When Through The Deep Waters....‏

Everyone!

I don't know if any of you have ever taken it upon yourselves to memorize all seven verses to this beautiful hymn (recorded in our very first hymnbook), but the title of this email is from verse number four, and there's a reason. Just look at the pictures I'm including and you'll understand.

We did a service project to a place that got hit by a tornado, yes, a tornado (the first to hit in almost twenty years).

It flooded.

Now, I do not mean to diminished what happened our father Noah, but I'm pretty sure it was when the rain reached this level that people started to be like, "hey man, we were just joking..... Can you open up the ark again and we'll hop on in?"

We weren't aware that it was going to rain, but that's the beauty of rain, it just shows up without warning. No call to confirm the appointment needed.

It was awesome.

There were seriously places where it came above my knee. We were soaked to the bone anyways though, so sloshing through the streams that were once stone paved roads wasn't an issue. Except for the cold.

No one actually let us serve though. We just kinda ran around for a while divided into different groups. All the other groups found people to help, but we didn't. I did however, almost fall into a meter deep gutter, which would have been such a fun email to write you all from the hospital, but unfortunately, I was yelled at fiercely to not cross the road at that specific place.

So, that was pretty awesome.

Other than that, the work was slow. Still having issues managing myself and the area and I really, really wish I'd put more effort into the Personal Management merit badge in Boy Scouts, because now it's become crucial. But, we were able to find some really cool news who have definitely been prepared by God to receive us. I'm excited to see what happens and see who will be baptized in July!

The work goes on and we strive forward. This morning I read in 1 Kings 8 about the dedicatory prayer of Solomon's temple, and it's so powerful after having been through the temple! I haven't studied anything but the Book of Mormon, New Testament, and basic gospel principles for so long that the second we built on those principles with the temple it was like a volley of cannon fire opened up my mind and built on my understanding. My testimony has grown so much on the mission. I know so much more surely, I can say without a doubt that I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, who is our loving Heavenly Father. I understand who Jesus Christ is so much better and know His role in my life and in the Gospel so much better. I know He is my Savior. I know that His truth was placed on this earth by Joseph Smith and that it continues today by His divine hand. Because I know these basic things, I can tell all of you that our temples are sacred. They are the house of the Lord without a doubt. They are absolutely necessary and are one of the greatest gifts God has deigned to give us. I love them and I love Him.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful week and remember temple worship.

Love,

Elder Harris

PICTURES!

This is Elder Panaifo, of the jungle in Iquitos, Perú.

Then Baptism Pictures

And then our zone going to the service project

A Big Peruvian Family‏

Hello All!

It's wonderful to receive your emails and news! I love it.

This week has brought some rather crazy things. As I said last week, we have changes, Elder Yauney went home, and I'm training once again. Unfortunately, I left my SD card that actually has the pictures at home, so this week will not be a super happy picture week. Sorry. :(

But! I have crazy news! Every sixth Wednesday is changes day, and all who have or receive changes gather in the office, including those who are going home, so I got to see Elder Yauney for what I thought was the last time in my own mission lifetime. We said goodbye and I inherited an abdominal torture device that some people use to excercise. It's pure punishment.

Well, there were only five coming in, so instead of a big meeting, the five trainers go upstairs and have a couple of chats with the Assistants and the Sister Training Leaders. Just like the first time. Cool, right?

Well, then we go in and see our soon-to-be trainees, and as part of the slideshow, the President shows that I will be training...........

Elder Panaifo!

We're all happy and stuff and then the President looks at me and says, "And you guys will be sticking around for a while, because you're coming with us and the missionaries who are going home to the temple, so your companion can receive his endowments."

I was floored.

I was just super excited after that the whole day, and I got to accompany my companion through the temple for his first time. It was amazing and I won't forget it.

It also meant that I was with my trainer again and got to say goodbye just after having gone through the temple together with him. I have a unique mission.

