Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012



Monday, December 17,  2012
Hey everyone
This week was exciting, we have (S) on date now again, we talked to her and she was saying that she has really been thinking and she doesn’t want to wait any longer to get baptized that she will do it even if her mom can’t be there and so we put her on for dec 29 because she got stitches and she can’t get into water until she gets them out. So we had to wait till the 29th, but she is really excited for it and so are we because this has been going on longer than we had expected it to. We also have (K) on date for the same day (he’s the kid that came to church on his own) and tonight we are gonna teach him the word of wisdom and law of chastity. Something else, that is cool that happened this week is on Saturday night we had tried to see someone and it was 8:58 and I decided to knock on one more door and we picked one in a random building in this apartment complex. We  knocked on the only door with lights on and a kid answered and said your Mormons right? We said yes and he said we could talk to him and his sister.  We found out that his sister who is 15 is a member and also their dad is, but they haven’t been to church in a long time and they just moved back to north Charleston a couple weeks ago.  We went back and saw them yesterday and met the dad and they are just a way cool family that has been needing the church lately.  We were led to them because, I was inspired to knock on one more door, the daughter will be going to young womens on Wednesday and the dad will come to church when he can when he isn’t working, he works for (  ), so he has a crazy schedule, but we are gonna go over and eat with them next Wednesday. He’s gonna make some Hawaiian food cause he is from there. I love the guidance of the spirit and I can feel his guidance so strong, all I have to do is be worthy of his presence and I will be able to see miracles happen.
Man, Martha Lou’s Kitchen sounds way good, minus the sweet tea, I want to see if I can go there cause we are planning on going to down town Charleston sometime.

Yes, I got grandma Siiro’s package of stuff about a month ago it was great, and I thought I wrote her back but I guess I didn’t, I also got a call about a package that was sent to me but I don’t know who sent it but it was sent ups which doesn’t work cause the mission office can’t forward it to my apartment they have to hand deliver it so I will get that one on Wednesday this week. So just make sure that you let everyone know who sends me packages that they use USPS, not UPS, and I got grandma harpers package and your guys's. 
The skype situation, I think we will do it on Tuesday at 12 my time here, which would be about 9 your time, I was gonna try and do it when the family is all there, but it wouldn’t have worked like that cause we have some plans later on during the day.
 Oh mom where in Minnesota did you grow up we met a family who used to live there.

Well, hope you have a good week
Love,
Elder Harper


Friday, December 14, 2012

Monday, Dec 10, 2012

WOOOOHH
This week was exciting, so last Sunday we had this girl named (R). She is 24 and has been investigating for a while and comes to church when she can,  we also went over to her house on tuesday night with our ward mission leader bro Collins to have dinner with her, and we talked about baptism and why she hasn’t been baptized yet and the only thing that has been keeping her was living the word of wisdom cause she drinks sweet tea, but she said she likes orange juice and mountain dew more than tea and the tea would be easy to give up now, so we committed her and she accepted to live it and set her on baptism date for January 5 cause she only could come to church this weekend until then and you have to be living the word of wisdom for a week before your baptism, but the next day at our interviews we talked to president Holm and asked since she believes in everything that we could baptize her this weekend if she hasn’t drank tea by Friday and he said yes, so long story short we told her we called some people and she got baptized and confirmed this last weekend haha.
She was so excited to be able to get baptized now instead of having to wait all the way till January 5, she just is eating up church and the members are just loving her up, of course her best friend is a member in our ward also, but she has made so many friendships already, she will be an awesome member of the church. (S) isn’t really progressing how we thought, her mom got home from the hospital and I guess can’t go outside because she is going to start chemo soon, so we are not sure how long it will be until she could go outside long enough to watch the baptism so we are waiting on that.  (S) is telling us now that she doesn’t want to do it because she thinks we are pushing her and that we don’t care that her mom is sick, but we told her that’s not what we are doing, that we care about you and your mom. We are just giving her time and we have talked to the Relief Society about bringing her and her mom a dinner and just fellowshipping with them until her mom gets better and we can schedule a baptism, good thing though is that she came to church. This week, we found this kid named (K).  He is 16 and he came to church last week randomly and he said he wanted to start coming back to church and decided to come to ours. We taught him the restoration already and we are gonna teach him again this week.
The only southern tradition I can think of right now is that they deep fry everything, like the turkey or the ham haha I don’t know how ham would taste deep fried but turkey might be good, that’s all I can think of at the moment
that’s so exciting to hear Madison is going to DC, haha and also that she leaves so soon, wow that’s crazy, and I’m bummed I wont get to see her, you will need to send me her mission address when you find out, tell her congrats from me
I got my christmas box both from you guys and grandma harper
I don’t have any info yet on the skyping but I will try to find out who can do it and let you know
The senior couple in our area is the Benedicts and I don’t know if they do a blog
Well that’s all I got this week, love you guys
Love Elder Harper :)

