Happy Happy Happy

SEPTEMBER 21

Howdy, y'all! 

This week has been a little bit slow for Sister Clarke and I, but it has been a good one anyway. We lost several of the people we have been teaching for the past little while, so we had to do a lot of finding. We either got dropped, had to drop someone, finished teaching someone, gave people to the elders that are now in our ward, or lost people due to other circumstances. I believe we lost a total of 9 investigators or less actives this week. But that just means we have so many opportunities to find new people! 

Sister Clarke and I also did a lot of finding yesterday. We found one new less active and a new investigator! The less active is named Nino and she is married to a non member and has two little boys. She used to be active when she was young, but she and her family fell away for reasons we don't know yet. We taught her lesson one and she was happy to set up another appointment for us to come back and teach her. We also found a super cute 86 year old lady named Peggy from England. She invited us into her home to do the survey and allowed us to teach her the first lesson. About halfway through the lesson she interrupted us and said, "I'm getting something from you two.. I don't know what it is but I feel it in my body. Like its filling my soul, kind of. Its strange and wonderful." and she motioned toward her heart. Sister Clarke explained that it was the Spirit she was feeling and Peggy strongly agreed. She was so excited to have us come back to teach her again. I really do love being a missionary. 

I really don't have a whole ton to write about this week so I decided to come up with a list of random things that I appreciate and that I love and that make me happy instead of being boring and saying nothing. :D 

1. The sound of happy birds. So there are like a million birds here and they're so dumb and funny. They'll fly right in front of the car at the worst possibly second and we've had plenty of close calls with these dumb birds. I'm pretty sure there are bird gangs and flying in front of a moving car is part of their initiation or something. Anyway, there is a tree right outside my window where I sleep and the birds are always singing away when I wake up and it just makes me happy. I like happy birds, even if they are stupid. 

2. Smile lines. I have decided that smile lines are some of the loveliest physical features a person can have. I mean, why wouldn't you want physical evidence of a well-loved and well-lived life? I don't know. I just think they are lovely.

3. Compliments from strangers. Ya know, like the kind where a total stranger will go out of their way just to say something nice to you? Yeah. Those are the best. One of my favorite quotes is "Never suppress a generous thought." I've been working on that a lot lately. I just want people to feel loved and appreciated, even if I don't know them.

4. Pumpkin anything and everything. The people here are jumping into fall with absolutely no hesitation. I love it. The leaves haven't started changing yet, but the weather is cooling down and everything is pumpkin now. I lovvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeee love love everything that has to do with pumpkin. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin candles, pumpkin seeds, etc. All of it. 

5. Snooze buttons. Sister Clarke made a goal to wake up every day at 6:00 instead of 6:30 to study the scriptures a little more. That means I have to get up at 6:00 too.. and anyone that knows me well knows that I am absolutely useless in the morning. Especially with my sleep issues.. But I love Sister Clarke and I support her sacrifice to be more in tune with the spirit, so we're up and at 'em at 6:00! We set the alarm for 5:55 and hit the snooze button once, and I have really and truly come to love the snooze button. Thank you to the inventor of snoozing. 

6. The word "heathen". I have no idea why, but I just really like that word. Thats pretty much all I have to say about that, actually. Don't ask why I felt the need to share that. hahaha 

Anywho, I hope y'all are doing well and keeping busy! I love being a missionary and I love all of you! 

Be happy!

Sister Harshaw

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 SEPTEMBER 14th

Helloooooo, everybody! (To be read in the voice of Gru from Despicable Me, obviously.)

This week has been kind of slow, but definitely still great! First things first, we have elders serving with us in our ward now!! Woooooo! This is great for a lot of reasons, the first being we don't have to spend much time in the super sketchy parts of town anymore! Our area actually covers half of a town called Clifton and just a little part of Grand Junction. Clifton is the sketchy part and we can't be there at night and a lot of our less actives live there, so we're happy we don't have to spend more time than necessary there and that we don't have to tract there anymore! Yay! Having elders is also great because we had a pretty big work load and now we get to share it so we can spend more time focusing on individuals.

We found some really great people this week! We went to dinner at a members house this week and asked for referrals (ps fam you should always have a referral to give the missionaries. We live off of referrals.) and she gave us the name of this less active lady named Lexi, but told us not to mention her because she might be upset that her name was given to us. So we went over there and she opened the door and was like, "Oh my goodness!! Come in!!!" and turns out she is a super awesome lady and she has been wanting missionaries to come by for a long time! She just moved here and she has a 12 year old daughter that she really wants us to teach. So we started teaching her daughter, Erica, this week and holy moly shes great!! She wants us to come back twice a week and she wants to be baptized and shes already read like 32 pages of the Book of Mormon in 3 days and shes just so cute! We are going to put her on date for October 17th! 

There was one day this week that we didn't get any work done because my companion was sick, so that was kind of the lamest day ever. You'd think that having a day of doing noting would be kind of nice, but its not. I mean, I did get a lot of studying done but it was mostly just boring. Oh well! Life happens. I was actually really thankful for the alone time I got. I was a boring day, but being alone for a little bit was a tender mercy. I love my companion, but I also reallyyy love/miss being alone sometimes. So that made me happy. 

Thats pretty much all I've got for the week, folks! The work really is hastening and I'm so excited to be a part of it (: 

Oh, and to explain my subject line.... hahaha so since I've gotten here I've been picking up every lucky penny that I come across and my collection is getting pretty big. Well today I went to pick up a penny that was buried in the dirt and it turned out to be a big fat bullet. So that was fun! hahah just another average Joe day here in good ol' sketchy Grand Junction! 

I love y'all and hope all is well! Be happy! :D

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SEPTEMBER 7

This week was good! At the beginning of the week we had yet another exchange and it was awesome because Sister Clarke went to our sister training leader's area and her companion came to ours which meant that I got to take over the area for a day! Wooooooo! I actually loved it so much. I really like taking the lead in everything and being in charge. We found out about exchanges on Saturday and both Sister Clarke and I will be staying here in Grand Junction. She is convinced that after this 6 weeks that she will be leaving and I will stay here to train a new missionary. Our president has been known to have sisters train after they finish their own training, so who knows! That would be pretty cool, actually. 

I also got to give a training in our district meeting on Thursday which was pretty neat. I talked about the importance of prayer and how to get investigators to pray. I think it went pretty well! I've come to discover that I actually really like to give talks and teach lessons and stuff of that sort. I know, I'm weird. 

We did a whole bunch of service this week! Our mission is a half service mission because we work with Just Serve, which is some organization. We mostly work in this little thrift store place, but this week we did a couple hours of yard work for this super adorable old lady. She is from the Netherlands and she actually called us from a pass along card we left when tracting, which never happens!

Oh funny story.... so like a week ago we went and had an 8pm lesson (lessons we have with members at 8pm so we can get to know them and have something to do. 8 isnt a good time to be out and about cuz its kinda sketchy, so the members take care of us.) with a cute old lady. She just kept staring at me and like looking me up and down.. then as we were leaving she was like, "I gotta tell you... you're going to need to put some meat on your bones before winter if you want to survive! You're way too little and you need some blubber to keep you warm." so we just laughed and went on our way. But then this week she called us and told us to come over and she made me cookies and told me to eat them all.. and she keeps calling us and giving us food.. and she signed up to feed us like 4 times this month... hahahaha shes dead serious about me putting meat on my bones and its hilarious. Every time she sees me she comments on my "lack of meat"..... hahahahah

Anyway, its been a good week and being a missionary is so awesome! We have a super full week so I'll have plenty more to tell you about next week! 

I love y'all lots! Be happy! :D