I felt like I was driving the green beast

Hello everyone it's always so good to hear from you all and it sounds like everyone is doing so well. Its' been a really crazy week here but the trip down to Katherine went great and I felt like I was driving the green beast to mountain view....only it was a toyota carrola and a 7 foot trailer with some mattresses and a couch haha. But we found a new investigator and several other great people to follow up with while we were there. 

I am in a trio again until transfers in 2 weeks and we are covering all of Darwin (two areas) so things are pretty busy and the office will not be happy with our KM situation. Its alright they will forgive us. 

Hope you all have a good week, next week I will have some spiritual experiences to share promise! 

Love Elder Hartley 

Elder Glova and I had the greatest experience on Saturday

Elder Glova and I had the greatest experience on Saturday. There was a non member who came to church a few weeks ago on his own.  We had never seen him before. As we talked with him we found out he went to church for a bit in New Zealand as well but was never baptized or taught by the missionaries. We got his address and planned to go and see him. That was 3 weeks ago and we have still not been able to ever meet with him but we keep on trying whenever we are close. It seems like every time we go and he is not there we say.....we should tract here sometime....but we never did there always seemed to be some where else that we needed to be or someone else we were trying to track down. Finally Friday night during planning we decided to tract James street if he was again not at home. When we went there of course he was gone so we started to track. The first door we knocked on in the flats next door we met a man named Mitchel. He is the most prepared soul I have met my entire mission. He let us right in and we taught the restoration and Book of Mormon and committed him to be baptized on September 26 all in that first lesson with him. The Spirit was so strong as we taught and Elder Glova bore powerful testimony at the end to finish it all off. We are so excited to keep teaching him and hope to meet and teach his parents soon as well. The Lord is always preparing people we just need to listen to the Spirit tell us where we need to be! Things are good here and I am learning a lot about patience....Elder Glova speaks really well but he doesn't understand what people say as good but I forget because he speaks so well its kind of funny.

 Our worlds at home were so different. He learned how to use the microwave the other day and that you cant put metal in it. He is great and will do anything that he is asked to even if he feels like he can't do it good. We are really excited for the coming weeks and the people that we are working with at the moment. It will be a short week I am going to Katherine again on Wednesday and Thursday. We had to rent a little trailer to take some stuff down for them and to do trade offs. It will be a fun little trip. We are always so busy and time is going to fast.

 Love you all have a good week....love you 

Elder Hartley 

My companion is Elder Glova he is from the Philippines.

It’s been a good week. It feels so nice to be back in our own flat and our own area again with just two of us. My companion is Elder Glova he is from the Philippines he was there for 4 months waiting for a visa. We picked him up at noon on Friday, he is great and has such a strong desire to do all he can to help others learn the Gospel We do language study together every day and it is funny because he helps me with grammar and I help him to pronounce. Serving with him has already helped me to be much more grateful for all that I have been given. He came here with so little but he is so happy, none of his family our active and most are not members of the Church. It’s going to be great to serve with him and to find new people here that are ready to hear the Gospel. He is hard working and tells me that he loves knocking doors so we should get along just fine. Many of the people we have been working with are slowly disappearing but that is ok there are plenty more out there to talk to.

I am so glad to have the chance to serve and learn here and things are going great.

Thanks for all you do

Love Elder Hartley 

I am happy to stay in Darwin for a while longer.

It’s been a crazy week of running around and changing companions and getting all the new missionaries here set up with the paperwork and things that they need to be legal! We have to get approved to work with children and if you are here more than 90 days get a Northern Territory drivers licence and stuff like that, it all takes a lot of time.

I am still in a trio my new companion gets here Friday at noon, he is coming from the Philippines! I am pretty excited to have a steady companion and area again it has been a crazy month. People here in Darwin are so different than in Adelaide. We find so many people to teach here but most are unwilling to commit to do much acting on what they know to be true. Almost all of the people we found the last two transfers have been dropped because they are not willing to make the changes that the Lord wants them too. The culture here is very relaxed and friendly it is great. It will be so good to have a companion that can communicate with the Philippine people here! We still meet with Gary and his family they are doing good progressing slowly we are really trying to help the mum to have the desire to be baptized Gary really wants to but he wants to do it all together with his family. Things are going great here and I am happy to stay in Darwin for a while longer...maybe I will be here till Christmas!? That would be good by me....thanks the emails and letters I am so glad things at home are going so well.