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Monday, December 03, 2012

Wow, so we had a crazy week so many cool things that happened and also lots of disappointments, so I’ll just start with those first we had so many appointments set up this week including some church tours which I haven’t really gotten to do much in my mission, but we had 3 set up this week and all of them fell through such a bummer cause I was so excited, and (S) baptism did not happen! so here is the story she wanted her mom to be there or else she wouldn’t do it and her mom went in for surgery on Wednesday and was hoping to be out before Saturday but she wasn’t and we found out that she gets out today so that’s good and also we had called her on friday just to see how she was doing and she said that she didn’t feel ready, that she had to wait till she was 18 cause she didn’t want to be affected by peer pressure after her baptism to break the commandments and she felt like you have to be perfect after baptism, so she just didn’t understand the concept that baptism is the key that unlocks the door to the atonement and that she can’t be forgiven or repent without being baptized and also, that when she receives the gift of the holy ghost after her baptism, that he can guide her with decision making especially when she is peer pressured to drink or smoke or get a tattoo or break any commandment. So we had the young women’s leader sister (R) who is awesome, give her a call and talk to her. (S) has been going to young women’s every week and is doing personal progress, haha she is so awesome and is basically already a member, she will probably be baptized this week and probably earlier than saturday. So to the good news, we had some way cool lessons this week the first one is we taught (D) (mom) and (K) (18 year old daughter). They are native american so that was pretty sweet, and they have really been searching for the right church cause they have been to others and they have never made them feel good and they love the restoration and were pretty excited to read the book of mormon especially (K), when they found out its about the American Indians. We also had a cool lesson with a girl named (M) who actually has kind of dropped us but we are trying to work with her and understand her concerns. She feels like she can’t be a Mormon, but when we taught her the spirit was sooooo strong and she was just paying close attention to the whole lesson and when I asked her how she felt, after the first vision she said "I feel good its weird but good and like someone is touching me"  and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted but she is having those second thoughts like everyone does cause satan is making her think that, I will update you when we find out more.
 
 So yes i got your package you sent and i got the Christmas card and my debit card and drivers license
 We are in a car and we bike also but we use the car a lot and elder lee has a gps but I will still need the one you sent, because he will take his when he leaves
 
Man, I’m excited to hear where Madison goes!
 Oh, also cool story at church the singles branch also meets at our building and there is this couple that are getting married in the mesa temple and I was talking to them cause they are from Arizona and the girls name is cecille taylor and she said she is from Gilbert and I asked do you know a jackson law and she said "yea! He’s my second cousin!" haha I was like no way so yea that was way cool.
 
The other elders in our apartment are elder Herrera, he’s originally from Mexico and elder Hanson from Layton, Utah
 
Well, that’s all I have this week, hope teagen gets better
Love Elder Harper

Friday, November 30, 2012

North Charleston!..pretty cool



Monday, November 26, 2012
Heyyy
 Well your probably wanting the news on where I got transferred to, looks like dad is the winner cause I’m in North Charleston baby!. its pretty cool down here i love it, unfortunately our area doesn’t cover, like historical Charleston, but its close enough to where we can get permission to go there if we want and we have a senior couple that can take us, we also get free dry cleaning when ever we want so that’s sweet, and we live with the Spanish elders who are also the zone leaders in a 4 pack apartment, it’s way fun cause they will just say random spanish words and me and my companion will try to talk Spanish and it doesn’t make any sense. Oh yeah, so my new companion is Elder Lee, again hahaha there are 2 Lee's in our mission I got both of them back to back this one is Micheal Lee, he just got done being trained and he is such a cool guy to work with haha i love him and he loves the gospel and has a great desire to share it, it makes it so much easier when you have a great companion and i don’t see us having any problems, cause he is just so laid back, but also very obedient so its gonna be great, he is from Springville, Utah. I love the ward here its so awesome we have so many cool members who just want to do missionary work and they try to make it apart of their life every day. I was so impressed at church, especially the ward leadership, they just want to share the gospel and they look for ways to do it. The bishop is cool, he had us over for Thanksgiving and I got to know him very well, he actually served his mission in our mission a long time ago. He’s a little older than dad, so around that time haha i don’t know, also I met one of the counselors and he is awesome bro Albright and his wife they love sharing the gospel, he said that he just wishes he could retire now so that they can go do their 10 years of being senior missionaries. We are baptizing a 16 year old girl this saturday named (S) she is awesome and is the friend of a member so I’m way excited. We also have some other cool people that we have on date and are progressing, the (M) family, (L), and (T). (T) is really cool we found her my first night here she was an old lead and she let us in right away she is in her early 20's and is pregnant, when we asked her what she thinks about Joseph Smith she said she totally believes it is true, haha I was like no way we haven’t even taught her like anything and she already believes it, that’s awesome she is on date for dec15. I love this area already and I’m glad I will get to finish my mission here.
 We played in the turkey bowl and I have been really sore all week, I haven’t played football since last thanksgiving.
 YAAAA  ASU!! winner winner, thats so funny that the guy put up ASU banners in the Dahls trees hahaha I would have loved to do that. 
 That’s so cool to hear that Marissa is going to san diego, I’m proud she decided to go. Hopefully when Madison goes I’ll be able to see her before she leaves. 
 Grant looks like a beast on the field especially wrestling john, grant you need to continue to live in the weight room until next football season thats how you will get looked at big time and give you lots of advantage.

