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:)