Hello, friends!!
So! We got our transfer news this week and guess what! I get to stayyyyyy! And better yet, I GET TO KEEP SISTER BALL AS MY COMPANIONNNN!!! I've never kept one of my trainees more than one transfer! I get to raise this one to maturity!! :'-) And this is going to be my very last area!! With that being said, we've been asked to tell our people to send any and all Christmas packages directly to us, not to the mission office. BUT. I'll be home the week after Christmas, so I'd actually appreciate it if y'all would send any and all Christmas packages to my HOMEEE. I don't wanna have to pack up a million more things that I already have. So with that being said, my home address is this:
Kelsie Harshaw
541 Round Hollow Lane
Southlake, TX. 76092
I don't know how its already Christmastime again, but I love it. It is by far my favorite time of the year. WOOO!
This week has been great!! Sister Ball and I have kinda been feeling like we haven't seen much progression in our area since we arrived here. But this week we received two stellar referrals from total strangers of people who are about ready to be baptized! One is a girl named Kelly. She is 26 and has had a hard life, to say the very least. She wants to develop a relationship with Christ and rid herself of past problems. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes, but due to some unique circumstances we can't give her a baptismal date at the moment. We are super excited to be teaching her and hope to be able to help her feel Heavenly Father's love for her!
Other than that, its been another great week out in the field! Sorry my emails are getting more and more boring.. Oh well! Y'all love me anyway! (;
Hope everything is lovely for my favorite people! Be happy and do something amazing this week!
Love,
Sister Harshaw
*************************************************************************
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Helloooo, loved ones! This week has been so weird, but SO good! Miracles are pouring in and we are finally seeing the light in this area! It was an interesting week, that is for sure. We taught veryyyyyyyy few lessons this week. We knocked a million and a half doors and no one wanted to talk to us and almost all of our scheduled appointments fell through. If our success were to be determined solely off of our numbers, this week would not be a very successful one!! BUT we saw miracles galore and we are finallyyyyy going to start seeing some progression this week!
The biggest miracle of the week was a woman named Denise. We received a referral from church headquarters on Thursday of a lady living in our area named Denise. The message told us that she referred herself and that she wanted us to call and schedule an appointment with her! But.. there was no phone number and no valid address attached to the message..... They gave us her apartment complex, but no apartment number. We spent a goooooood chunk of time just knocking doors in her building asking for Denise or if they knew who she was, but got nothing positive. Hahaha, pardon my immature TV show reference, but I felt like Spongebob in that episode where Squidward moves to that weird squid resort place and they can't find the real Squidward anywhere, so they just walk up to random squids and say, "Are you Squidward?? Are youuuuu Squidward?" hahaha ANYWAY We asked the manager and she couldn't help us, so we determined that the only thing that we could do would be to pray that Denise would somehow get a hold of us! We prayed and asked Heavenly Father for help, had our ward mission leader see if he could look her up online, and just about every other thing we could think of, but got nothing. We determined that we would write a letter to her and see if her complex would just deliver it. Well, on Saturday morning right before we were going to write that letter, we got a phone call from a random number. The lady on the other line said, "Hi! My name is Denise! I'm not a member of your church, but I want to learn more! I had been talking to missionaries online and they said they would give my information to you, but I hadn't heard anything so I just called Salt Lake and asked for your phone number." Sister Ball and I had to spend a minute picking our jaws up off the floor, and then Denise went on to say, "I've been around Mormons my whole life and I love them. I've reached a point in my life where I just really want to deepen my relationship with Christ and I want to find a sense of family. I know that the Mormons have that and I want to be a part of it. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do any of that. Can you please come meet with me on Wednesday??" So, we set up an appointment and we'll be meeting with her this Wednesday! MIRACLES, I TELL YA.
Our ward has been doing a 40 Day Fast for missionary work and we have been seeing SO many blessings since they started it. Denise is actually one of FOUR amazing referrals we've received out of the blue from church headquarters since they started two weeks ago. I honestly think that all the time leading up to this week has been a trial of our faith. We have seen almost no progression in our work here, despite all of our hard work, and now we have ten set appointments with people this week, six of which are with investigators. TEN. We haven't taught that many lessons in a week since we got here! I know that the Lord provides for our best efforts, and I have gained a stronger testimony of that this week!
This is the Lord's work, and he just loves us enough to let us be a part of it. I love my calling as a missionary whether we are teaching up a storm or having every door we knock slammed in our faces. There is so much joy in being a part of the Lord's great work.
I hope that you are all having as happy of a week as I am! OH. And THANK YOU TIMES A MILLION AND THEN SOME TO THE SOUTHLAKE WARD YOUNG WOMEN FOR THE PACKAGE!!! It made my day more than I can say!!! It also took me a minute to figure out who was who in the picture y'all sent because you're all so stinking grown up! What the heck, friends!
