Week 17

Hey friends and family!

Wow, it's been another crazy week, but it's absolutely flown by! We're already a full two weeks into the transfer, which is pretty nuts. I'm loving my companion, he's so easy to work with and definitely has the desire to work hard. Me and Elder DeSpain are definitely super different people as far as background goes -- he was raised on a ranch down in Arizona -- but we get along really well.

As far as the missionary work goes, it's been going really well in Valentine and not well at all in Rosebud. We had a great lesson with our investigator Nikki yesterday. Her husband is still super against the church, but we think she's getting to the point where she wants to be baptized regardless of what he thinks about it. We obviously don't want that to cause a problem in their marriage though, so we're still working on it. We decided yesterday to just meet with her at Lisa's house (a member who lives next door) and do a family home evening activity every week with a lesson. So that should be great. 

The members in Valentine are pretty hostile towards the missionaries in some ways; from what we've heard, they've had some bad experiences with missionaries in the past and we've kind of lost their trust for that reason. So we've decided to go around and visit one or two members in the branch every day, just to get to know them better, share a quick message, and then get out of their way. It seems like it's helping, we've done a lot of service for members this week and they're hopefully coming around. Once we get the members on board with missionary work, I'm guessing it's gonna explode. Finding through members seems to be the only effective method here, tracting and street contacting haven't ever even found us a potential. People have heard too much anti-Mormon doctrine down here.

Our solidest investigator up to this point, Talon, has been acting pretty weird this week. He used to be super excited about the Church and getting baptized, but lately he's just been super laid back and out of energy when we come over... we're afraid he might have slipped back into some bad habits. So we're gonna lay off a little bit but still continue to work with him. 

As far as other people in Rosebud goes, nothing really bad has happened, but we just haven't really gotten in with anyone up there this week. There's been all kinds of high school graduation parties and stuff this past couple weeks, so everyone has been gone, but it should pick back up this next week.

Besides missionary work, there's not much to talk about this week! We're having a zone P-day up in Pierre today, which should be fun. I guess we're probably gonna go bowling and play ultimate Frisbee or something, so we'll see how it goes.

That's about it this week! Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers!!

Elder Hart 

Pics: Just me and the comp, a cake a lady at Wal-Mart screwed up for Sister Bartholomew, Rapid City from up on a little hill, and a big dinosaur that was on the same hill. 

Week 16

Hey friends and family!

Man, it's been a pretty crazy week! I'm pretty sure that in the last week, I've spent maybe a day and a half total in my area haha. So there's not too much about teaching or investigators to share, but things have definitely been super busy. 

Transfers were last Thursday, so me and Elder Johnson were running everywhere Tuesday and Wednesday trying to say goodbye to everyone. He's been here 6 months, so it was pretty tough for him to leave some people. Those days weren't super fun but we got around to a bunch of people so it was good.

We drove up to Pierre Wednesday night since we had to be up in Bismarck at 12:30 on Thursday. So we spent that night hanging out with Elder Keller and Elder Barlow, which is always fun, and then we all drove up to Bismarck Thursday morning. Elder Johnson and Elder Keller were both headed up to Williston and me and Elder Barlow were both staying, so it worked out pretty well. 

My new companion is Elder DeSpain, and he's an awesome guy. He's a great missionary and is super excited to get to work down in Valentine. He's only been out a little over 6 months, so we're both pretty new, but I think we're gonna work really well together. I'm super excited for this next transfer!

1: Me and Elder Johnson with Nikki and Lisa Shutts

2: Me, Elder DeSpain and a bunch of Rapid City missionaries helping clean out a lady's basement 

3: The sunset in Mission

4: A super cool towel the B's gave me for my birthday

5: The basement we helped clean out yesterday

6/7: All the little gifts Laurie sent for my birthday

Week 15!

Hey friends and family!!

Man, I can't believe it's been fifteen weeks... but I don't know if that's because it's gone by so fast or so slow haha. Time is definitely picking up though, this last transfer pretty much flew by!! 

And speaking of transfers, looks like I'm staying here in Valentine for at least another six weeks, but I'm getting a new companion! His name is Elder DeSpain, and from what I've heard, he's a pretty cool guy and an awesome missionary. He's only been out about six months, so we're both pretty new still, but I'm super excited to change things up a little! 

This last week was pretty good, not much to report on though. Now that Tristan is baptized, the only investigator we have on date is Talon, and the only thing he needs to do to get baptized is come to church!!... but of course that's the one thing we just can't get him to do. We were going to swing by his house yesterday and have him follow us up to church to make sure he got there, but we got to his house right as he was pulling out to go to lunch for Mother's Day. So next time we're up there for church in Rosebud, we're for sure gonna have to get him there! We're still working with other investigators, but we're gonna have to kick it up a notch if any of them are really gonna progress too much. We're planning on doing a movie night here in Valentine at the church on Friday, so that should help a little for some.

I've been feeling kind of down this week for no real reason, but I'm missing all of you a ton!! Keep sending emails and praying for me, I really need it right now!!

Love you all tons, thanks for everything you do!

Hayden 


1: The beautiful city of Valentine

2: Some super cute kittens we saw up in White River (and their super protective mama)

3: My bedroom

4: The Nebraska sunset a couple weeks ago

5: Lisa Black Lance, a member up in Rosebud that we visit a lot. She's great!

I'll be sure to send lots more next week!

XXXXXX

Week 14!

Hey friends and family!! 

Hope everyone has has an awesome week, mine has been pretty crazy! But man, let me just start by saying that the Church is definitely true and that God must love me a whole lot, cause I've been able to do things this week that I never could have done on my own! 

Like I told everyone last week, our zone set a goal to get 8 baptisms this month, so we figured that meant that each companionship had to get 10 contacts per day! And let me tell ya, contacts are not the funnest thing to do. Imagine going up to somebody who's clearly busy and not interested in talking to you, and then bringing up a subject that they'd already heard a lot about and had decided long ago that they were very against said subject... well that's pretty much what contacting is. You've got to go through lots of tares to find the wheat, especially down in Nebraska! But we've found a couple potentials and re-interested a few formers, so it hasn't all been a loss or anything, it's just really hard. I've had to get over a lot of residual shyness from way back in my childhood over the past couple weeks, but I think I'm finally shaking it off for good! 

We've been continuing to work with all our investigators as well as we can, particularly Talon. The guy is just so close to the point where he can be baptized if he'd just get himself to church!! It's so hard to get people to solidly commit to things. We invited him to come to Tristan's baptism this last Sunday, and we literally had him out the door tying his shoes when we left to head to the church... and he never showed up. We still don't know why, and maybe there's a perfectly good reason for it, but it's still kinda frustrating. 


But hey, I got my first baptism of my mission this last Sunday, which was awesome! Tristan was finally able to be baptized, and I got the


opportunity to confirm him and give him the Gift of the Holy Ghost. That was a super cool experience and one I hope I'm gonna be able to have a lot more times in the future! 
So anyway, that's pretty much been my week! I've been studying the Atonement like crazy over the past couple months and doing my best to understand the way it works and how it can help us in our lives... I'm not gonna say too much else about that because it's something that's just an absolutely massive subject. I'm actually planning to get my thoughts together and write a big essay-type thing on it some time in the next week or two, because I've learned a ton about it and grown my testimony of Jesus Christ as my Savior so much ever since I began my mission!

Love you all,

Elder Hart

Some pics from the week.  The top one is us after Tristan's baptism (he's the little one in the front) and the bottom one is of the super crazy baptismal font in Rosebud.