I'm not going to lie, the work wasn't all that great this week. I realized that my work has been pretty sloppy and inefficient, and that was manifested very well with the brand new Elder Panaifo at my side. So, I've had to rededicate myself to finding problems and trying to think of solutions to these problems. The results have been good, and I've found some good solutions that I'm really excited to apply in the work this week.

One great thing did happen though. A man whose family was baptized less than a year ago listened to us for the second time. He got interested when in a Family Home Evening with his wife and some youth from the ward we talked about eternal families, and though he'd listened to the missionaries on various occasions, he finally was open to the promptings of the Spirit, and wanted to hear us again. So, this week we had the second visit, and we took a leap of faith and, rather than teach a safe, investigator lesson, we taught principles of a recent convert lesson to help fortify the faith of his wife and then help him maintain his vision. We taught about the Priesthood, which is a deep, difficult subject for investigators to understand, but the Lord blessed us with His Spirit and we were able to explain it in terms that he understood very, very well, and we were able to teach many of the doctrines and points of the first investigator lesson, and set a baptismal date for him. It was a wonderful lesson, and I'm so grateful that the Lord has blessed me to be have been able to be part of it. So! Hopefully we'll be hearing more about Hermano Montiel!

I love you all! If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Love,

Elder Harris

Speechful

That is the word that will be used to describe how I feel about having to write this email this week......... Too much to say, and I'm only giving myself like ten minutes this time because I've got people to write!

So, last week.... I can't remember a whole bunch of what happened to write you guys about.... Sorry. It wasn't the most eventful.

THIS week however is enough to fill three, maybe ten emails!

So, I mentioned a guest star or two last email, ¿no cierto? Well, there are two! And I forgot my camera cord, so no pics this week.....

But can I get a drumroll please?

1. Sofía Ortiz!

2. Elder Yauney!

Just imagine the three of us and our two companions sitting in a way too chuchi sushi restaurant and enjoying it wildly (except my smile is awkwardly false and I'm turned funny). You have just more or less pictured the image I will send you all next week. 

Elder Yauney finishes his mission (dies) this Thursday, so he wanted to say goodbye.

That wasn't the only goodbye, however. On Wednesday, he came to Capiatá (our companions went to his area) and we did a full day division so that we could then GO TO BAPTISMS FOR THE DEAD WITH SOFÍA FOR HER OWN FAMILY NAMES!!! 

It was brilliant.

Your fantastic missionary is also so smart to have forgotten his temple recommend. But guess who was in the endowment session at that same time who was interrupted to be asked of one of his oh so special missionaries could come and do baptisms with a convert; yes, President Mcmullin. It turned out so wonderfully. Sofía was baptized by the Temple President himself for her grandmother and it was so special. I felt the Spirit so strong. She cried lots.

She's doing crazy well! 

Other news, Elder Yauney will be back in Sandy ,Utah on Thursday late at night. Anyone who wants to go to his homecoming..... I cannot for the life of me remember his ward or address or anything like that, so..... You can visit him later. Well, he does live in a part called Pepperwood and it's ridiculously fancy, so if you can locate his ward just from that, fantastic!

But that was intersting.

Other news: Paola was baptized! This Saturday. For the second time in my mission, some feminine problems arose the morning of the baptism, and having learned from the first time, we decided to postpone a week. But it happened! It was so awesome and Bishop Gimenez is so gosh dang inspired! The words he spoke at the baptism were so beautiful and wise and it was amazing. You guys will love the pictures.

Elder Gallegos baptized her, but we both got to participate in her confirmation, which was excellent.

Other news: The change is ending this Wednesday! We finished up E' Gallegos' training last night, and this morning they gave us the news of what changes are going on.

Second drumroll!

I'm staying! And training again. That actually makes me feel really good that I'll be doing so, because I get a second shot to do even better, and it's really cool helping a missionary start from nothing (not to mention the fact that this is the greatest Ward ever to start in).

