Pages

Monday, January 25, 2016

um... hi



This past week has been pretty alright! Its been kinda weird weather here..... unfortunately the storm that was suppose to hit the East Coast, only hit the states :( so no snow here.... 

On Wednesday we had a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast, it was so cool. We were able to hear from many of the General Authorities! The Topic was Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. Repentance was the big word of the broadcast. That is what the focus was, was the importance of Repenting Daily! I will compile some of my notes from it and talk more about it next week!  

A really cool experience that we had this past week: 

We found a new investigator this past week his name is Blaine. We were out knocking and his house was the 2nd one we knocked. He opened the door and let us right in. He told us that his wife had passed away 2 years ago with terminal cancer. He has a 6 year old daughter Jamie. We taught a little about families, and asked if we could set up a time to come back and he was like well i have time now. So we sat down and taught the Restoration. He and Jamie were very interested and listened and accepted everything we said. He shared with us that it has only been in the past 5ish years that he has started going to church. He was baptized into the Alison Baptist Church. He decided that he needed to find out if there really was a god or not. At the end we asked him if he would say the prayer. It was the most powerful prayer i have heard from an investigator. He said in it, How grateful he was that three angles and messengers knocked on his door. He was so grateful and sincere. It was an incredible experience. Ken is still doing well, we havent been able to meet with him this week. He had some family things come up. We have kept in great contact with him. We unfortunately dropped Donna. We have not been able to get in to see her or anything. We will still stay in contact with her so that she knows that we are here. But will not be teaching her and her family.    

I Love and miss you all so much! 
Love Sister Hardy! :) 
Sorry i don't have any pics this week! But here is a favorite quote of mine right now! 


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Happy 8 months!!! *puke*



Ether 12:6: And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. 

This is scripture has and will continue to help me through this transfer. This past week was yet another rough week. I am still sick.... not sure what with but I have had a very very deep cough in my lungs the past week. It has been rough trying to train a new missionary because you want  to show them every way of finding including knocking on doors and street contacting. But I haven't been able to do that since it has been ridiculously cold outside. We tried to go knocking, we were outside for maybe 15 minutes and the only time I was not coughing was while someone was at their door.... 🙈 soooo its been kinda rough having to try and stay inside as much as possible. But everyone know how I am and I kinda push it off and say lets just get out and find some people. 

This past week some pretty devastating news came to our investigator Donna. Her daughter found out that one of her friends has committed suicide. We have not been able to get in the home after that, but have great faith that we will be able to get in her home to help them through this trail in their life and show them that This Gospel can and will help through trials!  

We picked up a new investigator this past week, his name is Ken. He has a lot of family in New Glasgow that are members! He is willing to read the book of mormon, it was kinda funny he lives with his daughter and grandkids and his granddaughter was home because they had a snow day. She grabbed the book of mormon out of his hands and started to read it! It was really cool! 

Not much else has happened here this week.... Sorry its kinda a short email this week... But i do love and miss you all so much!!! 

10 months to go..... 

Love the one and only  Sister Hardy :) 

1309 Mountain Road 
Unit 408
Moncton, New Brunswick
E1C 2T9 
CANADA 

*PEACE OUT EH?*


Monday, January 11, 2016

a tough week...but worth it!



This week's email is going to a tough one to write, because I am going to be up front and honest with how my week was. Last Monday i was really homesick I wanted to come home and not be a missionary. It has been a very stressful two weeks, with training a new missionary and white-washing an area. Last Monday I think I hit rock bottom with my homesickness. I was not in the mood to do any type of missionary work. I was ready to pack my bags and come home, but I promised myself at the beginning of my mission that I would serve a full 18 month mission. So I will give you a run down on my week.
Monday: it was p-day, i was being my normal idiotic self running around the apartment sliding on my fuzzy socks, when smack goes my head on the table... Yes that's right i didn't catch myself before my head hit the table. My reactions have been very very slow lately. Well that resulted in a concussion. Can anyone guess how many that is in the past 8 months? I can it comes to a whoppin total of 3.
Tuesday: When I woke up I had no voice, my throat was killing and had a crazy cough and headache. We didn't do much today with me being sick and not really knowing the area.
Wednesday: I was still sick. We had Zone Training, where all of the missionaries in the surrounding areas get together. It was a great training, well from what I got out of it. It was really hard to stay focused.
Thursday: I was still sick, but it was ridiculously warm outside, so I decided that we would go knocking. We found a new investigator. I will talk more about in a little bit.
Friday: Yes Still Sick. But good things started to happen. Sister Dearden was feeling well enough to join us in Moncton! (she was in new glasgow with pneumonia). We had a Supper Appointment and then institute.
Saturday: I bet you can guess i was still sick. Saturday morning we went out to do formers, we were knocking on a door when i looked back and saw a man standing at his door staring at us. Needless to say we left right then. We had a lesson with our new investigator. 
Sunday: *cough* Church was great, i have made a little friend her name is Ruth. she is about 4 years old so just about my age :)

