Latest letter frome Elder TJ
Hello hello my awesome family it's yours truly Elder Tyler Jack Hardy writing you a letter on my P-day and also the day of transfers. Another month and transfer has come to a close and we're moving on! Let's get down to business and defeat Satan! The 6 weeks with Elder Bennett were good- he’s a great missionary. He was pretty (way) sick about leaving and not excited but he'll do well up in Twin Falls and he's in a car area so I'm jealous about that! Haha oh well..... anyways. Hope your week went well and I also hope you guys enjoy this e-mail.
Tuesday (28th)-- We were doing service last night for some members and we got a phone call asking if Elder Guzman's companion could come with us since they had a meeting and Elder Guzman is back in St. G so we said sure so this morning they dropped him off his name is Elder Streeter he's from North Carolina but not a fan of the Tar Heels ( poor kid ) he like Clemson Tigers. So to start of the day we headed to our appointment at Preacher Greg's he's a Jehovah Witness and is a real fire ball. We were there for 3 hours just talking and he was arguing for a little bit. Didn't get us anywhere but I'll tell you what.... those guys have some really really different thoughts and beliefs. He believes when we die that's all of our memories are lost so I asked him this question: "So when we die all of our knowledge is lost right?" "He says, "Yes." I said, "So all of our knowledge of the Gospel, God, and the Bible is gone? Well, honestly that doesn't make any sense." He brushed it off and changed subjects. He also thought that we count our Baptisms for the Dead as our congregation members! We were like um no... Definitely don't count the dead people as "active" members. He also stated that they pass our more magazines than anyone else so we said well that seems a little prideful. Great job for passing them out but let's not be prideful about it. I felt like saying and how many of those magazines could you find in the garbage LOL. I have learned know matter other peoples beliefs I need to be respectful and love them for who they are as children of our Father in Heaven.
So after the 3 hour appointment with Preacher Greg we went home and ate some lunch then went to Dr. Moorehouse who is a Chiropractor who gives us free adjustments whenever we need/want them - he's super chill. After we got adjusted we had a lesson cancel on us so we did some contacting around the area for the afternoon and then went to dinner with the Jones Family. He’s the 1st counselor in the Bishopric for the Hunter Ward. Has a cute daughter - just sayin... :) Haha. While we were there they brought out there dog shock collar because if you hold hands around the table and two people touch each tip of the collar everyone can feel it until someone breaks the chain, it was way cool and fun. I did it on my arm and it felt way weird. After dinner we shared a message about Christ and how he continues blessed our lives as we live the gospel. The Jones have their niece living with them because her dad is overseas and she really wants to get baptized. We're just waiting for the dad to say go ahead and take the lessons. So once they get a hold of him we'll teach and baptize her. After the message we went and did weekly splits with the Hunter Ward and I went with Brother Petterrson and we went and contacted a new move in and it was so awkward! It was way bad. We tried teaching her but in the background there were 2 people making out and playing basketball with some hard core rap going on too. The spirit was not there. We tried but she talked so quiet we just couldn't hear anything. Her name is Michelle Warmouth - from Idaho Falls, she just got kicked out of her house and has been a member her whole life (18years old) but doesn't know if it's for her anymore so she's living with some of her friends of different faiths and exploring all the different religions to see what ones she likes. She said her parents weren't good example of the Mormon religion. Hopefully we can get her in a members house and start sharing our message to bring her back in the fold. After talking to her it reminded me how grateful I am for the knowledge I have of the Restoration and how it has blessed my life and how easy to understand and pray and ask and we will all get an answer (James 1:5).
