RIDING MY BIKE AWAY FROM HER HOUSE MY HEART WAS FILLED WITH JOY AND GRATITUDE FOR OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN AND HIS PERFECT PLAN

Hola Hola!!!

Well, the long awaited summer break has arrived jaja. I remember those days, good times. Well it's not exactly summer here but at least it didn't rain at all last week!!! yay!!! jaja. One thing that I wont miss is the rain. Yes icy cold winds from the south replaced the rain but at least their was sun and I´d prefer to freeze my but off then to get wet in the rain any day. Oh and on a side note, the winds brought in a light rain of volcanic ash over night, so when we woke up in the morning a very light white dust was covering everything. I'm sure you guys have been hearing about the volcano and stuff here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IZZIE!!!!! Wow Mom and Dad, a kid in his twenties and all of the rest down to the youngest teenagers.. I completely agree; you guys are wayyyy too young for that! jaja I hope it was a good one Izzie, you don't complete thirteen everyday. Cogratulations on the graduation Abbie!!!! White robes and a 4.0 I must say you are a studette. And what better way to celebrate than with concerts and more concerts right jaja. Sounds like it was a fun weekend/week.

We had a good week here and I've got a lot to write so I guess I'll get started. First with an explanation of why I'm writing so late. So yesterday from like 8:30 am through the whole day we had a huge mission-wide conference as a farewell for President Swenson at the big stake center in Talcahuano. So all of the like 190 missionaries of the whole mission were there, it was awesome. Due to Talcahuano being

kind of far we traveled up to Conce on Sunday afternoon to spend the night there to be able to get to the conference on time yesterday. Unfortunately all of the missionary houses in the north were filled to the brim so me and 35 other missionaries slept on the floor of the mission office. Yeah, I didn't really sleep at all; it kind of reminded me of the earthquake days jaja but it was cool. Then the conference was absolutely awesome. We took a picture of the entire mission with the President and Hermana Swenson and then had some spirituality and some funness. There were a ton of prepared spiritual musical numbers for some parts and then like half of the zones had funny corny skits prepared for a mission exhibition. Even though there are plenty of people who speak spanish better than me in the mission, once again the Hermana Swenson had me translate for her for like over an hour, jaja. It was kind of tiring but like I said last time, it was an honor and a privilege, especially since it was with the whole mission. It was a good day, and just cool being with the whole mission at once, with all of my old comps (except the dead ones) and all of my good buddies. It was cool talking to all of them and then after the conference I got to go around saying good bye to all of my friends here that I'm not going to see anymore. But the hardest goodbye was definitely with President and Hermana Swenson. I love and respect them so much and am extremely greatful for all that they´ve done for me and the mission these last years. I couldn't have possibly ask for a better mission president. Yeah, I am excited for President Martinez to get here but it was still sad saying goodbye. Afterwards every missionary got to go up to say good bye to the President and the Hermana and to take a picture with them.

Yesterday was a catholic holiday here in Chile so after the conference ended their were no more buses back to Renaico so I went up to Centinela to visit some families for the last time and then stayed the night in Elder Calaway´s house. Since it was a mission wide thing, President gave us today as pday but we used all of it traveling back to Renaico jaja. We got back like at 6:30 and now here I am writing you all. President Swenson left today at five oclock pm and President Martinez starts now taking over the reins. It will be an interesting transition.

Ok, Now I'll tell you about my week and my birthday. Honestly, I didn't even remember my birthday until like 10:30am the morning of. I just got up and went through the routine like normal and only remembered when I wrote the date in my agenda as we planned. I honestly didn´t have high hopes for this birthday because the last one was so good but this one was also amazing and rivals my last one in awesomeness jaja. I'll miss mission birthdays. Anyways the morning wasn't very successful. Plans A-G failed but plan Z finally went through and we got in the house of this one girl we contacted last week. We didn't have much time with her but we left her a pamphlet and she seemed pretty nice so we will see how that goes. Remember that family (that sister) I told you about that LOVES the missionaries and takes really good care of them? Well we had lunch with them and when we walked in she was there with baloons and birthday hats and a cake with candles yelling SORPRESA!!! Jaja I had no idea that she knew but I guess that Hermana Swenson let her know through facebook that it was my birthday. So her and another invited family sang, put a big birthday hat on me, made me blow out the candles and then my comp did the

traditional push-the-head-into-the-cake when I went for the first bite. It was fun and she even gave me two little birthday gifts. Oh and thanks for the packages grandma and papa and family. My companion and I greatly enjoyed and are enjoying the birthday goodies. Oh also Hermana Swenson and President Swenson called to wish me a happy birthday and to thank me for my mission service and stuff; it was cool.

