Reflection
The weather is cooling down and fall is fast approaching. I am not looking forward to pulling all of my winter clothing out all again…my gloves, my hat, my trench coat. I am actually thinking about buying a coat, the rain trench coat wasn’t that effective last winter (neither was it very “attractive” looking). Everything is going alllllright here in Wilson. A few sweet things happened this week, let me explain:
We taught Michelle the 2nd lesson (plan of salvation) and it went awesome. I love visited that family, they rock and always feed us great-tasting food. The one thing I have missed though are papusas from the El Salvadorenos. Yeah, we have noone from our branch from there. But the food is still good here, although we only 2-3 times a week with the members, if we are lucky. Anyways, back to Michelle, we moved the baptismal date from the 30 of Sept. to the 1st of Oct, because Sunday would be a little more convinient. We should be doing the baptismal between the morning and afternoon sessions of General Conference, so think of me during this time, knowing we are going to have a baptism! It is way firm, she is ready to do this. Also, I am looking forward to General Conference, I love it! I wish I would have paid more attention when I was growing up and went to the Priesthood sessions. I really missed out on so much. Really, being out here on the mission has made me realize the importance of being active not only going to church every Sunday, but also going to the activities and all of the other stuff to help out even more. When I was growing up, I chose to skip a lot of the youth activities, camp-outs, scouts and other things. I am now regretting that as I know Dad told me I would.
I feel, while I have been out on the mission, that I have learned the importance of hard work and dedication to the church and the importance of obedience. Although I have not been the best and I have lots of work to do, I have started to realize the importance of the church in my life and the impact it has had on me and the rest of the people. Well, we also had the chance to go to Kinston to out Zone Conference and hear from Elder Douglas Callister, from the 2nd quorum of the 70. It was something very special. If any of you all have ever heard him, you would know he has very very powerful delivery skills. It seems he puts his thoughts in perfect, beautiful phrases. It was amazing. He talked about some great things, how planning wasn’t just a mission thing, how it was to used throughout the rest of this life and the life to come. Our greatest, most precious gift that Heavenly Father has given us is his time. We should all use to wisely. He talked to us about talents, how everyone has there one talents and they aren’t something just acquired him in this life, but we have been working on developing them since we begun in the pre-existence. Also, he talked about the reality of pray and the importance of scripture study to help us develop the talent of spirituality, the most important talent that we can be blessed with. That it was the same talent that Christ possesed while he was in his ministry. It was a great, powerful spiritual experience, that helped me personaly to strive to improve and kept chugging along out here in North Carolina.
It seems like everyone I am going home with (like 17 of us) is getting truncky (I guess I would say I am included a little bit), just because of the fact they just reached their 15 month mark. Technically, it is different for me, mine is the 27th. But the day we hit the mark, Elder Blakely (one I live with, also going home with me) was on exchanges with Elder Davis (another one going home). So all 4 of us in the apartment were going home together on the night of our month mark. We all went out to celebrate at Cici’s Pizza. But, everyone has went back to normal. I am back to concentration mode.
Well, I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming week, I know there are some birthdays coming up and that everyone should be having lots of fun.
Love,
Elder Hardy