Wow
Wow, it’s been one crazy week…and a good one for that. On to the first order of business, and most important…The Baptism scheduled for yesterday took place and I had the priviledge of performing the baptism, my first. It was pretty awesome, our newest member went through a lot of trials to get to that point, including getting married 2 days earlier and it was special to be a part of it. It’s amazing how us 2 Elders have had so much impact on their lifes…And it seems like we hardly didn’t do anything at all, just taught them the gospel. But as it says in the Book of Mormon “The Preaching of the word has a greater impact on the lifes of the people then anything else”. I see that working with some of the people we’ve been working with. But, what really adds on to the significance of the baptism for me personal was what happened one year ago. Now this is something I didn’t notice until a few days before the baptism. Yesterday was December 18th, 2005. Exactly one year earlier, December 18th, 2004, was the day I officially came home from the MTC. I remember that day…ultimately I made the decision that whatever was going to be thrown at me, I would return to the mission field. From that point on, there was no doubt in my mind I wasn’t coming back..just a matter of time. And now 1 year later, to the exact date, I perform my first baptism. This wasn’t a coincidence, I know it was a tender mercy from a Loving Heavenly Father who really does have a specific plan and great love for each of us. Although sometimes we don’t know why we have to experience certain things, but I do know from personal experience, that all of our trials, challenges and pains, if handled correctly and with the gospel of Christ, all lead to growth and more happiness in our lives. We wouldn’t be able to grow spiritually if we never had any opposition. So, whenever something is going wrong and times are rough, always remember there is a greater purpose, just trust in God and accept his will in your life and you will see that his hand has been in your life and that he lifted you up during your period of need. We only cannot recognize it if our eyes our blinded and we forget to do the little things like praying and reading scriptures. So, I continue to urge each one of you to do those little things, and I promise as a servant of the Lord, he will bless your life immensly with happiness and joy and an ability to overcome weakness and challenges.
Okay, on to the rest of my week. There are a few big changes taking place in this area. And one of them is I won’t be going anywhere, staying right here in Cary, North Carolina. Elder Staheli has been called to be the District Leader and the other really big news is that the mission is taking the other two Elders out of our branch, so it will just be and Elder Staheli. The change completely doubled our area to work, plus we are going to be able to work more with the members of the whole branch. So, my “new” area includes Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquey and Garner…(not like anyone knows these cities anyways!). That means we are going to have a ton of work to do plus we are going to recieve the investigators of the other missionaries, some of which are pretty close to being baptized. As for our area, now that Sandy is baptized, we don’t have hardly any “progressing” investigators (1). One of the remarkable stories of the week is one of the husbands of the families we have been teaching is on fire! He hasn’t been doing anything, but we watched a church movie with the family and now in less than a week, he has read 50 pages in the Book of Mormon and he is pumped up about it!! He was related us the story of Nefi and his brothers going to get the plates and he was telling us every detail! It was cool. This next transfer is going to rock for us, we are going to baptize the world! Haha, also we just introduced a new program for Member Missionary Work, called “Todo Miembro un Misionero” (every member a missionary). I think I might have already mentioned it in my past letter but basically it’s just a program that the Raleigh Elders used to get all of their baptisms from the members. Elder Laulu told me that actually on the English side of the work, they only get baptisms from the members…so it’s a pretty important aspect of the work, i guess.
Well, I heard that Central won the Football State Championship!! Sweet!! I am very surprised to hear that, why didn’t anyone tell me?? (Brian and Crystal…this falls on you!!) Thanks Matt for telling me that…any other big news that people are neglected to tell me? As for me and my world, things are going great. We have recieved tons of presents from the ward for christmas…including socks, more socks and a fruit basket. I believe we recieved 9 pairs of socks…so I think I’ll be good on socks for the next 100 years. See..what else..thanks everyone for the e-mails, mails and all of the support. I’ll be sending a package home today with a few little treats but I don’t think, in fact it won’t reach there before Christmas. It’s not much, they didn’t have anything in the Mexican Tienda that you couldn’t get in Utah, so hopefully I’ll find a bigger one in of my other areas, as for now, enjoy and I’ll be talking to some of you this next Sunday!!
Feliz Navidad!
Elder Hardy