Feb 2, 2015

Family!!

As I'm sure dad has told you, I'm finally in Wales! I'm serving in Swansea in South Wales. It's on the beach, it's absolutely beautiful! it's also freezing cold, but that's not too much of a difference :) I forgot how much I love the ocean. I could just sit and watch the ocean for hours and hours and never get tired of it! Every single day since I've been here it has rained, hailed, and snowed, and been perfectly clear sky's. I've never had more bi-polar weather! it makes for interesting days though so it's all good. 

Dealing with transfers for the last time was bittersweet. One of my favorite things as a missionary has been working with President Rasmussen and especially when it comes time for transfers. I will forever be in debt to President and Sister Rasmussen by teaching me so much from their example in their selfless service. They work so hard, hardly get any sleep, deal with loads of complaining missionaries, and they never take a second to have a pity party, or to complain about their efforts. 

My companion is Elder Magda. He is awesome! He is from Hungary, he's been out for about a year, and he's ready to work! we've already seem some great miracles since we've been here. 

One of my favorite things about the area has been the fact that we are once again working with Chinese investigators. That is something that I have always loved and I forgot how much I really love them. We were able to pick up 2 new chinese investigators since I've been here on Thursday and I think that they will be really solid! Another investigator that we are working with is named Stephen. Stephen has severe social disabilities, but he is incredibly intelligent. He reads everything that we give him, and he asks questions that people would only ask if they were sincerely pondering about the gospel.  He texted us on Friday saying that he didn't want anything to do with the church anymore, because there were too many commandments. We asked if we could visit him just one more time that night. He agreed, so we did. We had a powerful lesson with him where we resolved his concerns, spent 90% of the time just listening to what he was saying, and more importantly what he was feeling. By the end we were inspired to share various principles that really helped him, and he came to church yesterday. Hopefully we will be able to put him on a baptismal date this week as he's been hesitant since this week.  Please keep Stephen in your prayers! 

On Friday evening we also had a ward activity, it was great to meet the new ward. Unfortunately it's really sad that I'll only be in Swansea for 6 weeks total, because it's an area with good members, good proselyting, good chapel location, etc. It's hard to be motivated to work with the members closely when I know that working with members doesn't produce instant results in less than 6 weeks, but I know that it's the right thing, so we will have to find a good balance.  

I'm sincerely getting anxious about coming home. I'm trying hard not to think about it, but it freaks me out to think that I won't be a missionary! I forgot how to be normal. I think I will be fine once I start playing golf, but other than that I'm going to be a lot of help. I will try my best to focus on the work for these last 5 weeks and leave it all on the field. 

I love and miss you all so much! I am grateful for an incredible family who has supported me all of this time, and that will continue to support me in my last transfer. I'll be excited to tell you about more new investigators next week. We are going to be finding our butts off. love you! have a great week :) 

Elder Harris.