I AM PROUD TO WEAR THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST ON MY PLAQUE

Querido familia y amigos,

Hola! Well last week was interesting, lots of up and downs. I´ll start with last Monday. After emails, we went to Temuco to the Pizza Hut that is in the richer part of the city and I now finally understand why Chile is the most Americanized out of all the other countries in South America. It was a side of Chile I´ve never seen before. Clean streets, tall buildings, people with nice clothes and not as many dogs in the streets. It looked like it could be any city in the U.S. it was really weird.

After Pizza Hut, which was delicious, we went to the Mall, yes a mall! and it was a nice mall too! I was like gaping the whole time cuz it was weird being around, well, money here in Chile. There we did some shopping at Gumbo which is like a Walmart and the only place where you can buy things from the U.S. as far as I know. They had peanut butter there and real mustard and mayonaise and Top Ramen!! hahaha I know it sounds weird but I was soo happy to see top ramen I had to control myself not to buy like everything I saw, I just settled for getting some top ramen :).

After that we went back to the Chile that I know, Pitrufquén, where there are humble homes and humble people. Tuesday went extremely well. We placed 4 pretty firm baptismal dates and I even taught parts of the lessons haha. One of them was an old investigator names Keka that lives like an hour walk out in the campo (countryside). She´s 18 years old and really buena honda (i dont know how to say that in english...nice maybe?.. I dont know) anyways we found out why she was never baptized and taught her and bore testimony to her and such and she now has a date too!

It was a great day but unfortunately it kinda whent down hill from there. Tuesday I went to bed with a headache and what do you know, just after recovering from the flu I get a sinus infection!! hahaha its ok though I can deal, bring it on el diablo! So it's been a struggle with my health and all but I´m on antibiotics and taking the Chilean version of ibuprofen (mine ran out). After Tuesday, the other days just kind of blended in together. No one really wanted to talk to us and Elder De Leon used all the minutes on our phone, which is really frustrating because it made it harder to confirm citas (appointments) and to get members to come out and teach with us.


I love my companion and I´m learning a lot from him, both things to do and what 
I´m starting to discover things Not to do. He´s a great contactor and a teacher and is good at winning the friendship and trust with people but he´s not so great at follow up after we get new investigators. He forgets to write citas down, addresses down, and even if he does write them down he forgets to look at them hahaha. I guess it serves me right cuz thats how I was. But then we miss citas because we forgot or spent too much time talking in an earlier cita and so it makes it hard to keep people. Because time kills investigators.

Sorry if I´m ranting or being too negative because he is a good guy and a good missionary. I think he's just gotten really lax with things like sleeping in a little and stuff because he only has two weeks left. I just wish I could communicate with the people and do more to help out the work. All I can do is little things like walk faster so we can be on time to citas and say things and like nudge his foot in an appointment when we have been there forever and are no longer talking about anything important.

Also one thing i did to try to change things around is refusing to talk in or respond to English with my companion unless it is necessary. Because on Friday I was feeling pretty down on how the work has been going and on how I should be a lot better at spanish than I am at this point. And I was kind of frustrated that Elder De Leon never speaks in spanish to me so I decided that I just had to take the bull by the horns and do my best to speak spanish to him and not respond to any English. And it actually went very well, for the rest of that day and Saturday I spoke hardly any English and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I guess I was just too timid or something to take the initiative before.

Sorry this email is choppy and some things are out of order but I´m just writing things as I remember them. So on Friday night we had an activity at the church with the rama (branch) and investigators to watch the Joseph Smith movie! Some how one of the zone leaders got a hold of a copy of it and even though we didn't have a good turn out, it at least lifted my spirits and the jovenes who went loved it too.

