elder riley harper

COMING HOME - IT'S MIXED FEELINGS

2011-07-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

RILEY SAYING FAREWELL TO LA FAMILIA IGLESIAS IN MONTE AGUILA

Commentary from Riley's Mom - Abbie received this letter from Riley a few weeks ago. Tom and I thought you might like to read it. He gives a great description of his feelings about coming home.

(Coming home) It's mixed feelings. I'm way excited to come home to see all of you guys again and to start another chapter of my life with all I've learned here; it excites me. But at the same time I'm really scared to leave the mission. Out here in the mission we are right smack dab in the world. In big cities in small towns. Talking to rich people poor people. Laughing with the people through happy moments, crying with them through sad ones. Heck, we talk to them in their streets and even enter their houses!!! We learn the streets of where they live better than they could with ten years living there and I'd even go as far to say that we are in so much contact with them in all walks of life that we know the Chileans and how they live better than they know themselves. However, despite being submerged in this world, we truly are not of this world.

We are aliens!!! and not just because we are gringos jaja. We literally live in a fake world!!! Well it's not fake but it's not reality! We get the weird opportunity to live outside of reality for two years!!! Our food is handed to us, money is handed to us (not a lot but enough to buy bus tickets cookies and top ramen) our houses are handed to us and we don't have to worry about work, education or social relationships (besides with investigators). Yeah sure numbers, investigators, broken showers and cut electricity due to unpaid bills can stress at times but it's still not really reality.

I'm kind of rambling but it's weird. The best part of it all is that we are spiritually incubated from the world. Of course you can still fall but it's a lot harder to fall and lose yourself than in the real world. We talk about God, read about God, and think about the gospel almost 24 seven. It's awesome!!!! The point that I'm trying to get to is that even though I'm excited to come home, I'm scared. I'm scared to go back into the real world and I'm scared to leave the incubator spiritually. My life was good before, but I think about my perspective before, how I thought, how I felt, my testimony... and I do not ever want to go back to that. I wasn't a bad kid before but I just don't want to lose anything that I've gained. I know that it's inevitable, I'll hit a ceiling and my spirituality will go down a bit and it's kind of a sad thought. I don't know. I guess it scares me to see if I'm strong enough to keep the habits I've made and perspective I've gained. I mean it's not like I'm a spiritual glowing saint; I still have lots of flaws and defects and am not a perfect missionary, but I'm way farther ahead than from where I started. And I don't want to lose ground that I've gained or get my priorities mixed up. Dominating the natural man is a constant battle. Plus change is scary. But I'm ready I guess. Jaja Well that is definitely enough rambling for today Abbie. Love you lots and hope to hear from you soon.

Elder Harper =)

ONE WEEKS IS STILL ENOUGH TIME TO WORK AND TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN SOMEONE'S LIFE

2011-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey!!!!

Well I think this might be my last email home and it's kind of my last p-day. Next Monday I have to be in the mission office in Concepción at 4:00pm for the final interview with President Martinez and from there to the mission house for the last supper and Tuesday morning on the plane to Santiago. So hopefully I'll have some time Monday morning to write one last email home... One week.. wow.. lots of mixed feelings. But it's all good; one week is still enough time to work and to make a difference in someone's life. Well I'm glad that you guys back home had a good week and I'm glad that you're on an efy high Bay, keep it going at least until I get home jaja and don't worry, we will be doing both some personal and companionship study in the mornings when I get home :).

Well last week was pretty good and miraculously it was the third week in a row with no rain. I couldn't believe i; God truly does love me jaja. Not only did it not rain for the past three weeks but almost all of the days were with lots of sun in a cloudless blue sky. That's unheard of in the winter here down south so we were very blessed. Yeah it was cold and there was lots of wind but I'd prefer wind and cold to rain any day. But my luck could only last for so long. The clouds have been gathering and today it is a normal rainy winter day and the rain is supposed to last at least until Thursday. But I'm totally fine with it; I might even enjoy the rain a little bit this week since it will be the last Chilean winter rain that I'll be feeling for.. well.. who knows how long.

Last week we dropped a few of the straggling investigators and we picked up a few new ones as well in both Tijeral and Renaico. I'm telling you, these two pueblos are gold mines! With another cambio or two I know we could help around ten people come unto Christ through baptism, but alas my time has come!!! I'm starting to have some deja vu with this email so I've probably already mentioned all of this stuff before, anyways moving on. It was slightly harder to work last week due to the Copa America huge South American soccer tournament between the countries going on here but it's not as big a hype as the World Cup was last year. Just during the Chile games it's impossible to get anything done jaja so for the Chile games we either try to be out on the street trying to find people to talk to or with an investigator.

Our progressing investigators in both towns are coming along well. Slowly, but at least they´re chugging along making some progress. Mara is still awesome and wants nothing more than to get married and baptized. Her getting married and baptized this week is starting to look like a long shot but we will find out more tonight when we go visit her what the possibilities are. It still can happen and I'm going to do everything that I possibly can so that it does. Hopefully it''s the Lords will that I will be able to be there for her marriage and baptism. Her husband likes the church and wants to get baptized as well but is still kind of stubborn with the whole smoking thing. Well keep working on it. The families in Tijeral are stuck in the same spot; they need to read and pray. The 14 year old daughter Karen has been reading and thinks she wants to get baptized but she still hasn't prayed and asked God if the Book is true or not yet. Hopefully this week they will all be able to read and pray so that they can all get baptized this coming month in August. The same goes for the other family (la familia Godoy).

On SatUrday we had a big branch activity which was a comedy talent show. Everyone put together funny skits or told jokes and stuff. It was a lot of fun and a few investigators went including Mara and her family. We did a few skits and had fun making fools of ourselves for the entertainment of our investigators and the members jaja. My companion and I are still getting along. Yeah he´s weird and still kind of gets on my nerves sometimes but were doing fine. I could be with him another cambio if I had to be jaja. But ya nothing really more to mention there.

Well the last week to work starts now. Right now I'm in Los Ángeles saying goodbye to my converts and some members here and then at six we will be heading out to work to kick off the last week. There are so many different things going through my head now that I'm finishing, that I'm just trying not to think jaja. I'm just going to keep my head down and work to the end; that's the best way to finish. That's the only intelligent thing to do. I wouldn't want to rob myself, you guys, or anybody here of blessings they could receive just because I decide to give up at the end. So this week I'll be soaking it all in. The rain (literally), the feel of the wood door under my knuckles, the peace of the spirit as we teach and testify, the rude rejection, hearing ¨po¨ at the end of every other word, or even just walking down the street and looking down at my plaque with the Lord's name and my name on it. The normal average day to day missionary stuff. And hopefully I'll be soaking up those baptismal waters one last time. I want to bring those white clothes home damp for you to wash Mom jaja. Well I love you all very much and I'll be seeing you very soon. Time to go give it one last hurrah! CHAITO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

con amor de Chile, Elder Harper

I LOVE THIS WORK. I'M REALLY AM GOING TO MISS IT, BUT I'LL BE LEAVING CALM AND AT PEACE, AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS.

2011-07-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYBODY!!!!!

I hope that you guys all had plenty of barbecue, beach, and fireworks. Here I

didn't see another gringo all day but that's ok. I guess I had my own private quiet celebration, Happy Birthday America!!! The only celebration going on yesterday was that Chile played Mexico in soccer in la Copa America, which is the tournament for all of South and Central America and due to that, the only ciber here in Renaico was closed so I could not write you. But we wrapped up district meeting here a little early here in Angol so that I could come write you guys before lunch.

Anyways my week was really good but also very short. Due to the conference last week we couldn't start working until Wednesday so we had a lot to make up for the lost half day in Renaico and a full day lost in Tijeral. So we spent the whole week running around from investigator to investigator in both pueblos and due to the lack of time, our investigators who aren´t progressing as much were kind of put on standby, on the wayside. Our main focus the whole week was Mara. She is doing good but we did have a few hiccups and speed bumps with her last week but it all worked out fine in the end. It's a long story of what happened and not all that interesting but we are helping her to have the strength to overcome any trial that comes her way so that she can enjoy the blessings of baptism and membership in the Lord´s true church. If everything goes well she will be getting married on Friday the 15th, Baptized on Saturday the 16th, and confirmed on Sunday the 17th. I'll be praying hard that it all works out.

As of last week, we now have more progressing investigators in Tijeral than in Renaico and not enough time to teach them all. Last week we couldn't get to a few investigators who are good and starting to progress just because there are not enough hours in the day or days in the week jaja. We are teaching 3 complete families and are starting with another few investigators here and there as well. Also, due to the request of investigators we are starting to teach, English classes in Tijeral as well Fridays at five. We plan of having like 10 investigators and a few members at the class this Friday. One of the families is the familia Leon, which consists of the dad Manuel, the mom Isabel, two daughters Natali 18 and Karen 14, and 7 year old Felipe. They are extremely friendly and have to feed us every time we go there. Good old southern Chilean hospitality =). Last week we taught them the Restoration of the Gospel and left them with the challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was felt and they understood and commited to read and pray so today we should see how it went with them.

The other family, which is related to and neighboors of the first, is the familia Godoy, which consists of the parents and a fifteen year old daughter Daniela. The daughter is the most interested and is very mature for her age; she acts like an 18 year old. She's the one who got and is getting people organized for the English class. She is really active in her Protestant religion but is receptive and wants to learn more. Hopefully today we will be teaching her the Restoration. Her family is also too nice and friendly and they also have to feed us everytime we go there. These people don't take no for an answer. The last family is the one we've had since I got here. Pedro the dad, Jesica the mom, Maria 9 and Constanza 4. The Dad still hasn't come but made a promise to me to go on my last Sunday in Tijeral. The Mom and Daughters continue going and like it and know it's true but don't feel ready for baptism. But although they are going to church, they are not reading or praying so of course they aren't going to feel ready! So we made for them a spiritual progression calendar, where they put check marks everyday for praying in the morning, reading, praying as a family, and praying at night. I first used it with Ale and Dina in Los Angeles and it worked there so hopefully it will work here.

Well those are all of our best investigators for now, too many for too little time left jaja. I'm bummed that I'll be in such a great sector for so little time. With another cambio we could baptize like ten here between these two branches but alas, time is almost up. So I'm just going to leave as many baptismal dates and progressing investigators as I can for the next guy coming in. No time for slowing down now, too much work to do =). Even though I won't be able to baptize everybody I'm so grateful that I got sent to this sector to end my mission. It's great and I'm truly starting to fall in love with both Renaico and Tijeral. There is lots of work to do here, Tijeral needs its own set of missionaries, maybe someday. Monte Aguila still needs its missionaries back as well.

Speaking of Monte Aguila, yesterday me and my comp went there so I could say my final goodbyes to members and converts there. Once again I was shocked with how much that town loves me. I feel like they have my pedestal way more high than it should be jaja. I try to tell them that I'm really not that great but they all think the world of me. But it's cool, it's a good feeling to be loved. And it was a good trip because I got to see almost everyone and see that most of them are active. Maria and Carolina are kind of flaking but I had a good talk with Carolina so that she goes active. She just needs a little push that's all.

So that's all I got for this week. Lots and lots of work and we didn't even have enough time to visit all of the people we needed to. I'm grateful that there is so much to do and so many people to teach here in my last month and last couple of weeks. So I will finish working, teaching, hopefully baptizing and hopefully we will be able to find some time in between our appointments to knock some doors jaja. Well I love you all and I love this work. I'm really am going to miss it, but I'll be leaving calm and at peace, and that's what matters. Well see you all soon! Keep enjoying summer and until next Monday CIAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Harper =)

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

2011-06-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2011-06-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-06-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

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)

Renaico en Imagenes

2011-06-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Renaico, Chile is Riley's new area. Just for the fun of it, here is

a you tube video showing pictures of Reniaco. You can also see

some beautiful photos if you click on Renaico under where he has

been on the right side of the blog page.

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.

2011-06-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

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 =)

I'M GOING TO MILK MY LAST WEEK HERE IN THIS SECTOR FOR ALL THAT IT'S WORTH BECAUSE I WILL REALLY MISS IT

2011-05-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey!

Happy Memorial Day! Hope it's a good one with a good ol´ fashioned American barbecue. Well this week was pretty good, not really any reason to complain but our best investigators are just kind of, stagnant. Well maybe not stagnant but progressing a lot more slowly than we would like. This week most of them progressed very little or just didn't progress. Patricia and Rayen are in Santiago. We found and taught them last week so that was good. Patricia is just really weird, like really hot and cold, but I truly believe she and her daughter will be baptized by the end of June. She´ll get there, she´s just taking a while.

Alejandra recently started working and we couldn't get a hold of her all week. So we hope to change that this week and teach her officially for the first time. We had a great lesson with Mattias, his mom Ximena, and the ex-wife Rosa and they all agreed to be baptized. They were all excited to come to church this week but they didn't show. Not even the recent convert Dad and son came, which is unlike them. So we will have to see what went down there either today or tomorrow. Sigh.. investigators.. so stressful at times.

The only investigator that we had that showed progression this week was this new investigator that we found last week. We taught her this week and she is awesome. She could be baptized in less than a month except for one thing.. she's not married!!!! But it's not like I can say that that came as a surprise. She lives with her boyfriend and her seven year old kid. Her name is Pamela. She is very receptive, very poor and humble, and very very nervous and suspicious. Her character leads me to think that there might be some violence issues in the home but I won't jump to conclusions just yet. We haven't even met the guy yet just the son. But she came to church this Sunday and she has the desire to follow Jesus and be baptized if she comes to know that the church is true. So now we just need to help her so that she can either get married or separated so she will be able to be baptized.

She also came to this great devotional that we had on Saturday night and that helped her a lot. On Saturday there was a stake devotional for all of the recent converts from the last two years in the whole stake and for investigators. President Swenson came to speak at it and the Stake President spoke as well and let me just say that it was awesome. The spirit was felt strong, Pamela loved it, and I got to see some of the converts and some members from Monte Águila =). It was just a very joyful and spiritual evening. I was disappointed that none of my converts from Galvarino came but oh well, what can ya do. Then on Sunday Pamela came to church and really enjoyed it and I don't doubt that she will keep coming, with her. It will just all depend on the boyfriend, whether he is willing to support her and get married, or if she is strong enough to take her kid and move out, or kick the boyfriend out. So we will see how that goes.

In the end last week was good because we were able to teach a lot and by doing that I was able to feel the spirit a lot as well as our investigators. But almost none of them went to church therefore they weren´t able to progress. So this week we will have to see why they didn't come and help make sure that they come this next week. Well I´m coming up on my last week here in VIlla Obispo, my last week as zone leader, and the beginning of the end of my mission. I'm going to milk my last week here in this sector for all that it's worth because I really will miss it, especially the ward. Well that's all I got for today. Congratulations on your eye surgery Dad, happy recovery and well, I hope you all have a great week.

Entonces hasta Lunes, portense bien y cuidense mucho, les quiero harto, CHAO!!!

con cariño, Elder Harper =)

JUST HAVING LOTS OF FUN TEACHING, FEELING THE SPIRIT AND SEEING WHEN THE LIGHT BULB TURNS ON AND INVESTIGATORS UNDERSTAND. GOOD STUFF.

2011-05-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!!!

Another week come and gone, but it was a pretty good week. It started off kind of slowly and a little disappointing the first couple of days but things worked themselves out by the end. I´ll start by telling you about this one new investigator that we have that was basically a gift from God dropped right into our laps. Her name is Alejandra and we found her in church not yesterday but two weeks ago. She´s Chilena but she just moved back here to Chile two weeks ago after living for twenty years in Argentina, including most of her childhood. Besides her family, she has no connections here and has been feeling kind of lost and alone. She came into contact with the church through an employment service thing that they do in the Los Angeles South Stake and they have helped her to find a job and have really given her a helping hand, orienting herself here in Chile. They invited her to church but she said that our chapel here in this stake was closer to where she's living so she just showed up two Sundays ago and that's where we found here. She really liked church and is grateful to the members who are helping her out. We tried to get her address and an appointment after sacrament meeting but she said that the house where she is staying isn't hers and that they aren't really friendly to the church. So she just said that she would be back next week and ran out before saying anything else.

Now yesterday she showed up again and stayed for all three hours. The sisters in relief society did a great job fellow shipping her and now we have an appointment to teach her in the house of a member who lives very close to where she´s staying. So we are very excited to teach her on tomorrow because she seems very enthusiastic and interested in learning more about the Gospel. So we will see how that goes this week. With Patricia and Rayen.. well they are still really good but kind of sketchy. She loves when we come to her house and she loves hearing about the gospel and wants to get baptized and then other times we go to her house and everything is locked up and we see her hiding from us. And she's just kind of a sketchy person. We think that her sincerity and her desire to be born again and get baptized is sincere, but we also think that something else fishy is going on under the surface. Due to her behavior and demeanor and some other clues we actually think that she might be a drug addict. But that's ok, it's nothing that we can´t help fix. If her desire to come unto Christ is sincere then we will be able to help her overcome any obstacle that might arise while she and her daughter prepare to be baptized. They both came to church yesterday and it seemed like they liked it a lot.

We are also now teaching this big part-member family that seems to get bigger every time we go over there. The Dad and the kid got baptized in Galvarino a couple of months ago (I did the interview) and now they are coming to Villa Obispo. We are now teaching the little kid's cousin, Mattias, who is 10, Mattias´s mom and the mom of the little kid who is the ex- wife of the convert. Mattias has been to church twice now and he loves it. He would get baptized tomorrow if he could. His mom is also very receptive but we've only taught her once. She couldn't come to church this week but she said that she would next week. The ex-wife is also very receptive and said that she wants to get baptized to start over new again. She also said that she would go next week so we will see how it goes. Before we couldn't even go over to this convert's house because of family issues but now they have softened their hearts and every time we go over there more and more people are there waiting for us to teach them and participating in the lessons. Last time we went over there it was awesome and the spirit was felt so were are excited to see how this family progresses.

Well that's all that I got for this week folks. Just having lots of fun teaching. Teaching, and feeling the spirit, and seeing when the light bulb turns on and investigators understand. Good stuff.. stuff that I'm going to miss in two months time.. sigh.. oh well. That's what life is about. Changes. Well I love you all very much and like always am grateful for all of the love and support you guys give me. Take care and have a great week! CIAO!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

I'M HAPPY AND I'M GOOD AND ME AND MY COMP HAVE CALQUIER ANIMO TO WORK THIS WEEK AND FIND THE LORD'S ELECT

2011-05-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

The Cruces Family

President and Hermana Swenson and all the Zone Leaders

and APs in the Chile Concepcion South Mission

Hola a todos!!!!

Well this week was pretty good I guess, some ups and some downs, just another week in the mission jaja. We have some pretty good new investigators but it's just been hard to help them progress. We taught two new wedded(yes!!!!) couples this week who are very intelligent and very receptive. I love teaching humble and simple people but sometimes it's a nice break to teach someone who is intelligent and receptive who gets the message without too much explanation. Anyway both of these families have good potential, both already had commitments for this weekend so they couldn´t go to church but we will see how things go with teaching them this week so that they can progress and go next week. They only bad part about teaching upper-middle class people in this sector is that their work schedules are usually nuts, but if they are really interested they can shift their priorities to put God and the message of the Gospel above their other stuff.

