A Very Feliz Navidad

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas!

 

On Christmas Eve, Hermano and Hermana Aragon (he is the Elders Quorum President and she is the Relief Society President) took all 8 of us Union City missionaries to Olive Garden! That must have been a huge check! They're awesome. It was a really fun Christmas Eve treat!

 

Christmas was great. In the morning we opened our presents from home (the ones that we hadn't opened yet haha) and then we went out and contacted like crazy. We gave out 6 Book of Mormons and probably 40 He is the Gift cards! First we visited Martha (the Ecuadorian lady we reactivated) and then we went to spend the afternoon with the Quiles family (the same one that fed us on Thanksgiving). They fed us a super good lunch and then we got to Skype our families at their apartment!

 

Calling my family on Christmas morning to set up our Skype time for that afternoon.

I may or may not have been crying a bit ;)

 

 

 

 

Christmas Day I hit my 6-months mark! It was perfect because I got to Skype my family for Christmas and it had been exactly 6 months since I had talked to them. I was proud of myself for only crying at the very end haha. It was so good to talk to them and see how they were doing. 

 

This is my only Christmas in the mission (I should get home two days before Christmas next year) so I definitely made the most of it! How special it is to be a full-time representative of Jesus Christ during the time of year when we celebrate His birth. It was weird being away from home but I know this is where I needed to be this Christmas. 

 

Oh something else cool is that Sister Galvan got called as a sister training leader and now she is in Bayonne so she gets to do exchanges with the sisters in Union City, Jersey City, and West New York. So on Friday I went to Bayonne and she was here in her old area with Sister Stone for the day so I'm sure that was fun!

 

Also, CARLOS WAS BAPTIZED YESTERDAY!! He is amazing. He had his baptismal interview on Friday (I missed it because I was on exchange in Bayonne) but he passed it with flying colors. The baptism went smoothly and he was so happy. At the end of the service he asked us if he could share his testimony. He is usually super quiet so we were surprised that he wanted to speak in front of a bunch of ward members he barely knows, but it was a beautiful and simple testimony. He is by far the easiest investigator I've ever found! We found him on December 2nd and he was baptized on the 28th! He just progressed so quickly and kept all his commitments without hesitation. One of those people that the Lord truly prepared to receive the Gospel. We found him the week we contacted 250 people. So we may have to contact a ton of people to find the prepared one, but it is so worth it when we do find them <3 He was truly a Christmas Miracle :) His two sons come to church with him but haven't been progressing as fast as he has. But now that Carlos is a member we are going to work really hard to get his sons to follow his example ;) I'll keep y'all posted on how that goes!

 

Peace, Love, and Happy New Year!

<3 Hermana Harris

 

 

 

First Time in NYC!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

 

Well this was definitely the most fun week of my mission so far. There was so much stuff going on! Definitely a rough week for lessons because we had very little proselyting time, but it was a super fun week!

 

First of all, Carlos is doing great and progressing quickly. He is super excited to get baptized this Sunday. His two sons that he takes to church with him aren't ready for baptism yet because they aren't as enthusiastic about it as he is, but we know they will come around eventually if their dad continues to be a good example to them. 

 

Wednesday my zone went to a fun little Christmas activity called "Traditions with the Taggarts". We went to the mission home and President and Sister Taggart fed us a super good meal and then played Christmas games and sang Christmas songs and stuff like that. Each of the 12 zones in the mission got to go on a different day, which was nice because it was a smaller group each time.

 

Thursday was awesome!! In my mission we get to go to the Manhattan Temple twice a year, in June and December. Since I got into the mission field in August, this was my first temple trip since before I left on my mission back in June. So that was super exciting! I had missed the temple so much. What made it even more exciting was that it was my first time ever in New York City! First our zone met at the Union City chapel, then we took a bus through the Lincoln Tunnel (the entrance to the tunnel is in Union City) which goes under the Hudson River.

Once we arrived in NYC we got off the bus and went into the subway. The New York subways are a crazy place! So many people and it's so easy to get lost. Also it's kinda stressful when you're with a group of 20 missionaries and you all have to stay together. We actually did end up getting lost and waiting for the wrong train. But then, a miracle happened! Hermana Lara (the Dominican lady in our ward who fed us on Thanksgiving) just randomly showed up on the same subway platform as us on her way to work. She was able to show us which train we really had to get on. Without her, we definitely would have been late to our temple session. And how crazy is it that out of all the subway stations in New York City she was in the right place at the right time to help us out. Tender mercies!

