Hello my dearest family and friends,
Today is the day
of my first transfer and I am happy to report that Sister Nowell and I
are staying together for the next transfer!! I love Sister Nowell, she
is the best trainer that I could have asked for and I learn so much from
her every single day. I feel like she is more my friend then she is my
trainer, she is a forever kind of friend, we seriously get along so well
and I love every minute of it! I am excited for the success that we
will be getting in the next transfer as a companionship. Elder Stohl in
our ward left to Corvallis, our ward family got split apart :( but we
are excited to have Elder Brocheres in our ward for the next 6 weeks!
This
week has been full of adventures, some of them fun and some of them
very hard, but you know that is what missionary work is all about! We
have been doing a lot of finding in the last week trying to find new
investigators but we haven't been having a lot of success which is kind
of disappointing. We had an experience with this lady named Brenda. She
when she was growing up was part of the Jehovah Witnesses and is very
against organized religion. But she reads the bible everyday and she
feels like she has a very strong connection with God. We left her our
card last week and told her if she had any questions to give us a call.
Well we went back to visit her this last week, because if there is one
thing that missionaries are good at, it is we are good at always coming
back to potentials that we see. We came back and the first thing she
said to us was, "I don't have any interest in investigating your church
anymore, I googled you and you were right next to the JW's and I don't
have any interest in joining a cult." I had never ran into anyone that
thought we were in a cult. They told us that we worshiped our prophet
and that we aren't what we say we are. We even tried to give her a Book
of Mormon and try to explain what our religion actually believe and she
told us that she is not letting any of that into her house. At first I
thought that I was going to get combative with her and start arguing, I
then had a feeling come over me and I started to feel bad for her and
the things that she had thought about our church. We tried all that we
could with her but obviously at this time she is not ready to accept the
gospel. I hope that in the future missionaries will be able to stop by
and see if she is ready to accept the gospel later in her life.
We
had the most amazing experience today. After we did our weekly
volunteer work at UCAN (a food bank here in Oregon) we decided to have
lunch with our STLs at our apartment. They came over and we had homemade
pizzas. DELISH. When we were all finished, we started cleaning up and
we ended up hearing a knock at the door! We were kind of confused, no
one ever knocks at our door! Feeling kind of freaked out, we nominated
Sister Sidhu to go see who it was. Well, it was this lady who explained
she wasn't trying to sell us anything, but that she worked for a vacuum
company and if she found 60 people to show off this vacuum, she got to
go to Vegas for free. She asked if we were interested, and we all looked
at each other, not knowing what to do! So we just said yes! She was
stoked and said she would come back in five minutes. So she ended up
showing up with this guy named William and he was going to clean our
apartment. So we got to talk to him from our porch as he cleaned.
Anyways, we got talking to William and come to find out, he told us
that his mom is actually a member of our church! So he tells us about
that, and how he knows a little about the church and how he knows there
is a lot of misconceptions. It kind of started out like a Q&A
session, in which we ended up teaching him most of the restoration, some
of gospel of Jesus Christ, some of the plan of salvation AND the word
of wisdom. It was seriously SO cool. He asked some really inspired
questions and we got to tell him more about what we do as missionaries,
while in turn he totally cleaned our carpet and it looked amazing! He
got up so much nasty dirt and grime. Well, long story short, we had an
amazing chat with him. We talked about tender mercies and how we all
crossed paths for a reason, that there is no such thing as coincidences.
We gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to watch the Mountains to
Climb Mormon Message. He also gave us his number so that we can hook him
up with missionaries in Springfield where he lives!! So cool. It is so
neat to see how Heavenly Father prepares people's hearts and minds to be
open and ready to hear the Gospel In their own time. In HIS time.
Anyways it was a great experience and definitely the highlight of my
week so far. This was seriously one of those experience where you feel
like Heavenly Father bring someone to you instead of the other way
around.
