So many prepared people!

Wow so it is September already, I can't believe it.  I am still in Jamaica.  I got my flight plans and I fly out on Saturday at 8 am. I am pretty excited about that.  I have been serving in Boulevard Kingston this week and man it is just not Spanish Town.  It is a lot different.  It's more urbanized.  Spain was urban but there are just so many people in Kingston. It's good though.  They aren't working with as many solid people either like we were in Spain so we are trying to do a lot of finding!  The branch isn't as big, but it is still good.  I'm district leader right now too until I fly out this week.

So today we went shopping at this store that is exactly like Costco, had no idea that existed here.  Had automatic doors and a place to buy pizza and chicken bakes. It was cool, I wish I wasn't leaving other wise I would have stocked up. You even need a membership so we had a senior couple take us.  Then we went to Devon House, not really sure the hype behind that...tourists just like to go there.

So I got this really amazing story to tell you guys.  So last week I told you that we came into Kingston from Spain to go to Tracks and Records. BTW that was really really good.  But we also stopped by the mission office to get some stuff.  While we were there this young man walked in.  He was dressed pretty nice and said that he was looking for a job and asked if there was one available there.  I almost said, "No we don't have any jobs here.  Have a nice day." Man I am glad that I didn't say that.  Pres. Brown just looks at him for a minute then says take a seat. Pres just started talking with him.  He then says that we don't have an available job but we are missionaries.  He then went told us about why he walked into the mission office. He said that his dad was shot by police innocently a couple years ago because of mistaken identity. (That happens here regularly, they take a "Shoot now, think later" approach but that's besides the point).  He said that when he was being killed he yelled Jesus and when he saw the church logo that reminded him of his dad.  Well after talking for about a half hour he walked out of the mission office with a baptism date for Sept 21 and a return appointment.  So I come to find out that he lives in this branch that I am serving in cuz there are 3 branches in Kingston.  The sisters are teaching him and have gotten a lot more cool stories out of it.  So he came to church yesterday and he ended up bearing this awesome testimony, yeah it's his first week at church too.  He then says that before his dad died he was meeting with missionaries, so that got him even more excited about this church.  When the sister missionaries were teaching him the Plan of Salvation he said that his dad probably isn't in the celestial kingdom but he knows that he would want him to make it there. I wish I could be there when he learns about baptisms for the dead!! He also bore in his testimony, and I am pretty sure that he doesn't understand the significance of this but he said that after his dad died his sister said that he appeared to her and said that he wanted to be buried in white.  They thought that was a really weird thing to do, but they ended up burying him in all white clothes.  All I can say is that there are so many prepared people out there, this work is real and it is true.  I was stoked to see him at church yesterday.  It is another story just like S. from Spanish Town.

Well big up this week.  Likkle more. Next email is from Cayman!! So excited! :) Love you guys

Love Elder Harris

Moving away from "Home."

Wow thanks for those pictures, I loved seeing them!  I am glad to hear that you got the package, did you try playing the videos in the camcorder or are they completely lost?  I am also sorry that the stuff in the package was really random and not thought out well.  It is just stuff that I have bought walking down the streets and I rushed sending it because I did not want to carry it around to my new area.  Well speaking of new area, this week was transfer calls.  I am sad to say that I will be leaving Spanish Town :( I have grown to love this place.  I have gotten really close with a lot of people here.  This will always be my home. It is hard saying bye to some of the people.

Well this week was a good week. We have been finding like crazy!!!! And these people are all elect I swear! Not once have we tracted.  All have either come to us or came through members.  We had 10 non-members at church yesterday.  We only counted 7 of them our investigators because of reasons, and 6 of those are progressing!! :) It is so cool to see the work here and how it is progressing! Pres. Brown has told us that every companionship will baptize once a week, and I didn't have faith in that.  But now I definitely know that it is possible now! It is going to start happening really soon. We still have about 10 referrals that we are contacting this week.  These numbers will definitely go up next week! Well Sis Mc. is still doing really, really well. We also found some young girls to teach, N. and A., and a lot more who I don't have time to explain about.

