward rolling. It's a great ward for missionary work. I'm glad to be back.

Love you all

Elder Harris

Guess Where I Went?‏

So transfers have come and gone again and guess where I ended up? I'm back in my greenie area. They've split it since I left but I'm back in the Casas Adobes ward! I'm so excited to be back. Leaving Camino Principal was really hard but it's good to be back home. On the way back to the apartment Elder Wallis and I stopped at Kathleen's house and she was so excited to see me. She's not doing so well and so we're going to help her to get ready to go to the temple. For no other reason maybe thats why I'm back. It was a bitter sweet transfer because I really loved being in my last area, but if I had to go anywhere, I'm glad to be here.

Elder Wallis is a stud. This is his 3rd transfer and he's actually from West Valley. He said he lives behind Valley Middle School. We're going to have a lot of fun this transfer. Other than that I'm not sure what to report.

I'm still here in Tucson so if you want to send the care package down with your friends they can just take it to the mission office and I can get it from there. The mission office is close and yes please send me more meds before Thanksgiving. As for Christmas, it might have to come early because transfers are on the week right before Christmas. I'm not so sure what I want. I know I need new garments for when I come home... last christmas my companion had a really awesome Christmas cd that we listened to all the time. It was by a group called Ocapella... I don't know what the name of the CD was though. Also Elder Patterson had a few "pillow ties" (Pillowtie.com) they were pretty sweet. Maybe a few of those for Christmas would be awesome. But other than that I don't need/want anything. I already have too much stuff. When I made this last move I stuffed my big suitcase with just I don't need to use the rest of my mission... I have too much stuff. Anyways. Thanks for everything.

I hope all is well with you. Love you guys

Elder Harris

Another week come and gone.‏

Hey Everybody!

This last week was a really good one. We got to go to a couple of Halloween parties and that was a lot of fun. The whole "Wow, mormon missionaries, great costumes guys!" Got really old really fast but thats ok. We got free candy and that was all worth it.

This last week we started teaching a really great couple, Ronnie and Baily. They're about 23 years old. Ronnie is a member but hasn't been in a long time. I think his parents let the ward know and so Bro Busby the EQP has been trying to get us in the door for about a month or two. We finally caught him and started talking a little about the church. His girlfriend Baily asked us if you needed to be baptized to go to heaven. We told her yes and she asked if we could baptize her... again we said yes. The big hurdle will be getting them married but hopefully it will happen soon and it will be a great experience for the both of them!

We also got a call from a lady named Kristen who wanted to be baptized. She came to church and we're meeting with her tonight so that we can teach her the first lesson and get her progressing.

Robert is getting really flaky, but we're still trying to help him to progress.

Other than that we're still just chugging along. We're going to have a great week, I know it!
Happy halloween, Happy Birthday Sam! and Audrey if Rora has an e-mail I'll send her a birthday e-mail next week.

Love you all so much!

Elder Harris

P.S. At an Albertsons type grocery store here in Arizona they had a deal where you could buy 10 lbs of potatoes for $1! (Limit 2) Elder Patterson and I each bought two and we're going to prank our Zone Leaders by filling their car up with potatoes.... I'll send you pictures next week.

Laury got Baptized!!!‏

Yay Laury got Baptized!

It was such a great baptism sevice. I'm so glad that she made the decision to join the church. She is so happy. It was great to see Kim baptise her too. He did a great job. He was so nervious he probably started the prayer 15 times before he got it right but, only one dunk so it was great. Robert, our 7th Day Adventist, was able to come and he really enjoyed it. We're excited for him to get baptized here soon too.

We also saw Jeanie last night and she's going to be gone for 2 weeks. She going to be with a friend so she can go cold turkey off her pain meds and cigarettes. Thankfully she's not abusing the pain meds but she hates being on narcotics and wants to be off them. We're praying that all goes well and afterwards she should be ready to progress and come to church and eventually get baptized!!

Funny sign &
foot massager some random lady gave me for helping her move.

Well, not much time but hope all is well

Love you all!!!

Elder Harris

Pic of Thelma's Baptism!

This last week was a lot of fun!

Laury Windsor is all set to get baptized this Saturday. Her baptism is set for 6:00 pm and her husband received the Aaronic Priesthood today and will baptize her on Saturday! We're way excited for her! She's been a lot of fun to teach. She reminds me so much of mom.

This week when we were trying to see one of our investigators, her neighbor stepped outside with a beer in his hand and asked if we were Mormons.
He then said, "Oh, you know I was almost baptized Mormon once..."
"Why weren't you?" we asked him
"Well at the time I was on Parole and they said I would have to wait... that made me kind of mad so I stopped going."
We talked a little bit about repentance and about how the policies in the church are made under the direction of a Prophet of God and if something needed to be changed the Lord would do it through his Prophet.
"That makes sense." he said.
We then set up a time to see him the next day. (When he wasn't drunk) We taught him, he came to church the next day and has a baptism date for the 13th of November. We're excited for him to progress.

Jeanie and Jarom's dates dropped because they couldn't come to church. Jeanie still is sick and Jarom hasn't been able to change his work schedule yet. We're still working with him and hopefully we'll be able to get them progressing soon.

Other than that not a lot going on. We found a few other investigators and are trying to help them gain a sincere desire.

Hope all is well back home. Love you all!

Elder Harris

We've had a great week and the best is yet to come!‏

This week was a great one!

Thelma's baptism was amazing and she was so excited to get confirmed! The ward is hoping to get her to the temple with the ward on the 23rd. She's awesome!

Right now Lorie Windsor is doing awesome. She passed her interview with President Raehl and is really excited to get baptized. She was especially grateful that President Raehl used to be Catholic and understood a lot of her frustrations and questions. She is so awesome and her baptism is on the 23rd at 6:00. She could be baptized this weekend and we invited her to do so but she's already scheduled her family around the 23rd so she wanted to stick with that date, but she was really excited that she was "ready."

