Thursday, November 28, 2013

Week 11 Humble, Control, and Transformation!

WHAT UP EVERYONE!!!!!! YOOOOO COLORADO!!! Ha ha ha I am so happy today! I have finally been able to seek how to be a great missionary!!  I have been working on a lot of things as well but everything is going great!!  I have a whole bunch of better insights on things!! I am so grateful to be on a mission!!

SO I have learned a lot about being humble. I can't tell you how amazing it is to be humble. I am working very hard that it will stay that way as well! I am trying to be humble but confident and not prideful and cocky. I love being humble because it means you are at a state of mind where you can learn what is happening to you, why it is happening, why it needed to happen and what I need to do now! I love being humble! It just makes everything even better!! I bet it is really un-humble to say that I am being humble! But I am! I am learning about a mission and finally getting into the groove of things. But the moment you think you are fine, you are not! So I am just going to say that I am still working on it!! Ha ha ha I just feel like this week is going to be a great week! I am stoked!

I have a lot of faith going into it and I am ready to work! I understand how to be a great missionary and what is a successful missionary. When I came out on the mission I was really focused on the numbers which is so sad, Preach My Gospel says that a successful missionary is measured by your commitment; to find, and teach. So I now understand why we use numbers in the mission field. It is to measure the commitment that a missionary has. It was never about the numbers! It’s about your commitment. What am I doing to be a better missionary each day and I have figured that out and am excited to go to work now!

I have learned about controlling the things you can control and don’t worry about what you can't control! Because you can't control whether a person wants to learn more or not, so don't worry about it. At least you planted a seed and did what you could. :)


The mission is awesome. The mission is where I learn how to live life, this is where I serve, this is where I help, this is where I have faith, learn, be humble, work hard, develop charity and love, patience and trust in the Lord. That is the way to live life! THIS IS A TRANSFORMATION. Do not take things for granted and just love and serve. I am so happy! Thank you for all of your prayers and everything. Even though the work hasn't happened much YET! It is going to, I can just feel it! I love you all so much (: <3

-- 
Love,


Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Monday, November 18, 2013

Church was full of Spectacular, Zone Conference, Perseverance and Motivational Thanks to All!

Hey everybody! :) How are you all!?? I am doing okay! This week was definitely a humbling experience once again! It was kind of rough because we had a whole bunch of meetings; and every meeting was different, and kind of confused me but I really learned a lot. I am starting to learn how hard a mission really is but I am also starting to learn how rewarding it is as well.

We had 6 non-members at church this week which was pretty spectacular! Ha ha ha and they were all interested and really happy to be there. It was a really good Sunday! Because one of the non-members that we met, have a little 10 year old boy who randomly found the Book of Mormon and started reading it and he wanted to go to church! He loves the primary program! It’s so fun for him. So, basically a 10 year old boy is bringing his family to church. The dad is super nice and a really good guy; he has another child, a 9 year old daughter, I think. But the sad thing is that he doesn't live in our area :( He lives in the area covered by another set of Elders in our ward; so they are going to go teach him which is awesome! We are all on the same team! :) Love helping out anyone. :)

This week we had a Zone Conference. A Zone Conference is when all the missionaries of Aurora, Arvada and Parker come together and meet with our Mission President together. I learned some good things. The most important thing I took away is obedience... It’s what will really bring miracles and I need to be doing more than what I did back home preparing for a mission because I am on one!

So like if you really want to be a good missionary you got to really be obedient and giving it your all in just about everything. Back home I was doing a lot of scripture study and just trying to learn everything I can before coming out to the field.  Which will definitely help later on, but right now I am still kind of getting into the groove of being a missionary. So back home I was at my happiest point of my life, preparing for a mission and it was really great and fun… I was doing enough to be happy in the world, I learned how to teach lessons and stuff, but I didn't really learn how to talk to people all that well, like real quick on the street. But now I need to do be doing more because I am in a mission field. It is a completely different environment from back home.

So yeah, If I want to be a great missionary; I must be doing everything a great missionary is doing. This is going out every day with no regrets. Because right now I kind of feel like I am back home in high school in basketball.  You see before, I was already pretty good naturally; then everyone else started to work harder after their talent couldn't support them anymore… That’s what I need to do now. I prepared, that was my talent. I know that I have talents and gifts, and now I really just need to work on the talents and gifts more. Because talents can fail anyone, when you do not put in the hard work behind them. There is a John Wooden quote on that, I cannot really remember it all that well but when talent ceases to work. That’s when hard work comes in. That’s perseverance. So I am going to be trying to work harder and more, and just go out with some, no regrets. Can't be scared, just got to try and try again. I got to apply now. I have learned and now it’s time to get to applying.


