Surprise! Saturday is my new PDay!

So first off let me answer all of your guys´ question right now.  Why is Elder Harris emailing on a Saturday?  Yeah, I know it was what you were all thinking.  So for the next 6 months while I am in the office my Pdays will be on Saturdays.  I won´t have Pdays on Mondays for a while.  Bem, então my week was so crazy!  I got to the office at one of the busiest times!  Right in the middle of transfers.  We had to worry about all of the new missionaries coming in and all of the old missionaries leaving.  It was way busy.  We got to go to the airport on Tuesday to pick up a new sister who just arrived straight from the states.  It brought back all of the memories from when I had just barely arrived and was completely lost not being able to understand anything.  But it´s all good because everyone goes through it.  So as I said in my last letter.  Being in the office can be pretty boring sometimes but there are a ton of perks!  We get to eat dinner every transfer at president´s house with the newbies.  I don´t know if you guys remember from way back when I sent that picture 15 stories up right on the beach where we had that super elegant dinner.  But yeah, I get that every transfer now.  Plus now instead of walking everywhere we can just call taxis.  In other words I´m getting ready to put on 25 pounds in the first few transfers here ;)  Oh and our area here is the only area in all of our mission that has a McDonald's!  I haven´t been there yet but man I´m excited.  The only downer is they say it´s really expensive here. 

          But anyways, after we got all of the new missionaries taken care of, all of the old missionaries who were leaving showed up.  They stayed for about three days here doing nothing except messing around and making a mess of the office and of our house because they had to stay with us.  We had 13 missionaries sleeping in our house.  It was ridiculous.  We spent all of this morning cleaning.  So anyways.  We have been teaching a girl named M. since I got here and she is progressing really well.  We also should have a baptism tomorrow of a 13 year old kid named I.  I don´t really know him really well yet but I talked to him for a bit yesterday and he seemed really cool.  M. should also be being baptized here in a week or two.  My new companion, Elder Durê and my trainer Elder Cancino are awesome.  I lied in my last letter, I´ll have three weeks of training and then I´m on my own.  Durê is from southern Brazil and Cancino is from Chile.  But that is about it for this week.  I got the ward´s letter from your 7 days of service and it sounds like it went really well!  Thanks to all of the youth who wrote to me!  I loved reading all of your letters!   Oh that reminds me, one of my responsibilities is the mail now.  So I don´t have to wait until the first of every month anymore.  I´ll get it as soon as it arrives haha.  (I think he wants us to send real mail...not just emailsJ )Thanks for all of your guys´ support!  I love you all!  Have a great week!  A igreja é verdadeiro!

Elder Harris

Pic 1 - View from president´s house again

Pic 2 - The office missionaries!

Fluid on the knee and Mission Executive Secretary

So this week was a good one.  It started off by me having to go to the hospital because I had some weird liquid in my knee.  I showed Sister Soares last Monday and she immediately marked an appointment for me.  Haha don´t worry it´s no big deal because it is on the outter part of the knee.  The doctor said if it was on the inside of the actual knee then it would be more serious but all they had to do was stick a big needle in my knee and suck the juice out.  He said it happened because I hit my knee somewhere or something like that.  I don´t remember so I´m pretty determined it´s just from praying too much ;)  Brownie points from the Man upstairs ;)  Anyways so I got there and I saw the doctor for the first time and noticed that he had a mustache, so immediately I put all of my trust in him because as we all know, mustaches mean wisdom and knowledge...  Anyways he sucked the juice out and then put a ridiculous amount of bandaging on my knee.  My knee was numb so I didn´t feel anything for like the next three hours.  The next day I took the bandaging off and there was still liquid stuff in my knee!  Either I was really misguided by this doctor's mustache and thought he was really good at his job but turned out that he´s not or my knee started filling up again.  Anyways, to make a long story short I have to go back to get it redrained again this week.  But like I said don´t worry it´s no big deal.  It doesn´t hurt at all.  To be honest I kinda like it.  It´s fun to poke.  It gives me something to do when I´m bored haha.  

