Miracle can come in ALL shapes and sizes!

December 5, 2016

Hello my dear sweet fan club, I have yet ended another week here in Paradise, aka the Celestial part of the mission. There have been so many miracles that happened this week that I just can not wait to tell you all about, so with out further adieu, lets get started!

Last Pday was really great, we ate dinner at Sister Hendrix's home, she had been less active for years until now, and I ate bottom fish (which is what she like to call it- really I guess it is cod) and actually really liked it. She also makes everything way too spicy and I thought my mouth was going to die but that is fine. She literally said in like the same sentence as hello, oh by the way I put jalapenos in all of the food, well this will be an interesting dinner I guess! We then were able to go to the church to be there for Jessica and Emily's Baptismal Interview. It was amazing to see them growing closer and closer to baptism! During the interviews Sister Datwyler and I played dodge ball with Stephanie, the youngest daughter who had already been baptized. I hate running around in my skirt so I started to try and get out right away, oops! Then we went to the Applebakers and we made snowflakes for Family home evening, Jessica made Sister Dat and I tiny tiny tiny ones, so cute! It was so much fun to spend time with this family. I have loved teaching them leading up to their baptism, they are so much fun and their family has made such an amazing decision to be baptized this coming week!

On Tuesday we were able to go to Barbara's early, to do service, because we were supposed to have a lesson with our new investigator Ginny, but she cancelled our lesson. But the great thing about that is that she wanted to reschedule! So we are planning on going and seeing her tomorrow to have a lesson with her!  At Barbara's we hung up some pictures and helped her vacuum, nothing exciting. Except one thing that you have to know about Barbara is that she is an amazing quilter, even now as she is getting older she spends as much time as she possibly can to sew. She literally has 3 rooms in her house dedicated to sewing, it is awesome. Well she has been experimenting with some things and she has started making these little garbage bags for the car, it is awesome and so cute! So I was able to pick out the fabrics for mine, and she thought I was crazy because I wanted black and white stripes, I am sorry Barbara that is just my personality, just ask anyone who knows me! After we left Barbara's we had a missed call from April, a recent convert in the ward here and she asked if we could come visit and so of course we said yes. Right now we are also teaching her 10 year old son, Eli. Eli is a very interesting person. He is a very smart boy and likes to go into deep doctrine and things, like in my first lesson with him he started to ask about seer stones, where did that come from? We don't know. He also asked us about what there was before God. Things like this come up all the time. So we have been having a difficult time teaching him. But when we went and saw April she wanted to schedule a lesson with him so we scheduled that for the very next day. After we were done at Aprils we had dinner at the Leavitts and apparently last time they ate there, their son Alex had his girlfriend over and they invited her to learn more. So awkwardly Sister Dat asked if she still wanted to schedule a lesson and apparently they broke up... so we will not be teaching her... it made the dinner a little awkward! Tuesday night we were then able to go to the church and have Jessica and Emily try on their Baptismal Clothing, and they look just amazing in white. It got me so much more excited for the baptism coming up, it felt like it was real! That night we then had our first correlation with our new ward mission leader, and let me just tell you, Heavenly Father knows who we are and knows what callings that we need to be placed in because man, Brother Johnson is AWESOME!

Oh my goodness fan club. Wednesday was just jam packed full of miracles. We woke up in the morning and had a lesson with Harvey out in the sun, you may not think this is such a big deal but honestly it has been so rainy here. And so as we were sitting out there I decided to take off my sweater and I just basked for a few minutes out there, and don't worry I did get a little pink on my shockingly white skin, but it was awesome. We then had a lesson scheduled Eli, we were teaching the Plan of Salvation. As we were teaching I was able to use the cut outs that I made with Sister Rhoton just a few weeks ago. And we got to mortality and on the mortality cut out it talks about the commandments and the gospel that we are asked to live while we are here on the Earth. So on that cut out it has a picture of baptism. As we were talking about mortality Eli kept staring at it and then we asked him a question, I honestly don't even remember the question, and he said, I think I want to be baptized. WHAT?!?! Last we heard he didn't want to be baptized until he was 21! So we jumped on that and put him on date for January 1st and we are so so so excited for him! After that lesson we had a lesson right after with a guy named Kyle, Kyle has now come to church twice just out of curiosity so we scheduled an appointment with him so that he could learn more! Well because he is of the male gender we had to find another sister to come to the lesson with us. We had been making phone calls after phone calls and no one had answered. Well, literally like 30 minutes before the lesson we got a text saying Sister Ryan could come! That was a miracle in and of its self honestly! So we had a lesson with Kyle, and he actually showed up (this was yet another miracle)! The lesson went really good I think, we taught the Restoration and he had a lot of questions about the Bible, so it was a good thing that Sister Ryan was there because she was able to answer a lot of those questions. In our mind we think that he is more just interested in what we believe in rather then actually believing in what we believe. But we scheduled another lesson with him on Saturday, and he didn't show up, so maybe we will see him at church sometime! Honestly he is kind of a sketchy young man. When we asked him where he works he said here there and everywhere. When we asked him for an address he gave us one, but it doesn't exist in Brookings, so the Elders think he is either a hit man or a drug dealer. Who knows! We will just let the Elders teach him from now on! You could say it was just an amazing day of miracles! So, it was a peppermint Oreo blizzard kind of day, so of course we went and got one! 

