Elder Hardy Phone Home

6am wake-up call from our handsome guy - totally worth it! It was so wonderful speaking with him and hearing his voice. He's off to Trinidad for 2 days of training then fly to his first area of service in Suriname. He spoke a few words in Dutch and sounded so good! He said he always knew he was going to serve a mission and had a bunch of little reasons why, but after some time in the MTC one day it hit him that he had one BIG reason and that was because of me, his mother, and my conversion story. You always hope your children listen to you when sharing personal stories, but you never really think they are actually listening. Cam also said his District President told him he is well liked by all and nobody ever has a bad thing say about Elder Hardy, (except when he was sick and coughing for two weeks straight and he had to barter Mountain Dew for ear plugs for his companions). Haha So proud of him and he sounds so grown up and mature in just 7 short weeks. God Speed!

P.S. I forgot to mention that his 10 minute calling card lasted 30 minutes! Whoop! Blessings all around today.

I got a second call from Cameron during his layover in Houston. However that call was only like six minutes before he had to board. He said it's so exciting when people ask him why he's all dressed up and he says "I'm a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints".  I love having a missionary! I asked him to say something in dutch and he said without skipping a beat "I love you mom". Man this kid has my heart!

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Our last day with our teachers Sister Larson and Brother Vizante, Sister Larson was our first teacher and it was hard saying goodbye to her. Brother Vizante is a Romanian teacher but because of the lack of Romanians around, he taught us gospel mostly but he was a really cool guy!

Map of where they will be going.

Letter to Mom, Praying in Dutch and should I change my last name to VANDEVENTER?

I love you a ton mom and I miss you a lot but the best part about learning Dutch is that I feel like I'm getting back to the family heritage. Thank you for sending me that family history info from your cousin in Florida. I will have to send them a postcard from Suriname once I figure out the mail system. I'm excited to finally get on my mission regardless of how unprepared I feel! Today I did an endowment and in the Celestial room I said my prayer in Dutch, it was an awesome feeling, everything I wanted to say I had just pop in my head. My grammar wasn't the best but the words were there. It's starting to sink in that this is going to be quite the journey, my favorite teacher, Brother Norton, one of the biggest studs I've ever met, went to Suriname as well. On his last day for the last half hour, he showed us pictures of his mission in Suriname, it was really cool and is lot prettier than I thought. He also showed a picture of a man with a cigarette in his mouth and a birdcage in his other hand. In Suriname, every Sunday at around 10 am on the buses, people bet on songbird vs songbird, they put the two cages together and have them sing against each other. As they begin to "duke it out" someone keeps track of how they're doing, by the end of it someone decides who won based on the songs against each other, it was pretty funny to hear about.

The pictures you sent me made me laugh and miss them all! The cousins are so cute and I wish I could be there for it! Jeremy and Courtney have grown since we last saw them. Seeing the picture of the Cribbs makes me wonder how they're doing and missing them too! Also, how's Chambray? Seeing the boys helping Uncle David made me laugh quite a bit and it was cool to see them! I was looking at the picture of them at the waterpark and one of the two sisters in my district, Sister Jorgenson, asked, pointing at Cole, if that was one of my brothers. I told her yes and I said, "You can really see where he gets it, huh?" We had some laughs over that, the sisters are really cool. When we first got here 3 of the missionaries in our district were in relationships, Elder Lewis, Sister Ashcraft and Sister Jorgenson; Now Sister Jorgenson got a "Dear Jane" and her mom sent her a get better kit, it even came with a pinata with her ex's face on it! Elder Lewis broke off with his because he figured it was better not worry about it on the mission and Sister Ashcraft is ending because she dated the guy for two weeks before he left, he talks about marriage a lot and he said "I love you" over email to her! We did a pros and cons list of him but she already made up her mind, we all agreed with her but it was just fun to do and it made her laugh a lot! I'm excited to finally leave the MTC but part of me is going to miss it. On Monday we had to help the Senior Missionaries as they arrived here, it was pouring rain and it was pretty awesome! My companions and two other Dutch Elders and myself volunteered for the job of leading them from their cars into the building, we had umbrella's and would run over to help them. Mostly my shoulders and my hair got wet but it was fine, my toes got a little wet but it wasn't anything bad, to think that where I'm going it's like this all the time! Sometimes I entertain the thought of changing my last name to "Vandeventer" or "Van Hardy" I like the first one more though! Just a thought! I miss all of you so much! I also got to see an apostle last night, President Nelson of the 12! It was broadcasted to all the other MTC's and we were in the stands singing in the choir, the director is really cool, he got here near the end of my 5th week but at least he came! I got a newspaper the other day and in the sports section it said that the Red Sox weren't doing that hot, give Sean my condolences!

