I AM EXCITED TO HIT THE STREETS OF LOS ANGELES AND HIT 'EM HARD!!!

Hola querido familia y amigos,

Well this last week as every week, has had its ups and downs but was definitely not quite as crazy as last week. To start it off, we got the call about our cambios Saturday night and they are completely white washing Pitrufquén. All four of us are leaving. They are putting two new latino zone leaders in the house and then they bought a new house here to have hermanas take me and Elder De Leon´s place. It makes a lot of sense to be putting hermanas here though, considering all the rumors and problems that have been going on with that one hermana and all the flirty girls, I guess president is hoping that putting hermanas here will solve the problem. I hope so because the work needs to continue on here in Pitruf.

Anyways, I´m being sent up north to a sector called Galvarino, which is in the Los Angeles Norte zone. From what I´ve heard, it's right in the middle of the city of Los Angeles, which is like the third biggest city in the mission. I´ve heard a lot of good things about it so I'm excited : ). Oh and I can´t remember my new comp´s name (because it's not a very common name) but he is a Mehicano so it looks like I´ll be forced to speak only spanish this next cambio. I´m nervous but at the same time excited because I know it will make my spanish improve by leaps and bounds. Well at least I hope it will.

As far as how the week was up, until we got the cambios it was pretty uneventful. On Tuesday while walking down the street we saw some white girls speaking English, so of course we contacted them hahaha. It turned out that they are foreign exchange students from Europe. One is from Lithuania and one is from Finnland. They both speak their native languages of course but then they both speak English very well (even better than alex) and they are learning spanish. It's funny cuz they talk to each other in either English or Spanish because they don´t know each other's native languages. Anyways, it was fun talking to them in English and we brought them to family home evening in the capilla where we watched the Joseph Smith movie. They liked it even though they had to leave half way through. I was excited to start teaching them but now we will just have to trust the hermanas to do it.

Besides that it was kind of a blah week. It was my comp's last week so he was a little lazy, I mean we still went out and worked and taught a lot of lessons but he didn't really want to do too many contacts. But we did work hard with the investigators that we did have. Unfortunately though, most of them started slipping through our fingers. One that really wants to get baptized is extremely shy and we just recently found out that she´s an epileptic so she refuses to leave her house. So we couldn't get her to come to church. Also, Jonathan all of a sudden just didn't want to have anything to do with us. I think his flaite (gangster) friends got to him. We still have a Gercy, and Sixto (another really cool kid) but I can´t lie I´m kind of happy to be leaving and starting over new in a new sector.

So anyways all the good jovenes are sad we are leaving but I´m sure they will love the hermanas. I just hope that they are up to dealing with this rama(branch). haha. I almost forgot, Sunday was awesome at church because we had the biggest attendance that I´ve seen yet and Alex gave a talk on the importance of honesty and integrity and the harm rumors and lies can do. Hahaha he totally destroyed the people who started all of this drama during his talk, it was great.
Well, I don't have much else to report this week, it was pretty uneventful. It´s so weird that it's already the end of my first cambio, It´s been quite a crazy first cambio but despite everything that's happened, I´m glad that I started my mission in Pitrufquén. I´ve learned many valuable lessons both from my companion, the zone leaders, and from the people here and the experiences I´ve had. I´ve made alot of friends here that I will miss and my testimony has grown a lot here but I´m ready to move on and am excited to hit the streets of Los Angeles and hit em hard!!! As always I love you guys all so much and I´m glad to hear that things are going just fine at home. Until next week... siguen en la fe y haz lo justo siempre!! Les Amo!!!

su misioner favorito, Élder Harper.. or as im called here Élder Harpy :)

THE HARDER THE ADVERSARY WORKS, THE MORE I KNOW THIS GOSPEL IS TRUE

Hola familia y caulquier gente que esta leyendo esto,

Well it has been quite the strange week here in Pitrufquén. Hahaha oh man I don't even know where to begin. I already told you a little bit about what's going on and I will start by saying the good news is that nobody is being emergency transfered and it doesn't look like the sector is going to be closed down. It's good news and yet at the same time I´m not going to lie, I didn't mind the idea of being emergency transfered out of Pitrufquén. But even though there is still a chance that I will be sent somewhere else at the normal time during cambios, it looks like I will be staying here.

Well, a little bit of background information on what happened is: there is this lady in the branch who is a huge gossiper and manipulater and in my opinion is kind of power hungry. She tries to manipulate the branch president and people into doing what she wants them to do by basically threatening them with slander and I don't even know what else. I didn't believe she was that bad at first but now I´ve seen all the damage that she and her "team" of five others have done. Unfortunately, a lot of members have gone inactive because of her as well. A couple of weeks ago, Élder De Leon and I decided that we were going to focus mostly on visiting less active families for a day and no kidding, almost all of them said they love church and would go back if it wasn't for this hermana.

