Letters from home from dad and mom

February 7

Hey Kaden,

We just got down watching the Superbowl however Mom and Shanee just watched the commercials and the half time show. Ky and I were routing for the Broncos and Tal wanted the Panthers. I picked the Broncos to win at the beginning of the playoffs... just a lucky guess cuz they won. 

How is everything going, It's seems pretty strict they make you dress up even on P day? Whats the reason for that??? Anyway hope all is going good I will remind you as always to be safe & pay attention to your surroundings at all times.

Love Dad.

Hey Kade,

How are you? Sounds like you are busy and working hard.  We've been watching the superbowl. It hasn't been too exciting,  Just  our family is home watching it, no one else came over.  Ky and Tal have been sick this week and I was sick one day, hopefully  no one else will get sick.  Talmage keeps spacing off for long amounts of time. I don't know if its because he was sick  or what.  It is weird. And it takes him a long time to tell me things like he has to think about it for a long time. It seems like he worries a lot about things.

Shanee got hurt in her basketball game on Thursday. She tripped and fell on another girl and hurt her quad.  Luckily it wasn't her hamstring. I think it hurts more than she is saying

She is planning on doing a winter track race this coming Friday, the mile.

Dad is going to California the week of the 22nd for work.  I was hoping we could go too so we could enjoy some nice California weather but Shanee won't miss school. It is the week before the term ends and she's sure she will get bad grades if she goes.  Whatever, I'm sure we would be sick of all being in the same motel room for a week and probably wouldn't be able to do much since dad would probably take the car to his class.

I am sending you a package so look for it.  I only have the mission president address to send things to. Are you going to give me your address?  Where are you living, in Sunnyside or somewhere else?

 Sacrament  meeting was really good today. A lady in our ward talked about Peter and Christ in her testimony and related it to families. The boat is the home and Peter, or our children, have to get out of the boat, or home, and have their own experiences and trials and Christ is far enough away, and close enough to help them.  Kaden, you have left our boat and are out in Washington and you have to turn to Christ to help you.  He won't let you sink, but you have to have faith.  It is hard for me to let you leave the boat and but we know that's how you grow and find the strength within yourself.

I love you Kaden,  Worry about you all the time and hope you are happy and safe. 

Love, Mom

February 1

(I wish that I could have gone on the cruise, I hate all of the rules here and we can't even wear normal clothes on P-day we have to wear church clothes.)  I thought this was all he wrote that week.)

Kaden, that is a downer letter. And it is one sentence!  Please tell me some positive experiences you are having.  I know there are a lot of rules but try to have some fun too.  You can input fun into your life by having a positive attitude.  Sing, go get some ice cream or whatever treat you have been craving, take some silly photos, tell some jokes, find something to laugh about, serve someone that really needs help.  Smile.  Just smiling can help you feel happier.  You are teaching people the gospel which is the most important thing for people to learn in this life.  You are truly serving your Heavenly Father and He is pleased with you and will bless you.  I know that they are asking a lot of you and it is hard. Harder than I know.  But you are strong and you can do hard things.  Especially when you know it is for such an important work that you are doing. I hope your testimony has grown since you have been out there. Tell me about that...

On the cruise ships all of the workers are people from poor third world countries, all dark skinned.  You know they are sending most of the money they make back to their families. they have to work so hard and just clean up after people and serve people all day.  All of them were smiling all the time and so nice. It was really amazing to me how nice they were because from my point of view they have a very sucky job.  They work 10 hour days. I don't know when they get time off.  As soon as they come back another group of fat, white Americans get back on the boat.  

heres  a joke I just heard, a kids father is german and his mother is polish.  He wants to rule the world, he just doesn't know why. 

I love you and am praying for you everday!

January 31

Hey Kaden,

Hope all is well. Mom is still gone on her trip been gone for a week. It's been hard this week with all kinds of stuff going on and could of used moms help. Church starts at 9 am and today I got into the shower  at 9 and still made it before the sacrament was passed. Something you need to work on, as it will be handy to have that skill. 

