She knew we were sent by the Lord.

It has been yet another eventful week. Our ward mission leader finally got home from vacation and we got to meet him. O my where to even start. Lets just say that if you were to scroll through his phone contacts Elder Richard G. Scott would be on there and so would President Monson. Enough said. The man is amazing. He has as great vision for the ward and we are so excited to all be working together. 

We see the Lord's hand guiding us every step of the way. We went knocking the other day but when we pulled up to our pre planned spot we didn't feel good about it so we kept on going. We went somewhere different. I parked the car in front of a house and we agreed we would knock that door last. We knocked all the doors in the neighborhood and found angry, not patient people. We headed back to knock the last door on the street where we parked the car. A surprised lady answered the door. She related to us that her 93 year old mother lived in Independance Missouri and had been a faithful member all her adult life but she, the daughter, had never joined. She related to us how she had to been to Salt Lake and to numerous Temple Open houses, she even has been to multiple family history centers. She has done everything except read the Book of Mormon. She knew we were sent there by God. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon... She didn't want us to come back but we know that it was just another experience to prepare her. She knew we were sent by the Lord. 

All is well except time. Time goes by so fast. We can never ever miss any opportunity to learn and to grow. I love you all! Have a great week. 

Love,

Sister Hartley 

Our area is so funny

Well it has been another eventful week with much learning and growth. Travis your transfer training again?!?! Your family tree is growing bigger and bigger. Katelyn your new area sounds a lot like the areas in our mission... Your new companion sounds awesome.. international companionship's are the best. 

Our area is so funny... today we were in Wal-Mart and we overheard a few retired people's conversations.. they were centered on Golf and we heard one couple excitedly tell another "It's great the shower is only this far from the toilet, everything is so close just perfect for us." haha It was priceless... Old people are so funny. 

Guess what else is funny? Elder Thomas is my District Leader! haha this is the closest I have served around him. We had a comp study with them yesterday and we laughed about things only people from Cardston would understand. haha He sure has changed a lot.. He talks so much more. He was pretty shy before, he has grown a lot spiritually to, He is a great District Leader. 

Things are progessing well in our area... we are teaching a lot of Part Member families which is so good to see. We are building up a teaching pool it is so great to see our empty area book begin to fill up. I love it. The field here is so ready to harvest. Sister Allen is amazing. We are learning so much from each other. I love seeing her grow more and more each day. 

All is well! Thank you for all the love and support! 

Love,

Sister Hartley 

There is so many old people here!!!!

"baby" Sister Allen

Hello from way up NORTH! We are as far North as we can get until hitting the Orlando mission. My new area is called Sebastian. We are opening it up again for Sisters. It hasn't had sister missionaries in over 5 years. There is so much that I could say... So much has happened in the past few days. My new companion is Sister Allen she is 19 from Alpine Utah. She knows how to work hard already so I am grateful for that. She is excited to be here and came in with a lot of fire. I knew she was going to be mine the moment I laid eyes on her! haha I love her. We are both beyond excited to be opening this area. President took the previous 2 elders out of the ward and put 4 new missionaries in-1 set of Sisters and another Elders. (Katelyn one of the Elders is Elder Anderson the brother to the one in your mission.. small world eh?) . Everyone is new... The ward really is so blessed... it has 2 of the hardest working missionaries in the mission and 2 brand new missionaries... all together we bring a lot of fire. The ward mission leader nicknamed us "Seal Team 7"  President is so inspired to do this. The ward is AMAZING! In the past it hasn't had the most obedient, nor hard working missionaries. The members haven't trusted them. After transfer meeting President called all 4 of us together and related the history of the area and what he wanted us to accomplish and do up here. The leadership in the ward is amazing. The ward mission leader really is a missionaries dream!! He has held so many callings in the church and has so much experience. . . the bishop has served in a mission presidency... and I really could go on and on. The church building itself up here is a stake center with a HUGE parking lot and 3 bishop's offices! Right now there is only one ward meeting here... it has so much room to grow... I no it won't happen over night but something truly great is stirring up here. The whole time I have been here we have not knocked any doors!! That is a miracle!! The members have kept us so busy with part member families and referrals. It is amazing. I am so excited to be here. Funny note: There is so many old people here!!!! Seriously... it is not as diverse as all my other areas have been. We went to Wal-Mart today and the median age in the store had to have been over 65... haha there are 55+ communties everywhere... the drivers are so slow!! We see so many different license plates of retired people or snow birds... it is really entertaining... The ward has a few young families but not to many.. mostly people just golf and play cards with all there old friends all day everyday... haha lots of time to talk about the Gospel I guess. Anyways things have been busy and I don't know exactly how to relate everything but just know that this is such an exciting time to be in this area... I am so grateful. I am so grateful to have Sister Allen as my companion.. Siste Steg it has brought so many flashbacks to our time together.. especially at transfer meeting when I found out you were my trainer and everyone telling me all about you and how lucky I was to be trained by you.. haha good times... anyways I am so happy to be here. I know it is right where I need to be. Great things are happening.. I hope all continues to be well with all of you!

