Week 56

Hey everyone!

It's been a pretty good week here in Fargo. We've been finding new people to teach like crazy, probably more than I have my whole mission! We had a super cool experience this week where a guy named Isaac called us out of the blue saying that his brother gave him a pass-along card and that he'd been looking for a church. We met him and his girlfriend later at the church and gave them a Book of Mormon and they said they'd definitely come on Sunday! The problem is that church ended up getting cancelled on Sunday because of a blizzard warning, so they didn't show up 😂 but they said they'll be there next week! We've been having lots of little experiences like that that keep on proving the Lord is looking out for us and that He rewards the work we do.

We've still been doing lots and lots of service, which has helped with finding people and staying busy. There's not really much to say other than that... it's been a busy week but nothing super exciting, so I can't really talk about anything 😂

I'll just sign off with a tiny bit of advice: just a reminder to keep reading the Book of Mormon every day! It specifically is the greatest tool in the conversion of converts new and old. Joseph Smith said that it's the most correct book on the face of the whole earth and that a man will get closer to God by abiding by its precepts than by ANY OTHER BOOK! That's right, even more than the Bible or the Doctrine and Covenants! Not that those books aren't really important as well, but God specifically gave us the Book of Mormon to restore a fulness of truth on this earth, and I can testify from experience that His Spirit really can have a greater influence in our lives by a continued and diligent study of its doctrines and precepts.

Anyway, speech over, have a great week!

Elder Hart

Week 55

 

Hey everyone!

Sorry for not writing last week! I'll do my best to sum up the last two weeks real quick. So last week was pretty brutal. Not much was happening in this area and all of us were getting pretty frustrated about it. Of course we didn't give up, but I don't know if I've ever been closer on my mission to saying something is just too hard.

This week has been way better though. Things have basically done a 180 flip, and all of a sudden we've finally got new people to teach coming out of nowhere and the ward is getting semi-on-board with the big member missionary effort President Howell is trying to do right now. Of course things still aren't perfect, but they're finally getting there! It's a big testimony builder to me that blessings for our hard work come, whether now or later. It reminds me of a quite by Jeffrey R. Holland (I don't have it in front of me so sorry if I kinda butcher it): "Don't you quit! You keep walking! There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come til heaven. But for those who embrace the good word of God, they come! Trust God, and believe in good things to come."

Thanks to everyone who reached out to me to help me get through a tough time last week, it means a lot more to me than I can even say. I love you all so much!

Elder Hart

Sorry, not too many pictures this week! I'll do better next week.

Week 53

Hey everyone!

Looks like I got a little off on my week numbering somewhere during that first year, cause there's definitely only 52 weeks in a year and I HIT MY YEAR MARK LAST WEEK! Man, I honestly can't believe that it's been a full year since I first walked into the MTC. My mission has always been one of those things that feels like it'll never, ever end. It's always been the very biggest, most important future event of my life that everything else is leading up to, and now all of a sudden half of it is in the past! It still feels like it'll never end, but I know that this year will fly by even faster than the first one did and then all of a sudden it'll all be over and I'll have to get on with the rest of my life, which is... definitely super scary, cause I really have no idea how to be an adult at all 😬 but for now, I've still got a whole year of my mission to finish so I'm not worried about that just yet!

This week has been super, super, super cold. Like colder than I ever imagined anything could ever be. Growing up in Utah, 20 degrees is pretty cold. 10 is super cold, and you don't even think about going outside anywhere around 0. Well, I just found out what -60 degrees feels like, and let me tell you: it's not good. It's not even a little bit good at all. Like just walking from the apartment to the car, you start coughing the second you walk out the door and your fingers are totally numb by the time you start driving. Pretty sure our mission nurse said that you can die of hypothermia in that kind of weather within like five minutes or something like that, so that's not good at all! But it's fine cause we're not allowed to go outside past -30 anyway, so we stay plenty safe inside the apartment.

We actually stayed pretty busy this week though, because there was a huge service event that Elder and Sister Larsen got us signed up for at Scheel's Arena (which is this big hockey arena here in Fargo). It was some organization called Feed My Starving Children. I'm not gonna go into that much detail about them but go ahead and look them up if you want to 😂 Basically we just walked around and helped like thousands of volunteers with any questions or problems they had while they were packing bags of food for starving children around the world. It was actually a pretty big deal, they packed over 2.5 million bags of food! That was a pretty fun experience.

We also went down to Fergus Falls to help a new senior couple move into their apartment and we tried a few people that the Wahpeton elders left behind, but none of them were home so we have to plan another trip down there later this week to make sure those investigators don't get left behind.

Anyway, that's pretty much all that's gone on this week! This next one is also supposed to be super cold, but not quite as bad as last week, so hopefully we'll get a little bit more done!

Have a great week everybody!

Elder Hart