Latest happenings from Elder TJ Hardy in Wendell Idaho

Hey Hey! What's goin' on? Anything new and exciting - saw the pictures of Casey's new haircut it looks great tell her I like it a lot. This week has been a great week for the Lord’s work and this is what we were able to accomplish. 33 Total Lessons Taught 1 With a Baptism Date 4 Committed to Baptism 3 Attending Church 7 Progressing Investigators 5 Referrals Received 1 Referral Contacted 1 New Investigator As you can see our numbers were through the roof it was awesome! We had some powerhouse lessons and this upcoming week we will be inviting 4 more to be baptized before the transfer ends (June 11th) I'll let you know how that goes. Talking about lessons taught we usually average about 13-16 per week but this week we went nuts and are earning and building trust along the way. Tuesday (May 1st)-- As we do each Tuesday we went to Hagerman to work the area. We went to Brother Woods to do some service. We moved things around in his yard, dug a hole to fix a pipe, and pull weeds out of his garden once we finished with that he took us down to the Gator Farm they have in Hagerman I had no clue they (Idaho) had Gators but they really do! Not as big as the ones we seen in Florida but they were decent size. After we got back from the Gator Farm we headed to the church to get in our church clothes and start proselyting went to an investigator that is way solid (Ron Hold) but we didn't catch him for his lesson. He should be another baptism in the future. After stopping by Ron's we headed to a Recent Convert named Anne Easton she was baptized last September and is rock solid in the Gospel!! We go over there each week and share a message to uplift them and to build their faith and just to check up on them. They are thinking about going to the temple once Anne has passed the 1 year after her baptism date. Mike her husband has been a Less- Active Member but he is becoming active and is pretty sure he wants to be with Anne forever. Haha he wasn't sure at first it was kind of funny and sad at the same time but he is ready and they are just preparing for the temple right now. So on every first Tuesday of the month a family named the Jenkins have us over for dinner - they LOVE the missionaries and I've been able to become very close to them in my 5 months in the area. She is an excommunicated member of the church and he is a less-active member. She has been working very hard to get re-baptized and come Saturday it will all pay off - she's getting baptized!! And.... (yes, there's more!) Housten (her husband) has quit smoking and has become worthy to receive the Aaronic Priesthood and is going to baptize her!! How awesome is that! They asked me to speak on the Holy Ghost on Saturday at her baptism. Stoked!! :) After dinner at the Jenkins we went and taught DJ Schwone about the Plan of Salvation He’s a good kid but he isn't keep the commitments to read and pray about what we teach. So we haven't asked him to be baptized yet if he starts keeping commitments we will but for now we won't. Wednesday (2nd)-- Today we had District Meeting in Buhl - we usually do D.M's on Friday but one of the sisters in the Zone is training and the training meeting was on that day for D.M so we switched just for this week. So that took most of the morning/afternoon. Once we got back to Wendell we were supposed to have a lesson with a Less-Active member named Krysta Sanders (30's) I'm pretty sure I told you about her last week (drugs, pregnant, abuse, etc...) So that was at 3pm and 3:30 rolls around and no sign from her so I sent her a message via text asking if we were still meeting and some things had come up and she had to cancel so I set it up for Friday at 10:30am. After we left Krysta’s we went to contact a referral from the Wendell 1st Bishop and when you get the directions of where a person lives in Idaho it is like this: “Do you know where the Littles's live? Umm.. i think so.. Go about a half miles maybe a quarter and you'll pass a white house that is pretty big, it's not that house you'll take a left at the corner of the house then go about another half mile and it will be there on the left. Then they will describe the house and what it looks like. It's way hard to find houses around here”! I just want to say can I just have the address? I didn't follow a single thing you just said and we cover a huge area! Haha :) So we got directions like that and were driving around for like an hour knocking on random doors to see if it was it and none of them were haha so we went to the Ward Mission Leaders house to see if he could give us "real directions meaning the address!" and he did the same thing but we finally found it after another half hour of driving around. It was a less-active member named