Traveling, President Heyman & Spiritual Guidance

Family!

It seems to me that everything is going well at home!  You are all sooo blessed!! Give Brae a big hug and a kiss from his older brother and tell him that I'm proud of him.  Graduation and a mission call in the same week?  How cool is that?  Definitely someone to look up to!

Here's quick run down of my week:  Traveling, President Heyman and spiritual guidance.

To start off the week, we went to Resistencia for Consejo and learned a TON!  It was so great to learn from President Heyman on how to take control of situations and then see him teach and apply what he was teaching by correcting bad habits and things like that.

When we got back to Goya - Elder Valdez and I had the privilege to teach the zone all that the President wanted them to know.  We feel like it was a huge success!

On Wednesday night we jumped on another bus to go to Resistencia again.  We were at the terminal at 3:00 a.m. and the bus didn't come until around 4:20 - but we did finally to make it to Resistencia safe and sound.  We had a great training by President Heyman where he talked about the Holy Ghost - who He is, His role, His purpose, etc.  The President also answered a lot of questions that the missionaries had and very simply helped me understand the reason why we do the things that we do and that's to have the spirit with us.  It's kinda like the Sacrament - we partake of the Sacrament to have his spirit with us.  Super good training.

We also had the pleasure of hearing President Heyman again this weekend at District Conference!  Yup, 3 trainings in one week.  I have 40 pages of notes.  I think I have some studying to do.  :)

On Sunday he spoke about the worth of souls.  Our soul is our bodies and our spirits.  He told us that if we literally sold every body part that we would get about 10,000 for our organs but that our spirit is priceless. He talked about how we need to be more involved in the physical and spiritual welfare of the people around us.

So a funny story  . . . .

We knocked a door yesterday and I was on splits with Elder Castilllo (Elder Morin's comp) and this lady said "Um, I'm Jehovah's Witness" and then Castillo said "Oh, well we always believe in Christ".  As we walked away, we realized that JW's don't believe in Christ and we died laughing.  Soooo good.  #missionary jokes

Love you all!

Elder Harris

Book of Mormon Live

What up MOM!!!

How are my whipped brothers?
And my beautiful little sister?

Thanks for the pictures.  They were great!  :)  I love seeing my brothers wear my shoes - it makes me feel like I've got a good sense of style or something . . . #trendsetter

As for me, I'm doing great!  Happy, healthy and loving my life!  We had a great time at leadership meeting President taught us a few life principles and it was great to hear his counsel.  I always love listening to President.

While there, his daughters bore their testimony.  The first one in very broken gringa Spanish - but something she said really hit me hard during her testimony.   She said, "I'm very grateful that God gave me the parents that I have.  I'm grateful for their testimonies and example."  When she said that, I started thinking how I have the same love for my parents.  You two really are the greatest examples I have in my life.  If I could live the gospel half as well as you two do -  I think that I'll be alright.

His daughters were super friendly - just how you would imagine the offspring of President and Hermana Heyman.  Super awesome family.  #foreverfamilyswag

I got my package!!!  Thank you so much for everything!  It was great to see a bunch of familiar things and a few new things too.  I just made my birthday a little bit better than the apple pie we ate.  :)

Elder Sibaja and his toe are doing better!  He's still working normally and he actually baptized someone this week!  We wrapped his foot in Saran wrap so it wouldn't get wet.

As for Scott Jenkins - tell him he's a pretty smart guy.  (I shared a story that Brother Jenkins told in Sacrament Meeting.) That really is true and it's the same with missionaries!  If we're only doing half of the things right we're not going to get the results!  DUH!  So maybe I'll have to do a little teaching about that - so thanks!

Book of Mormon Live.  Let's see - I'm going to be very blunt with my answer, I hope that's cool?  To be honest, Book of Mormon Live was the greatest experience I've ever had.  Take away trek, campouts, firesides, testimony meetings, Sunday School, all of it.  Then there is Book of Mormon Live.  The reason why I feel this way is because Book of Mormon Live changed my life.  Literally changed my life! It's the reason I'm here in Argentina, the reason why I love the Lord, the reason why I'm a missionary!  I would invite everyone and their dog to go to Book of Mormon Live.  Seriously, the best experience you could have.  Just re-accept the truthfulness of the gospel!  It's what the Lord wants,  It's what the leaders of the church want  for us, it's what I want!  :)  Just tell everyone to go and if they don't want to - tell them to send me a letter.  :)

As for Braeden, I couldn't be more pumped for him for turning in his mission papers.  It's such a good time of life!  So great to be able to go out and serve the Lord.  I'm so excited that he got his patriartical blessing and everything else that's happening!  I'm sooo pumped for that kid and just like you mom, I can't wait to be in the temple with our entire family.

