IT'S REALLY NOT ALL THAT SCARY : )

Harper Clan y Otras,

Well how goes it in good old America? All is well in Ecuador. So guess what? I'm in Guayaquil again!!! Hna Yagual was called to be the new Hermana Leader of our zone. So once again estoy aqui por consejo de los lideres....except I'm not a leader so i just hangout with all the other junior comps. fun stuff. (I'll try to hunt down and talk to the guy of reimbursment, mom.) 

So Jhordan and Pedro were baptized on Saturday!!! Like always, baptisms are just the greatest thing. And these two boys I can't even explain how prepared they were to join the church and how incredibly smart they are. When they bore their testimonies afterwards, it sounded like they were born and raised in the church. Seriously better than testimonies I've heard from kids who HAVE been raised and born in the church. haha. Jhordan, the 10 yr old, just kept saying how awesome it felt to follow the example that Christ gave us to be baptized   and Pedro how much peace he felt when he came up out of the water and how he knows without a doubt that the church is true and how he hopes that we, the missionaries, can find more people who are willing to accept the gospel, etc. Seriously, my heart. I'll send some pics of course but ya they were confirmed the next day and everything was great! 

Hna Yagual and I bought them a cake and everything; it was great. So now we gotta work hard this week to find some more golden investigators because we have nobody. I mean there's always people willing to listen so we have people we are teaching, we just don't have people that are progressing. We do need to put some fechas and bring people unto Christ. So this week will probs be a lot of knocking doors, wish me luck! haha. 

Well I don't think I got much else to say. Just that I feel very grateful to be a participant in this great work and am humbled every day. Especially from experiences like the Fernandez boys. Their sweet simple and quick acceptance of the gospel and willingness to obey the commandments is just such a great example to me. Like always, I just feel so incredibly blessed to lead the life that I have with the family and friends that make it so great. :)

Glad to hear things are good at home, and I hope you all have a fun Halloween!!!! I got the card by the way mom, it was awesome. I shared the stickers with my zone :) I think they were all scared by the photo of you and dad on the back of the card. hehe. My comp and I bought a few decorations and are gonna have a little combined Halloween/birthday party in the apartment because her birthday is on the 1st! Do some good Trick or Treating for me, ya? 

Love you all! Oh, and share the gospel, ok? its really not all that scary. :) Talk to you all next week!

con Gozo de Guayaquil,

Hermana Abbigail Harper

I, Mom, adore this photo!!

SHALL WE NOT GO ON IN SO GREAT A CAUSE?

Well Madre, I hope you're satisfied with the outpouring of pictures :) haha. We took a ton this week. and Dad, I'm gonna to do my best to get some solid candid shots but the thing is you just can't set up a tripod for a selfie because it would get stolen in 2 seconds....which is also why you can't ask a random stranger in the street if they would please take a photo for you....or even stop in the street and take one yourself for that matter. I really don't wanna get robbed and lose all my photos so I try and be really careful.  I need to buy a jump drive to back everything up. Well anyways, as you can see from all the pictures, this week was great!

Ronald's Baptism Day

Ronald was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday!! woohooo!!!! The baptism was crazy stressful.  Our mission leader didn't show up so we started an hour late, leaving all of our other investigators and the family and friends of Ronald waiting.  We ended up having to merge with the baptism of another ward and I may have yelled at a couple Elders (I can be angry in Spanish) but you know what it all comes down to is that Ronald Tejena is now one of the newest members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints and I am just so dang happy. Although I have had other baptisms before him, I really feel like he has been my first CONVERT. and maybe that's just because I could understand what was going on more and participate more...but also, he really is just such a special kid. Hermana Yagual and I always rant on and on about how awesome he is. We're hoping he might even serve a mission! He's 23 but he was asking the elders about the age requirements in priesthood class on Sunday and in his confirmation he was blessed that he could serve a full time mission if he had the desire to do so. !!!!!!!!. That seriously is the dream. To have a convert serve a mission as well. I can only imagine how awesome it would feel to have my labors cause that great domino affect in the work of the Kingdom of the Lord.

