Dec 12, 2011

hello this is buddy the elf, how may i help you?!!!

ive been saying that so much this week haha its been stuck in my head hahaha anyway, this week was good we had exchanges with the zone leaders this week and i went with elder law. me and him had a great time on exhcanges, we went to see (L) and we went completely by the spirit on what we were gonna teach her, we had no idea what was gonna happen and we just sat down out on her porch cause we cant go in cause there is no male in the home so we had to sit outside, and we just talked to her about what has been happening with her and her life and she just is struggling with faith right now, and she is depressed cause her mom has stage 3 breast cancer and so she is haveing a hard time, so we just asked her questions trying to see what we can do to help her increase her faith and we also read some scriptures alma 32 about faith and 2nephi 32about the holy ghost and how as we read the scriptures and pray then the holy ghost will tell us all things that we should do. it was really great but she still is hesitant to set a date for baptism cause she doesnt want to be rushed into it even though she wants to be baptized again. so that was a little frustrating but we had a great lesson with her,and we have a member family the murreys who are fellowshipping her they brought her some cookies or something and became freinds a little, they were supposed to bring her to church but we couldnt get a hold of her and either could they so that was a bummer. we finished re-teaching the lessons to sister yates this week she has been less active for 10 years and hasent been to the temple in probably 12 years so now she can get her recommend so that was great.

when i was with elder law on exchanges we realized that i am at the same point in my mission that he was when he trained me, thats soo freaking crazy!! ahhhh!! its flying by

we have christmas zone conference this week on friday in lexington and all my companions will be there except elder winger, haha im a so stoked to see all of them even my whole mtc district will be there except for the sisters, i got your packages haha and i loved the huge roll of paper that was signed and stuff haha i noticed that autumn and alex wrote a bunch on it hahaha.

so something cool this week i found out that another person in my ward here in blythewood knows someone from back home, brother tyler clark who is a dentist in the army went to school in san francisco with brian harris and they had the same classes together haha i was like no way that is sooo crazy i love brother harris, and tonight we have dinner with the mcdonalds so im gonna get a picture with them cause they know jon peterson, all the cool people in this ward know all my favorite people back in AZ.

so our ward mission leader told me that ASU fired dennis erickson or he actually opted out but is noel mazzone still the offensive coordinater? and also that we are playing boise state in the vegas bowl which is cool too. anything else happen? i also heard that chris paul is playing for the lakers hahaha that is so gay

well i dont know what else to write cause i never got an email from you guys this week sooooo haha, i do like the christmas cd though its really good

oh and i found out that we can skype for christmas and probably from now on so if you guys know someone you could borrow it from we could do it cause the christensens said that we could skype at there house but that would depend on if i get transfered or not, i hope i dont though cause that would stink

well anyway i thats all i have i think so i will talk to you guys later, hope you have a great week i have all my presents sitting in a corner of the room and i cant wait to open them

Love Elder Harper:)

Dec 5, 2011

welll hello!

 

soo ya this week was good, well we didnt get to teach as many people as we had planned to cause people werent there for appointments and we had someone drop us also, sadly our coolest investigator lakyra got back from florida for thanksgiving and her mom has breast cancer and so she got back and i guess has been really depressed and so she called us and told us that she just needs to be a lone for a while so that was really a bummer, so please pray for her if you can. i guess i will talk about our investigators while im on that subject, we have a family named the johnsons who me and elder mcpheters taught the first lesson and then we have tried to see them and they are like never home we caught them last week but they werent home for the appointment we set up so we dont know yet what to do with them we will probably give them another chance before we drop them. then we have alex the really cool guy who has mormon.org bookmarked on his computer who we talked to last saturday, we havent taught him but we are calling him today because he never called us this week like he said he would. then we have Rory he is really cool and interested in a modern prophet, he is a chaplins assistant, we were going to teach him at the christensens(coolest family ever) tomorrow but sister christensens uncle died so we might not be able to do it then so thats up in the air right now, the dixons who we met a long time ago, who were really cool have not been available, so we are going to contact them after the holidays. then we have a guy named christopher who is pretty cool he is a chaplins assistant also and he is super interested and he is really cool but he has been sick so he is gonna call us when he isnt anymore, and those are our best investigators we also are finishing up teaching sister yates she is from germany and has been less active for 10 years and is preparing to go to the temple now we are teaching her the last lesson this week, we also are teaching a less active family the Mabeys in hopes that they will come back and that their 9 year old daughter will decide to be baptized. yep so thats what we are working on here in blythewood, we also just got the ward to start doing exchanges with the elders and high priests and they hopefully will start in 2 weeks maybe next week. so there is a lot of rwork to be done in the ward and its taking time hahaha.

