To Busy, No Time!

Hey Yall!

So first off thank you for all those that responded to my last email! Its nice to know that yall support and sustain me. Haha just so yall know I was really just joking about the comment I made haha my bad! But thank yall!! This week has been another super busy week!

This weeks go as follows haha:

• Ate a ton, like usual here, hah I probably shouldn't say this but im back up 20lbs since I came out.... no good man. no good! 
• We have been finding a ton, at the malls, tracting, and doing the member missionary tool. All 3 have worked out and we have been getting a lot of cool investigators. 
• Going on 2 more exchanges I stayed here then went to Decatur for our 2nd exchange. Again I love going on them and seeing all the missionaries and how they view missionary work. 
• Still teaching Galen, we are starting to work with a girl named Tiffany. She is 21 and is so solid! So we will see how things go with her. 
• Doing service and putting up stairs on a porch 
• Running around with our heads cut off! I don't even know what tired is anymore! haha 

Just a little spiritual thought. In Elder Uchdorfs general conference talk he talks about not only being grateful for things, but being grateful in all moments of life, having an "attitude of gratitude". I defiantly need this in my life. We we are grateful in our circumstances we will choose to be happy and we will be able to see blessings. "Blessings brighten WHEN you count them" When we realize all the blessings and have a attitude of gratitude Heavenly Father can bless us tremendously! We will receive more then we need. Just remember this last quote that I love. "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate can circumvent, or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."- Ella Wheeler Wilcox. We can all do hard things and be happy about it too:) 

Love yall so much! 

Remember to be happy!

Love Elder Hall

Faith, Atonement, Miracles

Hey Yall!

So I dont got to much time today so this may be a little short. Sorry:/ and lets be honest here who really gets through all these emails besides my parents who have it as a requirement to read these things?? haha just kidding. But this week has been great! A lot of sun, humidity, rain and all the normal weather of Alabama:) Im still trying to get used to the city, its up beat, fast pace tempo. Me and my comp were talking about it and I just do everything so much slower now, just like the typical southerner haha

But some highlights of the week. We found 2 new investigators on Tuesday when I was on exchanges with Elder Savage, we taught them, one of those dropped us a couple days later but thats ok cuz we are trying to find those that are ready and prepared and want to listen. We continue to get fed every single night by the members. Its great haha im so not used to this. We have had district meetings and interviews with Pres Hanks, which went very well. We found a less active that wasnt on the roster, he is a cop but is awesome and helped us teach the restoration lesson to his neighbor who is now a new investigator. 

We have seen many miracles, taught many lessons have found many people this week, but the highlight of my week was an experience that happened on Tuesday while we were on exchanges. We had just gotten done with a lesson and got a phone call. It was from a man named Galen. He is 24 and said he was less active, but wanted to return back into activity. He asked us if we could do an emergency lesson with him, and I told him of course. Wow! When, ever do missionaries get phone calls like that?? We went over to his house, sat down with him and he told us about how he had a Word of Wisdom addiction, and needed to quit. He had been sober for 15 days. He needed to quit because he is engaged and wants to be sealed in the temple and that is the only thing holding him back. He wanted us to read through the addiction recovery program step by step and encourage and help him. So every day in the mornings now we go over and read one step of the addiction recovery program and talk to him about it. It has helped me in my faith of the Atonement. He is so sincere and honest. He came to church and met with the bishop. It was just a miracle to see the change that is happening in this guy. The Atonement is real and will change us as we let it! We have become really good friends and I look forward every morning to be able to go over and have a lesson with him! 

Good things are happening. Before i end i want to talk about faith. Its something ive studied this week and is so cool. In the bible dictionary and study guides online for the scriptures it talks about faith a little bit it says, "Miracles do not produce faith, but strong faith is developed by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ; in other words, faith comes by righteousness, although miracles often confirm one’s faith. True faith brings miracles, visions, dreams, healings, and all the gifts of God that he gives to his Saints. Where there is true faith there are miracles, visions, dreams, healings, and all the gifts of God that He gives to His saints." As we are obedient we are developing faith, as we live righteously we increase in faith. We will be able to see miracles as we have faith that that will help grow our faith in the Savior. We can have all the gifts of God if we have faith. What a great blessing and promise we have! This week let us exercise our faith and recieve the blessings that come from it. Faith is an action word! Go and Do! 

