"Share the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words."

Hey everyone how is it going? It was good to hear from all of you. I really loved reading your email this week. Thank you Devin, Treyson, Taggart, and Marissa! It sounds like you guys are having a really good summer! I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing well again.  Well this week has been a pretty good week.  Transfer calls came this week and I bet you are wondering where I will be serving for the next 6 weeks... well the answer is the same place!! :) Elder Mathewson and I will still be companions this next transfer and I'm stoked about it. I honestly did not really want to leave Spain at all. I love serving in this branch, there are some really awesome members here and I have grown to realize that this is probably the strongest branch in the mission.  I didn't believe it when I first got here but after hearing about all the other branches around the mission this is def the strongest! Spanish Town is a good place too. It has a little bit of everything you would expect in Jamaica. A little bit of bush (like countryish) and some city, some nice areas and some really ghetto areas. Dirt roads and paved roads.  Spain is a good place.

So I told you last week that we would be moving this week and we did.  We moved into a house in Inswood Village. Maybe you can check it out on Google Earth or something IDK. But it is a nice area. The people and neighbors seem really friendly.  The house was a definite downgrade though.  I am now taking cold showers, and there is no AC in this house.  It is hot all the time.  It is smaller too which is going to suck because come Wednesday it is going to be a 5 man house.  Elder Nelson will be getting a new ZL with him as well as he is going to be training a brand new missionary.  Crazy huh! Pres Brown through a curveball at the mission for his first transfer! Elder Faumui, the other ZL that I have been living with will be the new AP as well.  

So this week we got rained on a couple times.  There were some tropical storms that passed us, It was some super intense rain as well as the lightning was the biggest, loudest, closest, and most lightning I have ever heard in my life. It was fun though. On Thursday when it was raining a lot we were heading to a lesson and like all the roads were flooded and we got to this certain section in the road where it is always bad and it was just a complete river. We were like we can either take a little detour and go around a different way, or this is the closest we will ever get to swimming for the next year and a half and we can just ride up through it.  We decided to ride through it!! :) I wish I would have had a camera on me, the water was as deep as our tires, we just put it in the easiest gear that we could and then went for it for about 40 yards. It was a dirt road too so it was just muddy gross water but it was still fun.  We were already completely drenched so we didn't even notice a difference after we rode through it. Some people were watching us and laughing at us too.  

Well on Saturday we were riding in the neighborhood and we saw a couple vans of white people, I think I actually caught myself staring at them.  I even wanted to yell "WHITE MAN" and some other stuff that we get yelled at us everyday but I didn't. I resisted the temptation.  I think they were with some church doing something over here. They were total tourists though. It was funny, like only the 2nd time I've seen white people on my mission besides missionaries.

Yesterday we had another lesson on a couch inside the home of a less active, yet awesome family! It was the 2nd time for both of those, having a lesson inside of a home and sitting on a couch.  It felt a lot better than a cinder block or a 5 gallon bucket!  The family is the S. family though and they are preparing to go to the temple.  For the lesson last night we had it on missionary work.  We role played with them talking about the gospel to their friends. They absolutely loved it! They were so stoked last night I thought Sis S. was gonna go out right there and baptize 12 people! It was cool to see their enthusiasm.

S. is also doing well, he is such a boss!  He can't wait until Aug 3 which is his new baptism date that Pres Brown had to extend to him.