 

we are also going to help a cool family the harms move out of the ward, bro harms is a chaplin in the army for the church and he cant proselyte at all, they are moving to el paso, texas. i will definatley friend him on facebook when i get back home, along with the christensen's.

 

this last week we had a special training meeting with president holm and his cousin brother brinley who is a former mission president and taught at BYU it was really cool he talked to us about the history of the bible and lots of deep doctrine stuff and it really helped clear up doctrines and how to tell people about them and especially when we are studying cause there is a lot fo stuff in the scriptures that i dont understand, and that missionaries dont really understand what they mean and he cleared some of it up, the meeting was only for my zone (columbia zone) and the west columbia zone so i actually got to see elder berenyi hahaha i was so stoked to see him cause i havent sen him in so long, he is a stud. i had to drive the car to building that the meeting was at in west columbia and ive decided i hate driveing in south carolina cause the people are soooo bad at driveing especially on the freeways and it doesnt help that the free ways are so badly designed hahaha so anyway, dad if you think drivers in AZ are bad, you need to come here they are worse.

 

grant: man dont even tempt me with the new batman AHHHHH!!!! i cant believe im gonna miss it and the mid night showing and all that stuff

 

the calling situation i dont know a lot about cause christmas is after transfers so i could still be here or i might not but if i am the christensens said that we could go over to their house and call from their phone, but either way i dont need a calling card thing cause we can use our cell phones but i will let you know more about that

 

haha dad i cant believe you ran over shadow ha but ya he definetly is like done, glad he is ok and you didnt spill hsi guts everywhere that would have been a sad ending " my dad ran over my cat the other day!!" hahaha jk. no we dont answer the questions from people on mormon.org and we didnt do it in the mtc which i think was new, we didnt eben work in the referel center.

 

mom i dont need you to send me a blanket im good i wear my sweats at night and we have the heat on, you can look in the package if you want just dont let grant or alli see i put a sticky not in there telling what things were for who, i havent sent anything yet for you or dad i will let you know when i do, the christmas cd you send should be ok like its not like i cant listen to a christmas song by keith urban or something dont worry

 

Grandma harper- i am getting the dear elders that you send and i am always excited to read them so yes to answer your question i do get them

 

thanks for being the best family in the world i am so glad i have you guys and i thank god every morning and night for you all, hope you have a great week

love Elder Kelly Harper:)

 

ps- the christamas devotional last night was really cool and so was the video, we watched it at the christensens house

