Hello family! this week was a
great one! I wrote down in my journal every night and planned on typing what I
wrote so that I wouldn't forget anything. Well.... Guess who forgot their
journal.... :/ But I still remember quite a bit! I will do my best to try to
remember the details! But there was so much that happened this week that I
don't think I will be able to remember everything. Sorry... :)
I love the new truck! I think that I
will look great behind the wheel of it. ;) But the biggest thing that has been
on my mind is this virus that's going around. I know that in Utah, we are safer
because we are farther away but we need some sort of a plan just in case things
go south. I want you to know, (And I have prayed harder for this not to happen
than anything else I've ever prayed for) that if someone from the family gets
sick, I want to come home. I couldn't handle being out here while someone I
love is failing. I know this is a grim subject but I want to make sure that we
are all on the same page just in case anything like this were to happen. I will
continue to pray that this doesn't have to be an option but this is the option
I want to take if it comes to choosing staying here or going home. What are
your thoughts? I need to know what you think would be best for us as a family,
not just for me.
Now off of that terrible subject, and
onto my great week!
Tuesday was going to be a slow day.
We didn't have a lot planned and the little that we did wasn't very time
efficient. But we were trying very hard to come up with something productive to
do and to set appointments but there was nothing coming to mind and no one was
home. Well, our low tire pressure light in our truck was on again and I felt
like we should check it out. We had to go buy a tire pressure gauge and
realized the tire that we had fixed last week was still losing lots of air. So
we took it in and explained the situation. They took a closer look at it and
said that it was a good thing that we brought it in because there was a lot of
wear they hadn't noticed before on both front tires and both needed to be
replaced very badly. They showed where the wear was and sure enough, it was
pretty bad and could have, supposedly, blown out if we hadn't replaced it. This
was one of my first times realizing the stupor of thought when we were trying
to plan and we couldn't think of anything. If we had appointments, we wouldn't
have got our tire fixed!
After we got the tire fixed, we were
trying to find someone to visit and Elder Gilson asked if we should go visit
the Beals. Loa Beals is the one that you've talked to about my nick name being
Sebastian, remember? :) Anyway, we made our way to their house and right as we
got there, they were just about to leave and asked us to come with them (Loa
looked really concerned so we didn't ask any questions). So we drove behind
them to Taylor Freeze where we dropped off her daughter for work, then pulled
into the Library's parking lot. She said that just about an hour earlier, her
and her kids were swimming and Jacob, the second youngest, cut his foot on
something and they were on their way to the doctors. Something you should know
about the Beals is the only time their kids go to the hospital is for when they
break a bone and when they were born. They firmly believe in being able to
provide for themselves without having to go to the doctors. So this was
obviously something bigger than just a little scrape. He showed us his right
foot and on the inside of his foot, just below his ankle, he had a cut about 4
inches long. It was so deep that you could see the layer of fatty tissue (which
is about 3 layers down) coming through the cut. She wanted him to have a
blessing before they left. This was an answer to her prayers. As they were
leaving their house, she really wanted him to have a blessing and that's when
we showed up! It was an awesome miracle! Jacob had to get stitches and is on
crutches but is recovering a lot faster than anticipated! Power of the
Priesthood! :)
Thursday we were trying to plan out
Giovani's baptism, which was this Saturday. We definitely procrastinated and
the time we asked for to schedule the Building, 5 p.m., was already taken by
another ward. So we had to do a lot of scurrying and rushing to make sure the
Gibbons could do 4 instead, which they said they wouldn't have an answer till
the next morning. The only problem was I was going on exchanges with our
district leader and would be leaving the area. Elder Gilson told me that he would
take care of everything, and he did! He got it set up and called a BUNCH of
people from the ward to come too. The only bad thing was, Elder
Gilson forgot to call the baptismal planners in the ward (mostly
because he didn't know we had baptismal planners called in the ward). When
we talked to them on Thursday, we told them 5 because we hadn't found out the
building wasn't available until after we talked to them. Well, Elder Gilson
didn't tell them it was changed to 4... So we show up on Saturday at the
Stake Center at 3:15 and NO ONE IS THERE!! We don't have keys to the stake
center to fill the font ourselves and the 3 people that have keys (that we know
of at least) weren't answering their phones! We called each person about 15
times and no one answered... We drove to our bishop's house and to his
counselors house but no one was home or they didn't have keys. So we were kinda
freaking out when we saw it was 3:45 and we didn't have keys to let anyone into
the building let alone fill the font. As we are drive around frantically, we
see one of the stake presidency members walking out to their car. We drove up
and explained our situation and he could obviously see that we were having a
melt-down so he gave us his keys. He told us though that the font takes at
least 45 minutes to fill.... We sped over to the church and started filling
the font and right as we turned the water on, people started showing up. So
here we are, freaking out that the font won't be ready till 4:30 and there is
another scheduled baptism at 5 so we couldn't wait till then. By 4:05, we only
had it about 1/3 of the way full and the room was packed... Our ward
mission leader waited until 4:10 to start but 5 minutes wasn't going to make a
whole lot of a difference. We decided to keep the water running until the talk
was over then we'd go in and us as much water as was in the font to do the
baptism. This is where Elder George and Elder Cunningham saved us. They
basically took matters into their own hands and while the baptism was going,
they were in the back, filling up mop buckets, and dumping them into the font!
