Miracles UPON Miracles

September 4, 2017

Good morning dear Fan Club, I found out last night that a bunch of missionaries planned a zone activity to go on a hike and stuff and that we are going to be gone all day. So this weekly email is going to be shorter then normal probably but I hope it gets its point across! Miracles upon Miracles.

OUR MISSION IS STILL ON FIRE. Apparently the air quality was so bad in Medford the air was considered to be toxic and so they had all of the missionaries go in for the night. They are having us use our best judgements in our areas to determine what is workable, the air quality is bad here but I don't think it is that bad, SO the work goes on! Literally all anyone is talking to us about these days on the door step or in lessons is the fires in Oregon and the Hurricane in Texas, so prayers for everywhere right now!

We have been seeing SO many miracles this week on the coast, lets start with Monday night shall we? We had a dinner with our missionary mom in our area, Sister Hemsley. She has been gone for like the whole last transfer basically and so we had a lot of catching up to do, and after dinner she was tired and asked us to take some boxes to a less active for her. She says that it was mostly because she was tired, but I believe that it was the SPIRIT. So we went to drop off the boxes and chatted with the less active for a minute and then her friend came out, her friends name is Vanessa. We start introducing ourselves to Vanessa and the less active says "oh yeah! Ness these are the people I keep telling you that you need to talk to!" Uh what? So we start talking and find out that she is going through a lot of hard trials right now and that she is really trying to build a foundation with religion and that all of the churches that she has been to haven't been right for her. And then she asked us when we could meet with her, uh right now? Haha. So we scheduled a time for the next day and we went to what was called the Pottery Co... now we are in Oregon people and when she asked us to meet her there I really thought it was a dispensary. Don't worry it was a color me mine store basically, we had a member look it up then go with us. We had a good first conversation with her and got to know a lot of her beliefs and then she said she would be at church on Sunday. But this isn't even the miracle people! So at the pottery place she had a friend with her and we talked to her and found out that her husband is a less active in the Coos Bay ward. So we got his name and we were going to have the Coos Bay Sisters stop by. Well that night we got a call from the Coos Bay Sisters, this was BEFORE we even told them about Vanessa. They call saying WE JUST MET VANESSA! Uh what are you talking about? Apparently they were walking down the street going to go contact someone and they felt really prompted to knock on a door and went back to knock on it. It was the less actives house and Vanessa was there. Basically after that experience Vanessa knew that God was watching out for her. She has been through a lot of trials in her life that make her think that God doesn't love her and that she is unwanted. But over the last couple of days and watching these things happen she is beginning to see the full picture. She came to church yesterday and loved every second of it. She has a very energetic 4 year old and we even got him to sit during sacrament meeting. I am always a little hesitant to bring investigators to church the first time on Fast and Testimony meeting, but this was perfect. Literally the whole meeting was all about how the gospel blesses families. This was a HUGE miracle this week. North Bend is soon to be on FIRE. Not literally though.

One night this week, after tracting basically all day and having no luck, Sister Huang and I were just ready to go to bed and get some rest when we got a phone call from an unknown number. We answered and it was a member from the Coos Bay ward, Sister Jerns. She is probably the best member missionary that I have ever met. She starts telling us about how she has like 5 referrals for us to go see with her. So we scheduled a time to go out with her and it was such a good experience. We when and met with this lady named Candy, Candy was invited to the Coos Bay Ward BBQ by some members, well then the members didn't show up. So she met Sister Jerns and they hit it off. Well Candy has taken the lessons before and when we showed up to her house she was not interested in talking to us and just talked to Sister Jerns. But for some reason at the end she started talking to us, thanks Spirit, and we started talking about Who God is to her. We got in a really good conversation and suddenly she was inviting us to come back! WOW! MIRACLES. So cool. Sister Jerns is going to be coming out with us again next week to go contact more of these people, good things to come for sure!

We started teaching a little girl named Addyson. Her mom is a less active and really doesn't want anything to do with the church, but she decided if it is something that Addyson wants to do that she will support her. Addyson is probably the smartest 9 year old that you will ever meet. I asked her what she knew about the Book of Mormon and she basically recited the whole first book. Really she knows a lot. We taught her about how God loves us all so much that he gave us so many blessings. She started naming blessings like the earth, the air, food, the couch, etc. And then I said, and isn't the Book of Mormon a blessing too? She agreed right away. We read the introduction together and then talked about the promise. This 9 year old has already prayed about the Book of Mormon and has found out for herself that it is true. She is so great. Now if we can get her parents on board that would be even better. Her dad isn't a member and we hope to invite him to sit in on the lesson next time. Miracles are just around the corner I can feel it!

