The Adventures of My Life

It is amazing how excited I can get with something after being exposed to it for so short a period of time. I consider myself a very compulsive person. When I get excited about something, it’s all I can think about and it becomes a quick obsession. Some recent examples of this are 1)country swing dancing (although I’ve only been like three times), 2)my sudden interest in reading, 3)being part of choirs and 4)trying to become a handyman with an interest in tools, building and construction. But during our recent trip to Wyoming this past Easter holiday, I came to another conclusion. I decided that I wanted to stay in shape and due to the recent indulgence of easter candy and such, I wanted to lose some weight. I played with the idea of starting to run everyday. This idea turned into a reality, at least for now, as I have ran everyday this week with the exception of Tuesday. It started Monday, after we arrived home from Wyoming. It was way nice outside and I ran about a third of a mile just to start out. Tuesday was my lazy day but Wednesday, I ran 2 miles, huffing and puffing all the way. Yesterday (Thursday), I ran 3 miles and then went and played basketball at the church house for an hour and half. Needless to say, I was way sore this morning and decided not to go to work. So, after running for less than a week, I’m already running in a 5K tomorrow morning:

That’s right, I am one crazy, compulsive guy. I saw the sign at UVSC on Tuesday and I asked Scott if he wanted to run with me. He declined, because he doesn’t like running anymore, however his sister, Kristen, accepted the invitation. So…I hope I do well!

Le Familia Hardy,

This letter serves for two purposes. 1. To inform you of what is going on because I won’t be able to do email again today (MLK holiday) and also 2 to remind Dad I need 2cent stamps.  I have about 150 .37-cent stamps, so I’ll be needing about that many if it isn’t too inconvenient for you.  Thanks for all you do and all the support.  And also, if anyone hast the chance, would you type this letter into my blog?? Because by the time next week comes, I would have forgot everything pertaining to this week.  And I know the blog is a very popular website right now and receiving tons of comments. Right??

Well, the weather has been a little strange again.  For a few days this week, it hit a high of 70 and now is back to 50.  it was “supposed” to snow, like they always say, but it never happens.  I heard you can teach a lot more while tracking, because people don’t mind standing outside when it’s not freezing cold.  Besides from my weekly weather spill, things are going great.  We have a very firm baptismal date for a young lady named Karen for the 28^th of this month.  She was a referral from a member and right she is doing great.  She came to church all three times since we started talking to her and now, she even joining the ward choir! I wish all of our investigators were this excited to be apart of the church.

We actually just got back from playing basketball with some of the young single adult guys at NC State. It was a lot of fun, but we play basketball almost every P-day, we need to start thinking of some new activities.  I suggested maybe checking out some sites or taking a tour of the football stadium/ basketball complex at NC State, but it was shot down.  Now, we are back at our apartment, washing clothes and relaxing.  Our washing machine is kind of funny.  The hose connector at the bottom, so we have to fill up the water manually.  The rest of the apartment isn’t that great either.  We have probably the worst apartment in the mission.  I’ve seen some of the others, ours is the ghetto compared to theirs.  We do have lots of Hispanics that live here.

I met an awesome kid yesterday at church, who is from El Salvador, lived in the states for about for six months     He is seventeen, went to church for the first time with one of our recent converts.  He is learning English like a madman, works from 6-4 everyday and goes to school to learn English the rest of the day.  I got to speak to him in Spanish, got to know him pretty good.  It’s cool meeting Hispanics from all over the place.  I have met people from Mexico, (of course) Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Nicaragua, Columbia, Venezuela, Guatemala, chilie, Paraguay, and Ecuador.  Basically all of the Latin American countries.  I think that it would be sweet to take a huge family vacation down there when I return, and I can be the guide!

So, another transfer is already coming to a close.  Only two more weeks.  Me and elder Stahlei are going to be separated, that’s all that I know.  The question is which one of us is going and staying.  If elder Staheli is staying, that means that he is going to be here in this area for seven and half months.  If I stay, it’s going to be six months for me.  And for those of you know, the ones that have served missions, that is quite a long time in one area.  We’ll see what happens.  Well this is all the news that I have for this week.

Sinarmente,

Elder Hardy

Since it is Martin Luther King Day, Michael couldn’t get to a public library so there is no missionary post this week.