Also this week we got a few good references from members and we´re planning family nights with them and the members for this week so we are excited about that. Working with members is a million times better than knocking doors. In this mission on average one in every 1400 contacts gets baptized, while the statistic for member references is like twenty times better. Working with members is just a lot more efficient, numbers don't lie. Also when a member can help a friend, neighbor, or family member accept the gospel and get baptized, they are happier and get a lot more excited to help us out even more. So yeah, working with members is a lot more efficient. Remember that kids.

Patricia and her daughter Rayen (our golden investigators from last week) are doing good but we are worried about them. When we taught them last week she understood everything and at the end without us even mentioning it she asked us what she needs to do to get baptized and she says that she wants her daughter and son to get baptized as well. So we were and are really stoked about that because she seems very sincere and the spirit is always felt strong in her house. She also told us she was going to go to church this weekend. But when we went back to teach her on Friday she wasn´t there. So we left a note under her door and well it's still there. She just disappeared and her and her family haven't been home since Friday. So hopefully everything is ok there and that nothing bad or weird happened. We are going to go by tonight to see what's up.

Let's see what else, well in the end working with members was somewhat successful this last week but contacting in the street and knocking doors was not. We contacted a lot and didn't have too much success in that department, most of them were just normal but we got more nastier responses than usual. I felt kind of like a stateside missionary with all of the hostility jaja. But it's all good. The work goes on. On Friday we went to Yumbel and I did a baptismal interview there. It was a very long and complicated interview. She is very repentant and humble but she had an abortion (it took me a long time to find out) like thirty years ago and she feels still just terrible about it. So in the end I had to call President Swenson so that he could take over with the interview and in the end everything went fine and she got baptized on Saturday. She reminded me a lot of Irma, sweet lady. And that took up literally the entire day.

In other news, it looks like we are going to have to drop Elton. He just doesn't want to do the things to progress, it's almost like he's happy in his misery, but we can't force people to change their lives and be happy. We made that clear to him. So if he comes to us or comes to church with a change of heart we will be thrilled to continue working with him, but until then we are just going to leave him. It's hard and sad but it's life, it happens. Oh also Ale got the priesthood this weekend and for the first time ever, he came not only in shirt and tie, but in a suit. I have no idea where he got the suit but it was awesome to see him like that instead of his usal slightly flaite get up. Ale and Dina are doing just fine, they are learning more and more and progressing a lot. Jose and Madelin are good but he still hasn't received the priesthood, but he has an interview this week with the bishop so hopefully that goes well. They went to church yesterday and are doing good but they just haven't really progressed at all since their baptism. So we are going to have to spend some more time with them this week to help them out with that.

Well that's all I got for this week, hopefully we will be able to start seeing things happen with Patricia and the member referals this week to help speed up the work here. But I'm happy and I'm good and me and my comp have cualquier animo to work this week and to find and teach the Lord´s elect. I love you all and have a good week. CIAO!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

I LEFT THAT MEETING FEELING LIKE I AM READY TO THE BEST MISSIONARY THIS WORLD HAS EVER SEEN, BESIDES ALMA AND AMMON AND ALL OF THOSE GUYS.

2011-05-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

PAINTBALL ON P-DAY WITH THE ZONE

Hola hola!!!

Well first of all, it was absolutely wonderful talking to you guys yesterday. Yes technology is awesome because it's a lot better being able to see you and talk to you rather than with just a phone. And that was the last call home, next time I see you it will be in the airport a little more than two months from now. Wow that's a scary thought jaja because I thought that time flew way fast from the time we talked on Christmas until yesterday. But that's ok, I just have to make the very best of these 2 months that I have left.

Anyways moving on, we talked about a lot of stuff yesterday but we didn't really talk about the week at all so I will just go into that. Over all it was a strange week that turned out better than we though it was going to in the end. This Saturday we had this big open house in the church as a missionary activity in the chapel and we were way stoked about it. It had been in the planning for like a month and all of the auxiliary organizations put up stands in the cultural hall for their different organizations. So we basically spent most of our time this week doing 10 to 15 minute visits with all of the members, sharing an inspiring scripture and experience and then giving them invitations and commiting them to inviting their friends, family and neighbors. Everyone accepted invitations and everyone commited to inviting a bunch of people so we though that it was going to turn out awesome.

Saturday comes around and the ward organization in the assignments for the stands and everything was incredible. The ward mobilized and everyone followed through with their parts and the stands were awesome for the relief society, priesthood, youth and primary organizations. I know that organization and the execution in plans in our ward back home is normal, but I had never seen anything like it here in Chile. So that was the awesome part. The not so awesome part was that only seven investigators came, and two of those were eternal investigators that always come to the activities. Yeah I guess it could have been worse but we were still pretty bummed, especially since it took up the majority of our time this week. But that's ok, we learned from our mistakes and learned that the ward is capable of organizing and putting stuff together for future events.

Also on Thursday we had zone conference with all the zones here in the center of the mission and it took all day but it was one of the best conferences that I´ve been to in my whole mission. It was awesome and very inspiring. And we saw a talk that Elder Holland gave in the MTC in January that very well could be the most inspiring and just plain best talk I have ever heard on Missonary work or maybe even just in general. Yeah it was awesome and I left that meeting feeling like I am ready to be the best missionary this world has ever seen, besides Alma and Ammon and all of those guys.

So back to the open house. It was good I guess for the members but really disappointing, I had high expectations. We put all our chips in for our work time for the week in this activity, and we lost... So leaving it we were pretty bummed and just decided to spend the few hours of the day that were left going to contact the few future investigators that we found during the week. So we went to this single Mom´s house named Patricia who was friendly but said that she was busy but to come by another time. So we gifted her a picture, the famous picture of Christ in Gethsemani, and told her to read the explication on the back side and that we would explain what was happening there the next time we came by. She is a paramedic and has an unpredictable schedule but Saturday night after the activity we got lucky and found her at home and she let us in. We small talked for a little bit to find out a little more about her and then we told her to bring in the picure and we read the back together and started to talk about the atonement of Christ and the role it plays in God´s plan of Salvation.

As we talked, the spirit in the room grew when we told her that God has a plan of Happiness for us personally and that Christ is the center. But after I said the words ¨plan of happiness¨ she just started silently crying. Then she told us a little about her life and about the hardships that she has been going through with her kids and how she turned bitter against God and didn't want anything to do with him. She said that she talked to us the first time just to be polite but then something caught her attention about the picture we gave her. So she let us come back. Short story long she told us that she felt good seeing that picture and that hearing what we were saying made her feel even better. That she was stressed with life when we walked in but that while listening she just felt this huge load taken off her sholders and felt relaxed. We then identified that what she was feeling was the Spirit and explained a little how the spirit works. Now this Sunday she couldn't go to church because she had to go out of town to visit her Mom but she is extremely excited to learn more about the plan of salvation and to start her journey back to God after all this time in bitterness and unbelief. Due to her schedule it's going to be tough but I really feel that she is sincere and well it was the strongest that I had felt the spirit in a while. Yeah so I'm really excited for her.

Well in other news that's not quite as big of a deal is that today for P-day we went paintballing, our zone vs. the southern zone of Los Angeles. Jaja it was expensive but it was a blast!!!! I'll send a few pictures that my comp took on his camera. Well that's all I got for today. Elton is kind of stuck in a rut so we will see if we can get him to turn around this week or we might have to drop him. So I was really spiritually recharged this last week and even though it was awesome seeing you guys and talking to you I am stoked for these next two months I have to work here en la viña del Señor. Les amo y hasta luego!!!! CIAO!!!!!

con amor, Élder Harper

IT'S WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH THAT WE GROW AND PROGRESS

2011-05-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!!!

Well the first week of another cambio has come and gone. I'm still on a spiritual high from the four awesome people that we were able to baptize and witness come unto Christ in the month of April. Well the Cruces were baptized in March but confirmed in April. It was definitely a good month and a good cambio last cambio but it was not easy at all. It was full of worry and stress and lots of fervent prayers but our hard work and obedience paid off in the end. It was an awesome month, but man baptizing isn't easy, but it really shouldn't be either. It's when things get tough that we grow and progress. Salvation isn't a cheap experience so why should the mission be?? I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately if you can´t tell. jaja I guess it's because I'm getting close to the end with just a little over two months left and.. well.. just lots of mixed feelings. Anyways I will now get on with my week and such.

So.. last month was great and all but we baptized all of our best investigators and we're now left with the stragglers and slow progressers to start this cambio. So you know what that means.. Lots and lots of proselyting!!! Jaja it's not that we weren't contacting and knocking doors before but now that's pretty much all we are doing because our teaching pool is kind of slim. But that's ok. We are working our tails off now to find new people, and we've found a few that might be able to progress so we will see how that goes this week.

The only investigator that we had been teaching consistently that we had when Elder Bustos left was Elton. I don't know if I´ve already told you guys about Elton or not but if so well you're going to hear it again. Elton is like 22 years old and is the brother of this returned missionary sister who is living in our ward with her returned missionary husband. Elton came here to live with them so he could study and go to college here in Los Ángeles. He is a special guy and is different than any other person I´ve taught. His older brother a few years ago hung and killed himself in his house and he unfortunately was the one to find him and it really affected him. According to his sister, ever since he has been very depressed and it's easy to tell because Elton is like a walking dementor. But me and Elder Bustos started teaching him and things started getting better and progressing little by little. He is a smart guy and understands what we teach him. He knows what he needs to do and wants to want to do it but he is just completely unmotivated. He just cant find the desire to truly read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true. With me and Bustos he went to church twice and the second time even stayed for the classes and was starting to get happier and smile and laugh more. But for Easter week he went back to his home town to be with his family and when he came back it was like he had lost all of the progress he made. He got all difficult to work with again and just isn't motivated to do anything. This week he didn't come to church because he didn't want to get out of bed. My new comp isn't all that optimistic about him but I see in him the desire deep deep in him to be born again and to leave his past behind. He has also had weird experiences with "evil spirtits" (latin america is weird with that stuff sometimes) and he thinks that the devil has control over his life and that keeps him down as well. So we aren't going to give up on him yet. He is going to progress slowly but I think we can help him turn his life around. We have felt the spirit with him before and I'm pretty sure he has felt it too whether he admits it or not.

Anyways my new companion is Elder Swainston. He goes home the cambio after me and he has a lot of experience as zone leader and has a great reputation so I was excited to get him as a companion. He is a hard worker but is funny as well and is easy to get along with. We have differences of opinion and differences in working styles but we are working to put those together to make a good team. The first week or so is always awkward teaching together and meshing two different styles together but we will get it just fine. He's a really good guy and we are already pretty good friends. He's from Las Vegas.

Yeah, the santification week of 200 contacts was tiring but not too hard to complete because we had plenty of time to do contacts jaja. So we did the 200 contacts and more without stressing. It wasn't that hard this week and we've found some people that can progress this week. So Elder Swainston is great and all but I do kind of miss Elder Bustos. We had started working together really well and he's the best missionary that I've met in the mission so far. I've never met a missionary just so focused. It was a great experience to work with him for the last 3 months and I definitely learned a lot from him. I was working well before but he brought me up to a new level and a new vision of the work that I didn't see as well before. Now with a great missionary like Elder Swainston, I'm excited to keep it going til the end baby!!! All the way through the finish line. Well I had one more thing that I wanted to talk about but I'm just about out of time because we had consejo this Monday instead of Pday so we got back late. But if you guys remind me about the German girls, I'll tell you the story next week. I love you all and I love this gospel, I'm stoked for these last two months or so that I have to work to give it my all. Until next week. CIAO!!!!!

Elder Harper =)

I LOVE THE SAVIOR AND IT WAS A GREAT EASTER, A GREAT DAY TO REMEMBER HIS RESURRECTION. HE TRULY LIVES AND LOVE US.

2011-04-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Muchas holas a todos!!!!

Happy Easter!!! it indeed was a good one. By the way, you're killing me with all that food description Mom. Here we had a pretty good Easter but I will tell you about my week first, because it was a good but also very weird and frustrating week. So last week, or the week before last week, we found this guy who we thought was the prefect golden investigator. He stopped us on the street, said that he had been talking to a mormon friend at work, and then asked us if we could give him a Book of Mormon. When we gave him one he thanked us and said that he had been waiting to be able to read one and he was really excited. Then last Sunday he showed up at church and invited us over to his house to teach him and eat lunch. His house was way out in the campo, the country, and in the end we found it but it took us like all day. In the end, the lunch didn't end up happening and he ended up telling us that he is actually a member who was baptized like ten years ago in Antofagasta. Yeah, then we finally got back to our house at like seven to grab some lunch and then go out and work.

So that was a big bummer and kind of a waste of a day but whatever it's all good. That was Wednesday. Also on Tuesday a rain storm caught me off guard and unprepared so I am once again sick! jaja. Oh joy, gotta love winter here. But not a big deal just a minor detail. Thursday it rained really hard and we spent most of the day going around to investigators and members houses passing out invitations to the baptism on Saturday. Since it was raining and people felt bad for us, everyone insisted on giving us something to eat and something hot to drink. We would try to say no but it's next to impossible to deny food from Chileans; they get offended.

So by the end of the day, I had probably drunk like 10 cups of hot chocolate or hot milk with ecco and a ton of food. I felt so gross and sick at the end of the day. jaja. But that's part of the experience serving here in Latin America sometimes. Eating until you think your stomach can't take anymore, and then going to another house and doing it all over again. Then it happened again last night when we went around saying goodbye to everybody (Elder Bustos is leaving..that was kind of anti climactic but oh well) and it's going to happen again tonight. But now Im prepared because I ate a very light lunch. Anyways that was Thursday. Friday our lunch was with this rich family who basically kidnapped us and took us to this huge house in the campo. There we had a barbecue with them and their extended family (like 30 people). That was all fun and tasty food and what not but we had to rely on someone with a car to bring us back so it wasted a lot of time. Also on Friday Morning we had to go to Monte Águila to do a baptismal interview with my

convert´s (Raquel) sister and then after the barbecue I went to Galvarino to do an interview and then to another sector to do another interview. But I enjoyed that. I just love doing baptismal interviews and seeing their excitement and hearing their conversion stories.

Then Saturday was the baptism!!! We were nervous the whole week about their interview and about whether they were going to go through with it or not but everything worked out just fine in the end. On Saturday at like five oclock they were baptized and then on Sunday confirmed and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. Elder Rubilar (the first missionary who taught them, and then stopped teaching them because they didn't progress) came down to baptize them and it was all a good spiritual experience. We had good ward support there despite the holiday weekend, and the spirit was felt. Afterwards on Sunday morning Ale told us that when he was baptized this warm burning feeling filled his chest and he was still feeling it Sunday morning. Yesterday Elder Bustos went to say good bye to them and they bought a chicken to share with us with the little money they have. They are so poor and humble but willing to share what they have, they are awesome.

Also on Sunday, this gringo Big Wig of a wood company showed up to the chapel and he didn't speak a lick of spanish so I got to go around with him for all three blocks of church and be his translator. It was fun but it was my first time translating and man it was tough, especially since the speaker can't just stop and let me catch up. I had to listen, and translate, and keep up all at the same time. But he was a really nice guy and a long time member of the church. He was excited to have someone there to be able to translate for him.

Well that's all I got for this week, now that Ale and Dina are baptized we have only one progressing investigator who is the brother of a long time member. He is progressing along well but went to his home town of Cañete for the break of the semana santa so we didn't see him at all last week. But he´s coming back today. His name is Elton but I will tell you his story next week because I am out of time. Well I love you all very much. I am grateful for all the support and love I receive from all of you. I love the Savior and it was a great Easter, a great day to remember his resurrection. Fue tan exquisito tomar el pan y el agua de la Santa Cena esa Domingo de la Pascua, y para verles al Ale y la Dina tomarla por la primera vez como miembros ese Domingo fue expectacular!!! He truly lives, and loves us. Until next week CHAO!!!!!!!

con amor, Élder Harper

WHEN THE SPIRIT IS THERE, YOU GOTTA GO ALL OUT. NO REGRETS, NO FEAR!

2011-04-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

HEY EVERYBODY!!!

FELIZCUMPLEAÑOS BAYLOR!!!!! Chuta loco te estai poniendo viejo! 16, I can´t believe it. Well it sounds like you had a lot of fun and a good time, and congratulations on your running bro! 4:29 compadre! You are quite the track stud aren't you, keep it up.

Well things here are going just fine and dandy. The week just went by way too fast, and now we will be starting the last week of the cambio and that will go by even faster because it always does. We will know our cambios on Saturday. I'm probably staying but you never know with cambios. President always throws a few curve balls in the cambios, but I really really hope I stay. I love this ward and we have some really good investigators so I will be praying that I stay while my comp will be praying that I go so he can stay jaja. I guess we will be seeing who has more faith by whose prayer gets answered =) jajaja but no really I do hope that I stay.

So this week started off a little slow with not really too much going but things started to pick up on Thursday. Thursday we did intercambios. Elder Bustos went to Yumbel to work with Elder Shore and Elder Ahart came here to work with me, just like old times. He´s doing pretty good, just a little discouraged because spanish is still pretty hard for him and he has only had gringo comps so far. But he' s not afraid to approach people or participate in lessons despite his lack of Spanish so he is coming along alright. The spanish will come.

Also the intercambio was very productive. We went to teach this investigator for the second time and it had been three weeks since we last contacted her so I was a little nervous that she cooled off but it turned out to be a good lesson. She is a very simple and humble lady and has a hard time remembering things but she has a desire to learn and the spirit was felt during the lesson so I decided to invite her to be baptized on the 7th of May (when the spirit is there, you gotta go all out. No regrets no fear!). She does want to be baptized and accepted the invitation but not for the seventh. She said it was too soon, plus she wasn't able to go to church this week due to a funeral service. But that's ok. We are going to help her and her husband out so that they can come unto Christ and be baptized in May still. Then we went and saw Ale and Dina and then visited the Cruces. I love the Cruces so much. They are great converts and sincerely want to do what's right and want to follow Christ. And their little two year old son Vicente just cracks me up; he's the coolest little kid I love him.

On Friday night we had a big ward activity, a ward dinner with drinks, salad, potatoes and steak, well carne a la olla, but its basically steak. Christopher and Paulina came, the Cruces came, and Ale and Dina came. All of our recent converts and our best investigators were also there, so we were very content little missionaries that night. We ate and then we watched as everyone sang karaoke and danced. There were like about a hundred members of the ward there and everyone had a blast. Ale and Dina love it and we had a good time as well joking around with everyone and watching the karaoke and dancing. We left early but later we heard that the bishop even got Ale (who is very shy) to sing some karaoke. So that was good.

Then on Saturday we had a ward missionary activity which was good but could´ve turned out better. But that's o.k. We have an awesome ward mission leader who is a recent convert of less than a year and full of fire to work with us so we are going to get this ward used to these activities and with working with us slowly, a little bit at a time until we have almost everybody participating. On Sunday we had a pretty good turn out in church, Ale came (Dina had to work=( ) and three other new investigators that are really good that we found this week came so we are really stoked about that. We didn't find very many future investigators but the new ones that we did find are very good so we are content with this week's work. Ale and Dina will be getting baptized this Saturday the 23rd. The first missionary who found them about a year ago will be coming here to baptize them, Ale and Dina worship him. Actually he even went to their house to visit them with Elder Bustos after enrevistas with the President on Tuesday (he is an assistant so he was there) and he gave her a blessing and the spirit was felt really strong. He also had her write the experience down in her Book of Mormon so that when she begins to doubt or get scared she can read that experience and receive the strength she needs. That was inspired because last night at their house she was starting to doubt again and tell us how she doesn't think she is ready yet but I reminded her that she has already received her answer from God and bore testimony to her and helped give her the strength to step forward with faith, follow her answer, and be baptized. So through questions we basically helped her resolve her doubts and when I challenged her once again to be baptized on the 23rd the spirit was there and she accepted. Your right Dad, that article El Misionero que testifica y desafia (a testifying and challenging missionary) is an inspired article. I have it in spanish and it has helped me a lot throughout my mission Dad. Don't worry, I´ll be pushing all the way through the finish line.