           Anyways, on to the big news.  Transfers are tomorrow but I recieved a phone call from President Soares yesterday that said I was being called as the new executive secretary of the mission.  So I packed up my bags last night and got to the mission office this morning.  So that pretty much means I´m on a computer for like half the day.  That might sound pretty good but there is SO MUCH stuff to do!  Especially because this week is transfers.  I have a trainer for today and tomorrow but after that I´m on my own.  I´m super nervous but excited, it should be good.  So that means I´ll be staying here for the next 7 months.  Haha I guess we´ll see how it goes.  I´m just stoked because I get air conditioning!  Plus I get to spend a bunch of time with President and Sister Soares.  I love being around them, I always learn a ton and we get treated so well haha.  When I was going to the hospital with Sister Soares last week she was talking about all of the street contacting we do.  It was cool because usually street contacting isn´t all that excited but we have to do at least 20 per day.  She was talking about how for most of the people we talk to, it is the first time in their lives they have ever come face to face with somebody is actually called of God and holds the true Priesthood.  It´s cool because we don´t always remember that kind of authority we hold.  It puts things into perspective for me.  Anyways, that was about all that happened this week.  I love you all!  Have a great week!  A igreja é verdadeiro!

Elder Devin Harris

 

Two others who I entered the MTC with at Zone Conference

Natal

Some street football

Intense!

Some random street

 

The doctor doing his thing!

 

                                              

I can almost literally feel my tongue being "loosed".

How is everyone??  This week was awesome!  I loved conference!  I was so bummed when it was over.  There is nothing better than conference on the mission.  It´s such a spiritual boost to help you keep going in the work.  I loved seeing all of the pictures of the family there!  I´m pretty jealous, not gonna lie ;)  The chapel where we watched it is about an hours walk from hour house so that was really tough to try to bring investigators but we got two to come with us on Ssaturday and they seemed to really like it!  All of the American missionaries had our own little room to watch it in english which was awesome!  I would have liked to listen to the one talk that was given in Portuguese in Portuguese but it was translated for us too.  Ulisses Soares, the one who spoke, is actually my mission president´s cousin so that was pretty cool.  Anyways, I loved all of the talks!   Especially Elder Ballard´s in the priesthood session haha ;)  So I ran into P., the 15 year old, now 16 year old, that we baptized in Panatis at the conference.  He was so good!  He got the priesthood and was getting ready to bless the sacrament next  Sunday!  He says all he is missing now is the missionary name tag.  It was so cool to talk to him and see how good he is doing.  He was taking me around introducing me to all of his friends and was like "this is the one who taught me!"  It was such an awesome experience!  

          So in between the conference on Saturday I brought the football you guys sent to me and we were playing with it in the parking lot.  Haha man, Brazilians are not known for their American football skills haha.  Usually we always see them play soccer and they're so good at it that it makes the Americans look bad but it was nice to see them a litte discooridinated (Devin is creating new words...I think he meant uncoordinated) for a change haha.  We actually had a Zone pday today which is why I´m emailing a little late today but it was a blast.  We got a big game of football going on a huge sand field.  (It´s almost impossible to find grass here)  It was so hot though!  Everybody almost died!  I´m not even a hundred percent sure that I didn´t die.  But when you get 20 missionaries together they don´t really care, they just go all out haha.  I wish I would have brought my camera to send pictures but I left it in the house so it´s gonna have to wait another week...  Sorry, my bad.  I know it´s been awhile since I´ve sent pictures but I still look the same I promise ;)  So I just wanted to throw this in here.  Everybody has heard the scriptures that talk about like your tongue being loosed with the help of the Holy Ghost and stuff like that right?  Well I totally testify of that.  When I´m talking to someone on the street I can usually get across what I want to say pretty well but when I am in a good lesson and am teaching with the spirit I can almost literally feel my tongue being loosed.  Everything just comes so easily and it´s not very hard to pronounce the words either which is something that almost every American has problems with.  I´ve come to find out that your tongue being loosed is such a literal phrase.  It´s so awesome!  Anyways just throwing that in there haha.  I love you all, Have a great week!  A Igreja é verdadeiro!

Elder Devin Harris

My heart rate goes up just thinking about General Conference!

 Alright so first off.  I have to be super fast this week so I´ll apologize now but it sounds like you all had a great week this week!  Tagg congrats on the pinewood derby!  Also congrats to Brent and Courtney on the new baby!  So this week was good.  We had a Zone Conference this week with all the missionaries in the City of Natal so it was about half of the missionaries in the mission.  It was really good.  We learned a ton.  I saw the beach for the first time this week too haha.  6 months within 20 minutes of the beach and I just barely saw it haha.  But anyways I think I´m really getting into the whole missionary thing because I have never been this excited for General Conference in my whole life!  I´m so excited!  Like I think about it and my heart rate goes up.  I used to just be excited for Conference because it meant I could stay home from church and I didn´t have to put on church clothes haha.  But I can´t wait!  Even though I won´t be there live with the family, I´ll look for you guys!  I´ve gotta go now!  I love you all!  Have a great week!  A igreja é verdadeiro!

 

Elder Harris

Shooting and Wars...Missionary Style!