On Saturday, Chile played Columbia to see if they would qualify for the world cup and during the game it was impossible to tract or do anything because the whole town was watching it. Chile won and qualified and so after the game it was impossible to do anything as well because like half of Pitrufquén was in the square drinking, waving flags, and honking car horns. I thought that it was crazy but Élder De Leon said that its much worse in the big cities. I was all excited and stuff too about the win until Sunday came along and all the investigators were either celebrating in another city with family or too hungover/drunk to come. On Sunday morning we had like 5 that we told we would pick up to bring to church. The first investigator we went to get is an 18 year old girl whos parents are innactive members and she was never baptized. They live in a tiny little shack as big as our living room back at home in Las Flores and she also has 3 younger siblings who are too young to be baptized. When we got there we found that her and her mom were in the campo visiting relatives (that happens a lot) and the Dad was at home absolutely wasted with his 3 little children just sitting there watching him drink. When we entered the house the first thing he did was offer us beer and then he rambled on and on about how he is poor but loves God and during all of this he continued drinking and his 3 year old son was playing with an empty beer bottle. It made me so sad and I don't know why we didn't leave right away but we just sat there and listened to his rambling for 20 minutes. I wanted to leave but my comp kind of just ignored my nudgings. Then because we stayed with the drunk for so long, we didn't have time to go pick up any of our other investigators except Jonathan but he was in Freire (another town) celebrating with friends. So we had no one in church. I was really bummed out and feeling down at first but during fast and testimony I went up to share a short little testimony and that actually helped a lot to raise my spirits again. That and a lot of praying.

I prayed a lot last week hahaha and those prayers are being answered.
Just with little things like Chilenos complimenting me on how well I speak for having such little time here and other little things like that. After church Elder De Leon and Elder Beauner (one of the zone leaders) went to Cañete so they could visit old converts today, p-day. Which is fine but I was really nervous cuz that meant that I would be with the other zone leader Elder Rolón for the rest of Sunday and today and he doesn't speak any English. Surprisingly though I´ve been able to communicate with him a lot better than I thought I would be able to. I guess my spanish has improved and I just haven't been able to tell. I have a long way to go but I have faith that I will be able to understand, and communicate effectively with these people eventually. I just have to be patient, faithful and diligent. You know me I just stress out over things too much haha. Another thing that I didn't tell you before is that our zone ( Nueva Tolten) is actually the worst zone numbers wise in the whole mission and a lot of the missionaries blame it on the rama becuase "its small and the members dont fellowship well and its full of gossipers and rumor starters which make people go innactive". There are plenty of excuses but I think that missionaries can have success in any zone, in the mission, in any part of the world even. It may be a little hard here but that just means we have to work harder. So I´m trying to do my best not to get caught up with all the things that could be better here but just to focus on the work and the things that are great about the zone. So for now I´ll just keep doing the little that I can to move the work along and help motivate Elder De Leon. We won't have too many baptisms this cambio, investigators have to attend church 3 times in order to get baptized, but I´ll most likely be here in Pitrufquén for a while (one or two more cambios) and I have high hopes for this sector for the future.

Sorry if this email was too negative I guess I just had to get some of that stuff out hahaha and even though its tough at times I´m trying to maintain a positive attitude.

Anyways about the package. I dont have too many requests. flannel pj´s :), reeses peanut butter cups, heck any candy will do as well as chocolate and sugar, the book i left at home how to survive the chilean jungle, uggh!!! i made a list but i accidently left it in the house. To answer other questions, yes, the connection is pretty good here. Well it sounds like things are pretty good at home. Elder Rolón is pretty quick with email and impatient so i dont have much time left but I love you guys and I´m doing good here in Chile. Once again I know this is where I´m supposed to be and I´m proud to wear the name of Jesus Christ on my plaque.


Les amo mucho! Élder Harper :)

I YELLED AND BEFORE I HAD THE CHANCE TO TURN AROUND AND DEFEND MYSELF...

