WE GOT THERE JUST IN TIME TO WATCH THEM SLAUGHTER THE CHRISTMAS LAMB

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello hello everybody! I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas. Family, it was awesome talking to you guys on Christmas, especially with Skype, gotta love technology. I still can´t believe how huge Baylor and Izzie are. I noticed it on Skype and then again on the Christmas stairs picture. And Baylor's voice still throws me off; the days of his Michael Jackson impressions are definitely over jaja. And Abbie..well..you haven't grown but at least you look older. I have reached that stage now when two years here or there doesn't really change how I look; it makes me feel old or something jaja. Anyways, it was great to talk to and see you all on Christmas; I greatly enjoyed it. And thank you family and everyone for the Christmas package. Me, my comp, and my house mates are very much enjoying their contents now. Well the family already got all the updates about the week and my Christmas but now I´ll talk about how it all went for the rest of you all.

So Tuesday morning we took off early to make the 6 hour drive up to Concepción so Elder Garcia and I could pick up our new hijos (trainees). When we got there we were trained a little bit by some of the zone leaders and then ate pizza while waiting for the newbies to come. It was dejavu being in that chapel again but this time sitting in the back watching instead of being a greenie up front nervously presenting myself in terribly broken spanish. Anywas the new guys came (a group of all gringos) and unto me a son was born jaja. His name is Elder Ahart, he´s from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He´s a good kid and I think he talks even more than me. He can talk my ear off sometimes jaja but he's excited to be here and excited to work, which is good. We are going to have a lot of fun this cambio and work hard and I think that he will adjust quickly because he doesn't really have much of that wide-eyed what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here look or attitude that most new gringos have. His spanish.. well.. jaja were going to work a lot on that this cambio because as of right now he doesn't speak much but I´m sure that he will learn quickly.

Anyways after picking him up we made the journey back and we arrived in Pitrufquén at 12:00am early Wednesday morning and just stayed the night there and then made it to Loncoche Wednesday afternoon after district meeting. As far as how Christmas went here it actually went a lot better than I thought it would. Jaja to be honest I thought it was going to be a bust and the only thing I was really looking forward to was talking with you guys, which of course was still the high light, but it turned out to be a really good Christmas over all. Since we had so little time to work this week due to picking up the kids, the Christmas Conference with the President in Temuco on Thursday, and Christmas, the time that we did have to work we spent running around visiting our investigators and a few less active members. I went to visit all of them with my Santa hat which they loved and I found that all of them were good and I was able to spend some time with almost all of them and share with them a little Christmas message. Then on Christmas Eve before going home, we decided to visit this less active member that's been having a real rough time to wish them a Merry Christmas and we got there just in time to witness a Christmas tradition of the Chilean campo (the country folk). We got there just in time to watch them slaughter the Christmas lamb. Here in Loncoche it's a tradition on

Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to buy a live lamb, kill it, skin it, clean it, cook it, and then barbecue it and eat it. And we got to watch the whole process jaja. Yes, it might sound a little gross and disturbing but it was a lot of fun and then they invited us to come back on Christmas Day to eat it with them. I won't give you very many details but to kill it they just kind of tied it down to this bench and then stabbed it once through the neck and bled it to death. Yeah the skinning and cleaning process was a little more gruesome so I will spare you all the details but dont worry, we got pictures jaja. So that was Christmas Eve.

Then on Christmas we woke up, I opened my presents and as I was finishing up, we heard a rustling sound and crunching coming from the kitchen. All of us missionaries were together so we crept over there and then peeked into the kitchen to see what was going on. There we found a package of spaghetti spilled all over the ground that led to a little hole in the wall of a kitchen and a crunching sound coming from the wall. Yes, a rat was enjoying a Christmas breakfast of our spaghetti in our house! no no no.. unacceptable. So all of us, still in pajamas and sandals, gathered a broom and some pots and pans and I got the camera to film us getting that thing out. We pounded on the wall a few times and apparently we were unprepared for the big black ball of furry that came out of the hole because everyone yelled and jumped to avoid it running into our feet. It made one circle around the kitchen, ran into 

