WELL, I WANT ALL YOU GUYS TO KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU AND THAT I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY

Riley has been trasferred and it sounds like he is enjoying his new area.

Hopefully I will have pictures up next week. He sent home an SD card that had been corrupted some how and Brett Bruschke is trying to help us out with recovering the photos. I hope....I hope....I hope.....! : ) Here is Riley's letter.

Hola hola hola!!!

Well My first week here in Talcahuano was pretty good. One thing is, it's not nearly as hot as Los Angeles and it's nice and breezy almost all of the time. I think Talcahuano has developed a little since Uncle Gary knew it. Now it's a fairly big city that goes from the top of the penninsula all the way down to Conce. Yes, it does smell really bad and fishy down by the port but my sector is up in the hills so we get plenty of breezes but luckily none of the smell. The hills are a pain sometimes but I actually like it because it's more like home in California and because there our dozens of different gorgeous views of Talcahuano, Concepción, and the ocean all around the sector. It's funny seeing poor rundown places with beautiful hill top ocean views haha.

The living situation is a little complicated at the moment. My companion and I actually just opened the sector Centinela 2 this cambio and there were already four missionaries in the house, so for the moment there are six missionaries in a tiny tiny two room apartment. It's the smallest house I´ve had yet and as of right now there isn't much room but it looks like the missionaries in sector San Vicente found another house so the house should be back to 4 missionaries in a week or so.

The general rule of the missionaries in this sector is that we don't tract too long passed sundown in a lot of the areas because some of them are pretty flaite and a little dangerous past 8:30 or so. But not all of the poblaciones are like that but still we try to have segure citas set for 8:30 and after.

My companion is pretty cool, his name is Élder Sanchez from Nicaragua and he's only been here for two more cambios than me. I actually knew him from my zone in Nueva Tolten when I was in Pitruf but I didn't get to know him all that well because he was quiet and I didn't really speak spanish all that well haha. Now he's not quiet at all. In fact I find it hard to get a word in during contacts and lessons. He´s also a little intense with investigators and contacts sometimes but overall he seems like a good missionary. It always takes a little while to learn the style of your companion and mesh his style of working with yours. We worked hard doing contacts most of the week and are trying to find new investigators. We have some already but a few of them were out of town this week so I will be meeting them this week. Apparently the ones I don't know yet are close to baptism but we will see this next week.

As far as I can tell so far, all the members are very nice and they will actually come out to work with us more than in Galvarino so I´m excited for that. Our ward mission leader served his mission in Los Angeles ,California and he always talks to me about how much he misses Mexican food and In-N-Out. Which always makes me miss it haha but it's all good because the members feed us well here from what I can tell so far.

As far as the Spanish goes, I understand like 95 percent of everything now but I hadn't realized how far that I´ve progressed until this cambio because now we have a brand new gringo in the same house and actually in the same ward as us too. I still got a long way to go but haha man, I´ve come a long way in the past 4 and a half months and I´m excited to improve more with my spanish and my chileno this coming cambio.

Well that's really all I got for this week. This cambio is going to go by fast because most likely it will be my last cambio as junior companion. Maybe I´ll get lucky and get another one as junior but it doesn't look like it so I´m going to kick it into high gear this cambio with the language but especially with the finding and teaching and testifying so I can be ready for whatever comes my way this coming cambio. Well, I want all you guys to know that I love you and that I love being a missionary. Until next week chao!

Su misionero coasteño, Élder Harper :)

SHE THOUGHT GOD HAD BEEN PREPARING HER ALL HER LIFE TO HEAR THIS MESSAGE FROM THE MISSIONARIES

Hola familia y amigos!

Well overall this last week wasn't as good as it could have been but it was a lot better than the last week haha. It's still really tough with the summer and all but we did a lot of working to find new people last week and we could have worked harder but we did find one great family who has a lot of potential. When we did the contact we just talked to the 16 year old daughter and we set an appointment to teach her and her family a couple of days later. She seemed more interested in me being a gringo than in the gospel so we weren't really all excited about it but hey it was an appointment.

When we got there we ended up teaching her and her mom and it was awesome. During the course of the lesson we found out that her 25 year old daughter was murdered by an ex boyfriend a few years ago and left behind two grandchildren that she now takes care of. A lot of the family stopped believing in God but she grew closer to God after the incident and started crying when we taught her how families can be sealed together forever and not just until death do you part like the rest of the churches of the world teach. She told us that she thought God had being preparing her all her life to hear this message from the missionaries. Then some other stuff happened that was awesome but I´ll have to wait until the end of my mission to tell the rest of the story. She doesn't understand everything and has a lot of questions but I´m really excited for that family to progress.

