Perfection vs. Being Worthy

                                                                                                  July 14, 2014

Hola mi familia maravillosa! Gracias por sus cartas, when I got on I had 24 emails haha love it! So I have so much to tell you from this week! I am so glad you had an amazing trip and are back safe and sound in Naperville! I love you all so much! 

 

Sooooo, we had transfers this week. President called me last night to call me as a Sister Training Leader for my last cambio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I will be serving in Crav in Penco, which is closer to Concepción, and I will be serving with Hermana Baturité, another Sister Training Leader who is from Brasil.

 

I am so excited for this opportunity to serve and I will do my very best to help the sisters and work hard this last transfer! I am so grateful for the blessings that God has given me and for my whole mission!

 

Usually when we have transfers, the elders call us in the morning at 7, but this time our zone leaders planned a breakfast at 10 and we had to go there and everyone chose a name of someone else out of a bag and then we had to annouce where that person was going to be transferred. It was a lot more fun and exciting!  

 

So update this week. Jaime came to church, he is preparing to be baptized on the 26th of July. He is so prepared! We invited him to pray about his baptismal date because he felt that it was too soon. When we called he said that when he prayed, he didnt feel an answerl. But about 3 hours later he called us again to say that he receive his answer and is going to be baptized! We are so excited for him! He used to play the organ in the Catholic church and every time we go to visit him he makes me play a hymn on the piano! So fun! Mario is also progressing! He wasn't able to come to church because he had to go with someone to the hospital last minute, and didn't come, but he is learning and changing and it is amazing! Sadly, Laura and Connie couldn't come either. We will continue to work with them. I am sad that I won´t be there for their baptisms, but I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of teaching them. The Lord truely prepares people and converts them!!! 

 

Mario and Yocelyn went to the temple and loved it! They both shared their testimonies on Sunday in Sacrament meeting as the Bishop asked them to do so, and the Spirit was so strong! They only have 2 months in the church and have changed so much! Cesar is doing well. Thank you for your prayers. What really happened is that a brick fell on his back and broke a piece off one of his back bones, but he is doing well and mending. I know that the Lord answered our prayers and helped him heal and not have an injury more serious. 

 

This week was great and I Iearned so much! We had a sister study and I learned the difference between being perfect and being worthy. The perfection is a constant progression throughout our whole lives and worthiness comes from repenstance and striving to be better every day. The Lord doesn´t ask us to be perfect, but He does ask us to be worthy! Also, I had the opportunity to teach the class in Relief Society this past week. I learned a ton from President Joseph Fielding Smith about baptism, and about keeping our baptismal covenants. We must keep being faithful to the end because we were baptized to enter in the celestial kingdom, not in the terrestrial nor the telestial kingdom. My prayer is that we can all keep our covenants faithfully and fully and remember our goal to live with our Heavenly Father and our Savior and our Families in the Celestial Kingdom forever. 

 

On Wednesday we played soccer as a ward. The elders didnt tell us we were going to play so we showed up in skirts and boots. To not harm my boots anymore, I played in my socks haha I love playing barefoot because it is way easier to control the ball. But by the end of the game, I had huge holes in my socks haha so fun! Thank you for all of your prayers and for your love! I love you all! Have an amazing week and know I am praying for you! 

 

Love, Hermana Harris

O Be Wise!!

                                                                                                           July 7, 2014

Hola mi familia! I hope you had a wonderful week and fourth of July celebration! I sure did! This week we had so much to do, and it went by so fast. We were working hard all week and the Lord blessed us to be instruments in His hands. Let me give you the update!

 

The whole week we were preparing for Anette`s Baptism! On Wednesday we taught her the final lesson, on Thursday she had her baptismal interview, and she was baptized on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Elders were also teaching a couple that got baptized on Saturday as well, so there were 3 baptisms together and the ward really supported! It was fabulous! Now we are going to start teaching Anette`s dad! Hopefully! Please pray that he will listen to us. 

 

While preparing for the baptism, we worked hard to find more people to teach. The Lord blessed us to find Jaime, who is an older man who has retired and lives alone. He had shared with missionaries before when he was younger, but he ran away before he could get baptized haha. Now, he is very different and he is so prepared. He came to the talent show on Friday, and on Sunday he came to church and he loves it all!!! He has a baptismal date for the 26th of July.

We also found Laura and her 8 year old daughter, Constanza. They also accepted a baptismal date for the 26th and they came to the activity on Friday! It was so perfect because Constanza was instantly friends with Anette, and Laura got along great with Angie, Anette`s mom. They loved the activity and they also came for part of the baptism on Sunday. Sadly, after the baptism they went to a friend`s house who talked badly about the church and said that we do weird things on Sundays. Constanza didn`t want to go to church on Sunday, but Laura told her that she needed to try it for herself to see if it was true. They got to Sacrament meeting late, but THEY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!! And they loved it!!! We are going to teach them tonight!

Also, Mario Fica came to church. He is 21, he has a 2 year old son, and he wants to change his life and be forgiven for past choices. He does smoke, but he is progressing. Please pray for him! We have been blessed to find really prepared people. 