one of the elder's feet, and ran back. After we gathered together once again the shreds of our manhood and pride, we banged on the wall once again this time prepared to take the sucker down. Unfortunately he had learned his lesson and was not coming back out. So we devised a plan. We lit about fifteen incense sticks and stuck them into one of the holes of the wall to smoke him out. I think we did a better job of smoking us out than him. Anyways we finally got him back out but the broom and pots and pans just couldn't get him; he was too fast for us. Yeah, so short story long we didn't kill the bugger and we are now just going to buy a bunch of rat traps. He better have enjoyed his last Christmas because his days are numbered. Anyways after that we went to go eat the Christmas lamb and then went to the familia Ariz house to talk with you guys. And that was our Christmas; it definitely wasnt boring jaja.

Then on Sunday morning we weren't expecting to have many investigators at church because most were busy or out of town for the holidays but one Mom (Neli) and her two kids (Tamara and Valentina) that we are teaching came and they stayed for all three hours and seemed to enjoy it a lot. This was the Mom's second time in church but the daughter's first time. But they all seemed to make fast friends with the members and you could tell that they felt the spirit during the meetings. They are members of the church of the seventh day adventists and have made that clear to us but we are starting to notice a change in them now and I'm sure that the spirit is working to open their hearts to the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We have an appointment to teach them with some of their neighboors now on Wednesday and if everything goes well we will be putting a baptismal date with them. And that was my week. Well I got to go now but I love you all a lot and for those of you that I didn't talk to on Saturday, I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and that you were able to feel the true spirit of Christmas with the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Well until next week chau chau and a happy New Year.

con amor, Elder Harper =)

MAY YOU HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & MAY YOU KEEP IN MIND THE SACRED NATURE & SPIRIT OF THE HOLIDAY. THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.

Hola familia,

REGOCIJAD JESUS NACIO!!!!!!! Well Christmas is really underway now. In less than a week I´ll be talking to you guys so that will be pretty awesome. I'm really excited for that. As far as how we are going to do the call.. I'm not sure yet but I will be letting you all know very soon jaja. Oh and I will be going up to Conce on Tuesday Mom so hopefully the package will have made it by then but if not we have the Christmas conference on Thursday, the 23rd and if I don't get it on Tuesday, I'm sure that it will be there by then. Thanks for those few pictures Mom. And Bay, I like how you'er wearing that same leather jacket that I wore in my last family photo by the big tree jaja nice. About the Provo tabernacle, the members yesterday were telling us that the Provo temple burned down so Elder Calaway and I were freaking out. So when we had a member at lunch look it up on google we were just relieved to find out that it wasn't the temple. But it's still a shame.

Well before I tell you guys about my week I guess I´ll say what my cambio is. My comp is leaving to Talcahuano and I will be training a greenie. Elder Calaway is also leaving and his comp, Elder Garcia, will be training as well so we are going to have two little newborn guaguitas (babies) in the house so I'm pretty stoked for that. It will be a new experience and I'm excited to be able to show a new missionary the ropes and to get him in the baptismal font. So tomorrow I get to make the six hour journey up to Conce to pick up my hijo and then if time, make the trip back down to Loncoche jaja. So that will be lots of bus time. But it's all good. You can never complain about extra time to get some rest.

About my week, well, it was a pretty good one. We taught Patricio the Word of Wisdom and he smokes, drinks and takes coffee. You could tell after we taught him that he was a little upset but he wants to change and live the commandments of God and he seems like he has faith that the Lord will help him to give up those things. He also still wants to be baptized but unfortunately could not come to Church this week because he had to go with his Mom on Sunday to the campo to take care of his sick Grandpa. He does this about 2 or 3 Sundays of the month.. I hate the campo.. so much. But anyways I still have faith that he will continue progressing and be able to get baptized in January. He was basically our only GOOD investigator until Friday and then on Friday we knocked this little street that was a gold mine. From that little ten houses, two families let us in where we immediately taught them the first lesson and members from both families came to church on Sunday. So we had 4 investigators in church on Sunday.