Wednesday was zone meeting and Pres Brown and his family came and introduced themselves to all the missionaries in the zone.  He also shared some stuff with us.  He shared about how we are in the last inning of the 6th seal, how the choicest spirits were saved until now to come to earth, that we have had 6,000 years in the premortal world to watch others and to see how we need to conduct ourselves. Now everyone is watching us, old prophets, other people in the Book of Mormon, seeing if we are going to step up to the plate and see if we are going to do what we have learned.  He said that you have known what you need to do, and some could use the excuse of the veil to say they don't remember, but really there is no excuse at all.  We know what we need to do, we have the White handbook, Preach My Gospel, prophets and apostles and now we need to get it done. He said it about a trillion times better than I did though! That is what he used to do though, he used to be a professional CES teaching and coordinator of the island.  The spirit was there, and it was one of the strongest I have ever felt it.  He taught some of the doctrine behind missionary work and why is is important and how this is an eternal work that we are doing.  If every LDS youth heard this lesson he gave there wouldn't be one who stayed home from a mission.  It was absolutely amazing and what I have said doesn't even give it an ounce of justice.

Well one more thing before I go, I listened to the talk called 'His Grace is Sufficient' by Brad Wilcox this past week.  Everyone needs to listen to that talk if you haven't already, and relisten to it if you have listened to it.  It is an amazing talk, it is one of my favorite talks ever. Listen to it and just be in complete awe at the things you learn and how simply it is put.

Well I got to go, uhm well to answer your question mom about how to help with missionary work. I would say take whatever you felt to do as you were watching the New Mission Presidents Seminar (Worldwide Leadership Conference).  As it said there are resources to tell us what to do but not how to do it.  There are a lot of ways to do missionary work.  The work in Utah is the same work but it is done differently because of the different circumstances.  "Share the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words." Do what you feel needs to be done.  There are soon to be 100 thousand missionaries in the world and that's awesome! But there are 15 million members, that's a little bit better number.  If every member were to bring one person into the church each year, it would only take 10 years to make everyone in the world a member of the church.

 

Do your part, be a missionary at all times especially to less actives.  Well that's my 2 cents.

Love Elder Colton Harris

                                 
                   Apparently Elder Wilkerson schooled Elders Strickland and Harris in Monopoly.

So many miracles!

Hello everyone once again! Man can't believe that it is already Monday again! This week has flown by!! This week has been such a good week! There have just been so many miracles that have happened this week! I normally would say that I have just had some tender mercies, but there were just too many of them and they were just too bold and stood out too much to not be miracles. 

Well on Monday we had an awesome FHE with some recent converts, a family, and one of the ZL's investigators and one of our investigators.  We had Sister S. with us at that lesson and it was so good! All of the recent converts who are all teenagers bore such sincere powerful testimonies at the end of that lesson! It was such a testimony builder for me as well.  I think that I might have mentioned Sis. S. before, but if I haven’t, she is one of the most knowledgeable, personable, really in tune with the spirit women that I know.  She was baptized when she was a teenager and was only baptized about 15 years ago and she has just taken the gospel, understood it at an unprecedented level, and then applied it to her life and is now helping so many others when she can.  She is the one who named her two kids Zion and Kolob if you remember from one of my first emails I mentioned that lol.  So that was a really awesome night. 

