Happy Birthday Sabriel!

May we all take this moment to wish Sabe a happy birthday! My sister is already twenty-four years old! Please, eat a little too much cake and sing a little too loud in my absence, it'll be like I'm not even gone!

In any case, I have some new people to mention, and some old. We found a new investigator who has now gone to church twice in a row! That's a big deal for us. However, we've only had one lesson with him. His name is Jorge, and he's the husband of a Less-Active member whom we just met last week when they went to church the first time. They seem like a really beaten down family, and he especially seems to want to change his situation and find some happiness and relief from the storm. I've been really worried about him, but you know, he really wants to change things. Yesterday, he came to church alone, without the support of his wife or other family members. It was really really good.

Then we have Nilza, and her two inactive kids, who also came to church yesterday! She has two kids who are actually members, and we've had some really solid lessons with her. This time, we're probably going to give her a Book of Mormon and invite her to be baptized on a specific date a few weeks from now. It's really beautiful to see the Gospel work within families and help change situations like these.

Then, Sofía. Thursday, we went through the Baptismal interview questions, and she voiced that she doesn't feel ready or want to leave behind her religion. We told her to make the decision to be baptized, and then pray if it's the right one, and that we'd check up on her on Sunday. Well, that means we planned no lesson for Sunday. We were just going to ask her if she'll be baptized on Saturday, and that's exactly what we did. She said, "No quiero dejar mi iglesia, Harris." (I don't want to leave my church, Harris). That was a difficult moment, and I just sat there and thought, but fortunately Elder Brown prodded forth with a lot of questions, and we felt impressed to talk about the priesthood authority to baptize among other things. We talked a lot about various important principles and ended with the invitation to go and get her answer. Throw herself even further into this and we'll keep planning on the baptism up until the very last minute. We're putting our faith forward, and I believe it'll be answered.

That's all for this week though! Nothing awesome this P-day. For my birthday, send me whatever you may see fit. Food, seasoning mixes, candy, decorations, whatever. You don't even have to send me anything. I'll love you anyways. Just like this:

I love you all.

Chau.

Elder Harris

Silver And Gold‏

In the mission, we talk about having or finding "gold" investigators. These are those who have sincere desires to find the truth and who have the faith to act on those desires. These are those who we believe will be baptized. It's a common theme out here.

So far, Sofía remains and will just about forever be gold, and this week we did some good work with her. She feels something about us, about the church, about the Book of Mormon. She says she just loves the peace that she feels with all of these things that she just hasn't found in a long time. Yet, she is unwilling to just leave behind all of her past life of Catholicism. She keeps praying for an answer as to whether or not to be baptized, but still isn't comfortable with the idea. So, this week, we read in D&C 9 with her, and issued an invitation to make the decision. Decide to follow what she has felt from God's messenger and then, when she has really honestly made the decision to do this thing, pray and ask if it is the correct decision. Do something definitive! She accepted. It was a powerful moment.

Another thing in that theme, silver and gold are forged in furnaces and THIS IS ONE! It's hot here! What's more, people are saying that this is a pretty mild summer. I come home at ten 'o' clock at night and check my little clock which tells me that it's 94 degrees farenheit in my room! And that's during the cool part of the day. At midnight, if we don't have Air Conditioning in our room (which has happened a couple of times), it'll stay that temperature the whole night.... The day is even worse. Not only that, but it's humid. My house is maybe a quarter mile away from the Rio Paraguay, which is huge, and breeds mosquitos. Not only that, but this land locked country also sports weather that is ridiculously unpredictable, meaning that there was a five minutes TORRENT of rain yesterday, while before it was hot and sunny, and then two hours later, it came back, only to leave again after half an hour and never return. It's pure evil.

Therefore, in this furnace of affliction, I will emerge a brilliant, pure, gleaming silver (I prefer silver to gold) beacon of manliness! It's true. We even do morning excercises to assure that that will occur. Actually, we have a full weight set in my apartment. Kinda random.

No, the real way that silver ties in here is with these babies!

You see, there are the five recuerdos of the Paraguay Mission, 1 Palo Santo (wood carvings that are really cool) 2 Ñandutí stuff 3 Aopo'i ties and shirts 4 Cool Leather Tapas to put Scriptures in, and 5 Filigrano: the art of taking pure silver and doing really cool filligree with it.
 You can guess which I enjoyed purchasing today.

The funny thing is, it's super cheap. There were pure silver ear rings there that were less than five dollars. Pures silver rings with really intricate designs for MUCH less than twenty dollars. It was awesome. I spent most of my recuerdo money, but at the same time, all the women folk in the family got gifts, so no complaints.

And yeah, there's more about this week too:

For example, the third picture I'm throwing in here is pure honey, which was harvested out by the border between Bolivia and Brazil. Some might ask, "Elder Harris, that's almost 3 days journey sometimes, and that honey is one of the most expensive things purchaseable here, however could you procure such an item?" To which I would respond, I got it for free and without asking for any. I came to Paraguay, and have bought honey without money, and without price.

I've told you about some people who are of the Chamacoco tribe, yes? Well, they live up there, and there are still a couple who didn't move back up for the summer. An 18 year-old in one of these families, named Dani, just up and gave us that bottle because his mom had just come back from up there and brought back some of the WILD honey that they harvest personally from the mountains up there. I kid you not, two boys go out, look for a GIANT nest, chop down the tree, bring in some smoke, and take the nest away after emptying it of bees. They harvest the honey and don't do a whole bunch to it. They had so many funny stories about the adventures of doing this work, and then they mentioned mountain lions. I, jokingly, asked if they had ever run into Pumas (you know, the really scary, black as night jungle cat), and they have. They say it's really dangerous. I wish we had missionaries out there so badly!!!