After lunch we went out to work like normal and we found the most golden prepared investigator that I've ever found my entire mission. Well we didn't find her; that's not fair. She dropped into our laps jaja. So the story really started my first Sunday in Renaico when I didn't know who anybody was and even more I was without my comp. Afterwards, the branch president comes up to me and says, ¨Elder Harper welcome to the branch, today a woman came who is not a member of our church but I talked to her after sacrament meeting and she wants you guys to go to her house and teach her so that she can get baptized, isnt that great! Here's her information¨ Of course I couldn't believe it and then it really did seem too good to be true when we found out that the direction was bad. But in the end it turns out that it was just copied down wrong and we got the real one, so when we went after lunch on Wednesday, she let us right on in and then told us her life story in classic Chilean manner. It was a really long story and she really likes to talk but in conclusion, she is just coming out of some really tough times of no job and hunger just recently and shes had a lot of experiences throughout her whole life that have just kind of led her here. She's had contact and good experiences with members and she's recieved impressions and signs from God that led her to walk through the doors of the church on her lonesome and without a specific invite two weeks ago. She doesn't know too much about our doctrine yet but she knows how the members (for the most part) are and she can't deny the nudges that God has given her and she's willing to do and give up anything she has to in order to join the church and make God and spiritual matters the number one priority in her life. Like I didn't even need to explain to her that all of her trials and experiences were God leading her here because she already connected the dots on her own and is willing and excited to press forward. Basically we don't have much work to do there jaja. We just need to teach her the lessons and she will accept everything right away without a doubt. The only doctrine of the Church she already knows about from talking to a member is tithing and she already wants to pay it.

Being in her house and hearing her story, the spirit was strong, and upon riding my bike away from the house my heart was just filled with joy and gratitude for our Father in Heaven and his perfect plan, and his personal plans that he has for all of us and how they connect and intertwine to bring about the work and the glory of God. I gave him lots of tearful thanks leaving that house for him leading that daughter of his to us and for preparing her heart and testifying to her through the spirit even before us missionaries got there. She said that she would be coming to church alone this week because she has three young rambunctious kids but this Sunday her, her ¨husband¨, and her three kids strode through the chapel doors and despite their disorder, they stayed for all three hours and absolutely loved it. Yes, shes not married, but in her own words she said that she knows that she's living in sin and that she's willing to get married as soon as possible, even if they just have to go sign the papers with the lawyer and then go back to work. So her getting baptized before I leave or not all depends upon how soon is soon. She said before the end of July, so we are going to be hoping and praying and doing everything we can so that they can get married and baptized within these next three weeks. It might be a long shot but with tho Lord's help we can do it. And if it doesn't happen before I leave, I will at least leave with the certainty that she will get baptized shortly following my departure.

The sifting of investigators is going good I guess jaja. We've dropped a few and as you can see picked up some more but today I'm out of time but will be talking more about Mara Diaz (our golden girl) and our other progressing investigators next week. Over all with Tijeral and Renaico we had six investigators in church on Sunday, none of them with a baptismal date but we plan on making that change this week. It was a great birthday, and a great week, definitely one for the books. I love God and I love the mission. I'm excited to come home and to start the next chapter but it won't be easy to say goodbye. Well got to go soak up all I can of these next three weeks. I love you all and wish you a great kickoff to summer. See ya soon. CHAO!!!!!!!!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

MAY THE LAST MONTH BEGIN!!! GOIN BIG O GOIN HOME!!!

Muchas holas a todos!!!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!!!! I hope that you had a good one. Well it sounds like you guys had a busy weekend. Congratulations to Bre. 
Can´t believe she´s getting married so soon. Congratulations to Andrea for going through the temple, and the last stretch before the mission begins, jaja, lots of waiting. I remember it like it was yesterday, man time goes by fast.

Well my week here was pretty good. It rained the entire week on and off everyday and today the sun came out finally yay! The first time I´ve seen the sun since last Monday. God has given us a break from the rain on pday jaja. But I think I would prefer the rain on pday and the sun for when I'm out knocking doors. Anyways it was a good week.