Thanksgiving 2011

heyyy

well we had a good week, thanksgiving was awesome and we got way to much food, we went to the christensen's in the morning and they gave us some food to eat while we were there, they are the coolest family in the ward and they have a 18 year old son wesley he is soo cool i would hang out with him after my mission. then we went to sister johnsons house for the main thanksgiving meal she is a single sister in the ward and we got to go over cause she had family come in town it was really good my favorite part was that they made a drink that is native of finland its called sima its a soda kind of its got honey, lemon juice, water and yeast in it to give it a fizz, but they cool it so it doesnt go alchoholic its sooooo good and it looks like beer but its not haha so dont freak out, they also had a bread that is from finland and its called pulla bread it is also like really delicious ha anyway i thought you might like to hear that especially since grandpa siiro just went to finland. then after them we went over to the reays to have some pie it was good to, but i was soooo bloated at the end of the day ahhhh. some cool things that happend this week though we werent able to teach nay of our investigators really but we found some cool people on is alex, we met while we were tracting at night right when the USC vs Clemson game was about to start and he was outside getting ready to go in and we talked to him and he was so excited to see us, he said he has been studying mormons so much latley because of all the publicity that people are talking about us and especially with mormon.org advertisements he said that he has mormon.org bookmarked on his computer and that he wants to sit with us sometime this week and learn everything so that was awesome. yesterday we went and we talked to a guy named chris who was like the same way just really interested and so humble and willing to hear what we have to say and not in an argumentive mindset, he said if he found out this was true that he would change his ways even if he knew it was a different belief then what he grew up believeing, so i just have had so much comfort this week because it seems like god know that i am working hard to help people come to the knowledge of the gospel and that i am being obedient and trying to do my best and he has been waiting to bless me because i needed to be tested but he also showed me glimpses of hope in the future not only for me but for this area, and it was soo cool seeing this week how the spirit was guiding me to make  certain decisions and im glad i made those decisions to go see this certain person at this certain time and place because he had a plan and because if was faithful and obedient that plan was able to be fulfilled and now we have 3 more people who are really cool and want to listen. so my testimony grew this week on the power of the guidence of the spirit and his impact. i am so thankful for that and for the gospel and for you mom and dad for believing in it and raising me in it because i see people all day every day here who werent raised in it and dont know about it and they just have no directon in life or they dont have that happiness that they could have, so thats what im thankful for.

 

we played our turkeybowl on saturday morning and lots of people showed up but no non members so that was a bummer but we played for a couple hours and we even played 2 hand touch rugby for the last 45 minutes it was sooo un and so fast i got to score the winning touchdown it it. but we are still super sore from running so much hahaha. i also talked to jordan mcdonald the guy that knows jon peterson and he said that he talked to jon about me so that was cool, i think it is so cool to have that connection with people from back home first with bro anderson in boiling springs and now bro mcdonald, i will get a picture with him cause we have dinner soon with them.

 

um i was trying to think of a christmas list and really all i could come up with is like maybe just give me a tie haha i dont really want anything or do i really need anything i mean everythig else i would want i cant use on my mission so i guess ill have a raincheck list when i get home hahaha, but yea a tie and maybe if you can find them the inception sound track and the apollo 13 soundtrack, and even the lord of the rings soundtrack.

 

oh i do have to tell you guys that i did go to walmart on black friday in the middle of the day and i got myself a garmin gps that is normally $200 for $100 and i used 46 dollars from the walmart card i got and only 60 something on my debit card so if you were wondering why i spent 60 dollars thats why and i really needed it so it was the best deal.

 

i also got your package and thanks for the turkey thing hhaha that is cool and also thank you paolaccis for the candy, today i am going to send the christmas presents in a package so be expecting that. dad i havent put really any chuck on i just dont have abs anymore but im still thin haha and im proud of it haha

 

we have christmas zone conference on the 15th so that should be fun and cant wait for all that. oh and this week we had wade security called on us 2 times for soliciting in lake carolina and so we called president holm and we gave him their information and he said he would call them about it haha so that should awesome

 

well i really am having a great time out hear and i learn so much every week and i love the gospel sooooooo much its awesome and its the full truth, hope you have a great week.

 

Love Elder Harper:)

Letter home 112111

well it is nice to here from you grandma siiro, im glad that you were able to get a lap top thats pretty cool. i hope your doing well and i cant wait to get home and see your new teeth haha, love you lots.

