Week 37

Hi Everyone

Well to start things off, the Island is awesome!!! Its super hot and humid still buttttttt, this island is a huge desert! It’s got palm trees growing right next to big tall cactuses! It’s really weird.  Super dusty and dry, but still really humid.  I don’t know how that works either. It’s more put together than the DR, but it’s still pretty poor! It’s about 40% paved roads and 70% Dirt. Showers are still cold and there's no ac, But we have power always and YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER! It’s nice :)

My companion is a way chill guy named Elder Atkinson from Guyana. He has only been here 6 weeks more than me so we are both struggling trying to learn Papimiento, but a lot of the people here speak at least 2 languages, if not 3 or all 4 (English Spanish Dutch and Papimiento) So we usually start in Papimiento and end up going to Spanish or on rare occasions we get to teach in English! But it’s usually in Spanish which is good because I definitely don't want to lose my Spanish! The only rough part about this island is the people don't want to listen to you at all. It’s definitely a big change from the DR, so we have a lot more time out on our bikes in the hot sun. There is just one small branch on the entire island but the members are great! They feed us a lot too, which is good because if they didn't we probably couldn't make it to the end of the month money wise. Holland owns this island and I guess they hate Latinos so they make everything on the island cost a ton of money to try and get the Latinos to leave. So a lot of people have two or three jobs which means they are never home which makes it hard to teach them. Also they have a strong Dutch culture so nobody really wants to listen. But it’s a lot of fun!

 I looked out my window yesterday and saw this huge cruise ship sticking up over the houses! This place is awesome!

Love

Elder Harsh

This picture was taken by a vacationer on the island that went to church there and met Elder Harsh- Took a picture and sent it to me!  I was very happy to get this picture!

Week 36

Elder Harsh is in for some big changes!  Here is his letter explaining his change and at the bottom I'll include a link to a map showing where he will be.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Holy cow mommy this was definitely the craziest week of my entire mission!!! I have no idea where to start! But i'm going to save the BIG news for last. Ok first off, we had a really good lesson with a guy that we contacted the other week. We found him walking by and he says he always invites people like us in so we set a date and came by this week. He thought we were Jehova's witnesses but after we cleared that up we started with a lesson on the Apostasy/Restoration. He had a lot of really good questions and after we kinda explained everything to him he stopped and sat there in silence for a long time. Then he said that we had just answered tons of questions he had been researching for the past 10 years! He asked more questions and with every answer he was getting more and more excited! It was a very fun lesson. Also we had two baptisms planned for this past Saturday, Jorge and Keyla. I got sick and was feeling really achy and couldn't breath very well, but I figured all we had to do was go to the stake center, fill up the font, and then chill while we wait for the water to fill. As we were about to leave to head to the stake center, The zone leaders called informing us that there isn't any water in the church! Dominican Problems. So we went from having a perfectly planned baptism to having a full afternoon trying to contact everybody and tell them we have to do it in a different building further away. After calling and visiting everyone (while I was really sick), we finally got everything planned out and ready. We had just sat down to rest when Keyla called us crying. Apparently she had started her period early and for reasons that weren't explained to me, that meant that she couldn't be baptized. She said she had fear of the white clothes. Whatever. Anyways after calming her down we explained to her that it wasn't a problem and we could reschedule it for next week. the only bummer is I am not going to be there! So after that crazy day and the baptism I was feeling super sick so we finally get home and I had just gotten into bed when President Corbitt called me. He called me about transfers to inform me that I am .......GOING TO THE ISLANDS!!!!!! I AM GOING TO BONAIRE!!! THEN ARUBA AND THEN THE OTHER ONE!!! ALSO I AM GOING TO BE A DISTRICT LEADER!! ALSO I AM GOING TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE CALLED PAPIMIENTO!!! Also Bonaire is a very small island and so its just me and my companion on the entire island! also PLOT TWIST, in July, the three islands are going to switch and be a part of a different mission so its possible I might change missions! Right now we don't know but its possible!! I fly out early tomorrow morning! 

Yeah, that's about it.

Love,

Elder Harsh

                          Elder Harsh will be straight down from the DR, right above Venezuela!

1. Papiamento is a Creole language containing elements of Spanish,Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, as well as Arawak and African languages. It is spoken by about 330,000 people on the islands of the Netherlands Antilles (Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba). Papiamentu was made an official language on March 7, 2007.
2. Elder Harsh arrived safe!  He's on the island of Bonaire
3. 

Week 35

Hello Everyone,

Well this is my last week in Punta! Transfers will be next Tuesday and I am ready for a change! I´m ready to see what else the DR has to offer, but I am going to miss a lot of the people here and especially my boy Elder Cook. We are both bummed this is our last week together!