Well today we are going to go into Kingston with the other missionaries in our house and go to Tracks and Records, a restaurant that Usaine Bolt owns, hence the name, lol for my last Pday in Jamaica for a while.  That will be pretty fun, if Pres okays it lol.

Well I guess that I forgot to tell you where my new area is. I will be serving in the Boulevard Kingston branch. I will be serving with Elder Whipple who just barely got done being trained. I will be there for about a week.  Then I will be back on American soil for about 2 hours for a layover on my way to my new area. My transfer call was to Grand Cayman Island! I was pretty stoked about that.  Not very many get to go what we call out here as "off island" or to leave Jamaica.  It is supposed to be very, very nice out there; very wealthy people and a super strong branch. Uncle Brock visited this branch like last month while he was there. All I know is that there is a Texas Road house, Dairy Queen, Tuchonoes (or something like it), so I will just be living like a king (or a missionary that is serving in the states, spoiled!;)  Nice house with carpet and 2 full time cars, one a brand new car.  We will be the only missionaries on the entire island.  The flights were messed up so that is why I will be serving in Kingston for a week.  But there is more.  Pres. Brown called me right after the AP's called. He said, “You got your call, right?” I said, “Yeah I did.”  He said cool so there is something else. He said we are changing the off island zone leader area.  It is going to be moved from Freeport Bahamas to Cayman, so you and Elder Runyon will be the new off island ZL's. Now that blew my mind! Honestly I did not expect that. He told me that I was the first to know and to not tell anyone for a couple hours.  The existing off island zl's didn't even know.  So this will be a cool experience.  We are also the so called district leaders at the same time because there are no districts off island.  We skype every week for district and zone meetings and I think we fly to Nassau Bahamas every other month for zone conference. It will be pretty cool I think.  I think this has to be one of the most spread out zones in the world.  It consists of Cayman, Turks & Caicos, Nassau Bahamas, and Freeport Bahamas. Well, have a good week, I love you all :) Love Elder Harris

This was from March when he first arrived in Jamaica...I hope he's acclimated a little more now!

His mission call stated that he'd be speaking English...hmmm?!

That's a large moth!

Keeping Beaver alive in Jamaica!

Adam and Brian hanging out in Jamaica with Colton.

First Law Obedience...Last Law Consecration

Well this is the last week of this transfer again, I can't believe it has already come. The transfers seem to be going by really quickly now.  I am thinking that I will be getting transferred from Spanish Town. I hope not cuz this is my home.  I honestly don't really want to leave but I guess we will see what happens. Well this week was another good week.  We were not able to do as much teaching this week as I would have liked to.  Tuesday it rained all day long, Wednesday was district meeting then we went to the doctors office for Elder Mathewson's knee which was a joke.  We were there for 6 hours. Thursday was weekly planning all morning. Friday we had a special meeting with Elder Cornish and Pres Brown. That was really good.  And Saturday we had a baptism that took up quite a bit of time.  

The meeting with Elder Cornish was pretty good. He talked to us about how to train new missionaries and about how even exact obedience will not qualify us for the work. He taught how obedience is the first law of heaven, and the first law of everything, but it isn't the last law. Consecration is. It isn't enough to be exactly obedient, we must do things that please Heavenly Father (John 8: 28-29). It is one thing for Devin to sit and complain about doing dishes on his night after dinner for 2 hours and having people nag him about it and he eventually goes back upstairs and gets the bare minimum done. Or you could be like me and right after dinner, I take all the dishes and get them done, wipe off the counters, mop the floor, put the food away, etc.  Both of them fulfilled the so called commandment, but the way in which it was fulfilled was the major difference and that was what stuck out to me in that meeting the most. We shouldn't have to be compelled in all things to do certain things.  We should do it because we love God and want to please and honor him.

