Week 26

Hey everyone!!

Guess what?!!! As of tomorrow, I'm officially six months old on the mission... which is still pretty dang young, but if anybody wanted to send me a bunch of gifts or flowers anyway, I wouldn't even be that mad ;)

I can't really decide if the time has gone super fast or super slow at this point. I know that's what everyone says, but that's cause it's so true! On one hand, I never thought I'd ever get this far into it and it's crazy that I'm already a quarter of the way done, but on the other, probably way bigger hand, it already feels like I've been a missionary FOREVER. That's not to say that the whole thing is bad or anything; I'm loving it out here, it just feels like it's gone on for way longer than it actually has. But I'm sure that one day time is gonna all of a sudden speed up and once the two years is over, I'm gonna wish I was back where I am now. So I'm gonna do my best to take advantage of the year and a half I've got left as a full-time servant of the Lord! 

This week has been super busy. We've got tons of investigators (or, uhm... people being taught I guess. Yeah, I'm still gonna call them investigators) that we're working with, and hopefully a couple baptisms coming up soon. I won't get into too much detail about that, but there are tons of people out here in Williston that have been so prepared for the gospel and we're doing everything we can to bring it to them. 

We also had zone conference and interviews last week, which was great. I like President Howell a lot and I'm excited to serve with him. Interviews were like at least 20 minutes each, which is like five times longer than interviews with President Hess ever were, but that's definitely not a bad thing at all. I feel like I already have a better relationship with him than I did with President Hess and he's hasn't even been here for a full transfer yet. I mean nobody's ever gonna beat my parents at this whole mission president deal, but President and Sister Howell are probably as close as anybody's gonna get ;)

I hope that everybody is able to take some time out of their day to share the gospel with somebody. It's so easy these days with all the technology that we have available, it takes like thirty seconds to send someone a video or a scripture that could end up turning their whole day around! God has given us this technology for a reason, and He needs our help if He's going to hasten His work any faster than it's already going!

Have a good week everybody!

Elder Hart

1. This less active dude's dad just randomly has a fire truck, so we got to play around on that for a while 😂

2. Just another picture from last P-day out in the badlands

3. LOOK HOW BIG THIS DOG IS!!

Week 25

Hey everyone!!

Man, this may have to be a little bit shorter of an email, I haven't had too much time today. We've been out in Watford City doing a bunch of little hikes and stuff and we haven't had service all day.

It's been an awesome week! We have nine or ten super solid investigators, a baptism coming up this Saturday, and another one in a couple weeks! The guy who's getting baptized on Saturday is named Will. Pretty much he just walked into church yesterday totally prepared and wanting to get baptized, talked with us and the sisters, is meeting with us every day this week, and then getting baptized this weekend... which is crazy fast but we're super excited for him! His girlfriend back in Idaho is Mormon so she's been really wanting him to get baptized for a long time now and he finally came around to the idea not too long ago.

I've already talked a little bit about Hyrum. We put him on date this last Thursday, the only challenge is going to be getting in for lessons with him since he works such crazy hours. But he's completely ready, so as long as he can make it to church, he'll be all set to go for August 18th.

I won't go into too much detail about anything else, but I do want to share something pretty crazy that I discovered this week: missions are hard. Missions are real, real hard. I've had to really reflect a lot this past week and ask myself why I'm really out here doing what I'm doing, because if it's just because I feel like I have to, then it's not even close to worth it. The only way serving these two years will be worthwhile to me personally is if it's because I truly desire to serve God and others and increase my own conversion. If it's for any other reason, I may as well pack my bags and be on the first flight to Salt Lake City tomorrow morning. But I truly do love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and I want to serve Them with everything I have both for the next year and a half and for the rest of my life.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Hart

Just some pictures from the hike we took today, this sweet dog that was at a member's house, and a freaking CACTUS that I almost stepped on like two hours ago... pretty sure it's like the only cactus in North Dakota ever.

Week 24

Hey everyone!!

It's been both a really slow week and a super busy one at the same time. Pretty much every one of our investigators was working crazy shifts this week, so we pretty much got no teaching appointments at all, but we've found tons of new investigators and potentials because of all the contacting we've had to do!

We also went out to Watford City on Tuesday to help with cleanup from a tornado that touched down Monday night. It did tons of damage to a little trailer park and even ended up killing a little baby, which was really sad. We went through the house of the family who lost their son to find anything valuable, like phones or wallets or pictures. We found pretty much everything they were looking for, which was good, but it was sad to find pictures and clothes that belonged to a baby that had just died. 

Other than that, there's not too much to tell from this last week. Just lots and lots of tracting and street contacting, which is never the funnest thing to do, but we managed to get a lot done, so I'm not complaining. 

I've been studying two chapters in the Book of Mormon quite a bit this past week, and I'd encourage everyone to go and take a look at them sometime during scripture study this next week: 2 Nephi 2 and Alma 34. There are so many incredible things in both of those chapters, I can't even begin to talk about all of them! There's so much to learn from a dedicated study of the scriptures; any one of us could go back to 1 Nephi 1, a chapter that I'm sure every one of us has read at least 20 times in our lives, and find some new truth or phrase that somehow never resonated with us until now. There's ALWAYS something new to learn, and our days will always go better if we're willing to take some time out of our schedule in order to study the scriptures.

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Elder Hart

Just some crazy pictures of the weather/damage in Watford on Tuesday!!

Week 23

Hey everyone!!

