Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Things are Kinda Slow . . .

Sometimes emailing is like taking a deep breath of fresh air.  I can just relax and tell you what's on my mind.

I think I have 7 long sleeve and 5 short sleeve shirts.  In this humidity I sweat a lot . . . so the short sleeves are looking okay, but who knows after 3 summers!  :)  My socks are holding up fine and my shoes are great - actually a lot better than some of the other missionaries.

If it's Bishop Mendenhall, he might be in another Edmond ward -  but I'll look for him!  I go to the Guthrie building and our Bishop is Bishop Wade and he's good friends with Paul Gifford.  I think that Levi and his son are roommates.  He's a really awesome guy.

Just so you know, I still have to have my MFS money put onto my companion's card and so I'm waiting patiently for the money to be put on this month, so if you see some charges to Wal-Mart, it's just me!  I'll try not to spend too much!  :)

Things in Guthrie are okay.  Our area is about 10 miles away from our apartment so we have to drive there.  Then it's mainly country and tiny suburbs.  The suburbs there are incredible.  Take the Loveland's house and make a hundred copies and that's the neighborhood.  Some of these houses are ridiculously huge!  Or maybe being in Anadarko so long made me see that you just don't need that much space.  :)

 


We have absolutely no work down there and it's very slow so we've been doing a lot of service these past few days.  I don't mind doing yard work.  :)

We had a special training meeting about an hour ago and the AP's came.  They shared a message that I really needed to hear and at lunch told me that they put me with E. Rumsey this transfer to help him smile a little more.  He's really quiet and doesn't like to talk a lot so I'm learning to keep my mouth shut.  Silence isn't so bad sometimes, you know?

I pray that I get my Visa soon.  E. Beach emailed and told me about how he got to eat pig head!  Yeah!  Eyeballs, tongue, brain and everything!  I'm so jealous!  haha  As nice as our shower might be, a pig head sounds tasty.

As for this week:

Monday:  E. Rumsey woke up at 5:30 to start our laundry.  While we were at the other Elder's apartment we were so tired that we fell asleep.  E. Rumsey decided to make us some eggs for when we woke up which was really nice, but there wasn't any cooking spray so he put butter in the pan - on high.  Before we knew it, the entire apartment was full of smoke, the smoke alarm was going off, and we woke up scared to death!  So we aired the apartment out and then had to jump start the truck because the battery was dead before we drove to Edmond to email.  We played basketball for a couple of hours and then had dinner at the Larson's house.  He's the Elder's quorum president and they LOVE Utah.  They even had a huge picture of Lake Powell in their house which made me a little sad.  But I'm sure that lake will still be there when I get back!

Tuesday:  It was pretty quiet.  We did some service where we unloaded a truck load of food for the food shelter.  After that we got to finish digging that trench for the Morgan family.  I love digging - it was very relaxing.  Then we went to work on my bike - it's somewhat working and then headed off to Walmart for some groceries.  We went home and I cooked up some Chicken Alfredo for the 4 of us for dinner and it was really good.  We went to see a few members that night and found that the family we were looking for had moved but we did find a new potential.

Wednesday:  I met a man named Monroe.  He's 70 years old and his friends call him Pork Chop.  I'm not sure why but he loves women and fighting and anything involving the two.  We got around to asking him some questions about religion and told him that we would come back to tell him why there are so many churches.  We had dinner with the Foreman's and then went to find a referral that the Edmond Elders gave us.  When we showed up, the woman was nursing her baby . . . so we told her we'd come back another day.

Thursday:  We started the day with some basketball (our exercise), cooked up some pancakes, did our weekly planning and went to work!  We drove to a neighborhood to visit a member but they weren't home so we decided to walk the neighborhood for awhile.  We got lost and ended up walking around for about 2 hours trying to find some people to teach and also our car!  Haha! We did end up finding one person - her name is Monica and she's awesome.  She was out doing yard work (IN EDMOND!  Shocker!  I know!) and we set up a time to come back and talk with her later in the week.  I'm pretty excited about it!




Friday:  We had a DM in Edmond.  Elder Beus is awesome and taught a very inspired lesson - exactly what I needed to hear.  We ate lunch at a place called Cow Café.  It's a burger joint - and it was GOOOOOD!  Probably one of the best burgers I've had in a while.  The waitress recommended the one that I got and she was right!  :)

We went by to see Monroe again and he wasn't home so we tried to tract his neighborhood.  We walked up to knock on this door and saw this pitbull jump up and start freaking out.  We also noticed it didn't have a leash or a chain - so we started freaking out and ran away from the DOG!  I don't think we're going to knock THAT door.  :)

Then we met with Kyle and Jennifer.  They're awesome!  They asked us some really great questions about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and the church.  It led right into a discussion about the Joseph Smith story.  Jennifer wants the "closeness" of the church - I think she used to go to church but was never actually baptized.  I think that she already kinda knows it's true - but they told us to come back in a few weeks.  Kyle wanted some time to read the Book of Mormon and do some research. 

We had dinner at Braum's (Oklahoma burger joint) and then went to try to meet with David.  He and his wife both sat down and agreed to listen to us but in the end kindly declined a Book of Mormon and "suggested" that we don't come back.   Honestly, I thought it was a super spiritual lesson but I guess they just aren't prepared . . .

Saturday:  We tracted a neighborhood on our bikes.  We visited a few members and got about 50 doors slammed in our faces.  Seriously.  Every house we knocked on either didn't even let us introduce ourselves or just looked through the window and ignored us.  All of the members were really awesome and let us in, gave us some water, and introduced themselves to us!  It was a super slow day.  That night we had dinner at Guthrie's finest - Stables.  And it was GOOD!  I ordered ribs and it was probably the best BBQ I've had since being in Oklahoma!

After dinner we drove over to meet the Dysart family.  Earlier that day they were out doing yard work and Brother Dysart cut his leg with a chainsaw so he had to go get it stitched up.  We helped him move and burn some trees.  A little miracle from that day was that Sister White was over with her little girl who needed a blessing - so we got to give her a blessing!  :) 

Sunday:  It was my 7th Fast Sunday on my mission!  Time is flying!  After Church we cooked up some food and then went a visited a neighborhood where a few of the members live.  They either weren't home, or we couldn't find their houses so we ended up visiting our only investigator - Kili.  We had an awesome lesson with her and her son.  She told us that the first time we met with her the only thing that she didn't agree with was Joseph Smith.  We thought that she was going to talk about Joseph seeing God and Christ in the grove but it turns out that it was about the plates.  She was previously told that Joseph "lost" the plates after he translated the Book of Mormon.  But now she totally accepts that an angel took the plates.  It was just a great lesson.

I love and miss you.
Keep the Faith.
Expect Miracles.

Elder Harris

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