Week 62 Good byes are getting harder!

So... guess what? We had transfer calls this morning and we're staying together, Sis Amendola and I! :D YEAH WOOHOO AWWWWW YEAHHH!!! :D Super excited. :) And in sad news Sister Bermudez is going full pros. That is not sad that she is going full pros, but the timing.... she will not get back to the Battalion until the day after I go home. :( My baby is going full pros! (The sister I trained is going to be teaching the full time for the next few transfers) And my mom went home today. ( The Sister missionary who trained her) :( Sister Salinas is en route to Mexico. :( These goodbyes get harder and harder. :(

Farewell for the leaving sisters. :( Sis Salinas

 The cops from last week. :O

 Funny story. So. Turns out sister Amendola and I don't know our apartment number. Hahaha! Here's the story. The Afflecks are leaving super soon, and this one time I made a blueberry pie and Elder Affleck LOVED it and told me if I ever wanted to, he'd buy all the ingredients and I'd make enough pie for all the Battalion sisters. Well, I never took them up on that offer but I wanted to make them a pie, so I got the stuffs together and made it. THey actually live in our area that we serve in, so we were going to bring it to them but we forgot it at home! So we called Sister Affleck and she said her husband was still in Old Town, so he could stop by and get it. So we told her we live in apt 8, and the dessert was on the counter. So she tells her husband to get the spare keys, go into apartment 8, take the dessert off the counter, and bring it home. So he does just that. But uh. Turns out we are #11. So. He stole Sister Mulipola's lemon cake. We got it figured out eventually but there was a pretty awkward moment there... very funny. :)

 Our pan is too big for the oven so it went in sideways ........ and uh the cookies didn't stay very well. >_<

8010: Valentines Day fun. :) Heart attack!!

8017: Stopped by the Battalion for a second... we were doing studies and had our fuzzy socks and didn't want to take them off or put on other shoes so... well... hahaha. :)

This week we had exchanges! Sister Rex came with me to La Mesa, and we didn't get lost! She started her mission in La Mesa, and she's going home next transfer. So that was a long time ago. But we were able to visit some of the people that she used to teach and they're super excited for us to come back! :D So we're pretty excited. It's going to be good! :D

The fireside on Sunday was awesome! :D It went super well. :) On Valentines Day we got to heart attack a few doors. It was a blast. :) We also got to visit a member, P. She's my favorite. I want to adopt her. ^_^

We had a sweet lesson with X. She's this adorable Japanese lady who married a Mexican. She's the cutest lady ever. ^_^ LOVE HER.

Ok so the special missionary fireside on Tuesday was AWESOME. ^_^ Absolutely loved it. Learned a lot about how to do missionary work and what we can do better. :D Hooray for being better missionaries! :D The area is doing really well. We're adding more and talking to more people and conquering fears. :D Yay!!

Well, that's about it for now. Thank you for all your love and prayers. :)

--Hermana Harris

Week 61 Kindness is a wonderful thing!

We had MTEs again (Missionary Training Exchanges). I loved MTEs and I loved having Sister Contreras with us. She was our trainer! So she came along with us all day. :) She's such a powerhouse missionary. Anyway, I feel better about missionary work in general this week because I finally started talking more openly to people. I read a quote once that says, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. (Of course, that also has to be in harmony with the gospel as well...). (And it's supposedly Mahatma Gandhi that said it!)  But anyway, I know I need to talk to everyone, but I just have a really hard time actually opening my mouth. So I just did it anyway and it was easy and even though people look at us funny and say weird things, it's okay, and I feel happy, because I know I'm doing what God wants me to do and what I have been called here to do. :) Yay!

So there's a fireside tonight. I'm definitely excited about the fireside tonight. Clayton Christiansen, the one that wrote The Power of Every Day Missionaries. They had us read the Boston Case Study thing, about Sister Fulcher (Idk if you know what that is) and apparently he's going to talk about it. The case study was pretty sweet, so I'm excited to see how we can apply it to our branch. :) Exciting stuff!