Feliz Navidad!! We are starting to catch the Christmas spirit even as missionaries! Actually, we just found a huge tree hidden in the depths of our apartment and have started to assemble it..even if it might be a little late. But, Missionaries celebrate holidays too! It’s been a good week, we had our Christmas Zone Conference in Raleigh and that was cool. We sang carols and ate some good food, recieved the letters from families and some recieved packages. The 2nd part of Conference, we sang like 9 Christmas hymns, all arranged in some order, we all had to stand up and were directed by Sister Mabey, mission president’s wife. It was hilarious, seemed like she was directing the Tabernacle Choir, she was really getting into it. Also, on a side note, I found out what President Mabey did before he became the Mission President. He built up large companies and sold them for tons of $$$. His first one was the first HBO company in Utah or something and he sold that for millions. He’s built up like 4 or 5 other companies and sold them for tons. He is a multi-millionaire. I guess he really is a expert businessman, this mission is run like a business. Since the last mission president, this mission has improved so much and done a 180. I guess for the last year, we lead the Eastern States in baptisms…which is pretty impressive, with all of the other prominent churches down here. Anyways, I had fun at the zone conference and enjoyed readying everyone’s letters, although they were written a month ago, so must of it wasn’t really new. But, they were awesome.

The big event for the next week is the wedding of our part member family Garcia and the combined ward dinner on the same day. Then, the wife is getting baptized on Sunday after church!!! She’s doing great recovering from smoking, just quit this past week, so we’re still crossing our fingers and praying alot. This might be my first baptism…so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. The story of this family was a miracle, we were about to drop them because they were not progressing at all, but we made the simple invitation to be baptized and it’s been rolling ever since…been at church every week, coming to activities, it’s been awesome. Other then her, our investigator pool has been a little weak, it’s been kind of stressful because we are not getting a lot of help from the members and referals. And in the Raleigh branch, they are getting 2-3 baptisms per week, and we haven’t had one since September. But we have a new member plan, that was implemented by the Raleigh branch. We just recently went on exchanges with those Spanish Elders and they told us what we need to do. I spent the night up in Raleigh with Elder Butler, who speaks almost perfect Spanish. That was fun being somewhere else than Cary.

Well, this transfer is coming to a close, almost 2 transfers out here in the field. The possibility of being transfered somewhere else is there, but I’m hoping I get to spend a little more time in Cary. But if I do get transfered, I want to go to the “real” South, trailor parks and southerners who talk real funny. I also would enjoy having a hispanic companion, that would help me tons in my Spanish. Not that I’m not learning alot from Elder Staheli, we just don’t have much time to speak Spanish because of the English Elders in the apartment, but we usually try whenever we’re not around them.

I’ve been having lots of cool experiences, I’m really grateful for the time I have out here. It’s really helped build my testimony, putting all the principles of the gospel into action. I’ve realized by serving others, the Lord justs returns more and more blessings upon the person who serves. So, I really agree with Mom’s idea about the service/helping others this holiday season. I know the more service you do for others, the more happy you’ll become. Really, it’s not about recieving, it’s about giving…President Monson gave an excellent talk on that during the Christmas Devotional. I hope you all realize the importance of serving others, and I would like to make a challenge to each of you to continually look for ways to serve each other, family, friends and just random people. And I know the Lord will bless. Well, that’s my Christmas message for this week…next week should even be better…parties, marraiges, baptisms, maybe a transfer and best of all..packages (from family?? hint..hint)!! Haha, well…Happy Shopping and Service everyone!

