July 28th, 2014

My Dear Family,

Another Interesting week done and probably hundreds more to go at least in my experience nothing is normal anymore. We were walking down the street just talking to people and this sweet middle aged old lady (well she looked sweet anyways) looked at us so we said hello and tried to hand her a card, but she didnt want it, she looked at us as she walked away and said you are on the wrong path girls, you really are, you are on the wrong path and she walked away.
Then soon after we contacted this young couple and a lady walked up to us while contacting and asked if we were Mormons, and we said yes , then she looks at the couple and says dont listen to a word they say, they are a colt, they were these special underwear to protect themselves, they are telling you lies. then she looks me in the eyes and says in "the name of jests Christ i command you to stop.." she says you are on the wrong path, you really are and as she was walking away she says they believe in the trinity God the father, Jesus Christ and Joseph smith."
THEN yesterday i was sitting on the bus, this time by myself just singing a hymn in my head waiting to get off the bus, and this guy in white robes comes sits next to me and says are you from a church and i say yes from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints and he says can i share a scripture with you and i think in my head you're going to anyways.. but what comes out is sure.. so he does and then he shares another one and another one and his voice gets higher adn he shares another one the whole time i say hardly anything in a very calm and quite voice praying that he will return to his seat. after we get to the station he gets off and i follow a few people behind him and he catchs me again to share more of his opinion so i listen and finally say i know who i am, i am a child of god, and i wish him the best in his endeavors and leave.

From each one of these experiences my testimony grew, i knew as i walked away that what each of these people tried to tell me was false it didnt make me feel good, it all actually made me feel empty, but when i thought about God and who he was and the plan he had for each of us and the way he made it possible for us to have a prophet today the time way the children of ancient record had one i felt loved and comforted and peaceful and i knew there was a difference and the difference mattered. I also learned that it is important to know the truth because if you don't know the truth you can be fighting the battle for the wrong side and not even know it.

My companion had lots of fun relieving those experiences this week, honestly they just made us laugh. Speaking of laughing there is this amazing old lady in our ward, her name is sister gales and she is like 90 years old and at missionary correlation they were complementing her on her efforts in missionary work and her response was, "its no that hard when i see someone on the street my first thought is, i wanna see you in the promised land." hahaha shes amazing she brought us a whole chicken for us to cook and eat with potatoes and everything, so we did ... we may have burned the skin a little but it was so good and it was nice to eat through out the week!!

Ricardo is the most solid investigator that we are working with he is actually planning on getting baptized next week, he had a few concerns we are hoping that we helped him resolve them but we will see on tuesday. Most of our week was spent walking and talking to people, almost all of our appointments bombed so we ust went to drop by people, the most amazing part that each morning we would ask heavenly father to place people in our paths and each day we found some amazingly prepared people. I am so excited to see what happens with them this week. Well i love you all!!

Love Sister Hadley
 

July 21, 2014

My Dear family,

The city is definitely not the country! so many more people!!! the work in this area has its ups and downs for sure. we have a few people with baptism dates and one of them is ricardo and he is so prepared! i love it, he just soaks everything in and his fellow shipper is this recent convert who is just on fire with the gospel! my companion is awesome, shes been here for 6 weeks so she sorta knows the area, she always know where to go next anyways and im constantly having to try to keep up with her. She been out on her mission for 13 months and she was mtc companions with caroline whitney!! small world, eh?

We teach ESL here, so i will be doing that again so i got to get back in shape with my teaching English skills.. we arent as involved with the members here its a bit sad. But we will work on that! so this week there isnt a whole bunch to report on either becuase i am still getting used to the area i also dont know what to say.. what is going on over there an with you people?? Love you all!!! Love sister Hadley

ps my new comp and the mitchell family that i said good bye to last week, they always fed us!!
 

July 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Sorry i waited till the last minute to write, ill repent and be better nest week. It was a rough last couple of days, but thats part of the work you have ups and you have downs! This week will be better i know it will. Heveanly father is preparing this area through our branch and through the work that we are doing every day. We have found lots of new people to teach some of them choose not to keep appointments when others do, and becuase some do we et a man named len and he wants to be baptized in august so he can be free from all of his sins. It was incredible to hear him say that, i love this gospel i love being able to recieve a testimony of it each day! I love you all and wish you all well!! mom and dad enjoy your trip, you deserve it!! tell mary and monty hello for me. 

Love Sister Hadley