Letter home - June 27 2011

hey

ya so this month has been really slow for us and I guess the whole mission, I talked to elder Williams last night  at our missionary fireside with President McConkie and he said they are also having a hard time finding people.  we have been doing so much to try and find people to teach, looking at former investigators, members, less actives, and even current investigators and we have just been striking out, and even when we get a lead from someone the person seems to always be no interested so its still been frustrating with finding but we have been helping lots of less actives and converts. (name) who I baptized my first week she has been less active for a while she told she thinks she might have rushed into getting baptized too fast and didn’t think about it more and now she feels a little overwhelmed with lots of stuff and also since there are lots of important things in the scriptures that we teach and expound upon that no other churches teach or they just leave out and so that stuff has been overwhelming for her so we went over and talked to her about it and it was good she trusts us and wants us to help her. this week we had dinner with (name) and his wife, they are in there late 20's and they both served in the Philippines at the same time, (name) was his wife’s zone leader, they are cool sister (name) is Filipino and so she made us a Cambodian noodle soup called "fo", it has beef in it, its sooo good. also earlier that day (name) the kid who is handicapped had his birthday party and so he invited us to go so we went and of al places it was at Chuck E Cheese's hahaha that was funny we couldn’t stay long cause e had dinner with the suns a little after it started but (name) is moving to a different family this week down in Sumpter and so Sunday was his last Sunday in our ward. This week we actually found a former investigator he has been taught all the lessons but he is a busy guy so hopefully we can se him tonight like we planned and also a less active lady named (name) invited her friend to church yesterday and she came and she wants us to teach her.

we had senior switch day this week so I took over as senior companion and I was in charge of everything including planning where we go, what we study during comp study and everything, that’s hard stuff right there. last night we had our missionary fireside where missionaries invite members, investigators and recent converts to hear president and sister McConkie speak, elder Berenyi was there and he sang his own version of "come thou fount" I think that’s what its called, it was sweet though I wish I had it on tape. President McConkie talked on and like clarified that we believe god, Jesus Christ and the holy ghost are 3 individual separate beings and how no other church believes that, but that there are scriptures to back it up, and also talked about the niceien creed and what happened during that and how the dark ages started because of it, it was super cool. It was President McConkies last fireside, he leaves on Thursday and we have a meeting with President Holm on Thursday morning. Yesterday was also elder laws birthday and he opened a package he got from a friend and we had dinner and cake at the Kitchens last night for his birthday.

this week when i went on exhanges with the zone leaders and i was with elder allen and we listen to Bruce R. McConkies talk called "the seven greatest heresies" I love that talk so could you find it and put it on a cd for me to listen to it and maybe even print it out and send it in your package if you haven’t already sent it. There is a quote by elder Scott from the 11/95 ensign about enduring could you find that and put in the next email incase I cant find it

when is dads birthday, hahaha sorry dad i don’t know it. also I need you to send my earphones to me, every week we are now required to get on mormon.org and get familiar with it and but we cant watch videos out loud in the library and the earphones cost a dollar to rent some at the library so I don’t want to do that so could you send them to me.

So how was Chicago? Did Alli have fun?

How is grant doing with baseball?  

I got grandpa siiros letter about him going to Finland ha that’s so awesome and cool that his invention is going into a museum.  sent you guys an envelope with the thing sister McConkie sent me, so apparently her dad served here in south Carolina back when it was the southern states mission, and Great Grandpa Choules became the his mission president with 3 months left in his mission and uncle albert sent him a letter when her dad got released to go home she, its so cool that how small the world can be and i talked to her last night about it so i hope you got that. Oh i also found out that we have a sister in our mission, (name) whose dad is Mitt Romney’s first cousin

Any new news on the situation with Dylan’s mission

I have pictures attached

1 me with a funny Jesus license plate

2 elder carter and elder Boyd

3 us with nathan branch at chuck e cheeses

4 me and elder law with president McConkie for the last time

well i hope everything is going well at home, give me a sports update, its crazy that its already almost July. i hope it doesn’t get too hot this week. i have been pushing through the hard times, every day is hard but fun at the same time, knocking doors isn’t my favorite but when we do it i just have to have a good mind set, and i learn every day, I’m not perfect and I just have to do my best, i have to remind myself that it takes time to be able to know where a certain scripture is or a certain story.

Anyway I’m having a good time hopefully I’ll get an email from you guys next week since I didnt get one today.

love Elder Harper

Letter home - June 20th 2011

hey home, happy fathers day dad!

