WEEK 40 - changes in their pension

Monday April 30, 2012

Oh and I guess I should tell you now cause by next week it will be too late but

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER!!!!!!

Hope you have a great Birthday and papi buys you something nice

Hey guys,

What’s up??

Sounds like everything is still busy as usual with you guys just work and play and school and games and everything in between. It sounds like you’re all doing well and just trying to juggle around this big thing that we all call life. I’m happy that you are all living in peace for the most part and that the Lord keeps an eye out for you guys is really comforting. 

It’s hard to hear that Grandma is back in the hospital but I hope she can get out soon and all will be well. It’s hard to hear when she goes in all the time but I love her and hope I will be able to see her when I get home. Send her my love and I’ll be praying for her. 

It’s been a weird week. So lots of changes and some pretty good experiences. I guess I’ll start from Monday after the email time. Anyway we had a good chill pday and then we decided like I said that morning we planned a FHE with a family and we did the parable of the push ups. I don’t know if you remember that story but it’s really good and we both felt we needed to help this family understand the atonement and we did the same thing. We bought some treats and went over that night and pretty much did exactly the same thing with 10 push ups a piece.  We decided Elder Richter would do it. It was hard for him and it was hard for me to watch him do it. He did about 250-270 push ups that night and I think we both left more edified than the family by doing it. The spirit was there for sure with everyone. Just about everyone was crying and feeling the real sacrifice it was for Christ to suffer through the atonement. It was hard for me to ask Elder Richter to do the push ups when I knew how much he was suffering to do them by the end and he would do one and then take a break every time. He was able to tell me after that the hardest part for him was that he did the push ups whether they said yes or no and it hurt him to see that they still wouldn’t eat the treat. It was sure a learning experiences and something I will never forget and something that really has impacted that family as well. It was great to really see just a bit of what the atonement was like. I encourage you all to go and read the story. 

Anyway then Tuesday morning was interesting cause we got a call from President and he called to say that 5 missionaries from the States would not be coming here because they are having visa problems and so some Elders are without companions and so he said Elder Richter and Elder Harker, you two are staying and the other Elders in our area/pension you are leaving and so they were reassigned to different areas and they left the next morning. So that day we had to get to know all their investigators and say their goodbyes but I think it all went well. Then the rest of the week was just a little weird not having them around but we’ve gotten used to it and we cleaned the pension so well today it’s the nicest I’ve ever seen a pension in this mission. It’s so clean!!!! I feel way good about it. It’s been an interesting week with lots of experiences. Our baptism fell through for this weekend again so it’s a test of patience now but we’ll keep working and do all we can to work hard. It’s been hard but the blessings will come as long as we stay obedient. 

But ya just an interesting week this last one has been but I’m excited to see what happens this next week. Tomorrow we are going to a camp ground with the Ward cause it’s like this Stake locro (stew type food) activity that they do every year and all our investigators are going so that should be a good time and we’ll be there for a good part of the day. We just have to ask permission to go first but the Elders have had permission for all the year previous so I hope we can go!! It will be a good week. We got a lot of work ahead of us and I hope that we can handle it all with now having to do the work of two companionships. I  know it will all work out in the end. It’s been a testing week but we’ll see what happens.

Well I guess that’s about all I have to say for now and I hope you guys keep having a good time back home. I am so grateful for you as my family. I hope you know that I love you all a ton and that I miss you. It’s been interesting about how much I’ve learnt about myself here and what family really means to me. I love the work here it’s a great day everyday but the challenge is making every day better then the last. I know this church is true and that I am here for a reason and soo for now I’ll talk to you later.

Love you tons!!

Elder Harker

Lots of great service opportunities!

The water tower field trip

view from the top - Cordoba

digging the toilet hole

Monday April 23, 2012

WOW!!!  All I can say is WOW soo many people getting married!!! I can’t even believe it and just nuts!!!  I wish them all the best in their adventures and in the planning for the big days! It just seems like whenever I read your emails everything is going on and soo much stuff is happening but it’s just normal life and it seems like way to much excitement to handle now. I think every time I come to cyber all these people are just looking at me watching this gringo say like ¨NOOOO¨out of astonishment or just freaking out cause all this sweet stuff is going on. But anyway it’s always great to get your letters and it sounds like you are all really staying busy. I do the same thing every day so I have lots to do but it doesn’t seem like anything different at all.

