Tuesday, March 19, 2013

LAST LETTER!



Well this is my last email home and I’m gonna make it short and sweet cause i can tell you when i get back.

Cool to hear that steve  got called into the stake presidency, I wasn’t expecting that to happen at all,  president cannon will be great, his son clark went to pinnacle with me.

So this week was pretty sweet we had an awesome lesson on thursday with (S) and we talked to him about baptism and told him that he is ready, because he doesn’t feel that he is and when we read the baptismal questions with him and we were like you are ready and he even told us he knows that the church is true and that joseph smith is a prophet so that was pretty sweet.  He is getting baptized this saturday the 23rd and he was sad when i told him i was leaving. It was a good week though. Elder Moore is doing great he is ready to lead the area he will be a great missionary, he brings the spirit very well and loves everyone

I might be sending a box home I’m not for sure yet though, cause it might all fit in my suit case under the weight limit.
 I will be leaving my bike here and putting up for sale with the mission.

Well, that’s all i got, see you on thursday at 12
Love Elder Harper:)

ARIZONA HERE I COME!

cool to see picks of eric


Not as Cold !



March 11, 2013
Hey everyone,
 Well this week started out pretty cold, but the past 3 days have been really nice and today its supposed to be in the mid 70s so its gonna be good. This week I don’t know how to describe it, we had a lot of good stuff planned, but a lot fell through. We had another fireside where we invite investigators and less actives and we had (S) coming but he had an emergency so he wasn’t able to make it and we haven’t been able to teach him for a while because he has been busy. We have had a hard time finding people, I don’t know why it’s been so hard, but it has and we haven’t been able to teach much either cause we haven’t really found anyone to teach. We have some possible good stuff happening with the less actives in the ward. We went on an errand for our high priest group leader to go see his less-active grandaughter and we went and talked to her and she said she would love for us to come by and teach her some, so we are pretty excited to do that. So the sisters in our ward have been trying to get in contact with ( R ),my convert here, cause she lives in their area and she left them a message today saying that she had to move up to Columbia cause her daughter has been in the hospital, so I’m bummed that i didn’t get to see her before she left, but hopefully she can go to church up there. So I got my bike cleaned a little bit, Nate in the ward knows how to work on them so he did a little bit for me and yes I’m going to leave it here and sell it to someone. Yes, i will be sending some boxes home I’m not sure how many though but maybe 2, I’ll do it next Monday, cause I didn’t have time today. Yes, next Tuesday will be my last work day with elder moore and i will try to get as many pictures as i can with the other elders. I will be going home with the same 3 elders i came out with and also elder Abankwa cause he got an extension and 3 other sisters

Way cool to see the picture of grant doing shot put, how did he do? Is he the best on the team?. Dude you are so big i can’t wait to see you in person.

We couldn’t really do anything for p-day today cause the other elders went to Charleston with their soon to be convert to play frisbee golf, I wish we could have gone, but oh well. We didn’t get to see the planes last week cause they all were in the air doing training, so that was a bummer but maybe next week we'll see. 

Well, that’s all for this week, crazy to think it’s the last full one, I’m gonna make it the best ever. Keep praying that we will find some cool people.
Love Elder Harper:)

March 4, 2013



March 4, 2013
Wooow that has to be the most new emails in my inbox on my whole mission like 24 of them hahaha took me a while to get through them all.

