Letter #25

Our funny story for the week.  We choose a few Mobil Pantries to help with every month.  On Wednesday they asked the volunteers if we minded having our pictures taken and posted on the Food Bank site.  We were so busy that morning that we never noticed when or if they had taken our picture.  Also there is a Facebook page for the Nevada Reno mission where members here post pictures of the missionaries and their families at home can see them.  Their families then can “like”, “share” and “tag” their missionary’s pictures. It is also a place where families ask for favors, such as showing a video to their missionary of their brother opening his call.  Moms especially are constantly checking to see the latest pictures of their child. You get the picture, right? Anyway, someone noticed a picture of a missionary in his white shirt and tie, with a prominent name tag and sunglasses from the Food Bank site and posted it on the Nevada Reno facebook page asking if anyone could claim the missionary.  I looked and there was Elder Hardman’s picture.  It is far away but the fact that it is a missionary is unmistakeableand the picture had lots of “likes”. So I claimed him and said we are a Senior couple serving in Reno, ha ha, that was the end of the likes!  : )  Elder Hardman needs his mom to make a fuss over his picture appearing on the Facebook page.

What did we do the rest of the week?  Well I fixed four pairs of pants for some Elders. We attended a wonderful missionary open house in Lemmon Valley where 3 sets of Missionaries helped with the tours. They had return missionaries from all over the world in classrooms where they told about their missions. They gave food samples.  Rulon will be jealous, the missionary from Brazil brought cashew juice. It was delicious!  We ate curry from Thailand too.  The parking lot was full.  The Elders had several investigators come.  It is the second year they have done this activity. I took pictures of our Elders and posted it on the Facebook page for their moms.  : )  The night was an amazing success!

We helped pack a lady in the ward to move to Utah.  She of course, lives upstairs and had a full house of stuff!  We are still sore from hauling stuff up and down the stairs for the truck.

We helped with a lesson for a little girl that is nine. She lives with a lady that fostered her Mom as a child and now the Mom is in a mental hospital and this amazing lady is fostering the daughter.  This woman has fostered 45 children and adopted several of them. I thought of Jackie and Brian. Foster parents are uniquely loving. This girl wants the lessons but she doesn’t know when or if she will be allowed to stay with her “Mom”. I sent the Elders back with Conference Bingo and Skittles to give her for this weekend to encourage them to listen to General Conference.

Speaking of Conference, we decided we would go to the church for the sessions.  It is the place to be for missionaries.  It was fun to see the investigators the other missionaries brought to the church.  I probably paid attention more being at the church.  I enjoyed every talk. I loved the music. I didn’t want it to end. I have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Plan of Salvation and that everything will be all right.  I know that we each need to recommit ourselves to doing the right things.  I liked how Elder Renlund challenged us to feel more joy in our lives. Satan wants us to feel discouragement and sorrow. I felt the message of Conference was to encourage us to find the Joy.

It has been a hard week being here when we feel the pull of home.  Elder Hardman’s Dad had a stroke this week. He is in the hospital and his Mom is at home needing help and we are away.  That is hard. We feel so grateful that everyone is doing their best to help, thank you! We love our family.

It has been six months since we have seen rain, last night it rained!  We woke up to patches of snow this morning. Funny weather.

The Gospel’s true and we love you!

Love,

Elder and Sister Hardman

Ps. Welcome to little Copper, Hunter’s new puppy. Hunter decided to accept a job this week with CityWorks, the company he has worked with for years now. He rewarded himself with a puppy. We now have Copper and Henna, Heidi should be Silver and Ari should be Black Mask!