WE DECIDED TO KNOCK DOORS TO SEE IF WE COULD FIND ANYONE WHO DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE CRAWDADS

Hello everybody!!!!!!

Well it feels like it's been a while since I´ve heard from you and written you. That's probably because it has been a while. haha Anyways it was good to hear from you guys. Man, the capacitation thing was good but it's been a long week and I am dead tired. But today I´m going to tell you about how my last week went and on Monday I´ll tell you about how the whole capacitation thing in Conce went. That way I´ll have something to write about on Monday. Well first of all it sounds like you guys are having a fun and active summer. Hearing about the Channel Islands trip from Dad brought back a lot of memories from when I was there six years ago. Man, I can't believe that was six years ago. I´m really getting old. Oh, and Izzie´s story of Abbie and Jenna´s experience at the Sawdust Festival really made me laugh. jajaja Thanks Izzie. Oh and I´m sorry about the surf Dad, it's not going to be easy but I know that you will be blessed for sacrificing dawn patrol to teach seminary. As you dedicate more time and energy to studying the scriptures and preparing lessons for your students, you´ll feel your testimony strengthen and grow. I´m sure that you´ll be glad you made the decision in the end =).

Well so let's see... how did my last week go? This week has been so long that it'.s kind of hard to remember what I did the week before. At the beginning of the week I started to get down a little bit. I remember that we worked hard but I felt like we could have worked harder and more efficiently but in the end of the week we were greatly blessed. We have and had a few good progressing investigators and we found some new ones who are really good too but it was kind of frustrating because all of the best investigators that we had at that time, we knew wouldn´t be able to go to church because three of them had to work at this stupid Crawdad Festival. So even though they are progressing and all, it still made me frustrated that they aren´t progressing faster but I´m having patience. As Saturday morning came around, we had some good investigators and we were finding some potentially good new ones and were working hard but we didn't have anyone who could come to church with us on Sunday because of the crawdads and other reasons. So it got me down thinking that we might have another Domingo con zero en la capilla but we did our best to keep our animo up. So in the morning on Saturday we decided to knock doors to see if we could find anyone who didn't care about the crawdads. So we went to a street that I had never been before and started knocking.

On the second house this older woman came out and without a word opened the gate and told us to follow her. We were a little surprised but we did as we were told and followed her into the living room. Then she asked us where we had been and why we had stopped coming to her house. I was taken aback for a second and tried explaining to her that we had never seen her before when she realized that we were different people than she thought. She then told us that the missionaries were teaching her and that she went to church twice before the earthquake. Then after the earthquake she didn't see the missionaries again. We asked her if she liked what they were teaching her and she said yes and that she liked the chuch a lot. So we invited her to go with us on Sunday and she said she would. We then taught her briefly about the gospel of Jesus Christ and told her that we were going to prepare her to receive baptism by the authority of God like the baptism that Jesus received and she said that it sounds good. When we went to her house on Sunday to pick her up she came out the door dressed and ready to go before we even had the chance to yell ¨halo¨ or knock. So we are way excited about her but the only problem is that she can´t read and that she works as a nanny taking care of an ¨abuelito¨ which I thought funny because she's an old person taking care of an old person jaja, but it's all good. The only thing is that when he´s really sick she can't escape for a few hours to go to church so we are praying that the abuelito stays healthy enough to let her go to church.

Also on Sunday, one member who lives out in the campo and is extremely spiritual, finally convinced her little 16 year old brother, who isn't a member, to go with her to church and he seemed to really like it a lot. At the end he said he would come the next week and we planned to go out to his house in the campo to have a noche de hogar (family night) with him this next week. We would have done it earlier but we had to go to Conce for the capacitations. Also, two other members brought either a non acitve family member or friend that is starting to show interest in the church. So in the end we had four investigators in the church and I was left humbled. We´ve been working like dogs without seeing much results but finally last week the Lord led us to one of his prepared and the members did the rest of the work to bring the other investigators. It really showed me that we can't do this on our own no matter how hard we work but that if we have faith and work hard with patience the lord will provide in his own due time.

Oh and this is kind of random, but Elder Villegas and I planned a little Pioneer Day that we had here in Santa Juana last Saturday. We drank hot chocolate, ate cake, and watched El Legado (Legacy). Then after the movie we shared what we liked and what we learned from the movie. It was simple and very small, only ten people showed up. But we had a good time and felt the presence of the spirit there. In the end, the week ended well with a good Pioneer Day and a good Sunday in the capilla. Ok well that's all I got for now but I'll talk to you guys again in just three days and I´ll tell you how this week went then. Until then love you all!! chao!!!!

con amor, Élder Harper =)

ps. keep it up Mom with the scripture study, conference club and DAK. even though it seems like it might not make that much of an impression it really does. Well it did on me even though I know that I really didn't show it well. Anyways keep it up. Especially with family scripture study and most of all FAMILY PRAYER. your awesome mom =)