Well this week was good it was a lot better then the last 2 weeks we've had. Nobody came to church for us, but (S) our investigator who is in the army had to go to Georgia, so that’s why he wasn’t there, but we just don’t have any really solid investigators, we are trying to find them just nothing yet. We taught a lot of people but most of them were just people that wanted to talk and then didn’t really want us to teach them more, it was good still though. We didn’t get to take a tour of the plane last week cause it was pouring rain all day, but we did go to a Mexican food stand with the Spanish elders and get some real Mexican food, I got some cow tongue quesadilla’s, mmmm those were goood! We are going to get the tour of the planes today because its not raining, hopefully I can take pictures. We went to a member’s house early in the week and they are an older couple, the (G’s). They are really nice and the wife is Japanese, haha she is funny, but she got baptized 3 years ago and they still haven’t gone to the temple and so we talked to them and the hold up is because she doesn’t understand what the temple is really for and so we are gonna help them get on the path to get sealed. It has been so stinkin cold this week ha I don’t know why cause it’s March, but it is just still in the mid 40's and the wind is blowing hard and the humidity makes it feel colder. We had dinner last night with a young member couple who just moved into the ward and he is an air force fire fighter, it’s pretty cool and he also is a 3 year convert. It was cool to hear their story, and they are both younger then me, it feels so weird for there to be married couples younger then me that I could be friends with back home. We had a mission tour with Elder Marcus B. Nash of the Seventy, he came and it was so cool the stuff he talked about, about how to help people gain a desire to become active in the church again or to do missionary work.
 He also taught us how to help others receive revelation, even in a teaching setting by asking them questions.  He is now one of my favorite general authorities

Well cool to see all the pictures of dad driving through Boiling Springs, it was weird to see you at the same place I road my bike past every day.

I didn’t know Jordan was getting home already, ha tell him hi for me.

Well, that’s all for this week
Love,
 Elder Harper :)




Monday, February 25, 2013

pedal pedal pedal....pedal pedal pedal pedal



Monday, February 25, 2013
Hey there fam,
 Well this week was better then last week, even though we didn’t really teach much but we were able to talk to a lot of people and helped a lot of people, like on Thursday night it was about 8:56 and we were at the last intersection before we go into our apartments and its a really busy one where there are a lot of accidents.  This guys big white cargo van ran out of gas right in the intersection so we were just waiting for the light to turn green and I said to elder Moore, quick put your bike on the side, so we chucked our helmets and bikes and helped this guy push his van to the gas station right there, ha that thing was heaaaavy!! then he offered to buy us some drinks but we said know we do this for free and we told him who we were and he said that we could come by and teach him so we are gonna go by some time and teach him. We have been hauling it on our bikes, yesterday we went to this road that took about and hour to bike, elder Moore isn’t as fast as me but that’s okay he does really good for not biking much in his life, but that was a killer ride. We had stake conference yesterday and it was great we had the (R)’s there and they enjoyed it, ha we also had dinner with them this week and they are so awesome, they are like into the doctrine and covenants and they just love to study especially (B) he is loving the pearl of great price and he says a lot of it makes sense, plus he is very knowledgeable when it comes to biblical stuff. He has lots of books that talk about biblical or religious stuff like one about giants, ha that one is interesting. Today we might be taking a tour of the air force base and also get to go into a c-17 carrier plane and we are gonna get some real tacos from a mexican tienda.

Well, Dad  I’m excited that you get to go through Spartanburg today, you should just drive up highway 9 into Boiling Springs for a little bit and you’ll see what I biked for 4 months, i would tell you to go the A’s home (the ones from AZ) but i cant remember their address but you could go see the church or my apartment on, old furnace rd. I really want to go to the Beacon, I never got to eat there.

So it is way crazy to hear about all the new missions and the changes in missions, I think its crazy that they split the mesa mission into 3 missions and created a Scottsdale one, I never even thought we had enough members to do that but I guess we do.  
Thanks for the super TRUNKY package

Well that’s all I got for you guys this week,
Love
 Elder Harper :)



