MY HEART SANK.....

We are Family, Every body sing.

Well how goes it in California? The time here flies by super fast, and I'm pretty sure this is my last week here in Jaen, which is exciting and sad at the same time. I've learned and grown a lot here and I've came to love many of the peeps here. I'm definitely gonna miss them cuz the truth is, I'll probably never see them again until we meet in the Celestial Kingdom ;)

Well this week was the baptsism of Sabina! It really was a great experience. She's super shy and timid so she begged us not to invite very many people, but we had some Elders, Hermanas , and some members of the JAS (Young Single Adults) to support her. She was too scared to bear her testimony but we know that she has got a powerful one. The spirit was strong and it was great to finally see another child of God enter the path to His kingdom.

This week we had a sad and spirtual experience with our conversa Diana. Diana is 14 years old and for a while now her mother has been sick. Her family has been bringing her to doctors and whatnot but recently they found out it was cancer and it's terminal. We have been visiting her a lot and

Diana

uplifting her cuz she has been having a really hard time with it. Her family is superstitious and at this point very desperate as well. They have brought her to doctors , witches, churches where they do apostate healings, but nothing has worked. And yes, we gave her a priesthood blessing as well. Her mother right now is not living with Diana cuz she went to the jungle with a family member to rest and be away from the city for a while. When we visited Diana the other day, her aunt walked in crying and told Diana that her mama is very very ill and that it is not looking too good right now. My heart sank and Diana started bawling and explaining to us how she's been praying for a miracle and is not sure that God hears her prayers. This was a sad moment so see her like that but I felt the spirit strongly as we testified to her about the reality of the plan of salvation. How God has a plan for each and every one of us and that this life is only a small part of this plan. He knew we were going to have to suffer sicknesses, hardships and one day death, and for this he sent His son, Jesus Christ, so we can overcome these things and not have to suffer them alone. We can have happiness in this life but eternal happiness is found in the life to come. It's very hard for me to express my inner feelings in Spanish, and to be honest in English as well, but the spirit was super strong and we bore testimony how God will always answer our prayers but according to his will and not to ours. The Savior asked if it was possible if He could pass this trial he had to go through but He also said that He would do it according to His father's will, not his own.

Diana is a strong girl and matter what happens I know she's gonna stay strong in the church cuz that's just the person she is. But it made me realize and think about the will of God and how we need to be like the Savior. The Savior subjected Himself to the will of God, His will was God's will. How many things do I do according to my will and not God's? Becoming like Christ I realized is not gonna come in the mission, but slowly we can perfect ourselves through His atonement. Well nothing else really happened this week, these are just some of my random thoughts in my head that I had this week haha. I hope everything is well with you all and I'll see you on Mother's day...

besitos (little kisses),  

Elder Harper

THAT'S WHY SOMETIMES I FEEL WEAK, cuz I DON'T HAVE MY HAIR.

Well hey there Harper Family, 

Baylor with hair

Baylor without.  Lolz

This week went by super fast because it was basically all meetings. Wednesday we had zone training from 2 to 7 and Thursday we had Zone Conference with the President from 8 to 3. It was a lot of sitting and listening and not a whole lot of teaching. But it was the best honestly; I love being a missionary and teaching the word of God but I also love to be spiritually filled myself. I got to hear from a lot of elders with experience like the zone leaders and the assistants and the President of course. Their talks were pretty inspiring, a big theme was what it means to be a Preach My Gospel missionary and  how to be can be missionaries like the antiguos, like Pual and Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah. How they prayed, fasted and studied to obtain the word and even though they were week and humble, they preached with authority and the spirit and didn't fear to call people unto repentance because their testimony was soo strong.  Learned a lot about how necessary the spirit is while teaching. Because the truth is, the spirit is the teacher and the one who does the converting. It's so weird how you can tell so easily if the spirit is there or not. For me it's cuz I still struggle with Spanish and I can't teach at all when the spirit isn't there and when it is there, it feels like I really do have the gift of tongues. A lot of it has to do with obedience. Obedience brings blessings but exact obedience brings miracles. So I'm going to strive to be an missionary exactly obedient, cuz I wanna work miracles baby!

So Sabina's baptism is this week. She's excited and we are helping her to understand everything cuz she was a little worried about her knowledge before, even though she has a testimony. So last week Laura Recejoh, the sister of our convert Rony, said that she wants to be baptized. Well we went to teach her early this week and she wasn't there, only her mom and daughter were thereWe were teaching Clara and her Mom and then Laura came in right as we were leaving and told us that she found work and is not going to be able to go to church anymore cuz she will be working Monday through Sunday all day. It was a little disheartening and we prayed hard and prepared to teach her about the Dia de Reposo (day of rest). When we went the next time, she told us she is no longer working. Only when her work is short on staff she'll go.  So either way, we taught the Sabbath day with all our hearts and committed them to obey it and they accepted. They came to church on Sunday and loved it again. So we shall be seeing them baptized real soon!.

