The Adventures of My Life

Well, once again the transfer has come to an end (a pretty quick 6 weeks) and we have recieved news that Elder Christensen is going to be transferred to another area.  It was not a big surprise, seeing that he almost had 6 months here.  There are actually many changes in the mission, because 16 new missionaries are coming and 10 will be leaving (including 1 from our apartment, Elder Lemaistre).  But all is good.  Elder Christensen has been a good companion, he is good missionary, dedicated and faithfull, also someone that’s fun to be around.  We might do something together when we both get back home…he comes home a few months after I do.  The new companion will be my 7th.  It’s crazy that I have already had that many, I remember just yesterday when the only one was Elder Staheli.  The sweet thing is that I have respect for all of my past companions, had been able to work effectively with them and also still have a good relationship with them (crossing my fingers).  I have been lucky so far…hopefully my luck extends on to the end of my mission!

This next transfer will actually only be 5 weeks because we are going to be having a mission tour with Elder Douglas Callister from the 70 visiting us.  So, the schedule that I have grown to love is going to change a little bit.  For example, we will have our regular district meeting the first two weeks, but then the 3rd week, we will jump right into Zone Conference with Elder Callister (Zone Conference is the bigger meeting and usually we have that the 5th week).  Then the 4th week will be ZDM and Interviews, then the transfer will also be over.  So, it’ll end at the beginning of October and then the next transfer right after that will be 7 weeks to recompensate!  So, I’m kind of hoping that I will be transfer after this transfer just because we have already knocked all of the hispanic places here in Wilson (I will be doing a 2nd go-around with the new companion).  But we shall see what happens…who knows, I might stay here 7 and 1/2 months!

Well, it seems we had a tough-luck week, we weren’t able to teach Jorge Leon this week (just saw him once), two of the appointments with him fell through and then it seems they took off for the weekend…so we shall see what happens.  At this moment, we don’t have many that we are teaching a lot…and also one of the part-member families we have been working with (Humberto and Anamaria) just had their baby…and it was kind of a rough pregnancy…all throughout, Anamaria had high levels of suger and a handfull of other problem.  What Humberto told me last night is that the baby is still alive but is having some problems with the heart.  It was not good news, but we will keep praying that everything turns out okay.

We had the Goldsboro Stake Conference yesterday.  The Woodard Family helped us out and gave us a ride up there.  The Woodard family is so freakin’ awesome, Brother Woodard is an american, in his 40’s, and works as a DJ.  It reminds me alot of Alex Pitts…the guy is freakin’ awesome.  Sister Woodard is from Puerto Rico and super cool and then they have 5 daughters and a son…a good family.  We have a couple other really cool family in this branch, the Olvera and Lopez family from Mexico, the Garcia family from Honduras and also President Barahona, who is from Panama.  It’s a good branch and really Wilson is a good, relaxed, country city.  But…I probably would never live here.  Although, I think Cary would be a great place to live…I might even consider going to school out here at NC State…who knows.

Anyways, recieved some sweet news from home..thanks everyone!

Elder Hardy

It was a good week.  We taught a few good lessons, one in specific is Jorge.  I think I mentioned him a few weeks ago, but he is the one we found on the hottest day of the summer, when no one could ride bikes.  He is very humble and is willing to do anything to help him to come closer to God (although, sometimes he makes excuses).  Anyways, we visited him this last Wednesday and we watched the Restaration.  Afterwards, he said he liked it and felt a very emotion feeling in his heart.  After explaining to him what that was and why he was feeling it, both me and Elder Christensen had the prompting to invite him to be baptized, although it was way early still.  Anyways, We did end up setting a goal for him (Oct. 21st) and we promised him if he read scriptures, went to church, he would have the desire and strength to make it to his baptismal date and recieve blessings.  It was really cool.  So, he also ended up coming to church yesterday and it seemed like he enjoyed it.  He basically has two obstacles 1) Drinking…he seems to drink a lot, something he mentioned the first time we met him, he told us he wants to do this (the gospel) to help him quit, 2)He and his girlfriend are not married and have lived together for 5 years.  Well, she is also american but she seems pretty supportive for him to quite, she actually drove him to church yesterday…we’ll try teaching her, so that they can get on the same page.  Other than those 2 obstacles, he seems great and interested in learning more.