One of them, a woman in her early thirties named Miriam, loved church and already wants to get baptized, but when we went to teach them for the second time, her husband was there and I guess they got in a fight about it after we left. He doesn't like the ´´Mormons´´ and forbade her to go to church or to let us over anymore. But despite that, she escaped the house and went to church anyway. But afterwards she asked us to not come over anymore as to not cause more problems in her family but said that she'd go to church. So we asked her to pray to soften her husband's heart and me and my new comp will fast and pray for them this week. The grandma, who initially let us into the house and loves missionaries, also came to church and loves the Mormons. She is visiting from Argentina but was talking us up to Miriam, her granddaughter, a lot before we knocked their door. The other family is good as well but they are more quiet and shy and we´ve only had one chance to teach them so I´ll talk more about them next week.

Ending the cambio now we have some good investigators to work with and so I'm excited to be training so we can spend most of our time teaching and so he can get in the font his first cambio of the mission. I want to be able to give him a good experience for his first cambio of the mission and get him excited for the next two years he has to bring people unto Christ through the waters of baptism.. sigh.. There is nothing better than to see an investigator's life dramatically change, see the light of Christ get brighter and brighter in their eyes, and then to see them get baptized. It's the best. Well I'm excited for Christmas and I'm really excited for this next cambio. Family, I will be talking to you guys on Saturday and for the rest, may you have a very Merry Christmas and may you keep in mind the sacred nature and spirit of the holiday. The birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Serve others, exercise charity, and have a good holiday. FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!!!!!

tu chileno preferido, Elder Harper

IT'S A SPRINT TO THE FINISH AND I CANNOT LET MYSELF LOSE ANY ANIMO OR ENERGY. THIS IS IT.

Muchas holas a todos!!!!

Another week come and gone and another cambio coming to a close, the mission just continues to fly by. Well it looks like you guys had a pretty fun week with Grandpa´s birthday party and all, happy birthday Grandpa!!! From looking at the picture I couldn't believe how old my little cousins are getting. Everybody is huge! especially Izzie. Your tall now jaja. Anyways my week was good in part that my animo is still going strong. I'm still pumped and stoked to be here but man we had a lot of trials here in Loncoche this week from our part and the other elders as well. But there were also some good things that came out of it.

Unfortunately the white Christmas dream has officially ended =(. The little girl, Victoria, that we were going to be baptizing is now going out of town to Santiago for a couple of weeks so hopefully everything will work out for her when she gets back. As for the branch president's Dad who had a fecha for Christmas, it has now been pushed back because he was not able to attend church this week because it was raining and his feeble state and health don't allow him to come out in the rain, and no one has a car here so yeah. But hopefully he will be baptized on New Year's day now if the weather starts to clear up.

Then an investigator that we found contacting last week really amazingly started to progress this week. He is a 30 year old guy or so and a single Dad living alone with his 6 year old kid. He is very humble and although he doesn't really understand everything yet, he has a desire to change and wants to be baptized. On the second lesson he accepted a baptismal fecha for New Year's day and was really excited to come to church on Sunday but.. he found that his car was stolen (the first investigator I've ever had with a car) when he came out of his house to go to church Sunday morning and so he wasn't able to come because he had to deal with that. He found his car later that day but now his fecha for the 1st of January dropped because he won't be able to get the three asistances to church before that date so we are going to reset a fecha with him this week. But I'm not too worried about him because I can tell that he really has a sincere heart and true intent, I'm excited about his progress.