So this week went by really fast, we went on exchanges with the Spanish elders on Tuesday and me and elder carter stayed in boiling springs and elder law and elder boyd went to do Spanish work, me and elder law didn’t get to plan before we exchanged so I pretty much had to plan by myself cause elder carter doesn’t really know the area, that was hard, it gave me a feel of what it would be like when a missionary comes in and doesn’t know the area very well or if I ever train a new missionary, so I hope I get better its just sometimes hard to remember who you need to see and where would be good to go that day. but everything I planned ended being very inspired cause we were able to help out (name) who is still trying to gain a solid testimony and plus he cant get baptized yet because of legal stuff. he’s cool he looks and sounds like morgan freeman. but we also got a call this week from the guy we found next to the gas station and he dropped us cause he just said he couldn’t rap his head around  believing in what happened to Joseph smith and all that and I tried to help him understand but it didn’t work. that’s what makes the work down here so hard people just have a hard time accepting or listening to anything different then what they are used to. This situation with (name) is what has been happening to us for the past month and a half. on Wednesday we got to go to the temple with the ward as they did baptisms and we taught an investigator named (name) who is 18 and has been waiting for his grandma to sign his record to let him get baptized he basically is Mormon already he comes to church and lives all the commandments but just hasn’t been baptized. (names of people they baptized) got to do baptisms for their family it was cool (name) loved it and said she could feel her mom when she did the baptism for (2 names) had an awesome time also. This week we have given a lot of blessings to people I think maybe 3 at least haha it’s been cool one for (name) yesterday because she hurt her eye. yesterday we decided to knock doors all day since we have no one to teach and we went into a nice neighborhood called apple branch and of course every neighborhood has NO SOLICITING signs and since we aren’t soliciting we are all good but people seem to think otherwise, everybody we talked to just hated us and was like leave, and one guy started arguing with us and said that we are soliciting because we are trying to convert him to our church and that we are selling our religion, lolololol woow ive never heard that one before and he said to leave or he would call the cops on us and we just kept knocking doors and what do you know 15 minutes later here comes the cops, haha they were nice about it but it just is ridiculous how some people are, they said that they got a bunch of calls about us in the neighborhood. So that’s now the second time that we’ve gotten the cops called on us for not doing anything illegal. there was a storm on Wednesday and I guess someone said there was a tornado funnel that was forming over boiling springs but it never touched down so that’s good haha. We didn’t find anyone new to teach this week so hopefully soon we will.

I loved the banana bread, mangos, and cliff bars. More cliff bars would be awesome if you want to send some in the next package, I need some more differin so if could get that when ever you have time that would be cool. I don’t need any new white shirts right now but when I do I will let you know. Um I really don’t know what you could send me just anything is good. I do wear sunscreen everyday, everything is healing pretty well, I have this thing on my index fingers though its like bubbles under my skin and its weird it gets dry a lot and I used the callas rubber thing to on my finger to see what happened and I like popped the bubbles but now there are like holes in my fingers and I don’t know what they are or how I got them.

I get to seen President Holm at the end of June / beginning of July he will be conducting the next transfer meeting, I don’t really get to hear about my MTC guys but elder Williams is in the zone next to mine, he’s in Greenville so when we have zone conference our 2 zones had it together and I see him every once in a while but elder Berenyi I don’t ever hear about but I know he is in Charleston, and I don’t know about elder ultra. hey I don’t know why I thought of this but how is tom who you took care of who is really old and he came over for Christmas, how is he doing? Yes I will get more pictures of people, I don’t remember what kind of dog the one I got pictures of was sorry. 

I got a cool letter from sister McConkie about Great Grandpa Choules, her dad who is Elder Stout served in the Southern States Mission when Great Grandpa Choules was President and he wrote a letter to her dad when her dad went home after his mission so that was cool a little small world connection ill send it to you in an envelope.

Grant: your jerseys sound like they are sweet, are they the diamondbacks ones? wow who’s Shania keufer? what stake is she from? girlfriend? haha. hope you have a great time since practice is starting for baseball, work hard man. any new news on the coyotes? I heard the MLB draft just happened who did the dbacks pick?.

Also how is Dylan doing any news on what they are going to have to do, with the new visa thing, and when they would have to leave the country by? well I hope you guys have fun in Chicago this week, sounds like Alli is gonna have a lot of fun, wish  could go see some cool stuff and eat way good pizza, you need to take pictures of the pizza, cant wait to talk next week.

