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!!