Love you lots,

Elder Hardy

Bon Voyage!

Hello everyone! It's my last week in the MTC and it certainly feels like it could not have come any sooner! It feels like I've been here forever but also like I just got here, especially when I have to do skype calls with a Belgian speaking Flemish, for those who don't know, Flemish is a dialect spoken in Belgium that is softer and spoken with a slight Irish sounding accent but Dutch, good thing where I'm going it is highly unlikely I'll have to worry about it! We ended up not hearing him announce that he had a spiritual experience about when he had a near death experience, we didn't understand what he said so we said something along the lines of "that's awesome and cool" We learned after the call! We got our flight plans this week and we're leaving Monday morning to head to the Salt Lake City airport, we head to Houston after that and then finally Trinidad, hopefully I get a window seat. We've been learning tons about the gospel and it's amazing! Whenever we teach our "investigators" I can my knowledge of Dutch and the gospel growing. We've been trying our hardest to survive this last week with most of the rest of our zone (the ones who got here the same day of us) leaving. The Norwegians' flight plans had some troubles, on Monday they left to the airport and had to head back to the MTC at around 6 pm, we were in class when they bursted into our room! On Tuesday half of them were supposed to leave but their tickets weren't even there, we calmed their troubled hearts during lunch! Most of them are heading to the airport today but I get the feeling that they're going to get there, soon enough my district and I will be heading to the airport ourselves! Next time I get the chance to email I'll be a stranger in a strange land!

Tot Ziens!

-Elder Hardy

A special gift, a personal planner, from Sister Hoopes (One of our favorite sister missionaries from Colorado) that she made for Cameron to use on his mission. 

7/29

I'm so excited to get to Suriname, one of my teachers went there on his mission and was telling us about his time there. We have to learn a dialect there called Sranan Tongo or Taki Taki, but we can just learn that in the field! We learned some of it during class a couple days ago and it's a mixture of Dutch language, English language and the Jamaican accent! It's fun to say but it's still hard to learn!

Also, I learned about the VanDeventer, it literally means (in Dutch) “From Deventer”, It's pronounced FanDayFenTur with a bit of an Irish accent. One of the branch presidencies heard us talking about family history and I told him about how your name comes from the Nederland and he told me about it. Now if only we could track the history!

This week was an interesting but fun one, the swelling in my face has finally stopped and I am finally back to my old facial structure again! Most of my zone (the other missionaries in my area) are flying out soon, they leave on Monday and my zone leaves the Monday after them. I wish that I could leave the same time as them, partly because we got here at the same time...but regardless I might as well make the most of my time here. The food here is interesting, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss healthy food, the better choices they have here aren't very good and the fruit here is next to plant in taste! I'm excited to get out of here because I feel trapped! My only relief from this place has been when I had to go to the doctor's office about 10 miles away but on the bright side I got to read a newspaper! I never thought I would be so excited or even really want to read a newspaper until I was old and had a rocking chair just for that occasion. Today is P-Day, which will be celebrated with a traditional "Not" Tie Draft, the reason "Not" is in the name is because the previous members of our zone were too rambunctious and the branch presidency decided to stop it. We adapted and now we whisper chant during the drawings! I've managed to avoid most of the bad ties but the worst one I've gotten so far was "the rattlesnake" the worst part about the tie was the fact how it began to shed on me! This weak my tie wasn't bad, it was dubbed, "The Dirty Mexican" because of an Elder who previously had the tie. Attached is my first "Not Tie Draft".