I need all your help though. I love when you guys send the motivational quotes or just great things that help out in life. So please just keep supporting and encouraging. I thank you all so much for your prayers and all your help. I am going to do better and I want you all to push me as well! So yeah that is my weekly update for you guys!
Thanks for all you do and love you all so much (:

-- 
Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

1250 Main street

Broomfield CO, 80020

Monday, November 11, 2013

Week 9: First Lesson, Zone Conference on Love of Christ and Faith

Y’all are saying I have been out like two months and its scary! AH!!! I can't believe it!! I have been out for a full 6 weeks in Colorado and two weeks in the MTC!!! Its nuts!!! This week was super interesting. We had another zone meeting and I had my first lesson with a person that was interested in the church. The sad thing is she only came down from Aurora to just have one lesson. It went okay, we learned what we could do better the next day and I just love doing an alright job and then really learning what you can do better. She lives out of our area so we cant really teach them everything and to make news even worse. All my pictures got deleted! AH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH oh my gosh. :(((((((((((((((((((((( dang it. I am sooooooo frustrated!!! Ha ha ha I only had about like 60.. :(My goodness. But I did figure out a way to make my pictures smaller so I can email them! So yeah that’s always good :) But dang it!
Anyway, this week was a little hard towards the end. It started out really good! We had another zone meeting and it was really good. We kind of lost our focus for trying to get 42 baptisms by the end of December. We just focused so much and we kind of forgot the whole reason why we were trying to get 42 baptisms. We were shooting for 42 baptisms because we wanted to give Christ a gift. More people to come unto Him and for the people to get to know how amazing Christ was and I took away two things from that meeting. This is why I am really glad I went to institute and had amazing teachers to show me all those things. It really made an impact in the meeting. I remembered the scripture account of Christ on the shore after he died and went to see his disciples. They were fishing at night and Christ was talking to Peter on the shore. It is in the account of John. This is when Christ asks Peter if he loved him three times and Peter says, “Yes”. But what is so interesting about this story is that he asks, “Do you love me?” three times and it might not make sense why he asked him three times. Peter answers each time and says he did love him, but it does make sense in Greek. In English there is one word for love but has different meanings; I love you as a friend, I love you as my brother and I love you; like I care about you a lot and I would do anything for you type of love. It is really interesting that we say, “I love you”, but sometimes we don't know what type of love it is. But in Greek there are three types of love. The New Testament original translation is from Greek.
So there are three types of love in Greek but they mean different types of love. Eros is one of them and that means an intimate, romantic type of love. The next one is Philia; it is a brotherly love, love of a friend. Then Agape, it is a love that means that I love you more than anything, a selfless love. What is so interesting is putting the Greek translation near the English scriptures. So in the Greek account, Christ asks Peter. "Dost thou agape me?" so in English basically Christ is saying. Peter do you love me more than anything? Then Peter says unto him, "Lord thou knowest that I philia you" "Then feed my sheep." then Christ says again unto Peter; "Peter dost thou agape me?" and Peter says unto Christ... "Lord thou knowest that I philia you"... then the last time that Christ asks Peter if he loved him, he says; “Simon Peter, dost thou philia me?” and Peter says unto Him, “Lord, thou knowest that I philia you.”
Christ has an agape love for everyone and it’s really hard as humans to understand that love. That’s why Peter said philia to Christ because he could not understand the love that Christ was inferring. But what is so cool about this story is that Christ, is a God of love. He comes down to our level of our love and He takes what we give Him. Even though he loves us more than anything, because He loves us so much that He wants to just be a part of what we have and just wants all the love that we can give Him. I told the zone that in the meeting of all the missionaries in the Parker area, I told them that Christ always takes what we give Him. We need to stop focusing on a number to accomplish and focus on the best of the love we can offer to the people and what the best we can offer to Christ because He has given so much back to us. So all of the missionaries realized just do the absolute best you can at all times and in all things and He will take it.
Now obviously Love is important to have but really make that love strong in Christ. We must have faith in Him.
I remember another scripture account of Peter with Christ walking on the water. This is probably the coolest thing that I have learned this week, about faith. I will show you the greatest and prime example of faith, and faith in Jesus Christ. So the apostles saw Christ walking on the water and Christ saw that they were afraid and He said to be of good cheer, it is I. BE NOT AFRAID. Then Peter said Lord if it be thou, Bid me to come unto you and He said "Come" So Peter walked out on to the sea; to go to Jesus. So now you are probably thinking; “Wow, he is about to walk on water…” No, he is walking on the water. What incredible faith? Nope, that is the least amount of faith in the section of scripture. I am sure that it took some faith and trust in Christ for the Lord to say, “Come”. Now I relate that to our time. The lord is never going to give something we can't handle, especially when He says COME. But going back to faith; what is faith? Ether 12:6 says, “I would show unto the WORLD! that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen.” Peter sees Christ walking on the water. Christ has said "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed ye shall be able to move mountains." Why is such little faith required to do such a big thing? The size of a mustard seed is so incredibly small. Do you see the relation of actually how small the amount of faith he had to do a marvelous and huge thing? Walking on water; moving a mountain. I can't do that, but that is not a trial of faith or at least a big one because He saw Christ walking on water. And faith is a thing which you cannot see but you hope for to be true. So now I am going to show you the real example of faith, and the real trial of faith.
"But when He saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and was beginning to sink." See that right there is another example of how small the faith was to walk on water. Faith and fear cannot exist in the same place and at the same time, and you also notice that he lost his focus on Christ. Wind in our day is the same as it is back then. Satan was working really hard on Peter in that time. One of Satan’s biggest tools is doubt, discouragement, fear..... It is one of the strongest tools that Satan has and will not sell for anything. So, back to the wind; wind is not a huge thing but it can cause so much of a distraction. Small distractions are enough of a distraction for us to lose our faith and focus on Christ. Like when we are doing homework and we get distracted by a cell phone. When we lose our focus on Christ we begin to sink. When we get scared, we begin to sink. You know why? Because the fear of something is worse than the thing you're actually scared of. "The Fear of failure is worse than the failure itself."
