i just love THIS missionary...

i just love THIS missionary... i know that i may seem like i am saying this just because i am his mom but....seriously he is the cutest!  he knows how to brighten his mom's day.  i love the words that he writes and the message that he teaches through his letters.  it has been so rewarding to see the growth of tate that has happened throughout his mission.  i can see and feel that his testimony has grown and he truly loves the people of chile.  i love his attitude of always looking on the bright side of things.  even when we have trials and circumstances of our own that seem unbearable if we try to keep a positive attitude we will be able to cope better.  this missionary of mine is the best and this mom loves him to the moon and back!

***on a side note tate signed to play baseball for utah valley university in orem utah this week.  we are thankful and grateful that they honored tate's scholarship while he was on his mission.

tate's message...

 It makes me realize that everything really does happen for a reason. God really does do everything for our benefit here on earth…and sometimes we forget it. I remember the scripture in doctrine and covenants 121 when Christ says  

7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

 8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

This week started pretty well. Monday started with the normal Monday office meeting. Always good to see what everyone will be doing during the week. Now I know why dad always had us do that as one of the first things during the family home evenings. Ha thanks for preparing me dad. Then we ate lunch and headed straight to a meeting with president. We are in the process of doing the changes. I feel like we just did that and now we are doing them again. But it is a tiring process but a really cool one to see how inspired the changes really are. Every move president makes is for the benefit of the missionaries.  I'm grateful for a god who gives me everything so I can progress and be better. 

Tuesday was a Santiago day as we headed up at 530 in the morning to meet elder Archibalds (the secretary of the mission, I live with him) brother who is serving in chile. President gave him permission to go see him in the airport! It was way cool! So awesome to see brothers hug after two years ha! Then we went and made me legal here in chile….no im just kidding. I was legal…just didn’t have a Chilean ID that was up to date. So that took all day long. It was pretty fun though. A Santiago trip is always really tiring but its fun to go up there once in a while as well. We got back and finished a bunch of stuff we were going to need for the end of the week.

Wednesday I headed down to Santa Cruz to help some missionaries divide their sector. I went down there with elder archibald (the one and only from Canada in our mission). We had a nice little drive through the Chilean countryside. I got back and we headed out to go do divisions with villa teniente. (One of my old sectors). I went with a Mexican named elder favila. QUE VIVA LA RAZA. The Mexican elders are sick. We had a really good lesson with some of their investigators who are getting ready to get baptized. I love teaching people.

 Thursday we headed down to talca to do divisions also. I went with elder lazerson from Orem. We didn't teach that much but we had some good conversations on what we could do better. I drove home and we didn't get home until like 1:30 AM. So I was pretty tired.

 We woke up Friday and had to be at the mission home for a meeting with some hermanas from the mission. It was like 22 sister missionaries. And us two. Hahah it's weird being the only two elders. But it went really well.. and then afterwards we did another division. I went with elder baldomero from Hawaii. We had one of the coolest lessons I have ever had. We taught a family of three and we read mosiah 18 with them and when we got to the part about Them “desiring to be baptized”. We asked them to share their testimonies about why they want to be baptized…. I haven’t felt the spirit like that in a really long time. The grandma who has cancer and is the funniest little thing ever bore the most pure testimony of feeling in her heart that its what she needed to do and how she wanted to arrive clean before her savior. It was a really cool lesson. I really do love the Chilean people. It will break my heart to leave them. I hate to even think about it.

 Saturday (today) was SO GNARLY! We went to a place called coya, where we have gone before, but we went to another place up there. Waterfalls and amazing views.. But I love you guys.

elder harding....yall