Surprise!

Well, surprise! Today is Tuesday and we decided to change our P-Day due
to a holiday here. So we worked yesterday, today is P day and we´re heading toRESISTENCIA tomorrow and I´m going to Laguna Blanca again this week!! So I´ll be having some nice naps on the collectivos!

And yes I have some stories for you all!!! I always have stories to tell. My companions have given me the "Old man Jenkins" award, because they say I can justtell stories upon stories upon stories... And we just laugh.
I love it. I already know that when I´m like 90, I´m gonna talk
people´s ears off.

I can't believe I´m on top of the ward missionary list!  I´ll be home with
Micah and the rest in a few weeks. I emailed Micah the other week and
maybe we can plan to get our homecomings the same day?

I´m happy that you´re so grateful for what you have. It's something I¨m
trying to learn too. I will admit, it's sometimes hard to be very grateful
when we have so little. I see some of the families in my area who
literally have nothing and live off of less than 100 dollars a month,
and they still make it. It's just an interesting point of view, no?

But we did have an awesome week! We haven´t seen that lady that we
gave a blessing too. She has been internado (staying in the hospital)
for a few days, but one of the neighbors who is also an investegator
told us that she might have AIDS, so I don´t really know what the
problem is.

We had an awesome P-Day last week. Some futbol and asado. What more can
I ask for? We had an asado with a family thats gonna get married this
next week. So i´m excited for them! We´ll take pics :)  

We also went to Laguna Blanca for District meeting on Tuesday. It was
about an hour and a half on a bus, and on the way, it was so funny -
there was these banana plantatinos that were just massive. thousands
and thousands of bananas! In laguna Blanca I just had to try some, so
we bought 16 bananas for $1 dollar (10 pesos).. The bananas here btw,
are like the best I've ever tried in my entire life.

On Wednesday, we played volleyball with a few members after a rain storm.
So we played in the mud and we didn't bring our cameras, so we don't have
pics, but it was a lot of fun!

We also did a service project to help a less active member clean up
his yard... while there, we noticed that a huge part of his yard was
covered in poison ivy... so we got a Machete and went HAM! Elder
Taylor took a video of Elder Simmons going "ZELDA" on this plant. It
was ridiculous. So huge. So funny. Such good memories.

I also celebrated my 19 months mark with Elder Taylor. He was my first ZL here in Argentina, and also he is going home this Monday. We had a super good division. We got to talk a lot and we had some great lessons with a lot of people. In one of the lessons with a less active member, she told us how she won't go back to church because of a list of problems, and then she said how nobody is going to obligate her to
do anything. So recently, I´ve been studying and more than anything
thinking in what I can do to stay active in the church throughout my
life. I´ve just seen missionaries that return from their missions and
then go inactive and I got to thinking about every person that I´ve
told that I know this church is true, and how hypocritical of me it
would be to fall away after telling and testifying as a Representative
of Jesus Christ. So I stumbled upon a scripture in D&C 52:15, and in
spanish it makes sense that God will hear our prayers if we are
obedient to his ordinances such as the sacrament. So I shared that
with her after E Taylor shared how Captain Moroni undertsood the
covenant he made with the Lord in Alma 60:12 or 13..
How he was obligated to be obedient because of this covenant.
So it is nt just our duty, but our obligation to go to church and keep
the commandments because we told God ourselves that´s what we´re gonna
do.

It was a super good lesson, spirital, and I don´t know: I just felt
at peace. Although she didnt come to church again, I feel what we did
is starting to help (D&C 64:33)

It was funny, as we laid down to go to sleep, Elder Taylor told me
that there´s something that he likes about me - he said "I love how
you have that attitude of: Ya! Lets go do it! without even thinking,
you just wanna go DO". I thought of what Dad said one time how Tyler
is someone who would dip his toes in the water,  and I'm the one who would jump
head first into the water. He then reminded me of when we were invited
to go to an asado. And DUH! Im gonna go to the asado before I wash my
clothes ;) I guess I'm starting to figure out who I am ;)

Love you family! You´re the best!
My prayers are heading up to heaven, to go down to you.
Keep the Faith!

Elder Harris III (Elder Biggie Smalls)

p.s. My camera broke - so no pics today. :)

Long Story Short

Well, family, I just wrote basically my entire letter, then it deleted and now I don't have a ton of time to write it all again...

So anyways!

How´s that iPhone 6? Whats new about it?

Elder Simmons is doing great. Super excited. We´re still working super hard, and they didn't cut his whole toe off like he told his mom #sillythingsthatmissionariestelltheiroverlyprotectiveparents

but.. he can run and play soccer again, so he´s doing better! I do think that little break we took was good for his toes-

As for the week, it was pretty tranquilo. We had a multi zone conference where Elder Gonzalez from the 70 came and talked to us about the importance of the BoM in our work. Then showed us how Ammon used the scriptures to convert all the lamanites that he converted. 