Brock Laudert he and his wife have expressed a desire to get back in the church and he told me that he wants to gain a testimony for himself so I said well is what we will and can do if you'd like is we can treat you like an investigator and take you both through the lessons and help you gain a testimony that way and he said that sounds great! So we set up a time to come back for tomorrow and he called later that night and said that tomorrow won't work so we are going over this upcoming week. After Brock and all the time we spent looking for his house it was time for dinner so we went there and had a good dinner. After dinner we had a lesson with a 15 year old kid named Bryant Salsadar - he is a good kid, we taught him lesson 1 which is the Restoration of the Church the lesson went pretty well he is pretty knowledgeable about what we were teaching and he has expressed how he wants to be baptized so with that understanding I asked him and he was about to say yes but then his dad walked in and it got really awkward and he passed the question up so we think he hasn't talked with his parents about being baptized we'll see what happens. After Bryant lesson we headed to Gooding for an appointment with 2 investigators named Barbra and Darell Glosbey/Glasbey (one of those) but they were really busy so we didn't want to slow them up from farming on their farm so we set an appointment up for Sunday at the Bishops house for 7:30pm then left - they showed us around their farm before we left. Little background on Barbra and Darell they are an older couple probably mid 60's and have studied the Bible deeply and are pretty familiar with it, they believe the Sabbath should be on Saturday like it was in the past, they also believe that prophets are no longer on the earth .. so we left them 3 Nephi 11 to read and ponder about - I’ll tell you their thoughts when we teach them on Sunday. Thursday (3rd)-- Today marks the 9 months of service!! Whoo! :) Time is flyin' by and I'm really enjoyin' myself and what I'm doing - nothing else better at this point in my life. This morning we had a lesson at 10:30 with 2 new investigators named Mario and Ronda Camales and they are great people looking for the true church. They were referred by some investigators that we taught in the past. We went over there and taught lesson 1 and the lesson went pretty well they were receptive and said it all makes sense and believe it all. They said it would make sense to have a prophet on the earth today since the world is so chaotic and they said they will read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and what we taught them today. After their lesson we went to the church and updated the Area Book and teaching records. At 4pm we had a lesson with a young man (16) named Andres Sewell he really wants to get baptized he has attended seminary for the past 2 years and believes it all so we taught him lesson 1 and asked him to be baptized he said yes and we are shooting for May 26th he is a rock star. He was wondering if we could baptize him this weekend haha but we said well we'd love to but we have some things to teach you before baptism. Then we had dinner with the Perron family then went on Splits I went with the Gooding 1st Ward High Priest Group Leader and Elder Adam went with Brother Scott the Gooding 2nd Ward Mission Leader. I went and saw a few people and found that a few people have moved. Then we taught Amie Davis about building a solid foundation and that Satan can't have any power over her (Helaman 5:12) it went well she had a non-member friend that lives in the Gooding 2nd Ward and she might be interested down the road but not now - Amie is doing a great job of being a good example. After Amie we went and saw Housten Pattersen he was the kid that when I came to Wendell he was ready to be baptized he is doing good but just won't come to church and he lives with his grandparents but they won't come to church either to me I think they why did you baptize him if you personally won't come to church or take him - bugs me a lot! I told them how important it is and why church is necessary they said they'd come - I’ll believe it when I see it. They say that every week - really frustrating but oh well it’s their choice, dang agency ;) haha. To finish off the night we went and saw a former investigator named Gloria Ridley and I taught her about faith and why it is important to keep building your faith and gave an analogy of a seed and a muscle and if you work your muscle or water the seed it will grow but when you don't work out or water the seed it gets smaller like faith. Then I asked if she'd be willing to take the lessons from me and my companion and she agreed and said we can come back anytime. Nice lady hopefully we can help her! Friday (4th)-- Got up did the usually studies, etc... Then we got a text from Krysta saying she was sick and up all night throwing up so she had to cancel - understandable. Since she cancelled we were already out of the house (10am) so we went and tried visiting some other people but had no luck with that so 2pm came around and it was time to go to Gooding to help Brother Scott with some service projects! We mowed lawns, trimmed bushes, and all that fancy fun stuff and I've got to say it feels good to mow a lawn again I actually miss it! Haha believe it or not! We helped Brother Scott from 2-4 and then we had to head back to Wendell, got showered and headed to dinner with an investigator. Then we visited a member family, the mom and 2 kids got baptized about a year ago and the dad is coming along he will take some time he likes his beer here and there and also his smokes but he said he wants to put them down it's just hard. Saturday (5th)-- Headed to Gooding to do the weekly Progress Records and then we had a lesson with Andres we taught him lesson 3 which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End) The lesson went really well. Elder Adam and I have great unity with our lessons. Andres is what we consider a golden opportunity! After Andres we had about an hour to spare before dinner at Bishop Nelson's (Gooding 3rd) so we went and delivered the progress record to the Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders then it was time for dinner! Had dinner at 5pm then had to fly back to Wendell to make Sister Jenkins baptism at 6pm! We made it (yes, mom and dad going to speed limit...okay, I was going a little over) :) haha. So we got there and the baptism was done oh but before the baptism Housten (husband) received the Priesthood and baptized her. Sunday (6th)-- Today we were in Gooding for church so we attended Gooding 1st, 2nd and 3rd Wards. Then we went around and saw some people. We saw Allen Halling he is an investigator that will be baptized as soon as he stops smoking he is getting better each day! It will take time but he will be baptized in the future. At 4pm we were supposed to teach Andres but he went home sick so we were unable to teach him today and he is going to see his mom in D.C this upcoming week. So we won't be able to teach him for a while but when he does get back we'll get things rollin' again! After Allen we went and saw our good friend Bob Marlof (72 years old) we see him each week sometimes twice a week he's a funny old man, he reminds me of Grandpa Stoddard when he is yelling at the TV and just saying funny things :) As we were there we got a call from a member in the Gooding 1st Ward saying they had a few groceries for us so we left and went and got those and a couple means A LOT to them I guess because they gave us 7 boxes of cereal, 5 things of juice, and a box of those little chips and Oreo’s. It was great and will really help us for not having to buy food. The members are good to us I'm very grateful for them! Once we picked up the groceries we headed to dinner at the Reeve's they are one of my favorite families!! They are way funny and we always have a good time over there and also she's a good cook. She (the mom) looks like Sandra Bullock! No joke. After dinner and all the funny things that went on their oh back up they are Denver Bronco Fans and as you know I'm a Raider fan that is a subject that always comes up in a friendly way haha :) After dinner we went to our lesson with Barbra and Darrell at Bishop Nelson's house and we taught the Plan of Salvation and the lesson went amazing! Elder Adam and I read each other minds while teaching and the members were able to feed off of our fire and the lesson was awesome! :) We committed them to baptism they accepted! We honestly didn't think we would get anywhere with them but we got a long ways last night it was great! They say is all makes perfect sense. Monday (7th aka Today)-- We are e-mailing and I've got to wrap it up now cause it's 1:30pm and basketball started 30 minutes ago and I love me some basketball!!! Later tonight we are also playing basketball with some of the friends I’ve made in Wendell and Gooding. Also, we'll do the usual: shop, haircuts, etc... and just have a fu, great, and safe p-day! Gotta play as hard as I can to take me through another week :) Have a great week dad, mom and Casey! I love you so much and am so grateful for all the things you do for me! I am so grateful I am on a mission I couldn't think of being anywhere else. Sharing my testimony of this wonderful Gospel and Savior Jesus Christ has blessed me so much for now and for the future. I am really looking forward to see what the rest of my mission brings and what the Lord has in store for me. I love this Gospel so much! -Elder Tyler Hardy :)