Love yall so much! Have a great week. Let the desires of your heart be the Lords desires, and let us help Him in this His great and marvelous latter day work by exercising our faith! Remember to be Happy as you do that and this week will bring miracles:)

Love Elder Hall:)

O... P.s. Happy Pioneer Day!

Blessed are We!

Hey Yall!

This week has been a normal busy week in the life of a missionary. We have been on exchanges, which I love! We usually try to go on 2 exchanges a week with a different companionship of missionaries, we have 4 sets of Elders so we just switch them off every other week which turns out to be 2 exchanges with each companionship. The ones we have done this far have been great! We ended up being able to find a new investigator in Madison while I was here with Elder Arrington, we went store contacting, and even got to do service in the rain, we would hold up our umbrellas for people as the came into and out of Wal-Mart. On my other exchange, I left and went to Athens with the one and only Elder Hodge. I trained him back a year ago in Highland Home and we got to spend another day together. It was so much fun. We biked around, tracted and went to an optimist club thing haha it was great:) The other things about exchanges that I love is that you get to help the missionaries and serve them as their leader. That's probably the one reason why I love exchanges so much. We also get to go to both district meetings of both districts in our zone. I love being a zone leader and staying busy as can be. Its been great!

Probably the highlight of the week was the baptism we had. It was for Jason that ive been telling yall about. Now just a little about him that maybe I haven't told yall. He is 13 and loves hockey. He is kinda shy but loves us when we come over. And the whole story about how we found him is really cool. His mom, Cheri- its pronounced CHUR EE, haha total southern;) but she is from Colorado originally and that is where she got baptized back in early 2000's. She moved out to Alabama a couple years after her baptism and had never come to church. So she had been inactive for around 11 years. Now in the Madison Stake, they would have their meetings on Tuesdays. Well as a stake they decided, with a lot of other stakes down here, instead of having their meetings that they would have sheparding visits. This is going around to those that are struggling or inactive and visiting with them.  Baptism!! Me, Elder Johnson, Jason the little guy, Cheri and Chris her husband!

The Elders Quorum in our ward looked over the roster of names and decided that no one had ever seen or talked with Cheri, since she had never come to church. So they decided to go over and see who she was. The first visit they met her husband who told them that she was sleeping. They tried back the next week and no one was home. So they thought well maybe it was a wrong impression. Well the next day the Elders quorum president had a huge impression to go over and knock on the door one more time. After work that day he did exactly that. He went by himself and knocked on the door. To his surprise Cheri answered and told him he could come in and talk. He then asked if the missionaries could come by. They did and they would only see Cheri. She was scared that her husband and son wouldn't like the missionaries. Well when Elder Johnson got her 8 weeks ago he told Cheri that they wanted and needed to meet her son, Jason. Turns out that Jason loved the missionaries and wanted them to come back and teach him the lessons. Elder Johnson and Thompson taught him half the lessons. That's when I got transferred into Madison and was able to teach him the other half and get him prepared and ready for his baptism. He was baptized on Saturday and boy was it so cool to watch! Not only that, but his step dad, Chris, who Cheri is now married to came to the baptism and he is not a member. We were able to meet him for the first time and start to build a relationship with him as well. We are hoping he will let us teach him too! All of this happened not because of missionaries, although we did help teach him and get him ready, but it was because of the influence of a member and the ward! They were touched by the spirit which directed them to the elect who was ready! I love member missionary work, it truly does hasten the work so much faster!

This is the optimist clubs moto I guess haha. That was my week right there. As missionaries we tract and knock and contact and sweat and freeze and walk and bike and do all these things so that we can help change people. I love to see the change in others as they come unto Christ through baptism! Each day we do the same things that is we Find, Teach, and Baptize. So I guess the message I wanna leave yall with is this. As you listen to the spirit, act on the promptings. Don't wait! We don't have time anymore to wait. The work is hastening. Lesson 2 is that members can do so much more then they think they can. Yall can do and have so much more power then you think you have. You just need to Find, then Teach and as you do that you will see Baptism follow. Once we open our mouth we are successful! I love yall so much and hope and pray yall are well. Remember to be happy and to love life:)

Love Elder Hall:)

Work, Plan, Party

Hey Yall!