Prez and Hermana Franco also shared super great messages with us. They truly taught by the spirit and taught me a few things. I'm super excited to listen to Prez Franco again this Sunday at District Conference. I decided that I love the way that Prez Franco is a mission president. He´s a mix of my previous presidents, and I´m really enjoying seeing him learn and teach us at the same time.

Hermana Franco shared a great line "I love rainy days" because the missionaries knocked on her door for the first time while it was pouring rain. I wish I had more time to share the whole story..

Anyways, Thursday when we got back we went out for a few hours and had a super spiritual night.  Probably the most spiritual night of my time in Clorinda.  Long story short, we met a lady who was deathly sick and we gave her a blessing. She weighed probably 80 pounds? and later on we heard that she had mold growing in her mouth from the excessive amounts of throw up, but we gave her a blessing. I´ve gotta run so I cant explain it all. Sorry. 

We are having a great time. I'm sorry this letter doesn't say anything, but know that I¨m happy, healthy, learning, and loving my life. I wouldn´t trade what I´m doing now for anything. I love this work, and I´m learning more here than in any other area. I love it. Elder Simmons is the best. I´m gonna miss him for sure! I hope we stay together until November!!!

Keep the Faith!

Love you guys!

Big Thug

(Elder Harris III)

Braeden, Doctor Visit & Baptism

Famiyl

 

I imagine you´ve had a crazy week, and let me tell you! We have too.

 

I can´t believe that Braeden left. It feels like yesterday that I left, and now he´s gone too. I´m super glad that he decided to serve though. It will be the best decision of his entire life. I know that without a doubt!! Although it was a little hard, I too thought that the first few steps were the hardest. I on the other hand, I decided to do it just like I seem to do everything else in life and just "jump off the cliff" and not "dip my toes in the water" maybe it's not a good thing?  But, I remember how hard those few steps are with your suitcases going into the MTC.  I'm just happy he´s gone, and off to start "his adventure".

 

As for the Harris family, I don´t know anything cooler than the fact that we´re gonna have 5 missionaries out from one side of the family. I even sent G&G Harris a letter and told them that our "our Christmas present" to them was 5 missionaries in the field. Maybe we can work it out and get all of us on the same Skype chat! I´m not sure how you would work it out, but it´s worth a shot!

 

Anyways, this week was insane, and I¨m gonna tell you all about it this time:)

 

So... my new baby, with his tender feet, got 2 in-grown toenails. 2 pretty bad ones on his big toes. We went to the Doctor here on Tuesday right after our Zone Meeting, and we ended up waiting there for about 2 hours since they have something like "Obamacare" as their medical system here. (It's terrible and I hate going to the doctor´s here...)

Anyways, that's another subject. So, we went to the doctor, and they said that he would need to take an antibiotic, so we went to buy it, and we asked the doctor of the mission if it was okay and all that jazz... so he took his meds and he had an appointment scheduled for Thursday.  But after talking to a few people here... well, we decided the public hospital wasn´t gonna be the best route. A few people told us that "ohh el hospital es muy bruto con las personas"... Bruto... or brute... or... rough. :) So we decided to go to a special clinic on Thursday to get it treated and the doctor sent us around the corner to buy the needles, syringe and anesthesia for the toes. Yup. We went and bought our own needles. :)

He told us it would be cheaper if we went and bought our own... But after applying the meds, he cut about 1/4 of the toenail and we went on our way. He did tell us that we need to rest for a few days, so we sat around for a while. But it gave us some good time to think, read the scriptures, and everything else! It was a good few days of rest, but we´re ready to get back on the horse and go to work. During our days of rest, we took taxis everywhere we went, so we had to spend a litte bit of cash, but other than that, it was fine!  Plus, I got to help out with a "service project" where we cleared a path for a man´s house. We basically took down bamboo with machetes. Since E Simmons and I got there first, I got to work for about an hour before the other elders showed up. It was a lot of fun to work with my hands again. I have this strange longing for getting my hands dirty...

 

Anyways, we´ve had a good week. Carolina was baptized, and it was great! We had 3 baptisms and a wedding in the same weekend, and it was all super great. It was awesome to see the support of everyone there. :) But we´re having a great time. This week I did learn a super cool lesson.. That in the scriptures, the Lord will always keep his end of the deal. Alma 19:22-23.

I do need to run because of lack of time at the beginning. The stupid computer wouldn´t connect to the internet!

Nos vemos!!!

Elder Harris

Life in Clorinda

Family!

I can´t even imagine how you´re all feeling right now.. you know, with Braeden leaving and all! I´m so pumpd for him though. It's gonna be a great experience for him. No doubt!