Lets see…what exciting happened this last week???  It was pretty much the norm.  This next week is the last week of the transfer and then the next one will just be 5 weeks.  I have a personal feeling that Elder Christensen will be transfered, he has been here for 6 months…so I’ll probably end up getting a new companion…It should change some things up.  And also, I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but President Wallis is supposidly going to keep missionaries in areas longer, like minimum 4 1/2-6 months maximum 7 1/2-9 months..should be crazy….Maybe I’ll only have one more area?   Who knows…I’ve actually just gotten under 10 months left…pretty crazy…huh?

Anyways, sorry this letter is a little short, the weather has cooled off a little bit, it’s been quite nice some days.

Have a good week,
Elder Hardy

So, I am here again, another week has come and gone.  This last one has been rather quite interesting.  The missionary work is going alright, haven’t got mugged yet.  But, there is one experience that is one crazy thing, I don’t think I’ll have an experience quite like it ever again…in fact, it was one of those experiences where you start breaking mission rules because there is no other choice, you are just put in the situation…let me explain.

Ok, on Thursday morning, we recieve a call from one of our investigators, Mayra, who asks us if we could help her out with translating and that we needed to leave right away and meet her and our other investigator, Rocio (who lives with them), at the emergency room at the hospital.  So, we agreed and took off without knowing the reason behind it.  We meet them and I had to ask her what was wrong and Rocio told me she was about 3 months pregant and she had having extreme pains and bleeding for the last 3 days.  So, we get her checked in and waiting.  It came down to it that the hospital would only accept one of us to do translating and E. Christensen wanted me to do it.  They finally called us about 20 minutes later and we just registered her (it was the easy part).  We finished with that and waited forever…probably about an hour before the called us.  Also, during the waiting time, we heard some of the news about the terroists acts that had been going on in Europe.  So, I got seperated from my companion and they put us in an OBG room.  I kind of knew I had gotten myself into a way akward sitiuation.  The nurse came in and I had to translate some akward instructions and had to ask her a few questions.  Later on, the Doctor came in and it even got worse (those of you with pregnant experiences..you can only imagine).  So, the doctor checked her out, and along with the symptoms she had been having, it didn’t appear that everything was fine and dandy.  He then sent us to do an ultrasound, which was also a very interesting experience.  And also let me remind you that I don’t have the best spanish medical vocabulary, so it was a little difficult.  After doing the ultrasound, they sent us back to the OBG room and we waited for a little bit longer.  During the time, I spent some time getting to know Rocio and I testified to her a little about Christ and the Atonement…it was neat.  But, around 1:45, the Doctor came back to give us the results.  And just as I and her had feared…she had lost her baby.  The Doctor told me and I had to tell her….then she started crying…it was a very sad moment.  I never thought I would have to tell an investigator that her baby died.  It was very hard.  What had happened was a few days later in the week, she had stumbled out of the bathroom and fell down into a little table.  After that, she started experiencing the pain and the blood.  Well, already using up half the day, they also asked me to go help her translate at a women treatment center to give to her the options.  Now, this was also a very akward time, probably even more akward, because the questions were a little bit more indepth.  But, basically the Doctor gave her two options 1)that maybe the Ultrasound hadn’t detected the heart beat and just to return to the hospital the next week to see maybe that the baby would be okay but since it was a 90% chance that that wasn’t the case that 2)just do the surgery the same day to remove the baby.  Rocio eventually chose to do the 2nd option…so, we went back to the hospital around 4 o’clock, and we just asked the hospital to provide a translater (which would have been a good idea from the beginning).  So, we finally got to leave.  We were hoping it would build really good trust, and it did, but we recently found out that Rocio had gone back to another city, back to her husband, who drinks and abuses her (probably cause she couldn’t pay the bills).  So, she is now gone…hopefully i planted a good seed for her to listen to the missionaries somewhere else.  It was a crazy experience…..

