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
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