December 11, 2008

This is a Dominican sunrise, we run to this every morning, its pretty cool. This is Hermano Gomez, he is pretty much the coolest teacher ever! This is a picture of Dominican Republic security, its pretty much the best security system ever invented, broken bottles cemented to the top of a wall. And last, this is just what Elder Hardy does best, and that is climb coconut trees!

Hola! Que lo que! Todo bien aqui, yo estoy chillin. Haha, isnt that funny they use, "I am chillin" here too. I thought it was funny. That is so cool that nate and kindy had their baby!!! I bet they are stoked out of their minds, haha, yea i still use lingo like that, but only in emails to you. anyways that is so cool. I cant belive another red head! Well everthing has been pretty crazy around here, the latinos are so loud! They are really funny though. At first they would just laugh at our spanish, but now they are trying to help us, so all is well. Last week we taught julio about the Book of mormon, and about prayer. He was so interested, i just wish i knew more spanish to teach him better. Oh, and by the way, it is not splits, it is just me and my companion teaching him, and both of us have been in the MTC for a month and a half. But anyways, it went very well, we commited him to read a chapter in the book of mormon, and to pray to know if it was true. We also commited him to meet with the other missionaries, so that will be good, because i think they know a little more spanish than us. But it was really cool to see a person change. His semester is done at the university, so i will never see him again, sad. But he wrote down our names, so he will remember us. Today is going to be really cool, we get to go to the temple, except this week it is in spanish! So i am pretty excited! Hopefully i wont be too lost. Oh yea, i got your letters and everything, so dont worry about that, and i decided that you can just email me, i have worked out a system to pring them off before i email. And, i am running low on my snack supply, i can try to make it another two weeks, but maybe having a nice box of treats will be nice to ahve waiting for me in puerto rico. By the way, i talked to this elder the other day from puerto rico, and he showed me all of the good surfing spots on a map, so i got it all mapped out for when we go! I am SOOO excited to get out in the field!!! I cant wait to go teach people every day. I am not sick of the CCM or anything, i am just excited to go teach people. Well i better be going, thank you for all of your love and support. love elder hardy

The Santo Domingo Temple

Hey dad, you know how you used to complain about that tree we had with the big pods, well just be thankfull they arent this big. The second picture is of the temple. This is what we see every morning as we are running, and the sun is coming up. The third is just me doing what i do best, and that is being a safari man. The last is a picture of my companion, who is next to me, and our roomates. Our roomates arent in our district, but they are still cool guys, they jsut arent blessed with a cool district leader. The last is a picture of our distrist, we are on the walk way up to the temple, just being goofs like always. well hope you guys like the pictures, i will send an email later today.