It was great to hear from you guys I’m excited to be on my mission.
I still don’t have my debit card yet but hopefully it gets here today and I got your package good. 
Love Elder Harper:)

Monday, November 19, 2012

Transfers



Monday, November 19, 2012
Hey there y'all,
 So the big news is I am leaving Marion after 6 months haha, I’ve been here a long time, but I feels like it went faster then when I was in Aiken, so Elder Lee will be training a new missionary these next 3 months, that’s cool I’m excited for him and he has been wanting to do that, I think he will be a great trainer and his trainee will be lucky to have him. So here’s an update on our week,
 I went on exchanges in Conway on Tuesday with elder Denny and we did a lot of work on the coastal carolina campus, setting up flyers and talking to people about the intro to Mormonism. They do that there every once in a while, its a way cool idea and they also set up a stand in the campus court yard and try to talk to as many students as they can. We had lots of cool things happen, we only planned to be there for 30 minutes but stayed for 3 hours because we kept meeting people and they would ask us what we believe and who we are, it was awesome. We even found a less active girl who moved down and was going to college at CCU but couldn’t find the church anywhere and Elder Denny was prompted to hold the door open for a group of students and we ran into her. She said that she saw the elders a week ago and couldn’t talk to them and thought she would never see them again but because we were there she found us. We also went to a frozen yogurt place that Elder Denny and I met this girl that works there named Darien, my first time I went to Conway, and she has slowly gotten more interested in the book of mormon and what we believe. She’s from upstate New York and hopefully she will continue to read the book. We also had a cool miracle, we had a guy move into our area from the conway area named (J) and he has been thinking about baptism, he was gonna get baptized like 5 months ago but something happened and it didn’t happen and so now he is getting baptized on Nov 24. Elder Lee and I gave talks in sacrament meeting yesterday. It was great we talked about the things that we learned from our meeting with Elder Bednar. So I’m sad I am leaving, but I am kind of glad to go to a new area, it’s hard to spend 6 months here because it is so small. (S) is doing good, we haven’t been able to teach her this week though, and she didn’t come to church because her grandpa went to the hospital and she went with him but she said she has been reading and she has lots of questions. Ooooh, haha we also have recently met these 3 mexican guys in a small mexican community, everyone is from veracruz for some reason, but there 3 guys, one is (O), and his 2 uncles (L) and (J). We went and taught them and then after they fed us real authentic mexican food, this ain’t the american stuff either, we had cow tongue tacos and tamales. Haha, i know the tongue sounds gross but it is soooo good, tastes just like beef, we should have some when i get home. 

Well, that’s crazy to hear that Madison is going on a mission.

No i can’t think of anything I really need, you really don’t need to send anything to me, especially gifts, I can wait till I get home for them
Sorry not a lot
Love Elder Harper :) 

Monday, November 12, 2012

Crazy Week



Monday, November 12, 2012
Heyyy
 Woow lots of new things to talk about so, yes first off we have our senior couple the Bowmans now full time in our area and they came to our District meeting on Tuesday. Wednesday we were so anxious to find out who won the election and when we went to the library and right on the front page we saw President Obama’s face and we were like AWW MAN! It really is such a bummer, especially when you serve here in a place that has such bad unemployment and people struggle, ughh its ridiculous, all we can do now is hope that congress makes good decisions. We went to the Allens house that night and he loves politics, hahaha he was so mad about what happened. We went and taught one of his friends named (B) who is a stout Methodist  and has told us "I’m not gonna change" but he invites us back so we are gonna go through all the lessons and hopefully something will hit him. We also this week found this really cool lady named (D) who is related to some of our other investigators we taught her the restoration and she just loved all of it and when we asked her what she thought about it all she said "it must be the truth" then the next day we went by with the Bowmans and taught her friend (F) the restoration and she also liked it. They didn’t come to church unfortunately cause she was up all night doing something, (S) didn’t come either cause her grandpa got sick and she had to go see him early in the morning, but we had (M) one of our youth, has brought his friend (D) who’s 17, to church 3 weeks in a row and we are gonna teach (D) tonight, I’m excited cause he is way cool and his mom doesn’t mind him coming to our church just as long as he’s in church.

Of course you heard from President Holm that my wallet got stolen, but also they took my backpack which had my wallet and camera in it and they took my GPS that I bought last year haha so I have like nothing. so pretty much we were in a really bad area probably the area most known for break ins and killings, or whatever and we were teaching (S) and I had forgot to lock the car (which I normally do remember to) and we were there for about an hour and we left at 7:30 and all my stuff was gone, and no elder lee didn’t have anything stolen except for his bag of 3 musketeer bars which he is still mad about hahaha, jk. The next morning we went back and walked around the whole place and found my backpack in a trash can with my camera still in it, and some random things that were in my bag, we found down the road where the person obviously walked. So we pretty much know where they live but there is no way to be able to get my wallet or gps unless they pawn it off and we get the police to get it from the pawn shops. Also in my wallet was my school ID's, my temple recommend, and my eagle scout award card and I think the RX card but I don’t remember what it was and also  I had about 100 dollars of cash in there that I had saved up.

Then, haha that same night that that happened at about 11:30 right outside our door we had 11 shots that were fired by one of our next door neighbors friends and we had the sheriff and a couple other cops come knocking on the door with their M-16's and full gear on, hah that was scary, luckily nobody got hurt and they arrested both of the guys and they got evicted.

Is channing frye still on the suns or dudley?

