Letter home 1/30/12

well this week was pretty jam packed. we had interviews on tuesday with president holm and some good trainings from the assistants and president. he told us he was one of the people that helped develop the missionary planner and how it is designed for us to fit more into our day then before and help us be more effective  missionaries then they were like 8 to 10 years ago.  He also told us if you have any regrets or feel like you haven’t been your best, or you messed up that we need to draw a line in the sand, and from today on you be the best missionary and be the best you can be and don’t worry about the past, don’t carry yesterdays problems into today and that really inspired me cause I sometimes feel like I have to be perfect as a missionary and if I am not baptizing as many people, that I am not being a good missionary. its hard sometimes not to beat yourself up and feel bad especially when i know i am not being disobedient and now as a district leader I am accountable for the whole district and lots of stuff gets put on my shoulders so it has been hard the past couple weeks especially since the other elders who are in our apartment haven’t been getting along and they are both very young. So ya its been a rough 6 weeks in some ways but hopefully this next transfer we will get some elders who have some experience and can help me out.  I do love elder dixon he is a great guy and really wants to work hard, but yes we got transfer calls and elder dixon is leaving he has been here for 6 months I’m going to miss him and also elder olsen who is in north augusta is also leaving after being there for 6 months and they were mtc companions I am really going to miss elder olsen he is like the only one that likes sports haha so I could relate to him and talk about it, and he is a great missionary he is gonna be a leader soon, but elder north and I are staying.

I had dinner this week with the wheatleys sister wheatley (kathleen) knows grandma harper and i am gonna give her grandmas info and kathleen also knows grandma smith.

we just found out that another police officer was killed this week and that is the second time in 6 weeks and they haven’t had a cop killed in almost 50 years and they have had 2 in a month so that is the big news here. We had a broadcast from salt lake for stake conference this week and elder Gonzalez and elder Ballard spoke which was really cool and it was only for the 48 stakes in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina it was cool, then after someone asked us to give a blessing to his wife in the parking lot but she was in the van and didn’t feel like getting out so we had to get in the back of the van and stand bent over as we gave her the blessing haha I have never done one like that before but it was cool.

i saw the picture of elder dennison and i swear all the missionaries that come to our ward always look older then the ones that are in my mission and i dont know why maybe cause they are always bigger and taller, that’s cool now that we have 3 in the ward and they are visa waiters. So the sad news is elder boyd who i served with up in boiling springs who knows lindsey blaser is going home also and also elder nelson who was my zone leader there and trained elder law is going home so its a sad week for me:(

so dad to answer some questions our teaching pool has been a little small we had a bunch of cool people that we found but one who was Rose has been in the hospital for a while and we don’t know what happened to her if she is ok or not, then another guy bryant has been working and is never home and Isiah who we put on date didn’t come to church cause he had  lots of pressure from his dad who doesn’t agree with us and so we stopped by at night yesterday and got him to still come to an appointment on thursday so we need some new people to teach. Georgiana has been doing great in boiling springs.

 Everything has been going good i lately have been thinking about how long i have been out and can’t believe it’s been this long it will be a year in about 6 weeks and I have so little time left i want to be the best i can. Also i hope grant will take my challenge at reading the book of mormon at least 2 times before i get home and to read it like a book so he can understand it, cause I would have loved it if i had done that but I just didn’t know, and you guys especially dad should try to help the missionaries as much as possible cause being a missionary is hard, so ask them how you can help them and the work will progress even faster and also offer to have lessons at our house that also is a blessing when members offer to have investigators over, so that’s a little tid bit of info for you guys and grant should go out with the elders as much as possible when he is a priest. How is tanner doing? 

sorry i don’t have much more to say but i kind of wrote a lot hahaha but I will talk to you guys later, thanks for the memory card and pad

hope you guys have a great week

Love Elder Harper :)

