Christmas Cheer

"Hey :)

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to literally baptize my first person.  Her name is Antonieta.  She`s 52, and a wonderful person. The Christmas was wonderful. I loved cooking up my feast, and sharing the night with those who would be alone.  The chance to talk to the family was wonderful as well. I hope that you all passed a wonderful Holiday and that your hearts were full of gratitude and joy. I would like to leave a gift of a scripture in Mosiah 3:5-11,13,17.  Also, I would leave my testimony of the Savior and His love towards us. I know He lives and influences us through His Light and Spirit. I know that while many denominations have partial light of Christ, His Fullness is found in the Restored Church.  I love you and appreciate your support and testimony.  Remember that God loves you and watches over your every step.

Tu Misionero
Elder Parry Harrison"

Two Weeks of News

December 17, 2012

Hey :)

I hope this week was full of wonderful Christmas preparations and celebrations, and for those in school, you know who you are :), I hope that  it wasn`t too stressfull towards the end.

This week was wonderful.  Here is a gallery of the birthday party we threw for Daniel our recent convert who turned 30, and the P-day trip to Cerro Santa Lucia we took today.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fovzysxwbxxfvvj/FcdjMYstmp

On Sunday, Danny prepared, blessed, and then cleaned up the Sacrement.  It was great to see him already participating with his Priesthood Authority.  Roberto is preparing to go through the temple.  A great feat considering his 3 months of membership, but necessary because of special circumstances.  He`s doing well spiritually.  

I`m loving being in this ward.  While the sector is a little challenging, we`re still having significant success, with a baptism planned next week.  In my free time I enjoy music, writing, and reading articles on doctrine.  We`re having wonderful success with the English class.  I love teaching it, and we have an average of 16 people coming.  

Next week will obviously be Christmas themed, and I could love if you could send me your favorite christmas poem or holiday story.

Thanks so much for your love and support.

Y preparate para el Viajito Pascuero

Tu Missionero

Elder Parry Harrison

December 10, 2012

Hey :)

This week has been great.  We`re helping several in-actives to return to activity.  Also we have a wonderful person named Antonieta that is progressing towards her baptism.  We`ve had some wonderful family home evenings with her.  Some interesting facts.  80% of the stake lidership comes from this ward.  And if someone know English and Spanish they can communicate with 80% of the church and with Portugese 90%.  This week we had the amazing opportunity to have a tour of the mission with Elder Zaballos.  He`s the first counselor in the area presidency and a member of the first quorm of the 70.  It was an impactful multi-zone conference.  And, aftwards my district ate at his table with him, his wife, and President and Sister Essig.  He gave a talk in conference this last year I believe, and gave us some interesting behind the scenes.  We`re planning a Christmas Celebration with all those in the ward who live alone and don`t have any to celebrate the season with.  It`ll probably be in the chapel with the bishop`s family.

Great Speeches This Week:

Unless You're a Mormon

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=862

One Convert at a Time

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=234

There is nothing I have ever done to this point of my life easier than missionary work. Physically and mentally it was demanding—even draining at times. However, the process of conversion was the easiest thing I have ever been associated with, and that is because I had nothing to do with it. I did nothing. It was the Spirit which worked that great change in the hearts of so many wonderful people. [Anthony Grover, Missionary Homecoming Address, Grove Ward, Pleasant Grove Stake, June 1998]

This Nation Shall Endure

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1004

Said Webster, "They poured out their generous blood like water before they knew whether it would fertilize the land of freedom or of bondage."

But they aroused their fellow Americans. Within one year John Adams faced the body of men who were deliberating on whether to adopt the Declaration of Independence. With the inspiration of heaven resting on him, Adams was said to have declared:

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. . . . Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? . . . You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die; die Colonists, die slaves, die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.

Be it so. Be it so.

If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready. . . . But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured . . . that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand and it will richly compensate for both.

All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence now, and Independence forever. [The Works of Daniel Webster,4th ed., 1:133–:36]

Theology and Technology

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=261

As we consider technology and theology, it is interesting that many of our Church leaders believe that technology has come as a direct result of inspiration from the Lord. In general conference in October 1926, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith stated the following:

I maintain that had there been no restoration of the gospel, and no organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there would have been no radio; there would have been no airplane, and there would not have been the wonderful discoveries in medicine, chemistry, electricity, and the many other things wherein the world has been benefited by such discoveries. Under such conditions these blessings would have been withheld, for they belong to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times of which the restoration of the gospel and the organization of the Church constitute the central point, from which radiates the Spirit of the Lord throughout the world. The inspiration of the Lord has gone out and takes hold of the minds of men, though they know it not, and they are directed by the Lord. In this manner he brings them into his service that his purposes and his righteousness, in due time, may be supreme on the earth.