I could tell you a few experiences that we had with the new investigators that we found but I'll tell you more about them next week, they are awesome though, different but awesome. Well I got to go now, I'm actually in Monte Águila right now and I'm going to go visit some people but I love you all very much and am so very grateful for your support, your prayers, and your letters and emails. I don't know where I would be without you guys.

con amor, Elder Harper =)

p.s. Thank you very much to the Activity days girls, the Tanners, Grandma and Papa, and you guys for the letters, goodies and treats that I've recieved from you. They were all greatly appreciated. Haha loved the Easter card mom, nice face bay.

IT'S CRAZY HOW FAST TIME FLIES BY; I ALMOST HAVE 21 MONTHS IN THE MISSION!!!!

2011-04-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

It snowed in orange county in April?! Well, hail or snow, but still, that's pretty dang crazy. The first time that has happened in who knows how many years probably. So that's pretty cool. It sounds like you guys all had a fun filled spring break, awesome! Disneyland, beach, what more could you ask for? The weather here

can´t make up its mind whether it wants to turn to winter or hold on to summer. This week warmed up a lot and we had some pretty hot days like the middle of summer all over again. And now it's cloudy. Yeah, so it kind of just does its own thing but whatever. Whether it's rainy or sunny we are out there working so it's all good.

Well this week here in LA was pretty good. It had some ups and downs and some scares with some investigators but in the end it was all fine and the week ended well. It was actually pretty dang uneventful, especially for the first few days. On Thursday afternoon until the end of Friday morning I went to do an intercambio (divisions) with the missionaries in Galvarino so that was really cool to work the streets once again of Galvarino since over a year ago. I got to see a few members there. Unfortunately none of my converts were home, but thats ok. Since I'm so close I will have a chance to swing by and visit them another day. But it felt really good being back there. I liked that sector a lot and definitely did not appreciate it enough while I was there, but I was still a youngin in the mission and took some things for granted. Anyways it was a good intercambio.

Then Friday and Saturday went fairly well. We didn't really find too many new investigators this week and we couldn't get in touch with any of the ones that we have found within the passed few weeks but we got back in touch with some old investigators from last cambio and had some pretty good lessons with them so we were excited about that. We explained things to them clearly so now it's their decision if they are going to start progressing again and reading, praying and coming to church again. The spirit was definitely felt in the lessons with them so I think that they will take the right decision and start progressing again.

Ale and Dina are progressing along just great. They have a baptismal date for the 23rd of April and it seems like they are commited to it and are ready to come unto Christ. Their relationship with the ward members has improved a lot and they both came to church this Sunday! Dina finally fixed things so that she doesn't have to work on Sunday. In the chapel they were very well received. Everyone said hi to them and lots of people made sure to take some time to chat a little with them and befriend them. They weren't able to stay for the classes but they liked church a lot and said that they would be going to the classes next week. We also had a few other investigators in church but they aren't really progressing at all so I won't talk about them right now. But we plan on taking really good care of Ale and Dina this week and having family nights with them at the members houses to keep them going strong with their decision. So we are very excited about them and their progression.

The Cruces had to go to Santiago to take their little son to the doctor this weekend so they didn't make it to church but they are doing well and we are going to keep visiting them to help them stay strong. But they´re doing good; they´re a great family. Well that's about all for this week, nothing else really to say. Just two weeks left in this cambio and then only two cambios left. It's crazy how fast time flies by; I almost have 21 months in the mission!!!! AHHH!!!!! haha Well I love you all very much, have fun back at school kids and we will be hearing from eachother again next week. Until next Monday CIAO!!!!!!!!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

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

2011-04-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

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 recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost. They are on their way to becomeing 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 =)

IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN IN WORDS BUT MAN IT BROUGHT ME TO TEARS. PRAYER IS POWERFUL AND YOURS DEFINITELY HELP

2011-03-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey!!!!

Well I'm glad to know that all is well up in the OCS sounds like the kids are doing just fine and are set for a good spring break. Here things are going very well, not perfect, but when are they ever? Yeah, so I'll just get right into my week then.

The week started with a nasty cold jaja. I'm still coughing but thankfully not as much now. Yeah, so that was kind of a bummer, especially since it rained a few days as well but it's not a big deal. I just popped in ibuprophen and worked like normal. Summer is definitely over and the weather is starting to cool way down here. During the day it's not so bad but it's started to rain a little and the nights and especially the mornings are starting to get pretty dang cold. The sleeping bag you sent in the MTC saved the mission Mom, as did the over shoes, you truly are a hero =).

This week we didn't really find any potentially good new investigators but we are starting to do a better job of helping the investigators that we do have progress and we are really excited about them. The familia Cruces are just awesome. Jose, Madelin and their two kids, Elias and Vicente, are coming along just fine. Elias already got baptized like 2 and a half months ago and Vicente will be turning three next month and Jose and Madelin are finally getting baptized!!!!! Yay!!!!!! It's been tough for Jose to just take a step of faith because he is really indicisive. He has known that he wants to get baptized for months but he just couldn't decide when to do it, but we have been helping him out a lot more and teaching him every other day. I just love teaching them because they understand and absorb everything and it just makes every lesson with them an awesome spiritual experience. I really feel it strong there every time I go and they are starting to get good at recognizing it, which is even more exciting. Madelin is set and ready and has really helped for Jose to finally make the decision.

They decided that they are going to do it this week and we have a family night with them and the ward mission leader and his family tonight so tonight we are going to pick the day and plan the whole service. Yeah, so we are stoked about that. I love that family a lot and am grateful that God put me here in this sector and at this time to have the privilege of working with them and serving them. So the specific date isn't picked out but it looks like we are going to baptize them on Friday and then just confirm them right away (with our bishop's permission of course).

Ale and Dina are also doing just great. We are going by their house more often to teach them as well and it has really paid off. We had a few good lessons with them and then on Friday we went to their place with Christopher (the recent convert) and his fiancee Paulina (they are getting married now in April), to teach them. We barely even taught, for most of the time Paulina and Cristopher just talked about their conversion experiences and it was awesome. New converts really just have this fire that us long time members don't. Christopher openly shared his experience with converting and quitting a smoking addiction and testified to them of how the gospel has blessed his life and the relationship with his fiancee so far. It really helped them out a lot and they even accepted a baptismal fecha for the 16th of April! On Sunday Dina had to work but Ale finally came and loved church!!! It really showed that he's serious about completing his goal to get baptized on the 16th. And now Dina is going to change her free day from Monday to Sunday so next week they both should be coming. They are very poor and very humble and it's awesome working with them. I love working with humble people. They definitely learn the easiest and it's also a lot easier to feel the spirit with them and to help them recognize the influences of the spirit in their lives.

Also we have been working with this inactive family for a while and they finally came back to church this week for the first time since I've been here so we were also pretty stoked about that. We were very blessed this week. Things with my companion are going just fine. We have are disagreements every once in a while and don't see eye to eye on everything but he is a hard worker and the most focused missionary I have ever met. He won't even talk about home. 99 percent of our conversation is on the zone, or the ward, or the mission, or our investigators. So that is good, especially since 'Im so close to finishing. Too close. The zone had a better week this week as well so everything is all good.

I had a lot of good spiritual experiences this week but I would have to say the most spiritual experience I had this week was kneeling in a circle in prayer with the familia Cruces before leaving their house. Seeing their two kids kneel, fold their arms, bow their heads and then hearing the Patriarch of the family offer a sincere, heartfelt, humble prayer. Knowing that 4 months ago they didn't even believe in God and then to that... it's hard to explain in words but man it brought me to tears. Even the three year old is just so excited to hold a Book of Mormon in his hands as we study and so excited to pray. He even makes us kneel to pray to bless the food jaja. I could go on forever about that family but that's enough for today.

Well that's all I got for this week. This cambio is looking to be a good one. Keep praying for the Cruces and Ale and Dina everybody. Prayer is powerful and yours definitely help. I love you all and enjoy your last week before spring break. CIAO!!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

I JUST LOVE GENERAL AUTHORITIES, THEY JUST HAVE THIS MANTLE ABOUT THEM THAT'S UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE.

2011-03-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello!!!

Well I'm glad to hear that everything is going good down in Socal. Here things are going well; it was a short week but it was pretty good. As I already mentioned we had cambios on Tuesday and Elder Bustos and I stayed together, but we still had to wait in the bus terminal for a good chunk of the day waiting for all the new missionaries in the zone to get here. And Elder Ahart (yeah, he came up to my zone. I was stoked) came all the way from Loncoche so we did a lot of waiting haha.
Also on Thursday (was that st. patrick's day?) we went down to Angol, like an hour and a half away, to a conference with Elder Corbridge who's the second counselor of the area presidency here in Chile. I just love general authorities, they just have this manto (don't know how to say that in English) about them that's unlike anything else. Like they just emanate authority and you can feel the power when they speak, yeah, it's awesome. Now I can´t wait for general conference jaja. So between him and President Swenson, they took up the whole day and we got back like at 9:30 at night so we lost the day of work but it was definitely worth it. It was very spiritually uplifting hearing from Elder Corbridge.

So besides those two events, it was a pretty normal work week. We had a family night with the Cruces and the Bishop's family (our future mission president) which went very well. Due to this big Catholic holiday celebration thing in Yumbel, yesterday Jose Cruces had to work but now starting next Sunday they are going to be coming back to church in full force and should be getting baptized here in the first or second Saturday of April. They are totally ready, she knows it, and he wants it but is still a little hesitant, probably from not going to church last week or the week before due to work. But now that he's going to be able to go again, everything will go just fine. We are going to put a fecha with them this week.

Now I´ll tell you a little bit about another family we are teaching. Their names are Ale (Alex) and Dina. She moved here from Peru to work a couple of years ago and he is from Santiago. They are very poor and live in this tiny one room apartment but they have enough to eat and to pay the bills from what it looks like. They were taught by Elders like 6 months ago and a couple of weeks ago we found them in the area book and have started to teach them again. He is an alcoholic and didn't believe he could change but now just recently he has started suffering from kidney and liver problems and has been going to the doctor a lot. I think this has scared him because he now hasn't drank in two weeks and he tells us that he wants to change. He says that he wants to start going to church so he can get baptized and get away from the alcohol and his drinking friends. His wife is having some trouble supporting him but they are starting to progress and we are excited for them. We have a goal for them as well to get baptized in April so we are going to be working a lot with them.

Well that's about all that I have for this week. We have good investigators and are really excited to help them progress and to get them baptized so they can truly come unto Christ! Also Christopher (the guy we baptized my first week here) had been starting to fall into old smoking habits but we've been helping him out a lot with that and he's clean again. If everything goes well he should get the priesthood this coming week. Well that's all I got for this week. Bay, keep tearing it up in track and Abs, Mom sent me some Mormal pictures, cute as always. Love you all very much and until next week ciao ciao and work on getting those hard working missionaries some referrals! They cant do it without you!

con amor, Élder Harper =)

THEY'VE ALREADY SEEN HOW THE GOSPEL HAS BLESSED FAMILIES AND THEY WANT IT FOR THEIR OWN FAMILY

2011-03-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!!!

Sounds like everybody´s doing good back home which is always good to hear. Our week here was alright; it could have been a lot better but I'm not complaining. We are working hard and know that we are going to be seeing results very soon now. We tried some new things out this week and well it worked out pretty well. We decided that working on our own isn´t getting us very far so we are turning it up a notch on working with the members. We might not see too many results from it right away but they will come. We are trying to have two to three family nights at members homes with our investigators weekly and we made a calender for doing splits with the aaronic and melchezidek priesthood holders and passed it around in priesthood so they could sign up as we explained to them the plan. We also have some missionary activities with the ward that we are planning so we are stoked to see how it's all going to work out for us. We hope to get the ward a lot more excited about getting involved in the work.

This last week we had a family night on Monday with the Cruces family and the ward mission leader and again on Friday with the Cruces and the stake president and his family and it worked out fantastic. It strengthens the bonds between members and investigators and is testimony building for them. In conclusion, it's just a win-win situation. For work issues that usually don't happen, Jose Cruces (the Dad) won't be able to attend church next week' and couldnt attend this week but after that he will be fine. They are excited to get baptized and we will be putting a fecha with them this week for the 26th of March. They are an awesome humble family and you can truly see that they just want to follow Christ better and do what's right. They were atheist before but they´ve already seen how the gospel has blessed families here and they want it for their own family.

We have some other good investigators that are progressing as well but for one reason or another they were not able to go to church this week so I will talk more about them as they start to progress faster and go to church. The beginning of the week was kind of rough because my comp hurt his neck pretty bad somehow and couldn't really move it or even walk for a day so we lost one day of work on Tuesday, but thankfully it slowly got better during the week after many icy hot patches and muscle relaxers and now he is back to normal and we are at the normal fast pace of working again. Also we have cambios tomorrow but me and my comp Elder Bustos are staying together so we are excited about that. Everyone else in our zone though had cambios and most of our zone next cambio will be different. Also due to a decrease in the amount of missionaries in the mission two of the sectors in our zone were closed and so we are going to be down four missionaries this next cambio. I was kind of bummed because one of the sectors that they are closing is Monte Águila. It will be rough for the members there but what can you do? It made me a little sad but hopefully as we get more missionaries in the mission they will be able to put missionaries back there. Hopefully sooner then later because it's a great sector and needs missionaries. But oh well. Oh and my son Elder Ahart is coming up to the zone now and is going to have a great comp and so that will be cool to see him again.

Well due to my comp being discapacitated for a couple of days,' Im about out of things to say for this email but I love you all very much and am very excited to have a good next cambio and of course to BAPTIZE!!! After all,' thats why we are here. To bring people unto Christ, and the only way to come unto Christ is through the waters of baptism. Yeah so until next week CIAO!!!!!!

con cariño, Elder Harper

GOD LOVES HIS CHILDREN, GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS, AND HE REALLY DOES WORK MIRACLES.

2011-03-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hello family!!!

Well well well what can I say about this week? Unfortunately we are running a little bit late and I don't have too much more time to email but I did have some good experiences this week so I'm going to try to type really fast jaja. So if there are a ton of spelling and grammar errors that's why. So since I don't have too much time I'm just gunna get right to it.

So this week was pretty dang busy and unfortunately we didn't have nearly enough work time. On Monday we had the cosejo de LÍderes which took our whole day on Tuesday district meeting. Wednesday we lost our morning to go to the government offices to pick up some of the newer gringos in our zone passports and visas. Then on Thursday we had capacitations (training) with the President and the assistants, which took most of the day. Then on Friday I had to go apply for my new Chileno ID card because mine is expired ( oops!). And on Saturday we went to the pueblo of Laja to do baptism interviews. But every free moment we had available to work, we worked and the Lord knows that we gave it our all because he truly did bless us this week.

One Little miracle that we saw happened on Friday morning as we passed by the McDonalds in the center to get an ice cream on my way to applying for my ID card. As a little bit of background information, there is this investigator in Laja who has been going to church for 4 months and has stood up two of his planned baptismal services with the font filled and people waiting and everything. Now as we were walking passed the McDonalds, this investigator from Laja (Oscar) ran into us and started to talk to us. He told us of his desire but fear to get baptized because of possibly messing up or going innactive afterwards. So we talked to him about Lehi´s dream and the importance of the sure path of the iron rod and we also shared with him Helaman 5:12 (its a great scripture folks). Short story long he said that on the way to LA in the bus, he was praying for God to answer him about if the church is true and if he should get baptized and less than an hour later he ran into us. He got emotional and told us that that was the sign he was looking for so he told us that he wanted to do it and get baptized right away. The following morning we went up to Laja to do his baptismal interview. 23 hours after running into him in the center of Los Ángeles, he was in the font getting baptized.

Miracles truly do happen and I am very grateful that the Lord used us as instruments in his hands to help this guy get baptized. It's just amazing how he put us in his path (through my id card and us wanting a McDonalds ice cream) to answer his prayers. God loves his children, God answers prayers, and he really does work miracles.

So we were stoked about that whole experience but a little bummed when Sunday morning came around because due to the lack of work time we had, we didn't have too many people to bring to church. Miraculously, five minutes after church started this family (the Cruces family) that had been progressing but hadn't come to church in two months (loooong vacations) walked through the chapel doors with dress and suit and tie and everything. Even their two year old kid had a shirt and tie. That never happens here!!!! Then the Dad of the family bore his testimony in Elders quorum saying how they've made some big mistakes recently but missed the church and how they are going to start coming back now and work towards being baptized. Yeah you can only imagine how happy we were to hear that!

So even though things aren't going perfectly here, they are picking up and we are seeing the Lord's hand in the work so we are happy and will be working hard this last week of the cambio to find new investigators and help the ones that we do have a ton. Just the usual jaja. Well I got to go but I love you all very much and am glad that you all had a good week, I hope this next one is good too. SO until next Monday... CIAO CIAO!!!!!! chaito!!!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

p.s. congrats Bay on your first meet!!! you stud you!!! and I'm glad you finished out Lacrosse season good Izzie; your awesome.

LIVING WATER

2011-02-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

Muchas holas a todos!!!

That's funny that it's freezing cold down in the OC because it is still pretty dang hot here in Los Ángeles! Summer weather is still going strong but now that we are going to be entering March, things should start cooling down here pretty soon. School starts up again this Thursday for kids here so thank goodness people will be coming back from vacation now. As for as how the work is going here.. a little slow. Actually we had just had consejos here in LA with all of the district and zone leaders of the mission and not only was it a rough month for us and our zone, but it was a rough month for the whole mission. But it's nothing to get disanimated over because that just makes things worse. So we are just going to keep on working hard and keep animating the zone so we can have a killer month in March.

In our sector we found a lot of good potential new investigators and have started
reteaching some old investigators from past missionaries that show some promise but all of our best investigators are still tied up in vacation stuff! But that's ok cuz it's all going to be over very soon. We have a couple that got married a couple of weeks ago that are going to start going to church again and get baptized when they get back to LA and we have at least two other investigators that are pretty good that can get baptized in March so we are doing our best to work with them while at the same time always looking for new people to teach.

Also Elder Bustos and I are working more on what aspects of the work we are focusing most on and different ways to work that I think are going to help out our sector and the zone a lot. Our sector where we work has an excellent ward with excellent members and awesome leaders but it is pretty well off money wise so the people here aren't as humble and accepting when talking to them in the streets and knocking doors. So we are going to start focusing more heavily on working with ward members and leaders in the ward here to get better results. The members are awesome here so we need to take advantage of their disponility (i dont think that's a word) and willingness to work to help us out here with the work. I think that by working with them and the incomplete families that we will start to see a lot more success here.

