March 25, 2012 (One Year!)

March 25, 2012

ONE YEAR!!!woow one year is over and gone, i seriously cant believe that its already been a year i feel like i was just thinking ahead to this point in my mission back in boiling springs when elder law was at this point in his. So many hard times, so many good times, so many times when I was like, I hate biking and I don’t want to bike tomorrow again, we already have biked like 100 miles in 5 days and my legs are so tired, and then the days when nobody will answer the door or when they just don’t want to talk to you and so many bash's with Baptist preachers, people calling the cops on you cause they think you are soliciting hahaha, so many things have happened, its been a great ride so far, I have learned so much and I have had the privilege of baptizing 4 people in year, and my testimony and knowledge of the truthfulness of gospel has grown so much.

 This week we went and saw a lady named Rita, her son used to live here a while ago and so we went to see them but found out they didn’t live there anymore but his parents do and she has a book of mormon and some pamphlets but she didn’t want us teaching her yet so we just stopped by this week and set up an appointment and taught her the restoration and she accepted to be baptized, but didn’t accept a date. She wasn’t able to come to church because she worked on Sunday, but hopefully she will come to general conference. We had a lady named Toya on date this week but we went by for our appointment and she wasn’t there so we left a note and 3 days later the note was still there and the door was open and nobody was home so that creeped me and elder stever out a little. Elder stever is great I love him we get along great he is from el dorado california, the atmosphere in the apartment is so good and there is more excitement and energy to work and there is happiness too haha. This thursday we knocked on the door of a Baptist preacher when we saw him walking to the door we could just tell "yep here comes a bash" and the first thing he said to us was that we are a cult and everything we are doing is false, we did get some insight on what Baptist believe, which just blows my mind, that they believe this, that if someone dies and they have never heard of Jesus Christ or the gospel they are going to hell because they denied their conscience, because apparently our conscience is supposed to tell us that Jesus Christ is our savior when nobody has taught you a thing about god or the bible at all, that just makes me sick that they think that. But yah, other than that we had a great week hahaha. We have had a hard time finding investigators and just people to teach in general it’s been frustrating in that aspect but other than that it’s good.

 Well, for my year mark we went to cracker barrel that just opened recently by our apartment, it was really good. I haven’t gotten my package yet! but maybe it will come today haha i hope. 

 Crazy that payton manning is on the broncos!, did the cardinals make any moves for a good QB?

Has baseball season started yet?

 I don’t mind not being district leader its nice cause I don’t have to worry about the whole district and making trainings for DDM every week and I can just focus on my area, i learned a lot from being DL for that short time and who knows i might get called to be it again.

Well I hope you guys have a great week

 Love you guys

Love, Elder Harper:)

March 19, 2012

March 19, 2012

I Love Transfers!

 So Elder North got transferred to camden and is now companions with elder olsen who was in my district when i first came to aiken, and elder Kerr got put with his mtc companion in walterboro hahaha when they announced it he jumped up and yelled wooooooooohh and I’m glad he is happy. My new companion is elder joshua stever he is from el dorado, California, ha and he is soooo awesome. hahaha he reminds me of dylan, we clicked right away he has about 6 months left but he is great and he loves to work so we are gonna baptize here.  Elder seaver's new companion is elder cramer and he was trained by elder law also haha so thats stikin cool the whole family is in the same zone, but when  they announced it at transfers his name came up as district leader and mine was just normal and I was like whaaaaaat? so i went up and talked to elder riddle one of the assistants and he said "oh ya haha sorry i forgot to call you about that, we released you", so yep I dont need to stress anymore about being DL only 3 months of it but who knows president could call me to be a district leader again cause of my experience of it.  Well anyway here it has been in the mid 80's all week which is really weird cause it just went from cold to hot without any in between so we haven’t had to wear are jackets at all this week and suit season ends conference weekend so hopefully it will stay warm for 2 weeks. The down part is that the pollen has come out and it is nasty it leaves like yellow dust particles everywhere its like yellow chalk dust it gets all over everything and collects on the ground after it rains and I think that’s why i have such bad dizziness cause my allergies are freaking out but i called the mission doctor and he said to get some Claritin D so i have been taking that, it helps a little bit but not much.

I did get the birthday card from carolyn and yes I bought a good seat from walmart it is awesome.

ya i got another suit but it was one that was left in the apartment here and I tried it on and it fit me so it works

Hey dad could you friend request chris kozacek (coach K) on facebook or if you already are friends with him could you ask him his address so I can write him a letter that would be awesome

  Anyway, ya we had a good week i love elder stever.

well i hope you guys have a good week I love this work and everythng about being a missionary, the elders are gonna love me when I get back

Love Elder Harper:)

Happy 20th Birthday!

