Monday, July 17, 2017

Letter #66

It felt like a week of sitting. We had District meeting on Tuesday. Zone Conference on Wednesday and were asked on Wednesday if we could help in the Office on Thursday. Three days of sitting! It’s all good sitting but that is a lot of sitting! The trainings were all wonderful. Sister Douglas didn’t have warning that we would be helping in the office so she didn’t have anything prepared for us to do. I took the cookbook to copy and things to prepare for assignments on Sunday but we had a lot of time to walk around the office in circles. We did have quite a few phone calls this time and some Elders dropped by while their car horn was being fixed. It wasn’t too bad. Most of the calls we get we have to pass on to the Office missionaries so I’m not sure if we are much help but we are bodies to sign for deliveries and we do take messages pretty well.

I made a copy of the cookbook that Sister Beutler prepared before she left and the pages of what I have made. So far, there is no one coming to replace us. Sister Chesnut will probably be the one that this responsibility will fall on. I don’t know how she will have time to do the shopping and preparing. The only way I can think to help is to add to Sister Beutler’s book with what we have done. I didn’t realize that it probably felt good to Sister Beutler to “train” us.

Today was a fun Sunday. We are enjoying our Temple Preparation class. There is a great spirit in the class. We also were asked to do Sharing Time in Primary. We talked about Reverence. I had made little “Reverence Mice”. (If a mouse would ride to church in your pocket on this day…..) There were only 8 children in Primary today. It was fun to be in Primary and listen to the songs!

Tondalaya is still struggling with an abscessed tooth. She was going to come but didn’t feel good this morning. She is frustrated because she had dental coverage in California. She told me that California has better medical coverage but Nevada has better “living” prices, that she can’t win for losing. We struggle to understand the thought that someone should take care of all of your needs (and wants). We don’t know how to respond. She says she will be okay but that really just means that she will figure out a way to work the system. We keep reading things about giving a hand up not a hand-out but we still don’t have the answers to so many needs here.

We went with the Bellamys to Graeagle (pronounced Gray Eagle) yesterday for a craft fair and to show them around Quincy. We feel like we’ve wanted to see as much of our mission as we can but our mission office missionaries haven’t seen much. I don’t think we are knowledgeable tour guides but we have enjoyed seeing the different parts of the mission. We have had fun seeing where the different chapels are and knowing where the missionaries are serving. It is kind of a strange concept for these couples but we may have a convert with the Bellamys. They were pretty excited to think they could explore the area.

Zones have one zone activity a transfer where they all get together and plan a “big” activity. Our zone is going to the Institute tomorrow. They have been allowed to use the Institute building for an activity but only if we are willing to be there the whole time. Tomorrow’s the day! The Institute has ping pong, air hockey, etc…. It’s fun for them and it will be cool inside. We did this last year too but there isn’t a single missionary here now that was here then! We don’t change but there is sure a lot of change around us!

Our new Stake President asked to visit with us today. We wondered what it could be about. We were surprised when it was to talk about the members in the Keystone Ward. He told us that he doesn’t know people in the ward and he wanted our input. He had some specific names he asked about. We felt grateful that we have made the effort to “know” the members. It wouldn’t have felt good to say we didn’t know people. We’re still surprised that he came to us but I also realized that we have been accepted and loved into this ward, we do feel attached to them. That’s good to know for some reason.

We wake up every morning to a new fire somewhere around us. The air is so smoky. We haven’t heard that there are any in California that are contributing to the smoke. It started earlier this year and I think it will go longer too.

We hope you are having a great summer!

The Gospel’s true and we love you!

Love,
Elder and Sister Hardman

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