Well that’s pretty much all i have, thanks for all the info
Love Elder Harper

ps. zack looks soo different.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Pictures from Senior Couples Blog



Kelly and companion Elder Lee on the left facing each other.
Kelly, (with back facing), Elder Bednar,(center) Prsident Holm, and Elder Lee and Sister Holm

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

92nd Birthday Party

Harper  Rd. with Elder Lee

King of the Army Tank

Fish Taco Time

November 5, 2012



Monday, November 5, 2012
Wow awesome week,
 All except that I’m still a little sick we had a good week. I called the mission doctor and he gave me some stuff for bacterial sinusitis so I have been taking an antibiotic and its working really well so it should be gone in a couple days i hope. Well the biggest news is that we had an awesome 3 hours with Elder David A. Bednar, it was like the most spiritual meeting I’ve been in and will probably never be in the presence of an apostle of the lord in that small of a group again (192 missionaries plus 5 stake people) he dictated the whole meeting off of questions and the answers we were told to read 2 talks he has given.  He first asked what we learned and what the pattern was of the learning and how we need to be that way with our investigators, how too often we think of them as objects that we act upon rather than agents who have the opportunity to act, I wanted to to ask a question but couldn’t think of one good enough to ask. Then at the end he bore his apostolic witness of Jesus Christ and heavenly father and left an apostolic blessing on the mission and each of us individually that if we are faithful, our mission will affect us for good so much more than we can imagine. It was freaking AWESOME! and i shook his hand and I mentioned he had visited our stake a couple weeks ago, which he remembered. We also had a cool experience yesterday.  One of our investigators sons got in a serious car accident where he broke both legs and also his femur in one and we went to Florence to give him a blessing, it was a pretty cool experience.  Earlier in the week we helped another person in the family that we are teaching, when she got in a wreck, not as serious but we happened to be driving past right after it happened and were able to help and call 911, cause they had no phone and it was in a remote area.

Those pictures of grant in the varsity uniform are sweet, do they only have the P on one side of the helmet?
Bummer to hear about Nash, why is everyone in lockouts? It is so annoying.
ASU needs a couple big time players to put them on the map

That’s so cool to hear about parker and how he was needed for them to win and that the Wynn boy won his division.

Haha,  thats way cool that she knows who Jackson is, a little bit, yes he is going to gilbert chandler community college right now.

Way cool to hear that Marissa Capareda is going on a mission and maybe Kara!
Ya, the average submits for missions each week used to be 700 and now its almost 4000 each week

Well that’s all I have this week  I am going to print out your emails and answer any Q's I missed
Love Elder Harper:)

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Monday, October 28, 2012



Hey everyone
 Man this week has been a roller coaster, so last week we were kinda tied down cause Elder Lee was sick with a cold and then on tuesday night I started to get one also and we stayed in all day wednesday and I slept all day cause I felt awful and then we tried to do as much work as we could but it was very limited and I still have a stuffy nose as of right now but I feel good. So an update on some investigators, that lady that i told you about last week her name is( R) and it was a pretty cool story about how she said she had a dream about us coming and teaching her and she probably did have one who knows but we went over for the third time and actually went inside and tried to go over what we taught her before and she couldn’t remember anything that we told her 2 minutes before. She kept thinking we were Jehovah Witnesses or that we were apart of them and then she’d be like "Oh your not" and then forget that we said that 2 minutes later. She has some serious memory problems, so we were like well this isn’t going anywhere so we stopped teaching her cause it would be impossible for her to actually keep commitments, but we think we were sent there for her to learn and accept it in the spirit world. We also got in contact with a family we found a long time ago when elder cranford was here, a girl named (S) and brother (N) and their mom (J).  (S) and (N) are in their early 20's and we taught them the restoration and plan of salvation it was great and (S) actually came to church and she liked it a lot. We also taught a kid named (K) he is 20 and lives in like one of the only rich neighborhoods in Marion. He lives next to the (C) family( awesome members) and we have taught him a couple times. He really likes it and says he would not rule out joining, the only problem would probably be his mom. She doesn’t like us very much but she likes the (C) family so we hope to teach him at their home sometime. So, that’s kinda how the week went.

 Haha bummed to hear about the painting of the house, wish I could help repaint. I can totally see dad getting upset.

Grant got picked for varsity!!!! That’s stinkin AWESOME!!! I’m excited to hear how he does in the playoffs, take pictures of him in the varsity uniform please with helmet on and everything. Grant this is your time to impress and shine with the varsity squad

I will send the memory card today. Too bad about the pizza, but yeah we went to a Mexican restaurant and I also got your package okay.

Well gotta go love you
Love,
 Elder Harper :)

Monday, October 22, 2012

Design Problem

Somehow I messed up on publishing these in order. His letter this week is below the week before. Just keep looking

Monday, October 8, 2012



Well hey there everybody,
      Wow general conference was awesome probably the best part of the week, not that the week was bad but just not as good as conference haha. One thing that was cool this week is that since our district of us and the Conway elders hit our district baptismal goal for September, we got to go have dinner at the mission home with president and sister Holm and the assistants, that was really cool and then president gave us a little training about how to have happiness and how in order to have happiness you can’t just focus on happiness, it starts first with a vision and then so forth there are things you need to do in between vision and happiness that help you achieve happiness, and of coarse the gospel is a part of it. The rest of the week, other then that was okay haha nothing really awesome happened. We had lots of people who said they were gonna come to the church and watch conference but they didn’t come so that was a big bummer but i guess you can only invite people and can’t force them to come even though some times you really want to cause you know its gonna help them so much, that’s probably the hardest thing about Marion is finding people who will actually do what they say they will. We find so many cool people who are interested but they don’t really have too much real intent beyond the interest.  I think its mostly because most of them have been living here for so long they have tunnel vision and they can’t see that there is so much more out there for them, cause honestly if I grew up here in Marion my whole life I would feel the same way, that this is all there is, and there is so much bad stuff here which makes it worse.  It depresses me sometimes, but on the more positive side of things, transfers! So when we were at the mission home president talked to Elder Lee and I in his office and told us we would be together another transfer so that was exciting news and elder Denny will be training a new missionary next transfer so elder Brinkerhoff is leaving.