Besides Patricio we don't really have any other good progressing investigators jaja. We spent a lot of time looking last week but from Thursday to Sunday morning it rained almost nonstop and people just didn't really want to talk to us. Supposedly summer is here and sometimes we get a glimpse of it and when we finally do,here comes the rain again. We even got some hail and a pretty decent thunderstorm one of the days, but it's all good. I don't mind knocking doors in the rain, it's character building jaja. Victor has kind of died on us, not really anything new going on there except that he's stopped going to church, which is sad.. but.. I don't know, if anything changes with him I´ll let you all know.

Things were pretty rough for Elder Calaway here this week. He was just kind of depressed all week and got pretty close to just calling it quits a few times. But we are working with him and helping him out. He's a great guy and I know that when he gets through this, he will make a great missionary. It's just easy to lose perspective at times when things get rough; you just can't lose sight of the vision, the big picture.

Hmm.. what else do I go?.. OH yeah!!! We had an electrical fire in our house the other night jaja. When we got home on Saturday night the house just had this weird burnt smell to it, like an electrical smell. But after a quick investigation of the electrical appliances (the fridge and microwave) we found nothing and so just continued with our night. As we were getting ready to go to bed the smell seemed to be getting worse so we decided to take another look at things before going to bed. This time we found that the plug of the fridge and the outlet where it was plugged into were really hot and that the plastic was melting a little. As soon as we went to touch it to unplug it, it started sparking and caught on fire. We blew it out and tried to unplug it but the metal prongs of the plug had melted into the outlet and we couldnt take them out because the thing kept catching on fire. So we ran and turned off the electricity to the house before it got out of hand and once the electricity was off, we just cut the wires. Jaja so we are now out of a fridge and my comp is looking for the supplies and tools to repair it. He is going to try to ghetto rig it so we will see how that goes jaja. Yeah so it was a good thing we decided to have another look before going to bed, fun stuff fun stuff.

Well I think that is all I got for this week. Satan is working hard to tear us down but I'm just not having it. I've got too little time in the mission to let myself get discouraged or feel bad for myself. No, it's a sprint to the finish and I cannot let myself lose any animo or energy. This is it. My last seven months to be a missionary and then I'll be back home missing it. So despite the failing branch and weak attempts of Satan to get us down the work goes on. We will know what are cambios are this Saturday so next Monday I'll let you know if I'm staying or going. As far as I'm concerned, I'm down for whatever the mission President and the Lord want me to do, whether I'm staying here or leaving, missionary work is missionary work. Wherever Im called to is fine with me =). Well take care everybody and we will talk more next week. ciao, chau, chao, 17 months out and I still don't really know how to spell it, but neither do the chilenos jaja.

con amor, Élder Harper

Consejo de Lideres (Advice of Leaders-meeting)

I JUST FELT THE SPIRIT WELL UP INSIDE ME AND POWERFULLY TESTIFIED

Hello family!!!

Well it sounds like the Christmas season is in full swing now back in SoCal. The events, the food, the lights..sigh.. I love it. Slightly because it's not really that big of a deal here but of course I still would rather be here in Loncoche than anywhere else. And thank you very much for fasting and praying for a White Christmas for me, I really do appreciate it and it feels good to know that my prayers are accompanianed (don't know if that's a word or not) with yours. And at least now I'm starting to see the little two and a half to 3 foot fake trees decorated in the houses. Also, without all the fanfare it is a little easier to focus on the real meaning of Christmas and of course as missionaries we are taking full advantage of this season to share our glad tidings and pray to the Lord that he can soften the hearts of the people of this pueblo during this special season. Oh and Tanners, Loys, Las Flores Young Mens, and Grandma and Papa: Thank you all very much for your packages. My house mates and I are enjoying very much the contents there of and they as well send their thanks. I am so blessed to have such a good support system for me back at home that many missionaries out here (mainly the latins) don't have. I thank the Lord for all of you who pray for me and support me every day and I know that He answers your prayers. Oh and returning to Christmas today, as a zone activity we had an awesome asa´o al disco (an awesome chilean barbecue) and then made brownies and watched the movie Elf for p-day so that was a lot of fun and very tasty.