I forgot to say - the other day Sister Amendola and I sang in Sacrament Meeting together. And gave talks as well. Haha. I was pretty nervous but I didn't die, and the song came out fine as well. :) Sister Affleck, one of the senior couples, talked to me the other day, and asked me if I felt like I had used my talents as much as I had wanted to on my mission. I realized that I've been wanting to sing more but I haven't. So I want to put something together with Sister Wells.

So on our way to email, we pulled off the freeway to take our exit and in front of us the cops were pulling this guy over, and then... well... the police all hopped out and one of them held up his hand to us to tell us to stop and they all pulled out their guns and came up and got the guy out of the car and he had his hands up and they patted him down and had him get on the ground and they handcuffed him and then another police guy came in and it was crazy!! Then they finally let us go past. It was intense. :) But super cool. :)

haha. Last Tuesday was crazy. While Sister Amendola got her haircut I got to talk to this really nice gentleman named J.. We talked about him being an attorney and his life and where he's traveled and his family and religion and the Mormons he knows. It was a very cool discussion and he was super nice and said he'd come by the Battalion. :) Also. The other sisters we share a car with on p-day were shopping at Target, and bought over $200 of food/clothes... and these members ran up before they could swipe their cards and paid for them! Oh man. So when they told us about that, we said, haha you should take us out to lunch! They were all over that, so we tried to decide where, and came to the conclusion of Panda. So we got our food, and sat down. Then someone walked up to us and said, "You were too fast! I was going to pay for you. So here, next time's on me!" and handed us all a gift card. Oh man. Twice in a row! It was crazy. Well, then that night we met an former member. He looked just like the captain from Firefly. It made me sad to see how sad he was. He's studied a lot of history and has decided there's no way God exists. There are so many scriptures that talk about the wisdom of men and how people will harden their hearts against the light... It's sad to meet those people in real life.

Thursday we had a member come out with us. She's SO awesome. :) As we were coming back, she said something like, "I think that before this life, we agreed/accepted to come to the earth right now (as in, during the hastening of the work) to do missionary work!" I think she's right. :)

Like I said, we had MTEs on Friday. For lunch we stopped by Subway. The lady who made my sandwich told me her sister is a member. She was really nice to us. That night we were able to stop by and visit an investigator that Sister Contreras had taught when she was in La Mesa, and she was pretty open and grateful for the visit. She even cried a little. It might be her time! We're going to see her again tonight. :)

On Saturday this lady named K came to the Battalion. She was dressed in a black Victorian dress, with a black hat, her hair in one of those hair net things with pearls on it, and she had gloves and a box/bag thing (like, how they used to use boxes instead of purses?) and her dress had all these pins all over it. I asked where she was from, and I heard, "Mawilyn." I thought it sounded Asian. So I asked her where that was, and she said, "On the east coast." "What brings you to Old Town?" "The miwitawy." Oh. I get it. *forehead slap* Well, that was embarrassing. Not only do I look like a moron, I also probably just made her feel uncomfortable. From the beginning, though, I felt a kinship with her. Probably because she looked like Nichole Grey (Jenkins). Well, I started the tour and then they ushered a couple from Taiwan on as well. Then in the next room three other people were added in. It ended up being a very unique group. Haha. She was pretty cool though. Very kind and respectful and sweet. Like I said, I felt a kinship with her. I love it when that happens.

Preach My Gospel class went super well! We started by sharing miracles we had see that week, and then asked them to share their missionary experiences/miracles. It was so cool! They've had some sweet ones so far. :) So proud of them! The Elders set up an obstacle course and we did the object lesson from District Meeting in sweetwater where they had the missionaries lead someone through the course but they can only talk to them for 10 seconds at a time, and then the 'investigator' has to walk on their own until the missionaries come back. Then you do it again, only this time there's a member who can hold on to the investigator and talk to them and guide them the whole time. :) It's super awesome and they loved it. Then we discussed a little what we learned and what we can do to be missionaries and invited them to bring a friend to the Fireside on Sunday. Sister Amendola's going to sing in it. It's a song called What Love is This by Kari Jobi. It's pretty cool.

