Week 16: Moving...Moving words & Moving Snow!

YOOOOOOOOO! :)

I am pretty stoked I am pretty stokeddddddddddddd.

ANYWAY, WHATS UP FRIENDS? :)

This week was awesomeeeee :) It was so good to see my family again. I missed them a lot. It was so good to see Austin Ethan and Travis and especially mom and dad. Christmas time on a mission makes you appreciate a lot of things. But yeah so this week was pretty good :)

We had two people come to church yesterday that aren't members. We sat with them and we probably we will meet with them again so we are I believe teaching some people now. That’s always good!

This week we did a lot of contacting. Trying to talk to people on the street is fun, I think now. It is not so scary at all, as long as you are doing your best. I got a whole bunch of Christmas cards and I am going to be sending some very belated Christmas cards back :)  yeah I am so excited for this week. I get to play basketball again today :)

And we are moving out of our member’s home soon, we will be staying with to a different home. So yeah :( I am going to miss Thor, Daisy and Max, their dogs. Ha ha ya. I am going to miss living with the cops.  But now we are on to a new adventure. :)

So yeah that was basically all that happened this week. Nothing really too exciting but I learned a little more about God this week! 

God gives battles to only his strongest warriors. God doesn't give us things that we can’t handle. I am sure you have heard of those things but I believe it is missing something. This is what I came up with from reading 1 Nephi 1:1. Maybe he gives us trials so we can come closer to him. "God only gives us trials that we can overcome, not just by ourselves but with Him." God knows the answer and solution to your problem and trial. He knows what you are going through. Why don't we ask him "what do you want me to do?" instead of asking why is this happening. Elder Holland said that in times of trouble we may be closer to God than we think. I firmly believe that.

I learned how important families are as well this week. I learned that families are truly ordained of god and I learned that the Kids need the parents and the parents need the kids. They just really help out each other in this life and it is amazing to see families here and how they are important to Gods plan.

Elder Anani and I shoveled some driveways and it went really well. We were about done and then they saw us out side and then as we were walking back to our house they come out side and say wow thank you! and It was just awesome. it made my day! You feel like the 2 Nephites ;) or just like superheroes walking away (jk there’s three) I love saying that those. Service is the gospel in action :) It is so amazing to do service! So I am super happy and can't wait for this week :) I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year :)

Love,

Elder Harrington

Week 15- FA'AMALOSI!! Don't Judge by Hair or Helmet Color, Christmas is in His Presence.

HEY GUYS ITS CHRISTMAS TIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE :)

It’s such a wonderful and exciting time of the year :)  It’s starting to snow really lightly here in Parker which I am super excited for! There is not too much snow, but enough to make Christmas awesome :)

So this week was really good. Me and Elder Anani are having a fun time together. He likes to quote from Water Boy a lot and he loves to do just funny things. He is a funny guy. He is a very typical Samoan. Very much into spam, corn beef and roast pig. I guess that’s what happens when you are straight from the islands! FA'AMALOSI (that means be strong!)  So we have been going out to work!!  We have been talking to everyone which is just what I need to do. I think if you knock down talking to everyone you will be a very great missionary. Ha ha  It’s fun to talk to everyone too. Never know what’s going to happen.

I had a cool experience though this week; we were riding our bikes and there was this girl who had pink hair and she was riding her bike, she was ~17. So she was riding pretty slow so I just went past her but Elder Anani started talking to her and then I turned around and started talking to her and then she was really open and nice to talk to us. I wear ski goggles and a ski mask and a beanie then a helmet because we bike in the snow and rain. So my face can get frozen off if I am not wearing that stuff... So I said, “hey sorry If I looked kind of scary.” and then she said to me really sweetly, "don't judge a book by its cover".  I don’t think she really knew what she was saying to me...  I am like, wow that is powerful. I should have never went past her. So from that experience I am now trying to talk to everyone even more!!

It is so cool to be on a mission when you are working hard. I think a mission is like anything you want to be good at it. You got to put in work. You get what you put in and the Lord puts people in your path. So what if you get denied! Christ did and you are doing the best you can. That is how you be a successful missionary. You do everything in your control. SO I am really excited and happy right now and things are going good. Not perfect but that is a journey that is well worth going for.

I love Christmas time!! LUKE CHAPTER 2 is awesome :) Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy!!! :) It makes me so happy to hear those words!! Christmas time on a mission is so nice because you really understand what Christmas is about. It is about Christ’s gift, and it is about his birth and giving. My mom said an amazing quote to me the other day. She said that "Christmas is not in the presents but in His presence." I can't tell you how much I love it and I love you guys for all your support. Thank you soo much for your prayers and love :) I love you guys and I hope you have an amazing and Merry Christmas!! :) :D 

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Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Week 14- Elder Smith tribute, Walmart contact and Welcome Elder Annani!

Hey everyone, I am still in Parker!! My new companion is Samoan!! He is awesome :) I miss Elder Smith though, he was great. So I really want to send this email and focus a little bit on my week but more make it kind of a tribute to Elder Smith. This week was good though :) I am happy. I love you guys.