So on Tuesday Pres. Brown interviewed S. for baptism and had to push it back until Aug 3.  S. took that so well and just totally understands the atonement really well to realize that it is a good thing to push his date back.  It was really good to see Pres. Brown.  It was the first time that I have seen him since he went to Utah and man he just has a spirit and an energy around him that is just so tangible! His wife does as well, she came back to our branch with her family yesterday and she is just as enthused to take their new calling on head first! While Pres. Brown was talking to S. that day, he told him to look for more people that we could teach that he knows.  So the next lesson we were planning having with him was on temples and Sister S. called us the night before that lesson and said that she met S. at institute and that she wants to come to his next lesson (Yeah, S. goes to institute every week and loves it, he says that he is pretty upset that it is only held once a week for 2 hours, he wishes it were held everyday for 2 hours!). Well we go and see him for that lesson and he has his girlfriend there and says we need to teach her. We are like that's awesome so we taught her with Sister S. there; it was so good that she was at that lesson.  His GF is super, super knowledgeable about the bible; she is employed by her current church as a secretary and was very closed-hearted to what we were saying for most of the lesson.  We did decide to have a lesson on temples still and man she had some tough questions and arguments and Sister S. just threw down on them in a bold, yet loving way.  That lesson would have been terrible if Sis. S. wasn't there and we would have lost an investigator probably. Well the next day we have another lesson with S.’s GF and Sis. S. as well.  At the beginning of the lesson we asked her what she thought about the previous lesson.  She said something very profound; she said that during the lesson she felt a peace that she hasn't felt in a very long time, since she was a child.  She said that she has missed that peace and it wasn't until that lesson that she felt it again.  She said that she thinks that (((So sorry, I got to add a little P.S. in this letter right now while it is on my mind, so Tyler Roberts just passed your house Grandma Harris and he took a pic of it and sent it to me, still looks the same, except the new tan fence on the side looks really, really good, I like it a lot. Ok I’ll get back to the story I didn't mean to ruin the spirit!)) so she said that she thinks that she only felt it when she was a child was because she hadn't had a chance to get infused with the world yet, and that reminded me of a scripture John 14:26-27 and I shared that with her saying that is the spirit and it testifies of truth etc.  That scripture also talks about the Lord sending peace, not as the world giveth. It worked perfect.  Later on in that same lesson, she told us of this dream that she had awhile ago, the dream she described was her totally in the temple, and it even goes into a little bit of detail. What I can say really quick is that she pictured herself in a long white dress standing at some sort of a doorway, and someone was there who wouldn't let her through. While she was telling us, Sis. S., Elder Mathewson, and I were just in awe and smiling at each other.  She's like what, you don't believe me?  And we were all like no, we believe you 100%! Sis S. told her to record her dream, like write down everything that she remembers because one day she is sure that she is going to get an understanding of it.

So also S. downloaded the Pearl of Great Price from the internet and started reading it, read all of it on like one day and understands it really well.  We haven’t even mentioned the Pearl of Great Price to him and he found and read it on his own. He thought it was so cool that it answered a lot of questions that he had like Was Adam baptized and what the skin Heavenly Father made for Adam represented, yeah he goes deep!!!!

So Friday morning during super planning I got a call from Pres Brown.  He asked how S. was I told him good and that we were teaching his GF, he's like oh well this wasn't what I was going to talk to you about but Elder Cornish is going to be here in August so lets set up a time right now that you and your comp, Elder Cornish and Pres. Brown could have a lesson with S. and his GF. I was like that will be amazing. The rest of the week I had to brag about the member present lesson that I set up! Well I guess I should say General Authority present lesson! Now I just have to pray that I don't get transferred from Spain!! I have grown to love this place and the people here and don't want to leave them! These transfer calls are going to be CRAZY! I think that I will be training from the sounds of it; I hope that I stay here!

So we are also moving this week. We just finalized on a house this morning and we will be moving in on Thursday. It is a definite downgrade, (I didn't know that was possible). I'll send you pics of it later.

Well I am glad to hear that everything is going well. I am going to look and see if my SD card is working, I don't need one sent to me. No post its, and I would like CD’s with music tho. Not Mo Tab tho, like anything but Mo Tab.  We already have a ton of that at our house! Anything else on that list that you sent me would be good, probably not the Costo bacon yet. Costco trail mix would be glorious though. Anything else as well, I trust ya.  

Well I am out of time.  So sorry I couldn’t go into more detail about my week, it was a good one. Love ya!

Elder Colton Harris 

                                                    Breakfast with his district last Monday.

                                   You can buy anything in Jamaica...even a UVSC sweatshirt!

                                          Donkey pulling a cart or a cart pulling a donkey?!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Hey guys how is everything going?  It was good to hear from all of you! Sounds like once again all of you guys are doing great! It has been another really good week out here! So I will just start off with happy birthday dad! Thank you for all that you do for me, I really am so grateful to have you as my dad!
Well I am not sure how I worded the baptism for S. in my last email but I meant it like he is going to be baptized this next Saturday, the 6th.  He is still doing really great though. We have had some awesome lessons with him; all of them are just awesome actually.

