Week 53 maybe or 54 it's one of those two I think

Hey everyone!

It's been another super crazy week, just like transfer weeks always are. It's pretty late and I don't have too much time to try and get through all this stuff but I'll do my best.

I have two new companions, Elder Hughes and Elder Buttars. Me and Elder Hughes are training Elder Buttars, and it's going pretty well so far! I like them both, we all get along pretty well.

We finally got somebody on date for baptism this week! We've been trying to get in with a lady named Linda for a whole transfer now, but she's always been asleep or at work when we've stopped by. But we went by her place a couple days ago and she finally let us in, and she decided that she wanted to be baptized! We're really excited for her, hopefully it all works out.

I've gained a much stronger testimony over the past couple of weeks that Christ truly does consecrate our efforts, however feeble, for our gain. We've tried so hard to get things in this area moving for so long, and nothing has worked. No contacting method, tracting approach, service opportunity, or community event got us any closer to finding anybody new to teach this last six weeks. In short, our efforts, however bold, completely and totally failed! But somehow Christ, knowing the thoughts and intents of our hearts, decided that we'd done everything in our power to do His work, and then He proved to us unequivocally that He truly is able to do His own work. This week, we "stood still and saw the salvation of the Lord" as we found two new people to teach, put one person on date, and even found that one of our former investigators suddenly decided to show up to sacrament meeting yesterday! None of those things were a direct result of our previous efforts, but I know that we wouldn't have been blessed with all of those things if we hadn't first put in our best effort.

Anyway, it's been an awesome week! Talk to you next week!

Elder Hart

1. My first sun dog! Not really sure why it's a dog but that's what they call those.

2/3. Dogs because I like dogs.

4. I just... don't really have an explanation for that one but there you go.

   

Week 53

Hey everybody!

Well, I'm gonna start out by saying that this was definitely a pretty slow week, so I apologize that this email isn't gonna be that interesting 😂

First things first, Imma say all the words inside my head, I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been oh, oooo-oh (the way that things have been oh, oooo-oh!) Second things second... kay I'm done 😂 I miss music a lot of you can't tell.

So first things first, we did lots and LOTS of door knocking this week. We didn't really find anybody interested but we did get a lot better at figuring out a door approach that didn't immediately get doors slammed in our faces, so that's something! Hopefully in the future we're able to find some people who are more open to hearing the message of the gospel.

We also went on exchanges with the Wahpeton elders. I went down to Wahpeton with Elder Hubert, which was pretty fun. They live right next to an abandoned insane asylum, so I definitely got a few pictures of that, plus we got to go do service at the animal shelter and play with some kittens for like an hour! That was pretty fun. I also got to speak some Portuguese with a less active lady in their area who's from Portugal, which was awesome. It was the first time I've gotten to use Portuguese on my mission, and hopefully not the last.

Other than that, we've just been finding lots of places to do service and signing up for a few different places that we'll be trying out this week, so things should be getting even better in the weeks to come.

Have a great week!

Elder Hart

Week 51

Hey everybody!

Well, not too much has happened this week, but I'll do my best to make it sound at least a little bit interesting haha.

The highlight of this week was probably on Friday when we had zone conference. I always love getting to spend time around President Howell, I wish this mission was smaller so that we could see him more! We just reviewed a lot of the stuff that we've learned from some different general authorities in the past few months, especially how to work with members to find people to teach. That one's a little tough out here since the members don't really have us over that much, but we're working on it!

We made some cookies and brought them around to a few different member families so that we could start building some kind of a relationship with them, and it seemed to go over pretty well! We got a lot more sign-ups on our dinner calendar than we have in the past, so hopefully that means they're starting to care about us a little bit more!

We also found out that our mission is going to be a pilot mission for a service initiative that the Church is starting to see if doing community service for 10 hours a week is able to increase the number of contacts and people to teach that we have. So we've been finding as many service opportunities as we can and we're still on the lookout for more! I'm excited to see what comes from it, I think it'll be a good thing for our mission.

Hope everybody has a great week!

Elder Hart

1. That's the flatness of North Dakota for you 😂

2. This buffaliger is probably the weirdest-looking statue I've ever seen so I had to get a picture with it