 

This week the Ward is going to the temple in Santiago on Friday and Saturday. There is a hotel there and they stay over. The best part is that Mario and Yocelyn are going to do baptisms for their family members! So awesome! Mario is having trouble getting off work, but he wants to go. Please pray that he will be able to get off work without problems. Cesar and Carolina were going to go too, but Cesar had a terrible fall in work. He works in construction and he fell on his back. He couldnt feel his legs and is in the hospital in Concepción. Now he can feel his legs, but the pain is horrible. He can`t walk very well. Please pray for him and his family. They need your prayers! Thank you!!! 

 

On Friday, July 4th, we had the talent show. In the beginning, not many members came :( we had all of our investigators there and not many members. But then they started coming. The talent show was great! My companion acted as a funny singer named Celia Cruz. You will have to look her up. It was so funny. I sang, "Someone like you" by Adele, haha don`t worry, I had permission. I had to pick that one, because there are not a ton of english songs that they know, but they do know that one. It was funny because they thought I sounded like her, and people passing by the church heard me. They asked who was singing Adele. haha Near the end of the activity, the members had me go in front and they all wished me a happy forth of July. Haha I had completely forgotten until that moment, that it was the 4th of July. They had all remembered! So sweet, and so funny that I forgot. oh well, there is always next year. 

 

Funny moments of the week: Lately, a lot of the people that we have contacted are giving us fake addresses. I dont know how they know which houses are fake address but they know. I think that they talk to the missionaries one time, and then decide that the next time they will give a fake address, so they prepare ahead of time and know all of the numbers that they can say to throw us off their trail. It always happens that they give me a number like 864, and we get to the street and find 866 and 862 instead. It makes me always want to run right in between them and pass through the wall like in Harry Potter when they enter Station 9 and 3/4. To bad that doesn`t work. Guess whatelse happened this week? Hermana Martinez attacked me with her smelly socks. We had just finished planning one night, when suddenly she has me in a head lock and her socks in my face! haha she is crazy, but I love her! Sadly, we have transfers next week. 

 

This week, I would like to share a scripture with you that I learned a lot about this week. It is Jacob 6:12, and it says: "O be wise; what can I say more?" I love that scripture because it is so simple but it is so important. Everyday we make a ton of decisions big and small. We need to recognize these opportunities to choose, and be wise and make the right choices. This applies in temporal things, and spiritual things. But we are very blessed because we have a loving Heavenly Father, who will always answer our prayers and who we can consult when we need to make a decision. He will help us to be wise.

 

I invite you all to always "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings," (Alma 37:37). I promise you that He will guide you and you will be blessed throughout your whole life. I love you all! Have an amazing week!!! 

 

Con Amor, Hermana Harris

Happy Fourth of July!!!

                                                                                                               June 30, 2014 

Dear Family,

Thank you for cheering for Chile in la Copa Mundial (World Cup)!

We are all sad that they lost, but it is better for us because now we can work without interruptions.

My Sweet Sister Companions and dear friends!!

On Sat. they played during lunch here so we just stayed inside and worked on productive missionary things that we need to get done, and we studied. This week was amazing and crazy! It went by so fast! Let`s see if I can write about everything that happened!

 

We had Stake Conference this weekend so we were working hard to help our investigators get to the stake center which is farther away. Anet went with her family and had a good experience. She is excited for her baptism this Saturday! Please pray that her father can come!

 

We are also working with a recent convert who has 7 children, and 4 of them aren't members. We are teaching those that want to listen. Constanza is 16 and she is listening and preparing for baptism on the 12th! She came to Stake Conference this Sunday and is progressing! Please pray for her! 

Cesar and Carolina and Maria Carolina, and also Mario and Jocelyn are preparing to go to the temple on the 11th to do baptisms for the dead! We are so excited for them! They are progressing remarkably! Mario received the Priesthood last week. Javiera is also preparing for the temple!  

This week we learned a lot. We had exchanges on Friday and guess who I got to work with? HERMANA CALL, MY TRAINER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so much fun, and just like old times except that my spanish is better now haha. I love her so much!

 

While we were working we were determined to find someone prepared to receive the gospel. We had been talking to everyone, and we had already talked to about 50 people when we went down a street and started knocking on a few doors. Everyone rejected us, but we kept going. I was walking close to a fence in front of a house when all of a sudden  huge dog barked and jumped on the fence and scared me to death. We started laughing and that is when I looked at a window of a nearby house and saw a lady watching tv by herself. I had accidentally made eye contact with her while staring creepily in her front window and I felt awkward so we moved on. We knocked on her neighbors house, but they didn't want to listen. I told Hermana Call that I felt like we should teach the lady we had seen, so we knocked on her door. Her name is Monica. She answered and we testified of our message and asked if we could share a short message with her that would bless her life. She said she was busy, but then Sister Call asked if we could use her bathroom, haha that`s how we got in. While we took turns, the other got to know her a little more. She is amazing. While we were talking she told me that she had listened to the missionaries once before. She doesn`t usually let them in, but one day she was making bread and they knocked on her door. She told them she was busy making bread and they asked if they could help because they had big muscles and strong arms to knead it. haha she let them in. She told me that they had used that excuse to enter her house and teach her. haha I laughed awkwardly because we had asked to use her bathroom and had gotten in haha but we needed a bathroom so we didn't lie. We began to teach her and she listened and understood everything. We invited her to baptism and she said yes. She had never been baptized in another church, which is a miracle here! We invited her and she was going to come to Stake Conference, but I don`t know what happened. Please pray for her! She is so prepared, but we need to help her progress and come to church. 

