I JUST LOVE THE PROGRESS OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD FROM CONTACT TO BAPTISM!

Hola mis queridos,

Well well well, another week has come and gone and another cambio has come and gone. This cambio was only 4 weeks instead of 6 weeks (the result of our last 8 week earthquake extended cambio) so anyways cambios are this Tuesday, and in three days I complete nine months in the mission. Yo sabia que el tiemp vuela en la missión pero vuela demasiado rapido po! Its going by way too fast. Anyways, for once the President Swenson has finally decided to keep me in a sector for a little longer! YAY! It was starting to get pretty ridiculous when I starting having more sectors than missionaries who have been out here for a year and a half. Anyways I´m stoked to stay here in Eagle Mountain (Monte Águila). We have a lot of investigators who unfortunately are progressing a little slowly but are now starting to show more progress. So my comp is leaving for San Pedro and a Chileno named Élder Leiva is coming to replace him. Yay, another latino! and it's going to be just us in the house, which means I won't be speaking English for a whole cambio except Tuesdays during district meetings. So I’m also excited to improve my Spanish. The only thing I´m a little nervous about is that I’m going to be comp mayor now (senior companion) :0. I´m not sure how I feel about that but I knew it was coming and I´m ready so I just have to do my best and put my trust in the Lord to do the rest.

Well first of all, it sounds like you guys had a pretty fun week of staycationing. I can´t lie, I got way jealous when you started talking about all that Mexican food. My mouth is watering just thinking about it haha. But oh well, I´ll be satisfied with my chileno cuisine until the day that Alber Tacos and I are reunited. I can wait :). Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAYLOR!!!! I know you still got two days to go but it's better early than late. 15, wow man your growing up too fast. Oh, and Austin Elliott gets a shout out too. Happy birthday Austin!!! I'm going to try today for the last time the internet photo thing and if that doesn’t work, I'll just send the card home. I made a cd copy of it a week ago.

Well as far as this last week went, it was a little hectic with the whole thing of moving houses and stuff. The moving process took a while and there were some complications but now we are all moved in and have almost everything we need in the house. It’s a pretty good sized house and it's made of wood so it is pretty dang cold at night and in the mornings. We have a wood stove in the house but it was really poorly positioned so it doesn’t really heat the house up much, just the kitchen. The owner says that where the house is, is kind of sketchy (uhmm no it's not) but anyways we have a big old guard dog that the owner left us haha its pretty cool. We don’t have to do anything just feed it in the morning and at night and let it out in the morning and put it back after lunch. And its name is Duke. I told the owner not to leave it but he insisted, but its all good because hes a good dog. All in all I like the house and don’t worry Dad I will take pictures of it. Anyways, I’m just glad that it’s over and done with because it took away way too much missionary work time last week. 

But one awesome thing about last week was that Maria got baptized!!!

It was kind of sketchy a few hours before and it almost didn’t happen but she did and we were very happy and so was she. Also in the rama, Cabrero had a baptism and Yumbel had one too so we had a quadruple baptismal service in the chapel in Cabrero and it was awesome seeing so many people dressed in white :). I just love the spirit at baptisms. It is very uplifting and very addicting. All I want to do now is get in the font again haha. Well I wasn’t in the font personally for Maria's baptism but you know what I mean. But I´m not worried because we are going to baptize more this coming cambio.

With Irma it's been a struggle but it's not her fault. She loves the church and wants to get baptized and accepts every principle of doctrine and commandment that we teach her with gladness and she is so close to being baptized but she just can’t yet. Her husband has a property out in the campo and recently he’s taken to just leaving for days, even up to a week, to work out there. That wouldn’t be a problem but Irma has a severely handicapped 30 year old son in the house and has to watch him and so she hasn't been able to go to church for the past two weeks because there is nobody else nearby that can watch him. So that’s been rough but she is ready and just needs someone for assistance at church before she can be baptized. And she is not worried because it is getting cold and there place in the campo doesn’t have much heating so she said he should be coming running back to stay pretty soon here and then she will be able to go to church and get baptized. We also have some other good potential baptisms coming up but I´ll tell you more about them as they progress. I just love the progress of the children of God from contact to baptism! I´m a little nervous but also stoked to continue the work here now as comp mayor. Love you all, keep me in your prayers as well as our brothers and sisters here in Chile. Until next week CHAUZZZZ!!!!!

Con mucho amor, abrazos y toda la cuestión, Élder Harper :)