Letter home 1/23/12

ya soo it has been pretty cold this week and also it has rained like 5 days in a row this week ahahaha i dont know where it all comes from, i had exchanges on tuesday with elder isrealsen who is elder laws companion and also ZL he is a cool guy loves baseball and he kinda looks like dylan but just with blonde hair, he has the same thick glasses that dylan has right now. hes cool but hes one of those guys who kinda can be a little fake sometimes and im just like why do you have to act fake, just be yourself. we also this week found lots of cool people one lady we knocked into cause the less active next door wasnt home and we knocked on her trailer and she asked us to sit on her porch and she was super humble and open, she is about in her mid 60's and she kinda reminds me of wanda scruggs and she also has some health problems but she talks like her and stuff ha i thought it was weird, she was supposed to come to church but she ended up in the hospital so she couldnt come and that was a bummer cause she really wanted to come. also something crazy that happened on wednsday night, the aiken elders, elder dixon and elder kerr went to contact a media referral and it was about a 30 minute drive away and they went to a way sketchy place in the back of the woods to a trailer and went inside and talked to this guy who is missing his leg and his toes on the other and they were their for like an hour and a half and he kept telling them all this controversial stuff and about how he hates jews and stuff and how he hates interracial marriage and kept telling them that the bible says that interracial marriage is the worst sin and then later on as they were driving back with the member couple that took them to his house, the wife told them that they just talked to August Kreis the leader of the Arian nation aka ( neo-nazis and kkk and all those people) and that he was on the jerry springer show and got kicked off for offending jerry springer and then they realized who they had just spent an hour and a half with and they got super scared and freaked out hahaha so ya thats the craziest story i have heard on my mission and this guy lives 30 minutes away from aiken south carolina  hahaha. then friday i was pretty sick and i had some sort of stomach virus i threw up and stayed in all day haha not fun, but then on saturday we helped a family in our ward move into their house and it was raining while we were doing it haha then after that we went to the stake center and helped out with the missionary training experience for the youth, president holm spoke at it and a couple of the companionships got to help out in the classes that they had, it was cool getting to teach the youth about missionary work and how to be missionaries now while they are in school, and thats pretty much how the week went. 

so the arsenal jersey is sweet, and grant no i will always win at PGR sorry haha, i am the master at that game, but i will still play you and give you a chance. It was great to hear about you bearing your testimony at youth conference, now you need to read the book of mormon all the way through by the time i get home, that is my challenge to you and you could even read it 2 or 3 times be for e i come back, that is my goal to i want to read it 3 times before i come home and so i think it would be good for you cause i never really read it that much before i left so take some time instead of reading the cat books and read the book of mormon it will help so much and increase your testimony of the gospel.

ya you guys could totally order pizza for us but i dont know when cause our nights are kinda crammed but maybe next week, transfer calls are on saturday and elder dixon has been here for 6 months so he probably will be leaving but we keep telling him that hes gonna stay haha you guys should get a picture with elder dennison if possible, elder north will probably be staying cause this is only his second transfer here.

i know the videos are pretty funny, some of them probably cut out the sound cause i kept zooming in and out but we had a great district in blythewood it was fun, elder mears cracks me up.

i dont need any stamps or envelopes im good, but ya being a district leader has been good, kinda frustrating at times cause you have to help your other elders with their investigators when you really know nothing about them and you hope that your district will listen to you and take your advice but they dont sometimes and its hard but ive tried to not worry about it and just let them do there own thing and just try to be an example to them cause all of them are under 6 months and are pretty inexperienced so they dont really know a lot but its going well

well i got to go so i will talk to you guys later but for my birthday i dont really want much cause I really dont want a lot of stuff so you guys could send snacks and stuff though like moms banana bread and zucchini bread ha i cant spell that, and also some more differin stuff and also some red scripture marking led refills for my multi color pencil, you can get those at deseret book

well i am doing great love you guys

Love Elder Harper:)

Letter home 1/16/12

Yes, we have officially moved georgianna out of the ward and she now in boiling springs, which is a bummer but is still pretty cool though, she was so thankful that we helped her move she had a lot of stuff and got it all in the u-haul, what is funny is that the u-haul had an Arizona license plate on it hahaha i thought that was weird/cool. We got to call the elders in Boiling Springs and tell them about her and they helped her move into her apartment.

This week we had lots of trouble trying to get in contact with investigators, they were never home and wouldn’t answer the phone, one in particular is mike. He has been taught everything so hopefully we can contact him again. Ha ,ohh man, so in church on sunday i gave a 5 minute talk on youth and missionary work and it went very well and when we stood up to sing the music before the 3rd speaker, a member runs up the isle and screams "bishop stop, someone is having a seizer (I cant spell that) haha but apparently this old guy had gotten up and was walking out and just lost consciousness and fell it was kind of awkward cause there was an abrupt stop to the music and they got him out to the foyer and we went on with the program. I guess kinda like when the timmerman boy fainted in church one time.