we had a good week, a lot of stuff happened and i hope i can remember it all cause i forgot to write it down. i guess ill just start from last monday and also ill tell you more about elder rasmussen he is soo funny hehe hes awesome, hes still brand new kinda, im his second companion. he is from preston idaho and he went to preston high school so that is cool cause thats where napoleon dynamite was filmed and also isnt that where sister thurston is from? we had dinner with the mcdonalds on monday night and brother mcdonald was talking about his job and how he works in construction, and so i told him how i worked for jon peterson and did stuff and he said "i know jon peterson" and i was like whatttt!? hes from chicago and went to byu, that jon peterson? yep we had some classes together and im friends with him on facebook so ill ask him if its the right jon peterson, but i haven't heard back from him yet so maybe you could ask jon hahaha that would be sooo crazy. Then later on in the week we were tracting in lake carolina which is like aviano but like 5 times bigger and lake carolina is no soliciting but since we arent soliciting its ok but the security people drove up to us and said you cant solicit and we were like we arent, we are prosalyting its different and we have a license to do it but then she was like no in lake carolina soliciting is anything door to door even just handing out flyers, and i told her that the church even came out to the police department and talked to them and won, but its ok cause we still go back and tract. Then we were in a different neighborhood and met a guy who is a mason and we talked about how joseph smith was a mason and also got into some pretty deep doctrine talk haha and he was cool with it he brought it up and agreed with us and we started talking about the stars and the universe and all that haha it was crazy ive never talked about that stuff with someone tracting before. Then on saturday we went to a lesson with a 28 year old lady named lakyra who is our best investigator and we taught her the plan of salvation and she told us about how her mom just got diagnosed with breast cancer and so it was awesome cause we covered so many topics and related it all back to the plan of salvation and she had lots of questions that we answered and everything made sense and she loved it all, the lesson was like an hour and a half long, she couldnt come to church though but thats ok. also later in the day we stopped by a lead named erica wineglass and invited her to church cause she said she wanted to come last week but was sick. then at church we walked into the chapel and she is sitting there with one of our members and they have already become like good friends and there daughters are the same age so it was like perfect cause we didn't have to do anything she just actually came to church. we haven't been able to get someone to church in forever, so i was soo happy. we went on exchanges with elder law and elder linford this week from 6-9 on saturday and then they are coming all day on Wednesday so gonna be sweet. we have thanksgiving lunch at 3 with a single lady from the ward who is having her family in town so she invited us to go over cause we couldn't normally go over and plus she lives super far away, ive never really met her before but it should be good, then we might go over to a cool family in our ward the reays for dinner at like 5:30 hahaha so i might feel a little bloated that night. and we are playing in the turkey bowl on saturday, they arent doing it on thursday cause nobody will be here so its all good and the other elders in our district are gonna play with us too cause their ward isnt doing one. we tried running on saturday morning but it was soo cold it was like 29 degrees and the field in front of the trailor was frosted over but elder rasmussens longs couldnt take the cold so we had to walk back. ya its been really cold and then today its like warm and humid haha the last 2 days have been humid and rainy.

bummer about ASU ahhhhhh!! are they still gonna play in the championship game? coyotes sound like they are rockin like always.

alli you sound like you did great in your concert wish i could have been there to hear you play:)

That's sooo cool to see mike robison and all that how he has just come back and how the members just rallied around him and made him welcome and offered to help him thats why i love desert ridge ward and thats what i want to try and help each ward i serve in out here be like.

haha i cant wait to see what coy looks like hahaha man that went by fast i seems like he just left

dont send a tree cause i dont have anywhere to put it or store it in the trailor so thats alright im good without one, if you want to send paper decoration that would be ok haha, yes i have heard back from mariah but not from jordan, kassie or even gaby for like a month haha, but i got a letter from courtney larsen who is a friend from the singles ward so that's cool

we dont have a target around here only walmart

im good on a blanket for now i just put on sweats during the night

i drive the car all the time now since im senior companion 

i have been able to take more pictures so ill send the memory card soon also has cool pics that you could use for the xmas card

i got a cd player in the apartment and every apartment should have one so im good, i don't need eclipse anymore i got a copy of it.