Jeanie has a date for Nov. 6th and she is an awesome lady. She has a lot of health problems, (Fibro Myalsia, migranes, arthritis...) and so she's not too mobile. She has a roommate who is even less mobile than she is. They sought out the church for both financial and spiritual help. They received financial aid and we're working on the spiritual part too. Jeanie is really excited and believes everything we tell her and wants really bad to go to church and get baptized. Her roomate Rosie, has a little less faith and while she wants to learn doesn't think that she will ever get baptized. She called us Saturday night to tell us to relax on Jeanie that we were "moving too fast..." and that Jeanie needed to be "at full health" before she was going to church and getting baptized... I'm sure that some of it legitamate concern for her friend but I think most of it is abandonment issues of some kind. We're not sure whats going on...

Our last date is a man named Jarom. He's from Tanzania and he's awesome. He has a little bit of a language barrier and we're not sure how much he understands but he is willing to learn and listen. His date is also for the 6th of November. He wasn't able to come to church because of work but should be able to change his schedule and come this next week.

Ennass (enos), our muslim, investigator also came to church this week and she really enjoyed it. A member stole her away from us and took around all of church and even took her home. She's sometimes hard to get ahold of but we're plugging along with her. Because she's Muslim we need to get some high up approval to make sure she'll be safe.

Carol, Thelma's neighbor also came to church. She really enjoyed it and is planning on going to a relief society activity this Thursday night. She seems to be really enjoying the church. Now if we could get her to have faith in herself so that she has confidence to accept a date, that will be the next step.

The Lord is really pouring out blessings upon us. I attribute it all to the faith of Elder Patterson. This always seems to happen whenever I train new missionaries. They're always so excited for the work and their faith rubs off on me and we end up having a great transfer together. They just put sister missionaries to cover the spanish part of our area and they've been hooking us up with a lot of referrals. Sisters just have a way with talking to people, I don't know what it is but it's helping us out. Last night they gave us 13 referrals! We're really blessed!

I hope all is well back on the home front.

Love you all!

Elder Harris

Oct 4, 2010

This last week has been pretty good. We are teaching a part-member family called the Windsors. They are awesome! Lorie is ready to get baptized! She is drinking the gospel right up and loves every minute of it. We're able to teach her at her neighbors house most of the time which is really nice to be able to do. She's a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed teaching her.

Thelma disappeared on us again and it's quite frustrating. She calls and sets up an appointment and then isn't there. We're not sure if her baptismal date is still good for the 9th. We're hoping it is.

We also started teaching a couple of sisters who are going through a rough time right now. They're in dire straights and are working with the bishop to get their finances in order. Thanks to the testimony of a recent convert friend on the north side they are also investigating the church. Their money problems are primarily due to a lot of health concerns and so we were only able to set a date with Jeanie. Rosie dosn't think that she can go to church at all because of her health but she still wants to learn. We're trying to increase her faith so that she can come and be baptized also!

Finally one of Thelma's neighbors called us with the number we left on the sticky note of her door. She wanted to talk to us. We tried teaching her but she's not sure about God and Jesus Christ. We tried extending a baptismal date but everytime we mentioned baptism she said, "Oh I'll never get baptized, in any church." Our second lesson with her, Elder Patterson and I looked at each other and both thought "This is going no where" so we invited her to conference and never planned on seeing her again. Well... she called us Saturday morning and said she wanted to come on Sunday. We arranged a ride for her with the second councelor in the RS Presidency. She took her to conference and she liked it enough to want to go again. So Sister Moore took her to her house, fed her lunch, and brought her back. She really enjoyed it and is opening up. She still isn't too sure but she's at least willing to listen. With a lot help from the spirit, she'll come.

The Lord is really blessing us this transfer. Elder Patterson is doing awesome and we're seeing a lot of success.

Love you guys!

Marta's Baptism

Transfers have come around again and here I am, still in the Camino Principal and Hidden Valley Wards! and suprise suprise, I got another new companion. This time another greenie! I love it so much. Being a trainer is the best thing in the world! My new companion's name is Elder Patterson, from Grand Junction, Colorado. He seems really cool, we're actually a lot alike. I'm excited about this transfer, it should be a good one! They also stepped me down from being a District Leader which is awesome too... I thought I really enjoyed it, but I guess the Zone Leaders in the Gila Valley were just awesome... it's hard when you don't get along with he Zone Leaders... plus I seem to be getting more tired and not having phone calls until 10:20 at night is really nice...

So Marta was baptized this weekend. Only one dunk too! It was a great service and Marta is so excited to live the gospel. On Sunday she signed up for the temple trip and she's working on getting some names ready so she can go up to the temple.


Thelma is also doing really well. She was able to go to Marta's baptism and also the Relief Society broadcast and she really enjoyed both of them! She's excited for her baptism on the 9th and she got rid of all her cigarettes and isn't going to buy any more! Hopefully that will work out, because you need to be living the Word of Wisdom for two weeks before you can get baptized!

We haven't really found too many new investigators this week, but we're excited about this coming week. We have a lot of great referrals to follow up on and we should be setting a bunch of baptismal dates this week! It's going to be awesome!

Love you lots!

Elder Harris

Colossal Cave Photos

Hot Week

Hey everybody!

This last week summer reared it's ugly head back up and blasted us with 100+ degree weather. It was pretty lame.

But this last week was awesome because Elder Johnson of the 70 came and did a mission tour. We had a great mission conference with him. He spoke on how when we learn things we use different processes to learn different things. How you learn facts in a history class is not how you learn how to be a good basketball player. He said that learning spiritual things is the same way we learn them in a different way than we learn facts. (1 Cor. 2:9-14) The key to learning spiritual truths is obedience (John7:17) and if our obedience is lacking we end up losing our spiritual knowledge we've already gained. (Alma 12:9-11) Thats why investigators or even members will do really well for a while but then fall away. They stop being obedient, they lose blessings and they lose testimony. It was a great conference!