But the one thing well maybe two things that made this week worth being a missionary was 1st having Sister Dearden back. and 2 i had an incredible experience. So lets rewind 3 months to October, i was serving in Greenwood, Nova Scotia, a week before we move to Lower Sackville. We are on exchanges and i am in Greenwood with Sister Buchanan, it is raining and we are out knocking. We knock on a door and a lady answers her name is Donna, we give our little message and invite her to learn more, she says yes come in come in. We go in and teach her the Restoration, She is really excited to learn more we set up a time to come back to teach her more. Two days later we go and she is like sorry girls but i am supper busy i just found out we are moving to Moncton, New Brunswick in 3 days. So we are like oh well there are missionaries there would you like to meet with them? she says yes! We gave her info to the missionaries serving in Moncton at the time. Two days after she moved to Moncton we moved to Lower Sackville. Now Fast Forward to A few weeks ago. Sunday December 27th, Sister Dearden and I are laying in bed talking about how we need to get up to get ready to study and for church when the phone rings and its the Domans, Sister Doman is like ok do you want to know where you are going? She says you both are going to Moncton, New Brunswick. Over the time I was think and I remembered that Donna had moved to Moncton! So my main goal in being in Moncton was to find her because I knew that missionaries never did find her when she moved. So Thursday we were at a loss at what street to knock, neither of us knew the area. So i pulled out the handy dandy GPS and picked one. We were knocking and it was an awkward time of day where no one was home but i was like well lets knock the other side of this apartment complex. There were like no cars there and i was like well lets start at the back and work our way up, we had walked past a door and i was like wait, we are going to knock on number 12. I knocked on it and guess who answered the door?! YES DONNA!!!! it was so crazy! she was like come in come in! We set up a time to go back and see her on Saturday. We had our lesson and it was fantastic! She is so prepared to hear the Gospel, I felt inspired to ask her to be baptized and she said YES! she was like I have been thinking that my kids and i need to be baptized and find a church to go to. So she is on Date to be Baptized onFebruary 7th! As we were getting ready to leave i bore my testimony to her. I said, Donna I want you to know that this gospel is true, it can change your life if you will let it. I am thoroughly convinced that I am in Moncton right now to bring this gospel to you and your family. It is very very unusual that a missionary starts teaching someone and they both move to the same area. She agreed and said "When i opened the door you were the last person i would have guess to be standing there. She said, I know that this is not a coincidence that i met you in Nova Scotia and you are sitting her today." So if you don’t have a smile on your face or anything right now, don’t worry i have had one on for you! When we walked out of that lesson and got to the car i was dang near in tears. I finally know what my purpose as a missionary is serving in Moncton.


During my studies this week i was reading a talk from Elder Jeffery R. Holland talking about missionary work. My favorite part says. “ Some of you out here are new. Don’t be discouraged. Now that may be easy to say and hard for you to understand. The culture is new, the language is new, and you have every right and ever reason, at least every understandable reason, to be homesick. Everybody’s been there, and if it gives you any encouragement, just remember that I did this once too, and that no young man in the history of the world could have been more affected by a mission than I was.


My father was a convert and my mother had not served a mission, as sisters usually didn’t then. No one in my family had ever gone on a mission. I didn’t know the clothing to buy. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anything about it. I knew zero about a mission, but I knew that I wanted to go, and I knew that I wanted to serve. As inadequate as I was, as unprepared as I was . . . I didn’t look right; I didn’t act right; I didn’t know anything about it. We didn’t have an MTC, and I don’t remember people or even remember a sheet telling us what clothing to bring. I don’t know, I had a suit my brother handed down to me. You could shave by it! You could hang it up and it glistened, it was so worn and so shiny. I had that suit and a green corduroy suit with matching vest and okra
lining. Boy, if you think my Mission President’s eyes didn’t pop out! What did I know? That’s all I owned, and my Mom said that I would probably be okay, and that’s what I took.


