Leadership Training Week

Monday, August 6, 2012

Hey there everyone, so I’ll start off with the work this week. Tuesday was awesome, we went to go see (A)who we have dropped cause he kind fell off the board and was never available but we went over to see him and while we were there talking to him a girl who he knows walked by with her 4 kids and asked for a cigarette from someone else there and then left but she came back over as we were talking to (A) and she started listening in and got interested in some stuff we were talking about and asked lots of questions like, Do you believe you should get married before you have children? and a bunch of other questions and she was liking our responses, then we eventually got into teaching her the plan of salvation and she agreed with all of it but she especially liked the part about the spirit world and how we can be baptized in proxy for people who have died without a knowledge of the restored gospel or without being baptized by priesthood authority and she completely understood and it made sense to her that we would need that cause the authority was lost when the apostles were killed.  She knows she has done bad stuff in the past and she wants to change, we gave her a book of mormon and pamphlets the only problem is she doesn’t have a phone that works and she lives kind of far away so its hard to make time to try and catch her available, which seems to be the biggest difficulty here in the south, especially here in Marion where nobody has a car or phone hahaha, but she is still awesome and we are still trying our best. We also found a cool family last night. They are a couple who aren’t married they are in their early 20's and have a 2 year old who is definitely in her terrible twos hahaha. She made so much noise as we were trying to teach but they want to come to church and check it out and they accepted to be baptized but we forgot to give them a specific date hahaha. We totally spaced it, oops, its okay they'll get one tomorrow. (S) is still cool, he is just hard to contact because he doesn’t have his own phone for a while. He is still wanting to get baptized though. We also are working on something cool for the branch to help them get more excited about missionary work and helping reactivate people, it is the branch vision but I’ll talk about it more later.

Ya sorry, i didn’t have much time last week, and we really don’t have anything to do here on p-days. Marion is the highest unemployment rate in the state and there really is nothing to do except go to the church and shoot some balls or write letters. We have no active youth above 16 either, so nobody to play with, and we can’t really do anything with our district because Florence is too far to drive and it takes up lots of miles.

I sent those letters to grandma smith

We do get the ensigns

I will give you wanda’s address next week.

Bummed to here about grant, but tell him to keep working harder then anyone and he might still be able to start in front of a senior if he is better then him, push through the pain, grant

 Love Elder Harper

Monday, July 30, 2012

Man well i just got done looking at all the pictures of dylan, wow he is a lot skinnier, haha his skin looks so tight on him, probably cause he looks older. He also looks a lot taller, if I’m not wrong, has he grown? So cool to see him and hear how much he’s grown spiritually.

Well last sunday i felt a little sick and I threw up but it went away on tuesday which was good but my head is still a little dizzy for some reason, I’m waiting to hear back from the mission doctor.

We also had to give bro A. our mission leader a blessing cause he said he was having the same kind of symptoms as me, weird! but it was good and he is feeling a lot better now. we met a cool girl this week named (K) she is engaged and she’s 23 i think but we taught her about the restoration and she liked it she said you are very convincing so it was cool, but it was a weird lesson cause she was doing her sisters hair the whole time. Another cool thing this week we went to see an investigator couple and only( F.) was home but we taught him the plan of salvation and he really liked what we taught but when he heard nobody gets paid, he was like this is the church, this is the one I’ve been looking for, so that’s pretty awesome I’m excited to keep teaching him.

(S.) is still cool we talked to him for a long time on saturday and he has so much potential and righteous desire to help people so we just have to get him to church. He was supposed to come but didn’t.

 

Well that’s all i can write love you guys

kelly!!

 

Monday July 23, 2012

 Baptism Bonanza,

Wooow first thing i have to say is I can’t believe that my favorite missionary of all time is home and that my favorite cousin ( Eric your my favorite too, couple
of, oh your all my favorites) also comes home tomorrow, that just means I only have very little time left and it has gone by so fast. It’s weird but pretty cool to see elder law with you guys haha yeah we had the best time using those sunglasses while role playing with STEVE, hahahaha good times.  I wish I could have been there to hear his talk. Well, just a quick re cap of the week of course the best thing was saturday we had the baptism for N., haha his jumpsuit was a little tight on him but that’s okay he is a skinny kid so it worked, that baptism was awesome, N’s sister, K. gave the opening prayer and it was awesome cause she just got back from youth conference and she mentioned covenants, haha so smart for a 14 year old.  I don’t even think I knew what that word meant when I was 14. Elder cranford baptized him and since N’s mom had to work on Sunday,  we just did the confirmation right there and I confirmed him.  I still think its cool how when you bless someone or confirm someone that you don’t know what your gonna say but once you start it just flows and the words just come out and things just come to your mind and you can feel the spirit working through you. We also taught this F. and C, we watched the restoration video and they loved it and said they really want to come to church to find out more about what we are like, AWESOME. I had the opportunity to interview a guy for baptism for the sisters this week it was great.