Alright so I had a pretty good week this week.  Not a whole lot happened this week so I´ll keep it short.  I started out with an interview with President Soares.  It went really good, I always learn a ton from him.  Anyways we were eating lunch at our house and I was out on our balcony which is 4 stories up and this kid on the street with a broomstick started "Shooting" me with it.  It was funny, I started shooting him back with a broomstick and before long we got all the elders and like 5 kids on the street having a war with us from our balcony haha.  It was just a bunch of people yelling BANG BANG!  Haha the adults on the street had no Idea what was going on but it was hilarious.  It went on for like a half hour before we figured we´d better leave to go work haha.  But it was way fun. 

          Anyways so the bummer of this week was me and my comp decided to go visit D. and C.  So we got there and knocked on the door and there was like an echo (All houses here are made of concrete)  So we were like well that´s weird.  So we asked some neighbors and they were like oh yeah they moved this afternoon.  We were like What??  Are you kidding me?  Nobody knows where they went to and we´ve called them about 1,000 times and nobody has answered.  It was so frustrating. 
          We were walking by this big Universal Church.  It´s a really popular church around here and we could just hear yelling and screaming.  So we went to the front of the building and the front part is really big and open so you can see in and there were all sorts of people screaming and grabbing their head and church leaders grabbing peoples hair and yelling in their ears.  People were falling on the floors and all that.  It turned out they were trying to get the demons out of people.  Yeah it was some pretty messed up stuff.  It´s so sad to think that people are so lost yet they don´t want the truth.  People from the Universal church are definitely some of the most heard hearted people here.  Yeah it was weird.
             Anyways turns out winter is just starting here.  I had no idea until somebody told me.  It just means that it rains a little more which is good and bad.  Good because it keeps it a little cooler and bad because you´re soaking wet and if you wear a jacked you get too hot and get soaked with sweat, so it´s just a bad situation.  But I did try to justify wearing a sweater with my companion on an overcast day.  That was a bad idea.  Man I got so hot!  Everyone here was walking around with sweaters and jackets and I was still dying of heat!  So I took it back home and left it there.  Anyways, sorry for the lame letter but that was about all that happened this week.  I love you all, I hope you have a great week!  A igreja é verdadeiro! 

Elder Harris

Trying to wear a sweater this "winter"

War Pic #1

War Pic #2

Testing out his rain jacket!

Hit the Big 6 Months!

          Hey everyone!  I hope all of your guys´ week was as good as mine!  We had an awesome week.  On Monday night we went to a member's house for a family night and they threw a big surprise birthday party for me and Elder Church who turned 19 a couple days before me.  They brought out a big cake and started singing happy birthday (Not as well as the Ebmeyers but it was still cool) ;)  Haha the lady had written little notes to each of us which was super sweet.  My name is Elder Harry but oh well haha.  Almost everyone here calls me Elder Harry Potter so people just assume my name is Harry, it´s kinda funny.  Anyways that was about it for that.  So this week my comp went on splits in another area so I was senior companion with Elder Shakespear from Utah.  I might have written about him before.  I lived with him when I was in Panatis.  He´s a really funny kid.  He has a super thick American accent so when he talks the people think it´s hilarious.  So yeah, We had 4 Americans in the house this week.  It was awesome!  We didn´t have to speak one word of Portuguese while we were in the house which was a first.  Elder Shakespear's parents had sent him some Kraft Mac n´ cheese so we cooked that up and it was so bomb!  It´s been so long since I´ve had that!

          So we were going to an investigator's house, Anaildi.  I´m not sure if I´ve told you guys about her yet.  She´s a lady in her mid 50´s or so and she has this problem with her leg where it just starts bleeding randomly but she doesn´t feel it.  She told us that once but we didn´t think too much of it.  Well anyways, me and Shakespear were going there and we got there and her husband was outside so he opened and invited us into the gate and we went up to the front door which was opened and there was blood all over the floor.  Like I´m talking a ton of blood!  One of her neighbors was there cleaning it up and by that time they had got the bleeding stopped.  I remembered her telling us about it so I wasn´t overly concerned I just asked if we could help with anything but Shakespear was freaked out!  He didn´t know what to think.  A. was sitting in a chair as calm as can be and was like Hey!  I´ve been waiting for you guys to come!  Come in grab yourself something to eat, I´m excited to hear the word of God haha.  She was so nonchalant.  But anyways it was kinda funny. 

