I love being here… I love talking to the people!

Well what´s it really like.

I wake up 6:30 and I throw off my blanket. I then head over to the alarm and turn it off. I pray by myself and then we pray together. I tend to jump up and down a little bit just so that I can shake off that feeling of tiredness. I usually then head right for the shower… I shower it up for about 15 minutes. After I am done showering I brush my teeth and shave… then I get changed into the battle suit. When I am all ready usually its about 7 o clock. I then write in my journal, and do the missionary paperwork that I need to get done.  At about 7:25 we leave the house and head half a block over to my pensions house. We pray again for the meal. We eat the same meal just about every deal. One scrabbled egg and two pieces of bread, and a glass of Eco which basically tastes just like coffee but it’s not. We then, just before 7:55, head back to the house so that we can start our Personal Study. At 8 we begin to study just by ourselves. We begin our study with a prayer and end with a prayer. Then at 9 we begin to study together starting with another prayer… we talk about our investigators and search for new ways to teach them and we look for scriptures that we can apply in our lessons. We then end with a prayer. At 10 we begin to language study starting with a prayer… I usually read out loud from the book of Mormon for an hour or read from the pamphlets that we have from the book ¨Our Heritage¨. Then we end our studies with another prayer. We then prepare to leave and pray about 10:55 for success throughout the day. We are out of the house before 11. If it is a normal day we begin with the appointments that we have in the morning at 11 and 12… if they aren’t there we go contacting so that we can find some new people to teach. At 1 we go to the house of a member that will be feeding us for the day. We pray and bless the food and the family. Then before we leave again we pray and bless the family again. We then from 2 to 5 visit people, and contacts and ask for references and all that good stuff. At 5 we go back to the pensionista so that we can eat. We begin with a prayer for the food and we eat and rest for the hour. Then we head back out into the field and harvest until 9:00-9:30. It all depends on that last appointment. We then head back to the room before 9:30 because, it is a rule. We then pray to start planning for the next day. We plan and think about all of the people that we can visit the next day. We write down what we want to teach them and we also write down what we want to accomplish with the lesson that we want to share. After we are done planning, we pray so that we can end the day. After the prayer we take off the battle suit and head into the pjs. We talk a little, brush our teeth, and if we are super dirty take another shower. I usually take 2 showers. We say a prayer together and then we pray personally. We then hop into bed. I then fall asleep.  

THE NEXT DAY….

I wake up 6:30 and I throw off my blanket. I then head over to the alarm and turn it off. I pray by myself and then we pray together. I tend to jump up and down at little bit just so that I can shake off that feeling of tiredness…………………………………………………………………………………………………

The mission when you explain it like this… sounds really boring. The exciting part of the mission is the times that you get with the people. All of the relationships and the friendships that we can make is how we stay happy here on the mission. I love being here… I love talking to the people and helping them understand the importance of the gospel.  This really makes me happy. Thank you mom for helping me to understand really why I should be happy, I could be thinking of all of the things that I miss here on the mission. But I don’t, any reason that I could come up with would have more valor then the people that I have helped. I really owe a lot to you, mom and dad, for teaching me right. And I can see now that I lot of things that we did in our house when I was growing up, has really helped me to be a better missionary. The best teacher of the Lords true gospel, follows the counsel of this loving parents.

Elder Harris

If there is one thing that I am really craving - it is Tabasco Sauce. If you could send me a lot of that I would be really happy and I don’t know what to do but pretty soon I am going to have to buy new shoes.

Love ya 

SPIRITUALLY ADDICTED

Passionately in Love with a book!! Who da thunk!!!

Wow, what a great week we are having… first off I want to say happy birthday to Haleigh. So in other words HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY HALEIGH!!!!!!  I was a little upset that I didn’t have the chance to write and say happy birthday this Monday like normal… but we went to the temple this week. The temple is a really powerful and sacred place. I was thinking of describing the temple as Magical, but the place is not Disneyland… but a whole lot better. 