We also contacted a referral we got from the new pilot program we are doing and she is really cool she wants to read the book of mormon and wants to know more about us. Its been freeezzing cold when biking this week haha we never realize how cold it is and than i don’t bring gloves so I always am riding in like 35 degrees weather without gloves or tissues haha I need to get better at putting gloves on. Oh, georgianna got me and elder north ties for a gift because she is leaving and i got a cool blue and gold tie I was like wow sick tie. I did get a letter from Courtney this week and found out that Kevin and Lauren aren’t dating anymore cause Lauren moved to California so ya.

I can’t think of what else happened this week..... oh ya me and elder north were witnesses at a secret wedding hahaha our ward clerk was getting married and wanted to keep it a secret and so the bishop married them and since they had no witnesses they called us haha it was pretty cool.

Man, you guys are going to lake knoll without me? that’s mean, haha but, ya that would be cool.

yep i got the movie all good and we did have movie night but nobody showed up :( its been really lame lately i don’t know why, haha, and we did have basketball night but we weren’t there we were teaching Georgiana a new member lesson so the aiken elders went.

we do usually eat with all 4 of us in the apartment we have had our fridge packed with leftovers so we haven’t had to really cook much but we haven’t had too many dinner appointments lately but its ok, we had a member couple have us over 3 nights in a row and they took us to five guys on Tuesday, haha I have never had that happen before.

Lindsey possibly getting married!! well i do have to say its about time, she couldn’t get through BYU without it, haha well send me pictures when the engagement happens.

well i need to go but it was a good week, we are going to a part members home tonight and inviting him to be baptized during FHE so well see what happens, i have a feeling he will say yes though ha.

Love you guys!

Love Elder Harper:)

Letter home 1/9/12

sooooo this week was awesome, so I will start off with the best thing that happened, as you know georgianna got baptized at 4 on Saturday and it was so cool President Holm came to it and he talked on the holy ghost, it was so perfect cause we watched some mormon messages while she was getting dressed and stuff and they were on patience and the priesthood it was cool cause georgianna's mom is not a member and she was there and president definitely focused his talk a little on her it was cool she lives in Gilbert (Columbia area) not arizona, so maybe the missionaries there can teach her, georgianna loved the whole thing elder north baptized her and we forgot to practice it before so she had to get baptized 3 times cause her leg kept coming up, haha and then president let told her that her he had to baptize a 6 foot 7 guy on his mission and president is shorter then me so he had to do it 7 times before they got it right, she laughed at that. The sad thing is because she has some health issues she has to resign from her job and move out of the area and she is moving on saturday so yesterday was her last sunday here, but i found out that she is moving to.................... Boiling Springs!!!! haha I know i freaked out too when I heard that, so now all of my converts so far are going to be in boiling springs I think thats crazy. I got to confirm her yesterday and it was soo cool i could feel the spirit so strongly.

on Friday we had the leadership training meeting and it went all day i got up and picked up elder mcpheters and elder fuller in Augusta at 6:30 so it was still dark and we got back there at like 6:30 so it felt like nothing happened hahah it was weird and i drove the whole 200 miles, it was long but the sunset on the way home was cool. we had lots of new stuff that we got trained on, changing some things in the mission like the way we report numbers on sunday nights and other procedure stuff we are making it more simple which is better cause it used to be complicated and unorganized. it was cool at the meeting i got a posterity picture so all the guys who have been trained and trained ina group like elder law and his trainer and his trainees and their trainees so kinda cool and then also we got an arizona picture with all the guys from AZ.

biking every other day is pretty cool cause now im getting muscle in my legs

mom the mail gets sent from the mission office to me the same day they get the mail so it usually well get to me that same day

so if oswieler is leaving then who is gonna be the new QB is it a pretty good kid? and who is OC? haha

 the cardinals should draft brock oswieler!! yay maybe a good qb for once

sweet that all the teams except cardinals are good, do the suns still have grant hill? i know they were thinking of trading him. i LOVE ARSENAL they are so awesome and yes that would be cool to get a new jersey youll have to put a picture up next week. you should get a fabragas one he is the bomb, did bendtner play at all?

i think i would rather not live in park city utah maybe have a summer house there or something but not live there, i love arizona too much, 500,000 dollars would be nice though:)

well im out of time so i will talk to you next week and i really dont know about any presents for my birthday yet so give me some time, but i dont love you guys you are awesome, have an awesome week and do missionary work

love Elder harper

Letter home 1/2/12

hellooo

so this week was good we got to teach Georgiana the restoration and we are teaching her the plan of salvation tonight and also the word of wisdom and law of chastity and she shouldn’t have any problems with those so it should be good, when she read about how young women should only have one earring in the ears she immediately took her second set out, she isnt golden she is platinum hahaha like nothing is going to stop her she will be super faithful member of the church, she went to a YSA dance thing for new years and so she went to church in the Columbia ward cause she couldn’t make it to ours ya i dont know if i will ever find someone this solid again, I mean I hope I do but she is rare. we have a lot of less actives in the ward, like more than all the active ones times 2 haha and so we have tried to see mainly less actives but nobody is ever home so its been kind of bummer but we will keep trying.

