Adventures in the New Jeruselum

This week was awesome and crazy!

 One day during companion study we had some extra time, so I decided to look through some old papers and find a talk that Hermana Bloxham and I could read together. I came across one I had never seen before. It talked about how missionaries spend so much time telling their investigators to read, but they often don't show them how to really study and learn from what they read. We decided to try it with our investigator Eddy, who always reads what we tell him to but doesn't necessarily get a whole lot out of it. We showed him how to pray before studying in order to have the Spirit to help him, and then we read 1 Nephi 8 (Lehi's dream) with him and it was exactly what he needed! And I still have no idea where that talk came from or how it got under my bed but we are so grateful that God helped us to find it and know exactly how to help Eddy. 

Tuesday something crazy happened. I promise I am not exaggerating at all the following story- we were walking down the street and see a van with an interesting-looking driver with dreadlocks and sunglasses... he looked Jamaican. I barely have time to say "Whoa, look at the guy driving the van" before a little black car in the opposite lane (the one coming towards us) stops in the middle of the road and blocks the path of the van and a guy gets out of the passenger seat. He is dressed in a black tank top and black ninja pants and has a red scarf around his head, and in his hand he is holding a huge shiny machete. He waves the machete in the air yelling profanities and runs at the deadlock guy driving the van. All the surrounding cars had stopped and everyone was frozen in shock just watching what was going on. The guy driving the van manages to get up on the sidewalk a bit to get around the black car, and then starts driving away and the machete ninja is running after him, still waving his machete in the air. After the van got far enough away, he gave up and walked back to his car, which was still parked in the middle of the road about 30 feet from us. So he was walking to his car (and towards us) holding his machete and we were the closest pedestrians, so we turn around and start booking it trying to find somewhere he won't see us in case he decided to keep walking and not get in his car. We hid behind a nearby house and waited until we saw him drive away in his black car. Then we just stood there for a few minutes catching our breath and trying to process what had just happened. We also realized that right beforehand I had seen a cool-looking house and "randomly" decided to knock it, after which we continued walking. We realized that had we not knocked that house, we would have been farther down the sidewalk and probably right in the danger zone when the machete guy had gotten out of his car. We were very grateful that the Lord had protected us by delaying us a bit and keeping us within safe watching distance of the spectacle. It was an adventure for sure! Jersey is a crazy place!

Wednesday there was a Zone Conference at the stake center in East Brunswick and it lasted 6 hours. It was great and we listened to lectures and trainings by President and Sister Taggart and the Assistants. Also we had a guest speaker who is in charge of overseeing all seminary and institute programs in New Jersey. It was awesome!

Saturday was a great day. We had so many back-to-back appointments and were teaching nonstop and got 3 new investigators that day! It was awesome! One of the new investigators was Simon. Earlier in the week, we had a few minutes to knock doors and contact people and we said a prayer in the car that we would find someone who was prepared. Then we leave the car and just a few seconds later we talk to Simon and get an appointment with him! When we ended up teaching him on Saturday, a member who was with us was talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon and Simon said (in Spanish) "Wow! I didn't know about this book! I'm going to read the whole thing!" We are so excited to see him progress! He's golden!

Also on Saturday we were driving in an area with a ton of Jews, and Hermana Bloxham sees a couple of them walking and says "pull over and roll down the window! I'll give them a pass-along card!" So she tries to hand them a card out of our car window and one Jew (who was a redhead, which just made it that much better for some reason. I never knew before I got here that there was such a thing as redheaded Jews) threatens to call the police on us, so we quickly drive away. Afterwards we realized that Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath so they probably got even more offended than they normally would because we tried to give them a picture of Jesus on their holy day. Oops!

Yesterday the elders serving in the English ward that meets here baptized a woman named Anushi. She was visiting from India (there are a ton of Indians here) and they had only been teaching her for about 3 weeks and she had wanted to get baptized before she had to go back to India on the 27th (today). So they managed to teach her everything she needed to know and make all the necessary arrangements to have her baptized and confirmed  the day before she goes back to India. The Roses (the senior missionary couple) helped a ton because they lived in India for 7 years. Her baptism was amazing and she was crying and just so excited to be making this step, which was amazing to me because she had only first come into contact with the church three weeks ago. She is so excited to bring the Gospel to her family and friends in India!

I will be sending pictures of Jews because Lakewood is basically the New Jerusalem, and Jews are pretty cool when they're not threatening to call the cops on us. Enjoy!

<3 Hermana Harris

​One of the many synagogues here

 ​This was in a restaurant. I'm guessing it says something along the lines of "All employees must wash their hands before returning to work"... Hebrew is so cool!

