Getting ready for Church

 This is where they hold Church every Sunday. It's a Library.

 Elder Harris and his wonderful Companion Elder Myler

 Them setting up for Sacrament Meeting

 These 4 are the only Missionaries in Gdanks 

With President Nielson and his wife

To Hel and back lol

 Elder Harris with Elder Myler and the Sister in his distric. They have been to Hel and back.

If that's Hel, then I am in Heaven.

Poland Update

Well its starting to get really cold!!!!! Like no snow luckily but i am right by the Baltic Sea so the wind is insane! This week was not what i expect difficult but so much fun! But first My Raiders beat the Steelers??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA thats awesome!!! Steal Curtain ha shnap! and i am glad to hear that my family is doing well and Tua got his mission call thats sick! He is going to do awesome! 

Monday we went to Hel....yes hel. It is so pretty its another Beach here in Poland its just a tiny Peninsula or however you spell it but it was gorgeous. I got to sea seals as well and they are the coolest little fish dogs ever! That was lots of fun! 

Tuesday was hard. We found out that our Investiagor  who was supposed to be getting baptized on  saturday we catch him smoking....and he wont return our calls or come to our scheduled meetings. all day tuesday i was so discouraged, it was so hard. but i tried my best not to get down but when its your first investigator and he does that it hurts. we arent made that he is smoking we are made that he lied, i mean we can help you if you really want help. 

 

Wednesday was the same he bailed on us again. I was at the point of frustrated and annoyed, i mean i thought the world of this guy and i still do i just wish he was would show up. We had our lesson with Wojciech and his mom again, they are the nicest people in the world. I still think that we are catholic and are just sharing a free message about christ and are giving out free books....we invited them to be baptized and they said yes we are already baptised....no people in our church! they are so cute and innocent. We are explaining to them who we are and they go okay cool sure lets get baptized but they dont understand, so...yeah pray for them for me please!

 

Thursday was full of miracles! We met a guy named Fillip who lost his dog and was asking if we have seen it, he then asks why are you all dressed up so nice? we explained who we are and he got excited and wanted to no more so we taught him what we could and he was so exctied about a free book of mormon he wanted to pay us but we were likes its free! 

 

friday was the same but saturday was amazing i got experience my first baptizm which was so cool! never felt the spirit so strong! I cant even explain it! i was a witness which was cool and an american brother baptized he learned the prayer in polish in like 2 days such a testimony to me that i can learn this language. Sunday at the Confirmations President Neilsen came and that was great he always has the spirit with him such a great guy! I was in the circle for that as well!

Poland is great hard but fun i love and miss you all!

Elder Harris

 

More Pic's from the MTC

Elder Godwin's mother got these and was nice enough to send them to me.

It's nice to other peoples pic's of Elder Harris

 

Week 4 Update

Well Utah wins the last Holy War huh? I wish i was home for that week i already know every BYU fan was giving Utah fans crap for our starting QB going down and for losing to Utah State and then what you miss two field goals?? Psh! GO UTES UTIMATE bragging rights! And sorry to everyone who emails me and dont get a way long email i dont have much time :( But i am doing very good. I want to talk about sports some more my Raiders are sucking what a shocker right?? But how about Notre Dame?? Holy Cow!!!!! How are the yankees doing? Anyways i am doing awesome! I am having lots of fun but this language is getting me extremely frustrated! Which doesnt help matters but oh well i am doing lots better!

So this week had lots of ups and downs, which is expected on a mission. Monday was p day and me and Elder Myler went back to Sopot and hung out at  the beach. i bought a soccer ball and kicked it around by myself because he had to catch up on journal writing, but it was a nice relaxing day. I then had to travel to Bydgoszcz again to be on splits. Trains are really not that fun when you have been on 8 in one month. But this time i went by myself not going to lie it was scary but some nice old lady told me from what i got out of her Polish that she would wake me up when i got to my stop because we talked about what stop i was going to. so i take a nap and i get louldy woken up! Pan pan! then in her english move you here!!! so i grab my stuff and have to jump off a moving train because trains in poland they dont care either your off or on so that was a scary 5 minutes. 

