Week 86

Hey guys!

Well, it's been a pretty wild week. I'll start off with transfer news: I'm staying here in Dickinson and Elder Hansen is getting sent back to one of his old areas. I'm gonna be training a new missionary and serving as a split zone leader with one of the elders in Bismarck, so it's going to be pretty crazy! It should be good though, I'm really excited.

The other big news this week is that our friend Carl, who's been looking into the Church for about 45 years, walked into church yesterday and told us he was ready to get baptized! So we set a baptismal date for October 12 and he said he'll let his friend in Idaho know so that he can come up here and baptize him! There are a lot of missionaries who have been waiting for that news for so long, so it's really cool to be able to finally see it happening. Jeremy also got the priesthood yesterday and he's getting ready to go to the temple soon. Yesterday was a day full of miracles!

We had MLC in Bismarck last Thursday and Friday, and we got to go do a session in the temple, which I'm always really excited about. It's always fun to see some old friends from the mission too.

I've been thinking a lot this week about how much I've changed on my mission and what a crazy experience it's been. Today I've been out for 20 months, and I can definitely say it's been the hardest 20 months of my life. But I also know that the Lord has been with me every step of the way, because there's no way that the kid that walked into the MTC in January 2018 would have been able to do any of the stuff that He's helped me to accomplish on my mission. The power of the Atonement goes so far beyond the redemption that we so often hear about. Beyond redeeming us, it enables us to progress, improve, and become more like our Heavenly Father. It doesn't just allow us to be forgiven of our sins, it gives us the chance to rise above them and allow ourselves to become stronger. As I've devoted myself to serving the Lord, He's changed me into a completely different person without me even really realizing it. He does that for all of us, whether we know it or not.

Anyway, that's it for this week! Talk to you guys later,

Elder Hart

1/2. Me, Elder Hansen, Elder Hughes, and Elder Guzzle at the temple

Week 85

Hey guys!

We've had a slower week. Not much has really been able to move forward in our area. We taught a lot of lessons and we definitely did our best, but we didn't see much progress in many of our investigators and we were only able to find one new. But there's always next week, and success always comes eventually. I'm really hoping we can start to reestablish our teaching pool soon.

We've been to Bismarck twice in the last few days! We went on Friday for a training by Elder Johnson of the Seventy, who was in town to reorganize the stake in Bismarck. It's always great to hear from the leaders of the Church. And then we went again today for Bismarck's zone P-day. It was pretty fun, we played basketball and volleyball and then went to a pumpkin patch and looked around there for a while.

We did lots of service this week! We went to Medora on Wednesday like always, and then we helped our friend Roger move all day Saturday. We spent the whole day with six non-members, and they had all kinds of questions about the work we're doing. Nobody to teach from it yet, but it was definitely a good use of time.

Anyway, sorry this one is really short but that's about all I've got! Talk to you guys next week,

Elder Hart

1. Our Spanish investigators gave us some super good Mexican food yesterday and I was running low on pictures for the week so I made my companion take this super flattering picture of me eating it ;)

2. I took a selfie with a moose at Medora... that's about all I've got to say for that one

3. Roger's tractor that he rebuilt!

Week 84

Hey guys!

Wow, these weeks are flying by! I can't believe it's already time to write another one of these. But you know what they say: time flies when you live in North Dakota!... Except nobody says that. Darn.

We've had an awesome week. Things started out really slow because the first few days of the week were SO rainy. Like ridiculous amounts of rain were just dumping from the sky for like 3 days straight. So we weren't able to do much proselyting done on those days, but we did do some solid planning for Jeremy's baptism (whoa, foreshadowing!) and lay out some lessons on missionary work to teach members of the ward.

We had to teach Jeremy a lot in a really short amount of time for his baptism this weekend (more foreshadowing). We taught him all of the commandments on Monday afternoon, which meant we had to sacrifice a little of our P-day, but it's totally worth it for him. He accepted all of the commandments no problem, which was a big relief. We taught him the last lesson on Thursday. He told us that he'd been really pulled away from the Church the last few days, but he knew exactly who it was that was trying to keep him away and he didn't let it slow him down at all. The Spirit was stronger in that lesson than I've felt in a long time. He was in tears when we explained the purpose of baptism for the dead as he thought about all of his deceased ancestors that he'd be able to bless. It was such a big relief to get all that teaching done in such a short amount of time.

