WE ARE LUCKY TO KNOW OF OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN'S GRAND PLAN OF SALVATION

Hello hello everybody!!!

Well I think you are right Mom, it looks like I did jinx myself the last letter with talking about not having any rain. I forgot to knock on wood haha because now it's going strong. Thankfully it didn't start raining until after church yesterday but when it started, man it poured. And it is still going on and off right now and from your email it looks like it's here to stay for awhile. Well anyways, it sounds like you guys had a fun weekend with youth conference and that you had some pretty good speakers. It sounds like that jewish convert's story was pretty cool. And while the rain has started here, summer has begun back home. I´m sure that the kids are excited to be out of school soon.

Well, to be completely honest, this last week wasn't all that great or exciting. As far as our investigators are doing, it's a little complicated. Karina got in a fight with her Mom and was grounded last week so we didn't get to see her until Sunday and it looks like it might be a long ways away until she´s baptized. We had eveything ready to go for Pablo´s baptism this Saturday and he´s ready to be baptized but since his old stubborn Catholic Uncle found out that he was getting baptized, he´s been doing everything possible to try to stop it. He tried to tell us that Pablo changed his mind and didn't want to be baptized anymore. Which we soon discovered was a lie and for the passed few weeks he´s been inventing reasons to make Pablo stay home and work to keep him from being baptized and going to church. So it didn't work out this Saturday and it looks like his uncle kept him from going to church yesterday, so we are a little worried there. But we talked to Pablo and we just decided that it would be better to just not tell the uncle and go ahead and baptize him this Saturday. He is twenty years old and so he doesn't need anyone's permission to go through with it, so we are going to try to do everything we can to make sure he gets baptized this Saturday. We are just going to have to try to talk to the uncle or do something so Pablo will be able to keep going to church.

But Raquel is still coming to church and is good to go for her baptism on the 26^th so we are excited for that. We also have some other good investigators that we are working with that have some potential and can possibly get baptized this cambio. But I will talk about them more as they continue to progress. We also had some other new investigators that we were really excited about to go to church but they didn't come and later we found out it's because her Mom´s house burned down here in Monte Águila the day before. We offered to do anything possible to help but they said that we can't until the rain lets up. Two houses burned down here in Monte Águila last week within one day of eachother so this afternoon and this next week we are going to try to get in touch with the people to see if there is anything we can do to help. We are working on finding some new people to teach and there are some people who have potential so we will see how it goes this next week.

Also one of the members of the branch here in Monte Águila that gives us lunch every Wednesday had been sick for awhile but when we went to visit him on Tuesday night he was really bad. I won't really give you any details but he asked us to give him a blessing and even as a gave it, I had the feeling that he doesn't have too much time left. The next day he went to the hospital for like the fifth time and they finally diagnosed him with advanced stomach cancer and it looks like a tumor right next to his heart and that it's too late to operate and it looks like he doesn't have much time left. So we spent some time last week as well comforting his family and visiting him. It's really sad, but just like I told the family, we are lucky to know of our Father in Heaven's grand plan of salvation and that they will be able to be with him again someday.  

This is the family whose house burned down.  Salazar (on the right) is the man diagnosed with stomach cancer. Later on, we visited him in the hospital
and donated our blood for a transfusion.

Well to end the email on a better note my comp is coming out of his shell with the members and I´m still trying to help him smile, laugh, and talk more with our investigators. Overall he is doing just fine and is progressing but I think I´m going to try to do more this next week to help him progress even faster. Once he comes out of his shell and learns to lighten up, even if you have to fake it and to talk more, he will be an even better missionary. And we get along just fine.

Well I´ve got to go now but I love you all and we are going to do our best to keep warm and try to stay dry while we continue pushing the work along through the rain. Ok well thats all I´v e got for this week. CHAO!!!!

Con cariño, Élder Harper =)