Back to the Trail Center!

Sooo update on transferrs!

I got transferred out of Plattsmouth! :( It's very bittersweet, because I get to go back to the Trail Center (YAY!!) But I also have to leave Plattsmouth (NO!!). Anyway, it's been good so far!

I'm serving in the Loess Hills YSA Ward, and my comp is Sister Farnsworth! She's been out about a year and I love her to pieces! It's been weird to have her as a companion though, because we have literally both trained new missionaries our whole missions, so we kind of don't know what to do with each other because neither of us are new!

I was definitely shocked to be going to a singles ward, because I had just been telling Sister Huss like two weeks ago that the one place that I would never in a million years want to serve was a singles ward...haha jokes on me! Heavenly Father has the best sense of humor ever!

It's also been a shock because I moved from Louisville, Nebraksa, where you have to drive through 15 minutes of corn fields to get anywhere and the nearest walmart is 30 minutes away, to Council Bluffs, Iowa. People. Are. EVERYWHERE! There are so many people and buildings and people. It's crazy! Did I mention all of the people? I don't think that I've seen a single corn field in days!

But I LOVE it so far! It's super crazy because we cover the whole Council Bluffs Stake, which is huge!! It's really hard to know where to go and what to do because there is just SO MUCH! But it's been great so far :) AND it's cool because we cover both Bellevue 1st and Plattsmouth, so I can spend some time in both of my old areas if we have people to teach there :)

We are teaching a man named Chris who is partially deaf. S. Farns speaks some sign language and I'm picking up bits here and there, so it's fun! We decided that we are going to start signing in our apartment so that I can learn more and more. Oh, and also Chris is getting baptized on Saturday! We're SUPER excited, because he's amazing and really prepared. Yay!

Ummm I don't know what else. Our apartment was built for really tall people, because I can't reach anything in it! Seriously. I can't even see in the bathroom mirror. It's pathetic. I'll send pictures next week.

Sister Farnsworth blogs too.  Here is the first paragraph from her blog last week:

"I am still a little in shock from transfers. My cute Sister Jones got transferred out of the area and is opening a new area for full proselyting sisters and is training a new misisonary named Sister Mccauley. She is darling! Sister Harris got transferred in which was a SHOCK for both of us because we have both trained every transfer that we weren't being trained. She has been out 9 months and is from Littleton, Colorado, and we still just keep looking at each other like IS THIS REAL!? We are such good friends, and we have seen incredible miracles already. She is an incredible missionary and has so much faith. She is already loving the area and the ward, and is even having me teach her some sign language to help her teach Chris. I LOVE HER."

It was actually really funny, the other day I walked into the TC and this cute new Sister sees me and says, "I followed two blogs of missionaries in Nebraska, and now you're companions! How crazy is that?!" It made me so happy that someone was looking at my blog :)

Sister Farns, Sister Harris, and Sister Jasper

Half Way Already?

It's hard to believe that I will hit the half way point of my mission in only two days! Did I really enter the MTC 9 months ago? 

I can't even believe how much I have changed on my mission. I have really learned more about the power of the Atonement to change people. I have talked to so many people and wondered how best to help them in their difficult circumstances. I have seen and heard so many heart breaking things that have happened to people that I have grown to love. 

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When I think about sad things, a line from Preach My Gospel comes to mind. It says, "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ". 
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I know that this is true! The Savior truly paid for everything that we will ever go through. He knows and understands everything. It's amazing to me that all that He ever asks for is for us to do our best to become like Him and our Heavenly Father. 

I have definitely seen this in my life and in the lives of people that we get to teach as well!

Hello Louisville!

This has been the craziest week ever. The move was good, I am good, and the new place is great! Louisville is the smallest town that I have ever been in. It's amazing! Just far from everything. There are like 15 miles of corn fields that separate it from Plattsmouth. 

 This area is a full proselyting area.  I should be going back to the Trail Center pretty soon, though. Unless my mission call gets changed or something. But President wants all of the TC sisters to be full proselyting for 2 transfers and then to go back. So we'll see what happens. :)

 I don't know if you can see the sheep in this picture...but they're there. And they're awesome! This is part of the front yard of where we are living!

