Hello, friends and family and everyone in between!
Its been a pretty good week here in good ol' Grandddd Junctionnn! To start off, I figured I'd tell y'all about the main people we're teaching because I just realized I kinda haven't told you about any of them. Oops.
-So our very mainest (I know mainest isn't a word but its fine) people are these two sisters named Patience and Alaska. They're 9 and 12 years old and they're daughters of a less active lady! They're super cute and fun and they're both on date to be baptized on October 17th. We're really excited about them because they're helping their mom come back to church and learning about the gospel at the same time! We teach them twice a week and they're superstars.
-Erica, the 12 year old girl we met a few weeks ago is our other main focus! She is also going to be baptized, but we don't know what the date is yet because conference is coming up and the weekend after is super busy, but we'll get her there! Her dad is Catholic and her mom is a less active and both of them are pushing for her to join their church, but she wants to join ours. Woooo! Haha she's super sweet and really loves having us come over. She has lots of good questions and is really excited about the gospel.
-Sara Ramirez is a 30ish year old lady and she is soooo great! She got some financial help from the bishop a little while ago and he called and told us that he really felt like we should teach her. So we went over and taught her for a little bit and she wasn't all too interested. We'd leave her stuff to read and do, but she never did them. Thennnn, she broke her foot! She has a newborn and newborns and broken feet don't get along too well... so we went over all the time to help take out her trash and clean up and just help out! We taught her more and because she was off her feet she had lotsss of time on her hands to read the Book of Mormon. She did, and she had so many good questions! She wants to know how we can know all of this is true and she came to church for the first time yesterday and she loved it! Her broken foot has been kind of a blessing, really. We have lots of high hopes for her. :)
Yeah so those are our main people! We have a lot of less actives and a few more investigators we are teaching, but we're working on getting them to progress. Lots of good work going on here. (:
I decided that I kinda like just listing off stuff I appreciate/love/enjoy so I'm gunna do that every week I think. hehe
1. Homemade jam. Everyone and their grandmother cans here. Like.. everyone. They all make jam, they all can, and they all have like 500 years of food storage. Its awesome. A very big pro to that is that we get allllll kinds of homemade jellies and jams and theyre soooooooo good. I eat wayyyy too much toast now. Oh well. hehe..
2. Hand-written letters. Okay, I am probably the worlds biggest fan of letter-writing and mail and whatnot. I appreciate all of your letters of love and support SO much. They make me a happy happy camper. We generally have about three hours every P-Day to do whatever we want, and I alwayssss spend all of my time writing letters. More people in the world need to write letters. It would make it a much happier world, in my opinion.
3. Peanut butter. I have decided that peanut butter is my second favorite food behind pickles. I eat it at leattttttt once a day. Peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter and apples, peanut butter and bananas, straight peanut butter on a spoon, peanut butter on crackers, PEANUT BUTTER ON EVERYTHINGGGGGGGGGGGGG. I love it. I just do.
4. Women's Conference. OKAY CAN I JUST TAKE A SEC TO EXPRESS HOW EXCITED I AM FOR CONFERENCE???? I'm so unbelievably excited. We got to go to the women's session of conference at our stake center and it got me even more pumped for conference than I already was. I'm with ya mom, women who speak in conference do have kind of awful Utah voices, but their messages were awesome. I loved President Uchtdorf's talk a wholeeee lot. I absolutely cannot wait for this weekend.
5. The blood moon! Okay the moon was the coolest thing ever last night. The night owl in me wanted to stay up all night long so I could just stare at it forever, but unfortunately the night owl in me isn't allowed to stay up past 10:30. Anyway, I just thought it was awesome and I love outer space and stars and the earth and life. Ya know?
Thats about all I've got for this week, folks! Its been good and the work is moving right along! I love this gospel so much and it really is the source of all of my joy. I know my Savior lives, I know that my Father in Heaven loves me, and I know he loves all of you too. (:
Have a happy week, everyone!!
Love,
Sister Kelsie Harshaw
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OCTOBER 6 2015
Hi hello greetings!
This week has been quiteeeee the week for Sister Clarke and I!
First of all, sorry I didn't email yesterday! Sister C. and I drove to Denver. The drive took about five hours because there was a bunch of roadwork being done, but its soooooo pretty to drive through the mountains in the fall. I love the earth and I just think our Heavenly Father loves us soooo much. (lol I sound like a hippie but its fine) Yesterday we went to the doctor and then pretty much just hung out in the mission home for the whole day! President Murdock didn't want us driving back in the dark with the road construction, so we stayed the night in Denver. President and Sister Murdock actually weren't even there because they're going to zone conferences, so Sister Clarke and I had the whole house to ourselves! It was kind of awesome. I had time to write lotssss of letters yesterday, which I always love doing! We also went to Chick-fil-a which was a happy thing because there isn't one in my area in Junction and I've been craving it for like.. 3 months now. hehe. your home is!!! We drove back to junction this morning and now we're trying to do all of the stuff that we usually do on our P-Day!