But anyway a lot has also happened to me these last few days. So first off I’ll get the transfers’ out of the way. I am staying here with Elder Richter! I’m way happy that I get to stay here he’s super cool and we get along great and we’re now just working like little beasts! Actually all the elders in my pension are staying and so it was not too much of a change haha but there’s this one family in the ward that we are all super close with and so we kind of played a little joke on them, and told them that a couple of us were leaving. We had a big dinner and everything, said our goodbyes and took pictures and right at the end we announced that we were all staying. It was super funny to see all their faces. The mother of the whole family was in on it.  It was her and her 7 kids and then their kids as well. We were gunna do the dinner whether we stayed or went but it was super funny to see what happened. I do feel a little bit bad though but they all took it well and we are able to keep visiting them for the next 6 weeks at least.

Also on Saturday we had a nice service project all day long and we did a lot of work. First off we started out with cleaning a piece of land where a family is going to build their house and so we got our machetes out and went to work. Then after that was done we had to cut down some trees and so I climbed up and just chopped it all up. We had to burn all the stuff we cut down and then we moved on to building a bathroom for another family. We started from scratch by digging a trench to lay the pipe and the deposit hole. It ended up being like a little bit more than my height and we still have to go over next week to finish the hole because it’s not deep enough. We laid pipe and put new cement to the floor. We did a ton of work in the end. It was super sweet though and a way cool experience I loved helping them!!

Then came another adventure. For the day we went to this abandoned water tower that is way huge and made of all cement! We walked over there and went exploring for a little while. We climbed up the winding staircase that has no light so we brought flashlights and went all the way up. We climbed up and out on to the roof and from there you can see almost all of Cordoba it was an amazing view!! Like the coolest thing ever!! I loved it and then we went down into where the water is supposed to be cause its empty and goofed around a bit and took some sweet pics and there was also a dead dog down there with us!! It was way fun and a cool adventure for all the family, hahah not really just us four went.

Well that’s all the adventure that happened to me this last week, we did a lot of things and a lot of work. It was a busy week!!! But a good one. We had lots of spiritual moments and tonight we are doing a FHE with a family to teach about the atonement and there’s gunna be like 30 people there. We are going do something similar to the story of the parable of the push ups so it should be a great experience!! I hope everything goes well and that’s about all from me for now.

I’m so glad I’m here and that I have a chance to testify of the truth of this gospel every single day.  It’s a real blessing to have that opportunity. I’m so grateful for the gospel in my life and I know when it’s lacking in my life because I feel the difference. It’s so amazing that we are spiritually fed every day. I hope the best for all of you and pray for you all.  Have an amazing week and work hard

From the south

with all my heart

Love you guys

Elder Harker

Week 38 - life is good!

Monday April 16, 2012

Wow sounds like lots of things have gone on this last week and I don’t really know where to start but I’ll give it the best go that I can. 

About the temple, you might be interested to know that today is my one year mark for having gone through the temple. Just a side note there. Dad what you said about the temple open house makes me way jealous of you guys!!! I want to be there so bad even though I know that it is my time to be here and I need to focus on what I’m doing here. It sounds soo great and sounds like the prime opportunity for missionary work! The missionaries in Calgary and gunna have soo much success through this open house I just know it. It sounds like everything is being done to have the best experience for the people going through. People just want to go through to see what it looks like but they don’t know that they will feel the spirit pero mal. It’s gunna be soo sweet!! It’s also super cool that Jono got the higher priesthood and that they get to go to the temple soo soon. I’m way excited for him and her too!!!