Birthday Box

New mission car!

Valentines Birthday Tie!

March 12, 2012

Crazy Monday,

Soooo, i really don’t have much time again this week to e-mail. We sat down in the family history center in the church building and as I was about to start this guy named Will walks in asking for a preacher cause he needs more guidence in his life and he has been struggling, so we were like well you have come to the right place. We had to stop e-mailing and teach him for about 30 minutes and we told him about the restoration and the plan of salvation cause he said his wife died a little while ago and he wants to see her again, thats why he hasnt just killed himself cause he knows if he does he wont be able to. So we invited him to be baptized on april 7 and he lives in the aiken ward area so elder seaver will be teaching him. Ohh, ya so transfers, elder north is leaving and elder kerr is also leaving he got here at the same time as me, so elder seaver and I are staying, elder law is also staying as zone leader, so i am happy, I really hope i get a cool companion who will work well with me and will want to go do hard work. I got sick on Thursday and felt like I had to throw up and when  i did it was just like water but then I was just dizzy all day and have been since but not as dizzy it feels like I’ve been spinning around for 30 seconds and i am off balance but its not as bad now, I talked to the mission doctor and he said its just a virus that should go away soon. we also went to north augusta which is right on the border of SC and georgia on the SC side  for exchanges I worked with Elder Wilcock who is going home on wednesday and he lives in gilbert so maybe you could go to his homecoming haha i dont know, he is such a cool guy.

well it was good to hear from you guys grant looks like you are doing great with discus and shot put, keep getting stronger and live in the weight room. i cant wait to work out with you when I get back to help you prepare for you senior football season.

So the cardinals are having peyton manning try out for the team? that would be sweet if he played for us

Any other sports updates?

 I will send the memory card today I wanted to take a couple more pics.

 So dylan goes home in like almost 3 months haha thats crazy and I will have not much time left when he goes home ahhh my mind is blown away on how fast it has gone.

you need to ask aunt kristan about that girl that she said that she was gonna have start writing me cause I haven’t gotten a letter from her and its been like 3 or 4 weeks, is she going to write me? haha

well that’s basically all I can remember to write so our week was crazy and I love missionary work its such a great feeling to be helping people and even when they don’t know what we believe or they maybe aren’t interested in learning we might say a prayer with them and it gives me peace and hopefully it also give them peace and guidance to lead them to the truth, even those times just testify to me of the truth of the things that we believe and that this is jesus christ one true church, and that everything that we believe and the commandments that we have are here to help us progress so we can live with God again, I love it so much and I want everyone to know its true.

Have a freaking awesome week love you guys

Elder Harper:)

March 5, 2012

Hey yall,

Sorry I am not going to have a lot of time to write you guys an email, but we had a weird week, haha one funny but gross thing happened, we went with the aiken elders and helped a guy in their ward clean out a shed, when we walked up to the shed there was chicken poop EVERYWHERE!! like all the shelves and boxes and, ughh just think of the worst bathroom accident in the world and it was worse than that. we had to take all the stuff out and set it outside and take the shelves and move them so we could sweep all the dried poop towards the entrance, ugggg it smelled sooooo bad, I am so lucky I brought gloves cause the other 3 elders didn’t bring any hahahaha, mind the people we were doing this for live 30 minutes out into the country in a trailer in the back of the woods, haha.  Way redneck, and they have 27 Chihuahuas and lots of chickens and turkeys just running around. so that was fun we smelled like poop all morning.

we had a zone conference this week and it was soooo good I wish I could tell you everything about it, but we did watch the talk elder holland gave at the MTC recently and it was freaking awesome and during lunch president holm had us all line up for a basketball shooting contest haha.  Elder Wilcock in our district who is from mesa did the underhand granny shot and made it almost every time until the end haha it was so awesome. We also got a brand new car, a brand new 2012 chevy cruze it is pretty cool, not as cool as a ford fusion but still really cool.

We did have a major storm last week and we were on the road when it hit us and it started hailing on our car. and there were some reported tornados 6 miles away in Graniteville so that was crazy. I got a package this week from jessica larsen it was really cool of her, she told me she is working with Trent at her physical therapy place so that’s really cool.

  

but ya thats about all i have to write this week.

Have a great week love you

Elder Harper :)