Hey hey hey! How was everyone's Easter? It was so great out here on the mission. We had 6 investigators come to church! That's so unheard of here! So that was pretty cool! Anyways I don't have much time to email this week so I will just give a quick low down of what happened this past week. Something cool: We went to a referrals house and he wasn't there but we found his dad and this random girl outside his porch. We talked to them and the girl asked if we could pray with her. We did and had a good conversation with the two of them and shared the Easter video the church put out. The girl was so glad we showed up and was eager to have us start teaching her. The guy said it was like two angels had come to see them. So that was pretty awesome! Funny moment: I was in the bathroom at Walmart washing my hands and I look in the mirror and I see a DUDE walk right in and go into a stall. I was so confused and I had to make sure it was the women's room WHICH IT WAS. Ya that was really weird. Anyways I hope you all had a great week! Love ya lots! Sister Harris Just two photos this week. 1. DERBY HATS! Derby hats are on sale everywhere. We were at Dillard's and there was an entire section of derby hats. They're all about $100 2. Sister Mendon and I taking time appreciating nature. How neat is that? Hey everyone!
So last week was not a very eventful week but it was a good one! We moved into the elders apartment and... IT WAS NASTY! Elders had lived in that apartment for 17 years and everything was disgusting. We even found a dead mouse under the sink. Sick. So all last week sister mendon and I have cleaned the apartment all day erry day. And now it is finally clean and is so nice! We love our apartment so much! All it needed was a little TLC. With being so busy with cleaning we didn't have too much time to actually do missionary work but we had a couple lessons. Brandon was one of the solid investigators the elders had before they left. We went over to have a lesson with him and he had his mom be there with us so we could all have a lesson together. His mom sparked a new interest in the gospel and is receiving the gospel really well! We are so excited for them! The coolest thing happened during that lesson though, we were just finishing teaching brandon and Debra (brandons mom) and then someone knocked on the door. It was brandons friend and he asked brandon if he could meet with the mormon missionaries and sister mendon and I were like "were right here!" He told us that he had already read the book of Mormon twice and it makes so much sense. So we are super excited to start teaching him! Well that's about it! Hope everyone has a great week! Sister Harris Hey everyone! This was our last week before pink washing! Basically this week all we have really done is pack our things and clean to get ready for moving tomorrow. We are really sad to see the elders leave but we are so excited for our new area! So the other night I guess I taught a lesson about recognizing the holy ghost in my sleep. Haha sister mendon told me I was sleep talking and I gave an entire lesson about recognizing the spirit. She said I even used quotes from apostles and I made some profound comments haha. Literally all of my dreams have to do with missionary work now haha. This week was awesome because we had general conference! I love Conference! On Saturday we went to the Nehrings home (awesome madison ward members) to watch conference. We filled out a fantasy conference bracket and we're all competing for a conference trophy. So glad I was able to be a part of their tradition! Since Saturday was April fools day of course there were many pranks. The Nehrings convinced their kids that the world was ending and that they had to evacuate madison and drive to Utah. They were so extra haha. They had their relatives, members of the ward, and even the elders call and leave messages that the prophet received revelation that the world was ending. It was so funny to see their kids reactions! One of them just wanted to save their guinea pigs, the other was wanting to save their food, and another was packing extra underwear. They got all of their kids and packed everything in the car (including the guinea pigs) and drove 30 minutes away until the told their kids it was all an April fools day prank. Hahaha the kids loved It! After the first session of conference sister mendon and I went acknowledge to our apartment to do some c,eaning. When we came back to their house for the second session of conference, brother nehring and the kids ran outside and told us sister nehring got hurt and the elders had to take her to the hospital and we had to follow them to the hospital. Sister Mendon and I ran into our cars and followed he down the street until the kids jumped out of the van and told us they had just prayed us haha it was so awesome! We love them so much! So we wnt to the nehrings for saturday and for sunday conference we went to the Searcy's (another awesome family in the madison ward) they made us quiche, cinnamon rolls, and monkey bread. It was so good! We sure love the members in our ward! Conference was so amazing to watch! It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries. I took lots of good notes. I felt a common theme was to keep our faith and to keep progressing and become the best people we can be. I love hearing the inspired counsel from the general authorities that will truly help us in our everyday lives. Definitely pray about the things that we heard at conference and see how we can apply their country sell specifically in our lives. I'm so grateful for the prophet and apostles that we have today! We had one