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 =)
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