November 28, 2016
As a missionary I feel like I am getting older and older each and every day. From carrying so many copies of Book of Mormons in my bag I think I am going to have back problems for the rest of my life, lol. But one thing I found out this week, Brother Johnson, who is our new Ward Mission Leader, will do adjustments on us for free because he is a Chiropractor! This is awesome news and I am totally going there! Because right now I feel like a rice crispy.
This last Pday was less then exciting. We spent most of the day at the church even though what we should have been doing was be outside since it was the first day it had been sunny in like a week. I seriously love the Oregon rain, and I think I will like it a lot more now that I got a nice rain coat! And I got it cheaper then I thought it was going to be. On pdays we don't read emails or send emails after 5. But Sister Datwyler and I still needed to go to Fred Meyer (the only grocery store in Brookings might I add) to buy my rain coat while it was on sale. And we wanted to check our emails one last time. And we had 15 minutes. So we ran and we were so close and we made it back to the church 5:02, and we are obedient so we weren't able to respond to more emails. But I got my rain coat! Hopefully I will be able to try it out for the next few days. Sister Datwyler and I spent a lot of time on Pday making snowflakes to hang in our apartment. We are literally going to make it a winter wonderland, it will be right would of frosty the snowman. We made like 30+ already, it should be good. For dinner on Monday Sister Rushton was the only one home so she couldn't feed the elders in the home without another male. So she brought the food to the church. And she made this Caramel apple dessert, oh my goodness I will have to get the recipe for you. It was like fall in an apple. My mouth is still watering over it. Sometimes I wish members didn't feed us dessert because that is where we gain all the weight. But I just love love love dessert, oops.
So last week Sister Datwyler had it rough with our numbers because we were gone for basically 3 days, so on Tuesday we reached 3 of our weekly goals in one day, it was awesome. We literally had 5 member present lessons. We had a lesson with our eternigator Angie, an eternigator is some one who has been investigating the church forever and who just hasn't committed to baptism quite yet. Although Angie continues to talk about how she wants her parents work to be done in the temple, because she wants them to receive the blessings of baptism. Okay I have never met anyone in my life who isn't a member of the church want their families work done in the temple. Angie's testimony of eternal principles is powerful. So we wanted to talk about how she could do the work for her parents in the temple if she is baptized. Apparently she had a baptism date 3 years ago but she got cold feet. I really think we are going to be able to help Angie have those blessings in her own life as well as her parents.
We were able to do some service for Barbra on Tuesday which is always a delight. I found out how the sisters found Barbra and apparently her daughter is a less active member who isn't really interested anymore. But Barbra is a religious woman and needs some help around the house so we go and help her. And this week we were able to help her by peeling and chopping apples, and I got to zest lemons. It was a lot of fun since this year for thanksgiving I wasn't able to do any cooking. I miss that, but sometimes it is nice not having to make a huge mess in the kitchen. It was also fun because Barbra asked if our church still enforced food storage, which was kind of a funny way to ask it. But we talked about the importance of having things when we need them, she thought that was so cool and that maybe she needs a food storage!
I was able to test my rain jacket literally the day after I bought it. When we checked the weather Monday night it said Tuesday was going to have 100% rain, and man they weren't kidding about that. But I stayed completely dry all day thanks to my new rain coat! Gotta love these Oregon winters!
We had our first lesson with our new investigator Ginny finally! We were able to take a member with us, Sister Marks, and when we got there Ginny had Apple Pie and Mexican Hot Chocolate waiting for us. Although Ginny didn't know if we were allowed to have Chocolate or not so she was freaking out. But don't worry we were able to eat the Hot Chocolate and man it was good. We were able to talk to Ginny and she told us about her religious background and basically told us that she didn't believe in organized religion anymore but that she believed she was spiritual. Well the spirit kept egging me on to introduce the Book of Mormon and I didn't want to because I didn't think she would accept it. But the spirit kept saying go for it so I did and I used the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon to explain the story line and I testified of how the Book of Mormon had blessed me in my life, then suddenly she said that we had sparked an interest inside of her and she wanted to find out for herself! It was awesome and she asked if we could come by the same time next week before we even tried to schedule a return date. I can't wait to see how that goes.
So after Ginny's lesson Sister Dat and I had to run to the dollar store because Sister Dat has been really sick and literally went through a whole box of tissues in a couple of days. So we went to buy more and we ran into a recent convert there! She thinks we are stalking her because we ran into her at the grocery store on Pday, but I know it's the spirit. She hasn't been answering our phone calls or texts so we were able to schedule an appointment with her! Heavenly Father will always put you in the right place at the right time.
This week we were trying to contact a referral that we received from a member, yes members are awesome here and give us referrals, seriously it is a blessing! And the referral didn't answer her door so we decided to keep going and knocking on doors, but please remember that this was the night before Thanksgiving, I swear no one wanted to talk to us. But we came to a house and met a man named Scott who just moved here from Coos Bay! Awesome! We were so excited. He wanted to hear more about the Book of Mormon and he has a family, so we will be going back this week for a lesson that we planned with him!
