Week One

May 18, 2015

Hello all!!!!

I cant believe that i am sending out my first email to everyone! Know that i am alive and doing so well here in the MTC! (sorry all my pics are at the top i cant figure out how to fix that ahaha)

I LOVE IT HERE. so please dont be too worried. im doing great! the moment i got here the spirit has been so strong in my life and i have seriously already grown so much- i feel like a new and better person. i love my companions! one is sister pugsley shes the best! (shes the girl that i was hoping i would get with who is from BYU) so when i saw we were companions i felt so #blessed. she is going to Leeds England speaking chinese. i have another companion- sister oakeson! she is so sweet and has the best laugh ever. she has never taken chinese and i am so impressed with how fast she is learning and growing (shes going to taichung with me)! we all get along so well. our district and zone are the bomb.com. seriously we are all so close and its only been a few days. its funny because since we are here for 9 weeks the older sisters (ones who have been here longer) really take us under their wing and guide us around where if you were english and only here for a little bit everyone is always new. all of the chinese speaking missionaries have this awesome bond and we do everything together! Its a blast. Chinese is going well and i have learned SO MUCH! I can already pray in chinese and bare my testimony! we have already taught an investigator twice ALL IN CHINESE and are teaching her again tonight. its pretty hard to communicate but i know that if i rely on the lord i can do anything! i have already grown such a love for her and hope that she accepts our invitation to read the Book of Mormon tonight :) its funny because our lesson plans really just look like a script where we have written down the pinyin of everything we want to say haha. luckily she is incredibly nice and doesn't hold our terrible chinese against us. one of the older sisters told me "we don't have to know what to say or what to teach, we just have to invite the spirit" honestly its so true. we may not know this language but we do know how to bring the spirit to others. 

There is so much to say and not enough time to say it but just know that i am so well. being a missionary is going to be wonderful and i look forward to the next 18 months. the food isn't good but im over it. its definitely hard work (ive never worked harder) but its the lords work. and its not supposed to be easy. everyone here is incredibly nice and they sorta feel like older wise siblings that are there to help always. 

I hope that everything back in real world is going great! This week me and my companion ship set goals for what we want to be like when we leave the MTC and they have already helped us be better missionaries! with that being said i encourage everyone to set goals! but setting the goals is only one part of goal planning. after you make goals you have to have a plan to achieve them and then hold yourself accountable for them! its hard to have growth without goals and i know you will blessed if you set them! 

I love you all and am incredibly grateful for aff the support that i have! 

Wo Ai Nimen!

-Sister Hardy

PS i am so sorry if you emailed me individually and i wasn't able to respond! i have very limited time! i love the emails though and will try to respond soon! 

PSS funny story: we wake up at 6:30 every morning so i have my watch alarm go off every morning at that time. this morning i checked my watch and it was 6:30! i hadnt heard my alarm yet though so i was confused. i woke up the sisters and we started getting ready, when i looked down and realized that it was still 6:30... haha my watch had been showing me the time that i had set for my alarm, not the time of the day! it was 4:30 am hahaha we all had a good laugh and then went back to sleep! 

PSS look up the video Characters of Christ by David A. Bednar. IT IS AWESOME and will be the best hour you've spent your time on all day.