Tuesday i was in Bydgoszcz with Elder Raines, which he is great he is from the K-Town! so we always talk about it and how much kearns rocks! But we had no meetings set up so guess what 8 hours of contacting! i am so grateful for my days when i have lessons! But it was a way fun learning experience its nice to see how different missionaries work. I learned some good phrases but cant spell them i am sorry :( 

Wednesday morning i woke up and heading back to the train station to be back in Gdansk. As soon as i got back we had to go to teach our english class. wow pools are hilarious when it comes to saying stuff like the three thousand and th in general. Then we had a lesson with Zbyszek and he freakin rocks. Coolest guy ever he passed his interview so he will be baptized this saturday the 22nd! i am so exctied for him. he is funny he is always trying to teach me words like sweter which is sweater so i already know them but he doesnt know he is just trying to be nice. then we met with Wojciech and are way nice. it was a good lesson but every question they would say nie wiem ( i dont know ) and we would answer and they would go yes thats right so its like do you know this or not?? and they wouldnt read because the print is to small so i am going to buy them a magnifying glass lol they are really nice just they are like children so thats hard to teach. 

thursday was the hard part we had a investigator named Marian who had a date to be baptized but he said he didnt want to left. which is sad because he has such a good strong little testimony but for some reason wont be baptized and he wont call us back and didnt come to church so thats hard right now. but after that we heard the phrase all elders like to hear. hey elders! a guy from tennesse was here on business and bought us dinner and gave me football scores my raiders suck :( holy cow they are depressing sometimes. but it was so nice to be able to talk to someone about the church expesially after marian leaving. 

friday we taught an old man in our branch Bogdan about family history and he told us about his life and he has been to every continent besides north america because of all his sailing he did. it was cool. we then went Beach Contacting and serioulsy 3 sets of people listened to me only because i was american and i was cute. i couldnt understand them so i was like yeah okay bye. but then we met with Zbyszek on the beach and we taught him how to really pray and he did it! it was freakin awesome!!!

it was a good week lots of fun! hope everyone is having fun and i miss you all! 

Love 

Elder Harris

Look what came in the mail

Elder Harris with his Mission Presdient and wife.

Presdient Nielson and Sister Nielson

Update Week 3 From Poland

Hello!

Well i guess you all have seen pictures of me and my companion i promise i am happy and having fun, not sure why i am not smiling in the pictures but i promise i am doing awesome! How is everyone? Has Tua gotten his call yet? How about Skyler? Its funny i am serving in the same area as his cousin! How is the NFL season going? games started yet? soccer season started here and every Monday night seems like they have a game and everyone is drunk and the fans they call them hollies they are the fans who start fights? yeah they love to mock us, hey look its the people from church hid your beer hey maybe they want one?? Ha Dude sit down and don't hurt yourself! But then there are the people who i talk to in Polish and listen just because they think its cool i am trying to learn their language so they help me and correct me and say no thanks bye and run away so it has its pluses and minuses. We did have a baptism scheduled this week on the 15th but we don't feel feel as if he is ready so we are doing him as well as 4 others on 22nd so teats going to be so exciting i cant wait! 

So this past week was a different one but it was full of the spirit! Monday for P day we actually went to a funeral, one of the members in our branch Passed away. He was 7th day Aventine or something like that for the past 50 years then as of 4 months he was baptized into our church. Towards the end of his life he struggled to understand the fact that the Sabbath is on Sunday not Saturday but he lived that commandment anyways and the last Sunday before his passing he paid his tithing and then 2 days later passed away. I dint know him much but he was amazing! he ad so much faith even though he didn't fully understand he kept everything! It was a good ceremony and his daughter who has been a member for 20 years bore her testimony about how her dad is in paradise and she said in the name of Jesus Christ amen and the spirit hit me so hard because she had the faith to stand up in front of everyone and bare her testimony wow it was awesome! Then after that we went to a castle which was really cool to see but like everything else in Poland Mondays thins are really ever opened. But it was still cool to walk around it! Poland has lots of them so i am excited to see more!

Tuesday was a day full of contacting nothing but contacting! But for dinner break we were not hungry so we decided to go to the mall, because Elder Myler needed a new suit so he bought a new suit and i got a sweet yellow tie ;) its so good looking i am pretty happy about that and we walked into the Nike store and they had the Poland Euro Cup jerseys on sale for 150 zlots which is like 50 bucks so i bought it! One of the only things i really wanted to get and i got it! so after that hour we contacted some more and had no success it was one of those days that make you appreciate the good days! And to top everything off our power went out so we had to plan and eat in the dark!

Wednesday was awesome! We meet our landlord who is the nicest man every he came right over and fixed our power for free and invited us over for dinner soon. Then we had Comp Study and had to prepare a lesson for a man named Lukasz, he wants to read the Book of Mormon in English because it will mean more to him in the native tongue which is cool. But whats really cool is finding out that you can teach the entire 1st lesson in 1st Nephi 1! And when we taught him the spirit was so strong we talked a lot about families and that's easy for me to talk about and i know he and his girlfriend felt the spirit! So hopefully we will have wedding soon! 