Man it feels like I was just sitting here a couple hours ago writing yall and now its been a week and so much has happened! We are still super busy with the work. We are helping missionaries, members and others in our area. Our area is still like Utah and it creeps me out the more im here haha. We passed around a meal calendar and 3 of the phone numbers were 801 haha. The weather has been really good actually. Not to humid as in the past couple of weeks.

Me and Elder Johnson:) To start our week off we went shopping on Monday and just kinda relaxed. That was the only time we had all week to do so. Tuesday morning we went to Birmingham with the rest of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders and had an 8 hour meeting given by President Hanks and his Assistants. It was a great meeting. After the meeting we got to go to one of Elder Johnsons old areas on the way back home and meet a really nice family that fed us dinner. Then Wednesday rolls around. We spent all day Wednesday preparing for Zone Training, a meeting once a month for all the missionaries in our zone. We take the 8 hour meeting we went to the day before and put it into 3 hours. haha so we planned with our Sister Training Leaders, Sister Millard and McDougal and decided how to make it fun, spiritual and make sure everyone learns. We decided what each of us was going to train on and then spent the rest of the day preparing for that. We also got to go to dinner with the Cole family. They feed us every week and are super nice. That's one of the things I love about this ward is that we get fed almost every night! Its a lot different then any other area ive been in. 

On Thursday was the big day for Zone Training. The Assistants came down for it and said it was great! We had a commemoration/ party for the 4th of July, we had some missionaries in our zone train everyone else on finding and dealing with objections, we talked about not overcorrecting Mormon doctrine and not studying deep doctrine. We even had a cool slide show at the end that I put together that had pictures of U.S. Soldiers and Missionaries, making the effect that we are soldiers for Heavenly Father and we showed that as Sister Millard played some cool patriotic music on the piano in the background. One of the coolest things from the meeting that I loved was this thought. Repentance= Commitment. When we repent, we are committing ourselves to something. We don't just say sorry and then keep doing it. Commitment in Preach My Gospel is described as stepping onto a path that you cannot deviate from and walking down it. As we are committed to the Savior we are repenting and can use the Atonement He provided for us.

Our zone traning set up, it was very patriotic haha and in the words of my comp, "This is Elder Hall's gay side coming out" hhah 

I was able to go on exchanges with one of the Assistants, Elder Matson, we went down to Birmingham and finished the schedule for President Hanks to do interviews with us and we did some other stuff in the mission office. We even got to play basketball with some other missionaries and investigators! That brings us to this weekend. We got to help a non member family move. The Husband of this family, his sister is a member in Georgia, and they had asked if we could help. So the first part of our 4th of July was spent doing service, which turned out to be really fun! We had a few sets of missionaries there helping us. Then we went back to the apt and did some planning for the zone. Then we went to the mall and did a little bit of contacting and the space center had a firework show you could see from the mall. It was fun, im not gonna lie though, I was kinda disappointed in it though. I know that Utah goes all out for their firework shows and maybe that's why but it was good none the less:) I just love seeing fireworks! The next day, Saturday we spent most of the day helping move the family again. We moved part of their stuff into a storage and the other in there apt. Its sad to say this cuz ive moved so many different people on my mission, but I have come to enjoy moving, I guess its just different then the usual stuff we do. So this week we have spent working, planning a lot, and we have partied a little bit here and there! We also have been tracting a lot. But probably the best news is that of our investigator Jason. I think I told yall he was 11, but he is 13. He loves and plays hockey. We are getting him ready to be baptized this Saturday!! So exciting! So ill have to tell yall next week how it goes! He is such a good kid and is excited for this!

Im happy and doing well. I hope that yall can say the same. I know that life is hard, but you just gotta keep smiling and know that everything will work out. Why? Because as long as you are living righteously you know you are in "Good Hands". And no, not Allstate haha your in the big, loving Hands of Heavenly Father. On my mission Ive grown to love and become real acquainted with him and Jesus Christ. As we lean on them they will lift us up! Remember to be Happy. Enjoy life, and make the best of every moment! I love yall so much! Have the best week ever!!

Love Elder Hall:)