Catching Up...

8/18/14

Well this week waaas.

Really boring haha.

My companion hurt his foot as he was trying to jump onto another Elders shoulders. We all heard a crack and he barely got off the ground when he came down and layed on the ground. His ankle swelled up all huge and he couldnt walk. We had to walk him to one of the Elders houses that was nearby and I went with another Elder to his house to grab our stuff (because we had splits the night before, thus all my clothes were at his house) and we came back and caught a taxi back to the house.

The Taxi driver was super funny. He driver was a christian, like one of the super christian christians, and theyre freaking nutzos. So he asks us if we believe in the Gift of tongues, to which I asked, ´´like the gift of tongues where you like groan and shout and speak gibberish? Or where God helps you learn another language?´´ He meant the crazy one haha. He told us they speak in tongues when they pray so that the devil cant understand and steal your blessings or something weird like that. He said he just kinda falls into it haha. So we´re getting out and he saw that my comp was hurt, and so he was like, ´´would you like me to say a prayer for you?´´ and my comp was kinda silent, and so the guy grabs onto my comps foot (right where it hurt, which made it worse) and starts praying haha. But during the prayer he recieves... The gift of tongues! haha or at least his deranged version of it. he said ´´Señor Jesushimo Cristumisho mishu mishu ma mishu mishomana tabadamishu ma´´ and a bunch of rubbish like that. Finally he ends the prayer, and like falls back in his seat and shouts ´´woo! santo señor Jesus!´´ like he just recieved the spirit or something haha. That dude was crazy ha. I accidentally jipped him 10 pesos too, but he hurts my comps foot so I think its justified haha.

Freaking cristianos.

We got in the house and just had to laugh about it. Some people really have a weird view of religion.

My comp decided to stay in the rest of the day, (it was almost like 5ish) and see if his foot got better. 

It didnt.

We called the doctor the next morning on thursday and he said that my comp would have to stay in the house for 2 or 3 days depending on how his foot felt.

It was thrusday.

3 days from thursday is saturday.

Which means we didnt work like all week.

So I used this as a great opportunity to do lots of studying!

Im just about done with the Book of Mormon.

I also took lots of naps, and because we didnt work, I stayed up all night reading because I wasnt tired haha.

But really I was so bored.

We also didnt have any food in the house and I couldnt exactly leave my comp to buy some sooo.... We starved too! haha. The members brought us lunch, but it was nooot enough! Im skinnier than I was before now! haha.

Anywho. Im really greatful for the time Heavenly Father gave me to read the Book of Mormon. I feel inspired by all the prophets before that devoted their lives to teaching the Lamanites. Its cool because thats literaly what im doing right now. Bringing the house of Lehi back in from the darkness and teaching them the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers. Its crazy that right now im walking around with the decendants of all of the famous names of the Book of Mormon. Not only that, but im walking and preaching among the people that were set by the Lord to destroy the Nephites because of thier wickedness.

Kinda neat when you think about it.

Makes me want to work harder.

AAAAAnnywayzzz...

Thats about it.

Not really anything else happened this week. I just sat in the house all day for 4 days.

actually... 5 counting yesterday because my comp didnt work after church because his foot still hurt.

Also because I didnt leave... I couldnt retrieve my charger for my electric razor which I left in my old house... which means I couldnt shave this week either. But it was No big deal because we didnt really leave the house except for like 20 minutes to 2 hour splits with the DL on some days.. I had facial hair... as a missionary haha.

Well I love you all! Stay gewd.

Love

Elder Harrison

 

++

This week I enjoyed some intercambios with a new missionary that just finished his training. He takes more selfies than I do.

He showed me one and said ´´I send these kind of pics to my girlfriend.´´ 

It was a picture of an attempted flynn ryder style face. Mexicans just dont got it haha.

Also my comp hurt his foot and we couldnt leave the house this week. halfway through the week the battery on my electric razor died and I didnt have the charger for it yet because my old comp still had not given it to me.. Thus we have the rare ´´missionary with facial hair´´ pic.

Yeah.

I hope youre all doing well!

Elder Harrison

 

8/11/14

So this week was interesting. about two hours after my last email we went to play soccer and I ended up tripping my comp and almost killing him on the concrete haha.

oooops.

For that we didnt get to work that much this week, only had 5 lessons, and 16 contacts, but we decided were going to work reaaaaally hard this week to get things going here in Juarez!