Wednesday (29th)-- Got up and had District Meeting and Interview with President Cannon. I sure love our mission president, he is such a stud. We then had the meeting over at a Senior Couple's house (McMullin's) their house is huge gotta be at least 7,000 sq. feet. At District Meeting we learned about the importance of working through members and ward and stake leaders. While we were getting trained we each got pulled out by President Cannon to get our individual interview (PPI’s) done. I had a great interview with pres. Caught up on the work and talked about the area. He told me to be ready for additional leadership responsibilities really soon so idk what that means - we'll see! That went until about 3pm. Once we got back to our house to drop off things we didn't need we went to do some contacting and contacted an investigator named Kaleb Rich - he's 9 years old and really wants to be baptized soon so we set an appointment up for Sept. 10th. Went and tried to visit some more people but had no luck. Went to dinner with the Chrystlers - he's the Elder Quorum President we were there for a long time just talking about life and the work it was a great visit. Once we wrapped dinner and the lesson up we headed to the Kirk's and if you remember the Kirk's are a Part Member Family he's the member she's not. Sometimes she sits in on the lesson and sometimes she doesn't this time she did so we talked about the Restoration and Book of Mormon. She is really opening up. She mentioned that "Religion scares me." Brother McMullin (Ward Mission Leader) did a great job explaining how to not be afraid. The lesson went well. We all bore our testimonies about the Restoration and how it has helped us in our lives.
Thursday (30th)-- Another Meeting......... This one is Zone....Meeting. Zone Meeting. It's similar to Zone Conference but this is where the Zone Leaders get up and train us for 3 hours and there is no President Cannon. After the zone meeting Elder Bailey and myself exchanged and President Cannon let me go to Marcus' Littlewoods game since he was in town playing Boise. Marcus was able to get us 4 free tickets which was great. I took lots of pictures so you can see them when I send the SD Card home. I wasn't able to talk to Marcus because we had to get going so that was a big time bummer but at least I got to watch him play for a while. I took video of the game as well when Marcus was up to bat. The next morning with Elder Bailey was pretty sure he was leaving the area this transfer so we went around and said goodbye to some of his close friends he has made in Meridian
Friday (31st)-- This morning we got up and hung out for a while then at 12:30 we went to Costa Vida ( which I hear they have in St. George now?? Is the correct? Where? ) Went and ate some lunch then the 4 of us hopped on our bikes and headed out to work for the day and then we went to dinner at Brother Petterrson's house - no one signed up because today is...the...1st....Boise....State....Game..... Go figure no one signed up everyone is going to be watching it and so after dinner and our short little message so we didn't take their whole night and they could watch the BSU game we headed to the church to do some area book planning and organizing it a little bit better while we were there we got transfer calls and found out that Elder Bennett with take his talents to Twin Falls South and I would my new companion is Elder Soundrup from Arizona and has been out around 10 months. When Elder Bennett got the transfer phone call from the AP’s he was not happy he stormed out of the church and walked around for a little bit then he was ok after a bit and we went home. I got tons of calls from other missionaries wondering what's happening to me and I did the same by calling people including letting people know what happened in our area. You never know who is getting transferred from your district or zone so we call our buddies to see if their staying or going.