On Tuesday we found a lot more people in Tijeral to teach so for now we are going to be going there 3 times a week to work. Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. On Thursday we had capacitaciónes with the Presdent and the whole southern half of the mission in Temuco. The assistants gave a little spiel and then to practice we went out with different companions and had a competition to see who could get into the most houses to teach something in an hour and a half. It was a lot of fun and opened the mind up to ways to work around people's excuses to get in and teach something. Plus, it forced us to be more creative and try new strategies. I really enjoyed it and we were able to find a good family who wants the missionaries to keep coming back and teaching and we felt the spirit strong in the house.

Afterwards President and the Hermana Swenson talked. The hermana Swenson speaks spanish but even still when she talks to all of the missionaries she speaks in English and has a missionary translate for her up front, usually a latin missionary who speaks English. This time she asked me to come up and translate for her, which I considered an honor because I don´t think my spanish is all that great and she usually doesn't have gringos translate for her, so yeah, that was a good self esteem boost jaja. Then afterwards President Swenson took all of the missionaries who are finishing the mission in July and August out to dinner since we won't be able to have the traditional final supper with him in the mission home before we leave. He took us to Ruby Tuesdays in the casino in Temuco and maybe it's not the best restaurant in the states but man I felt like a high roller there jaja. I guess that's because the best place to eat that I've been here in Chile so far is the Pizza Hut in Temuco or some good completo stands. After dinner we went back to the chapel where President gave us some advice and we had a group discussion, and then we ended with a testimony meeting. It was awesome having that time with President and the Hermana Swenson and being with lots of my buddies from the mission, almost all of the missionaries who got here with me. And the testimony meeting was, well, awesome. Afterwards it was too late to grab a bus so we went and picked up my companion and then the assistants drove us back to Renaico and stayed there with us for the night before heading back up to Conce.

The rest of the week we spent looking for new investigators and sifting through the giant teaching pool we have to see where we need to put our focus and who out of all the people are really going to progress. My companion is new so he can't really tell who is a good progressing investigator or not very well so it's been a slow process but we are getting there. Unfortunately out of all of our investigators, not really any of them progressed much this week because they either went out of town for Father's Day (yes they celebrate it here) or didn't come to church because of the rain. One of the better investigators we had didn't come because he went to go visit his father in jail who has a three year sentence. His family situation is sad but his brother already got baptized and we are now working on him and his Mom. His mom is tough but I think we will be able to get him (Nacho) baptized this cambio. There are a ton of incomplete families here, and lots of weird investigators. We have the biggest most hodge podge teaching pool that I've ever seen jaja. Which is fine, like I said before, we just need to help them start to progress and start sifting out the wheat from the chaff.

This Sunday was rough, both for Renaico and Tijeral, due to Father's Day and the rain. In Renaico only 48 members went and 3 investigators. In Tijeral only 13 people went to church and none of our investigators. This Sunday I went to Tijeral with a member and my companion stayed in Renaico. Also both me and my companion gave talks. Tijeral is the smallest branch I've ever seen but I guess it's a small town. Even though it's even smaller than Santa Juana. It has a legit chapel but like a playhouse version of the chapels back in the states jaja. It's tiny. In the salon sacramental no more than thirty people could fit and after that there are no more than three classrooms. This Sunday there were such few priesthood that the branch president had to come down from the stand and pass the sacrament. His wife says that she will bake us a cake if we find and baptize someone who could hold the priesthood. They want priesthood holders so bad; I hope to be able to help them out with that, cake or not.

Well I'm starting to get my bearings now in both Renaico and Tijeral and I like both pueblos. But I can't lie, these past two weeks I've been a little sector trunky, trunky for Villa Obispo jaja. I miss it. It's just weird getting to a new sector and meeting the members and knowing you're only going to be there for six weeks. It makes it harder to get closer with the members and what not. But now I'm getting used to it and am starting to like and even love these two pueblos. Since i had to get cambiod out of Villa Obispo, no matter what, I'm glad that President sent me here to Renaico for my last cambio. I know that it was for a reason and so I just got to do everything to fulfill his purposes and God's purposes for me here in Renaico. I love you all very much and ask you to pray for me so that the spirit can guide me to those chosen souls who can come unto Christ through baptism this cambio here in Renaico. May the last month begin!!! Goin big o goin home!!!

con mucho amor, Elder Harper

THE TOWN IS SMALL. ALMOST ALL OF THE ROADS ARE PAVED BUT THERE IS NO SUPERMARKET.

