I'd Call It First Week of Changes But.....‏

Hello all!

This week was the first week of the new change, but I feel like the word change is just losing meaning to me, because nothing actually changed. I'm in the same area, with the same companion, on the other side of the Ward, the same two other missionaries, etc. The only news is that I'm now in a tiny District. We're just the Del Maestro Crew! Lote Guasu uprising! Elder Walters, a very young missionary, is the District Leader, and he's doing really swell. He's a great guy and a wonderful missionary.

The work this week is stabilizing as I'm getting more stable internally. This are still rough in the companionship, but I realized that I need to be emotionally stable and strong for myself. I've been focused on keeping obedient for myself and keeping myself worthy, but I finally realized that I can also be happy or at least at peace for my own self, that that is not something that I can place on a circumstance or person outside of my control. I realized that last Monday doing some extra studies with P-day time, and the result let me to an understanding that the true peace, happiness, and emotional stability that we seek in our lives doesn't merely come from living the Gospel in the big outward facets. Living the Gospel in the big and important ways gives us security, often improves our situations, and lets us know where our future lay, but I had all of those things and yet could feel distress, sorrow, angst, or anxiety. Studying it out, I realized that the peace of mind and heart that the Gospel brings comes from having the Holy Spirit as our constant companion. There are some really wonderful talks about how to invite that Spirit into every second of our lives, and reviewing those, I was able to make some changes. The result has been fairly dramatic, and mainly resulted that I'm much less dramatic. I love this work and love the Lord. He is so kind and merciful and, though we cannot force the Spirit to be with us, He will always be there to guide us as we bring our thoughts, desires, and actions into His divine will. I love it so much.

Speaking of the work, we've continued to find people who seem quite prepared. Especially one family that we taught where the Mom of the family was really interested in what we had to share and is really Christian. We'll be seeing what'll happen with them this week. I have hopes!

The Montiel Orrego family is still coming to Church and they're ready to take the next step up to do vicarious work in the temple. I'm so grateful to God that He blessed us to help that family come back into activity. The Gospel is beautiful and when others come to see it for the second time, it rings deep within them. 

I feel a lot of hope for this change. Nothing is concrete so far, but I feel like this week we're going to have some solid baptismal dates and investigators.

Today, we had an awesome zone activity with crazy games. It was kind of a minute to win it obstacle course. Five stations, and two teams of five people. The first team to get everyone through every station wins. Station one: thread a needle (more people got stuck on that than you'd think....... It was by far the longest). Station two: pull a coin out of flour with your mouth. Station three: Eat two fruits as fast as you can (choose from a selection of bananas, pears, apples) Station four: Drink a bottle of soda as fast as you can. Station five: Blow a balloon, tie it, and sit on it.

The last man has to eat and drink everything the others left. I was the last man. I never ate two apples and one pear so fast in my life.... I finished off the apples in only three bites.....

It was great fun! I love zone activities and love spending time with good friends in the mission.

One thing I've missed in the Mission is cooking pizza from scratch, but tonight we have a gigantic Family Home Evening, and so I made pizza dough early this morning! It still turns out well. :)

That's this week! I hope that you area all doing well and can have an enjoyable week! Have lots of faith in God and keep worthy and inviting to His Spirit!

I love you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Harris

Another Change In Retrospect

Hello Everyone!

I hope that you have all had great weeks and that you feel happy with what you're doing. This week was the last week of the change for me, so I'll be finding out tomorrow what's going to become of me. I'm looking at the week and the change, and I feel pretty good about things. There are some obvious flaws, and it's been a roller coaster, but I feel good about my own efforts and the things that I've been trying to learn in my time here. I have so much to learn and lack so much growth, but I know that the Lord is with me, and He will not put me in a situation where happiness and peace are out of reach.

This week was a little crazy because we did two divisions in the same week again. But it was really good to do them. They definitely helped me to feel more confident and refocus my mind in good ways. The first was with Elder Àlvarez, who is one of my Zone leaders, and who is from Chile. It was really great, especially because we were in Capiatà again! But the other side of the Ward that wasn't my area.

During that division, we went to visit Hermana Adorno, who was Relief Society President when I was in the Ward (she isn't anymore). She and her sister were so distressed by a sickness that had come upon their nephew. We were able to bring the Spirit there and help them to feel that consolation, and then, when their nephew arrived, they invited us to give him a blessing of health. Elder Alvarez blessed him, and it was a moment of incredible power and Spirit. I was really glad that I was able to be there to participate in that blessing.

As far as the work goes in the area, Familia Montiel Orrego, the recent converts who'd gone inactive, came back to for the third Sunday! That makes them  active members now! That, and the fact that they're doing the other things, like reading their scriptures, praying, Family Home Evening, and just progressing spiritually. It's been a great blessing to help them return and grow in their testimonies, and we hope to continue seeing that progress and they put down deeper roots.

Other than that, the work is still somewhat stalled here in the area. I get frustrated a lot, but I'm excited to see what happens with changes, and if it's me and the same companion in the same area, I'll be excited to set some new goals and see some real growth here.

I love the Lord and know that He blesses us in afflictions and in good times. I hope that everyone is able to grow and to see their personal progress in this week and remember that you are all in my prayers.

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Harris

A For Effort!‏

Good Morning All!