As for my week, I honestly don´t remember much...oh but that one family that came to conference came to church again and they are progressing really nicely! Last Friday he asked us if we could come by his house EVERY DAY!  EVERY DAY!  So after picking our jaws up off of the floor we took out our agendas and wrote his name down every day for the rest of the week! We are super tight with him and he loves the gospel. Me too! But besides that it was a pretty normal week.

 It rained a lot. One day we were walking and it was drizzling, but in the distance we heard a really loud booming sound of tons of rain hitting tin roofs. We look over and see a wall of water heading our way! We weren´t near any houses so we had to book it down this road and we barely made it to a porch in time for the rain to hit and I have never seen so much rain in my life! It is a normal thing for people to get stranded on other people´s porches during rain, so the lady comes out and gives us chairs and we figured we had a captive audience for a lesson. Buuuut when we tried to talk to her she wasn´t understanding us well and then it turns out she was partially deaf and with the rain pounding on the roof she couldn´t hear anything. Typical. haha

Also we had this one contact who was really interested and participated really well during the lesson and we were feeling really good about him until the very end when we realized he only invited us in to try and get me to marry his daughter. Dominicans will do ANYTHING to get to the US. Anyways sorry there isn´t more substance to this letter but this past week was kinda a blur.

Love,

Elder Harsh

                                                                Rain Storm in the DR

                                                             Cool view from a porch

Week 34

Hi Everyone!

This week had a really rough start but it ended up being a pretty good week! To start things off Louis and Pura had a baptism date for this Saturday because their son who is a member was coming to visit from Spain, but he isn´t coming until May so we had to postpone the baptism until after I leave! Also Fifo´s family is progressing very nicely but he is heading to the capital for a week and a half with his family which means I won´t be here for their baptism either! So that was some bad news to start off the week and it was Passover week which means that everybody goes to the beach or river to drink and stuff so not very many people were home! On Friday is the big celebration and it was like walking through a ghost town because literally everybody was gone!

Our district leader and his comp had a meeting at the stake center, but since it was Holy Friday none of the buses were running so they had a surprise sleepover with us! We played monopoly and it nearly ruined our district, but it all worked out in the end. I won :).

Then we taught a new investigator who we found on Friday. We only had about 10 minutes so we just talked a little about prophets and invited him to General Conference (here you have to go to the stake center to watch it). He came for the Saturday morning session so we watched that in Spanish with him. I was surprised because I actually understood almost everything! He loved it so much he told me he was more important than me and stole my notebook from me and started taking notes! Haha and then he brought his whole family to the Sunday afternoon session! Also it’s too bad that you missed Saturday afternoon because those talks were brilliant. Conference keeps getting better and better! As of now we have two baptisms planned for the 18th so we are working really hard to make those work out!

Also bad news, I don´t know if I told you this but my abs are slowly dying. I lost 7 and 8 in the CCM and I just recently lost 6 and 5. 4321 are hanging on, but with a rice filled diet like this, it is only a matter of time :(. I cant wait to get back and get big again.  Oh well- a day in the life….

Love,

Elder Harsh

Week 33

Hi Everyone!

Well this was quite the week, I don´t really know where to start! A few weeks ago we were walking along and these kids were struggling to carry a mattress up the side of a mountain to their new house. We went and helped them and we asked the mom if she needed any more help. She was really happy when we asked her because it turns out she was moving her entire house, so we spent the next hour or so moving all of her possessions up a mountain. (It was in a poor area so there wasn´t too much to move) After we finished we tried to find the mom to ask if we could come by later and share a message, but she was nowhere to be found. So through the next few weeks we tried to contact that house but she wasn´t ever there and we kinda got the feeling she just used us and was avoiding us. But one day we were walking and we decided to go try one more time. We were kinda nervous because getting rejected sucks, but we went for it anyways. When she came and saw it was us her face lit up and she gave us one of the warmest welcomes I’ve ever gotten! She was so nice and she absolutely loves this gospel. She went to church and has already read a pretty big chunk of the book of Mormon.

Also this past Saturday we had a service project where we cut down all this tall grass with machetes. There is an art to using a machete, but after slight lacerations on my hand, knee, and companion´s elbow, I actually got really good at using it! The only problem is it took us 2 and a half hours to do what I could have done in 10 minutes with a weed wacker. But we had a good time and we got empanadas afterwards. Also we had intercambios and I was with E. Zamora from Texas and we had such a good time!! We are best buds, and let’s just say we know how to party. I will send some pictures home that will help you understand!  haha. Also earlier today we went up to Yamasa and Elder Zamora and I played basketball with some people there. Mom you are gonna be so proud- Us two white kids beat the team of three black kids!!! I think we are ready to play in the suburbs of Chicago. But that’s about it, I’ll be sending pictures home soon!

