July 16

Hey Everyone,

First off, thank you all so much for the Birthday cards and packages! I loved them all and I love you all! Being away from home on my birthday was pretty weird but not a big deal. My district made it the best. They made everyone sing to me every where we went. I don't like attention haha

A few things you need to know about me, I can't spell and there is so much to tell you this email may be a little jumpy.

I made it through my first week! Thank goodness. Things are going well. I haven't got homesick yet so that's good, but weird. Things are going much better than I thought they'd be haha My companion is great! Her name is Sister Andrus. She is part Samoan and I'm darker than her so I'm pretty happy about that, she's not haha she's from Mapleton, UT so pretty foreign. We get along great! We're pretty much the same person except that she is a louder version of me.  She is going to the Rochester, NY mission and the Hillcomora Visitors center. So I'm pretty sad I only have three weeks with her.  The days are pretty long being trapped in a little classrooom and not seeing daylight but it's alright. My teachers are great but it's weird because they are really close to my age. My district is awesome. We started out with four Elders and six sisters but an Elder went home on Friday so now there is only three. Two of the Elders are 19 and one is fresh out of high school and 18. All the sisters live in my room. We get along so well. Three of them are 19 and one is 21 and Sister Andrus and I are 20. Sister Miller (Morgan Miller) went to Davis High and knows Jessi Crosland so thats pretty cool. She was a cheer leader so I don't know if Parker would know her or not. Oh also, Parker I met an Elder Halford (Spencer Halford) I think that's his name. He said he loves you and the reason he even went to school haha I guess you're pretty cool lol anyways the first day within the first few hours I lost the back of my name tag, the magnet part and got my key stuck in my door so they had to call a lock smith which wasn't necessary.  Pretty embarrassing but whatever. Anyways, back to my district. Sister Newson who is Sister Millers companion is 19 and from Las Vegas.  They are both going to New York also.  She was a cheerleader also and I'm pretty sure her and Sister Miller are sister seperated at birth. It's weird. Then there is Sister Priday who is 19 and from Gilbert, AZ and Sister Melgaard who is 21 and from Ridby, ID.  They are both going to Portland. Elder Willson is from Smithfeild, Elder Savage is from Mesa and Elder Freeman is from Brigham City. Pointless information I know. Well everything was going great until Friday and our district fell apart. Elder Tipiani went home on Friday and Sister Melgaard had a little anxiety attack and talked to some people and found out she is bipolar and and had OCD. She started out all sweet and now she is just mean. She got permission from the Branch President to do her own thing so she can work things out and it's hard because we all want to be in class and obey the rules but Sister Priday wants to be in class and not follow her around everywhere. So it's getting pretty stressful. But it is such a blessing to have Sister Miller and Sister Newson in our district because both of their moms are bipolar so they know how to deal with it. Also, Sister Newsons brother committed suicide right before she came because he was bipolar and didn't want to hurt anyone. She was really supposed to leave on May 29 but there was a reason she needed to be in our district at this time. The reason Sister Melgaard is still here is because she doesn't have much family support and we need to help her. She hasn't got a single letter or package since she's been here. It's really sad. But it's amazing how much God is really looking out for all of us and knows each of our individual needs.

So we got our first investigators...Bob Nash (which is just one of our teachers) and Belinda Moey (which is a volunteer, but could be a real investigator). Belinda...she is so scary.  We went into the first lesson fairly convident about it. She is asian and doesn't believe in God. We asked her if we could pray when we got in there and she said it was fine. First, off she wasn't even going to let us in. and we prayed selfishly. We prayed for the spirit and we should've been praying for her. We explained God as best as we could and tried to answer all her questions (but she had a heavy accent) and she yelled at us. It was the longest 45 minutes of my life. Sister Andrus and I started crying when we left. Luckily we only teach her one more time haha It was a real slap in the face that we need to get ourselves in gear. We've both been fine and obeying all the rules but we can do better. always room for improvement. But since we've been fine we have been having a hard time feeling the spirit and think we're just going along with whatever happens and we really know we're supposed to be there and we're trying hard we just don't know what's wrong.

On a happier note. I saw Chelsea the other day and it was so nice to talk to her! It's always nice to see a familiar face here.

The temple is closed so we can't go to the temple the whole time we're here :( and our Elders leave next Tuesday. They are going to Nampa, ID. They are pretty solid Elders. You need a pretty good personality to be going there when you live so close. Once the Elders leave our last week we get to go up to Temple Square for the rest of our training. Only for the mornings though and we get to be companions with a sister that is serving up there right now. I'm pretty excited.

Well, I can't think of anything else to tell you all expect send letters! I have all day today to write letters and no one to write haha

Love you all! Miss you like crazy! 18 months will fly by. see you all soon :)

~Sister Harris

Jess :)