From what I´ve been told, problems started with her and the missionaries here when an Elder a few cambios ago stood up to her and called her out on what she's been doing. And now recently Elder De Leon and one of the zone leaders have stood up to her too, so she and two "snakes" (girls who try to flirt with the missionaries) began starting rumors about my companion and others. These rumors have been slowly growing and getting more ridiculous each day. Last Monday, the rumors turned into full blown horrible accusations and they basically told us they were going to tell the President all this stuff during entrevistas (interviews) on Thursday just to get the missionaries out of here. Interviews were on Thursday and the days leading up to it were frustrating. My companion was disheartened because he thought we were going to be taken out of Pitruf right away on Thursday and so the work really slowed down.

During this time, the branch basically turned against each other into two groups, those defending us (which happen to be the most faithful members of the branch) and those who are with the accusers. It's been especially bad with the jovenes, dirty looks and threats being exchanged half the time. So when entrevistas came around on Thursday, there were almost more members there than missionaries. It felt like a trial, prosecutors and the defense haha.

But I guess the president could see straight through the liars because we are still here and no one was taken out immediately. I still feel like I´m in the middle of a branch civil war, but thankfully it's now starting to calm down a little bit and more and more members and the branch president are starting to stand up to this one bitter angry hermana, who in my opinion is miserable and wants to make everyone else miserable too. But I´m not angry with her like my companion and the zone leaders (they are itching to leave pitruf) I just feel sorry for her.
It's crazy how much destruction pride and anger can do. They are powerful tools in the hands of Satan. It's just like what President Monson talked about this last conference during priesthood session. "Anger builds nothing, doesn't resolve anything, but can destroy everything" I think that's a direct quote from him, but I could be off. But the point is the same, and I would also add pride with anger. Because pride is the fuel of the fire of anger. Just like the story of the Marshes. Brother Marsh, who I believe was an apostle of the church, ended up apostating from the church and helping to bring to pass governor Boggs extermination order all because of an argument over an exchange of milk.

Anger and pride tear apart friendships, families, and can even ruin lives. Little arguments and misunderstandings can explode into huge problems when pride and anger is involved, and el diablo absolutely loves it. Fortunately, we missionaries have the antidote to pride and anger, and that is Love, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now that a temple has been announced in this, my mission, it is my belief that Satan is throwing everything he´s got at the people of Chile and unfortunately right now he is being somewhat successful here in Pitrufquén. But instead of getting discouraged, it just helps my testimony grow. The harder the adversary works, the more I know that this gospel is true. And even though he can hinder the work, it comforts me to know that he can't stop it. Nothing can stop this work and the harder he tries just means he's getting more desperate. He´s afraid of what this gospel has, the power to heal lives, the power of love. Even though things are tough here and the work in Pitrufquén is going slow, I know that I have a message for these people that can and will heal their lives and make them whole.

Even though I wouldn´t mind being transfered out at the end of this cambio a week from tomorrow, I will try to give it my all if I´m meant to stay here in Pitrufquén for awhile. And although I don't think we will be getting any baptisms this cambio (jonathan is starting to slip through our fingers) We have some people that I think we will be able to baptize next cambio if I stay. And there are still a lot of good members here too as well like, Gercy and Alex and a few other families and youth.

We had a talent show on Friday and it was a whole lot of fun, everybody had like 2 or 3 acts to do and we were all screaming and going crazy. It was fun and it reminded me that there are still good people here haha. Plus, when we are given trials, we are given the opportunity to learn and grow from them. Hermana Swenson told me that Pitrufquén is turning into quite the refiners fire sector haha.

Well I´m still doing well and I´ve got high hopes for next cambio whether I go or stay here in Pitrufquén. Either way, I´ll be preaching the gospel :). I love you all and thanks for being so supportive and great and for keeping me in your prayers. P.s. I loved the package guys and all the letters and goodies from the fam and the young women. p.s.p.s. another request for the next package, flaming hot cheetohs.

con amor, elder harper :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! :)

I AM PROUD TO WEAR THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST ON MY PLAQUE

Querido familia y amigos,

Hola! Well last week was interesting, lots of up and downs. I´ll start with last Monday. After emails, we went to Temuco to the Pizza Hut that is in the richer part of the city and I now finally understand why Chile is the most Americanized out of all the other countries in South America. It was a side of Chile I´ve never seen before. Clean streets, tall buildings, people with nice clothes and not as many dogs in the streets. It looked like it could be any city in the U.S. it was really weird.