My favorite talk of all of conference was probably elder Bednars talk on how we can have a strong testimony and still not be converted, but those who have only a testimony can fall away from the church, but those who have a testimony and are converted will not fall away.  Believe it or not I heard the talk that elder Holland gave, it was very similar to one he gave in the mtc, we have that one on video that president Holm gave all the companionship's to be able to watch, so that was cool.

Well dad looks like you did a little better than last year, and I still hold the record from 2 years ago with 3:40 for the marathon, cause scott wynn only got 3:45.
 No, I’m good on a suit for now I’m using my black one that i used last year. It’s not too torn up, but it will be by the time I come home, so we will have to go suit shopping when I get back. Yes, sign me up for St. George.

Well I don’t know what else to write haha, oh yeah we haven’t really done much on p-days lately then just be lazy in the apartment, but I want to go play basketball at the church today so we will do that, there really isn’t anything to do here haha, and I haven’t gotten to many letters lately but I did get a couple from Gaby a couple weeks ago.

So that’s all I have for you guys this week.
Love Elder Harper:)

Monday, October 22, 2012



Hey everyone
 So something cool,  President Holm announced on our monthly mission conference call that Elder Bednar is visiting our mission on Nov 7 hahah that’s AWESOME, I’m so excited. For some reason he has become my favorite apostle and I honestly think he'll be the prophet soon. So that’s cool, he came to your stake conference and now he’s coming to my mission, I’ll try and get a picture with him!
(the guy next to me is using the scriptures on LDS.org haha and I just gave him a card from mormon.org)
So this week was really up and really down.  Elder lee got sick on Wednesday and was super contagious so we stayed in all day and then we worked on Thursday, and then Friday he was feeling worse so we stayed in till 4 when we went down to Aynor to have coordination and dinner with bro Allen our mission leader and we went out with him for the rest of the night, and then we also met this lady who told us that she had a dream and a man came to her and told her that 2 men would come and teach her about the truth haha that was crazy and so we taught her the restoration and then we went back and found out she has memory issues so were gonna have to work with that, but its a pretty cool story to tell.

 So I didn’t tell you guys last week but elder seaver is my new zone leader hahaha him and elder  abankwa, the black elder from Ghana.  Man, I was pretty excited when I heard that and I saw him at stake conference yesterday and gave him a big hug, its so weird to think he’s my zone leader but he will be a great one.

Hahaha I love grants costume that’s stinkin awesome.

Bummer that the Cards lost but they are better then before, who is RB other then beanie wells?
I hope we can throw a beat down on Oregon, let me know what happens

 Yes just send me a note in the mail on who would be the best to vote for all the other people cause, haha I have no idea on any of this stuff

hey dad for the pizza the only place I know is pizza hut in marion  and you can do it on Wednesday so have them drop it off at 5.

Well that’s all I have this week. Sorry not as much as I would like to write just short on time
Love Elder Harper :)

Monday, October 1, 2012

October 1, 2012



Hey there everyone,
Well we didn’t have anyone show up for church this week again it was kind of a bummer, really though I have gotten used to it cause most of my mission has been people not coming to church for whatever reason and it has been very humbling experience and also teaches me that sometimes no matter how badly you want to help people you can’t force them to do anything no matter how hard you want to, I just hope they realize what they are missing inside. We had a rough week, lots of appointments fell through for whatever reason, people always say oh I forgot or I had to go somewhere haha, but I don’t know, you wish they would let you know or tell you if they really aren’t interested in listening, but I guess all I can do is keep trying until we find the person who is willing to do things to change. We did find a lady named (J), i think I told you guys about her, she is really cool but she dropped us on wednesday she said in a text that she will contact us if she wants us to come teach her, haha it just breaks your heart when you meet someone so ready and they say not now, so hopefully she will change her mind soon. We did find a couple people, especially a mexican family they are cool, the daughters of the family speak great english and they are both married but live on the same street and the dad is okay with english but the mom speaks no english we were hoping they would come to church but they didn’t. Oh well, we are gonna try and teach them this week and they told us that they are catholic by inheritance and they aren’t practicing so that makes it easier. (S) mom also kind of had a freak out on us cause we went by last sunday morning to wake him up for church and she didn’t think that was okay, so she told us not to come by anymore, but hopefully that was just a short thing, but we are just giving them time. We have (L) and another guy (M) on baptism date for oct 27, so we are excited to see them progress. we found this cool guy named (P) he is in his 30's and is wanting to change his life which he already has started, he used to deal drugs and had lots of money from it but then realized it didn’t bring him lasting happiness so he stopped, but then he has since lost a lot because of no income, he has a strong desire to change though so I hope we can teach him this week and get him to come watch general conference.

We watch conference at the church building, I’m so excited for it I cant wait. We also are gonna be having an apostle come to the mission in October I believe and rumors are its Elder Bednar, so that would be pretty cool.

Man, its crazy to think coy is married haha, I never thought he would get married this fast. Tell him congrats for me.
Dylan is gonna be taking in some good mula at the bank.

Mom I thought you had a hand held video camera? and do the coaches video tape the games on the top of the commentator box on the stadium? 

