January 3, 2017 Seems like i havent written since last year..

Hello everybody! Honestly not too much happened this week.. I have a new companion, Elder Oiuzan Bi is from the Ivory Coast! At first i was kind of scared becuse i have heard different things about him, but this past week was such a fun week with him! We worked hard, and had lots of fun doing it! 

New years was crazy here! Some people call mycity the city of fire, because people just set everything on fire! Also there were a lot of Voodoo sacrifices.. So fire everywhere, and dead animals in front of most houses..

This last friday was a little brutal.. A few weeks ago i found an infection in my arm. Just like a marble under my skin on my right bicep, armpit area. I took medication for about a week, and nothing hapened, so they decided that it had to be removed.. So on friday at the hospital, i laid onthe bed, and watched as they cut into my arm, cut it out, and stitched it back together. And worst of all, they didnt feel it was necessary to numb me.. So, lets just say i may have shed a tear or two! But i think its gettng better! I cant sleep on my side, i cant move my arm fast, and i cant even lift my arm above my head.. But the pain is actually gettng a little bit better each day so thats nice! 

Thats pretty much all that happened this week, but i would like to end off with a very short testimony. Have any of you ever read Ether chapter 12..? well, if not, do it. Its one of those chapters you could read hundreds of times, and learn something new every time! It is the prophet ether talking, and sharing what he knows about faith. Faith is the first necessity of this church. Without it, its impossible to be saved. But with i, there is not a thing in this world that is impossible. Have faith, believe that Christ will always be there for you. Have faith, and love God. Because all things work together for good to those who love God. (Romans 8: 28)

Thank you all for the prayers an support, i love you all. 

Elder Harris 

p.s. Happy Birthday this past week Kyle!! I love you so much Buddy!

This is like a dress, kinda shirt thingy that i got to wear! It weighed almost 50 pounds! 

This is my new companion! 

Me and Elder Uaua decided to match our Boomba Shirts 

We got to go to the beach yesterday!  

Decembe 27, 2016 I dont know what to write for a subject..

Wow. What an insane week! So much happened, but i dont have tons of time to write today!

Last wednesday we had a big mission christmas party! We woke up super early, and went to a big service project. We sanded, and painted a whole house! I was on roof duty, so i got to basically mop with paing so it was really fun! After, we all got claned up and changed, and we went to this erally nice resturant on the beach! The table that i sat at was probably 30 yards from the crashing waves! so it was a very nice place to eat! We ate, and then all of the different zones sang, and then our president talked to us for a long time. Then they gave us presents so that was nice! Plus, my president got me a personal present for some reason. He pulled me off to the side, and gave me a very nice black and blue Manning Colts jersey!! I couldnt believe it!

Also, i dont know if you remember, but this sunday was christmas! We got to baptise A man and his wife on sunday morning! So that was a very great christmas gift for me and my companion! After church, we met with all of the missionaries in our zone and had a big lunch together. Then i had to wait until sunday night to skype with my family because of the time difference! But it went very well i thiought! It wasnt super good connection, but i got to talk with my amazing family! Tosh was there, and i even got to meet my little nephew for the first time! Overall,  twas a great christmas day!

Today we got to go to a small zoo! We got to hold monkeys, and baby aligators! Elder Uaua got a little too close to one of the baboons and he somehow got his shoes off of his feat and ripped them up! The got about inches away from a full grown lion too! They would put big branches in his little cage and he would totally rip thel up!! Then the owner would stick his hand in the cage, and smack him in the face!! He would get so close to getting bitten every time, but never did!  

Lastly, i got a new companion! Elder Ouizan Bi! He is from the Ivory Coast, and he is a cool guy! I actually dont know him very well, because ive been with him for about an hour. But he seems really nice, and ready to work!

I hope everyone had a great christmas, and will have a great New Years! I hope that you all remember the real reason of christmas, and the whole reason of everything really! Without Christ, there would be no point to anything. This season i invite you to try and grow closer to your family, and the ones who you love. Je vous aime beaucoup.

Elder Harris

this is us at our service project on wednesday! 

This was at the beach that we ate at

This was at the beach that we ate at

We went to the zoo and we got as close as ou can get to a lion! 

this is the baby aligator. I had to hold it by his neck like this because he wasnt too nice.. 

This is one of the monkeys! Also not very nice.. thats why i had to hold him like this too. 

One of the snakes i got to hold

This is the lion again! The guy kept hitting him!!

this is a gorilla head.. kinda creepy

Got to pet an aligator too! Very fun and scary!

December 12, 2016 PICS

This is us and our mission president! 

These are our neighbors, and we helped them make this food called Iniam Pillé

we found ice cream!!! This bowl was about 13 dollars.. 

Beautiful african sunsets

my new boomba shirt

December 12, 2016 The Lord works in his own time

Bonjour tout le Monde! What an amazing week. But like the subject of this email, the lord works in his own time! As you may have known, i have had Malaria, and with prayers, and even more prayers, i woke up thursday morning feeling so much better! And am happy to say that i am no longer sick! Thank you everyone for the prayers and support.