The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. Because the mind is so powerful, I am telling you that we are living far below our privileges. Look back to Christ and Peter walking on the water, we already established that Peter had just a small amount of faith, enough to walk on water. So what was the other side of his mind filled up with so that He could walk on water? He probably KNEW THAT HE COULD DO IT! Because he saw Christ was already doing it. Will power is sometimes all you need, just the power to believe that you can and you will. Or he was focused on Christ so much and he just wanted to be with him. So I am now going to show you the real example of faith. IT IS SO COOOL!! When he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid and beginning to sink, He cried, saying, “Lord, Save me." if you haven’t figured it out yet. The real example of faith here is when we are just down on our luck; when we are in our time of need. When we see all the things around us and are afraid. We feel like there is nothing we can do anymore to make it better. That’s when we lose our fear and doubt for a second, a good minute, maybe even an hour and just hope and have faith. Because there’s nothing we can do anymore except just say "Lord, save me".
Those three words changed my life and that’s when I really understood that the Lord is our Savior and Redeemer. Reaches out to us in our time of need, in your worst times, because that’s when your faith is magnified. The amount of faith in those three words probably had so much faith in them that it could not be avoided. The choices of words were perfect. The Spirit was in Peter in that moment when He was down, about to sink. He couldn't see Christ anymore. He was sinking, that’s why it was a real example of faith and because he knew He was there but he just could not see Him. What is faith? Faith is the thing hoped for, but not seen. When Peter said those three words; he was exercising such huge faith by a small way. Saying three words, “Lord, save me”. Now hopefully, you see the real weird thing about faith. HOPEFULLY! If ye have faith the size of a mustard seed you will be able to move this mountain. I wonder why the scriptures never said if you have bigger faith you will be able to… ya know? But now I know why. Do you see how interesting faith is? Peter had amazing and huge amount of faith and exercised it by just a simple way in a huge person (Christ) because of the situation. The reason why He was saved is because of Christ.
THROUGH CHRIST ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! Christ took all the faith that Peter had and made it possible. That is so crazy!! Then in the next verse it is says "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him. O thou of little faith…wherefore didst thou doubt?” I told you! It was a little amount of faith to walk on water but when He exercised his huge faith in Jesus Christ, down in his dire moments. It says immediately Jesus caught him and stretched forth his hand. I don’t think Jesus ran to Peter either it. It just says immediately. I believe that Peter walked far enough to Christ so that He was able to save him when he said I need your help or Christ was already really close to him and all he needed to do was stretch forth his hand. We honestly don't know how far Christ is when we can't see him and when we ware sinking. He might seem far but He isn't. He is right there just wanting to extend his hand, but won't or can't until you say, ‘Lord, save me”. Sometimes He won’t save us because He doesn’t need to save us in certain situations because He KNOWS YOU CAN DO IT BY YOURSELF. That’s what I bet he wants to say to us all the time. "Just look at what you can do! Don't worry about me right now. I'll fill in the rest but just try and look at what you can do! You’re going to do marvelous things."
That’s what I mean that we are living far below our privileges. We honestly don't know how much potential we have but the adversary does and so does your Heavenly Father and the adversary is going to do all he can to stop you. He is going to use fear the most because fear is the strongest thing that he has against you. Because you won’t do it if you are scared; Or you don’t do it well if you do, because you are scared. Because the fear of talking to people and wondering if they will hate me or like me or not, is worse than you talking to them and if they like you or not.
That’s what I took away from that meeting. If I love my Savior; if I love Christ and love representing Him, I am and can, and will do my best. I can do what the Savior did and He loves me so if I do my best, I know that He will take what I can give him because I did my best and to do my best I must have faith in Christ that all things are possible and I really got down on myself yesterday.. I just was like having a lot doubts about myself and just feel like I am completely useless... I asked my Heavenly Father. “Why did you send your son down here to suffer for me?” I was about to go into all of things I don't like about myself and I heard a voice say. "Don't you dare say those things. I love you too much for you to think them and for you to hear them from yourself. I sent my Son down here because I love you and he loves you more than anything as well. Don't doubt yourself ever because I love you and don’t ever feel like you're worth nothing. You are meant to be you for a reason and that reason is for you are to be you for other people…"
I felt calm after that, I felt peace and loved. A mission is hard and what I really don't like about it is that I feel that I have to act that I am okay at all times. Sometimes when I am not and pretend that I am strong when I am not. I was never like that and I never want to be like that, I just need to get some space sometimes. It’s really hard when you can't but I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who comes to you in a time of need and helps you find a way to get over these things. I want to do my Heavenly Fathers will and I know that I can do it and I know that I can get through it. I love you all and all of your support and I am so grateful for it.
Last thing:
They had the primary program this week and it was really cool seeing all the kids sing and I was singing along and they were bearing their testimony, but one family and a kid had a real effect on me. They have kid in their family whose name is Austin but he looks like my brother Ethan. He’s 6 and looks so much like him and I was playing with him, playing with Legos and talking to him and he kind of acts like Ethan. And I started to cry a little bit in their house, wishing that I spent more time with Ethan, playing with him. I got letters from my brothers and it was so great to hear from them and what was so cool about getting them is just how much I cried after reading them... Ethan who is 9 years old shocked me so much. He wrote p.r. (please read) instead of P.S. I loved it soo much and what was really cool was on the back side of the paper. He ran out of room on the front side. so all it had was on the back is "have faith in yourself Garrett" I was absolutely shocked that He understood that and I just felt so much strength and I read the letter from Travis saying Hi Garrett I miss you playing basketball with me. Austin’s letter I couldn't understand much but I just felt love and I love my family so much now and I am amazed at how much love can build up in a person and just affect you so much. I love my family and I am really grateful for them now. I miss them a lot but I know that that is okay. Because people are amazing, especially my family.
I am grateful for all my friends back home. I find tons of people out here that are just like them from back home. This place reminds me of home so much and I love living here in such a beautiful place serving others and loving others. It was a pleasure to write all of you and share you my experience this week. I love you all and thank you all for your support. (:
--
Elder Harrington with Elder Mr Incredible

