Elder Colton Harris' Mission
Colton Harris Jamaica Kingston Mission
Monday, February 23, 2015
Colton's Homecoming Talk
Colton will be speaking on March 8, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. in the Beaver 5th Ward. We look forward to hearing from him! But mostly we looking forward to hugging him and welcoming him home!
Last Letter Home;/
Everyone... well this is the last letter that I will write
home from my mission. 2 years is up this week. Wow. It has been a super great
experience for me! Jacob says around the time that he gets done writing that, “the
time passed away with us.. like as it were unto us a dream." I feel the
same way. At times it feels like a dream and it passed so quickly. I heard that
my prayers were answered and that there was some snow this week! Sweet! Cody,
welcome home as well.
So I saw pics of Adam, Tyler, and Marquez all together.
While they were together on Saturday I was at a sweet baptism. We did the
baptism for Sis A. at Old Wharf in Treasure Beach. It was super awesome! We
had a private beach area all to ourselves.
IDK how I lucked out doing 3 ocean baptisms while here, most
missionaries don't even get one. We realized that Sis A. is the first person
ever to be baptized from the community/city of Treasure Beach. Junction Branch
is pretty new, like less than 12 years old and Treasure Beach has only been
worked recently. This is also the first baptism in the Junction Branch for
almost 2 years, even with 2 companionships here the whole time; In our district
it is the first in over a year as well so we were super excited about that! I hope that it helps get the members in the
branch more excited to do missionary work as well! Sis Ashby is great though.
It has been an awesome journey these past 6 weeks. She is the first
investigator of mine to make their first baptism date I think as well. Pictures
of the baptism are below.
Had my last zone meeting this week in Mandeville. On
Wednesday it was Ash Wednesday. We don't really celebrate that back home I
don't think but here EVERYTHING shut down. Taxis, fast food, .. even bars!!
Normal holidays here is when everybody usually hits up the bar all day long, I
still don't know what made this one different.
I gave my farewell talk yesterday in sacrament meeting.
Cried during a few parts, but made it through okay.
Elder S’s mom is planning on getting baptized in
March. She never even went to church once before his mission but now she is
working towards a baptism date back in Yahlas. The Lord blesses families as
others serve.
So I do look forward to seeing everyone this week. It has been
way too long! I am sad that Devin won't be there though! I hope that you have a
super happy birthday in Brazil! No better place to celebrate a birthday than in
Brazil of all places!!
The missionary coming to replace me is Elder Sinae. He is
from the Bahamas. I actually interviewed his mom for baptism before he was on a
mission. He was the translator for that interview because his mom only speaks
Haitian Creole well. He will do good here in Junction.
Side note about emailing you all today... my computer either
shut down or restarted 6 times today, PLUS the power went out TWICE. Emailing
today was a labor of love for sure!
Thanks for everyone's support! I truly have been so blessed
to be able to serve a mission! It is one of the greatest gifts Heavenly Father
has given to me. It seems hard to be able to top experiences like this but I
will in the next 2 years. The gospel is all about progression, so if in 2 years
I still think that my mission was the best 2 years of my life, I probably
haven't been living the gospel very well. The church is true. This is Christ’s
gospel. I am very privileged to have borne His name on my chest for 2 years, it
will forever be on my heart! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Colton Harris
Can there be a sicker venue for a baptism??!! |
I propose we move sacrament meeting out here too! #bejealous |
The sun setting on Colton's mission...bittersweet... |
Monday, February 16, 2015
Wheel and Deal!
What a week. We are still working with Sis A. from Treasure
Beach. She has a baptism interview scheduled for this Wednesday so she should
be getting baptized on Saturday! We are really looking forward to that! She has
now come to church 5 weeks in a row. She
and Sis G. don't have a lot of money so they wake up really early on Sundays
and go to the main road at 6 am and "look a drive" as Jamaicans say,
but it is really just hitchhiking. Hitchhiking is pretty common here, but
sometimes it takes them four different cars to just get to church, but they are
always usually the first ones here. Takes a lot of faith for that. We are
really looking forward to this baptism though for a lot of reasons. There
hasn't been a baptism in almost 2 years even though there has always been 2
companionships here. So this will really
be able to boost the branch and hopefully get more of the members excited and
involved in missionary work. Next week we should have pictures of the baptism.
Blessed.
Elder Colton Harris
So IDK if any of you have ever heard of Colin Powell. So I
guess he is/was really high up in the US government, he worked under Bush and
Clinton for a long time as Secretary of State and some other positions. Well he
is a Jamaican and is actually from an area called Top Hill, right in Junction.
We went and walked around that for a while on Monday. There are several members
in the branch that are related to him as well. After that on Monday we went to
the Sports Park in Treasure Beach and played some tennis there. That was fun.
Topped off Monday with an FHE at Sis G.’s house.
