Thursday, February 24, 2005

Time Zones

I find it interesting that because brian has set his blogger address to venezuela, the time of posting appears to be (i think) 2 hours ahead of Mountain Time, so if i post at 10 it says "Posted by Michael at 12:00 AM" If i post now, it will probably say i posted at 10:34...

Brian Letter 2-24-05

Subject: From Brian

Hi y'all,
Yah, last week was a little confusing with the email. I have no idea why they weren't working, I was sending them to the right address but they must not have made it out of my system. Myldsmail is a little gimpy... but it's better than nothing.

It was really nice today to see 13 messages waiting for me, I really liked hearing from Shannon and Julie especially and I got a nice letter from Sister Nye, and Uncle Don. It pretty much made my day today :)

Everything is about the same as last week, still working with marriages and divorces. We ran into a couple of seventh day adventists, and they liked to argue with us. That was a little surprising to me because most Hispanics around here are supposedly Catholic and don't really know their scriptures very well. We don't meet many protestant Hispanics. We're going to teach them a regular lesson next week, but we don't really know what to expect. They'll probably try to argue the same thing as last week, and that would be lame. We'll see what happens. We talked to some other Elders who had visited them, and they already had a few arguments about 6 months ago.

North Carolina actually isn't all that pretty yet. The weather is warm, but we don't have quite enough sun, at least not consistently. The trees are still bare, and there aren't really any flowers or anything yet. I hear in the summer it's really really green, I hope I get to be here for that. I'm starting to like Charlotte more and more, I will definitely have mixed emotions when my visa comes. My companions are great, but sometimes Elder Frost likes to take breaks. That's a little frustrating because we don't really have time for it. Elder Gordon and I both want to stay out of the apartment as much as possible, but it's a little bit of a struggle. This is Elder Frost's last transfer, and Elder Gordon has two more (and President Noel told him he's staying here until the end), so if I'm still in the states when Elder Frost leaves, I will probably stay in the same area with Elder Gordon. I think that would be really awesome, and I can see us getting a lot done.

Spanish is coming still. It gets a little bit easier every day, and I found that the more I study in the morning, the better I speak throughout the day. I never knew Isaiah would help like that! I have been studying Isaiah in Spanish, and he uses so many metaphores, I learn some good vocabulary from that, and of course just using the verb conjugations helps. I don't dislike it as much as I used to, I wasn't really very excited to find out that I would be speaking Spanish, but it makes sense to me now, and it's kind of starting to sound nice too.

One piece of bad-ish news: I burned my arm on a bare light bulb the other night, so it blistered up pretty bad. I've been trying to be careful with it, but this morning after my shower, I had my bandage off, and I accidentally rubbed my arm against a chair, and all the skin just came right off. It was weird. It doesn't hurt very bad, but it's still kind of a bummer, it will leave a scar for sure.

I think it's funny that Shannon is getting married on Friday the 13th. One time CHS swept the marching band awards on Friday the 13th. It's not always unlucky :) I'm super excited for you Shannon!

Well, that's all I have time for, we have a lot of shopping to do today, and a few other errands. I'm happy and healthy, and I'm doing my best here. I love you all!

Love, Elder Harris

Saturday, February 19, 2005


oops again... Brian Letter 1-12-05 Posted by Hello


1-12-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


1-12-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


1-12-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


Silverware... Posted by Hello


OOPS! Missed one... Brian Letter 12-26-04 Posted by Hello


12-26-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


12-26-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello

Brian Letter 2-17-05

Subject: 2-17-05

Well, this is attempt #2, the computer ate my last email, and it was pretty long. I talked about how there are no straight roads at all in Charlotte, and how I ate a raw fish, shrimp, and lime juice soup with an Ecuadorian, and how I ate "frijoles charros" with cow stomach with a Mexican family. Our investigators are roughly the same, no one progresses very fast here, but at least they're progressing. We have one more girl with a baptismal commitment now, but the others are still waiting for marriages and legal stuff related to that. Everything takes a long time to get done. I really don't have much time now, but I hope to hear from y'all soon. I got your letter in the mail right after I emailed last week. Dad, am I sending this to the right address? Are you at .com or .net? Oh, and the rules for my email, anyone can write me, but I can only write family, so feel free to give my address out to a few people if they ask or whatever. I can reply to relatives through you, since you're forwarding this anyway. That will make things easier for some. I would love to read about what Gma and Gpa Harris are doing in NY, and all the other cousins that are out. Is Jeff home yet? Well, I have to go, have a good day!