Also there is a new mission office address because President Holm is moving the office to a new location so get this out to everyone who wants to send me stuff or letters and such. the address is :

110 Oak Park Drive  Unit B
Irmo, South Carolina 29063

love

elder Harper

Letter home - June 12th 2011

1st Pic: the picture attached is of my pin nametag that broke. since i lost my pocket nametag i had to us my pin one and then it broke so i had to tape it to elder laws magnet nametag so haha its kinda funny.

2nd Pic: ya I had zone conference, so since it was the McConkies last they cut our ties, and I had them cut my purple one that i wore for my mission papers picture cause that’s the only one that really reminded
me of them.

hey yalllllll!

This week was pretty up and down kinda hahaha, we still have been doing lots of finding. We have a lot of people were teaching but aren’t progressing no matter how hard we try to help them or how much we tell them "you have to read and pray that’s how your doing to find out if this is true or not" they still just put it off. so its been really frustrating, we have met people who expressed interest but when we call them they say no they don’t want us to teach them or we will bike all the way out to someone’s place and they wont be home, that’s happened a lot, so we’ve had to drop lots of people or they have dropped us. I think one thing people out here don’t realize is that when we ask the if we could come back later and teach them that we actually will come back. We have taught a bunch of 20 min lessons to some people but they ended up kind of just listening to learn not to gain more faith in Christ. we have been teaching this one girl, she’s about 20 years old and we’ve taught her about authority and the importance of being baptized by someone with the priesthood, she gets it all and believes the Book of Mormon is true but she doesn’t want to be baptized because she said she doesn’t want to disappoint her dad since she was already baptized into the Catholic church as a baby, so that has been hard.

Also, cool experience yesterday so after church was over we had member come over to us and asked if she could have us over for dinner at 6 so we were surprised and said yes so we decided to change all our plans up and make plans for on the way to her place which is at the bottom of our area about 6 miles away so we stopped by at a members house in our ward and talked to him about having us teach his friend and while we were there it started raining so we had to scratch our tracting plans and just rode down to dinner. On our way down Elder Law had to stop at a gas station to go to the bathroom so we stopped and after decided since we have 10 mins before dinner lets knock these 2 houses next to the gas station, and the second house we knock a 23 year old guy opened and before we said anything he let us in (probably cause it was raining) and so he was like so who are you guys and we told him and we told him about the Book of Mormon and stuff and he was like ya I used to go to church and stuff but then his preacher would tell him different things about the gospel then what he would read about in the bible and he really got confused and didn’t understand so now he’s an atheist and believes in God but hes nondenominational. So we told him about how the Book of Mormon is the pure doctrine of Christ and how the LDS Church is the true church of Jesus Christ because its led by God and Jesus Christ and not by man how its set up with prophets and apostles how Christ set it up and how its the Lords kingdom restored on the earth not reformed like many other church’s, by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon he can come to know the truth by the holy ghost and that we don’t teach things different from what the bible or book of Mormon teach, we don’t change doctrine, because this is Jesus Christ’s church not mans church. so he accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and we told him to read and pray about it and that we would call him to set up an appointment to come back. so what is so cool about this is that if we didn’t have a dinner appointment down there and if Elder Law didn’t have to go to the bathroom we never would have knocked his house cause its such an inconvenient place since we are on bikes so that was definitely inspired by the spirit. so that was the high light of the week by far. 

woww that’s crazy that thing happening to Dylan, man what would be cool if he got sent to my mission hahahaha oh man that would be sick, my zone leader elder nelson has his cousin here in the same zone and his sister here in the mission also, so you never know. That’s still crazy that he might change missions half way through, I wonder how they are going to spread out the missionaries throughout the U.S.

  

The picture attached is of my pin nametag that broke. Since I lost my pocket nametag I had to us my pin one and then it broke so I had to tape it to elder laws magnet nametag so haha it’s kinda funny

DYLAN: DUDEEEEEEEE happy birthday my boy, hope your having fun down in Peru man, heard about your whole thing with maybe being moved to the U.S., who knows maybe you’ll come to my mission, haha that would be sweet. Love you man hope all is well.

Well family im having a great time down here, and no tornados so im all good. Keep praying for me I really need it every day.