Well it looks like I only have 2 more weeks in Jaen! It's gonna be sad saying goodbye to all our investigators, members and converts but it's gonna be cool going somewhere where no one knows me again and I can strive hard to be a better missionary then the missionary I was in Jaen. I definitely have improved a lot since the beginings, but I got a long way to go! The mission is a great learning ground and progression just comes faster, my only fear is that my time will run out before I reach my potential. Well I love you all, don't have much time, sorry.  Thanks for all the letters and packages. Shout out to Camille! Congrats on the call. Peru Chiclayo is the best mission in the world, even ask Elder Jarmin, you are gonna love it here! Well gots to go.

Love,

Elder HARPER

Dad,

Thanks for the letter Pops!! Sean White cut his hair? Apostasy, how is he gonna snowboard? All the power of the Flying Tomato was in the hair. That's why sometimes I feel weak, cuz I don't have my hair. Well it's crazy Camille is coming here?  Here it's dirty, smelly and the people don't have much. But yet I love it here!  Hey my oil holder thing broke how can I get a new one? Ask Riley Harper if he can roll his Rs cuz it's bugging me that I can't. I think it's genetics. Well thanks for the loving and the updates. You better snowboard! but your priorities are surfing. Well love you bud..

Elder Harper

JUST A LITTLE RANDOM COOL STORY….

Hola Familia!

Well this week I got the Calendar, the letters and the Ensign! Thanks very much. Now I'm updated with all the events in the Harper household. Well Dad told me about the drout and the California fast! How sweet. The fast is a powerful thing and this will be a good story to uplift others. Fasting here is different because I eat so much, I look forward to the fast and enjoy every second of it so it's not much of a hardship haha. Here we fast from Saturday after lunch to Sunday lunch so we get a full 24 hours.  

Well, it's really cool to read all the other Elder and Sister emails that are out in the field from our ward. I read Kenz's and it instantly made me feel better about the language haha. Wow, Chinese has got to be hard, but Kenz is a champ. And I liked Ab's birthday coment about how many people during this time in their life are partying and what not and drinking cuz they are 21, when members of the church devote these years to the Lord. Well, good thing I'll turn 21 in mi casa ! ;) haha jk. 

Well this week was just an average normal week in the mission to be honest. We have the same investigators, same members and same comp. But I'm trying to keep changing so it's not always the same thing. In our district meeting I got to teach the class. The night before, I prepared it all with quotes and scriptures and questions in my head. I'm pretty sure I prepared it all in English in my head cuz it didn't come out so pretty in Spanish haha. But that I was able to do it is all that matters!!!  I taught about how we can work harder with the members and how we can convert them so they will have the desires to share the gospel. 

Well we did another intercambio this week and for one day I was with Elder Muhun, my zone leader from Guatemala. He's a quiet guy but he taught me a lot about following the spirit. The ZLs don't have a lot of time to proselyte. They do set apart this day to have it free but they didn't have citas (lessons) planned. But it was awesome to see that at times we would pass a house and he would stop and be like, we need to go back and knock on this door and the person would let us in and be like ohhh, I was a member 5 years ago but not anymore and we would teach them. This one guy was like ohh, I'm best friends with your pastor or bishop and then we taught them. He's well intune with the spirit and I wanna strive to be able to have that gift.

This week L told us she wants to be baptized!! But she's in the process of divorcing her husband. She wants to wait til her problem is over. But we are gonna teach her the next lesson that during our hard times and problems we need the Lord the most and we need this gosple the most, and that she will have the holy spirit to guide her and help her make wise decisions.

Just a little random cool story. We have been teaching this guy Cesar who is real chill and always listens to us and has questions and reads the Book of Mormon too. But when it comes to church, he never goes. He always says he is sick so he will ¨si o si¨, but he never does. One time recently, his friend was there when we taught him and he didn't seem to be interested but we invited him to church and he told us yeah, that maybe one day he'll check it out. Well Sunday came and Cesar didn't go but his friend Manuel came haha. He said that his friends invited him to drink and usually he does but he said he felt like he should go to  church instead. So there he was and stayed for 3 hours and loved it. This was yesterday so we will see what comes of it. But it goes to show you that by small and simple things great things come to pass. It was just a little invitation that he didn't even accept but it planted a seed and led him to the truth..amen bother amen.. 

Well I LOVE you all; I truly do.  I only have a sister mision left wich is scary so I'll see you all soon haha.

Con Queso,

Elder Harper