Anyways, back to the rest of the week.  No investigators really showed up at church yesterday, but a daughter and a sister of a member came to church, who aren’t members.  There names are Guadalupe and Michelle, just recently arrived from Mexico.  The sweet thing is that this family (all are members) are the backbone of the branch.   I can definately see those two getting baptized pretty fast, especially the 15 year old daughter.  It’s going to be sweet.  We don’t have much more going on.

Elder Christensen will probably be transfered soon, so I’ll get a new companion.  We went on AP exchanges this last week, and they told me a few interesting things 1)there are 0 new spanish missionaries coming in and 2)that President Wallis is going to keep missionaries in areas longer, at LEAST 4 1/2 to 6 months and possibly longer.  So, I think I’ll be in Wilson for a good amount of time…my birthday too (which is Sept. 6th, for those who don’t know!).  Also, there are a few rule changes lately, that we don’t have to have parts in our hair (as long as it’s nice and proper) and also we can wear brighter ties (pink, purple).  So, that’s kind of different.  Anyways, I better get going…hope everyone enjoyed this email!

Elder Hardy

Hot and Humid pretty much describe this last week…the City had a heat advisary warning for a couple days and even for one day, Missionaries could not ride bikes from 12 noon to 6 in the evening (didn’t affect me…hehehe).  Yup, I have made sure to drink tons of water and put sunscreen on before I go out to work.  Although, sometimes, it doesn’t quite function well, because I sweat so much.  But Thank You Mom for suppflying with the “Super Sweat-Proof” sunscreen, it has helped a lot.  So, it got to about a 100 for a couple days with the heat index going 105+ with the humidity.  It truely felt like I was walking in an oven for most of the day.  Other than that, the work went pretty well this past week.

On Wednesday (probably the hottest day of ‘em all), we walked out to a neighborhood that is close by to try to find some Hispanic houses.  We didn’t have that much luck at first, we found one lady on one of the streets and none on another we tracted.  At that point, we decided to go back to one of the streets that we had skipped to begin with.  So, we returned and started walking down this street.  We didn’t see any houses that showed signs of hispanics and we were about to give up, until I spotted in a backyard, a truck with some ladders and tools.  Surely, a sign of a hispanic roofer.  So, we decided to knock and found out that indeed it was a hispanic roofer!  So, we taught him the 1st lesson (his name is Jorge), and extended invitation to come to church and he excepted, and was generally excited about what we taught.  We concluded with a prayer, and before we went out the door, he told us he wanted to do this to help distract him from drinking alcohol.  He told us we were like angels, coming to help him fight his addiction and that no one had come to his house before like us.  It was really kind of cool.  We kept contact with him throughout the rest of the week, a couple of the appointments fell through, and he wasn’t able to make it to church because he had family over.  Nonetheless, we will continue to try to teach him because it seems he does have a desire to change.

It was pretty cool at church also, because we had a member bring an inactive and her non-member husband.  We were able to teach them during church, and he seemed to really enjoy his time there.  It was kind of odd, because originally, we only started with like 5 people at church, but more came later on (cause everyone is always late).  I think we might have had around 30-35 in sacrament (a definant improvement over 22 last week).  We also had a good testimony meeting, I bore mine about the power and influence of the Holy Ghost.  I really have come to known that we know we are being lead by the Spirit not by the impressions we recieve, but that we are doing the right things.  It mentions several times in the scriptures that all good things come from God and all bad things come from Satan.  Therefore, if we strive to do the things that would closen our relationship to Christ, we know we are being guided by the Spirit.

It sounds like Mom, Dad and Julie are having a really good time in Taiwan, and getting a little taste of what we go through here…walking all day in the hot, humid streets of another country (The South is really another country).  I am just jealous of all of the great food they are eating (I still remember last year eating that chinese food in Vancouver).  It sounds like they are having a trip of a lifetime, with Dad even making plans to go to Europe next year…that would be sweet!!

Anyways, things are going good here in Wilson, it’s definately a way different experience than the city (Cary and Raleigh).  It’s a good change but it gets tedious sometimes, trying to visit the same people in the same places.  We try to make it fun, we do talk to some crazy people too…

Take Care Everyone,
Elder Hardy