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