Thursday we went to the greatest and only good Mexican restaurant in Pooland! Called Burritos! Wow it was so freaking Delicious! But the highlight of the day was our last lesson with a man named Wojciech and his mom. They live in this beautiful area and we find there house and its a little shack....and it was dirty and really Poland like it stunk but how his mom and he greeted us. They were so excited for us to be there! They pretty much believed everything we told them and thought it was the coolest thing ever! But his mom is a total Babcia which is grandma in Polish she has a cart and very Catholic but....she was so nice and so open to listening i think she actually liked it. She said she felt good after our meeting and invited us back! They think its "cute" i am learning Polish so they will teach me next week lol all my investigators tell me that lol

Then Friday we had Zone Conference! My first one, its always awesome to see President! He is an amazing man! I learned so much! And had these amazing Pizza things not sure what they are called but amazing!

Then Saturday the joy of being a Poland missionary is looking for Pools and places to Baptize people. All day Saturday thats what we did! So if your going to South America or North American mission be grateful!

I love and miss you all! Hope all is good!

Love

Elder Harris

Bydgoszcz Zone Conference

                      The Gdansk District: Sisters Ostler and Bezdjian; Elders Harris and Myler (District Leader).

Just Kidding Week 2 Update

Well this last week has been a really weird but amazing week! Full of miracles! The beginning of the week my companion told me that only The best missionaries get called to Poland because lets be honest its not salt lake where i am baptizing 50 million people or even being able to have that many people stop and listen to me. its hard. the language the life style everything! My companion told me he sends only people who can handle this, at times i feel as if i cant, the language is killing me. but then today on my way here to email we stopped a lady and her daughter and we were talking about families and this little girl looks at me and go czesc and hands me me a little flower. how crazy is it to think that such a little girl understands the principle of sharing. its something small like a flower but he is thinking this is pretty here look you can have it, as missionaries we should be thinking who this gospel is life changing here experience it have this book it will change your life. i understand i am here to let the people of Poland who need ME to do that for them. although at times i get frustrated with the language because well all know how i am but i think of the little things and it keeps me going.

this past week for P day we went to Sopot which is a beach town! freaking gorgeous holy cow!!!! it was a lot of fun! then for FHE the american family in our branch invited us over to thier house for dinner and help them with the little kids of a family who will be baptized soon. they are so cute! Kasia reminds me of My little Sister Rylie smart as can be so nice to everyone and just loveable! she gave the lesson and she did better then i ever could and she is 11! wow it was really inspiring but also humbling. Tomek who is the son reminds me of my little steph brother Bubba, just a little kid who loves his toys and video games and for some reason beats up on his cat, like bubba does to Roxy! we played the game sorry and he was be so funny making everyone be a teams (the lewis one team, the missionaries one team and his two sisters one team) it was funny. me and my companion were winning and he goes oh Starszi sa najlepcisy! or however you spell it but it means the elders are the best! it was hilarious! then the youngest Ona wow she is a princess! she is an older version of my little angel Jordyn! every time she sees me she comes and sits next to me she is adorable!

then tuesday we had no meetings so it was a day of contacting yay! life of a missionairy! but it went well! at the end. we had no success then all of the sudden we are headed to our meeting with the branch mission leader at KFC and some guy goes hey do you have the latest liahona? we go yes and he goes well i dont have a lot of time i am a excumunicated member working on coming back can i have a book of mormon to share with my friends? we gave it to him and he left, then 2 seconds later some guy gives us free candy and right after that some very beautiful daughters of God  talk to us about the church they werent interested but still nice to talk to people. crazy day.

Wednesday we talked to our baptismal canadidate Zbyszek about the word of wisdom and he goes oh thats easy for sure! what a faithful man he is so awesome! then we taught english which was fun but really hard! but it went well. i then went to Bydgoszcz on a 2 hour train ride to be on splits with Elder Weir and Raines. because our campanions had a leadership training in Warsaw.

On thursday in Bydgoszcz i was not to exctied to be there because it was not my place, and litterly for about 8 hours we contacted and no one listened what a very discouraging day! but of course me and Elder Weir made the best of it!! I love that kid he is amazing! he is a sensational missionary!

friday we returned back to Gdansk we had a meeting set up with a man named marek i guess he is a elder in his religion and only wanted to listen to inform us that we are not the only true church out there he believes we are true as well as his church really odd but i talked pretty good that lesson. then for some reason i got really down and wasnt happy we had a meeting with Zbyszek and he didnt show so we went looking for his house, to make sure he is okay, he never comes late or cancels and doesnt have a phone so we were worried. we went to his address and found out it was a warehouse we were confused but couldnt go knock because it was gated off we then asked a kid if he knew where he was and he pointed to a homeless shelttler. it was so sad we did find him and figured things out but seeing that area of P0land made me realize wow my life is perfect back home its sad. i dont have much time but everything is going well i love and miss you all!!!!

love 

elder harris

PDay in Poland

 

Week 2 From Poland

NO UPDATE!!!!!!