Monday, December 17, 2012

Monday, December 17,  2012

Hey everyone

This week was exciting, we have (S) on date now again, we talked to her and she was saying that she has really been thinking and she doesn’t want to wait any longer to get baptized that she will do it even if her mom can’t be there and so we put her on for dec 29 because she got stitches and she can’t get into water until she gets them out. So we had to wait till the 29^th, but she is really excited for it and so are we because this has been going on longer than we had expected it to. We also have (K) on date for the same day (he’s the kid that came to church on his own) and tonight we are gonna teach him the word of wisdom and law of chastity. Something else, that is cool that happened this week is on Saturday night we had tried to see someone and it was 8:58 and I decided to knock on one more door and we picked one in a random building in this apartment complex. We  knocked on the only door with lights on and a kid answered and said your Mormons right? We said yes and he said we could talk to him and his sister.  We found out that his sister who is 15 is a member and also their dad is, but they haven’t been to church in a long time and they just moved back to north Charleston a couple weeks ago.  We went back and saw them yesterday and met the dad and they are just a way cool family that has been needing the church lately.  We were led to them because, I was inspired to knock on one more door, the daughter will be going to young womens on Wednesday and the dad will come to church when he can when he isn’t working, he works for (  ), so he has a crazy schedule, but we are gonna go over and eat with them next Wednesday. He’s gonna make some Hawaiian food cause he is from there. I love the guidance of the spirit and I can feel his guidance so strong, all I have to do is be worthy of his presence and I will be able to see miracles happen.

Man, Martha Lou’s Kitchen sounds way good, minus the sweet tea, I want to see if I can go there cause we are planning on going to down town Charleston sometime.

Yes, I got grandma Siiro’s package of stuff about a month ago it was great, and I thought I wrote her back but I guess I didn’t, I also got a call about a package that was sent to me but I don’t know who sent it but it was sent ups which doesn’t work cause the mission office can’t forward it to my apartment they have to hand deliver it so I will get that one on Wednesday this week. So just make sure that you let everyone know who sends me packages that they use USPS, not UPS, and I got grandma harpers package and your guys's. 

The skype situation, I think we will do it on Tuesday at 12 my time here, which would be about 9 your time, I was gonna try and do it when the family is all there, but it wouldn’t have worked like that cause we have some plans later on during the day.

 Oh mom where in Minnesota did you grow up we met a family who used to live there.

Well, hope you have a good week

Love,

Elder Harper

Monday, Dec 10, 2012

WOOOOHH

This week was exciting, so last Sunday we had this girl named (R). She is 24 and has been investigating for a while and comes to church when she can,  we also went over to her house on tuesday night with our ward mission leader bro Collins to have dinner with her, and we talked about baptism and why she hasn’t been baptized yet and the only thing that has been keeping her was living the word of wisdom cause she drinks sweet tea, but she said she likes orange juice and mountain dew more than tea and the tea would be easy to give up now, so we committed her and she accepted to live it and set her on baptism date for January 5 cause she only could come to church this weekend until then and you have to be living the word of wisdom for a week before your baptism, but the next day at our interviews we talked to president Holm and asked since she believes in everything that we could baptize her this weekend if she hasn’t drank tea by Friday and he said yes, so long story short we told her we called some people and she got baptized and confirmed this last weekend haha.

She was so excited to be able to get baptized now instead of having to wait all the way till January 5, she just is eating up church and the members are just loving her up, of course her best friend is a member in our ward also, but she has made so many friendships already, she will be an awesome member of the church. (S) isn’t really progressing how we thought, her mom got home from the hospital and I guess can’t go outside because she is going to start chemo soon, so we are not sure how long it will be until she could go outside long enough to watch the baptism so we are waiting on that.  (S) is telling us now that she doesn’t want to do it because she thinks we are pushing her and that we don’t care that her mom is sick, but we told her that’s not what we are doing, that we care about you and your mom. We are just giving her time and we have talked to the Relief Society about bringing her and her mom a dinner and just fellowshipping with them until her mom gets better and we can schedule a baptism, good thing though is that she came to church. This week, we found this kid named (K).  He is 16 and he came to church last week randomly and he said he wanted to start coming back to church and decided to come to ours. We taught him the restoration already and we are gonna teach him again this week.

