La Vida Loca

Exchanges with the Elizabeth English sisters a couple weeks ago 

¡Buenas tardes!  This week I was the sickest I've been my whole mission, which isn't really saying much because I've been really lucky and haven't had any health problems. But this week I had a sore throat and was coughing and sneezing a lot. I'm mostly better now, but my voice is still a little hoarse.

Thursday we had a lesson that was so inspired, even though we didn't know it at first. After Weekly Planning, we walked to the house of our 9-year-old recent convert Giovanni to teach him one of the new member lessons. When we got there his mom, who is also a member, told us he was sick and asleep, so we ended up teaching her instead. We had prepared a lesson for Giovanni, but when we found out we would just be teaching his mom we quickly chose a Mormon Message video to show her on our iPads. We showed her a video called "The Will of God", which talks about how God sometimes hurts us or gives us trials for our own good because He sees the bigger picture. Turns out that it was exactly what she needed to hear because she was struggling to understand a certain trial she was going through. Towards the end of the lesson I was getting worried about walking home. It was about 8 pm and it was really dark outside and we had about a 45 minute walk ahead of us to get back to our apartment. We walk home in the dark all the time without any problems, but for some reason I was really nervous and just had a feeling that we would get robbed if we walked home that night. When it was time for us to leave, Sister Ivie casually mentioned that we were walking that day, and Giovanni's mom offered to drive us home, which was such an answer to my prayers. We almost never get offered rides home on walking days, but I know the Lord was protecting us that night :)

Friday was Zone Conference, which is when about 3 zones get together and listen to trainings from President and the Assistants and usually a guest speaker. These happen about once every 3 months, and it was sad knowing this was my last one. In the meeting they emphasized teaching people simply and powerfully. The guest speaker was Elder Cherrington, who taught religion classes at BYU. He talked for a whole hour about Joseph Smith and the history of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It was super interesting and I loved every minute of it. They also fed us a great lunch which is always a plus :)

In Sacrament Meeting yesterday I gave a talk on the blessings of being obedient. Obedience is something we hear a lot about as missionaries so I had plenty to talk about. I quoted from my favorite scripture, Mosiah 2:41. I love it because it says that those who obey the commandments are blessed both temporally and spiritually. So we just need to keep the commandments and have faith that God will take care of the rest.

Yesterday was crazy busy. We only had time to come home after church and eat a quick lunch before heading off to back-to back appointments all afternoon long. It was pretty stressful because we had appointments every hour and we had to drive around to pick up and drop off some members that were coming with us so we had to keep each lesson to about 30 minutes or less, which is a challenge with Hispanics because they talk so much. We were teaching our Cuban investigator last night and he hardly let us say anything at all because he would not stop talking.

Sister Ivie and I are working hard and having fun. We keep each other laughing all the time no matter what is going on. Each day as a missionary feels like the longest day of my life but it is also so rewarding. I am so grateful for this time I have to focus on what's most important. I know it will be over all too soon so I am making the most of it.

<3 Hermana Hannah Harris

The Three-day Thriller

This week was super stressful and crazy. There were some sisters in a nearby area who were really struggling with each other and their area. As Sister Training Leaders, it is our job to do everything we can to help them. When we heard about the struggles they were having, we talked to the Assistants to the President and determined that we should do a 3-day long exchange with them. We started the exchange on Monday night by having them tell us how they were doing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They both were having a really rough time. We helped them set some goals for what they wanted to learn on the exchange. For the exchange, Sister Ivie went to their area with one of them and I stayed in Elizabeth with the other one.

Throughout the exchange I did my best to work really hard and teach a lot of people and get the sister as involved as possible in the missionary work. She loved teaching our investigators and helping them as much as she could and we saw a few miracles. We visited a Carlos, a Dominican man whose family are all members. He has been taking the missionary lessons for a long time without any real progress. We were pretty close to dropping him. Usually when we teach him, his whole family is there and it is all very loud and distracting. But when we visited him this week, his wife wasn't home so we taught him outside in front of his house. It was just us and him with no distractions and that helped a lot. We shared a simple lesson about repentance and then I felt prompted to ask him what was stopping him from being baptized.  Before I could even ask, out of nowhere he said that he knows he needs to be baptized. I was really shocked and then asked him what was stopping him. He said "Nothing, I just don't want to rush. But I want to set a goal of when to be baptized." I knew that a baptismal date in the next month or so would be too soon and scare him, so I told him that my last Sunday here in Jersey will be December 13th and that I really want to see him be baptized before I go home. He agreed and though that day was a good goal. So know he is on date for my last Sunday here! We are going to be visiting him more regularly now and helping him work towards his goal.