Saturday, February 23, 2013

Coooooold



February 18, 2013
Hey fam,
 Well this week has been really hard for me, so we got sisters in our ward now along with us and so we had to give them our car and we got put on bikes full time, which I really don’t mind at all but it doesn’t help that as soon as we did that it has been the coldest week all winter and not just by a little, but a lot. It has normally been 50 at night, and this week, but mostly saturday and sunday it got down to like 38-43 degrees, and it has also been really humid because it rained on Saturday and then that night after we were asleep it snowed, hahah crazy. It was only a little flurry of snow so it didn’t stick but the next morning on top of the cars it froze so there was little specks of white. So yea, we have been freezing our buns off on our bikes. Saturday night we had an interesting experience we talked to this guy who was trying to prove the book of mormon false by saying all this stuff about how the book of mormon says we are saved by grace after all we can do and that the bible in Ephesians 2 says that its not our works but grace alone that saves us and then trying to tell us that Joseph smith wasn’t a prophet because some of the things he prophesied didn’t happen, and he was good he knew a lot of stuff,  and after 30 minutes of listening to him and trying to tactfully end the conversation, I just boldly told him he is wrong and that I know the book of mormon is true and a couple other things and I was like you have a nice day. I also said something to him  and he like didn’t know what to say he was baffled, ha I felt way good cause then he came up with a response that wasn’t very good and the whole time we were freezing cause we were trying to get into Wal-Mart to buy some gloves and beanies. It’s just been hard for me this week having to deal with all this stuff, trying to get our biking figured out. But it was cool at church everything that the guy argued with us about was talked about at church and it just strengthened my faith,
     Cool story though, last night on our way back home last night we had a 25 minute bike ride to do, but I knew since elder moore is not as fast and since it was really cold that it would take about 45 minutes so we left in time to get there a little after 9 and 8 minutes later my back tire goes flat. So I pump it up fast and we start riding again and then it goes flat 6 minutes later, I do the same and 4 minutes later it goes flat, so I got off and ran the bike to the next stop light and I was praying that it would stay inflated the rest of the ride which was longer then what we had just gone and I pumped it up as fast as I could and the tire was as hard as a rock and we rode the whole way in 20 minutes and it stayed pumped up the whole time, and we got back right at 9 so I could get numbers in. coincidence? I think not.  Oh yeah, and I got called to be a district leader again and my whole district is sisters, ha I’ve never had that before and it doesn’t happen that often

  For my birthday, me and elder moore went to chipotle for dinner, it was good.

 Wooow dad you are like really skinny now you have like no belly anymore, (elder Brown says you look like you just got out of the holocaust) haha at least that’s what the picture make you look like  

Yes, elder brown is in my apartment and the apartment stayed the same the whole zone pretty much stayed the same except for those who went home which was only 2 elders so no companionship change other then the 2 new sister in our ward

Yes, I got my package okay, got it today it came a little late.
I will send thank you notes to people, ps, try to keep as much stuff at home as you can so I don’t have to lug it home with me

Those are some cool mission calls they got.

Well, that’s all I have this week
Love Elder Harper:)

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Gators in South Carolina



Lots of changes



Monday, February 4, 2013
Heyyy
Well don’t let the title scare you, only a couple things have changed in our ward here. There are a couple families moving out and we have some new ones moving in, our ward mission leader bro. ( C )got released, he is in the air force and he is going to have a crazy work schedule soon and might even be moving soon, but they don’t know, i was bummed cause he is really good at doing his job and getting across to the ward what needs to happen, but we had one of our ward missionaries get assigned as the ward mission leader his name is bro (L), he and his wife have only been in the ward for like 6 months and he is 23 years old and his wife is like 21 hahaha way young, but he is gonna be awesome, he really has a drive to do his best. He works on engines for the C-17's that always land and take off here from the air force base and the ward called the( R)’s to be ward missionaries for 6 months, that’s pretty awesome. We were over at their house last night answering gospel questions and showing them preach my gospel and what it’s for, they act like long time members, ha I can’t wait to come back and see them get sealed in the temple in a year. So this week we taught (S) again he is doing great he has kept all his reading assignments and he really likes what we teach. He didn’t come to church yesterday, he told us he couldn’t come for some reason, he didn’t tell us why but I’m sure it was legit, we also taught (L) this week and we read with him in alma 36 about alma telling his conversion story, and we told him how he needs to pray and read the book of mormon and that will be how he gets his answer and so he said to text him every day with a scripture to read so that he will remember to read, he also didn’t come to church cause his girlfriends grandma died and he went to be with her. Then we got a referral from a member in our ward and we went and taught them yesterday with bro ( C) and they are cool, they know they need to change and that this is something that can change their life for the better. The husband has had anger management issues and its been hard on their marriage, their names are (J) and (A), (A) is from guam and they accepted to be baptized on feb 23rd also. I don’t know why the lord is blessing us with so many people to baptize but I know that as you keep the commandments and endure with faith and patience the lord blesses you when you least expect, it sometimes is at the very end but even more reason to keep the commandments to the end. My testimony has grown so much over the past 2 weeks, especially thinking that I don’t have time to just go through the motions and sit back and learn, like at the beginning of my mission. I am to be the most engaged as I can, its crunch time with only 6 weeks left including this week.