After Pizza Hut, which was delicious, we went to the Mall, yes a mall! and it was a nice mall too! I was like gaping the whole time cuz it was weird being around, well, money here in Chile. There we did some shopping at Gumbo which is like a Walmart and the only place where you can buy things from the U.S. as far as I know. They had peanut butter there and real mustard and mayonaise and Top Ramen!! hahaha I know it sounds weird but I was soo happy to see top ramen I had to control myself not to buy like everything I saw, I just settled for getting some top ramen :).

After that we went back to the Chile that I know, Pitrufquén, where there are humble homes and humble people. Tuesday went extremely well. We placed 4 pretty firm baptismal dates and I even taught parts of the lessons haha. One of them was an old investigator names Keka that lives like an hour walk out in the campo (countryside). She´s 18 years old and really buena honda (i dont know how to say that in english...nice maybe?.. I dont know) anyways we found out why she was never baptized and taught her and bore testimony to her and such and she now has a date too!

It was a great day but unfortunately it kinda whent down hill from there. Tuesday I went to bed with a headache and what do you know, just after recovering from the flu I get a sinus infection!! hahaha its ok though I can deal, bring it on el diablo! So it's been a struggle with my health and all but I´m on antibiotics and taking the Chilean version of ibuprofen (mine ran out). After Tuesday, the other days just kind of blended in together. No one really wanted to talk to us and Elder De Leon used all the minutes on our phone, which is really frustrating because it made it harder to confirm citas (appointments) and to get members to come out and teach with us.


I love my companion and I´m learning a lot from him, both things to do and what 
I´m starting to discover things Not to do. He´s a great contactor and a teacher and is good at winning the friendship and trust with people but he´s not so great at follow up after we get new investigators. He forgets to write citas down, addresses down, and even if he does write them down he forgets to look at them hahaha. I guess it serves me right cuz thats how I was. But then we miss citas because we forgot or spent too much time talking in an earlier cita and so it makes it hard to keep people. Because time kills investigators.

Sorry if I´m ranting or being too negative because he is a good guy and a good missionary. I think he's just gotten really lax with things like sleeping in a little and stuff because he only has two weeks left. I just wish I could communicate with the people and do more to help out the work. All I can do is little things like walk faster so we can be on time to citas and say things and like nudge his foot in an appointment when we have been there forever and are no longer talking about anything important.

Also one thing i did to try to change things around is refusing to talk in or respond to English with my companion unless it is necessary. Because on Friday I was feeling pretty down on how the work has been going and on how I should be a lot better at spanish than I am at this point. And I was kind of frustrated that Elder De Leon never speaks in spanish to me so I decided that I just had to take the bull by the horns and do my best to speak spanish to him and not respond to any English. And it actually went very well, for the rest of that day and Saturday I spoke hardly any English and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I guess I was just too timid or something to take the initiative before.

Sorry this email is choppy and some things are out of order but I´m just writing things as I remember them. So on Friday night we had an activity at the church with the rama (branch) and investigators to watch the Joseph Smith movie! Some how one of the zone leaders got a hold of a copy of it and even though we didn't have a good turn out, it at least lifted my spirits and the jovenes who went loved it too.

On Saturday, Chile played Columbia to see if they would qualify for the world cup and during the game it was impossible to tract or do anything because the whole town was watching it. Chile won and qualified and so after the game it was impossible to do anything as well because like half of Pitrufquén was in the square drinking, waving flags, and honking car horns. I thought that it was crazy but Élder De Leon said that its much worse in the big cities. I was all excited and stuff too about the win until Sunday came along and all the investigators were either celebrating in another city with family or too hungover/drunk to come. On Sunday morning we had like 5 that we told we would pick up to bring to church. The first investigator we went to get is an 18 year old girl whos parents are innactive members and she was never baptized. They live in a tiny little shack as big as our living room back at home in Las Flores and she also has 3 younger siblings who are too young to be baptized. When we got there we found that her and her mom were in the campo visiting relatives (that happens a lot) and the Dad was at home absolutely wasted with his 3 little children just sitting there watching him drink. When we entered the house the first thing he did was offer us beer and then he rambled on and on about how he is poor but loves God and during all of this he continued drinking and his 3 year old son was playing with an empty beer bottle. It made me so sad and I don't know why we didn't leave right away but we just sat there and listened to his rambling for 20 minutes. I wanted to leave but my comp kind of just ignored my nudgings. Then because we stayed with the drunk for so long, we didn't have time to go pick up any of our other investigators except Jonathan but he was in Freire (another town) celebrating with friends. So we had no one in church. I was really bummed out and feeling down at first but during fast and testimony I went up to share a short little testimony and that actually helped a lot to raise my spirits again. That and a lot of praying.