Cool too that Braden got is mission call, I know that he’s gunna love it and maybe he’ll be able to see Tyler on a pday or something! Also to hear about Chris Challis, I wish him the best in the upcoming election and its cool you guys have got to help him with the preps for running. I’m sure Dad has loved being in the middle of all the politics. Also way tight that the Mallers are moving into the ward. Its gunna be weird having like all the family in our ward haha but its way cool. 

It sounds like all is well back home and that people are progressing and moving forward. Sounds like Sara is ripping it up in rugby and you guys are just watching and wincing from the side lines but all will be ok. I’m glad that you are all doing so well and that you keep having weekly adventures. It’s always nice to hear that the family is doing well and all the family I mean too like extended, I’m glad we have a family that are so close to each other. It’s what I really want for my family that we can all be so close and do many things together to bring us closer. It’s my ultimate dream. I’ve learned a lot here or realized what I had before and what I didn’t do with it. Family is really something special and a gift we have from God to help us along the way. 

This week from Argentina we had a great week. The members are soo sweet!!! They are coming out with us a lot lately and we’re having tons of success!! It’s been getting better every single week, and it keeps going up. I’m super happy to be in this area and to have Elder R as my comp. Me and him have learned so much from each other. We have both made changes that we wouldn’t have been able to without each other and we just always have a good time. The work is going great and transfers are coming up this week so we’ll see what happens. In a few weeks we should see some fruits  of our labors as we see ourselves baptizing. I’m just overall exited to keep working. This lady Ana that we’ve been working with for the past few weeks has a fecha and will be baptized on the 28th!! I love it here and ya some days are still hard but it’s all worth it. This week we were also able to paint an entire school for a service project called Colegio Estados Unidos de Norte America. It was with the whole stake and it looks way good now. I forgot my camera so I don’t have pictures but by the end of the day I was covered in paint!! Then the other day we also had an asado which was way good!!

All is well here in the south we keep working hard and try to do our best every hour. It’s a work in progress and a work to be done. I’ve learned so much and I have so much yet to learn, including more Spanish! Anyway that’s about it from this side of the world,

so I love you all soo soo much and until the next time!!

Love ya

Kent

Week 37 - Easter

Monday April 9, 2012

So another week has come and gone and what a special week it was. It was Easter and here it’s called Pasqua and ya every knows about it and every will say Felizes Pasqua, but it’s not really anything too big here. Well at least where I am it wasn’t anything big. No one will have like a party and such but people know. There’s no Easter bunny or anything. But oh well I’ll have to wait a little while for more candy and also I’ll have to wait a couple years to do another Easter roll!! All was well and we enjoyed the time we had to think about Christ. It was cool cause for church yesterday we had all special meetings centered on Christ and the sacrifice he made for us and that through him we can all be saved so it was good for all our investigators. I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately not too many people were here for the meetings. Like not many members. It’s kind of weird cause the Catholic church your considered active if you go on Christmas and Easter and it seems like here for us those are the days we have the least attendance haha just funny. 

Well I would first like to wish a special Happy Birthday to my boy Ryan Young back home! I can’t believe that that boy is 18!!! Its nuts!!! But that means he will be out here with me in no time at all!!! It all sounded like you really enjoy Brett’s talk. I’m glad it went well and I’m sure he did an amazing job!! That’s super weird that he’s home, but the 2 years has passed and he’s gunna go on to do great things. Oh my gosh that’s way nuts that Peter went to do baptisms!!!! I didn’t even know he went to the temple yet, when was that!?!? I’m glad he was able to do that, it was a neat experience for me when me and Tyler did that together. And Hayden that’s way cool that he has his mission call. Super pumped for him too!!

