5/26/09 Letter

Hey everybody! First off I would like to give a special thanks to all of our friends and family who have served or who are currently serving in the armed forces. I would especially like to thank my friends Andrew Horrocks for his service in the Marine Corps and my friends Jeff Weaver and Spencer Dom for their service in the Army. We truly are blessed to live in this country and be able to worship and live freely and protected. We wouldn't have these freedoms without the brave service of the men and women in the armed forces.

Next on the list - the work. Right now Elder Bliss and I are working with 3 people who are progressing towards baptism and will hopefully be setting a couple more baptism dates in the coming week. The three people we are working with now are Jeff T, Kurt W, and Jesse R. Jeff grew up in Safford, or mini Utah, and when we first met him, called himself a dry (unbaptized) mormon. He has taken the lessons so many times he remembers the flipcharts. He finally decided that he needed to be baptized and so he is progressing towards the 20th of June. Jesse is also working towards the 20th of June. He is a recovered narcotics addict who has a great testimony of Christ. He now helps other addicts overcome their problems. Finally Kurt was introduced to the church by his friend. He has been searching for "Clarity in his life" and is finding it in the church. He plans on being baptized on the 27th of June. It's been great to see the progress of these people as the gospel is changing their lives. Please keep them in their prayers.

Finally I would ask that you keep Elder Bliss in you prayers. He is struggling with the work and sometimes has feelings that he cannot continue in the work. I refuse to let any of my companions go home without doing all I can to keep them here, so all the prayers you can offer on his behafe would be appreciated.

I love you all very much and wish you all the best in what ever you are doing.

Elder Andrew Harris

I'm still here!‏

Hey everybody. So another transfer has come and gone and I'm still here in Tucson Arizona, in the Coronado and Casas Adobes wards.

My new companion's name is Elder Bliss (I've already called him Elder Bl-urt a couple of times) and he came over here from just down the road. We've been in the same district since we got here. Thats right, we both got here at the same time. We weren't in the same MTC district but we were there at the same time. We're both pretty young and still trying to figure things out.

They made me Senior Companion (probably just for the purpose that I know the streets) and it's been crazy. Elder Burt made it look so easy but it's a lot harder than I thought. Right now Elder Bliss and I are teaching a few people that are pretty solid and should be setting some baptism dates here soon.

Funny story... The other day while Elder Bliss and I were out tracting we started walking up to a guy to talk to him. When he saw us, he yelled at us, "Get your cultish religion off my property!" We turned to go and so Elder Bliss called out to him "Have a nice day sir". His response was priceless. He yelled back at us "I'll be having a better day than you! I won't be burning in Hell!" We got a good laugh out of that one and it's now on the quote board in our apartment.

Hope everything is going well with finals and such going on. Love you all! Talk to you soon!

Elder Harris

Yea for baptisms!

So the three baptisms we had scheduled for this last saturday went through as planned. You can see the attached pictures. The first is all of the kids who were baptized, from left to right they are Alex, Mackenzie, and then Curtis. Next is Curtis and Mackenzie and their mom, and then Alex and his parents. The baptism was way awesome. Elder Burt performed all three baptisms and he almost drowned Mackenzie because her dress started to float up so he held her under longer than normal. (It really wasn't that long but it was still kind of funny) The spirit there was really strong though. A friend of Alex came and she is interested in the church and has been asking a lot of questions. Hopefully we can begin teaching her about the gospel.

The last picture is of my little run in with a pole on our apartment parking. Needless to say the mirror lost... the pole was a little more sturdy. Needless to say we should all be like the pole and build ourselves a "firm foundation" so that when things run into us we can stay strong(Helaman 5:12) but when those times come when we are like the shattered mirror, the atonement of Jesus Christ can mend all wounds (Mosiah 14:5) In the case of our mirror, a resurrection was necessary and a newer shiner mirror is now riding on our car (Alma 40:23)

Good luck to all of you and hope you are having a wonderful week.

Elder Andrew Harris

Another Transfer coming to an End?‏

(HOBY is the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Program. Andy participated and then was a Jr. Counselor for it - great program for 10th graders)

Well everybody, today marks the first day of the crazy super week. So I won't be writing you until next Wednesday and I'll let you know if I'm still in Tucson or not. This transfer could be pretty crazy because, we have a lot of mission leadership going home. Elder Burt is not happy. He hated being in leadership and doesn't want to be put back into it.

