March 27, 2014 This delicious taco thing here called campachanas

Sooo I keep getting stuck with the computer that cant access my camera.. So sorry for the lack of pics the past two weeks. Monday! we´ll hope for monday!

So the past week and a half have been really good. 

I went on two sets of spilts. One with the companion of our new DL, and one with the Senior Companion Zone Leader. The first splits was with an elder named Elder Bravo from Mexico City. He´s from my generation, and probably one of my favorite people in the mission. We went nuts. It felt like the first time that I was allowed to be alone at home without parents, but this time, my Mexican brother was there too and we just partied the whole time.

Well.... We worked a little bit too.

Theres this delicious taco thing here called campachanas, which is like a super thin tortilla with half a cow inside. Lots of meat. and we were hungry so we ordered some.. But we couldnt decide how many. So we settled on an even 16. It was like the best night of my life haha. I don´t think that anyone has ever ordered 16 compachanas from that store before. But let me tell ya, my bowels were definitely not happy the next morning haha.

The second splits was with the Senior Comp of the Zone leaders, named Elder Soto. Hes from Mexico city too. I learned a lot from him, and he said that I was doing surprisingly well for how long I have in the mish. I was like.. well duh. I´m awesome haha.

So their house has two other elders living in it, because their house like broke. Toilet exploded, fan exploded, lights exploded, and the shower wont drain. So now their living with the ZL´s until they can fix the house or move elsewhere. 

So yeah that was a good time to have all four of us in a dinky little apartment.

But yeah not really much else has happened. I planched a few families, and we got another baptism date! so we should have two baptisms in a row in a couple weeks! Wooohooo! Gonna get my feet wet!

Also we got to go to the temple in Monterrey today. All in spanish, and this time I understood everything! which was awesome. I actually kinda like it better in Spanish, because they have different ways of showing respect, and its easier to see the symbolism in spanish.

Sooo Mothers day in Mexico is different than Mothers day in the US. So yall should get work off for May 10 and the 11th... Which I think is mothers day. and if you could all somehow be in the same place... Well that would be an awesome birthday gift :)

Anywho, I hope you´re all doing well! 

Love you Family!

Elder Harrison

March 17, 2014 Blue eyes and yellow hair

Heeey!!

So this week was pretty good. I went on splits again with Elder Erekson, in my area so I was in charge. Which was awesome, cuz I love being in charge. Then we had a zone conference where we learned how to more effectively teach prayer, and how to contact more effectively. They set new goals for us, to have 60 lessons a week and a baptism every weekend! Which is crazy here because we have to wait five weeks to baptize anyone.. Which means thats we´ll be doing lots of contacting to reach the goal!!

I figure the goal is inspired of God, we were called by God to be here, so who is there that could reach those goals better than us right? Faaaaith! Yeah I got it.

Elder Aguilar and I had our first companionship inventory on friday, which is when we just open up to the other companion and tell them problems weve been having. WEre supposed to do them every week but We havent so this was the first one. aaaaand I let it all go haha. It was actually really good and now that he knows how ticked I was at him the first few weeks and how badly I want to work super hard, we actually get along better and have been having lots more success with our investigators.

That night we had a really cool experience. We were on our way back from a service activity, when Elder Aguilar got super thirsty. So we stopped to get Agua. AKA juice because errbody calls juice agua here. and when we were leaving the store we here this ¨hola chicos¨ from behind us. So we stop and look, and this young pregnant woman was walking behind us. We stopped and talked to her and she asked if we were busy, we said nope, that we had no plans that night, which was true, because sometimes were really bad at planning haha. She asked us how she could have tranquility in her heart. WE were super surprised by the question, because this usually doesnt happen to us.

We began to tell her that we were missionaries of christ when she said that she already knew all of that, and wanted to know how she could have peace in her life. So we skipped the usual shpeal and started talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how its God´s plan for us to be free of guilt and bad feelings from our hearts, and its the plan to give us peace in this life. We went over the five steps in the Gospel and how to live it. Namely, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Baptism by fire, or by the Holy Ghost, and Perservering to the End. We focused on the Holy Spirit, and how its the comforter and can give us peace in this life.

We talked for a while and we got her address so we could visit her later. It ends up that she lives in the area next to ours that is about to be a new Hermana Area, which will be awesome by the way, cause Hermanas kick butt. So she doesnt live in our area, which is a bummer, but is ok.

Before she left, I felt that we should all say a prayer, so we walked to the side walk under a street light, because it was night, and I said the prayer. The spirit was super strong, and Elder Aguilar had the impression to give her a blessing for comfort, and for protection. She had told us earlier that she has this crazy husband that hits her and her children see and she feels worried and just a bunch of bad stuff in her life.

She said that a blessing for protection was exactly what she needed, and there happened to be a members house just down the street where we could give it. So we went there and they let us in and let us use their office. 

We taught her a bit more in the office and she told us that she had talked to us on the street because when she lived in Juarez, which is a city close to here, the missionaries had done service for her, and she had felt this peace in her heart that she hasnt felt since they left her house. We told her it was the spirit and she said she felt it again now too. We told it that it was testifying to her that we are in fact missionaries of christ, and we are in fact there to help her, (I was saying this) and I said to her, ¨Hermana, yo estoy aqui para ayudar a usted.¨ Sister, I am here to help you. I was staring into her eyes, and she looked at me and gave this weird surprised smile.

I asked her what she was smiling about, and she said that she just noticed that my eyes are blue. She then told us that she had a dream a few days before, and in this dream, there was an angel with yellow hair, and blue eyes, and this angel had spoken peace to her heart. I had just spoken peace to her heart, and I had blue eyes and yellow hair. I was the angel from her dream.