Love

Elder Harper

Letter home - June 6th 2011

hey family

so this week was pretty new to me so far, we have no people to teach and all of our leads are pretty lame, so weve been doing lots of tracting and finding and lots of biking comes with that also. it was a pretty hot and muggy week too, so we were just dieing every day cause we just would sweat continuously and just get soaked. its been hard cause every day we would hope to find someone and we would always come up empty, yesterday we were knocking doors and some guy came out and told us he did'nt want to hear us cause hes already been saved and he doesn't want to here us preach our altered scriptures, also like an hour later we were contacting across from a baptist church that was starting its evening service and a guy from the church came up and tried to contact us  he just says " do you believe in hell? and we are like yes, then he says "good, have you been saved? yes, and then he hands us a baptist pamphlet and we said how about we exchange so we gave him a pass along card and then he just walks away and we see him in the parking lot acting like hes all cool with his older guy friend cause he just talked to 2 mormons, hahah it was so funny cause he didnt know what to say. so it was a slow week and none of our potential investigators progressed or kept any commitments at all so we dropped them so not a fun week really finding wise but it was still good.

grant: havasupi sounds like it was fun, i hope you have fun on the canoe trip. glad you liked that du-rag. send some sports updates about the coyotes and stuff

we have zone conference on tuesday so i can ask someone about the letter with the memory card in it. you guys could send me mail to my apartment directly but they always say to send it just to the mission and they will send it to me, i haven't got the memory card.

im glad moms arm is doing well, i prayed for her all week. cool that you saw Eric Camp, tell him that if his girlfriend really likes him and is really the one for him then she will wait for him but if she doesnt then obviously she isnt the one for him, he needs to go on a mission cause he needs to experience it, it will change his life and make it so much better. how is cousin Eric doing with his decision? i almost wish i was in Peru or a foreign country cause last night we went over to the hutchings again and bro hutchings had the NBA finals on hahaha i was just like dang it, come on and for 5 minutes i had to resist my self from watching it even though i could hear everything, thats whats hard about being in the states.

whats up with the coyotes? was there a big storm in AZ? someone said something about a hurricane haha but i think he meant monsoon that destroyed some stuff i dont know if thats right.

well hope you guys have a good week, everyday is a big learning experience for me its hard but i always get through it with the lords help, and i cant believe ive already been out for almost 3 months, we get our new mission president in end of june crazy, im getting really tan which is good, anyway i hope all is well keep praying for me to be my best.

love 

Elder Harper

Letter home - May 31st 2011

hey family

So yesterday being memorial day the library was closed so i am emailing now at 4 on Tuesday, yesterday we lost our phone somehow hahaha its not fun and we have no idea where it could be cause we were pretty much at home all day so we think it might have gotten stolen at Wal-Mart but we don’t know how. anyway lately we’ve been in a big finding stage we have been biking a lot and knocking a lot, we’ve found lots of cool people but they for some reason aren’t progressing at all so its been hard trying to teach them, this last week for some reason we ran into a lot of people who have hated Mormons and wanted to bash us one guy called us the false church of Jesus Christ and said hes studied on the Mormons, but i wonder what he been studying from? those people are pretty common down here. funny story so last Monday after i emailed we always ride past a Baptist grave yard that is raised about 4 feet above the ground and we decided to go jump our bikes off it so when i got close to the edge my tire caught the bricks on the edge and i just fell off the 4 foot drop and i tore up my white shirt and my hand and elbow got all scratched up, my backpack also got a little hole in it which im pretty mad about, so that was fun and i bruised my thigh really bad, so its hurt all week and still hasn’t gone away completely. Then  i also one night somehow lost my pocket nametag and so had to wear my clip on one and that one broke off cause it caught a door so now i have a ghetto nametag that has tape on it hahah it so funny, so i have to order new ones now. 

its starting to get really hot the last 3 days its been blazing and the thing is when you sweat here you stay sweaty all day even when you go inside so we’ve also been biking far distances lately so we have just gotten so stinking soaking wet from all the sweat, i hope i get a car soon, maybe next transfer cause it really is just almost unbearable.

we get lots of member meals but when we aren’t being fed we make good stuff sometimes enchiladas or we eat left overs from our lunch on Thursdays with bro Wilson he takes us to lunch after we go out with him. its hard to just make like healthy meals but we usually make smoothies every morning and put spinach in them or we eat oatmeal so we eat as healthy as we can its just money is so tight .