Querido familia y amigos,

¡Hola Nuevamente! Well, this last week was definitely an interesting one but it was really good. Last Monday after emailing, we went with some jovenes to the city of Pucón to spend p-day. When I asked my comp where it 

was he said he didn’t know but that it was a big tourist spot and the jovenes wanted to go there. About an hour into the bus ride we passed the city of Villarica and realized "Chuta!(dang) we are not even in the mission boundaries anymore! This is the Osorno Mission!" But there was nothing we could do about it at that point. So don´t tell President Swenson hahaha. Anyways, Pucón is just right on the other side of Lake Villarica. It’s this little town, that reminds me of Lake Arrowhead or something. It is right on the lake with a beautiful view of the snow-covered, smoky Volcan Villarica in the background, and pine tree forests everywhere. Don’t worry, I took pictures :). It was a fun trip but for now on I´m going to make sure I know exactly where we are going for p-day so we don’t end up in Argentina or something hahaha. Today, after emailing, us and the zone leaders are heading up to Temuco because apparently they have a Pizza Hut there!!! Que bacán!!!! (sweet!!!) So I´m excited and it is in our mission boundaries :).

Anyways, continuing with the week, at the weekly meeting on Tuesday we found out that as far as numbers go, our zone is lagging in the mission so we set some pretty high goals and worked our behinds off all week. Tuesday was awesome. We were making contacts left and right and like ten people told us that they were coming for sure to general conference and a few even told us they wanted to get baptized. I even started a few of the contacts even though I still can’t get very far without my companion jumping in.I´m working on it though. I just really felt like a missionary that day talking to everyone in the street and helping old people and such with groceries while inviting them to come to church. It was awesome.

But Tuesday night I got really sick and was up all night with the flu :( It was rough for many reasons, most of which are too graphic to say in this email hahaha. Then we were out for half of Wednesday too because I couldn’t get out of bed! Even though I wasn’t feeling much better after "lunch" (i obviously didn’t eat) I still just dragged myself out the door and we worked the rest of the day. Man it was hard trekking around all of Pitruf that day but I survived and was glad that I went out even though it wasn’t a very successful day. But I started feeling better and better each day after that and I´m fine now. Still have that stupid cough but even that’s starting to get better now.

General Conference was awesome!!! I was so excited all week for it; I know what you mean Dad. It’s the same for me too. I didn’t truly appreciate the chance to listen to our prophet and church leaders until being out here. Even better was that all us gringos got to watch it downstairs from the chapel with a little t.v. in English!!! It was great. Especially when they announced the Concepción Temple. Everybody got up and started screaming and hugging each other and we could hear all the members and latino missionaries upstairs doing the same. It was so awesome! The spirit was so strong and powerful in the room, some people were even crying. These missionaries, like my companion, have been working their whole missions for this temple and it was a big pay day, so-to-speak, for them. And now I get to continue the work to baptize strong members that will be worthy to go to the temple and pay their tithing so that this thing can be built. I won't physically be at the construction site with hard hat and hammer but I will be building it so to speak with the work and I´m overjoyed and honored to be a part of that, to help build this temple. Hopefully the work will be able to take off now and the members will be even more animated about helping us out and sharing the gospel with their friends.

The announcement set a great tone for the rest of conference, I felt like some of the apostles were almost talking directly to me during their discursos (talks). It was great how much of what they were saying I could apply to me to become a better missionary; I took so many notes hahaha. All the sessions were great and every one felt like it ended too soon. One of my favorite discourses wasm President Uchtdorf´s in priesthood meeting, about getting through trials in life through work and learning. Everything he said and all of his stories really hit me and got me more excited to get out and work. All the talks were just awesome. One of the Seventies who spoke, Elder Zeballos, was the mission president here before Swenson so everyone was really stoked to hear him. It was just a great conference and a needed spiritual surge for me to build my testimony of the gospel and my animo (excitement) for this work. A few of our investigators even came to some sessions; I think we had a total of three. It was kind of disappointing since like 20 said they would come but hey, we improved on last week, so that’s good. And we have a set date for Jonathan to be baptized. He wants to be baptized in the river that runs on the edge of Pitrufquén because he wants to be baptized like Christ was, in a river. He´s a great kid we just have to keep him excited for it and coming to church more often and I think it will go through.

Well, that’s about it for me this week. To answer some questions, no, the mamita thing fell through cuz the 
hermana was going to charge us way too much and the mission financer wouldn’t authorize it. She basically just wanted to rip us off and make money off of us, lame. But we do have consistent lunch appointments 3 times a week and we are talking to another hermana about her possibly being our mamita, so we will see. If not, we have plenty of bread and spaghetti at the house, hahaha, so no matter what, we will survive. 

