The Christmas Spirit - 12/17/12

Dear Family,

I am happy to hear that you are getting some snow. last night we slept with the AC down all the way, I felt like I was in a snow storm. There was a missionary that is going home, so he stayed the night with us to catch his early flight. St. Lucia is getting a little change of missionaries. There are now four missionaries out of my group that are here on the island. Pretty sweet! We are having a great time teaching the Gospel. It is a lot of fun, I can really feel the Christmas spirit as I have tried to love the everyone. I think that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the best gift anyone can receive. Everyone needs to know that God loves them especially around this Christmas time.

I am not sure what time we will be skyping, but it can be anytime, so let me know when works best for you. Everything is going good though, and I am sorry my E mails stink. It is not that I dont have time this week, I am just not sure what to say. Make sure you tell Daniel hi for me, and everyone. It would be really great to be able to write Sister Wade also. Thanks for everything, I love you all.

Love
Elder Hartshorn.

Staying the Same - 12/10/12

Dear Family,

I guess I should just say I am staying here again.... with Elder Meredith. The good news is that there will be two zone leaders here so I will get a little break. The other zone leader is Elder Jones from my group. We will be over st.marteen also. The zone is doing great! We are ripping up the mission right now. Elder Meredith and I are going to have some baptisms this transfer no doubt. We have been working with a couple of great families. I am excited to stay here for Christmas, I am sure I will be leaving next transfer though.

I do not need much for Christmas, so I am sure whatever you send will be great! I have not received any wedding announcement yet though. That is super exciting that Brittney is receiving her endowments. That will be awesome! I really wish I could go to the temple. I cannot believe there is no snow yet. Maybe it will be a late winter, and there will still be enough snow to go snow machining in June :)

Check out what was in the harbor this week. It gets pretty busy in town when there are four ships. It is sooo awkward talking to white people. 

Well I hope all is well up home. I am glad to be able to be here. West Indies Mission is the best. Thank you for all that you do.

Love
Elder Hartshorn

Fishing in the A.M. - 12/3/12

Dear Family,

Guess what time we woke up to go fishing this morning? 2:30. Reminded me of ice fishing only earlier. The Branch President on the other side of the island invited us to go, so we got permition from president and we had a great time. Elder Selman even caught a shark! haha

Well I do not have much time today.... sorry. Activities just kill internet time. but we had a great week. I love you all!

Love
Elder Hartshorn

Never boring - 11/26/12

Thank you for the awesome letter. It is nice to hear what is going on at home. It sounds like some major wedding planning has happened. That is pretty awesome.

Well this week was great. My first thanksgiving without a turkey to eat. It only cost 100 US for a little turkey. The Senior couple bought a bunch of chickens. We did have pumkin pie though. 

Guess what yesterday was? My 18th month mark! I am kind of scared... anyways we wont talk about time anymore. Our investigators are doing well. We have two awesome families that we are working with. The only problem is there is no men in the both of the homes. Normal and functioning families here are a rare and a prized possession for missionaries. Elder Meredith and I are doing well together so far. We have a lot of fun. Being a missionary is just fun. If you do not let it stress you out. I am thankful to be able to serve a mission at this time in this place. I know there is a reason that I am here. The thing that a have learned the most (I think) is the need for a living day prophet. There is so much confusion. The other day a lady from the church called "no denomination" Tried to tell us our church was wrong because 1. we allow the women to wear pants and 2. we allow women to talk in church. When we asked her the doctrine of her church, that is all she could say. I am thankful to be able to have a testimony, that the fullness of Jesus Christ's Gospel has been restored.

I hope everyone has a great week, I love you all.
Love Elder Hartshorn

Like No Other - 11/19/12

Dear Family,

We had a great week! We finally were able to help the members get excited about missionary work. The fruit was nine investigators at church. Both of the awesome families we found and are teaching came to church. My companion has a great personality and is a lot of fun so we get a long pretty well, it adds upon the fun serving in St. Lucia. This place is like no other. We had some great experiences with the homeless people this week.

We were waiting for a member to come out with us and this guy comes up to us and starts saying something, I couldnt understand him, then he finally got enough courage to ask us for money. I said we dont have any money, sorry... He then walked off, and we decided to do some street contacting while we waited. We walked around the block and talked some people then came to the same spot where we were waiting at before. We called the member and they were almost there so we just waited. The same scared homeless guy came back to us and started whispering something, I think he was trying to
get the courage to ask us for money again, I cut him short and said we still dont have any money. He kept mumbling and laughing as he walked off. It is the little things like this that keep me from going crazy.

We are going to be eating at the senior couples for thanksgiving. It should be good, but I must say in advance that I will miss moms Cheesecake 

That is so crazy that Elder Richins is coming back. I remember going to his farewell just the other day.

Anyways how is the wedding planning going? If there is ties involved you should send me one. I am pretty excited, even though I dont know much haha.

Well good luck! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Hartshorn

Hello Everyone! :) - 11/12/12

My dearest Family,

All is going great here in St. Lucia. We found two really great families last week, in the same day. We actually got nine new investigators in one day. They are going to come to church this week. We hope we can set a baptism date with them sometime this week. Our old investigators like Soul, and Clamenta are still there, they just are not keeping all of the commitments we leave with them. Some times people call out to us and try and make fun of us because of Romney, and saying we should go home now. We just tell them that it was Obama who sent us here to spy. haha That is pretty much what has been happening around here.

Zone Conference was awesome! President Mehr is funny he says some of the most crazy things as he teaches. He just gets really excited. Guadaloupe was nice. My companion was not able to go because they do not allow Guyanese in. He stayed with the other Guyanese in our zone haha poor guys. Anyways we went to church right there in Guadaloupe, I just read my Book of Mormon the whole time, because I could not understand anything. Now I have a better idea of how investigators might feel when they come to church for the first time.

Tell everyone hello for me. I am sorry my letters are bad now a days, I just have so much to do on the computer, and so little time. Oh and I think I lost the yellow card that has my shots on it. Is it possible to get a new one so I can, at some point, come back to America... Well I just want to say I love you all and I miss you.
Love,
Elder Hartshorn

Mission Newsletter

Elder Hartshorn wrote an article in the WIM Newsletter!