AWWW i miss teagen soooooo much haha man, the weather today is a little warmer and its nice though i have noticed its felt a lot like az for this time of year

i cant believe that temple poster thing is almost half way full haha

well i love you guys i am doing great and have a great week continue praying, i will send the envelope with stuff in it today and answers to anymore questions in it also

love Elder Harper

Letter home 111411

November 14, 2011

So we had transfers this week and elder mcpheters got transferred to Martinez in Augusta, Georgia he is a district leader there haha he will do awesome. At transfers i saw lots of guys, elder Williams from the mtc he is now a zone leader in west columbia after only 7 months he trained and now he is a zone leader, haha that’s crazy. I also saw elder winger, he’s is training now in Summerville.  Well as you have probably been wondering my new companion is Elder Michael Rasmussen he is fresh out of his training stage so he has only been out for 3 months, so im his second companion and he is a cool guy haha he’s funny but he is also a little shy and doesn’t talk a lot, but he’s is cool we get along great no problems at all. I’m going to learn a lot from him and I am going to teach him all that I know how to do and be patient with him since he has only been out for 3 months, but I am going to try to help him be less shy and better at talking to people cause that’s the hardest thing, if you are comfortable with talking to people then everything gets better and easier.  Elder law is still my zone leader we are going on exchanges tomorrow and Wednesday, we didn’t find a lot of people this week but we did have one funny experience, elder Rasmussen and i did a lot of knocking and Saturday morning we knocked into a Jehovah’s witness and he was like telling us that the book of mormon isn’t inspired word of god and all that stuff and he was like i wont talk to you about the book of mormon but i will about the bible so we were like ok sounds good. his Jehovah’s witness new world translation changed so much from the king james, says completely different things, and he read a verse that says "all scripture is inspired of god" and then says that the book of mormon isn’t inspired of god, so were like, ok what ever but he offered to give us pamphlets. We have had lots of trouble getting in contact with our investigators, either they don’t answer the phone or return our calls or they are never home so it sooo hard to follow up and teach people a second time.

We got word from the mission about christmas packages, family and friends if they are going to send christmas packages to send them by December 1st, i cant believe it almost Christmas, hahaha time flys by so fast.

Also elder rasmussen has one of the special issue book of mormon ensigns and i was wondering if you guys could order one for me

Mom,you can send mixed berry jam that would be cool, I haven’t had that one yet, i haven’t gotten your envelope with the feathers yet so i will look out for that. me and elder mcpheters made the green chili roast stuff it was really good, but he took the crock pot with him cause he bought it so we don’t have it anymore :( oh well i can still cook other things.

Things that I might need for Christmas, ughhh well I don’t know yet ill have to make a list of some things

Dad i read a little bit of the book this week i haven’t had a lot of time at night but i will definitely read more this week.

Yah, grant I heard that the skyrim game came out it seems pretty sweet, we have a kid in our ward who is really into those games and call of duty haha, so he always tells us, i cant wait to play it when i get back, so you are varsity now? did the coach tell you that you got moved up? Why don’t you want to do pinnacle baseball? how are the cardinals and ASU doing?

I love you guys a lot and keep praying for me I love this work it’s so awesome and I when I study every morning the spirit testifies to me all the time that this is the true church of Jesus Christ

Love Elder Harper

Letter home 11711

well we found out about transfers and elder McPheters is leaving me after being together for 3 months, it feels like we haven’t been together long enough cause we felt we were going to be together another transfer at least.

So that’s the sad news, but hopefully i get a good companion and not like last time when i went from awesome companion to not so awesome companion. we had an awesome week. so last Monday we went to see a lead named derrick and he was home and let us in he is black but his wife is white and they have 3 kids that are mixed so we taught them the restoration and they loved it and the wife had a lot of questions on tithing because other churches tithing is used for paying the pastor. They asked if we had different races of people at our church and we said yes, we aren’t segregated and she was so happy to hear those things and they are so ready, so today we are going to teach them about the plan of salvation.