 I noticed in the program It has your email listed incorrectly as harris@myldsmail.net ,  I'll try to get that corrected so all the hot girls can write you.

Love Dad

Hey Kaden, just got off the plane from our cruise. It was so fun and WARM. Back to a freezing Utah snowstorm.  We had a blast. And I saw my brothers and dad consume so much food.  Grant too. Wonder how mu h weight they gained. It will be a big change going from gourmet food always ready for you and being waited on back to doing it all yourself. I have decided I really want to take my kids on a cruise. I think you would enjoy it. Of course not until you are  back from your mission. We went to Cabo, Mazatlan and Puerto Viertta. All were so beautiful and the ocean was awesome to swim in. 
Where are you living? Is the baptism still set for February?  Sounds like you are being an awesome missionary and doing everything you are supposed to. You will be blessed for your obedience.
Have you had many dinner appointments?  Are you living with a member family?
What's experiences have you has this week? 
Love you, mom

January 24

Hey Kaden,

How's everything? You had any chance to see the area? Take in any sights?

As you may know Mom is with her sisters and brothers this week. It's weird being her with just Shanee, Ky and Tal. It would be easier if you were here to help run the kids around. I've got a big presentation at work I'm doing Wednesday but other than that I'm taking the rest of the week off from work. I've been riding my Fat Bike a little but the air has been so bad lately that I don't get much opportunity to get out. I registered for the True Grit Epic 50 mile race in St. George March 15th so I hope I can get some training done before the race.

Be safe and always be on the look out for anything out of place.

The best email address to reach me is my work email which is Darren.Harris@dcma.mil

Love Dad...

Hi Kaden, I just got on the plane to go to LA and get on the cruise.  It is packed and sounds like a lot of the passengers on this plane are going on cruises. Looking forward to warm weather and sunny skies. Hoping to go snorkeling and relax on a beautiful beach! We are having a storm right now and the roads were really bad this morning.
Have you had snow in Sunnyside? Have you wished you had the boots it said to bring on the packing list?
Where are you living? Are you living in Sunnyside or with members somewhere else? I got your letter you wrote when you got to the mission home. Are you in the area where the mission president saw someone get shot? 
Kristen Hirsch is trying to convince me to adopt their hamster for Kyler and Talmage. They let it crawl all over them and put it inside their shirts. She doesn't know how anti pet we are at our house. Well ky and Tal aren't I guess.
Talmage wants me to bring him back a fish or crab. 
I guess Andrew burned his hand pretty bad last night and a little bit of his face got burned. He and Jaron made a big fire with gasoline. They were burning Christmas trees. He had to go to the emergency room. He has second degree burns on his hand but he will be okay. Jana and Scott were in the hospital with him for several hours.  Mike and Scott gave him a blessing. They go to the emergency room every 6 months don't they?
Tell us about some spiritual experiences you've had while you've been there. We are hungry for details! 
Love you Kaden! Think about you all the time. It's hard having you be gone but I know you will grow so much from your service. I never knew it would be a sacrifice for me to have you leave but it does feel that way. So tell us everything you can!
Love mom

January 17

Dear Kaden, 

I hope you have been enjoying yourself and have had plenty of fun. There has been a lot of stuff going on here, Kyler's Pinewood Derby will be in a few weeks and I have not had a chance to help him work on his car. Seems like it was not long ago we were working on your Pinewood derby car. With tomorrow being a holiday I plan on working on it with him and of course Talmage will want to make one. So that means two cars.

Please be careful. Always pay attention to your soundings Everywhere you go plan multiple escape routes. Also, be friendly with everyone you meet. Don try to convert everyone but make all your friend.

Love,

Dad

Hi Kaden,

Today is Sunday and it was very icy this morning outside.  There weren't very many people at church today. I don't know if it was because of that or what the reason was for so many people being gone.  Dad helped an older couple across the parking lot into the building. He helped them one at a time into the church.  I thought that was good of him to do.

