Got My Flight Plans! So excited!

Cauh bauha yy?

Well family, I GOT MY FLIGHT PLANS!!!  I LEAVE ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH!!  We fly from SLC to LAX, from LAX to Bejing, China, then onto Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia!   I am so excited!!

I am happy to say that I have now passed the 7 week mark in the wonderful Provo MTC!   How bittersweet it is to know that I only have about 10 more days here!   Two weeks from now I will be in Mongolia, living in sub-zero temperatures walking up and down the streets doing the Lord's work.  Words cannot describe how excited I truly am.   Yes, there is a little bit of a fear of the unknown, but that is mostly just because of the language.   But, you know me, I am aways DOWN for an adventure, and Mongolia truly will be the adventure of a lifetime.  I know the Lord will bless me. I am on His errand, and He didn't call me to fail. 

So last Friday I went to the Provo Temple, and had the opportunity to do an endowment session.  One of our teachers, Wilson Ax, came with us and did a session. So as we were walking in he said, "I want to get the Mongolian translation for the movie!"  So he booked it down to some translation place in the temple, and got a set of headphones that translated the session into all Mongolian.   It was so cool!  To my surprise, we were able to watch the old movie!   It was nice to have a change, but man was it old.  About half way through,Wilson  turns to me and asks me if I want to listen in Mongolian?  Of course I did, so I put on the headphones, and there I was listening to a temple session in Mongolian!  It was crazy!   I maybe understood 5%, but hey, it is a work in progress!  Afterwards we were in the Celestial Room, and we were greeted by all the missionaries who are in the MTC from Mongolia!  It was so cool to be in the temple with them.  We were all in a circle kind of quietly chatting and whatnot, and then Sister Mashbat (from Mongolia) says, "Harris Zalthbrin" (which means, Harris Pray).   I was taken back, and was like there is no way that I am doing this right here!  She just stared at me and folded her arms, closed her eyes, and bowed her head and said, "Harris, I'm waiting."  Now I was on the spot!  I looked around and all the Mongolians and my teacher followed the example of Sister Mashbat.  So right there in the Celestial Room I offered a broken Mongolian prayer.  It was actually a really cool experience, and one that I will never forget.

Last Saturday we had a TRC (where we teach Mongolian RM's lessons).  But this week, to our surprise, we had a REAL investigator show up, who was from Mongolia!  Now we were really on the spot!  This was the real deal!   Sister Hansen and I were so nervous, but we went in there with faith, and it went great!  He is an 18 year old foreign exchange student that goes to Timpview High.  We taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but he told us he already had a testimony of both of those, and he had already decided to get baptized!  Wow, LETS GO!  How awesome is that!  We asked him when he wanted to get baptized, but he wouldn't tell us a date.  He kinda had that "I'll get around to it" attitude, which isn't bad, but he is so ready!  Hopefully we'll teach him again tomorrow!  Pray for us and him as well!

EIL (English as an International Language) Training started this week!  It has been great, and very helpful!  I am so excited to get over to Mongolia and teach English!  So I have learned that we are the ONLY mission in the whole world that is required to get EIL certified in order to enter a country!   Another reason why Mongolia is the best and most unique mission in the world!  So once we get there, we become employed by our sponsor.  He or she is our boss for the most part, and if we don't make him or her happy, they won't sign our Visa's for the second year!  So this is the real deal!  We will enter the country as English Teachers, and if we don't make them happy, we are gone!  That really gave us so much more motivation in this EIL class. Today is our last day of the class, which I am pretty excited about, because we have had it from 8 am to 12 noon every day this week, so there has been quite a lack of Mongolian Language learning this week. 

Last week we were able to hear from Sister Sheri Dew!  She is such an amazing Sister in the Church!  Her testimony and bluntness about the gospel of Jesus Christ really got to me.  I am so grateful I had the opportunity to hear from her because I have always heard she is such a spiritual giant, and that rumor was confirmed!  This past Tuesday we heard from Elder Martino, of the Seventies.  He talked all about member missionary work, and pulled all of his talk from the the chapters in Alma where Alma and Amulek become companions and teach the gospel together.  He said something about investigators that really struck me, and I want to share it with you. He said, "While at first they may not accept the gospel, if we persist, the Lord will bless the heart of those we love."  The ones we love are our investigators.  All we have to do is love them, and if we do, we will be blessed, but most importantly the Lord will bless THEM more than they could ever imagine, and someday they will accept this gospel for the truth that it is. 

I love this work mom and dad.  I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  These past 7 weeks have flown by, and it is so crazy to think I only have about 22 months left really scares me.  I know I will not want to come home, and I will be wishing to stay a little longer in the freezing Mongolian weather.  Although I can barely speak the language, I know that Heavenly Father knows me personally and he will bless me.  I can't wait to send me first email from Mongolia!  The church is true. I know that. 

Baka,

Elder Harris

My EIL Certificate

My EIL teachers, Brother Anderson and Brother Evans... and me!

My EIL teachers, me, the Sisters, and President and Sister Clark