But besides that, we are still working very hard and are happy. My companion is a great missionary and I'm glad to be working with him; we still get along just fine. There's a lot of work to be done here and there are only two weeks left in this cambio..sigh.. Well hopefully President Swenson will leave us together for another cambio. Ok, well honestly I don't really have much left to say for this week as it wasn't that eventful but we did have a very spiritual experience teaching a friend of a member of the ward who is kind of an eternal investigator. We taught her the story from the Bible when Jesus teaches the Samaritan woman at the well about the difference between the water from the well and the living water that He has to offer us. The water of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the water of which if we drink, we will thirst no more. So we taught her about how she can partake of this water and invited her to do so. The spirit was felt and she went to church the next day with her friend so we will see how things go with her this week. Well everybody I really don't have anything more to say for this week jaja. Sorry, next week's email should be more interesting. OH and one more thing is that yes, Alvaro did end up getting baptized which makes me very happy =). Ok well I love you all very much and until next week ciao ciao!!!!

con mucho cariño, Elder Harper =)

Helaman 5:12, http://www.ldsscripturemastery.net/scriptures/helaman-5-12.html. We used this scripture as well in the lesson with the girl and she liked it a lot as do I. Read it; it's a good one.

IT'S THE TRUTH SO WHY SHRINK AWAY FROM SHARING IT AND FROM TESTIFYING OF IT WITH POWER AND BOLDNESS?

2011-02-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello familia y amigos!!!

Well Well Well what can I say for this week? As far as the work went in our sector this week.. it was alright I guess.. nothing too exciting. BUT some interesting events did happen this week so I guess that I'll just go into that right away then.

On Tuesday we had interviews with President Swenson and the Hermana Swenson. That was cool and it is always a pleasure to talk to President and the Hermana. After interviews I went back with Elder Villegas (yeah my old comp from Sta Juana is in Monte) to Monte Águila to work with him for the day because they are kind of having a hard time with their investigators there. We got there really late because of the interviews but it was good to work with him for a few hours back in my old sector. I just love it there: the people, the streets, the members, the converts. I have yet to find a more humble people here in the mission than Monte. All of their citas with investigators fell through so we did a lot of time just talking to people in the streets and doing contacts and I also got to visit a few converts for a few minutes. They were kind of upset that I could only stay for like ten minutes so I told them I would make that trip up on a pday to spend a little more time with them. But still it was awesome to see them, to see my converts who are pressing forward strongly, and to give a word of encouragement to those who are struggling. I did get a little bit of sad news though.

It turns out that my convert, Irma had moved out to the campo, which I already knew, but I also found out that a couple months ago out of the blue she got really sick and within a month passed away. She was an awesome lady and not even that old so that was some tough news to hear but it must have been her time. Anyways I plan on getting her dats now from the church in Cabrero to do the ordinances in the temple that she was not able to complete here on earth. Sigh.. so that was pretty crazy to find out about Irma but what can you do? I'm just grateful that she was able to get to know the gospel and be baptized before she got sick and passed away. On a brighter note, Raquel is thinking about going on a mission and is working a lot with the missionaries there so I am stoked about that! I'm just encouraging the missionaries there to do everything they can to help her go. Yeah but tha'ts enough about Monte.

We found some potentially good investigators this week but now this week is the last week of summer break so everybody is running around and busy and on vacation and stuff so I will be very happy when that ends this next week. Due to that we only had one investigator in the chapel on Sunday but next week we should have a lot more.

Now I don''t know if Ive told you this, but the ward here, Villa Obispo, is awesome. The members are awesome, there are a ton of returned missionaries and just good members willing and eager to help us out, and we have the best bishop in any ward within our mission boundaries. I know I mentioned that earlier and you may have not believed me but I was proved right this week. As of yesterday we found out that our bishop, Bishop Osvaldo Martinez, is to be the new President of Misión Chile Concepción Sur as of the first of July!!!! It's in the church news and everthing now so we are STOKED about that and to have the privilege of working closely here in this ward with the future President of the Misión celestial. Yeah crazy that he has been called to serve in the mission where he lives but we are very excited. He's trying to keep it own the downlo here in the ward as long as possible and the other missionaries don't know yet but 'Im sure they will very soon now.

Well, to be quite honest that's really all I got for this week jaja. Oh and before I go I did relearn something important this week. That is to never be afraid to proclaim the restoration. To never flinch and to always be bold in testifying of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. An instrument in his hands to restore the fulness of the Gospel and the true church. It's the truth so why shrink away from sharing it and from testifying of it with power and boldness. And that goes for members as well as missionaries. Just a thought. Well I love you all very much and I hope that you have a wonderful week. Until next Monday Ciao Ciao!!!!!!

Elder Riley Harper =)

This is Riley and Irma at her baptism

THE SPIRIT TAUGHT HER IN A WAY THAT SHE WILL NEVER FORGET

2011-02-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

Hey Hey Hey everybody!!!

How was your guys´s week? From the email mom sent it sounds like it went well with all of the Valentine's Day activities and what not, oh yeah Happy Valentine´s day everybody, El dia de los enamorados. Oh and by the way one little thing we are going to start doing is emailing a little bit earlier from now on. Today we are doing it even earlier because my comp has a doctor's appointment but anyways it's just a little heads up for all of you procrastinators :).

Let's see how did my week go.. as far as the work went in our own sector.. not that great jaja but we spent a lot of time this last week helping out the zone and in that sense it paid off well and the zone overall had a very good week. It's just hard to find that equilibrio (forgot how to say that) of helping out the zone while taking care of your own sector and investigators. So we are working on that so we can help them out and keep them animated while at the same time showing them the example with how we are working in our own sector. Tough stuff but it's all good. I'm still new and learning.

Anyways my best and most spiritual experience of the week came from when we went to Laja on Wednesday for the whole day to help out the two pairs of missionaries there. We split up with them to work for the whole day and even though I didn't want to really go in the first place and leave our sector abandoned for a whole day, it was worth it in the long run. The whole day of work was pretty good but the best part was when we went to a cita with this somewhat new and really poor and humble investigator named Maria. We taught her the plan of Salvation and even though I didn't know her very well or her needs, after about ten minutes I felt a consistent gnawing thought or sensation or something to teach her about baptism and to show her a picture of baptism. After about a minute or so of ignoring it I finally went with it and as we taught her about this saving ordinance and showed her the picture, the spirit just filled the room and her eyes lit up. The spirit was so strong and she was so accepting that I couldn't help but to invite her to come unto Christ and be redeemed of her sins through the cleansing of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. She accepted without hesitation with watery eyes to be baptized on the 5th of March and although she will have trials along the way she is going to be baptized. I'm sure of it because we didn't teach her anything, but the spirit taught her in a way that she will never forget. We were in her house for about a total of twenty minutes but man it was an awesome lesson and a powerful spiritual boost. It was just what I needed, just what Maria needed and just what the missionary I was with needed. He had previously been struggling getting people to commit and was kind of afraid of extending the invitation to be baptized to people so I'm sure the whole experience helped him a lot.

Yeah so that was definitely the best and most spiritual day of the week. The rest of the week wasn´t really bad but all of our good investigators are gone on vacation. Our sector of the city is wealthier than most and we are coming to the end of summer break here so everyone and their dog is on vacation which is a bummer. But summer break ends here at the beginning of March and then things will really be able to kick off with our good progressing investigators. Until then we are spending most of our time looking. Looking for those who are receptive, ready and prepared to accept our glorious message of the gospel. And we are trying to do our best to be more in tune to the spirit to be led to those elect of God and to be able to discern who they are. My companion, Élder Busto, is a stud. In my opinion one of the best and most focused missionaries in the mission. We never even talk about home or anything. We are doing our best to always keep our focus on the purpose, to work our butts off, and of course to have a good time and joke around along the way. Anyways I'm glad to be with him and to learn from him this cambio and I hope he will be able to learn a little bit and pick up some stuff from me as well.
Well that's all I got for you guys today. I love you all and until next week ciao!!!!

con amor, cariño, y toda la cuestión, Élder Harper =)

ps. I finally got my sd card back thats been touring the mission today.. yay!!!! Ill make a cd copy of it and send you it soon.

I WAS WORN OUT AND DEAD TIRED BUT MAN DOES THAT KIND OF TIRED FEEL SOOOO GOOD =)

2011-02-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

Muchas holas a todos de Los Ángeles!

Well not too much time to write this week because we had to go to Concepción so my companion could get this weird bump thing removed from his neck... yeah anyways, I'm just going to get right into how the week went.

It was a pretty dang good week over all but man did we work are butts off!!! I mean don't get me wrong, we always work hard but it just takes on a new dimension and pace when both of us know what are we are doing more or less and have our purpose and focus clear. Always the first week of the cambio is the semana de santification (santification week) when we do 200 contacts that week instead of the normal 140 and we kicked it up a notch with a companionship goal of 250 and man it wasn´t easy but we worked our tails off to get that done while also teaching our investigators and preparing for a baptism. So when Sunday night came around after all of that and fasting, I was worn out and dead tired but man does that kind of tired feel soooo good =).

With the whole zone leader thing, I was really nervous when we had our first district-zone meeting last week, standing up in front of all them and them expecting to see this seasoned veteran leader standing there capacitating them (I don't know how to say capacitate in english.. ask bro baker). I definitely didn´t feel the part but I guess I did a well enough job trying to look the part and hiding my nervousness jaja. But our zone is awesome. The missionaries are good and excited, my comp and I are stoked, and well, I've been in this zone twice already so I love it and know the sectors well. The zone is Los Ángeles Norte. It consists of a little bit more than half of the city of Los Ángeles and the pueblos (towns) of Laja, Yumbel, Cabrero and Monte Águila (woot woot). Including us there are 20 missionaries in the zone, including one set of sisters. So anyways we are excited to be here this cambio and to do our best to motivate the zone while trying our hardest to show them and teach them by setting the example.

So also we had a baptism this Friday which was awesome. When I got here he was all but ready. He just needed to be taught about modern day prophets, tithing, and the sabbath day. He truly was prepared of the Lord and according to my comp went through a drastic change in his life while taking the lessons in a short three or four weeks. After my first lesson with him, he told us that he wanted to be baptized on Friday and so it went. The baptism went well, the spirit was there, and you could tell that he is a changed man. HOW SWEET is the atonement of Christ and the restored gospel. So even though I only got to teach him twice, it was a great experience and he is a great guy and we are already buddies. He is this big 6´4 and two hundred and something pounds German looking guy, but he's just a big teddy bear. In fact he will give you a bear hug with a big ol smile jaja. Let's see, I will tell you more about my ward and my comp next week but just know that I am happy, I'm excited to serve here, and I am TIRED. But it's a good tired =).

Oh and congratulations on your mission call Zach!!!! Chile Concepción bakán po!!! Solo que lastima que tenía que ser la misión terrestre en vez de la misión celestial. Porque hay solo una misión celestial, y esa es Misión Chile Concepción Sur! La Única misión Celestial hoo raaah! jajajaja. No but seriously I'm sure it's a great mission and you are going to LOVE Chile Zach. Ok Well I got to go now but I love you all and until next Sunday Ciao Ciao!!!!

Elder Riley Harper =)

AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE

2011-01-31T17:39:00.000-08:00

Hello hello everybody!

Well this past week has been pretty crazy! Actually, really just Saturday into the wee hours of Monday morning have been crazy and before that is was pretty normal. In some aspects it was awesome and in others it was extremely disappointing sooo... I'll just get down to it.

Monday and Tuesday were normal: Pday in Temuco on Monday, and then Tuesday was just a normal work day. Then Wednesday was just absolutely terrible because all hope of Alvaro getting baptized before the cambio and month ended were just shattered when we found out that the font was going to be ready but not in time for him to be baptized that week. Sooo he is for sure getting baptized on the 5th of February. The font is now ready and it was announced in church so I'm still happy that he is getting baptized but just bummed that I won't be able to be there. Oh well, I will have Elder Ahart send me pictures. Neli, Tamara and Valeria once again went out of town for the weekend so they were not able to get baptized either. They are close but still not ready. They just need to keep patiently reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to get an answer and have the faith sufficient enough to get that answer. I think that Ahart and his new companion will be able to get them baptized this next cambio for sure along with some other good investigators that I left that I hadn't told you about. Loncoche is on the brink of a very rich harvest. It's too bad I left before harvest time but I at least left with the knowledge that I worked very hard there and that now there will be fruits to those labors even if I don't get to see them myself. I very much enjoyed my time in Loncoche even though it wasn´t always easy and I left with the comfortable feeling that I left Loncoche a better place than I found it. I helped to reactive a lot of people which I hadn´t really had success with before in the mission and I left A TON of investigators for the next missionary to work with including, a freebie baptism.

On Friday we had the privilege to go to Temuco for a conference with Elder Carlos H. Amado from the first quorum of the seventy and the President of the Area of Chile. For the first hour and a half or so we just listened to him talk which was awesome and a spiritual feast in it of itself but afterwards he just opened it up to answer questions from us missionaries and let's just say that it was awesome. It was quite the spiritual feast and it was awesome to be taught at the feet like this from a General Authority of the Church. Man he knows so much stuff!!!! He answered every question with ease and profoundness that can only come from a general authority and the spirit was truly there to enlighten our minds and senses to help us learn and understand what he was telling us. It was cool and definitely the spiritual boost that I needed after the whole Alvaro situation.

So that was Friday. On Saturday we worked hard teaching & finding and just after lunch President Swenson called me with the cambios. He told me that I was going to go back to the zone of Los Ángeles Norte for the third time to work in the sector Via Obispo, which is in the city, and to be a zone leader. My new companion is Élder Bustos. He is from Viña del Mar here in Chile and I was way stoked to get him as a comp because we go way back and in my opinion he is one of the best missionaries here in this mission. We survived the earthquake together in the group of 8 in Talcahuano and I was his district leader when I was in Monte Águila. So I was excited but nervous for that because it's a lot of responsibility. Plus, if that wasn't enough, he told me that I had to leave the very next day, Sunday, after church instead of the usual Tuesday to make it to the consejo de Líderes (the monthly zone leaders' conference) with President Swenson at his house on Monday morning. So it was a bummer because I had no time to really say goodbye to very many people but oh well, that's life sometimes.

So Anyways I had to head up to Concepción after church on Sunday with another Elder close by in Gorbea (Elder Smith) who was also moving up to zone leader. To make a long story short, the trip was an absolute nightmare. I left Loncoche at 4:30, got to Temuco at six and when we got there, we hauled all our luggage to the bus terminal. There were no more buses going to Conce from that terminal so we had to go all the way across town to another one. Once there, I realized that I left my backpack, with basically every valuable possession I had, in the last terminal. An hour and a half and a stressful nightmare later I have recovered my backpack and we are now heading out on an 8 oclock bus to Los Ángeles because everyone and their dog decided to go to Conce that weekend to leave us without a bus to get there. Halfway to Los Ángeles, our bus breaks down and we have to get out on the dark highway with all of our luggage to wait for a bus. Another nightmare later and we pull into Los Ángeles midnight.

The story continues from there and gets more ridiculous but I'm running out of time so let's just say that the next hour and a half involved throwing pebbles at missionaries' windows, jumping spiked fences, hucking luggage over spiked fences, and then trudging across Los Ángeles and finally getting into the missionaries' house (my old Galvarino house) at like 1:45 in the morning. Then we woke up at 5:30 and headed out to Concepción where we got to the president's royal mansion (that's what it looks like) at about 9:30. The conference was good and now I am in my new sector in Los Ángeles with my new comp writing you all and am just about out of time. We got here just in time to do internet before going home so I can finally get some real sleep jaja.

Well family that was a watered downed version of my week. I'm a little nervous about my new assignment as zone leader but I know the zone well since already being in Galvarino and Monte Águila. My comp is a freakin stud, which comforts me, and if the Lord and President Swenson think I can do it, then that means I can. No problems no worries. Take care and trust in the Lord. Love you all and until next week CIAO!!!!!!!

Elder Harper =)

p.s. HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY ABBIE!!!!!!! I cant believe your already 18, growin up wayyyy tooo fast. Im glad you had a good one =)

IF I COULD GIVE YOU ADVICE IT WOULD BE TO ALWAYS ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST TO RECOGNIZE AND RESPOND TO PROMPTINGS OF THE SPIRIT

2011-01-24T19:24:00.000-08:00

Hey Hey Hey from Loncoche!!!

It sounds like you guys are all doing good back home but bummer that everyone was sick. My week.. well.. it wasn´t our best week, in fact it was pretty disappointing and set me off for a little bit but we are staying on our feet, taking the punches and just rollin with them. Man, sometimes it's easy to let yourself get discouraged and ask when it will be enough trials!! when will it end!!! But.. trials never end, you just got to learn how to bare them well and learn from them and always keep the good attitude. You decide whether the glass is half empty or half full. Anyways, I´ll talk a little more about my week. It started off just fine when on Monday night at like 9:30 pm the plumber proclaimed our bathroom functional, which was of course, awesome. No more showering in other people's bathrooms and emergency bathroom runs to the chapel at ll:30 at night. Then Tuesday was just a normal busy work day visiting investigators, contacts, and inactives.

Wednesday we had capacitations (i think that it might mean training) in Temuco which took the whole day and we got back at like 7:30 pm from that. Then that same night we did intercambios with the assistants which went pretty well but was very short. I wonder why they wanted to come all the way down to Loncoche. Anyways, also at the capacitations I saw Elder Calaway and he is doing much better. He´s like a new person, happy, excited to be here, and now he speaks spanish jaja. Yeah but after Wednesday everything fell apart. Opposition is hitting Neli and her family hard and the font.. well.. let's just say it's gunna take a miracle. That last bit was the hardest for me to take because although I would love to baptize in the river here, Alvaro´s health condition is too delicate to be baptized in cold water.

According to his family if he gets even a cold he may die. And we have to baptize him in a chair because he can't walk or stand very well. That guy is just ready and anxiously waiting to be baptized and there´s not much I can do about it. Ugh!!!!! But.. hope is not all lost, there are some few last ditch plans that might go through so he can be baptized this Saturday so keep praying hard for him and for Neli´s family. They are still good but have had opposition and now the only way they are getting baptized this Saturday is if they get a specific answer to their prayers, which they say hasn't come yet. So it's still possible that we can baptize them in the river this Saturday. It just all depends on them and their faith now. But I'm still sure that if it doesn't happen this Saturday, that they will still be getting baptized. That family will be baptized.. I can feel it.. I'm just praying that it can happen this Saturday.

Aside from that, we contacted Patricio for the first time in two weeks last night and have an appointment with him for tomorrow so.. we will see what we are working with there tomorrow. And that's about it for our best investigators. We found some new ones last week but we will see how they progress. Hmm.. what else?

Oh a sad but cool spiritual experience happened to us this last week. On Thursday while planning, I felt the need for us to go visit Hermana Pamela Bustos that day. It didn't make much sense because it was a full day and she lives very far but I felt the need to go over. Her husband had cheated on her and left her a couple months ago and so she was having a hard time but I thought she was getting better. She's the one we killed the lamb with. Anyways, we go all the way out to her house and find out from a family member that she is in the hospital. So we go by the hospital to visit her and found out from the Mom that she attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills the night before and they noticed something wrong with her and rushed her to the hospital. So we gave her a priesthood blessing of fortaleza y consuelo (strength and comfort) and we notified the branch president and other ward members that she was in the hospital so they could go visit her. Long story short, our visit and blessing helped her a lot because now she is back on her feet, reading the scriptures, praying and she went to church this last week. She also got a restraining order against her ex husband and is getting help for her depression problems.