The sister missionaries spoke in sacrament. One is a convert just over a year and a half from  Georgia.  I thought it was amazing that she was serving a mission. She said she went to methodist and baptist churches and was looking for answers to why she was on earth and it was hard to find any answers until she was taught by LDS missionaries.  She said she appreciated the plan of salvation so much when she learned it. I know there are people looking for those answers in Washington too and don't know where to find it.  People of all ages and backgrounds.

The other missionary talked about how the covenants we make are like the armor that the Nephites had when they were fighting  the Lamanites.  It says that not very many of them were killed because they had armor and the Lamanites didn't have any.  But there are chinks in the armor and we have to fill those chinks up everyday with reading the scriptures and praying, going to church...

They were both good talks.  Maybe you can use that for one of your talks that you have to give.

In relief society Sister Olsen talked about  the danger of negative thoughts and how it can lead us in this downward spiral (which is what Satan wants) to the point that we don't believe we can do what we are supposed to do and give up. So try to have positive thoughts! I know that you are required to do hard things and maybe a lot of things that you don't want to do but if you are obedient you will be blessed.

Tell us about the area you are serving in  and who your companion is and how you are getting along.

The bishop's wife invited us to come once a month to their house with other parents who have missionaries out and talk about the missionaries I guess. So I'm going to need a little more info from you to be able to share anything

I wrote down all kinds of things that I learned at church today. I know it is important to go and it really helps us remember what is important.  I am so bad at reading scriptures thoough. I guess I will try and put on the book of mormon cd and play it and see if that helps me.

Shanee and I went xc skiing at the golf course yesterday. Although it was more like walking around.  We got a big snowstorm but it is so powdery and wet that the skis wouldn't even move.  It was impossible to slide down a hill.  So it wasn't very fun.

The day before I went out walking and went up to Perry canyon. Your dad was on his fat bike and I was actually faster at walking then he was at biking. He had to mostly just walk the bike because the snow was to powdery. So on Saturday he went to Snowbasin all day with Jason so he could actually ride.

Kyler and Talmage and Shanee had basketball yesterday so that took up a lot of the day, like 5 hours! Ky and Tal are doing pretty well at basketball.  

January 3

They talked to me about your plaque at church today. You need to tell me what scripture you want on it. Or it can have two if the scriptures are short. I'm going to send you a pkg with your acne medacine.  Lots if people asked me how you are doing and I said I haven't heard from you. 

We are going to try to start reading the book of Mormon this year. I am glad we are study it in Sunday school thus year.

Did they have you all fast today for a full 24 hours?

 I am going on the cruise the 24th. Now everyone is worried our plane won't get in on time to get on the ship. So maybe we will drive down on Saturday  or we have to buy a different ticket. Our tickets are with allegiant airlines and they have a reputation of not being on time. What a mess!  The tickets aren't refundable. If we don't fly there on them we can still use them for the return flight.

Shanee has been doing so much better at eating this week and not running as many miles because she doesn't want to go to the center for change.  It teally has been amazing because she hasnt complained at all about having to eat so much. She ate 4100 calories yesterday. I am taking her to the doctor to get weighed tomorrow.  If she had gained weight and continues to get up to her goal weight then she will stay home. Her therapist says she is going to be starting an adolescent group where they meet and talk about eating disorders. 

So she would go to that and her regular appointment. 

I love you and miss you. Hope you are enjoying the MTC and having a good experience. 

Love you, mom

February 8

February 8

We have been really busy, my companion and I do half the work that our entire zone does in a month. We had a baptism on saturday and we confirmed her yesterday. We had most of our planned lesson fall through so we have been doing a lot of trackting recently. I am going on exchanges to Yakima tomorrow and will be staying with a family up there with one of the zone leaders. We have been able to talk to a lot of people though. Today when i went to the laundromat i found a gideon bible on the floor and signed it so now i am "saved." A lot of people up here have been getting sick and have been asking us to give them blessings so that is what we did pretty much all day yesterday because of the superbowl. You should send me up some seahawks stuff cause i don't have any and everyone up here loves the seahawks. Tell Shanee that she can make up anything she wants in her school so she shouldn't have any issues with going to california.