I heard about the cardinals win streak, that’s so awesome, an investigator had it on at there house and they showed the highlights when we walked in so I saw a little bit of it haha I’m so glad kolb is good. Bummed about hockey lockout.

Keep working hard Grant don’t give up, show the coaches you deserve to start at DE.
Your awesome Alli!

Well that’s all I got for this week
Hope you have a great week
Love Elder Harper:) 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Baptism Week



September 24, 2012
Woooow, yeah so we had a great ending to a good week, (C) and (D) were baptized Saturday by their 19 year old brother (M). haha it took a couple times for each of them to get it right but they did, and I confirmed (C) and elder lee confirmed (D) and what was even cooler is on Saturday we had an investigator named (J) come to the baptism we had only met her the night before and we taught her the restoration and then invited her to the baptism so she came and she loved it and then afterwards we taught her the plan of salvation with the senior couple in our area the Bowman’s. She stayed up until 4am reading the book of mormon after we taught her the first time haha that’s cool. She didn’t come to church cause i think she felt a little overwhelmed cause have given her a lot of information in only 2 days and committed her to baptism so she told us that she was going to read and pray and let the spirit guide her on what to do, but hopefully we will be able to teach her on friday. we have been finding so many cool people lately and its so cool this area has been so prepared and people are just coming out and are so accepting to the things we teach, they might not all get baptized but they are open minded. Elder Lee and I are getting along great haha, we have such a good time together. It’s crazy to see how the time is going by and it goes so fast.

Well that is a great story to hear from coach moretti and yes i would be glad to help coach when I get back.

So mom i don’t think I will need another white shirt so don’t worry about it cause suit season starts right after conference anyway, so I wont really be wearing that many short sleeves.

Alli that’s a sweet cart wheel you did there, now you have to do a back flip!

I’m glad to hear brennan boyle is doing good, tell him I say hi.

That’s all I got for you guys
Love Elder Harper

Monday, September 17, 2012

Some new Pics!.

A fun random picture found on the Senior Couple's Missionary Blog.

Tranfer Day with Elder Harper on the right. His new companion to the left of him, Elder Lee. To the left of Elder Lee, is one of his former companions, Elder Stever.
                                      

Monday, September 17, 2012



Monday, September 17, 2012

Hey man its been a crazy week, hahaha

Yeah so last monday we got a flat tire, I think i told you guys about that but we had our little doughnut tire on for the day haha and we got it fixed on tuesday morning. Tuesday was crazy we were trying to find people to go to a fireside with president holm they are doing one every other month now but we couldn’t find anyone so that night we biked around Marion and went to a street to knock and the first door we knocked on we talked to this lady named (D) she is really nice and she said that she usually talks to missionaries but tells them to leave, cause they are too pushy or something and so we were glad that she hadn’t already told us to leave but we had a great conversation with her and she said she would read the book of mormon and pamphlet we gave her so we are excited to see what happens. We had interviews on Wednesday, it was great to  hang out with elder williams and elder isrealsen who are still the AP's and we also taught (C) and (D)who are the youngest boys of a part member family who has started coming back to church and they are being baptized this saturday the 22 which is way exciting. On thursday we got a call from (S) mom telling us to go talk to (S) cause something had happened at school so long story short we went over talked about it and also read the scriptures of the stripling warriors and he got pumped up about baptism and wants to go on a mission. So the next morning we got a voicemail from his mom telling us basically since we didn’t call her back and tell her what we talked about she didn’t want us talking to him or her or go to their house anymore and we were like "what the heck!!" NO!! but we found out that she was over reacting to us because (S) had run away and they couldn’t find him but last night after wondering where he had gone we found him walking down the street with help from his little brother so that was a relief and we put him on date for sep 29 to be baptized. We also had a birthday dinner at a pizza place with an older lady member who just turned 92 years old haha awesome.

Well that’s cool to hear about grant and sad about Eli getting hurt that’s the worst.

Man ASU LOST! They spanked missou last year, is the new QB Kelly pretty good? What year is he? freshmen?

Cool to hear about dylan.

love elder harper:)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Success!

Monday, September 10, 2012 9:06 AM
Wow this week was crazy!
 
So I don’t really know where to start. We had a zone training meeting with just the missionaries in the zone and the zone leaders and it was great to see elder McPheters there. We talked about Blythewood the whole time haha but it was a good meeting. Got to discuss the challenges in the zone and how we can overcome them, afterwards Elder Lee, Denny, Brinkerhoff and I went to a hibachi buffet in Florence and it was good. Elder Lee tried the baby squid hahaha ewww it was gross he got it on video but I wish I had my camera. oh yeah so last night as we were driving home we heard this loud clanking noise under our front left tire and we figured it was a nail but we couldn’t do anything about it in the dark so this morning we saw that our tire was flat! AHHHH! haha so we had to get out extra tire and change it which messed up our plans a little got a picture (first flat tire ive ever changed). Good thing elder lee knew how to do it.
 
Well on my exchange with elder Brinkerhoff I learned he is super smart and know lots of stuff especially like random stuff about the bible and he explained where the name Jehovah comes from that’s was cool and I wrote it all down. Then on Wednesday we had mutual and lots of kids came. I think we had 13 youth there which is awesome cause we have been getting like 1 or 2 there since I’ve been here and so the (G) family is active now they have 6 kids and then this new kid who is 17 named (W) and is almost a one year convert moved in and brought his cousin and we are gonna start teaching his cousins and family who he lives with him in (M) he is awesome.
 