Marta is still donig awesome and her baptism is going to be this Saturday at 10:00 in the morning. She's super excited! My companion talked her into asking me to sing for her when I was talking to someone else. He denies it but I know it was his idea. Either way I'm singing at Marta's baptism. Hopefully it will turn out all right.

Thelma disappeared on us this week which is super lame, we're not sure where she is. Hopefully she's all right. and then Betty found out that she has 3 hernias, so she's going to be in the hospital for a while :(

Hope all is well with you all

Love you guys!

Elder Harris

Colossal Cave/New Investigator

My companion and I just got back from Colossal Cave. It was a really fun time. A little overpriced but still pretty sweet. We took the more advanced tour and really got to climb around and got really dirty. I didn't have any pockets so I'll have to get the pictures from Elder Bertha's camera and then send them later.

Marta is still super excited about her baptism. She was interviewed this last week and she passed with flying colors. She called us that morning and told us that she had stayed up 'till midnight the night before reading the Book of Mormon and made it through 2 Nephi (she was about half way through at that point) She said she was going to call us that night but thought it might not be such a good idea because we were sleeping. She loves the Book of Mormon and is starting Mosiah today.

Our other progressing investigator is named Thelma. The sisters were teaching her but she had to move out because she had a couple of male roommates. She is way excited about her baptism and we're thinking about moving it up, to Sept. 25 instead of the Oct. 2. She's a real great lady.

This coming week we're having another general authority come to the mission. His name is Elder Johnson and he's the head of the CES department. He's doing the normal mission tour that happens once a year. The thing with Elder Christofferson was just kind of a special thing.

Not much else is going on right now. I hope all is well with you all.

Love you much

Elder Harris

Labor Day Weekend

Sorry I'm writing a little late but here I am! (holidays as a missionary are so lame)

Last week was a lot of the same stuff as usual. Marta is still doing awesome. This last week we taught her the Law of Tithing and she committed to live it even though she's struggling financially. She is so awesome.

Jen is still as volatile as ever. She got in a car crash this last week and was very adamant that night that she be baptized. Then she blew us off every night since then. Kind of lame, but oh well. You can't force anyone to do anything.

Not a whole lot else happened this last week. On Sunday we got a few referrals from Bishop Rustand and we're hoping that those play out. I'll let you know.

and finally a sad story

Yesterday my companion and I were planning on heading to Colossal Cave I've wanted to go to this cave for ever but not to many of my other companions wanted to :( Finally Elder Bertha was exicted to go too and we went. We drove about 30 miles from our place to Vail. (only reason it was 30 miles is there is no freeway system in Tucson... so annoying) When Elder Bertha and I were about 3 miles away from the park there was a sheriffs car parked in the middle of the road blocking access into the park. He said that the road was closed for a while and that we couldn't go up in. So we went back to Vail and hung out in Walgreens for about 45 min. While we were there we found out that someone had gotten into a car crash up near the park and had died, the passanger got out of the car and took off running and so they were searching for the passenger and that was why the road was closed... LAME! I was so mad. We drove the 30 miles back into Tucson and went back to the apartment. I ended up taking a 2 hour-long nap, which was nice but I would have rather gone hiking. We're going to try again this next week I think. We'll see.

Well love you lots. BYE!

Elder Harris

Another new Companion!‏

So I'm really good at getting rid of my companions real quick. I've run out of lines in my Preach My Gospel to write their names. :( Elder Stevens went home on Saturday morning for his knee, so now I have new companion. His name is Elder Bertha (no joke that is his real last name) and he's from San Diego California. He's a visa waiter on his way to Puebla Mexico. He's a funny kid. He's been in the field for only two weeks and he's been a lot of fun. This also means that I'll probably be getting another new companion next transfer when President will most likely put him back into a spanish area so he can get ready for Mexico. I'm glad he's here. It's nice to be able to run and gun again. Elder Stevens wasn't really able to move very fast at all.

Marta was able to come to church on Sunday and she really enjoyed it. She's got it set up where she can come for the first half of sacrament meeting on a lunch break until she gets her schedule changed. She really enjoyed church and is excited to get baptized on September 25th. I'm excited too. She's been a fun investigator to teach.
Her daughter Jen slept through church because she was out partying all Saturday night. I'm so confused about her. She's really excited some times and others she's just blah. It's kind of frustrating.

We met a new friend this last week. Her name is Betty Yellowhair.... She's native American. She seems really interested but she seems to be YES! person. Says she agrees to everything and commits to everything but then hardly follows through. We'll see how it goes though.

A small miracle we had this week was with the McDaniel family. The McDaniels are a part-member family who have been taught by the missionaries for the last 2-3 years or so. They've never actually come to church though. They were in Texas for the summer and we met back up with them this last week. We talked for a little while and told them of our desire to help them go to the temple to be sealed as a fmaily. They didn't seem to commited but said they'd try to come to church. They weren't there for our next appointment, but Leah(she's the non-member) called the Bishop's office yesterday morning to find out when church was and came all by herself! It was so awesome. Her son was being fussy so she ended up leaving part way through which was a bummer, and we weren't able to meet up with them after church but the fact that they came is a miracle! I was excited.

Anyways. I hope all is well with everyone at home. Send my love and a big hug to Mel and tell her I'm sad I can't be there.

Love you guys

Elder Harris

Another week come and gone‏

Well the work keeps on moving forward.

Mata is still doing really well, even though she didn't come to church yesterday. We were sad but we reset her date and she's committed to come. Her date has now been reset for the 25th of September. We're excited for her. Her Daughter Jen didn't come to church either but she really didn't have any reason. She has been to church once and so she can still make her date for the 11th but we're not sure if she will or not. She isn't progressing too well right now.

Other than that our investigator pool is kind of slim. We're trying to find some news and trying to help the wards with Activation and praying some good experiences follow.