The Dominican Republic

December 4, 2008

Hey! whats up gang? how is life? Mom, thank you so much for that package, i got it on tuesday. That caramel popcorn is SO GOOD! My district loves it! Well i hope you got my pictures, i sent them today by email. Anyways, alot of good ahs happened this last week. last saturday we went to the university, and went contacting/tracting again, and we had a great experience. When we first got there we got shot down by two groups of people, so we were feeling kinda bummed. We were walking through a park, and i said a little prayer in my heart, asking heavenly father to help me to know who to talk to. Right once i finished this, i see a man that we had talked to the previous week, and he was not interested in all, he did not even want to talk to use. So i see this man standing there, and i say, Lord are you sure? I did not want to get rejected again, but then i made eye contact with him, and i knew i had too. So we started walking up to him, and he was getting all sketchy. I could see he was thinking, "Not this americans again". So we started talking to him, and he was acting really hesitant, and he said he didnt want to hear our message, except he said it in english, so i said, oh, you speak english. And he said he is taking a class. So i said that is perfect we can practice our spanish with you and you can practice your spanish with us. So we talked for about 10 minutes with him, His english was horrible, so i told him just to speak spanish, we found out his name was julio. Finally he got comfotable, and asked us why we are here, and then he asked us if we would share a scripture from the book of mormon. I was just like, "We got him!" So we shared a scripture and asked him what he learned, and he just went off, speaking so fast, i could only understand a sentence here and there, but it was all good, he understood everything, and seemed pretty interested. He asked more questions, and we did the best to answer them, and then he asked if he could go to church. I was so excited! excpet the only problem was we didnt know where a church was, so we got his number, to have someone call him from the CCM. Then he asked if we would meet with him next saturday at the park to talk more. I was so happy, i have my first real investigator. Me and my companion have been stoked all week! I cant wait to go teach him, we are planning on teaching him the first lesson, so we will see how it goes. This whole time we have been here, it has only been us 22 americans who have come from provo, but today we got 32 latinos. it has been pretty crazy here. it is defintely not quiet anymore. But it should be pretty fun. Today instead of doing an endowment session, president asked my district to help a group with baptisms for the dead. It was so cool. I really liked doing the baptisms and confirmations in spanish. It was a really neat experience. The group that was there was all american, the men were apart of the first 10 missionaries in the DR 30 years ago. One of them is related to hawks, so that was kind of funny. I forgot their name, but just tell the hawks that they are from utah, and that he served his mission in the DR. Well i am running out of time, but i love you guys, keep the spirit with you, and keep the lord in your hearts always. Love elder hardy

hey Guys! happy thanksgiving! you just emailed me an hour ago, so i dont know if your on or not, but i dont have too much time. Dad i got one of your letters, but not the first one. But keep sending me letters from dear elder, i got both of kyleys, and it takes too long when you email me because i only have a half hour. Well i am sorry to hear about granpa, he will be in my prayers. That is really cool that hailey is getting baptized, i will send here a letter, it should get there in about a week or so. The spanish is coming along really well, i can teach the first two lessons in spanish. Today was an interesting day, we went to the Dominican Republic Museum today, and it was super funny. They have a very interesting heritage. You will see the pictures when i send my memory card, which wont be until i get to Puerto Rico because they said not to trust the mail here. We got to go to the store this week and buy whatever we needed or wanted. it is pretty much like a big walmart, except they have cool Dominican stuff. I bought a pretty killer tie, it is by far my favorite tie of all time! But it was pretty wierd trying to find stuff in the store when all the signs are in spanish. I thought about getting the incredible shaving powder, which aparently you just rub this powder on your face, mix a little water, let it sit for 5 mins and then take it off with a spatula, it is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. Even if it is strong enough to take your hair off it is going to take your skin with it. On the box it says, may couse irritation, and also, Made For Black Men, and i am not being racist, it says that, so yo0u dont ahve to sensor that out. Well last saturday we went to the University again to do a little contacting. it was really cool, Here we are, 4 weeks out in the field, and we are talking to people in spanish, and making it possible for them to recieve the gospel. The people were really friendly, we got 5 peoples address's who were pretty interested in the church. it was a lot of fun, and gave us a good indication on where we are at with our spanish. The Dominicans talk SOOOO FAST! It is crazy, we had to ask all of them to speak slower because we are learning. But it was so cool!!! We celebrated thanksgiving yesterday, it was really good eating. although i have to say, i missed beans and rice. I really do love beans and rice, they are so good! Anyways, president perkins told us he didnt care to much for having thanks giving in DL meeting. Oh yea, i am district leader, sorry, forgot to tell you, anyways, it was hermana perkins who had to have thanksgiving. HAHA! she is so funny! i love her, she is like a mom to all of us. She made the whole thanksgiving meal, including homemade pie's and everything. IT WAS SO GOOD! After thanksgiving we all went out and played basketball, it was really fun, becxause a couple of our teachers came and played with us, and it got pretty competetive, just because i wanted to beat my teacher, haha, he is such a funny guy, his name is hermano Ruiz. We went to the temple again today, it was amazing as usual. infact i think i want to get married here in the Domincan, it is so pretty, plus it would make it really easy to just hop on a cruise ship after for the honey moon. So just keep that in mind. Umm, i cant think of anything else to say, and i know that right once i send this letter i will remember something, but thats how life goes. Have a great thanksgiving. Yesterday i thouygt about what i was greatful for, and it was you guys. My family is the most important thing to me, you guys mean everything. Mom i want you to know how much i apreciate you, and everything you have done for me, i love you so much. Dad. i want you to know how much you mean to me, you have always been a great example to me in how to be a priesthood holder, and i respect you and love you for that. Love Elder hardy

