First Solo Tour

 Sweet Sister Harris, who's been here less than 2 weeks, is preparing her pioneer stories and scriptures to organize in her Book of Mormon for when she gives a tour. She always has a smile and a cheery word for everyone.

Note from Randi:  I found the blog of a missionary couple in the same mission.  The picture and quote are from her blog.  Thank you Sister B!

* Now back to your regularly scheduled Sister Harris Post*

Hi everyone!
I'm starting to learn how things work here. Usually we're in the Trail Center for about half of the day and out in our area for the other half. Its really slow at the TC, so we study and things like that. But every once in a while people will come in for tours. Its fun taking people on tours. Definitely scary, but fun! Its awesome to get to meet people from all over the place and tell them about the pioneers.

I've really learned that its not about the facts that you know (even though that does help) but the spirit is so much more important in a tour.  I gave my first tour all by myself yesterday and I used some of the stories in my Book of Mormon, so that's fun.  The tour that I took was 2 people. They were both members and they were just stopping on their way through. I really like giving tours and teaching!

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 My companion Sister Bown is from St George. We live down the street from the TC, which is funny because Bellevue, our area is about 25 minutes away. So we don't actually live in our area, but we're really close to the TC.

When we're out in our area, we try to see as many people as possible, or we go finding. But we work a lot with less actives and recent converts. Sometimes you prepare for lessons, and sometimes you just come up with them on the spot, so that makes life interesting. Its a lot like that in the TC too. Every tour needs to be different depending on the person and their needs, so you're pretty much thinking of a lesson on the spot for every tour.

We teach mini lessons ALL. THE. TIME. On someones doorstep while they're trying to get rid of you, in the store, everywhere. And definitely on every topic that you can think of. One thing that I have been trying to practice is giving a PMG lesson in a minute or less. Its so hard! But helpful. Try explaining the restoration or plan of salvation clearly and simply in a minute. Its crazy!

Oh and we taught relief society yesterday...with only a little bit of notice. haha only like an hour before church. I surprised myself by not being nervous about it at all. Maybe that just comes from teaching and studying all day everyday. But it went well I think!

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I think that everyone here is getting sick. I haven't yet ....but Sister Bown has pneumonia right now so that's not good at all. She is SUPER stubborn and didn't want to go to a doctor. But her dad is a doctor, so she just ended up getting permission to call him and he prescribed her something. She's feeling much better now. I think that it was a pretty mild case compared to what it could have been. We had to stay in for a few days, but we're getting back to normal now.

We're really well taken care of though. Sister Weston is in charge of medical stuff, so we call her and she helps us to figure out what to do. Usually we go to a doctor, but if its an emergency we call her and go to the ER. So that's good.
Pres and Sis W are SO nice!

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 Its super funny working out here in the mornings. I usually work out upstairs, but they have some workout equipment downstairs too. I run around the gallery (26 times=a mile. its just painful) and do floor workouts. We're not allowed to do workout videos anymore :( But I just have to get creative about it. Its not weird at all to see people lifting packets of printer paper and using regular supplies around the TC to workout. But this morning was AWESOME. We made a music video! Its so great. Sisters just pop out from random places in the gallery and start dancing. Love it.