The baptism was good on Saturday for S.  R. B. is our new branch mission leader and he is a solid member and so he has in some ways lightened our load as missionaries, and in other ways increased our load.  Both are good and are necessary for missionary work to go forward better here in Jamaica.  For way too long missionaries have had too many responsibilities that are supposed to belong to members and that has slowed the work down.  Now that is slowly starting to change and it is a good thing. Instead of missionaries standing in front of members in the work, we are now standing side by side.

Well Sis Mc. is our top investigator right now.  We have had some really good lessons with her. Working with her has just increased my testimony that the Lord is preparing people for the gospel, just not always preparing them in the way we expect.  This has been such a strength to her and her family, especially to her marriage.

Well have a good week. I love you all.

Love Elder Colton Harris

 

Elder Harris, S. and Elder Mathewson

Colton enjoying his Olive Garden breadsticks!  We love globalmissionshipping.com!

 

Religion in Jamaica

Hey everyone again.  This week has been a really awesome week!  We have been able to visit so many people and meet new people that we have started teaching, all by working through members.  We have another baptism coming up on Saturday.  Her name is S. and she is 18 years old.  She is basically deaf so teaching her these past couple weeks we have had to come up with new ideas that have been fun for us to do.  It is good for us tho to come up with new ideas to keep it fresh.  She is also the one who her mom kicked out when she was 18 and she has been staying with her uncle but her mom said that she would tell all the family that she has to disown her if she got baptized.  We talked to her about it and told her to have faith and she wanted to continue with being baptized.  Since then her dad that she hasn't had much contact with who lives in Cayman came back to Jamaica this week and he is 100% supportive of her and she is actually going to move to Cayman with him now at the beginning of next year, so things have worked out.  Sis Mc. is also progressing this week.  That has just brought so much joy into the whole family, especially for her kids.  She came to church yesterday and her son J. was giving a talk on the sacrament and it was so cool to just see the happiness that both of them had. 

Well I thought that I would also tell you a little bit of how Jamaicans view religion and the LDS church, etc since I don't think I have done that yet.  So every single person in Jamaica is religious.  Basically everyone here goes to church every Saturday or Sunday. I say Saturday because about 40% of church people go to sabbath day churches.  The others go to what they call Sunday churches.  This reminds me a ton of what the bible belt sounds like, if not worse than the bible belt just with friendlier people.  Church and State is not separated here and so they teach from the bible in schools here.  They have prayers in school, they have scripture mastery at school.  Every single person knows the bible inside and out, everyone whether they are living in zinc, whether they are rastas, poor,  rich, old, young, male, female, they are very, very familiar with the bible.  They also believe that as long as you go to church you're good, same God that we worship right? That is their mind set.  All different kinds of churches line every single street here.  SO MANY!!!!  There are quite a few Jehovah Witnesses here but everyone we talk to say I like you a lot better then the JW's.  People are really willing to let us come back and talk to them.  I honestly have only got told by like less than 5 people that they don't want us to come back to talk with them because "God can't too much."  They love when we offer to leave them with a word of prayer after or during lessons because "Can't too much prayer either ya ear?!" They are very, very religious people and I know nothing about the bible compared to them, but slowly getting there.  Well this week should be good too.  Elder Cornish will be here meeting with us again. 