On Thursdays we do service at this place called Habitat for Humanity, and it was a lot of fun this week because we were able to help them decorate for Christmas. That is one thing that I have really missed about not being home, is decorating. So I am really glad that there are people around us who have really allowed us to come and help them in their efforts! But service was really great because the manager of the place, Bobbie, asked us a lot of questions about what we do as missionaries. So we were able to teach her in a conversational way, and honestly that is the best way to teach someone about the gospel. Later that day we had kind of a same experience to that in which we went to go get gas. When we get gas it asks for our odometer number, and our driver number. (Because you know in Oregon it is against the law to pump your own gas #lazyfactor #awesome) Apparently it also does that on business cars. So the man asked us if we were on a business trip and we said no and explained we were missionaries. So then he had some questions for us and we were in the end able to leave him with a card to watch Light the World. You could say that we will probably go back there to get gas to follow up with him   Thursdays are our planning days so we decided to go grab some lunch and plan on the beach because it was yet another great day! (Although on the actual beach it was very windy so we ended up just planning in our car) But we stopped at this Thai place and we ended up running into a member that knows one of our investigators! So we were able to then talk to him about her and see how we can connect with her on a better level. I am telling you. Heavenly Father is always trying to put you in the right places at the right time, and when you follow those impressions MIRACLES come. That night we were able to have a fire on the beach with the Sheffels. Elder Montague asked it as one of his wishes before he leaves Brookings (since transfers are next Monday!!!) The fire was so much fun, it was also really cold. We wore Pday clothes and it was still freezing! But we roasted hot dogs and did smores, it was seriously a blast, I love love love the Sheffels.

So for District Meeting on Friday I don't have a lot to report but about the conversation that we had. Our district leader asked us if anything cool had happened this week and we told them that our week had been just full of miracles! They were like what? Really? Maybe you could share some with us. So of course I pulled out my miracle journal and started reading them and they started protesting and saying wooah wooah wooah, that is not a miracle. But to us in our companionship everything that I had written down we could say for a surety that it was a miracle. So then we started debating it and I just want to tell my fan club today that miracles can come in all shapes and sizes. This week it was a miracle that we were able to sit outside and bask in the sun. But it was also a miracle that Jessica and Emily got baptized! I believe that a miracle is when you can recognize that Heavenly Father has helped you out in some part of your life and that you can recognize that he loves you for that. So the way that I have been trying to recognize my miracles more is by using a miracle journal. Every time something happens that I feel my Heavenly Father's hand in my life I write it down. And since I have started doing that I have realized all the little things that happen every single day. So I invite you all to do that same! Miracles are every where so watch out for them!

Um so you could say that Friday was also a miracle filled day because.... EMILY AND JESSICA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! It was so awesome to be apart of their baptism. The spirit was so strong. We were able to Skype with a Sister who also taught them before the baptism and they were able to bear their testimonies for her and you could just tell that they were so ready! Stephanie, the youngest in the family, was baptized about a month ago so she was able to watch her sister and her mom get baptized and it was an awesome feeling for her. At the end of the baptismal service Sister Dat and I were able to bear our testimonies on baptism. When ever I attend a baptism I am reminded of my baptism and how I felt that day. And I remember how happy I was and how clean I felt. And I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have that I can still feel that clean and that happy today. And we can do that by following and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. By having faith, repenting, renewing our baptismal covenants each week, by listening to promptings from the Holy Ghost and by continuing to do these things for the rest of our lives. I am so grateful for the love that my Savior and my Heavenly Father have for me. There is nothing comparable. And I am so excited for the decision that Emily and Jessica made on Friday! Sister Dat cried off all of her make up that evening, but it was seriously just a miracle of a day!  

On Saturday we were able to attend the Adult Session of Stake Conference, but because the stake center is 100 miles away they had to broadcast it to our building here in Brookings. This stake here on the coast is the most unusual stake I have ever seen. Because of the fact that it stretches about 200 miles North to South but then going inland it only goes about 50 miles. So it is a very far spread out. But Stake Conference was awesome this weekend and we were able to be taught about missionary work quite a bit. It was kind of funny because Roseburg had their stake conference right before I left, and I swear that the temple president and his wife gave the same exact talk, but don't worry I didn't tell anyone that. I still learned from it so that is all that matters! So when we were leaving the church building there was a car alarm going off in the trailer park next to the church (there are trailer parks every where in Brookings), and there was a member in the building that thought it was his car so he pressed his alarm button right as we passed his car, I swear Sister Dat and I almost pooped our pants and ran to our car. It scared us so bad, but later we couldn't stop laughing about it!

On Sunday we were able to attend Stake Conference, and again like I already said, that was pretty great. Then we were able to have a lesson with Catherine, who is a recent convert, and her husband Danny who is currently our investigator. It was a really great lesson until Catherine came back in the room because she started asking deep doctrinal questions, and honestly lessons go by so much easier and people understand more if we keep it simple. But that is okay, it brought up a good discussion, but then it made us 45 minutes late to our next lesson. So our investigator Heather luckily waited for us and we were able to talk about what she expects out of meeting with us missionaries and it was actually a really great short lesson. So then we were able to go to the Christmas Devotional that they were able to broadcast to our building as well. And it was just so amazing. I love talking about the season that we are in right now and talking about coming closer to Christ. And I don't remember his name, but he talked about how if we all woke up Christmas morning and we just looked at the presents instead of opening them. And it really got me to think about what aspects in my life am I just looking at in stead of partaking of. This could be anything, the atonement, Sabbath day church attendance, prompting from the Holy Ghost, reading of the Book of Mormon, etc. Our loving Heavenly Father has given us so many gifts and or talents on this earth, and we need to partake of these things. And I know that as we do that we will grow and progress to who our Heavenly Father wants us to become. 

I am so grateful for this gospel my lovely fan club! This week has been the best over here in Brookings, and honestly I am loving it more and more everyday. Next week is Transfers so if you want to hear from me email me Sunday night because we leave early Monday morning to go to the transfer spot. Thank you so much for all the love you have showed me this week, and for your never ending prayers, they are much appreciated! I love you all so much and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison