Los Alamos - Week 2

Los Frutos de La Fe y La Actitud

Esta semana ha sido excelente. 

So to tell you a little bit about my area, it's called Ventanilla Alta. (High Ventanilla) and it's like a canyon where all the people with money to buy houses of bricks live in the bottom of the canyon, and the poor people live on the sides of the hills in wood houses. So going up the hills is more like Pachacutec, but in the bottom (which is where the majority of the people live) it's pretty normal. There are paved roads and parks with grass. The best adjustment for me is that now every time that I leave my apartment I don't have to walk up a hill. It's just flat for the most part. We have the chapel in our area, and we are the only ward to attend there, and we are the only missionaries in the ward, so it works out great.

My mission president is putting a big emphasis on finding the elect in every moment. It's like a little add on that looks like this.

Find the elect in EVERY MOMENT. Teach repentence EVERY DAY. Baptize converts EVERY WEEK.

We have had a lot of experiences this week by following this instruction. That in every moment, it doesn't matter where we are, we are finding. Finding new investigators. Because the more new investigators we find, the more converts we are going to baptize. 

One experience, my companion has all the credit, because we were walking down the street and we saw this really old guy entering into his house. The thought that I had in my mind was, wow he is old, probably can't hear very well, and I don't have the patience to contact him. But my companion Elder Viera went to contact him and I followed. And it turned out that he is a golden investigator. By the second visit he had read the first 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon, and when we explained to him that he needs to pray to God to see if the book is true, he said but why do I need to do that if I already know it's true? Haha it was the best. He can barely walk but he made the effort to come to church in a mototaxi. Really excited for his baptism on the 18th of March.

Another was when we were walking to our apartment at night, and we passed by the house of a guy who was really sick. We gave him a blessing. The next day we returned and he told us that during the whole night he slept in peace, and that the pain had subsided a lot. He and his son accepted a baptismal date as well, and they are friends with the elders quorum president so they already have friends in the chapel.

Elder Viera comes from a family that is strong in the church, but he comes from a branch in Progreso, Canelonas, Uruguay. He has been a little homesick and just adjusting to living in a different country, but he is doing excellent now. I'm very proud to be his father. I'm also learning a lot from him.

Thanks everyone, have a great week,

Elder Harris

My son Elder Viera had his first baptism, a 9 year old named Agustin whose mom is a recent convert. He is our little amigo. In the picture featuring Elder Vasques from Peru and Elder Lepe from Chile.