This week also elder law came on exchanges with me for all of Tuesday and we talked about boiling springs and he told me that he found out that Paula cash hasnt been going to our church for a while. the Andersons who bishop Timmermen knows are her home teachers so i hope that she comes back to church soon, but elder law also said that she had dinner at our ward mission leader in boling springs house recently and that went well so i really hope everything turns out ok. i wrote Wanda Scruggs a letter today cause elder law told me she started a Book of Mormon class at church so that was awesome to hear , she is so awesome and she will never sway away from the truth. i hope i get to go through the temple with her next may

I got your package and i love it, we are going to buy a roast today and put it in the crock pot with the green salsa for the last crock pot meal that elder McPheters and i will have because the crock pot is his and hes taking it with him :(

But the book is cool dad i am going to start reading it tonight after we come in while McPheters packs his stuff. and thanks for the fish oil. oh also elder law just got a new cd from Nashville tribute called work its about missionary work so maybe you could send that to me for a Christmas present, wooow its almost Christmas! haha that is so crazy, then all of a sudden its going to be my year mark in like 5 months i think, haha i dont know i lost count.

so i just looked at the pictures, haha my room is super pictured out woooow hahaha. cool so you guys got the cordons table now in our back yard, that looks good in that spot.

cool pics of the chase field stuff i would have loved to have done that. how long has elder Dennison been in the ward, why do the elders that come to az look so much older? i feel like the ones in my mission look sooo young. mom you shouldn’t stay up so long you need to go to bed earlier than 12:00

so that girl that we set on date for baptism we havent been able to get a hold of her we even went by for our appointment and she wasnt home so we are not sure what to do with her yet

well i hope you have a great day and week love you all :)

love elder harper

Letter home 103111

whatss upp

this week i have to say has been really frustrating, we haven’t been able to get a hold of the brown family at all we met with Sean the dad on like Monday and he said to come by yesterday on Sunday but he wasn’t home and that is the 3rd appointment he has not been there for. we try calling him but he doesn’t answer and his voicemail box is full and he never answers our texts. down in the south and i don’t know if its just down here or not but people are too nice to say no, or don’t come back or i don’t want to listen and so when you talk to them or teach them its cool the first time but once they realize that you will keep coming back until they tell us no then they wont even open the door or answer the phone or anything even when we knock and we know that they hear us they wont answer and they never tell us that they don’t want to meet with us anymore, or they schedule a day for us to come back and they purposely avoid us that just kills me especially when you drive a long way and use lots of miles or change your schedule to go see them. and that is all that has happened to us this whole time here in Blythewood, even with the coolest most solid investigators, they just in the blink of an eye disappear off the planet. this area is the hardest area in the mission its the least baptizing and has been for like 4 years. Last week i think i told you about how the stake here has a new stake mission plan and it is awesome we announced it to the ward yesterday and it really didn’t go the way we thought it would go, there was like nobody at church so like nobody heard about it the presentation that our first counselor put together was not great, and we even passed around a sheet for the members to sign up for us to come by and do the thing with them and out of maybe 30 people 6 signed up, haha we just were like what the heck. do they want to baptize anyone in this ward? one cool bright spot to this week was that we taught a girl who is in her 20's and she accepted to be baptized on November 26, right now she is the only person we have on date for November and we really hope she stays and gets baptized.

ya we get transfer calls this Saturday, but we really are thinking that me and elder mcpheters stay together everyone in our district thinks so and elder law and linford our zone leaders think so too, plus it would be best if we were together at least one more transfer.  we have so much fun together haha sometimes we will just have times when we will get in a air freshener fight in the trailer or one time he took my bed apart and took all the covers an off and so i did the same to his bed haha we just have so much fun together and try to make every minute fun even when we might be having the worst, most frustrating day ever, ive learned a lot in my studies like today i was reading in alma about Ammon and king Limoni and then i just looked at the footnotes and learned about the godhead in john 20:16 its a cool scripture and proves the trinity wrong.   

man that stinks that grant lost his last game of the year but did he get to play a lot? i love that story of our mascot punching the brophy one, that is someting that i would totally do if i was there. grant what ever you do in the spring whether its track or baseball make sure you continue to work hard and put your full effort into it just like in football, you made so much progress and you thrived in the spotlight that can be a constant as you work hard in practice every day. thats sweet that halo4 comes out right after i get home, i cant wait to hang out with you a lot for the 2 years before you leave on your mission and alli also.

well i love you guys so much pray for me and elder mcpheters to be together longer and that we will have success

love elder kelly harper