The exchange ended on a rather dramatic note. On Thursday, the last day of the exchange, the sister went into the bedroom for language study so she could read out loud to herself in Spanish. When language study was over, I called out to her so we could start lunch, but she didn't say anything. I thought maybe she didn't hear me so I called out again, and didn't hear anything. I went into the bedroom and saw that she had fallen asleep during language study. She was sitting on Sister Ivie's bed leaned up against the wall. Her breathing was irregular and seems to be pretty labored, and she was making faces as if she was having a bad dream. I tried to gently wake her up but she wouldn't. I then called one of her former companions to ask if is was something that occurred regularly with her. She said that she'd never seen this happen before. I called the mission doctor and he told me to grab her shoulders and tell her loudly and firmly to wake up. When that didn't work, he told me to get a cup of water and splash it in her face. I got a cup of water and sprinkled a bit of it on her, and when that didn't work, I dumped what was left in the cup straight onto her face. She flinched a little but didn't wake up. The doctor told me to call 911. At this point my hands were shaking and I was freaking out. I remember thinking "I've had exchanges end badly before, but I can't have someone die on my watch!" I dialed 911 and explained what was going on, and 5 minutes later there were about 5 paramedics in our apartment. They were frantically asking me questions about her medical history and I was trying to explain to them that I didn't really know anything about her. After they weren't able to wake her up, they lifted her off the bed and carried her into the ambulance. They had me sit in the front of the ambulance while they were in the back trying to wake her up. It was my first ambulance ride so that was interesting. During the ride, President and Sister Taggart called and asked me what was going on (they had heard from the Mission Doctor) so I tried my best to explain the situation even though I didn't really know. She finally woke up while we were on the way to the hospital. She didn't remember what had happened and was understandably pretty confused. Sister Ivie and the other sister came and met us at the hospital and we had to basically just sit in the ER's waiting room for four hours while they were doing blood tests on her trying to figure out what had happened. The doctors still weren't sure exactly what had happened but it sounded like they thought it was some sort of anxiety attack she had in her sleep. After she finally got discharged, the four of us went back to their area to end the exchange and we went out to dinner because we were all starving and hadn't eaten since before the whole ER run happened.

So all is well and I am really glad she was okay. At the end the exchange, she told me that she was doing a lot better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and that she felt like she had found her purpose again as a missionary :)

On Friday and Saturday, we had another exchange but this one was a lot a lot less dramatic. I was with a brand-new missionary and she is incredibly prepared and happy so it was a pretty easy exchange for me.

Wow that was long. Props to anyone who actually read the whole thing!
I love being a missionary!

<3 Hermana Hannah Harris

More Pics from Last Week

Pics from Last Week

My First Pupusas!

 

Ellis Island

Pupusas, the Projects, and Puerto Ricans

 

¡Hola todos!

Last Monday was probably the most relaxing P-day I've ever had. After using the computers at the library and going grocery shopping, we came back to our apartment and had about 5 hours to just nap and bake and relax. It was lovely.

Tuesday was Zone Meeting and Sister Ivie and I had to give two trainings-one on finding new investigators and another on the role of the Book of Mormon. In the mission we are doing a two-week "Area Book Freeze" which means we cannot look for former investigators or potential investigators and instead need to use all of our blank time finding and contacting new people. It worked really well because we got 9 new investigators this week!

Wednesday we went to Ellis Island again. The weather was lovely and NYC looked gorgeous next to the water. While helping at the family history center, I met people from Italy, Denmark, England, and Greece. We also met a lovely couple who are members of the Church and were so excited to see missionaries. They had such a special spirit about them and we chatted for a while. I love how within the Church you always have instant friends no matter where you go.

