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.