something i would like is a red marking pencil that is specifically for scriptures cause the ones you sent me are good but they won’t mark very well and it makes the pages all wrinkly, so you might be able to find them at deseret book, also could you guys print the inconvenient messiah by president Holland, and act in all diligence by pres Eyring from the may 2010 conference  

 i got the letter with the pictures in it but i never got the memory card and i thought it would be in there but idk, ya im going to need more shirts haha plus since my other one got ripped from my crash. We didn’t have to talk this week, the wards over here are way different they like aren’t as focused on missionary work really and really do much to help our converts out so its really hard trying to get the ward involved, but i did speak i think it was 3 weeks ago, i forgot to tell you guys and it was on the gift of the holy ghost, it went really well. who are the missionaries who are in the ward? so is mom gonna drive my car then? after you sell the sequoia. i cant really wrap my finger up in a straight position cause im always writing things down and so if i do that i wont be able to write so i really dont know what to do about it haha plus yes i do write things down i write in my planner all the time about our investigators, i tried wrapping it Sunday and it felt better after but i cant do that all the time. oh and can you send my muscle rub stick, that would be really nice haha cause my legs are so tight, i sent you guys a package today with the shirts and grants birthday present, it is SWEET! ;) 

 That’s sweet that the dbacks are in 1st place, how did they manage to get so good so quickly, who on the team is playing good?

In your letter you guys said that the coyotes are staying for another year? what’s the details on that? i got really excited to hear that, and is the matt hulsizer guy still wanting to buy them? what happened to the thrashers? that is a little weird that they would move to Canada, anything else going on in the sports world

i love the pictures you sent, keep sending some i like having them to look at all the time. hows duncan doing, is he still thinking of a mission, what is eric thinking about on his decision to serve a mission or not?

well i dont know what else to say so im gonna go, im working hard and doing my best, keep praying for me cause i really need it to help me get through each day, i havent prayed so much in my life then now, each morning we have sacred grove time where we take turns going into the bedroom and praying outloud like in the sacred grove ha its so awesome maybe you could tell dylan to do that cause its so awesome, oh we get our new mission president at the end of june so that is in this transfer its gonna be interesting to see the changes and what happens, i love you guys and i love the gospel.

Love

Elder Harper

Letter home - May 23, 2011

so this last week was crazy we had interviews with president McConkie on wednsday, mine was good and short he was just like so how are you doing adjusting and stuff, its still normal to be homesick still and stuff and he told me that i have great expectations, so i hope i can soon live up to those expectations. it was my first and last interview with him cause president Holm comes in at the end of june. sister McConkie has a scrapbook page for every single missionary they have had so i got to up date mine of coarse it was the last time doing it so im only gonna have one are and one comp on my sheet, we also get our ties cut at zone conference next month so i got figure out which one to wear haha.

ohh haha so i finally crashed for the first time on my mission! tuesday it rained all day so we had to ride our bikes in the rain and my pants and shoes got soaked, anyway since it was raining to road was slippery and we were riding kind of on a busy overpass on the freeway and i got to close to elder laws tire and clipped it and i just lost my balance and skid on the ground i braced myslef with my left hand, but to my suprise i was fine and nothing was scratched, then 10 minutes later we were going fast down a hill and there are no sidewalks so we ride on the edge next to the grass, i went a little off on the grass and tried to get back on the road and my tire slipped and i just ate it bad, both my hands hit first and my fingers poked holes in my gloves but they are still good but my left wrist was sprained a little and it hurt. after that i got mad i was just so upset cause it was raining i was wet and cold and now i crashed twice so haha that was dumb.

we baptized (name) on saturday, everything went well. she even invited her nonmember friends and family and we watched the restoration video. she is an awesome lady has a strong testimony.

transfer calls came on saturday night and me and elder law will be together for another 6 weeks which we kinda already knew because of the new training program. but one of our spanish elders, elder allred is being transferred to myrtle beach we think so thats a bummer but its normal, one of our zone leaders elder larsen goes home on Wednesday, kinda funny seing him get all trunky, its just a little weird seeing guys go home and see them come back after, it doesn't help me with being homesick either.

this week was hard, i had a stressful week, i dont know. i work hard and i do what im supposed to do, its not that im worried about my teaching skills or anything its just that im so worried about not knowing the area well enough not being as happy as i want to be or know i should be because im dong the lords work, like i think since everything is so different and the people are so different i have a hard time loving them. its like i just want to be in my own shell and not be bothered, and it doesnt help that we are always in akward situations when contacting. Ive read lots of talks to help me try and get over homesickness but like i am just always thinking of home and family and what i could be doing back home and it just gets me so depressed and i get discouraged, and i dont want to be depressed or discouraged. its so hard for to just forget about home completely and focus on my investigators and  the people in the ward and it makes me feel like im a bad missionary or something haha. i would really like some help, and maybe its just that im still a new missionary but i thought i would be over it by now. and sometimes to be honest i get bored with doing the same thing everyday. but i do it regardless cause i know its my duty, it is hard sometimes not knowing how to help people or what to teach them.

