Yo yo yo

Hey family,

Man this week was great. It went by so incredibly fast! 

We had our first investigator (Jeffrey, with the baptismal date) in sacrament meeting for a LONG TIME. It was great!!! we also met with him 3 times this week. He is going solid and we are excited for him. Going really well with him.

We met with a part member family who we LOVE. The parents are from Iraq and the dad is a member. The mother made a delicious huge breakfast for us then we taught them the restoration and it went so very smooth. The spirit was strong and we could tell they felt it. We also sang some childrens hymns which invited the spirit even more strongly. I love this family and we are praying the rest of them will make the decision to be baptized. 

We had a good week of teaching. I think we have taught more this week than any other week here in Assen. We are teaching some cool people. Some cool Jesus-loving people.  

I am realizing that I am probably coming upon my last few weeks here in Assen (there are only 3.5 weeks left of this transfer) and I have been here for 3 transfers, and will have 2 with the same comp so any more is not usually normal. But I am really starting to just love this city. My first transfer here we worked really hard, finding and teaching and our second transfer we kept finding and teaching and working our butts off and this transfer we are still finding and teaching, but we are able to see the miracles and blessings come from our hard work. I always tol dmyself I would leave this city better than I found it. The people here deserve it, the branch deserves it, and it's just such an amazing place. I will be sad when I leave, I have learned SO MUCH here. It's been kind of a refiners fire but I have learned to just forget myself and love the work. I love the Lord. I love my companion. I love the people here. I love being soaking wet going from house to house knocking doors. I love biking in stormy/scorching/windy/humid weather. I love the challenges. I am excited for what I have left to learn in my mission. Luckily I still have 10 months left to learn everything I need to learn :) The Lord loves us so much. He knows what we need. I believe that. I believe if we pray and work our hardest, good results will come. I believe in miracles. 

I love this work.

Liefs, Zuster Harris 

here are some pics for pioneer day...tried to keep y'all in my thoughts. hope you had a great 24th of July!!

#murica

 

Helmets.

Dearest Schats, 

Another week has come and gone. I swear every Monday always sneaks up so quickly. It has been a pretty good, normal week here, with simple little miracles that we are happy about :)

First off, Jeffrey. We had 2 lessons with him last week. Both went really well! And guess what! After 13 weeks of being here in Assen and not having one investigator show up to church once, Jeffrey came yesterday. But bless his wet little heart, he showed up right when church had ended. He had came all the way from Antwerpen (in Belgium, about a 3 hour train ride) because he was working there the night before. And he got up early and tried to make it to church but barely missed it. He walked in the pouring rain all the way to the church which is about a 30 minute walk from the station and he was just soaked :( so we decided we'd give him a tour of our "church building" (a small office buiding) and he was able to meet a few of the members who were still around and we showed him a video on lds.org. We then walked him home and all was well. But we were so happy he came!!!!!!!! It's been quite a struggle not having one investigator in church the whole time I've been here (4 months) so that was good. Next week he's coming for sure. We are excited about Jeffrey. He is still smoking less and less. He is pumped about getting baptized, even though we are going to have to move it back a few weeks now because he hasn't actually been in sacrament meeting...but he is getting there :) we are excited about him.

Also. Sanaya and family. man, we are excited and so grateful for the opportunity we will have to start teaching them. They finally agreed to hearing the lessons. They are such amazing people and we love going to their home every week to help out. they care so much about the missionaries! Such loving poeple. the Lord really opened the windows of heaven on that family. Miracles are going to happen with them. 