 Love you all Elder Hartley 

Usually only get 5 at church if you count the missionaries!

Me and Bro. Friday...his English isn't great so we were reading 2 Nephi one of the Isaiah chapters and he asks us what it means we look at each other and shrug our shoulders..he pauses and says in the aboriginal accent "sooo is the Lord coming or what" it was so funny! 

We had a really busy week, zone training on Thursday...I went down to Kathrine to run church with the Elder that looks over that area (he has been with us 3 weeks now cause his comp went home early for his bros wedding, sorry forgot to tell you that) Kathrine is a lot like Cardston small only one stop light and full of aboriginals like the natives at home. It’s a 3 hour drive...we went with some members Saturday afternoon and came back Sunday afternoon. Usually only get 5 at church if you count the missionaries! It’s really different there. It was a fun little trip I am going again in 3 weeks to take a trailer of supplies down cause no ones else can drive a trailer.

 Elder Kelese got transfered today we just put him on a plane to Adelaide. That is why I am late emailing. Our new companions will get here Wednesday afternoon.

We are working hard but most of our investigators have either dropped or are not progressing so we will hit the doors more this week but I actually really like it so it’s all good.

Gary and his family are good just slow because they are really busy and the wife is not to keen at the moment but Gary still really wants to be baptized so we are still really working and praying for them.

Thanks for the emails sorry I never give you all a personal reply. Love you all have a good week! Love elder Hartley....

PS open to any help on receiving communication from heaven next week it is something I am thinking about recently. 

This is were we had lunch

They pull 4.5 meter crocs out of there sometimes but people still swim....crazy fellas 

Elder Kelese and Keith Sailor

Elder Kelese last night in Darwin 

Swinging from the vines

Got a Christmas card from Aunt

Ginny this week....that must have gotten lost somewhere! 

Went down to Kathrine, check out how big the trucks are some pull 4 trailers! 

This is were they have church in Kathrine....only like 3 come usually but we had some visitors from Darwin so we needed more chairs haha pretty different from home...the elders speak every week!

WW2  Cemetery

Pres. and Sister Parker came up this weekend and they are so great I love them.

We had a crazy week again, I have spent two days in Hospital with two different Elders for different reasons and meetings and different things. I feel like I wasn’t a missionary this week! I was but we did a lot of different things.

Pres. and Sister Parker came up this weekend and they are so great I love them. They have so much energy and are so excited to be here and get to work. Pres. Parker is really excited. He actually didn’t serve a mission, so this is his first one! We had a short training and were able to spend time together getting to know each other more. It was a really good experience. It was sad to see them leave, they are just getting on there plane right now....they brought the assistants with them. It was really good to see Elder Pitama again. Its’ been a while since I have spent much time with him, brings back memories of the city and all the Asians we talked to. I didn’t get to see many of our investigators this week because of the logistics of everything. They all are moving a bit slow at the moment. Gary and his family our still really solid but they are busy every day doing paper work to get permanent residency here. They plan to be done in mid August so until then we have short 20 min book of mormon reads with them which are great. Pres Parker got the whole mission to read the book of mormon together (8pgs a day). We started last week and I am in 2 nephi now its good because we can talk about what we are learning with each other because we are all in the same place. Pres Parker is a really hard working man and he is going to do a great job. I am really excited to work with him. Things are going good here. We are really going to help people to read the book of mormon this week.

I love you all thanks for all that you do!

Love Elder Hartley 

I did learn something about revelation.

This week was kind of average to be honest, we didn’t work much at the end because of meetings and a sick missionary that we were doing some trade off with so his companion could go and work and teach some of the investigators that are getting ready for baptism. I did learn something about revelation. When I first got here we did not have a branch mission leader (he had just moved the week before) I was here for several weeks and we still did not have one...all of us and many of the members were getting a bit frustrated because there were many members whom "we" thought could do it. It has been nearly 2 months but finally they called Bro Popp! He just moved in and his second week here he was called. He is so perfect for what the branch really needed. If they have called someone who "we" thought would be good it would have been the wrong man. Our Branch President wasn’t going to call someone until the Lord told him too and now I understand why. The Lord knows what is best not us. 

 Thanks for all you do love you all and thanks for the emails!

Elder Hartley 

I have been working out can you tell? 

 The Greys are a mission couple. They came and got a bunch of spare furniture to take to Alice Springs