Swimming in the Spirit!

October 22, 2018

Swimming in the Spirit!

Hey Dad!! 

I miss you and you are frequently in my mind, always in my heart, and never are not in my prayers. I have only been gone for two weeks and I still feel like I am missing so much! Tell Ronnie happy birthday for me and give him a long lingering hug that will make him both gently push you away and smile, from me! He would make an incredible missionary with his intense passion for whatever he puts his mind to. I miss Lizzie like crazy! I just want her to know how special and important she is! Tell her that for me! I am working on the Prophets invitation too, but I am probably way behind! Even though we are all swimming in the spirit we don't get as much time as one would think to just read! Only a half hour a day! It is my favorite half hour though. I love the Book of Mormon! I will be honest and say that my testimony of the Book of Mormon before now has been passing at best, but how could it not be true!

I have been absolutely loving my screen fast! I find I am so caught up in the work of the lord and the importance of my mission that I don't even think about it! Our resident mates are the new Sister Training Leaders in our zone and they have a little flip phone and none of them want to even touch it! I feel an actual physical repulsion to it! Technology is of the Lord when used for His purpose, but when you are so entrenched in his purpose I have found that technology can easily and even happily be done without. Even if I had time to waste on a phone or watching a movie, I really wouldn't want to, I'd rather spend it reading the scriptures!! 

I wish I could read "Saints" but the MTC choir director tells incredible stories and knows an impossible amount about the history of the church! I have learned something new every time we went! Did you know that our spirits are Gods LITERAL children? I never really thought about it, but in the back of my mind it was kind of like Zeus and Athena and he just thought us up. BUT NO! No wonder we are so incredibly precious to him!

I wish words could express the spirit that I feel and the way my faith has grown, but you have been here so I will assume you can imagine. I have never been more challenged or stressed, and I have never been happier.

This letter is not for everyone, and Mom told me not to tell you all if I was having a bad day because you would worry about me, and I want to assure you how happy and in tune with the spirit I am! There is nothing to worry about! I just would rather share with you what is hard than ignore that it is! My companion is incredible but she also has struggles of her own that I am finding difficult to not want to just take away from her and bear for her! The spirit has truly humbled me to let God do his job. Christ already took upon Him all of my companions pains and fear, and she is in his care. My job is simply to help her with her burdens and love and support her, not to bear her burdens completely. When you love someone you only want them to me happy, and it hurts my heart to see anyone I love in pain. Tell Jordan that I love her! 

Learning a language in 6 weeks is the hardest thing I have ever done, but it is coming along! We teach our first TRC's today! I am only freaking out a little bit! I know though that as I focus on the spirit and the message we have to bring I will know what to say! Or at least the person we teach will understand what I am trying to say haha! I am going to tell a few stories in the group email, so I will wrap this one up here!

I love you Dad! You are such an incredible example to me of strength and trust in the Lord. I know He is there and I know that he loves us all! He felt all of our individual pains, fears, sorrows, and feelings of inadequacy and he will never go away. As I was sitting alone in a waiting room waiting for my companion, I could see Him sitting there in the chair next to me, comforting me in my concern and I knew he was with her too offering her His strength. He is always there for us and the only reason he would stay away is if we made him. I have learned the principle of daily repentance, one I didn't understand before I left! How vital it is to repent every day, every moment! It is the way of Eternal progression! The doctrine of Christ is so simple, but it is a process that never ends. As we place our complete faith and trust in the Lord, we have no need to fear! That does not mean we stop working, it is the strength that allows us to work harder.

I love you so much Dad! I miss you, but I don't want to be anywhere else! Please do not worry about me! I am in the Lord's hands and there is no safer or happier place to be! 

Love, Sister Hardy

October 22, 2018

WEEK 2!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RONNIE!! I can't believe you are 17! If I were there I would give you a huge hug and never let go! 

Lizzie, I am so proud of you for going to Scarywood! And everything else, but the process of prayer is so important, and never forget that whatever is important to you is important to the Lord! "For you are engraven on the palms of His hands and your walls are continually before Him"

I love you Rees! You are a champ and I can't wait to come home and read the work you have done on your book! *wink!

Jordan! I love you so much! I think you are irreplaceable, who else could make everyone smile and feel joy from a single laugh!!

Mom-Dad, I love and miss you, but I would not want to be anywhere else either!