Then Sunday we had 9 nonmembers at church it was so awesome. I’ve not had that many in so long. (L) and ( F) came and  (S) came and he loved it and he had a flamingo tie on haha, (W) brought his cousins it was a great day at church, so we had a pretty full week.
 
Man I’m excited that Duncan is going on a mission he is gonna have so much growth as a person I’m excited to see him when he gets back. yes tell him he needs a camera!
 
I’m excited to see elder law when I get home. That will be awesome.
 
I got the package it was great and the cookies are good.
 
I gave elder lee those names of people in alpine so well see if he knows any of them.
 
Everything is going awesome.
Love Elder Harper:)
 

Saturday, September 8, 2012

New Companion



Monday, September 3, 2012
Hey everyone,
So transfers happened and my new companion is Elder Zach Lee. He’s from Alpine, Utah but he came on his mission from Hawaii because he went to BYUH for a year. He’s a really cool guy and I am so glad he is my companion haha we get along great and he likes to talk, its just been great cause I can open up and laugh and have a good time and still be working hard and getting the work done that we need to, he also reminds me of Cory Thurston haha he has the same personality and he even looks like him a little bit so ill send you a picture and you can compare. Since he is from Alpine, mom he might know your friend that you have that lives there.  I don’t remember who it is or their name but could you tell me to see if he knows them. He also knows elder laws cousin, she goes to BYUH and he was good friends with her out there. So yeah, I’m pretty excited to have Elder Lee as my companion now, and also elder Cranford went to Charleston, Elder Stever was at transfers and he got white washed into Augusta with Elder Wilkinson. so I feel a little weird being the one taking the lead again, but I’m getting used to it fast. We have some investigators that kind of go on and off but D is doing great she is on date for Sept 29th and she has already read into 3 Nephi, she’s so cool and she knows the gospel is true. L and F are okay, they were staying with a friend but, they are now in a motel and it makes it even harder to teach them so we are kind of waiting to see what we can do and they have lots of stuff going on so they are pretty stressed out. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this family at all but the G family finally came to church they needed some church clothes, we found out, and so they came and I got a picture it was a great success they are less active but they have 2 younger sons who haven’t been baptized yet so we are gonna fix that. Oh, and our district has changed. We are no longer with Florence anymore we got switched to the Conway district which is just us and the conway elders, Denny and Brinkerhoff, and elder Denny is the district leader so we are just a regular companionship which wasn’t what i was expecting, but I like it cause we can just focus on the work. Elder Lee has only been out for 3 months he just got finished being trained in Augusta! So he is my second companion that has come out of training.

So, that’s pretty crazy to hear that Eric is getting married haha man tell him congrats for me.
Also, i don’t know if you guys are video taping the games or that somebody is cause I want to be able to watch some of these awesome plays, all I can do is think in my mind how awesome it would look to see grant doing that. Keep it up buddy, go destroy the other teams.
Yea the weather here is always changing. It was mostly cloudy and rainy for august and know its really humid and hot again, but hopefully it will start to cool off cause the leaves on the trees are starting to change earlier then normal
 Well I think that’s all i have to write this week I can’t think of anything else. Tell Dylan I say Hi tonight and I would love to hear from him in a letter. How is Tanner doing?

Love Elder Harper:)

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Oh my gosh it is almost September!


Monday, August 27, 2012
Well hello everyone!!
So we had transfer calls on saturday and elder cranford we found out is leaving and also that he is getting called to be a district leader, I got released as the district leader which i wasn’t expecting but I guess they are having a younger missionary have his go at it and I can help him since i know how to do it so well. President gave me the assignment to help train elder cranford on taking the leader role as he was senior companion and then have me do the district leader duties, so it was cool to know that president has enough confidence and trust in me that he is having me train the younger elders in leadership, its been stressful but I’m excited to see who I get and they will be the district leader. So we had a great week we went up to see (L) and (F) and we took brother (W)’s grandson with us who is married and living with them his name is (B) and he is from hilton head which is where uncle john lives, anyway he went with us and was able to give them some tips on how to fix relationship issues which is the biggest thing they need to work on and they have come a long ways in a week. They aren’t yelling at each other anymore and don’t get as offended as easy, they are still working on the smoking and she still needs a different job but it’s gotten better slowly. I also went on an exchange in Florence with elder fisher and we had a great 2 days together he is a great missionary and is lots of fun to be around, also elder wilkinson is getting transferred. That’s pretty much all i can think of that’s happened this week. Today we are gonna go out to the swamp with chris (D) haha, I’m excited.

Man that is cool to here about dylan seeing tanner at pvcc! Is tanner going to pvcc too? Tell dylan I’m excited to be able to hang out with him like all day! everyday. I want to try and write him soon.
Tell dylan he needs to start getting in shape so that he can train with me so we can run st. george together.

Cousin eric probably met either elder heywood, or wilcock they are also from mesa and it most likely was elder wilcock he was in my district in aiken when he went home, i loved him so much he is awesome

Dad you can’t get bronchitis now you almost got the marathon comin up.

I'm sending a letter today that is for duncan, I have tried to send it like 4 times but it keeps sending it back to me so I didn’t put his name on it this time
I’m writing Joel today also.

Dad, I love that story about the pioneers taking of their shoes at the start, such a cool story about revelation from the early saints

Well I think that’s all i have this week, excited to see who my new companion will be and excited to have another great week and last 6 months .
Love you guys :)
Elder Harper

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Newer Pictures

Country roads of Marion SC

Elder Harper and Cranford picking Blueberries

Elder Cranford safe in the car away from the snake

Some very serious hamburgers!