Also Santiago, our Uruguayan, finally came back from Uruguay with his family on Monday. POR FIN!!! He went right back to hanging out with the kids in the ward and he his still hungry to learn and prepare for baptism. He is very humble and what I would consider a golden investigator. We just teach him and he accepts everything like he had known it all along but just had forgotten it. His mom told us she won't let him get baptized until he absolutely knows it's true but he his coming along well and we wants to get baptized on the 19th of Febrero and we plan on asking his mom about the fecha (date) this coming week. So a lot of our investigators that we thought were good have ¨died¨ but now finally the cream is rising to the top and we are separating the wheat from the chaff :)

Santiago (Galvarino)

The only problem is that we got a call from the zone leaders Saturday night and 
I´m leaving Los Ángeles tomorrow morning. Yep I´m getting transfered! Kind of a bummer but if Santiago wants me to baptize him I might be able to get permission to go back to LA for the baptism. So Elder Tapias is going to train a greenie here in Galvarino and I´m bound for the sector Centinela 2 in Talcahuano. Talcahuano is the peninsula part of Concepción and from what I´ve heard my sector is the ¨cerros¨which supposedly is the ghetto part of Talcahuano and even más flayte than my sector right now. Ugh I´m not going to lie I´m kind of sick of flaytes but it is right on the ocean so I will get to see the ocean again :) And I´m not going to let anyone phase me with what they say about where I´m going because I don't even know it yet. The ghetto just means more humble people so I´m excited to work there. I´m sad to leave, especially with Santiago here but President Swenson knows best and so it is time for me to go. Oh and I´m getting another newbie for a companion. He´s only been here 2 or 3 cambios more than me and this is going to be his first cambio as copañero mayor. His name is Élder Sanchez and he's from Nicaragua. He was in my zone in Nueva Tolten and he was very very quiet then but who knows now, maybe he´s changed. Even if not I don't care. I know that we will get along just fine.

Well I´m just about out of time now. I got to go finish mi despedida (saying goodbye) to all my converts and a few others from the ward that I´m going to miss. So until next week I love you all and Chou!

Con cariño, Élder Harper :)

Familia Román (Galvarino)

Hermana Lydia (Galvarino)

WORDS WERE PUT INTO MY MOUTH AND I BORE POWERFUL TESTIMONY TO HIM OF HOW MY MISSION IS BLESSING MY LIFE

Hola familia y amigos!

Well let's see what happened this week. There have been worse weeks but this last one definitely wasn't one of the best. Wednesday we had entrevistas (interviews) with the President and that was good. I got to talk to Sister Swenson and President Swenson and that's always good. Then the zone was capacitated by the zone leaders and the assistants and they came down on us to make good goals for this new year and to kick things up a notch to realize our goals. During the entrevistas President asked me what my goals were short term and long term and he asked me how I was doing on my preparation to become companion mayor (senior comp). We talked for a little bit and he told me that it looks like none of us from my group have to go up yet but that if we don't subir ( umm...go up? Something like that) to comp mayor this cambio then it will for sure be the next one. So that's a sigh of relief but at the same time I still have to kick it into overdrive to be prepared. He also said that it looks like I might stay with E´Tapias in Galvarino for another cambio but he´s not sure yet. Nothing is for sure until the call comes for the cambios Saturday night, so we will see.

The same day as the entrevistas, in the night we did intercambios with the assistants so that was good working with a veteran missionary and learning from him. As far as how my companion and I are getting along, for the most part good, but he is very sensitive and very moody. His animo and moods change really easily and I don't know what to do about it. Like on Saturday, he accidently used the Lord's name in vain (remember he's still a pretty new convert) and then he got all mad and wouldn't talk to me and was desanimo´d for a good few hours after. If we are going to be together another cambio there are a lot of things we need to work on with his mood problems, my sarcasm (he gets offended easily with sarcasm) and just how we work together. We are working well but the summer is killing us and we need to change some things with how we work if we are going to have success this summer. We have a lot of investigators but because of the cosecha (fruit harvest) and vacaciones they are all dying. We found some new good investigators last week and on Thursday we planned to bring 10 to church with us Sunday but when we went to go get them Sunday they were either gone, or no one answered the door and so we had no one with us Sunday. Whenever you have a week with nobody it's quite a blow to the animo but you just got to pick yourself back up, analyze what happened the last week, and go out and work harder the next week to make sure it doesnt happen again.