She is a mother of 4 children, all under the age of 18, so it would have just devastated that family if she would have died. But she realizes the selfishness and stupidity of what she did and understands how much she is loved now so she is on the rebound, which we are excited about. And she came back to church!! along with many other inactives this week. Usually we have an attendance of 30 to 40 in church but this Sunday some families who are way inactive came back and we had an attendance of 60 in church. So we are also excited about that. The Lord truly is preparing Loncoche for success to come. Well I guess it wasn´t that bad of a week after all jaja. Well, I'm just about out of time but I love you all and if I could give you advice it would be to always AWAYS do your best to recognize and respond to promptings of the spirit. Les quiero mucho!!! ciao ciao!!!

con amor, Elder Harper =)

JUST ALWAYS REMEMBER TO TRUST IN THE LORD, WHEN YOU CAN'T DO IT, HE CAN

2011-01-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!!!

Well it sounds like everyone is doing good back home and no Mom, I had no idea that it's Martin Luther King jr. day. I had a hard enough time remembering Thanksgiving jaja. And about the changes in the stake presidency I know that President Chamberlin will do awesome. Speaking of presidency changes, I think that I forgot to mention it last week, but we finally have had a change in the branch presidency!!! The old one was slackin' big time and was partially less active so everyone's happy about the change and he's happy that he´s been released so everybody wins.

Well overall, I cannot lie, this week was very challenging and might have been one of the worst weeks ever if it wasn´t for some events and a finish that actually made it completely turn around and totally humble me. Because every missionary needs a good humbling every once in a while. Heck, everybody, missionary or not, needs a good humbling every once in a while. Yeah, so anyways here it goes.

Remember about that bathroom problem that I told you guys about last week? Well that turned into a total stressful nightmare this week, and I'm not talking about the loss of our bathroom and shower. I'm talking about getting it fixed. First we spent a bunch of time looking for a new house and the only one we could find was too far away from the chapel and centro so we and President just decided to get it fixed. Most of the week was spent sitting around waiting for plumbers to show up and then never coming. Then, finding new plumbers. Then, dealing with drunken workers in our house from the plumber's team. Anyways, it was a big mess and we lost most of the week dealing with it instead of working. Most of the time I just felt like a caged Lion sitting in the house just wanting to go out and work and help our investigators; it was frustrating. But now we have finally set things straight with a plumber and now he gets here to work when he says he will. If everything goes well, he will finish redoing all the piping and stuff either tonight or tomorrow. But I'm at least at ease now that it's actually getting done.

So as far as the work went this week, we didn't have much time to do anything else but just take care of our investigators who are showing the most progression. Alvaro... well he is still good to go but right now they are remodeling the chapel and the font will not be ready until the 29th, which is the last Saturday of the cambio and probably my last Saturday in Loncoche. We would have just baptized him in the river or taken him to Gorbea or Pitrufquén to baptize him but his health is too delicate for the river or to move him to Gorbea or Pitrufquén. But he is still firm in his decision to be baptized so we will be praying very VERY hard that the baptismal font is ready in time to baptize him before I leave. Oh and we also put a baptismal fecha with Neli, Tamara, and Valeria for the 29th so if everything goes according to plan we will be baptizing 4 souls unto Christ on the 29th of January. Neli and her daughters were shaky with accepting the baptismal challenge at first but now they are progressing more and they feel better about the idea so I think that everything will work out there. Now when we are finally having success we are having tons of opposition, but that's ago because good will always triumph over evil. No unhallowed hand will stop the work!!!

So even though we had very little time to work this last week, the Lord still miraculously blessed us and on Sunday we had 10 investigators in church and 4 of them have a baptismal date. It was pretty incredible and you might think that it would make one prideful, but man, was it a humbling experience for me. Even though our work time was very limited, the Lord provided. He always provides. Really we can't do much of anything through our own strength. It's only through faithful and diligent trust in Him that great things will come to pass. I´ve learned that lesson many times on my mission but I need to be reminded often because like the Nephites of the Book of Mormon and the Jews of the Old Testament, at times I can be very slow to remember. This is kind of random but as for Patricio we were not able to get a hold of him once last week and he didn't go to church. But I still am holding out my faith for him and we will continue to work with him this coming week. Well, I'm running out of time today so I'm going to wrap this up. Just always remember to trust in the Lord, when you can't do it, he can. I love you all and as always we will be hearing from eachother next Monday. Ciao Ciao!!!!

Elder Harper =)

p.s. I turned 18 months two days ago.. cant believe it.. 6 months left... yeah enough said about that, it will have to be enough.

OUR JOURNEY TO THE HILL OF DOOM AND OUR TOUR OF THE WHOLE FLIPPIN' CAMPO

2011-01-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

Muchas holas a todos!!!!

Well family.. I think that I have a lot to write today about this past week so I

guess that I´ll just get going because it was a pretty eventful week. First off, I will talk about one of our investigators named Alvaro. Alvaro is the Dad of the former branch president (he was released yesterday) and was a former investigator of the other Elders but due to something that happened we took over. We have been teaching him now for the past six weeks and as of late he was progressing really slowly so the other Elders just decided to let us have him completely. Well Alvaro is 74 years old but has bad lungs from smoking and a very fragile and sick heart so around the house he uses a cane and outside he uses a walker. Lately he has been bad, like sicker than normal, and his family thinks that he only has a couple of months left. So on Thursday when we went to go visit him, we offered to give him a blessing of health and he agreed.

For me when I anoint and bless the sick, in my experience, I haven't really felt anything special but this time was different. I didn't really feel prompted to say anything specific but the words I spoke in the blessing for some reason had a lot of power and the whole room was just blasted with the spirit. He´s a pretty tough guy but he definitely started crying during the blessing, as did I a little bit. After the blessing, we ditched the plan for our lesson and I straight away identified the presence of the spirit in the room and when I asked if he felt it, he once again started crying and told me that he did. Then when we asked him if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized this Thursday the 13th, he said that he would. It's been announced in church, it's all planned out and if everything goes according to plan, he´s getting baptized this Thursday at 6pm chileno time! =). So we are very happy about that.

As for Neli, we are still teaching her, her husband, Juan, and her two daughters, Tamara and Valeria. They are good investigators and are reading sometimes and praying de repente (sometimes) and love our visits, but they still need to commit themselves more so they can get an answer if it'.s true or not. They are progressing. It's just a little slower than I would like but the whole family came to church this week. It was the first time that they were all there together. Also Patricio is chugging along, progressing as well and he finally came to church with his six year old son! yay! I just hope that his job keeps permitting him to come on Sunday. We have a few other investigators as well but those are our best so I will leave it at that for now. Oh by the way, I've' used the video ¨How Rare a Possession¨ like three times now. It's old but its a good one and the investigators have seemed to like it so far.

Anyways we had 7 investigators in church this Sunday and have a baptism this week so both me and Elder Ahart are stoked. It was a good week despite all of the trials we have been having. On Saturday morning our old dying piping system in the bathroom finally keeled over and died so since Saturday, we have no access to our shower, bathroom sink, and toilet. When we need to go to the bathroom.. well, we have the keys to the chapel, which is a block and a half away. And to shower, we have just been using members houses jaja. It's going to be really expensive to replace the piping so we are now in the market for a new house! ugh! so sick of it. We lost two whole mornings of work last week waiting for a plumber who never showed and then waiting for him again the next morning and getting his evaluation. And now we are going to lose a lot more time next week looking for a new house and then with the long process of moving. sigh.. oh well what can ya do? Besides that minor hiccup, we have been doing great and have high hopes for Loncoche with the work and the branch since we now have a new branch presidency (thank goodness). Satan is working hard here and with us but the Lord is working even harder so that we can have success and so that his flock can grow here in Loncoche.

Well, that's about it except our journey to the hill of doom today and our tour of the whole flippin campo surrounding Loncoche. Yeah, so there's this big hill that I've been wanting to climb since I've gotten here so we decided to do it today but there were a few things that went wrong. It was a lot farther away than we thought, there was no public road (private roads.. found that out the hard way.. but no public roads) that lead to it. When we finally started to climb, there was no road but just a bunch of bamboo, crazy thick vegetation, and a nasty swamp. Yeah, we got lost in the swamp and when we finally got out we had to take this road through the campos and fields of cows that took a bunch of detours. We started the journey at ten this morning and trudged back into town tired, sun burned, covered in mud, and hungry at about 5 in the afternoon. Yeah it was a failure but still lots of fun..kind of.. at least I got good pictures out of it. Well that's all I got for this week but me and my comp are doing fine and are stoked to be serving the Lord here in Loncoche. I love you all very much and until next week ciao ciao.

su chileno preferido, Elder Harper =)

HE'S JUST MOCKING US...SO YEAH, NOW IT'S PERSONAL

2011-01-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

Hola hola hola!!!!!

Well another complicated holiday week has passed by and it has been fun celebrating and all but I can´t lie, I'm now glad to be getting back on the normal missionary schedule and through the holidays so we can be more productive. So.. yeah this last week was pretty crazy, well.. it was a normal work week up until New Year's Eve, Friday, and then the weekend was nuts. New Year's Eve is bigger than Christmas here in Chile and so after 8 we couldn't really work anymore and then everyone was drinking and partying until like 5 in the morning. During that day we started running into drunks as early as 11 in the morning and as the day went on and got later the number only increased. Our neighbors, right next door, had music bumping at full blast until about 4:30 in the morning and were extremely loud doing drunken Karaoke and stuff. So we didn't get too much sleep that night. We just kind of stayed up playing games, just another night for us, jaja. We even missed the countdown. But it's crazy to think that I spent all of the year of 2010 here in Chile and that in this year I´ll be coming home. Crazy stuff, the time flies when your working hard and having fun =).

Then President Swenson made New Years P-day because there was just no way it could have been productive. Here in Loncoche we left the house at 2 oclock in the afternoon to get a bite to eat and the place was just a ghost town. Not a single restaurant or shop was open and the only people out in the streets were drunks passed out. People finally started to get back from the river or come outside from their houses like at about 8 o'clock at night. So yeah, it was a pretty boring p-day because there was nothing to do, but that's all good.

Anyways despite the holiday weekend we worked really hard with all of our investigators during the week and by the weekend we had about 13 people commited to go to church and about 8 or 9 of those were legitimate good investigators that have been showing progress so we were really stoked for Sunday but unfortunately we were really disappointed. Of the 13 only four went so we just ended with 4 investigators in the chapel and were missing 9. And of those nine were some of our best investigators that already have attended in the passed, I guess the holiday just one them over. But despite that setback we are still pretty excited because we have a lot of interested and progressing investigators and we should be getting some more firm baptismal dates this week. Patricio is progressing in the sense that he is praying everyday, reading the Book of Mormon, and is starting to live the Word of Wisdom. He has officially made the switch from coffee to Ecco and he is consistently lowering the amount of cigarrettes that he smokes daily. And he didn't even get drunk over the holidays, which he was very proud of jaja. He is still awesome but he just can't get his butt to church!!! It seems like every week there is something or another that prevents him from going. But we aren't losing the faith with him. We will keep working and praying hard to help him out. I'll tell you more about our other investigators as they continue to progress. Yeah so that was basically our week.

Oh and before I go I'll give you a little rat update. We bought three traps and set them very tight with bait and put them at strategic points in the house. Upon waking up in the morning we go out to check the traps and we see that the little maldito ate the bait off of all three traps without getting caught. Basically he's just mocking us.. so yeah now it's personal.. Well that's all that I´ve got for this week. Until next week take care and hopefully you´ll be hearing some good news about our investigators next Sunday. Love you all ciao ciao.

su chileno preferido, Élder Harper =)

oh yeah and about the earthquake here in Loncoche. Iit is was 6.2 or so... yeah enough said.. it was just a reminder of old times jaja but nothing to freak about. The new guys enjoyed it. and I hope you got the essays i sent! =) love you!

Christmas Skype Message from Elder Harper

2010-12-27T22:48:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-12-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

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

THEY WERE OVERJOYED TO SEE US AS WERE WE TO SEE THEM

2010-11-30T22:36:00.000-08:00

Hey familia,

Well well well Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas time is officially on, Christmas music, lights, the whole shabang! Haha slightly jealous of that since nobody has lights and barely anyone has a tree here but oh well. This is my second one here so I'm already used to it. But anyways I'm glad that you guys enjoyed your holiday back in the states. I would have probably forgotten once again all about Thanksgiving but we had entrevistas with the president in Temuco that day so some other gringos reminded me about it and president bought us all Pizza Hut for lunch to commemorate. Jaja it might not sound like much but the only Pizza Hut in the mission is in Temuco and it's basically the only American restaraunt there besides McDonalds so it was a delicacy for us. My interview was good but short, nothing really too exciting to report on there. But since we are so far away that took up the whole day. Then on Friday we went to Pitrufquén to do a baptismal interview which was good but there were bus problems so that once again took up basically the whole day. Saturday we worked but spent most of the afternoon and evening helping a less active member with cancer paint her house and we gave her a blessing. Even though I just wanted to be out teaching or tracting or something, it still felt really good to serve and help her out and it must have had an impact on her because she came to church on Sunday so we were pretty happy about that.

But since we were so busy with other stuff during the week, we unfortunately didn't have much time to find new investigators and to help our current ones progress but the little 9 year old girl, Victoria, came with her member Dad to church on Sunday in a dress and everything (that's rare to see) so we were stoked about that. And we seem to be gaining more confidence with her and her Dad, so she is starting to progress along a little more towards baptism. She is really good but just timid and her Dad isn't that supportive, makes me so frustrated at times. But thats ok because we are going to put a specific baptismal fecha with her this week, who knows, maybe we´ll even have a white Christmas. I would absolutely love that =). Besides her none of our other investigators have progressed. Victor is still kind of bogged down and not progressing and we have another investigator who is awesome and says she´ll get baptized when she gets an answer to her prayers but she went to Santiago for a week so hopefully she will still be good when she gets back. It was kind of frustrating not having to much time to work and finding no new investigators last week but discouragement doesn't help anything so I'm not letting it get me down.

Anyways after church on Sunday me and the other leaders from our zone made the four hour trip up from Loncoche to Los Ángeles for the consejo de líderes ( mission council) on Monday. It was good seeing most of my buddies and all my past senior comps up there and then it was of course awesome hearing from the President, I love President Swenson, that man is just inspiring. He made me just so stoked to leave that conference and go back to tear it up in Loncoche. Then after conference it was once again back on a bus until Temuco and another night sleeping away from the house. But I rode on the bus all the way to Temuco with Elder Vincent, my comp from the MTC, and it was great to catch up with him because we don't cross paths very often here in the mission. Anyways that's about all that I got for this week, just lots of hours spent on a bus traveling. Fun stuff jaja. Well we have no meetings or anything for this week so it will just be a lot of unimpeded working our tails off to find new people to teach and baptize. We are looking for the Lords elect so.. it should be a good week. My next letter should be a lot more interesting than this one. Oh how could I forget! After the consejo, Elder Terrazas and I went to go visit Marcos y Marcela, and Victor, our converts in Galvarino. It was cool walking the streets of Galvarino again with Elder Terrazas (who finishes the mission this cambio) and visiting our converts. They were overjoyed to see us as were we to see them. It was a great experience and of course raised my mood up even more, they are awesome. Well now I will get going but I love you all very much, enjoy the week and the holiday season. CHAU!!!!

con amor, Élder Harper =)

MY WEEK...WELL IT HAD A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING

2010-11-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello!!!

Ok well first off, thank you very much for reminding me about Thanksgiving because to tell you the truth I had all but completely forgotten about it because it doesn't exist here. But now on Thursday I'll make sure to commemorate it in giving special thanks in my prayers and oh.. I don't know.. maybe stuffing my face with sopaipillas or something. Man I love those things. So fried and greasy but soo good. Anyways enjoy some good turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing on my part.

So about my week.. well it had a little bit of everything. It started off amazing, had an alright middle and ended.. well.. I'll get to that later. But Monday to Thursday was just awesome and really felt like things just took a huge turn for the better in Loncoche. Just talking to almost everybody on the street with lots of energy and getting accepted. Like all of a sudden out of nowhere people have started to accept us more and let us in to teach them. We didn't have much time to knock doors this week because most of our time was spent running from appointment to appointment. I just felt I deep sense of peace and contenment in what I was doing and an extra dose of the spirit, it was awesome.

But on Thursday things started to change. It began to rain Thursday afternoon and didn't stop until Sunday afternoon. Thursday and Friday were alright but Saturday it rained the whole day without stopping and of course every one of our appointments and plan B´s and C´s failed and we were left with nothing else to do but knock doors because nobody was in the street. And even though everything was going wrong and we were soaked through the rain gear to the skin and nobody wanted to open the door or let us in we still felt really good. But it's crazy how unmerciful people can be sometimes when they tell you straight up to your face that they would let you in but they don't want you to get their house wet. Most people just told us we were crazy and to go home and dry off, which of course just made me want to stay out knocking doors all the more =).

Anyways on Saturday night we were feeling good because we had like ten people tell us they were going to church and 7 of them were for sures who we called to remind that night. But on Sunday morning it begins to rain and not one of them shows up. It was heartbreaking because for some of them it was their last chance before we dropped them. Yeah, so yesterday was pretty tough but the rain cleared up today and we have some good investigators to work with that we started teaching last week so hopefully they will be able to progress. This week will be about out with the old, and in with the new. I think I've already said this before but we just can't afford to use any more of our time teaching those who will listen but in the end not progress. That's why it's so important for us missionaries to use the discernment that the holy spirit can give us. Oh we weren't able to get ahold of Victor last week because he is sick but we prayed about him and decided not to give up on him just yet, but we will see if that sticks or not this week.

Well that's all I got for this last week. On Friday we have interviews so that should be good and there I should also be getting my packages and finally my leather scripture cover things that I ordered now over a year ago jaja. Well once again have a good Thanksgiving! Just in a little bit longer we will be talking for Christmas! I love you all very much and thank my Heavenly Father every day for blessing me with the best family every on this earth. I am one lucky guy =). Well until next week les quiero mucho y CHAUZZZZ!!!!!

Élder Harper =)

THE GRINGO WHO HAS BECOME CHILEAN

2010-11-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hola Hola y buenas tardes!

Hmm another week come and gone and another month come and gone. 16 months old crazy stuff. I'm starting to get old out here jaja but definitely not too tired yet, I'm glad that I've got another 8 full months, a third of my mission still to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands here in Chile. Anyways it sounds like you guys all had a wonderful week back home in the big OC. Abbie congratulations about getting your blessing, read it all the time because it's just awesome, and Bay congrats on finishing your season and CIF well, you're a champ. And Izzie congratulations for just being you, you're awesome.

Well let's see here, what can I say about my week? Well it was the first full week of the cambio which means it was la semana de santificación (santification week) which means that we did over two hundred contacts. Yeah it was good just talking to everyone and testifying and teaching and such but man is it tiring. Out of those two hundred we didn't find anyone that is really amazing or a golden investigator but we did get let into a few houses to teach and we have a few return appointments for this week so we shall see how it goes.

