Letter #5

We are going to have a quiz today to see if you speak “Missionary”. See if you know what these commonly used abbreviations mean:

1) i
2) rc
3) larc
4) la
5) MoD
6) Odos
7) CPR
8) DM
9) PMG

Did you figure them out? We are still working on the CPR one, I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with chest compressions.

It was a week of door knocking and no one home. We have found a few people that actually live at the address and are coming to church so I guess we need some time with the list and someone that knows these people. It was also graduation this past week at the University so we couldn’t find parking anywhere near the campus. Hopefully this week will be easier. One of the abbreviations we receive nightly from the missionaries is MoD. They text their Miracle of the Day to everyone in the zone. These are fun to read at the end of the day. We had our own MoD this week. We went to an address that we know the front desk can’t tell us if the people live there and won’t let us go to their apartment without a number, but we ask anyway. As we stepped up to the desk a man met us, happy and friendly and said, “Come on up!” He had seen us walking up to the building and knew we were there to see them. He told us how they had moved from the number we were looking for and took us to the member on our sheet. In the elevator he told us how he knew we were the missionaries from the ward and that the Sister missionaries were gone and there are Elders in the ward now. He said how he had been meeting with the missionaries and that we could talk to his girlfriend (the member). He told us about several other members that live in that complex. We met the girl that is on our records, gave her our sack and said we were excited to see them at church. Later that week we talked with the Elders and they haven’t been meeting with this man, it was several years ago that he had the lessons. We never would have found the member we were looking for because they were not in the apartment we had on record. We would have assumed that she had moved and that we no longer had her information. It felt like quite a miracle. Clay says we must be doing well on our companion study to be blessed with this miracle. We hope the Elders can now meet with them again and continue the lessons.

The Elders asked us to go with them to meet a sister that hasn’t been to church in years. She is an older woman who is blind. She has been blind for 12 years. She is a sweet lady and we told her we would pick her (and her wheelchair) up for church on Sunday. She was so excited to go to church, to get out of her house and to listen to our GPS in the car! She has talking clocks at home but the GPS fascinated her! People in the ward don’t really know her and it is another situation where she needs to be taken care of by a ward that is overwhelmed with situations like this. We are constantly wondering how we can help when what we can do is like sticking our finger in the leaking dike. We saw a bus from the Baptist church going around picking up their members. We need a Mormon bus!

The Bishop was telling us how homeless people come into the church all the time asking for money. He was laughing because he found a man sitting in the chapel on Saturday when he came for the baptism. He asked him if there was something he could do for him. The man asked for money and a cup of coffee. The Bishop laughed and told him he was in the wrong church!

We went to tour the bike shop for the Kiwanis club last week. They repair and give away thousands of bikes every year to needy children in the area. What an amazing shop! There are service opportunities there for the missionaries. We will meet with the coordinator of the parks in the area this week for service opportunities in their city parks.

It’s always an adventure!

The gospel’s true and we love you!
Elder and Sister Hardman

License plate holder:
I am a Princess
My Dad is King of Kings