Another smaller miracle, Sister Huang and I had a goal to find 1 investigator yesterday and we had been tracting and had no luck. We had a meeting at 7:30 at the church so we decided to contact a former investigator across the street really quick, it was like 7:15. We knocked on the door and Arika answered and let us in immediately. She said "we connected instantly!" Apparently she didn't like the last sisters who stopped by, but as we talked about her background and such she wanted us to come back! #4thstreetlastdoor #sundaynightmiracle

So you probably want to know more about my companion, because she is awesome! Okay, so Fan Club, my companion has the coolest conversion story and she gave me permission to write about it in my weekly email. So Sister Huang is from China. She is from a very small village, everyone in her village is related in fact, they have the last name Huang! Cool right? Anyway she grew up not really having a religion so to speak, just believed in the things that her parents taught her. Well when she was old enough she wanted to go to school to be able to earn money for her parents to live a good life, because really they don't have much. They are farmers, and she told me in America farmers are rich, in China they are poor. Well she went off to school and got a degree in Hotel Management and decided to go to Beijing to get a better paying job. While she was there she met a man who became a friend and she could tell there was something different about him. In China you aren't allowed to share your beliefs like you are allowed to here, it is against the law there. So he couldn't just invite her to church but once she asked him what made him different he was able to tell her about his church that he went to. She began investigating that point on. The only problem is because of the laws in China she couldn't take the missionary discussions there because there are no missionaries! So she had to go all the way to Hong Kong to go and receive the lessons, also she had to do this because she was the first member in her family to join. Well she went there and took all of the missionaries lessons in ONE DAY and then was BAPTIZED the very next day. So cool right? And then one year after she was baptized she left on a mission! So really she has only been a member for a couple of years. When she would go to church from her house in the small village she would have to travel 2 days to go to church. In Beijing there were more branches so it wasn't that far. But I think that is crazy since people here complain that the temple is 3 hours away, imagine church being 2 days away! She is still the only member in her family. Her parents told her if that is what she wanted to do that they would support her. But when they found out that she wanted to go on a mission they weren't excited about that didn't want her to go. But Sister Huang prayed about it and specifically prayed for the courage to talk to parents about it more. Eventually they supported her and now she is here serving in the Oregon Eugene Mission! She was in the MTC for 2 months to learn English and honestly is very good at English! She beats herself up about it like any other human, but for only knowing the language for a year, she is doing great!

So on a map this is where Sister Huang is from, I pinned it so then maybe one day I will be able to go find her small village, haha!

This transfer as a zone we have made an over all goal to all become more effective Preach My Gospel Missionaries. In the past we have had a conference call with our Mission President and he tells the District Leaders what they should teach for District Meeting. But this transfer he is turning the reins over to the leadership in the zone. After much prayer and fasting this last week we had decided that what our zone needed, especially because we have so many new missionaries, is to learn how to better use Preach My Gospel in our preparation, finding, teaching and committing. It has been a really cool experience to learn how to work with other leaders over the last week and to really learn how to counsel and come together on ideas, sometimes it didn't go smoothly, but I think in the end it is what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want for our Zone and I can already see SO many miracles coming from it!

This week I was studying 1 Nephi 16 when Nephi breaks his bow in the wilderness. As I was reading the trial that Nephi and his family was going through I found this quote by Richard G. Scott:

“Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain”

As we read from the experience that Nephi had to go through and see the pain and suffering that he experienced, I know that we can see that in our lives. There are times when we don't understand why we have to go through certain challenges and we feel as though we don't deserve this. But it isn't that we don't deserve it, it is that we earned it. We were able to get to where our Heavenly Father wanted us, so now he is just giving us another mountain to climb. Not so we complain and turn away from him, but so we can finish the hike before us and in the end look at what we have been able to accomplish. I am grateful for all of the hills and mountains that I have had to climb over in my life to get me to where I am today!

Well Fan Club, I hope that you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend that you have fun with whatever you may be doing. Thanks for tuning into yet another week with Sister Harrison, tune in next week for some more GREAT MIRACLES! Love you all, WORK HARD!

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

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison ️

I got my posterity skirt this week in a package from Sister Nowell, or should I say Sarah? This skirt has been passed from trainer to trainee a couple of times and now I got it! Let the skirt live on!

A member fed us ribs this week and sent us home with SO many leftovers, my diet is out the window.

Sister Huang and I after church today because we realized we didn't take any pictures this week, oops!