The Adventures of My Life

HOOOOOOLLAAAAA!!!!!  COMO ESTAN!!!!  Well,  I guess I’ll break out the big news right now…I’m going to be training a new Elder, starting tommorow!!  It’s going to be pretty cool, but at the same time, I’m going to be a little stretched.  It seems like I’m still brand spankin’ new out of the MTC, and that I still don’t even know spanish.  So, how am I going to guide someone who doesn’t even know what he’s doing and teach him a language I still don’t know??  Haha, we’ll just have to wait and find out.  Chances are it is going to be an American.  There are 4 new americans coming and one new hispanic.  So, I’m preparing myself for a “gringo”.  This is going to be really good for me, as I will have the chance to be the main spanish speaker in the household.  Before, it was my trainer and then I’ve had 2 hispanic companions to lean on.  But now…It’s all up to me!  And we will be working freakin hard, talking with everyone, teaching bunches of lessons, bringing people close to Christ, whether they like it or not.  It’s going to be weird too…just getting off “killing” Elder Monforte (that means I was his last companion before he left), and then getting someone fresh out of the MTC.

Well, this week passed by pretty normal.  We have been visiting lots of members because it was Elder Monforte’s last week.  Here, in Raleigh, the members are awesome.  They love the missionaries, we get fed every night.  They are all pretty funny too, although sometimes it goes too far.  For instance, our newest members, baptized about a month ago, haven’t came to church for 2 weeks now, even though they said they would and then made lame excuses.  Me and “my son” are going to work hard with them, we can’t afford to lose them.  There are already enough less-active members, enough that we could have a ward here if they were active.  That’s something else I want to focus on this next transfer…less-actives.  There is a lot of work to do!!

Times are good, I love it here in Raleigh.  I imagine, now since I am training, I will be here 2, at the least and maybe 3 more transfers.  That will mean I’ll pass my year mark here in Raleigh..crazy huh?   Time is flying

Well, I gotta go, because there is another lady in here that has been waiting here for me to get off…She is getting impatient

Con Amor,
Elder Hardy

What a week it has been…I think I’ll do my email a little bit different this week:

Monday:
Good Ole’ P-day.  As always went by too fast and I only had a few minutes to do email.  We spent time shopping and some time at the mission office (we live pretty close, so we can go over there and eat some candy and talk with the people over there).  But the highlight of this day came in the evening.  Our evening was scheduled as following: at 6, we were going to help a member who needed a translator..very few details were given.  At 8, we had a family home evening scheduled with one of our investigators, Esther, who is our closest to being baptized.   Well, the evening started as we had planned.  Wilbur came over and picked us up, and this is where I realized that I had forgotten my translator gadget thing (just in case there was words I didn’t know, because since Elder Monforte doesn’t know english, I was going to be doing the translating), so right off the bat, I was at a disadvantage.  Well, I had no clue what I was going to translate, but I wasn’t too worried.  So, we drove over to Wilbur’s apartment and there we pick up his parents…and I found that they were going to check out a house and they were serious about renting it for a year.  We arrived at the house and at first I really didn’t know what to do (I have never done this translating thing before).  At first, they were just asking me questions when they didn’t understand something and basically we walked about the house and yard and it was pretty cool, I was able to translate what the guy wanted them to know.  But, then we started getting down to the negociating side of things.  Now, most of my profeciantly in spanish comes in the Gospel side of things, so I wasn’t at my best.  I was unsure, but right in a lot of things.  The renter dude was getting a little frustrated and wasn’t sure if they knew all of the details (because of the language barriar).  So, he made me and all of the family sit down and go over the entire contract.  And while I was doing that, we were finding out bit by bit, that the family was really pushing the contract terms.  Something about the septic tank could only support 3 adults and 1 kid in the house and the family had 4 adults and a kid.  So, everyone was getting mad and I was right in the middle of it.  We got through the whole contract when the major problems started to arise and they decided they didn’t want to rent, but then they talked some more and finally decided to rent it.  Wow, it was quite an experience.  We also didn’t have enough time to do the Family Home Evening.

Tuesday:
Not much happened this day…at least to my rememberence.

Wednesday:
Well, well, well…We had Zone Conference today!!  But, it wasn’t any old Zone Conference…it was Fun Zone Conference!!  Let me explain a little bit…once a year (I know, not very often) instead of sitting for 6 hours listening to instruction, we only had to sit 2 hours and then we got to play for 3 hours!  Instead of being in Raleigh, we got to go up to Chapel Hill.  There were all sorts of activities, Volleyball, ultimate frisby, but I chose to play Soccer (of course with all of the other hispanics).   It was pretty sweet, I even put on sunscreen so I wouldn’t get sunburnt!

Thursday:
On this day, we always have our weekly planning session…which could last up to 2-3 hours to complete.  Now…we were planning for Elder Monforte’s last week…so that’s about all I can say.  We are not accomplishing as much as I would like to, but I guess it goes with the territory of being companions with a missionary that is about to leave.  Only one more week left in the transfer!

Friday:
Not much

Saturday:
We got invited to lunch with the other English Elders to a Chinese Buffet (we also went to one the night before, because Hispanic people love going to chinese buffet).  It was just like any other chinese buffett, the ice cream was good.  Later on in the day, we went to our recent convert house because the baby was having a birthday party, she was turning 1 years old.  I have never seen such a party in my life for a 1 year old.  They cooked tons of food and invited everyone.  The music was loud, the pinatas were being smashed and it was a “real” fiesta.  They spent tons of money…which is a bad thing, because they are not a well-off family.  In fact, they have already been a little offended from some of the members at the church and even didn’t go to church this last sunday.  It was either they had too much to clean up after the party or they just wanted to skip church.  Some punk kid from are branch made their 8-year old cry, and suposidly they told someone that they didn’t want to come back to church.  Well, they never tell us anything, no doubts or concern but we’ll continue working with them and make sure they don’t just become another lost inactive family.

