Week 78

Hey guys!

Ya know, I think these emails must just get more and more boring to read the longer my mission goes, cause nothing exciting really ever happens so I just kinda say the same stuff in different ways from week to week :'D So sorry about that, but on the bright side, you've only got like twenty-something more of them to go.

I'll give a quick update on how the work is going in this area real quick: so Sam is finally on date! We had a really good Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson with him and the Daltons a few days ago (if anyone remembers, Sam doesn't speak much English and Sister Dalton is from Mexico, so we bring her to all the lessons). The Spirit was really strong and I even got to whip out a little of the Spanish I know, which isn't much, but it's similar enough to Portuguese that I can kinda get by. Brother Dalton asked Sam if he was willing to work towards baptism, and even though he was kinda hesitant because he doesn't feel like he knows much, he accepted the invitation to work towards August 24! So we're super excited about that.

Hillary came to our ward's Pioneer Day celebration on Saturday, and he had an awesome time there. He told Brother Dalton as they were driving home that he felt like the whole Church was just one big family and that he felt happier there than he had in a long time. We're still working on getting a baptismal date for him, but hopefully I have an update on that next week.

Floyd came to church again this week!... actually thinking back on it, I'm not sure I even covered who Floyd is last week. Basically he's this crazy old rancher dude who stopped us as we were backing out of a parking lot and asked us a bunch of random questions about the Church and what we were doing out on missions. But then he started asking some super personal questions, like if we ever looked at porn or broke the law of chastity and stuff like that, so we were like "Kay, that guy is nuts, we're never talking to him again." But then we ran into him about a week later at a gas station and started talking to him again. He said he was pretty disappointed that we never called him, which we felt bad about, but we set up a time to come over to his place later that night and start teaching him. So we did and he came to church the next day, but after sacrament was over he said that the kids in the room were too loud and he wasn't sure if he'd be back. But then a couple days ago he texted us and asked if he could come to our church again, and after sacrament meeting yesterday he told us that he feels something really special in the church and he wants to keep coming. So he might be weird, but he's progressing pretty well and we're excited about him.

We had MLC in Bismarck Thursday night through Friday afternoon and that was a blast! I got to see Elder Lamb and Elder Schellenberg and a few other old friends from past areas, which was great. We also got to go to the temple on Thursday night. That was great; it's been almost a year since I went last and it was awesome to be able to do an endowment session. The meetings we had were pretty good, we just set a few mission goals and talked about how we can continue to increase our number of baptisms as a mission. It was a pretty good experience!

I already mentioned the Pioneer Day barbecue on Saturday, but that was pretty fun. The ward just got together at a park, grilled some hot dogs and hamburgers, and put together some games for the kids to play. We helped out with the potato sack races, which was fun. Then they had a kickball game for all the youth and primary kids. It was a great thing for Hillary and Sam to be able to attend, and it helped them both to get closer with the ward members.

That's all I've got for now, I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Hart

1. Elder Schellenberg!!

2. I told the Gale kids that if they paid really good attention to the lesson we could do five Bae Blade battles after, so here we are doing that 😂

3. Us and the sisters!

4. Us and Hillary at the ward barbecue

Week 77

Hey guys!

This week has been pretty tough! There's been lots of really good stuff that's been happening in this area and the work is getting going really well, but with my family finally being home and a couple other things I've been a little preoccupied, and it's been hard to stay focused :/ but I'm doing everything I can to make these last few months of my mission count!

I think we're teaching more people right now than I ever have at one time on my mission, and many of those people are progressing really well. Four came to church yesterday, and at least two of those could have a date for baptism next time we meet with them! Those two are probably the solidest people we're teaching: the first one is a guy from Nigeria named Hillary, and the other one is a dude from Mexico named Sam. Sam doesn't speak the best English, but Sister Dalton, a lady in our ward, is from Mexico and she comes to the lessons to help translate. I just wish he spoke Portuguese instead, that way I could actually be some kind of a help! Teaching someone who doesn't speak English definitely helps us to keep the lessons simple, though, and that honestly makes things better in a lot of ways. Maybe we should try teaching everybody like that! Hillary's English is totally fine, so there's no problems there, and he's already progressed a lot in the week that we've been teaching him. The first time we met him, he told us that he thought the Book of Mormon was true but he didn't see why he would need to get baptized since he already got baptized in a different church back in Nigeria. The lesson we taught didn't seem to help clear that up too much, but he agreed to pray about it, and the next time we saw him he told us that he knew that he had to get baptized again and that he'd do it just as soon as the Spirit told him it was the right time! He's totally prepared for baptism, so we're just waiting on that spiritual witness he told us about; hopefully we can help him to feel it soon!

I'm going to be attending my first MLC in Bismarck this week, which I'm excited about. We'll get to hear some training from President Howell on Thursday night and then eat dinner and go to the temple (which I'm sooo excited for) and then have some more trainings Friday morning before heading back here to Dickinson. It should be really good!

That's pretty much the only thing I know of that's going to be happening this week, but I'm sure we'll be plenty busy! I hope all you guys have a great week,

Elder Hart

Week 76

Hey guys!