 

I am always wanting to take picture of them walking around but I have to be sneaky about it. This is the best one I could get.

 

​A bunch of Jewish teenagers trying to push over a car... don't ask me why.

Milestones

Hello!

 

Well I got my new missionary on Tuesday! Her name is Hermana Bloxham and she is from St George Utah. I don't know how I have made it 6 transfers in the mission field without having a companion from Utah but it finally happened. She is amazing! From what I've seen from our first few days together, the Mexico MTC is way more efficient than it was 9 months ago. She learned so much in the MTC and was able to hit the ground running when she got to the field. 

 

When we were driving home from transfer conference on Tuesday and we finally got to our area (it took almost 3 hours to drive there because we are so far south) it was almost time to go home. But I wanted Hermana Bloxham to have at least a little time to actually be a missionary on her first day in the field, so we parked in an area where there are a lot of Hispanics and walked around and contacted for a little while. The first person that talked to us was a black guy who asked us if we're from a church. We said yes and tried to give him a pass-along card, to which he replied "Naww, I'm smokin' weed, I'd probably burn up by touching something holy like that"... Haha it was great. But the second person we talked to was this guy Marvin from Honduras. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed super open to learn more and we got his information. Then just last night we read the Introduction of the Book of Mormon with him and got him as a new investigator! 

 

This week we had to take our car to the dealership to have some work done on it. While the car was being worked on, we went to a nearby apartment complex and started knocking. The first person to open the door was this nice lady from Guatemala and she let us in right away. We showed her the Because He Lives video and gave her a Book of Mormon and got her as a new investigator. Then as soon as we are out of the lesson I asked "Do you think the dealership is done with our car yet?" Two seconds later the phone rings and it's the dealership guy telling us the car is done! We were just amazed at how perfectly we were able to get that lesson in just in time for the car to be done and we know it is because God really wanted us to find this lady. We are excited to keep teaching her!

 

Funny moment this week: we were in a lesson with a Mexican teenager and suddenly I start coughing. I feel like I'm getting sick. About two minutes later Hermana Bloxham starts coughing too. We can both feel something in our throats making us cough. Then the kid we are teaching starts coughing too and kinda nonchalantly says "Oh sorry my aunt is cooking spicy food in the kitchen". I don't want to know how hard it is to eat whatever food that was... we were having trouble breathing in the room next door! I can't imagine eating it!  So I guess that's the closest I've gotten to being slowly poisoned. We really struggled through the rest of the lesson... it's hard to talk and teach when you can't breath very well. But all is well, we survived and finished the lesson and got to go outside and breathe fresh air again!

 

This weekend was stake conference. We had to leave Saturday afternoon to be at the stake center in East Brunswick for the Saturday session of the conference. Since my first daughter Hermana Stone is serving in the same stake, I got to see her there and my two daughters got to meet each other! We got to spend the night in the apartment of the sisters who are serving there so we didn't have to make the long drive home Saturday night only to return to the stake center Sunday morning. Sleepover! Then Sunday morning was the general session of stake conference and after that we had the long drive back to our area. So we didn't have much time to actually teach lessons this weekend. 

 

So this week was great and pretty big. I'm training again and really excited to see what miracles we will have together and what I will learn from her. Also this week means I officially have less than 8 months left which weirds me out! And, to make this week even more historic, I had frozen yogurt for the first time since I left California (don't know how I survived this long!) and I went to Dunkin' Donuts for the first time ever (there are soooo many of those here in Jersey it's ridiculous!) Good week!

 

<3 Hermana Harris

 

 

​There were only two new sisters coming in, one English and one Spanish. So Sister Rogers, the English trainer, and I decided to switch nametags to trick our new missionaries and make them think I was the English missionary and Sister Rogers was the Spanish missionary. It totally worked and we got President Taggart and the Assistants to go along with it! All the new missionaries and trainers got to eat lunch together before President officially announces which new missionaries go with which trainers. I introduced myself as Sister Rogers, and English-speaking missionary, and Sister Rogers, wearing my nametag, said she was Hermana Harris. Then when President announced who was with who, we switched nametags back and revealed our true identities! We totally fooled them and it was totally awesome!!

​Me with Hermana Bloxham approximately 2 seconds after she learned that I was actually a Spanish missionary and would be her trainer

​Family picture at stake conference! My new daughter, me, my first daughter Hermana Stone, and my CCM companion Hermana Ivie!

​Stake conference sleepover with Hermanas Bascom (who was in the CCM with me) and Nielsen

 

 We got frozen yogurt at this place and maybe it made me miss California and Yogurt Island a bit

​First time at Dunkin Donuts!

 

New Trainee on the Way

Happy April! The weather is just lovely! It's about time!