The only southern tradition I can think of right now is that they deep fry everything, like the turkey or the ham haha I don’t know how ham would taste deep fried but turkey might be good, that’s all I can think of at the moment

that’s so exciting to hear Madison is going to DC, haha and also that she leaves so soon, wow that’s crazy, and I’m bummed I wont get to see her, you will need to send me her mission address when you find out, tell her congrats from me

I got my christmas box both from you guys and grandma harper

I don’t have any info yet on the skyping but I will try to find out who can do it and let you know

The senior couple in our area is the Benedicts and I don’t know if they do a blog

Well that’s all I got this week, love you guys

Love Elder Harper :)

Monday, December 03, 2012

Wow, so we had a crazy week so many cool things that happened and also lots of disappointments, so I’ll just start with those first we had so many appointments set up this week including some church tours which I haven’t really gotten to do much in my mission, but we had 3 set up this week and all of them fell through such a bummer cause I was so excited, and (S) baptism did not happen! so here is the story she wanted her mom to be there or else she wouldn’t do it and her mom went in for surgery on Wednesday and was hoping to be out before Saturday but she wasn’t and we found out that she gets out today so that’s good and also we had called her on friday just to see how she was doing and she said that she didn’t feel ready, that she had to wait till she was 18 cause she didn’t want to be affected by peer pressure after her baptism to break the commandments and she felt like you have to be perfect after baptism, so she just didn’t understand the concept that baptism is the key that unlocks the door to the atonement and that she can’t be forgiven or repent without being baptized and also, that when she receives the gift of the holy ghost after her baptism, that he can guide her with decision making especially when she is peer pressured to drink or smoke or get a tattoo or break any commandment. So we had the young women’s leader sister (R) who is awesome, give her a call and talk to her. (S) has been going to young women’s every week and is doing personal progress, haha she is so awesome and is basically already a member, she will probably be baptized this week and probably earlier than saturday. So to the good news, we had some way cool lessons this week the first one is we taught (D) (mom) and (K) (18 year old daughter). They are native american so that was pretty sweet, and they have really been searching for the right church cause they have been to others and they have never made them feel good and they love the restoration and were pretty excited to read the book of mormon especially (K), when they found out its about the American Indians. We also had a cool lesson with a girl named (M) who actually has kind of dropped us but we are trying to work with her and understand her concerns. She feels like she can’t be a Mormon, but when we taught her the spirit was sooooo strong and she was just paying close attention to the whole lesson and when I asked her how she felt, after the first vision she said "I feel good its weird but good and like someone is touching me"  and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted but she is having those second thoughts like everyone does cause satan is making her think that, I will update you when we find out more.

 

 So yes i got your package you sent and i got the Christmas card and my debit card and drivers license

 We are in a car and we bike also but we use the car a lot and elder lee has a gps but I will still need the one you sent, because he will take his when he leaves

 

Man, I’m excited to hear where Madison goes!

 Oh, also cool story at church the singles branch also meets at our building and there is this couple that are getting married in the mesa temple and I was talking to them cause they are from Arizona and the girls name is cecille taylor and she said she is from Gilbert and I asked do you know a jackson law and she said "yea! He’s my second cousin!" haha I was like no way so yea that was way cool.