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the Gospel. You would think that as a missionary it’s would be the only subject on your mind… but to be honest you can talk about the gospel all day but not really arrive to any profound faults. I have been using the bible a lot in my teachings because the majority of the people that live here are catholic or some other religion that believes in that sacred book. I’ve came to a shocking conclusion that, and it might seem a little bit obvious, the Lord has called me to teach the restoration of the gospel. The most power instrument in the conversion that I have in my arsenal is the combination of the Spirit and the Book of Mormon. I am not saying that I have not been using the Book of Mormon in my teachings, what I am saying however is that my capacity to understand the simple truths that exist in the testimony of the Nephites, has been helping not only me understand more of the gospel but also all of the our investigators. I have been slowly learning a new principle. There are different levels of desire that comes from reading the Scriptures. First, when we really don’t know the importance of the Scriptures we are at level one. The first level is called reading. We just read the scriptures but we are just reading to read and not to learn. Level 2, just barely above reading, that being to read just for the stories. I am not saying that it’s bad to just read the different stories in the book of Mormon. All of the history has a special lesson that we can learn but... well… it’s not going to feed your soul all that much.  The third level is starting to ponder over what you are reading. In this level we begin to think and consider the topics and lessons. We begin to form a foundation of faith and trust in the Lord through his words. Level 4 is to deeply study the pages. Intensely meditate the subject matter… pray diligently for wisdom and knowledge…seek the guidance of the spirit and counsel from our modern day prophets. Really level four is to be in love with the scriptures. If you can believe it there is one level that is just a bit higher than level 4 that being the dominant level 5. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the most powerful feelings that we have in this world… that truly dictate our actions are our passions and love. Level 5 is to be in love with the scriptures that it arrives to the point of an addiction… that you don’t feel good if you are not reading them. Your heart becomes intertwined with the teachings of the prophets that your spirit cannot function properly, without a heavy dose of SCRIPTURE POWER!!!! We arrive at this point when reading for 15 minutes is not enough, and we begin to do everything in our power to feel the spirit stronger and stronger in our lives. In my mind I can see it as a real addiction… that if we don’t take larger and larger doses we don’t get that same spiritual high. I want to arrive to become SPIRITUALLY ADDICTED. I have decided that I am going to start to reflect, contemplate, and fall in love with reading the scriptures so that I can start to become passionately addicted them.

I hope that sometimes when I am writing you guys I don’t just sound like I am totally crazy… but know that I love you. I am glad that all is good at home.

Hurrah for Israel !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Harris

APOSTLES USE I-PADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hola Familia

How is everyone… it looks as though all is great and everyone had a ton of fun. I am super happy that all went really well and that there wasn’t any last minute stuff that stopped it. I am a little bit sad that there was only one picture. I was hoping to see a picture of my sister in her dress and now husband, or a picture of all the family that showed up. Well from the brother side of things I will be really honest. I was really down in the dumps this past Thursday because I really wanted to be there. I didn’t want Aubrei to feel bad to know that her brother really does miss her… but now that it is over… I really am sort of sad about the whole thing. I know that this is my calling right now and that I should be doing this because I am on the Lord´s errand but really I think that missing the wedding of oldest sister is and was the hardest sacrifice.

I am just going to tell you because I love you… WAIT before you make me an uncle. I want to be there for that.

Apart from my depression spell, I had a really good week. This week we baptized Isaac. He is really awesome. I was thinking that it would be really cool for you guys at home to know a little bit about him. Isaac like I explained in the past just showed up at the church one day… and really liked everything that we were doing there. As we began to teach him we ended up finding out more and more about him. A few times in the beginning when we talked about the Restoration of the gospel we would get really excited, and he kept on telling us that he had something that was the from the Mormons. One day he showed up very excited because he had found what he had been looking for in his house, and what was it……….. was a super old version of the book of Mormon in Spanish. It was super cool to see it because the book itself is huge; it is super thick, because it is made out of a different kind of paper.  There in the book he had some really old pamphlets, and we all had a great big laugh about how old he was because the pamphlets were in black and white.  He is not that old, he is 31 years old. He then explained to us that when he was 11 the missionaries came to his house and were teaching him the gospel. They came for three weeks straight and then never came back. He had always wondered why they never came back, we explained to him a little bit about how the mission works, and that sometimes the people change areas, and how in the past there weren’t very many missionaries in Perú. So now that I am thinking about it clearly, it is really fun to think that I picked up the work that someone else began 20 years ago. Some missionary prepared Isaac 20 years ago to accept the gospel so quickly and get baptized. I wasn’t even a player in the game, I was just sitting bench, and then played for two minutes that’s it.  What I am trying to say was that the game was already played, I just need to sit back and watch. I feel so blessed to have opportunities like this one my mission. I feel like the Lord really does prepare his children and even if it takes years for them to come back, he will send spiritual experiences that allow them to find the truth again. I am been thinking a lot about what are some of the blessings that I have had the opportunity to have just here on my mission. Well I have had some great companions. I have liked all of them… they have sometimes been hard to live with but at some point in our time together we have been friends. I also I have served in the super beautiful and hot jungle of the Amazon… I didn’t ever think that it was possible. I have had at lot success in my mission as far as the gospel goes too. I am super excited to say that in two weeks I think we are going to have another baptism. As far as life goes… it’s hard but the blessings outweigh the problems.