 








 

Also, this fake moose will scare the heck out of you if you are wandering around at night looking for the spare key because you locked yourself out of the house when you went to grab something out of your car...

I didn't scream luckily.

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It's super pretty! Sometimes you can see the humidity in the air hanging over the corn fields. Mostly on the really hot days. Luckily we haven't had a ton of those. I have noticed that when we walk around on hot days I start to get really bad headaches and nausea and sometimes dizzy. So it's been a tender mercy that it hasn't been very hot at all lately. Gatorade has definitely been helping. Luckily Sister Huss gets really bad migraines too, so we can help each other when someone gets one.

The investigators are good! One came to church yesterday, but came like an hour and a half late and couldn't find us for a bit. Then a lady in the ward found him and showed him where we were. We are working with a ton of less actives and having good success with them, so that's been good! 

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 I LOOOVED getting all the family reunion letters! They couldn't have come at a more perfect time! It has been a very stressful week for me. We're just trying to figure out miles and everything. It also feels kind of like starting over in a new area since we're so far out there with no investigators. Sometimes I feel  isolated from everyone and everything.

But it's ok! It'll be good, I'm sure!

A few more pic's:

 This is a crazy bridge in Iowa. It's supposed to represent tornadoes or something...all I'm saying is that if there is a real tornado that hits that bridge, we're all in trouble!

 Best road name ever. I feel like Dr. Seuss every time I say it!

 A sign that was in a bathroom at the mall

I hope everybody has a great week!  Love you!

Kid Quotes

I LOOOVE the Lake Powell pictures!! It looks so fun! I can't believe how big Yogi is getting. Sweet boy!!

Today has been a crazy one! We found out today that we're moving...eek! So we've spent the morning packing and we're hoping to be out of the house by 5 tonight. We've moving in with our relief society president who is AMAZING! So that's good. She lives in Louisville, a tiny town at the edge of our area, so I have no idea how miles will work out. But it will somehow I'm sure.

We've started writing down some of the best kid quotes from member meals and from lessons. Here are my favorites of this week:

• We were having a family act out the story of Nephi building the boat from 1 Nephi 17.  We finished the acting and clapped and everything and one of the little girls shouts, "And then all the animals came!"
• One is from a little boy who was rolling around on the floor saying, "I'm going to throw up! I need ice cream!"
• And then one from a little girl who said loudly over everyone at the dinner table, "Let's just all be quiet and let the missionaries talk"

Pictures and More Pictures

Our church building...it looks like every other church building, but I thought that it was a good picture.

This week has been great! Yesterday was AMAZING! We had a less active who we've been working with for a while come to church! She hasn't been since at least 2010. I think that everyone was in shock...I know that we were! She also offered to have us over in her home to teach her friends sometime this week. Amazing!
We also had a part member family come to church. We sat with the mom in relief society and were chatting with her after church when the dad saw us. They haven't seen us since before transfers and didn't know if we both stayed or not. When he saw us, he ran up and said, "You both stayed!" And gave us both a hug. I wish that I had pictures of our faces, because I'm SURE that they were hilarious! Then he said, "When are you coming over?" hahaha At least we know that they like us!
So anyway, it was a good Sunday.


Some random pictures:

A weird looking bug that I saw.

Me with an abnormally large zucchini (not even the biggest one of the group, I found out later)

Just in case you weren't sure where the fire hydrant was...

And some turkeys that were outside of a members house that we were eating dinner with. They're wild Turkeys and they're all over the place! I've never had a run in with one, though. Thank goodness!

Also, this is what happens when you drop your hair spray on your ankle.

I just remembered that you are at Lake Powell this week!!

Fun!!

If you get this while you're there, tell everyone that I say hello and that I love them!

 Some pictures of a little town that we serve in called Louisville. 

We got to spend some time in Louisville this week, one of the little towns in our area. It's TINY. But cute! It's very similar to Plattsmouth, actually. Just less people.