[CR, October 1926, 117]

Of course, doing and work require action and application. We won't accomplish much by just thinking about it. President Hinckley noted that "our pioneer forebears could never plow a field by turning it over in their minds" (Standing, 80).

Photos from the last couple of things:

the end is from a christmas celebration with Celia a wonderful convert from May.  And the paintings I did.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l147ctekrxaagtb/wzO2NUX1ss

Tu Missionero
Elder Parry Harrison

Inspiration

Hey :)

Quick update about the week.  Another change with Elder Licea, here in Compañia - the Center.  I`m still DL.  Now Roberto is the Executive Secretary.  The photos of the little girls from the link a couple of weeks ago are twins (non identical) that I met on the bus a couple of weeks ago.  They were going to an amusement park with their dad.  They're 5 too :)  I've been teaching an English Class of about 20 students for the last several weeks.  I`ve been enjoying it and we`ve already found 4 new investigators through the class.

Now a collection of excerpts from recent inspirational talks I`ve read:

Hugh Nibley & Joseph Smith

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=19&num=1&id=504

A young man once long ago claimed he had found a large diamond in his field as he was ploughing. He put the stone on display to the public free of charge, and everyone took sides. A psychologist showed, by citing some famous case studies, that the young man was suffering from a well-known form of delusion. An historian showed that other men have also claimed to have found diamonds in fields and been deceived. A geologist proved that there were no diamonds in the area but only quartz: the young man had been fooled by a quartz. When asked to inspect the stone itself, the geologist declined with a weary, tolerant smile and a kindly shake of the head. An English professor showed that the young man in describing his stone used the very same language that others had used in describing uncut diamonds: he was, therefore, simply speaking the common language of his time. A sociologist showed that only three out of 177 florists' assistants in four major cities believed the stone was genuine. A clergyman wrote a book to show that it was not the young man but someone else who had found the stone.

Finally an indigent jeweler named Snite pointed out that since the stone was still available for examination the answer to the question of whether it was a diamond or not had absolutely nothing to do with who found it, or whether the finder was honest or sane, or who believed him, or whether he would know a diamond from a brick, or whether diamonds had ever been found in fields, or whether people had ever been fooled by quartz or glass, but was to be answered simply and solely by putting the stone to certain well-known tests for diamonds. Experts on diamonds were called in. Some of them declared it genuine. The others made nervous jokes about it and declared that they could not very well jeopardize their dignity and reputations by appearing to take the thing too seriously. To hide the bad impression thus made, someone came out with the theory that the stone was really a synthetic diamond, very skilfully made, but a fake just the same. The objection to this is that the production of a good synthetic diamond 120 years ago would have been an even more remarkable feat than the finding of a real one.

We have never been very much interested in "proving" the Book of Mormon; for us its divine provenance has always been an article of faith, and its historical aspects by far the least important thing about it.

Nibley believed the Book of Mormon was a diamond that could cut glass. It slashed through the falsities of modern materialism and humbled the mighty to the dust. The book and its message meant everything to him. The ploughboy prophet, much as Nibley may have loved him, was subordinated to his precious find in the field.

Tracking down references to Joseph Smith in the indexes of Nibley's collected works, I found the largest concentration in the reprint of a talk Nibley gave at the Sunstone Symposium in 1989 on "Criticizing the Brethren."  It is the only place I know of where Joseph comes to center stage, and we finally get a view of Nibley's thoughts about the man. He called in Joseph on this occasion to address an issue that frequently troubles intellectuals: how to deal with criticism of church leaders. Nibley used Joseph Smith both as a model of an authority—the first among the Brethren—and also as the target of criticism. Nibley tries to show how Joseph operated in each of these roles, leader and target, as an example for modern church leaders and modern church members. The point he wanted to make was that Joseph was constantly under attack from lesser men who did not value him, but his reaction was not to get upset. He rolled with the punches. Joseph was open, free, and searching, and he allowed all men the same privilege. He was inclined to leave evil to the Lord rather than cracking down.

 I was interested to find that the Joseph Smith in this essay was an expanded version of the ploughboy that Snite defended. Nibley portrays Joseph as the simple innocent, assaulted by scornful, arrogant, and ultimately unknowing critics. Joseph Smith did not lay claim to high intellect or worldly might, Nibley reminds us. He simply reported what had happened to him. "He spoke only of what he had seen with his eyes, heard with his ears, and felt with his hands."  And yet, he stumped them all. Nibley let Brigham Young drive home the point. "The whole Christian doctrine, as Brigham Young put it, 'simmered down . . . into a snuffbox, . . . but, when I found "Mormonism," I found that it was higher than I could reach, . . . deeper than I was capable of comprehending and calculated to expand the mind . . . from truth to truth, from light to light, . . . to become associated with the Gods and angels.' "  Nibley loved for the simple and plain to outfox the clever and wise. He spent his life showing how the ploughboy surpassed them all.

