Tracting 101

Hey there,

Sorry this is a bit later than normal, we came to the library and there weren’t enough computers beside each other so we went to lunch. A $5 Chinese buffet at Hyvee's (like Subway) and it was good.

I forgot to mention in the last email, along with all the people we track into here we also meet some RLDS (Reorganized Latter-day Saints) members. They now call themselves the Community of Christ but there are tons of them here, since this is where it happened.

I forgot to thank you for the package with the sheets and food, thanks a ton. Also thanks Aunt Shelley, Uncle Brad, Sara, and Erin for your letters and gift! It was really appreciated. Way to go Em and David at track, keep it up it looks like your both doing great and Grace, same goes for you at school and dance, keep the Harker name alive.

The work here is progressing well. We're beginning to build up momentum and are expecting some baptismal dates in the coming week (if we can meet the families when they are together).  There’s been more opportunities for service. This week we went to a less active member’s home and shoveled dirt and brick out from his basement and cleaned his backyard as much as we could. He has a fair amount of medical problems so he can’t do much of the work that is needed. He has been kind enough to pay us back with McDonalds and carne asada. Another time we were able to spend 3 and a half hours cleaning an investigator's kitchen. She recently had surgery and can’t do much work around the house so it had fallen into neglect. It really made us appreciate our apartment. We were able to get her and one of her sons to church this week along with her niece and her kids. They liked it and are planning to come back next week (booya). The best part about it is her son (who is deacon age) has never shown any interest in what we teach but after coming to church he is excited to go to mutual this week and he can’t wait to come back to church. So we're hoping to take them to see conference with us and really show the blessings of a modern day prophet.

We had some cool tracting experiences this week. We went back to an apartment where we had tracted into a Latino man interested in hearing more and a different man answered the door. He immediately asked for our church's address so he could attend and then casually chatted with us for a while. He even gave us bottle water and fresh pan dulce that his wife had made (how jealous are you dad ;). Another day we decided to track for four hours. We didn’t have any appointments that we could do that day so it was our only option. Near the end we knocked one house and a man looked though the curtains at us. He beckoned us to the back door and let us in, telling us to take a seat, without hearing what our message was or who we were. He was from Sudan, had fought in the civil war, knew 7 languages, and had (from our understanding) read the bible in almost all those languages (I'm not sure if he was able to in his 'mother tongue' dikna, I’m not sure if it’s translated into that). He's curious about religion in general, and eager to learn. So we taught the first lesson on the spot and gave him a Book of Mormon. We loved teaching him; the spirit was incredibly strong there. Unfortunately we had to hand him over to the English missionaries. Sometimes I wish I was one of them, I would have loved to teach him, but se la vi.

We have an investigator named “U” whom the other two companions believe is the best one we have. We recently have met his girlfriend and taught her more than him. She was raised catholic but always had questions about the church and religion in general, questions that lead directly to the LDS church. She's awesome to teach. She prefers English and sometimes is very blunt about subjects that others are normally shy about, so I personally love that aspect. They're a couple of the people we hope to commit this week if we can teach them together. The only hiccup is they live at U’s father's house and he is staunchly against any other religion than Catholicism which is tough because we can’t teach them as often.

A lot of the people are friendly here. We often tract into people that don’t want to hear our message but still thank us for helping spread the word of God.

The weather is beautiful here, mid 70s average, sunny, and decent wind. I've got a lot to do and I’m loving it. Talk to ustedes later.

Elder Harker