So on Thanksgiving we were able to spend part of the morning sending text messages out to all of our investigators and members who do a lot for us to let them know how grateful we are for them, that was nice! Then we were able to go and contact some people, who really didn't have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving, to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and to try to schedule a time with them that we could stop by, it was really nice to having to spend Thanksgiving morning cooking! We were then able to go to the beach for a few minutes because on Thanksgiving the wind was super crazy! It is really cool to look around at the things that our Heavenly Father has given us, I am so grateful for the beautiful world that we live on. I am grateful for beautiful Brookings where I am able to serve! A scripture that I shared a lot this week because of Thanksgiving was Alma 34:38, but really this is a scripture that we should remember every single day! It says. "live in Thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you." Our Heavenly Father is always giving us so many mercies and he wants us to partake of these blessings, but we need to be able to recognize those things. So I hope this Thanksgiving Season everyone was able to recognize the things that we are given every single day. One way that I invited people to recognize these things was by saying a thankful prayer to our Heavenly Father, only saying things that we are grateful for and not asking for anything. I invite anyone reading this to do this as well!
Other then that my Thanksgiving was pretty good! We ate at the church with 4 different families that came together and made a fantastic meal. The families were The Rushtons, The Hodges, The Halladays and The Shaws. It was a lot of fun and they even made the same type of rolls that we make at home! And they made Raspberry Pretzel Jello, so it was awesome!! It really wasn't the same, but I am glad that I was able to eat turkey with people that love me here in Brookings! After dinner we were told not to go out a proselyte but to go home a write a letter home then weekly plan. We did that for a little bit but then we decided to go over to the Sheffels, and that was so nice. Sister Sheffel is very much Mama Sheffel here in Brookings, we all love her. She hasn't even been a member for a year yet! But we went over there and they made a bunch of popcorn and hot chocolate and we sat around and talked for a little bit. And then we decided to go down to the port to watch the waves coming in from the storm and that was a lot of fun. We also saw some seals! Although I found out that it is illegal to touch them, so we will not be doing that anytime soon. It was a lot of fun, I could call the first Thanksgiving in the mission field a success!
On Friday we were able to go help the Applebakers (our investigators who are getting baptized this week!!!!!) decorate for Christmas. It was so much fun, they had a bunch of Christmas hymns playing, because they knew we couldn't listen to anything else, and we just laughed and decorated. And then at the end we were able to share Light the World with them and what an experience that was. They all cried and were just so excited to see the advent calendar that is now up on Mormon.org! I am so grateful for this time of year that we have to go out and Light the World!
Speaking of LIGHT THE WORLD, if you have not seen the movie you better stop reading my email right now and go watch it because it says way more then I will ever say. Seriously, it touches me everyday. And the comments that we get everytime we show it to people is basically the same. They love how it shows things Christ has done and then shows people doing those things. And that my dear fan club is the purpose. Our purpose on this Earth is to return back to our Father who is in Heaven and one of the ways that we do that is to be more like Christ every single day. It isn't easy but I invite you to go to the advent calendar on Mormon.org and check out what is on there. And no you do not need to be a member to go there, this is for everyone, big or small. How are you going to Light the World this season?
This week we watched Meet the Mormons with the Applebakers and it was awesome. I have watched this movie so many times on my mission, but let me tell you, every time I watch the Missionary Mom scenes I cry like a baby, its fine, I am fine. lol
So on Saturday Sister Dat and I spent the day tracting wanting to show people the Light the World video. Not many people actually watched the video. But at this one house this young boy, probably 13, answered the door and said he would watched it and he actually started to cry. When he asked him how he felt he said that he felt really good inside, so we invited him to learn more about Christ and he told us to come back Sunday afternoon to meet his parents. So we came back on Sunday and found out that his mom had been taking the discussion and was actually on date for baptism. But she couldn't get baptized because her husband didn't want her to do that. Even though her husband is a less active! It was really sad, the boy looked so sad. I hope one day his dads heart will be softened. Light the World is going to change lives.
We had a pretty good first Fast Sunday in Brookings, I am pretty sure there wasn't a whole 30 seconds without someone who was bearing their testimony, it was awesome. I love hearing others bear their testimony, whether it is long and drawn out or if it is simple and to the point. Great things happen from bearing your testimony and I know that as you share your testimony with others that your is multiplied exceedingly. Also a young man got up and talked about how his testimony has grown from Seminary, here they go to early morning seminary, and he invited all of the youth in the congregation to attend seminary even if you lose a few hours of sleep. Because you know sleep is a temporal thing, I like my sleep a little too much to call it a temporal thing, lol. Anyway, Sister Dat and I were able to give the Gospel Principle lesson on prayer this week. And apparently I was the only one out of the two of us to read the lesson before Sunday morning so I ended up teaching a majority of the lesson. I always hated it growing up when people said they made the lesson plan, or talk that morning. Coming to church is so important and these people have come to be enriched with the gospel. So if you teach on Sundays I invite you to prepare before hand, but I do understand some circumstance don't allow for that but try your hardest. The lesson went great though and I hope every one felt the spirit.
Last night we were able to have dinner at the Sheffels and we made omelets in a bag, yum yum yum. it was so good. I love the Sheffels.
I had a pretty great Thanksgiving week! I am so grateful for all of you and everything that you have done to help me get out here on a mission. I love you and hope that your Thanksgiving was wonderful!
Love you and miss you!
Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,
Sister Harrison 
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