Good-Bye Clorinda . . .

Hey family!
How are things in beautiful Alpine!

I sadly had to leave Clorinda. Elder Zivic (Assistant to the President) called me on Tuesday of last week at about 4 and told me that I will be heading to Formosa Capital to be one of the Zone Leaders here. So I got my goodbyes said, hugs given, and packed up to come to Formosa. It’s a super pretty city. It’s HUGE. It’s one of the biggest cities in the mission. It’s so big that we have to take a city bus to get to and come home from our area every day. It’s like a 15 minute bus ride, but it’s a good time.

My new companion is named Elder Brough. He’s from Syracuse; Utah. He’s a super good missionary and we are already making plans to make this zone the best in the mission! Sadly, this last week we only had 2 people come to church in our entire zone. So, we´re gonna be working overtime to get more than 10 people this week to church. As for my apartment, it's good. We have a pull up bar, so that’s nice. And well, it’s just another apartment.  :)

I will tell you, this area is awesome. I´m serving in a WARD. Barrio Italia is what it’s called (barrio = ward). There were 96 people at church, I didn’t have to teach a class, and it felt SOO good to just enjoy it. None of our investigators came, but we´ll be working on em this week, OH! And finding. We´re gonna do some finding (my favorite) :)

So yesterday a sister cut our hair, and you´ll never believe this... she cut my hair using a pair of dull scissors and a comb, and I’m not gonna lie... I look decent. Like, she did a really good job. I paid her a little extra because I thought I looked so good. ;)

And oh my gosh. We have this little ole Brother Adams in our ward. His name is Hermano Flores. He’s 75, ex boxing champ, and one of the most active members of the church. He doesn’t have a calling because he doesn’t have much of a filter (from what I hear) and so, we passed by his house to ask him if he wanted to do splits with us later on in the week and he says "wait here" about 2 minutes later, he comes out of his house with his white shirt, shoes, black pants, and Yankees hat. He was PUMPED to go. And it was so freaking funny. He´s 75, complete white hair, and he was running, making jokes, playing soccer with rocks in the streets, giving suckers to all the little kids, and he even crossed this open sewer line on a fallen tree. (the best) We were looking for another place to cross to cross this sewer, and he just winks at me and ran across this log. SOO smooth. He even told all the new people we met that he is gonna pass by their house on Sunday morning.

I´m in love.

Let’s see... what else happened.

So, my new area, is super interesting. Most of the area is government houses. They are all 12x12 (feet) houses. Made of brick. 2 doors, 1 in front, another in back and a window. There are families of 15 living in them. It’s super sad, but they look nice. Some people have even extended their house so they have 2 rooms or things like that. It’s crazy. There are about 8 houses that live on all the streets going north and south and 4 that go east and west, so 20 houses on every square block. It’s a lot of people in our area.

The last elder that just barely left here is named Elder White. He served here for 5 transfers and baptized 19 people. So.. that’s my goal. I´ve got 2 transfers and I think I’m gonna be ending here, so I´ve got a lot of work to do!

Saying goodbye to the people in Clorinda was pretty rough. I think I’ll miss Elder Simmons more than anyone. ;) He was a good one. I did hear that he´s gonna be coming to sleep in my pench tonight before our conference tomorrow! :) So we´re gonna party.

I also heard that 3 of our investigators went to church and they´re still planning on getting baptized on the 6th. I´m gonna count them as mine since I taught them everything they know ;)

But it’s alright. I´m here to prepare more people to be baptized and make this convenant with our Heavenly Father. I was studying a lot this week. I actually finished the Book of Mormon again in Spanish this week.

So since I started again, I started studying on Nephi. I thought something in 1 Nephi 2 was super interesting. How Nephi says that Laman and Lemuel acted the way they did because they didn’t know the dealings of God (or how God works with us). There was a cross reference to Moses 4:6 that I looked up and it talks about when Eve partook of the fruit. So I had to leave studies and while I was on the bus going to our area I was trying to figure out the correlation between disobedient children and understanding how God works with us. Then I got it, like as if someone spoke to me... "They didn´t understand the atonement."

Laman and Lemuel didn’t understand or trust in the power, wisdom and love of God. It was something that really struck me.

Then I got to think about how of all the things that Lehi said to his sons, when Lehi tells Laman and Lemuel pretty much like "oh, if you were THIS great". THAT was what stood out to Nephi enough to write it down. Of all the things Lehi must have said to his sons, THAT was what stuck?

I remember one time when I was like 15 I told Dad I didn’t want to go to church, and he looked me in the eyes and told me "you know Cody, sometimes I don’t want to either, but I know it’s what I need to do." And, I bet Dad doesn’t even remember that... but it’s been a moment that honestly changed my life. Probably is the reason why I decided to serve a mission. Not exactly because I wanted to, but because I knew it was what I should do... and I´ve seen the fruits of it, and I love it. It’s by far been the best decision I´ve ever made in my entire life.

I just want to tell you thanks for everything you do,
I love you more than you know.

Elder Harris III