Trade-offs and Driving!

So quite a bit has happened over the past week or two. So something that I forgot to tell you about last week. Sister D. set up an FHE with the family of an older gentleman of our branch. The older gentleman, Bro W. has only been a member for a few years. Well he has quite a few kids and he basically dis owned them all during their childhood. He had a stroke a year or two ago and Sis D. has been trying to find his family to see if they can help him out cuz he needs a lot of help right now. She was able to find some, but basically everyone doesn't want anything to do with him now in his time of need cuz he wasn't there for them in their time of need. Well after trying for a while to get them some help, she finally found one of his sons that was willing to contribute something, she thought it would be a great opportunity to share the gospel. So she set up an FHE with Bro W's son and his whole family. Bro W. had never met most of his grand-kids and great grand kids that were there. P. is Bro W's sons name and he had 3 or 4 kids that attended and they each had a child or two as well. We used the opportunity to share with them the importance of families and how we should be working right now to prepare to live with our families forever. We shared some short church videos and had refreshments afterwards. They live in the Downtown Branch so we turned them over to the elders down there and they are teaching them now, hopefully things go good with them. Last week when I was in Downtown I saw Elder Wright (my trainer). He is the branch mission leader in that branch and he was out with the office elders doing some teaching, it was good to see him. 

So IDK if I told you this yet or not, I think that I have forgotten to tell you this the past couple weeks, but it is going to be Elder Holland that comes next week organize the stake! I am way excited about that! The only downside is that he is going to be here and most likely I won't get to see him live :( Due to not enough space at the Spanish Town chapel the are broadcasting it for the 3 branches here in Kingston. There is a Saturday afternoon session that is not going to be broadcast but by the sounds of it it sounds like our mission pres isn't going to let us go to that session. Lame!! He is going to be in a chapel 8 minute drive away from me for 3 days and I won't get to see him.

The work for us is definitely turning around! Last transfer was pretty slow but we have been blessed to find quite a few people to teach. It has made our week go by so much better! Hopefully we can get them all progressing now! One of them is Brother O. who came as a media referral. He is from Nigeria and most of his family over there are members of the church so when he goes back to visit them he always goes to church with them. Recently he went and visited some of his cousins in 

This week I also went on a trade off to the zone leaders area. They cover an absolutely amazing area. It is so beautiful. They cover the mountains surrounding Kingston. It was the first time that I have left the concrete jungle of Jamaica and actually went to the Tarzan Jungle of Jamaica, which I have only ever heard about. It was way neat. Elder B., the missionary I was with has his driving privileges revoked so I got to drive for the trade-off. Driving in Jamaica is way fun. You can drive hard and do crazy things and it is completely normal here to say the least. What made it better was driving through the mountains. The roads up there, well everywhere, but especially up there are terrible and some are dirt roads so it felt like back home driving through the hills. There are like cities with stores and shops built into the mountain side up there. It is kind of spread out but it is definitely a unique area. They also cover the campus of the University if the West Indies. We went there and had a lesson with a less active member who is from Africa going to Med school there. She was way nice, and we were able to teach her friend too. It was fun being back on a collage campus. We topped of the trade off by hitting up Chilitos Jamexican food! That always is a bonus.

Also on Saturday and Sunday I went on a trade off to Downtown with the office elders. I have never done a trade off on a Sunday before, never even heard of it being done before but I thought it would be a good chance to see how the missionaries interact with members and missionaries in a church setting.  The Downtown branch is quite different then the previous 3 branches I have served in. It is quite small  but it is getting there. It was a successful trade off. That one was in a truck too so I lucked out twice this week. :) 

Well happy memorial day! We are heading to the zoo as a district soon, should be pretty good! I hope you all have a great week! Happy summer!!!! :) 

One Love. Elder Colton Harris

This is a link to a quick article on the temple trip. most of the people in the story and pictures are from my branch now or Spanish Town.

Jamaica Temple Trip

Pic 1 & 2) Red Hills!! View of Kingston

Pic 3) Trade off to Downtown!

Lucked out twice this week!