November 20, 2008

hey! Yea it was a pretty long traveling day. it was really funny when we got here, because i got off the airplane and then just a gust of humidity hit us, i was so sweaty, then these people that were speaking spanish, just started pointing to us where to go. I was so lost. then these little guys just started picking up our bags and loading them onto a cart and leading us through the airport. The whole time i was just praying that they were taking us to the right place, and not just going to steel our bags, haha. It all worked out good though. The MTC is right next to the temple, they share the same parking lot. Ther temple is Beautiful!!!!! I love it! Today was our first day going, and it was so awesome. We also went to do service today. We walked a couple of blocks to the university, and went to this park where there was hundreds of the college students just hanging out. It was a cool park, it reminded me of the park we went to in hawaii with that huge tree, and all those people selling pictures. We went there to pick up trash. haha, but right once we got there, everyone started yelling and about a hundred of them just strarted running, I DID NOT KNNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON!!!!!! I thought there was a riot or something. But then i asked someone if they spoke english and what was going on, and they said that their was a thief, and they were all running to beat him up. HAHAHAHAHA!!! If our country was like that we wouldnt need police. I thought it was pretty funny. Oh yea, last night was pretty funny too, it was about 11:00 o'clock, and i hear what sounds like lightning. So i didnt think anything of it, then they started getting louder, and closer together, then their were a bunch of them and they weren't as low of a noise, so i thought that the first ones were bombs, and now they were shooting guns. everyone was getting scared, and we all thought they were gun shots, and we cant see anything out of our window, because they are glazed, but all we could see was light. We were all in the halls trying to look, but we couldnt see anything. I was really scared, i didnt know what was going on. but then the Mission president came out and told us that they we just big fireworks, so everything is good. but it was pretty funny, we were all scared. Well the food is really good here, every meal is pretty much the same except for dinner, they usually throw curve balls at us for dinner. But for breakfeast its bananas and oatmeal. oh yea, ive grown to love bananas, because they keep me from having diarhhea. haha, thought you would like to know. umm, lunch we always have two meets which are chicken and beef, sometimes pork. They are soo good! and of course rice and beans. We always have the same two drinks, we dont know what they are, but one is red, and one is yellow. The fruit is amazing here! well i am short on time, i gotta go. Love elder hardy

November 14, 2008

Hey Its Jared, i made it to the Domican republic safely last night. It is So awesome here! It is pretty much a nice hotel for our mtc or ccm. Well everything is great, i am super stoked, i dont have anytime to type, but i love you. Elder Hardy

November 5, 2008

Hey guys! everything is awesome here in the MTC! Today was our P day, so we got to go to the temple again, and it was another really good experience. It was snowing on us pretty hard though, and it was 7 o'clock, so the sun wasn't out yet. Needless to say, but i was glad i had my snowboard jacket. i am so glad i am getting out of here and going somewhere warm. This week me and elder radmall are going to ask our teacher a bunch of questions about the Dominican MTC since she went there on her mission, so i will give you guys a bunch of information on it next week. And i have my travel plans, we are leaving the MTC at 4, but our flight leaves at 7, then we go to chicago, i have an hour lay over there, then we go to florida, and i ahve an hour lay over there. So i will have some time to call you guys. I don't know my new mission address, but i'm pretty sure you guys can still dear elder me in the DR. I leave the DR MTC December 22, so same as before. Next week i will send my jacket back, and i will also send my memory card in there, so you can see my companion, and some of the wierd stuff we've been doing. Oh, yea, have you guys torn my room apart yet, or are you gonna give it some time to soak in that your baby is gone. Personally i dont care what you do to the thing, just leave my jack johnson poster up, and of course my Orlando Bloom poster. That pretty much does it. Well its been great hearing from you guys, tell grammy i hope she is doing well, and tell daniel to keep it up, i am praying for him. I love you guys. Love, Elder Hardy