There is this crazy old lady in our ward though her name is sister Phillips and i met her on my second day we decided to knock on there door and she let us in and said that her husband was inside and we later realized he wasn’t and then 10 minutes later he walks in the side door wearing a Speedo. AHHHH!. so ya that's kind of the weird story of the ward right now. 

Elder North is a funny guy. he is funny and he works hard and is great to get along with, he can do a good joker voice though, he is from Riverton, Utah. he also loves choir and drama, he came out a transfer after me. 

we put Georgiana on date for the 7th, so this Saturday and president Holm said he is going to try and make it to her baptism, I also have a leadership training meeting in Irmo on Friday and i will be driving down with elder mcpheters haha so its cool, elder law is doing great as far as i know, he is still an awesome zone leader. basketball night was great we played and intense game but movie night was lame haha nobody showed up so we just watched the movie plates of gold by ourselves with the aiken elders, ya if you could send me that testaments movie that would be cool i dont know about the other one yet we would have to ask president.

ohh i got a card from the Thomas's so tell them thank you when you see them, ya mom if you could send me like some thank you card that would be cool.

wooow you traded in both cars haha thats crazy, well dad i guess im gonna have to get me a tacoma and i will lift it and put some sweet rims on it myself, but the camry is pretty cool. i honestly havent gotten to read much of the magnificent obsession cause i have been so busy, i think im still in the first chapter haha sorry i am trying to make time.

ERIC BOUGHT A HOUSE!!  thats crazy where did he buy a house? ha i wondered why he got a set of pans for Christmas.

how is ASU basketball doing?

we live on mossback circle its like right below the mall

well i had a great week and i cant wait for the baptism on Saturday its gonna be so cool, getting to meet someone like Georgiana just makes me realize how true the church is and how amazing the gospel is

love you guys

Elder Harper :)

Dec 26, 2011

heyy so this is weird cause i just talked to you guys and i really dont know what to say right now so i am going to tell you about yesterday, we had church at 10:30 combined with both aiken and coker springs wards and then we went over to the brooks home right after church brother brooks is older in his 60's and he works for aiken public safety so he gets to drive fire trucks and stuff ha I think and his son mike also lives there he got back from his mission in las vegas 2 years ago and is now married and has a 14 month old daughter, and so we spent the whole day at their house and we ate lucnh and played hearts with mike for a couple hours and then I skyped you guys and hen we ate dinner and played some more hearts and i won the whole game, we played 6 rounds of it haha it was fun and I actually know how to play it now. mike is really cool he is like a jared anderson from boiling springs but just younger. this ward is really cool and they seem to be very pro-active they just do things and we dont have to do much asking, but thats what it seems like so far, there are soooo many less actives on ur map it is full of orange dots so we are going to try and work with some less actives. we had christmas eve dinner at the basset's. they are very nice.

every thursday night we have basketball night and we play with the youth and they can invite their friends so that is like awesome i love it, and also friday night is movie night where we watch church movies and even ones like forever strong we just have to ask president for permission for a certain movie so that is really cool stuff. georgianna is our golden investigator and she just walked into church 3 sundays ago asking for a book of mormon and said she wanted to be baptized, her mormon friends said if you want to know its true just go to church and so she did and then she got to meet president holm at the transfer meeting cause she was in irmo and she also went to nephi books right across from the temple and got a CTR ring hahahha she is sooooo awesome, then next is mike he is a referel from a girl in our ward kami she is an awesome girl she helps out with missionary work a lot and is a convert of a year I think maybe 2 years i havent met her yet but she seems awesome. mike is cool he is a senior at south aiken high school and has been taught everything almost we just need to ask him to be baptized again and see what he says but we know that he wants to.

so something weird is that south aiken high school uses the ASU logo with the A and S inner-twined so i see it all over and it reminds me of ASU and they even use maroon and gold so its cool. but anyway ya aiken is cool they have old town aiken and then a bunch of  stores and restuarant by our apartment so there is a lot to do unlike blythewood, today we are gonna go to the huge mall right next to our apartment.