As far as missionary work goes, we have had a super duper successful week! We have really high standards of excellence in our mission and this week our district leader challenged us to hit those standards! He said that if we hit them he would eat some kind of super hot pepper and that if we didn't that we would have to eat one. Sister Clarke and I were not in the mood to burn our faces off, so we decided to work extra hard to hit those standards and we did! We found a total of 9 new investigators, which is definitely a miracle! Our teaching pool has been running a little low as of late, so now we have a whole bunch of new people to teach! As far as our other investigators, they're all pretty much still the same. Patience and Alaska are still on track to be baptized, but we have to move their date back because its hard to meet with them. We met with Erica this week and shes a superstar. She is going to be baptized on November 7th. (: One of our new investigators we found this week is going to be baptized too! Her name is Danielle and she is 15. We are teaching a lot of young girls and its really fun!
Conference was this weekend and I loveddddddddddd every minute of it. How lucky are we that we get to hear from our prophet and apostles every 6 months? SOOO lucky!! I love this gospel with my whole heart and I know that it is true! A lot of people here ask if we were raised in the church and when we tell them yes, they discredit everything we say because they think we are brainwashed and its ridiculous that everything we believe is based on a "mushy gushy feeling" we get. But when you've felt the feelings that come from this gospel you know that they can come nowhere but from God. You just know. So, yes. My entire life is based off of an ooey gooey feeling and I think its just wonderful.
Anywayyyy, I hope yall have all had a fabulous week and that all is going well! I love yall! Be happy!
Sister Harshaw
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OCTOBER 12 2015
Helloooooo, everybody! How is everything?? I hope all is well with y'all and that everything is peachy!
This week has been rather slowwwwww but so very wonderful! On Monday we drove to Denver and on Tuesday we drove back and had to take care of some housekeeping things and then Wednesday was Zone Conference, so we only had 4 full days of work which was weird! But Zone Conference was sooooo great! President and Sister Murdock are awesome. We talked a lot about working in harmony with the Spirit and learning to recognize its promptings. The Holy Ghost really is the most incredible gift we could possibly be given. Elder Bednar said somewhere in a question and answer thing that one of the biggest problems people have is they don't know if they're receiving a prompting or if its their own thoughts. Then he pulled an Elder Bednar and was like pshhhh it doesn't matter where the thought comes from! If its telling you to do something good, do it! It doesn't matter if its you or the Holy Ghost. Just do good and you'll figure it all out later. I'm a big fan of Elder Bednar.
So there is an air force base somewhere here in the Grand Valley and these crazy fighter jets are always flying around here. They're megaaaa loud and we always have to pause our lessons when one flies over because we can't hear anything. Well this week there was this massive two day air show thing for a Broncos charity event and the jets were going crazyyyyyyy. It was SO cool. They do flips and spiral things and they write things in the air and its just so cool. Anyway this is really random and theres really no point in me telling y'all this other that I thought it was cool and now I want to be a fighter pilot when I grow up. Okay maybe not, but i'd feel really cool if I did.
We didn't really meet with any of our progressing people, so they're all still on the same page. We do, however, have this awesome investigator named Sara that I'm not sure if I've talked about yet! She was a referral to us from our bishop and we've been teaching her for about two months now. We invited her to be baptized a little bit ago and she said she wanted to read and pray and really find answers before she committed to anything. Well, shes been coming to church and reading and praying and she watched General Conference and we really think she is going to be baptized! She is in her early 30s and shes a single mom and she told us that shes been having a change of heart lately! We're really excited about her. (:
So this week we had exchanges again and one of the Spanish sisters came here to our area with me. I had to do the driving and I'm not used to it so I didn't pay attention to the gas gauge and I forgot to fill up on Saturday... so we had enough to get us to church and back on Sunday, but that was it! We had to walk alllllll day on Sunday and it was awesome. I'm thankful for the car we have, but I enjoy walking!
Anyway, sorry this weeks email is kinda lame, but thats all, folks! I love y'all and I send my love your way every day!! Be happy and look for the good in every day! :D
Love,
Sister Harshaw
Trying to help a less active member quit smoking. Not sure if this will help, or not:)
Super excited about the blood moon/eclipse. Well, I am anyway;)
