International love.

7/28/14

HI. What a week. What a crazy, crazy week. This week was absolutely perfect in all of it's insanity. We had splits and that means I got to see cute Sister Southworth! She's the best human. I love her with the whole heart. It's so fun to see her and to see how much she's doing and how much of a fantastic missionary she is. She gave a spiritual thought and I was blown away by how well she speaks Russian. She's a champ. I was with her companion this time and it was one of my absolute favorite days of all time on my mission. It was perfect. They have an investigator who is probably one of the most elect people I have ever known. They met her at a grocery store where she works and she wanted to learn more. Now she has a baptismal date. We watched the Testaments with her. **WARNING: Will get sappy from here on out.** We watched the Testaments and it was honestly one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission. The investigator has such a strong testimony and love for Christ. She loves Him. And she loves the Book of Mormon. And I have just been thinking lately about how much I love the Russian people. And how much I love teaching them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We work so hard, day in and day out just to find somebody who will listen. And when they do, it's the most rewarding thing in the whole world. The Testaments is about the people on the American continent right before Christ comes. The story follows a dad and his children and how they are living before the Savior comes. The dad has been faithful his whole life and has been waiting for the Savior his whole life. The children were faithful but mostly dependent on the faith of their father. The son makes some bad choices and drifts away. The dad ends up having to save the son from being killed and in the process loses his sight. When the Savior does come, the son feels so bad because his dad cannot even see him because of his injury. He is standing with his father and the Savior is ministering to the people. The son expresses to his father how sad he is and how sorry he is that he cannot see Christ. The Father says to him, "It is enough that you can see him." At that moment when we were watching that movie with the investigator I was just blown away. It is enough that you can see him. That is perfect love. That is charity. I was especially struck that I had felt that way for the Russian people before. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is getting to feel the love Heavenly Father has for his children. And in that moment I felt that whatever I had to go through, whatever I had to do would be worth it if these people could just see Christ. Even if I couldn't see Him, it would be enough if they could. We came back to Lipetsk and continued to have a crazy week. So crazy. But so good. A couple of weeks ago we met a vietnamese girl. Yesterday, we skyped with a man who is in america who is a member who speaks vietnamese so he could talk to our potential vietnamese investigator. Turns out she wasn't interested but her friend who was with us and is from Africa was. Cool, huh? And then to top it off we got to meet another girl who is from Tajikistan. We contacted her a couple of months ago and I've been thinking about her ever since but we hadn't been able to meet with her yet. I was looking through the phone on Saturday and had a feeling to call her. So I did and we set up a time to meet. It was perfect. She was so open and so willing and so great. And to make things even better we have a member from Tajikstan who can totally be her best friend. The miracles. They are unreal and the are never ending. I love you all. Have the best of weeks! Love, Sister Harris