Well the transition to new mission president this week has been really smooth so far, although I am foreseeing a lot of changes coming in the very near future, this mish is going to get a lot more obedient which I guess a good thing.  President Brown got back late Friday night from a week and a half in Utah and I got a call from him Saturday morning wondering how S. was doing. President Brown loves S. and played a big role in fellowshipping and teaching him.  So I told him that we actually were planning on calling him soon about that cuz we have to have Pres. Brown interview him.  He was so stoked to hear that.  He wanted to come over on Monday (today) and do it but I told him that it was P-day and that it would probably be better to do it on at least Tuesday. Man, he is diving into this head first with just so much enthusiasm.  When he called Saturday morning all I was thinking was, we were going to call you but we thought we would let you get settled in first, I mean you have only been head honcho for like less than 12 hours and you've only been awake for 3 of those hours!  Ha!  But he will do really great things for Jamaica.  I am excited to be a part of it.

So in all of your emails and letters you say you wanted some pictures, so I just put my SD card into the computer and tried to open up the file with the pictures on it and when I double clicked the file, the file disappeared and I can't find it anywhere.  The pics are still on the card somewhere cuz when I put it back into the camera they show up, so any help mom would be great! So if I can't get it working I might just have to send it home in a small package so that mom can look at it and hopefully get it fixed or at least you guys will have the pictures. Sorry about that! :(

So the dirt bike ride that you guys went on looked really fun!! I miss those days! I loved seeing the mountains in the pictures that you sent me! The package that you sent me didn't taste like mints.

Well we got fed 4 times yesterday! We either get like no meals or 4 at once.  The first 3 were…you guessed it, chicken and rice and peas and the last one ended up being just dessert which we were so thankful for. We had bread pudding, peanut butter bars, and Blue Bunny fudge swirl ice cream! It was so good, and then they sent us home with a box of mac n cheese, some noodles, some tuna, and a box of milk. Yes, I said box of milk, remember how I said they don't have milk out here...well they do but it is in a box that you don't have to put in the fridge until you open it and they say it real cow’s milk. It tastes really, really bad but we're still thankful for it.

Well today I have been emailing in the clerk’s office at the church and it has AC and I don't want to leave! Got to anyways though! Uhm, mom, don't send peanut butter. That is another thing we eat a lot of is PB and J, so not that lol. And I would like a calendar with pictures. Well love you all, I will write better next week.  Today was rushed cuz we only have one computer here at the church and there are 2 of us. Love ya!

Elder Harris

President Hendricks's Farewell Picture with Colton's Zone

 

Livin' Like a High Roller!

