Week 19: New Area, New Contacts, & Old Friend Elder Ruiz!

So, I am in a new area if you haven't heard. I am in a great area! It’s awesome here. This week was great, besides that I got sick and my camera broke so I had to buy a new one.  I hit my leg with a stone axe really hard so that will leave a mark… We were chopping up some wood for this ladies fireplace and she is now an investigator! :)  It was awesome! :) I got some videos of me and Elder Farr splitting some wood in one hit! Ha ha it was great. Don't get to do that in California (gas fireplace at home..). Felt like a man!!

Anyway, this week is great because WE HAVE 7 INVESTIGATORS RIGHT NOW AND 2 PEOPLE THAT WANT TO GET BAPTIZED! IT’S SO COOL! You have no idea what I am feeling. It’s awesome to see that they understand what they are feeling from this whole experience of coming unto Christ! One of the people that want to get baptized is named Savannah, and she’s 15. Her friends are all Mormon and invited her to some activities. She has also gone to church and just loves the whole experience. I got to ask her why she wants to be baptized, and she said it just feels right and I have been thinking about it for a long time.  I was just like WHOA! That is so crazy!  She was just smiling and super happy. It was great to see! She is on schedule to be baptized Feb 15th :)

Then we have a guy named Raul. He wants to get baptized as well but he doesn't really know when. He’s gone to church. He owns his own martial arts gym. It’s so awesome! Hopefully he can teach me a few things and we can teach him a few things as well. It’s just really good to be here where some work is happening and you feel like you deserve to be here. Members are giving us some work to do as well!

Also… You will never believe this but we got the opportunity to go to the temple this week. I was just waiting at the temple and ELDER RUIZ COMES BEHIND ME AND GRIPS MY SHOULDER! When I see him, I am just so relieved to see him. I got to give him a hug and it just felt like you were reunited with your brother again; and I was. I was so happy and it just felt perfect. I got some pictures with him but forgot my camera so next week. I will send you all some photos of us. :)

Me and Elder Farr are really into chess now. We play a game every night before bed. Ha ha it’s a very humbling experience sometimes :) I think it’s good. Teaching me a lot of patience and that it’s just a game ha ha ha. So yeah, it’s been a lot of fun here in Arapahoe.

I LOVE YOU ALL :) Everything is good with me and I hope everything is great with you! :) Let me know if I can do anything for you guys. I love this ward. There are a lot of people that I have felt like I have known before, it is awesome. I even met a guy that told me; golf is a celestial sport and that basketball is a terrestrial sport... Got a little bitter about that one… ha ha just kidding.  :) Y'all ROCK!

-- 

Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Week 18: Parker no mo’, Arapahoe I go…

I have been transferred and I am no longer in Parker Colorado. I am now in Arapahoe.  I moved this weekend to replace an Elder who needed to go home.  I will really miss Parker, not going to lie.  The members were awesome and the area was super beautiful. I hope to go back there sometime, but I am in a new area and I am loving it so much. It’s nice, change is good. It feels like you are starting over again and that's really good, a fresh start.

Elder Anani is going to do good things in Parker. We got along for the most part but we really didn't talk much to each other about things. So it was hard to be with each other but it doesn't matter. The Lords work continues on and I am happy about that.

So now I am in Arapahoe and it is beautiful as well. We are in a walking area but I would much rather ride a bike. Back in my last area we could email at a members home; but now I am emailing at the library.  So, in about 20 minutes I could get kicked off, and then go wait for ten minutes, then get back on for another half hour, so I am bummed… ha ha.

So far I don't know the area at all but it’s cool! OH! my new companion is Elder Farr. HE IS AWESOME!! He can sing!! Ha ha ha  It’s so cool having companions around that can sing. It is just like an art and there is a technique to singing, so basically, I guess anyone can be good at singing…Idk.  He’s cool though!  His dad was born in Jerusalem and he came to America and converted.  I will have to send you guys a picture soon. He has a great teaching style and he is really good at asking questions and has a very good testimony.  I hope he stays one more transfer so he can help me know the area, because we have like 3 weeks left in the transfer. February 9th I believe is when transfers are scheduled.