I got the cookies, the district and I really enjoyed them! I felt so loved, thank you! I actually found my pictures, they were tucked between some of my books, but if we have our new family pictures I would love to get some of those! I also don't have many pictures this week; when I erased the pictures off my sim cards, I accidentally erased all of the memory along with them so I need to get a new sim card, but haven't had the chance yet. We get to go to the temple every P-day, so we went last week and will go again today! I honestly wish I could just live in the temple, it is so peaceful and still in there which is so nice in comparison to the crazy MTC life! I have seen Aili! We got a picture together, she should hopefully email it to me sometime and I'll send it to you!

Our District is officially the biggest district in the entire world! Three new elders came in this last Wednesday and were put into our district! They are a week behind in the language and everything else, which I am sure is really hard, and they are joining a district that is already extremely close, but we are all really excited, you can never a have too big of a family! Though I am sure we are rather intimidating in the cafeteria with all 13 of us taking up half a table, laughing and saying all the random Portuguese words we know! We have only known each other for two weeks but we are so close! Our District leader is Elder Bischoff and he can't for the life of him figure out how Sister Moulton and I are always so early for everything! It drives him crazy! Honestly I don't know how we do it either. Elder Bates would call it Bruxaria (witchcraft in portuguese) haha! This morning we got up at 5 to do our laundry before it got crowded and when we were heading upstairs to write our emails we saw Elder Bischof and Elder Hansen coming in to do their laundry, the look on Elder Bischof's face was so sad and confused I felt a little bad. He said in his thick German accent "how do you keep beating us!" It didn't help that Sister Moulton and I also had our hair and makeup done and were in dresses and they were in their PJs. Elder Hansen didn't look too bothered beyond being up at 5 in the morning, so that's good!  

I have a few funny stories to share! There are two many, but I picked two of my favorites!

One of our Teachers, Irmao Nickell has this terrible bad luck with whiteboard markers never working, and so he is constantly grumbling about terrible markers and leaving to steal ones from other classrooms and those ones always end up being dry too! So a few days ago Elder Esplin tells him he has a present for him and tosses him a brand new whiteboard marker, then another one, then Elder Christensen tosses one and pretty soon all of the elders are just throwing brand new whiteboard pens at Irmao Nickell and he is just sitting there with this huge cheesy, open-mouth grin on his face struggling to hold a dozen whiteboard pens in his arms. It was so hilarious! Needless to say, all of our whiteboard markers work now! 

Our branch just had a huge group of missionaries leave to their missions in Italy so new zone leaders and STL's had to be reassigned along with most other callings. Our Resident mates are the new STL's and they are going to be awesome! Anyway, a few days ago Sister Hallows decided to go to bed early and was fast asleep by 9:15. At about 9:50 we heard her name over the intercom to go immediately to the front desk! Her companions were really scared to wake her up but they did and they were all throwing on dresses and freaking out because they thought it might be Sister Hallows visa! She is supposed to be in the Brazil MTC but didn't get a visa, so we were all really sad thinking she was going to be leaving us. They literally sprinted to the info desk and Sister Moulton and I just sat in our room being sad thinking that sister Hallows would be leaving! They came in and all it turned out to be was a package with chips and salsa from her family! It was hilarious! Once they got over the fact that they had gotten dressed again and sprinted across campus they were all pretty relieved that Sister Hallows wasn't leaving yet.

We do our first TRC's today where we teach someone a lesson in Portuguese! I am really nervous and I hope I remember all of the words I have learned! I have the first vision memorized in Portuguese, so my plan is if I can't think of anything to say I'll just start sharing that! I am excited though too! This is what I will be doing for a year and a half and I want to be as prepared as possible!

I could share my testimony with you in Portuguese, but the months not up yet and I am sure I will know how to say a ton more by then! So I'll just share a quick one in English! I know that Christ is real and that he felt every pain, worry, sorrow, and fear that we feel. No matter how small it may seem. He will always be there for us, even if we shut him out he will be there patiently waiting behind the closed door. I know repentance is real and that we can truly be forgiven for every mistake we make, which is many! I know the book of Mormon is true, and I can't wait to go out and share this gospel that has made me so happy with the people of portugal! Place yourself in the Lord's hands, do your best, and you will be taken care of!

I love you all! I miss you! 

Love Sister Hardy

 The Pictures: Elder Hansen and Elder Bischof goofing off! A really pretty sunset at the MTC, I am that dark blob at the bottom. And Sister Hallows with her chips!