Thursday was walking day which meant we couldn't use our car. It was probably the most productive Thursday of my mission. We walked around all day and saw a ton of people. For dinner we got to pupusas (a popular food from El Salvador) because somehow I had made it this far in my mission without ever trying them. They were amazing! Our Salvadorian recent converts Charlie and Nancy also fed us pupusas when we visited them yesterday. Score!

Last week we started teaching this amazing Puerto Rican couple and their three children. This week we saw them again and had a really powerful Restoration lesson. We invited them to pray to know and to be baptized when they know it's true and they said yes! They also opened up about how they had a stillborn son and how their faith in God helps them to know they will see him again. We are going to teach them the Plan of Salvation tonight and help them know how they can see their son again. They are great!

Friday and Saturday I was on exchange with Sister Charles here in Elizabeth, but in their area which is English-speaking. We visited a couple members who live in the projects-the buildings financed by the government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else. It was super sketchy and smelled nasty and I was definitely happy to get out of there. We also contacted a media referral who had requested a Bible online. They were a wonderful family. The father was from Iraq and the mother was from Armenia, and they had 3 college-aged kids and they were all super nice. They were some of the few Christians living in Iraq and they told us about the persecution that the Christians there are facing from the Muslims. They had such strong faith in Christ despite immense opposition and there was such a special spirit in that home. We shared a little about the Book of Mormon and got a return appointment and told them we would bring them a Book of Mormon in Arabic next week.

Being a missionary is awesome!

The library is closed because of Columbus Day, but I will send more pics either later this week or next Monday!

<3 Hermana Hannah Harris

Challenge Accepted

Hello everyone! I hope you all loved General Conference as much as I did!

Last week President Taggart asked us all to read the Book of Mormon in the next 90 days, telling us that if we read about 6 pages a day, we should finish by Christmas. He wants each person to pick a certain topic they want to learn more about, and to look for and highlight any references they find to that topic. Usually when I read I'm looking for a lot of different things and it takes me a while to get through it. I've found that I'm able to read it a lot faster than normal when I am looking for just one specific topic. I'm already in 2 Nephi after a week of reading :) If anyone is up for starting the 90-day challenge now, there are just about 90 days until New Year's. What better way to end the year than by reading and growing your testimony and learning so much about the Gospel? I love the Book of Mormon so much and I never stop learning from it no matter how many times I've read it before.

One of the highlights of my week was that I finally met a man from Panama! For the longest time I had met someone from every Hispanic country except for Panama and Paraguay. I've been on the lookout forever. Now I just need to find someone from Paraguay and my quest will be complete.

This week we had a couple really great lessons with Pedro and we got him on baptismal date for the 18th of October! He has to go to Ecuador for a couple weeks starting around the 20th, and we are really hoping that he will be able to be baptized before he goes.

Friday was Mission Leadership Council, which took most of the day but was totally worth it. We talked about finding new investigators, teaching simply and clearly, and the role of the Book of Mormon in our teaching. We are going to be giving training on these things in Zone Meeting tomorrow and we're hoping that we will all be able to apply what we have learned into our daily efforts.

And of course this weekend was General Conference, which to missionaries is better than Christmas. I seriously never appreciated conference as much as I should have before my mission. Now I can't get enough of it! What a blessing it was to be able to see 3 new Apostles announced for the first time in over 100 years! So cool. I loved all of the talks and learned so much. As always, Elder Holland hit it out of the park. I loved how he related the words "bear", "carry", "labor", and "deliver" both to the Atonement of Jesus Christ and to mothers. I also loved the advice Elder Hales had for the young adults of the Church and what President Nelson said about the effect that righteous women can have in the Church.

Saturday and Sunday we had our days planned out so perfectly so that we could still have a good amount of lessons despite all the time we spent watching conference. Sadly, so many of our perfectly laid plans fell through. But we did get a couple new investigators, Jonathan and Kayla, who are Puerto Rican and have 3 cute kids. We taught them a short but powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon and we are going to be seeing them again later this week :)

I love the Gospel. I know it's true. I love sharing it with others as a missionary. It's the hardest thing I've ever done but it is so worth it.

<3 Hermana Hannah Harris

 

Silvano, the cutest old man from Ecuador

 

Pedro, also from Ecuador, hopefully getting baptized in a couple weeks!