Sunday:
Just a normal Sunday, Easter Sunday in fact.  Not much different actually from a normal Sunday for missionaries, no Easter Bunny, no chocalate.  But it was a good day, a really good talk in sacrament meeting.  Later, we had some really GOOD food.

Monday:
Well, I am here right now, was already in here earlier today, but the internet stopped working.  So, after going out shopping, and playing soccer, getting drenched in the rain, I am back and ready to go for another week!  I hope this week goes by fast…I am looking forward to a new transfer.

Well…hope you enjoyed and hope it wasn’t too weird

Elder Hardy

Happy Easter everyone!  Another holiday that is just an excuse to buy lots of chocolate.  I actually forgot it was going to be Easter (as a missionary, we don’t really pay attention to things like that), but it is an important holiday, since we celebrate the Savior.  It’s not all about the chocolate and the easter bunny!  Although, some chocolate would be nice for a poor missionary like me!

Well, this week has been…interesting.  It’s fun watching the missionary career of Elder Monforte wind down.  But as his companion, it also comes with negatives (as all missionaries know).  But Elder Monforte is still working relatively hard considering he is going home to 2 weeks.  I’m glad I have this oportunity…VIVE MEXICO!!

I had the priviledge to speak in church yesterday.  Even though I was freakin’ nervous (like I always am), I delivered a sweet talk about missionary work.  I talked about the relationship between full-time missionaries and members, what we can do to prepare to be member missionaries and how we do missionary work.  It was good, but I do not boast of my self or my own strength, but there was somebody else who was helping me out a little bit…(as always).  I have definately found, without the Spirit, I might as well go back to the apartment and read scriptures or something…haha.

I got some pretty good updates from people this week.  Thanks Brian for the good update, I thoroughly enjoyed new information about your many pets and new cockatiel.  And Julie..who is finally graduated from college, and Gordon….

I’m sorry for the small update but since we do the e-mail here in the apartment complex, there are always people bugging to use the computer (although, I know what the reason they are going to use the computer is not nearly as important as this…)

Well, have a good week and good Easter.

Elder Hardy

Here I am for another weekly edition of “Elder Hardy; A look inside the life of a missionary in the North Carolina Raleigh Mission”.  Things are going good, as always.  We learned last night, that the end of suit season is over!  Which means, we don’t have to wear our suit coat outside anymore.  During the winter, we have to wear full-suits unless it reached 80 degrees (which is pretty hot), then we could take suits off.  Well, now until next October, we don’t have to wear suit coats.  It has started to get hot again, in the 80’s over the weekend.  And and pollan is really back, it’s good I don’t have bad allergies to that stuff.  When we walk to our car in the morning, it is covered with pollan from the trees.  Today, we also had a pretty bad rain/thunderstorm in the morning.  I got some pretty excellent footage of the storm, putting my own-life in danger, but it was worth it.  It was raining pretty hard.

Can’t believe I’ve already been in Raleigh for 3 weeks now, in just 3 more weeks, Elder Monforte is going back to Mexico and I’ll be recieving another new companion.  He will be my 4th out here in the field…wow, time goes by fast.  I’m sure lucky to have had sweet companions so far.  Elder Monforte is a stud, and he hardly speaks english, so I get to practice my spanish alot.

Wow, General Conference was pretty sweet.  Especially as a missionary, we look forward to this all year.  We spend 24/7 testifying that we have a prophet and apostles, and we finally get to see them in action!!  I hope everyone had a chance to listen to all 4 sessions, they were definately power and I was spiritually uplifting.  The sessions on Saturday were good, I especially liked Robert D. Hales talk about Free Agency and how we can use our free agency to the affect that Satan doesn’t have power over our lifes.  There were a few other ones I really like, including President Monson’s talk in the Priesthood Session, that was really classic President Monson.  President Hinckley finally spoke on Saturday to close out the Priesthood session and he laid the law down on racial slurs.  That is something some people down here have trouble with, including some members.  It’s important to know that we are really all iqual, all sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.  But, the highlight of the conference, at least for me, was the Prophets talk to close are the morning session Saturday.  As most of you, I started having strong emotions in the thought that we might lose this great prophet.  As I listened to him recount his life and then bear powerful profetic testimony of the living reality of Christ and the thruthfulness of Joseph Smith, I started to break down emotionally.  Especially during the closing prayer.  It just added to my testimony of the living prophet on the earth, that he really is a prophet of God.

The work in Raleigh is going alright.  I have some pretty interesting experiences as a missionary.  We were downtown one night with some members, trying to find the home of a recent convert, who we were going to teach.  We went down this narrow street, the ghettos, where a member lived.  There were a bunch of cars and a bunch of black people trafficing drugs.  They were all out sitting on their porches.  I was scared for my life!  But we got out of there alright…Mom, you don’t have to worry though, the part of Raleigh that we live in is really safe.

The work is going along good, we had a lot of new people at the conference yesterday that we are going to start teaching.  Our best investigator, Ester, was there.  We are going to try to get her baptized so Elder Monforte can have one more baptism before leaving…we’ll see how it goes though.  On Saturday, hardly any one was at the sessions except the Priesthood.  Sunday morning, I was watching in english and I guess there were tons of people, they had to open another room, so that all the spanish people could be acomadated.  I decided to listen to the last session in Spanish, it was alright, Richard G. Scotts and M. Russell Ballard’s talks were especially sweet.  Anything else?? Nope.

Hasta Luego
Elder Hardy