In two years my life was changed forever and forever and forever. Everything I hold dear, everything I cherish in one way or another, I owe to the experience that converged from my childhood, my lovely parents, and my good home. Converged and passed into my soul on a mission.


Everything -- my marriage to Sister Holland, my children, the fact that they have been on missions and all married in the temple and now are raising children to go on missions and be married in the temple, my education, and my chance to have a profession in education, my church assignments—everything that has ever blessed me I owe to the gospel, collectively, broadly, and to my mission specifically.

So don’t worry about being homesick. Don’t worry about being new. Don’t worry about the language. None of that matters. It will not matter. God loves you and this is the truth and you can do it! Just reach down, pull up your socks, and go to work. This is a time for you to go out. I plead with you. I plead with you, in the case of the Elders, to have a 24-month mission! Not 23, not 22, not 19, not 16, not 14…to have a 24-month mission! Sisters, have an 18-month mission—not 15, not 11, not 6. Start fast. Run hard, and to the tape! You can rest later.

From this I have decided to make my New Year's Resolution to Finish my 18 month mission, with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength. I will give everything I can to the Lord and those I am serving.

I want you to think about what your one goal for this year is and reach that. If you don't reach it and I find out mmmm we will leave it at that! ;)

I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!
8 Months down…… 10 to go…… 



Monday, January 4, 2016

Why I Belong and Why I Believe

Hey! What a crazy week it has been! I ended up not moving to Moncton until Saturday. It is crazy serving in a city…. There are so many stupid people around that don;t know how to drive :( This morning in my studies I was reading a talk from Clayton M. Christensen talking about why he belongs and why believes in the Church. I want to share it with you because it helped me know and understand why I belong to this church and Why I believe the Doctrine of the Church.
As you read this talk I want you to think and ask yourself a few questions. Why do you belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Why do you believe in the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? For those of you that are not members of our Church I want you to think about the differences you hear and see from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and all other Church’s around.

Why I Belong, and Why I Believe Clayton M. Christensen Professor, Harvard Business School