A few fun pictures!

MTC roomates in Provo, April 2011
                                            
August 2012 Elders Ultra, Harper, Williams, Berenyi
                                          
Goodbye to Elder Law, Kelly's trainer, who is going home to Arizona
                                    
    
Our family with Elder Law at his homecoming talk in July 2012
                                       

Pictures earlier in the summer

Goodbye to Elder Stever and Aiken, SC
                                             
Our last pizza delivery for Elders Gonzalez, Cramer, Stever and Harper
                              

Kel giving his message to Mr. Aiken before leaving Aiken SC
              
Snacking on Mexican Candy
                                      
                                     
                                  

                                               

Monday August 20, 2012


Monday August 20, 2012
Hey there everyone,
 This week has been good, i went on exchanges with elder Wilkinson in Florence on wednesday and thursday it was good to talk to him he is one of my favorite missionaries cause he just gets it, he knows how to treat others and always has the right words to say at the right time and they are always inspired, he is 22 so he graduated when I was a sophomore I believe which is weird cause he came out a month after me i wondered why he seemed so much older, anyway he is just awesome and he is on a lemon juice cleanser diet where he can’t eat anything or drink anything except lemon juice mixed with syrup and cayenne pepper powder haha he goes to the bathroom like crazy lol.  Transfer calls come on saturday. We are still teaching (L) and (F) they are still trying to work out their relationship problems, what’s worse is that since they don’t have any steady income they got their lights cut off so they are staying in a friends house even further away. They were supposed to come to church but she had to work late and didn’t get up till 30 minutes before church so that was a bummer.  (L) doesn’t know if he wants to get baptized but (F) wants to for sure. We also had our investigator (D) who is 13 also missed church which stinks cause she was gonna get baptized this saturday but it will have to be sep 1st instead.

The stuff on the yellow stick is a mexican candy elder stever and i got from a mexican tienda store which carries real authentic mexican stuff, its a gooey candy with pepper powder in it its pretty good.

the little boy (L) ( haha i dont know how to spell his name) anyway he is just the coolest kid ever he is 4 years old and sister (DR) in the branch who has been a member for a couple months does foster care and she had him for a little while but she had to give him back to his parents, that kid will get baptized one day and she will make sure of it.

We picked blueberries with the senior couple (the Bowmans) and bro weatherford ( the big guy) and his family. 

The guy holding the snake is an investigator named (A).

Man, why are the heggerman’s moving!!? Why is everybody I love moving away AHHHHH!

LATE HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLI!!!, hope you have a great day, I’m excited to hear about you doing gymnastics just be careful not to break bones

I got a good letter from bro McCormick

Yea I have lost my extra chunk cause we never eat dinner here hardly cause our apartment is inconvenient and we only have like 2 member meals a week, plus elder cranford makes us pack a lunch everyday and I don’t get to eat much.

The dizziness is completely gone but I still have a little mucus in my chest but its pretty much gone

Hey tell dad to take glucosamine and also grant it would be good for his knees especially in football

Well that’s all I’ve got this week
Love Elder Harper :)

Wednesday, August 15, 2012







We have not gotten pictures from him since May, so I have not added any. I found this picture on a Mission facebook page and so I added it. Kelly is 3rd from the right of Mission Presidents wife in red hair.

Miracle Week


Monday, August 13, 2012
AHHHHH! What’s up fam damily, loved your guys letter to me. Oh and by the way dad don’t send pics from your Iphone cause they don’t come up on the computers so if you could some how change the format before you send it that would be great.
 Well, this week has been awesome we have found lots of cool investigators and some we haven’t been able to get a hold of which stinks but we found who we weren’t expecting to find on Friday while we were walking in the rain knocking on doors in a trailer park. we knocked on the third trailer and this guy opened the door named (L) he said i don’t know how interested I would be but my girlfriend  might and she actually was walking up to the door all wet from the rain and she came up and said come in so we did and their names are (L) and  (F).  They aren’t married but are living together they have a 3 year old son (L) is 21 and (F) is 20 and both of them have had rough lives, (F) even started crying when she was telling us how she knows that god loves her. We taught them the whole restoration and they both loved everything, (F) is very in tune with the spirit you can tell. When we told her about Joseph Smith’s vision she said she totally believes that that could happen and they each said a prayer to know if everything was true. Unfortunately  they missed church yesterday but we went over for our appointment and they told us why they didn’t make it, but we taught them the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom and law of chastity and they threw away all their alcohol and everything and tore up their bags of tea and accepted to get married and baptized on September 1st AWESOME!!  So yea they are pretty sweet and we are bringing their stop smoking packet to them tomorrow.

I haven’t really gotten any letters from anyone since I have been here in Marion just one from Mariah

Where is Dylan going to college at, PVCC? have dylan talk to cameron  about going on a mission cause i haven’t heard anything from him.

You need to watch the movie Facing the Giants.  President Holm showed us the part from the movie called the death crawl, grant especially would like that, haha it pumped me up.

Dad, i bought some glucosamine a couple weeks ago and my joints feel so good and don’t hurt at all when I walk up stairs, so you should get some.

 I miss the Olympics so much I’m bummed I didn’t get to watch them hopefully they will play them on tv when I get back.  Cool to hear abut Phelps.

Love you guys have a great week
Elder Harper :)