 

The other elders in our apartment are elder Herrera, he’s originally from Mexico and elder Hanson from Layton, Utah

 

Well, that’s all I have this week, hope teagen gets better

Love Elder Harper

North Charleston!..pretty cool

Monday, November 26, 2012

Heyyy

 Well your probably wanting the news on where I got transferred to, looks like dad is the winner cause I’m in North Charleston baby!. its pretty cool down here i love it, unfortunately our area doesn’t cover, like historical Charleston, but its close enough to where we can get permission to go there if we want and we have a senior couple that can take us, we also get free dry cleaning when ever we want so that’s sweet, and we live with the Spanish elders who are also the zone leaders in a 4 pack apartment, it’s way fun cause they will just say random spanish words and me and my companion will try to talk Spanish and it doesn’t make any sense. Oh yeah, so my new companion is Elder Lee, again hahaha there are 2 Lee's in our mission I got both of them back to back this one is Micheal Lee, he just got done being trained and he is such a cool guy to work with haha i love him and he loves the gospel and has a great desire to share it, it makes it so much easier when you have a great companion and i don’t see us having any problems, cause he is just so laid back, but also very obedient so its gonna be great, he is from Springville, Utah. I love the ward here its so awesome we have so many cool members who just want to do missionary work and they try to make it apart of their life every day. I was so impressed at church, especially the ward leadership, they just want to share the gospel and they look for ways to do it. The bishop is cool, he had us over for Thanksgiving and I got to know him very well, he actually served his mission in our mission a long time ago. He’s a little older than dad, so around that time haha i don’t know, also I met one of the counselors and he is awesome bro Albright and his wife they love sharing the gospel, he said that he just wishes he could retire now so that they can go do their 10 years of being senior missionaries. We are baptizing a 16 year old girl this saturday named (S) she is awesome and is the friend of a member so I’m way excited. We also have some other cool people that we have on date and are progressing, the (M) family, (L), and (T). (T) is really cool we found her my first night here she was an old lead and she let us in right away she is in her early 20's and is pregnant, when we asked her what she thinks about Joseph Smith she said she totally believes it is true, haha I was like no way we haven’t even taught her like anything and she already believes it, that’s awesome she is on date for dec15. I love this area already and I’m glad I will get to finish my mission here.

 We played in the turkey bowl and I have been really sore all week, I haven’t played football since last thanksgiving.

 YAAAA  ASU!! winner winner, thats so funny that the guy put up ASU banners in the Dahls trees hahaha I would have loved to do that. 

 That’s so cool to hear that Marissa is going to san diego, I’m proud she decided to go. Hopefully when Madison goes I’ll be able to see her before she leaves. 

 Grant looks like a beast on the field especially wrestling john, grant you need to continue to live in the weight room until next football season thats how you will get looked at big time and give you lots of advantage.

It was great to hear from you guys I’m excited to be on my mission.

I still don’t have my debit card yet but hopefully it gets here today and I got your package good. 

Love Elder Harper:)

Transfers

Monday, November 19, 2012

Hey there y'all,

 So the big news is I am leaving Marion after 6 months haha, I’ve been here a long time, but I feels like it went faster then when I was in Aiken, so Elder Lee will be training a new missionary these next 3 months, that’s cool I’m excited for him and he has been wanting to do that, I think he will be a great trainer and his trainee will be lucky to have him. So here’s an update on our week,

 I went on exchanges in Conway on Tuesday with elder Denny and we did a lot of work on the coastal carolina campus, setting up flyers and talking to people about the intro to Mormonism. They do that there every once in a while, its a way cool idea and they also set up a stand in the campus court yard and try to talk to as many students as they can. We had lots of cool things happen, we only planned to be there for 30 minutes but stayed for 3 hours because we kept meeting people and they would ask us what we believe and who we are, it was awesome. We even found a less active girl who moved down and was going to college at CCU but couldn’t find the church anywhere and Elder Denny was prompted to hold the door open for a group of students and we ran into her. She said that she saw the elders a week ago and couldn’t talk to them and thought she would never see them again but because we were there she found us. We also went to a frozen yogurt place that Elder Denny and I met this girl that works there named Darien, my first time I went to Conway, and she has slowly gotten more interested in the book of mormon and what we believe. She’s from upstate New York and hopefully she will continue to read the book. We also had a cool miracle, we had a guy move into our area from the conway area named (J) and he has been thinking about baptism, he was gonna get baptized like 5 months ago but something happened and it didn’t happen and so now he is getting baptized on Nov 24. Elder Lee and I gave talks in sacrament meeting yesterday. It was great we talked about the things that we learned from our meeting with Elder Bednar. So I’m sad I am leaving, but I am kind of glad to go to a new area, it’s hard to spend 6 months here because it is so small. (S) is doing good, we haven’t been able to teach her this week though, and she didn’t come to church because her grandpa went to the hospital and she went with him but she said she has been reading and she has lots of questions. Ooooh, haha we also have recently met these 3 mexican guys in a small mexican community, everyone is from veracruz for some reason, but there 3 guys, one is (O), and his 2 uncles (L) and (J). We went and taught them and then after they fed us real authentic mexican food, this ain’t the american stuff either, we had cow tongue tacos and tamales. Haha, i know the tongue sounds gross but it is soooo good, tastes just like beef, we should have some when i get home. 