The Santo Domingo Temple

October 30, 2008

Dear Family, Hola. Como estas? Everything is great in the MTC. I have learned so much this pst week. It seems like I've been here for a month. The MTC is awesome. The spirit is so strong here. I love it! And yest, I am going to the Dominican Republic MTC on November 13. Ha ha, sorry for writing the P.S. I know leaving the country is kind of a big deal. But the first night we got here, we met with our branch president and he said, "Oh, our Puerto Rican missionaries, so you go to the Dominican Republic in 2 1/2 weeks, huh?" And me and my companion looked at each other, and both had looks of question and shock. Anyways, we went to the travel office the next day to make sure, and by the time I found out we were leaving for sure, I had alrady written you guys, so I just thought a little P.S. on there. Didn't mean to cause stress in your life. But me and my companion, Elder Radmall are really excited to to to the DR MTC. It will help me learn the language really fast not being able to speak English. I'm sure it will be stressful and frustrating, but oh well. I 'm picking up Spanish pretty well right now. I can pray and bear my testimony en espanol. Last night was amazing! We had our first devotional. We were singing true to the Faith, when all of a sudden everyone stood up, and I see Elder L. Tom Perry walk in the door. Right once I saw him the spirit just hit me so hard. I almost started crying. My eyes started watering, and my voice got all choked up. The spirit is so strong with apostles. It was a major testimony buklder for me. The spirit bore witness to me that this was an spostle of the Lord, and that he really is a special witness of Jesus Christ. It's intersting because after that today we went to the temple, and I started noticing all the symbols of apostles and prophets, and the importance of them on this earth, and I also just read a sweet scripture on apostles in my daily study. I am very grateful for these experiences in helping build my testimony. I know that we really do have apostles and prophets on this earth who receive revelation for us and give us counsel from the Lord. Yo se que JesusCristo es mi salvador y murio por me, ye yo se que Jesucristo pago el pecro por mi pecados. Yo se que el libro de Mormon es verdudero y de dios. Yo se que Jose Smith fue un profeta de dios, y Tomas S. Monson es un profeta viviente. Yo se que dios es nuestro padre celestial y nost ama. En el nobre de Jesucristo. Amen. Love, Elder Hardy

October 29, 2008

Hey! how is it going? i already wrote you a letter that will be coming in the mail in a day or two, but i just set up my email, so i thought i would still write you guys. I am in the middle of doing my laundry, so its pretty exciting right now. Thank you SOOO MUCH for the the box of goody's! the cookies tasted great! Keep it coming. The spanish is coming along great. I am going to the dominican republic MTC, that will be further explained in my letter. i just want to build up the anticipation that i know is driving mom crazy. But one of my teachers went to the DR MTC and she said she loved it. So i am really excited for that. I don't really have anything else to say, since i wrote it all in the letter already, but just letting you know i have an email, and i will write you from this from now on. You can write me on this too, but if someting important happens or you just feel like writing me a good old fashioned letter, that would be appreciated too. Again thank you for the box!

October 22, 2008

Dear Family, Well, I survived the first day here at the MTC. Everything is going great! I am just super excited to be here, and to be serving the Lord. I don't think the sad past has hit me because I'm too excited. I met my branch president tonight, and I really like him. He is a funny guy in a serious way. He acts serious, but everything he says is funny in a sarcastic way. Well, just letting you know I am doing great and loving it. I love you guys. Love, Elder Hardy P.S. I'm going to the Dominican Republic MTC