Six weeks in the field!

Email dated November 19, 2012

Hello everybody back home, the mission is going great. I can't believe
i'm already at my first transfer. I probably won't be going anywhere
because i'm still being trained but transfers usually mean that
everybody gets new companions and new assignments and new areas and
stuff. six weeks from now i'll get a new companion and maybe move
areas. That's a ways off though.

Things in Denison are going well we've got investigators and less
active members we work with and the work is moving forward which is
really good. We had alot of meetings last week so we were out of the
area for a while but the meetings were really good and the work picked
right up when we got back. Yesterday we actually did companion
exchanges and I spent a little time in another area with a different
companion. We met up at a member's house for dinner and had hawaiian
haystacks that weren't quite as good as my mom's but they were still
pretty dang good.

 We split up and then headed out to our places.
I had a really good experience, we were driving around with the ward
member who just fed us and he got the idea to visit a family who
hadn't been at church that day. we went over and they were really glad
to see us. it was an old couple and their ten cats. The wife has
battled breast cancer for a long time and the various treatments have
messed up her lungs pretty well and she has bad arthritis. the husband
is usually in good health but while he was visitting his kids in
chicago he had a 7mm kidney stone removed and the doctors also sound
blasted a 8.5mm one as well. they got him drugged up and the wife
drove home. He was in bed and pretty drugged up when we got there but
he was happy and laughing. they missed church so we gave them the
sacrament and i gave a spiritual thought from James 1 about being a
doer and not just a hearer of the word

. He asked for a blessing and we

gave him one and he suggested we give his wife one as well. He said he
was feeling a lot better after the blessing so he got right up out of
bed and helped give his wife one as well. they gave us cookies and we
left. I felt so good for having been able to use my priesthood to
brighten their day. Some people out here need our help but really
don't want anything to do with us but it makes me so happy to find the
ones that know we can help and ask for it.

One of the less active families we teach with the two sons that want
to get baptized told us something pretty cool this week. The parents
and the older son and his girlfriend all smoke alot but the son would
have to quit before he got baptized. The parents want them to be
baptized at the same time but they know it would be hard for him to
quit with them smoking around him so they made the goal to all quit
together. I've never quit smoking so I don't know much of how to help
them but I know Christ can help them and make it more achievable.

That's about all the stories I have time for but it's really cool to
hear about all the stuff about the Boise temple re- dedication and
stuff. I'm sure thanksgiving will be tough without my family around
but I'll keep you guys in mind and make it through. I've got to go but
I send my love and prayers back home and look forward to next week's
news.

Elder Jacob Harrison