We had a zone conference on friday in Cadareyta with the mission president. We had a good training on having more unity in our teaching and had to teach with blind folds so that our comps couldnt give us the look or a nudge or anything and we had to go by the spirit. It was actually really cool.

Then our president gave us a training on finding the people that are ready and not wasting our time with people that dont want to be baptized, which is something we need to work on because I dont think that many of our current investigators want to be baptized.. time to reboot the area! 

President also brought a piñata of a big red tomato, and we went out side to break it haha. He likened the people ready for the gospel to red tomatoes, ready to be picked.

So that was cool, then we had a freak rain storm, and I mean freak haha. It rained sooo hard there were rivers in the streets. So we took garbage bags and made ponchos out of them and ran to the bus stop to catch the bus back to Juarez. President got stuck outside in the rain and got soaked.. suuuper funny haha.

My comp gets to take super drugs for his back pain so we spend a bit of extra time in the house as his body reacts to those and puts him to sleep haha.

Hopefully next weekend we´ll have a baptizm which will be awesome! Our investigator is GOOOOLDEN!!

Also we killed a really big bee the other day. Yeah, that was neat.

Sooo yeah. thats about all that happened this week!

I love you all and hope you all have a good week!

Love 

Elder Harrison

 

Enjoy the following photos of my comp and I being the handsome devils we are, some awesome looking notes I took in the how to begin teaching section of PMG, and us missionaries in our ghettos trash bag ponchos during a freak rainstorm in Cadareyta.

yeah.

 

 

 

 

 

8/4/14

Soo this week was a goood week! We found 6 new people to teach, found a GOOOOLDEN investigator that already wants to be sealed in the temple with his girlfriend, contacted a guy walking him sheep, and saved a house from burning down. Also I learned how to play the recorder haha.

Soooo GOlden Investigator! His name is brandon, 20 YO and is awesome. Has already been to church twice and is preparing himself good and nice to be baptized! three more weeks and its dunk time!

We totally contacted a guy walking his herd of sheep like through a neighborhood.. well outside of a neighborhood, but it was stil pretty random! He said he wanted to be baptized, but lives in another area, so thats a bummer. But Im sure great things will happen with him!

We passed by the house of a less active member and there was a ton of smoke inside the house. The member was asleep on his bed, which is in the main room of the house, and he had left the door open so that the breeze could flow through the house. We like woke him up and told him that his beans were burning. Which they were and so we took them off the heat as he explained that he had fallen asleep waiting for the beans to finish cooking haha,

This monday I was playing with a little plastic flute called a recorder in one of the rooms and my comp walks in with one too and we started playing together haha. I was like, where have you been all my mission? In Juarez he said haha.

We also had 6 new investigators this week! Which is awesome! But one of them already broke up with us... So that was sad.

Anywho, those are the highlights from the week! The rest of the week was just alot of walking haha.

Love you all!

Elder Harrison

7/28/14

So my new area is Juarez 2.2

We have 6 missionaries in our ward, and im the only Gringo! Which is kinda fun, because our ward is super cool and we all talk ghetto spanish. In our Zone we also have the publos of Cadereyta and China, which are the farthest areas in our mission. Funny side note, I can actually see my old area from my new one... I didnt go very far away haha, same stake as well, but the area is huge and theres lots of work here, so thats gonna be great!

My new house is soooo nice. We have air conditioning in our bedroom and three bathrooms! So my comp and I get our own bathroom. Also it used to be the zone leaders house so we have materials galore! Pamphlets upon pamphlets upon pamphlets! My new comp is named Elder Perez, hes awesome, same generation as my old comp, so he goes home in october. He teaches awesome and his old comp was a drag, so hes excited to be with me because I guess people think that I like to work haha, which is weird because id rather just sleep all day haha. Just kidding, we go out and get work done. Also he has like the same personality as Josh Peterson, and is super funny, so I think hes gonna be one of my best friends from the mission.

This week we also had the opportunity to have mini missionaries for two days! Saturday and Sunday, the guy they stuck us with was awesome, he was 19 and knew the scriptures like a boss, he said hes gonna turn in his papers in December after he finishes the next semester of college. He said that its really annoying when everyone bugs him about his papers, I told him that I know the feeling haha.

We met a family last night that was suuper golden, they have a daughter with down syndrown and they are sooooo prepared!! They live all the commandments already, and just need to fall into a pool or something and be baptized haha.

Side note, somebody in this ciber is smoking weed haha.