Well, that’s crazy to hear that Madison is going on a mission.

No i can’t think of anything I really need, you really don’t need to send anything to me, especially gifts, I can wait till I get home for them

Sorry not a lot

Love Elder Harper :) 

Crazy Week

Monday, November 12, 2012

Heyyy

 Woow lots of new things to talk about so, yes first off we have our senior couple the Bowmans now full time in our area and they came to our District meeting on Tuesday. Wednesday we were so anxious to find out who won the election and when we went to the library and right on the front page we saw President Obama’s face and we were like AWW MAN! It really is such a bummer, especially when you serve here in a place that has such bad unemployment and people struggle, ughh its ridiculous, all we can do now is hope that congress makes good decisions. We went to the Allens house that night and he loves politics, hahaha he was so mad about what happened. We went and taught one of his friends named (B) who is a stout Methodist  and has told us "I’m not gonna change" but he invites us back so we are gonna go through all the lessons and hopefully something will hit him. We also this week found this really cool lady named (D) who is related to some of our other investigators we taught her the restoration and she just loved all of it and when we asked her what she thought about it all she said "it must be the truth" then the next day we went by with the Bowmans and taught her friend (F) the restoration and she also liked it. They didn’t come to church unfortunately cause she was up all night doing something, (S) didn’t come either cause her grandpa got sick and she had to go see him early in the morning, but we had (M) one of our youth, has brought his friend (D) who’s 17, to church 3 weeks in a row and we are gonna teach (D) tonight, I’m excited cause he is way cool and his mom doesn’t mind him coming to our church just as long as he’s in church.

Of course you heard from President Holm that my wallet got stolen, but also they took my backpack which had my wallet and camera in it and they took my GPS that I bought last year haha so I have like nothing. so pretty much we were in a really bad area probably the area most known for break ins and killings, or whatever and we were teaching (S) and I had forgot to lock the car (which I normally do remember to) and we were there for about an hour and we left at 7:30 and all my stuff was gone, and no elder lee didn’t have anything stolen except for his bag of 3 musketeer bars which he is still mad about hahaha, jk. The next morning we went back and walked around the whole place and found my backpack in a trash can with my camera still in it, and some random things that were in my bag, we found down the road where the person obviously walked. So we pretty much know where they live but there is no way to be able to get my wallet or gps unless they pawn it off and we get the police to get it from the pawn shops. Also in my wallet was my school ID's, my temple recommend, and my eagle scout award card and I think the RX card but I don’t remember what it was and also  I had about 100 dollars of cash in there that I had saved up.

Then, haha that same night that that happened at about 11:30 right outside our door we had 11 shots that were fired by one of our next door neighbors friends and we had the sheriff and a couple other cops come knocking on the door with their M-16's and full gear on, hah that was scary, luckily nobody got hurt and they arrested both of the guys and they got evicted.

Is channing frye still on the suns or dudley?

Well that’s pretty much all i have, thanks for all the info

Love Elder Harper

ps. zack looks soo different.

Pictures from Senior Couples Blog

Kelly and companion Elder Lee on the left facing each other.

Kelly, (with back facing), Elder Bednar,(center) Prsident Holm, and Elder Lee and Sister Holm