With every valley, there's a mountain.

Hello everybody!

Man how I love you all so much!  I am so happy to be able to sit down every week and write an email to all of you.  I love being a missionary so much, and being able to email this week is just a joy that comes along with that.

So I would like to tell you a little bit about a relatively new investigator named Ken.  We received a call the very first night I was here from the Ward Mission Leader in the other ward informing us about a guy named Ken who investigated the church a little bit 3 years ago.  The member gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and Ken wanted to meet with the missionaries again.  We went by a couple of days later.  The house was chaotic.  He's a single father with 2 rambunctious boys and he was going crazy.  We did our best to talk about the Book of Mormon and how it could help him with his crazy situation.  Luckily, we got his phone number from him as well. 

We stopped by a few times in the subsequent weeks, but we never caught him home.  We left notes with our phone number and stuff, but we never got a call back.  Then one day, we stopped by and he, his kids, and all of his things were gone.  We gave him a call and he told us that he moved somewhere else in Lompoc.  We stopped by his new place and things were a lot more peaceful.  His kids were gone, so it was good to be able to have some two-on-one time with him.  He had been going through some rough times with his ex-wife.  He briefly told us a little of the story, and he explained how he wanted to retaliate, but something inside of him wouldn't let him.  He said that he would like to ask for spiritual guidance on what he should do. 

It really caught me off guard because I have never been asked something like that before.  ​It sort of felt like I was a bishop or a psychologist at that moment.  All I could think of was just to give him Jesus Christ as an example.  He forgave everyone that wronged him.  He forgave those that crucified them.  Inspired, Elder Kingrey read Alma 48:5-18 and told him that Captain Moroni only fought for a defense and not offensively.  Using this scripture from the Book of Mormon, and using the example of Jesus Christ, he was enlightened.  We invited him to baptized if he found out our message was true, and he said yes.

The next day, we were sitting at a table in his same apartment complex taking a little break, when all of the sudden he came out and sat next to us.  He asked us to say a prayer with him and wish him good luck with a real estate exam he was taking.  We shared some scriptures and said a prayer and he was really thankful.  It's really good that we are establising a relationship of trust with him.  We hope to get meeting with him soon to begin the actual lessons.

Stake Conference was this weekend as well, and Nancy came to both the Saturday evening and Sunday morning sessions!  Woohoo!

We went to Solvang this past Monday and it was fun!  We are going to have to come back to Solvang when we do a mission tour.  There's some really cool shops!  We also went to an ostrich farm in Buellton.  Oh, the fun things you do on p-days... :)

I love you all so much!  Thanks for your love and examples.  I can't believe that this week is the last one of the transfer...

Love you all!
Elder Harper