No Pressure

This week was fantastic! It was Sister Ivie's last week here and we worked super hard. I feel like the whole month of October was kind of a drought for us because we were working so hard but didn't see much fruit of our efforts. But after this week, we decided that Heavenly Father had been testing us and our patience because this week we finally saw some great results.

My sickness wasn't getting any better so I finally went to Urgent Care on Tuesday after Zone Meeting. They got me some cough syrup and an antibiotic pill. They seem to be working since my cough is almost gone! The only annoying thing was that the cough syrup makes me really drowsy so it was really hard to stay awake and focused in some of the lessons.

We had our last exchange of the transfer from Tuesday to Wednesday. The last few weeks have been super busy with a ton of meetings so we ended up with two companionships left and only one possible day to do exchanges. So Sister Ivie and I decided to divide and conquer and hit two companionships at once. Luckily both were in Perth Amboy so we all just met up and Sister Ivie went with one companionship and I went with the other. I was with Hermanas Becker and Detrinidad, who are both fabulous missionaries. I've always thought they would both be great companions, so I'm glad I got to be companions with them at least for the day :)

Getting Pandebono (a delicious cheesy Colombian roll) with Hermanas Becker and Detrinidad

Saturday morning we had an amazing lesson with Pedro. We were pretty worried about him because he hadn't been to church since September. For over a month he always told us he would be going to church on Sunday but then his work always got in the way. We had also extended him about three different baptismal dates because we always had to keep pushing the date back due to him not being ready yet. We had all this in mind as we prepared his lesson Saturday morning. We had been planning on teaching him about temples, but we felt that he needed something else. We decided to teach him about repentance because he had been struggling with forgiving himself of past mistakes and feeling like he was worthy to be baptized. We read Alma 7:11-13 with him and talked about the Atonement and what Christ did for us, and then we read verse 15- Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

We explained to him that he doesn't need to be perfect to be baptized; he just needs to be willing to work towards it through the help of Jesus Christ. We invited him to be baptized on November 29th, and this time, instead of hesitating and laughing uncomfortably, he simply said "Yes" with a huge smile on his face. He then gave the closing prayer and thanked God for sending us to change his life. He came to church yesterday for the first time since September and he stayed the whole 3 hours and participated in the classes. At the end he mentioned that he is going to come every Sunday now and he's going to tell his boss that he can't work on Sunday's anymore. It was such a "proud mom" moment for me :)

We also visited Melva, the wife of our awesome Cuban investigator Ivo who is on baptism date. We hadn't seen her in a while, so we asked her if she had been reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it's true, and we were pleasantly surprised when she told us that she had read and prayed and she knows it's true! We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she accepted a baptismal date as well!

In addition to the people on baptism date, we were also able to get a lot of really solid new investigators, so I am excited to work with them and see them progress as well.

As is the case every week in Jersey, in addition to the amazing lessons there are always some that are pretty weird. There are simply a lot of strange people in New Jersey, especially Elizabeth, and we never have a shortage of random experiences. Here is the lesson report we put in our area book for one of our lessons this week, in which a recent convert Jorge met up with us to teach his sick ex-mother-in-law in her hospital room:

"We were 10 minutes late but Jorge was right on time and was there waiting for us. We spent 5 minutes on follow up/opening prayer and then taught the Restoration in about 5 minutes and then Jorge took over and went on for 20 minutes about who-knows-what, then a random old man passing out religious literature showed up and talked for about 5 minutes (and gave us marriage advice), then a couple friends of hers joined us and gave her a snowman that sang "Let It Snow" for 5 minutes, she cried and they bonded for about 2 minutes while we awkwardly looked on, then they chatted for 5 minutes while we sat there, then we prayed and said our goodbyes for 3 minutes, for a grand total of 60 minute and quite possibly the single greatest hour of our young lives."

And thus ended the twelfth week of the reign of Sister Ivie and Sister Harris. I have loved spending these 12 weeks with my MTC companion and seeing how much we both have progressed since then. Sadly, Sister Ivie is getting transferred and tomorrow I will have a new companion for my last 5 weeks. I know my time left is winding down, and I'm trying so hard to give the Lord everything I've got. It's funny; when I started my mission I felt like I was giving so much to the Lord, but now I feel like I've gained so much more than I've given. I've given 16 months of my life, but in return He's given me a better understanding of my purpose in life, a strong testimony of the truth of the Gospel, and some lifelong best friends. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.

< 3 Hermana Harris