of our investigators watch general conference with us and we are so excited for him! He is almost done reading the entire book of mormon! He plans on finishing it by Wednesday! We told him that if he prays to know that the book of Mormon is true he will receive an answer at conference. I'm especially grateful for president Monson's talk about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Hopefully brother Kubik will know of its truthfulness. We have a date set for him to be baptized on easter if he receives his answer! We think he will and we are so hyped! So the title of my email is #rip because that is literally what is happening all the time now. Rip elders, rip phone (our phone broke), rip Hanover apartment, rip shelter, rip tina (baby goat), rip Elijah (our old Toyota corola. We drive a Nissan rogue now her name is Ramona), rip Cox (elder that died in our district). So ya it's been kind of sad with all of these things changing but at the same time it is going to be so fun! Well its been a great week! I'll let y'all know how moving goes this week! Love Y'all! Sister Harris 1, 2, 3) we took some boss district pictures 4) there are some beautiful fields with purple wild flowers 5) there are Amish crossing signs and I think that's hilarious 6) I found Harris street! 7,8) we had to take some cool pics with brother kinman's swords for our last ward coordination 9,10) some pics after Sunday conference. Yes I got people to back dab Now! Except elder Irwin :/ 11) when we had a broken windshield we biked everywhere, even in the pouring rain. We were soaked. It was awesome! So this week has been pretty crazy! Sister Mendon and I walked outside one morning to drive to an appointment and there was a hole in the back of our windshield! The entire back was shattered! I guess some kids the night before were throwing rocks and threw one right into our car. Nothing else happened but it was a little crazy for a bro! So we told the mission office so we could get new glass put into our car. A couple days later they called us back and let us know that they were closing the Hanover apartments and that we were going to move into the elders apartments in Madison. (Madison is the town next to Hanover). So now they are combining the Hanover and Madison areas and the sisters are taking over both towns. So we are pink washing (when sisters take over an elders area) the Madison area while still serving in the Hanover area. Like what!?!?! So now we have one transfer to learn an entire new area before I'm out of training and taking over the area. So much is happening its crazy! We are super sad to have the elders leave our ward though. They were super awesome but this means more dinner meals for us so that's alright. But ya crazy right! I had heard about pink washing before and I really wanted to but I cant believe its happening already my second transfer in! Other than that nothing much has happened. Just lots of paper work for the damage report. Ya. But general conference is coming up and Im so excited!! Its going to be great! Love yall! Sister Harris 1) So since our car is out of commission Sister Mendon and I have to bike more in our area. We joked that we are now the Hanover Bike mission so we made a biker gang sign (HB in sign language). 2) Those were notes from the elders that they left us when they stopped to see what happened to our car haha. 3) We had to drive our car to a members garage because it was going to rain and as we drove the glass kept falling out but we are okay haha. 4) That's the hole when we first saw it. 5) The YM/YW in my home ward made me this awesome poster! I loved it so much! Made me so happy! Its hanging up by my study desk! Thank yall so much! Ive already had a couple chocolate bars lol. 6) The poster they made :) 7 and 8) There was a super cool sunset so we had to take some cool pics. Hey everybody!! This week was so great! Last Monday we were able to go to House of Boom. It's this super awesome trampoline place we went with our STL's. Sister Bowen from Charlestown picked us all up and took us to Zaxby's and then to the place. She is so awesome! She's this cute old lady that takes the Charlestown sisters every week and is just the best! When we got to the house of boom I saw sister Wilde! It was so awesome to see her and talk to Her! I missed her so much! We only got to talk for a little bit but it was so great to see her there! After we jumped around and stuff sister Bowen took us out to get groceries and got us shakes. It was such a fun day! Last week one of the spots of glue on my permanent retainers popped off and luckily one of our ward members is a dentist! I got to go to the dentist and they reglued it for me for free. It was so nice of her! The members here are so amazing! They will do anything to help the missionaries. We got to visit one of our investigators Luna and watched the movie about Thomas S. Monson and his life. I love that movie so Much! 10 out of 10 would recommend. It was so great! Luna even told us that she thinks she's ready for baptism! Luna is so awesome! I'm so excited for her! I love teaching her so much. It's amazing when you get to teach people and you know that they have been prepared by Heavenly Father to be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luna is so elect! We were outside talking with a new investigator and this guy is walking his dog on the sidewalk and she just starts talking to the guy passing by. She asked him if he believed in God and if he was saved. The guy was confused and didn't know what she was talking about. And then she told me and my companion to go and save the guy. Haha it was so funny! She