So quite a bit has happened over the past week or two. So something that I forgot to tell you about last week. Sister D. set up an FHE with the family of an older gentleman of our branch. The older gentleman, Bro W. has only been a member for a few years. Well he has quite a few kids and he basically dis owned them all during their childhood. He had a stroke a year or two ago and Sis D. has been trying to find his family to see if they can help him out cuz he needs a lot of help right now. She was able to find some, but basically everyone doesn't want anything to do with him now in his time of need cuz he wasn't there for them in their time of need. Well after trying for a while to get them some help, she finally found one of his sons that was willing to contribute something, she thought it would be a great opportunity to share the gospel. So she set up an FHE with Bro W's son and his whole family. Bro W. had never met most of his grand-kids and great grand kids that were there. P. is Bro W's sons name and he had 3 or 4 kids that attended and they each had a child or two as well. We used the opportunity to share with them the importance of families and how we should be working right now to prepare to live with our families forever. We shared some short church videos and had refreshments afterwards. They live in the Downtown Branch so we turned them over to the elders down there and they are teaching them now, hopefully things go good with them. Last week when I was in Downtown I saw Elder Wright (my trainer). He is the branch mission leader in that branch and he was out with the office elders doing some teaching, it was good to see him. 

So IDK if I told you this yet or not, I think that I have forgotten to tell you this the past couple weeks, but it is going to be Elder Holland that comes next week organize the stake! I am way excited about that! The only downside is that he is going to be here and most likely I won't get to see him live :( Due to not enough space at the Spanish Town chapel the are broadcasting it for the 3 branches here in Kingston. There is a Saturday afternoon session that is not going to be broadcast but by the sounds of it it sounds like our mission pres isn't going to let us go to that session. Lame!! He is going to be in a chapel 8 minute drive away from me for 3 days and I won't get to see him.

The work for us is definitely turning around! Last transfer was pretty slow but we have been blessed to find quite a few people to teach. It has made our week go by so much better! Hopefully we can get them all progressing now! One of them is Brother O. who came as a media referral. He is from Nigeria and most of his family over there are members of the church so when he goes back to visit them he always goes to church with them. Recently he went and visited some of his cousins in 

This week I also went on a trade off to the zone leaders area. They cover an absolutely amazing area. It is so beautiful. They cover the mountains surrounding Kingston. It was the first time that I have left the concrete jungle of Jamaica and actually went to the Tarzan Jungle of Jamaica, which I have only ever heard about. It was way neat. Elder B., the missionary I was with has his driving privileges revoked so I got to drive for the trade-off. Driving in Jamaica is way fun. You can drive hard and do crazy things and it is completely normal here to say the least. What made it better was driving through the mountains. The roads up there, well everywhere, but especially up there are terrible and some are dirt roads so it felt like back home driving through the hills. There are like cities with stores and shops built into the mountain side up there. It is kind of spread out but it is definitely a unique area. They also cover the campus of the University if the West Indies. We went there and had a lesson with a less active member who is from Africa going to Med school there. She was way nice, and we were able to teach her friend too. It was fun being back on a collage campus. We topped of the trade off by hitting up Chilitos Jamexican food! That always is a bonus.

Also on Saturday and Sunday I went on a trade off to Downtown with the office elders. I have never done a trade off on a Sunday before, never even heard of it being done before but I thought it would be a good chance to see how the missionaries interact with members and missionaries in a church setting.  The Downtown branch is quite different then the previous 3 branches I have served in. It is quite small  but it is getting there. It was a successful trade off. That one was in a truck too so I lucked out twice this week. :) 

Well happy memorial day! We are heading to the zoo as a district soon, should be pretty good! I hope you all have a great week! Happy summer!!!! :) 

One Love. Elder Colton Harris

This is a link to a quick article on the temple trip. most of the people in the story and pictures are from my branch now or Spanish Town.

Pic 1) Red Hills!! View of Kingston

Pic 2) Trade off to Downtown!Jamaica Temple TripJamaica Temple Trip

Spending Time in Downtown This Week

Dear one and all! Things be going good here! We have had a really good week! I spent a lot of time in Downtown this week. The elders there had 4 interviews for me to do so I was able to do 3 of them on Wed and I went back and did another one on Thursday. It was cool. On Wed I interviewed a family. Their mom was baptized about 2 months ago and I did her interview as well back then so it was cool to interview her husband and 2 of her daughters. Her son also was baptized but he was 8 and a child of record so I don't interview him. The family is really cool. The youngest one, she is 10 and her name is A., was so awesome! I mean they were all prepared for baptism but A. just blew my mind. Her intentions and stuff are just so pure and she has been taking this so seriously. I asked her what she likes to do and she said "read". I was like oh cool are you reading any interesting books right now? She said Yeah it's a book called the Book of Mormon, and then she goes on to explain like all of 1 Nephi to me perfectly. We went to their baptism on Saturday as well in Downtown. During the baptism a "mad man" came into the church and sat down on the couch. Well some kids come into the room and tell us so me realizing that I am the biggest person on the property stood up and went and escorted him out. Well he started like yelling stuff at us right outside the door and then he reaches down and grabs my hand and kisses it... that was so gross!!! He did it pretty fast, I didn't even realize what was going on before it was too late. He got my hand all wet and I had to go wash my hands for like 20 mins! 