Today I would like to share with you several powerful and true accounts of magnanimous acts and liken them to what the Savior taught. I hope that through these examples we might be able to consider how we can magnify this characteristic in our lives. I should mention that in an engineering ethics class that I teach, one of the assignments given is for each class member to take a personal value, such as magnanimity, and try living it completely for a week. The result of this assignment generally provides a new awareness of the positive effects of incorporating such ideals in our lives. You might consider such an assignment today as an experiment on magnanimity.

The first story is an inspiring illustration of true forgiveness and an example of being raised far above revenge. It seems that the elements of war often provide the grounds for magnanimous actions. This story took place in the course of the atrocities of war when an enemy soldier pursued a young civilian woman and her brother down a street. The siblings became cornered in an angle of a wall, and the brother was slain before his sister's eyes. She subsequently dodged down an alley, leaped a wall, and escaped. Later captured, and having been trained as a nurse, she was forced by the enemy authorities to work in a military hospital. Into her ward was brought, one day, the same soldier who had slain her brother. He was very ill. A slight inattention on the nurse's part would insure his death. The young woman faced a bitter struggle in her mind. Vengeance was a powerful conviction, as was the impression of love. In the end, the better side of her conquered, and she nursed him as carefully as any other patient in the ward. The soldier had recognized the young lady as well, and, one day, being unable to restrain his curiosity, he asked his nurse why she had not let him die. She respectfully replied to him, "I am a follower of him who said 'Love your enemies and do them good.'" This statement caused the soldier to ponder the situation for a long time. At last he responded to her, "I never knew that there was such a religion. If that is your religion tell me more about it, for I want it." (Story paraphrased from Harry Emerson Fosdick, Twelve Tests of Character [New York: Association Press, 1941], pp. 166–67.)

The young nurse truly had adequate reason to at least have some other person administer medical help to the young soldier. But she understood what the Savior taught about forgiveness of enemies. In the story's end we see the beginning of another story. The follow-up story would likely result in a new direction for the life of the soldier. His life would likely be directed toward goodness, service, and love for mankind. It would be a life where he would delight in doing good. Thus we get a glimpse of the result of magnanimous actions. They not only allow good to be done on a one-on-one basis but open the door, by example and precept, for additional magnanimous actions.

The next story, which is equally instructive, is an episode in the life of the distinguished Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
When Robert E. Lee was a cadet at West Point, a classmate took a violent and irrational dislike to him. The animosity persisted into later life. For many years this fellow officer made malicious attacks on Lee. One day a mutual acquaintance asked Lee what he thought of this individual. To the questioner's surprise, Lee spoke in the highest terms of him. Then his questioner said slyly, "I guess you don't know what he's been saying about you for years." "You have not asked me," Lee replied, "for his opinion of me. You have asked me for my opinion of him." [As related by James G. Gilkey in Stanley I. Stuber and Thomas Curtis Clark, eds., Treasury of the Christian Faith: An Encyclopedic Handbook of the Range and Witness of Christianity (New York: Association Press, 1949), pp. 775–76

Magnifying Magnamity

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=919

There is a couple of the recent reads.  There will be more forthcoming...

Elder Parry Harrison

Life Lessons

Hey :)

This week`ll be a little short too.  The focus is on the perspective that one gains in the mission.

I`ve been in Chile for over a year now.  And just now I`m really coming to understand how this experience is necessary to help teenagers become men and women ready to take on the world and begin to form a family.  This week, more than ever, I`ve felt like a parent with an erring child.  One recent convert decided to have a full on fight with his mother over something as simple as her  "lying" about not knowing how long the wash had been in.  Then, I had to deal with another recent convert saying he was going to leave the ward because a couple of members that he had hired had reacted poorly with his boss in a problem with the pay.

I learned this week how to have patience.  When to not worry about what I can't control.  How to have faith in God and his purposes.  How to trust that people will make correct choices.  How to love those that cause you so much hurt.  

Next week will be a collection of recent talks.

Please remember to send me at least 2 photos a week, especially during this holiday season, to keep me up to date, visually, on the going-ons.