Thank you for your prayers and for your love! We are still teaching Cesar and Jasmin, but we had to leave the other investigators because they weren`t progressing. But thank you for your prayers in their behalf! 

This week I have been studying the book from the mission library,  "Our Heritage" It  is all about the history of the church and it is so amazing! I am learning so much and I feel the Spirit so strongly as I read about the restoration of all things, and of the inspired men who were chosen to be prophets and apostles in this last dispensation. I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ. He lives and He loves us, and He guides this church through His prophet and apostles. My invitation is that we can all read this book and understand more about our rich legacy as members of the true church of Jesus Christ! The Spirit will remind us of our conversion and help us be faithful until the end!

 

Guess what? I also finally got the Liahona with the conference talks from April! I am so excited to read them!! Thank you for all of your prayers and your love! I love you all and I hope you have an amazing 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are going to have a talent show that day! I will let you know how it goes! Love you!!!

Hasta Luego, 

Hermana Harris

"El Partido Mas Importante!" (The Most Important Game)

                                                                                                  June 23, 2014

Hola mi familia marvillosa!!! How are you all doing?

 

This week was awesome!!! We learned a ton as we worked and saw a lot of interesting sights here in Chillán. Let me tell you the funny things first!

 

One day we were out contacting and there was a dog nearby, like there always is, but when we did a double take we realized that this dog had 2 barretts in it's fur by its ears. Haha so weirdly funny!!

Also, we are teaching a little old lady that has diabetes and other health issues and she can't walk, but she sure is a fan of soccer! I ask her about the world cup because she watches it and it is hilarious because even the older people here watch the world cup like crazy! Okay, another story about older people. We were walking to a lesson when suddenly we look up and see a grandmother walking on the roof haha. And finally, this week we had a lesson with Cesar, but there were two flies in the house that were bothering everyone, so before we started the lesson he brought out his fly swatter to kill them. But his fly swatter is super advanced. It is in the shape of  a tennis racket and it has an electric current, so when you hit a fly, it gets electricuted and falls to the ground. So he hands it to me and I was in charge of killing them. I got them both, when suddenly they rose and started flying again. Note, it doesn't kill them, it just stuns them. But that is the coolest fly swatter I have ever seen. 

Okay, now for the spiritual part. This week Anet came to church with her mom, and Cesar and Jasmin also came. Anet will be baptized on the 5th because this week is Stake conference and we are going to wait so she can be confirmed the next day after her baptism. Cesar and Jasmin are progressing, but he doesn't like being pressured so they still haven't accepted a baptismal date. Please pray for them! We were also teaching Fransisco but he didn't come to church, and Crelia, Martina, Katti, Richard and his mom didn't come either, but we hope to keep working with them so that they can receive the blessings that Heavenly Father has for them. We also hope to find more people who are prepared to receive the gospel. Please pray that we can do so. 

I learned a lot of things this week, but yesterday we had a lesson in Relief Society that was amazing! It was about leaving a legacy, and a sister who is a returned missionary gave the lesson! It was perfect as she always defined all of the words so that the investigators could understand.

 

Sometimes we forget that as Latter-Day-Saints, we speak a different language and the investigators have a hard time understanding. She spoke about the importance of covenants in leaving our legacy and especially about the covenants that we make at baptism. A covenant is a pact between God and us, but it is different because He sets the conditions and we promise to live them. When we are baptized we promise to take upon us the name of Christ, to always remember Him, and to keep His commandments. We promised that we would attend church every Sunday.

 

Why is important that we attend church? Well the two most important reasons are to take the sacrament and renew our covenants. We can pray, have activities, and worship Heavenly Father and the Savior in our houses, but only in church can we partake of the sacrament, and remember our covenants, repent, and promise God again that we will keep our covenants. We need to take the sacrament every week! It is so important! That is why we need to go to church every week. We also need to go because we love our Heavenly Father and we obey Him because we love Him. We don't do it to get blessings or receive praise, but we do it because we love Him. I know that as we are loyal and true in keeping our covenants, and as we go to church every day, we will be blessed! With every commandment, comes a blessing! I know that God will bless us in all things temporal and spiritual! 

Although the world cup is going on, may we remember that this life is the most important game that we can play. It is a test, and we must prove ourselves. Every day is game day and we must be ready to perform our best and win. And we can only do this when we keep our covenants and do God`s will. I testify that He is our team captain, and with Him we can`t fail. It is my prayer that we can all make good decisions so that we can win with Him. I love you all! I hope you have an amazing week and keep on winning! Hasta luego!

Love, Hermana Harris