Charleston was awesome last week. We got to see the angel oak and got to walk on the pier and see the ocean yeahhhh, i loved the smell of the ocean it was a bit cold but still awesome and we got to go to the battery and the market, there is some cool stuff there. We also went to a place called the pepper palace and they have the hottest hot sauce in the universe they suggest one drop for every 4 gallons of food and I dipped a tooth pick in it and touch the end to my tongue and it burned for about 30 minutes after, ha it was way hot.


So who won the superbowl? I was going for the Ravens! joe flacco and ray lewis

Ryan is going to Indonesia, that’s not what i was expecting, that’s cool though.

We got the pizza it was way good, I liked the toppings and I’ve never had them before

Well, that’s all i got this week. Thanks for the letters hope you have a great week.
Love
 Elder Harper:)

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Cold in Charleston!



Monday January 28, 2013
Hey family,
 So this might be a short email because we are going down to historical downtown Charleston today with elder hanson and brown and one of our awesome members nate (A). I’m so excited to go see all the cool stuff down there. Well we had a great ending to our week, for some reason it seems we have a slow start to our week and then it gets better the last, like 4 days, which i don’t mind, I just wish that everyday it was like that, but sometimes that’s just how it works. So we went out with a ward missionary and we saw 3 former investigators with him that we haven’t been able to see in a while. First, is (L) we taught him for a while when elder lee was still here and then he slowly just fell off the map, but we went over with brother (N) and tried to find out if this is what he wants to do and he said he really does he has just been unable to really do anything and he has been a little lazy, so we recommitted him to read the book of mormon and pray about it and bro (N) shared his testimony and his conversion story when he was about 20 and how the church and gospel have changed him.  I think it really helped (L) realize what this could do for him, he couldn’t come to church but we are gonna commit him to be there next week, we also saw the (M’s) after a long time and we had a great lesson also bro (N) again was  awesome and shared his testimony and said, I will give you some money for gas so that you can get to church cause that has been a major issue is that they have no income and can’t drive many places cause gas is too expensive, so they came but they didn’t come to our ward they came to the goose creek ward at 1 instead, haha I guess they forgot the time changed. Then last night we went over to a less active family's house named the (B’s) and we taught one of the daughters boyfriends named (S) he is a cool tall black dude and he plays basketball and was in the army but he is a month younger then me, haha that was weird to find out, anyway we taught him the plan of salvation and he loved it and even told us that he had a brother die and wanted to know where his brother is and when we told him about the temple and how he could see his brother in heaven, he really wants that and he accepted to be baptized on February 16, ha 2 days after my birthday that will be exciting. He said he will do anything necessary. So that was our wonderful week. Elder moore is getting the hang of things more, especially in teaching he taught most of the lesson last night to (S), it was awesome.

That’s way cool to hear about the basketball being on ESPN and on the news paper even cooler a mormon was on the front page, go did they win?

Yes mom, sorry i didn’t send the memory card again cause i forgot my camera when we went to walmart so I will be sending it today for sure
  