So this week we met a guy at Walmart. I was walking around and looking for Christmas stuff to send home then a guy came up to me and looked at me and asked if I worked there and then he saw my name tag and was like "Jesus Christ: oh, you work for my God!" So we started talking to him and we asked if we could come by and talk to him some more and then he said ya! So we got his information and we are now trying to meet with him! Ha ha! it’s awesome. God works in mysterious ways. I was really happy that, that happened. So that was really cool to report on :) That is kind of the highlight of last week.

This week was good but also sad because Elder Smith is gone now. He was my trainer and in the mission they have this weird thing that when you are a new missionary and the missionary who trains you is your dad and you are his son. So, Elder Smith was my mission father... ha ha funny stuff but I really just want to report on that.

I want to tell you of some of the things me and Elder Smith did and how awesome he is. He was super nice and happy a lot, he was a very sarcastic guy when I was asking serious questions. I hated it!! He would just be super sarcastic, I really loved his sense of humor though, and he is probably the one of the funniest guys. He’s just awesome.  What we did together as missionaries I believe is we really got people interested in the church. We set the example and I feel like we really showed the light that we had and people notice that something was different about us. I think we set a really good seed in their hearts and made them curious. So hopefully me and Elder Anani (my new Samoan companion) can show them more. I am excited to work with him.

I learned a lot from Elder Smith. One of the thing is that I learned don't worry about what you can’t control and let go of all the little things. I really enjoyed being his companion.

He helped me and when he knew something was bothering me he would just give me a hug and I really felt the Saviors love when he hugged me. I felt like I was in the Saviors arms and that’s how he is going to hug us when we get back home. He helped me keep my head up when things were getting rough and I really am grateful for him. I know that the Lord put him in my path and that I needed him. He is an incredible guy.  I really want to give hugs to people like he did. I believe he had the gift of charity and he could just exercise it at his control and put you at peace with yourself. It was definitely something really cool and interesting that he had.

Me and Elder Smith really got a long good together. He is a great friend and a great guy. He wants to go into video production and do some stuff with that. He loves the cold and I hate it. Ha ha He kills me at night when he likes to put the fan on high and the window open and it’s so cold at night! I and Elder smith liked to do a lot of stuff. One way we would wake up each other is have nerf guns and shoot each other if we got caught falling asleep. Another one was we would make missionary lyrics to regular songs. so like "bear necessities" from jungle book would be "bearing testimony" "500 miles" to "500 doors" we also did "Prezzy, its cold outside" instead of "baby its cold outside" ha ha we did so many wonderful songs. I had the time of my life with Elder Smith.

We had lots of ups and downs but he is an amazing guy, and I just appreciate him a lot for what he had done. He reminded me a lot of my dad. It was awesome. I am super happy to have met him and to know him. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say something; that is always an honor to know someone. I am so excited for a new journey but I am sad a little because Elder Smith is gone. He is a great guy and really fun.

He played basketball like a dork but when we sword fight and it was just me and him; he won with a kill shot! Man, it was lame but it was awesome. He’s going to go on and do great things. So this is for Elder Smith. He is amazing and I really wish him the best. I can't wait to see him again. He was like a dad, completely. It was awesome. I have videos of me and him and pictures together so yeah. This was a good week guys. So now it’s time for Elder Anani!! It’s going to be awesome. He is a power house and he is awesome. I can't wait :) Love you all hope you are doing good!

Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Week 13: The Savior Heals, Christmas Spirit and Temple Blessings through Service

Alright you guys got me amped up! Thanks so much for all your support. I love you all so what really made this week hard was just I wasn't doing what I should be doing this week. I wasn't putting all of my heart really into this week. Because it’s just hard and I don't feel like we are having any success. Success is not baptizing and having a huge teaching pool. But I am going to have to tell myself that over and over again until I get it through my head. I am so sick of the averageness when there is no need to be.

This week I am going to go out and work harder than I ever did. I love my Savior and I need to work for Him more than ever. I am going to serve and do my best until I cannot do any more. The way to get over the little things is to not let them effect you, control what you can control and do your best. Follow the spirit and you will have peace.

I am going to tell you why this week was awesome though.

This week was awesome because I knew that my Savior is a master healer and He can heal anyone. He healed me at the Christmas devotional. I know that I can do my best because someone died for me so that I can start over whenever and not be affected by it at all. I shouldn't be selfish at all. My will is last here. I have been acted upon and I haven't been acting for myself. I cannot tell you what changed me at the Christmas devotional but I just felt peace. I loved the testimony of the atonement. HE can heal anyone. I have been healed and I am continuing to be healed.

Elder Smith and I have served a family that really needed help with some things around the house and we are now getting them to the temple and they are coming back to church. We are working with their neighbor too. He really loves coming to our church and really loves being around me and Elder Smith because he knows that something is different.