          The next day was pretty intense we were walking down the street and we were getting pretty close to an intersection when we heard this loud bang and scratching noises that sounded like a car accident.  The next thing you know, we see a guy sliding on the street with his motorbike on top of him.  I was so shocked at first then I realized what happened, dropped my books, and ran to go help him.  I lifted the bike off of him and by that time there were quite a few people there.  The guy was pretty scratched up and I´m pretty sure he broke his leg but he was lucky.  he was wearing a helmet too which was good.  We waited until the ambulance came and then we left.  It was crazy.  

           So anyways, back to the church stuff.  We taught D. and his girlfriend a few times this week and they were still loving it!  C. (his girlfriend)  read the first 15 chapters of the Book of Mormon and all the introductions and stuff at the beginning and was super excited about it!  She gave us the run down on everything she had read so far.  She especially loved the Testimony of Joseph Smith.  She was telling us that story in detail with dates and everything!  I was like, man if only everyone were to get that excited about the Book of Mormon.  They were really excited to come to church this Sunday and reminded us all throughout the week to not forget to come to their house to pick them up for church.  But unfortunately D.'s mom got sick so they left at 4 in the morning to go help her.  So they weren´t able to go to church but they´re still doing awesome.  

              Sunday morning was tough.  We have to pass by the houses of all of our investigators house to take them to church because almost nobody has cars here. (We have about 20 investigators right now)  We walked to every one of their houses and were not able to get one person to church with us.  It was such a bummer.  But it was all good.  That was about all for this week.  I love you all!  Have a great week!  A igreja é verdadeira!

 

Elder Harris

Devin's birthday cake made by some members there!  It's huge!



Kraft Mac 'n Cheese with the Americans...who knew it would bring such bliss?!

Thanks to Talon, it looks like he might just cry over this box of Waffle Crisp!  You are so good to him Talon!
 

 

We can help you with that!

So this week was a long and a really tough week, but I learned a lot and my testimony has been strengthened.  So to start the week out I´ve had an ingrown toenail that freaking kills but I don´t like hospitals and I´m not sure how much I trust the hospitals here so I tried to do a little surgery on myself which just ended up being really painful haha.  I wouldn´t recommend it to anyone haha.  But anyways I toughed it out all week which is not fun walking 30,000 miles per day.  So we have this investigator who lives forever away and it was about 7:30 and we needed to get to her house quickly so that we could get home on time so the only way was to take a bus.  There is one bus that goes by her house and my comp was positive that it was 74.  So we waited forever until 74 showed up.  We got on and were feeling pretty good when we realized we were on the wrong bus taking us farther away from the investigator´s house and our house.  So we hurried up and got off and by that time it was about 8:15 so we had to cancel our appointment with her and we used the last hour and a bit to walk all the way home because it was too late for the busses here.  They stop working at 8, don´t ask me why.  So yeah we were doing some contacts on the way home and met a man who was Jehovah’s witness.  Man this fool chewed us out for everything we tried to say.  My comp loves to bible bash so they just went at it for like a solid 20 minutes before I finally pulled my comp away.  The next few days followed as suit.  They were all really tough, long, and I´ve never been yelled at or had my beliefs laughed at more than I have this week.  We were pretty discouraged this week until Sunday.  That´s when things started to turn around.  I went on a division with Elder Wilson Sunday morning to go pick up investigators to take to church.  We were doing some contacting and knocking on doors (Clapping outside the gates) because we had a little time to kill so we decided to clap at the houses and ask for a Pablo just to break the ice a little bit haha.  That was going really well until we clapped at a door and asked for Pablo and a 35 year old man named Pablo showed up.  That was super awkward haha.  We had to think fast to dig ourselves out of that situation.  We were both American so we were trying so hard to make up a story in Portuguese haha.  But it was all good he was really cool.  Sunday afternoon was even better, we had some good lessons and it was all going pretty normally until we remembered a guy we made a contact with almost a month ago who we had both forgotten about.  We just had a strong feeling to go there.  We got there and D. (That´s his name) was like man, I thought you guys forgot about me!  I wanted to go to church but I forgot what time it was at and I never saw you guys again!  We talked to his girlfriend too and shared the restoration with them.  He started to tear up at the first vision and said he was feeling straight up peace and joy at that moment.  It was really cool, he was asking what he would have to do to join the church and we were like, We can help you with that haha.  The only problem is he lives with his girlfriend and his son but they aren´t married so we´ve got to get them married first.  But yeah, really cool stuff.  It makes all the bad stuff and the hard stuff about mission life worth it when you have those kinds of experiences.  Anyways, that was about it for this week.  I love you all, Have a great week!  A Igreja é verdadeiro!

Elder Harris

Elder Wilson and I talking to some kids (Matching Jackets;)