Thanks for the support, love and prayers,
Elder Hardy

Familia
Como estas? Gracias for the letters, especially Dad for providing me with the baseball news (go astros!) I guess my last letter made it sound like I was a little down, yeah right!! Alot can be lost in the written word! Well I am really enjoying my experiences again. Spanish is coming along well, I taught most of the second lesson is Spanish yesterday. My comp is struggling a little with the language. Elder Spricher and I are getting along great, we are teaching awesome together. In the TRC, one of the teachers told us that we were feeding off of each other well, which doesn’t happen often in the MTC. I have already learned so much more about the gospel, and now I am getting pretty comfortable teaching. Dad, have you seen the recent church news. It has an article about President Hinckley visiting Taiwann, and it has Phillip Ho in the article and a picture. I am sure that you have already seen it. Also I have seen and talked to Presdient Jackson quite a few times. He seems to think that I am a pretty special guy. Last week we had L Lionel Kendrich from the Seventy speak to us. He was pretty good, he spoke about recieving Personal Witness and Testimony.
SUnday was Fast Sunday, it was really tough. The whole day I started feeling dizzy and sick, the thing I needed most was a drink of water. Fasting is rough sometimes (a true 24 hour fast) but we need to show our physical bodies who is boss! So how is Shadowfax doing? Does she miss me? I sure miss her. WHenever I hear a bird chirrpping, I think of her, in fact I think I miss her more than
I miss anyone else. Hahaha,, Jk. So I guess that I better start wrapping up.
Remember to finish the book of Mormon before the end of the year like President Hinckley told us to, and tell everyone to STEP up the letter writing. I have only heard from you three and grandma. Well, I don’t think that I need anything at the moment, except family pictures since I forgot those again. (he then jabbers something in spanish)

p.s. the estimated departure date for the other 2 Raleigh Elders is Sept 26.
Mine is the 28th. That is trash haha
ps.s. my toenail finally fell off!!!!!

Con Amor
Elder Hardy

Here are the mission boundries of the North Carolina Raleigh Mission. My Stake President said there are a pair of Spanish Speaking Elders to the same mission..So I might be in a threesome

…Day that is. This will be the last time you will hear from me in 9 weeks (to whoever might accidently stumble across this blog), unless you a family member/friend who actually tries to write me (hint hint: Chris aka Sideburns Man) I have alot of photos I could share but someone (the aforementioned C-man) is hogging all of the server bandwidth! Oh well, I guess I can just recap the trip in words. Anyone who is interested in photos just go to My Picture Gallery. This is what happened on my trip to Wyoming:

Day 1 (Thursday): I left the house around 10:15 in the truck. Mapquest gave me the wrong directions (what’s new), so I had to backtrack a little bit, but I ended up finding the people I was riding up with. This couple, The Hulls, were very nice and I’m glad I had such good company on such a boring trip. We ended up leaving around 11:30 and arrived in Cheyenne about 6:30. Chris picked me up at Crystal’s house and we went out to dinner at Primos (a new Pizza place in Cheyenne). It had just opened, and Chris and I really liked it (especially the desert pizza: cookie dough..hmmmm). Afterwards, we went over to his house to watch some family guy and then went to see Willy Wonka. It was a good movie, I enjoyed it.

Day 2 (Friday): Crystal’s mom made a big good breakfast and I was ready for another crazy day of Frontier Days! I hung around with Crystal for a little while, helped them take Hailey and Kelly to the Vet, and then we took Brian some lunch at Lifecare. It was fun seeing Cheyenne…I will always consider it my true home. So, that evening, I hung out with Chris again, watched some more Family Guy and heard the night show! After Brian got off work, we all went to Village Inn to eat dessert. I saw someone I knew there and it was kind of odd when he asked me what I had been doing. He looked at me funny when I said I hadn’t gone to school because I had some medical problems…Anyways, I saw the bustling night life at the bars..people were lined up trying to get in and drink it up. There was some crazy stuff we saw driving back to Crystal’s.

Day 3 (Saturday): I would have liked seeing the parade for one last time, but it starts so early and sleep was so good to me, I decided to forget about it. We decided to meet Chris for breakfast but when we got in the truck, he wanted to go back to that Pizza place..so we had that again (once again..Hmmm..cookie dough pizza). I got to check out the new Super Wal-mart in Cheyenne, it was behind the old wal-mart and they had little shuttles to transport the people to the back. I also predicted that in about 10 years, Wal-mart and Microsoft will buy 1 hemisphere each, and soon we will have the corporation wars of 2015. You will either be a citizen of Walmart of Microsoft. After the pizza place, we went back home and Brian, Chris and I went to good ole’ Frontier Park. At first, it was really nice..until the typical Frontier Days rainstorm hit us. Man, that ran was coming down hard! So, we buggied back to Crystal’s and delayed there a while until Chris just took off, and then we finally got moving! Us 3 guys (Crystal stayed at home to watch Laguna Beach) went to go see another movie “The Island”. It was good entertainment, but it’s not a must-see. We then went to Red Lobster (booyah!) and besides me making a fool of myself ordering, I had a good time.

