Monday, June 27, 2011

A Week In The Life Of Elder Harris

Alright, so as you know, a lot of crazy stuff happened this week in the life of Elder Harris. I will start in the beginning of the week and work towards the end. I decided it was best to not write tyler a letter to help him along for his talk. I felt impressed that he didn't even need my input, that he would do find without, so i went with that. I am glad to hear though tyler that you did a wonderful job and i am very proud of you. I can tell that you too have grown since i last saw you, which makes me very happy. i will send some stuff to you today that you will like. (make a copy for braeden!) :D


the crash..


[Obviously the camera's date is incorrect.]
well that happened on wednesday just to let you know. and of course i was driving. here is the story. We had been doing service for a family in the branch that we are working with, and that lasted the entire morning. A tree fell in the middle of their driveway so we were chainsawing that up and moving the tree. it was fun but long. then we stayed over there for lunch and grilled some hamburgers and had a fun time. However we lost track of time and we were running late to another appointment. We had to drive back to our place which took a good 20 min drive, change into regular proselyting clothes, and then drive another 20 min the opposite direction. we were running so late, so i justified it in speeding a little bit. we are on a dirt gravel road, and according to PA law there is no speed limit on dirt roads, which is weird. I was going about 40 mph, maybe 45, and we were on a long curve. (and if there is a speed limit, it would have been 35) so we are driving, surrounded by trees to both sides, we pop up to an open field to our left, and as the road curves and we are turning, there are still a bunch of trees to our right side. i slow down for the slow going turn, and then quickly speed up to make up some ground. bad idea. as we pop around the corner, all of a sudden there is a parked utility trailer that hauls the huge tractors and crawling digger things, (can't remember what they are called) and that is in our lane of the dirt road. and so we have about 40 feet between when we saw the trailer to the truck, that is, us. Now we could have easily avoided the trailer and gone around it, had there not have happened to be a great big ford 350 just parallel to the trailer, blocking that side of the lane. Just our luck. I quickly slam on the brakes, but the dirt road kept me drifting. i had maybe two seconds to decide to hit the truck with other people in it, or just the trailer and possibly harm only ourselves. So i chose the trailer. (which was the best choice) i hit the hitch of the trailer at about 10 mph, and then vear towards the left to the bulky part of the trailer and thats where the most damage is done. somehow i avoided that truck, i swear it wasn't even moving when we came around that corner. it was a miracle. luckily my companion and i weren't hurt. at all! and to be perfectly honest the both of us were super calm before impact and after. all we could do was laugh about it and move on. stay positive. we made some phone calls informing the mission we had been in an accident and all, we called our branch mission leader Bro Liggett, who runs a tow truck company. He comes to the scene, but our truck was still driveable. the state police came. we told them the story and i was honest and told them that i had been going to fast, and he cited the guy who parked the trailer, and his insurance company will pay for the damage of the truck, not the church! what a blessing, i was shocked that i was leaving without a ticket or anything! he told me that i wouldn't had crashed. and he wouldn't have had to drive all the way out here had the trailer not been there. he was an awesome cop, reminded me of my dad who would do awesome things like that. :) we went along with the rest of our day, had to cancel two of our appointments but it was ok. our last lesson was awesome.

the next day. we are on our way to MoTab, driving on I-81 towards Scranton with the zone leaders so a member can drive us to Philly to MoTab. i am not driving, i am currently whats called "red-dotted" which means my driving privileges are revoked. So my comp is driving. The accident the day before shifted a lot of parts in the engine, including the latch that holds the hood of the truck down, so all we have is the safety latch. Well, as we are driving 75 mph down the highway, the hood wiggled loose off the latch, and our hood flies up. on the stinkin highway!! that was the most scariest thing in my life, luckily we were on a straight away, and NO cars were around us, so we pulled over safely, but quickly. We had a ratchet strap to tie down the hood with, luckily, and then we continued on our way safe the rest of the day. lol

Motab, was awesome!! they sound so good live, and alex boye did an awesome solo and was dancing, it was so funny... that was such a long night though. We didn't get back to Scranton til 2:30. we just stayed the night there and left back towards montrose in the morning. i am soooo tired still, that affected the rest of the week, and we were just dead.

another cool fact, we had the opportunity to "bible bash". this church hates mormons. man it stinks to see people so hard-hearted, unwilling to just listen. He was trying to call us on ridiculous things. He would bring up something, we'd disprove him with scripture, (using only the bible too, he would not let us turn to the BoM, only the bible is the word of God, thats all we need. the bible is the authority. lol) so we did that, we braught up about Joseph Smith, and he went off, saying he started his own religion as many others have by mis interpreting the bible. (we were thinking to ourselves, umm hello? you church was started by man dude? haha) and he told us that Joseph Smith was taking James 1:5 out on context, that James is talking about trials and tribulations, not receiving revelation. because there is no more revelation these days. we were just like man this guy is wack, twists everything we say, so we just bore our testimony and left. He didn't dare question that. our own personal experiences. it is such a shame to see people blinded, when if only they would open up there eyes, there is so much more to be achieved in life. so much more truth to instill into our hearts, and find what it truly means to be happy, by living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been a very fun filled crazy week.

well nothing crazy planned for this week yet, but maybe there will too. love you guys, hope you have a great week!

Elder Harris