Dad I love the, 10 things the not like romney hahaha, that’s awesome, seriously who can say he is not the man to be the president.
Again send the stuff for the absentee ballot for me.

Hey, grandma harper just writing a quick note, I do get your letters and i like reading about the families you help.

Grant keep it up with football.
Alli, I love your skweez  for elder law.

Well that’s all I have time to write this week but tell dylan I FREAKING LOVE HIM and give him a big hug for me
Love Elder Harper:)

Monday, July 16 2012

Monday, July 16, 2012

Hello everyone, well this week was great it really was ha and i wish i could remember it all cause my mind has gone a little blank but its coming back. so the biggest thing that happend this week was that N. our 13 year old part member investigator who we have been trying to get to go to bed early and wake up to come to church got his baptismal interview on saturday and he came to church YAYYY! SUCCESS so he will be baptized next saturday at 6pm.  I’m super excited and can’t wait for him to eventually get the priesthood, he is also my first male baptism finally haha. On wednesday we had interviews/ trainings from the assistants plus elder law and elder riddle who are the special assignment guys, basically assistants, lots of good stuff. I had a great interview with president and he complimented me on how we are doing and told me how elder cranford is learning a lot from me he told me about something he said that was cool but i cant remember what it was hahah sorry maybe I will later. After all that we had a couple hours before our special fireside meeting with president and sister Holm called the No More Stangers fireside where less actives investigators could come and meet president and hear from him and some other speakers, it was awesome cause one of our recent converts bro D. who used to be a pentacostal preacher gave his testimony, it was powerful. I also got to spend some more time with Elder law before the fireside, me and him drove the mission van to go get some little cesers pizza cause we hadn’t eaten dinner.  We went and sat in the piggly wiggly parking lot eating pizza while we were waiting to show one of our recent converts how to get to the stake center haha we had a good time talking about our mission like how he has been on exchanges with me in each of my areas haha, even cooler at the end of the night as we were leaving the building after locking up there was a guy sitting under the light pole in the parking lot so we went over and talked to him, he is from wyoming and is working selling security systems door to door, he told us that all the guys he worked with are mormon return missionaries,(as he is sitting in an LDS chapel parking lot) we taught him a little about our beliefs he asked us how we are saved and stuff like that then the guy who came to pick him up was a member of the church, we gave the guy a book of mormon so hopefully his co-worker told him more.  Transfers came and we are both staying in marion, only elder oliver who is in the district also our zone leader is leaving he has been there for 7 months in Florence.

Elder seaver is just a cool guys i don’t know how to explain his personality he is laid back, loves the gospel and is a hard worker

Dad i like that quote by Abe Lincoln its so perfect, i think our government should read that, it might inspire them.

 Also could you guys send me the forms for absentee voting when they are available, we got a letter this morning saying we are allowed to do that. 

I put the return address on duncan’s letter so it should be fine.

Bummed to hear about the harris's moving to gilbert :(

 the picture of me by the trailer is not me hahaha it is elder holyoak he looks exactly like me from behind plus that suit he has on is not mine either i have a slit in the middle of my jacket.

i will try to send the memory card soon.

When does dylan get home this week or next week?

Grant i hope your working out hard for football that’s how you will beat people is preparing in practice.

Alli it would be cool to win that house in SC

I think that’s all i have time for this week and i hope i answered all your questions

Love Elder Harper ;)

Full of the Spirit

Monday, July 09, 2012

Well this week was a busy one wooo, first of all i guess to start off about RR he called us last night saying that he talked to his pastor and he decided to stay with his church but we kept talking to him and he decided to give us one more chance to see if what we believe is true or not and so we are going over tonight and teaching him the restoration. Satan is a poo face. Then we talked to some referrals from the BRP program that we are doing and one of them is a less active , me and elder law were on an exchange and we went to see him and he let us in, he had some questions about the church since he had been away for basically 50 years of his life and we shared the first vision and had him pray and he knelt and prayed with us and he just started to cry as he was praying cause of the joy that he felt because we were there and how he is trying to do the best he can and be the best father that he can be to his kids, hah it was like the most spiritual prayer I’ve ever heard and been apart of, the spirit was just pounding the room ( not really) but it felt like the spirit was just hugging all of us it was AWESOME   

