Happy Easter and Elder Nelson!

Hello everyone!  Happy Easter!

This week, as usual, has been AMAZING!  To start off, I would like to tell you a cool story that happened to us.  

We saw in our area book a potential investigator named K.C. that was found in Dec 2012, and so we decided to stop by and see her.  We approached her apartment building and we saw her outside and she was watching her son ride his tricycle.  We introduced ourselves, started talking to her, and asked her if the missionaries before ever talked to her about families.  She said no and we taught her a little bit about the Plan of Salvation.  I took out my planner, and one of her 6 kids saw a picture of Jesus and he said, "Jesus is really strong!"  We said "Yeah!" and the little girl ran up to me and just gave me a hug out of nowhere.  All of them were just super excited to see us and we said a prayer with them all.  K.C. asked if there was anything we could give to her to read, and Elder Agle and I just looked at each other, and we fumbled through our bags.  We gave her a Restoration pamphlet, a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, and a Family: Proclamation to the World pamphlet.  We have a return appointment with her tomorrow at 10:00 and we are super excited!  It was definitely a tender mercy and miracle from the Lord.

Also, on Friday, I most likely broke my toe... ;)  I was looking for one of my CDs under the couch, and Elder Agle told me where it was, so as I was sliding my foot forward to get up, my foot hit one of the legs to the couch and I probably broke my 3rd toe on my right foot.  It kinda hurt.  It doesn't hurt really to walk on it anymore but I'm going to go to the urgent care facility to see a doctor right after I'm done here to make sure it's healing in place.  If not, they're going to have to break my toe again and set it in the right place.  Wish me luck haha :P

BUT!  Onto more serious things.  Seeing Elder Nelson on Saturday and Sunday was so cool.  We drove down to Ventura and I was able to sit on the 5th row!  Every missionary got to shake his hand as well.  When I shook Elder Nelson's hand, I said, "Pleasure to meet you" and it kind of caught him off guard.  He said "Thank you" a few times and then gave me a pat on the back.  It was such a cool feeling to shake the hand of an Apostle of the Lord.  My foot suddenly didn't hurt so much :)  There was a question and answer session and somebody asked how we know if we are being changed.  He said that repentance is conversion and we can know by how much we desire to serve others at all times.  It was such an inspired question and answer that just struck me to the core.

On Easter Sunday he also came again and spoke to the Santa Maria stake.  His wife talked about the Atonement and how we need to use it more often in our lives and it answered a lot of my questions.  This week has been so cool...wow.

We have a rule in our mission that says we have to wear our suits all day on Sundays unless it is over 80 degrees.  It was 75 all day.  We rode 20 miles on our bikes.  In suits.  We were exhausted.  But we had a good salmon and ham dinner at a member's home so we were happy. :)

Overall, this week has been great.  I love being a missionary serving the Lord.  There are so many exciting things going on all around us and sometimes we need to just slow down and thank the Lord.  I love you all and I hope you all had a good Easter!

Elder Harper