Anyway, I love y'all bunches and bunches. Smile big. (:
Sister Harshaw
**************************************************************************
NOVEMBER 21, 2016
Hello, loved oned! How is everybody?
SO. Today is the first day of my LAST SIX WEEKS as a missionary! It blows my mind that time has gone as fast as it has. I seriously feel like I just got here. Like I was JUST in the MTC. And now it's all almost over???? What the heck! Its kind of a weird thing to think about. I've been on such a spiritual high since I got here and I'm about to have to go back to real life. As excited as I am, its also super super weird! Time flies, ladies and gentlemen. Really and truly.
This week has been so great! This 40 Day Fast that the ward is doing is producing some serious miracles. For one, Denise, the one I talked about last week, is just as awesome as we thought she would be! We met with her on Wednesday and holy moly, she is PREPARED. She was so receptive to everything that we taught and we're going to see her get baptized for sure. We left her with some things to read from the Book of Mormon and she texted us back within two hours of us leaving and said, "I just finished my assignment!! Can you come back sooner than we planned??" She is so great. I'm excited to keep teaching her and we're planning on having her on date for baptism by the end of the week, so stay tuned!!
OH. We had the first snowfall of the season this week............ I know I should be grateful that it started so late, but WOW I am not a fan of snow. Or the cold. It was 78 degrees on Wednesday and then 28 degrees and snowing on Thursday. How yucky is that?? It's warmed up quite a bit again since then, but I think the realllllll warm that I love is gone for the year. Boooooo. I will survive though!
(this face is how Sister Harshaw feels about snow)Other than that, this week has been lovely! We're seeing miracles galore and this ward is taking SUCH good care of us. I'm super excited for Thanksgiving here!! I love this time of year. I'm so thankful to be on a mission and to be gaining all of the life experience that I am. I'm thankful for all the people in my life and I'm thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love y'all and hope you have the happiest of Turkey Days!!!
Love,
Sister Harshaw
************************************************************************
NOVEMBER 28, 2016
Well hellooooooooo, my friends!! This week has been SO great! I love Thanksgiving and enjoyed getting to spend it in the service of the Lord!
This week has been seriously awesome. We are continuing to meet with Denise and she continues to be fantastic! She is progressing and we will be putting her on date to be baptized this week. The Lord really does provide for all of your efforts! The 40 Day Fast that our ward is doing is bringing soooooooooo many miracles. We received yet ANOTHER referral from church headquarters this week of a lady named Rocky. The referral said that she lived next to missionaries in Arizona, that she is golden, and that we needed to contact her ASAP! Unfortunately she is sick, but she was so excited when we called her and we will be seeing her next week. Just to put this whole 40 Day Fast into perspective, I have never received a valid referral from church headquarters up until a few weeks ago when the ward began their fast for missionary work. We've received FOUR now, and they are all amazing!!! Oh! And Michael and Terra, some investigators that we couldn't get in contact with for the longest time agreed to be baptized! Andddddd some other awesome investigators just had an active member of the church randomly (except for not at all) move into their apartment with them!! The Lord's hand is soooo evident in our work here!!
We spent Thanksgiving at our ward mission leader's house and it was so great. When you're away from your family you kind of adopt the members of your ward as your mission grandparents, parents, siblings, etc. and the Andersons are DEFINITELY adoptive mission grandparents. We sure love serving in this ward. They are soooooo so so good to us.
SO. Want to know the craziest news of all from this week?? Welllllll lemme tell you!! Last night we were in our car driving to go meet someone when we got a call from President Gifford. We pulled over and I answered and he said, "Hi, Sister Harshaw. Is Sister Ball there too? I need to discuss something with you both." WHICH IS A TERRIFYING THING TO HEAR FROM YOUR MISSION PRESIDENT. He then proceeded to tell us that we will be getting another companion tomorrow!!! Her name is Sister Nicoleta, and she is coming to us straight from the Philippians!! She was originally assigned to this mission, but has been serving in the Philippians for the past six months while she waited for her visa to come.. Well it finally came!! President said that he felt good about her coming to our area and that it'd make perfect sense considering I'll be going home three weeks into a seven week transfer. SO. I get to spend the last five weeks of my mission in a trio! Its going to be such an adventure!!! We'll being going to pick her up from the mission home tomorrow evening and Sister Ball and I are so excited!
SO. That has been my week, ladies and gentlemen!! I am absolutely loving my time here and I am getting so stinkin excited to see all of you again!!! Keep on keepin' on and smile big!!
Love lots and lots,
Sister Harshaw
No comments:
Post a Comment