WEEK 50 Sweet Blessings!

This week has been sweet! Saturday I had my favorite MoBat day EVER. I took three awesome tours. First tour: The group walked in and this lady walks up to me and tells me that she was here back in June, and that I took her on a tour. She said her son was with her, and that he's less active. She then said that now he's fully active and doing great, and that it all started here. She told me she just wanted to thank me and tell me that the things we do here do not go unnoticed and that we're changing lives. I definitely teared up a bit. It was such a sweet moment for me. 

Sisters Davies Patterson and Harris

So that whole group she was in was actually a mission reunion. They all served in the Philippines together, 30 years ago. One of the other gentlemen from the tour was from Texas. He brought his whole family with him. At the end of the tour, their 12 (?) year old son kept trying to talk to me, sort of. He looked a little nervous and kept almost speaking and then not. Finally I just asked him if he said something, and he said, "Yeah, umm, are you related to Liam Harris?" I was about to say no but then remembered oh yeah, I do know a Liam Harris, so I said yes and asked if Jeff and Cecilia were his parents and he said YES! Turns out Morgan (the boy) is Liam's best friend! Whaaaaat? And it's Liams birthday soon and he'll be turning 12. Happy Birthday, Liam! It was a pretty cool tour. 

Second tour was the French guy in the picture I sent. Super funny, and he really got a much better impression of what Mormons actually are. :) Third tour: J. came back with his brother and his brother's friend! They laughed a lot but really liked it. :) It was way sweet!

The other day we had MTEs! Woo! Missionary Training Exchanges. We got two referrals in the temple! This one guy was from Belgium, and he speaks Italian, and what do you know, but the one missionary from the whole San Diego mission who is FROM Italy was there, so they got to talk to each other. It was way cool. :) MIRACLES. The next day at MTEs we learned about positive thinking. :) Just what I needed! It was super sweet. :)

Oh man. We had a SUPER cool experience. So the less active that I talked about before, the one that can't pray out loud because she can barely breathe, invited us over for dinner! She made us these delicious potato...things. You boil potatoes then mash them a little, and add queso fresco, a few eggs, a little chicken bouillon, and... I don't remember what else. But then you fry them. Not very healthy. But SUPER delish. :) But here's the cool thing, once again, in case you missed it: SHE INVITED US TO DINNER. This is a HUGE step. She's the one that said she was going to fall asleep while we talked to her. How cool is that? :) Hopefully she'll come to the activity on Saturday. :)

Well, that's about all I can remember right now. It's like 40 degrees in this room so... I can't really type much more. Haha! Have a great week! :D

PS

Next transfer I think I'll finish training Sister Bermudez. We'll find out, but I think that's what'll happen. Then I think I'll go full-pros for 2 transfers then come back to the MoBat. We shall see!

--Hermana Harris

Week 49 Looking for more Miracles!

We went to the mission office and got Hermana Bermudez her Tiwi card so she can drive next week! WOOOOO!!! It'll be the first time I've had my companion drive me ANYWHERE. Since I've never had a companion that could drive! :D Exciting stuff. :)

The trio is going super well. :) Sister O'Neill and I are basically complete opposites, and Hermana Bermudez is the perfect balance to both of us. :) It's PERFECT. :)

This week has been super sweet! We're working hard and teaching and learning and doing what we're supposed to do. Yesterday we got to do some service with one of our investigators, we'll call her S. She's going through a super hard time. Her whole family is having issues sleeping. So she has these sleeping pills she's taking, but her son supposedly took 4 of them (she is 4 times his size and only takes 2) and passed out on the ground.

We're trying to help her stay strong and to help her family through the Book of Mormon. We're expecting MIRACLES with this one. We're really going to need it! She's willing to do anything to help her family. Oh and they're living with her brother, because they can't pay rent, and her brother is an "dancer." (He has a picture on the wall that says so. And we've met the guy.) But they tell us he's a dental assistant? It's kinda weird... one step at a time I guess!