We saw lots of corn fields  :)  It's not uncommon for neighborhoods to be separated by random corn fields here, so we see lots of them in our area. It's weird to say, but they are actually really pretty! I wish that I could capture it on camera, but I think its being totally surrounded by corn and soy as far as you can see that's so cool.

There's this cute little family in our ward who's house we went over to for dinner this week. Their little girl is almost 2 years old and she just kept saying funny things! My favorites was, "Jesus. Baptized." She just said to so matter of fact. It was so adorable!

Anyways, I hope that you are having a wonderful time at Lake Powell! Be safe and don't do anything stupid, Runyan Family!

I do get to quickly read my blog comments during my once a week computer time, so say hello if you want to!

"The Sisternaries"

I'm doing great! 

Last week was awesome.  The 4th of July was fun! We ate dinner at the bishop's house and went to a party with a bunch of people in the ward. We had to be home at 9, still, so we didn't really get to see any fireworks, but it was still fun! Fireworks are HUGE here. We've been hearing them every night for about a week. It was really fun!

We got sick this week, so we were both in bed for about two days, but other than that, it was good! We also got to go to the temple and have had meetings all week, so that's taken a good chunk of time from teaching and stuff.

Oh! Our ward mission leader has 5 cute kids, and one of them had started calling Sister Huss and I "Sister Harry and Sister Hush, the sisternaries" SO funny! His wife accidentally called Sister Huss Sister Hush the other day.

Something kind of cool happened last week!
Last week we found an investigator when we were walking down the street and Sister Huss randomly wanted to go and knock on a door. So we did and we found an awesome lady who doesn't really practice any particular religion right now. We gave her a BOM, and talked about it and left. Then, this week we had an appointment cancel on us last minute, so we decided that we would go and check up on this lady. It was kind of weird because we had planned to go and see her later in the day, but for some reason we wanted to move her up like 4 hours and go see her right then.

We got to her house, and she came right out and started talking to us. She seemed happy that we were there and everything. Sister Huss and I started teaching about how God loves each of us so much and how Jesus Christ knows exactly what we are going through when we have trails. She started crying and told us about how she had been having a terrible day because of some things that are happening in her life.

As it turns out, the time that we showed up was the only time that day that she would have free time and be able to talk to us.
She kept asking us "How did you know?"
We shared Ether 12:27 with her and she asked, "Ok. Seriously. Did you plan this? HOW did you know?"

We had no plan when we were walking up to her door. We didn't even know if she would be home! This whole thing was such a testament to me that Heavenly Father knows each of us SO well. He knows exactly what we need when we need it and He is so willing to give it to us! All we have to do is ask in faith and act on impressions that we get.

I'm so thankful that I got to play my small part in helping this woman know how much she is loved by our Heavenly Father!

Welcome to 101 degrees New Companion Sister H!

Hello!  Things in Nebraska are still good! I'm still in Plattsmouth, but I got a new companion. Her name is Sister Huss and she's brand new to the mission! She's really awesome! She's from Ogden, Utah. Yep 3rd brand new missionary to train in a row for me. Usually training is supposed to be for 12 weeks, but both of my other trainees have trained a new missionary after 6 weeks! So I've only trained each of them for 6 weeks, then I get a new companion and they get a new companion. It's crazy. I think that Heavenly Father doesn't want me to be able to mess them up for too long, so He takes them away early :) haha

This transfer we got made full proselyting again! Eek! So now we're going to have LOTS of time in Plattsmouth! The ward is great. Everyone is really nice. We're really working on getting them more involved in missionary work.

Nothing super interesting with townsfolk... we just met someone who knows more about Mormonism than we do...eek. The big show down is Friday. He just invited us to come back and talk with him and his wife. It's kind of scary because he knows the bible really well and has gotten into a lot of anti stuff. Pray for me.

I'm going to be a pro at talking to random strangers by the end of the mission!

Here are some pictures! One of the temperature, one of a pretty sunset, one of Sister Bowles (my first trainee) , and random one of me at a bulletin board with a sticky note on my forehead that says to put on the bulletin board at the council bluffs stake center.

Have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Harris