Well this week was a good week for me. We had interviews with President this week and we were able to talk about a lot of things that helped me get a perspective on missionary work. Lately our pension has had a little bit of tension in it. But after talking to President about certain things and actually I think all of us talked to him about the same thing separately but we brought it all together later and we were able to sort it all out. So I’m super happy that there is a way that we can all improve. Some of the debate because we are living as 4 if we should work more together but President helped us understand that we need to be unified in the work but work literally separate. Like not plan everything together because it’s not as effective, I don’t know if you understand but anyway we need to work together but separately kind of thing. So as we were talking I felt they the other companionship was being a little bit condescending but me and my comp realized that we want to make it work between us 4 and so the Lord was giving us a chance to be humble and do what we can to make it work out and eventually it will all equal out. Anyway it was a little tough at first but know I can see that we just need to do what we can and the Lord will help us the rest of the way.  I’m happy to be working full force again. The week has been great and I’m just in a dandy mood ready to keep going. Plus the members are way cool and are getting a lot more excited to go out with us. We had some come out with us this week and its getting to be way good. I’m happy that they are ready to work!!!

So the Spanish, well I’ve been fluent after like a month being out here. I asked Elder Nunez when I was with him, who lived with me since the beginning and he said I spoke fluently after like a month or month and a half so I caught on pretty quick. But obviously I’ve learned a lot more in that time new words, exactly how to say things and I can understand people a lot more now. It’s still a work in progress but I can communicate with anyone I want so it’s all good. But anyway that’s about all from this side of the world for now and I’ll talk to you I guess in about another week.

I LOVE YOU ALL SOO MUCH!!!!

ELDER H A R K E R

WEEK 36 - loved Conference!!!

Kent with his new comp on their rooftop

Conference on the bigscreen!

Monday April 2, 2012

Well hello there;

I am very glad that you were all able to make it back home safely and that all is well with you guys. It’s way cool that you all enjoyed yourselves so much and that you had a little escape from the busy life to have a little bit of fun. It all sounded so sweet and especially the shows sounded like a blast. I woud have loved to see Phantom but it’s a dream for another day.

Alright time to answer some demands. hahaha My comp Elder R is from Shreveport, Louisiana United States of America. He has been out here for about 18 months. We have no dinner appointments, because down here we never eat dinner. We have lunch appointments everyday though so don’t break into a sweat. Things are different here. Like it’s a little bit richer in some parts but the funny thing is that I went from the worst villa (ghetto) whatever you want to call it, the worst to the second worst in Cordoba. So I’m just destined to be around danger. hahaha but no it’s not too bad. For being the second worst in Cordoba this is child’s play. The pension is different. But like it’s all the same. Pretty much all Cordoba is the same. It’s not until you get outside of it that it starts to look different. But that’s all I’ve heard cause really I’ve never left. About the district and zone meetings. They are good we mainly talk about the goals we have as a zone or district, the 8 principles and then we talk about our investigators and do practices on how we can help them. To be honest some meetings are better than others, but for the most part you learn lots and they are enjoyable. it’s really just to analyze what we have and how to improve on it. 

But before I have to go I would like to share a little bit more. I loved conference by the way!!! It was like the best day in a while so spiritual, and literally as soon as Pres Monson started talking from the first session I just felt the spirit fill the room and was soo strong the whole time. I learnt a lot and had some very important things answered. It was surely a time of learning. Now is the time to put that knowledge to use. I especially loved the first 2 sessions and the talk of Elder Robert D Hales. That one was really a talk that stood out to me. I felt almost as if I was the only one listening and it was just a conversation between us two. It sure was neat to have that happen. I loved every second of Conference and we had some investigators come to it and they all loved it!! Speaking of investigators, we did not baptize this weekend. It sure was disappointing but hey I hope it all goes well for this week and I’ll keep you updated for sure. This weekend was one of the greatest in the mish. I think I was looking forward to it more than Christmas!!! Anyway its only another 6 months until the next time. 

I guess that’s about all from this side of the world for now. It was a good weekend of learning and growth. I’m sure you all had the same experience or at least I hope it was the same. I guess its goodbye for now and I look forward to the next time we can exchange words on the computer screen. 

Oh one other thing tell Brett hi from me. 

and tell Peter I know how he feels right now, and that the time will come when he can leave.,

Tell Parker that I’m way proud of him and that I’m excited to hear his words in Russian one day. 

And I guess that’s about all

I love you with all my heart 

stay sweet 

work hard

live life

Elder Harker