It's already been a month?!

Date: July 08, 2013
Area: Simi Valley
Companion: Elder Hall


Hello Family and Friends!

The weeks are whizzing by, and it seems
like only yesterday I was writing last week's email.  It's insane.  I
know it sound cliche by now, but being a missionary is wonderful.  The
first week I was here, we ran into a guy named Eddy Brown.  He's 71 and a
Vietnam War veteran and he lost his wife last year and he's mentally
degrading and he has some Word of Wisdom problems, but we have been
teaching him the Gospel and we taught him about the Restoration and we
committed him to be baptized on August 31st!  God was acting on him.
You could see his eyes light up when we were talking about the Gospel.
He said, "I need something to look forward to!"  Baptism is perfect for
him!  It's been hard to reach him, but we try every day.



Here in Simi Valley, EVERYONE'S heard of the Church or has at some
point talked with the missionaries, and so it's really hard to touch
their hearts and to get us to come back because they already have their
preconceived notions about the church.  Generally, street contacting
doesn't work that well for us, and nobody answers the door when we go
tracting, so we fasted yesterday to be able to work with the members a
little better and we hope to see some results of that soon.  We ate
dinner with the bishop and his family and we shared a spiritual message
about Christ's life and ministry and shared with the a scripture that I
came across the other day: 1 John 4:18.  "There is not fear in love and
perfect love casteth out fear".  Member missionary work is being DRILLED
into all the members of the church, and missionaries cannot do it
alone.



We never really have days where we go from appointment to
appointment, so most of our day is dropping by houses of less actives,
former investigators, or potential investigators.  We really want to get
working with the members.



Pray for Eddy!  We need all the help we can get!

It's burning hot here, and I've already got some awesome farmer's tans... :)

Til next week, love,
Elder Harper

P.S.  I can't send pictures through email!  My SD Card reader is broken, need to get a new one.