I WANT TO DIE (end/finish my mission) WITH MY FACE TOWARD ZION

Hola a todos!!!!

Sorry that I'm writing so late Mom. Today we had consejo (zone leader council) in the President's house, or as Danny called it, the council of the Knights of the Round Table. So we had to travel last night to that, stay at a house in Talcahuano, and then go to President's house in the morning. Because conference ended at 7 here in Chile, we got a late start to consejo and didn't get a seat on the bus so we had to take the two hour trip standing up. That kind of..stunk, jaja but what can you do? When I was in Santa Juana I started to get pretty good at kind of half sleeping while standing up and holding on to the hand rail in the bus. Anyways I didn't get all that much sleep last night but it was worth it and worth losing P-day because consejo is awesome. It just feels so cool sitting in President's living room in a circle with all of the leaders of the mission, many of which are good friends in the mission. But there were a lot of young guns there and now I am definitely starting to feel old in the mission jaja. It still hasn't completely hit me yet how little time I have left, but I think that that's a good thing. I'm still going strong and will be doing so toward the end. As the ancestor of one of the apostles (can't remember which one) said, who served in the Martin hand-car company, "I want to die (end the mission, death, it's like the same) with my face toward Zion." Anyways, consejos went well and the mission is going to be going through some changes pretty soon here that I´m excited about.

Yeah, as far as the Cruces goes... They got baptized!!!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!! jajaja. I couldn't be more happier for them. Last Monday night we had a very spiritual Noche de Hogar (Family night) and afterwards, while we ate, Jose Cruces said that he wanted to get baptized on Sunday but when he remembered it was conference he said ok, then next Sunday. Madeline (his wife) looked at him and said, no.. this week.. wednesday. Jaja She is such a strong pillar I love it! anyways he looked at her and then agreed. So we spent all Tuesday running around inviting the ward to the baptism and planning the baptism with the ward mission leader. On Wednesday the baptism started a little late (they ALWAYS do here) but other than that it was spectacular and very spiritual. We had a great ward turn out, the bishop came, the stake president came, and even President and the hermana Swenson came. Months back President came to Los Ángeles to do a devotional for recent converts and investigators and they got to know the Cruces very well. Every time President saw us, he always asked us about them and he was very happy when he found out that they were finally getting baptized and well, he came. Jose´s best friend (who is a ward member) baptized him and I got to baptize Madeline. It was a great experience and the spirit was felt strong there, and they definitely recognized it. Yesterday they came to the morning session of conference and afterwards were

confirmed members and saints of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. They are on their way to becoming great members of the Church and in a year more, an eternal family. How awesome!!!!!!

So because of the double baptism, I´m going to say that it was a great week but other than that... jaja well, we´ve had better. We found some good potential new investigators who are member's friends but of the 11 investigators who were supposed to come to one or more sessions of conference, none came. Out of the five opportunities none came. That was a little frustrating especially because Ale y Dina commited to come and then bailed. Our ward here is great but not perferct.. This week we found out that at church last week some member did something to offend him a little bit and not really too many people paid much attention to him so he has been feeling down about that. He says that he still wants to get baptized and stuff but the energy he had before has been all but completely deflated. He said he was going to come still but just completely flaked on us. Now I could let that get me discouraged but that's not going to help anything, jaja, even though it was disappointing. So what we are going to do this week to remedy that problem is have a barbecue at a member's house with a few good fellowshipping families and we are going to invite them to it. We are also going to invite him to play football (soccer) with the men of the ward on Friday night, and if that works out, it should animate him enough to keep on trudging forward. He doesn't have any doctrinal problems really, he just needs some friends in the ward, to feel love and like he's a part of the ward. That will help him out a lot. Dina is actually coming along well. She is becoming more receptive and is now talking about baptism and church membership not as a hypothetical thing but as a future event in her life that has just not happened yet. They are good humble people and are going to be our new number one focus for this week so they can be baptized on the 23rd of April, pray for them.

Conference... conference was awesome!!!! What more can I say? jaja. I loved all the talks and found a lot of common themes such as... charity and helping the poor, Marriage!, revelation, marriage, and marriage jaja. He hit hard on that subject big time especially for all of those RM´s out there who are just twiddling their thumbs. And then hearing Elder Holland's message about conference and how talk subjects are picked, just added testimony to how important those talks are, especially the ones with repeated themes. That is the revelation that we need to make it safely through the next six months my friends.(until the next conference in October) Fortunately I was able to watch all five sessions in English, unfortunately this was due to the fact that there were no investigators I needed to sit next to in the spanish sessions =(. Oh well, conference was still awesome and the spiritual feast that I needed. It brought me a little closer from the gray beginnings of Dawn to the noon day sun =). And I definitely will not be dawdling along for these next three months on my road to Damascus (the rest of my mission). I'm going to be doing everything I can to baptize everyone that I can!!! Because that is the only door which leads to eternal life. If they don't get baptized, then they´re not going anywhere. The gospel is true, and I know that the Prophet, apostles and church leaders are inspired by the hand of God. They have been called to sound the Lord's warning trump here in our days. We must do everything to heed them. I love you all very much and until next week CHAO!!!!!!!!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)