And mom! I don´t know how you did it. Being a parent is HARD WORK! Even though I´ve got a good boy:)

The week was good. I´ve got some news though... we didn't have a baptism. Carolina was super excited on Friday, we even did the baptismal interview - which she passed, and we were getting everything ready for Saturday and a storm came. A BIG STORM. And when I say a BIG storm. I mean two different storms came... the first, was literally a storm. It dumped rain from about 4 on Saturday until about 7. And you´ll never guess the other reason... well, she was a little embarrassed because "the storm" hit her. (I hope you understand.. its the worst subject to talk about.. by far worse than the law of chastity)

But yeah, we have the baptism planned for this next Saturday and we´ll be super excited. We´re gonna have a "SUPER BAPTISM".  3 baptisms and a wedding at the same time! So we´re planning on having a HUGE party to celebrate the baptisms and the wedding. 

The branch here is a lot better than I´m used to. We had 14 elders in Elders quorum yesterday. We have a lot of men, but not that many women, kinda strange, right? But it´s that way. We have 2 branches that meet in the same building, and we´re enjoying it! It's kinda crazy having 12 missionaries in the same building on Sunday morning, but I can see that without our help, it would be a little harder to stay afloat. We had a fun FHE with some of the people from the branch.

We have a super excited Branch President, who lives just a few blocks from our pench, so they´re gonna be "my family" for the stay here. Just like Tracy was in Anadarko, the Wade´s and the Dickmans in Guthrie, and the Oviedo´s in Goya... just add the family Rojas to the list:) They gave us some food, and it was SO good the other day. I just love the food here. Its honestly SOO good. 

It´s been an interesting experience being with Elder Simmons. He´s from Payson, his dad is the stake president there and a super good cook from what he´s told me. He played soccer for Salem, and he´s way cool. The only thing.. is that people have a hard time understanding him. We found this crazy lady this week, and up until we were actually in the lesson, he hadn´t said a word... but when I turned to him to start teaching, this lady started to point at him and laugh because she didn´t understand a word. He might feel a little frustrated, but its understandable. I remember how hard it was the first few weeks.  And now, lucky little Braeden is gonna get to go through the same experience. :) It's the best. Hands down.

We found a lot of people this week. We contacted a lot and had some good lessons. It's always a struggle the first 3 weeks or so in a new area, while finding your way around and getting to know a few solid investigators. Right now we´re working with like 3 families and they all have kinda big obstacles... 

One needs to get married. His name is Anselmo and he´s been together with his girl for about 10 years. She is a member and also the sister of Carolina. The only thing is that she doesnt wanna get married to Anselmo, so Anselmo can´t get baptized. You know - drama. The worst part about it, is that the reason why she doesn't wanna get married is because Anselmo´s mom doesn´t approve of "marrying outside of his race". Anselmo´s white, Lisandra is an Indian. Ya. I thought that was only like BoM stories, but nope. It still exists.. So we´re kinda clueless on what we can do to get over that problem and praying for a miracle. :)

But more than that, we just had a normal week! We worked hard, and enjoyed our time. We had some solid Guiso´s for lunch and we´re loving the heat of Clorinda! Our pench is nice, but it is super humid. it doesn´t air our too well... and when we open the windows 1000 mosquitos fly in... so we´re dealing with that. :)  Plus, the person that designed the pench put the shower in the middle of the room... so... he deserves to get his butt kicked. :)

Love,

Elder Harris

Here's the News!

Well, family - here´s the news.

I´ve left my friends and family in Goya, and I´m now training an Elder Simmons from Payson, UT. Fresh out of the MTC and HE'S AWESOME. We´re whitewashing an area in Clorinda, Formosa. We can see Paraguay from this city (it touches the border). Its supposedly the hottest city in the mission, and I can already feel it. We are gonna have a baptism this Saturday, and I'm pumped! The branch here is on fire. We had mutual the other night, and we had 26 youth! It was awesome!

This week was one of the best, saddest, and happiest weeks of my life. Leaving Goya was worse than leaving Utah. I couldn´t help but thank my Heavenly Father for giving me the time in Goya though. It was too good not to. I'm going to miss all of the members, my converts, and just the people. Saying good-bye was very hard.

But just like a book, when we turn the page, we keep reading... 

As for Clorinda, its great!  The members are awesome. I feel right at home, and the members have heard "great things" about me, thanks to Elder Beach (who just left to Formosa Capital). We have a super solid branch. A ton of youth, and a super excited branch president!!! He lives a few blocks from our pench and has saved our lives! 

As for the week, we honestly said goodbye since I had a feeling I was leaving... I cried talking on the phone to Lucy and saying goodbye to Jorge might have been even harder. I'm just happy I didn't have to see Maria or Millie. I might have lost it.#sistermissionarystatus

Honestly, we said goodbye, traveled, and are finally getting settled into our area. Sorry there isn't much to report.

I love you guys though!!:)

Elder Harris