Boooooosh!! That was so darn flipping cool! 

I said, yeah I got the eyes from my mom. So thanks mom! You helped solidify my angelhood! haha

But really. That was totally the most awesome thing ever.

So we finished teaching her, gave her a blessing, and told her we´d send the other elders to see her. I told the other elders that if they let her fade away I would personally punch them in the head.

I really don´t want them to forget about her haha.

So yeah that was really cool!

And basically ever since this experience Elder Aguilar and I have been killin it! So yah thats awesome.

Also that same night, a dog followed us home and so we let it stay for a day haha. I would send pics but the computer im using wont let me access my flash drive.

Anyways that was the highlight of my week! I know for a fact that this is where im supposed to be! I love you all so much!

Elder Harrison

Here be a view of the good ole Casa

The 4 Step Program

These are the four stages of what happens when ya finish your business and realize you don´t have any paper.

1. Realization

2. Resistance

3. Remorse.

4. Aceptance

 

 

March 10, 2014 A tour of Life after death and Dry Underware

¡Hola Familia! 

How are yall? This week was pretty good.

We had a cool experience with an activity that we did on saturday with the plan of salvation.

We decorated the rooms in our chapel to represent the different parts of the plan of salvation. We took groups on tours of it, starting from the side door of the chapel, to outside where we talked about faith and repentance, then through two pairs of doors, the first representing baptism, that was covered with blue paper, and the other representing baptism by the holy ghost, or by fire, which was covered with orange paper. After this we tied a rope from the door to a tree in the back of the chapel that the people had to close their eyes and walk along, signifying the iron rod. I was tempting people and I got one woman to let go of the rod. I shouted ¨aaah tentacion!¨and she like yelped and jumped back on the rod haha. So funny. After that we had spirit paradise and spirit prison. In the paradise was a small white room with light and white seats. In the prison was the baptismal font and darkness except for where the font was. There we taught about who goes to the prison and the only way to get the light is by vicarious baptisms for the dead and stuff.

Then we had all the kingdoms and stuff for the degrees of glory.

The telestial had stars all hanging from the ceiling, and there was no light. The Terrestre had more light and was a bit more comfy looking. And the Celestial was super bright, and clean and had white chairs all over and white balloons on the ground. 

It reminded me of the temple to be honest.

We had a man come that we hadnt met before with a member of the ward. He has some kind of palsy so he can´t walk very well. So we took him on a special tour by himself after the other groups had gone through. 

When we entered into the celestial kingdom with him it was awesome. The spirit like blasted us and I hadnt seen the room yet so it was really cool to see how the sisters in the ward had done it.

There was this awesome peace in the room and we talked about the glories and how god wants us to come to this kingdom and live with him forever. 

I was feeling the spirit super strong, and so I invited him to be baptized so that he could recieve this glory and his body could be made whole again after this life.

He tooootes said yes.

Nailed it.

So that was really cool, and definitely a miracle.

It started raining that same night super hard, and I realized that in that very morning I had put all my clothes out to dry...

and hadn´t brought them back in.

Thus I accepted my fate of having to wear the same garmets the next day. However a man from the ward gave us a ride home and his son told me to pray and have faith. At first I was like no thats silly, but then I remembered that God is God and he can do whatever he wants. So I said a quick prayer in my mind that my clothes would be dry.

and it came to pass that when Elder Harrison went down unto his house, and had retreated to the back side of his house to retrieve his clothes, he thinking that they would be sodden with the rain that has torrented ferociously, it came to pass that his clothes were not wet, but were dry, and sore a drop of water had fallen upon them.

Thus it came to pass that Elder Harrison was astounded and after collecting his clothes, went and thanked his God for the glorious miracle which had occured.

Yeah that was super cool.

So not much went on besides that this week. I´ve started taking more initiative in the lesson and things, and taking more control of what we do. Because I don´t know what the comp is thinking half the time, but I want to have success and im not going to let anything stop me.

I Love you Fam! I miss you too! 

Have a good week! Cling to the Iron Rod!

Love Elder Harrison

March 03, 2014

Soooo

My week was good.

My companion and I began to get along better. I understand more spanish, and we met a few new people to teach.

I had the opportunity to go on splits with our district leader on friday, hes an american too, so that was super awesome haha. I got to talk in English!! But he brought me along to a few lessons and I got to see how he teaches, which was nice to see how a someone thats been here for a while does it. He teaches more on what we need to teach for the investigators and not from the pamphlets, which im starting to dislike a lot haha. The pamphlets distract me too much when im trying to teach.

Hes from Orem and graduated the same year as me, he just decided to go on his mission first instead of college.

This was a super great blessing, because I realized that when im good friends with my companion, cancelled appointments and hot days dont bother me as much, because were both out there teaching the gospel and having a great time doing it. So ive been trying hard to be better friends with my companion since then. 

Since my splits with him, ive been taking more initiative in teaching and contacting. I find that when im in control of the conversation im able to understand better and can teach better.

We had a funny experience the other day. We were searching for a reference named Juani that we had recieved, and so we thought we found the house and knocked and asked if Juani was there, the lady came out and we talked a bit and she said she had never talked to the missionaries before, turns out her neighbor is named Juani too, and thats who we talked to haha.

But she ended up inviting us in and we taught her a lesson and she invited us back.

The lord works in funny ways.

So yeah not really much happened this week. Im just trying to learn the language better and be more happy! Also I get to go ice skating today, which is pretty cool, so ill tell yall about that next week,

Love you fam!

Elder Harrison