"They Were Still His Brethren In The Lord"

Another week, another dollar. We had a super cool experience today so I'll get into that.

Familia Valle

We have been reaching out to all inactive members and part members to get tickets to the tab choir concert, and we called Erick Valle. He picked up and he said he was at his friend's house, and we talked about the concert super quick and it turns out we gave his friend an invitation and so we laughed about that for a min. But we set up a time to go by and get them the tickets. The Valle family consists of Erick and his wife Ana, with their daughter Mia who's 19 and a member, and their 11 year old son Ernesto. We went over there and met the family and they are super amazing!! Erick served his mission in Utah and we talked a ton about missions and the differences between then and now. They have been inactive for a good amount of years now. We shared a quick scripture and headed out. 

We called him a few days later to set up and RA, and he seemed a little hesitant and not sure what we were trying to do. He said he would talk to his wife and call us later. Later that day he calls us and said he's going to be honest..... $$ He asked his son Ernesto if he wants to be baptized, and he said yes!! We felt inspired to ask him if he wants to be the one to baptize him, and he opened up about things he's dealing with and how he doesn't want to be an obstacle for his son and his progress. The Spirit urged us to talk about the strengthening and healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how through him, we can overcome anything. He said he's down to do it. So we went over last Saturday and we taught the Resto to Ernesto with the cup object lesson, and Erick just flipped the missionary switch and taught half the lesson to his son lol. It was super sweet to see, him and his family really are amazing. We invited them to read the book of Mormon everyday together, and we invited them to church the next day. They ended up pulling up late but the ward LOVED THEM so much!!! The OG members remembered them and gave them hugs and a big warm welcome. A member even ended up crying when she saw them because it had been so long. It was really a tender moment for everyone. Now we have and RA for today and we are super excited to keep teaching them!!!!!

Andres

Andres is also an inactive member of many years. We had his information and no missionaries have been able to get in contact with him. We visited him and knocked the door twice with no answer. We walk back to the car and get in, and we look back and he's standing in the doorway in a robe with his hand above his head waving us over lol. We go back and he invites us in and is super happy to see us. We talked about his job and his family. He has an un baptized son, Drake, who's 19 and finishing highschool. We got to meet Drake and he's super cool and we connected really well. We invited them to all the activities coming up and Andres was able to go!!! He invited us to Panera bread, and bought us some sandwiches while he drank his coffee (we are working on that lol), but he just seems so happy to be talking with us and we have high hopes for them!!!

LAST TRANSFER 

My last transfer board dropped and me and my comp stayed together. The ward is super happy and excited to have us stay!! We are continuing to work super hard and the Lord is providing so many miracles for us so it just keeps giving us so much more motivation. This area not gonna lie has been difficult. Almost everyday we have almost all lessons cancel. For example on Saturday we were 1/8 on lessons, and Friday 0/6. It's been difficult finding new people that progress, but these tender mercies the Lord is giving us makes it all worth it. Crazy this is my last transfer, trying to wrap my head around it all...

Update on Cristhiam

I actually don't think I talked about her, we received a referral from about a month and a half ago, and we gave her a call. Turns out she's a member and hasn't been to church in like forever, but is going through a lot and wants a blessing. We were on exchanges to Elder Ellis and I go over and chat with her for a bit and give her a blessing. We end the blessing with tears and we invited her to come to church. We called Hermana Carreras (presidente de la sociedad Socorro), and they chopped it up quite a bit. Since then, she has been to church ever since and we love seeing her and getting to talk to her!!

Shout Outs

Mark is a super amazing member who served his mission in Venezuela and ended up moving there for 8 years, got married, and returned back here and he's the elders Quorum president. He's a powerlifter and absolutely jacked. He invited us over. He told us he hasn't had missionaries over in a long time because he wants the missionaries to be good examples for his children, so he felt very privileged to have us in his home. He's an absolute beast!!! Makes me happy to know he's recognizing our efforts.  And we had a BBQ and I had the best steak of my entire life. He had been grilling all day and it was SOOOOO GOOOOD!!!!! We also invited Duan over and we had a little FHE and Duan loved it!!!!!

Another shout out is Mark Morgan... 

Jason is a youth that I'm super close with, he's gonna put in his papers soon, and we did a little tie swap. He's super chill and super fun!! We play basketball on Wednesdays together!!

We also hit 106 bappys as a mission last month, crazy we reached it again!! The Lord is hastening his work!!!! 

Spiritual Thought

Short thought today, it's the sons of mosiah, who were against the church, had a change of heart when an angel smacked them upside the head, and became the greatest missionaries ever!! 

After lots of time the sons of mosiah bring apart from Alma, Alma was traveling to the land of Manti and came across the and here's what he said:

2. "Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God."

I could imagine his joy to see them again, but how much more happy he was when he found out they had stayed strong unto the Lord and "waxed strong" and held firm to the rod of iron. I hope all of us, everyday, are waxing ourselves in the knowledge of truth, by reading and studying the scriptures every single day, feasting upon the words of Christ, growing our relationship with him. 

I love you all tons!!! 

Hasta la próxima

Elder Harbertson

"Cast Off Your Sins, And Not Procrastinate The Day Of Your Repentance"

Hello there!! We back with another email with a ton happening the past couple weeks.

Confusion

My companion Elder Hulterstrom and I white washed into the area, and it's been pretty difficult in the beginning to figure out who's who and how we can help our friends. For example, Eduardo Simon is someone who was baptized the week before we got there on a Saturday, but never showed up on Sunday to be confirmed. We have been trying really hard to figure out what's going on and how we can help him, but he just refuses to come to church for some reason. There are a lot of other friends who are coming to church every week and going to activities, and are friends with members, but just won't get baptized. We are trying to figure out who's a member and who's not at church every week, lol. We are starting to get it down pretty well, but there's a ton of work to do here so we are going crazy

Miracles

We've seen some amazing miracles in this area, so I'm going to rapid fire a couple off.

We are always trying to be out of the house in almost everything we do so we can be in contact with more people and always look for opportunities to talk to people. We went to a park to do some studies, and when we sat on this bench, this lady came up to us and asked if we were missionaries and we said yes of course. She sits on the ground right in front of us, and begins telling us how she has been going through something extremely difficult and was doubting her faith in God and  she had been praying for  a sign from God. That morning she offered a prayer and started her walk and instantly saw us. We talked to her about the love the lord has for her, and we called our relief society president (She's a beast), and they connected super well, and she ended up coming to church.

We went dot hoping (visits) to people who used to have been taught by past missionaries, we got to this apartment complex, and went to knock on this person's door, but for some reason, we knocked on the wrong door. We went to the correct door a ways away, and knocked, this guy opens up and he's on the phone. He said he literally just walked in the door, and invited us in. We chatted for a while and got to know him really well and he remembered the older missionaries. We invited him to come to church and he was super down. He pulled up and got SUPER connected with the members and it was amazing!!

I've been sending out invites to all of our Grey dots (past taught people) and inviting them to the choir concert, and I sent an invite to someone named Duan. He reached back out saying he was interested. We told him he can get his tickets at the chapel on Sunday at church. He came and all the members ate him up. Apparently he's been to church a ton and hasn't been for a long time but the members remembered him. We had a break the fast after church (it was yesterday), and he was standing in the hall. We asked if he's gonna eat and he said that he wanted to see the bishop, we asked why and he said he wanted to get baptized. We said aight bet let's meet tn, and we put him on date for this Saturday!!!

That's just a few of the many experiences I've had recently. 

Key West

Last week I ended up going back down to the keys, our zone had what's called an R&R (Return & Report), where the whole zone meets together and goes on exchanges with a specific focus for that day, setting high goals with our new companion. I ended up going down into Key West, I got to stop by and say hi to Danger and his family which was soooo fun!!! I was with Elder Call who is a Creole missionary. Key West is a Zebra area, where there is one Spanish and one Creole missionary so they can teach anyone and everyone in the small islands. Anyway we had the goal of handing out 200 invites to the tabernacle choir concert. And let me tell you, we went CRAZYYY!!!!! We walked everywhere that day talking to every single Haitian on the island lol. We also had an English class of around 30 people which was wild. We invited them to come to the concert and they all said that they wanted tickets! We told them to clear their schedule for the next class and we will reserve them all tickets!!! Me and Elder call ended up inviting over 250 people, it was insane full of miracles!! Then in the afternoon Elder Call looked at his phone and he had a missed call from President Cluff (our Mission President). We called him back and he told us that we needed to evacuate because a tropical storm was going to hit the following day and we had to drive all the way up to the mainland that night. So we went home and prepped the house, then drove until midnight when we reached the mainland it was a super amazing experience and so fun to see old friends. 

Update on Duan

So I started writing this email last week, and I'm finishing it today, lol We ended up meeting with Dwayne almost every single day before his baptism, and he learned so fast and kept all of the invites we gave him. We invited him to an FHE with the Bishop and his family, to celebrate his birthday! He absolutely loved it and we had a little party for him. He ended up getting baptized and confirmed last Sunday, and getting interviewed to receive the priesthood and go to the temple here pretty soon so we are hyped!! We ended up giving him the Book of Mormon my Mom sent us, and he didn't have words to express how grateful he was! He's such a sweet guy and has such a nice spirit with him. 

We have been having quite a lot of success with a couple friends recently, they have been coming to church and keeping commitments! I'll send you an update on them next week if anything big happens. We also have transfers this week lol sorry for the super late email

Choir Tickets

I know I've been talking so much about the Tabernacle Choir recently, but it has been such a big Focus for a mission and everyone is working so hard to get friends to go. This last weekend was the last few days to use the codes we have as missionaries to invite people to reserve the tickets. The mission as a whole in the beginning of last week had a grand total of about 300 people reserved. And this last weekend everyone went crazy, we were working extremely hard to find more people and get them reserved. In the past few days, the mission's number of confirmed tickets skyrocketed to over 3,000!!! We have been running out of tickets, then given more, then run out again lol. 

Just some other side things that happened, we had another temple trip which was fun to be able to see everyone again. We have been able to get in contact, pass by, and teach several part members and active families! We are working really hard on them to reactivate and help unite their family. A member who we went by and gave a blessing to named Christiam has been coming to church every single week and has been very involved in the Relief Society. She has been inactive for most of her life, and to see her come back has been amazing!!!! The Lord has been helping you so much as we work harder and harder and relying more and more upon him. 

Spiritual Thought

This is a scripture that I've heard a lot throughout my mission. It came to my line recently as I was writing this email. I have come to absolutely love the atonement of Jesus Christ. It has blessed me everyday of my mission, it has helped me learn and grow and become more like Him. Here's the scripture

Alma 13:27

27 And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance;

The scripture is so true, I feel the exact same. I want to help everyone around me feel the same joy and happiness that I have felt when I cast off my sins and transgressions, and started repenting daily. It has been so fulfilling and such a spiritual experience as I reevaluate and set new goals for myself. I love how much the mission has taught me to lean on the Lord and to rely on him and all that I do. I would invite you all to act now into begin bettering yourselves and to become more like Jesus Christ. Everyday is a decision, we need to decide to follow Christ everyday. I love you all, and pray for you daily

Have an amazing week,

Elder Harbs