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