Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Never thought I would have an older companion.

 I got moved to a new area called Paralowie its still close to Adelaide. 
We were flushed in. It has been closed for several months. I am training an Elder Anderson from Salt Lake. He is 26! Never thought I would have an older companion haha. 
Still district leader, its nice here and one of the Zone Leaders is an Elder Pitcher from Brooks. He is Shawn and Dans nephew! I like the new area.  People are really nice and humble its going to be fun. 
There are heaps of really good members as well! Its going to be a good few months. 
Sorry for the short one today things are crazy today no time. 
Love you all and keep working hard.
 Elder Hartley

Monday, February 2, 2015

My heart sank

We had a great experience Friday night and Saturday morning. We had planned to do a service with a single Sister in our area Saturday morning to help move a bunch of soil in her garden.
She had also invited her neighbors, a husband, wife, son, and daughter to help. When we got the call from the Zone Leaders Friday night about going to the big service project at the Sampson Flats we were so excited to go to it and we made all these plans how we could move our service to later in the day and everything would be ok and that we would be able to do what WE wanted to do. So we headed over to this Sisters house to talk to her and move the times around and things so it was going to be no big deal, As soon as we got there we talked for a few minutes and were just about to ask if we could move the time when her neighbor came out of his yard to confirm for the next morning. My heart sank as I realized that it was going to be really hard to get out of this now with him here as I selfishly thought about my self. In our minds we decided to stick with the original plan as we were there talking to the Sister and her neighbor and confirmed it with them. Right after we did, this man started firing questions at us like a machine, all about what we believe, why we are here, what we actually do, how we do it. They were great questions and he had an honest desire to know the answers. Were spoke for 20 min all about the Church and then we had to leave to be home by nine. The next day we went (a bit sad) to the service and were able to work side by side the great family and single sister. After it all she told us how impressed here neighbor was with us and that he always thought we were the weirdest, strangest people with know freedom and that we were always forced to follow all the rules and things. But after talking with us he said that his opinion was totally changed about who we  were and what we did. Then the best part was hearing this Sister bear her testimony of the experience on Sunday as she was able to tell about how her neighbor was so helpful and able to learn more about what we believe. We hope that the ward will catch the wave and start inviting more as well. Sacrifice brings blessings, we really wanted to go to Sampson Flats but we know that wasn't where we needed to be. 

Thanks for all you do love you all!!!!!