As I have progressed through my life, my commitment to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has deepened for two reasons. The first is my reason for belonging to the church as an organized institution: because of the way the church is organized, it puts opportunities to help others in my path every day. It facilitates my efforts – and in some instances almost compels me – to practice Christianity, not just believe in it. The second is my reason for believing that the doctrines taught in the church are true. As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. My conviction has deepened as I have continued to study these books and have tried to do the will of my Father in Heaven. Why do I choose to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an organized religion, rather than attempt as an individual to live a good life? It is because the church helps me understand and practice the essence of Christianity. The mechanism by which the organization achieves this is to have no professional clergy. We don’t hire ministers or priests to teach and care for us. This forces us to teach and care for each other – and in my view, this is the core of Christian living as Christ taught it. I actually have come to feel badly for my friends who belong to faiths in which professional clergy are employed – because they don’t know how much joy they miss when they “outsource” the teaching and care of the members of their church to specially trained professionals. Several years ago I read a story in a news magazine about flooding in several western states that resulted from the rapid spring melting of a heavy accumulation of snow. One photo showed thousands of Mormon citizens in Salt Lake City who had been mobilized with only a few hours’ notice through a call from their local church leaders. They were shown filling sandbags that would channel the flow of run-off water. The article marveled at the command-and-control precision – almost military in character – through which the LDS church was able to put its people onto the front lines of this civil crisis. Another photo in an article the next week showed a thirty-something resident of a town along a flooding stream in another state, sitting in a lawn chair reading while national guardsmen filled sandbags nearby. The author of the article attributed what he saw to the “organizational efficiency” of the LDS church, but he completely missed the point. Thousands of people instinctively showed up and went to work because they do this sort of thing all the time, week after week, in over a hundred countries around the world, as part of being Mormon. This was not an unusual event – just another week in the life of a typical Mormon. To illustrate, let me review some of the things that I was able to do in the normal course of being a member of this church in a recent year. Because graduate students and young families move into and out of apartments with regularity in the Boston area, a list gets passed around at church every few weeks, asking for men to show up the next Saturday to help some family load or unload their rented moving truck. My children and I signed up every time, and worked shoulder to shoulder with five to fifteen other men and their children for two or three hours, helping the family move. At least once each month and more often when needed, I visited by assignment an elderly Hispanic couple – a woman who was in poor health, whose husband was struggling to overcome his addiction to alcohol. They lived in a dilapidated apartment in a rough part of the city. Over the course of the year the men in our congregation replastered, re-wired, painted and re-carpeted their apartment. We contributed money to fly their grown children, who were struggling financially and living in other parts of the country, to a special family reunion we helped them organize in Washington, D.C. Every Sunday for two hours, I cared for about 14 children aged 18-36 months in the church’s nursery, so that their parents could attend Sunday School class in peace. My wife Christine was similarly engaged. In the assignment she had at that time, when she learned that a mother had a new baby or someone was otherwise ill, with just a few phone calls she would enlist people to appear on their doorstep for a day, a week or for months. They would bring meals ready to eat, or hands ready to clean their homes and do the family’s laundry. The important point about the prior paragraph is that our experience was not unusual. Everyone in the congregation was similarly serving, not just accepting assignments to help, but seeking opportunities to help. We gave often, and received often. For example, a short time later our family had out-grown our small home, so we found a larger one and put the word out that we would appreciate any help in loading and unloading our rented moving truck. Among those who showed up that morning was Mitt Romney, now the governor of Massachusetts, who had just completed his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Mitt had a broken collarbone, but for two hours traipsed between our home and the truck, carrying out whatever he could manage with his one good arm. That spirit is just in the air in the Mormon Church, week after week, year after year. The strong help the weak, and the weak help the strong, and nobody thinks about who is weak and who is strong. It creates an extraordinary spirit of mutual love, because as we work to help others who are in need, our love and respect for those we help intensifies. My children have been raised not just by their parents, but by an entire community of remarkable people. One of the world’s foremost materials scientists, the dean of the Harvard Business School, a podiatrist, and the executive vice president of American Express Corporation were our sons’ boy scoutmasters. These men of substance and position selflessly taught my sons first aid and citizenship, and camped with them in the snow. Each of our children during their high school years went to “early morning seminary” – scripture study classes that met in the home of a church member every school day morning from 6:30 until 7:15. The women who taught these classes had degrees not in religion or theology, but in art, law, nursing and literature. They had spent several hours the day before, preparing and searching for a way to help the sleepy high school students the next morning learn an element of the gospel more deeply, and to send them off to school with a firmer resolve to do what is right. Christine and I haven’t raised our children. A whole community of selfless Christians has contributed to helping them become faithful, competent adults. Whenever we have thanked these men and women for what they have done for us, without exception they have expressed gratitude for having the chance to help – because they grew as they served. Because we employ no professional preachers, it means that every sermon or lesson in church is given by a regular member – women and men, children and grandparents. This means that we have the chance to learn from everyone – people in all walks of life who are struggling in their own ways to follow God. I have found, in fact, that some of the most profound things I have learned about the gospel of Jesus Christ have come from people from whom, if judged by the standards of the world, you would not have expected such profundities to come. For example, about a decade ago I was serving as the bishop, or lay minister, of the congregation of college students in the Boston area. We had assigned a college sophomore to give a sermon about repentance in our service on a particular Sunday. I still remember his key point: “We often view repentance as a slow process. It isn’t. Change is instantaneous. It is not changing that takes so much time.” I had been struggling to overcome a particular bad habit; and I resolved