A Time of Solemn Serenity

Well it seems that the title I used for last time could very well be the title for many more but this time around it is a little different... This week was pretty uneventful to me personally.... but as for the DC South mission and to a very sweet lady it was tragically eventful.

There are but a few moments in life that will remain trapped in your mind and be carried, or dragged depending on the memory, with you for the rest of our time here.  The majority of these moments are ones that you will hold dear to your heart and enter into a sweet serenity when you ponder them.  While there are many others that you try to bury and hide away from.  It is of one of the later that has happened this week, or so that's how I view it.   One of our senior office couples Elder Plummer passed away from an unexpected stroke on the 15th of February.

It is with these moments that, at least for me, you remember the most detail.  If someone were to ask me about my baptism or about when I got sealed to my sisters I could tell them small points of each... Nothing in a large.  But if someone were to ask me about the morning I found out my brother had passed away I could give detail enough to make it sound like it happened just last week.  One of the fondest memories I have after that experience, and is most certainly one I will never for get,  is in the days after my brothers passing I had a friend and his mom come over and give me a gift -  Something that I will always hold dear -  With that gift they told me that this isn't the end and that I will be able to see him once more.

 So after the passing of Elder Plummer the mission, or at least the office, has entered into a state of solemn serenity.  It is at this time that I am truely great-full for the chance that I have to teach people that this is not the end.  That these harrowing memories don't mean anything because we will get to be reunited with our loved ones.  The best thing that we can take from these moments is that the little things don't matter... What girl you should take on a date or what you should do for the rest of your life doesn't matter.  But rather growing close to the ones you love dearly, lifting them up and moving closer to our Savior.  Charity truely does never faileth and so why do we insist on placing the focus on ourselves.. When with a simple gift or a simple act of kindness we can impress someones memory for the rest of their lives and give them hope and peace.

I will never forget Elder Plummer even though I only shared but a few weeks of time with him serving here in the office.

Much love from Virginia

-mat

Pretty uneventful this time around...

Well this week was overall uneventful this week (in case the title didn't give that part away). Seems like it is still Monday or something of the sort but alas here I sit on a Saturday morning sending out my emails.

I suppose as I think on it this week wasn't entirely uneventful. I had the opportunity to go see a GMU basketball game on Wednesday with the some people in the mission which was pretty fun. Felt kinda odd to be at a game but it was good. No tee shirts or injuries though so I must say it was a let down :P he he. A couple hours before the game I was asked to throw a little business type card together for Leadership meeting which was taking place the next day and so below is what I was able to come up with. Front and back of the card.

It was pretty cool because I never thought I would have to do mid-night runs to fedex while i was on my mission so hoo ha for that. I think this card turned out a lot better then the sheep you saw earlier. Well I guess they aren't even really the same style of design but as far as coming out of the printer. I was worried about how i was going to tie in each zones goal for the month but I think the solution that I can up with looks pretty good but toss some feedback my way. For the record I would have never put that logo on the back but I was forced to. They tried to force me to put some other things on it but it would have completely ruined the design so I did what my parents are so familiar with me doing... sure (i'll leave it at that he he). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out overall though aside from fedex only having 100lb paper... that was a let down.

Another slightly exciting thing happened yesterday. I got to go spend 800 dollars and while doing so I got talking to this guy in the store for 30 min or so about his religion as well as ours and we left on rather good terms. He gave me a cooly little pen as well as advice on buying watches as well. Oh the reason for spending 800 dollars was on some mattresses for the mission but thats not nearly as exciting as just saying I got to spend 800 dollars... The guy was also nice enough to leave us with his cell number in case we ever need anything to give him a call. He said he would hook us up with 50% off a pillow that I liked he he. Was a nice guy over all though and says he wants to go to the visitors center sometime so we will see what comes of it. He said it would happen probably in the summer so I might not be here but that doesn't matter much.

Another thing worth mentioning is that it was my sisters b day this week. Happy b day! hope it was a good one! That little one is a blogger to the end, or at least she was when I left. I am often congratulated by her on being able to keep my blog up to date which I more then not fail at. Also I forgot to mention last time but my sis had her first baby as well so that makes uncle x4.

-mat

Well here it is

This week was Zone Conference week which normally isn't too bad... but the difference for this week around was that I was going to all 4 of them and so by the forth one I could quote just about every thing that was being said... I finally gave in and started another little sketch/design book that kept me mostly entertained and you might see some samples of it one of these days... no promises because I don't have a heck of a lot of time but maybe on one of these p-days I'll throw it together.

