As many of you may have found out, this week is the very week of Thanksgiving. That's a pretty important holiday for those of us "Estadounidense" persuasion, and a pretty much unkown or not cared for holiday everywhere else. Something about it being a U.S. national holiday or some nonsense like that.
Well, my companion really likes to do fun and exciting P-day activities, so he really, really wanted to do Thanksgiving with some other companionships. However, he is also Zone Leader, meaning that he pretty much ends up having to invite the entire Zone (26 people in our zone) to his fun activities. What does this mean? This means we had a real Thanksgiving. More mashed potatoes than all of those missionaries could eat, lots of veggies, good gravy, and for the entree, we made two giant chicken pies. We couldn't do turkey (it costs about 10 dollars a kilo and our budget was set for less than one hundred dollars), and everything else just looked like it'd take too long, so I had the brilliant idea of doing chicken pies because it's cheaper, quicker, and you can involve EVERYONE in the cooking process. Unfortunately, I was the only one who knew anything about making pie crusts, and even then I had to look up some ratios, and still messed it up! In any case, my mistakes just meant it wasn't all flaky and delicious, but it was definitely still good and we all ate way too much (I came close to throwing up on the bus ride home).
This computer hasn't any good USB plug-ins where I might actually be able to upload pictures, so you guys will just have to wait.
That's really unfortunate because we did another service project on Friday in which my companion and I and one other member (El Hermano Èscobar) dismantled a house. I say dismantled, because that's what it was; there was no demolishing. We had to take out all nails and just take it apart to move all the pieces elsewhere. It was really fun and we got to meet the new Hermana in the other area. Did I forget to mention something......?
Changes! In Baxter's mission, they were called transfers, and it's the six week period in which we work as missionaries. If we are moved to a new area, it'll almost always happen on the first day of a new change. My companion and I have been kept together in the same area, but one of the Hermanas in the other area of our Branch was traded out with a brand new Hermana! Hermana Johnson from Texas. The Hermana who is training her is one from Peru who has been in the other area since I got here, Hermana Villcahuman, so no changes there. The work goes on here.
The only other relevant change made is this: the other Zone Leader, Elder Hulsey, was traded out for Elder Jensen. So, you guys will probably be seeing a lot more of him in pictures and stories and the like. He was just serving in Pedro Juan Caballero, a city half in Paraguay and half in Brazil, so he sometimes slips into Portuguese because he had to learn so much of it there. He's a cool guy.
The work:
I do have one exciting thing to report about actual missionary work this week: an investigator actually came to church! Her name is Sofìa Ortiz, a highly intelligent divorced Catholic who just really loves learning about the church and just seems fascinated with what we believe and such. BUT! This week, we had three different lessons with her, and over the course of those, we finally were able to help her understand that she needs to gain a testimony, and that finding out if this is true or not is something she actually wants to do, AND that the way to do that is by reading the Book of Mormon, asking God if it's true, and attending church. She just gets it. So, that makes me really confident that she will continue progressing and that she'll be able to feel the power of the restored gospel in her life, which she could really use. We have a baptismal date set for her on the 14th of December, so I will be sure to write you two days later and let you all know how it turns out!
Things are moving along here! I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgivings! Please send me lots of pictures of everything and everyone always!
Love,
Elder Harris
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