April 21, 2014

Hello Everyone!!! Man it seems like just yesterday I emailed you! You wouldn't think that a lot has happened in just 5 days but I have a lot to email and little time to do so! First and foremost,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK!!!! I am a little late but I get to pull the missionary card because I have only limited time I can email. I hope it was a good one! I think that makes you like 25, right? ;)

So I told you about District Meeting and Lalo Jr in my last email. What I didn't tell you happened after I finished emailing. We were riding our bikes home and Lalo Sr. called us. He said that he and his wife were really struggling to make meats end and that a church would just put more pressure on them that they didn't need. So they were going to hold off on coming back to church and they weren't going to baptize their kids.... I was devastated..... So I had brother Thomas call them and he said that they were serious. So I had Elder Mora call them and he said "yup..... They dropped ya bro...." I didn't know what to do. Lalo Sr. said we were welcomed back anytime but that he didn't want us preaching. So I just kinda put it off to the side for the day cause it kinda hurt inside... Bishop had said that this same thing happened in the past. He said that they kids had baptism dates and they were helping them with rent and once the time came for them to come to church and follow up on their commitments that they bailed out then too. So we finished up Wednesday with a few lessons to active members and got in around 8:30. It was a weird day...

Thursday we were walking everywhere just for kicks and giggles. We figured that we would have more success walking than biking because we would be able to talk to more people. So we needed to get some vise-grips for Elder Siglin. Like I said in my last email, he makes CHAIN MAIL!!! He literally bought 500 feet of wire that he wraps around a little rod then cuts it with a hack saw. It comes out into little rings, which he then puts together. He just finished part of the thumb for a glove. It is the toughest part so we celebrated with some cake that his parents sent us for his birthday, which was on the 13th. Anyway, we were walking home and heard someone yelling. So we turned around and it was a shirtless black guy waving his arms around in the air and running towards us. So we went over and talked to him. He said his name was Reese and he and his fiancé just moved here from St. Louis, Missouri with their 7 month old baby. He asked us if we were ministers for a Baptist church around here. We explained we were missionaries from our church and he said that he was looking for a church to attend here. He said that the church needed to be centered on families and have all the members be close and friends. Well how about that!! He took us to his apartment and introduced us to his fiance and his kid. We told him that we would stop by on Saturday to meet with him and his soon-to-be-wife. MIRACLE!!!!

Friday we went over to Lalo Sr.'s house to see how he was doing. We showed up and he was watching the new Superman movie. It was the last 5 minutes of the movie so we went into the kitchen where his wife, Stephanie, was making us food. They are always really good at knowing when we are going to show up! I swear that every time we have gone over there, they make us food. The movie finished and we ate our chorizo breakfast burritos. We sat down and asked him how he was feeling. He said that he was super stressed and the reason that he didn't want to come to church was because he didn't want to look like a hypocrite. We asked him if he though his family would ever look at him like a hypocrite and he said no. I explained that that is house the church is too. We are one giant family and we don't judge people at all. In fact, there would be more people excited to have him back than he could imagine. He said he wasn't sure so I asked him a question. "Do you believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true?" "I do brothers." he replied. I asked, "When we gave your son that Priesthood blessing, do you believe that it was done through the power of God and that he was healed." "I do brothers." he said again. After just sitting in silence for a second or two, he looked at us and said "Why would I go to any other church then? I mean when I wanted to get married to Stephanie, the brothers were there. When my youngest son was in the hospital, the only people that showed up were the brothers. When my daughter was in the hospital with a hole in her heart, the brothers came and blessed her and she was healed. When Lalo Jr. was in the hospital, the only people that showed up were the brothers. We need God in our lives and we need to make Sunday a day for God. There is no better place than the Church to go on Sundays. We will be there Sunday brothers." Wow.... Didn't expect that at all!!! He called his wife and kids into the room and told them they were going to church on Sunday. They were all super excited to go. So I jumped on that excitement and told them a little story. "If you were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and you couldn't see any land in any direction, how long would it take you before you gave up hope to get back to land? Pretty short, Right? But if you saw land out in the distance,  you would have the urge to give it everything you could to get to that goal to live right? Well without goals in our lives, that's how we are too. But with a goal, we put for the effort to make things happen. So lets make a goal for you as a family. Isaac and Korina (those are the kids) will you guys prepare to be baptized on the 10th of May? And Lalo and Stephanie, will you guys help prepare your kids to be baptized by getting them to church every week and praying as a family?" THEY SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They then invited us after church on Sunday to come to their house for an Easter party. Of course we said yes! What a miracle!

On Sunday, Lalo came to church!!! It was so great to have them there! After Sacrament meeting they needed to jet out but before they did, Bishop said he wanted to meet with them. They went in and were in there for about 30 minutes. They are struggling financially and so bishop said that by Wednesday, if they still needed help that they church would help them out. Sweet! So they left to go get ready for the party. The rest of Church was weird. In Priesthood, they just brought up a talk by Elder Oaks on their smart phone and put it next to the microphone for us to listen to. And that was it. It was a great talk but that isn't really how church should be, you know? There was no talking about the talk afterwards or discussion or anything. It was a great talk but I don't know if I really learned anything from it, you know? So after church, we went to Lalo's. It was a BLAST!!! They asked us to go outside and hide about 250 eggs for the kids to go find. There were 8 kids looking. It took us about 20 minutes to hide them all and about 3 minutes for them to find them. Ha! Gotta love kid's enthusiasm! They BBQ'd and it was delicious! All in all, it was a great Easter Sunday!

I love Elder Siglin! He is the bomb! :)

I love you all so much! Thank you for being so amazing! I LOVE YOU!!!

~Elder Kyle Harris

p.s. I go to the Temple on Wednesday this week. I just found out yesterday so SURPRISE!!! Our session starts at 10 :)