Grant keep up the hard work in football give it all your heart, might, mind, and strength

Alli be happy stay strong and have a great summer keep working on the violin, say hi to elder jackson law for me in 2 weeks

mom if you get the chance to talk to coach more maybe you could ask him if he knows anything about the church, but i don’t know i might just do that when i run with them in march and the summer and try to talk to him about the gospel so that’s my plan.

Man im sad to hear that Nash is gone but even more mad that he went to the LAKERS! I heard about the guy from North Carolina, but did they get anyone from the lakers for him?

Also sad to hear about shadow but i know he is in heaven he had a good fat house cat life haha.

Man why is it that grandma  is doing well and some one has to total her car AHHHH, tell her I love her and im praying for her. Now i can’t drive the camero haha

Oh mom in the box you sent me there was an envelope that i opened that had a bunch of my emails and it was addressed to grandma smith in Idaho, what were you planning on doing with that? or was that not supposed to go to me?

I miss going to kotijas and knotts berry farm we are gonna have to do it when i get back.

Well that’s all i can write this week sorry it’s not much but i love you all and miss you guys

Love Elder Harper :)

Pictures from the MTC, that I just had to share! We found these cool pictures on Elder Berenyi's facebook.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Hot, Hot, Hot in the South!

Wooow it has been hot the past 4 days, a big heat wave has just come through and its supposed to stay the same all next week, our car thermometer said 105 but the index said it was 117 either way the second you walk out side you start to glisten cause of the humidity and then at like 7 at night it cools of a little, but it stays more humid so you keep sweating. It’s basically like sitting in a sauna all day, and the car gets really hot too. haha. This week was pretty good even though nobody came to church for us. It was still a good testimony meeting, it was awesome with  so many great testimonies i wish our investigators would have come ahhhh! Tuesday I went on an exchange with elder Wilkinson who is in our district and we worked in Florence. We had a great time he is such a cool guy. He came out a transfer after me with elder north, he told me he actually graduated in 2008 and worked for 2 years before he left on his mission it was weird to know he was older then me, but anyway we taught one of the less actives in their ward and he is so cool he is staring to come back and he is only 17 but he loves learning about the gospel again and its making sense. We also had something really cool happen we went to contact a media referral named robbie who had been contacted back in december and we learned that he was having lots of health issues so it was hard to meet with them so they stopped coming, but we talked to him more and he has both of his legs amputated below his knees and he wears artificial legs and he says he feels like he has real legs cause they are so high tech.  We taught him the plan of salvation and he loved  it a lot he accepted to be baptized on july 21 so we are excited to meet with him more.  We live in an apartment and it is a little bit outside and south of marion city. We do get fed well here so that is good. I am doing good on clothes still, and cooking is okay haha its so hard here to keep things from going bad because of the humidity things mold so fast.  People give us lots of vegetables from their gardens especially squash for some reason, but they don’t stay good for a long time.

That’s way cool to hear about Duncan’s mission call to the SOUTH, tell him hi for me, cant wait for him to join me down here.

yeah I got the package all good, we email at the library cause we have a branch here and there is no family history center to do it in, but yeah elder cranford is weird with his p-day schedule so its always different, elder cranford reminds me a lot of joel, its kind of weird i have to admit.

 yes i do know where harper rd is that was like the first thing i noticed when I got here.

Man, im sad to hear about shadow I really hoped I would get home by the time he would die, but its time for him, he has had a good life.

Man. thats cool to hear who’s getting married do you know who all they are marrying?

Who is coy dating?

 I have given a couple talks i think 3 and i should be speaking at the end of July, president harvey our branch president asked me yesterday.

and I have born my testimony a couple times but we are asked not to do it a lot so that we let the members have their chances.

Well dad, I don’t root for UofA, no matter what, GO GAMECOCKS!! i am mad that arizona won though.

Oh yeah, i got stung by a wasp the other day and the swelling has gone down, its almost better, but yeah we were sitting under a porch and it flew and dive bombed my arm

It’s crazy to think that Dylan goes home in like less then a month, man so fast 

Well, that’s all i get to write this week it was great to hear from you guys

Love Elder Harper :)