Singapore, baby !!

i know it is hard to believe that I'm actually doing missionary work out here in this tropical paradise, especially when our mission president puts us up in Singapore for a whole week. its kind of hard for me to believe, too. but every missionary from this mission is here in Singapore right now, and the conference is only half way done! it is really cool, we have conference from nine until five everyday, which is hearing from our president, doing role plays, things like that, and after, we go out, either with investigators, members, less actives, or just contacting. i personally have been contacting for the last two days, and it is kind of scary here in Singapore, it is all street contacting, you just have to walk up to people and strike up a conversation, and usually it goes pretty good. last night i talked to a Filipino lady for a while, she was really cool, i gave her a pamphlet and she said she would read it, i couldn't get her number because she suddenly had to get on her bus. the good part was, it wasn't scary, and i said some good things and she was really nice. but after i talked to her i was kind of mad at myself, i really only explained about the church in kind of an objectionable kind of way, i didn't really share my testimony, i didn't get her number, and i really didn't commit her to do anything besides read the pamphlet. I've been out here for so long, but i still have a lot to learn. but all in all, it went okay, for my first time contacting here, i will only get better at it as i go along.

the training itself is really cool, lots of new things, but in a way, the same things we have been doing, with a re emphasis on the basics, like teaching people how they can get personal revelation through prayer and the book of Mormon and going to church, lots of missionary things like that. it has been awesome so far. I'm going to change a lot of the ways i do things, like always start with questions and here from the people more and have a lot more emphasis on the book of Mormon. sorry if this is boring you to tears, but whatever. its cool to a missionary, okay?

I'm meeting my new missionary later today. her name is sister lim, and she is from Singapore. I've got a good feeling about this one. I'm pretty nervous to train, but we have a good area, and we have a lot of new things (thanks to this five day conference) to change and to work on, so I'm sure we will be busy.

anywho, family, i love you, i miss you. school is already started, the summer is almost over, i can't believe it. give my love to Trent, and what day is lance leaving? pretty soon there will be another Harrison on the eastern hemisphere, I'm pretty stoked for that. i love you family, take care, i pray for you!

sister Harrison

Sister H on her own

yes, my compie left me for the sunny weather and kangaroos of down under. its crazy to kill off a missionary, sort of like the end of an era. she has been in kuching, this same area for over a year. dang, those are some big shoes to fill. so here i am, chillin' at the couples apartment on p-day. i don't get my new companion until i get to Singapore next week. so far this week I've been doing all i can to beg borrow and steal people to be my temporary companion, and I've gotten a little work done, and I've had a lot of plans fall through, but what else is new about being a missionary. on Monday i went out with sister Hellen, she is coming to this mission in October, she is awesome. anyway, we went to Umang's house, she is getting baptized on sept. 4, and she came to church for the first time on Sunday. this is sis Hellen's first appointment, and its dark because this lady doesn't have electricity, we were sitting around a candle on the floor. there were a few other people there, and at least one of them was drunk and the others were smoking. we had planned to teach the word of wisdom, but that didn't feel like the best plan. anywho, we started our lesson, talking about faith. now, some drunk people are good and will just sit there and listen, but this guy was not one of them. he kept asking loud annoying questions, like if he could have one of my sisters (don't worry guys, i told him you all were already married) blah blah blah and everyone was laughing at him, basically impossible to teach. so i just read one more scripture and we did the skedaddle out of there. so i think that lesson broke both me and sister hellen in. drunk people do dumb things, but they think they are hilarious. i don't get it. but tonight, we are taking sister hellen out on the bike, her first time to ride on the road, so that is going to be pretty fun. we have this brand new investigator, Adih, he just showed up at church on Sunday with his friend who is a member. when he first walked in on Sunday i thought he was dorina's (she just got baptized) husband. dorina told me that maybe one day her husband would come to church, when he was old and had to use a cane to get there (her words, not mine) so i went right up and started talking to him, come to find out he was just a friend who was there, awesome, I'll take it. he is cool, apparently he learned a lot from elders back in Indonesia, and our first meeting he asked me if we could set up our church in his home town after he went back; a pretty promising beginning.

but on Sunday we head out to Singapore. all the missionaries from Sarawak, and maybe from sabah, so basically all of the east Malaysian missionaries are going to be on the same plane headed to Singapore. they all fly in to kuching, and we all take a plane there. cool, huh? i want to get a picture of all those missionaries on one plane. and then, once we get to Singapore, we are all going to take the subway to get to the mission office. so many missionaries, with all of their bags on one train. awesome. so we are going there for this new training, and we will have time to go out at night and contact and practice our new skills. eighty plus plus missionaries, taking Singapore by storm. Singapore is not that big of place. two elders from our district used to serve in Singapore, so they are going to show us around. i'm pretty excited for it. my new little missionary come in on that Wednesday, and after everyone goes home, we stay for orientation, so we don't get back until Saturday night. when we get back, it will be me and this brand new missionary rushing around trying to see everyone in one day, getting people to church. that will be a nice way to start off her mission. Kuching is a good place, though. she will like it here. i have a feeling i will be here for a long time, they don't move missionaries around very much. but i am fine here. let me stay here and get some good work done.

but it is time to sign off, i love you mom and dad, i hope things are going well now that you have no kids at home! i can't even believe it, what's it going to be like when i am the only kid there...