Well, to be honest, we've literally tried everything to find more progressing investigators, but it's just door slam after door slam. we ask referals from everyone but get none. so we kinda started this new thing...we were inspired (we think) to sing hymns in the city along with me strumming the guitar. so we borrowed a guitar from a member and have been practicing during lunch, dinner, night time, p-days...we are hoping it will help people become interested. we will go onto the streets and play hymns and have copies of the Book of Mormon on hand and hand them out with cards and talk with whoever. We'll see if it works. If not, we won't waste our time on it. But experiencing the singing elders concert really opened our eyes to the miracels that can happen through music. So we'll see :)

 It's so easy to get down on ourselves when we see absolutely no results from our work, not gonna lie. prayer helps. I pray a lot. This week I was able to experience for myself having hope only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That is where our hope comes from. We know we will be saved and that we always have a 2nd chance! alma 7:11-14 and Ether 12:4 says a lot about that. read it and pray to have your hope anchored in Christ!

Also, last thing, this past week we had zone conference in Rotterdam. Where we learned we will now be recquired to wear helmets while biking. Let's just say we hope our obedience brings forth blessings because it's gonna be hard to get used to this new rule, haha. We will take lots of lovely action shots of us in our new helmets this week and send them next week ;) pray for us. 

 

 

my reaction when we found out the new helmet rule #yay



 

week #30 MURICA

Hallo liefe familie <3

Well, yet another week has come and gone! And man was it a HOT WEEK. The weather has been so crazy lately. If it's not 100 degrees + strong humidity, then it is pouring rain. I thought I went to the netherlands, not a tropical rain forest. Ha. 

But other than being freakishly sweaty and sticky all the time, it was a week of cool, small miracles. To start off, last Monday we committed one of our investigators, Jeffrey to baptism for August 13. He's still got a ways to go because he smokes and we're not sure if he's completely with it but he is making progress :) and he has yet to come to church...but he'll get there :) 

This week we had the wonderful opportunity of working with the Singing Elders. They are elders who have a special calling of traveling all around the netherlands and belgium, working with the other missionaries by going to their appointments with them and sharing missionary work through music. So they worked with us Thurs, Fri and Sat and came to all our appointments with us and what they do is sing an arrangement of "Where Can I Turn For Peace?" and share a spiritual thought with it and invite the investigators to a concert that is happening this weekend in Groningen. It's a sort of musical thing where they tell a life story of a child and it's really super cool. I have seen it twice, and everytime I tear up. It's so cool, the effect music can have on people. The concert is always a spiritual experience for everyone who attends (they hold concerts overal in nederland). They also use members a lot by visiting them and inviting them to bring friends who aren't members to this wonderful event, therefor giving us referrals (this concert leaves a big impact on people that they want to know and learn more) in ieder gevaal, I'm super excited for the concert! We took the singing elders to a a part member family whos children love to sing and they were excited about the concert. we are ready to see some changes in Assen. Speaking of which, we received transfer calls last night and I am staying in Assen another transfer with Sister Johanson! I'm super pumped. Last transfer was just kind of a weird transfer with lots of random things happening to us and this transfer we are going to see all our hard work pay off. We are stoked to work even harder this transfer! I love sister Jo and am so thrilled I get to work with her another 6 weeks in this Blessed city of Assen:)

So, just so you don't feel bad for me, we were able to celebrate the 4th of July :) we had a bbq the day before it with a member family and the singing elders and it was so fun! then the next day we had another bbq with a non member family who we serve/teach. it was so cool. the singing elders were also there and sang their song and invited them to the concert and they want to come. Hopefully they will!

Last night we had a dinner appointment with one of our investigators, and his girlfriend. It was super fun. They are super cool people. He is from somewhere in Africa and he is a very enthousiastic person. He is making slow progress. We are reading through the Book of Mormon with him,and he just gets it. We are taking it slow with him. Baby steps!

Well, I hope y'all had a wonderful 4th of July full of hamburgers and fireworks and swimming and happiness. I love you all and I love being a missionary!!!!!

 

 

 a picture of us after a crazy carnival ride on a P-day

 

me and my orange peel



elder hunter and bernadette



me and zr. Jo waiting for a bus



 

and me achter-oping with Aswin...haha it's a dutch thing