But yeah, I might make some mint tea to put that stuff in. It smells super strong though, so we'll see how it is used in the end.... I might just crowdsource its use. ;)

In the gospel this week, I've really just been noticing the weakness of man versus the strength of God. Everything speaks to our dependence on the Atonement, on the Holy Spirit to lift us up and guide us, on our necessity of God in every day. I've seen so many times that it is humility and absolute faith in God that gives any success or happiness. Dependance and utter trust and reliance are the only way. Every bit of our life and self that we leave to our own strength will not bring us peace, or happiness, or meaning. If we center ourselves around our Lord and Saviour, then we have happiness, but that is the only way. He is the only Way. I testify of that humbly in His own name.
Amen.

Pictures!

Folks! I have little time, so I'll just write a small report.

Sofía is doing well (full name: Sofía Ortiz). She's progressing towards baptism by reading the Book of Mormon and praying for strength. She couldn't come to church this week though. I have to tell you a bit about our last lesson though! Elder Brown and I have been digging deeper and deeper into Church multimedia in the last couple of weeks, and this time we ventured into Mormon.org. Sofía has been asking about how a "Mormona" is in normal life for a while, so we sat down with her laptop and watched like five videos with her. I was freaking out more than anyone else though! After every video I just wanted to jump out of my seat and shout I was so happy! These are real stories! Real people! Life!

So, it rekindled that youthful spirit I have that just loves life and the positive stories that come out of it. I invite everyone to visit www.mormon.org and look through the profiles. They helped Sofía a whole bunch. She laughed super hard when Elder Brown asked her "Entonces, ¿Cómo será la suya?" (How will yours be?). It was a really good lesson.

We also have a new investigator who came to church this sunday! It was super happy. Her name is Elena Maciel, and she's around the same age and in much of the same circumstances as Sofía to be honest. She's a single mother, but she's different from Sofia in that, where Sofía was simply open, having found what she believed to be all the truth, Elena is currently actively searching for God's power: she's looking for a place to be baptized. We watched the Joseph Smith movie (the short, twenty minute one) with her and she related to him super well. I really believe she will be baptized on her date, which is set for the 8th of February!!!

Onward!!! Now for some pics:

 

Elder Brown, and then him making things float. 

I ate tacos! 

Also, we went to the museum of natural history, and that's a big preserved snake by my face.

Of Brown and Broken Houses‏

A new companion!

His name is Elder Brown, and I'd send a picture if I could..... Next week.

Anyways, he is a really, really amazing missionary and is really teaching me a lot every single day. We work really hard and are really, really obedient. We're also tall, which can be fun sometimes, especially when there are always little kids in the streets who will ALWAYS say stuff to us. For example, just the other day, a whole bunch of them were playing in the street, and we walk by at missionary pace (FAST) and they all turn and shout after us "Why are you guys so TALL?"

Stuff like that happens.

In any case, things are really progressing well here. We had a lesson with Sofía last night, and I wasn't really sure what to talk about in the lesson. We'd made plans, but on the way to it, I commented that I just felt like what we'd planned wasn't right, so we decided to just let the Spirit guide, and what we found was simply miraculous.

Sofía has really struggled to find desires to be baptized and she simply hasn't felt that she's been solidly answered as to whether or not all of this is true. Here strong formation holds her back, and she's NEVER once attended another church, not even considered it. But, now she must decide. Her daughter Lucero is one year away from taking the first steps toward growing up a Catholic or a Mormon, and this is a really crucial time in Sofía's life as well, so the pressure is on even without us. 

Well, we began to discuss how she's felt in church and in reading the Book of Mormon, and we just found that she's been comparing religions more than anything, and she wants to know more about how a Mormon is in daily life. So, we talked about where the knowledge really comes from, as we almost always do, but then we did something very different.

Eldre Brown extended an invitation to be baptized on the 1st of February, which isn't all that strange, but it was the way he did it, and where we took it from there. You see, we normally extend that invitation with a lot of caution and almost apologetically saying "if you find a response by then," repeatedly. This time, we didn't ask her to pray for a response, because she has it. This time, we asked her to pray to have desires and to be strong enough to be baptized. Elder Brown read the story of Peter walking out on the water and talked about having the faith to abandon our safety and going to to meet Christ, and then I read about King Benjamin's people and their mighty change of heart, and how they acheived changing their desires. We didn't invite her to know, we invited her to act upon what she knows. And then something truly amazing happened.

She accepted.

Without hesitation or doubt. She accepted to prepare herself to be baptized February 1st. 

In all of this, we have to recognize the Lord's hand. These were not our words, not our actions, not our books of scripture or even explanations. We relied wholly upon the prophets of old and the Holy Spirit, and because of the mercy of God and the power of His Spirit, her heart is already changing, and she will be baptized. 

I testify of God's love for all of you, and I want you to know He is looking out for each of you individually.

Also, thanks everyone for the responses to my last email! I got a good laugh out of some of them, but thank you all. I don't have much time today, so I won't actually be able to write any more or get out any personal emails this week, but I'll probably be doing fewer personal emails in the future and putting more effort into the communal ones. There's a lot more life and work going on here than I've let you guys know about!! So, look forward to some things in the coming weeks, and maybe a few short responses if I have time. :)

I love you all.

May God be with you all.

Elder Harris