Ch Ch Ch Changes

hello mom and dad, family, everyone else
kuching is doing really good. Our baptism on Saturday was so good. Dorina, one of the ladies, when she got up to bear her testimony, she couldn't even speak, and you could feel the spirit so strong, and then i found a scripture that was perfect for her, read mosiah 4.20, it is way cool. and this week is going really good so far, on Monday, we met with some people who have a baptism date, one was the husband of Bingot, the other lady that got baptized. he is super cool, but he works all the time. he gets home from work around five, and that's usually when we meet him, for twenty minutes or so, then he goes and sleeps for a couple of hours and goes to work again at eight. He works security all night, and comes home in time to go to his day job. he only gets two hours of sleep a night! he has Sundays off from his day job, and he said he could come to church for an hour. i hope he can, that family really needs their dad with them.

so, next week sister seve leaves me.. and i don't get a new companion for a whole week! can you believe that? so I've been trying to find people i can go out with. there is a sister here, sister hellen, who is leaving on a mission in September, (she is actually serving in this mission, maybe later we'll be companions?..) and so she can go out with me after she gets home from work some days, so that only leaves the afternoons, and Bingot said she could help me too. when i first heard I'd be alone, i thought, awesome. a whole week of missionary work the hard way. but now i think it will be fine and it will probably help hellen a lot, and I'm sure it will help me a lot too. and when i finally get a companion again, I'll be super happy and grateful.

so, I'm alone for a week, and then on Sunday, on the 22nd, every single missionary from this mission is going into Singapore, for brand new training, and that is where I'll pick up my new companion. apparently, they are making a lot of changes, and switching things up, the whole way they train missionaries is going to be different. so its kind of exciting, and a five days in Singapore to boot. its coming at the perfect time too, me a brand new trainer with a brand new companion, who will be super pumped for missionary work, i have a feeling this is going to be a really good thing. i have a new testimony about trials and about doing hard things. heavenly father wants us to do things that are hard for us, he wants us to become better than we are. and we can. i read this in a talk by Elder Holland --I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept-- faith always triumphs. anyway, fam fam i love you a lot. say hi to everyone for me! i love you!
love, sister Harrison

Half-Way Day Already !!

hi mom, hi dad, hi family,

today is my halfway day. the reason i know is because i got the halfway package mom sent last Thursday, and i waited until today to open it! are you proud? PS, it was an awesome awesome package, the jelly beans are gone already, turns out the were the perfect thing to send, because sister seve doesn't even like them! and mom, how did you get so cool? OK family, so you can know how cool mom is, guess what she did? she put scriptures on all of the little gifts, that were all wrapped separately. but that is not all. i notice from the outside of the package, that one of the things was a stain stick, and the scripture was about how the Lord removed the stains off the swords of the anti-nephi-lehites.. so me and my companion had a good old time reading all of the scriptures and trying to guess what was inside all of the presents. the perfect pastime for a missionary, let me tell you what. my personal favorite was how charity suffereth long and is kind, turned out to be mascara! (eyelash lengthening mascara, to be exact) which was perfect, because my other one was getting a little low. and mom, the skirt you sent is perfect too, fits great, will be perfect for the bike too. you are awesome, mom! how did i get a mother like you? PS, can you believe that i am already done with half of my mission? when i think about it, half of my mission is memory already, it just blows me away.

this was a really good week, we are having four people baptized this Saturday! a mom, bingot, and her two children, Lorren, 13, and Caroline 11, and one other lady, Dorina. they are so awesome. yesterday, the kids asked us when they were getting baptized, and we said Saturday, and they got so excited, i want to remember that moment for the rest of my life, they were both all smiles and practically jumping up and down, i know i wasn't that excited to be baptized. they are really cool kids. hopefully their dad, Spencer, will be baptized in a couple of weeks. he has to kick cigarettes first, but he really loves his family and is a really cool guy.

one more interesting piece of news about my mission, this is pretty new, but I'm pretty sure it will go into effect soon. they are sort of separating our mission. so missionaries who get sent to east Malaysia will stay in east Malaysia their whole mission (that is where i am right now) and people who go to west Malaysia, (which includes Singapore) will stay in west Malaysia their whole mission. because those two places are way different, it is kind of like they are two different missions anyway. but it is still one mission, still one mission president. it is kind of crazy, because east Malaysia is where missionary work is kind of exploding right now, lots of people lots of baptisms. and west Malaysia is definitely slower work. also, i don't know how much this will effect sisters anyway, because there are only five sister areas anyway, and one of them is in west Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. we'll see. but lots of changes are coming, that is for sure.

anywho, family, i love you lots, don't have too much fun without me!

ou te alofa ya te oi, (haha, samoan, courtesy of sister seve)
sister harrison