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!