Monroe Michigan: the land of miracles

Olá minha familia! I am so sorry for the craziness that was my last email, I'll try to make this one more normal, no promises though! Sorry if I scared you at all! I was trying to be silly! I really do feel very safe here! My companions are awesome! My trainer is so wonderful and my other companion is so sweet! I feel more like I have two wonderful examples than two trainers! We have a lot of fun.

We have been blessed in the weather recently! It has yet to really snow, and yesterday is was almost in the 50's! I am excited for it to snow, but right now I am grateful for the relative warmth and sunshine! We meet way more people on the streets than we would if the snow was feet deep! Yesterday we went to the cute little downtown area to do some contacting, it was a warm and beautiful day, but for some reason hardly any people were out and about! We met a really nice young man though with his cute dog and talked to him for a bit, he wasn't interested in the gospel but he seemed really happy to talk to us and hopefully we were able to brighten his day a little bit!

I am learning so much about teaching and how to teach super simply so everyone we teach can understand the importance of our message.President asked us to ask our families to pray for our investigators, so would you all pray for Dominic! He is not the only person we are working with, but he is struggling to get an answer to whether or not God is there, and prayers would be much appreciated! (Please don't put that in the big email! It feels weird to ask you to pray for him, but I want to be obedient, and he really could use the prayers!) We have some awesome people we are teaching right now who are really progressing! Last week I said we had a baptism this weekend, but it is actually this next coming weekend. He is a man that the missionaries have been working with for a little over a month, and we have been just waiting for him to tell his wife he is getting baptized! She is very against him joining our church, but he is dead-set on joining, but still nervous to tell her. This Sunday at church he was talking to Sister Pierce and I and said "I told my wife I wanted to join. She wasn't very happy and wondered why I couldn't just attend without joining, but I told her I wanted to join." We are so proud of him! We are praying that over time his wife's heart will soften. We have yet to meet her because she isn't very fond of us, but I love her so much and she sounds so amazing! I am a little scared to meet her though since she is a black belt like her husband haha! I am so happy for him though. He told his son and daughter too and they are very supportive. His son and law though was sending him a lot of anti, but he arranged for us to meet with his son and law because he didn't believe the anti and wanted us to straighten out some misconceptions. We met with the son and law and he tried for a while to bible bash us, but we were careful not to fight and only use pure doctrine you could find in preach my gospel. We didn't convince or convert him, but at the end he was fine with Dwight joining and even said he would like his own daughters to be like us one day! So that is my cool story for the week!

We are in a nice apartment and we shop at the Walmart across the street, we do a lot of contacting there too! I got a nice pair of boots that I will send home when I go to Portugal. They are a size 7 so maybe one of you could use them! Our apartment is super cute, the couple in charge of mission housing came and did a surprise inspection. We did fine but there is a ton of junk left from years of missionaries that they advised us to clear out. We have been working on it and it is crazy how things just pile up! We have three bins for donation, threw away three bags of trash and have a box of church books we aren't allowed to read that we hid in the closet in case a future mission president lets the missionaries read them (the president is strict on only reading PMG and the Book of Mormon). We also have this random bowling ball we don't know what to do with... We found a nice skirt though! It was too big, but I whipped out my sewing kit and fixed the waistline and now I have a new skirt! We eat a lot of mini pizzas and pizza roles. I learned if you buy pita bread that is a delicious and cheep way to get yourself a pizza crust! The members feed us often too! I said I had shared my story, but I have one more! There is this recent convert who is the most wonderful, faithful, kind woman I have ever met! She has a cute and very tidy little apartment, but she is very poor. When she joined the church and was taken to the bishop storehouse it was the first time she had had full cupboards and fridge in years! She signed up to feed us twice this month, which she really can't afford. We went over this week for dinner and she had bought two little stew beefs sticks. We worked together to make some instant mashed potatoes and gravy and cook the beef. It was the humblest little meal, but It was the most delicious meal I have ever had. We ate and talked and she shared with us the many miracles she sees in her life. She pays tithing though she barely has enough money to pay her bills, and she told us the miracle she had seen from paying her tithing this month was that she had just enough money left after paying her bills ($11) to serve a friend who was in need. Her humility and kindness were the epitome of being Christ-Like. I want to be more like her and be as giving and able to recognize Gods hand in my life as she is! We were able to collect some dresses from our wardrobes and from members to give to her granddaughters who want to come to church but have nothing to wear. They want to be baptized and we are praying that their mother will let them! We also ate with a really awesome family called the Rhodes. He works for the local Nuclear power plant and we had a super fun and interesting conversation about nuclear power and clean energy! It was right up my alley haha!

We had stake conference this Sunday and because they stake is so spread out they broadcasted it to our building, It was really good! And we got to watch the Christmas devotional at the bishops house. He is the greatest guy and his family is so cute! The devotional was awesome! I can't wait to hear your missionary experience mom! Members are so vital to missionary work!

 I love all the people here in Monroe Michigan so much, I want them all to experience the joy of the gospel!  I love you all and I know that this church is true! I testify that Jesus is our savior and he loves us eternally! Through faith in his atonement and fervent and sincere prayer we can find peace and guidance in our crazy lives amid a crazy world. Use the Atonement! He suffered for YOU! 

Eu voces amo!

-Sister Hardy

Pictures: Sister Pierce got a cute wall decal from her mom, so we posed under it, and last P-day we went to Lake Erie! It was freezing, but so so beautiful!