Well, that’s all I got
Love you guys, have a great week
Love Elder Harper

January 21, 2013



Hey y’all,
 Well this week was good, we had a missionary fireside with president holm that we invited a bunch of people to, it was great, we had a couple people come including the (R's) and a less active lady that we’ve been trying to get to come to something, so that was good but she didn’t come to church so that was a bummer. The day of the fireside and before we went out in a 3 pack with one of the AP's elder lash (he knows luke hansen and went to east high with him) and we had some good lessons and taught a bunch, it was great. There is a less active lady that has started coming back because her dad, who actually lives in az, has been talking to her about the church and she has come 2 weeks in a row and we went over and read out of the book of mormon with her. It is great to see people come back and their lives just change for the better and they are so much happier. We are gonna be teaching her, and a couple other members who are returning to activity, the discussions again so that they have a better understanding of the gospel, I’m excited. Also, this week elder moore and I have been learning about family history work and how it can be used to reactivate and retain new members and we watched some videos about missionaries who have done it and they have had lots of success and so we really want to try doing it more to see how it works. Especially here, there are lots of members but we only have 23% activity in our ward and we are working really closely with our elders quorum president and our young men’s president. We have some great members here and a good ward mission leader. I’m loving it out here, we have been struggling with finding people, but lots of good stuff is happening in other places, that i think will affect our teaching. We just have to keep doing what we know to do

 Sorry mom, I did not send the memory card cause I wanted to print out some pictures and the picture thing at walmart was not working so I decide to wait till this week to send it so I could print out some pictures.

 Yes, I got your small box along with your letter it was good and the banana bread is good i haven’t tried the other stuff yet.

Love all the cars, and excited about all the changes with the cards, and suns, hopefully the suns will turn it around and yotes, will be good again.

Well, I’m glad everything is going great, grant good job on wanting to prepare early for your mission, i hope you do a better job then i did and hope your finishing that book of mormon.

Have a great week
Love Elder Harper:)

January 14, 2013



Well my first full week training Elder Moore went well. We had all types of experiences, we met some very nice people and met some very mean people, haha one even pulled out a baseball bat on us and threatened us and told us to leave or he would call the cops, that was an exciting one. The best part though was that I got to baptize (B) and (T) and then Elder Moore confirmed them both in sacrament, they are gonna be such great members and during church they participated even more than they normally do. We have really been working on finding new investigators because we are low on people to teach, but like always when you are obedient and doing your best and when you have an awesome ward, someone always wants to be taught.  We had a young single girl who came up to us and told us her boyfriend has expressed interest in learning what we believe and we have met him a couple times, he’s way nice so I would love to be able to teach him. This week has been crazy, the zone leaders car had to go into the shop so we have been sharing our car and biking and we have had to do lots of emergency pick ups and drop offs with them. Elder Moore is doing great he has been coming out of his shell a lot this week. It’s been warm here the past 4 days and we have been able to take our suit coats off, its been nice. I love training and I wish I could have done it more, but I think elder Moore will be glad he got me as his trainer, a legacy will be left with him and he will do great things.
 Man, bummed to hear about Wisenhunt, I really liked him I think Graves was the problem he didn’t know a whole lot. Why are they trying to trade Upton? they just start dealing off all of our stars first Reynolds then Upton.
Sounds like ASU is doing great though and they are improving i guess Kelly must be a pretty solid QB. I call coyotes to the playoffs again, the cup is ours this year.

I told elder Moore about his email, so he figured it out.

When I get back I am gonna have to run and work out like crazy cause my cardio fitness is wayyyy down, I’m keeping good weight though.
I’m sending that memory card today, mom don’t worry.
Grant how’s the book of mormon reading going?? got to be done by March 21!

Well hope you have a great week, pray that we will find some awesome people
Love Elder Harper:)

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Greeeenie Time!



January, 7 2013
Heyyyyy!
 So you guys are all probably wanting to know who my new trainee is, his name is Elder Preston Moore he is from New Mexico. He is a great guy, he talks a lot and he has a great desire to be out here on a mission and really loves it. It’s interesting now being on the other side as the trainer. It’s weird sometimes as we are doing our companion studies, I’ll just like flashback to when I was with elder law in our boiling springs apartment and how young I was and how smart i thought he was. I was like, man if I could ever know as much as him, or be as good as him, and then now I know that it all comes from experience, and learning from your experiences. I always thought that training a new missionary would be so hard and i never wanted to do it, but then now that I am doing it, its hard at times but its really not that hard you just have to make sure that you are the perfect example to him because he watches everything you do.  So there is a little bit of pressure but I just have to say to myself that I’m not perfect and it is okay to make mistakes as long as I’m learning from them and using them as teaching moments, as a trainer you are constantly teaching something weather you use words or just actions. So that’s that, we had the ( R) interview on Saturday and they are good to go they passed. Elder Rasmussen is our district leader now, so he interviewed them, our districts got changed up a little since they took elders out of the second ward that meets in our building (goose creek ward) and they put sisters in and Elder Rasmussen was the closest district leader to us, so I will probably get to finish my mission with him as my DL. So the( R’s) will be baptized this Saturday the 12th and I will be baptizing them and Elder Moore will be confirming them both, I’m so excited i get to be a part of them being baptized they have been investigating for over 2 years and (B) just quit smoking on the 1st and (T) quit coffee the same day and she said she has no desire for it anymore. We also met a guy this week named( M) he is agnostic and as we were walking to our car in a apartment complex he said are you Jehovah Witnesses we said no, Mormons and he said come in I’m interested in your religion and he talked to us for about 30 minutes, he is cool. He wants to read the Book of Mormon and believe in God. Oh, elder Lee went to downtown Columbia with elder Tonga who is from Tonga