The point of talking of all these zone conferences is that Sister Albright had me design some things for her to pass out and my favorite one was this one. She handed me this quote (which i thought of as 2 quotes) and said she wanted a magnet made out of it and to have at it. So off i went and this was the end result. (mom if you want one I'll see what I can do :P) Overall I think it turned out pretty well but I'm open to some critiquing, granted they are already handed out so it wouldn't matter much but would increase my design skills.

This week has been pretty crazy though... Both my comp and I are rather brain dead from hearing the same meeting 4 days in a row. but aside from that there have been some fun things happening. One of my friends got her mission call to Kobe, Japan mission which is pretty darn sweet and I am slightly jealous but mostly excited for her. The other thing that is worth mentioning might take a while so i will start a new paragraph (if you cant tell I'm still pretty horrible as far as writing goes :P)

So we were leaving home from finishing up a power point in the office for the next zone conference and it was about 9 30 or so and right when we open the door we hear this chanting going on across the parking lot.... "we love you! We love you! We Love you!" so first thing that goes through my head is welcome to virginia (the reason for that is when i was training whenever something odd happened thats what i would tell my greenie) but as i walk out into the parking lot i see these people standing in front of a parking spot as someone is backing out saying that chant. Once they are finished backing out and were ready to drive off they start screaming and waving there hands in the air and then they walk back inside... By that time my comp and i our in the comfort of our car laughing our heads off wondering what on earth is going on.

Well on that note I must be leaving now

We love you!

mat

That fell apart faster then i thought...

I have failed as of lately as far as updating this darn thing but I feel, being on my misison, i can throw out the excuse that i have been busy... exspecialy with my current calling being as it is.  I'll keep it a secret just to be nice and entertaining for all of you guys.  If you guys really want me to tell I 'll think about it :)

It seems communication has come to a stand still with back home... my guess would be something exciting happened on my sisters end with her baby.  One can only hope that everything is alright with her but alas what can I do but keep busy :P

I have had a rekindling desire for graphic design as of lately and I have put together a magnet for sister albright which i will post here when I get around to it.  For right now I am on the road towards there house so I dont have access to the file right now.... But another thing that I have grown to miss is my DSLR... I have been tlaking about it with a bud of mine who skated a lot back home and he has got me really wanting to try to set up some shots for skaters.  which of course as i think about that it on ly makes me miss talking pictures more and more.  Id say its about to the point of having my fam send out my camera... but I will think about it for now.  (just a heads up fam!)

Well my thoughts are scattered like crazy because I find it hard to focus on just one topic while im in the car (especially when trying to keep conversation with my comp who is driving) so sorry once again for a messy post promising a future post full of more meaningful information but that is all this one will have to be... for I have reached my destination :)

I love you all! dont be afraid to send a little hello my way.

mat

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Darn Spanish...

Well as some of you are probably aware of I'm not the biggest fan of spanish... for whatever reason it just isn't my favorite language.  And so because of my dislike for the language I, of course, get thrown into the district that has a spanish district leader as well as 2 spanish companion ships... and on top of that i get a hispanic comp who lived in south america for the first 15 years of his life. More often then not they start carrying conversations amongst each other in spanish while i just sit there trying my hardest to follow along but having no desire to do so.  I have yet to find a way to get back at them but I'll work on it.

 

this past week was a lot better then the week before and for whatever reason went by way fast! Which seems to happen as you progress through these short 2 years...  Soon enough I will be back home wondering what to do with my life.  More importantly is what is happening this upcoming week though.. I should find out tonight or tomorrow whether or not I am being transfered and then transfers are on thursday so it is possible that next week i will be reporting from some distant land outside of manassas 2nd.... which I am perfectly fine with.

 

I have made a resolve to wake up at least by 6 every morning as opposed to 6 30 and the reason for this is because of a guy i talked to for a good hour and a half about the power of our the mind and how the first battle of the day is getting up in the morning and how if you get up before you are supposed to you are beating that first battle and the rest of the day you are leading your day as opposed to trying to catch up.  The talk I had with the guy was a lot deeper then i just explained it but thats probably all you get from it so it will have to do.  Hopefully I am able to do it but i have a long ways to go. 

 

Well I best be off to email my Mission Pres. 

