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 :)