Ever since i got better, i have eaten so much! Seriously i dont think that i have ever eaten this much in my whole life! But as much as i have eaten, i lost a lot of weight too! Just over 10 pounds actually.. so there goes the little muscle that i had!

This week was also pretty strange because of the power.. Last monday at about 3 am the power in the whole city got shut off. And it didnt come back on until saturday afternoon!! I wish no light was the worst part, but the worst part is no fans! Sleeping is impossible, so we slept on our balcony for 5 straight nights! Also no power, means no fridge.. Which means all food ruined. But theres actually a lot of good things with the power being out! The best thing is the stars are unreal beautiful! I get to sleep outside, and look at billions of beautiful stars with no light poloution, so that might be worth it!

Last small thing; Last week we found a random rooster on our balcony.. hes huge! And he was my new alarm clock. We actually became pretty good friends too. I mean, i never touched him, or got close to him cause i didnt want to get even more sick. But i considered him a friend i guess! Saturday rolled around, and i didnt hear him.. so i went out to go check on him but by the time i got there, it was too late.. The African Elders had Killed and Skinned him.. R.I.P. Chuck the chicken.

Well, now for the best part of a mission. We have been working really hard on 2 people. Brother Jacque, and Sister Martine! And BOTH of them were able the enter the waters of baptism this week!! They were so great, and after, both of them gave amazing testimonies that i couldnt help but cry through.I was also able to baptise a little girl named Gracie. She is a friend of ours, and her parents let her get baptized!

I am so grateful for the people that the lord has put in my life. Here, and at home. If you are reading this, you have made an impact on my life, and i love you. I am so thankful for my amazing investigators here. The only sad thing about baptizing someone is i wont be able to teach them as much now! But they will always be my best friends.

I love you all, thank you for the prayers and support. The Lord and i love you so much.

Elder Harris

P.S. Congrats to Tosh for getting accpeted to go to Thailand!! Youre going to do amazing kiddo (;

December 5, 2016 Malaria. Part 2

Honestly not much happened this week. If you didnt know yet, last week i got Malaria, and i have had it for about 13 days now.. Ive been talking to my presidents wife a lot, taking new medicine. She told gave it to me last wednesday, and said it would take about a week to actually heal, so hopefully i can get back up on my feet this week!

Being sick on a mission is hard for a few reasons. Yeah fevers and throwing up is hard, but its very mentally hard also.. Sitting in bed, not being able to work a lot, is very hard. But i am doing the best i can, and not letting satan getting to me!

The other thing that happened this week, is there was an emergency transfer in our district. I wont say his name, But an elder in our district had to be let go off of the mission.. And he will be greatly missed because he was a very close friend to me, and i hope the best in life for him!

Okay, now to the stuff that actually matters.

Even though it wasnt much, we got to teach a little this week! Jacque is doing amazing. He Loves the gospel so much, and learns it faster than we can teach it! Hes loving the book of mormon, and has a million questions about it: His Baptism date is for this saturday, so i pray that everything works out well! 

Im sorry my email is so short this week! Kind of a really slow week for us.. But there was a few funny things that happened! 3 different times this week, i got calls from American Elders in the mission asking me to cut theyre hair! I had never even met 2 of them! And one of them lives almost an hour away! So, i dont know why everyone wants me to cut theyre hair all of the sudden, but i guess im the new Missionary barber!

The last funny thing this week, is i was laying in bed and there was a really loud chicken outside. Like really loud! So i went to go shut my window, and some how this huge Rooster got onto our balcony! We live in an apartment, on the 3rd story, about 35 feet off of the ground. How in the worlds did this huge rooster get there! Well nobody knows. But we named his Chuck, and we decided to keep him! One of the African Elders is planning on killing him and eating him, but i am not sure if i want to eat chuck..

I would like to share just a very small testimony really quick. I read this week in 3 Nephi and in chapter 19 verse 28 it talks about Jesus praying for the people. And i love that so much because that is proof that the Living Christ prays for us! He knows you, and he prays for you. By name. He only wants the best for you!

I love you all. Thank you for the support and prayers, i couldnt do this without you.

Elder Harris

November 28, 2016 Lots of ups, and little downs

Well, this week had a lot of good things, but some hard things too.. I will start out with the hard things first to get them over with. Tuesday night i couldnt sleep.. I had a high fever, so we went to the doctor the next day and sadly its Malaria.. i dont know how! i take medecine every single day to prevent it, and i even sleep under a net every night.. But, somehow i have it now! It basically means that im always cold; even when we walk around in the blazing heat, i feel freezing! I also have never sweat so much in my life.. i have head aches, thrown up a few times, and most of all i get really tired really fast.. But, it doesnt mean that i cant work! I just had to take things easy this week, and hopefully it can fade away this week..

