Letter #9

This week felt like a Temple Week. The missionaries have the opportunity to go to the Temple once a quarter if they are in the Reno or Sparks area at the time. This means that they are able to go to the Temple once or twice during their mission. They get SO excited when they are able to go to the Temple! They had a date scheduled and found out it was during the Temple cleaning time. Oh my, they were so disappointed and thought they had missed their chance. They rescheduled it for a week later. They have talked about nothing else for the past month. Wednesday was our zone’s Temple day. The Senior and Office couples split up so that there is someone with the missionaries at their session. The Sisters don’t bring Temple clothes with them so they use clothes that have been left at the Temple. The Temple workers are amazing at clipping clothes together so that they “fit” the Sisters. They were all filled with joy to be at the Temple. Elder Hardman and I were asked to be the witness couple. It was a special day. I hope I remember to be as excited as these young missionaries to have the opportunity to go to the Temple. They gathered for pictures in front of the Temple afterward. As we were leaving one Elder spotted one of his converts coming to the Temple to do baptisms. I thought he was going to die with happiness. He had not seen her in a long time. When he saw her at the Temple he was overcome. I was asked to give her a hug from him. It was my first proxy hug! It was a joyous day all around. We then took some of the Sisters to lunch. They can only have a few missionaries together in a public place so we couldn’t go somewhere all together. There are so many rules that they’ve never told Elder Hardman and I about. We are learning.

We then went back to the Temple two more times this week, to do cleaning. Thursday night we went at 9:30pm. We mostly did the vacuuming. We also went to help again on Saturday night. It was earlier though (thank goodness) so we started at 7:00pm. We were told by a member of the Temple Presidency that if we had come to clean the Temple we had come for the wrong reason. He told us we would have time to ponder quietly as we “cleaned” and I tried to remember the enthusiasm that the young missionaries had to be in the Temple. It was a blessing to have this chance to meditate on what the blessings of the Temple mean to me. I am grateful that we are here where a Temple is close by. It is a great blessing to be in the Temple whether you are participating in an ordinance or whether you are serving by cleaning the doors. It was a special week.

We had a great zone training on Tuesday and they are once again preparing for Transfer Day this Tuesday. We also know that the Sparks Stake was split tonight. It has been talked about since the day we arrived. We haven’t felt very affected by their changes but that will have a ripple effect on the mission. It will probably mess up all the zones that we are just barely figuring out for the service opportunities. Oh well. We are still trying to figure out which missionaries received new phones. The only way we can communicate with the missionaries to let them know about their service assignments is to text the zone leaders. Since we have a “smart phone” we are not able to group text them either so Elder Hardman has to text them one by one. THEN some of the missionaries just received new phones and phone numbers! They don’t want us to get bored!

We took our blind sister to church again today. She is fun, she loudly says whatever is on her mind at the time. People are kind to her though. It’s all an adventure! We have been adopted by the recent convert that lives in the downtown motel. She is a nice lady but has lots of needs. We took her to the doctor this week. We never get over how many needs are in this ward. Then we go to the Temple and a Brother in the ward that is on oxygen is there to clean. He is always there to take an assignment, he always says, “I can’t do much but I can do something”. We see both sides of the coin here. There are great people in the Keystone ward!

We missed the mark this week. We were hoping to break the 700 mark but the Membership Clerk said that we are at 702! He does get tickled to report to us. We have certainly appreciated him the past two weeks. His Mom fell and broke her hip and she is struggling with infections and swelling but our good Brother Johnson was still working and pushing through on these records! Let me repeat, there are great people in the Keystone ward!

We decided to take a Sunday walk on the University of Nevada campus tonight. It is a beautiful campus! It has been a little cooler today so it was a pleasant evening for a walk and the campus only had a few people around. I am glad we went to see it.

Well, The Gospel’s true and we love you!

Love,

Elder and Sister Hardman

P.S. Elder Hardman decided to help me find a bumper sticker this week, his contribution:
“I love my Country
It’s the Government I’m afraid of”

I like the one I found better.
“Don’t believe everything you think”