Elder Gallegos is leaving and will be companions with Elder Bonzo in a place called Limpio! I couldn't believe that. They guy knows like 10 people in the mission and who should be his companion but someone that he not only knows but has actually worked with on divisions! However, it really helped him out because he was stressed and afraid of having a difficult companion.

So, look forward to another three months from Piro'y! This round will be a lot of Recent Convert work, and a lot of trying to find investigators.

Questions, comments, concerns, please send them. 

I love you all, have a wonderful week!

City of the Dead

Well Folks,

Another week has passed and we remain here in Capiatá. This week was interesting because we were able to explore quite a bit more of the area that we inherited from the sister missionaries who were here before us. We've found some interesting things, but nothing really reportable yet... This week was pretty chill to be honest and there were a lot of rejections, so we're starting to look at how we can start working with members to get some better investigators who are genuinely interested in receiving us and not just willing to sit and listen.

I have some fun things to report and then spiritual, so we're going to do fun first! We visited a cemetery today! And the cemeteries here are totally different. They make houses or shrines and I'm not sure that there's always a body associated with the shrine or house. But we took loads of pics, so enjoy!

Walking around in there helps you to understand just how epic a Paraguayan zombie apocalypse movie would be. ;)

 

Due to strong Catholic roots, there are crosses EVERYWHERE that bear an inscription, INRI, which I believe to be what was inscribed above Christ's head (hear is Jesus, king of the Jews). It was really cool and interesting to see. But it's also kind of creepy walking by there at night, especially after seeing how extensive it is and how many bodies there really are.

But there's more! There are two other cemeteries, that makes three, and they are one after the other. So I've got more to show! Yes, that second one is a full sized Paraguayan house for a family of deceased. 

Also, we found one with a coffin still there. Kinda eerie.....

And then one of the cemeteries was a Korean cemetery, which was more similar to one of our own. All in all, it was an interesting morning.

In other news, I'm kinda sick today and have been since Friday. This week was pretty tough to keep focused, but we persevered and found strengths. It's when you're weak that you get the chance to show where you're strong, and we did a number of things well and actually ended up with better numbers as far as number of lessons goes. 

This week we found out that Natalia Castellani's "boyfriend" who prohibited her baptism is actually her CURRENT husband whom we've never met and who continues being staunchly Catholic. She hasn't told him she's been meeting with us and this whole moment was a pretty big surprise. But, a better surprise is that she remembers and has a testimony of EVERYTHING. It's been seven years since she investigated the first time, but she's still retained it all it's crazy! She even has a goal of being one day sealed in the temple to her husband. I couldn't believe it! So, when she saw that we had some pamphlets that she never saw the first time around, she demanded something new from us, and we took the opportunity to leave her a copy of The Family, a Proclamation to the World and invited her to read it with her husband. She accepted. Fingers Crossed!

We haven't gotten much work done this week, but we had two cool things happen this week:

Lesson with Brother Benitez

After our lesson with Natalia, we stopped by a less active member family, to see if she was there with her husband who is never there but needs help. He was! We taught him about the word of wisdom and he confessed to difficulties with drugs and alcohol, but he totally wants to change! He really does! Although they promised to be in church but weren't there, we made some real progress in that visit, and I think we're getting him on a track to being in the church. Furthermore, he admits his need for help and was really just humble. We're coming back for a visit today.

Paola

She's getting baptized this week! This Saturday! Yeah!

So, we did have a number of good things going this week and I'm happy. I know that the Lord has been very kind to us and blessed us in so many ways. I invite all of us to have, as President Uchtdorf invited, a spirit of gratitude in all that we do. I love you all!

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Harris

A Spirit of Gratitude

Buenas Tardes a Todos!

Autumn has arrived and it hit with force. Paraguay is landlocked, so the weather can change completely between two days. A pretty warm week on Monday-Wednesday turned into the coldest cold I've experience on the mission until today, which was sunnier, but is still cold. It's only ever in like the 50s or every once in a while the high 40s, which really just is not cold, but with the humidity, you feel it so much more. You have to bundle yourself up so much more to fight it. It's weird. The colder cold hurts worse and pierces and stings, but without humidity, you can evade and escape it better. This cold isn't so painful, but it's is so much more present. Also, no houses have heating, those poor people! They just bundle up with blankets! It's so sad.

