Catch Up
After another off-week of not doing e-mail (stupid holidays always falling on Mondays!), I will finally get back into the regular routine. As I have forgotten everything that happened the week before last, I was prepared this time. I sent a letter to the family last week with the intend of them adding it as last weeks entry to my little blog that I have established. The website is: http://house.hardys.org/michael for those of you who want to see my archive entries. I actually had a few praises for my last entry two weeks ago, lets see if I can match up to that success story.
Looking back at my week, I guess there wasn’t one big event that highlighted it, just little cool things happening. We are a reeeaaaly good dinner on Tuesday night with the Claros family…who used to own a restuarant in Provo. For any of you that live over there, I strongly recommend this place, even though their family doesn’t own it anymore. It is called “The El Salvador” on center street. Salvadoranian food is unbelievably good, especially what they call “Popuses”. I don’t know if I spelled that right, but trust me, they are unbelievable good. And also if you go, be sure to tell me about it, because I’m sure the Claros would love to hear how there restuarant is doing. I’m sure I’ll be in Cary for just a little longer. Next week are transfers but the word on the street is that Elder Staheli is probably going to be transfered as he’s almost been in Cary for 6 months and me 4 months. So, I’ll probably end up also being in Cary for 6 months…which is quite a long time to be in one area. And I figured out, if I do end up staying, I’ll have 9 months on my mission before moving to a different area…have you all ever heard of that before?? And when I do leave, I’ll probably be going somewhere in the triangle (Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill and Durham), as a lot of the Spanish Elders are here (lots of jobs for the Hispanics).
This week, I went on English exchanges with the Zone Leaders at North Carolina State (we go on english exchanges every week because Elder Staheli is a district leader). That was a very interesting experience, although I was not able to do campus contacting (because it was raining), but I was able to talk to some people my age and in english, which was diffently different and scary (especially with the girls). I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t called to be a English missionary because I wouldn’t be able to stand the pressure of doing daily English work, especially at the colleges. It was fun though for the short time, made me feel more at home than at Little Mexico with the broken down apartments and toys laying out in the yards.
I guess the big thing going on right now in relation to the government and illegal aliens is a law that the government just passed. From what I understand is that if you aid illegal immigrants in any way and don’t report them, you are liable to be punished by law. Which really puts the church into a tough spot, especially hispanic branches. A member told us recently, that 3/4 of our branch are not legal residents, which really shocked me! That means if they need help with money, the church will not be able to help them out, or they would be required by law to report them, which means deporting them back to their own country. I don’t know how strict it is being inforced at this moment, but that would cost tons of money, because there are many thousands of “illegal immigrants” who are in the United States. In the Book of Mormon, it talks about how the Lamanite’s seed would be scattered and scourged among the nations, so this is a prophecy coming fulfilled how the United States wants to get rid of all of them. And in reality, they do all of the jobs that Americans refuse to do, tons of jobs would go unfilled, it would be a mess…but enough of my politics spill.
We’ve been working with Karen, who has an extremely firm baptismal date for this Saturday. She’s one of the rare ones that just accepts the gospel right off the bat, and keeps all the commitments. She has already joined the branch choir and is making tons of invitations to her baptism, it’s pretty sweet. She’s actually a member referal, so it’s been very easy to get her to church and interact with the members. Our recent convert, Sandy, is doing great, she has a little boy on the way, due date Jan. 31st. So, little “Pedro” should be coming any time now. The branch is also reaching new heights. 94 people were counted as attending sacrament meeting, a new high. Among those, we had 2 investigators, so things are going great.
Nice to hear from all of you in the family letter, keep up the good work everyone. If anyone has any specific requests on pictures or maybe something important I may be leaving out in my letters, just tell me and I’ll try my best to fulfill it. Things are going great here in North Carolina, thanks for the support and the letters and even received a package this week…thanks for the new sweaters!! Well, hope you all have a nice week and I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you in the future!
Elder Hardy