This last weekend we were blessed to have Elder Christofferson(Apostle), Elder Rasband(Senior President of the 7 Presidents of the 70), Elder Quiron(Newly called member of the 70), and Elder Pickard(Area 70 from Phoenix) come to our mission and speak to us. It was a great meeting and we were blessed to have them there.

Good luck to everyone with the new school year and hope all is well with everyone. We'll talk to you all later.

Love you guys

I just can't keep 'em‏

So it seems I just can't keep a companion for more than a transfer. Elder Burke is getting shipped out and he's going to Safford (Lucky dog). He wasn't too excited to go and not get to work anymore with our invertigators but I know he'll do well.

My new companion is Elder Stevens. He's from Orem and he seems like a pretty kool guy. He has knee problems right now and he's thinking he might have to go home... hopefully not but we'll see. He had an MRI earlier today and we'll find out next week.

Other than that things are going good.
Hope life on your end is good

Sorry for the short letter, not much more to report.

Love you guys

Elder Harris

Some Good and Some Bad

Hey everybody.

This last week has been kind of crazy

Denise K Higgins our awesome investigator went Jekyll and Hyde on us. We saw her on Thursday morning and tried to reset her baptismal date. She was really excited and even picked the date herself. We went over the next day and she dropped us hardcore. It was lame. That's number 3 on the mission of people/families that were going really strong that dropped us for no reason. Makes me sad :(

But our other investigators, the 4 generation family are doing great. The were sick yesterday and weren't able to come to church :( But when we went over last night they were really excited about getting baptized. Before they've been unsure but now they really want to do it. The two girls are even signing up for seminary! Things are going great with them. They're even having us over for dinner tonight.

Not a while lot else to report. President is taking us to the temple this week so that's really exciting. We're going on Friday! It'll be so good to go back to the temple again.

Hope all is well with you. Keep in touch. Love you guys

~Elder Harris

Not a lot of time‏

So I don't have a lot of time but here's the basics.

Denise is still nervious and she didn't come to church because she was taking care of a friend who just got out of the hospital.

Others we were teaching aren't too awesome but we're still trying.

We also found a few new investigators this week. The Relief Society president asked us to go and visit a less-active sister named Marta Kellemen. She's a sweet lady who is 80 years old. In the house is her daughter, granddaughter, and 2 great-grand daughters. None of them are members of the church and we were able to start teaching them this last week. We're hoping that it will turn out well with them.

Not much else to report other that I love you guys.

We'll talk to you later.

Elder Harris

Changes all around‏

The church has made a whole bunch of changes to how we do a lot of things in missionary work.

First they've changed how we do meetings. They've consolodated a lot of our meetings and put us on a monthly schedule rather than a transfer schedule. Now instead of a Zone conference every transfer it's going to be every quarter(about every two transfers) Interviews also changed in the same manner, but they've also added a few new meetings as well that will happen monthly which will be fun to go to.

They're also changing up the Curriculum at the MTC a little. We're still using Preach My Gospel but applying it a little differently. We're not too sure on all those changes but we'll be trained on them the coming months and the missionaries coming in next year will be trained on it too.

With that said, the work is moving along pretty well here in the Wards.

Unfortunatly Denise wanted to drop her date for now so that she can learn more. We have a baptismal interview set up with her for next monday and hopefully she'll understand that she's ready by then and can still be baptized on the 7th of August.

We have a few other potential investigators that we'll be following up on this week and we're excited about what is happening this week.

Hope you all enjoyed you 24th, they don't do much here in Tucson.

Love you guys

Elder Harris

Went Hiking

Elder Burke and I went hiking today. 3 hrs in 100+ weather may not have been the best idea in the world. I'm exhausted... but it was a lot of fun anyways.

This last week went by fairly uneventful. We are still teaching Denise Higgins and she came to church again and sang in the choir with us during sacrament meeting. She seems to really enjoy the church and things are going great. Other than that I don't know what to tell you. Not much else has happened.

They are changing a lot of things church wide and so we'll learn a lot about that during Zone Conference. Also Elder D Todd Christofferson will be coming to the mission in August, so that will be pretty cool. He'll be joined by Elder Rasband of the 70 as well as a few others. They're visiting all of the stakes here in Tucson but also have a special Zone Conference with all the missionaries as well.

Well not a great letter this week but love you guys!

Elder Harris

Not as bad as I thought‏

So, life with Elder Burke is not as bad as I thought and actually it's more exciting than life with Elder Larsen. Elder Burke is from Orlando and he's a great missionary, he was just with a lazy missionary and so he fell into a little bit of laziness. We're seeing some good things happen.

Allyson was baptized which was awesome! Both her parents were there, which was nice to see them come even though they were so opposed to the idea from the beginning. Also this last week we found two new investigators. The Rainbow lady and the Rabbit lady. I know awesome right?

Olevia the rainbow lady called and requested a dvd and when we brought it by we were able to teach her a little bit as well. She's really nice but not too sure about baptism. We're working with her to overcome her barriers.

Denise the Rabbit lady is awesome though. Denise was over at her friends house when her friend's home teachers came over and she accepted to have missionaries over to teach her. We taught her the restoration and she loved it. She accepted a baptismal date for the 7th of August and even came to church and sang in the choir. It was awesome. She's a funny lady.

We decided to drop Lisa and Lacy, They're not keeping any of their commitments. And Vanessa is out on the reservation for a while :( But with these new investigators and others that Elder Burke and I will find we'll get this area rolling.

Life is moving forward and I'm loving being a missionary.

Hope life is good for you too. Love you all. We'll talk to you later!

Elder Harris

I'm sticking around‏

Well transfer calls were last night and I'm sticking around. Elder Larsen is getting transfered though. It seems that I can't hang on to a companion for more that a transfer since Elder Vermillion went home. Oh well. My new companion is named Elder Burke. I've never met him but aparently he's struggling a little bit and so I'm suppossed to help him out. I guess I should be glad that they thought of me to help him get back on track but I'm still trying to get over the fact that it sounds kind of like a "babysitting" assignment. Hopefully it won't be too bad. We'll see.