 

Tell next week

 

mat

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Well not much to say right now

I'm unsure how many weeks ive missed i know it has been at least one... but after the holidays things seemed to have slowed down a little bit.  Everyone ran back to work and entered into there anti social life never to be heard of again and so forth.  But everything has been going great! absolutly nothing to complain about. 

me my comp and my district leader have be started this insane work out schedual which has been killing me off but been working wonders so far!  Its amazing the diff you feel after you get a good work out in the morning in... Even if it starts out at 5 30 in the morning...

Elder Creager had return and report this last week and from what i can tell I'm not completely failing as his first compainion :P just slightly ha ha.  No he said all good things about me according to what he told me about it which is good to hear.  Hopefully he is as honest as i think he is. 

It is nearing the half way point of my misison and with that comes a lot of thoughts to sort out so if it seems that my mind is all over the place it is becasue it is... I still have a lot to sort out and a lot to change but all that will come with time. but all the while im surrounded by some amazing missionaries to keep me going strong.

Well as little as this is its all I've got for now but at least its something.

Until next week ( or the next :P)

mat

Just another week...

Well this week went by rather fast... Not very much happened that is worthy of bringing up here so this might end up being a short one or one that has really no meaning behind it but thats alright.

 

I was sadly called to give a talk this past sunday.  and despite what you might think you sill hate talking even when your on your mission... if not more because you have next to no time to prepair because you still have obligations throughout the day and little time to prepair.  but thanks to my moms blog (A Christ Centered Christmas - not sure of the url but just google search that and you will find it, or I'll have my sis put the link up right here ;) Love you sis!) and a stack of 50+ old ensigns i was able to make it through the talk without too many people falling asleep or kicking me off. 

 

I'm trying to think if anything else out of the ordinary happened and the only thing i can think of is that I was pulled into the office once again to fix the presidents phone which took up a good portion of last night and I am now rather tired from going to bed late and getting up early :p but it needed to be done.  Although I fear that it is becoming more ordinary rather then out of the ordinary that I spend a night in the office doing some work but I go where I'm needed.  I was smart this time though and sent my companion with another set of missionaries so he didnt have to sit there all night bored out of his mind :) learned from the last time this adventure happened.

 

For any of you that like doing service and photography and are willing to help out there is a site that I love and always wanted to do this but never had the chance to put something together ( or the experience) but it is helpportiat.com it is a site that goes and finds people that dont have the ability to take pictures for themselves and they give them a photoshoot and then prints it out for them.  Which when i first read it was like well... thats way sweet but how much does it help? and then I heard a story from someone who this happened too a long while ago. His dad was suffereing from cancer and at the time his kids couldnt come visit him out of fear of them bringing the lovely little sicknesses kids always get at christmas time.  Well the dad was asked what he wanted for christmas by this news reporter and the only thing the dad asked for was a photo of his kids.  Well pretty simple request right?  well the report went to his wife and asked if they were going to do that and found out that the family had no money at all after all of the expenses that the medical bills have brought on and so it was next to impossible for them to fullfill this.  Well the reporter called in one of his photographers and took a picture and sent it to the dad on christmas day as well as posted it in the paper.  As a result of that the dad was able to see his kids for christmas and the family also recieved provisions on that christmas day including a good number of toys.  and the familys life was touched! 

 

Well I would say check the site out and see if its something you can do.  Not sure how many photographers will read this but who knows it might catch a few eyes.  They have little teams set up all over the country and you can find out where on the site and you might be able to offer your assistance.  ( a little out of the loop so cant tell you much more) but thats my little speal to make it look like i had a lot going on this week :P when in truth it was just a normal old week on the mission. 

 

mat

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Well... I lost my camera cable along the way

I have my camera here this time around but no cable to do anything with it... and i lack to motivation to run around asking for one so I will get one when i take a trip to the office today but that means no pictures tell next time... which is a dissapointment because I have quiet a few i would like to toss up here.

 

This week has been abnormaly crazy which was good because it kinda changed things up a little bit.  The day after transfers I was called by my good old office elder buddies to come into the office and help them.... one of the comps had crashed and they needed my help in fixing it. Which ment that my new comp, fresh out of the MTC, would be forced to sit in the office from 11 in the morning tell 9 at night while I fixed the computer and anything else that had fallen apart since i left the office a month and a half ago... which wasnt much becasue E. Hansen did a good job a lot of things go wrong the day after transfers.  Well pretty sure he slept the entire day and hated life... what a good way to spend the first day in the feild. asleep...