Hello once again!  Well another week has flown by; it has been a very, very good week.  Well this week we had Zone Conference.  Friday we spent all day in Kingston again.  This was President Hendricks last Zone Conference and man was it a good one!!! He just threw down on some doctrine and some other things that he felt were very important for us to know.  It was such a good meeting, I love President Hendricks so much I am so grateful for the chance that I had to serve under him for even this short amount of time.  He had so much that he wanted to tell us and by the end when we were running out of time he was just talking so fast and quoting scriptures to save time. I kid you not; I bet that he has all the standard works memorized and then some.  I am betting that next conference he is put in as a general authority.  This Zone Conference was a little bit different than normal Zone Conferences.  Sister Hendricks and one of our AP's were not there.  Last week Pres. and Sis. Hendricks and the APs were in the Bahamas I think for a Zone Conference out there and on their way back they had a layover in Miami and Elder Worley’s appendix burst so they took him to the hospital and he has been in Miami for a week recovering. I think they are coming back tomorrow though.  So that was kind of sad that we weren't able to hear from her at that meeting but it was still good.  This was Elder Nugent’s first Zone Conference as an AP and he had to teach the AP part by himself, he did a really good job though.  This is the Lords work though, serving in Jamaica for almost 2 years and he is on a layover in the states and his appendix bursts.  That is such a better place for it to burst than out here, I bet he and his family were relieved that he is in an American hospital…lol.  Afterwards we went to the food court at some mall and ate and it was pretty good.  I ate at Little Tokyo and it wasn't bad.  It was like a cheap version of Panda but hey it was something different! I accidently watch the highlights from the Finals out of the corner of my eye because it was playing on every tv.  Seemed pretty good, I repented afterwards though!
Well on Wednesday Elder Mathewson was sick so we didn't go out proselyting. I thought that it would be fun to take a day off, and it was for the first couple hours but after that I got so bored.  There is absolutely nothing to do while you are a missionary just sitting at home.  Good thing we have AC at our house though! Well I hope that you guys had a chance to watch the World Wide Mission Presidents Seminar last night.  Holy cow that was quite the meeting! It was so good.  Man some of the changes are going to revolutionize missionary work. We'll see how they all play out I guess.  I can't wait until our next zone conference when President Brown gets back and takes over and instructs us on the changes.  He is in Provo this week, but when he gets back on Friday night he is our new mission president.  I'm excited.  He is going to be so different than Pres. Hendricks was, but he will be very good for the country of Jamaica. 

Well this week has been a pretty good week concerning our investigators as well.  S. is doing GREAT!!! He is such a boss and every lesson we have with him he just has the biggest smile on his face, he loves this gospel.  He even attended the seminar last night and he wants to be a missionary so badly.  We explained that he isn't allowed to be a full time missionary because he is one year over the age and he has a kid, but I love to see the joy that this message brings into his life.  Last night made me remember something, so the second time we ever met S., we had given him a Book of Mormon the previous time when we met him.  But we get looking at the Book of Mormon we gave him the day earlier and underneath Elder Wright and Elder Harris' name when we signed it he wrote Elder S Ha!  Just thought that was a cool little thing. But he is going to be such a good member.  K. is another investigator that we are working with.  We found her through a less active family when Elder Wright and I were trying to prepare them to go to the temple and be sealed; well turns out that they don't want to go to the temple because they tell us that they don't want to live with each other forever.  They have been married for over 30 years and have grown kids and have been members for probably over 20 years but they just don't want to be together forever.  It's like really?  You’re old, you’re not going to find anyone else but I guess we will keep working with them. Tthey obviously don't understand the doctrine but that's just the side story.  Them referring K. to us and being present at most of her lessons has been a really awesome blessing for the whole family.  They have started coming back to church more regularly and it's just been good.  Next Saturday we should be having 2 baptisms, K. and S. so hopefully everything goes well there!
Well it sounds like everything is going good for you guys.  Mom I wonder if you could overnight some Olive Garden breadsticks to me with Global Mission Shipping?  Just a thought but it sounds like a good thought to me!!  My meals everyday consist of corn flakes with powdered milk for breakfast, a box of mac n cheese for lunch but made with just water no milk or butter like you’re supposed to, and a top ramen/rice soup, beef flavored obviously so that I can remember what beef tastes like and a slice of bread with all of these meals.  Livin' like a high roller!!! WUZ UP!!!!  But I did get the package on Thursday.  Thank you for it.  Thank you for the picture Marissa; and for the story, Taggart; it was amazing; and for the notes mom and dad.  Devin and Treyson, I'm disappointed. I guess that means you have to send me another package with something from them I guess ;)  But I can't really think of anything that I desperately need right now mom.
Well I hope you guys have another good week!! I'll talk to ya next week! Love ya, bye.
Elder Harris