Love, Elder Harris

Brian Letter 2-10-05

Subject: A new email & a letter

Hi family. I've had a good week. We keep getting fed a lot. On Saturday, we had 4 meals given to us, and the same happened on Monday and Tuesday as well. I feel really fat all the time. We are in a car, so we don't get a whole lot of excercise, so I really am getting a little fat. I put on another 10 pounds since I got to Charlotte. I can't help it though, we can't leave the members' houses until we finish our plate. It hurts sometimes, but we keep eating.

Yah, so my new email is bdharris@myldsmail.net Should be pretty easy to remember, its the same as my gmail address. (Andy, can you keep checking that once in a while so my account doesn't die?)

We still have 14 progressing investigators, some are progressing faster than others. We have 3 people with baptismal dates, and we're hoping for maybe one or two more by the end of the week or early in next week. The Hispanic people here are always pretty open about hearing the gospel. The English speaking elders always complain because they can go tracting all day and not teach a single lesson. I've already taught over 50 lessons here, and I am always hearing Spanish. I can understand a lot of what people say to me, but it takes me a while to process it. I have to concentrate really hard, and my head hurts every night when we come back, but I love it. There's nothing like hearing Spanish and knowing what it means. I was thinking today, there would be no way to learn Spanish this fast without the help of the Holy Ghost. It would just be so much harder. 3 months isn't enough to even get a good start anywhere but in the MTC. I think it's funny that the Army and several universities are trying to make deals with the church trying to copy the program. They don't understand that the program is only our secondary resource. I told my first joke in Spanish last night, that was exciting too.

I haven't heard anything on my visa yet, but I hear that Venezuela and Colombia are inching toward war. At their futbol game yesterday, there were police surrounding the stadium in full riot gear, armor and gas masks and everything. I hope nothing happens until after I get there. If a war starts before I get there, I'll probably never get to go, but if I'm already there, I doubt they'll send me back. :) I'm not really all that eager to leave Charlotte though, I like it here.

It sounds like everything is still going all right at home, I'm excited for Shannon especially! Do they have a date picked out yet? What temple will they be going to? Make sure I get some pictures and an invitation. I would like a picture of Amy and Aaron too, if they have them yet.

It's so nice to be able to email y'all. It's so much easier than writing by hand. I had to write my friends by hand this morning. I think I'll be emailing around 11am most Thursdays, maybe later sometimes, but if you want to have something ready for me, probably you will want to send it Wednesday night. That's all for today, hope to hear from y'all soon.

Love, Elder Harris

Brian Letter (Email!) 1-27-05

Subject: I'm in Charlotte

Hi dad, it's Elder Harris here. I finally got a chance to write, my
p-day is Thursday now. I'm in Charlotte and everything is going fine.
I still have no idea how long my visa will take, so I'll just work
here while I'm here. My trainers are Elder Frost and Elder Gordon,
they're good teachers, but we don't speak Spanish much outside of
appointments. I'm having some struggles understanding everything, but
I can catch about 80% of every conversation.

This mission gets email, but I think I'm getting a new address through
myldsmail, that's what everyone else has. I don't have the password
yet, i'll have to ask the president. Here's my address if you want to
send anything:

Elder Harris
1327 Beacon Ridge Rd. #1418
Charlotte, NC 28210

That's all for now, I'll send some more later. Love you all,
Brian Harris


Brian Letter 1-10-05 Posted by Hello


1-10-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


1-10-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


1-10-05 Cont'd Posted by Hello


Brian Letter 12-25-04 Posted by Hello


Brian's MTC Branch Posted by Hello


Brian Letter 12-19-04 Posted by Hello


12-19-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


12-19-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


Brian Letter 12-12-04 Posted by Hello


12-12-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


Brian Letter 12-8-04 Posted by Hello


12-8-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


12-8-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


12-8-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello


Brian Letter 12-1-04 Posted by Hello


12-1-04 Cont'd Posted by Hello