Walking blessings.

10/6/14

Hello! We have had a crazy week. I officially have a new companion. She's from Canada. We're working on it. Just kidding. Canadians are cool. We were in Moscow this week for transfer meeting. It was a great meeting mostly because I got to see Sister Southworth. I love that lady so much. And because we got to see Lenin's dead body that they keep in a building on red square. It was a dream come true. Truly. We got back to our little Lipetsk town and went right to work. We seriously have the best members ever. We met with our new converts this week and with a few other members and did a spiritual thought about fast Sundays and why it's so cool that we have the opportunity to bear our testimonies. Then we committed them to bear their testimonies this Sunday. It's so cool to work with members and to see the blessings that come from it. So we get to Sunday and everyone we had met with and committed to bear their testimonies bore their testimonies. Even our cute little 11-year old Son. It was the best testimony meeting I have ever been to. The overriding theme of the testimonies was love. Especially the pure love of Christ. That is something I pray for everyday and have learned a lot about here on my mission. How to love people and how we can strive to see them the way God sees them. The branch where I am is very young and very small. But we are seeing huge miracles. We had more people at church yesterday than ever before. We had all auxiliaries functioning. We had new members fulfilling their callings. Sundays are my favorite days because I feel like all the work that we do throughout the week just comes together and we get to see these people progress. The best thing. Our cute family are getting callings this week. We are so excited for them and to see all the wonderful things they will do as members of the church. Conference was so good. We have only seen the Saturday sessions but we are watching the rest today. We have been waiting and waiting for conference. It's pretty much been on the same level as Christmas. It's really cool to see the audience and to realize there are so many members of this church. 15 million. Crazy. And to hear how many missionaries there are! Over 88,000. I am blown away by that. My favorite talk so far was by Elder Holland. He spoke about love and about all we can do to lift the poor and needy. I love that he focused on what we can do and how that may not be to change the entire world but we can change someone, something. We have so much to give. We had a great meeting with one of our members this week. Their family is going through an extremely difficult time. During the lesson the member talked about how she would have never imagined that she would become friends with two girls from America but that she loved us. And we feel the exact same way. She told a story of how we were walking outside and she looked at us and thought, "There are my blessings out there walking on the street." It's mind blowing because we are just two 21 year old girls. We don't really know anything and I can guarantee that this member is more of a blessing in our lives than we are in hers. But I also can guarantee that God has a purpose for each of us. And it is to lift the hands that hang down. I am grateful to have this opportunity to do that and hope that it is something I will be able to incorporate into my whole life. I love you all and hope you had a wonderful week! Love, Sister Harris