The Missionary Journals of Edward Daniel Harris

About the Book

Transcribed and edited by Mark Harris, this book contains the daily entries of the four missionary journals kept by his father Edward Daniel Harris, who as a young man spent three and one-half years ministering to the Maoris in New Zealand.

From 1917 to 1920 Elder Harris traveled throughout the Wairarapa and Manawatu districts of New Zealand's North Island. Following the unique missionary pattern of the Mormon Church, Edward traveled from village to village, living with Maori families. Oft times he stayed in a different home each night. Besides encouraging them to have faith in God and live correct principles, he also worked in their homes and fields, played with their children, cared for their sick and poor, prayed with them, buried their dead and in every way tried to meet their needs.

Much of his writings tell of the difficulty traveling by bicycle throughout rural New Zealand, often on hot summer days or cold and rainy winter days. The country roads could be extremely dusty or extremely muddy.

In recalling some of his missionary experiences, Edward Daniel Harris wrote "I learned the [Maori] language well enough to explain the gospel to them. I really got along with them, eating on the floor or having dinner in wealthy and well-kept homes."

About the Author

Mark Harris, like his father Edward Daniel Harris, served as a missionary in New Zealand-from 1954 to 1956. Mark considers it his good fortune to have lived in some of the same areas of New Zealand as did his father some thirty-five years earlier. Transcribing and editing his father's four missionary journals was a growing experience for him. As he studied his father's travels as revealed in his daily journal entries, Mark gained a new appreciation for his father: for his sacrifice, integrity, honesty, common sense, fairness and good works and above all, for setting an example of behavior and character worthy of emulation.

For thirty years, Mark taught biology and photography in high school in California. Since his retirement in 1995, he and his wife Luree have taught English in China for two years and also served a short-term church mission to Serbia teaching English and computer skills. For the last five years their home has been in Cameron Park, California near Sacramento. Mark and Luree have five children, fourteen grandchildren and one great grandchild. Mark has published one other book, A Distant Place, a compilation of Chinese student essays. Both he and Luree plan on publishing books on their experiences in China.