We also had a way cool miracle with a less active!!  She's having a hard time breathing and thus praying. >_> Anyway when we got there, we knocked but no one answered, so we knocked a few more times, and waited around a lot longer than usual. Then suddenly the door opened! Turns out her son was sitting on the couch ignoring us but eventually she made her way to the door and let us in. She then sat on the couch in the corner and pulled a huge jacket up around herself and told us she hoped we didn't mind of she just fell asleep while we talked to her. Basically things weren't going to well. We sang, prayed, shared a scriptures with her or something, and that was about it. Then after we prayed again, we asked if there was anything we could do for her. She said no, but said she was just about to make dinner. So we immediately volunteered to help her with it, and she actually let us! So she taught us how/we helped her make albondigas. (Meatballs in soup.) It was super sweet. :) She was laughing and smiling and super happy. It was so cool! I love it. :)

We went to a funeral on Saturday. It was for this lady in our branch who had passed away because of cancer. We only got to visit her once. All of us missionaries sang Grande Eres Tu. It went well, as far as funerals go. :( Very grateful for the Plan of Happiness!!

We recently inherited a former investigator from the other sisters. (We switched up the areas a bit.) She's the mom of one of our members. She was almost baptized, but then, according to her, "se metio el chamuco." She recognizes that Satan doesn't want her to do this, and we had a super good lesson with her about baptism and she said she'll read the Book of Mormon every day and committed to be baptized in 2 weeks. We have high hopes for her too!!

Oh man. So all the MoBat sisters that are leaving this transfer got to sing a song together at the fireside. It was absolutely incredible. ^_^ I don't remember what it's called. But the chorus talks about drop by drop. It's all about how we're lamps and part of this big plan and drop by drop by drop we're preparing ourselves to meet Him again. It's super sweet. ^_^ Anyway basically I love them all and I'm NOT ready for them to go!! >_<

We had a super cool Zone Meeting this week. It was SUPER spiritual. We read part of D&C 76 and wrote down what the Spirit told us about what our Heavenly Father expects of us. There was such a feeling of peace and happiness in the room. It was SO STRONG. I loved it! Suuuuper cool. :) Being on a mission is the best!

Well, I'm ready for another week of miracles! Love you all!!

--Hermana Harris

Week 48 The Heavenly Virtue of Patience

Hermanas O Neill, Bermudez and Harris

We recently reorganized the areas in Sweetwater, so that was pretty exciting. We're excited to be working in a new piece of area (well, new for us) and we've already added people and it's pretty cool to see how the Lord has His hand in everything.  That's been our miracle so far. We also had a ton of people at church! It was such a miracle! We had set an appointment to visit with a less active Sunday morning, but she wasn't there, so Sister O'Neill suggested we go see M. So, 30 minutes before church, we visited her and invited her to come to church - and she said yes! So she came to church with her 3 kids! But J. came too! It was so awesome!! Unfortunately, because we have Battalion shift at 12:30 we had to leave them as soon as Sacrament meeting finished. So we got them to classes and ran off. 

Anyway, life is awesome. Last week we told J. to read all of 3 Nephi but he only read 3 chapters in a whole week, so I told him I was disappointed. That night he texted us at 3:30 in the morning saying he finished the whole thing and went the extra mile and read 4th Nephi as well. Then the rest of the day he kept texting us about how awesome he feels, and how he just feels super happy and excited and he just wants to feel like that all the time. We're trying to get him to see that THAT IS THE HOLY GHOST TELLING HIM THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE, but he... I don't know. He just says he doesn't know. >_> It's frustrating. Oh well. I guess "the heavenly virtue of patience is required."

Well I learned that excuses are lame. We talked to someone who said they can't read the scriptures because they're too busy sleeping, they can't go to church because they don't want to ask for a ride, and they can't pray out loud with us because of their allergies - they can't breathe very well. So... the moral of the story is to stop making excuses, Sister Harris.

Well. Halloween was sweet. :) The Bements bought us pizza. Aww! AAAND on Thursday mornings we have training meeting, so for this training meeting they had us come to the Seegmiller's apartment and they fed us breakfast! Then we wrote down our name on the top of a piece of paper and then passed it around (30 seconds a paper) and wrote down things we loved about each other on their paper. It was super cool and I realized how much I stinking love all the sisters here. :) The next day was Dia de los Muertos, so there were a lot of people running around with their faces painted like skeletons and a BUNCH of people took the tour. OVER half of them were nonmembers! It was so sweet! :D

Ok well that's about it. Love you all!!

--Hermana Harris