The Promised Land

This week was great as always. It is so fun being back with my MTC companion more than a year later. I have loved seeing how much we have both grown as missionaries in the past year. We've come a long way, and our Spanish has improved so much!  Back in our MTC days, we would write our lessons out word for word because teaching in Spanish was so scary. Look at us now!

Sister Ivie and me now.

Back at the MTC, more than a year ago.

I've been in Elizabeth just under two weeks and I love it! There are so many prepared people here, and the diversity is incredible. I love New Jersey! In just one day this week I got to teach people from Cuba, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic.

On Wednesday, we went to Ellis Island! The sisters serving in the northern half of my mission get to go there once per transfer. This was my first time there in 9 months since I was serving in the south for so long. The weather was great, and we got to help out a lot in the room where people look up their ancestors who came through Ellis Island. I love the diversity every time I go there. This time around I talked to people from Poland, Italy, France, and Denmark!

A few days after I got here we started teaching the cutest old Ecuadorian man, Silvano. A member who lives in his apartment complex told us to visit him. When we taught him on Saturday, we told him we would pick him up at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday morning to walk him to church (he lives right across the street). We showed up to get him on Sunday morning, and I was afraid he wouldn't be ready since so many people tell us they will go to church but then later come up with excuses not to. But when we knocked on his door his daughter answered and said "He's been waiting for you," and then we saw him all dressed up in his Sunday best with his Book of Mormon in hand. I almost died because it was so darn cute. We helped him walk to church and introduced him to a bunch of members, and he loved it!

My second day here, we contacted a Peruvian man named Eduardo in front of his house. We taught him a couple times this week and wow. He is so prepared! This week we taught him about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation and he had such good questions! He has read every Book of Mormon reading assignment we've given him. Last night he even texted us asking what chapter we had wanted him to read because he had forgotten. He came to church yesterday! When he got to church he said that he had never gotten up that early on a Sunday before. He also said that he has knee problems and usually climbing stairs hurts his knees, but when he was going up the stairs in the church it didn't hurt at all.

On Friday, I had to go to two meetings back to back in Newark. First was a meeting for newly called District Leaders, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders. They talked about how big of an influence we can have on the other missionaries and how we need to teach them to be obedient and serve diligently. The next meeting was Mission Leadership Council, for Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. Our special guest speaker was Elder Smith, an Area Seventy. President Taggart met him 43 years ago on his mission in England, because Elder Smith's father was President Taggart's mission president! He also was a U.S. Senator from Oregon! He spoke about so many things, and I learned a lot. He told a story of when the Church was trying to get legal recognition in Italy. Salt Lake wanted him to help because of his powerful government position. He and President Uchtdorf travelled to Italy and met with one of their high government officials asking that they allow the Church to have a higher legal status and build chapels in Italy. The official said that he had been to Temple Square once and had received a tour there by two Italian sister missionaries. He had been very impressed with the missionaries and said "If that is the kind of young women your church is producing, then your church should get all the legal rights it deserves here it Italy." Because of that, now the Church is officially recognized in Italy, and there is a temple being built just a few miles from the Vatican. Elder Smith used this story to illustrate how we never know how huge the effect we as missionaries might have. Those two Italian missionaries serving in Temple Square a few years ago probably have no idea that they played such a vital part in getting the Church recognized in their home country.

Also, driving in Newark is the most stressful thing EVER. I hate it. The roads are narrow and confusing and the drivers are crazy and impatient and honk all the time.

We should be having two baptisms this Sunday! One is Rosa, who recently quit smoking after 40 years. Another is a cute 9-year-old named Giovanni.

 <3 Hermana Harris

 Our girl, Lady Liberty

Elizabeth

 

Well here I am in my third and final area. Driving up to transfer conference was so suspenseful. I hated not knowing where I was going. My three possibilities were Morristown, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. People kept asking me which of the three I thought I was going to, and I really had no idea. At last it was announced that I would be serving in Elizabeth! And my new companion is... Hermana Ivie! My MTC companion!!! We were put back together just over a year after we left the MTC.

I am so excited. I've been here 6 days and I already love it. This place is so fun! Very different than my last area. It's the fourth largest city in New Jersey and it has a ton of diversity and a ton of Hispanics. In my last area the vast majority of the Hispanics were from Mexico, but here they are from all over the place. It seems like most of them are from South America, especially Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

 

This is such a great place for missionary work. The members are great and love to come to lessons with us and give us referrals. We contact so many people on the street and in front of their homes and so many of them are so prepared to receive the Gospel! One of the things that I am most excited about is that the people here actually keep appointments. We got a lot of return appointments with the people we contacted this week, and they were actually at home waiting for us when it was time for us to come over. I'm used to maybe 20% of planned lessons actually happening, so I was very impressed with the people of Elizabeth this week.

 

We have some awesome people we are teaching. There is this Uruguayan lady named Rosa who is on date to be baptized in a couple weeks. She has smoked every day for 40 years, and she just stopped smoking two days before I got here. She is amazing and is so excited to be baptized. There are also two other people who should be getting baptized in the next month or so.