I prayed a lot last week hahaha and those prayers are being answered.
Just with little things like Chilenos complimenting me on how well I speak for having such little time here and other little things like that. After church Elder De Leon and Elder Beauner (one of the zone leaders) went to Cañete so they could visit old converts today, p-day. Which is fine but I was really nervous cuz that meant that I would be with the other zone leader Elder Rolón for the rest of Sunday and today and he doesn't speak any English. Surprisingly though I´ve been able to communicate with him a lot better than I thought I would be able to. I guess my spanish has improved and I just haven't been able to tell. I have a long way to go but I have faith that I will be able to understand, and communicate effectively with these people eventually. I just have to be patient, faithful and diligent. You know me I just stress out over things too much haha. Another thing that I didn't tell you before is that our zone ( Nueva Tolten) is actually the worst zone numbers wise in the whole mission and a lot of the missionaries blame it on the rama becuase "its small and the members dont fellowship well and its full of gossipers and rumor starters which make people go innactive". There are plenty of excuses but I think that missionaries can have success in any zone, in the mission, in any part of the world even. It may be a little hard here but that just means we have to work harder. So I´m trying to do my best not to get caught up with all the things that could be better here but just to focus on the work and the things that are great about the zone. So for now I´ll just keep doing the little that I can to move the work along and help motivate Elder De Leon. We won't have too many baptisms this cambio, investigators have to attend church 3 times in order to get baptized, but I´ll most likely be here in Pitrufquén for a while (one or two more cambios) and I have high hopes for this sector for the future.

Sorry if this email was too negative I guess I just had to get some of that stuff out hahaha and even though its tough at times I´m trying to maintain a positive attitude.

Anyways about the package. I dont have too many requests. flannel pj´s :), reeses peanut butter cups, heck any candy will do as well as chocolate and sugar, the book i left at home how to survive the chilean jungle, uggh!!! i made a list but i accidently left it in the house. To answer other questions, yes, the connection is pretty good here. Well it sounds like things are pretty good at home. Elder Rolón is pretty quick with email and impatient so i dont have much time left but I love you guys and I´m doing good here in Chile. Once again I know this is where I´m supposed to be and I´m proud to wear the name of Jesus Christ on my plaque.


Les amo mucho! Élder Harper :)

I YELLED AND BEFORE I HAD THE CHANCE TO TURN AROUND AND DEFEND MYSELF...

Querido familia y amigos,

¡Hola Nuevamente! Well, this last week was definitely an interesting one but it was really good. Last Monday after emailing, we went with some jovenes to the city of Pucón to spend p-day. When I asked my comp where it 

was he said he didn’t know but that it was a big tourist spot and the jovenes wanted to go there. About an hour into the bus ride we passed the city of Villarica and realized "Chuta!(dang) we are not even in the mission boundaries anymore! This is the Osorno Mission!" But there was nothing we could do about it at that point. So don´t tell President Swenson hahaha. Anyways, Pucón is just right on the other side of Lake Villarica. It’s this little town, that reminds me of Lake Arrowhead or something. It is right on the lake with a beautiful view of the snow-covered, smoky Volcan Villarica in the background, and pine tree forests everywhere. Don’t worry, I took pictures :). It was a fun trip but for now on I´m going to make sure I know exactly where we are going for p-day so we don’t end up in Argentina or something hahaha. Today, after emailing, us and the zone leaders are heading up to Temuco because apparently they have a Pizza Hut there!!! Que bacán!!!! (sweet!!!) So I´m excited and it is in our mission boundaries :).

Anyways, continuing with the week, at the weekly meeting on Tuesday we found out that as far as numbers go, our zone is lagging in the mission so we set some pretty high goals and worked our behinds off all week. Tuesday was awesome. We were making contacts left and right and like ten people told us that they were coming for sure to general conference and a few even told us they wanted to get baptized. I even started a few of the contacts even though I still can’t get very far without my companion jumping in.I´m working on it though. I just really felt like a missionary that day talking to everyone in the street and helping old people and such with groceries while inviting them to come to church. It was awesome.

