Easter!

Its Easter time!

Haha I hope everyone is as happy as I am this wonderful monday morning! For whatever reason I have been thinking alot about Easter this year. Its probably cuz im teaching people about what easter really is. But this past week I have just thought so much about easter and what a great time it is. Not only do we get to think about Christ and all he did for us, and that he was resurrected on the 3rd day and over came death, but we get to think about it in probably the most beautiful season! Spring time when it is sunny and bright outside, when you can hear the birds, feel the warmth of the sun,and see the plants and trees and the many different colors! And to know that all of this came because of our lovely Heavenly Father. I love celebrating Christ's resurrection during spring time. It makes me feel so happy! So I hope you all get a chance to read and remember what Christ went through the last week of his life! There are so many important events and lessons to learn from Christ that he teaches us:)

So here in the south its still pretty brown. There are these trees called dogwoods that are starting to blossom that are so pretty! They are white flower things kinda like apricot trees I guess. Haha but the weather down here is sunny and in the 50's and 60's one day then rainy and stormy and in the 20's and 30's another day. March through May is tornado season when tornadoes spike so we have gotten alot of warnings for them but I havent seen one yet!

But anyway just a few cool stories from this week I wanna share. The first one is about service. On friday we went over to a food pantry right by our apt thats called the AMEN Food Pantry. We helped put cans and food into bags and take them out to families that came. It was so fun to go and help out with that! Everyone we worked with was so nice! We are going to go back once a week and help out now:) O and once we were done the guy that owned the place told us to start grabbing stuff to take with us. We told him we were ok but he insisted. He said they just got in 7,000 lbs of food! And so we got some stuff then he kept handing us cans and boxes and so much food! It was such a blessing because me and my comp spent all our money already for the rest of the month. And no we didnt spend it on things we didnt need we kept buying things for investigators to help them out hah so the Lord truly blessed us:)

On Tuesday we visited with a less active. Then we decided to go tract. So off we drove. I was kinda just going by the spirit to know where to drive. So we drove down this same road for about 5 minutes. I saw road to the right and felt I should go down it, but being the imperfect human i am i ignored that feeling and kept driving. We drove for like 10 more minutes and decided just to turn around and drive back home. We were driving back and I saw the same turn off again but once more I ignored the feeling.... For about 5 more secs. When I was getting eaten up the the feeling of regret and disappointment. So I told my companion we had to turn around and go back to that road. We went back and started to tract the road. The first house was a little old lady who was outside weeding. She was nice, but didnt want our help. So we tracted the rest of the road and and nothing. Haha so we came back to our cars and decided to knock on one more house. Then that house slammed the door in our face. So we were walking back to our car and there was a van that stopped us. It was a man and he said to come back to the first house that we saw the old lady. He said that his daughter was mormon and she lived in st george. Long story short he had done all this family history work and had tons of records and stories of people from Utah! It was crazy! I couldnt believe it! We found out the next day that he is a less active, but we are going back to visit them and to read more and he said he wanted us to make copies to give to our ward to keep records of!:) So Cool!! And there were some names that were from american fork so i wondered if any of ya'll knew them. Ugh I acutally left my notebook at the apt so I will have to get back to ya on the names haha.

But one sad story of the week is that on thurday scott wrote us a note saying that he had gone back to his other church. He wanted to go back to living his life the way it was before we met. And he was gonna have a surgery the next day and we were going to give him a blessing. He said he didnt want that either. So that kinda got us down, but we had a feeling to go get him a get well card and just tell him we still wanted to be friends and to call us if he needed help. We left that with him. A couple days later he called back and said that he wanted us to come over agian. That he felt welcomed in his church but didnt feel the same spirit! haha we havent gotten to get back with him just yet but sometime this week we will see him! But that is an added testimony that our church is the only true church!!  A double story trailer! right next to our appt:) never seen on of those haha they are usually double wide!

One last miracle that happened. On friday when we were at the food pantry we got a call from bishop saying there was a less active that needed a blessing. So we went out there on the county roads and got to his trailer. We went inside and there was one member who was visiting from Alabama. The other 5 or 6 people there were not members. Isaac was the man we were giving the blessing to. He was laying in bed and was so out of it. He was as yellow as a banana! He was basically really close to death. So we explained to everyone about the blessing. We would put some oil on his head, which they all gave us confused, weird, your both crazy looks haha. But we have him a blessing then left. Later that night the lady member who was there called us back and said that he was sitting up watching tv. He was eating which he hadnt done for days. He was talking with everyone and doing great! Then she said will you come over and give him a back massage in that oil! Haha that was funny but what a great miracle! The priesthood power is real! It is Gods power on earth that can literally save you from death if that is Gods will!

Well hope ya'll have a great Easter week and weekend! I know that my Redeemer lives!! He not only suffered and died for us, (which other churches focus on) but he over came death! He is resurrected!! We can all live together forever after this life through him! I love that message that our church has to share with everybody! No other church can tell people that!

I love all of you!

Love Elder Hall