The overnighted package with Olive Garden was amazing!!! I got the package on Friday, I was the envy of everyone who heard that I received Olive Garden.  Thank you mom and dad and Grandma and Grandpa E!  Everyone in my house loved it too :)

So IDK if you remember the story about A. that I sent home last month as a 2nd long email home, but this is Auther's house.  The last picture of the 4 people in order from left to right is J., (been baptized 1 year and is expecting his mission call this week), A.,  Bro L. (right after he was baptized was made branch president then went on a mission, did both of those while still on retention or in other words was a member for less than 1 year, and R.L. (Should receive his mission call this week also).  They went to fix his roof, he has been without a roof for a long long time.  He has 2 little pieces of zink he leaned over his bed that basically did nothing.  The new roof isn't even that great but a ton better than what he had.  The only things that A. eats is anything that he can find on the ground basically. A. walks to church every week, about 3 or 4 miles at least and is always there way before anyone else gets there.  Such great faith even though he literally has nothing at all.  These are the only pics I have this week, so sorry about that again. I wasn't at this service project I just had JD send me the pics.

Have a good week.

Love Elder Harris

Dominos, Chilitoes, Chinese, Pizza Hut, Pig Tail and Stewed Peas, and Chicken Foot Soup...Yum!

So thank you for the pictures this week, I am sorry once again but my sd card doesn't work and I don't have my cord for my camera with me.  I am just going to go buy a new sd card and send this one home soon.  So this week has been really good.  Monday was PDay so we splurged and went to Domino's Pizza, it was amazing! Monday I got a call from the office Elder saying that they were coming to pick me up on Tuesday morning and that I was going to be in Kingston for the whole day.  You don't know what that means when the office elders call us to go into Kingston for the day but I do and I'll let you know why in a couple weeks or maybe months what it means but I went and stood in lines in government buildings and police stations to sign papers and stuff all day long.  It was a long, long day but it was good.  Don't worry I didn't have to go do that because of anything bad, everything is perfect like I said I'll let ya know later :) So we were also with Elder and Sister Mortensen and they took us to Chilitoes, which is this Jamexican restaurant. It was so good, I got the jerk chicken mega burrito with nachos and it was so good!! It was good to eat something different, and they paid for it so that made it even better.  So that was my Tuesday, Elder Mathewson took the zone leaders train with him in our area that day.  Wednesday was a pretty good day, we had so many appointments fall through.  We had Pres. B., our branch president come with us to visit some less actives, that part was really productive. Then we ended that day with our Elders Quorum president coming to visit another less active with us, he walked about 3 maybe 4 miles to get to this lesson #dedicated! The lesson was good but the guy we met with, Bro G. is just really stubborn. We also ate at this Chinese restaurant that day but it definitely was not Panda!!!  Thursday we had Zone Conference, it was our first zone conference with Pres Brown and it was AMAZING!! I love that guy.  He is just the most lovable, knowledgeable, caring, stern, everything guy.  It was a sweet zone conference.  He talked about the plans to make the stake here in Jamaica, specifically Spanish Town.  He told us all the numbers needed and what we will focus on in order to accomplish this.  He told us about a call from Elder Anderson from the 12 that he received and Elder Anderson said we are applying for the stake in January and it will probably be organized in March.  He told us all of this and then tied it in really good saying do you see what I am seeing, about how we don't have to be disobedient, or to not go 100%. He said it million times better then I ever could but all I could think was crap I only have 19 months left and there is just way too much work that needs to be done.  I'm not going to be able to leave Pres. Brown in 19 months because there is just too much work to do! Had Pizza Hut on this day too.  I tell you about the food I had this week only cuz I ate really good at the beginning of the week, and that doesn't happen very often so I thought I would share it:) Friday we had super planning, then went out teaching.  We started teaching Sister Mc.,.  She is the mom of some recent convert teenagers and it is so cool that we are able to teach her.  She has listened in on a lot of lessons and already knows everything is true.  It will be so cool to bring her into the gospel, and will be a great blessing for that family.  She then fed us pig tail and stew peas so that was a bonus too. Saturday S. got baptized!!!!! :) It was so cool.  His GF was bringing him but then her car ran out of gas and we were in a hurry to get the baptism started because of Pres. Brown's flight to Turks, So Pres. Brown went and picked him up and brought him.  It was a really spiritual baptism and S. bore an amazing testimony!! It has been so cool to watch him grow and learn! I now know why Pres. Brown put every resource he had in helping S. in any way, cuz the only thing stopping a stake is worthy Melchizedek priesthood, and S. will help that so much.  After the baptism there was a funeral going on and they had the missionaries wheel the casket into the chapel, only in Jamaica, yeah I had to close the lid too. Good thing there were 17 full time missionaries at the baptism (Including Pres. and Sis. Brown) since they had no pall bearers or something like that. I then got my toe operated on after the baptism. I had an ingrown toenail removed just like I had removed up north a couple years ago.  He cut half of it off.  Now just letting it heal.  Had chicken foot soup Saturday night too.  It was pretty bad.  It honestly felt like I was eating cooked baby fingers.  That is the best way I could describe it.  Church was good on Sunday too.  So I know you wanted me to tell ya how my days are, IDK if that is what you had in mind but this week has been chaotic.  Well I love ya!! Have a good week! 