So last night we went and contacted a referral, his name is J. We started teaching him the restoration and a couple minutes in he starts talking and he says "God showed me a vision last month, I saw a golden bible with the word 'truth' on it." We were like woah. When we got to the part when Joseph translates the gold plates we had him read that paragragh. He obviously really liked it. We told him that it's not a bible, but it is scriptures. He is a great guy, we're seeing him again tomorrow. We also taught his sister and brother last night with him and they are cool too. 

Well I can't believe that Devin will be graduating this week! Man I am getting old! And he is too! Good luck with that! Happy summer vacation to everyone else! Have a great week! One Love.

Elder Colton Harris

Happy Mothers Day!

Well there isn't much to say today since we just talked yesterday! Happy Mother's Day to everyone! :) It was really great to see everyone over Skype yesterday!!! Everyone is looking really good!

So it has started to rain a lot here! It has rained everyday this week so much! It has kept things cool, but really humid! Transfers were this week and our district got changed around quite a bit. It'll be fun working with so many new people. We also had a special branch council meeting this week. It was good, it lasted like 3 hours but missionary work was talked about a lot so another little boost for missionary work is good. Well I really wasn't lying when I said that I don't have much to say. Love you! Have a great week! :)

An answer to her prayers and ours...a Miracle!

May 5, 2014

Dear Familia!

Another week bites the dust. This week was a pretty okay week.  Man there always seems to be a lot to write about throughout the week and then I get on the computer and my whole mind goes blank!! Ugh.

So as for teaching, it has been a little on the slow side. It still goes on but people just don't want to meet with us very often. We had a really great lesson with Sister K. this week.  She was the lady that was baptized about 2 weeks after I got to this area. The lesson was on missionary work. It was a great lesson. We read through the first twelve verses of Enos while during his prayer his desires changed. He starts off seeking an answer from the Lord about what his father was telling him about the gospel. He gets the answer for himself, then immediately he starts to pray for his friends and his family, the Nephites. After the Lord answers him about his friends and family he then starts to pray and have desires to share the gospel with his brethren the Lamanites (which we all know were his enemies). So we tied all of that into her and doing missionary work. We invited her to say a kneeling prayer right there and ask for people who she could help bring into the gospel. She said a great prayer and afterwards we asked her the names of the people that came into her mind. She said Jo., Ja., S., and Ms. H.  So we wrote those down and then we were just talking to her about these people. She was telling us how she knows them and where they live and stuff, then we got to S. She was like I don't know a S.  She said that I know the name S. came into my mind, but I don't know anyone by that name.  I look at Elder Jackson and was thinking... woah. We then explained how our top investigator is named S., and that we have been praying to see who could be a great friendshipper for her. I definitely know that it was an answer and a miracle to her prayers as well as ours!

This week I went to Constant Springs on a trade off with Elder Wilkerson. On Thursday morning they had service planned for a member.  Man I haven't done so much manual labor in a long long time! We had to move like 2 dump truck loads of rock and put it about 10 feet away cuz it was dumped where he wants to put a pipe. It was terrible. All we had were shovels. We did it in an hour and a half, I never thought we would get it done. Elder Wilk did most of it. Anyways bad day to do a trade off lol. It was fun tho.

Had Zone Meeting this week, it was alright. We found this restaurant that sells steak pretty close to the church so of course we went there for lunch. It's been a while since I have had beef!! It wasn't even that good and it was wayyy expensive but at least it was beef! :)

So excitement is still in the air for the stake, obviously. I've heard that there are going to be some general authorities coming here next week to prep the members and the priesthood leaders. They have been going over church protocol letters with the members of what to do and what not to do while all of these general authorities are present, mainly for the big meeting in June but also for next week I guess. Right now it doesn't seem that there are any missionary meetings planned for us with the general authorities but Prez is trying super hard to get one! Also if anyone can tell me the doctrine behind what a stake actually means and entails I would love it. I have never really thought too much about the difference until lately when we have all of these members asking us. In a lot of their minds they have no idea what to expect since they have never lived in a stake. Obviously like we will get bishops, stake presidents, high councilors, a patriarch, high priests, etc. The only thing that I have been able to come up with on my own is more priesthood keys in Jamaica, which means more opportunities to be self sufficient spiritually and stuff.  It is more difficult than I thought to explain the difference between a stake and a district then it seems, at least to me.

I hope that everyone has a great week! Love you all! Happy Mother’s Day!

Love Elder Colton Harris

Pic 1) The pile was a lot bigger in person!!!!!

Pic 2) Our chapel. Chapel is the top level and classrooms are on the bottom.