There are also a few good members and families going innactive right before our eyes and we are trying to get them reanimo´d about the church and we haven't really seen results from our efforts yet but we are working on that. It was really sad, on Saturday we stopped by the house of a strong family who´s 19 year old son was getting ready to go on a mission. When we got to the house it was just him there and after talking for a while we discovered that him and his Dad have been fighting a lot the last few months and that he's been thinking of moving out and using his mission money to pay rent. And he also told us that he had stopped praying and reading the scriptures and was losing his testimony and that he didn't really want to go to church anymore either. We talked for a while and words were put into my mouth and I bore powerful testimony to him of how my mission is blessing my life and how I couldn't imagine where I would be if I hadn't gone out and everyone felt the spirt. He told us that he would start praying again and that he would try to get back on the right track again but sometimes no matter what you do, no matter how much you want to help and testify the person still chooses another path. I just wanted to slap him upside the head and show him how much of a blessing and life changing thing a mission is but I can't force him to open his eyes and see the light. He has to make the decision for himself and so we will keep working with him and see where it goes.

Haha well I think that I´ve rambled enough for this week and even though this week wasn't all that great, I learned a lot about how to connect with people better, how to better use the spirit, and other things as well and I´m going to make sure to use the things that I´ve learned and make this next week better.

Well it sounds like all is well with everyone at home which is always good to hear. Bueno tengo que ir hora entonces hasta que el proximo lunes, les quiero harto y chao!


Con amor, Élder Harper :)

p.s. I´m not in a rush for the movies dont worry, but another request I have for when you do send them is a rubicks cube. A real rubicks cube, like from the brand rubicks cube haha I´ll explain later.

HORSES ARE MADE FOR RIDING AND NOT EATING. I HOPE THAT YOU ALL MADE PLENTY OF GOALS TO GROW CLOSER TO YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST THIS YEAR

Hola querida familia y amigos,

Yay the holidays are over!!!! Haha here in Chile the holidays are so bad for the work. Everyone and their dog leaves for the campo or the rio which is in the campo after Christmas and after New Years. New Years wasn´t too exciting. It was very hard to work and we spent New Year's Eve in a member's house eating dinner and stuff (holidays are the only times they have dinner ever) until 11 and then we went back home. My companion fell asleep promptly at 1130 so we had fun waking him up with the party poppers you sent me at midnight. We also had fun with the glow sticks haha you´ll see what I did with those in the next sd card I send home (yes i finally sent the first one home today).

New years day Los Ángeles was a ghost town until like 6 in the afternoon. Everyone was either inside sleeping off a hangover or at one of the 5 or so rivers or the waterfall somewhat close to the city. So we weren´t able to do too much except divisions with the zone leaders. As far as the work went, this last week was not very eventful at all. Almost all of our investigators (except the Uruguayo who comes home this week) have either ¨died¨ or at least are not going to get baptized this cambio because they´ve taken off for the summer. So this next week we are going to work hard to keep the ones we still have and work hard on finding as well. It's been really tough losing people, especially when you know how much they need what we have to offer them in their lives but what can you do? You feel sad but then you got to brush it off and press on to find those who are ready to listen, learn, progress, change and get baptized.

The mission actually as a whole right now is changing its culture slowly. It used to baptize a ridiculous amount of people but activity wasn´t all that great. Now we are not baptizing nearly as many but retention has gone through the roof. There are a lot of innactives in Chile and so we´ve taken alot of time now that the work has slowed down with investigators in reactivation and I think we are going to see some sucess with that pretty soon.

So anyways, this P-day was pretty fun. My companion and I and the zone leaders went to the Salto de Laja, which is this huge waterfall in this nice forresty area and that was a lot of fun. I tried Charqui, which is jerky of horse meat, and it was not good. Horses are made for riding and not eating I decided and I hope Izzie isn't too disgusted that I tried horse meat, haha sorry Iz! But I got some good pictures, if I have time I´ll try to email you guys a few of them. As far as my spanish is coming, it's coming but I still have a long way to go until fluency. I can say pretty much anything I want to now but a lot of times it's with choppy grammar. But the point is is that I´m getting there. I´m learning a lot of chileno as well haha. Its' kind of funny actually because I know more chilenismos then my companion and he´s been in the mission for 9 months and he's latino. But I guess that's what happens after almost 3 months in a flaite sector of the mission. Now he´s trying to ¨fix¨ my spanish haha. Pero na´ que ver, mi castellano e´ bien po! Tal vez e´ chanta pal resto de mundo pero a los chilenos les gusta, ellos creen que es bacán. Yo soy ma´ chileno que los porrotos ahora les digo. Y ma´ encima hay que embrecer la cultura po! Entonce´ mi compañero e´ medio enfermo del mate si el cree que yo necesito corregir mi español.

Well I´ve got a lot of goals for this new year and they aren´t exactly easy to reach but hey goals aren´t supposed to be easy to reach and I´m excited to get going on them al tiro (right away). I hope that all of you had a great new year and that you all made plenty of goals to grow closer to your lord and savior Jesus Christ this year. Well I got to go pero les quiero muchos, a todos pero especialmente mi familia, y también FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!!! Ya listo, chao!


Con amor, Élder Harper :)