Dinner with the Krauss' went well. We are trying to help them with anything possible so that they can remember the Spirit and so that they will never want it to leave.

We had a Ward Christmas activity and it was amazing. It was a live nativity and I loved the music and I loved how everyone was so happy and the Spirit was so strong. Everyone was getting along with others. There is so much more to Christmas than just receiving presents. It is a time to remember still what you are thankful for and appreciate what you have before it’s gone. I am so grateful for my friends and family, you guys have built me up completely right now and I am excited.

The atonement of Jesus Christ is not just repentance; it is a chance so that you can get back up. I am strong. I go through hard times because I am strong with my Heavenly Father. I need him and I need Christ. I am so excited for Christmas so I can really feel the Spirit here and give more and more and learn the true meaning of it all. I really do know why I came out before Christmas so I could experience this all and I am going to change this mission that I am on. I have been focusing way too much on myself and I have paid for it. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you guys because I love you and I am down right excited to serve! This is why this week was awesome because we served.

Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Week 12 Broken pot, Santa Clause and Conversion is Action…

AH! This week was nuts! lol, but it was great too. I am continuing to learn more about the mission and just how great it is and what it does for you. So here is some good praise and report for you guys!

So this week I went on two exchanges, basically that means I am with a different companion for a day! And it was cool and good! I got to be with the leader of the Parker Zone (ZL). That was cool. I learned a lot from him! Then I went with another Elder on Wednesday and it was really cool! We visited with some people that haven't been to church in a while. We got one follow up dinner appointment with them! He has a wife that isn't a member of the church and a kid as well; so hopefully they can be some new investigators! So yeah, we are really hoping. They are the Krauss family. Really sweet family, they have had a lot of interaction with the church and missionaries! So I don't know, we will see where it goes.

So a pretty funny story about the Kraus family; we invited them to the Christmas activity and they invited us in. We shared a scripture about gratitude because Thanksgiving was the next day, (it was Wednesday). So as we were leaving, we said goodbye and closed the door and then I had a call from the other missionaries picking us up to go get dinner, and so I was trying to put my helmet on and be on the phone at the same time and I dropped the phone and I went to pick it up, and my hip hit my bike, and it fell on to this flower pot and shattered it and so did my heart. I thought they were going to be so mad!!! I knocked on the door and I told him the whole story and "…yeah, uh I am sorry but I broke your pot and I will pay for it, I am so sorry!" and he like looked at me like............... and he saw the pot and he said,”…that’s my mom’s antique!!!!!”  Then he was like; “ahh I’m just kidding!” and I am like YAY!!! GOOD!! AHH! So basically I thought I was dead but we still have dinner with them! That is a major minor miracle!!! hahaha

My Thanksgiving was absolutely amazing and terrible at the same time. I am so sick of food and treats. I literally don't want to eat any more food for a long time… We had 4 dinners back to back... I paced myself too. But nope; the members think it’s a game to see how much they can feed an Elder or the missionaries. SO, I am done with food. I think I am going to go on a diet, no carbs… Yeah that sounds good!

And last night we have a member in our ward who is SANTY CLAUS FOR THE MALLS!! haha it was super cool! He goes to Santa School and they learn how to be Santa and they get paid for it! He loves it! It’s the best job ever! hahaha He’s so funny but yeah he loves seeing the kids all happy because He’s Santa! He also loves missionaries! Their home is always red and green; it’s just a very Christmassy home. haha He says it’s so fun because kids come up to him and ask him questions. So we asked him questions and he answered them as Santa Claus. I was very impressed. By the end, he wanted us to be a Santa Claus and go to Santa school because he teaches it. He is so funny and awesome!

Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and this lady goes up and bears her testimony. After she bore her testimony, me and Elder Traasdahl (not my companion but we have two sets of elders in our ward) got up at the same time. He was sitting on the right side of the chapel and I was sitting on the left. So basically you see two Elders going down the aisles. I was on the left and he was on the right, at the same time and at the same pace. It felt so cool! haha it wasn't planned at all! So it was awesome :)

So that was pretty much my week! I got ski goggles now, and a kind of mask that goes over the lower part of my face and I wear a beanie so when I am out riding at night my whole body is covered and I am so warm! California boy can't stand the cold! I love it! I feel super cool with the ski goggles on as well! So that’s a bonus!

But what I have learned this week about the mission is that the mission is not supposed to strengthen your testimony. Not for you to be super smart about the gospel, and about the church. The mission is all preparing you to be converted to His gospel for the rest of your life. You can have a testimony of the gospel; that is strong but a testimony is just words, don't get me wrong a testimony is great but conversion is action. It is what you do because of the testimony you have.

Because as a missionary, the schedule that you have isn't supposed to build your testimony, the testimony is the bonus of this whole situation, it is supposed to build your conversion. That is the goal, and conversion is bringing others to Christ and being like Christ! I can't tell you how much I love it and I can't tell you how awesome it is that it just all a super intense magnified learning experience. SO that is my report for you all :) I love you all! <3 have a great week:) 

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Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington