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)