Monday, July 25, 2011

Letter home - July 25, 2011


heyyyy so this week we had a lot gong on I can’t even remember all of it. the guy that we found named (name) we dropped him he ended up not being very committed and he just was not elect he didn’t come to church and was never home for any appointments. we are still trying to work with the guy that I gave a mormom.org card to he has been really busy and has been out of town but we hope to teach him this week im excited he said he has some questions for us.

Dad I love how you said your companion rode his bike funny and you would always laugh hahaha, elder winger is the same way except he doesn’t wear backpack he has carries one book of Mormon in a plastic bag thing and he sticks it in between his pants and shirt right in his butt he just looks so funny, I might have to take a picture sometime this week.

I was reading dads story about the time when he decided to knock that apartment complex and found the lady who had a book of Mormon, and how earlier that day he prayed to be led by the spirit and so I decided to do the same thing I went into my room and prayed to be led by the spirit and as we were riding to an investigators home I decided to stop and see a less active, but he wasn’t home so on our way out at the last second I said lets knock this street and the fourth door we knocked on the guy let us in and we taught him and he wanted to read the book of Mormon it was sooo cool cause I thought back on how I was led by the spirit. He was supposed to come to church but he overslept yesterday but we are still working with him and he still wants to keep learning and says he might want to get baptized.

On Saturday we were 3 miles away from our apartment when I got my 5th flat tire so we had to walk all the way home, it took us an hour and I got sun burnt and so I know that god is helping me build my character and build patience. He is helping develop attributes that I am learning with my time with elder winger, learning how to take control of a situation, being a leader at the beginning of my mission and learning to endure. Last 3 days have been the hottest days of my mission. I read the talk from elder L tom Perry called "the tradition of a balanced righteous life it’s so good you need to read it for family home evening or something good for grant and Alli.

I loved how you sent me cowtails in that package a couple of weeks ago, elder nelson introduced me to them and I love them so that was ironic that you sent me them. Mom I am going to get some of that Maalox stuff today. Since im not being trained anymore I email at 10am not 11am.

I can’t wait to send dad his birthday present he’s going to love it and want more of it, its special something you can only get in South Carolina. In your next package could you send me some more music haha, josh groben, a copy of grants efy cd he got this year, some David osmond, a copy of the meet joe black cd.

I love you guys so much keep praying that I will get through this transfer and that I will be able learn important things from this one. I will try to write the priest quorum this month again, and I can’t wait to hear were grandma got called on her mission

Love Elder Harper :)

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Letter from President Holm

Thank you Elder Harper, for your weekly letter and positive attitude. I am proud of you and excited about your personal growth in addition to bringing more souls unto Christ. Thanks for the update.
Keep the focus. Love ya... lets Baptize!

President Holm

New Mission President - President and Sister Holm

President McConkie was released this past week and President Holm arrived as the new Mission President.
Monte Holm, 52, and Lisa K. Drake Holm, six children, Stone Cliff Ward, St. George Utah Little Valley Stake. Brother Holm serves as a high councilor and is a former counselor in a bishopric, elders quorum president, and missionary in the North Carolina Greensboro Mission. Executive vice chairman, World Financial Group. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Carl Otto and Florence Jessop Holm.

Sister Holm serves as a temple preparation teacher and is a former seminary teacher, counselor in a ward Relief Society presidency, counselor in a ward Young Women presidency, counselor in a ward Primary presidency, and gospel doctrine teacher. Born in Salt Lake City to Larry Wayne Drake and Bonnie Saxton Humphrey.

2011 Mission Boundary Changes


http://lds.org/church/news/2011-mission-boundary-changes-?lang=eng
The Florida Jacksonville, Florida Tallahassee, Georgia Atlanta, and South Carolina Columbia Missions were realigned to each include a part of the former Georgia Macon Mission.

Letter home - July 18, 2011

hey familia
this week was crazy with transfers, elder law is gone :( he got sent to hopkins in fort jackson, down in columbia by USC. he will be serving in the singles ward as a zone leader. my new companions name is elder winger, he is from ogden, utah and he has been out a year and half, so he has 6 months left. hes a very nice guy. he is one of those really akward guys who doesnt talk a whole lot. yesterday we put someone on date which is awesome, we only taught 4 lessons, we set a goal of 6 lessons but we still did a great job. also we had a goal to hit 210 contacts this week and we got 201.he is from the augusta zone that got added to our mission from the macom mission that got dissolved. yesterday we did find someone and put them on date there a couple and the names are (names). they accepted to be baptised on august 6th so pray for them please this morning i was reading a scripture that was really good its jacob 4:8-11 it talks about how gods ways are higher than our ways. and that is something i realized i have to get better at keeping in mind all the time
so how is everything going? thats cool you guys got sweet seats at the dbacks game, im so bummed
about the coyotes! how is grant doing in football? dont send the all star game cup i dont want to lose it or break it so just keep it there and take a picture of it. here are some pictures attached
1. me and elder carter
2. i found a sweet mail box
3. pic of elder winger

just keep praying for me that everything will go well that i will be able to make it through this transfer with out getting too depressed. i love you guys so much i miss you, i wish i could call you everyday and tell you how i feel and get advice and just talk, cause there are so many times when i just need someone else to talk to.
love Elder Harper :)

