He's Coming Home

Hello my family and friends,

Life is still good up here in Alaska, serving the Lord is the best
full-time service anyone can ever do. I read a quote in a members home
the other day: "the pay for the Lord's work is not that great - but
the retirement plan is out of this world." How true that is :) I can
already see the blessings the Lord is bestowing upon me - it is almost
not fair, but I will accept with a grateful heart, otherwise it is
worse.

Said goodbye to a lot of the members the other day. I am glad to have
finished my mission here in the Meadow Creek ward, the members here
are so loving and I have had  the blessing of forming some good
friendships with them.

Kind of hard to express how I feel at the moment - a lot of mixture of
emotions that is for sure. Please do not be surprised if I seem
incredibly awkward at first, for I will be in the process of adjusting
back to reality.

I had my exiting interview with President on Saturday. At one point in
it, I just sat there in silence acting like I had a question when in
reality I was just prolonging the interview because I did not want it
to end. One thing he told me that gave me a lot of comfort was that he
will 'always' be my mission President. There are four people, whom I
look up to in life, here is the order: Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ,
dad, and Jon Beesley - my mission President. He is awesome, as is his
wife. I love them so much and am so grateful for their dedication to
serving the Lord with all of their heart, might, mind, and strength.

I have been studying a lot on the Atonement this last week. It is
interesting, to me, how that is the core doctrine of our faith, yet it
is the one we have the least amount of understanding. We really do not
know exactly how it works - but we know that it simply doesn. The
thing that has stood out to me is how it, not only covers our sins and
transgressions, but EVERYTHING, all of our shortcoming and
inadequacies - whatever our weakness may be - whether it be spelling,
school, relationiships, work - the Atoment covers all of that. Again,
I am not sure how it does, but after the experience of my mission, I
know that it does just that.

I will end my letter with a part of a song that I love:

"I will be home in a while, you don't have to say a word.
I can't wait to see you smile, wouldn't miss it for the world."

I cannot wait to see all of you again in person. I love you and I
thank you again for your support.....I do not really want to end this
letter, but I know that all good things must come to an end and that I
am needed elsewhere - the Lord has told me so and in the words of
Joseph Smith: "When the Lord commands - do it!"

Love, Elder Hartman