Great Perspecitive on Life and Death

Hello everyone!! Well it has once again been another week, everything is still going good here. So I did hear about the news of Grandma Newman, this morning Sis Evans from the mission office called and let me know.  It is truly such a blessing to have this gospel in our lives and to know the things we do.  Grandma Newman truly is in a better place.  I am so grateful to have had Grandma Newman in my life, she truly was one of the most pure and Christ-like persons I know.  I am grateful for everything that Grandma Newman has done not only for me but for every single person that she came in contact with.  She was a great example and anyone who would follow the example she has set will turn out better than great during this life.  This has really got me thinking about how death separates us from most of the world.  The world loves to mourn and be sad, and that is totally okay to a certain extent because they will be missed for a certain amount of time.  The world also likes to be joyful and happy and so excited when a baby is born, and that also is fine, but in all reality that baby has just entered into the most difficult, trying, challenging step of the Plan of Salvation. That baby just left the presence of Heavenly Father and was thrown into this wicked world.  That is necessary in our efforts to become like our Heavenly Father, but this is a time that we should be happy for Grandma Newman.  The veil has been lifted, she has been "taken home to that God who gave her life" (Alma 40: 11)  What better knowledge could we ask for than knowing that she is in Gods presence. She was very righteous and is now in a state of happiness, or paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where she is resting from all troubles and cares. (Alma 40:12) I turned to the scriptures for comfort, and another one was 2 Nephi 9:13.  She will be missed, but we will reunite again someday.  She was definitely and angel in disguise while she was here on this earth.  I love her very much, I love Grandpa Newman very much as well.  Thank you both for everything you have done for me and for the example you have been to me.

Missions are not easy, but at times like this I realize what the gospel has done for me and continues to do for me.  It has given me so much more comfort and knowledge and I want as many people as possible to receive those same blessings that we have.  This week was a good week, we found an awesome new young man to work with named G.  He is a stud and will get baptized someday.  We found him at an inactives house, that's how we find out here.  We don't tract, actually were not allowed to tract.  We find through less actives and inactives.  Elder Cornish from the 70 told us that Less Actives are the key to missionary work because members don't have friends, they have meetings.  So that is a finding effort that we are implementing pretty hardcore and it has been working great.  We were also instructed to use the keys in the branch so we asked our branch president how we could best help him and what his vision was for the branch and he told us 100% attending sacrament.  There are 330 members in this branch and 134 showed up yesterday for church and that is the most at church ever for this branch, but he said it is still not good enough. Go out and find until all are found. (Luke 15)

We are still working with S., he is progressing pretty well, he is such a stud and loves when we come over.  All the time he asks when we can come over and just spend all day with him teaching him from the Book of Mormon.  Told him we can't do that and he said well what about a half a day.  Told him we can't do that either but that we will come everyday for an hour and disappointedly accepted that  He absolutely loves this gospel, it is really cool to watch his face light up every time he learns something new.

Well time is running out and I did want to say Happy Fathers day Dad!!! I love you and I am so grateful for all that you have done for me and for the great example you are to me.  There is this song called Finally Home by Mercy Me that we listen to quite a bit out here and it always makes me think of you  I am very blessed to have the parents that I do.  Thank you and I love you.  Have another good week, tell all the family in California hi for me.  Have a good fun safe week.  I'll talk to ya again next week! Bye

Elder Colton Harris 

Things I've Eaten...

