Letter #31

There were a lot of interesting answers for the contest but only one person was right! Katie correctly answered that Friday, November 4 th was our 7-11 day. We have been out 7 months and have 11 to go. The fact that it said, “Oh Thank Heaven” at the bottom was strictly coincidental! We sent Katie a gift certificate for 7-11 where she can get a Slurpee and tired hot dogs (Clay’s answer) delivered to her by a drone (Hunter’s answer). Garrett wanted to know if others in the mission have a 7-11 day. We don’t know, everyone pretends they aren’t counting. We had a 7-11 day, that’s what matters!

The big ward divisions happened today. They made 5 wards into 7 wards. There were a lot of changes. We are now in a different ward with a different Bishop. If that is where we will really be assigned we don’t know. I’m sure we won’t be at the top of the list of “Things To Do”. The Bishops have all been called but they have a lot to do to have their wards function. There will be four wards meeting in one building. Our meetings don’t start until 2:30pm. This will go through next year too. We meet as a new ward next week but only have Sacrament meeting. Our new ward is called Sienna Vista.

We had wonderful training this week. We had Zone Conference on Tuesday and Zone Training on Wednesday. Both days were great! Zone Conference focused on the Sacrament. They ask each missionary to come prepared with a five minute talk. They don’t know who will be called on to give their talk. They were all on the Sacrament but were all completely different. Missionaries are amazing. I find myself writing down quotes the missionaries say. They have great insight and wisdom. Parents would be touched to realize how many times the missionaries tell about something they learned at home. It was fun to hear the training on driving in the snow for those missionaries that have never had that experience, yet! Wednesday the Zone Leaders let all of the missionaries have a part in the training. We have 3 missionaries that are new but they did great training. My favorite part was from one of the new missionaries. He and his companion were double transferred into their area. They spent a few weeks realizing that they had no one to teach and most of those being taught needed to be dropped. He talked about how hard they had been working and now their area has exploded. These two are so fun to watch and be around. Elder Green is the trainer, he is a short, stocky gymnast. Elder Johnson is tall and lanky. They love each other and love everyone they come in contact with. They make visits to active member’s homes and bring an object lesson and talk to them about how they can help the missionaries.We even heard a sister bear her testimony about their visit. They tracted out three investigators. This is the part I loved best. The one investigator was saying that he had asked questions in his visits to other churches and no one was able to give him answers. He asked the Elders a question and Elder Johnson told him that the answer was in the Book of Mormon, opened it to a scripture and read it to him. The man hugged the Book of Mormon because it contains scriptures that confirm what he already believes. Then Elder Johnson gleefully said, “I just love this!” It is fun to be a part of this great work.

We were poked several times this week. We had to go to the doctor to establish care so that prescriptions could continue. We also needed flu shots, poke number one. Then we had to go to a lab and have blood work done, poke number two. I hate being poked!

The weather has been beautiful. We have worked hard to finish up our lists while there are warm days. I don’t know what will happen with the Keystone records. We had five new records come in this morning.

The Gospel’s true and we love you!

Love,
Elder and Sister Hardman