Love Elder Harris

PS thanks for the banner letter and for the other letter as well mom and Harris family! :)

 

                Chicken Foot Soup...Yum!
(Picture borrowed from another missionary's blog who is also serving in Jamaica)

 

Four flat tires this week!

Wow another week is here and gone.  It was another good week.  It looks like you guys had a good week at home as well.  Thanks for the pictures that you sent out. I loved looking at them.  Well, dad, to answer your question real quick; as of right now there is no patriarch on the island.  There was a missionary couple out here that was here for 18 months that was the patriarch for Jamaica but they went home about 2 months ago.  Um, there really isn't anything they can do if they do not have one that I know about.  Unless they go on missions where there is a patriarch at the MTC as far as I know they can't get one.  I guess there actually should be some sort of plan that the church has set up but I don't know of it.  They did a big, big push for members to get that blessing before the patriarch left because now they don't know how long it will be until the island gets another one.

So I got 4 flat tires on my bike this week.  So sad, but it was still a good week.  I tried to change all of them on the side of the road but Jamaicans see us white people and as soon as we get our hands dirty they come and do it all for ya.  They just never do a good job and the patches don't seal 100% so air leaks out of them soon again.  But it is still nice of them. 

So as for how my week went, it went great.  So I don't remember if I told you this last week of not but our area got realigned.  Since we moved to a new area we re-did the area so that we take all the close areas around where we live and the other missionaries take the far areas since they have the truck.  We lost a lot of members in the realignment so it has forced us to continue working with less actives, which is the best thing ever.  Missionary work is so effective while working through less actives.  For every less active we reactivate we are just getting a lot of referrals.  Tracting is so ineffective and I am so glad that it is a mission goal to never ever go tracting.  I did it once when I was getting trained before it was a goal and I hated it.  When you find through less actives not only do re activate the less actives, but their friends or family members that you start teaching already have contact in some way with the church.  The less activess are there so it isn't as awkward as 2 random whites guys talking to ya.  They have a friend to ask questions or concerns in private.  It just is perfect.  That has been working really good for us, we have been finding some elect people that way.  In the bible dictionary under 'election' it talks about who the elect are.  Now you can take election in a couple different ways but a different elder brought this up and in the bible dictionary it says something to the effect that the elect are people who come in favorable contact with the church.  That favorable contact has to come to these elect people through less actives.  They were placed in that favorable contact, whether it be in the same house, friends, family, co-workers for a reason.  So I guess in short we have been finding some cool people to work with.  I love the bible dictionary though.  You can get lost for days in there, it's terrible.  But there are a ton of good things that I never realized till I got out here.