was like, "Come on girls let's go pray and save this guy" and she started walking towards him and he backed away. She asked us if we could save him and we had no idea what to say haha it was such a weird situation. We told them that it is important to believe in Jesus Christ and to try to be like him so we can live with him again but it was so funny haha! Later she asked us to pray for her with her and she grabbed our hands and we prayed and after she kissed us on our cheeks and we made an appointment for later in the week. She is so awesome and so Sweet! We are so excited to the each her More! So much has gone wrong with our apartment this last week haha! First of all we noticed our ipads wouldnt connect to wifi and so we called our apartment manager and he said we never had wifi in the first place and we were using some random persons wifi the whole time. And they moved :( Rip WiFi. Also our water heater broke. So we had to boil water so we could have warm water to bathe in. That was pretty great. Then we got new neighbors. We didn't have anyone living next to us but now we do. There really nice and we like them but one night they left a candle in their room and their fire alarm would not stop going off. It set off our fire alarms in our apartment as well. We have such a tiny shoebox apartment with two alarms going off and our neighbors fire alarm going off... ALL NIGHT LONG... it never ended. It went off from 6 the previous night to 9 in the morning. We took out the batteries and it still was going off and so we disconnected our alarms from the walls and ours stopped but our neighbors alarm was still going off. We had no sleep that night. We told our apartment manager that and he stopped the alarms and now everything's good so we are now able to sleep :) After district meeting last week we went out to eat all together to smoking crows. It was so good! It's this BBQ place that is so delicious! It was Elder Cox's last district lunch! So Sad! Elder Cox is a missionary in Scottsburg. And it's his last transfer. We are all going to miss him so much! At the animal shelter they got two new puppies, George and Lenny. They are so cute! We play with them all of the time! They love to play with my shoes and pants and it's so funny! On Saturday they both climbed in my lap and fell asleep. It was so precious! They both have been pre adopted already and it's going to be so sad to see them go! We love them so much! That's basically it for this Week! I love you all so much! Sister Harris There are some old pics this week. First one is my first day in the field! That's when I met my trainer Sister Mendon. Second pic was the trampoline place with the STL's. Third, that's our district! We got shamrock shakes this week! Lat pic is after the house of boom at the cute diner where we got shakes with sister Bowen. Hey everybody! I don't have much time to email this week because I'm going to a trampoline place so this email is going to be kind of short! This week was so awesome! Life as a missionary is so great! Literally me and my companion are the same person. We say the exact same things at the exact same time all of the time. Shes so awesome! This week we went on exchanges and I went to Charlestown. I was so excited to go on exchanges because everyone says miracles happen on exchanges. When we got to Charlestown it was so nice so we rode our bikes that day. It was so fun! And let me tell you, MIRACLES DO HAPPEN ON EXCHANGES! We were able to find 3 new investigators! It was so awesome! The people we taught were so amazing and so prepared to hear the message of the restoration. It was such an amazing day. My companion for the day was her hermana Castillo. She is so sweet and so awesome. We had so many Spanish lessons that day. I don't know any Spanish but it made me really want to be in a tiger team. A tiger team is where there's a sister and an hermana. It would be so cool to learn and teach in Spanish. Even though in the Spanish lessons I had no idea what they were saying I felt the spirit so strongly. It was an amazing experience. At the end of the day we needed WiFi to update our area books so we parked outside of the public library. This guy was walking around the parking lot and it seemed pretty sketch. Then a car pulled up and we were wondering what was going on. Then these lights started flashing from the car and it was a cop car! The police officer got out of his car and came to my window and I rolled it down and he asked what we were doing there. We told him we were mormon missionaries and we were only there for the WiFi. He told us this area was a place where people deal drugs and told us to leave. He then started patting down the guy that was walking around the parking lot. Haha it was so cool. I wish we told him more about the gospel so I could say I contacted a police officer haha. Also on exchanges I saw some Amish people building a house. It was super cool! Ive never seen so many amish people before. I also see a lot of Amish wagon crossing signs around here. There's an Amish market around Hanover somewhere and I want to go so badly! Our investigators are so awesome and I love them so Much! This week one of our investigators dropped us. It was so sad, we had a baptisimal date set for her and everything. She said she needed more time but it was so hard that she didn't want to continue to meet with us anymore. The hardest thing is seeing how the gospel blesses their lives and then they walk away from it. We hope her the best and hope she will talk to missionaries some other time in her life. Despite those lows, the highs of missionary work are so worth it. One of our long term