September 23, 2013

Dear Everyone who cares enough to read these things,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! YOU GUYS LOOK SO AWESOME AND YOUNG IN THAT PICTURE!! Also Elder Murphy and I have decided that he and Jordan are the same person. They both can make me laugh no matter what, and bug me by poking me and jabbing me.

Where do I begin? This week has been nuts. I am gonna try something crazy:

Monday: P-day. Also we went knocking in the evening and found an 18 year old freshman at Sherbrooke University whose Mom just died, does not have a father and is all alone. We talked about the gospel and how much hope and healing it brings. We are going to follow up with her and see if she read the chapter we gave her in the Book of Mormon.

Tuesday: Went on splits with Elder Ruby but we stayed in my area and I was the senior companion. We taught a good lesson to a less active woman named Lina Jetté. She has been coming back to church steadily since we started meeting with her about six weeks ago. 

Wednesday: We had a great afternoon of knocking and found several cool potentials. Then in the evening we had three lessons set up in two hours. We were all set to do a member split with the bishop and his first councilor, but the second later lesson got cancelled at the last second, so we did not get to bring out the bishop. We still had two very good lessons. I directed the second one with a woman named Carol. She knows the church is true but just would not give up smoking. We taught her how we follow commandments to show our love for God. At the end I committed her to live the Word of Wisdom and she accepted!! It was awesome.

Thursday: We had a Dinner appointment cancelled, and we taught an awesome lesson to Gabrielle. She wants to get baptized, but now wants to wait till her husband Jeremy (who is like 5 months older than me) to be back into the church enough to baptize her. I might have already mentioned that.

Friday: Weekly planning and passed by Chantal, our drug addict who we have had a hard time seeing. We realized an active member lived in her apartment building and so we brought him. She talked about how much she wants to quit drugs and smoking, committed to do it, committed us to find her a ride to church, and then committed herself to baptism. She is awesome. The next step is formulating a plan to help her quit.

Saturday: Finally set up a lesson with Adriana, our referral from Bro. Vasques. She is about Mom's age with three kids age 20 9 and 6. She was Catholic in Columbia, but wants to find a church that will better help her family. We can help with that. She is interested open, and eager to learn. Her ex-husband seems to pretty much still act as the father in the home despite the fact that he doesn't technically live there, but he doesn't want anything to do with the church (he is pretty atheist I think). It was awesome.

Sunday: The grand finale came yesterday. We had church, then a good lesson with Virginie right after church. She said she has been hearing some sort of voice in her head telling her to read the Book of Mormon, so she has been reading it. We met with Dennis and finally discerned what to do with him. We finally got him to tell us why he wanted to meet with us, and it was to better understand how awesome the Catholic Church is. We dropped him. It was a lesson truly guided by the spirit. Then right after that we had a lesson with a less active named Manon Maryn. She Only read one chapter in the Book of Mormon, but it was because she was blown away by 1 Nephi 1. She had studied the B.o.M many times as a member, but she was so excited about all the things she had never noticed before. She showed us several verses and how she had applied them to herself. We abandoned our lesson plan and talked about the Book of Mormon and the Spirit. She committed herself to read every day, and kept talking about not being certain yet if she will come all the way back to chuch. We have not mentioned coming back to Church once since we met her. It is amazing to watch the spirit work in her to re-kindle her testimony. After that we had a ward fireside on missionary work and President Patrick came and taught everyone how to make a family mission plan. Then he had them all think of people they could invite to do something, then he had them practice inviting them. After the fireside the ward council met with President Patrick and he basically told them how to do more finding, so that we could do more teaching. Best. Sunday. Of. My. Life! 

I love everyone and I hope you all have a great week. Less-active work IS missionary work. It is every bit as important as finding Investigators and baptizing them. 

Elder Hardy

woop forgot the pictures. One is of me eating Wendy's in Montreal (Zone Conference in August), and the other is of me eating my meal of Sausage and French Toast Crunch on the way to the fireside this Sunday. It was kind of wierd and not super delicious but we were out of food and we had to make do.

September 16, 2013

Hello everyone!

I had a good week this last week. Elder Murphy and I are beginning to find a balance between finding and teaching. Obviously we would like to be teaching more than we are, but the first few weeks we knocked a ton, and the last couple weeks we barely knocked at all because we were trying to increase our lessons and somehow thought that just not knocking very much would help. We are beginning to find a better balance now.

We contacted a semi-interested seeming guy quite a few weeks ago, and on Saturday he called us and set up an appointment. His name is Roni and he is from Haiti. He is actually fairly interested, and he is now an investigator. We taught the first lesson, and comitted him to read the Book of Mormon, and he seemed fascinated by it. We have hopes for him. We also had a great lesson with Laurette yesterday. Laurette is a woman about Mom's age from Madagascar. She and her husband are interested, but her husband works in the forestry industry way up north, so we haven't managed to have a lesson with him yet (we had one set up where he was going to be there, but their 1 year old daughter had to go to the hospital so the lesson didn't happen. She is fine though). Her 2 year old son Luca is the craziest little guy I've ever met. We brought the High Priest group leader to the lesson, and he did a great job keeping Luca distracted, then passed him off to Elder Murphy and bore a very powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon, and how it strengthen's his young family, and how it can help her. I told her about Dad and how the gospel helped his family when he was young (in French). The story really touched her and impressed her. She could relate to Grandma B, she being alone with the children all the time (the husband has an alcohol problem). She wants to come to church, but wants to wait until her husband can come (he has all fall and winter off. Also he seems really nice, but I guess he isn't to engaged in the family life).