I love you guys more than you know!
Have a great week!

Elder Harris

This is Just a Big, Great, Marvelous Journey

Hey Family!

Wow it seems like just yesterday I was talking with you guys, but you know what they say . . . Time flies on the mission!  :)

Things have just been so good lately.  I remember Dad telling me before I left that in between the phone calls that the time goes so fast and time did go soooo fast!  Looking back it doesn't even seem like that long ago that I talked to you all on Christmas.  And yet, another phone call has come and gone and it might just be my last - depending on transfers and if they send me home in time to get into school.

In all seriousness, it was just so great to talk to you yesterday!  It seems like the entire family is the exact same - Ty and his jokes and Braeden . . . and all the funny things he does.  As for Kenzie - it BLEW ME AWAY . . . she has grown up SO much.  When I left she was this little girl and now she seems all grown up!  Like you said Mom, she really is becoming a beautiful young woman.

As for this week it was pretty mellow.  We got a lot of work done!  We went to the hospital with Elder Morin for his arm - the doctor checked him out and said that everything is great and the cast would be coming off next week!!  So he was super excited to hear that news.  His cast is decently big and it seems fairly heavy but he's a tough kid and this little trial has helped him grown into "who Heavenly Father needs him to be."

We did have a good exchange and every once in a while it's great to work with another companion - I love seeing how other missionaries teach and present the gospel.  I feel at times that I end up learning more from them!

This is just a big, great, marvelous journey that I don't regret starting.  Thank you for the picture of my baptism by the way.  It was super cool to see what my little 8 year old testimony looked like.  The one thing that I remember from my baptism is that a man spoke and told me that I would never ever ever forget this day.  And to be honest, I really haven't forgotten.  I remember stepping into the warm water with Dad and feeling this inner clean feeling - kind of like how I felt the first time I went to the temple.  The spirit confirming to me that what I was doing was the right thing.   I read a talk last night and a man said that when we feel the spirit really strong we should say a prayer and thank Heavenly Father for talking to us, for showing us His love and how much he really wants us to grow.

As for the investigators, we have a few that are still progressing.  Victor and Sole are still planning on getting married but we don't have a date for the wedding yet.  Estella is progressing great!  And the same with the rest of them.  We're just working, smiling and loving every minute!

Have a great week!
Love you!

Elder Harris

My Birthday & Funny Stories

Hi Family!

Yup.  Today is my birthday and thanks a TON for all the birthday wishes!  It was such a good day!  We cooked up some tacos and played around a little bit.  It's a great time to be a missionary!  :)

I'll be getting my package in 2 weeks by the way - thank you so much for sending it when you did!  I am one of the last Elders to get a package before the change and we won't be able to get anything anymore.

It honestly sounds like everything is great in Utah!  The family seems really good and most of them wrote me a little note and I appreciated that - it's good to hear that Braeden is getting excited about serving a mission. I remember those days . . . definitely the best!

I have a bunch of funny stories to tell you this week:

So, Valentine, our convert received the priesthood the other day.  I recently was walking passed him and saw his "talking" to these two girls that were about his age.  So I decided that I would harass him a little bit about talking to girls and before I could say anything, he was like "Elder Harris, tell them!  I received the priesthood, right?"  And I was like, "Uhh . . . yeah!"  Clearly these girls had never even heard of the priesthood before, but I just thought it was interesting that Valentine was so proud to be able and worthy to hold the priesthood.  It was a thought that just hadn't ever crossed my mind . . .

Next, we have this family, the Oviedo's and they have this super cute 3 year old little boy and he's pretty chubby.  He always wants to take his shirt off when he's eating at the table.  So the other day, we were over and he threw off his shirt and started screaming, "I don't want this!"  It was so funny because he was talking about his belly!  Haha!  I just thought, yeah buddy - so do most people in the world . . .  :)

I love embarrassing my companion and he's pretty serious, a military guy and a pretty big dude.  So, we were over at this house one day and this little girl was just staring at his arms.  Out of no where she says, "So, do you work out?"  And he was so stunned that this little girl would ask him that he didn't know what to say!  Haha!  It was great!

This week it DUMPED rain.  While we were out walking on Tuesday, we saw this red car stuck in the sewer, kinda like the truck in Fontana.  So being the big hearted kid that I am, we went to help!  This car had "Gracias Gauchito Gil" written on it with tons of stickers.  (Gauchito Gil is an idol that tons of people worship here.)  So after about an hour and a half of pushing and pulling, we (Elder Valdez, 3 other guys and me) lifted the entire car and moved it out enough to drive.  I felt a little bit like superman, but I probably smelled like Oscar from Sesame Street!  :)

We had a really good week!  I love you guys so much!

Talk to you on Sunday.

Elder Harris