Ronald's Baptism

Ronald's Confirmation

Missions are hard but man they are so amazing. This is the first time in my life that I've really ever felt productive. Where literally everything I do is for others and not for myself. And not only is it for others, but it's for the salvation of others, to bring lost souls unto christ. To find those celestial brothers and sisters of ours who have yet to find their way back to the gospel of our Heavenly Father. The cause is not only a great one, but it is THEE cause. The only reason we are here on this Earth. And to quote are beloved prophet, Joseph Smith, ¨Shall we not go on in so great a cause?¨ This quote gives me strength daily and I encourage each and every one of you to strengthen your personal missionary efforts. If I can invite a person to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ after only 5 min of conversation, you can invite a friend to a mutual or relief society activity....Yes, I'm talking to YOU ;)

Well all is well with Jhordan and Pedro as well. They are all set to be baptized on Saturday! They are seriously the smartest most prepared little kids and their mom, Carmen, is becoming more and more supportive every day and we are hoping to comit her to baptism this week! But they all attended Ronald's baptism and then church yesterday as well. They are all so excited and we are just so excited for them! True happiness right here only comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ folks :)

We'll I'm glad you all had a great week. Jealous of your trip up the coast Mom and Da. Sounds like it was a fun little getaway :) Love you all so ridiculously much and can't wait to hear from you next week! until then....

con gran amour,   Hermana Harper

 Me standing in our little farm outside the house

Went back to parque colon aka the giant boat with Hna Yagual because she hadn't seen it yet. So just in case you didn't get your fill of the giant boat.

Family Home Evening last Monday night (after we wrote) making arepas from colombia with the Matamoros family and Ronald. We watched, Finding Faith in Christ and had a good ol time : )

Baby bananas and giant hamburgers. Ecuador really has it all! haha

So I've been wanting to take pictures in this ¨park¨ like ever since I got here cause I just think it is so funny that the wall declares that this is a park and then there's like one slide in a pile of dirt and that's it. So I finally convinced my comp to go take pics there. :)

We went to el centro today and bought some knock off Ecuador jerseys for 5 bucks. GO ECUADOR!

I'M ABLE TO FEEL THE SPIRIT WORK THROUGH ME MORE OFTEN AND IT IS THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD

Fam Bamily,

First of all, loved all the pics! You looked cute iz!! Funny, I bought that dress on sale at Urban a few years back thinking hey maybs I'll wear this to a dance in the future. never did, but I'm glad the dress made it to a dance eventually regardless. haha ok.  So I may have procrastinated my fam letter...only got about 10 min but that's alright. 

Ok, so my new comp is great for the most part. All Latinas have a tendency to be extremely hard on themselves and grumpy like half the time and overexcited and chatty the other half. But as opposed to my previous comp, this one loves English and loves American music so it's great because I love teaching English! I taught her part of the song, She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5 because she loves it and wanted to learn it. haha pretty lolz. But ya we get along great. The best part is that we are definitely on the same page when it comes to loving our investigators. For example, we left a lesson with Ronald the other day both just absolutely giddy with joy and overwhelmed with the love that we have for him. We had just finished teaching him about the priesthood and he was just so humble and in awe of the fact that after his baptism he can receive the priesthood and have that power of God to help his family. He's just one of those golden investigators. Or as they say here ïnvestigador del oro.¨ His baptism is this week and we are just so gosh dang excited! 

Our other baptism dates are two little boys named Jhordan and Pedro. They are brothers of 10 and 12 years old. not sure if I told you about them yet but they are just so eager to learn and every time we go to teach them they voluntarily tell us that they have been praying and reading the Book of Mormon. They're date is for the 26th but they need to attend church this week for it to happen so pray that all goes well and that they're mom will let them go! Because the main problem right now is that the mom isn't supporting. She's not against but she's not for it either. She gave us written permission but you can tell she's still kind of weary of the idea. But I know that these two kids have been prepared by the Lord because it is seriously so insane how smart they are and how much of a desire they have to be baptized. It really humbles me. 