With lots of Love

Elder Harris

Just like every P-day we are going to play soccer. Let me just say that I am getting really good at playing soccer.

GEEK FACTOR

Hey something that was really cool that I forgot to tell you last week. In that talk that I got to hear from ELDER DALLIN H. OAKS (the apostle),while he was talking he raised his scriptures up to make a point, saying ¨when we read the scriptures we can receive more revelation from God¨.

ARE YOU READY?!!?!!!?!!!!?!!  Elder Oaks lifted up HIS SCRIPTURES AND IT WAS AN  I-PAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW THE GOSPEL IS TRUE CAUSE THE APOSTLES USE I-PADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, just kidding but how cool is that? 

A Time For All Things

Ok…

Well I am super excited that everyone is really happy right now even though it is really stressful there getting ready for the wedding. I can imagine that Aubrei is super stressed out too. Well I think that it would be really cool to see a picture of this card board cut out. I want to see how it turned out and all.

Well, something that I thought was really funny is that I was really wrong this last week. My companion is not from Guatemala, he is from Nicaragua.  I have been learning a lot about that place for the last 5 days.  From what I have learned is that the entire place is pure jungle. My companion lived in a little city in the middle of a really dense jungle in Nicaragua. I think that this is super cool because in reality he is from a little ¨Tribe¨. Ok, that is not exactly true, but super cool anyway.  He is from a family of 6 but he does not live with this family. He used to live with his grandparents.  He is in love with camping in the jungle and he loves it when it is hot outside. Which reminds me…the people think that it is cold here right now because it is supposedly winter. It just makes me laugh because it is not cold. I just walk around in my short sleeve white shirt while everyone else uses long sleeve shirts and coats. All the people in the ward have given me a nickname ¨el oso polar¨ or in English ¨the polar bear¨. My companion is always using his coat and all that jazz.

We had a really great experience this last week. We had one of the Apostles come this week to Lima. All of the missionaries in the different missions in Lima had the opportunity to hear him speak.  When we had the opportunity to meet with ELDER OAKS we were with only one other mission in Peru, that mission being Lima Peru east. The talk that he gave was awesome because it was more of a question answer session. He taught all of us better ways to rely on the spirit in order to receive clearer revelation. He made some really interesting points… one being that sometimes when we are looking for answers from God we look for him to respond in a way that we have pre-established. For example, let’s say that I wake up in the morning and I want to put on a pair of shoes. I have two pairs, one that is white and one that is black. When I get up and put on my clothes, to match and not look all that strange, I should put on the black shoes. In my mind I am thinking that I want to use the white shoes because they will be more of a statement. Yet in my wisdom I venture to ask you which pair I should use. You immediately say use the black pair. I then go out and put on the white pair because I liked them more. The moral of the story is this… if I was always wanting to put on the white pair… why would I go and ask you for your opinion if I already have in my mind that I will not follow you counsel. The same applies with God. Sometimes in life we come to God with questions like, where should I go to teach today, or what should I teach this individual? More than just that there are other questions, like father what should I study for this test or should I go this party? If in our minds we are not open to counsel because we are already set in our decision, why are we asking for help? The Lord will not respond to people that are insusceptible to the subtle whisperings of the spirit. We have to humble our minds in order to receive direction from the Lord. Another interesting point that he spoke about was that fact that sometime in the mission we will think about the future and what that will bring. Upon teaching us this topic he warned us that there is a time for all things. That as we approach that time and the Lord will revel to us that time… we can begin to think about the future. He made it very clear that for some people that this time is in the mission and that for others, it will not be until after the mission. He basically informed us that we need to stop being “Trunky” (ready to leave) and that we need to just have trust in the lord. That with time those blessings can be received if we are patient.  Ok I guess I should stop thinking about the future.

We had another baptism this week. Of a little girl named Lucero Milagros. She is super silly and reminds me a lot of Saydi because she is girly but has a wicked sarcasm. He mom is a member of the church but her dad is not. We are now in the process of teaching him… but it is going to be really tough because he is not married. I think if we can get those two married that he is going to be a really quick baptism. I am sending the pictures that I have of them they are a little silly cause no one likes to smile here.

I love you all a whole lot and I wish Aubrei the best of wishes. Aubrei just want you to know that I really do love you and I want to thank you for all the wonder conversations that we have had. You have always been a great sister and a good example for me. I know that now as you move away that you will start to make a whole storm of new decision. Please, please, please put you trust in the Lord. If we depend on his counsel we will live with this blessing. It’s Simple. I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have not promise.

I love you and miss you

Elder Harris