 

A common stereotype about Elizabeth is that some of the people here are a little... odd. I learned the truth of it for myself on my third day in this area. It was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had. Hermana Ivie and I were walking and a lady in a colorful decorated van pulls over and starts talking to us. She told us that God had been communicating with her for the past seven years and that she needed to warn the world. She went on and on for probably about half an hour. Here are some of the highlights:

 

• "I'm planning on moving to Peru and dying there by starving myself in the desert."
• "Eating meat is an abomination. So is feeding animals to other animals. You need to buy the mice that they feed to snakes and let them go in the forest. Whenever you see dead animals on the side of the road you need to take them to the first and bury them with a blanket."
• "There are evil spirits lurking everywhere. I can see them. I also saw the devil. He tried to eat me."
• "I'm a kitty cat bunny bird"
• "The evil spirits possessed the maggots and the maggots ate my hermit crabs."
• "Every physical object is a device of the devil. Your shoes are a device of the devil."
• "You have to wear a little plastic poncho when you shower because God doesn't want to see you naked."

She also mentioned that she had been in a mental hospital 55 times, which didn't exactly add to her credibility. I was trying so hard not to laugh the whole time.

 

Hermana Ivie and I were so excited to be put back together after a year in the field. We are having a ton of fun together and are laughing a lot. She has grown so much in the past year and I am already learning a lot from her. I am so happy to be with her again!

We are working hard and we are excited to continue to see miracles here! I love being a missionary!

 

<3 Hermana Harris

 
I spent a week packing up my stuff. I've definitely accumulated a lot during my time here. A lot of it is random clothes that sister missionaries going home gave me, as well as gifts that members and investigators have given me. I'm definitely going to have to get rid of a lot of my stuff before I go home because this won't all fit on the plane home.

On the way to transfer conference Hermana Bentley and I stopped at a graveyard in Freehold because she has an ancestor there and wanted to see the grave. It was built on the site of a Revolutionary War battle.

Saying Goodbye

 ​A lot of the Hispanics here have random chickens that they keep in their front yards.

  

 ​The Saavedra kids. Nestor, Maggie, and Andy.


Hermana Laura Velasco

 The Roses - our amazing senior couple.

 

Hermana Bolanos and her daughter Diana

 Hermana Juana de la Luz

 

 ​Titi- the 83-year-old Puerto Rican who just got baptized 2 years ago.

​Investigator Eddie at church yesterday. We knocked on his door 4 months ago and he still comes to church.

Hermano Geschwandtner. He is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish, German, and Italian. Such an amazing member.

​The Guerras. He is from El Salvador and she is from Cuba. They just got baptized 2 years ago and they are such strong members.

​The Reguses. Dominicans. He was the Branch President for about 10 years. I don't know what the branch would do without them.

 ​Hermana Yolanda Dircio. Relief Society President. An amazing woman.
 

 



The Final Three

Well after what seemed like an eternity (5 transfers), I am finally getting transferred out of Toms River! I love this place and the people so much, but I am definitely ready to go to my third area. 

Monday night we visited that Italian/Ecuadorian family we had found a couple days earlier. They fed us some amazing Ecuadorian food and absolutely loved everything we had to say! Unfortunately they talked quite a bit and we didn't have time to get to the actual lesson we had planned (a pretty common problem here). We are seeing them again tonight and hopefully we'll be able to get to the important part of the lesson!

The past couple weeks we've been working a lot with our investigator Lucia. She has her own little Mexican shop and she's the only one who works there so she can't come to church on Sundays as of right now. But she wants to be baptized and she is looking for someone who can work her store on Sundays so she can come to church!

 ​Our investigator Lucia. We teach her at her little Mexican store because she is always there 

Saturday there was a branch BBQ in a park. We had spent all week inviting people to it. Quite a bit of people came, including 3 investigators! It was great to see so many of the people I've come to know and love these past 7 months. 

 

This was a great week and I worked really hard to do as much good as possible for my 30th and final week in Toms River. Sister Bentley has learned the area really well these past 6 weeks and I know she will take good care of it when I am gone.

Last night President Taggart called and asked me to be a Sister Training Leader, which basically means I'll be going to a lot of meetings and giving trainings and going on lots of exchanges with the nearby sisters. I'm excited! The three Spanish STL areas in the mission are Morristown, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. All three of them are great areas and I would be very happy with any of them. If I were able to choose, it would be Jersey City. I've been wanting to go there ever since I left Union City, which is right next to it. But I'll be happy with wherever the Lord wants me to be. Transfers are tomorrow and I'll find out where I'm going!

3 transfers left. 3 possible areas. Where will Sister Harris be sent?? Is the suspense killing you?!? Tune in next week!

 

-Hermana Harris

We saw this bumper sticker and just had to get a picture. Lakewood is such a dangerous place to drive due to the bad drivers and potholes. Luckily I survived 7 months of driving here without an accident!

Last Week in TR

Well I have officially been here in Toms River for 201 days. This week I realized that I have been in New Jersey for just over a year now, and I am still in my second area. But this should be my last full week here because transfers are next week! So I will finally be headed to my third and last area. 