Saturday (1st)-- Elder Bennett is still frustrated and sad about the transfer news, I think he really liked this area and we enjoyed each other as companions. I kind of felt bad but it's how missionary life goes. So today we went and mowed our weekly lawn for Ella. I edged as usual. I like edging a lot as long as I don't get hit with it..... hahaha! Good ole walk down memory lane from dad taking out my back with the weed eater and G&G Hardy’s. After we mowed her lawn we ate some lunch I made myself some mac and cheese and then hopped in the shower and got smelling nice and looking as fresh as I could. Then off to Star (my first area which is about 15 miles away) for Ryan, Whitney and Abby Sorensen's BAPTISM!!! Woo Hoo! It finally happened. It was going to happen in time but if you remember their grandparents and other family/friends live super far away so they decided to wait till Abby turned 8 and do them all at once. I was asked to talk on Baptism and I thought it went well. They all got confirmed that same day also. The baptism was simply amazing! Brought back many memories of teaching them about the Restored Gospel and how interested and curious they were and we as missionaries having knowledge and testimonies to be able to help them understand. What a neat neat neat family!!! Love them! Also, at the baptism I saw many familiar faces from my first area and that was a ton of fun! One of my good missionary friends Elder Dudley talked on the Holy Ghost - he did a great job! He's a stud. been out for 18 almost 19 months. After their baptism I had to run over to Caldwell to Cassie Vitale and Katie Dixon's baptism! I was late... opps. They forgave me. So the baptisms were great. Cassie is living with her uncle that is the Young Men's president and he had his son getting baptized too so we had 3 baptisms in Caldwell. So in 1 day we had 4 convert baptisms and 2 member of record baptism. Katie asked me to baptize her which was pretty special to me. Once I got in the water to baptize Katie - my mind went completely BLANK! I forgot how to hold her and dunk her haha it was pretty embarrassing so the Bishop walked me through it. Idk what happened it was strange! But I got it down and baptized her and it was a neat experience for me. My first person that I actually baptized all of my other baptisms were done by family or ward members. When we got done with that we were getting ready to walk out to the other Elder’s car to get some items and I noticed a family that we got super close to while in Star and they were having there reception so we got excited and ran over and said hi and they were like stick around! So we stuck around for an hour or so and had a great time. They have both been married but ended up in a bad situation - not their fault it was their ex-spouses. After that visit we headed back and the 4 of us Elders went to Chili's and ate some dinner and had someone come to our table and paid for our meal :) yahoo! Elder VanZlinge and I are going to go backto Caldwell this next p-day and visit and hang out in Caldwell for the day and live it up again! I miss Caldwell a ton! Brother Hawkes the people we lived while in Caldwell was just made the Ward Mission Leader and he will be great.
Sunday (2nd)-- Headed to the Hunter Ward Correlation meeting for the missionary work in the ward and no one showed up besides us and the WML Brother Pettersson. So we just talked about a few people and split. After correlation we went to the Hunter Ward and then went to Meridian 2nd ward correlation and talked more about their area and how it's not doing too well and we're in the rebuilding stage of things but hopefully we should get rolling soon with all the work were doing. After that we got a ride over to the Stake Center and went to the Settler's Bridge Ward and then went back to the other church building and attended the Sundance ward then headed to an early dinner at the Vails at 2:30pm. After dinner we went back to the house dropped our suits off and got our bikes and started the good-byes to the families that Elder Bennett got close to and ended the night doing that. When we got home Elder Bennett thought he could pack in 10 minutes I said heck no you can’t! So we e a deal and I said I bet you can't get ready before 12 - you'll be up after midnight and he said no way I bet I'm done by 11pm - the time is 10:16 so he went and started while I called in our weekly numbers and talked to Elder Bailey for a while since he is getting transferred - needless to say it was 12:30 and I said alright man I'm going to bed. He said okay maybe I didn't think I'd take this long hahaha! I won:)
Monday(3rd)-- Well today is p-day but most importantly it's my 13 MONTH MARK!!!!! This morning Elder Bennett finished packing while I got nice and smelling fresh and moved the room around to my liking. Dropped Elder Bennett him off at the mission office at 9:30 and then came back to Elder Bailey and Elder Miles' house and chilled with them until my new comp Elder Sundrop got here at 3:30 pm. Tonight for our dinner appointment we went to a Ward/Culdasac get together and then went out and did some work until 9:0 pm and now it’s time to start getting to know another missionary.
Well my week has been good. Should have some baptisms coming up if people will keep the commitments we leave with them. The work will now pick up more since summer is over during the weekdays but will now slow down on the weekends due to BSU starting their football season. I am loving my mission so much! I am having the times of my life for sure. Preach My Gospel page 121 (Elder Ballard Quote) Sums it all up. I love meeting new and old people and sharing what I know to be true about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the Gospel and am so happy I have this opportunity to share it with the people in Idaho. I love you so much and miss you guys so much and hope you have a great week and enjoy your day off from work today since it’s Labor Day.
Have a great week! Love you!
Never forget we can ALL have our OWN Sacred Grove Experiences.
Love you tons,
Elder T. Hardy :)
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