Anyways now for the weekly update. To be quite honest it was a pretty ordinary week and nothing very miraculous happened but during this week, especially the beginning, I felt an inner calm and peace and a strong accompanionship (don't know how to say that) of the spirit that I haven't enjoyed in a long time. I mean as a missionary I try to always feel the spirit but during this week even though we weren't having any remarkable success, I just felt it strongly by my side lifting me up and making me rejoice in the work. With that I had one good experience with this guy who wanted to fight who was just bashing the church, the book of mormon and Joseph Smith. Usually that immediately puts me on the defense but this time it did not offend me so much but I just felt the spirt well up inside me and powerfully testified to him of how I know that these things are true and kindly invited him that he could feel this joy and find out the truth of these things for himself as well. I don't think he really took it to heart but after that he quietly went back into the house and I felt a powerful reaffirmation that the things of which I testified are indeed true and that I did my part in raising the warning voice to him and inviting him unto repentance. It was awesome =).

As of right now we have a baptismal date from an incomplete family for the 25th of December, Christmas. I would be overjoyed about that (I am really happy) but it came to us under unfortunate circumstances. It was an investigator of the other missionaries here that they had been working with for a couple weeks, the dad of the branch president, but they made a commitment with him and accidently broke it and left him hanging and so he and his wife got mad (mostly his nonmember wife.. she's ridiculous) and now she refuses to talk to them and will not let them back into her house. So the old man with the baptismal date decided that he still wants to get baptized and asked that we take over teaching him. It was really sad for the other Elders and now one of them (the chilean) has hard feelings against me for it but he still needs to be baptized so I'm not going to turn him down. It's sad how some missionaries lose focus of our real purpose and turn the work of the Lord into a numbers game, in my eyes we are all a team and baptizing is a sacred work of the Lord and not a game or a competition. Besides they aren't our baptisms, they are the Lords. So I am glad that after the bad misunderstanding that this brother still wants to get baptized and am sad that it has to be complicated and drama, oh well.

On another not so good note, the problems in the branch here are starting to reach a fever pitch and there are some members here who are trying to stage a coup on the leadership of the branch here in Loncoche. The president here has been negligent both to his duties and the branch and needs to be replaced (which is now in the works thank goodness) but some offended and indignant members are going about it all the wrong way and are looking for blood. This one seemingly harmless and soft spoken member with cancer who is sick with cancer and has been wronged by the presidency is out seeking for justice and in a sense is out for blood. He is going around rounding up all of the innactive families who have been offended or wronged by the branch president, riling them up and organizing them so they can be interviewed by the district president and be brought to a disciplinary council along with some other prominent members of the branch. We went with him to do some of these visits on Saturday without realizing exactly what he was doing and afterwards we realized how dangerous he is and what he could do to the branch so on district conference in Pitrufquen on Sunday we let President Swenson know what's going down and he informed the district president so hopefully things will calm now when things are taken care of in the right way. The brother who is doing this is a good person at heart but he is vindictive and dramatic and is just going about all this in the wrong way. This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Kingdom of God on earth and it just makes me so sad and weary to see all this stuff going on in His church. I can't tell you how much I've learned to appreciate our peaceful, organized, apostacy free ward back home in Cali from my experiences here in Chile. I'm sure all of these experiences will be for my benefit down the line. Well at least the process to clean this branch up will be started faster now so it will be ready to support and nourish sincere investigators and new members.

Well everybody this email is getting long jaja but I just want you to all know that I love you very much and that I'm infinitely grateful for the learning and growing experiences that I have been able to pass through (I know that sounds off but don't know how to say it) here in the mission. I love the Lord and I love this work. Keep enjoying your holidays everybody and I'll keep doing my best to tear it up down here in Loncoche. I know that the field is white here, I'm just praying every day to be led to the Lord's elect, to find the ones who can strengthen and raise up the struggling branches of the kingdom here in Chile. Until next week CHAITO!!!!!!!!

con mucho amor y abrazos, Elder Harper