Well. It's been a good week. The members are awesome and it's cool to see how planning and all that really works. It's awesome to be an instrument, to say something and have them completely relate to it and see how the scripture really spoke to them. It's the best. :) I love being a missionary! :)

--Hermana Harris

Week 60 Finding! Serving! Loving!

This week we found someone! Well, we had tried to visit her before but she always told us she was busy. But this time she let us in and we talked to her. She's super awesome and it was probably one of my favorite Restoration lessons. Just a little short. But it's good. :) Anyway it was super cool. :)

The other day we had a surprise night in the area. We thought we had the morning in the area but turns out we had the night, but we ended up having half our lessons for the whole week all in that one night. It was crazy busy and we had a miracle! Remember how there was that person who said his sister was in the hospital? Well, the sad news is she passed on, but the good news is her sister was home when we went by, and she let us in, and we sang to her. And she cried. We taught a little about the Book of Mormon and shared favorite scriptures and she thanked us so much for coming. She said it was perfect timing and she was so grateful for the peace we brought to them when they really needed it. It was so cool! :D Anyway. :) Very cool.

We had a funny/embarrassing moment. Sunday night we teach a PMG class. Right before class, I called one of our investigators and set up an appointment for after the class. He sounded super excited. So after the class we asked some of the members to come with us to the lesson. When we got to our investigator's apartment, a note we had put on his door two days ago was still there, and he didn't answer when we knocked. That's weird. So.... we called him again, and he said he opened the gate, but there is no gate at his house... so we were super confused until the member who was with us said she recognized his voice, and that he's a member in a different ward. I have no idea how his number got saved in our phone under our investigator's name but there you go. So... yeah. Anyway. We apologized and explained that we can't visit him but we sent the Barrio 20 sisters to go see him. haha. Bummer...

Yesterday at the Battalion we had a SWEEET miracle. :) Several. One of which, we contacted this lady and it sounds like she's going to be golden! :) Super cool stuff! :D Then at the Battalion it was so awesome. So I took this tour with this gentleman (I forgot his name, we'll call him R) and his friend S. So R and S are work buddies, and R is a member, S is not. R took S to temple square and all that stuff, and last night he brought him to the Battalion. So we took him on tour. Right before I started the tour, I walked in and R was explaining to S that we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but that the term Mormons comes from the Book of Mormon. So I wasn't sure how much he knew or did not know about our church. Well, in outfitting we talk about the equipment the men received and what they brought with them. So we gave him is 1816 Flintlock musket and asked him if he would have felt ready to go off to war. He said no, and that he wouldn't be able to rely on his weapon. So we used that to segway into the scriptures, saying that the men knew they couldn't rely on their weapons, but they didn't have to. They were given a promise from their prophet that if they were true and faithful they wouldn't have to fight! So they brought with them their scriptures, their Book of Mormon and their Bible, which both testify of Jesus Christ. When I said that, he quietly whispered, "Wow" and I could see the Spirit working on him. It was probably my favorite moment at the Battalion. It was so cool! I know the Spirit testified to him about the Book of Mormon. It was so intense! ^_^ LOVE IT. :) After the tour Steve was so grateful and so happy. You could tell he really felt the whole story. Possibly my favorite tour ever. :)

Also I made up a joke!

Why are sporks so small?

Because they're tiney spoons!

 

:)

(As in, they've got tines.)

:)

Ok.

Well, hope it made you laugh. :)

--Hermana Harris

Week 59 I will never stand down!

