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

Hola a todos!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

con amor, Elder Harper =)

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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 =)

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

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.

Familia Fonseca (Talcahuano)  Good friends that helped the missionaries through the aftermath of the earthquake.

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

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

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. 

Riley and his son in front on the Loncoche House

Familia Parra (Loncoche)

Familia Reyes (Loncoche)

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

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

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

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

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!