Love,
Elder Garrett Steven Harrington
1250 Main street
Broomfield CO, 80020

Monday, November 4, 2013

Week 8: More Service, Sports and...GATORS!


HEY EVERYONE! How are you all doing!!?:) I am doing great! last week was pretty nice, not much happened but we got some potential investigators! We are hoping to meet with them this week! So that's really good! Nothing happens in missionary work till you have people to teach!! I might be able to see V! or Elder Ruiz, its so funny, friends from back home I always call them by their first name on accident even though they are a missionary .. Like I saw Joey in the the MTC. I am like hey Joey!!! and then I am like AHHHH, ELDER ZAMBRANO... So it might take me awhile before I get use to calling V. Elder Ruiz, but that is who he is. An Elder, a defender of the faith. 

So I got to play football last week! NEVER EAT MCDONALD'S BEFORE PLAYING FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL!!! oh my goodness... My stomach was just hurting soooooooooo bad! ha ha always wait 30 to 40 minutes after eating... blah. But yeah it was fun:) I played all time QB, trying to make my dad proud since he was a QB! No interceptions!!! 3 Passing TD's and 2 Receiving!! ha ha ha It was great. I went deep on the last play for the win and I caught it and we won!! I love my Parker zone. Full of athletes and just funny guys. Like we had to recite a scripture before blitzing ha ha. WE'RE SO WEIRD! BUT Awesome at the same time! I love it. So ya, that was a good time.

