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