Tu Misionero

Elder Parry Harrison

Attatched are two of my favorite pieces of art:

 

Spiritual Thoughts from Elder Harrison

Hey,

I`m sorry but I`ve been trying to do a full-on rescue effort with my flash drive to recover photos and other files.  This has left me with less-than-ideal time to write my feelings and experiences.  The main thought for this week is the baptism of Daniel.  Here is a link including some photos from the baptism. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ioeklwgoq2np11f/LydmHRqRVX    It was wonderful, and very touching.  He`s truly changed in the preparation for baptism.  Also, a little 9 year old boy from the sisters got baptized.

Questions:

We do eat lunches with various members that sign up.

The reason I`m reading so many recent talks is because I enjoy it, and because an apostle once said that the words of a live prophet are more important than a dead one.

The spiritual thoughts for the week are the mormon messages below:

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#the-will-of-god

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#patterns-of-light-spirit-of-revelation

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#patterns-of-light-discerning-light

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#patterns-of-light-the-light-of-christ

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#sharing-your-beliefs

Live life in joy

Elder Parry Harrison

Purebreds

Hey :)

A quote from a talk given a couple of weeks ago in Stake Conference:

The process to become of certified pure bred horse is not just researching the bloodlines.  The horses are put through a long and serious training process.  They are taught to always come to the trainer when a bell is rung.  Are significant preparation, the final test happens.  They`re put in a corral without food or water for 3 days.  The first, they kick and whinnie.  The second they try to break down the stable.  The third they lay down in desperation and weakness.  At the end of the third day, they`re let out with water and food laid out for their consumption.  Of course out of need they head straight for the water, but then the bell rings and they must come.

There are several ways to apply this story to our lives.  The second coming of the Savior, enduring to the end, living up to our potential and preordination, repentence, and many more.  I hope this small spiritual thought illuminates your mind.  The challenge for the next week is to find a small, short spiritual parable or story and send it to me :)

Daniel passed his baptisimal interview, so we`re excited that he`ll be ready for next Sunday.  We had stake conference yesterday.  It was highly spiritual and focused on real growth, and personal progression.  Something that the stake president said that I like was, "With faith and action promeses are fullfilled".  Today we did a deep clean of the apartment.  It was very enjoyable.  Also, I had the chance to have an exchange with the assistent for a couple of days.  He helped me in my leadership and my vision of the mission.  Great missionary, Elder Giñazù.

Sorry for the short letter, next week should be better...

Mucho Amor

Elder Parry Harrison

Spiritual Edification

Hey :)

Quotes:

My religion is to know the will of God and do it. -Brigham Young

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. -Ben Franklin

When I hear, I forget.  When I see, I remember.  When I do, I know. -Chinese Proverb

A wonderful talk by Elder Maxwell:

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=909

Here are some of my favorite parts of Elder Maxwell's talk:

President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had "never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional, or political life" (CR, April 1941, p. 123). This is a hard doctrine, but it is a particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ.

M.J. Sobran wrote:

The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law "respecting" the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge "the free exercise" of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.
[She continues:] What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equateacting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs. [Human Life Review,Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]

Properly humbled and instructed concerning the great privileges that are ours, we can cope with what seem to be very dark days and difficult developments, because we will have a true perspective about "things as they really are," and we can see in them a great chance to contribute. Churchill, in trying to rally his countrymen in an address at Harrow School in October of 1941, said to them:

Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days—the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race. [Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, p. 923]

Other Great Talks

http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=2060

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=947

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=503

Small note about these talks: I hope you`re truly taking the time to read through them.  I`ve read millions of words of scripture and talks in the mission and when I send a link home it is in the hope that one might set apart time for something edifying.  

About the lesson with the Muslim last week - he made a comment about why do we only worship one day of the week and how Allah requires more devotion than that.  I, with inspiration, explained how a true believer will participate only once a week in the Church Services, true, but he will pray several times a day, read the scriptures, and meditate on his relation with God constantly.  And the unmentioned temple visits as well. The catch, are we truly devoted Christians and Saints?

We are prone to become complacent by thinking that we have enough of the word of God. What is sufficient? Going to church on Sundays? Listening to General Conference?  Or doing whatever possible to search out their inspired words in books, talks, etc.?

The two baptisms that we had planned for this week had to be moved back two weeks so they could be better prepared and their families could come.

I`m getting along great with Elder Licea.  Oh, and the sector change to pure Centro has made us have to be creative in the work.  We`re asking for a lot of references and putting up posters about church themes, like, "Are Mormons Christians?  or "Do you want to know where your ancestors come from?"  All the signs have links to mormon.org and our phone number.  We`re just starting this week to put them up, so we`ll see how much success we have....

Mucho Amor

Elder Parry Harrison