The last of the holidays.

1/12/14

The holidays are finally over! I never thought I would be someone who was happy that the holidays were over but it's been Christmas here for the last month. And no one has been answering their phone. Last week was the Russian Christmas so hopefully things will start moving back to normal. This week was good! We had a lot of time to contact but we met a lot of really cool people. We met this one lady who was probably the nicest woman in the entire world. She kept telling us we were beautiful and calling me her master. Hahah. Good times. An upside from the week, we contacted a man with a cross-bow. He invited us to target practice and to an international yoga studio. I was reading over my journal from the beginning of my mission and it was so weird to see how much I've changed. To see how much my ideas and focuses have changed. We were updating the area book last night and I was looking at all of the members' pages and I was hit by how much I love these people. Every single one of them is such a huge miracle. I was thinking about how much I love the girl we saw get baptized and that every member we have was also some missionary's miracle, someone's fasting and prayers, and thoughts. I'm so grateful to know all of these people, to know their stories and see them progress in the Gospel. I cannot think of any place I'd rather be than Nizhny Novgorod. I'm going to try to convince President to keep me here the rest of my mission. Haha. I don't see it going well. In other news, Sister Southworth is doing great! It's so weird to be the trainer and see all the progress she is making and have her not believe me when I tell her that she's doing good. Because I was that exact same way. I'm always blown away by the simple things in life that are universal, like smiling, or acts of kindness. I was getting the keys to our branch building from the guard and he said, "That girl is always smiling." in reference to Sister Southworth. And it's true. She is always smiling. It's something that people notice, something that makes them wonder what we have to be so happy about. I love that. I hope you all have the best of weeks. I love you! Love, Cectpa Harris

Parties Parties and Parties

1/06/14

Happy 2014! This week has been crazy. We have had a different event on every single day. Probably the coolest one was when all the missionaries in our area went to this Armenian family's house for dinner. Never in my life have I been fed so much food. They just kept bringing more and more and it was so delicious. Everyone was in a food coma afterwards. Mind blown about the amounts of food there. One of the Armenian's is an investigator and we had the chance to do a spiritual thought. She asked us to share a moment when we had felt particularly close to God. One of the missionaries talked about how they had always felt homesick for people they didn't know and then when they got their mission call they felt like they were going home. It was so cool to be sitting in this apartment with 12 other missionaries, an Armenian family in Russia celebrating Christmas and New Year's, celebrating the fact that we are all one family. Way cool. Ah, other news. I lost the key to our apartment this week. It was great. We got home at 9 and couldn't get in. So I had to call our landlord and then her daughter who had an extra key. Bad news was that she lived so, so, so far away. We called a taxi but it still took us 45 minutes to get there. SO FAR. But, the miracle part of it was that I was able to understand everything on the phone. It's really hard for me to understand when Russians say addresses over the phone but I could understand everyone perfectly. Holler at the blessings from Heavenly Father because that's mind blowing. Anyways, Sister Southworth and I are doing good here in the Russia! We are loving life and teaching and contacting and just being missionaries. Love you all! Love, Cectpa Harris 

P.S the rules were changed slightly and we're now allowed to send some pictures home! So here we are!  

...What party?

12/30/13

Merry Christmas! We had the best of Christmases. I loved Skyping home. IT was seriously the best thing in the world. I'm so blessed to have such an unreally great family. Thank you for all the emails, packages, letters, and all you do for me. It means the world. Our Christmas was so great. We had district meeting so all the missionaries got together at the Senior Couple's house and ate so much food. Then we opened our presents and did some missionary work and it was good stuff. I don't have a ton of time today but I'm doing so well. It's not even freezing here right now. Way warm. Oh, I fell way hard on the ice this week. That was an adventure. And from that fall I broke one of my boots. We had a lesson right after and I couldn't get the boot off my foot so I sat through the whole lesson with one boot on and one boot off. Good times. Anyways, Happy New Year's! I love you all! Love, Cectpa Harris