I finally got moms packages! The electric photo frame is awesome! and my comp loves the dutch cookies haha. I also got grandmas letter so im gonna see what I can do to write her back this week or the next.

To answer Dads questions:

how many missionaries are in your mission:

like... 200 and something.
how many areas are there that you could be transferred to:

A bunch, there are some wards with 10 missionaries in them. Theres about 100 areas here in the mission and 5 stakes... or 7 stakes... I dont remember, but I think its five. Also the mission is really small so all of those stakes are stacked in the same city.
will you ever get to ride bikes or drive a car?

If I go to the boonies yes, a bike, but im hoping I never go there haha, theyre in our zone right now and they have to take like a 40 minute busride to get back in the city, also the farthest area, china is in the zone, and its almost a 2 hour bus ride... to the nearest pueblo, and another 40 minutes to get to the city haha. costs like 150 pesos for them to get to Juarez. like 200 to get to the offices.
weird things you have eaten

This weird soup with like eggs in it and lentil beans... The eggs were like green.
Most interesting rejection

Uh... I almost got into a fight with this macho grandpa guy going for a walk with his lady. He grabbed my hand and tried to destroy it in a handshake, so I tried to destroy his back, and we just kinda stared at each other for like 20 seconds until his lady told him to leave me alone and they left haha.

Dear John stories... Well just mine of Dad sending me pictures of engaged girls that I dated a bit before the mission haha. 

Shoes?

my brown ones are pretty good still, just worn away in a weird way that destroys my feet when I walk in them, probably gonna buy new shows and pants and shirts soon, because Ive lost about 35 pounds and nothing fits the same anymore.

My black shows are still kicking it nice and comfy, we´ll see how they are at christmas haha.

Historical sites? nope those are all in the Monterrey West mission, and our mission like banned zone activities outside of the Chapels so ill probably never be able to go see them.. Our mission bans all the fun stuff... :(

Anywho im in a new area and rocking it! 5 new investigators this week and a bunch of people lined up for baptism! Woot woot!

Love you all lots!

Elder Harrison

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This week we had mini missionaries! and my new house has clima, woooo! haha

7/21/14
Wooooo im getting transfered!!! FINALLY!!! haha.

But really its a big deal. Im ready to see more mexico haha. 

So this week was good. we had awesome splits with the Zone Leaders and I learned lots of great things from them, including magic tricks haha. Elder Quevedo, whos our ZL, also taught me how to climb on the roof, I just need to have the guts to do it haha. This area was his first area and he was here for 9 months so he knows where all the awesome stuff is haha. We also went to a river in our area and just kinda... Looked at it haha. We also had a couple lessons and put 4 new baptismal dates with some awesome new investigators. Unfortunately one of the parents of 2 of the 4 dates is kind of a bigot and like yelled at us when we knocked the door for our return appointment because we knocked twice. I like saw the dude walk in the house so I knew he was there so I knocked again. He made me so mad I just about cussed him out in English. But I didnt ;) just in my mind haha.

Besides that we walked around alot in the sun this week, had a few lessons and invited a bunch of people to come to church... nobody came again haha. Who keeps commitments anyways?

So were gonna make the rounds to say goodbye to our investigators and freinds in this area today because tomorrow im out of here! What do you all think ill be? trainer? junior comp again? assistent to the president? haha probably not that.. But what do you all think?

I love you all alot! Keep doing good!

Elder Harrison

7/14/14

Helllooooooooo Family!!!!

This weeek was looong haha.

and really boring at times!

Thursday we decided we were going to drop a bunch of our investigators because theyre not ready yet for the Gospel. We had a training on how we`re not here to cultivate people, were here to harvest the fields. If the people arent ripe yet, the Lord wants us to leave them until later when other missionaries will find them and pick them when theyre ripe.

So we dropped like 20 investigators this week.

That was kind of hard, but it has to be done at times to bring to pass the Lords work! But right when we dropped them we found 2 super awesome and ripe investigators soo...

worth it haha.

Also my last convert, Gorgonio is in the hospital and I think hes going to pass away soon. I was kinda sad, until I realized that he had just recieved the Gospel and is like suuuuper clean of his sins, and his mental state isnt the best so im not sure if he would be able to keep the covenants of the temple sacred, and his wife is trying to like catholicize him soo.. I think that the fastest way for him to progress would be for him to pass on and leave us to do his work in the temple. Its interesting the way that God works. Because Gorgonios health went straight downhill after the baptism. Im pretty sure the Lord was sustaining him just long enough to be baptized, and now he can move forward in the next life. 