As the language is starting to come more and more, and I'm starting to focus less and less on what I'm saying and more and more on the needs of the people. I'm able to feel the spirit work through me more often, and it's the best feeling in the world. You all know me and how over anxious of a person I can be...well I think that anxiety has been getting in the way of me being a more effective representative of Christ, so I've been trying to slowly get rid of that anxiety and just focus on the spirit. And it definitely has been working. 

I should have some better stories next week what with the baptism of Ronald and everything. Glad to know all is well at home. and Daddy, HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!! I made you a card but then forgot to take a picture of it to send :( so you'll get that next week but just know I love you so much and will be thinking of you all day tomorrow!! and to answer your question, yes, you do look 50 ;) JKLOLZ  You're the youngest looking soon-to-be 50 yr old I know. People are always telling me how young my parents look when they see my pictures for real. So make it a good one. Don't be sad, and enjoy your weekend getaway at Pismo! Love you Dad! and love the rest of you oh so very much as well. You are all always in my prayers. until next week....

Love from Ecuador,

Hermana Harper

LIKE ALWAYS, THE LIFE OF A MISSIONARY CONTINUES TO HUMBLE ME AS I GROW AND LEARN EVERY DAY.

Querido Familia, 

Only got 15 min so let's jump right into it shall we....first of all, not gonna lie. The news from home made me a tad jealous. I would have loved to hit up Anberlin with Rye and the Iz like no other, and also am wayyyy jealous of Izzie's Hollywood date seeing Matt and Joshua with you guys, Mom and Dad! How come I never got Daddy Daughter dates like that! wattttaaajokeee. ;) hehe jk. I'm glad you all had fun :) 

So this week was a lot of highs and a lot of let downs...We found a couple great families and have had awesome spiritual lessons with both of them....The Pinta Family and the Diaz Fernandez Family...However, since they don't want to accept baptismal dates right now, our zone leaders are telling us to drop them....for me that's really frustrating because I love these people so much and I know that they feel the spirit when we teach them and that if they had more time to learn and receive answers to their prayers that they could progress. I feel like fulfilling my calling as a representative of Jesus Christ and being obedient to our leaders are contradicting each other. I know when people don't progress we have to search out the people that will....but these families we only met this past week...I'm pretty sure Christ never gave up on people, especially those who still had a desire to learn like these families do. So that has been frustrating...but I think if they attend church this coming week, the leaders will let us keep teaching them.  I know there is a lesson for me to learn in all of this.  I just need to figure out what that is. So we will see. And we still have Ronald who I told you about last week. He truly has been prepared and continues to learn and progress with enthusiasm. Hermana Yagual and I just love him so much. 

Well I can defs relate to Bay with General Conference. In my mission, the missionaries aren't allowed to watch on Saturday. I was pretty bummed about that and then one Elder told me all the gringos were going to go into a room to watch conference in English on Sunday and I was stoked....So when that turned out not to be true, I was a bit let down to say the least. I mean I'm to the point with my Spanish where I can listen without getting a headache and can understand the basic themes....but it's still not a spiritually edifying experience as conference would be for me if I could hear their actual voices and understand every word effortlessly. Man, was I, and still am, dying to be spiritually fed. I'm not gonna lie, during President Eyring's talk in the morning session I just started crying.  I could hear their voices, in English, faintly in the background but the Spanish voiceover was so loud I couldn't make anything out...and also it always takes them a second to transfer voices so the very beginning....like the first sentence...of every talk was in English with the actual voice of the person. So it was way hard having modern revelation from the prophets of the Lord being so close yet soo soo very far away...especially since I was yearning for that spiritual edification. But Motab was still in English so those few minutes of every session the spirit was just overwhelming for me :) 

But despite that, I was definitely humbled as well. My companion was way excited asking me if I've ever been to the Conference Center and when I told her only once she went on and on about how awesome that would have been and how she would just die from excitement if she ever had the opportunity to go. I felt embarrassed that I had that opportunity so close to me my entire life and only took advantage of it for the first and only time last year. Like always, the life of a missionary continues to humble me as I grow and learn every day. I feel truly blessed to be a child of God in these days where we have the fulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on this earth. Welp I'm out of time so until next week...

Love from Ecuador,

Hermana Harper

Me and Hermana Yagual eating lunch at a local restaurant

My Zone after transfers