 And we have some fresh cow milk cuz hermano Volti, who kind of lives on the edge of Pitruf in the campo, lets us go milk his cow and keep the milk. It was fun. I had to compete with the calf for milk while I was milking it hahaha. My only request as of right now for the package is the book I left at home, How To Survive in the Chilean Jungle. A missionary in our zone paid through the nose and went hungry to buy that book in Temuco and went into conniptions when he found out that I had it and left it at home. Next week I will have a few more things hahaha, I just need to make a list.

Oh, and a funny story I forgot to tell last week was about my first dog attack a week and a half ago. Everyone and their mother has a dog here in Pitruf and there are just as many homeless street dogs. The street dogs don’t bother you but some of the owner’s ones are nasty. So while walking down the street we passed an open gate and as we passed I heard a low growl. A few steps later, the growl turned into barking and this big black dog/monster was running after me and nipped at my leg, but fortunately he only got my pant leg. I yelled and before I had the chance to turn around and defend myself, my companion kicked it and it went running. He was laughing afterwards but now I was like traumatized for the rest of the day! He makes fun of me cuz now I´m pretty jumpy when we are passing gates. Every house has some form of a gate with barking dogs. Don’t worry though I´m more careful now and I haven’t had a close encounter since.

Well, it sounds like things are still going well at home. That’s a bummer about Bay being sick. Hopefully he will recover soon despite lacrosse and running. I laughed at Izzie´s turtle’s name. By the way, what does Tish think about the new animal in the home? Well that’s all I got for this week but as always, I love you all very much and appreciate all your emails and all the love, support, and prayers I get from you. I´m so lucky to have such great family and friends. Les amo mucho!!!!

con mucho abrazos y amor como siempre, Élder Harper :)

I DON'T KNOW WHy, BUT THE PEOPLE HERE SEEM TO LIKE ME

A comment from Mom: Riley is doing GREAT!

On a side note, where is my son? Is this really him? For those of you who know Riley well, there are parts of this letter that just make me crack up, words I thought I would never hear (or read) coming out of him, but have always hoped. Let's see how many people can pick out the part I am referring to. Missions are truly amazing!

Querido familia y amigos...

¡¡¡¡¡HOOOOLAAAA!!!!! It was great hearing from everyone especially since I didnt hear from anyone last week. Thank you so much for all the love support and encouragement that I have recieved in emails, prayers, etc. you guys are awesome! Well it sounds like the new school year is starting off well for everyone back home with high school and middleschool. Its weird that our family is out of the elementary school days. Anyways I´m really stoked to hear about all the missionary work that has been going on in our ward back home! That is absolutely awesome. Keep up the good work :) and keep them coming to church.
We have a pretty good rama (branch) here in Pitruf but it could be so much better cuz less than half of the members come! They just dont understand how important it is to come to church every week and take the santacena (sacrament). So a lot of the work we do here is permanecer (reactivation) which is going alright. All of the menos activos we visit say that they will be at church and then like two of the 10 or so families we talk to show up. But hey those two show that it's working a little bit so its all good. :) Well this week was definitely better than the last one. I´m getting over the little bit of culture shock that I had and I´m starting to kind of accept the fact that I can't speak spanish haha. Right now I´m just trying to build up my faith more that it will come and am trying to banish the doubts that I have.

I don´t know why but the people here seem to like me. I don´t understand it. I´m silent most of the time and when they ask me questions they either have to repeat it like 5 times or I have to look at my companion for help but they still like me. Maybe its cuz I´m the newbie or because I can´t talk and they find it entertaining haha. Man, spanish is hard.

As far as missionary work goes we definitely could have had a way better week. We have a ton of references from the jovenes but it seemed like the whole week we spent most of our days walking across town back and forth to knock on doors and get no answer. When we did get a hold of some it went pretty well and we even kind of have another baptismal commitment (kind of because it is complicated) and we had like 7 people to commit to come to church. But when we made our rounds before church Sunday morning all we got were excuses or family members coming out to tell us that they are sick or not home. It was kind of a bummer, especially with Jonathan. He´s the kid that set a baptismal date and came to church last week. He´s like 16 years old and a little flaite ("gangster"). But he's really capo (uhmm...a stud) and is excited about the church but is a hard guy to get a hold of and he wasn't there when we went to get him for church. So we had zero investigators in church but I´m not too worried about this next week cuz we laid some good foundations last week for it.