Sooo yeah.

Anywho... not really that much happened this week.. What do yall want to know about Mexico? or the mission? Or me? I dont know what to write anymore haha. The weeks are all the same. Walk. Talk. Meet. invite to come to church. Nobody comes to church. Be sad. Pday. Be animated. repeat.

I love you all alot!! Thanks for your prayers!

Loves

Elder Harrison

7/7/14

Sooo this week was lots of fun.

Lolz sarcasm.

Monday the relief society president decided to let it rip on me and another elder about some complaints that she had recieved about us, telling us that we argued with all the sisters and were irreverent. 

So that bummed me out becuase I cant remember a single time that I argued with the sisters.

So tuesday arrives and I was stressed out of my mind and like could barely get myself to work. My comp took me down to one of the rivers in our area and we sat on a root by the riverbank and he told me to think of all my problems one by one, find the solution, and let it go. So I did. and it helped a ton. We then went and jumped on rocks and took pictures to destress haha.

My comp and our DL continue to argue, and im losing my faith in our DL as well. He complained against one of the sisters, who is like super poor and gives us like everything she has when she gives us lunch, that she doesnt make the food on time, so the relief society president went and told her off in front of like everyone.

So when we got our food, the lady wouldnt let us in and just gave us boxed food to go.

Leave it to the canadian to complain about the most humble woman in the ward.

yeeeaaahh soooo... yeah. 

But I have been studying alot and and really trying to root myself more in the Gospel. I realized that my testimony has been suffering a bit here, which is interesting, because i should be having like the strongest testimony time of my life here. 

I also realized that I comlpain too much.. So im gonna stop that now haha.

anywho, we had tough week with our leaders and with the work in general. But yesterday the RS Pres told us that she actually has only recieved complaints of our DL.. so its not my fault that the sisters are upset :) yaaay haha.

I love you guys. Pray for me haha. I need help out here. Its hoooot!

Love 

Elder Harrison

6/30/14

Well this week was just dandy. had a whopping nine lessons and 0 people at church this Sunday. Its starting to become a bit of a joke ha. It actually has to be a joke, or I think I would just go into a room and cry out of frustration haha. Im about ready to drop all our investigators and hope to find new ones.

My recent Convert Gorgonio (the grandpa) is really sick. I think he´ll be passing away in the near future, but, I know for a fact that hes be in paradise, so its not so bad, we just need to start working with his wife more now too.

I had splits with our DL this week. Hes got 16 months... But doesnt really act like it haha. We were teaching and a guy was telling us about his mom dieing and his divorce, and our DL like didnt even listen, he just went to the next point in the lesson. I was like, dude. are you new? It was ridiculous. Im hoping to be put as senior comp this coming transfer, im sick of terrible leaders haha. I want more resposibility!!

My comp is also in a huge argument with our DL... President got involved aaand soo... this should be a fun week haha.

Theres a surprising amount of Drama in the mish.

Anywho im working harder and trying to find more new people to teach because the old ones just arent cutting it right now.

My comp also rescued a cat for a day and we almost sang kareoke last night. yah... but we were almost late so we needed to go home.. kinda bummed about that. The vocal pipes were all warmed up haha.

Anyways I love you all! Im here pushing onward with a smile! Bring on the refiners fire! Cuz imma be nice and shiny after all this heat!

Luvz

Elder Harrison

6/23/14

Well last weekend was a fun one. Almost all of our lessons for the week happened on friday and saturday. Saturday we had a nice 5 lessons and friday 3. 

The rest of the week we just... walked around in the rain haha.

 Yeah it like rained a ton this week! super random because last week was super hot! Monterrey is super bipolar!

I dont really know what else to write... not much happened haha.

Ooh we had a lesson with the drunk guy named Melchor, and he was explaning to us what prayer is to him, and he said.. Prayer is adoration at the sun, and the moon is love... for woman haha. Funnier in spanish. But I still thought that was funny. We just kinda nodded and said thats interesting brother haha.

This sunday none of our investigators came... again.. even after they said they would and we stopped by to pick them up.. Nobody came to the door.

Freaking Mexicans.

Had a whopping six 0´s in our numbers for this week. thats never fun.

Honestly, ive been pretty grumpy the past week. i feel like im always grumpy though so thats something that I need to work on! We have interviews with President this Wednesday so we´ll see what he says to me!

Anywho, not much went down this weekend so thats all I got!

Have a good week!

Love

Elder Harrison