Okay, news this week:

Paola:

We had a lesson where we actually talked with HER. Her aunt, Diana, who was baptized at the start of May, has been the only one responding to us in all of the lessons, but we finally got to listen to her (even if it required some rebukes directed towards Diana). It went well. We established that her date should be pushed back a week (now it's the 7th of June), and that little Paola has felt pretty bad from a couple of our visits. It was a humbling visit and I realized that we've been failing a number of people in a number of ways. We will be able to do a lot better this week though. However, it was very productive, and we felt the Spirit and were edified. She's really good and works hard at gaining her testimony.

Natalia Castellani:

Yes! I finally get to put a new name on here! So many people have come and gone and it's just been a really frustrating couple of weeks as far as work goes. But, she called out to us and asked us to come share with her the week before yesterday, and even though we were with the Relief Society President who needed to go home because it was getting dark and we were in a dangerous place, we sat down and had a short lesson. She has three children, one who is in high school, and two little ones who run around quite a bit. She's single and her little family has a lot of medical issues. She was about to be baptized when her boyfriend at the time threatened to leave and take the kids with him if she did. So, she has a testimony of everything and really wants to come to church again because she loves it and, in short, she has received three lessons in total and it's been great. Her date is set for the 28th of June! Let's go to work!

Those are the two most important. No one was in church this Sunday (the attendance was 33 people when normally it's around 90), and that's because of the inclement weather.

There's a lot of temptation to complain a lot and not like the weather, and there are a lot of accompanying difficulties, but I've been trying to not let anything give me a bad attitude ever. That's kind of a goal in life. All things contribute to happiness, nothing contributes to sadness. All things are a gift, especially challenges. I'm not saying to be specifically and individually grateful for everything, but if we, as President Uchtdorf urges, have a spirit of gratitude, we will be happy. We will. I know it.

One more thing:

In my personal study I was looking up love in the Topical Guide and I had a realization; Jesus Christ tells His disciples maybe twice ever (as far as is recorded) that He loves them. And yet, they feel so much love and affection from the Saviour. The deduction? Jesus occupied so much more of His time and efforts showing His love with actions or with other words. People felt His love whether or not they heard His personal testimony of it. Can the same be said of us? Jesus Christ asked us, "As I have loved you, love one another." We should follow His example. Do something this week! Show your love! Be a little more thoughtful, a little more kind, and really gain a deep love for those around. You will feel your heart grow and greater happiness will follow.

May you all have a wonderful day.

Elder Harris

An Arrow to the Knee

All you lovely people!

I hope your weeks have been great.

Mine has been! In spite of certain physical setbacks......

Last Monday, in playing soccer, I fell like four times directly onto my left knee and was left deprived of pretty much all the skin that was previously covering that part of my body. That soccer field was left with some deep gashes as well, but it's been an incredibly enjoyable experience to pour alcohol on that. You guys will see the videos of me shouting when I come home. It's not pretty.

Well! This week was a good one. We were able to find some pretty great new people, but I'll send you more updates about them when we can get some more lessons with them. Unfortunately, the finding process can be pretty bumpy, so I don't want to get you guys all attached to some people that I've only seen once or twice, but I have high hopes! We have like four complete families that have some awesome potentials! I'm excited.

In terms of long-time investigators, Paola López, the neice of Diana, came to church and her baptism is pretty set for the 31st. It's going to be great and a huge tool to help other investigators be baptized, and that really makes me happy. Some people were already asking if they could see a baptism.

