The Adventures of My Life

We had an excellent week to say the least.  It started off pretty good, preparing everything for the Lopez family baptism.  On Tuesday, we had an appointment with them.  But first, we went to dinner with the Kimbrell family.  We ate sufficiently there, but as we arrived at the Lopez’ house with Brother Kimbrell, we realized that they were also cooking us dinner.  Well, there is no way to say no to hispanics, so we stuffed ourself with another meal.  It was great fun!!

On Friday, we had the baptismal interview, so the ZL’s had exchanges with us.  And I went all the way down to Durham to work for a day.  That was actually a lot of fun being in a big city again, but it made me miss the small town atmosphere a little bit.  Or maybe, it is just that I have been in this type of atmosphere for a while know…who knows.  But Luis, Ofelia and Alberto passed the interview!!  So, everything was set and ready for the next day.

So, Saturday was a super cool day.  We taught Billy and some Mexicans in the morning and then we went to the Bentleys for lunch.  They are so much fun…a pretty young couple.  Brother Bentley told me all about the Boise State-Oklahama game and some other football summaries.  It was fun.  Then we did a few more things in the afternoon, and then went to the church to fill up the font.  And before we knew it, the Lopez family had arrived and everyone else.  It was one sweet baptismal service…tons of people were there…probably more than half of them were americans who didn’t speak spanish.  But everyone was way excited that it was a family.  Elder Ferons baptized Luis, the father.  I followed with Ofelia, the mom and then President Culler baptized Alberto.  The spirit was super strong and everyone really enjoyed it.  We sang “families can be together forever” for the closing song…and I really felt good…I would like to be there when they go to the temple…that would be awesome.  So, the next day was the confirmations.  And we all were together (hispanics and english), and I confirmed Luis a member of the church, Brother Jester confirmed Ofelia and Elder Ferons confirmed Alberto.  We had a ton of fun and then we chilled with Bob in the afternoon.

Well, that is about it…we should have a baptism for the next two weeks.

Elder Hardy

Here we are again, you are all recieving another letter from the one and only Elder Hardy, serving in the North Carolina Raleigh Mission. Or, am I serving in Alaska? You would have thought that if you had been here this past Thursday….because…it….snowed!!!! It was a sight to see, reminded me alot of home, and it totally freaked out Elder Ferons (who just happens to be, where the sun don’t stop shining in San Diego). So, he was all giddy about the snow…it was cool. We went out running in the morning at 6:30, and at that time, it was just ice flecks…much like the 5 minutes of that weather last year. But, around 7 to 7:30…the ice became snow. It was a sight to see and it probably last about 2 hours of solid snow. A little tiny bit accumulated in the grass, none on the cement. But because of the snow, the cars were grounded (which means, we couldn’t drive anywhere). So, we had our weekly planning in the morning and then walked a huge long distance in the afternoon (and talked to an interesting mexican along the way), and by the time we got to this trailor park we were going to knock, it was already time to go back to the apartment! Oh boy..was that fun! It was coooold, I was wearing my long sleeve shirt, my sueter, my suit jacket and my coat, along with gloves and a hat…and I was still freezing!!

Well, what else happened this great week. We still have our 5 baptismal dates. 3 for this next Saturday..and we sure our excited. The Lopez family, consisting of Luis, Orfelia and Alberto will be baptized. This is the 2nd entire family that I have been involved in the baptism…and it is one that we have really worked hard with. I can say that I really love this family, they are great. We had a few great lessons with them this last week. We reviewed the plan of salvation, and they basically knew it all (it surprised me, cause we only taught it to them the day that I arrived in Henderson). And then we went over some other commandments…they accepted all of them like it was nothing. One of the exchanges that we had to visit them was President Culler, the branch president (who need I remind you, doesn’t speak spanish). So, we translated for him. That night also, they told us that they wanted us to baptize them and also invited President Culler to baptize their son, Alberto. We are so excited…this is going to be a great week!!

We also have 2 the following week, Feb. 3rd…Alfreda and Alfi. Alfreda is looking more solid…both of them were also at church. Alfi is this 19 year old, who is just way excited to join the church. It seems like he really wants to rush into…which is good and bad at the same time. He already wants to go to the temple and recieve the priesthood. It’s funny cause we really haven’t taught him that much, he’s just a very intelligent kid, who has already read the gospel principles book and now is reading the teachings of Spencer W. Kimball. It’s a lot of fun teaching him.

I guess, not much else is happening. We are just trying to progress the work here. Our recent converts are doing great, except for Anastasia and Munoz family…who have been missing church recently…but we are going to have a sweet family home evening with them tonight. Fransisco and Teresa are flying right now…Fransisco gave a talk at church last Sunday and then he recieved the aaronic priesthood yesterday. Along him recieving the priesthood also was Israel Tomas…who was baptized a year and a half ago, but still hadn’t recieved the priesthood. We taught him and help him feel readier and he finally did it! I am way proud of him.