So I forgot to talk about what we learned in Stake Conference. They talked about missionary work, but in specific something I learned a lot about personally was our responsibility for our family members who are lost sheep. We're put in families for a reason, and it is our duty and responsibility to help them!! Uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, all of them. :) pretty nifty. Anyway.

Someone in the English ward before us gave a talk and said there is this sweet video on youtube called Idol Worship, in which it shows these tribes and their worship of idols (face paint, chanting, etc), and you think, wow that's crazy, I would never do that... and then it says something like, or let's put it this way: and then shows people in a giant football stadium with their faces painted and chanting and stuff. Sounded cool.

Also at Stake Conference they announced that this Fast Sunday all of southern cali is going to fast for rain. We're in a pretty bad drought, apparently! I made up a joke about it but uh... yeah. Maybe not.

We met this lady yesterday. Return missionary, sealed in the temple, but her life took some tough turns and said she's never going to come back to the church again. She helped me see exactly what I don't want to be when I get back., especially when things don't go how I want. I WILL NOT BE BITTER AND I WILL NOT LET OTHERS TAKE AWAY MY SALVATION. The Church is true, the book is blue. It's how it goes. I will never stand down, not ever!

This week I had two temple shifts in a row. Thursday we went on exchanges, and I went with Hna Milla, who has only been here for 3 weeks. We had temple shift, which means we were out there from 12-5. It's a long time, esp. when it's freezing (ok, I know I can't complain, but it's a wet cold. I'm still a desert rat, what can I say?) and no one is there. But we talked a lot and got to read some scriptures. Then, Friday I was back with Sister Amendola and surprise, we had temple shift again. Same story, except it was colder. Oh well! :)

Mormon Battalion Commemoration Day!

Oh! Last Wednesday we had interviews with President. I seriously seriously love and respect that man. He is absolutely incredible. :)

My favorite scripture from this week is Romans 8:31, the JST version. "If God be for us, who can prevail against us?" :) I also love the last two verses in that chapter. So beautiful.

"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Hoping to make some enchiladas today. :) While we're planning our scholarship essays. haha. :)  Love you so much!!

I have no idea? Making all our guests at home?

Oh and I forgot. Saturday was the commemoration! :D It was a HUGE celebration of Old Town and the Battalion and all that. They had a re-dedication of the monuments on Presidio Hill. Sister Amendola, Wells, and Tucker sang the Star Spangled Banner and it was fantastic! Jeffrey R Holland's brother Dennis Holland spoke at it, too. Afterwards we went to Old Town State park and were in the parade. Sister Amendola and I got to push a handcart! It was super sweet. :) Anyway, then we wandered around Old Town and handed out Battalion cards, then came up, had lunch, took the most insane tour ever (all these little kids that would literally not stop talking) and then went back, had studies, then went back to the Battalion to take more tours. Good news: we had an approximate 1065 people in the Battalion that day! That includes short and long tours. But it was a record-breaker! :D Pretty sweet. Well, that's all. Gotta go! But I love you mom! :)

--Hermana Harris

Week 58 Pioneer tough through prayer!

Your description of Lang's talk definitely made me laugh... I can see him saying all that... XD 

I can't believe he's leaving! It's super weird for me to realize I'm not gonna see him for a very very long time. But I'm super excited to see who he'll become. :) I've seen and felt what the mission does to you and I'm so excited to see Lang v. 2.0. Still Lang, just even better. I love the mission. (Lang, her brother, just left to serve in the Missouri Independence mission. His blog is ElderLangstonHarris.blogspot.com.)

I totally relate to that RS lesson. There have been so many times when just tears express it best, at least until the initial pain gets out, and words start forming. Prayer is my favorite. :) 

The other day I got this HUGE splinter shoved up under my nail. It was so incredibly painful. It was in my right hand too so my left hand was USELESS in trying to get it out. It was so rough. Anyway, part came out but the rest was super stuck inside... way deep... and I couldn't get it... I tried for like 20 minutes. Anyway eventually I just bit down on a piece of beef jerky and had sister Amendola try to extract it... I just closed my eyes and tried to hold still, and prayed. As soon as I finished my prayer, she said, "I got it!" and it was gone. Seriously. Companions rock. Prayer rocks. Good stuff, Maynard.