Speaking of leadership, HOBY is going on this weekend and it's a bummer I can't fly home for a couple of days and come. Any and all of my HOBY peeps write me and let me know how it turns out. Pictures would be awesome as well.

The month of May is going to be a great month here in the mission. Across the mission we have about 200 people preparing to be baptized in the month of May and so, as a mission, we fasted for our investigators and any and all of your prayers on their behalf would be greatly appreciated.

Our Zone Leaders also told us that President and the Assistants informed them that "something BIG is happening in the month of May." And thats all we were told. So we're all pretty excited, but have no idea whats going on.

This weekend as well we are seeing three kids get baptized. Curtis, Alex, and Mackenzie are all being baptized on the 9th and then confirmed on the 10th. It's getting pretty exciting. The work is really moving forward.

Last of all I cannot believe that 3 months have already gone by. Time is moving way too fast. Time flies when you are having fun and missionary work is awesome.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there and have a great day.

Elder Andrew Harris

No time online 4-24-09

Dear Mom, Dad and everyone-

Right now my district is watching the Joseph Smith movie, so we had to cut emails short so we could get there on time.

Life here in Tucson is awesome. It's getting hotter here. This week it got up to 104*! That just happened to be the day that I was on exchange in my District Leader's area, which is an all bike area. It was pretty awesome, we were biking all over the place and I'm pretty sure that Elder Lybberts area is all up hill. It was a long day but something really cool happened while I was there. We were visiting some people on the less active list and we visited a family where the mom and dad were inactive, the children are unbaptized. Elder Lybbert and Elder Bliss wanted to start teaching them, so we tried to set something up. The mom, as it turns out, was recently diagnosed with MS, about the same time that I was. We started talking about the disease and the various treatments. Despite her husbands initial objections, she agreed to have her family hear the missionary lessons.

Elder Lybbert is convinced that I was the cause, that I had opened the door for those lessons to begin. I knew that the trial of having MS would be for my benefit, but I never realized that it would help me with my missionary work. Out of trials and hardships the Lord has provided miracles.

Thank you all so much for your letters and I'll try to get back to you all soon. Take care everyone.

Andy

Another Baptism!‏

So this last week we had another one of our investigators enter into the waters of baptism. Norm was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. It was a really spiritual baptism, even though there were only like 7 people there.

Also on Saturday, Elder Burt and I got to see one of Elder Burt's old investigators be baptized. We sang Come thou Fount of Every Blessing with the Sister missionaries at the baptism and it was awesome.

Now that the old people are baptized (Norm is 71, and Kathleen 67) we are working with the youngins. Right now we are teaching 3 children, ages 8,9, and 10. Makenzie and Curtis Kuster are 8 and 10 years old and come from a part member family. Their mother is a member and their father isn't. They used to live about 45 min outside of Des Moines Iowa, and because the church building was so far away they never went to church. Now that they have moved to Tucson and are about a mile from the church building there is no excuse and so we are teaching them. They are scheduled to be baptized on the 9th of May. We would love to be teaching the dad as well but he is a truck driver and is gone all the time and isn't exactly too keen on religion. He goes with them when he is in town but only for the sake of their marriage.

Alex Anderson is 9 years old and his mom was just baptized in August, his dad has been a member all his life. Alex used to be an altar boy in an episcopal church and missed carrying the candle. His mom didn't want to push him to be baptized, but when we mentioned that, when they go to the temple in August to be sealed, he needs to be baptized or else he cannot be sealed with them. She decided now was a good time to take the lessons. He is also scheduled to be baptized on the 9th of May.

Any ways we have a few other strong potentials that we are trying to get going towards baptism but they are hard to get a hold of sometimes. I'll keep you posted on them.

Hope you all are enjoying your Spring it's about 93 degrees today. The picture attached is one I took after a rain storm here a week or so ago.

Love you all.

Elder Andrew Harris

No Time to Write Ah!!!!!

Hey guys, don't have a whole bunch of time to write. Everything is going good, Kathleen was confirmed and Norm is being baptized this saturday.

(Jan is speaking next Sunday on our missionary) As for the talk on sunday, tell them everything is going awesome. And tell everyone to get involved. Ward missionary work is the best way to get stuff done.

Sorry I don't know what else to tell you. Love you all.

Bye!