Ready to hear about all of our “lasts” this week? We signed up for our last Mobile Harvest assignments in September. We were going to give our last Temple Preparation class today. I even made cookies. We only have Brother Roe left. We went to our last time to clean the chapel on Saturday and he asked Elder Hardman to be his escort to go to the Temple. He didn’t come to church today and so we didn’t have class. We will need to check on him this week. He also told Elder Hardman he got a job in Elko and will move Labor Day weekend. We thought today would be a good class and now we are worried about Brother Roe. We also found out several weeks ago that Brother Wetherall (the one that said that thinking he could actually enter the Temple felt like a dream) has prostate cancer and will soon start radiation treatment. He still comes to Sacrament meeting but can’t sit through Sunday School time too. We went to check on him this past week and he was so happy to see us to explain. He wanted us to know that he wanted to come to class and didn’t want to think that he was letting us down. Good people with rough lives. We thought we might be having our last “JustServe” meeting with Sister Wilson but learned today that they have called a local couple to replace both of us and we will be meeting with them for training. We have had a lot of new zone leaders to train lately so it will be great to know that there won’t be a waiting period for a new person to come in to keep it all going. We keep being told that is the direction they will be going with the meals also, a local couple/sister will be called. We haven’t heard that it’s happened yet.
We hope we haven’t attended our last baptism but we went to a fun one on Saturday night. Daneil (not Daniel) was baptized. We had him come to our apartment for a lesson. He is a great young man who wants to serve others. Elder Hardman stood in the circle today for his confirmation. Daneil approached the missionaries one day to see if there was anything they needed, that is how he was introduced to the gospel.
We met a new move-in in the Sienna Vista ward this week. She is a lady with M.S. She has been active but needs help getting to church and activities. We were going to pick her up today but the heat made her sick. We enjoyed getting to know her and think the ward will take good care of her but we hope we will be able to make the introduction. They are a great ward to help but Sister Baytek will need help becoming acquainted with people. We went to check on Tondalaya this week. She is in a bad situation. Her son was asleep on her bed, drunk. She lives in a studio apartment and only has one bed. The neighbor filed a complaint about her dog barking and she is facing eviction. She hasn’t been to church in months. She texted me later to thank me for coming and asked if we could come for Bible study this next week. Poor Tondalaya! I don’t know how to help someone change the only way they know how to live. I guess that isn’t true. I do know how to change a life but they have to be willing to change, and not look back. We also went to a lesson of a woman who was ready to be baptized quite a while ago but then relapsed and started drinking again. In all of her moving around she lost her Bible and Book of Mormon. Here’s the miracle. When she was taking the discussions she had a young missionary in the Lemmon Valley ward, she is now living at the Shelter and is in the Sienna Vista ward. The Elder serving there is the same Elder that was in the Lemmon Valley ward, 18 months ago. Elder Werner will go home in September. She feels that she trusts this Elder and wants to be baptized. She has some heavy addictions to overcome. What a trap Satan lays that take away agency and binds people to a life that they would give anything to get away from but can’t keep commitments that would give them their freedom.
We will have a few more “lasts” this week. Elder Hardman will have his last check-up for the kidney stones. We will celebrate the last birthday in the mission field and we will go out to dinner for the last time with our apartment neighbors. We had already been asked to speak in the Keystone ward on September 10 th and were asked to today to speak in the Sienna Vista ward on the same day. They said we could speak on the same subject. That is a last I could have done without!
The Gospel’s true and we love you!
Love,
Elder and Sister Hardman
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