They filled up 8 buckets worth, which is about 80 gallons of water! Right as
the speaker finished her talk, we stood up and turned the water off. When we
opened the doors to the font, it was perfect! The water was the exact height
and the perfect temperature. It was a miracle! The baptism was great and very
spiritual. There was so much stress going into that baptism but peace filled
the room as Giovani came up out of the water. It was absolutely amazing! Plus,
we learned why not to procrastinate. :)
Also on Saturday, just before the
baptism, we went out to Bylas to visit our investigators. We drove to Dean and
Shawna's house first but they weren't home. As we were going to our next investigator,
we thought we saw them drive past. So we said we'd go back after we visited
Keith Pike. Keith wasn't home either so we went back to Dean's but they weren't
home again. So we started driving to Shawnie's and again, we thought we saw
Shawna drive past us. We said we'd go back after Shawnie. Well, Shawnie wasn't
home so we drove back to Dean's and they still weren't home! So we started to
go to Marina's and we waved at Shawna as she drove past, we said we'd go back
after Marina's cause we were already in her driveway. But Marina had family
over and couldn't meet with us. So we went back one last time to Dean and
Shawna's house and still, no one was home... We didn't understand it! We saw
them 3 times, we know we did! But no one was home. We saw across the street, a
neighbor working on his car. We casually walked over and started up a
conversation with this gentleman and offered our help. His name is Kirby. He
declined but kept talking with us. Turns out, he is a less-active member who
has been contemplating coming back to the church! "Coincidence, I THINK
NOT!!!" (Quoted from 'The Incredibles'). After about 20 minutes, he asked
us to go see his brother, Randall. Randall is also a less-active member and was
just in a terrible car accident about 2 months ago. He, his wife, and his 3
kids were drive out of Bylas to head for Tucson for vacation. There was an 18
year old boy, texting and driving, coming in the opposite direction. This boy
slowly merged to the right shoulder and hit the bumps to warn you that your
drifting and over corrected. He hit Randalls truck head on with his own truck.
Randall suffered a shattered hip, shattered knee, broken foot, broken ribs, and
a broken collar bone. His wife and 3 kids passed away on impact.... Randall has
since moved out of his home and in with this parents to help him recover from
the surgeries he's had to go through. The ward had no idea where he moved to
and no number to get ahold of him on. He received a blessing in the hospital
but had wanted one for the mental anguish and pain he was suffering though.
Because our appointments out in Bylas fell through, because we went back 4
times to Dean and Shawna's house, and because we talked with everyone around
us, we were able to find Randall and give him the blessing that he needed. I
don't know why bad things happen to good people, but I know that we as members
of the church can be instruments in the Lord's hands to help those people we
need love most. The Lord knows best and Randall realized that but he was still
questioning "Why?". I don't remember one thing that was said in that
blessing, but I do know that Randall received his answer.
The biggest lesson I've learned this
week is never second guess whether a thought is coming from you or from the
Holy Ghost. Even if you don't know why you need to go talk to this person or
take that road to work even though it may take a little longer. There is no
reason for any of us not to follow those promptings. I urge you guys, all of
you, to covenant with your Father In Heaven to follow those promptings. Pray
for the inspiration to know when those promptings come and use every
opportunity to build your faith and your testimony.
I love you all so much. Thank you for
your emails and your prayers. I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our
prayers. I love you.
~Elder Kyle Harris
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