#2 The Word

This week we had a lot of lessons planned but they all fell through. We spent most of this week trackting and and have run into a lot of new investigators. We had a zone conference and they told us that we needed to spend more time trying to get more involved with the less active members of the ward. We have been doing that mostly giving a lot of blessings to members who have been getting really sick. Yesterday we had a lesson with a guy named Anthony he was really cool and he has spent his entire life trying to understand all religions perfectly. He got started by finding a book of mormon and reading all of it cover to cover and from there he has been trying to learn about all other religions. He has a shrine to every religion imaginable in his apartment. We also got the chance to trackt into a guy named Mike, he asked us who we were and when he found out that were mormon he told us that our religion was based on greed. He invited us in and told us about his religion of following the "word' and he says that the word is "everything" which was before god. We are pretty sure that he is completely insane. Tanya's baptism was on saturday and that went really well it was awesome that her son who was baptized last month got the opportunity to get the priesthood and was able to baptized his mom. This week we are going on double exchanges back to back so that will be a lot of fun. We talked to a family last night and they said that they would be making us authentic mexican food not white people food so that will be interesting to see.

New Car, Corolla

Sunnyside

February 1

February 1

This week has been going aight. Most of our scheduled appointments didn't go through so we had to do a lot of trackting this week, I don't really mind trakting that much and it is kind of fun to meet some of the people here and there responses to missionaries. We finally ran into a kid named Israel who we have been trying to find for the last 3 weeks that I have been here, we had a pretty short lesson about the POS and he told us that he would put some "sick rims" on our new corolla. We had the commandments lesson with Tanya yesterday and she said that she is already following all of them so she is ready to be baptized this coming saturday. One cool thing is that her son who was just baptized a month ago just got the aaronic priesthood and is going to be able to baptize her. We had a world wide mission broadcast a little while ago, they had some of the general authorities like David A. Bednar talk to the missionaries in the ogden mission, it was kind of funny watching this one kid who answered a lot of the questions get completely destroyed by David A Bednar. We weren't able to talk to one of our other on dates because she wants to have her entire family to be talking to us too, (She has 5 kids) and it is really hard because they all do wrestling for the highschool here and they make them practice everyday including sunday. She said that she read part of the book of mormon and prayed about it and said that she got an answer that she knew that it was true, so she is really solid. Yesterday after church they had all of the youth over the age of 12 go to our ward mission leaders house and had us teach them a lesson about missionary work and then bear our testimonies at the end. After this we had a pretty good lesson with a kid that we met on the street and we were able to go to his house and it turns out that we have already talked to his older brother before and we were able to teach both of them. Their mom also sat in on the lesson and she seemed like she was really interested and she said that she would ask her brother a bunch of questions about it (He is a baptist minister) so hopefully she comes back with a lot of questions that we can answer about our church. The only really exciting thing that happened this week is when we went to the car wash we found a painting of a tiger and now it is hanging above my bed in our apartment. 

Second Week

January 25


My second week in Sunnyside Washington. This week went by much faster than the last week. Sunnyside is a great place to do missionary work last week we met a lot of new investigators, one was named Ruby Davila and she said that she would be baptized on March 30. We have had a lot of success when we go trackting and me and my companion are getting a long really well. This area of my mission is called South America because everyone here is latino and don't speak english. We have met a lot of interesting people one was named Cheddar, and we met a guy who has been shot in the face twice. Most of the people that let us in are teenage girls that want to flirt with us, and the other people that let us in are people that think that we are the police and once they realize that we are missionaries they kick us out. We are going to get a new car on thursday at zone conference. Many people have been asking me about the weather. It is not very cold here and it hasn't rained in a while, mostly it just gets really foggy and you can't see more than 10 feet in front of you. That's basically my life in sunnyside right now.

Elder Harris