 

Even though Easter is over, President Taggart is encouraging us to keep using the Because He Lives video that the Church put out for Easter. We have been finding a lot of success using it. We found 4 new investigators this week just by knocking doors and using the video to get us in their home. We are excited to keep using it!

 

One investigator Sister Daines and I found a couple weeks ago using the video is this 18-year-old named Eddy. He loves the Bible and wants to learn everything he can about religion and he is very open-minded. We taught him 3 days in a row this week. The first day, we committed him to read the first chapter in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1. When we came back the next day and asked him if he had read, he had read to chapter 5 instead of just the first chapter! He is progressing well and we are excited to see how he continues to progress. 

 

William is still in his rehab center. But our Branch Mission Leader visited him this week to give him a blessing, and William told him that he's decided he wants to join the Church! So now we just need him to recover and get home so he can get baptized!

 

Thursday we had to stay inside almost all day to weekly plan and to deep clean the apartment because the transfer is over. I used to hate cleaning before my mission, but now transfer cleaning day is one of my favorite days in the transfer! We just get to put on sweatpants and listen to Disney music and clean!

 

Thursday night, the phone rings and we see it is President Taggart. Immediately Sister Daines and I look at each other in shock because we know what it means: one of us is going to train. I wasn't expecting to train again after training Sister Stone, but I guess I was wrong! President Taggart told me that Sister Daines will be leaving the area and I will be staying here and training a brand new missionary!

 

The next day we had to leave early in the morning to make the long drive to Morristown for a meeting for the newly called trainers. I found out that the incoming group this transfer is smaller than my group was- there are about 10 elders and 2 sisters, and only one of those sisters is going to be Spanish-speaking. Since there is only one Spanish sister coming in, President Taggart already knows who my new companion will be, and he let me read her information that she sent in with her mission papers!! I only got to look at it for about 30 seconds, but I got that she is from Utah and is really smart and took 5 years of Spanish so that's awesome! I also got to look at a picture of her! But I don't get to actually meet her until tomorrow... I'm so excited!

 

I can't believe I've already been in this area with Sister Daines for 12 weeks. Time is flying! I am going to miss Sister Daines and I am grateful for all she had taught me. Next week I will be emailing with my brand new missionary!

 

<3 Hermana Harris

 

Squirrel!

 

​Jersey Pizza :) There are so many Italians here and so many of them work in pizza places! Stereotypes can be true! 

 

​I was cleaning the air vent because it was nasty. Then I decide to unscrew the vent so I can clean the inside because it was nasty too. Then I found what looked like a secret passageway for a tiny person. Makes sense because whenever things go missing we blame it on our house-elf. Now we have found his abode. Gotcha!

 

 ​Our Peruvian friends Juan and Elizabeth

 

 

Easter + Conference = Better than Christmas

 

Happy Easter/Conference weekend!!

 

Tuesday was district meeting and I had to give a 7-minute training on How to Begin Teaching. I get up and right as I'm about to start the door opens and in walks President Taggart! Ha! I was pretty shocked and suddenly there was a lot more pressure to do well but I got through it! So... thanks President for showing up unannounced.

 

This week we were able to find a couple new investigators using the new "Because He Lives" Easter video. We are excited to visit them this week and teach them more!

 

One day this week we spent a lot of time in Point Pleasant, where we don't go very often because not very many Hispanics live there. But we were able to find a few when we went. It's such a cute seaside town with beautiful beaches! 

 

 

Other than that, not a ton happened this week... other than of course the best weekend ever!! It's only once every few years that Easter falls on General Conference weekend, and when you're a missionary when it happens, you just appreciate both of them so much more! I feel like I never really appreciated Easter or General Conference as much as I should have back home. General Conference is amazing! Two days of listening to inspired and inspiring talks and music. Love it! And I love what Elder Holland said about Easter being the most sacred day of the year because it is when we commemorate the Savior's resurrection, which was the most important event that ever occurred. What a blessing to be able to celebrate both at the same time while being a missionary!

 

Also our investigators Cesar and Luz came to the broadcast of Conference at the church and they loved it! They also gave us cute Easter candy presents. They're great!

Something interesting about Easter is that it is always the first Sunday after the Jewish Passover (because Jesus was crucified during the Passover and He was resurrected the Sunday after it).  And living in an area with such a high Jewish population, everyone knew it was the Passover.  Most of the Mexicans we are teaching in Lakewood work for Jews, so the past couple weeks they have been working overtime helping the Jews get ready for their Passover, and then the past few days they've had off of work because it was Passover.  Here are some Jews walking around Saturday (they can't drive on Saturdays because it's their Sabbath):

 

 

Happy Easter!

 

<3 Hermana Harris