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Letter home - July 11, 2011

hey there family
so we had transfer calls come on Saturday night and..... elder Law is getting transferred after being in Boiling Springs for 6 months, he is going to be a zone leader next transfer but we don't know where until we go to the transfer meeting in Columbia on Wednesday, so that is pretty crazy, i have no idea who will be my companion, so I am anxious to see who, i hope he is cool. President Holm is really awesome he has a great attitude and wants to raise the mission to a new level.
the guy that i gave a pass along card to that we are teaching is good still, we haven't been able to teach him yet cause we have been traveling a lot and so has he so this next week we should be seeing him. this week we went down to Columbia to a leadership training meeting for 2 days it was long and crazy we got some new mission policies, and we got the Augusta Georgia stake added to our mission so their zone leaders came to the meeting and they told us about the way they contact people they do it way different they are all like robots and they have like no personality because there mission president was way strict. We stayed over night in Columbia in a six pack apartment and got to see USC and the football stadium there, it is soooo humid and hot in Columbia, man I am glad i'll still be in the upstate for the rest of the summer at least.  I do have to say i am really nervous about getting a new companion and trying to kind of do a little bit of the planning on my own cause he isn't going to know the area and i just hope i'll know enough to be able to tell him about investigators and members and stuff haha i know i probably shouldn't be worried but i am. we might be getting a car back though because one of the areas that has a car up here is getting shut down because of a shortage of missionaries, so that would be cool to get a car.
to answer your questions about the suit, i don't think i need another one yet, but maybe at my year mark or something maybe my birthday haha. tell alli i get back in the spring of 2013 ha. the earphones you sent me i don't think are going to work cause the buds are broken. my earphones should be in the blue box in my closet, and also what would be cool is if you could send me one of those little metal consecrated oil containers. the cds that dad sent don't work on the cd player we have haha i dont know why the ones you send me never work but if you could burn them again and send them to me that would be cool along with Nashville tribute to Joseph smith.
so a guy in our ward is a chiropractor and i told him about my finger and he looked at it and said that i must have broken it or hyper extended it cause it bends farther back then my other finger and there is like calcium built up around the knuckle, and i also have a problem burping, haha like its like it gets stuck up under my throat and i cant burp but then it will come out randomly on its own, it almost like something is blocking it. Also could you send me the seven herracies talk on cd so i could listen to it.
Thats cool that grant did awesome in his tournament, 3 for 3 and 4 RBI's thats awesome especially in all-stars. grant get excited for football your gonna do awesome man you have so much of an advantage just because of your height, just go out and beat those guys up in practice.
i heard about the sand storm, and some members showed us pictures. haha that looked crazy. ya tell me about the all star game after, anything other news on other teams like who drafted Jimmer Fredette? dad your gonna have to get me the droid after my mission i'm not an iphone guy. how much did you sell the quads for?
well i have to go and ill talk to you guys next week, keep praying for me.
love Elder Harper

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Letter home - July 5, 2011

whats up!
so this week was a really good one, we haven't had a legit investigator for a whole month now and any investigators we have had haven't really progressed and anyone who has served a mission knows how tough it is when nobody progresses, so here the story. About 3 weeks ago we knocked into this guy and gave him a mormon.org card and he said he wasn't really interested so it was just a normal contact, and then the next day we were in the same apartment complex and we helped a lady take her groceries up to her apartment and it ended up being his wife, then a couple days later he saw us on a side street and he stopped and said hi to us and thanked us for helping his wife so that was cool of him, then 2 weeks later we get a referral on our phone and we called the number of the person his name was tim and he said ya to come by his office in a couple minutes to talk cause hes been having a lot of weird coincidences and so we go to his office and it is the guy that we knocked into and he said that his wife threw away the mormon.org card we gave him but that after all the times he saw us and when we helped his wife he decided to check out the website cause he remembered what it was called and when he was looking at it he saw us ride by on our bikes, so he thought that was wierd. so after we talked to him for an hour he said he has been baptist all his life and he said hes been taking a seminary class trying to learn more about other religions and so long story short he told us that if after he reads and prays about the book of mormon that god tells him that this is the right path that he is willing to change his life completely and become mormon. so that was the coolest thing that has happened this whole transfer and he is a smart guy but he is so open minded and humble.
transfers were not this week they are next week because since our new mission president came in they extended this transfer to 7 weeks and the next transfer will only be 5 weeks, to even it out. this week wednsday and thursday there is a leadership training meeting so me and elder law will be going down to columbia since he is the district leader. also this week we went on exchanges with the spanish elders and i stayed in boiling springs with elder boyd and that night i found out the elder boyd knows lindsey blaser, his name is clarke boyd hes from texas and he said he went to BYU with lindsey before his mission, that was wierd cause we talked about lindsey the whole time since he is the first person that knows someone that i know from arizona haha so that is sweet. 
we got all the stuff you sent and elder law loved his birthday present. although i dont think there were earphones in the package you sent me that had elder laws stuff in it, so you might want to check and see if you put them in there. alli looks so wierd with braces on oh my gosh haha, and grant looks like a baller in his all stars uniform, he looks so much older too, man its wierd. Sweet you guys saw kassie, shes going to massage therapy school in utah right? dang shell get done at christmas thats fast. how is she doing? i saw in dylans letter that coy only has 3 months, haha thats sooo crazy it went by soooo fast i feel like he just left. Dylans letter was weird the start of it didn't really make sense whats going on with elder diaz?
man i love our ward its so crazy, just so many families moving in all the time, do you think they will split it? we didnt realy do anything for july forth but a less active family the whitehouses invited us over for dinner at 3 since we had lockdown at 6 and we ate ribs it was good then we went and slept over at the spanish elders apartment and we played monopoly for like 3 hours haha i totally lost, it was fun tho and then we ate cookie/brownies and we talked about funny embarrassing stories, it was a fun p-day we had a ward breakfast and we played football haha we got soooo sweaty oh my gosh my clothes were soaked, and we were in our slacks and white shirts and ties.
Grant: so hows baseball going, you look like a stud in your pictures, keep working hard and lifting weights. also i need a sports update next week ok haha
alli i will get you something but ill have to keep my eyes out for something good
well my time is up i hope you guys had a great 4th of july and keep praying for me, it helps.
love Elder Harper