Moments I'm Going to Miss

Hola Familia!

Nuevo año, nuevo momentos para poner las pilas y hacer un poco mas!

First off, I´m a little bummed. I feel that I´m just barely starting to figure out what being a missionary is all about. I´m starting to understand what I need to do to be effective as a missionary. I feel that this life is a dream, and I really don´t want it to end. 

The work is progressing. After a few weeks, we finally had a family come to church. Christian, Johanna and their 3 kids all came. They came all dressed up too. I was super excited to see them all come in and enjoy the fast and testimony meeting we had. I, also bore my testimony about how great 2014 was. I remember a year ago, I gave a training to a few missionaries in Comandante Fontana about how 2014 will be the only year in our lives where we can say that we were missionaries for the entire year of 2014. It was a good year. I can say that I was obedient, we worked hard, and had a GREAT time doing it. I bore my testimony of the Savior, and of the Book of Mormon. How in this year, my testimony grew a lot. I came to understand my role as a child of God, and what I am supposed to do as a Priesthood holder to help others. I´ve seen good examples and bad throughout my life and this year has given me a good opportunity to put my head on straight and know what type of man I want be. 

I did make some resolutions. President Heyman will be proud to know that he taught me one thing - PLANS PLANS PLANS: so I set some good goals. :)  And just like President Heyman taught us, now I´ve just got to  go out and achieve my goals. 

As for this week, we had a GREAT week. On the 30th, 31st and the 1st, we had to be in the pench at 7PM, so we didn’t get a ton of work in, but wow. It sure was a week to remember! 

So first off, on the 30th, I gave a district meeting. I gave it on goals and I kind of cheated because I used the same training I did a year ago in Fontana. It turned out great. We then played Jeopordy! to help the missionaries use Preach My Gospel.  We had them study Chapter 3 all week then we had some decently hard questions to see how well they studied. 

We then got the transfer doctrine. We had a whitewash in the zone, and now we´ve got another set of elders here. So, we´re excited for that! 

Then on Transfer day... we spent the ENTIRE day in the terminal. We had to wait for missionaries and help them come and go. And to top it off, New Years eve might be the busiest travel day in the entire world..so getting bus tickets was near impossible and there were 20000000 people in the terminal. It was a madhouse. 

But all the missionaries got to where they needed to be, except one. :) The one that didn´t make it is a "mini missionary" he´s a convert of 7 months. He is AWESOME too. He was going up to Ibaretta to serve with Elder Cannon and Elder Hulme for the transfer and he had to stay the night with us on New Years Eve. We totally cooked up a HUGE ASADO. A full chicken (gizzards and all), sausage and meat! It was SOOOO GOOD. I´m a pro at cooking asados now too, so I¨ll cook one for you when I get home.  Elder Bustos was his name. He´s so excited to serve a mission too. 

As for this week... let´s see. I had another one of those super cool "I felt like a bishop" moments. We found this man named Carlos, and as we left his house another man across the street called us over, told us he was a member, but has been inactive for a while. He told us about all the things that was going wrong in his life, and what he shouldn´t be doing... and Elder Brough kinda threw me into the lion´s den when he said "Oh, and my companion has a scripture to share with you..." So, I was franctically thinking of what I could share with this man that was just so broken... I thought about the scriptures in Alma 37:41 where the Words of Christ will tell you all things you must do, then I thought of the importance of keeping our families following the prophet like the story of King Benjamin in Mosiah 2:5. Then a thought hit me - The doctrine of Christ helps people change. 

So, we started talking about faith.. then we moved onto repentance. And we stayed there because it felt right. The more we started talking about repentance and the atonement, the stronger the spirit got and by the end of this lesson, this man was wiping tears from his eyes. We gave him a big hug and told him we love him and want the best for him. We also left him with the invitation to come to church. He didn´t come, but I do know that we did our job - create a spiritual enviornment and let them choose to follow the Savior or no. I´ve come to learn that´s really what the Lord wants us to do. Have the spirit in the lessons – that’s why we´re obedient, that’s why we study, that’s why we try to keep our thoughts pure, that´s why we pray so much!  For those maybe 5 minutes we get maybe once or twice a week, where the spirit is so strong that anyone that walks into the room knows that the Lord´s spirit is there. Those are the moments that make this work so special. Those are the moments that I´m going to miss. 

I just love you guys so much.

You´re the best.

Keep the Faith.

Ether 12.

Elder Harris III