Last Day (Sunday): All good things have to come to an end. I woke up around 8, got ready to go and sat around for awhile until Brian & Crystal woke up. When they finally woke up, we had a good breakfast, took some pictures and exchanged goodbyes. My ride was supposed to pick me up around noon but they ended up at Crystals around 1 because of construction. So, we took off….but we didn’t make it very far. Around exit 345, the car stopped working and we were stranded 20 miles outside of Cheyenne. We think it was a fuel pump problem. After finally getting a hold of some people, Brian and Crystal came to pick us up (THANKS SO MUCH!) and took us back to Cheyenne and I got to see Chris again! The couple I was riding with had family in Denver and they were going to take us half-way to Utah, where the parents would take us the rest of the way. But the sister didn’t end up coming til 6. So, we finally got off again in Utah, with 3 grown adults in the back. It wasn’t much better in the next car, as it was a Toyota Corolla. Needless to say, due to slow driving and frequent stops, I finally got home at 3 in the morning. And my last trip to Cheyenne was complete (thank goodness!)

Well, this blog has been good to me and it will be a “Missionary Update Blog” from now on. My MTC mailing address should appear up here within a couple days, so be sure to send me Cookies and Treats and Letters.

Habla Luego!
Elder Hardy

I can honestly say that these last 7 months have not been a waste of time for me! I played lots of Xbox and shot some hoops. Haha, well I’ve actually accomplished some productive things too. I’m glad I had the opportunity to go to UVSC Institute for 4 days a week (with 3 classes). And for awhile, I was even going to the temple and the TRC (in the MTC) every week.

But, needless to say, it didn’t last. I soon developed my old habits and it didn’t help any when I bought the Xbox . So, after school ended, I was faced with ultimate boardom and laziness. How do you cure that one asks? The obviuos answer is “get a job, lazy bum!” But instead of searching for the job myself, the job came to me. My mom was working at a School for Special Needs (Dan Peterson School) and they needed someone to be with Nick for a couple days

Well, I went but they were 2 very long days and I thought I wasn’t “cut” out for that type of work. Well, somehow I kept on willing myself to get up and go to work every morning, sometimes only a few times a week, but I gradually worked up to doing full weeks. The experiences I had working at that school are pretty special to me. The kids were so fun to be with. I got to work with Dustin and kids in room 9 for a week

There were some pretty cool kids in that room. But most of my time there, including the last 2 months, was with room 31

This is Jaime, I walked her everyday to the bus. I am going to miss the kids in that room alot. They have a special place in my heart. I’m really going to miss working there, I think that was one of the reasons I came back, to have that experience.

As I sat watching Austin Powers the other day, I realized how much life changes in just a few years. Two years ago I was prepping up for my senior year and I thought I had life figured out. Well, some things didn’t go as planned and although I was sad, everything seems to work out for the better. I was tempted to stay in Cheyenne, but decided to come to Utah and that is probably one of my better decisions in life. I like it here even though I don’t have as many friends (because I’m not in school..) and I lost alot of good friends in Chey-town. But now in 1 week, I’m leaving for North Carolina and I know it will be the time of my life. I’m gonna miss Utah, but I know my life will be totally different when I come back!

I have felt guilty the last few days not blogging up Part 3 of my experience with birds. Bare with me, whoever you are, as I will post soon this dramatic conclusion. It has been a busy two days by my standards, which would probably be a vacation to other people! I went to the Doctor and he said everything was looking nice, so that’s cool. Other than that, I woke up at 9:20…sleeping in BIG time! For some reason I couldn’t get to bed, so I read some good classic Lord of the Rings. Gollum just took the ring into the abyss of Mount Doom. And all will be well for everyone in Middle Earth!!

More on Lord of the Rings in a latter post…

Tommorow is a BIG day!! First off, the NFL Draft…..Although I won’t be here when they start playing in September, it’s still going to be exciting to see who the Lions pick! Check out the new black Lions unis…they’re sweeeet!!!

The NBA Playoffs begin and the reigning NBA Champion Detroit Pistons take on the Sixers. Now I actually have a Sixers friend who believes the Sixers will beat the Pistons in 7..come on, the Sixers might get one game just because AI is on the team.

Other than that….things are looking dandy.