Your little missionary is finally growing up! This week we were managing ourselves much more capably and we did some good work. It was joyous. There are a number of other cool things about this week:

Service Project!!! A super awesome member named César Fernández asked us to come by and prune a big tree. He had no ladder, so the task was left to their Big Friendly Giant {yours truly} almost entirely. I pruned that thing to death! No, not really, but it feels pretty violent when you're hacking at branches wildly with a machete. Some of them were pretty big and it took a ton of effort, but it was awesome. And afterwards, he treated me to a breakfast of an egg white that he whipped, and then added the yolk with some sugar and cinnamon and continued whipping for forever. It was an egg from his own chickens too. I thought I was going to get salmonella for sure, but everyone assured me that it's fine.

It was! It actually tasted really good. So remember! If you have your own eggs (none of that store-bought stuff, cuz that's what has the salmonella as I was repeatedly assured) you can just whip that business right up and drink it and it tastes really good.

Okay, we also had Ward Conference this week, in which we had a choir! Yay! I love choirs. That choir, however, robbed us of LOTS of missionary time, so I'm kinda relieved that we won't be going to practices anymore. Ward Conference was wonderful and our Stake President is a man I admire a whole bunch. He's only like 32 or something like that too, which is young, but he has a huge love of missionary work and talks about his mission in Chile all the time. It was a great conference.

My companion replaced his feet! We were able to get him his special orthopedic foot products and he can walk like never before. I think that it's helped him have a lot more desire to work and stay out there  And we're done going into the South Mission! No more trips to the forbidden land of danger!

Other than that.... I have a haircut today.

This week will be really good as far as the work goes and I have some crazy stories to tell you all next week. Expect to hear more about investigators, inactive members, and recent converts!

I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

Elder Harris

Pictures!

A Sizable Update

Hello All!

No, not every week can have an exciting subject line. This week I have to give you all some info and some pictures! So, the writing will be short, but the update big.

Last week, we got our changes. I totally forgot to mention such a happening. But, some interesting things happened. The other Elders here in Piro'y Ward left, and the area was redivided between us and the Hermanas. Because of that, our District shrank down to just the four of us, and I'm now the leader of this tiny little district. I'm happy about that, because I like leadership and I enjoy helping other missionaries work hard and improve. However, I now know for certain that callings in the church mean NOTHING about rank or personal acheivement. We work with numbers a lot out here in the field, and to look at my numbers for this last change..... You'd think I were a Macanero (disobedient missionary). On the other hand, if you look at the Hermanas on the other side of the street, they are doing stellar! It's kind of frustrating, but we're working hard and this change will be so much better. Especially now that we have more population. But, the point is, I am not leader over here because I'm great. I'm not great as far as output goes right now. Sometimes God has other purposes in mind for putting people into leadership, and I think this is something we should all appreciate a little more in the church. Down with pride! 

In any case, I am happy and happy to learn and grow.

After that, I wanted to let you guys know about some of Recent Converts with whom we're working:

Samuel Menchaca: He was baptized this last March. 17 Years Old and turns eighteen this year. He's going through a pretty rough time and really needs a lot of help. He's on a pretty bad path, and his baptism was a step in the right direction, but he's still pretty at risk, so we're putting up a big fight to keep him in the gospel.

Familia Cristaldo: Wilfrida, a really independent woman who I believe to be a lawyer and then her 17 year-old son (maybe he's only 16). There is a dad in home, but he's not a member and is practically never home. We're just trying to help them keep up their first year of activity and really integrate into the ward. No one should be lost.

César: 17 year-old who was baptized the same day as Diana. I'm not going to lie, I don't know him all that well, but he's cool and we'll enjoy our time together.

Gilberto: 16 year-old who ONLY SPEAKS GUARANI. I have no idea how I'm going to learn Guarani on top of all of the other stuff we have to do, but with the help of members and my Father in Heaven, I'm excited for the challenge!!!

Guillermina: An old grandma who got lost in the change of missionaries who was baptized less than a year ago. She can't come to church for lack of ability to walk and we're trying to help her out. We need to get the Sacrament out to her really badly.

Okay! Other than that, here are some pictures! Yay baptism!