Mission is going well, but my time is coming short…I am working with the amount of months that I can hold up with one hand…scary

Have a great week!
Elder Hardy

Okay, well this should be a shorter letter, because the library is closed and we are doing e-mail at the Owen’s house and they have dial-up, so it was super slow opening up all of the e-mails.  So, I’ll run through the week, with the big highlights…and they are BIG highlights.

So, on Tuesday, we drove down to Durham to have interviews…it took us about 45 minutes to get down there and we had to wait about 10 minutes for everyone to arrive.  We were the first to be interviewed and it only took like 10 minutes for both of us.  President was really just happy with us, cause we lead the zone in baptisms in 2006 with 15 here in Henderson.  He was pleased with all of the work.  So, we were out of the building in max of 15 minutes and we headed back up to Henderson.  Once there, we had exchanges with the big bad AP’s…one of which happens to be my old companion from the MTC, Elder Scribner.  I went with him, and it was the first real time we got to talk since September of 2005.  He is a good missionary and speaks spanish like a native.  We had a greeat time.  We tried to set a baptismal date with Lenny, but it didn’t work out…isn’t ready yet.  But Elder Ferons and Elder Franco set a baptismal date with the Lopez family!!  For the 27th of this month…family consists of the parents Luis and Orfelia and their 9 year old son, Alberto.  They are super sweet, we had been teaching them for a couple months, without much progression, but they had a bad experience that helped them have more faith.

Also, with Alfreda, we set another date for the 3rd of February.  She wasn’t at church and had another lame excuse, so I’m not so sure of that.  But, after church on Sunday, we set yet another baptismal date with a 19 year older member referell, Alfi.  He decided he also wanted to be baptized….for the 3rd of February.  So, we had 3 scheduled for Jan. 27th, and 2 for Feb 3rd….so that is 5 in all….I’m really having success here in Henderson.

That is all,
Elder Hardy

Happy New Year…(a little late).  Wow, 2006 was a good year, wasn’t it?  All of you probably have had a little different year than I have…isn’t that for sure?  Anyways, last time I wrote e-mail was in 2006…and actually next week is MLK day..so who knows if I’ll be able to write something.  Anyways…new year’s eve was pretty cool.  First, we had church, and confirmed Francisco and Teresa members of the church.  I wasn’t planning on it, but I was asked to confirm one of them, so I confirmed Teresa.  I feel very close to this family right now, that I baptized Fransisco and confirmed Teresa, that when they eventually go to the temple, hopefully in one year, I wouldn’t hesitant in coming back.  The Gospel has already blessed them and unified them as a family.

After church, in which we also had 9 investigators (actually a new high for me!), and a ton of people at church, we went to Bob’s house and spent New Year’s eve with him.  We really didn’t have a fancy dinner, just a meat platter from Wal-mart.  But, we ate a ton and had a good time.  I think we watched like 3 church movies, “the work and the glory”, “the best 2 years” and also “the other side of heaven”.  We just chilled around, avoiding all of the drinking and big parties.  We did eventually come back at around 9 o’clock to the apartment and we went to bed at 10:30.  Elder Ferons did wake up at midnight to welcome in the new year.  But I wasn’t going to have anything to do with it, I needed my sleep, even if it was 2007.  He tried to yell at me, and even though, he did wake me up, I didn’t pay attention.  Also, one of the Spanish families called us at 12:05 to wish us a Happy New Year, but I still remained in my sleeping state.  Good Times.

With the ushering in of the new year, the great year of 2007, we have worked hard with our members, especially the spanish members, to set goals with them.  They came up with great goals, and I am excited to help them fullfill them.  We are going to make spiffy looking certificates for them to put on their refrigerator, so they can, throughout the year, be reminded of what they would like to accomplish.  We are working with a few to recieve the priesthood and get sealed in the temple, which would be very very cool.  I have already grown very close to the hispanic people here in Henderson, I truly do love them.  I would do anything for them.  I am glad I am in Henderson for my “mission overtime”!

We had a really good week, taught 25 times, and we also have a good group of investigators that we are working with.  Yesterday, we only had 4 people at church, but 3 was a family who finally came after 3 months of teaching them off and on.  They are Luis and Orfelia Lopez, who were not progressing, but they had a bad experience on the 31st, in which Luis was arrested unfairly and was in jail for a couple days.  It seems that there priorities have straightened and they finally made it out to church.  It was sweet seeing them there.  Church was also interesting, because I had to translate 2 whole meetings…with a whole bunch of people speaking…fast and testimony meeting…some of those testimonies were hard to translate!

Anyways, things are going well…as always…Elder Ferons is staying another transfer until February.  Then I will have 3 transfers left with probably 3 companions.  Also another weird thing that has happened, is that the AP’s called us yesterday and we are going to have exchanges with them tommorow.  Elder Franco and Elder Scribner are the Spanish AP’s.  Elder Scribner was my MTC companion and now he is a big bad AP, it will be tons of fun with him tommorow, doing missionary work.  Good experiences….

Well, hope everyone enjoyed the email and I enjoyed hearing from many of you on Christmas and in emails I have recieved.

Elder Hardy