 

Love,

 

Sister Hartley

"President, when are you going to give me a break?"

Another transfer is here! We had transfer call last night and I am going to be training again!!! I am SO excited. The good Lord grants every righteous desire of my heart. Sister Steg why did I turn out just like you?! haha you must be my momma or something. I am so excited. I sure am going to miss being a Sister Training Leader though. I have learned so much from each Sister whom I have served. I am excited now to focus on one Sister instead of 10. I can't think of a better way to spend the last 12 weeks of my mission than helping a new Sister set a solid foundation. It is going to be a great experience and I am really just so excited.

I have been thinking about my interview with President a few weeks ago. I remember him smiling and chuckling a bit of all that has happened the past few transfers. I smiled back and joked a bit "President, when are you going to give me a break?" He laughed a little more and then turned serious, "I have given you a lot haven't I, but my look how you've grown." I can't help but imagine a similar thing happening when each of us sit down with Christ. He'll look at each of us and smile and say something like, "Wow, I sure put you through a lot down on earth didn't I?. . . But my how you've grown and look at what you have become!" With weeping gratitude I'll embrace him and thank him for every single trial, heartache and sorrow. It will all be worth it in the end. This I know. 

I saw a cool miracle on an exchange this week. The sisters really wanted to focus on following the spirit. We set out to knock doors. We had 3 different options of where to knock so we took it to the Lord. After we prayed, each of us said where we felt we should go. The funny thing was that each of us said a different place! At first we were a little surprised because we felt that if it was the spirit we would all agree; however, we decided that there must be people at all three that we needed to find so we decided to do a little bit of each. We did and we were able to find elect people at each location. It was a miracle! It taught me a big lesson. Just because we don't agree it doesn't mean that it is not the spirit. It is just the Lord trusting us. We need to trust that he is telling us where we need to be. It was a great lesson for me and a great lesson for the Sisters.

I had another interesting experience this week as well. With us being in a trio and juggling 2 areas I go on splits a lot with members from the YSA branch. I was out knocking with doors with a Sister preparing to leave on a mission in 2 weeks. The first door we knocked on received us well and we shared a lesson with them. The next few contacts and doors though were not so pleasant. Rejection, rejection, and wait for it more rejection. The member turned to me and asked if this was what a mission was like. I turned to her, and smiled and told her that I love rejection because it means opposition. If there is opposition then Satan is there. If Satan is there then there is a miracle just around the corner that he doesn't want to happen. In essence, it means that we are right where we are supposed to be. I promised her that if we kept going we would find the miracle. The next door we knocked on we found a middle aged man with sorrow in his eyes. He rejected us at first but we were very persistent and he let us in. We gathered his wife and daughter together to kneel down and pray. After the prayer the man and his family were all in tears. Now having there trust, they revealed more of there situation. I'll simplify it but saying that they knew that God sent us at that exact moment. I turned to the member to see tears stinging her eyes. It's a miracle she said. It really is. She then went on to tell the family how we had been rejected but we kept going because we knew there was someone God wanted us to find. "He wanted you to find us" the man said.  The spirit was so strong. We returned later that week and taught him the Restoration.

I love being a missionary. I love being the Lord's servant. I love being right where he wants me to be. I love finding those whose hearts are ready and waiting to here truth. I love it I love it I love it. Each week I grow and learn more and more.

I love you!! Have a great week.