We just have to pick up our pace, my papi walks slow and spends way too long talking with people. We will keep working with the jovenes. So I´m optismistic for this next week. Besides it's P-day and you can't help but to be optimistic on p-day :). I´m also starting to figure out how my companion operates and does things and how things work here in the field, it´s a lot different than the M.T.C, obviously. One thing that I learned to love to do in the C.C.M. (MTC) is to plan. I know it sounds kind of crazy coming from me and all but I now feel really uncomfortable without a moderately detailed written plan for the day. And my companion is a great missionary but is not a planner, and is extremely forgetful and he would just remember things if he wrote them down! It drives me crazy! hahahaha I know it's really ironic coming from me and all but this week I´m going to make sure that we have a good written plan before leaving the house and will remind my companion to write things down throughout the day. Haha I´m getting excited talking about it 

I´m such a nerd :D. We are going to be a lot more productive with our time next week.

Ugh there is so much to talk about and so little time. One thing that is great about Pitrufquén is the jovenes. There are a lot of them and some of them are pretty lame but the ones that are good more than make up for the rest. Our ward mission leader Alex is an absolute stud. He´s 21 years old and is studying in Temuco to become a dentist but he spends a few hours with us almost every day visiting less active families, visiting and teaching references, and even just doing contacting. He likes to play pranks on me sometimes especially with telling me to say things in spanish and giving me the wrong or opposite definition for it, the little punk, but he´s really awesome. And there are like 3 other jovenes who are good for references and who will come out to visit them with us and work with us. I´m also really grateful for my trainer. He has some things about him that really bug me sometimes and he doesn´t speak nearly enough spanish with me but he´s a ´good missionary and I´m learning a lot from him. We get along really well too.

Well this place is closing up soon for lunch but I want you to know that this is an amazing work and there is no place else I´d rather be right now. Oh and by the way we found a lady in the rama to do our laundry and i think we are going to hire another hermana to do almuerzo for us everyday so don´t worry, we are eating and even occasionally cooking :). Oh and I can only email family but I want to give a shout out to those who wrote me and let you know that I will be sending some good ol fashioned snail mail your way :) I really appreciate your love, stories and encouraging words in your emails. Oh and Bay email next week you lil turd!But good job with cross country, that's awesome man keep it up and I´m glad your liking high school. Well until next week I love you all and don't be shy with emails and or snail mail!

con mucho amor abrazos grandes, Élder Harper:)

THEY CALL ME GRINGO FLAQUITO hahaha.

