Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Meetings = Revelatory Experience

August 7, 2017

Alright FAN CLUB! Just another week here in the Bay. The weeks are flying by faster and faster, I can hardly believe it. But the work keeps moving forward and the search for New Investigators never stops! I am excited to see the miracles that will come this next week, but first let me just share a few of the miracles that we had this week!

So this week we got to go to Eugene for our Missionary Leadership Council that we have every first Tuesday of the month. I thought because I had been transferred out of Klamath that it wasn't going to be a very long drive, nope my friends it was still 2 and a half hours. But it was a beautiful drive so I can not complain. But this was probably the coolest MLC that I have ever been to. I LOVE PRESIDENT AND SISTER ORTON! They are so awesome. It has been really cool to see the differences between them and the Russells. I love them all, but I think what the mission needs right now is President and Sister Orton. I forget that he has been working with Young Single Adults for years and so he is giving us the opportunity to learn and grow which has been really great to see! Well this MLC was so great because we did what it is intended, we counseled. We watched a video from a council with some of the general authorities and Elder Bednar made a comment about he wants us to take the word meeting out of our vocabulary and instead use the phrase "Revelatory Experience", so when we go to Sacrament Meeting, we are actually going to take the Sacrament and have a Revelatory Experience. Pretty cool! So all MLC we were able to council about things. About Pondering, companionship study, leadership roles, what we learned last time at MLC. It was a really cool experience. And then at the end, President Orton decided to talk about rules in the mission. Then it all went out the window. The spirit was so strong during the whole MLC the suddenly the last 30 minutes it was gone and there was a lot of contention talking about the rules that had been made. Well, this is how I look at it. When the Prophet dies it doesn't mean that we lose the commandments that he made, so just with President Russell leaving it shouldn't take the rules with him. In the end none of the rules were changes, but I think it is important to realize all the things that I am able to have as a missionary serving here in the OEM. And that those things are GIFTS. And I shouldn't take those for granted.

This week I was able to go on exchanges with the sister down from Brookings, I LOVE BROOKINGS. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. They came up here for interviews so we were able to go out and do work together the day before and such. It was a lot of fun. Sister Schroeder and I went out and did some tracting and met some really great people then we went to contact this man. Well his wife answered the door instead and she really didn't want to talk to us and she was not interested. But Sister Schroeder and I just talked to her for a minute and then it came out that this ladys mom is actually a recent convert in like Missouri! Crazy. She said she has heard a lot of different things about the church since that happened and she just doesn't want to get her family into that quite yet. Well, because she talked about families I felt prompted to talk about my family and to share the Family Proclamation with her. As we did her countenance began to change and she really wanted to read about what we thought about families. She took the pamphlet and we have a lesson with her tomorrow night, I AM SO EXCITED! There is so much potential here in this area, we just have to go out and find them.

We had a really cool annoucement yesterday in Sacrament Meeting!!!! You are all probably aware that the church is making Book of Mormon Story Videos just like they did for the Bible Videos just a few years ago. WELL they are filming the scenes from 1 Nephi, you know the ship scenes, ON THE OREGON COAST RIGHT WHERE I AM SERVING! They are trying to find stand ins and they are paying people to do it! SO COOL. Too bad I am a missionary and that really isn't allowed. But, I am so excited for the Book of Mormon Videos!

President and Sister Orton had the opportunity to come here to the coast this weekend to come and do interviews. I love them so much! President Orton and I had a really good visit and he said that we are doing really well here in this area. I am excited to be able to work with President Orton more and more. We talked a lot about companionship study and I was able to tell him the story with Michelle that I shared last week in my weekly email and he liked it so much that he wants me to type it up and to email it to him! He is a very loving man and in my opinion is doing a great job leading the Oregon Eugene Mission!

The Elder gave us a referral last week for this little girl who is 9 years old, her name is Pippy. Her dad is a returning less active and wanted her to take the lesson from two sane Sister Missionaries. I would like to add right here that Sister Lunt and I are probably not the sanest. But you get what you get I guess! Well we had a lesson this week at the church while he was in his Book of Mormon class. Anyway while we were teaching we talked about Heavenly Father and prayer for the most part and it was a really great lesson. Then at the end we knelt down and guess what, my knee popped out of place, SO EMBARRASSING. Suddenly I am on the floor crying, and her dad walks in. AWKWARD. Definitely did not look sane in that moment. But some how he still let us bring her to church on Sunday. So we found a ride for her and she came with us! We might have thought we lost her like 4 times, but she loved it none the less! Hopefully we will be able to continue teaching Pippy, by being as sane as possible of course.

Alright Fan Club, I guess it is that time of the weekly email to share my spiritual thoughts with all of you. This week Sister Nowell gave me an article to read that she told me changed the course of her mission. It is entitled "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary", I haven't studied the whole document yet but I am very intrigued with definitions of words so I was able to look up what some of the words meant. To be consecrated means to declare or make something sacred, but then I looked up the word sacred and it means to be connected with God. As I have continued to ponder about this I think that this can go much further then just my missionary service. As we begin to consecrate our lives to become more sacred and be more connected with God we are going to find more happiness and more joy then we can ever imagine. But it is also really important to remember that we are going to fall short. None of us are perfect. President Orton made a good comment in my interviews this week saying that we shouldn't live life trying not to make mistakes because mistakes are good learning opportunities. So as we continue to become more consecrated don't be perfect, but try to build your relationship with God to a new level then before!

---Remember who you are and who God EXPECTS you to become---

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison

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