 

 

 

Super happy in front of the Manhattan LDS Temple

 

 After we were done in the temple we had a little bit of time to walk around and buy food from street vendors. Then we had to walk from where the temple is (66th and Broadway) to 40th street where we could find a bus headed back to Jersey. We walked down Broadway and through Times Square!! Meanwhile I'm looking around in awe like a little kid at Disneyland. Sister Stone and I were taking pictures like crazy and but our zone leaders made us keep walking because they wanted all of us to stay together so nobody would get lost. So we would just run ahead of the group a little so we would have a couple seconds to stop and take a picture before everyone caught up to us. But hey, it was my first time in New York City, I deserved to take pictures!

Also, the He is the Gift initiative that the Church has been doing this Christmas is huge. They have it in Times Square! Three different posters for it in this one picture!

 

 

 

 

Friday was another awesome day! We had an all-mission Christmas "conference" but in reality it was mostly a big Christmas party with 250 people. There were a couple speakers and then we had an amazing lunch provided by the Relief Society of the ward there. They also set up the cultural center of the building to look like a beautiful winter wonderland. We ate and played games and there was a funny variety show with performances by President Taggart, the Assistants, and other missionaries. It was so fun! At the end they gave us our Christmas packages and letters from home <3

 Then later that same day, right after we got home from the all-mission conference, we went straight to the ward's Christmas party. It was supposed to start at 7 but the opening prayer wasn't even said until 8:30 because when you combine Mormon standard time with Hispanic standard time, parties always start at least an hour and a half late. When it was time to eat, the members had the 8 missionaries sit at a special table where everyone could see us and they served us our food like we were the guests of honor. Then they had us sing a Christmas song (without warning us beforehand) and the members were taking videos with their phones of it as if we were the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was weird. And then the bishopric presented each of us with little Christmas presents and we had to go up and accept our gifts one at a time as they called our names and everyone clapped for us. Once again, people were taking pictures and videos of us. We're pretty much celebrities here. 

 

I hope everyone has a great Christmas! And remember that even though the parties and presents are fun, the real purpose is to remember our Savior.

 

<3 Hermana Harris

  

  

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby, It' Cold Outside

 

Well another transfer has come and gone. I have been in the field for 3 now. I am on my fourth (and probably my last) transfer here in Union City. I only have 6 more weeks left of training Sister Stone! Time flies when you're having fun! So Carlos, the Dominican we contacted last week, has quickly become our main focus because he is progressing so fast! He is definitely the most prepared person I have ever found! He asks perfect insightful questions and always takes notes in a little notebook. In a lesson this week we were talking about how faith needs time to grow and then he said "So does that mean faith is like a seed?" and I was like "funny you should ask that because that's pretty much the whole point of an entire chapter in the Book of Mormon" so he immediately grabs his little notebook and asks what page Alma 32 is on so he can write it down and remember to read it. He's awesome! He is now on baptismal date for the 28th of December. His two sons Sebastian and Argus aren't as enthusiastic about the church as he is (probably just teen angst haha) but they come to church with him at least, and we know that if their dad continues to be such a good example to them they will eventually follow him. There were a lot of little miracles this week. One we really appreciated was on Thursday. Our dinner appointment cancelled on us, and we had a lot of other people to visit so we weren't going to have time to go home and eat. We were about to go into an appointment with a less-active lady and we were really hungry so right before the appointment we prayed that she would feed us even though she usually doesn't. Then less than a minute after letting us into her home, she asks us if we've eaten yet, and when we told her that we hadn't, she gave us a huge mountain of delicious Dominican food. Prayer works! We also had a lot of little funny moments this week, We were reading in 1 Nephi with our investigator Agner from El Salvador and Sister Stone mentioned about how in 1 Nephi 17, Nephi's brothers are trying to hurt him and then he puts out his hand and shocks them with the power of God. Then Agner just laughed and said "Es como Dragon Ball Z!" and then he just giggles for about two more minutes. We thought it was pretty funny that he likes that show (I never knew much about it but always thought it seemed super dumb) and that he could relate it to the Book of Mormon haha. But whatever works! Also on Saturday we were at dinner with Hermano Jimenez, the second counselor in the bishopric, who is from Costa Rica. His teenage son was there and I asked him "so if your dad is from Costa Rica and your mom is from Argentina, where were you born?" And he said "North Bergen" (a city right next door to Union City) but Sister Stone thought he said "North Korea" and was really confused for a bit...a Costa Rican and an Argentinian having a kid in North Korea... makes sense. It's getting pretty cold here... I don't think I'll ever complain about California or Utah cold again because East Coast cold is humid so it's so much worse. Everyone keeps telling me it's only going to get worse as the winter goes on :( This will be my first White Christmas! And speaking of Christmas, we finally got to see the "He is the Gift" video that the Church put out for Christmas! So now when we give out tons of cards and tell people on the street to watch the video, we won't feel guilty for telling them it's a great video when we haven't even seen it haha.  Have a great week everyone and spread some Christmas cheer! <3 Hermana Harris