As far as the investigators that we already have this week wasn't so great. I hate to say it but I just don't know if we are going to be able to baptize Victor. He just can't understand or comprehend the restoration and some commandments like the word of wisdom, and when we teach him he just gets distracted so easily and doesn't really pay much attention. So we kind of got discouraged with him this week, but we aren't going to give up on him just yet and we are even going to fast for him this week. But he did come to church again as always and in the chapel after sacrament meeting told us a story very loudly and said like ten cuss words in the story jaja yeah it was an interesting experience. But despite the rough edges he´s got a good heart and that's why I'm so reluctant to let him go. We will be praying for him a lot this week.

Also, we taught Veronica and Guiermo a few times last week with a member and had some good lessons and committed her to be baptized and once again to come to church. Once again she said that she was going for sure but when Sunday came around she didn't show up. We went over later and she said that her parents came down on Saturday from the campo and spent the night so she couldn't go because she had to be with them. Ugh its always something with her, I think we are going to give her one more week and if she doesn't progress we might have to drop her because our time is valuable and needs to be used with those who are prepared and ready to receive us, accept the truth, and act on it. It just feels like finding the needle in the haystack sometimes jaja. But I trust in the Lord that he will lead us to his chosen.

Spirituality wise it was a good week. It was on and off but overall good and even though the success has been little, just working hard and doing my part, I was blessed at times with feelings of contentment and peace. Now if those feelings could just always be there jaja. On Sunday this very very poor inactive family that we've been working with finally came to church so it was great to see them there. Then after church they told us to come over to the house later but wouldn't tell us why, but still we agreed. When we get there they have all this homemade bread and food waiting for us and were so excited to have us in their home and to feed us and it just brought tears to my eyes. This family lives in a house that's about the size of Abbie's room downstairs or a little bit smaller. This includes the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. They are always very tight on money and don't have very many clothes or things but what they do have they are gladly willing to share. Just the humility and kindness of that family that was so excited to share what little that they had with us was just such a humbling experience and another reminder of how grateful I need to be for what I have back home. Well that's about all that I got for this week and hopefully I will have some good news and experiences with investigators next week. I love you guys very much, take care and until next week CHAU!!

El gringo que se ha convertido chileno, Élder Harper =)
(translation: The gringo who has become Chilean)

IT'S WHEN WE STOP WORRYING ABOUT OURSELVES AND START CARING MORE ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE THAT WE WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF AND CHANGED

2010-11-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Muchas Holas a todos!!!

Well first off Baylor, don't let the loss get to you. Just brush it off and go kick some skinny runner butt at CIF, go big or go home baby! jaja Anyways while it got really hot down there in Cali, the weather still can't make up its mind here at the end of the world. Or at least the end of my world, which is the boundaries of mission Chile Concepcion Sur. For the whole week up until Friday we were in short sleeves with lots of sun and then for the whole weekend it just decided to rain and hail really hard. It was pretty big hail too, fun stuff. But it looks like the rain is starting to go away again and hopefully it will stay that way. Well that's enough about the weather. Now I'll tell you about the week.

So on Saturday we had cambios and on Tuesday they let us know what they were, and for the first time in the history of my mission I didn't have a cambio. That's right. I am staying here in Loncoche with Elder Maldonado for another cambio.
So since Elder Maldonado and I get along well that's pretty sweet that I get to stay with him. Now we can keep working on improving our teaching and working together and I think that this cambio will be a good one and hopefully more fruitful than the last. In the house, Elder Hillman left and a chileno named Elder Garcia took his place to be Elder Calaway´s comp. Calaway has been having a tough time adapting to mission life and not having very many results so far so 'Im glad that we will still be in the house so I can help him out. We are really good friends and he's just a good quality guy so I'm glad that we will be in the house together along with Elder M for another cambio.

As far as last week went by work wise, it was very rewarding but at the same time a little bitter and sad. We have been working hard and now we have been getting into houses and have a pretty good teaching pool and they want to change and are somewhat progressing but all of them have something that's impeding them. We were able to teach that one family, the Mom Veronica with her son Guiermo, once again who didn't go to church last week. Her excuse was that her husband was sick last week but she said that she recognizes that Satan is trying to impede her from going and that she needs to fight that and do everything she can to go. Then after a great lesson they committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and they said that they would be at church for sure rain or shine. We were excited about them to progress and got our hopes way up but when we called them Sunday morning nobody answered and the second time we called the phone was off. So they didn't go on Sunday which hit me a little hard. It's hard to open up and love your investigators because when they do a lot of time you get hurt and disappointed but loving them and opening your heart up to them is the only way to do it. Even if they disappoint you sometimes, it's worth it. But anyways we are going to see what's up with them tomorrow. We have some other investigators that are progressing slowly as well but our ever-present and ever-faithful so far is still Victor.

We went to wake him up on Sunday to come and he told us to go on without him and that he would come. We decided to take a risk and trust him and when it shortly started to rain after we got to the chapel we thought the worst. But what do you know, ten minutes later in comes trudging Victor wet and smelly, as usual, but with a smile on his face happy to be there. We taught him a couple times last week outside his house (he won't let us in to his shack because he is embarrassed) and he is progressing but still slowly. He understands to a pretty good extent the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and of the importance of that and baptism but he just can't quite grasp the importance or significance of the restoration. We always teach it to him and he always forgets. He just can't grasp the idea of authority and the one true church but we are working on it. It's just gunna take a lot of patience, love, and divine intervention, but I have faith that he´ll get there.

On another note this week was very trying, draining and somewhat rewarding with working with the members. The drama and the hypocrisy and backbiting in the branch is just starting to get to me. We need a strong branch before it's ready to receive new members. But we are working with them and overall I think that I am starting to gain their trust and respect. We had one experience that was pretty rough and that reminded me that I'm still just a twenty year old kid. It happened with this married couple that have been members for two years and are strong but are having problems. And it just so happens that we picked a moment to go and visit them right in the middle of a somewhat serious fight. They had been having some problems and they were arguing about it when we walked in. But no, they didn't stop it at our arrival, they just invited us and dragged us into the middle of it.

It was a pretty complicated situation with lots of difficult things to deal with and here we were with them treating us like their marriage counselors while yelling and crying and accusing. Yes, I felt very small and inadequate but after about a half an hour or so of trying to help and being the mediators and realizing that every time we made progress it just went right back and that they were both being stubborn, at about that time I started feeling the spirit and I began to talk about the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it's not just applied for our sins but in every aspect and hardship in our lives. We testified and promised and we felt good upon leaving but still didn't feel like we made a difference. The next day they came to church smiling and happy and the hermana bore her testimony in the meeting about the power of the atonement, and its application to our lives. Then later that day she called us to come over to give us some loaves of homemade bread to take home and to thank us for our help.

So that was a very spiritual and humbling experience I had last week. It's crazy the things that the Lord entrusts us 19 to 21 year old kids to do. Man it just blows my mind sometimes, but it's times like those that humble me. It's times like those that make me realize that there is no possible way to do it on our own. The only way to success is giving in, surrendering everything to him, holding back nothing, and letting him take the lead. There is no way but the Lord's way. Fighting it in either thought or actions just leads to inner conflict within oneself and discontentment. The only way that works and the easiest way to do things is to just surrender. I love this gospel and I love my Lord, that's why I'm here. To do his will not mine. Sometimes I forget that I'm not here for me but for him. It's when we stop worrying about ourselves and start caring more about everyone else that we will be taken care of and changed. Well I got to go but I'm excited for this coming week and even though my investigators are frustrating, I'm not going to give up on them just yet. Until next week, I love you all and cuidense mucho. CHAO PESCA´O!!!!! jaja

con mucho amor, Elder Harper =)

WHILE VALUES ARE DEGRADING, WE ARE DOING OUR BEST TO WORK AGAINST THE FLOW AND LIGHT UP THE WORLD WITH OUR LITTLE CANDLE

2010-11-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!!!!

Well it sounds like you guys had a pretty fun Halloween despite it being on Sunday. Maybe you thought your Halloween wasn't very eventful but here in Chile it barely exist. Yes it exists but nobody decorates, no Jack-O-Lanterns, and very few people actually dressed up and went out to trick or treat. But this was my second one here in Chile so that's basically what I expected from it. As far as how the week went, it was pretty good but just when we thought that summer was coming, in it rained the entire week. So that was pretty lame but now it has stopped once again and the weather is getting warm again so no worries.

Well nothing really terribly exciting happened in the work last week but we did find some new people to teach and now we have the makings of a good teaching pool. There are these two families that we are teaching that we are really excited about. They said that they will get baptized when they receive an answer of the truthfulness of our message but then they bailed on us to go to church. We even called the night before to make sure they were coming, to which they responded yes, but when we went to call them Sunday morning, their phone was turned off and they didn't show up to church even though it didn't rain. That was disappointing because we felt the spirit with them as we taught them during the week but I don't know.. we are going to pass by tonight to see what happened.

But on the bright side Victor once again came to church and so did two other investigators that are progressing very slowly. When we first went to pass by Victor's house to pick him up to go he told us that he wouldn't be going because he didn't have any dry clothes from the week of rain. He doesn't have much clothes either. So when we started the sacrament meeting, we had no investigators, only 18 members were there, and we were very disappointed. It was like in the middle of the service after the sacrament that Victor loudly entered the chapel (in usual Victor style) along with a lot more members and the other Investigators. So it was an alright Sunday and an alright week. Progress is still frustratingly slow but hey there has been progress and I have faith that if we continue to work hard and do our part the progress will continue.

And actually I lied when I said nothing really exciting happened this week because in reality a lot of drama went down here in Loncoche this week. Some domestic violence went nuts here when an angry drunk boyfriend went to his girlfriend's house, tied her to a chair, beat her, and then soaked the house with gasoline, lit it on fire, and shot himself. Luckily both the girlfriend and girlfriend's Mom were rescued from the house with minor injuries but the fire just consumed the big wooden house and their wasn't much hope for it. Afterwards it was all over the news and the topic of everyone's conversation for a couple of days here. Stuff like that is just a wake up call to how we missionaries are sorely needed here in this pueblo, while values are degrading we are doing our best to work against the flow and light up the world with our little candle. Its daunting at times but it's not impossible.

Two days after that incident, an innactive member's house burned down but this one wasn't arson. We tried to get a hold of the family but it looks like they left the town. Oh and it's still not over, then a few days ago, one of our good investigator's uncle´s, who lives here in town, was killed in a hunting accident and the family took it very hard. But they loved hearing the message of the forever family and the plan of salvation and they are interested and want to learn more but they can't progress unless they come to church!!! ahh!!!!! jaja yeah that was a release of frustration.

Anyways on a final note, my comp and I are doing well and are feeling the spirit more and teaching more unified together after every lesson we teach. It's really cool but cambios are this week and most likely we will be separated. Cambios are also this Saturday instead of next Tuesday, like how it usually is, so that will be weird but the President said that it's just going to be like this for this cambio. So on Thursday we will know our cambios, hopefully I will be staying here because I do not want to leave another sector dry and I want to be here for Victor's baptism. Well I got to go but I love you a lot and we will be talking together in just two more months. Until next Monday CHAO!!!

Elder Harper =)

FASTING REALLY DOES WORK MY FRIENDS

2010-10-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hola hola!!

It sounds like things are going good down in California. Here things are going pretty good as well; it was a good week. Things could have been better but so far we are progressing along here little by little. We once again spent a lot of time this last week knocking doors and going to visit the innactive and less active members. With the innactive members we haven't had much progress getting a hold of them or getting them excited to go back to church but we still aren't going to give up going through the member list because this branch needs a lot of strengthening and has a TON of innactive members that need fellow shipping. While doing divisions with Elder Hillman we actually found this one innactive member with quite a history. He was the branch mission leader, branch president for years, district secretary (a district is the equivalant of a stake), in the district presidency and now after decades of devoted church service he and his wife are innactive. Why? according to him pure laziness. He thinks that because he worked for so long in the church he's now ok to just chill back in his house and spend the rest of his days in oblivion without going to church. He thinks that he's earned a well deserved rest. When we tried to explain to him that he still needs to keep coming to church to take the sacrament and renew his covenants he told us that he could bless the bread and water in his own home and take the sacrament every week. When we tried to explain to him how that doesn't fly he was stubborn and wouldn't have any of it. But at the end of the visit we did soften him up a little bit so we will see how it goes. We're not going to give up on him just yet. It just makes me sad to see members who were so strong just fall away and lose their faith. It just really shows how we always have to be on guard and never stop working to maintain our faith and keep our change of heart, because the minute we let our guard down and get lazy is when the adversary will strike.

As far as investigators go, we did a lot of door knocking and actually had reasonable success. Fasting really does work my friends. Every time I do one my testimony grows of it as a spiritual and missionary tool and sanctifier. Anyways, doing contacts we found a whole family who was investigating the church before but when the husband got really sick they couldn't keep going to church and then they moved and lost contact with the missionaries and the church. They unfortunately weren't able to come to church this Sunday but they are excited for us to start visiting them again and to start going to church again because I guess they had a really good experience with the last missionaries who were teaching them. So we are pretty excited about that find and are praying hard that the Lord helps them to develop their faith and feel the spirit bear witness to them of the truthfulness of our message. The journey begins again =). Victor is doing well too but it's going to take a little longer than I thought with him because he is full of crazy ideas and it's hard to teach him sometimes. But he understands the importance of having a living prophet and he understands the importance of baptism so we are going to work with that. He actually wants to get baptized right away but we told him that he had to quit drinking first and we taught him the word of wisdom. This week again he came to church (although we did have to go get him) and he said that he would quit drinking so we are going to do everything we can to help him follow through and prepare for baptism during this coming week.

Also this week we were let into houses a lot more and we had a lot more teaching appointments where we were actually able to teach and although all of them aren't going to continue, it just felt awesome teaching so frequently again. I love doing it and it'Fs my job so that definitely helped my spirits last week. Unfortunately Sunday was slightly frustrating because Victor was the only one of our investigators who came to church but we should have a lot more who come next week. Well I don't have too much more time today but I just want to let you know that we're working hard and even though everything isn't going perfectly, we are happy. Happy and ready to get in the water! It's time to end the drought! Ok well I got to go now but take care everybody! Read your scriptures and try extra hard to look for the influence of the holy spirit in life. He's with us a lot more than we think, we are just too distracted and dense to notice it sometimes. Oh and enjoy your halloween! It exists here but as I learned last year it's nothing compared to the states. Bueno les quiero mucho, cuidense y CHAU!!!

su chileno preferido, Élder Harper =)

FOR THE LORD THERE IS NO LOST CAUSE

2010-10-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hello!

First off thanks for the emails everybody! I loved all of them. Well pday once again, the weeks go by so fast. Anyways this week was a lot better than last week. If not that much in results at least in spirits. First off I will tell you about our investigators that until recently we had. We talked with Veronica and her Mom last Monday night and we talked a lot about baptism and testified and what not but it's still a no and this time the Mom put her foot down on the issue. She said that she could keep going to church and talking to us but that she can't get baptized until she's older. We tried a lot of tactics but her mind is made up and for right now she's not budging. That's a bummer. As for Karina we haven't been able to get a hold of her or her husband since I last wrote so there is no news or progress there as of right now.

Anyways, with that start-off to last week, it was rough for the first few days but we had a fast as a district and even though it didn't help all that much with the results, it did help me out with the morale. My companion Elder Maldonado is an obedient hard worker and a good missionary but he is a little down and frustrated about the dry spell here in Loncoche and the one that he has been having in his mission right now. But despite that, I'm not too worried about him and we've been working on more meaningful prayers and are going to have weekly 24 hour fasts now so that should help us out. The other missionaries in the house, Elder Hillman and his son (trainee) Elder Calaway are doing good and are also working hard. Elder Hillman has been here for six months and his animo is still good, he just needs to be less conform with the results. But we all get along great in the house. We all laugh and joke around together and are all obedient so it's a good house. Elder Calaway, the new guy, reminds me a lot of me. He just started in this zone and unfortunately has to see all these branch problems his first cambio, like I did, and he doesn't have too much confidence in himself or his spanish but he's a good guy and I know that he'll turn out to be a good missionary.

As far as the work went this last week people are still setting appoinments with us and then aren't there or don't come to the door when we go. Even though we are still talking with everybody we've changed our tactics a bit. We've been going down the ward list visiting all of the innactive members, which is the majority, and although most of them haven't been home, we have found a few and have appointments to visit them this week so we will see how it goes. I think that we need to do a lot of strengthening of the branch before we can trust them to take care of good investigators and new converts. So we will keep up a lot with visiting the innactives this week. Also we have put up flyers all over the town and are now teaching English classes on Saturdays. Our first class was last Saturday and it didn't have all that great of a turn out but we are going to keep advertising it a lot and we will see how it goes.

The best experience that we had last week was finding a new investigator, Victor. Victor is quite the character. He is a very very poor guy who is very dirty, always is wearing a yellow hard hat, and lives alone in this tiny wooden hand made shack surrounded by a shanty wooden fence and a yard filled with all of this junk that he just loves. We found him because he was yelling things about gringos and the states to us so we decided to go over and talk to him. He is kind of crazy, drunk and is obsessed with the states, airplanes, and NASA. He actually has a NASA tie that missionaries gave him two years ago and has a collection of little model airplanes and space shuttles that he loves and treasures. These missionaries who gave him the tie were teaching him and brought him to church but he never got baptized, probably due to the alcohol. But he says he wants to get baptized and I could hardly believe it, but he came to church with us on Sunday and I think that he was even sober. In church you could tell that people were kind of looking down on him due to his dirty clothes(hard hat and all), terrible smell (which filled the chapel), and famous drunkeness but that doesn't matter.

Although members of the Lord's church and even some missionaries might judge by the outward appearence and reputations, every human being is a child of God and everyone of them deserves the chance to hear the message of the restored gospel and to apply the healing power of the atonement in their lives. For the Lord there is no lost cause and if it be his will, and if Victor is willing, the Lord can change him and take away his addiction to alcohol to replace it with the love and mercy of the Savior. These thoughts filled my mind as I sat next to him in the chapel and the spirit testified to me powerfully that this was true and that this man is a truly beloved son of God. So even though it might not work, I'm excited to give Victor this chance and to help him use and feel the power of the atonement in his life. Well I gotta go now but I love you all, I love this work, and I love the Chilenos. The work isn't easy and the Chilenos can be very frustrating at times but I love them and have been called to preach to them for these two years. So I'm going to make the best of these next 9 months to do so. Until next Monday CHAU!!!!!

Elder Harper

AS WE BLESSED A TINY PIECE OF BREAD AND A LITTLE CUP OF WATER IN THAT HUMBLE HOME I FELT THE SPIRIT STRONG AND HUMBLED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY I HAD

2010-10-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

Hola Hola a todos!!

Loncoche Loncoche. Man what is there to say for this week? Well it sure was a busy week. We spent the whole time running from house to house trying to find people, talking to everybody in the street and knocking a lot of doors. You know just the normal missionary stuff. The only bad part is that we didn't get many opportunities to teach this week. Almost all of the appointments we set with potential investigators we found during the week last week fell through so unfortunately we used a lot of time running from one end of the pueblo to the other to citas, only to find that they weren't home. But I didn't let it get to me, we just worked that much harder to find those who are actually interested and not going to blow us off.

As for the investigators that we already had before I got here, they are both in complicated situations. The strongest one is Veronica. She is a twelve year old girl who always goes to church, is working on her personal progress and even when she blows off doing her homework, she will read and mark the Book of Mormon. She knows the church is true but... her parents are Catholic and want her to wait until she is older until she gets baptized. If she really pushed the issue with her Mom I think that she could get permission but she is also afraid and doesn't want to enter the church alone without the support of her family. It's slightly complicated so we have been doing a lot of praying and working with them, but this week is go time. We are going to talk seriously about it with the Mom this week so we will see what happens if it comes out yes or no.