Since I'm staying you can send my next batch of meds to the same place, and this time I was wondering if you could include a couple jars of Grandma's turkey, that would be awesome.

This last weekend was kind of lame. Holidays are never fun as a missionary. Everyone uses it as an excuse not to do anything. Because of it, no one was at church and now no one has a baptismal date anymore. Kind of a bummer. Vanessa is still struggling with the faith to keep commitments but we're still working with her, and the Nepali's still have a hard time understanding what we are teaching. Unfortunatly there is no mission in Nepal so the prospects of finding a member of the church who speaks their language is not likely going to happen. Right now we're waiting for the book of mormon in Nepali to come in so we can use that to teach them. The funny thing is they keep bringing more and more friends over for us to teach with them. It's kind of funny. They're a good family that I know would accept the gospel if only we could communicate.

I hope you guys had fun with the fireworks. We had to be in our apartment by 9:00 and our apartment is in a funny position and so we couldn't see any fireworks. I was kind of sad.

Well, love you guys and we'll talk to you all later!

Elder Harris

PS - Lexi Jurado finally got baptized.

After I left she went through the temple open house and the spirit touched her heart there and she called he missionaries wanting to be baptized. All those prayers were answered.

17 Months? I Mean . . . Who's Counting?

oh man... i can't believe it's almost July. Time is zooming by way too fast. This transfer has flown by. Tomorrow is Zone Training and next monday is transfer calls.

This last week was kind of a weird week. It felt like alot happened but when you look at our numbers not a whole lot did.

Lacy went out of town and so did lisa. They are still MIA

Vanessa stayed on the Rez until thursday and then on sunday morning had to go to the emergency room and so she didn't get to come to church She still wants to progress but is getting kind of discouraged.

With the Rizols (from Nepal) the language barrier is creating kind of a problem. It's so hard to communicate the real meaning of the Restoration to them. Also we had trouble finding someone to split with us so we didn't get to go to their church yesterday. hopefully this next week we can.

The big highlight of the week though was Alison Branch.

Alison has never met with missionaries but became converted through the teaching of her friends. She has wanted to be baptized for 3 years now but her parents wouldn't allow it. Now that she is 18 she is going ahead with it. She is awesome and we went over The Restoration and The Commandments with her yesterday and will finish the lessons next sunday and then her baptism on the 10th. She is really excited to get baptized. It's a real blessing to be able to teach her.... even though we really arn't doing much teaching.

Well, love you guys

Elder Harris

He knows his sheep

And the time soon cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory. And He gathereth his children from the four quarters of the earth and He numbereth his sheep, and they know Him; and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd; and He shall feed his sheep, and in Him they shall find pasture."

1 Nephi 22:24-25

One thing I've learned since I've been on a mission is how much Heavenly Father knows each and every one of us and places us in a position to recieve the Gospel.

Vanessa is still doing amazing. She is progressing extremely well, reading what we ask her to and when we taught her the Word of Wisdom she committed to live it. Unfortunatly she had to go back to the reservation this last weekend and so she wasn't able to go to church. The missionaries on the reservation were in town for a stake conference and so the didn't hold a sacrament service this last week. Kind of a bummer but Vanessa is still doing awesome!

Lacy and Lisa are still being flakey and Lincoln is all set for his baptism this weekend, but the real miracle came last night.

A week or so ago, Elder Larsen and I were trying to contact a referral from several years ago. We tried several times and no answer so we decided to knock on the neighbors door. A pregnant lady who looked to be from the Phillapines answered the door and said that her neighbor had moved. We told her who we were and she became very excited. "I believe in Jesus too!" he told us that she was from Nepal and that we could come back. Last night we finally got back over there and met her husband and some other family that lived there. All of them were very eager to learn and very excited that we were there to teach them more about Jesus. They are all very recent converts to Christianity but don't really have a particular denomination. They agreed to let us teach them about Jesus Christ and the restoration.

Their english was very broken and it was difficult to communicate but they told us that we could keep coming back and even come to their "church" that meets on Sunday. There are a bunch of Nepali people there that all "believe in Jesus!" We ordered some copies of the Book of Mormon in Nepali and hopefully they'll get here soon. We're really excited to be able to teach these wonderful Christian people about the truth that God has revealed. He truely knows his sheep and led us to them. With His help will be able to overcome the language barrier and help these people to come unto Christ!

The church is true!

I love you all so much and hope all is well with you.

Elder Harris

Ups and Downs

This week we had some great and not so great experiences.

Last Sunday we had a recent convert come with us on splits and when we visited Alice Jean he was telling her about how excited he was to be able to go to the temple and be sealed to his children and wife. Alice Jean completely misunderstood what he said and thought that "unless she was sealed to her daughters there was NO way she would be with them in the next life" We really didn't get to explain how it works when we had to leave and now she won't talk to us :( Kind of a bummer but thats how it goes I guess. Hopefully she'll come around.

Lisa and Taylor were doing well for a couple of days and then went into flaky mode and didn't come to church and blew us off for the last couple of days. It's been a real bummer. We'll keep on trying with them though.

Lacy is doing awesome. When we were talking to her she told us how she was cutting down on swearing and that she had stopped smoking... we haven't talked about any of that with her. She was also able to go to the church with us on Wednesday so we could show her around and she was ready to come yesterday. But satan, being the little booger that he is, she had to go to a funeral, conviently scheduled at the same time sacrament meeting was. She said she'll come next week though.
I was telling the story to our district leader Elder Jackson and he said "well, at least he can only die once!" We then discussed whether or not they'll have "funerals" for those who end us suffering at the second death, I imagine it will be a sad moment considering that they are our brothers and sisters.
Hopefully no one else dies between now and her baptism.
Unfortunatly because she didn't come to church we had to drop her date and we haven't seen her to reset it yet.