Wednesday was my last district meeting. Went to Santa Cruz for that. On the way home
there was a shop that was selling carvings. I stopped and asked the guy how
much for them and he said they start at $50 US. Well I asked him what the
Jamaican price was, not the tourist price and he said $3,000. Then I asked him
what his name was and he pointed to a sign that said 'Wheel and Deal'. I
thought, “Man this guy is cocky, I'll show him wheel and deal.” Needless to say I walked out with a carving
and paid less than $10 US. There we go, Mr. Wheel and Deal just got Wheeled and
Dealed.
Thursday was quite the crazy day. There were 4 auditors from
the Area that came and they said that they were going to do financial training
for the branch leadership. They planned on spending 2 hours at all the
branches, and for a lot of the branches they spent less than 2 hours. Well,
they ended up staying for over 6 hours! There were so many things that were out
of order, and I can't explain it over email but there were 5 professional
accountants that were just baffled for 6 hours. They organized everything good
though and straightened out most of what needed to be straightened out.
Friday the 13th wasn't a bad day either surprisingly.
On Saturday Elder Sullivan was my valentine! <3 He loves
me lol... (He just called me gay cuz he read that part, Jamaicans are pretty
homophobic.:) I asked Elder Stewart to be my valentine as well and he accepted
so I had 2 valentines. Oh yeah.
Sunday Sunday Sunday. Church was great. I once again
conducted Sacrament meeting, taught gospel principles class, and taught Elder’s
quorum. Teachers that were supposed to show up didn't, so that left me. We had
a new investigator come to church yesterday, Bro W. The lesson in Elder’s
quorum was on Pray Always from Ezra Taft Benson and we shared a story about how
Pres Benson started all his meetings with prayer, even while he was serving in
the US government. We went and saw Bro W. last night and the first thing he
said before we could even get situated into our chairs he said, "We need
to follow Pres Benson and say a prayer now." We were like wow, someone was
paying attention. He is super cool though, really educated which is nice. He
got a doctorate degree in England and moved back, and he found out that he
knows like 6 members of the branch so that was a bonus as well.
Today we went to Mandeville for a zone Pday. It was pretty
great! Played some volleyball and other things. Going back to Mandeville on Wednesday for my
last zone meeting. Sad day :(
Someone needs to make it SNOW back home! I am tired of
hearing that there isn't any snow. Your weather sounds a lot like my weather!
That is not a good thing for this time of the year! Hopefully that can change
that fast! Love you all! See ya soon.
Blessed.
Elder Colton Harris
General Colin Powell's land |
My homecoming suit |
Monday, February 9, 2015
I think He's Getting Ready to Come Home...
So I am getting way too lazy to type my email this week, plus I had a very limited time on the internet today! We had 2 progressing investigators this week. D. and S. A. Both of them are from Treasure Beach and both are on date for the 21st of this month! I am really excited about that! I am pretty sure that they will both be able to make it for that day! I will see you all really soon! Love you! Sorry this was short!
Monday, February 2, 2015
21st Birthday...Woah!
Dear Anyone,
This week was the big 21 birthday week! Wow, that is a big
number! Sometime this week was also my 23 month mark. My birthday was great. We
went to a restaurant called Jack Sprat. I was eating jerked sausage pizza on
the beach, what could be better on a birthday than that! It was a good day.
Later that night Pres. C. bought some jerked chicken so we had that to
celebrate with too.
This week we had a Caribbean wide stake/ district conference
broadcast from Salt Lake City. That was really good. But since the internet was
slow it would work for about 10 seconds and then buffer for about 20 seconds
then work for 10 seconds and buffer again. So that went on for the whole
conference, but other than that it was really good. President Packer, Sister
Oscarson, Elder Holland, and Elder Wilford Anderson spoke. That was cool since
I have met Elder Holland and Elder Anderson while on my mission. I was reading
in my journal about when we were taking Elder Anderson to the airport in Cayman
and he told us at that time to work extra hard at that time of our missions
because it could be the only time that we are "equally yoked" for the
rest of our missions. By equally yoked he was referring to how we were both
seasoned missionaries at that time so take advantage of it. Looking back I
think, "At that time did he know that after Cayman all of my companions
would have been on their missions for 0 to 3 months when I was with them?"
Anyways, conference was great though!
Love Elder Colton Harris
Pic 1) Jerked sausage pizza on the beach! Happy birthday to me! :)
Pic 2) My favorite road signs around here!
Monday, January 26, 2015
One month left today!