This is an email about another crazy week on the mission. So much stuff happens with so many different people that it's hard to keep up with all the time. When I think about it on a week to week basis or on a long-term scale, it really seems incredible that we get through it all or that we do all the things that we do. It's here that I'm learning a lot about how to plan for the future and live in the present in such a way to acheive what you've  planned, but really just focus and worry and feel anxiety for the bite-sized chunk of life we usually call a day (sometimes less). The mission has taught me a simple art form of pleading with the Lord the strength to do what He wants me to do just enough for that day, and sometimes just enough for the next couple of hours or the next task. The miracle is this: it works.

In talking about the work, it's been interesting. I'm really trying to unify with my companion more, because we don't really share a vision for the work or what we should be doing or even being here in the area. There have been some good successes in this week. Other things still need to improve.

Celia Mereles was finally there for another visit on Wednesday, which went super long, was super great, but in the end, we weren't able to find her again and she didn't come to Church! It's frustrating.... When we can't teach someone, and they can't find the will to take the invitations that we make them to be able to come unto Christ and rejoice in a firm and fruitful repentance, we have to start looking at the option of leaving them. I don't want to leave Celia, because I know that she needs help, but I feel that she might not be letting us help her.

The only people we visited in the week who in the end came to Church on Sunday were the couple: Diego and Rossana Montiel Orrego. They're doing quite well! They had their first ever family home evening last week and are progressing in the Gospel. Their testimonies are growing and they're finding themselves strengthened by the Book of Mormon. It's not perfect, but it's good progress.

It was also so wonderful to get to talk with the family on Saturday! That always brings strength and consolation and brings the sights higher to remember that what I'm doing here has longer lasting repurcussions than what's in the field.

We've been looking for new people this week, and we've had some good first lessons, but nothing really solid so far. We're going to follow-up with those whom we've visited this week, but we need to keep searching for more new investigators. There must be some way to find them, and I have that faith that there are people prepared to receive us.

I love this work and know it's true! I hope that you all have a wonderful week and can feel your own testimonies grow!

Love,

Elder Harris

Never A Dull Moment‏

Good Morning Everyone!

I'm finally writing a little earlier today! It's been a crazy week, as ever, and had a lot of random, unexpected highlights. In the work however, it's been a little slow..... Almost feels like it's not moving.

The best thing that happened was that I FINALLY GOT TO SEE MEET THE MORMONS! Everyone has written me about the movie, when I was in the office, I regularly watched the trailer in anticipation, and I've just been anxious to see it, and the chance finally came. As I've said before, President McMullin has a special copy, and so he and the Stake organized an activity for missionaries and members that if they would bring a friend or other nonmember, they could come see it in the Stake Center. We weren't going to have anyone come. We'd made some sincere efforts, but our investigator, Celia Mereles, couldn't come, and then no one else could. But we had an ace in the hole, and it was a member family that we visit every week to talk about participating in missionary work, and they came through! So, we got to go.

It's a great movie, and even though I had to see it in Spanish, I was impressed by many parts of it. No one talked about it like a documentary, so I didn't think that it'd be done documentary style, so that was a surprise. But nevertheless, it was captivating and well done.

As you can see in the pictures, we also did some unexpected service this week at the Elders Quorum's President's house, which went well and helped us gain his confidence. We actually have a family home evening tonight with them, so lets hope that they'll have some good references ready. ;)

But I can now definitively say that I'm ready for a job in construction work, as long as we're using South American techniques and there are no power tools involved...

The other picture is of our house yesterday morning. There was a half-inch of water all over the house, because it rained BIG TIME Saturday night. The water you see there is literally what came spouting up out of the ground over that part of the house. So, rainy day. That brought with it the real Paraguayan fall-winter, which is always cool. So today we're enjoying the weather, with a nice sun and refreshing breeze.

As for me, I'm moving forward. I talked last week about how I've been lacking a bit of charity, and it was funny because it's not something that I was able to study well or really look into during the week (except for reading the epic talk "The Merciful Obtain Mercy" By President Uchtdorf), and then Sunday, in Gospel Principles, I had to teach the class. About charity. You know the scripture that talks about how when we teach by the Spirit, both the teacher and the student are equally edified? That described the moment perfectly. Gospel Principles gives four ways to develop charity:

Study Christs life, because He is the supreme example.

Ask for charity in fervent prayer.

Love yourself. Understand that you have inherent value as a child of God. Loving yourself means that you will be obedient because you see yourself as being worth the effort necessary to gain eternal life. You see Christ's sacrifice as a gift and instead of feeling ashamed for making him pay for you, you feel grateful and understand that if He says you  were worth it, then you really must be.

And finally avoid thinking that you are better than anyone. When we receive a blessing or improve, we become grateful to God instead of proud in ourselves.

These were things that I needed to hear. I've made some changes, and God has blessed me more than I could have imagined, and so I feel much better in these last two days than I have in a while. I'm so far from perfect, and I want to badly to be a perfect missionary, but I can be patient and I know that the Lord is pleased with what we're doing in the area. Because of how I felt, my companion, who is going through a difficult time on his mission, was suffering and falling into self-doubt and questioning his presence here in the field. But as soon as I humbled myself, prayed fervently, tried to love my own self more, and the Lord granted me greater charity, I could see a change in him as well. We bless others so much more when we are okay with ourselves. We almost always have to repent of something or other in order to be okay with ourselves, but if we can retain that feeling, we can be a great strength to everyone around us.

I know this is all true! I hope that you all have a wonderful week, and a happy Mother's Day!

Love,

Elder Harris