Here is Riley's first letter from Chile. His mission rules allow everybody to send him emails: ElderRye@myldsmail.net. However, he can only email back family. Everybody else will have to wait for a snail mail response. Querido familia y amigos ¡Hola! Well I´m sure that you have emailed me already but the lds.org website is down which means that mylds.net is down also which means that i am not able to read your emails :(. So im just sending you this from my old yahoo account. Anyways my first week here in Chile has been quite the rollercoaster ride. Its good but   I´m not going to lie my first week was tough. Anyways our flight landed in Concepción at like 930 and we were picked up by the president, his wife, and the assistants and taken to the Misión home which is pretty nice and has a gorgeous view of the city and the Bio Bio river. So we hung out there for a few hours doing orientation stuff and interviews with the president and we had our last American meal there. Then we went to the capilla (chapel) where all of us newbies bore our testimonies and then met our papis (trainers but we call them our dads). I was assigned with Élder De Leon who despite his name is a gringo. It was also at this point that I found out that our zone, Nueva Tolten, is the furthest south in the whole misión and that after my already 22 hours of traveling I had a 6 hour bus ride ahead of me. Fortunately we only went half way that night, cuz it was really late, and we stayed at a missionary home in Renaico and had once (dinner) there. We then woke up early in the morning and finished our journey to the ¨city¨ a.k.a. pueblo of Pitrufquén which is like in the center of the zone and the head quarters of the zone Nueva Tolten. We are like about halfway inbetween the the mountains and the ocean and are like a 40 minute bus ride from the southern border of the misión. We then went to the house where us and the zone leaders stay, unpacked, ate a snack, and went to work doing some street contacting, visiting members to get references, and then we went to a baptism at the capilla in the evening. Yeah I pretty much spent the whole day and week saying “como?” after everything someone said to me in spanish and hearing them laugh at my attempt at a response. They talk so fast here I can't understand pretty much anything that they say and I´m pretty sure my speaking skills have gotten worse since the M.T.C. or at least it seems like it. Even though we are on the verge of spring it is still very cold and very wet here. It rained on my second day out of the blue and it caught me without a hood or an umbrella but it hasn't rained since then. It is just very cold and very moist. In Fact our house is so damp that there are some mold spots on all the walls and ceilings and after two days all my books and papers, including the book of pictures you sent me and my scriptures :(, have been warped. I was really bummed about that at first but I bent them back kind of and am working on methods for warp prevention haha. When we entered our house for the first time I thought it was a complete dump but after being here almost a week in Pitrufquén I´ve come to realize that the house that we have here is actually pretty big and if it had some furnishings like a couch it would be nice. All the people have wood floors and stuff but compared with the U.S. these people are very poor and the houses are tiny. I am already starting to apreciate all the comforts of home that I took for granted before like 3 square meals a day haha. As of right now we don't have a mamita here so besides almuerzo appointments that we occasionally have with members we don't eat that much, but when they do feed us holy cow they feed us. They call me gringo flaquito hahaha. Speaking of food, diesyocho here was pretty fun. I´m still pretty sick but nonetheless I had a good time. Our p-day is usually Monday but since Friday was diesyocho we had p-day then instead. We watched a parade in the town square that was cool but took 3 hours since everyone and their mother was in it and then we had empanads and esado (barbecue).  We then caught the last 20 minutes of a chileno rodeo and played some fútbol in the street with the jóvenes. The jóvenes (teenagers) here in the Branch in Pitrufquén are way capo (awesome) and strong in the church. They give us references, come to lessons with us occasionally and laugh at my pathetic attempts to speak spanish and understand their spanish. The language is so frustrating but everyone tells me that it just takes time. Ugh. Its so weird too, some of the people here look really latino but some look totally white like blue eyes and light skin and hair but then they start spitting out spanish like everyone else. That will take getting used to. Anyways on diecinueve (the 19th) the district, which is kinda like a stake, put on a huge dieciocho activity at the capilla and no joke it went from nine in the morning to nine at night. It was ridiculous. We didn't stay for the entire thing but we stayed for way too long in my opinión. But that's always a problem in Chile. We stay at places too long because Chilenos just talk and talk and talk. Which is fine but it takes up a lot of our time. None of our contacts we invited showed up to the activity but miraculous one of them (Jonathan) showed up to church on Sunday. And even better he has a fecha! (baptismal date) yay! He seemed iffy about it but I think that we will be able to help him become more confident in his decision So I havent felt too much like a missionary because of our weird Schedule becuase of the holidays and stuff but now things are back to normal so we´ll be able to work a lot more this week and get back on the normal missionary schedule of work work work so that's good. My whole firtst week after the first day I was kind of getting discouraged and really homesick but it's getting better now. I´m sure it was just the culture shock and my lack of ability to do basically anything becuase of my not being able to communicate. I still feel pretty useless as a missionary right now since I can pretty much only just stand/sit there and nod and smile next to my companion but I´m more optimistic now and I know that I´ll get it eventually. I don't know how or when but I know that I will some way or another haha. Well that was basically my first week in a nutshell. Some things I want everyone to know before I finish though is that everyone can email me and then I can just snail mail back. I can email immediate and extended family back and snail mail everyone else. But I can receive emails from everyone. So there you have it. Well I think I had more to say but that's all I can remember right now. Just keep the prayers and the love coming because man do I need it hahaha. Well until next Monday, I love all you guys and even though I´m having a little bit of a hard time I'm still glad that I´m here. Cia Cia Con amor, Élder Harper J P.s. Coronado is better than ecco Brother Baker A note from Mom: I looked up what flaquito means and here it is: flaquito is a diminutive of "flaco" meaning tiny, people use it to call someone who is near to them and who they love who is too tiny (skinny). Also diecyocho is a huge holiday there. It is Chile's Independence Day.