Makin' it Rain

At the Christmas Program in Newark

Yet another great week in Jersey! And we got lucky because it didn't snow this week! But it rained almost every day.

So a few weeks ago our Zone Leaders decided to have a competition between the two districts in our zone. We keep track of little things we do during the day that help us to be more obedient and focused missionaries. We got points for waking up on time, making phone calls, contacting a lot of people, getting new investigators, stuff like that. The competition was for the past four weeks, and the district with the most points at the end would win a pizza party.

After 3 weeks, the competition was still pretty close, and Sister Stone and I REALLY wanted to win that pizza party, so we decided to step it up a notch. The fastest way to get more points was by contacting more people on the street. So we went a little crazy with the contacting this week. We usually do about 10-15 a day because our mission president says we should try to get at least 10 a day. So we usually get between 70-80 contacts a week. This week we decided to triple it!! So we ended up getting 250 contacts this week. We walked around in the endless rain every day and made it rain tarjetas (cards):)

One thing that made contacting more people easier this week is because of the new "He is the Gift" Christmas initiative the Church is doing right now. There is a video on christmas.mormon.org about the real meaning of Christmas, and this week they gave us a ton of pass-along cards telling people to check out the video. So whenever we would see people on the street (which is pretty easy because hey it's the most densely populated city in America!) we would just go up to them and start talking to them about Christmas and give them a card and tell them to check out the video on the website. Super easy. So that's the secret to getting 250 contacts in one week! Talk about Christmas, because everyone here loves Christmas! (Except for Jewish people and Jehovah's Witnesses, and there are quite a few of both of those here, but other than that...) But it's kinda ironic because we are telling hundreds of people to watch the video, and we haven't even seen it yet because we don't have any Internet devices (pretty sure we're one of the only stateside missions that hasn't gotten iPads yet...). So to everyone reading this who DOES have access to mormon.org, please watch the video because there are some missionaries who wish they could but can't :(

We had a big miracle this week!! On Tuesday we were walking around giving out cards (what we do best, especially this week) and saw a guy leaving his building so we gave him a card. Then half an hour later he actually called our phone number on the card!!!! We've written our phone number on HUNDREDS of cards and passed them out, and I'm pretty sure that's the first time someone actually called it. He told us he knows we are sent from God and that we have something really important to share. So we met with him a few days later and taught about the Restoration and it was THE BEST restoration lesson I've ever had. He was SO receptive to everything we had to say. He asked really good questions and he is SO interested in the Book of Mormon. And then on Sunday he came to church and he brought his two teenage sons!! It is so hard to get investigators to actually come to church. This is the first time I've contacted someone and they actually went to church the very next Sunday. So that's a really good sign!  We are super excited to keep working with him!

Yesterday there was a Christmas program at a chapel in Newark for all the Spanish-speaking missionaries in the mission. It was super fun because I got to see a bunch of the missionaries that I was in the CCM with. Each zone had a different Christmas song to sing in the program. It was packed! So many people from all over Jersey came!

Everything is going great!