investigators is so close to baptism. We are so excited for him and hope he commits soon! It's so amazing seeing how much the gospel changes people. The person I've seen the gospel change the most is myself. Even though I haven't been out that long I can see how much of a different person I've become. My testimony has grown so much and I can truly say I've seen the Lord's hand in my life. The gospel is so amazing and I know that we can all have lasting happiness through it. I love you all and I hope you have an amazing week! Sister Harris Not too many pics this week. There was gum on sale this week so we bought 17 packs of gum haha. And on exchanges we met with a lady from Arabia and she gave us Arabian coke lol. Last pic, me and hermana Castillo tried taking selfies with the cop car but it was pretty dark. Hey y'all! This week has been a pretty good week! So much has been going on! I'm really loving my mission and everyone here! Every week we go and do service at the nursing home. We sing hymns to the residence and share scriptures with them. Since neither me or Sister Mendon play the piano we brought a speaker to play the music but it died in the middle of a song so we had to sing acapella. It was very awkward but we continued to sing anyways haha. Last week there was a huge storm here in Hanover. Me and my companion woke up to hearing loud winds. We checked our phone and some of the ward members and investigators texted us telling us we were on a tornado warning. Nothing affected us but when we got outside there were branches from trees all over the streets. As we drove through the town we saw so many trees uprooted and some ever fell on top of houses! It was pretty insane in the membrane! We had SO much to eat this week! A couple days ago we were going over to an investigators house and she was serving us dinner. She made spaghetti for us and she started putting a ton of noodles on a plate. It seemed like she was putting all of the noodles on a plate so we could serve it ourselves from the table but then she put the sauce on it and handed it to my companion. AN ENTIRE DINNER PLATE FULL OF SPAGHETTI! This plate was massive and the spaghetti was piled high! She served me a plate the same size as my companion. We had no idea how we were going to finish the entire player of spaghetti. Somehow we did and we were so full and then she served us a giant bowl of rice pudding! I thought I was going to die I was so full. We finished it all and almost exploded in the process! The next day was fast Sunday and we were dying because our mouths were so dry from all of the sodium. It was killer but we did it! Earlier this week we had a ton of miles to kill so we decided to go finding people out in the boonies. The boonies is so pretty! The fields are so green and there are so many trees. We were looking for a certain house but there were no addresses on the houses so we just started knocking around. Then three dogs ran up to us and started following us everywhere. They were so cute but they were huge and wet and smelly and would not leave. Dogs follow us around everywhere here. So many times we are out walking and dogs start following us and they follow us so far that we have to call their owners to come pick them up because they won't go home. 2 more weeks until Barbara's Baptism! We are so excited for her! She's so solid it's going to be great! This week we got a new investigator, Stephanie. We shared with her the message of the Restoration and we have a baptisimal date set! So far so good but we have a long way to go so hopefully she can stick with us! Brother Kubik is doing awesome. We committed him to reading 9 pages from the Book of Mormon a day so he can be finished by General Conference. Hopefully this strengthens his testimony and he will desire to be baptized! We are getting so pumped for conference! We will be making a conference bracket with some of the members of the ward. It consists of things like what new temples are being built where, or what color is the choir going to wear, or who's wearing what color of tie. The winner gets a trophy and I want it so badly! So not too many crazy things happened but it was a great week! I love you All! Sister Harris I'm outta the MTC!! Lots has happened lately! I finished up my last week at the MTC and flew to Kentucky! The flight was so awesome! We had sky priority since one of the other missionaries parents was a pilot. On our connecting flight we even flew first class! It was so awesome! The chairs were huge and we had glass cups! And we got refills and fancy snacks! It was so cool! When we got to Kentucky we were picked up by our mission president and his wife and the AP's. We got to ride in Might Moe (that's the name of the van). When we got to our mission president's home we went through some training and had dinner. Our mission president is so awesome! The next day we met our trainers. I was paired with Sister Mendon. Sister Mendon is so awesome, she is so nice and is so fun. We have super fun times together. She is also such an awesome teacher. So lucky to have her as my trainer. So my first area is in Hanover, Indiana. It's a super small town and is uber cute. It's next to a town called Madison which is like the cutest town you will ever see. Theres a bunch of cute shops downtown and its all by the Ohio river. Super pretty! So I've only been able to meet a few of our investigators so far. Luna is one of our investigators. She is making steps for baptism and we are super optimistic for her. Brother Kubik has been an investigator for almost a year now. He's taking a while but he is still progressing. He's really awesome and