The Adventures of My Life

‘ll guess I will begin by stating that I really don’t have strong desires to write a huge e-mail like I have in the past.  I’m getting burnt out of writing huge emails…anyways, we had a good week.  We still don’t have any baptismal dates, but I believe we taught over 20 times.  The one thing we are really doing well on are exchanges.  I believe we almost had an exchange every single day…it was great.

All of the recent converts are doing great.  This last Friday, we had a spanish activity at the church, it was a lot of fun.  First, we ate a whole bunch of good food, then we watched the Lamb of God.  Then, I challenged everyone to give the movie to a friend.  Hopefully, that goes well.  Yesterday at church, we finally got some callings for the hispanic people…it was way cool.  Israel and Laura got called to teach the gospel principles class…so, I will no longer be teaching, unless they aren’t there.  It should be way fun.

I guess not much is happening other than that…we are working hard…

Elder Hardy

Well, hello to everyone!  This is Elder Hardy, signing in from Henderson, North Carolina.  Everything has been going well, but it has been quite a change being with a missionary who hasn’t quite learned spanish (that is because he is only assigned to learn english).  Elder Baird is pretty cool, and as most of you already know, he is closing down on his mission..in about 5 weeks, he’ll be a goner.  So, this is the 2nd time killing off someone, he seems to have a good desire to still work, so I’m excited to say the least.

This last week was interesting, because when we visited the hispanics, it was a solo act, but that made it a lot of fun also.  I am really going to start working on getting some spanish exchanges on the nights that we have english exchanges, and then we can do a full exchange.  That would be sweet.  Also, being the only one who speaks spanish, I have all the responsabilities to translate for combined meetings, like I did this last Sunday.  There was a visitor from the Stake Presidency and also President Wallis and his wife visited our branch.  So, that was really night translating for them.  For some reason, translating for them was made a lot easier, I’m sure it was the gift of tongues.  My mind was clear and I could speak and listen very very clearly.  It was a wonderful experience.  I also taught the spanish sunday school class and probably will everyweek here on out until they call someone or until my new spanish comp comes.  President Wallis said it will just be for this transfer that I have a english speaking companion.  Then, afterwards the spanish comes again!  It is kind of odd who everything is going, but I will get used to it.

Everything is going alright….no dates right now, but we are working on it!  Hope everyone has a great week and I’d love to hear from you!

Elder Hardy

*one funny experience - We were tracting (knocking doors) and we came across a crazy black dude.  The first thing he said was, “Are you Jehovah Witnesses, because if you are Jehovah Witnesses, you need to leave right now”.  I then explained to him that we were mormons and he paused for a second and then said happily, “Oh then…come right in!”.   It was pretty sweet…

So, it has been quite interesting here lately.  Starting off on Wednesday, we had a baptismal interview with Alfie, and he passed.  So, I was spending the day in Burlington, which was quite neat.  The missionary I was on exchanges with was way cool and we have a whole lot in common (he loves sports and video games).  It was quite interesting.  On Saturday, we had the baptism for Alfie..that was pretty sweet.  In 2 transfers here in Henderson, I have been a part of 7 people being baptized, compared to 7 that I had before.   It has been doubled..which has been pretty cool.  There are lots of special people here.  Well, this transfer has just ended, and on this Saturday, we recieved calls.  Before we headed out to our baptism, we called back the Assistants, who had left a message.  They didn’t answer, so we left, did the baptism (I gave a talk and we found out that Alfie’s girlfriend wants to be baptized).  We came back to do planning, and I called Elder Scribner and he told me the big news:

He told me that Henderson was going to become a Zebra.  Now for those of you (I assume almost all) who do now know the mission language, a Zebra is when you have one Elder who speaks spanish and one that just speaks english (hence a zebra has black and white stripes).  So…that means, I am the only one who speaks spanish, I will have to teach all the lessons to the hispanics all by myself.  I am going to have to get a lot of exchanges with the Hispanic guys!  Another note..the new Elder…whose name is Elder Baird..goes home in 6 weeks!  So, that means that he will go home and I will remain in Henderson for another 6 weeks (6 months total) and maybe for my last transfer also…who knows!  I know it will be a challenge, this next transfer (as others have told me so), but I’m looking forward to it, as we have 2 english investigators (Amber and Lenny) that hopefully will be baptized.  We’ll see what becomes of this mess!

Untill next week,
Elder Hardy

Hello from the blistering cold state of North Carolina, where we are suffering from 40 degree weather everyday!  Plus another snow storm that came by on Thursday.  This week has been unusual to say the least.  We had quite the experiences…

On Monday, we had a happenin’ Family Home Evening with the Munoz family..who had “volunteered” to feed us as part of it…well…they ended up buying 4 large pizzas and a 20 piece chicken from Bojangles…and I was looking forward to authentic mexican food!  Tuesday was interesting in the fact that we worked all day long, which was a rarity this week.  I’m sure there were other facts, but man, I can’t think of much.   Wednesday was our Zone Conference in Raleigh.  That was a ton of fun…but long as usual.  I got to meet up with some great friends from the past…past companions like Elder Christensen and also Guerrero!  It was great to reminisce of the of the old days.  I came back to Henderson with Elder Boergous…so that we could do the baptismal interview with Alfreda.  So, we were going to do that Friday morning….I called her 2 minutes before we got to her house to pick her up…and then she dissapeared…still haven’t contacted her..and her baptism was last Saturday…oh well.  Brother Owens ended up driving us all the way to Burlington to switch back (about a drive of 1 hour, 30 minutes), because our cars were parked due to the snow.  On Friday, we did our planning and medias with Brother Owens, had some good contacts.  On Saturday…did service with Bob and Sunday church and chill with Bob.

The week was alright…but this next week is going to be even sweeter.  The work we are doing here is really making a difference, I have already been touched a number of times on the progress of this great people…Henderson rules!!!

This next week will be transfers and Elder Ferons is most likely out…then I will have 3 companions, 3 transfers and 1 more area..(most likely!)

Love,
Elder Hardy