Yesterday was super sweet. We met some investigators!! :D They've all been in Mexico, but they're finally coming back. WOOHOO!! ^_^ Oh and Stake Conference was a regional broadcast and it was INCREDIBLE. Super super duper sweet. Lots about missionary work. This branch is wonderful! They're so pumped to be missionaries. Me too! :D

We also had a mission president's fireside on Sunday. It was super inspirational. :) Oh man. We had two full days in a row. It was pretty intense. :) But good! I am sort of almost getting to know the area. Well, I can recognize streets and stuff... but still not exactly ready to take over or anything!

Well nothing too exciting to report. That's about it for this week. Last Tuesday I just made pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, and then we had in-n-out. (Protein style!) Oh. And we have new directors at the Battalion!! I've only met them once, yesterday, for a few seconds, but they seem super sweet and really nice. It'll be good. :)

Week 57 HAPPY NEW YEAR AND NEW EVERYTHING (Almost)

So this week has been awesome! I already sent the pic but here's the sweet sweet news, I'm with Sister Amendola again in La Mesa! :D WOO HOOO!!! :) We have like... 1 investigator.. but it's okay! We'll find more! In fact, this week we even knocked doors. Crazy! Never done that before. It was a ward activity sort of thing. We all met at the church and then drove to some apartments and broke up into groups and knocked and knocked. It was different. I was super scared but it turned out okay. We had 4 lessons and got a sweet referral for the English elders in the area. :)

We had zone meeting on Wednesday, so that was nice to meet the new zone. They're pretty chill. Afterwards we ate at this Greek restaurant, (JK's Greek or something like that...) (definitely wanted to make a joke about that but uh... wasn't sure how). (It's Greek food! JK, not really!) (Sorry.) (Haha..) It was pretty gross. JK! It was fantastic. :) No really, I had a gyro and it was fabulous. And the Greek guy said it with a hard g sound. Gyro. Well, anyway...

The branch is SUPER sweet. They're absolutely awesome. They're so focused on missionary work, it's incredible. Thursday we visited a few and they all were talking about how they were trying to share the gospel, and they brought up the questions their friends had and were asking us for help in knowing what to say. They were so earnest in their desires, it was super sweet and made me very happy. Here's the deal, though, I don't know what to tell them... they're supposed to get answers like that from the Holy Ghost. But we gave them some ideas and stuff. It was super cool. :)

Super sweet miracle from the week: We had an investigator at church! And here's the cool thing: neither Sister Amendola nor I had ever met her before. Sister Stephens (the one whose place I took) met her with Sister Rex on exchanges and invited her to church. And she came! So, it was super sweet. And she was crying during Relief Society because she was so touched by the testimony of one of the Sisters. Only problem: she has two jobs and is going to school. So she has NO time, so it's pretty rough. Well, as she reads and keeps coming to church she'll have a desire to make more time to see us. :)

Also on Sunday we taught a PMG class. It was a 'fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants' sort of lesson, but it turned out super well. :) I think we all learned a lot from it, and I know I felt the Spirit. :) Success!

La Nueva look

So in case you didn't know, last Tuesday was my last day in the area, and we were going to cut our hair but decided we didn't want to. So we went to zone sports, and I was talking to Elder Rodriguez, (the newest one in the district), and he said he was going to get his hair cut by Hno Lopez. I asked him if his wife cuts hair too, because she looks like she would, and he said yes... and what a coincidence, we had already set an appointment to come visit them that night. So... I asked her to trim my hair. And Hna Bermudez said, "Give her a new look!" and I said, "Keep the length!" and Sister Bermudez said, "New look!" and I said, "Just cut off the dead ends!" and well it definitely got cut. Oh did I mention that she is the mom that has a 6-yr-old that had the birthday party earlier?