The Gospel is true. I see every day more the blessings that come from being obedient. Seeing these blessings builds my faith, which helps me be even more obedient. Faith is a principle of action. We gain faith by studying and living the gospel. The Lord doesn't require us to reach perfection ourselves, but he requires us to jump, and have faith that he will catch us and carry us the rest of the way.

Now: a picture of my new haircut...

September 9, 2013

Hello All!

Sacre Vache!! Ronnie and Tanner are huge!! Paige looks like a model for high school fashion, and Lizzie looks even cuter than before (if that's possible). Ronnie truly looks eurodite with those spectacles perched upon his nose. J’espère que tes genoux vas guérir bien Mon Père. It sounds like everything is going well at home. To Jordan, I am so glad that you are reading the Book of Mormon regularly. I have already begun to see the power of that book. I have seen people's demeanor and attitude completely change just by holding the book. Don't ever stop reading that book. The Book of Mormon has a special calling to bring us witness of the truth and the right. Never stop partaking of the power of that calling.

Yesterday we had an investigator who we found knocking come to Church. He enjoyed it, and wants to come back. The problem is that he doesn't think he can get baptized because he is not supposed to submerge his head in water because his glass eyeball will come out. This is a ridiculous excuse however, and we still intend to commit him to a baptismal date soon. Jimmy only came because Brother Dillman invited him, offered to find him a ride, and to sit with him in church and make sure he didn't get lost. It was an awesome example of the power that members have to help investigators overcome fears. We missionaries are freaks. We walk around all day in ties knocking on doors. Of course we like Church. But when a member invites them, there is real credibility to their claim that Church is something they enjoy.

With regards to trackting, here in Quebec if we just sat around and waited for referals we would basically just do nothing. We don't get many, and the ones we get are a result of our own efforts. We are trying to reduce our knocking because yes it doesn't yield too much fruit usually, but we are reducing it by doing lots of less-active work. Just yesterday we were passing by one of our few referals, but they managed to somehow know we were coming and hide (for like the third time, that always seems to happen. Referals and less actives seem to be able to sense when we are coming). That destroyed our plan for that hour, but we remembered that there is a less-active woman who lives near to them. She let us in and we talked to her and her non-member friend for a long time (because she likes to talk too much). She has a pretty severe case of I've-been-offended-so-the-church-isn't-perfect-so-I-will-stop-going syndrome, but was open to more visits. Her friend is the story however. He seemed genuinely touched by the spirit when we talked about the Book of Mormon. They both promised to start reading it, but he seemed far more interested in keeping the comittment. It was also cool to see her get excited about helping to explain the B.o.M. The lesson was really a testimony to me of the importance and value of less-active work. Not only is reactivation just as valuable as baptisms, but is one of the best way to find non-members.

I'm running out of time now. I love you all. The gospel is true, and there is nothing more valuable we can do with our knowledge of the truth than to share it with others.

Elder Hardy 

September 2, 2013

Ronnie got Glasses!?!? What!?! That`s crazy! 

Sorry this is on Tuesday. Yesterday was a Quebec holiday so we moved p-day to tuesday for this week so we could still buy groceries. Tell Cade that I am extremely excited to hear about his call. I got an e-mail from Andrew (college roomate who is still 17 and attending BYU still) that this incoming class at BYU is 3000 students rather than the usual 5500 and only 1 out of every 3 is a guy. Truly the world is being flooded with missionaries. 

Not too much new stuff this week. Still working with our investigators. Gabrielle now has a date for the 19th of October. We have a new investigator named Chantal. We found her when it was 8:30 and we had just finished making some calls and doing some pass-byes. We decided to knock for the last couple minutes before we had to head home. For some reason we decided to start this massive appartment building. We climbed to the top, knocked the first door and it was some college guy who didn`t really want to talk. The second door was Chantal. She is a middle-aged woman living alone and struggling with some powerfull addictions. She really wants to learn about Christ and follow his teachings. She knows Christ can help her with her problems, but feels like she needs more faith. We gave her Alma 32 and she loved it. She understands the metaphor with the seed perfectly. We have a lot of hope for her (she is also meeting with the Jehova`s Witnesses, but she told us she doesn`t like what they teach. Man those guys are everywhere in Quebec). 

I get better and better at French each day. I can make myself understood pretty consistantly now, and I often times can understand what`s going on. I wish French had the possesive form (``Bob`s boat`` is ``the boat of Bob`` or ``Le bâteau de Bob``) Before long I`ll be able to understand what`s going on at sacrament meeting. 

We are trying to reduce our knocking and focus on member work and less-active work. We believe that this will bring us more referals and more solid investigators.

I know this gospel is true. Every day is a witness to me that I am working on the Lord`s errand. I love you all. 

BYE!!

Elder Hardy

Oh and we had my first Transfer calls on Saturday. No changes.

August 26, 2013

Hello guys. How is it going?

This week has been one of awe and baptismal dates. We went from zero investigators with a date to two with another really close to having one. First Virginie agreed to the 12th of October. Gabrielle wants to get baptized and we are working on commiting her to the 12th also. On Sunday yesterday one of our area's formers named Carol showed up at church and made an appointment with us. She wants to be baptized on her birthday in December, so it probably wont be us who baptize her. She took copious notes in Gospel Doctrines class.

We are working on increasing our member work. We have on average about as many lessons with Less-actives as we do with investigators each week, some-times more. French is starting to come. I still struggle with hard Quois accents, but I can communicate fairly well.

I'm not going to write too much today because we discovered today that Elder Murphy's camera cord works with my camera, so I'm going to send you guys pictures. I love all of you guys so much. To mister David from France I say salut, and merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! (P.S tell Paige about how Yannick the recent convert talked to us about how he's concerned that he's braking the word of Wisdom because he sleeps too much. It's a funny story:)

Elder Hardy