so i was gonna ask yesterday about coah moretti is he still gonna be coaching? did he say anything about the mormon.org card i had you guys give him?

is grant going to play baseball for pinnacle?

and also who has gotten back from their missions recently like tucker howe? or any other guys

um thats all i can think of right now how did grant and alli like their presents? i thought grant would like the cologn stuff

well i hope you guys have a great week and pray for me that i will be able to settle into my calling as a district leader well and that we will be able to baptize georgianna and mike. its weird being the oldest in my district and i feel like my testimony and knowledge of the gospel have grown a lot, i never thought I would be able to be at the point I am know and be able to be so patient with myself and with others of coarse i have seen the missionaries that i dont want to be like and the ones who are cool and hard working and have fun and i like being around them and i want to be like them its cool looking back on how fast i learn and how much stuff nd experience i can pack into my head in such little time and not be overwhelmed, i know that its the spirit that allows that and i want to be worhty of that always

Love Elder Harper

Dec 19, 2011

ahhhhh wooow soo yep im getting transferred, and...... you guys should be getting a letter from president holm soon saying that i have been called to be a district leader, crazy! hahaha elder reay (one of the assistants) called us  yesterday and i was like i knew it haha and all the other guys in my district new i was gonna go district leader. right after i got off the phone i was just way nervous all of a sudden cause i was like wooow im a district leader ha thats weird, but elder reay also said that he was jealous of where im going and he was one of the ones that came from augusta when it joined the mission so its either im going there or im going to someplace he has wanted to go like charleston or myrtle beach, haha iits the weirdest feeling. elder law is getting transferred also

so anyway i guess ill tell you about our week, we set an investigator on baptismal date for january 21st we havent had someone on date for a long time so it was awesome, christmas zone conference was soooo fun. it started at 7:30 am and we got trained on the new pilot program which is a new way to proselyte and it involves the members, basically we go to the members home and talk about all the stuff going around about our church in the news and stuff and then we ask them questions to get them thinking about friends they want to share the gospel with and then we have them take a pre-typed letter and they customize it to themselves and they send the letter to their friend which has a link to their mormon.org profile in it and we stop by the persons home 5 days after the letter is sent so that they know that we might be coming by. so it basically is like a referel system on steroids and president holm had this idea and sent it to salt lake and they gave us permission to pilot it and so for the next 6 months if it goes well it will be piloted in other missions and then it will go church wide and it will change missionary work forever, the reason why its cool is cause it makes it easier to mention the gospel to your friends instead of just texting them or having us stop by randomly, so thats what we got trained on and we role played it. then we had a lunch and it was really good i saw elder mcpheters and we hung out the whole time. all my favorite elders were at zone conference, my entire mtc district except the sisters elder law, douglas( who went home) elder shumway, peterson, boyd, mcpheters and thats all i can think of haha but it was fun and then we played basketball for 4 hours haha it got intense, we also had a talent show and we made a district video it was way funny and president gave us a standing ovation.

we had dinner at the christensens yesterday haha im so bummed i dont get to spend christmas with them but i got a picture with them, they are my favorite haha brother christensen reminds me of joel woodward when he is in his 40's hahaha and also when you get the picture their youngest is (A) but she wasn't in the picture but their oldest is (J) she is in the picture and she just got back from utah valley university and she looks and even acts like kassie hutchings haha she is like almost an exact copy, well kassie is one of a kind but (J) is dang close especially at first glance, it was just weird haha, i also got a picture with the mcdonalds ( the ones who know jon) they are awesome.

so i cant wait to here how ASU does against boise state i think we will play pretty well our offense is a lot like theres and our defense is fast, i really hope this new coach is good or else lisa love needs to get fired, hows ASU basketball doing? coyotes? any news on their sale yet?

crazy how kenny has music on itunes haha and alli i will be praying for you to get to go to new york.

man I have lots of junk that i have collected since i have been here and i have to throw it away, today we are going out as a district and celebrating me leaving so we are gonna go eat somewhere and go to the mall

i love you guys soo much im so thankful to have you as my family especially in the christmas season, my testimony has grown so much and i love this gospel it has blessed me so much and i dont know how i could live without the knowledge of the plan of salvation and temples and eternal families, its hard everyday when we tract and the people we talk to they just dont want it and its sad that they dont know what they are denying and i am just so grateful for the book of mormon and more truth because we have living prophet because god is the same yesterday today and forever. thank you for raising me in the gospel and being faithful

Love Elder Kelly Harper:)