                Oh also coming back home from intercambios, a guy just walked off the bus with my bag. Sooooo I am down one white shirt, a pair of garments, My really handy micro fiber towel, and ALL OF MY PICTURES. It’s a given that every intercambio you always take all your photos and talk about home and stuff with the other missionary, and so the photo album and every single picture I had is gone. So maybe you could send (lots) more pictures! Include one of my flying the hot air balloons! Love ya!

Love,

Elder Harsh

Week 32

Hi Everyone!

Before we get started, yesterday I just found out the magic of tide to go!! It literally makes the stains disappear from your shirt!! I used the entire thingy getting off seven months  worth of stains out of my shirts yesterday. The only bad news is i´m out so if you could send me more of that, I´d sure appreciate that. Also Chulula.

Anyways this week was a great week. It was a pretty average week, but average with me and Elder Cook means we are having a great time! We taught this guy named Leonedas this week for the first time in about 4 weeks. He was a contact we made and we taught him a few lessons, but he was also taking lessons with the Jehovahs Witnesses. He told us he wanted to finish up with them and then start with us, and when we tried to make a return appointment he told us just to ask him if he is outside when we walk by. Normally that is how Dominicans say they aren´t interested, but we walked by last week and he was outside and we made a lesson with him. We had already taught him about the restoration and the book of Mormon and so we kinda just talked with him and answered some questions he had and out of nowhere Elder Cook just asked him if he knows this is true. He was silent for what felt like an eternity and then he said, I´m glad you asked me that question. He was praying about whether the other church he was studying was true and when he finished he noticed the book of mormon and so he opened it and started reading. He had a few questions that we answered for him but he told us that he knows this message was true and he wants to come to church next week! It doesn´t matter how many times I will see that as a missionary, I will never get sick of that moment when investigators first gain their testimony.

This coming week we have intercambios(Exchanges) coming up and I am going to head up to Yamasa with a Elder Zamora from Texas. We are already way tight so we are both way pumped for this week.

Love,

Elder Harsh

Drying my Laundry

 My washing machine

Week 31

Hi Everyone.

Well just like that the week has gone by! We have had our hands full this week with investigators problems! We have a couple who were planning on getting married for their baptism but sometime in April their son is coming to visit from Spain, and he said he wants to be there for the wedding. The transfer ends halfway through April so I´m not sure if I´m going to be there for their baptism or not, but I have my fingers crossed!

Also we have a really good family that had been progressing really well but when we had a word of wisdom lesson it turns out both the mom and dad are both POTHEADS. They ended up telling us that they don´t smoke weed every day,  but usually more than 3 times a week, and when they do they smoke it-they smoke it  ALL DAY LONG!  So that was a kick in the shorts but we set up a plan for them to stop and they genuinely want to stop so we will have to see where that goes.

 But in better news we have the family that we recently started teaching the husband too, and they are progressing really well. We set a goal for them to be married by the first week of April and he said he is going to try to do it sooner! He is loving the gospel and we had an especially good lesson about marriage because we had the branch President and his wife come and they basically did everything for us and nailed it. Them along with one or two other investigators have the best chance to be baptized this transfer!

Holy cow I almost forgot to tell you about the conference! Jeffery R Holland was awesome!! We got there super early and sat 4 rows from the front, and we sat on either side of our investigators to show Elder Holland that we are good missionaries. Haha during the conference I was low key eating smarties because I was hungry and I put my hand up to my mouth at the exact time Elder Holland decides to look at me! He caught me red handed and there was no getting out of it, so I just shrugged my shoulders and Elder Holland started laughing. I was kind of embarrassed but I guess now he knows the real me! Haha he gave a really good talk to the people about the restored gospel and how we should strengthen our testimonies  always which is both a perfect message for the members and also our investigators that were there. He nailed it! Also he told us a story where he was in a hurry to catch a flight and he was speeding on the freeway. He told us he repented because he was driving so fast and all the American missionaries thought it was funny, but the Dominicans were just kind of confused because speed limits don´t exist here. But he gave a really good talk and when he walked into the room my investigators said they felt that he was a man of God, which is really all they needed to get out of the conference. It was a really great experience!!

Today Elder Cook and I went to Yamasa where our district leader lives and we went and hiked a mountain. The elder from Texas thought they were mountains but I have literally longboarded hills bigger than those ´mountains´. But that was fun and yes mom I took pictures. (Your welcome)

Elder Harsh