Yesterday we had an amazing experience finding a new investigator. Her name is Vanessa and she is a Native American from Sells. While we were riding around on our bikes on Saturday, we stopped at a bus stop to talk to a girl sitting there. I usually hate talking to people at bus stops because the bus always comes and interupts our conversation. But President Walker really emphasized talking to EVERYONE at zone conference on Friday, so we stopped and said Hi.

"Are you like church people?" she asked.
"Why, yes we are!"
"where is you church?"
"It's not too far down the street."
"Can I come to your church? I really want God in my life."

I'm sure you can guess our response. We tried to set up a lesson for that night but she said she was busy but would come to church. We found her a ride and SHE CAME! she brought her 5 year-old niece and so she left half way through the second talk but we went by that night and she loved it. She only left because Abigail was getting bored. We sat down and taught her about Heavenly Father's love for her and Jesus Christ's Atonement; about baptism, forgiveness and the restoration of the priesthood . It was sauch a great lesson and she accepted a baptism date for the 17th of July. We're so excited for her. She wants so badly to be born again and to have the spirit in her life. She told us that she hears people talk about feeling the spirit and that she wants to feel that so bad. When we described the Spirit using Galatians 5 she started crying when she realized that she WAS feeling the spirit. At that point the spirit engulfed the room and it was awesome! We are so blessed to have met her. It was a miracle from the Lord.

Well thats about all for this last week. Love you guys!

Elder Harris

It's getting Hot!‏

Holy cow it warmed up this last week! It was 107 the last couple of days... and I am exhausted after walking around in that heat all day.

But this last week was a pretty good one. We found a new investigator, her name is Lacy. She's 18 but she is still in high school so we get to teach her and not pass her off to the university Elders. She's way kool though, she's the only religious person in her family, When we sat down to teach her the first lesson her brother came in and asked if we wanted any heroine... he was just being dumb, the whole lesson he was blasting his music in the other room. She's pretty excited to learn though and really is enjoying the Book of Mormon. We scheduled her baptism for the 3rd of July!

Lisa and Taylor didn't come to church yesterday so their date dropped, they still seem interested, busy doing nothing. It's kind of frustrating.

Other than that, not a while lot going on. We have zone conference this next week and it looks like I'll need you to send me my Temple Clothes. The Gila Valley Temple is a small one and it doesn't have clothing rental. President said that he would be taking us about once a transfer so I should need them coming pretty soon.

Well love you guys and hope you have a great week.

Elder Harris

All is well in Sahuarita... But I'm no longer there :(‏

Monday we got the phone call that I would be leaving Sahuarita. In light of the conversation I had with President I guess he decided that it would be best if I moved on. Right now I'm in the Tucson East Stake serving in the Camino Principal and Hidden Valley Wards. Cool bit a trivia, the WML in the Hidden Valley Ward, Bro Call is actually the son-in-law to Elder Richard G Scott... yeah the apostle. That's my little claim to fame for the moment. My companion is Elder Larsen, he's from the Castle Dale 2nd ward (maybe grandma knows his family, he didn't recognize Wells at all), and he was Elder Burt's MTC companion. He's a good elder and he goes home at the end of next transfer.

On Tuesday my mind was set at ease about the whole blog thing. After talking to Bishop and Bro Bell they both said not to worry, "they need to get stirred up, maybe that'll get them thinking and praying" Brother bell said, and Bishop told me to call him in 10 years and he'll tell me what good came from the whole thing. Rhonda wasn't too upset either, she found it kind of funny. A similar thing happened the her once up on the ranch too and so she was fine with it, though she was pretty upset that I had to leave because of it. She had to cancel our appointment on Monday night because the ranch was having a big meeting about the blog. Really only a few people saw it, one of them being like the "ranch matron" and she was really pissed off. Tristan, Rhonda's husband, really respects her and so the missionaries are no longer welcome at his house but they can still teach Rhonda! yay! She's still getting baptized on the 12th!

I was telling the story to the Cluff's, a family in 2nd Ward and Sister Cluff was the RS president before 2nd and 4th wards split from each other. She knows all about the ranch and she found it quite funny. I told her I was leaving and she said "Oh man! You just got here!" and the she added, "all right so what did you do?". I went a little red and she laughed as I told her the story about the blog. After talking for a little bit her husband mentioned "well maybe thats why you came to Sahuarita, to get them fired up. The Lord needed someone with the blog and someone who could shrug it off and keep working, We'll miss you but you'll do great in the east stake, don't worry about it." Sahuarita is going to keep going good.

Right now in our area things are going great. They had a baptism on Saturday which was a great experience. The pianist didn't show up so I stumbled through I am a Child of God for them. It was pretty fun. Right now we're teaching quite a few people all of them with their own unique challenges.

Vianney (V-en-A) is from Somalia and really wants to get baptized. The only problem is he needs to be married and to get married he needs to pay a dowry of around 4 - 6 thousand dollars to his wife's parents so they can. His wife and her parents are both members and they will be fine if he gets married so he can get baptized but they'll basically think he's trash if he does, so he's trying to support a family, go to school and save for the dowry all at the same time... long process :(

Alice-Jean is a hillarious girl who also is in a tight situation. She really wants to get baptized but is living with a man. They aren't romantically involved in any way but she can't move out because CPS has her children and to get them back she needs to prove that she is stable and if she moves again she will be "unstable" and won't be able to get he kids back anytime soon. Really a bummer. She's looking for a job and so we'll hope that all works out.

Lincoln Lenox is getting baptized on the 26th on June and he is from a part member family.

Then Lisa and Taylor, a mother and 9 year-old daughter that we're teaching. They're really poor but are really loving the gospel. They are also getting baptized on the 26th of June.

There are a few others but they really aren't progressing yet.

Other than that everything is the same old same old.

Still love you guys and still can't believe how fast time is flying right on by.

Elder Harris

Tough Week

Well I feel like a total turd now.