This has been such a long week, but that's the way it always is in a new area. Dickinson is pretty awesome, it reminds me a lot of Williston as far as the members go. A lot of people here are super missionary minded and we've already seen a lot more of the members than we did in Rapid. My companions are Elder Bagley and Elder Richins. Elder Richins is awesome, he's such a funny guy and I'm super excited to keep on working with him! Elder Bagley is known as one of the hardest workers in the mission, which is great. He's not the funnest guy to be around, but Elder Richins makes up for it and it works out alright. He goes home in less than a month so he's really trying to make the last few weeks of his mission count. Honestly though, I'm excited for when me and Elder Richins get to take over this area by ourselves next month. We'll get a lot done!

This area is pretty on fire. We've found a new person to teach almost every day, and a lot of them are really solid too! There's a couple baptisms lined up to happen in the next little while. Nobody on date yet, but at least two or three who are on track and should have a date by the end of next week. I'm really excited for it! It's great to be back in the oil fields.

I went down to Bismarck on Saturday to see Hope do baptisms for the dead in the temple for the first time! Man, that was so awesome, except for one thing: 

Hope wasn't there.

It wasn't that she wasn't worthy. It wasn't that she wasn't ready to get on the temple bus. 

She was totally awake at her house at 3 a.m., all dressed up with temple recommend in hand. She didn't get on the bus because nobody would drive to her house and take her to the church; that's maybe a ten minute round trip. Apparently Elder Guzzle and Elder Hughes were running around like chickens with their heads cut off all day Friday and super early Saturday morning, asking anyone and everyone they knew to pick her up. They couldn't find anyone on Friday, and they talked to everybody at the church on Saturday thirty minutes to an hour before the bus was going to leave, but nobody would go get her because they didn't want to chance missing the bus -- even though there was more than enough time. The best part is, both me and Elder Lamb were already on the way to Bismarck by the time we found out about all this, so we got to spend some time alone in the temple before we hitched a ride back to our areas. We helped out with some confirmations and did some recording for baptisms, but wow, I was/am so upset!!! Hope went to so much preparation for that moment and we were all so excited, and it the only reason it wasn't able to happen was because nobody in Rapid City was willing to sacrifice ten minutes of their day. I'm really trying hard to forgive those people. On the bright side, me and Elder Lamb still got a picture in front of the temple and we left plenty of space for hope ;)

Other than that, it's been a pretty great week! Talk to you guys next week,

Elder Hart

1. Me and Elder Lamb with Hope at the temple except without Hope 😊

2. I started slacking off on getting a picture with an animal every week, but don't worry, I'm getting back on track!

3. Me and Elder Cliften at the old folks' home doing some service

4. One of the good parts of my sorta-pointless trip to Bismarck, I got to ride back to Dickinson with Elder Garner and Elder Stanford!

Week 75

Hey guys!

So the biggest news for the week: I'm getting transferred to Dickinson! I pretty much knew a transfer was coming so I wasn't surprised at all, but I'm really excited that it's Dickinson! Everybody that's served there loves it. I'm going to be a zone leader with Elder Bagley and Elder Richins for the first few weeks, but Elder Bagley goes home in the middle of the transfer and Elder Richins will take his place after that. It should be good!

I'm definitely sad to leave the Canyon Lake ward though, it's been a great area. There are a ton of people that we've been able to help come closer to Christ and I'm kinda bummed that I won't be able to be here to see any of them get baptized, but I feel good about everything I've been able to accomplish here.

Last week was pretty good! The Fourth of July was actually a pretty slow day, we couldn't really figure out how to get anything done. We had lunch with a member, but other than that the day was pretty wide open and we were just trying to figure out how to do some contacting, but none of the events we went to turned out to be very productive at all. Also the weather was absolutely crazy, there was so much lightning and rain! The sky was constantly lit up and you could barely see a few feet in front of you because of all the rain dumping on you.

We've found quite a few new people the past two weeks, and we're really excited about some of them. So Elder Guzzle and his new companion (Elder Hughes, my last companion in Fargo!) are gonna have a lot to do.

That's kinda all I've got this week, stay tuned for lots of crazy stuff with my new area next week!

Elder Hart

Here's some pictures from last week! I don't really want to explain the last one... pretty much it's just me and Elder Garner running through a field 😂

Week 74

Hey guys!!!

Wowww, sorry I'm so bad at getting emails out earlier. Today was zone p-day and we were pretty busy but I definitely should have had time to type this out at some point. But anyway, I'm getting to it now so it's fine I guess 😂

First and foremost, MY FAMILY IS HOME!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎊🎊 Wow, I'm so happy they got home safe and they get to be back in America. My brother sent me a video of them getting to the airport and getting to see my dad hug his mom again and my mom hug her dad was probably the highlight of my whole entire week.

Other than that though, this week was pretty slow for us. It was actually really good as far as key indicators go; we were able to get four people to teach and one of our really solid investigators to church, which was awesome, but we didn't really have any service to do at all and not a huge amount of teaching appointments, so we had to get pretty creative about how we were going to contact.

We did a pretty cool little thing with some sidewalk chalk at a park where we just wrote down some scriptures and a couple inspiring quotes from apostles around a little path with comeuntochrist.org next to it. There were definitely a few people checking them out by the time we left, so hopefully they do some good!

I've gotta get going now, sorry this one was a little shorter!

Elder Hart