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:)

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:)