Hello!!!

Sounds like everythings going good back at home, just winding up the school year. Congratulations on graduating seminary guys way to go!!! Well down here in Chile winter is definitely setting in to stay. Last week we didn't really see too much of the sun at all. It kind of just rained on and off all week, but it let up on Sunday and yesterday and today we're cold and sunny. With the rain gone the temperatures drop, but that's ok, I prefer the cold to hot any day. And cold means no rain which is even better. Oh and we have a nice big wood stove right in between mine and my comps beds in the bedroom so that's awesome. When we get that thing goin' it's even too warm.

Yeah, Renaico is a cool town and the area around it and Tijeral is really pretty. It used to be a big railstop town but now most of the tracks are out of use and the station is all but abandoned. Just like most towns here in Chile. Monte Águila, Loncoche and now Renaico have all had big abandoned railway stations. Yeah the town is small, it's not as small as Monte Águila but it's just not very developed at all. Almost all of the roads are paved but there is no supermarket (even Monte had a supermarket of sorts!) and there is not an updated city map from the last ten years so it will be a little tougher orienting myself. And due to the lack of the supermarket, our diet is a little more limited but we have lunch with the members everyday so it's all good.

The house here in Renaico is even bigger than the Loncoche house I think. It's got a living room, kitchen, bathroom, garage, where we store the firewood, and four bedrooms. And it's just us too in the house so it's bigger than we could ever need. Oh and there are these members here in Renaico who just love the missionaries and are awesome. I met them my first night in Chile and they still remember me. They remembered that I was DeLeon´s kid, jaja. Anyways like a year or so ago they gave the missionaries bikes so here in this sector we have bikes!!! Jaja one of the two sectors of the whole mission with bikes. So that's cool but we still haven't really gotten to use them because my second day here my comp broke his so it's in the shop getting fixed. But it will be ready tomorrow and then we will be biking around this place like states missionaries. Well most states missionaries have cars now but you know what I mean.

Elder Arroyo is from Salta Argentina and he´s been a member of the church for almost two years now. He was baptized when I was getting ready to leave the MTC jaja weird. He´s a good guy and we get along but man is he a weird kid. He speaks really low and mumbles a lot. If I hadn´t been in the mission so long I wouldn´t understand a word he says. He´s also kind of clueless. He can get his way around the sector but doesn't know like half the members names so that's kind of a challenge but it's all good. And well..he's kind of femy.. well he´s really femy but that's ok I can deal with that; I have before. Despite all of that we get along and he's a humble guy so we shouldn't have really any problems.

I´m still getting to know the members and branch here in Renaico but from what it looks like it's really big. There were 82 people in church last week, which according to my comp is a record, and they say on average there are between 65 and 70. Sundays are kind of weird because my comp and I have to split up. This Sunday my comp went with a member to the branch in Tijeral and I stayed with a member here in Renaico. So it was weird knowing barely anyone at church and being kind of.. well.. alone but it went well. Two investigators went in Renaico and seven in Tijeral. I was expecting barely any to go in Tijeral but the branch president there has been working with his neighboors and this Sunday he brought the whole family of five to church with him. According to my comp they seemed to enjoy it and we are going to see if we can teach them with the branch president and his family this week.

Here in Renaico there are a ton of investigators but most of them are in situations where they are progressing very slowly. Actually most of them are kids who need permission from their parents to get baptized or we need for their families to get reactivated so they can get baptized. I still don't know all of them yet because we couldn't get a hold of all of them this week but man there are a ton!!! None of them are ready to go and all of them need a lot of work first but man there is a ton of potential here in this sector for Renaico and Tijeral. I don't know how we are going to efficiently get work done in both pueblos but we will make it happen. There are a lot of people that we can potentially baptize here before I leave so I am stoked to work and make it happen. It's not going to be easy by any means because a lot of them are tough investigators but I don´t let that bother me. We can do it.

