Week 21

Hey everyone!

Wow, today's already been absolutely crazy and it's barely past 10 in the morning! We got transfer calls today and it turns out I'm going to be heading up to Williston, North Dakota!... so I'm kinda freaking out about that haha. It's gonna be worlds different from the little town of Valentine, Nebraska; Williston's got about 60,000 people, which is gigantic for North Dakota. I'm definitely excited, but it hasn't really set in yet that I'm leaving, so I'm just feeling scared out of my mind. I was really hoping to be able to stay in Valentine for one more transfer... there's so much stuff happening here and I really wanted to be able to see some of the fruits of our labor. But I know it'll be great in Williston once I get my feet on the ground. Plus my trainer is going to be my zone leader, so that'll be kind of cool.

We've had a great week other than that. Lots of teaching and contacting and tons of service. We're getting all ready for Nate's baptism on July 7... which I might not be able to be there for, but I'm still super excited for him. He passed his baptismal interview yesterday, so he's all set to go! He really wanted me to baptize him, so I'm going to see if the mission president will let me head down to be there for it. He usually gives permission for missionaries to go and see the baptisms of people they've taught in the past, so I really hope he'll let me.

We also got to go down to the park on Friday for this big barbecue competition that the town was putting on; we went down there during our dinner hour and did a lot of contacting and ate some pretty dang good food, so that was a good time. It's so good for the people in this area to see that missionaries and Mormons in general are just normal, good people. I guess there's a preacher or two down here that teach some pretty hard-core anti, so some people have a completely warped understanding of our religion.

We gave talks yesterday in Winner for church. I spoke on the priesthood, and it was awesome to get the chance to study for that. The priesthood is a power that's so special and sacred beyond what I've ever really imagined... it's so amazing that God lets us use His power on the Earth in order to help Him in doing his work! I'd encourage everyone to go and read President Oaks's talk from the last general conference, "Power of the Priesthood", as well as Doctrine and Covenants 84. They really helped me to open up my mind a little bit. 

Thanks for the love and support that everyone gives me, I'm really gonna need it these next few days as I get adjusted to a new area!

Elder Hart

Week 19

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone's had a good week, there's not really that much to tell for me!

We were able to put our new investigator Nate on date this last week, which is super cool! We've only had two lessons with him so far, but both have gone really well and we're planning on teaching him again tonight. If all goes well, he'll hopefully be able to be baptized at the end of this month or early next month. 

We had zone conference yesterday, which is always a great experience. It was President and Sister Hess's last one, which is definitely sad, but we're all looking forward to President Howell coming in a few weeks. I'm sure he'll do great once he's able to get his feet on the ground a little bit.

But anyway, that's about it! Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Hart

1. At a little seminar we got to go to over on the Pine Ridge reservation this last Wednesday. It was all about how Native American beliefs relate to ours, it was pretty sweet!

2. A tiny little fish I just caught a few hours ago 😂

3. At the memorial for the Massacre of Wounded Knee. That's a pretty sweet place right there, we actually ran into another Mormon girl who was traveling with a group of Amish people. I forgot to talk about like this whole thing in my other email but that's alright ;)

Week 18

Hey friends and family!!

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, we were actually out doing missionary work so we didn't get too much of a P-day. But we had a great week last week, lots of good stuff happened!

So the Valentine area is finally picking up, which is great. I'm halfway through my third transfer here and I'm only starting to see some good progress now! God definitely tries your faith before miracles are able to be witnessed. 

There was a pretty sweet car show here in town last Friday (that wasn't the miracle, hold on 😉) and we decided to go out street contacting since so many people were out watching. We ended up meeting this great guy named Nate. We gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment for Monday, and when we went over there we were able to teach him the Restoration and put him on date for baptism! So that's super exciting and something that will hopefully continue to go well. 

We were worried about Talon there for a while, but we saw him today and it turns out he's just been going through a hard time these past couple weeks. There have been several suicides recently in his family so that's obviously been really hard for him, but he still really wants to meet with us and be baptized. 

Elder DeSpain is great, this transfer and last have been like night and day as far as the work goes. We're talking to more people and getting more potential investigators and things are just going really well all around. I'm really hoping to be in Valentine for one more transfer after this to keep working with these people for just a little longer, but what happens happens!

Hope everyone had a great week!

Elder Hart

1. HART CITY!!!

2. They may not be ancestors, but they've got a pretty sweet last name.

3. A fire that burned down a couple small businesses here in town. It's super sad, we're hoping to be able to do some service for them.

4. One of the cars in the little car parade they had last Friday.