heart FULL of THANKS ♥️🍂🍁

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving family and friends!!!! I spent mine trying to explain poutine, toque, garborator, and how to pronounce "bAg" to missionaries who have missed out on knowing the joy's of the great white north! This week topped them all I think! I hope you all are ready for some MIRACLES. First off, I GOT TO SEE SISTER FAIRBANKS at zone conference for the first time since leaving her and it was the happiest reunion I think any man has ever seen. There were tears. We found 9 new people and our teaching pool grew to 40 people we are actively teaching because of all the families we are teaching! We are so busy and I come home every night and about pass away in my dress because I am so tired and I love it. Poor sister Rossi is such a trooper. My long strides are like 5 of her little steps and so she has to work extra hard. She is so awesome. One of our families, the Bunny family had a son who had a birthday this week! He told us that he wanted us to teach lesson as a birthday present and so we went all out with party hats and everything. The dads name is Anthony and he is a Navajo, mom is Cassie and she is hispanic, and the kids names are Makaylee, Malachi, Malik, and Mya. So yes, with that definition this is my favorite family I've ever taught. The youngest, Mya, who is 9 says to us this week, "when can I get bathtubbed?" Umm you mean baptised? Haha! This family is so ready and they love coming to church, we are just waiting on the mom who likes "baby steps." Between them and the Lopez family (which is another long miraculous story that I will save for another time) who we are also teaching, we should be having lots of baptisms soon! I also included a picture of Mary's (our neighbor who we are teaching) pet Emu. She also has goats and they all run with us from the other side of the fence in the morning when we go out to excersize. Just picture two sister missionaries, two goats, and an Emu running together down the dirt road. It's majestic. The leaves on the trees are changing and the fall colors are AMAZING. I've never seen anything quite like a Flagstaff Fall and I can't take it in enough. I never want this season to end. It's getting a little cold up here and I always forget that this is still Arizona. I want to share the events of one specific day with you all. We went on intercambios with the Hermanas this week and I was with Hermana Riggs. And we woke up in the morning and she was not one bit okay. She had been up all night so sick and after some good assessment I thought it would be best if we stayed in. After getting up from her knees, she said to me "No sister Hardy, the spirit told me we needed to find 2 new people today. Let's go find them"... so we did! And we knocked and talked to everyone ALL DAY. Nothing. Dinner came and since we had lessons all night we ran out of time to find. I was pretty discouraged and felt bad that I couldn't help strengthen her Faith by finding those two people she felt were out there. When we came out of dinner we checked our texts and saw that all 3 of our lessons fell through, leaving us with the rest of the night to find. We drove out to Doney Park where Tammy Smith let us in even though it was dark and we totally disregarded the no trespassing sign on her fence and squeezed through. When the spirit leads you to do something, you do it. Her husband just died and she wants us to come back and teach her about the plan of salvation. Towards the end of the night there was only 15 minutes left until we had to go in and we knew there was still one more person out there. So we prayed and felt inspired to knock Dayra's door. Surprisingly this girl, who was 12 let us in and wanted us to teach her what made us happy. After we did, we went to set up a time to come back and she said she would have to ask her mom who wasn't home. So we said a prayer to leave and as we were praying we heard a car door shut. Hermana Riggs prayed that it would be Dayra's mom. Sure enough we opened the door to walk out just as she was walking in! We introduced ourselves and set up a time to come back and teach the whole family! Which we did later in the week. I never cease to be amazed by what a straight up PROMISE KEEPER our God is. A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles. Let people know what you are thankful for this week, gratitude is contagious! And I feel as though Alma did in chapter 26 of the Book of Mormon when he is so full of thanks and joy that he writes "I cannot say the smallest part which I feel." And I FEEL SO MUCH. Love and am thankful for you all! - Sister Hardy