Well that's all that I´ve got for this week. As I get to know the sector and branch I'll tell you more about it and as investigators start to progress out of our messy teaching pool I'll give you more details on them. This week we will be sifting out the investigators that we will be putting more of our focus on. It's going to be a good week. And I´ve been sicker than a dog ever since the Saturday before I left Los Ángeles. I'll give it a few more days and if nothing happens I'll get it checked out because I think that it might be a sinus infection. But I´ve been medicating myself well so I can keep working at 100 percent jaja so don't worry about me. Well until next week I love you guys very much and we´ll be seeing you soon! CHAO!!!!ç

con amor, Élder Harper (el campecino)

THE TIME OF THE FINAL SPRINT TO THE FINISH LINE HAS COME. MY LAST CAMBIO; I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT. SIX WEEKS, IT WILL GO BY IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.

Hola a todos!!!

So school is winding down at home and so is the mission here for me.. sigh.. but don't worry, I'm not like Abbie with senioritis, no signs of trunkiness =) jaja,Love you Abbie! Anyways last week was pretty good, it was my last week in Villa Obispo and last week as zone leader. President took all of my group and the group that goes home after me from leadership positions so that the younger guys can have more leadership experience when President Martinez takes over on June 28th. But before I get to the cambios, I´ll let you know how the week went even though it wasn't all that eventful.

We weren´t able to meet with Pamela all last week because she was out of town but she came back Saturday night and still came to church on Sunday so we were pretty stoked about that. We just need to get to know and talk to the boyfriend so that they can get married, and if that is hopeless, so that they at least can get separated. If it wasn´t for that, she would get baptized right away. She is incredibly humble and receptive and really really nervous. She's always worried that she''s doing something wrong and its hard for her to look at people that she doesn´t know well in the eye.

We weren´t able to get a hold of Patricia and Rayen til the weekend but they are doing well. They have a date for the 25th of June and Patricia came to church again. Rayen stayed home with her brother because she was sick. Mattias is doing all right but his parents are a pain. His mom is lazy and hasn't come to church and when Mattias doesn't ¨behave¨ his dad won't let him go to church, but I still know that he will get baptized, and soon. We also found a few very good new investiagators last week who are very interested in getting to know the church and we have citas with them this week. Some are incomplete families so it will be good working with them. Well, for the missionaries that are going to work with them. And Alejandra fell off the face of the planet. That's about everything new with the investigators that I can think of at the moment. I also did my last two baptismal interviews of my mission last week, sniff sniff. I´ll really miss that. I love seeing the spirit and feeling the testimonies of baptismal candidates.

As far as converts go,' Christopher came on Sunday and hes doing good. Jose Cruces finally recieved the priesthood and shood be getting a calling soon. He and his wife have interviews with the bishop this week. Also Ale and Dina had some drama, but everything is fixed now. We had a great spiritual talk with them and he understands repentance better now and I know that they won't be straying from the straight and narrow any time soon. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone last night (there was no time on Sunday because we went up to conce for my last consejo on Monday, thus the lack of email yesterday).

Some of my best converts and the most faithful members I have met here are in Villa Obispo. I loved it a lot and in my book it's right up there with Monte Águila. I am now in Renaico, a little pueblo just like 45 minutes south west of Los Ángeles, inbetween Los Ángeles and Angol. 
I´m now in a different zone and have no leadership responsibilities, just like half of all the zone leaders from last cambio. Oh, side note, but Bustos is asistant now, I'm stoked about that. Anyways I´m not training but I´m finishing the training of Elder Arroyo, an Argentine that just got here last cambio. We mainly work here in Renaico but we also have another and smaller pueblo in our sector called Tijeral. It's its own branch but it's even smaller than Monte Aguila and Santa Juana. We work there Tuesdays and Sundays, and in Renaico every other day. And from the looks of it, we have a few progressing investigators in both pueblos. I´ve heard good things about this place and I'm stoked to be here. It was my Papi´s (DeLeons) favorite sector. We actually stayed here my first night in the mission on our way down to Pitrufquén. It's cool to be back in a pueblo too I guess; president sure loves me in the pueblos jaja.

Well the time of the final sprint to the finish line has come. My last cambio; I can hardly believe it. Six weeks, it will go by in the blink of an eye. I swear I just started last cambio like last week! Oh well what can you do. I´ll miss Swainston cuz we were good buds and got along well but I'm stoked to finish my mission with a Latin who doesnt know English with just us in the house. It's been a while since I've been a whole day without speaking English. It will be fun to end it speaking as much spanish as possible. Well I'll tell you more about the sector and my new comp next week. I love you all and we will be seeing eachother in no time. CHAO!!!!!!!

con cariño, Elder Harper =)