But yeah, not much to report on this week. But I hope you all are doing well :) I am sure I will have some more information later because I just got here Friday.

But so far on a mission what is really interesting about this all is that you are meeting people that you have never ever met but yet they seem so familiar to you.  You feel you have met them before; but you haven't.  I love meeting people here and making new friends and building friendships.  It is amazing and I truly feel loved by the Lord.

Anyway I love you all and hope you are doing well :) 

-- 

Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

Week 17: New Year, New Resolutions, and the Atonement

HEY EVERYONE :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Wow its weird to look at this 2014. It feels like one year left basically, but it’s like a year and some more. I am still a new guy :) How was all of your New Year’s? I am starting fresh now.

This week was a little tough :) but I liked it. I became stronger I definitely feel like and I am going to work on a lot of things now! So that I can be the best missionary I can. I have a huge vision and good vision of what I would like to become from the mission and I want to share it with you!

This week wasn't anything really special, we had New Year, had to go in early… Holidays aren't that great on the mission, except Christmas and Easter. Christmas and Easter is always amazing :) So yeah, ha ha. Just played some p-day basketball and then had a lot of service and meetings during the week. Not a lot of time to go work and proselyte but we tried. Now for this week we are just trying to find some more people that would like to hear the good news!

SO here is my "new resolutions" or vision, something that I want to become from the mission :)

Knowledgeable (like smart in the gospel and in a lot of things)

Patient (patient with criticism, with other people's actions and choices)

Charity and Love (avoid negative feelings, Try to understand others and their view points and to love others perfectly)

Humble and Meek (submit my will to the Lord, Teachable, No bragging, acting with loving kindness and being a good person to others. I heard that humble means knowing that you need the Lord. Meek is behaving appropriately, kind of like being "mature".

Obedient (live all the rules in the white handbook)

Faith (more faith in Christ, faith that things will happen. faith in myself)

Hope (endures through hope, not just endure, be more optimistic)

Virtue (behaves, be clean, pure and quickly repent.) 
Diligent (steady, earnest, consistent, energetic, working hard and good in everything I do)

Trustworthy (trust me with anything)

Honest (honest with myself, honest with others

Be better at talking to people.

Peaceful (being okay in rough situations, knowing that you are doing the right even though some results are not what you expected)

Be in tune with the spirit (be at peace, knowing what to do, recognize and feel)

Forget the Past, (don't worry about waht you did, can't change it now. You can help it though )

Forgiving (to forgive myself and not to hold grudges)

Fully represent the lord Jesus Christ (Be Christlike in actions, behaviors, words, thoughts)

Be the best missionary I can be (apply principles you know to be true, study, learn and be a missionary.)

Eternal Perspective (knowing that it will work out in the end, seeing things in a different light.)

Don't think of myself (turn outward instead of inward, serve others constantly)

Enlarged desire to work hard and do good.

Comfortable and confident (knowing that everything is okay and that I can do anything)

Grateful (do not take ANYTHING for granted)

Proactiveness (always be ahead of the game)

Have fun doing what I am doing (because the mission life is what’s best!

So I got to do a lot of little goals to meet my New Year’s resolutions. Because If I do the small things to these things the big things will be how I accomplish it. I got to measure my progress and have a huge passion for it.

So yeah! I am excited :) can't wait to work!! I told you all this so I hope you guys can keep me accountable.

I really experienced a better part of the atonement, and that it can help you through anything. We can't always just run away from the things. Don't pray for the situation to change, pray for the strength to get through the situation. The lord can help you :) one of the things that I have come to realize is that Heavenly Father doesn't want to see you struggle, especially by yourself. He doesn't want you to think that you are nothing when you are everything to him. That is one of the hardest things that He doesn't like to see his children go through. 

So keep journeying on, if you have had a hard year a new one is here. :) so don't worry about it!

Journey on and Hope on. I know that you can, I know that you will, with the Lords help. Go give them Heaven :)

I love you all and hope you are all doing well! 

Love,

Elder Garrett Steven Harrington

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 

-- 

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