Yesterday Bro. Harris in the 4th ward ripped into me a good one because apparently some of the ranch people who belong to the church up there stumbled across my blog. It really offended them and especially offended Bro Harris, being a convert from there and trying to help his family along too. No more blog, as for damage who knows. I might have shut the doors for some people but I know God is merciful and it'll take a lot more than sticking my foot in my mouth to keep someone out of the Kingdom of God. I'm writing a letter of apology to Bro. Harris and I hope that he shares it with his family.

I let President Walker know how upset Bro. harris was. He was planning on keeping me in Sahuarita but now he's not so sure, he's going to pray about it. We'll find out what will happen tonight. I really don't want to stay, being here is kind of awkward, knowing how fast news travels, especially in the church. But at the same time I don't want to just run away from a mess that I started, although I don't know how much I can fix at this point.

Well there ya go, I'm now offically one of those missionaries that everyone will be talking about in the years to come about how I pissed off the ranch people. I have been approached by a few members who aren't, well at least don't seem to be too upset with me and want to help make it right, so hopefully this won't make it hard for missionaries who are coming in.

Anyways, nothing really has happened this week. Amy is still awol. The McGees had to cancel their appointment on Tuesday and we haven't seen them since and who knows how friendly Tristan is going to be now because news travels faster on the ranch than it does in the church, so who knows how that one is going to turn out now.

The one good thing that happened this week was we met James Hughes. He's an awesome guy from England who moved to Texas at 16. He believes in God and Jesus but doesn't have a real religious base. His wife is Catholic but he doesn't like the Catholic Church. He was very accepting of the gospel and has been reading all the things we leave for him. We taught him the Restoration on Tuesday, Plan of Salvation on Wednesday, and a follow-up nourishment visit on Thursday and he went out of town on Friday, all in all kind of a bummer because he's in Texas for the next two weeks and so we won't be able to really teach him at all. We are keeping in contact with him via telephone though which is good.

Well, pray for me that I don't get hanged when I go back up to the ranch.

Love you guys, hope you're all enjoying life.

Talk to you next week.

Elder Harris

Yay the McGees are back on track!‏

We finally got back in contact with them!!!!

So, apparently the apostates up on the ranch have been doing a pretty good job of keeping Rhonda away from coming to church. Now that we're back in contact with her, she is all fired up about the gospel. Her daughter Sherrodin is also coming along great. Shelby is in Phoenix and we haven't seen here since that first lesson, and Cheyenne really isn't too interested. Tristan quoted some scripture in the New Testament about not stirring the water with your spouse, so he's still ok with us teaching. He even sits in and contributes to the lessons... He'll get baptized eventually. We're working with some members to help to bring Tristan around. But it was exciting to see Rhonda at church this last week.

We're super excited because this coming sunday is the temple dedication! I'm so excited to be apart of it. It's going to be awesome.

We keep finding new investigators but they don't progress very far. We're still working with Amy, she's coming around. Right now she can't come to church because she has her son, Cody these next two weekends. Her divorce calls for mutual aggreement on all religious training and she's sure that if she took Cody to church, her ex-husband would take her to court over it. It's really sad to see how people can make a law against a mans belief....

I'm not too sure what else to tell you, life is still good and it's getting warmer! I love it here in Arizona!

Well hope you all have a great week. Love you guys!

Elder Harris

Little by Little‏

Little by little the work moves forward.

This last week we saw the baptism of Alexis. It was a great baptism, I was glad to be a part of it. The best part was that her real mom (she's a foster child, whose foster parents got guardianship so she could be baptized) came to the baptism and really enjoyed it. We talked to her a little bit and was able to get her information for the other Elders. We'll see how that works out.

We had kind of a bad week as far as teaching this week though. Amy's psychiatrist works for Satan and told her that she needed to back off with the religion thing for a while to relieve some stress in her life, or at least thats what she told us. She might just be trying to drop us but I don't think so. We're working with her member friends to try and see whats up. Well visit her every so often as well.

We also found three new investigators this week. One dropped us on the return appointment, one has cancer and kidney problems and is still recuperating from surgery and the other, a part member family, works every sunday and the next chance of her changing her schedule isn't until next January :( We're going to keep on working with her and hopefully help her get to the point where she'll have the faith the quit her job for the gospel.

Other than that not a whole lot going on. We did get in contact with a less-active recent convert named Idiela Alarcon and are working with her to get her coming back to church. I can see her progressing in the gospel again.

Well hope you all are enjoying life.

We'll talk to you later!

Elder Harris

An Unusually Cool Spring‏

It's been really nice here the last couple of weeks. Last year at this time it was already in the 100's but the last little bit it's barely reached above 90. This week is supposed to get up there in temperature though :(

Anyways, Sister Morris of 4th ward came up to me at church on Sunday and asked "Do your parents ride Motorcycles?" I said yes and she told me that she had met you and had a message for me. The message... "Happy Birthday Al?" When did you change my name to Al? and I thought my birthday was in December... From the dumbfounded look on my face she realized that it wasn't the right message and said that my parents had something to tell me but she couldn't remember, but she knew it was something good. So whatever it was you'll have to send me the message yourselves because that route didn't work.

As for the Work. Alexis was interviewed yesterday and she passed so she's all set for baptism this coming Friday at 5:00. We're really excited for her, it's going to be a great baptism.

We were able to teach Amy Kirkman a lot this week and she was progressing really well until her son got pink eye on Friday which transmitted itself to her on Saturday and so she didn't come to church. Which means we had to drop her date. :( To make it even more fun because of the Temple dedication there will be no normal church services on the 23rd which means we need to set her date out even farther to accommodate her being able to come to church a few more times. :( Satan is real Jerk sometimes

As for the McGee family we're not too sure whats going on there. It seems like they've been avoiding us lately. We stopped by on Saturday night and Tristan invited us in and told us the girls were gone but invited us over for steaks the next day, we called to confirm and they cancelled on us :( We're not sure whats up. We're hoping it's not the crazy church up there.

We had another interesting experience up there with Bro. Bell who is actually one of the first 8 people to settle McGee Ranch (he's like 87 but he's sharp as a man in his 50's) He's a strong member of the church who had to overcome a lot of the false teachings to get back into the church. He's served 3 missions and loves the church. Well, he took us to visit his bro-in-law Jerry, who was also one of the original 8. When we went over Jerry told us he knew who we were and there wasn't much we could do but he wanted to ask us about baptism for the remission of sins. Bro Bell and I both explained it simply and with tears in his eyes he said he "just can't join the church." It was really sad to see. These people up on the ranch would all join the church if it wasn't for the false teachings of their little church. Amazing what one mans false prophesies can do to lead astray so many people. It's another reason why I wonder if we're related to any of these people up there (there are a lot of Harris's) This might be one of the reasons I'm here in Sahuarita, not that every other missionary who has ever served here hasn't tried but who knows, we'll see. We'll be working with Bro Bell and if Jerry joins the church who knows what might happen.

Other than that, the work is kind of slow right now but we've got some good things in the works.

We'll talk to you all later!

Elder Harris

Another crazy week in Sahuarita‏

So this last week went pretty crazy.

Alexis is still on track for her baptism on the 7th. We're super excited for that. Unfortunatly Sister Vault started having some issues with another of their foster kids and so there was a lot of stress on that family this last week. We really didn't get to teach her at all this last week and so that was kind of a bummer.

We did however find 5 new investigators this week and set dates with all of them!

First is Amy Kirkland. She is way funny and has a great laugh. Kind of reminds me of aunt Amy. She went through kind of a rough divorce a few years ago and a lot of the members reached out to her. She is really excited to learn and accepted a date for the 22nd of May. Unfortunatly she didn't come to church yesterday. She got called by the church that she is currently attending to help teach the "Primary" that week. We'll get her this week though.

Then we started teaching this really kool Family. The McGee's. Tristan Mcgee married Rhonda about 6 years ago and she and her 3 daughters moved down here with him. Rhonda and her girls are all Catholic but Tristan is a member of some wierd break off of our church that exists down here. They believe that Joseph Smith is a Prophet and they use the Book of Mormon but they have some other crazy beliefs as well. We didn't get too much into it but from what Tristan was telling us they kind of believe that they are a Branch of Gods Church. They referred to us as the Fishers and they were the Gatherers. They believe that McGee Ranch, which is kind of like the place where Enos has property, will be a gathering place in the last days and some day. Baptism will be provided for them. Needless to say he wasn't too keen on joining the church but the girls sure were. Tristan is very warm and accepting of the church but he just has his own beliefs.

Sadly though, they didn't come to church either yesterday. Because they live on a ranch there is always lots of work to be done and they got super busy yesterday(stupid Satan...) and weren't able to make it to church.

It was kind of a bummer ending to a great week. But we'll get ém there next week.

One reason I miss the Gila Valley though is there isn't a whole lot of places out here to go hiking. This morning we went to help some ranchers brand, de-horn, and castrate their calves. We ended up going to the wrong place and when we did get there, there were plenty of people there so I just sat back and watched. Remind me never to be a rancher. It's some pretty nasty business.

Well I miss you all and wish you a great week!

Elder Harris

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

Another week come and gone!

This last week went by super fast!

Gary and Jessy are still doing really well. It's so good to see them progressing as well as they are! They are going to be baptized this Saturday at 5:00 pm, I'm super excited!

Last night we were able to have another lesson with the Jurados. Lexi is making baby steps towards baptism. She is still very resistant. Mostly because of her mom and sister. She wants to be her own person and she doesn't want to be like them. She's getting there. The spirit is slowly breaking through to her heart. I just hope it will be within the time that I'm still here.

We've run into a lot of potentials this week and hopefully next week's letter will have more awesome stories in it.

Today though we went to a place called Red Knolls. It's a really fun place with lots of caves and such to explore around. We had alot of fun. In one of the caves, there were some bats, with a lot of bat poop all over the ground. It was pretty gross. The Gila valley is so much fun.

There is so much to do and so many people who are ready for the gospel! But the best part is the temple. On the way back we stopped at the temple and we took some pictures. They are almost done with the construction and they are to the point of furnishing it. The spirit is so strong there. I miss the temple so much. I'm so excited for it to be finished!

Well I love you all super duper mucho!

Elder Harris

More and more changes

With transfers this last week we saw a change. I'm still in Safford but suprisingly Elder CLark has left us :(. It was way hard to see him go. He has been my favorite companion so far. I'm going to miss him. He was called to open a new area though. Sells, Arizona. I told you about it probably the first week of my mission. It was a big rumor of who would open up Sells. Sells is an indian reservation with only one active member who drives 45 min to Tucson to go to church every week. Elder Clark is a great missionary and he'll do great things in Sells.

My new companion? Elder Palmer! I'm training again! He's fresh from the MTC. He reminds me a lot of Isaac Smith. Really quiet and pretty shy. The apartment is super quiet compared to when Elder Clark and I were there. He's opening up little by little. We'll see how this transfer goes.

Kiana did get baptized on Saturday! She was pretty heart broken when Elder Clark had to leave. She was set on him baptizing her but she said it would be allright if I baptized her. The baptism was way powerful. She plugs her nose really wierd with her elbow sticking out funny so I had to hold her under a little longer so that she went all the way under. She accused me of trying to drown her. It was pretty funny. After ward, she bore her testimony about how she was glad that she did even though most of her family was against it. Her sister Lexi didn't even come. The mom, Lorie is kind of a pain sometimes and when Lexi is pushed she pushes back. Especially against her mom. I'm afraid that we've lost some ground with her but we're not giving up.

The Herrins are still doing awesome and we're excited for their baptism coming up. They both passed their interviews and we're looking forward to their baptisms.

Hope everybody is doing well.

Love you all!

Bro Cox (Ward mission leader) in a rocking chair made out of a wheel they keep telephone wire on.

Me making a chocolate pie at a members house!