We also met a really cool lady named Alycia this week. Elder Richins met her once when I was on exchanges, but he got transferred before I was ever able to meet her. She was very interested in the Book of Mormon and is really excited to come to Church next Sunday. She's super prepared and I think she'll progress really fast!

We had zone conference on Friday and it was great! We learned so many awesome things that I won't even try to list, but I walked out of there in awe of how spiritual a man President Howell is. It's so great to be around and learn from him. He also took me and my companion to a sushi restaurant after we were done. I was kinda nervous about it but it turned out to actually be super good! I don't know whose idea it was to throw some rice and raw fish onto a piece of seaweed and stick it in their mouth, but I guess it turns out they kinda knew what they were doing.

Okay, crazy twist: Jeremy got baptized on Saturday!!! Man, I bet nobody could've seen that one coming. It was so good! We were able to get lots of ward members to participate, and the Spirit was really strong. It was also his birthday, and one of the members was nice enough to bring a birthday cake for him. I think he felt really welcomed by the ward and had a really great experience. I got the chance to confirm him on Sunday. I don't remember too much of what I said, but I know that the message the Lord delivered to him during that blessing was really special. He felt the Spirit so strongly as he received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and so did many other people in the ward. Jeremy is a really special soul, and I know the Lord has a great work for him to do.

We also got to watch the Face to Face with Elder Soares and Elder Christensen yesterday. In a really weird way, it almost made me kinda homesick for Brazil! I mean not really, but it brought back memories to hear everybody speaking Portuguese. Elder Soares is so amazing, I'm coming to really love hearing from him a lot. We watched it at a member's house with the sisters, and I was translating for everybody for the first few minutes before they got the broadcast translation going -- which was so, so bad sometimes. We were all kinda cringing through the whole thing as the poor kids tried to stutter through the translation. But it was a really great opportunity to hear from an Apostle and feel of the love he has for all of us.

We put Sam and Elvira on date for October 19 yesterday! We had actually stopped teaching Sam a few weeks ago because he wasn't progressing, but he's changed a lot since his wife got here. She's really helping him to stay on track and he seems to be comprehending things better now. She kept on saying that she needs to learn more before she gets baptized and asked if we could start coming twice a week to teach them. They've got a little ways to go, but I have faith that they'll be able to make it.

Hopefully we're able to get as much done this week as we were the last one, so much good stuff has happened! But anyway, see you guys later!

Elder Hart

1. Us and President at the sushi place

2. We do service at a museum in Medora and I finally remembered to get some pictures with a couple of the displays

3. Just me and my homie the gigantic beef leg chillin in Medora

4. Jeremy's baptism!... I know he kinda looks like an inmate in this but he's actually a really cool guy ;)

Week 83

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven't written today, this may have to be a shorter one since I have a lot to do tonight and not too much time to do it.

So Jeremy's getting baptized on Saturday!! I'm so freakin excited for him, the guy has turned his life a hundred and eighty degrees around since a couple months ago. He used to be a total atheist until he had some pretty significant experiences and felt like he needed to alter his course. The week of a baptism is always stressful, but it's a good stress. I'm sure everything will go well.

Ummm but other than that it's been a pretty darn slow week. Brother Dalton took us to eat at a taco truck... so that was good. I'm sure that's the last thing any of you are interested in but that's my life for ya 😂

Oh, we picked Sam and his wife back up as investigators! Turns out his wife learned a little bit from the missionaries down in Texas, and she's been really interested. I think he'll progress a lot better with her in town. And she made us some really good tamales last week, so she's pretty cool.

I guess that's about all I've got time for, talk to you guys next week!

Elder Hart

I only took like one picture this week and it was just of a bunch of Marvel stuff at a member's house so here's a picture of the sunset a few days ago 😂