The other investigator' name is Karina. She is like in her late twenties with 2 kids, has all of the lessons and wants to be baptized. There is just one major problem. She is conviviendo (living with) a very very innactive member of the church and she wants to get married but he doesn't. He is a really nice guy, we even went fishing with him last p-day, but he doesn't believe in marriage. He is an agnostic who believes in God but not Christ and has a bunch of weird conspiracy theories but last time we met with them we watched the restoration video and then committed him to read and pray about the ook of Mormon, and that is one powerful book so we will wait and see what's going to happen there.

Even though I´ve left Santa Juana Satan is still trying really hard to drag me down along with the branch and the other missionaries here in Loncoche but I did have a great experience on Sunday. After church we went to this very old members house who has Parkinson's disease to give him the sacrament. Although he is in bad shape, he brightened way up at our visit and although he couldn't talk very well he was talking up a storm asking about me and telling me about his life as a member of the church. I felt the spirit warmly in the room at seeing the crippled and aged man express his love for the gospel and for missionary work. Then as we blessed a tiny piece of bread and a little cup of water in that humble home and helped him take it I felt the spirit strong and humbled for the opportunity I had to administer the holy sacrament to this veteran of the church here in Chile. Hearing the stories and seeing the decline of the church and the apostasy of the members rather than growth in these small pueblos really does start to take a toll on the morale after a while, especially when only a handful of the hundreds who have been baptized this last decade are active. But seeing the humble faithfulness of that old man gave me a little boost of hope and encouragement here for the little pueblos in the south of Chile. No matter the calamities and defamings of men and devils, the Lord's work will go forth nobly and independent. That includes Santa Juana and Loncoche.

Just like old times with Pitruf, there is drama and divisions going down in the little branch here in Loncoche, which is probably exaggerated by the members, but nonetheless has discouraged the other missionaries here. I've been in too many small towns now to know that drama can be smoothed out and that we can't let the petty offenses and differences of the members discourage us and stop us from putting all of our heart into the work here. We just need to do the best we can to empathize with the members and at the same time smooth their ruffled feathers and preach to them the atonement of Christ. Because no amount of shame or offense taken in the chapel due to wounded pride is worth abandoning applying the healing powers of the atonement in our lives. Well I just want to let you guys know that even though it hasn't exactly been an easy start here in Loncoche, I'm still excited and ready to tear it up here in this pueblo. So until next week take care and remember to look for and recognize the holy spirit everyday in our lives. Without his guidance and comfort.. well.. we're just sad. So do everything you can to have it. les quiero y hasta la proxima semana chao!!

Élder Harper =)

I AM SO GRATEFUL THAT WE HAVE A LIVING PROPHET AND APOSTLES THAT RECEIVE DIRECT REVELATION FROM GOD TO LEAD AND DIRECT ALL HIS CHILDREN HERE ON EARTH

2010-10-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!!!

Well this week was a pretty good week I guess. I mean how could it have been bad ending with such a great general conference? I just love hearing the inspired words of our leaders and just soaking up the spirit of the occasion. You really do leave it wanting to be a better person. Anyways about my week.

Tuesday, the day of cambios, was a long day of traveling. In total like six hours in a bus and for four hours of the journey, from Conce to Temuco, I was alone which was really weird. Finally at like 6:00 pm we got to Loncoche at the end of the mission safe and sound. My new companion is Élder Maldonado. He is from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and has about 6 months out in the mission. He is excited to work and from what I've seen so far he teaches pretty well. Oh he also speaks English pretty well and understands everything in English so usually in the street we speak Spanish and in the house we speak English. The house here in Loncoche is pretty old but it's huge. It's the biggest house that I have been here in the mission so far and the shower is hot and working which is the most important thing jaja. There were only two missionaries in the house but with the addition of me and another Elder we now make four missionaries here in Loncoche. The other companionship is Elder Hillman and a new gringo, Elder Calaway, who he is training. Lucky for him everyone in the house speaks English. I will tell you more about my comp and the other Elders the more I get to know them.

Now Loncoche is a pueblo but a pretty good sized pueblo and is much bigger than both Santa Juana and Monte Águila. We have a chapel here. It's small but it's a real chapel, and there are about 45 to 50 members who attend church regularly here in the pueblo. Probably about the same size of the branch in Pitrufquén. From what I've seen of the members so far they seem pretty loving but I will tell you more about the branch as I get to know it, but I am definitely way stoked to work with a new branch and new members. It's been a few months since the Elders have baptized here and since we made a new companionship here as of now we don't have many investigators because the ones who are here were spit between the two companionships. But we do have some people to work with and we are excited to get out there to find new ones.

Well last week was a short work week because of the cambios and general conference and getting to know the new investigators and members of the branch but thats ok that it was a short work week because conference was awesome! Saturday we four from Loncoche went to Pitrufquén to watch the 3 Saturday sessions of conference. It was total dejavu as we set everything up to watch it in English in the same exact room of the chapel that we did 1 year ago. It was really weird but cool to walk the streets of the pueblo again, be in the chapel, and see some of my old buddies and understand them jaja. It was really cool especially talking to Gercy and Alex again. I didn't get to see them for very long but Alex plans to meet up with us one P-day when we go to Temuco. It was awesome watching the sessions in English and feeling the power and spirit of the inspired messages from our leaders and I definitely left it feeling invigorated. Then when priesthood session ended at 10:00pm there were no buses back to Loncoche so I slept in my old house and in my old bed in the Pitrufquén house. Oh and Élder Terrazas is my zone leader here so it was good to talk to him again. Then the Sunday sessions of conference were good too but on Sunday we went back to Loncoche to watch them with the branch via internet but unfortunately we were not able to watch them in English. But we did have one investigator that is progressing come to one of the sessions so that was cool.

Well everybody, I'm out of time this email but that was a basic recap of my week. I just want to let you know before I go that I am so grateful that we have the restored church here on the earth today and that we have a living prophet and apostles that recieve direct revelation from God to lead and direct all of his children here on the earth. They are such a big blessing in our lives, for if we follow their council and guidance we will receive eternal life, but if we reject them, it will be a whole different story. Ok now I really have to go but we will talk more in just one short week. Until then les quiero mucho!!!! CHAO!

con mucho cariño, Élder Harper =)

WE BEGAN TO TEACH THIS FAMILY, THE SPIRIT FILLED THE ROOM

2010-09-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hola y saludos a todos,

Wow, even in my roughest sector of the mission so far, time seemed to go by way fast. Now three months have passed and it's time to say goodbye to Santa Juana. First I'll tell you a little bit about my week. Tuesday was spent doing contacts, trying to visit innactive families, and getting blown off by appointments, but we worked hard. Wednesday was pretty tough because even though we were out working hard my comp was all down about the sector and that kind of affected my mood as well, and once again it didn't help that we weren't able to contact any of our investigators and nobody really cared to talk to us on the doorsteps and in the street. But the day ended well with one of the better lessons that we've had in a while.

We went to an appointment with a somewhat wealthier investigator family who has potential and we got the branch president's wife to come with us. Before going to the appointment we were kind of feeling negative and down but as we began to teach this family, the spirit filled the room and I could feel it helping the mother of this family understand the message of the restoration and its importance. She understood everything very well, which usually doesn't happen, and was excited to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of our message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She was not able to attend church this Sunday but my comp and his new comp have an appointment with her and the branch president's wife again this Wednesday so I have hope that she will be able to pray in ernest, receive her answer, and then have the courage to do what it takes to follow that.

While we are on the subject of investigators, our other ones are not doing so hot. Yeseña has changed and has given the gospel a backseat in her life and Laura and Juan are still in the same boat and not progressing. It's really tough to see investigators give it up but that's life, not really anything more to say about that.

On Friday I did get to do an intercambio (exchange) with some Elders in my district to do a baptismal interview (which is always uplifting) in the only sector in the whole mission with bikes. So at least for one day in the mission I was out doing the work on a bike, although I do have to say that I think I prefer walking. It's easier to talk to people in the street that way. Anyways on Saturday morning I got the call for cambios and lo and behold I am leaving. I actually have the biggest cambio ever because I am going to continue as district leader in Loncoche, which is the farthest south sector in the mission. After almost a year of being up here in the north I am going back down south to where it all began. I am going to be in the same zone where Pitrufquén is and the hermanas there are actually going to be in my district. Also this weekend for general conference I will be watching it in the chapel in Pitrufquén, the same chapel where I watched my first general conference in the mission. That will be some major dejavu, and also I´ll be able to see and for the first time speak to all of my buddies down in Pitruf.

Although I am relieved to be leaving Santa Juana I still kind of have mixed feelings about it. I wanted to go but now leaving is kind of sad because I feel like I haven't really done that much here these passed three months and that I will just be another missionary that did his time and passed through here in the minds of the people. I may have not had all that much success here but at least I have overcome problems, learned valuable lessons and am now leaving with the resolve to work harder, smarter, and better in my new sector, Loncoche. I feel like I didn't really accomplish the work that the Lord had intended for me or find the people that I needed to here, but I won't dwell on it too much. The past is past and now I just have to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Well I got to go, have fun enjoying the heat wave and I'll tell you all about my new sector and new comp next week. Until then I love you guys.. CHAOOO!!!!!!!!

Élder Harper =)

SCRIPTURE STUDY COUPLED WITH ERNEST PRAYER HELPS CLEAR THE MIND AND PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE A LOT.

2010-09-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hola Hola!

Well my second and last Dieciocho here in Chile has come and gone and we are going on the last week now of this cambio and probably my last week here in Santa Juana. This Dieciocho wasn't as active and fun as my last one but we still had a good time. Even though I am glad it's over because the holiday was not very good for the work so last week wasn´t nearly as productive. We had the capicitation thing on Monday so Tuesday was pday. Then we basically just had Wednesday and Thursday as good solid work days because we had the branch activity on Friday, which took the whole afternoon (like 5 hours) and then we had Saturday (Dieciocho) as pday. But the Chilenos, from Friday until today, were in party mode. Lots of drunks, lots of investigators out of town or entertaining guests, and everyone too busy partying or with preparations to listen to us. We did find a really good person although doing contacts on Thursday. We talked for a long time and she was really interested and we were stoked but at about 10 minutes into the contact we found out that she is from Santiago and is just down visiting family here in Santa Juana. Sigh, just our luck, but it was still a good experience.

Then, as I mentioned earlier, we had the branch activity in the meeting house on Friday afternoon. It wasn't nearly as big or active as the activity they did in Pitrufquén but it was alright. There were like 25ish people there with some games and lots of food. I basically just spent the whole time chatting with members and some of their non member family members and stuffing my face with empanadas while drinking mote con huesillo. Man I ate so much fried food this weekend (including like 30 empanadas) I feel absolutely sick. Then after the activity we took a two hour bus ride to Lota to sleep at the missionaries' house over there because we did a double zone activity in the chapel over there for Dieciocho. It was fun and all but it was a lot of traveling and it wasn't really all that exciting. But the anticucho(shishkabob) and asado(barbecue) was good so I didn't complain. So ayways it was a good weekend but when Sunday came around we didn't think we were going to have anyone in church because we didn't see our good investigators pretty much all week. But to our surprise, halfway through the sacrament, in walks the 20 year old son of this innactive member that we've been talking to and trying to teach. I thought that he wasn't all that interested but he came to church by himself and without us picking him up or anything and he seemed to like it so we will see how it goes with him when we go to teach him this week.

Well it was a really short work week and the activities for Independence day weren't all that exciting so I'm just about out of stuff to write about this week. But this week we have the whole work week without interruptions and even though I enjoyed the festivities I'm ready to hit the streets again and to finish out my time here in Santa Juana working hard and smart and doing everything I can to have the spirit of the Lord with me. Looking back at the work here I´ve made some mistakes, and I've had some hard times but I've learned from all of those and am going to work hard to keep my spirits and animo up to finish it off good this cambio. I´m not sure yet about what the cambios are officially, but this Saturday I will, so you will hear about it next Monday. Well I've got to go now but I love you guys and can't wait to hear from you again next week. So until then cuidense y portense bien. CHAOOO!!!!

con amor, Élder Harper =)

Hey Mom!!

Thanks for the letter. I loved it. Oh and by the way you're right. I think it would help out a lot to make it a habit to have good daily scripture study which is started and if necessary ended with prayer. Scripture study coupled with ernest prayer helps clear the mind and puts things in perspective a lot. Sometimes I've come home from a rough day and I've needed to ask Heavenly Father for like a million things but instead I just start going on about what I'm grateful for and why I am grateful for it and that always helps me to feel better. Well mom I got to go pero te quiero mucho y cuidate!

tu hijo chileno, Élder Harper =)

Hey DAD!

Loved your letter. I don't have much time left but I just wanted to send a quick note. I'm glad that you are enjoying seminary and are rediscovering the fount of spiritual strength and peace that is daily scripture study. I absolutely love it and need it to function properly as a missionary. I hope that I never lose it after the mission. Also I'm really glad that you guys enjoy my letters and that they might actually be helping people out back home. Here I've taken I huge hit to myself confidence and esteem as a missionary and at times have questioned if I really am cut out to do this work but I know that those thoughts are just from the adversary. Anyways it was good to hear that I might be helping out back home even though my efforts aren't resulting here in the field. I guess I just need to work harder and with more consistency, diligence, and animo because sometimes it's hard to keep the animo up.

Although I don't think that I'm nearly as good of a missionary as you were I know that I've at least got 10 more months left here to become a good missionary. Im too weak and make too many mistakes but I guess that's so that we can stay humble. Oh and don't worry, I agree with you about the levity. Trust me here in the mission I love joking around, having a good time and making contacts, investigators and members alike smile and laugh. But with levity there is a time and a place and there are limits and my comp likes to flirt with those limits a lot and sometimes chooses the wrong moments and places. But he has gotten better with it so there aren't too many worries there. Anyways I just wanted to let you know that I love you and am grateful for your words of support and encouragement. Tell your class that I say hi.

Te quiero papa, cuidate

tu hijo chileno, Élder Harper =)

New Photos! I also added a new photo album to Riley's Picasa Web Album Page. Just click the link to the left to see all of his pictures he sent home.

2010-09-19T11:57:00.001-07:00

WHAT KEEPS ME GOING IS THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THIS GOSPEL AND THIS MESSAGE IS FOR EVERYONE

2010-09-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hola Hola a todos,

Well summer is over and everyone is back to the grind of school. I remember those days, and yes Mom, I do remember still all too well starting every semester with a messed up schedule and the frustration at the guidance office. Haha, good times, good times.

Well as far as things are going here, Elder Steele and I have been doing all right here in Santa Juana. As far as the work goes it's still chugging along here, and by chugging yes I mean still very painfully slow. We have investigators and we've found new ones but they are all either not progressing or the progress that they do make is snail-paced. Yeseña was ´sick´ all last week so we couldn´t get a hold of her and nothing new has happened with Laura and Juan either. They still want to get married but they can't find the courage to just go up and do it without further delay. We've talked with them but as of right now they are keeping their plan for marriage in December. But we still haven't really had a chance to talk to both of them at the same time about it so maybe if I can do that this week it will help. Oh and the older Lady and her three grandchildren that we found and taught last week that were really good are still interested and want to get baptized but now they are moving to Conce in like a week so that's a big bummer but we´ll just have to pass the reference along to the missionaries over there.

Last week we worked hard but our animo was up and down and we also had comp problems that had to be fixed on Wednesday but besides that our companionship is good. Elder Steele is a great guy and loves to joke around. Sometimes the endless jokes and taking lightly of things would get on my nerves but he is working on being more serious when we need to be serious and all in all we are good friends. I´ll miss him when the cambio ends because despite all of the jokes and stuff he knows why he is here and he is a hard worker. At times last week we both got a little discouraged and down but we are working on doing better about that and I know as we continue to try to be better and work harder then our patience will pay off. We just need to keep atittudes up, which is difficult at times, and continue working with the faith and hope that our Heavenly Father will lead us to his prepared and that we will be able to recognize who they are.

Even though all of the new people that we found the week before kind of just dropped we found and taught two new families last week that have invited us back and that have potential to be good investigators. So we are excited about continuing with them this week, cuz when we are teaching we are happier =) and with one of these families we felt the spirit very strong and its guidance with the lesson last week so we will see how things go with them tomorrow. We probably would have had some of this people in church last week but we had stake conference in San Pedro, an hour away, and had to leave the chapel in a bus at eight in the morning to get there and none of our investigators were able to make it. Stake conference is a bummer when you are in the pueblos and have to travel a long distance, but what can you do, it's past. Now we have some lessons and such planned for this coming week but besides that, it's probably not going to be as productive as last week because that special time of year has come to Chile once again.

Thats right folks.... it's the week of the famous 18 de Septiembre!!! Yep it's bigger than Christmas, New Year, and Easter combined, it's Dieciocho!!! And it's not just any September 18 party for the Chilenos but it's their Bicentenial this year so it's going to be a big bash. While we will only have the 18th off as a p-day, the Chilenos will have 5 full days off of work to celebrate in normal Chileno fashion. Barbecue, dancing, and flowing alcohol jaja. So it probably will be hard to work since a lot of people will be going out of town or will have visitors down for the week and stuff but on the good side, it's always fun practicing teaching and giving baptismal challenges to the drunks. They make for a funny 2 minute or so conversation to break up the monotony sometimes and brighten up your day, as long as they aren't violent that is jaja good times. But Dieciocho or not, the Lord's work never rests and doesn't have time to rest and heck I've only got two weeks left to show Santa Juana what I got, to serve the people of this fine town, and to leave it all on the field here so I can feel that these last 2 and a half, 3 months of work here in Santa Juana have not been in vain.

What keeps me going is the knowledge that this gospel and this message is for everyone. That not all roads lead to God, but that He has a specific plan, a Gospel, and a church that fits everyone's needs for all of his children. The whole human race, Chilenos, gringos and everyone alike. Not everyone will accept our message, lots won't even give us the time to present it, but that's ok because everyone here in this little pueblo has the right to hear the call. It's just my job to present it and be the best vessel that I can be for the spirit to work through but all the rest is up to the person. I can't mess with anyone's free agency, all I can do is love, serve and teach. I'm not the best missionary and maybe I'm not the one to get through to these people here in this pueblo but I am trying and repenting every time I make mistakes. So I'm going to try my best to give Santa Juana the missionary that it deserves for these last two weeks here. Well I think that's all I got for this week. Love you all and PLEASE do something to help out the missionaries where ever you live this week. Because it really does make all the difference in missionary work. This is one thing I've learned here in Santa Juana, and unfortunately I learned it the hard way. Well ok this time I really am going. CHAO!!!

con amor, Élder Harper =)

p.s. tomorrow makes 1 year in Chile. One whole year here in Chile. and 14 months in the mission, can't even believe it. These next ten months are going to fly by in no time. I better make the best of it.

THROUGH THE GOOD AND THE BAD THERE IS STILL NO PLACE ELSE THAT I'D RATHER BE THAN OUT HERE ON MY MISSION.

2010-09-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Querida familia y todos,

Well another week has come and gone and now the cambio is halfway over. Even during the rougher times during the mission the time still flies. It's a bummer for the kids the party is over. Grandma and Papa are gone and it's time to go back to school jaja. I'm sure you are all busy getting ready for that now.