that I would change my behavior right then and there – to quit “not changing.” Where else but in this church could a young, inexperienced student have taught a bishop such a profound lesson? I believe very strongly that these Mormons that I have described are not more loving or more selfless or more competent than many, many individuals in other faiths. What is different, however, is that we live and serve within a context that causes us to use those attributes – to serve, rather than to be served. And as we use them, they become an even more powerful part of us. One of the curses that afflicts successful, prosperous people – many of whom have extraordinary talents and good hearts – is that they tend to live and work amongst similarly successful, prosperous people. They thereby become isolated from those who need their help. What I appreciate about the Mormon Church as an infrastructure for Christian living is that it puts me in touch with people I can help. I told a friend once, “If you truly want to live your life as Christ taught, then start coming to the Mormon Church. You don’t even have to believe what we believe. But if you want to practice Christianity, this is where the state-of-the-art is practiced.” This is why I choose to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The second topic I want to address is why I believe in the doctrines of the church. I was born into a wonderful Mormon family, and as I grew up I found few reasons to disbelieve the teachings of the church. My parents had deep faith in its precepts, and their example and encouragement were powerful – I believed in my parents, and I knew that they believed the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was not until I was 24, however, that I came to know these things for myself. I had been given a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. After I had lived there for a few weeks, far away from the supportive environment in which I had been raised, it became clear that adhering to Mormonism in that environment was going to be very inconvenient. In fact, doing the sorts of things I described in the first part of this essay within the Mormon congregation in Oxford would preclude my participation in many of the things that had made Oxford such a rich experience for prior recipients of my scholarship. I decided, as a result, that the time had come for me to learn for certain and for myself whether Mormonism was true. I had read the Book of Mormon before – seven times, to be exact. But in each of those instances I had read it by assignment – from my parents or a teacher – and my objective in reading it was to finish the book. This time, however, my objective was to find out if it was a true book or a fabrication. Accordingly, I reserved the time from 11:00 until midnight, every night, to read the Book of Mormon next to the fireplace in my chilly room at the Queen’s College. I began each of those sessions by kneeling in verbal prayer. I told God, every night, that I was reading this to know if it was His truth. I told Him that I needed an answer to this question – because if it was not true I did not want to waste my time with this church and would search for something else. But if it was true, then I promised that I would devote my life to following its teachings, and to helping others do the same. I then would sit in the chair and read a page in the Book of Mormon. I would stop at the bottom of the page and think about it. I would ask myself what the material on that page meant for the way I needed to conduct my life. I would then get on my knees and pray aloud again, asking the Lord to tell me if the book was true. I would then get back in the chair, turn the page, and repeat the process, for the remainder of the hour. I did this every evening. After I had done this for several weeks, one evening in October, 1975, as I sat in the chair and opened the book following my prayer, I felt a marvelous spirit come into the room and envelop my body. I had never before felt such an intense feeling of peace and love. I started to cry, and did not want to stop. I knew then, from a source of understanding more powerful than anything I had ever felt in my life, that the book I was holding in my hands was true. It was hard to see through the tears. But as I opened it and began again to read, I saw in the words of the book a clarity and magnitude of God’s plan for us that I had never conceived before. The spirit stayed with me for that entire hour. And each night thereafter, as I prayed and then sat in that chair with the of Mormon, that same spirit returned. It changed my heart and my life forever. It was as if I had been looking out as far as I could see toward the horizon, and had been quite satisfied that I could see everything that there was to see. When I undertook to read the Book of Mormon in that manner, however, I discovered that so much more beauty and truth about who we are and what God has in store for us, lies beyond that old horizon. I did not know what I did not know. I love to go back to Oxford. As the beautiful, historic home of the world’s oldest university, the town is filled with students and tourists. To me, however, it is a sacred place. It is there that I learned that the fundamental message of the Book of Mormon is in fact true – that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. It is there that I learned that God is indeed my Father in Heaven. I am His son. He loves me, and even knows my name. And I learned that Joseph Smith, the man who translated the Book of Mormon and organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a prophet of God in the same sense that Peter and Moses were prophets. I love to return to Oxford to remember the beautiful, powerful spirit that came to my heart and conveyed these messages to me. During my adult life I have been blessed to witness or participate in many miracles – events that the scriptures term “gifts of the Spirit.” I have healed the sick by the power of the God. I have spoken with the gift of tongues. I have been blessed to see visions of eternity; and events in my future that have been important for me to foresee, have been revealed to me. These truly have been gifts, and have been great blessings in my life. But when I assess the collective impact that they have had on my faith, my heart, and my motivation to follow Jesus Christ, they pale in significance and power to those evenings I spent with the Book of Mormon in Oxford. This happened to me a quarter of a century ago. I am grateful to be able to say that in the years since, I have continued systematically to study the Book of Mormon and Bible to understand even more deeply what God expects of me and my family while on this earth. I have spent thousands of hours doing my best to share what I am learning with others, and to serve others in the way that Christ wants. And I am grateful to say that, from time to time, that same spirit that permeated my heart in Oxford has returned – reconfirming that the path I am trying so hard to follow is in fact the one that God my Father and His Son Jesus Christ want me to pursue. It has brought me deep happiness. This is why I belong, and why I believe. I commend to all this same search for happiness and for the truth


I want you all to know how much I love this Gospel, I would be so lost in this world without it. I know the Book of Mormon is true, It has been brought forth in this day and age to help lead and guide us. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, Called to Restore Christ's church back to the earth. I know that President Thomas S. Monson is the Prophet of God living on the Earth today.

I LOVE and MISS you all so dearly!!! only 11 short months and I will be coming home!! Have a great week! Cant wait to hear from you all!!

Sister Hardy
1309 Mountain Road unit 408
Moncton, New Brunswick
E1C 2T9