<3 Hermana Harris

 

P.S.  My district won the competition mostly due to Sister Stone and I contacting like crazy. The pizza party is later today.  :)

 

 

On Saturday we contacted 110 people... 93 must be the magic number because our 93rd contact was an old Puerto Rican lady who was carrying a cake. She wouldn't even let us give her a card, but she gave us the cake. She just handed it to us and said "This is my gift to you" and walked away. We should get to 93 people more often! :D

 

My Spanish Bible got wet from walking around in the rain all day so I had to blow-dry it. Then I put something heavy on it during the night to flatten the pages. It worked pretty well!

Sister Stone and I with Sister Taggart at the Christmas program in Newark. When Sister Stone told her we've been contacting like crazy, Sister Taggart made all the missionaries in the foyer be quiet and she announced "These sisters talk to everyone! Everyone needs to be like these sisters!!" It was slightly embarrassing but we love her!

 

One more picture.. this was forwarded to me from my district leader's camera. This is my zone (Zone 3) at our last zone meeting before transfers this week.

Estomago lleno de Pavo

  

We got matching hats and we already had matching CCM shirts...

​matchy matchy cutie cutie 

 

 

Hola Everyone! Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving! This week was super awesome!

 

First of all, the work is going great. We've been picking up so many new investigators these past couple weeks, I can barely keep up with all of them. Also our 16-year-old Guatemalan investigator Diego is on baptismal date for the 21st of December! And we have a couple other really solid ones that hopefully will be on date soon!

 

Wednesday was the first day of snow this winter! And it snowed a lot! We were supposed to have our district meeting that day but it got cancelled because it was too dangerous to drive in the snow and all the missionaries were told they couldn't drive that day. Not that it really affected us since we don't have a car... so we were walking around Union City in heavy snow! Sooooo that was lovely.

 

Thursday was Thanksgiving! All morning long there was a Turkey Bowl with all the missionaries in this area of Jersey... there were probably like 60 of us. And it was about 30 degrees and it was snowing almost the whole time. Two things I usually am not very fond of are 1) Football and 2) Snow. And I did both of them, at the same time, for 3 hours! So I was pretty proud of myself for putting on a smile and just doing it haha.

 

 

Playing football in the snow and trying to have a good attitude about it

 

And of course, we had to pay tribute to our favorite place :)

 

 

My district at the Turkey Bowl

 

Elder Bryce Davis, from good ol' Temecula

  

Then in the afternoon we had dinner at the home of the Quiles family. The wife is from Ecuador but the husband was born in New York and he's just about as white and American as someone in a Spanish-speaking ward can be. So he cooked us a very good and very American Thanksgiving dinner. The mashed potatoes were the best potatoes I've ever had ever... probably because there was 2 cups of sour cream in them haha. We ate so much and they kept telling us to eat more. It was a struggle! Then after we finished eating we watched the Prince of Egypt on their TV. There's a list of certain movies missionaries here are allowed to watch on Pdays and holidays and Prince of Egypt is one of them! And we had been wanting to see it forever so finally getting to watch it made our Thanksgiving that much better :) And of course they sent us home with approximately 10 pounds of leftover food. Later, we went and ate again at the home of a sweet Dominican lady in the ward named Hermana Lara. This was a very Dominican meal... rice and plantains haha. Then we were almost out of time but we also got to stop by and meet the family of our recent convert Emilio. By that time we were so full so we literally only had a roll.

 

 

A very American Thanksgiving.

It was good to have American food at a member's house for once!

  

Thanksgiving Dinner # 2 - This time, very Dominican

  

Marisol's Farewell! She has gone on so many team-ups with us and we don't know what we will do without her! But sweet home California needs her!

 

 

There's a girl in the ward named Marisol and this weekend was her farewell. She leaves this week for the California Ventura Mission. Lucky girl! On Friday there was a big farewell party for her at the church building and there was SO MUCH FOOD... as if we hadn't already eaten enough this week. And there was a cake there that was made at the famous Cake Boss Bakery in Hoboken! But alas, I was not able to eat it because the missionaries had to go home and get to bed before the people in the ward got to the cake </3

 

​The cake from the famous Cake Boss bakery

 

 

Hope everyone is doing well! I can't believe it's already December!

 

<3 Hermana Harris