 The only other new missionary in our apartment is Elder Brown he is Elder Hanson’s companion as a zone leader he’s from Utah.

 Yes, i got the new years package alright but it was after transfers, haha I have so much candy to eat

Way cool, to hear that grant is a licensed driver now, so he will be driving my explorer until I get back right?

 Oh and reminder for my birthday, don’t send anything like ties or clothes just keep that stuff, if you want to send junk food that’s fine but I’m trying to get rid of all the stuff I don’t need and will be sending a box home probably towards the middle or end of February.
 Grant, how’s the Book of Mormon reading going, remember i challenged you to read it all before I got home? I’m going to finish D&C before I come home.
What is madison’s mission address?
Did ASU go to a bowl game?.

Well, that’s all I have for this week, love you guys, talk to you soon.
Love Elder Harper

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Pictures at Christmas

Elder Lee and Harper, sent to us from someone in their ward

 Skyping with Elder Harper on Christmas morning!

New Years



Monday, December 31, 2012
Woooow
 Man, so we had a great week. Christmas was filling and I mean literally. We had 3 meals and by the end of the night i felt like a blueberry, my stomach was so full you could have rolled me home, and then the next day we had a big Filipino dinner with a less active and his daughter they are from Hawaii, it was way good. Loved all the presents and even the junk food that I will eat even though, I’m trying not to gain anymore weight, well ill just have to be tactful. I also spoke in sacrament the Sunday before Christmas about what its like to serve a mission during Christmas, and I realized how ive come to truly learn what Christmas is all about and how Christ is the center and everything else is nice that is added to it, but not the important stuff, but that Christmas, like the temple has lots of symbolism and that is still why we do the gifts and everything else. (S) finally got baptized, she showed up a little late and we practiced how we were gonna do the baptism and to hold on to my arm and when we actually did it she freaked out and let go of my arms and she is a bigger girl so, i like had to hold her with one arm and push her down with my other and even though im strong I had to really work to get her up, hahaha and she swallowed a bunch of water, she was good though. Sooo, i bet your wondering the big news, so elder lee is getting transferred and president assigned me to train for my last 2 transfers, so pray that i get a good new greenie Its crazy to think that im in my last area, with my last companion, it felt like this time would never come. that’s way cool stuff you told me about albert choules, and that's sweet that elder oaks spoke at the funeral wish I could have been there.

Well we were bummed we didn’t get to bowl last week but we are going today and we are gonna do it for like 4 hours, its gonna be sweet and then im taking everyone in our apartment out to texas road house for dinner and then we have to be in the apartment by 8.

I don't know what else to say.
It would be way cool to have grandma speak on the same day as me and have the whole family there

love you guys
Elder Harper:)

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

December 24, 2012

Hey there so i'm just sending a quick response, not going to be a long letter but yes we are gonna skype at 12 my time and yes we have been invited to have dinner with a family for Christmas eve.  We also are going bowling today, haha gonna be so fun and then we have 3 meals on Christmas. That's all I have for you now but i'm excited to talk to you guys, i wish it could have been when the rest of the family was there but i'll see everyone soon so no worries.
 
 Love Elder Harper :)