Grant: sounds like you had a great time at spring football practice, and also with baseball, your doing a great job with baseball keep working hard and trying to always get better, home runs are sweet, keep crushing them. ya send me some pictures printed out and send them in an envelope with some of the pictures you guys have already put up on the emails so i can look at them when i want, i cant believe you will be a junior when i get home that's crazy you'll be so much older and be driving dude thats crazy. some advice for your talk is to start preparing to be a missionary now start reading the book of mormon and preach my gospel chapter 3 all the missionary lessons thats what you need to know cause in the mtc they don't teach you bout the gospel they teach you how to teach the gospel so you need to know about it before you go on a mission. also i need my sports update on asu and stuff

alli: sounds like your science project went well. excited for school to be over?

hey how is duncan doing and all my friends?

hope you have a good week this week and i hope mine gets better too, keep praying for me please.

love

Elder Harper

Letter home - May 16, 2011

 hey home, fam and everyone
   
so this week was crazy we went on exchanges with the spanish elders again and the zone leaders haha it was some good fun. first i went with our zone leader elder nelson and worked in his area i slept at his apartment and we ate pulled pork peices for dinner and diped them in pork sauce stuff ahhhh it was soo good, and then woke up the next day and worked in his area it was fun i was basically like a zone leader for a day we just drove everywhere we only had like 4 appointments for investigators but we just had to cover so much ground we drove an hour to get to a baptism interview and we were there for a long time but we had fun we blasted alex boye and chruch music in the car all day and wore sweet sun glasses it was funny then. met back up with elder law that night and thrusday me and elder law were together and went out with bro wilson like we do every thrusday he took us to mannys. well have to go there after i get home. then we had to help a family move for a couple hours and had a lesson that night with wanda the lady we are baptiseing this weekend. then friday i went on exchanges with elder allred in our district who is a spanish elder so i went and did spanish work all day haha since i dont know spanish he would teach all the lessons by himslelf and i would kinda get bored and stare off into nowhere haha i kept falling asleep during lessons cause we just sat there for like an hour and a half and i did nothing lol we had one guy we knocked into a guy who was grilleing carne asada and he had his door open so he let us in and we went in and he closed the door and the air conditioning wasnt on either so no AC and the house is filled with smoke that smells like carne asada and earlier this week it rained a lot and its been super humid all week so we are just baking in this guys trailer for like an hour and a half we forgot about our dinner appointment and i just started falling asleep and wakeing up and i understood when he told the guy the first vision but other then that i didnt know what was going on but aparently he commited to be baptised. that was a fun day just cause i said nothing during any lesson and i was way tired. then on saturday it was really overcast and was going to rain so we were biking and almost to a place were a kind of investigators house and it just started pouring on us all of a sudden so we had to bike really fast up this hill around the corner down the street and dropped our bikes and sprinted under the porch adn sat there for an hour haha we were souked  but we biked a lot saturday up lots of hills and we went to go see a lady who we gave a pamphlet to but we got there and she had looked at like anti-mormon stuff and thought joseph smith was a murderer and stuff so we knew we were going to drop here cause her heart was hardened and she kept asking questions and then i just was like started tlking about the book of mormon and were it came from and how i knew it was true, i basically didnt know how i was saying all this information it just started coming out and after we walked away i told elder law that that was the spirit speaking threw me cause i dont remember a single word i said other then "the bom is a record of the gospel in the ancient american contenant"  it was pretty sweet to see how god works thruogh us when we least expect him too and how if i just keep studying and working hard each day whether i might want to go out and do it or not if just keep being obedient he will help me. I really have been straing to have a lot more fun this week has been the best week of my mission so far i learned how to be simple when i teach to have fun and always make a situation seem better then it really is, like on saturday me and elder law just had fun even tho we biked a lot we joked a lot rode down a muddy hill and got all muddy and elder law rode off the trail into the bushes it was a crazy fun week and i grew a lot this week. yesterday we had a fast and testimony meeting with 2 other zones and president McKonkie and every missionary bore their testimonies, mine was just on having fun and if you dont have fun on your mission then you wont enjoy it cause thats what i learned cause for the last month of being out here i havent really been having fun its been a struggle but ive learned that i just need to find a way to make it fun every day.

well thats all i hav for now i got to go i love you all and its hard but im starting to have a lot more fun.

love
Elder Harper