"And ye shall receive no witness until after the trial of your faith"

Date: September 23, 2013
Area: Atascadero
Companion:  Elder Canzona


Hello Family and Friends!

It is good to speak with you all again. It is so weird how the weeks just continue to whiz by. So I guess my email didn't go through until 5 o'clock last time? That's odd, I sent it off at the usual time. Oh well, you still got it.

This--I just heard BYU lost to the Utes. Dang. --Anyways, this week went pretty well. This week we gained an investigator for a baptismal date, and lost another one. We now have two investigators who have a baptismal date. Mike and Robin are a homeless couple currently looking for an apartment. They are GOLDEN. When I came into Atascadero, Mike was the only one with a date. When we met with them on Friday, we felt prompted to ask Robin if she wanted to be baptized too. She said yes! What was really cool was that halfway through our lesson about prophets, their friends came up to them and gave Mike 2 cigarettes, but he refused! He's been keeping the Word of Wisdom for about a month now! They are ready to be baptized, and things may be looking up for them regarding a place to live.

In the California Ventura Mission, it is a rule that the investigators have to go to church at least 3 times before they can be baptized. They have been to church twice, and we were hoping that they would come yesterday so that they could be baptized on Saturday. Since they are homeless, it is really hard to find them because they are constantly moving, but they do have usual places where they like to hang out. We did everything in our power to get them to church, but it just didn't happen. Although we were discouraged, we know that it will happen very soon and we will be meeting with them as much as possible this week.

Jalisa is another investigator who we are really making progress with. I don't remember if I told you much about her, but she's been studying a lot of religions lately. She's been everything from a Buddhist to a Muslim to a Christian, and now she is studying with us! We're really working the Book of Mormon with her. This week, we read Alma 7 and we stressed the connection between the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, to Joseph Smith being a true prophet, to the Word of Wisdom being a true commandment. She struggles with smoking marijuana, and she told us that she's not ready to be a member of our church yet, but she'll be baptized soon. She's going to church every week. Yesterday, this ward had their primary program, and she absolutely LOVED it. The way the children taught the basic gospel truths so simply really helped her I think. She is also getting a lot of member support. We taught the Gospel principles class yesterday on a last minute notice, and the members of the ward helped her a lot.

Atascadero has sooooooo many hills. My pants are starting to get really tight because my legs are getting huge! Hahah it's a blessing and a curse....

Well, that's about all I have to report this week. The Church is true, the book is blue, and Moroni's on the ball. :)

Elder Harper

Huge Tarantula

Ripped his pants while getting onto his bike