iPads from Heaven

Happy Pday!

Last Monday for Pday, Hermana Bloxham and I went to Seaside Heights with the English sisters serving here. We walked down the boardwalk and looked at the cute little beachy shops.We each got a hoodie with a decal that we got to pick out and they ironed it on for us. We also got pizza and they were probably the biggest pieces of pizza I've ever seen. Jersey is so fun!

Tuesday was the all-mission conference that the whole mission has been anticipating for many months now. We had to be there at 7:30am, and since we are just about as far south in the mission as we can get, we had to leave at 5am to get there. President Taggart and a visiting authority spent several hours explaining to us how we will use the iPads and what we can and can't do with them. It was pretty long and tedious, but then right before we left at 3pm, we finally got our new iPads!!

It was a great day. The only sad thing was that I said goodbye to trainer Hermana Galvan. This is her last transfer before she goes home to Argentina, and I won't be at the transfer conference when she goes home, since Hermana Bloxham and I are staying together in our area for another transfer.

Right now the mission is still in the beginning stages of iPad use. These first couple weeks we will just be getting used to the iPads and learning how to teach with them, show videos on them, and use them as effective study tools. In a couple weeks we will start having our Area Books and our Daily Planners on our iPads, so basically all of our paperwork and planning will be digital now. A couple weeks after that, we will be able to get Facebook and start using it as a proselyting tool.

The missionaries who will be going home in November or earlier were given used iPads that they will have to give back to the mission when they go home. The ones going home after November were given brand new iPads and when they go home they will have the option to pay a small amount to take it home with them. Lucky me, I'm going home in December so I'm in the first group that will get to take our iPads home!

Wednesday I was on exchange with an English sister training leader, Sister Woodland. We had an appointment with a Mexican man named Neftali who doesn't speak any English. It was a super cool experience for me because during the lesson, she would speak directly to him in English and I would translate for him so he would understand what she said. She was able to do just as much of the teaching as I did, even though she didn't speak his language. He definitely could feel the Spirit just as strongly as if she had been speaking Spanish. I was very grateful that by now my Spanish is good enough that I was able to translate the lesson without any problems and he got the full effect of what we were telling him. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! He just needs to change his work schedule so he can come to church on Sundays.

Friday we visited William (the one who's been in rehab since March? Yes, that one). We've invited him to baptism several times and he's always said that he doesn't feel ready and he needs more time. This time we showed him a video of Christ getting baptized using our fancy new iPads. Then we invited him to be baptized on June 14th and he said, "No, I think I can be ready sooner." We were totally shocked because he's never said he feels ready before. But now he is on date for June 7th! He just needs to get out of rehab first...

<3 Hermana Harris