 

Monday our zone got our prize for winning the mission-wide apartment cleaning contest. President and Sister Taggart came down to our church building and fed us all an amazing meal with steak and potatoes! Then we all went bowling! President Taggart creamed everyone. He was amazing! It was a really fun Pday. 

 

We had a pretty sweet week. We worked really hard and we found 8 new investigators! Some of them were former investigators we found in our area book, and some of them were found through pretty cool miracles-

 

On Wednesday we had an appointment and the lady wasn't home. We knocked the door of the house across the street and the lady flat out said no and wouldn't even give us her name. So we start walking back to our car, which was parked quite a bit down the street. When we are almost to our car, we hear a girl about our age yelling "Hey! Excuse me! Can you come here? I have some questions!" We went and talked to her and she asked us a ton of questions and basically told us her whole life's story. She told us that she wasn't planning on talking to us when we walked by, but that it was almost as if a voice in her head told her to go talk to us! It was so cool! She asked us to come back a couple days later and we were super excited for the appointment. Unfortunately, we showed up for the appointment she had set with us and she was nowhere to be found. But we talked to her grandma and asked her to have her granddaughter call us. We are going to keep trying the house and see if we can find her again because she was so interested!

 

On Saturday we had a bunch of appointments get cancelled all day long. It was really frustrating. At about 8:30pm we didn't really know what to do because we had run out of people to visit. Hermana Bentley suggested trying the home of a potential investigator we talked to a few weeks ago. We decided to go for it, but by the time we got there it was about 8:50pm. We were a little hesitant to knock their door that late, but we decided to do it anyway. Instead of being annoyed that we knocked on their door so late at night, they let us right in without hesitation! We had a great conversation with them and they really opened up. They are a super cool multicultural family- the mom is from Ecuador and the dad is from Italy. They invited us to come by again, and we have an appointment with them tonight! We are really excited! 

 

In other news, the Saavedra parents (the parents of the kids we baptized during my first couple months here) are finally getting married on September 5th! Sadly I won't be here to see it, but I know they will get baptized soon afterwards and I am happy for them!

 

I have loved my 30 weeks here in Toms River. When I first got sent here, I had no idea I would stay for so long. I got here in the dead of winter, when there were crazy snowstorms all the time, and now it is the hottest, grossest part of summer. The only season I haven't seen here is autumn, which is kind of sad because I'm sure it would be gorgeous here with all the trees! This area is the polar opposite of my first area, Union City. I went from a small, dirty. city area with a big Spanish ward, to a giant suburban area with 40 miles of forests and beaches and a tiny little Spanish branch. But I have love both of them. I am excited to see where I will be headed next week!

 

<3 Hermana Harris

 

 

Bowling with the Taggarts

 

 

 

My Mission President could be a pro bowler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Playa

 

Eaten Alive

Hey everyone!

 

Tomorrow means it's been one year since I left the Mexico MTC and flew here to Jersey. It was nasty hot and humid when I got here this time last year. Now, after a long and terrible winter, summer is in full swing here again with tons of heat, humidity, and worst of all, bugs. Sister Bentley and I got eaten alive this week. We had to teach a few lessons outside this week because we couldn't go inside the house, and the bugs went to town on our legs :( Last time I counted I had 29 bites on me. Fun stuff!

 

There was a contest throughout the mission to see which zone had the cleanest apartments. The senior couples had to inspect every single apartment within a few days and judge the different aspects of cleanliness. Our zone won! For our prize, today we get to go bowling and eat pizza with President and Sister Taggart! 

 

On Tuesday I gave a training in District Meeting on having charity for the people we teach, which can be hard sometimes, especially when people lie to us/avoid us/don't keep commitments. After District Meeting, we had interviews with President Taggart. I always learn so much just from talking to him for about 15 minutes. He is amazing and he loves each one of his missionaries so much. That night I went on exchange with my STL Sister Rigby and wow she is so fun! It felt like we were best friends by the end of our 24 hours together. It did feel pretty weird being in an English area though. I'm not scared at all by contacting and knocking doors when it comes to the Hispanic people here, but doing the same thing with English-speaking people is a lot more intimidating to me. 

 

On Friday we went with the Roses (our senior couple) to try to visit some of the less actives in the branch. Nobody was home and we couldn't think of anyone else to visit. It was getting late so we decided to go home. I was a little sad that we hadn't been able to find anyone to let us in all day. But on the way home I got the thought to try a former investigator that we've been trying to find for a while. We'd knocked her door several times, but always during the day and nobody was home. I decided we should try to find her at home that night. We knocked the door, a lady answered, we said "We're looking for Isabel," and she said "I'm Isabel! Come on in!" So after a long boring day of getting rejected, we decided to try one more time and we got a new investigator!

 

Saturday was a pretty typical Saturday for us. We had 5 set appointments and only one of them ended up actually happening. When our appointments fall through, we end up either knocking doors in the area or driving to the homes of former investigators to try to find them. It gets kinda tedious sometimes. I'm definitely learning a lot about patience, that's for sure. But despite all the long boring hours in the hot sun, I am happy! I know I am where I need to be right now, and I know the Lord is proud of me. 

 

<3 Hermana Harris

 

At least the bites match my skirt and shoes, right?