 

Well after all that happened I told him that the next day would be a whole lot better... well to start that day off we woke up to a soaking wet phone that worked long enough to wake me up at 6 30 but then quickly died after that... which was a bummer, I mean why couldnt it have died before the alarm went off so i could get some extra sleep and blam eit on the alarm clock :P oh well... We spent the entire morning, which meant missing his first full study day, trying to get a hold of people to tell them my phone was dead and that we needed a new one.  Well finaly we got a pretty sweet one from one of our members in the ward and spent the afternoon on the phone with tamara ( way nice sprint support lady from texas) trying to activate the phone.  Well after that we had to go on the hunt to get all the numbers we lost... well aftter stopping by two people we were meeting with we found a wallet on the ground which changed the priority to finding the owner as opposed to rebuilding my contact list. 

 

Once all that was done with the day kinda mellowed out and was relativly normal but it was overall a good weekend :P I recieved a call this morning saying they needed me in the office again and so I am headed back there again today but this time im gonna try and send my new comp with another set of missionaries so he can actually get out and do some work... poor guy.

 

I will make the promise for pictures next time.... and you may be attacked by a fair amount of them with a short story about them.

 

Elder mat Harb

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Forgot my camera....

Well the reason for the lack of pictures this time around is because I, as usual, forgot to bring my camera cable to the library so i have no way of transfering over the pictures... but since this is still in the early stages and not very many people read it I think it might be a little forgivable this time around. One thing I figure would be good to put on here is my contact information in the event that someone does look at the this and flirts with the idea of sending me a letter.  Let me help you with that decision... A letter is always welcome and will be responded to as much as I am able so no need to flirt... simply to do. Another disclamer is I dont spend much time checking my own blog and so comments may be missed until a while after the matter so no need to get after me about it... We all have our shortcomings and that will be one of mine :P

 

This week overall has been pretty good.  Transfers are comeing up on thursday and the rumor on the street is that either me or my comp will be leaving so either way a change in scenory is about to take place which is always good to have.  Keeps you from slacking off too much.  I was able to play forbidden Island with a family this sunday and they loved it so I left it there for them to play over the week and I imagin we will be meeting back up to play antoher game or two later.  As well as share the gospel of course... The games are just a bonus :)  

 

Well now for the basic small talk because im out of thigns to talk about for a little bit... The Weather out here is finally starting to cool off a little which hopefully means snow is around the corner. Although i realize once that happens I will be wishing it never came but I miss the good old utah snow right now... All ive got is walking around in short sleeves ( in fact right now I'm wearing shorts getting ready to play sports with the zone)

 

Anywho here is my address for all those flirting with there minds.

 

Elder Harb

5242 Lyngate Ct.

Burke, VA 22015

 

This address will work my entire mission so no worries about it changing. 

 

Hope all is well in the normal world and I will talk to myself next week for all to read :P

 

-mat

Deepaks Baptism/Test

Over Thanksgiving week we were able to have a baptism for one of our good buds Deepak. It was a rather small one but it was pretty awesome! not sure what else to say becasue im not even sure if this will work because i am having to do it an odd way because of these cursed prince william computers... Elder Meitler performed the baptism and I confirmed him later that sunday. Woot woot!

Test

Test.  if this in fact works it will be pretty handy for keeping people informed of my daily life :P instead of emailing out a mass one which i always fail to do...

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Game Night

I have decided it is time to establish a night where I have a bunch of people up and play games :) My intention is to start around 7 and play tell about 12 (later on weekends). As far as snacks go I will be able to provide some small treats such as candy and popcorn but I would also like to kind of have it where everybody just brings something if they want and passes it around adding a nice variety of stuff and making it so I'm not completely poor :P

For all those who are interested I will be making a page that will be updated each week with information concerning what type of game we will be playing and the time.

My idea in doing this is to have people comment on the page letting me know if they can come or if there is a better time/day or even if you don't like the game we picked and would like a different one.

Here is a list of games i have at my house to play. If you have a game you would like to bring let me know and we will play it!

Settlers of Catan(3-6): Seafarers, Cities and knights

Dominion

Citadels

Bang

Munchkins

Carcassonne

Pandemic

Agricola

Canasta

Ticket to ride

Pirates Cove

Bohnanza: Bonaparte

Bananagrams

Please let me know when would work best for you and I will try to do it when its most convenient for everyone.

Here is my latest creation :) Cass and I decided to pull out the air dry clay and after an hour of failed attempts i came up with this ideal. Which led to me staying up tell 2 in the morning to finish :p and of course cassie (the creative one) was finished before i even decided what i was doing... so she ended up watching avatar tell 2 to keep me company.

i'll get a picture of hers up in a second i don't have a picture of it on my phone