Hey family! This week was great! We had no Pday on Monday
since we spent the whole time in Kingston and coming back. Tuesday was our
really our only real proselyting day of the week. We had our branch presidency
meeting that day and got a bunch of stuff done that we needed to. On Wednesday
we went to Santa Cruz for district meeting. Had a good little meeting there and
then Elder Mathews came back to our area for a trade-off. I am pretty sure that
after he came here for a day he did not want to go back to Santa Cruz! Even
though it is only about 45 minutes away, they are very different! Coming from
Mandeville, to go to Junction you turn towards the ocean, to go to Santa Cruz,
you turn towards the desert. It is super-hot over there! It is always 15
degrees cooler in Junction than Santa Cruz and they are on bikes. I've turned
into a pansy again, I can't stand being outdoors while in Santa Cruz because it
is too hard! So the trade off went well; had good lessons with him there.
Thursday we proselyted in the morning then I drove him back to Santa Cruz and
we picked up Elder Sullivan. Pres. C. was with us and he showed us a back way
to get to Treasure Beach. We were heading over there for a cottage meeting at
Sister G.’s house. We had a good cottage meeting. There we 6 non-members there
and 3 members plus us. We got to know each other and then we had a good
spiritual thought on the importance of prophets. After that she fed us dinner.
Had curry chicken, fish, and you guessed it, rice & peas. Friday was weekly
planning. That is the only thing that I am excited not to do in a month. We
went to a new seminary class in an area called T. Last week only 1 girl showed up to seminary in
that area so her parents said it would be good to have more youth there with
her. Obviously we agreed, but the youth that are members in that area just
aren't coming. They took it up to invite neighbors of theirs. Altogether there
were 12 youth there this time, ranging from 5 to 15. It is a good thing the
seminary teacher didn't show up because the lesson was supposed to be on
D&C 77 I think. A question and answer given to Joseph Smith about the Book
of Revelations, yeah that would have confused all them. We had a fun FHE thing
with them tho and then explained that seminary is for a certain age group, but
at least they invited people. Saturday we woke up early. We had to drive up to
Munroe to pick up Prez C. and then we picked up the Santa Cruz elders and drove
up to Mandeville. We had a few meetings there on Saturday. There was a family
history training for family history consultants and missionaries. Only
missionaries showed up tho. That was good. Then there was a priesthood
leadership meeting as part of District Conference. Then there was the general
Saturday session of District Conference after that. Only about 30- 40 people
were at the Saturday session. Not that good for 5 branches. We took our
mattresses up and we stayed the night in Mandeville on Saturday. We had to go
to MayPen on Sunday for the Sunday session. It was super awesome to go back and
see everyone from MayPen! I loved it!!! This conference this weekend was
presided over by Elder Gammiet, he is an area 70 for the Carribean. It was good
to spend a weekend with him.
I realized that I am down to 1 month left today...woah. Time
keeps creepin’ up fast. I am usually too busy to keep track of time constantly
so every few days when I realize how many days have passed since the last time
I counted it blows my mind. I am enjoying this last little bit of time here.
Thanks for the birthday wishes. For all of you congratulating me and saying now
I am legal to drink, I have to say that I have been legal to drink for the past
two years! The drinking age is 18 in Jamaica so all of that is old news lol.
And now that I am 21, I am old news too. Have a good week. Enjoy the Super Bowl.
Love ya!
Respect.
Elder Colton Harris
My 3 sons! |
Restoration in Jamaica! |
Monday, January 19, 2015
Alligator Pond and Kingston Traffic
So last week we went to Alligator Pond with a member of the Hopeton Branch
and the Hopeton missionaries. We had a great time out there! We went and fried
some fish. We didn't bring plates so we ate fish on banana leaves and almond
tree leaves. How sweet is that ? I thought it was pretty cool anyways.
Afterwards we went to a river and went fishing for a couple hours. That was
super great too except that we didn't catch any fish ;( The locals said it is
super easy to catch fish in that river but I wasn't seein' it. The river was
sweet. It was this jungle river area. Tons of big trees with vines hangig down,
I even went a little Tarzan for a second on the vines! After that we went to a
sweet beach area. It had a big fresh water river that you can swim in running
along the coast of the beach with amazing sand in the middle. That was a cool
area.
Well I am sorry that I am sending this email very late! Today was a crazy day. I wrote the previous paragraph at the mission office this morning and now I am at the Vance's emailing. So we had to take our truck into Kingston to it serviced this morning. We woke up at 530 am so that we could get out quick and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there. We got there early and stayed all day in Kingston at the mission office. We left the mission office at 445 pm and it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get from one side of Kingston to the other! I hate traffic!! I was so ready to get back to Junction in the bush where there are no stoplights, no rush hour, etc. I am super glad I have never had a driving responsibility in Kingston cuz it would drive me crazy! It drove me crazy today!! Anyways, we had a great week. District conference in MayPen this week. I am glad to go back and see everyone in May Pen. Anyways, I'll talk to you next week. See ya next month. Love ya!
Love Elder Colton Harris
Fish! (I wish that we caught these!) |
We forgot to bring plates, thank goodness for banana and almond tree
leaves!!
|
Some beach |
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