Hey how are you guys?? :) I'm sure you guys are doing just fine since you are in California this week!!! That sounds like a blast, I am not going to lie I am kind of jealous.  I miss those summer vacations, but the work is moving steady down here.  It has been a pretty solid week.  I got my new comp, Elder Mathewson and we are just tearing this area apart.  I was worried that it would be difficult to lead an area but it isn't at all.  Elder Mathewson is a pretty cool guy, he is from Vegas and has been out a year.  We teach well together, he is a little bit on the quiet side which is the exact opposite then Elder Wright was so I have been having alot bigger part in the lessons which has been really good for me.  We still have some pretty good investigators plus we have some that we are going to drop soon but that's alright, we have been finding alot of really cool people too.  We have been working hard and it will start to pay off soon I think.  Well this week has just been blistering hot!!! I thought that it was blistering hot when I got here in March but I forgot that that was their winter months as well.  It is just always so so hot, it just never cools off and there isn't anywhere to go to cool off. Lessons are always taught on their veranda (front porch) and in our house you just get home open the doors and windows turn on the fans and blow 97 degree air around all day and night and during studies, I basically just sweat constantly here.  I'm pretty sure I have not been fully dry since I got here.  I am sitting in this internet cafe emailing just sweatin cuz you guessed it all they have is the door opened for ventalaion and that doesn't work too well, I guess that is a contributor the the 20 pounds I lost my first month out here. But remember how Elder Cornish of the 70 came last week and spoke to us, well he also spoke to priesthood leaders and leaders of other auxilaries in meetings throughout last weekend and that has just gotten most people in the branch to start getting excited about missionary work which is really good.  Not only missionary work but just to really tell them the responsibilities that they need to be taking care of as leaders and stuff which is good because it will help the branch start working better, most of these members are first generation members and aren't quite sure how everything is supposed to be ran but they are trying hard to improve and it is cool to see.  But we had our elders quorum president call us and set up a meeting to go over less actives that we could group up together and go visit.  We also had a meeting with our branch mission leader, he is a old guy, recent convert but he is trying super hard to do the best he can.  He told us the other day that he wants to be the best branch mission leader in the world but that he just doesn't know what he is supposed to do.  Us missionaries in the branch were like crap that is kind of on us for not helpin him out so we have been having some meetings with him, and he has gotten really excited about helping us out, we need to keep the fire that Elder Cornish put under these people going for a while and it will help the work out so much. 

Well this week we had lunch at a members house, she cooked stewed pork with rice.  It was really gross, it wasn't normal pork at all.  It was pig tail and basically pig skin.  It was just solid chunks of fat and the tail was pretty much just bone.  But the chunks of fat had hair on it still.  It was flat out disgusting!  I ate most of it but we then asked her for a refill on our waters so that she could go into the kitchen and so I could dump alot of food on Elder Wrights plate who just loved that lunch. It reminded me of the bet I made with Russ for $50 but even worse cuz it had a terrible flavo, not a nice ham flavor. Just so ya know Russ I could finish that bet now!! ;) I have eatin some pretty crazy stuff now: cow skin, cow foot, tripe, pig skin, pig tail, ox (cow) tail, curry goat, and i'm sure that more crazy stuff will come eventually.

Mom you need to check out Global Mission Shipping.  It sends pacages here in 2 days and it is half the cost of the post office.  It is a legit thing not somethin that I am making up, they send it through DHL which sends all the church supplies and stuff around that world, tell me what you find out about int next week.
Well it sounds like Mohler is just lovin it in Oregon, especially with all of that AMAZING looking food!! Jealous about that one too.  Adam at a Yankees game, a joke you tell!!! <--- that is a likkle bit of patois. ;)  That sounds super fun tho! Well I hope that you guys continue to have fun in California, tell everyone down there hi for me! :) Well I love you guys, happy Fathers Day Soon Dad!!! Well I'll talk to ya next week. Love ya!!

Love Elder Colton Harris

So one more quick story since I have some time.  It is a story about a guy named A.  He isn't a member but has started to come to church the past couple weeks.  Well he is this old guy who can barely walk, doesn't talk very good but he is still at church every week.  To get to church it takes him about 2 hours to walk every sunday cuz his house is pretty far away.  Well he always brings a big bag of Mangoes and passes them out to everyone till he runs out.  Well Bro L., a member here took him home yesterday and he said that he is living in a 12' by 12' board house thing with no roof, just a piece of zink (tin) to cover him partially from wind rain and sun.  He probably only eats things that he kind find on the ground like mangoes and stuff.  Such humble circumstances, some people literally have nothing here yet their faith is so strong.  If there were ever a people on this earth that need the good news that is the Gospel it would be people out here.  Bro L. actually took work off today 

and gathered up some supplies and went over to help build it up better, he is in the middle of moving across town as well and he just dropped everything to help him out. People in the church are great everywhere and it is good to know that people have your back and are willing to help you out when you need it.  Well have a good day I just thought I would throw that in. Bye.

