Week 87

Hey guys!

This has been such a wild week! We had transfers last Wednesday, and transfer day is always really weird and really busy. Elder Hansen was pretty bummed to leave after just one transfer, but I was pretty excited to get a new missionary who's really excited about missionary work. My new companion is Elder Nielsen. He's a visa waiter for Ecuador, so he learned Spanish in the MTC, and crazy story -- my older brother was his MTC teacher! Haha so it's pretty cool to just pick up his training right where Tanner left off. We also had Elder Cockle with us for a few days. He's just about to go home, and President Howell let him choose where he wanted to spend his last week in the field. He served here two years ago, so he was able to help us get in with some members that we don't know very well.

Another super crazy thing happened on Tuesday. So we were teaching a guy named Grant Ausk a couple months ago when I got here. He's the husband of a less-activeish member and he was thinking about getting baptized for a while, but then he and his wife moved to Colorado. Before he left, he asked my old companion Elder Bagley if he would come back to Dickinson to baptize him if Grant was ever passing through town. Elder Bagley said he would, but none of us really thought that would ever happen. Well last Tuesday, Brother Dalton got a call from Sister Ausk, who told him that they were coming up through Dickinson this weekend and that Elder Bagley was going to be coming up from Idaho to baptize Grant. We hadn't heard anything at all about that, so Brother Dalton called Elder Bagley and asked if he knew about it. Elder Bagley had absolutely no idea that anything was going on, but he said he could make it up here if it was possible for the baptism to happen. So we spent all of Tuesday night making calls to the bishopric and the mission president, and somehow we all of a sudden had a baptism planned for Sunday after conference! For the super limited time we had to plan it, everything actually ended up going really well. Quite a few ward members showed up and even a couple of the Ausks' nonmember friends. It was really cool to see Elder Bagley again too!

We had a great time watching general conference these last few days. I can't believe how much you can learn from all the talks when you're actually paying attention haha. I'm proud to report that I officially made it through every general conference of my mission without falling asleep a single time! Hopefully that trend continues after I get home ;) I tried something this last time that I've never done, but I've always heard of other people doing it. I had a couple questions and trials that I was hoping to receive answers and guidance to, so I prayed this past couple days that I'd be able to find the things I was looking for in the talks. I was figuring that I'd find some roundabout answer in something one of the Apostles said or some subtle allusion to one of the things I was thinking about, but I couldn't believe how directly both of the questions I had were answered! That's definitely a practice I'll continue as I watch general conference in the future.

I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Hart

1. Our district last transfer
2. It's official, I want a chinchilla
3. Grant's baptism!
4. So me and Elder Cockle accidentally wore the exact same outfit a couple days ago 😂