RILEY HAS MADE IT TO CHILE

Riley flew out of Salt Lake City early Monday Morning and arrived in Concepcion, Chile Tuesday morning at 9:30. Well.... since I did not have a definite confirmation of his arrival, I had faith that he had. I waited for a confirmation email on Tuesday but it never came so I broke down this morning and emailed Hermana Swenson, the mission president's wife. This is how it went down:

Hola Hermana Swenson,

Just an anxious mother that wants to be assured her son, Elder Riley Harper, arrived safe and well yesterday morning in Chile.

Thanks,

Michelle Harper

Querida Hermana Harper,

I can assure you that all is well -- your son arrived safe and sound along with 9 other new missionaries...1 from Costa Rica, 2 from Chile, and the rest from the US. His trainer is Marcus DeLeon from Nampa, Idaho. Elder DeLeon is heading home in 6 weeks, and was a zone leader until this last transfer when President asked him to train. Their area is in Pitrufquen in the south of the mission. They live in a 4-missionary house with two zone leaders, so your son will be surrounded by outstanding missionaries.

Yesterday and today were clear blue sky and sun...spring is here.

Enjoy the ride. HS

To say the least, I am relieved and very happy to have some specific information. He is very south geographically in his mission and is therefore approximately 6 hours away from the mission office. This means it is probably going to take a little longer for him to receive letters and packages since they all go through the mission office. But that is ok, a missionary's mail is treasure and worth the wait. Just be patient with his responses.

I have Googled the town of Pitrufquén and it seems like it is a great little community. On the right hand column, under WHERE HE'S BEEN, you can click on Pitrufquén and it will take you to some photos to view. I am so glad he has arrived safely and I will post his first letter as soon as I get it. I am not sure when that will be, hopefully no longer than a week. : )

Michelle - Riley's Mom

A FEW LAST PHOTS FROM THE MTC

Riley at The MTC Map

Riley's District

Riley with Jeff Stapelton

Photo of Riley and Rudy Wright (his cousin going to India) at the MTC Map

I CAN’T WAIT TO GET OUT THERE AND SHOW THE LORD WHAT I’M WILLING TO GIVE

Here is Riley's last letter from the MTC. You can send Dear Elders to the MTC through Friday, 11:00 am of this week if you want him to receive before he leaves for Chile. Otherwise, please start sending Dear Elders to Chile Concepcion South Mission. They will be printed up and sent through the church's pouch service. It probably will take 2 to 3 weeks for him to receive, depending on where he is geographically in the mission since all mail and packages have to go through the mission office first. You can also just write and mail a letter the traditional way to the mission office in Chile for .98 US Postage. I have updated the addresses on the right. Here's Riley's letter.

Muchas Holas familia y amigos!

To start off yes I did get the overshoes and the Memorykick. That little gadget is something else, it is really cool and will come very much in handy these next 22 months. I will take good care of it :) And thank you very much for the video! It was great! Even though someone in my district did tell me that it was against the rules to receive videos from home :/ I don't see why it wouldn't be aloud but I will look more into it. I did very much enjoy it though so thank you very much!
Well everything here is going well except one thing... I'm as sick as a dog!!! There has been a bad bug going around my district for the last month or so but I thought I had dodged it cuz its petering out. But of course yesterday I started feeling it and today it hit me full force fever, aches, and all! :( Aren't I lucky. So during our "free" time to write letters I was advised to sleep instead and I want to get better so I took that advice. I still got a few letters done but for those out there who wrote me, if I'm slow to respond that's why, but don't worry I will respond :) And one more thing concerning mail, those of you who have written me from BYU, I just realized today that in the address the random number tacked on the end in the Dear Elders is an apartment number. I think I put it in in your letters but in a really random spot. So if you haven't received a response from me all my BYU buddies that's why. So just shoot me a letter or Dear Elder if you didn't get a response, or if you did, either way works :).