Wow, Williston is just a great place! I never even knew what the work is like for most missionaries, cause I've been serving in literally the middle of nowhere my whole mission! It's just weird to have support from the ward and other missionaries, we work so much more closely with others here than we ever did down in Valentine. It's awesome to have member dinners every night and get closer with the ward and to be able to work with the sister missionaries. 

This week has been great, we've picked up three new investigators in the last four days! One is named Hyrum, he comes from a polygamist family down in Mexico -- like he's not Mexican or anything, but I guess polygamy is legal down there or something, cause there's a bunch of compounds down there. Hyrum pretty much just came to the bishop and told him that he wanted to meet with the missionaries and get baptized, and he's definitely ready! We're gonna put him on date next time we see him. 

We also picked up a former named Clement, who's from Ghana (shout out to Elder Knecht!!) There's so much diversity up here in North Dakota, people come from all over the world to work in the oil fields. We cleared up some things about the Church that he didn't quite understand and gave him a Book of Mormon. He came to church at 11 yesterday, so we weren't able to see him, but we're super excited he came.

The last one we found is named Robby. I guess Elder Garner tracted into him a few weeks ago and he offered to take them to lunch. So we finally did that on Saturday. He took us to Buffalo Wild Wings and we talked a lot about our Church, especially the Family Proclamation. He was super into that so we sent it to him over text and he wants to meet with us again sometime this week. The work's definitely going pretty well up here!

Other than that, we went and weeded in a member's garden for about four hours on Saturday. That was pretty nuts, there was literally just a field of weeds with a couple plants hidden inside that we had to weed around. 

We went to a member's barbecue on the 4th of July. There were a bunch of non-members there that we were able to talk to, and Brother Heaton made some dang good food. So that was a good time. One of the missionaries in our zone had the idea to do snow cone and lemonade stands where we'd pretty much just hand out free stuff and get a bunch of contacts. We got assigned to the lemonade stand, so we went and tried that out for about an hour, but we pretty much saw absolutely nobody while we were there, so we packed up and went contacting somewhere else. We heard the snow cone stand went well though, so that's good. 

We went to Buffalo Wild Wings again on Tuesday (or I guess this was before the other time but I'm not telling this in order at all) cause like four of the guys in the zone hit their year mark that day. That was a good time, definitely not something we could have ever done in Valentine.

That was pretty much the week. As far as things I've learned in my studies go, I started to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon in Portuguese the other day. President Hinckley said a while ago that doing that would help a lot in learning another language, and I don't want to forget the things I learned last year. It's awesome to realize that God truly does speak to everybody in their own language and that no matter where somebody is from or what language they speak, God is able to reach out to them through His scriptures.

Hope everyone had a great week!!

Elder Hart

1. A dog we saw yesterday. It's a German Shepherd/husky mix and I want it really bad.

2. Some sweet fields we saw driving to a member's farm on Saturday. I still don't like the flatness of North Dakota but it's got some pretty things.

3. A dog that the Heatons were babysitting on the Fourth of July. He was probably honestly the cutest dog I've ever seen in my life.

4. Brother Heaton and the ribs he was making. Man those things were good!

Week 22

Hey everyone!

Haha I never know how to start out these weekly emails... like a bunch of stuff has happened but I'm just sick of saying 'Wow, it's been a crazy week!!' all the time. But I mean... it HAS been a crazy week, so I guess I'm just gonna say that anyway.

So obviously the big thing that happened was transfers. I left Valentine for good this last Wednesday, which was kinda a bittersweet thing. I was really sad to leave some people, and we had just gotten the work going really well down there, but I was so excited to get up here to a bigger city and ward and actually get to serve around other missionaries! 

So Monday and Tuesday were pretty much just packing up my stuff and saying goodbye to some of the people that I'd gotten pretty close to, which was tough. Nate was really upset because he wanted me to baptize him this next Saturday, but I told him to have Elder DeSpain's new missionary do it, so hopefully that happens! He's training this transfer and it'd be sweet for his companion to get out into the field and be able to have a baptism within the first two weeks. So I guess I was sad when I left but I'm pretty much feeling fine now, I'm just excited to be up here in Williston!

My companion is Elder Garner, and we get along great. He's definitely my favorite companion so far as far as being friends goes, plus he's a hard worker, which is definitely a relief. He's pretty similar to me in a lot of ways and he's a super funny kid, so we've been having a good time these past couple days.

The members here in the Williston 2nd Ward are awesome!! Like it's kinda crazy haha, we have dinner appointments literally every night. It's 100% different from Valentine, there was like no member support there compared to here. A lot of the members are from Utah and moved up here to work in the oil fields, so some of them are like stupid rich. There's a lot of money in the oil industry if anyone is ever interested in it ;)

I came across a couple scriptures a few weeks ago that I've come to love a lot. The first one is in Exodus 14:14. It says: "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." I just love the idea of our Heavenly Father walking with us every single step of the way through our trials, willing to fight our battles for us if we're just willing to hold our peace and not get in His way! The problem is, we don't let Him do His job most of the time because we are not humble or faithful enough to let it happen. The other scripture is really similar to it, in D&C 105:14: "For behold, I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion; for, as I said in a former commandment, even so will I fulfil—I will fight your battles." Allow the Lord to help you through your trials, He is so willing and more than able to help us win the battles we fight every day of our lives!

Hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Hart

1: I guess Phil Jackson's from Williston, which is pretty dang cool. Maybe he'll come visit home while I'm here ;)

2: Good old Nate Sack! He's gettin baptized in five days!!

3: The sunset in Williston after a huge storm Thursday night

4: The little Valentine house I used to live in (we only got the basement though haha)