S. should be getting baptized this week if everything goes well with his interview.  He asked Pres. Brown to baptize him and he accepted so that will be a really neat experience.  The baptism is going to be a really early baptism apparently cuz Pres is flying out to Turks and Caicos Islands for a couple days that afternoon.  I am excited though! :)

So we were also supposed to have a baptism for this 18 year old girl named Sh. this Saturday as well.  She didn't show up to church yesterday so we asked her friend/ fellow shipper where she was and he said that she wanted to come really bad but her mom said that she would completely disown her if she gets baptized in this church.  She would be living on the streets so that was really sad.  We are still working with her.  We actually have an appointment with the mom tonight so we'll see how that goes.  J., her 17 year old fellow shipper, and his nonmember mom have been working with Sh’s mom so that is good. Hopefully her heart gets softened.  Well got to go. Love you all.  Have a good week. Sorry again, I'll write more about day to day activity next week. 

Love, Elder Harris

Notice the knot on his tie...kind of different!

Ice cream to celebrate Elder Harris' 5 month mark!  Look how hot and sweaty he looks even at night!

His new room

I love the cold showers!

Ah ah mi general. Wudehupon? Midehah ya know. Ah you good? Dehah. Ah blessings and respect.  So I don't really know what I just did but I decided that I need to be original in my letter introduction so I typed out a very typical Jamaican conversation.  That is what I hear all day lol.   Well this week has been good.  A lot has gone on.  Thank you for the emails this week everyone.  Well I hope that everyone has a good 24th of July, can't believe I am going to miss it. Have fun though.

Well the new house isn't too bad, it is cramped but it's doable.  I love the cold showers.  While you are in there you realize this is the coolest my body temperature will be until the next cold shower you take so then you just learn to love it.  So this weekend was District Conference for the Spanish Town District(same as Stake Conference).  It was really good.  There were so many people that showed up yesterday for the meeting. There were 768 people there, which is the largest number of LDS people gathered together on the Island ever except for when a General Authority is present.  So it goes to show that the work is moving on.  Pres Brown presided at the meeting and when he stood up and talked, he talked about the new missionaries that came in this past week.  He said that he didn't plan to tell us this but last week when he was interviewing them, he had a strong impression that this would be the group of missionaries that would be around when a stake is created in Jamaica.  He said, "Listen to me clearly now, that means there will be a stake in Jamaica within 2 years!"  Everyone was like wow that was a bold statement.  There is a lot of work to do but we can do it.  He then called all of the missionaries that were there so all of the missionaries serving in the Spain District, which was almost 50 missionaries, yes 50 in one so called 'Stake' and said, "Here is the army that the Lord has sent to accomplish this work.  They are ready, willing, and more than able to serve along side each and every one of you to build the Lord's kingdom  here."  It was cool.  Then he had all 50 of us missionaries sing Called to Serve and in the middle of the 2nd verse everyone stood up and started singing too.  It was a really cool and a really unique first district conference for my first one.

Well last week we had a really good week numbers wise.  We had 5 investigators at church and are starting to see the fruits of all of our hard work.  We have been working with  less actives a lot and we had 6 less actives (inactives really) back to church this week and are preparing all of them for callings.  We had an investigator die this week too. Guess she died in her sleep.  We have been teaching her only for about 10 days and she had a baptism date.  She has 4 really small kids and a husband.  They were living in an abandoned house with no roof and one mattress, dirt floors, cooked with coal, etc.  Definitely in a better place.  We also met someone who has a 1950 somethin Book of Mormon. That was really cool. He said it was his grandma's in England right now.  And he saw that I thought it was really cool and he was like, "Sell it to ya for $50 U.S."   Wasn't going to buy it but it was cool to look at.  He also said they sell mangos for $1 U.S. too and I said how often do you get that, I haven't seen U.S. money since I got here.  Yeah he stopped beggin for money after that.  Well our other investigators are doing good and a lot more went on this week but I don't have time for all of it. Sorry ;( Well I hope that you have a good week :) Love you! 

Elder Harris  

                                                                    Pork ala hair!

Colton and the macaroni man

Elders Harris and Mathewson celebrating Independence Day, July 4, 2013

Colton in front of his new house...wonder if the donkey is replacing his bike?!

Laundry Day