"Me struttin' my stuff in the wind"

 

"Me and my comp on transfers"

Really good week in JamRock

Hello everyone!! Well it has been another week. It has been a very good week as well.  But before I get started I just want to send my condolences to the Burkes.  That is very sad and very tragic.  I loved that kid a lot.  (One of Colton’s friends who just graduated a week ago drowned in Minersville Reservoir last Thursday evening.)  We had some really fun times together that I will never forget, he will be missed!  This morning in my personal studies I actually read Alma chapter 40.  I wish that I had my scriptures with me right now to quote some stuff but Alma 40 talks about death, and how the righteous will be received into paradise until the resurrection when everyone will be made back into their perfect frame. Zac is definitely in a better place, isn't it so comforting to know that families can be together forever, and that we will be able to see him again.  This morning before we left we were raking up some stuff in the backyard and I was talking to Elder Faumui, one of my ZL's and I was telling him about this chapter that I studied this morning and he asked me if I understand it fully, I told him I think I understand it and he told me I bet there is a lot more you can learn from it, I would read it again but this time pretending like you don't know anything about the chapter and he told me I will learn so much more.  Honestly I wasn't going to go re-read it, but I can promise you now that I am going to read it one more time, there is some really good stuff in there.

Well this week has been a really good week here in JamRock.  Wednesday and Thursday basically rained all day and so we weren't able to get very good numbers on that day, not from lack of trying tho, we were out in the rain it is just that people don't want to talk you when your soaking wet.  We still had fun though!

On Friday we were in Kingston all day long.  We had a mission conference and Elder J. Devn Cornish of the 70 and Elder Gamiet of the 70 were here.  It was such a good meeting!! There were so many profound and inspired words that were said at that meeting.  I wish I would have been able to record it because I just couldn't comprehend all of it at once. So we were also in Kingston Tuesday all morning long too cuz Elder Wright had a dentist appointment.  So between that, the rain Wed and Thurs and the mission conference our numbers were not very good this week.

Well I also got my transfer call on Saturday.  I was nervous about it I'm not going to lie.  But I will be getting Elder Mathewson, I don't know him very well but I did shake his hand on Friday at mission conference before I got the call that he would be my new comp and he seemed pretty cool.  It should be a good transfer. 

So we are still working with M. and S. really closely.  They are progressing very well.  We gave S. a baptism date this week and he did have one concern, his concern was what happens when he gets baptized and he stops going to his church? How will he be able to tell everyone else in his other church about the truth if he doesn't go back?  We were kind of surprised about that answer when we extended the date but I guess it is a better concern than any other concern I have ever heard before.

I did get the pictures that you sent me mom, I received them on Wed.  Thank you so much for them, everyone is growing up so fast.  I will answer those questions that you asked me detailed in a different letter but the church pays for everything for those missionaries.  (I asked him about native Jamaican missionaries who are called to serve in Jamaica.)  To go to the temple, the church pays for half the cost the first time they go and none after that, they usually go to Santa Domingo or Panama.  Sometimes they go to Miami if they have their visa.  I can buy everything that you asked me about in the letter, even the normal American brands, so I might have brought a lil too much stuff but I am glad I have it.

That's not fair that Mohler gets that much food! And those pics of Cody H are crazy! (Colton’s cousin, Cody Harris is serving in Oklahoma City while waiting for his visa to Argentina and is helping with the clean-up of the tornado destruction.) Well I hope that everyone has another great week, I love hearing from all of you.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Harris and Ebmeyer for the letters even tho I cannot always respond to them!! Love you!!

Elder Colton Harris