One thing that has made these past few weeks is the missionaries that we live with..  I wish That the fact that they're dirty was the worst if it,  but it got serious this week..  The American Elder and my companion got into a yelling fight. The American Elder almost punched out my companion,  but luckily it was just yelling.  He said some very very rude things to my companion. Things I couldn't ever imagine a missionary saying!  But,  it is what it is.  Me and Elder Malala pray for them every morning and night,  so hopefully the lord can help them have the spirit in they're companionship..  Even though I disagree with most choices the other companionship makes,  I hope they Can learn to feel the spirit in theyre missions, and in theyre lives!

Okay! Even though w have had hardships, this week was so amazing! Me and my companion got invited to go to another church on friday night, so we went and it was so fun! We sang and danced, and yelled AMEN and HALLELUJAH at random times! I will never ever forget that experience!

This last week was also thanksgiving! So we left the sector just a little bit early so we could cook a huge dinner! We picked a bunch of chicken, and as we were walking to our house, our neighbor stopped us and asked why we had so much chicken! I went on to explain that it was a big day in america, and we wanted to eat a big dinner! He asked if he could come over to Celebrate with us and of course we said yes. But when he showed up, he had a 24 pack of some good ol Bud Lite.. We laughed, and began to explain that we dont drink alcohol, and while we cooked dinner, we taught him the Word of Wisdom! Now, him and his brother our now our newest investigators! They ended up leaving before dinner was even ready, so me and my companion ate way more than we should have that night! It was truly a night that i was grateful for everything i have..

Sunday was also a great day! We have been teaching this Mama in our area, andshe was ready for baptism! So after church on sunday i got the opportunity to do that! But we also had to do it 3 times... She was so scared to go all the way under the water! The first and second time i put her under the water, she flailed he body and we had to do it a third.. But its okay, i am so glad that it was finally done right!

This whole week me and my companion have been erally good at praying together as soon as we wake up, and right before we go to bed. We had some problems in the past, but we have been having so much fun working together! He has also been very good at Mothering me while i have been sick! Hes truly my best friend, and i hope we can work so hard for the last 4 weeks that we have together.

I just want to end off with a small testimony. I was able to give a talk on sunday about the book of mormon. i shared a quote that Elde Holland said "No wicked man could write such a book as this, and no good man would write it; unless it was true and he were comanded of God to do it"I hope everyone that reads this knows that i know with my whole heart that the Book of Mormon is true. I hope you do too.

Thank you all for the prayers. I couldnt do this without you! I love you all!

Elder Harris

November 21, 2016 Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! One really sad thing about Africa is i feel like they dont have holidays.. so we will just have to make the best of this thanksgiving! They do have christmas though, its very small, and not much happens but thats okay! Christmas in french is Noel, so thats kind of cool!

Not much happned this week.. On thursday it was pouring rain, but we had lessons, so we taught all day soaked! It was actually really fun, and felt soo good! But it gets super hot when it rains, becuase the clouds trap in all of the heat.. but no one could notice the sweat because i was already soaked! 

The one thing that is really hard for me here is the other missionaries.. They are just so crazy sometimes! But i like the people that i live with. I live with an elder from the Congo, and his companion is american! Theyre nice and i like them, but they re hard to live with sometimes.. i feel like i cant trust them most of the time. All of my food is stored in my closet becuase otherwise it gets stolen.. and we always have to lock our door when we leave just in case. its sad that i cant even trust missionaries sometimes.. But its okay! Maybe they just have a diferent dream of what a mission should be! Im learning to look past peoples differences, and accept them. Even though most of these missionaries arent even worthy to be here, im glad that they are here. I dont agree with a lot of the stuff they have done, and do every day here, but i am glad that they are out here serving! 

Teaching english is hard.. Im starting to realize how dumb english is! But its fun teaching the people, they want to learn so bad and i love it! 

The one really hard lesson to teach people here is tithing.. Because they are all so poor! We had a lesson with Jacque about tithing, and he had such a hard time understanding.. But we shared lots of scriptures, and both bore very strong testimonies, and the spirit testified to him that it was true! And by the end of the lesson; he was okay with tithing! Jacque is my favorite! I wish i could talk with him all day.. 

Even though tithing here is hard to teach, i love talking about it because it takes true faith to accept it. If you pay your 10 percent, whether its 1 dollar or 10,000 dollars, god will bless you the same! People here ask why.. why is tithing so important.. and i always ask them if they think god needs money! and obviously not, so why.. I think, that tithing is an obedience test. Heavenly father wants to know if you will give 10 percent for him! So if you dont know why we do things in the church, like drinking tea or coffee, or tattoos, or whatever it is, just be obedient. Do what the lord has commanded and he will bless you. I also love in Helaman 14 verses 29 and 30, it eplains that if we believ in christ, and love him we will be saved! Its all your choice 

If you really want to return back with Heavenly Father, then follow him! And if for some reason you dont, then you have no one else to blame but yourself. Choose to follow christ and you can have never ending happiness! Your salvation is in your hands. 

Im Thankful for you all this thanksgiving. Thank you all for the support, and love! 

Elder Harris 

1&2 This is Jacque, we are in front of his little store that he runs!