This week we were meeting
with a member trying to find some referrals for the week, and the son
who is only 16 years old gave me this really great advice before I left
their house, he said, "Be a King in your mind but act as a servant." I
loved this event because it really just showed me that you are a child
of your Heavenly father and we all need to remember that, and we are put
to work here on this earth to be able to find those who are searching
for the gospel, it was seriously an amazing moment and I was so glad
that we told me that quote.
This week we were
invited to a wedding reception of a member of our stake. It was a really
cool experience! Elder Mafi in our ward is Tongan and at this receptino
there were a ton of Samoans! It was so cool. We were able to go because
the member that invited us, is the only member in her family and her
whole family was there. So it was really cool to be able to be there and
interacting with non members in our church building. Also we were able
to watch some men to the Haka and that was so cool. Seriously freaked
out and it was amazing.
CAMERON GOT BAPTIZED
YESTERDAY! It was seriously one of the coolest experiences to be a part
of Camerons baptism and it was amazing that I was able to teach him
during the last 6 weeks. He is such an awesome kid and I have seriously
had such a blast teaching him. On Thursday we asked him on a scale of 1
to 10 how excited was he for his baptism and he said 52,000. Seriously.
He is the best, I laugh so much when ever we go over there to teach him.
We are going to start the new member lessons this week or next and he
is going to do them with some young men in the ward so we can make it a
little more fun. We are having his confirmation next week during
sacrament meeting and we are so excited because his mom is coming!
Seriously, she is very against the church and I am totally seeing his
heart soften over the last couple of weeks. She was at his baptism as
well and she is so great.
To finish my letter I
want to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart, and
that is the temple. Yesterday in Sacrament meeting we had an amazing
talk on Temples. He quoted a lot from the talk "The Holy Temple- a
Beacon to the World" by President Monson. READ IT. Its awesome.
Why are so many willing to gi
I
love this quote because sometimes we forget how much it is worth it to
sacrifice for the temple. Today in my personal study I was reading in 2
Nephi 5 and it talks about how one of the first things that Nephi did
when he came to the Americas was build a temple. And he built it with
workmanship that was exceedingly fine. I love this. I love how we can
learn a lot about things in our life from things in the Book of Mormon
and from our living day prophet.
Also for those who are reading this letter who may not be worthy to go to the temple at this time.
If you have not yet been to th
I
love this, always strive to work towards the temple. One thing that
they also talk about in this talk is having a picture of the temple in
your bedroom, this counsel is from Spencer W. Kimball. I love this and I
think that it is very important for us to keep that in mind.
I
have a lot of people in my life in the next couple of weeks that are
having the opportunity to go through the temple to receive their
endowment in the next couple of weeks. I am so excited for these people
and I am so happy for the progress that they have made in the process.
The temple is such a magnificent place and it is the closest place that
you can be to Gods presence here on Earth. Never take the temple for
granted, do all you can to go to the temple. I invite every one who can
make it possible to go to the temple to be able to receive the blessings
that come from it. President Monson in his talk says that some of the
best experiences in his life that he has had in the temple is when he
was there with his family doing work for his ancestors. I know this is
true and I have been able to see that in my own life and I am so happy
for all of those experiences that I have been able to have with my
family members.
Thank you so much for all of
the emails that I get every week. I am so sorry that I don't always send
back much. But I am always so grateful for all the letters that I get. I
love the testimonies that I hear the experiences that my families and
friends have every week.
I love you all so much and thank you for all of your prayers every week. They mean so much to me.
Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,
Sister Harrison
CAMERON'S BAPTISM
Again, So cute! We took pictures on Elder Mafis ipad, gotta love it!
Sister Nowell and I with Cameron!!!
Our ward family at the reception with the beautiful bride and groom!
This guy came out of the reception and asked if he could get a
picture with the missionaries! I love finding people that are excited to
see us because most of the time people aren't very excited!
Dolla Dolla District 2.0 picture with our matching Chevy Cruzes.
Don't you love my desk?
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