Well my week was alright, It started off well anyway. The first half of the week we worked really hard and focused on finding new people. It was impossible, next to impossible, to get any of the members to go out with us so we just did some good old fashioned door knocking and talking in the street. That really didn't work out all too well for us but on Tuesday we got a surprise. Yeseña called us and told us that we needed to come over as soon as we could. So after we finished up with whatever we were doing we went over to her house. When we asked what was up she told us that ever since she stopped going to church and stopped meeting with us that things had just gone down hill. That she missed the feeling we felt in church and in the lessons and that she was having trouble feeling purpose in life and that she had been dreaming a lot about the church. So we told her that we were going to do everything to help her get that feeling back and get her life into harmony with what God wants and she agreed and said that she wanted to learning from us again, going to church, and to work towards baptism. So we were stoked about that and she and her friend were both ready to go to church on Sunday but when we got there only the friend was there and not Yeseña. When we asked what happened she said that they were on their way to church together when Yeseña got a call to go back to take her Dad to the hospital. Satan is working really hard with her but she said that no matter what she is going to make time this coming week to meet with us and we are going to put a baptismal fecha with her and her friend this week. They are ready and I think just need a set goal, like a specific fecha, to work for to keep them motivated to stay on the path. Laura and Juan are exactly the same. They were once again out of town this week but they were with Juan´s sister in law, who is an active member, so I am hoping that she still took them to church on Sunday. Hopefully next week I´ll have more news for you on them next week. Oh and Euphemia once again went out of town and this time for like two weeks so it looks like she might have to wait for another set of missionaries until she gets baptized.

As far as finding is going all the news that we find doesn't last but this last week on Wednesday I think we found a good one. We just contacted this older lady with a cane and three grandchildren trailing her in the street and when we asked her how she was, she said ´mal´. We usually don't get that reply so we asked her some questions and she told us about all of these problems she is having in life right now and that it feels like it's too much. So we shared her our message of comfort and love and she invited us in to hear more. We also helped her out with some of her non spiritual material problems which definitely helped her accept to hear our message and to invite us in. We had a short first lesson with her and then she invited us to come back for another appointment. When we did we taught her about the plan of salvation and eternal families and how she could realize that through faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We taught her with lots of questions and the spirit was felt strong in her home. When we gave her and her nine year old grandson the baptismal challenge at the end they were hesitant but said that they would prepare themselves to be baptized. So we were way stoked for that and this family really does seem like they are going to come through with it but when we invited them to church they had already had plans to go visit family in Conce but said they were for sure for the next week. So it's a bummer that they won't be able to be baptized this cambio because they won't ¨have the three in church but I have faith that they will continue to progress and get even more excited for baptism when we teach them the restoration this next week. So finally all the contacts that we've been making paid off a little bit and we were finally invited into a house to teach for the first time here in Santa Juana in like three weeks.

The week would have probably ended better but things fell apart with some would be investigators and the innactive kids that we were helping with their English. It was a really tough and long weekend but I made it through. Through faith, hope, prayer, and the scriptures we will always make it through. We could feel sorrow for ourselves for what's going on and we could give up but the Savior didn't give up on us when he was suffering in the garden or bleeding on the cross. He didn't give up on me so I won't give up on him. I know that no matter what is happening our lives He will be with us when we are in our own personal Gethsemane. He will always be with me, and you. Well I love you all very much and I love being out here. Like I always say through the good and bad there is still no place else that I'd rather be than out here on mymission.

con amor, Élder Harper :)

ps. I know I ended the letter all spiritual and all but there's a funny story I forgot to tell you guys. So this morning after we deep cleaned the house we went on a hike up the big hill to the mirador where there's the wooden tower that looks down on all of Santa Juana and the river. I think you´ve seen pictures already. But anyway on the way up on the side of the trail we found a herd of wild billy goats. Shaggy fur curly horns and all, about 10 of them. So we went off the trail and tried to get close to take some good pictures and stuff but before I was able to get close enough to get some really good ones they would get spooked and move back. So Elder Steele just started yelling and chasing them and I followed suit tracking and chasing them for a good ten minutes or so. It was pretty cool even though we almost got lost because of it. Elder Steele wanted to hit one with a rock but fortunately he did not succeed. I didn't want to get caught in a billy goat stampede with their horns and stuff. Oh and it totally brought me back to the Tombstone Arizona petting zoo experience when I was little. I'm sure papa remembers jaja. Anyways just a goofy missionary story, you'll see the pictures later. well love you. chao

I AM DETERMINED TO LEAVE MY MARK ON THIS PLACE AND LEAVE IT BETTER THAN I FOUND IT.

2010-09-01T02:23:00.000-07:00

Muchas Holas a todos!!!

Well sorry I'm emailing so late, we had a capacitation in Talcahuano today for all of the district and zone leaders here in the north so I didn't have p-day and we just got back to Santa Juana a little bit ago. Wow I can't believe you guys are on your last week of summer, one more week and Abbie is a senior, Baylor a sophomore, and Izzie a 7th grader. Everybody is growing up too fast.

Well let's see what can I tell you guys about this week? In some ways it was better and in others just the same. It was better in that I finally got over that stupid flu and was back to working like normal all last week. Also we worked hard last week so that felt good, but I think we could have worked harder and more efficiently because we didn't really see any results. Anyways Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty uneventful, just lots of contacting and working but we didn't really find anyone. On Thursday we had interviews which went well. We were capacitated once again on the new principles that are being implemented in the missionary field world wide and did a lot of practices. Then during the interviews I got to talk to both President and the hermana Swenson and it went well, but nothing really more too say about that rather than it was just good to talk to them.

We left the interviews all pumped up to get back to our sector to hit the streets working again and we did exactly that but with little success. Also we did a lot of contacts out in the rain on Friday but nobody wanted to let us in. Everyone just told us to go home and that we were crazy for going knocking door to door in the rain but it didn't really bother us too much. All the rejections aren't important. We are just looking for those that the Lord has prepared here to hear us. We found a few mas o menos people throughout the week and we were supposed to have a few in the chapel on Sunday but we ended up with a big zero in the capilla Sunday morning.

As far as how the investigators that you know about are doing, Yeseñas Dad is still in the hospital and we´ve tried to get a hold of her but she´s still missing in action. I'm not going to say that she's dead just yet until we have the chance to talk to her again but it looks like she´s heading in that direction. We also weren't able to get a hold of Laura and John once again because they were in Conce the whole week and the weekend but we have a set appointment to visit them this Tuesday and I still have faith that they are good. It just seems like Satan has been putting a lot of obstacles in their life to keep them from progressing in the gospel. But we are going to pray big time for them this week and fast for them as well I think. It's really hard seeing all of these good investigators slipping out of our grasp and not being able to do about it but we are just going to do all we can, keep working hard and putting our trust in the Lord.

The only good thing that came out of last week is that we found some kids by accident in the street that were baptized about a year ago and weve been talking with them and helping them and their non member friends out with their English homework last week and we got one of them to go back to church with us this week. Now he is excited to be coming back and is going to try to get all of his buddies to come with him this coming Sunday so we will see how it goes. Well I'm sorry that this email was really boring but last week just really wasn't all that great. But I'm not sick anymore so this next week we are just going to work work work and work to break through this brick wall that seems to be thrown up in front of us. we are also trying to visit the innactive members a lot so we can get this branch back up on its feet because right now Santa Juana can't get too much lower. Well it was a tough week but I'm not going to let it get to me. I still have at least a month left here in Santa Juana and I am determined to leave my mark on this place and leave it better than I found it. I know there are more lessons to be learned here and I have got a good comp and we get along great so we are going to make the best out of these last four weeks the we have left of the cambio. Well I love you guys, I love the Lord, I love the Chilenos and I love my mission. Ill try to have a better email for you guys next week. Chao!!!

con mucho amor, Élder Harper =)

SHE SAID THAT WHEN SHE CAME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH SHE WOULD BE BAPTIZED

2010-08-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

I had a bad case of the flu the whole week and am finally just now starting to get over it. Despite being sick all week we still found some new investigators that might have potential. We found one investigator who is really awesome but unfortunately she does not live here. We found her when we traveled to one of the far fringes of the pueblo, that I had never been to before, really close to the river. There we did some contacts and then followed this road that ended leading up this hill to a really old historical spanish fort that was built in the 1600´s. We walked around a little to check it out, but not being familiar with the area, we decided to head back down and figure out where we were so we could head back into town. On the way down this girl stopped us and in English asked us if she could practice her English with us. We said of course so she started walking and just talking in English with us. As we were getting near the end of the walk, after we had gotten to know her a little bit, we started talking with her about the church and her religious background. She told us that she goes to an Evangelical (protestant) church but that she doesn't buy into it much because a lot of what they do isn't in agreement with the Bible. So we told her that we could answer all of her doubts and questions about religion and we set a time to meet her again the next day at the fort to teach her.

So the next day we met her at the fort, picked a quiet spot on the stone wall, and then started teaching her the message of the first lesson. She understands almost everything in English and speaks very well so she asked us to teach her in English. It was really weird for me at first to teach in English so we switched back and forth between spanish and english but it was a really cool experience. Then at the end I bore my testimony in English for the first time in Chile and so did my companion and it was a really cool experience were the spirit was felt. Before we split she promised that she would read the Book of Mormon and pray to see if it was true. The next day, Sunday, was the last day before she went back to Talcahuano from her stay in Santa Juana and even though we invited her she didn't show to church. But afterwards we met her and taught her again at the fort. She said that she had read and prayed and that she liked it but that she still didn't have her answer yet. But she had lots of questions for us about the church and we talked to her about baptism and she said that when she came to the knowledge of the truth she would be baptized. Before we parted ways she told us that she came to Santa Juana to visit family and to do some reflecting and thinking about life and about the direction her life was going in. She felt that it wasn't a coincidence that during this time in her life she ran into us. We agreed with her and reassured her that it wasn´t a coincidence. She then gave us her number and told us that she would go to church on Sunday in Talcahuano and keep reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. I hope that she will feel the spirit and keep progressing and get baptized in Talcahuano. I´ll let you know how it goes.

As far as how are other investigators are progressing, things are kind of just eh. Yeseña is still missing in action and didn't come to church again this week. That’s been really hard for me because she was way good but this week is probably going to be do or die for her. We are going to find out what has really been going on with her and then try to revive her. Laura and Juan are good and came to church but were too busy during the week, once again, for us to come and teach them. But they said that they would have time this week so we are going to teach them a good lesson and with the guidance of the spirit help them set a sooner wedding date so they can get baptized. Oh, we also found out that Juan is a heavy smoker and not a drunk but a man who likes his alcohol. With him its not going to be easy but if we do our part and if it’s the will of the Lord then he will come around. The old lady, Euphemia, is also missing in action. Juan and Laura were the only ones in church this week. Also the president’s family and some other branch members are way sick with the same thing I have so there were only about fifteen members in church on Sunday.

Ok now I’ll tell you about my new comp, Élder Steele. He is a good guy who wants to work and he´s way friendly too. We are already pretty good friends and he loves to joke around. Actually almost everything is a joke to him, he is a little immature but that’s ok because now that I’m finally starting to get over this flu, we are going to hit the streets hard this next week, which is good because we really need to start finding some new people. Well last week was pretty crummy so I don't have too much more to say but I think that things are looking up for this next week. Well things have been down for a while now so whatever happens we are going to make sure that things take a turn for the better this next week, it’s all in the attitude.

Oh and before I go I´ll tell you about two funny little experiences. Tuesday after we got back to the house with my new comp I realized I left the keys inside so we had to pry the window open and get in that way, that was an experience haha. And then later in the day while we were taking our laundry over to the hermana who washes the clothes, this drunk guy unsuccessfully tried to steal my bag of dirty laundry. Ok well that’s it for now. I’m thankful for all of your prayers, love, and support and I know that we are going to start seeing some good changes here in Santa Juana soon. Until next week CHAO!!!!

abrazos, Élder Harper =)

GOD LIVES AND LOVES US, NEVER FORGET IT!

2010-08-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Hello family!!!

First of all I would just like to apologize for not writing yesterday but Dad was right Mom, there was a logical explanation. It has been raining hard since Sunday morning and yesterday there was rain with heavy winds. Due to the winds the power was cut all day and didn't come back til like 10 oclock at night. So yeah it was a pretty boring pday and we were bummed that we didn't get to write. But here I am now writing so it's all good. Oh and I got a call from the secretary of the mission but no need to worry Mom, I´m all right. Oh and happy anniversary!!!! twenty two years married, wow. You guys are my role models and will be when I am married. It sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. That's crazy that Abbie is going to be a senior soon. I remember those days just like it was yesterday.

Y acerca de el llamamiento de Taylor Jones. Bakán po loco!!! que genial que vaí a Argentina pero una lastima que no sea Chile. Aunque vaí a gustar la misión en Argentina no es Chile, y nunca será Chile, y punto. Chile es definitivamente lo mejor de los dos paises. Ma´ encima vaí a hablar en vos.. que asco!!! y son terrible chorros los Argentinos si. Pero aunque son orgullosos y se creen los mejores son buena onda y me caen bien. Además tomaremos mate juntos cuando nos reunamos de nuevo!Ok well that's enough Spanish but congratulations Tay!

About our investigators nothing much really last week. We were able to see them last week and they progressed a little but none of them showed up to church, but they all had pretty legit excuses and we are going to be seeing them and helping them out this week so I'm not too worried. But I´ll let you know more about their progress next week.

But man cambios didn't come too soon. Elder Villegas wasn't a bad comp but he just never talked to me. We ended just fine but I was ready for the cambio. Now I am with Elder Steele, I just met him today but so far he seems like a really good guy. This is only his third cambio in the mission so he doesn't speak all that much Spanish but he is learning and progressing. He just needs time and practice. But I am way stoked for this cambio because he is ready to work and so am I and we are both optimistic and have high hopes for this cambio. We have great investigators and we are going to baptize this cambio si o si. We have the people we just need to put the fechas, keep teaching and get the ball rolling. Just like I said at the beginning of last cambio, I see good things up ahead in the future of Santa Juana. As long as we keep faithful and do our part the Lord will take care of the rest. I´ll let you know more about my comp and my investigators on Monday. Well I am excited for a new cambio and excited to work here in Santa Juana this cambio. I just love being a missionary. Well I got to go but I love you all and we will talk more next week. God lives and loves us, never forget it. CHAO!!!!

Su Chileno preferido, Élder Harper =)

A MISSION IS SUCH A BLESSING. NO IT'S A MIRACLE!!!

2010-08-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

Well it sounds like you all are having a good time as summer is winding down. Switchfoot and the US surf open sound like they were a lot of fun. I really do miss the ocean. But thats ok, I can wait. Well to be completely honest we had a really bad week. It miraculously ended alright but after a great cita we had last Monday night it all went down hill from there until Saturday. We had the week chalk full of preset cita´s (which usually doesn't happen) and we were feeling good about everything but the Lord decided to teach us a lesson instead. Every last one of the citas that we had set with all of our best investigators fell through the whole week. Then when we reset them for later in the week they fell through again. It's not because our investigators flaked or anything, because they are still good, but at this moment in their lives when the Lord's plan of happiness and the light of the gospel are being opened up to them, life starts becoming complicated. They were all either unusually swamped in work or out of town or dealing with unexpected family problems the whole week. Luckily things cleared up so all of our best investigators were able to go to church, like Laura and Juan and the young adult girl, Yeseña, were able to go to church but none of them progressed in the slightest for a whole week because we were not able to get a hold of them. I was extremely worried about all of them but when the weekend came and they all went to church the Lord showed me that I should have had more faith. It was frustrating that they didn´t progress at all during the week but from what I saw on Sunday they are still good and we will now be able to help them continue progressing this last week of the cambio. This last week showed me that the Lord still wasn´t through with testing my patience jaja and maybe he still isn´t. I´ll just have to work harder, and have more faith in him because it looks like I´m still lacking. But anyways on Saturday we had an activity in the chapel where we watched The Other Side of Heaven and we had a good turnout of a lot of members and a few unexpected investigators and then Sunday we had 5 investigators in the capilla.

But I´m sorry to say that during the week when all of our appointments kept falling through we kind of got disanimated. Well I kind of got disanimated. I´m not sure about my comp. He doesn't talk much or show emotion. And when you ask him questions he usually answeres with yes or no. The only way to get him to actually have a good conversation is to ask about his family or his girlfriend or else he just doesn't talk. He talks to investigators and members but not to me. The exact opposite of Hickman jaja. So when all of our citas fell we started to go visit our not as good investigators, old investigators, and innactives but that turned into a big waste of time and none of them are progressing in the slightest. But I´m done moping and I´m ready to work harder next week to make up for the last. I have faith that if I put my trust in the Lord, things will start falling into place more smoothly. I just have to let go to the control that I think I have over the situations and progress of my investigators and humbly submit more fully to the will of the Lord. Well that's enough of my own personal chastizing and introspection, I´m probably starting to bore you.

Well as far as Laura and Juan, they are doing good but still haven't come to the realization of the big picture yet. After the meeting on Sunday they told us that they decided they were going to get married by the state and then later get married for the church. Jaja, it's not as simple as they think. They do want to join the church. We said that it was great but our faces dropped a little bit when they said they put a goal to get married by the state by the end of the year, like in November or December. It's kind of a tough situation because how can you just tell a person to go and get married in two weeks so they can get baptized now or at least while I´m still here in Santa Juana. I mean it was already a huge step for them to decide to get married before the end of the year so I will pray to be guided to help them understand how the sooner they get married the better and that the end of the year is not soon enough. But they still only have lesson 2, the plan of salvation, so I'm thinking that the message of the restoration and the first principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ might put things more into perspective to help them make the decision to get married sooner. After all, the state marriage is just the tramites (the papers, the forms). It's the sealing that will come a year after that's eternal and will really count. Anyways we have a cita with them Wednesday night and we are going to bring the branch president and his wife with us so hopefully that will help them out. Last Monday we watched The Testaments with Yeseña and gave her the Book of Mormón with the invitation to read and pray. With the way her schedule was last week I´m not sure if she´s done it yet but we are going to meet with her this coming week and we will pray a lot for her and see how she´s doing. She also brought a friend to the lesson last Monday night and the friend came to church with her yesterday. She is pretty active in her own church but was intirgued about the Book of Mormon but we will see more on where she stands this coming week.

Well cambios are this coming week and I am ready for them jaja. I mean I get along with Élder Villegas and he teaches alright and participates in the lessons but Im starting to get lonely. Haha it's just that he never talks to me or shows emotion and well, you know me. I need more human interaction. I guess I was spoiled with too many friends and people to talk to in Monte and so now I'm starting to feel the difference here. He's just the first comp I've had that doesn't talk to me. It's like he lives in his own little world. But that's enough of that. I`ve enjoyed this cambio but Im ready for it to end. I just hope I stay here in Santa Juana.

A mission is such a blessing. No it's a miracle!!! . It's not easy but I`ve never felt so much purpose in life and so happy as I have had here in the mission. I wouldn't trade the experiences I'm having here for the world.

Well sorry for the slightly down and boring email this week. I`ll make sure that it's more positive and cheery next Monday. Well I love you all and keep up with family prayer and scripture study. Les quiero mucho!! CHAO!

tu misionero chileno, Èlder Harper :)