Well enough about that. Last Friday we got our flight plans! and our whole district is very stoked to leave in five days on the 14th. So anyways here is my itinerary. Our first flight takes off from Salt Lake Monday and 9:43 A.M. It then lands in LA and 10:37 a.m. where we have about a three hour layover :/. Our next flight takes off from LA at 1:20 p.m. and we arrive in Santiago at 5:25 a.m. We then have a two and a half hour layover in Santiago and we catch a flight to Concepción at 8:00 a.m. and finally we land in Concepción Chile at 9:10 a.m. Tuesday morning. Yep almost 24 hours of travel time. ugh.

But anyways I am very excited and very nervous to leave (mostly excited I think) and I cant wait to talk to you guys in the airport! I haven't really looked to much at the calling thingy you gave me but I'm sure that I'll be able to figure it out. I think that the best time to call will be during my 4 hour layover in LA. shoot me a Dear Elder though to let me know what the best time to call would be with that schedule I gave you.

Well besides being sick my spirits have not been dampened and I cant wait to get out there and show the Lord what I'm willing to give and what I'm willing to do in his service. Well I have an appointment in the Teaching Evaluation Center to teach the second lesson, the law of tithing, and share a personal scripture and experience in Spanish with Élder Vincent. And I´m about out of time on my email so I just wanna let you know that I love you all and if your sending me hard mail instead of dear elders start directing them to my Chile address instead of my MTC address now. Until next time chou chou. Oh and fam tell me how your first week of school went :)


con amor, Elder Harper

I KNOW IT'S THE SPIRIT AND TESTIMONY THAT CONVERTS PEOPLE

Hola mi familia y amigos!

Well as usual for starters I will answer the questions. No I have not gotten the over shoes yet which is weird, I hope they weren't lost. But I did get the package with the waterproof socks, and the sleeping bag, and the candy and the 8,000 pairs of other dress socks. Thank you very much the sleeping bag and seel socks look legit if I do say so myself. I will be very careful not to loose them, and thank you for the candy and the fudge Izzie it was very tasty. Well after eating two to three plates a meal, except for breakfast cuz breakfast is gross, I now weigh a whopping 140.9 pounds hahaha. I thought I would have gained a lot more than that seeing that I eat myself sick everyday but its all good.

Well I'm excited to get the hard drive thing. It sounds like it will be extremely useful. It's crazy that I only have a week and a half left. I was really stressing out alot about spanish before but after praying about it for weeks I finally recieved comfort in a really spiritual experience that I had on Monday. It was definitely the strongest I've felt the spirit here in the M.T.C. It would take way too long to explain it but I will say that even though I'm still struggling along with spanish, I know its the spirit and testimony that converts people. Not eloquent speech. And I do have a testimony. So even though I'm still worried I know that the Lord will help me and that I can still help people come unto Christ even though I can't communicate with them very well.

Anyways Elder Vincent and I get our first new district tonight that we have to orientate and explain what goes down here at the M.T.C we have like an hour with them tonight and an hour and a half with them tomorrow night. We have to do things like show them an example of a "perfect" residence room, a.k.a elder vincent and I need to transform our room into the perfect room hahaha. Then we have to demonstrate for them "perfect" examples of personal planning, companionship planning, and how to study. Yeah so thats alot of responsibility and our companionship is far from perfect but hopefully we'll do alright :) and then we have to take them on a tour and stuff and tell them all the rules. and their are alot of rules. So hopefully we wont corrupt this new district too much haha.
Well we should be getting our flight plans tomorrow so I'm really excited for that, the time really does fly here. Well I'm about out of time but we get to talk in a week and a half! take care everyone les amo mucho!

con mucho amor, Elder Harper :)

P.S. thank you everyone for all the goodies and treats I've been getting from you! If you havent gotten a thank you from me yet then you will soon