So Sister Harris got a new look for the new year. :} And a new companion, and a new area, and a new apartment. Good news: I like all the changes. I'm still freaking out a little about the hair, but I'm more used to it now. And the new companion is actually just an old companion, the new area is super pretty, and the new apartment only has the two of us in it, so there's a TON of space. ^_^ It's going to be a sweet transfer!! :)

Oh. Also on Tuesday I was talking to Elder Day, the district leader for SW. Turns out he's actually from Concordia Missouri. Which is in the Independence Missouri mission. He said he used to go out with the missionaries and take care of them and stuff. :) So when he gets back (in less than a year) he'll keep an eye out for Lang. Also, he said to bring LOTS OF WARM CLOTHES OR HE WILL FREEZE TO DEATH. You have been warned. (Whoops I accidentally typed 'warmed.' Haha!)

Crazy story: so yesterday Sister Amendola and I took a local YSA group on a tour for their FHE activity. As they came in she recognized one, and he turned around and looked SUPER familiar, and it turns out we met in the MTC! I totally remember meeting him in the MTC - it was either Christmas eve or Christmas, when we were watching one of the movies. (Either Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life.) Anyway, it was pretty crazy.

Well, I love you all lots! :) Please give Lang a fierce hug for me. Hmm. I haven't used the word fierce in a long time. >_> It was kinda weird. Well, just give him a biiiig huuug for me, teletubby style if necessary. :)

Hermana Julia Harris

Week 56 Splits and not splitting?

AAHAHAHAAAAAGGHHHGGGHHHH WE JUST BARELY GOT TRANSFER CALLS. AND I'M OUT. Out of Sweetwater. Not the Battalion, hopefully. Elder Walker said he didn't know for sure. But he thinks not. AAAGH!!! SO CONFUSED. There are 4 Spanish sisters training and only 3 new spanish sisters coming in... ?? We're super confused! Well... next week. We'll let ya know what happens!!

Hermana Frampton's last night at the Battlion

Well. New Years Eve was super fun. We got Cold Stone ice cream and then ate it by Lake Murray. Then we came home, updated the area book for an hour and a half, set visions for ourselves, and then drank Martinellis and had fun. :) We had a full day the next day, and it was pretty sweet. We've been trying to talk to EVERYONE so it's been pretty sweet. Oh on Friday I took a family from Connecticut on tour. One of the sons had a shirt that said, "Have you seen this wizard?" and had a picture of... rats I forgot her name but the MLP that's like... purple. And long purple curly hair? Radiant or something. OH Rarity. Yeah. Anyway. Turns out they're all bronys. Definitely made me think of Lang. I love him!!

Merry Christmas!

Saturday we had a 7 hour shift at the temple. It was pretty intense. Very long time. But it was good. :) ESPECIALLY since Hna Bermudez got to see the guy that helped baptize her parents!! It was quite the miracle. This group from Mexicali was visiting and he was there! She hasn't seen him since she was like 8. So it was cool for her. :) I also got to see some sisters from Logan Heights! :D Awww!! ^_^ Super sweet. :)

Sunday we finally had a lesson with this less active that we've been trying to contact FOREVER. It was pretty rough but I think it worked otu well in the end. OH I FORGOT. On Friday we went on splits! The first time on my mission. SIster Bermudez went with Hna Alfaro (the one that belongs to our branch but goes to Logan) and I went with Hna Morales, a recent convert of like... 2 months. It was super crazy and we were both really nervous but it was a lot of fun. :) And that day we had 5 lessons even though we only had 3 hours in the area! :) So, yep. It was sweet.

Well, This next week will be quite the adventure! :) We shall see what happens!! :)

Hermana Harris