We got to help out a missionary last night before he goes out to MTC on November 12th. It was the same guy who gave the farewell talk that I was talking about last week. We sat down and talked to him about the mission, tried to resolve any concerns and he got to sit with us during after sacrament meeting with the other missionaries and just had a great time. He said it was great to experience that, and he is 18 and he just wants to serve which is awesome and basically what all you need to do when going on a mission. I love helping pre-missionaries go out on their mission because I was there, and I just want to give them some good tips before going out that really helps. So we did and he said he felt way more at ease after talking to us all. I gave him all the things from my mission prep so that he could use it on his mission. He is going to be a great missionary. He's going to Alaska, Elder Justice. Missionary work is so awesome because everyone is just supporting each other, and loving one another and it is just great.

We work at the Parker Food Bank for the people that don't really have the money to afford food. We loveeeee working there. There is a guy there named Steve. He is an amazing guy, I just want to tell him, "Steve. if there were more people like you, there wouldn't be a need for the restoration!" He is just so amazing, He loves to serve. He loves the missionaries, I want to get a Parker Task Force shirt and just have him autograph it. Just a great guy. He coaches basketball just like me!! He asks me about what to do for coaching, ha ha. Its kind of cool:) So I helped him out with that, what is so sad is that you can not proselyte during that time when you are working at the food bank. Like, when we are volunteering you can't talk to people about the church unless they ask you. You are just there to serve but that is awesome. That's exactly who Ammon was in the Book of Mormon. Just a servant and he helped thousands become converted so...ayeee, you never know!:)

We got Nerf guns last week. Me and elder smith. It is sooo hard to wake up at 6:30. You got to bed around 10:30 and wake up at 6:30, So me and Elder Smith have a system now. We have hospital beds which are amazingly comfortable. Just knocked out after 10 minutes. So I set my alarm in the closet so I have to get out of my bed to go get it. Go downstairs, eat, stay on my feet so that I can stay awake and if my companion isn't up by the time I get done eating; I go back upstairs I shoot him with a Nerf gun. missions are so fun  Ha ha He just gets mad at me even though he tells me to shoot him if he falls asleep.

We also got to help a person move, His name was MARIO!!!!! Super nice guy. We saw him moving and asked him hey can we help and he said no at first and then we talked to him a little bit more, and so he said he's moving to a bigger place in the same complex. He said he was moving all the little stuff today and then me and Elder Smith asked him, "What about the big stuff!?" and he said he was moving it tomorrow at 9 am. He then asked, "Whats the catch?" and we said, "nothing!" He asked if we are just good Samaritans. So we helped him moved the next day and it was pretty fun:) When we got done he tried to give us money for the church, but we told him we could have dinner with him and he said yeah sure so we are going to try and set that up. He said that he likes to help people move, and so do we. That's all Mormons do Saturday mornings! lol We hopefully want to invite him to church so that he can really feel the spirit being with us some more, and then set up dinner. He's a great guy.

Then I got to talk to a guy that use to be active when he was a kid. He was going to go a mission then something happened and he just kind of fell away. He loves his family and the people of the church though. So we are going to try and have dinner with him sometime soon. He knows that families can be together forever, the church is true. He knows that, he is just lacking a little bit of his testimony so hopefully me and Elder Smith can help him. He is a great guy.

What I have learned about the mission so far about being here is that you love people right away when you talk to them. Back home, if we just talk to someone random on the street it would be a nice little convo; but then we would kind of just go our separate ways. But here, you just want to be friends with everyone and just love them. We don't say that but that's what we really feel. The gospel is so great and can help anything. It takes a little faith though and faith definitely has patience involved, so if they just could try to have that faith, and that patience then things would all work out, but we are impatient.. I see the scripture of Alma come into place"...that this earth life is a time to prepare to return to God." It really is a testing ground. It's hard but you grow and you get stronger.. I love being here and at times it might be hard but "hope on, journey on" as Elder Holland says it best. I definitely know why he says that now. Then President Eyring will come into it all "I know that I can, with the Lords help" and this is where Elder Harrington comes in.. I know that I will.

Hope on, Journey on, I know that I can, I know that I will, with the Lords help.

I love you all. Have a great week 

-- 
Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

1250 Main street
Broomfield CO, 80020

Online on Mondays 10-12

Send me your address if you want a letter.

About Me

My Photo
Companions, Elder Smith Sep 2013 - Dec 2013 Elder Anani Dec 2013 - Jan 2013 Elder Farr Jan 2013 -