knows so much about the gospel. Barbara is a star investigator! She keeps all the commitments we give her and we set a baptismal date for her on March 19 so hopefully she actually keeps that date! We have other investigators getting close to baptism but hopefully they stay on track. This week we got to do some service! We helped so excited members paid to their garage and it was so super fun! We jammed out to classical music the entire time. Also we do service at an animal shelter 3 times a week which basically means we play with puppies a lot. We can play with them, bathe them, and take them on walks. It's so fun! Life is really interesting as a missionary. We work so hard all day long and plans fall through everyday but I am having a great time. It was really hard adjusting to missionary life at first but things are always getting better and better! Sister Harris I don't have too many pictures of my new area but here's some of the last pictures we took as a district in the MTC and a picture of me and another missionary flying first class and me and my new companion sister Mendon before helping some members paint! The MTC has been so awesome! I'm learning so much here! I love my district so much and I'm just having the best time here! Only one more week until I leave for Kentucky! I'm so excited to go out and teach the gospel. The days are weeks and the weeks are days. Classes seem to run on forever but the weeks go by so fast. The district that came before us just left this week and it was so sad to have them leave! The zone has really become family. I love everyone so much! All the sisters in my district share a room. There's me, sister Winona, Sister Wilde, Sister Ludwig, Sister Goeller, and Sister Swann. They are all so awesome we just have the best time together. We all took a Polaroid picture of ourselves and put it on our door. It's s'cute. One of my new favorite things to do here is four square. During gym time we just play four square for an hour. Four square is so intense. I'm basically a pro now since I've been here for two weeks. It's so competitive it's nuts. I also joined the MTC choir and it is so awesome. I have no idea how to read music and I don't know what I'm doing but it's so awesome to be a part of a huge choir. The song we are singing is Lead, Kindly Light. It's so fun practicing because the choir sounds so amazing! We actually sang at the devotional tonight in front of ELDER M. RUSSELL BALLARD, AN APOSTLE OF THE Lord! It was so awesome. The devotional was broadcasted to 14 other MTC's around the world. His talk was all about having a positive attitude and setting goals to be a successful missionary. His talk was so inspiring and just makes me want to be the best missionary I can be. Today is valentine's day but since we are in the MTC it is Galentines Day where we celebrate our sisterly friendship. One of the sisters in our district got us all Krispy Kreme donuts to celebrate Galentines Day! The donuts were heart shaped and pink and had sprinkles and we're s'cute. The entire residency hall is covered in hearts! It was and great day. Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Sister Harris Hey y'all! So tomorrow will be officially one week in the MTC!! This is still so crazy! But I'm having a great time! I never knew I could learn so much in one day. The schedule is absolutely insane. We wake up at 6 and we're in classes until 9. I've never been so tired and energized in my life! Our district is so awesome. All of us sisters are best friends and feel like we've known each other for forever. And the elders are pretty amazing as well. We've all gotten very close over the past week. My companion is Sister Winona, the cute short blonde hair girl. We work great together. We were called to be the Sister Training Leader's for our zone. It's pretty crazy getting a call like that the first day we arrived at the MTC but we're doing pretty great at it. We just have to check up on how people are doing and welcome the new incoming missionaries this week and next week and help plan the schedule for our zone with the zone leaders. I don't know if any of that makes sense haha. We got to go on a temple trip on Sunday and it was so nice being able to be outside and walk around the beautiful Provo temple! When we were walking back to the MTC there were TWO DEERS RUNNING AROUND! I swear it was the coolest thing I've ever seen! I got a video of them running around but it's on my camera so I don't have access to it right now. Also this week we had our TRC investigators. Sister Winona and I were bomb teachers. First we taught a lady named Leyla and the lesson went great. We talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and that the gospel blesses families. One point in the lesson she started crying and the spirit was so strong. We asked her if she prayed to know if the things we told her were true if she would follow Christ's example and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God and she said she would! Our other lesson was with a different Leila and that lesson went awesome as well. We taught the same thing in this lesson and we had Leila pray at the end of our lesson and she started crying too! I could tell that both of our investigators felt the spirit very strongly. It was so amazing! We get to teach both of them again tomorrow and hopefully it will go well. The gospel is finger lick'n good and I'm so excited for the time I actually get to teach the people of Kentucky! I still have a long ways to go with learning but I am so excited to see what the future has to hold for me! Oh and by the way I'm still dabbing. Love Y'all! Sister Harris |