But Tuesday night I got really sick and was up all night with the flu :( It was rough for many reasons, most of which are too graphic to say in this email hahaha. Then we were out for half of Wednesday too because I couldn’t get out of bed! Even though I wasn’t feeling much better after "lunch" (i obviously didn’t eat) I still just dragged myself out the door and we worked the rest of the day. Man it was hard trekking around all of Pitruf that day but I survived and was glad that I went out even though it wasn’t a very successful day. But I started feeling better and better each day after that and I´m fine now. Still have that stupid cough but even that’s starting to get better now.

General Conference was awesome!!! I was so excited all week for it; I know what you mean Dad. It’s the same for me too. I didn’t truly appreciate the chance to listen to our prophet and church leaders until being out here. Even better was that all us gringos got to watch it downstairs from the chapel with a little t.v. in English!!! It was great. Especially when they announced the Concepción Temple. Everybody got up and started screaming and hugging each other and we could hear all the members and latino missionaries upstairs doing the same. It was so awesome! The spirit was so strong and powerful in the room, some people were even crying. These missionaries, like my companion, have been working their whole missions for this temple and it was a big pay day, so-to-speak, for them. And now I get to continue the work to baptize strong members that will be worthy to go to the temple and pay their tithing so that this thing can be built. I won't physically be at the construction site with hard hat and hammer but I will be building it so to speak with the work and I´m overjoyed and honored to be a part of that, to help build this temple. Hopefully the work will be able to take off now and the members will be even more animated about helping us out and sharing the gospel with their friends.

The announcement set a great tone for the rest of conference, I felt like some of the apostles were almost talking directly to me during their discursos (talks). It was great how much of what they were saying I could apply to me to become a better missionary; I took so many notes hahaha. All the sessions were great and every one felt like it ended too soon. One of my favorite discourses wasm President Uchtdorf´s in priesthood meeting, about getting through trials in life through work and learning. Everything he said and all of his stories really hit me and got me more excited to get out and work. All the talks were just awesome. One of the Seventies who spoke, Elder Zeballos, was the mission president here before Swenson so everyone was really stoked to hear him. It was just a great conference and a needed spiritual surge for me to build my testimony of the gospel and my animo (excitement) for this work. A few of our investigators even came to some sessions; I think we had a total of three. It was kind of disappointing since like 20 said they would come but hey, we improved on last week, so that’s good. And we have a set date for Jonathan to be baptized. He wants to be baptized in the river that runs on the edge of Pitrufquén because he wants to be baptized like Christ was, in a river. He´s a great kid we just have to keep him excited for it and coming to church more often and I think it will go through.

Well, that’s about it for me this week. To answer some questions, no, the mamita thing fell through cuz the 
hermana was going to charge us way too much and the mission financer wouldn’t authorize it. She basically just wanted to rip us off and make money off of us, lame. But we do have consistent lunch appointments 3 times a week and we are talking to another hermana about her possibly being our mamita, so we will see. If not, we have plenty of bread and spaghetti at the house, hahaha, so no matter what, we will survive. 

 And we have some fresh cow milk cuz hermano Volti, who kind of lives on the edge of Pitruf in the campo, lets us go milk his cow and keep the milk. It was fun. I had to compete with the calf for milk while I was milking it hahaha. My only request as of right now for the package is the book I left at home, How To Survive in the Chilean Jungle. A missionary in our zone paid through the nose and went hungry to buy that book in Temuco and went into conniptions when he found out that I had it and left it at home. Next week I will have a few more things hahaha, I just need to make a list.

Oh, and a funny story I forgot to tell last week was about my first dog attack a week and a half ago. Everyone and their mother has a dog here in Pitruf and there are just as many homeless street dogs. The street dogs don’t bother you but some of the owner’s ones are nasty. So while walking down the street we passed an open gate and as we passed I heard a low growl. A few steps later, the growl turned into barking and this big black dog/monster was running after me and nipped at my leg, but fortunately he only got my pant leg. I yelled and before I had the chance to turn around and defend myself, my companion kicked it and it went running. He was laughing afterwards but now I was like traumatized for the rest of the day! He makes fun of me cuz now I´m pretty jumpy when we are passing gates. Every house has some form of a gate with barking dogs. Don’t worry though I´m more careful now and I haven’t had a close encounter since.

Well, it sounds like things are still going well at home. That’s a bummer about Bay being sick. Hopefully he will recover soon despite lacrosse and running. I laughed at Izzie´s turtle’s name. By the way, what does Tish think about the new animal in the home? Well that’s all I got for this week but as always, I love you all very much and appreciate all your emails and all the love, support, and prayers I get from you. I´m so lucky to have such great family and friends. Les amo mucho!!!!

con mucho abrazos y amor como siempre, Élder Harper :)