The Awkward Week

The Awkward Week

Shout Out! 

Thank you Summer's family for the wonderful Easter letter :) You are too kind!

We weren't able to see Amanda at all this week due to her grandfathers poor health. I hate it when we don't see our investigators all week. The longer I am away from them the more I worry about them. Haha Im starting to feel like my mother!

Danielle wasnt able to come to church this week because of she couldn't find a car seat which is a bummer. We also didnt get to teach her this week cause she got pretty busy but we are seeing her tonight and we are teaching her the W.O.W which will be fun! We found out that she has a male roommate though which means she will have to move out before she can get baptized... Never before in my mission have I had so many investigators with "big" commandment issues. 

Me and my new companion :)

I find the new week to a transfer to be an awkward one. You and your companion are figuring out how each of you teach, you have started to clear out your pool of people who arent progressing so you suddenly have a lot of free time, etc... This week has been no different, but Sister Shurtliff and I have continued to see Heavenly Father bless this area despite all the ups and downs! One day this week was a particularly long day. It was windy and raining. Everyone seemed like they were in a bad mood and no one wanted to talk with us. On top of that we had no appointments AND I lacked the motivation to talk with everyone. I was sitting on the bus when I started to feel really guilty for not talking with everyone so I put my wants aside and went to work. By the end of the day we hadn't seen much success and it was nice to be able to go to bed. The next day however we got a phone call from someone I had talked to on the bus! I remember him as well. He as a man from Nigeria and he was the last person I talked to before we got off the bus to head home. He said he was interested in checking out a service and wanted more information. What a tender mercy :)! We had to hand him over to the other missionaries that covered his area so I'm not sure if he actually got out to church but I sure hope he did.

Another tender mercy Heavenly Father gave us this week was when we met Scott. So sister Shurtliff and I were walking around in a neighbourhood when we saw a lady get out of her car. We went over to go and talk with her and she invited us in. She told us that she already went to a church but that her son Scott could use Jesus, so she went and got her son and told him to listen to us haha. Scott is 27 years old and is a single father with a 3 year old named Thunder who has gotten quite attached to us. Scott used to be strong in his church, but in high school drifted away and made some bad choices. He really wants to get involved with church again though and is excited to come out. We taught him the restoration and he said he would prepare for baptism on the 25th of May. Exciting!

Anyways thats all for this week! Love you all! Enjoy the snow in Calgary haahaha!

A Haiku For You: 

becoming 

lifes whole purpose 

more like him

Scripture of the Week: John 15:18

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you."

Line of the Week: At the end of a long day Im lying in bed talking to Sister Shurtliff as she puts stuff away

Me: "I'm just closing my eyes, but im still listening to you."

Shurtliff: "Ya no worries! So what does your family do for fun?"

Me: "well... they really like to play cards and...."

->next thing I know I open my eyes and the room is dark and Sister Shurtliff is on her knees praying… 

Y.O.S.O

Teaching on someones sketchy door way haha. His name was Richard and he kept telling us that Joseph Smith was an alien..

Because of Him

Because of Him

Shout Outs! 

Victoria I want to hear about RUGBY! 

Happy Birthday to Naomi, Olivia, Genevieve AND Heather!! 

So I want to apologize for the short emails. Things have been getting busy and we only have 90 min on the computers = not enough time! 

Transfer time again and Sister Tebbs is leaving me :( She is going out by Kingston and I get a new companion. I think her name is Sister Shurtlif or something like that. Im super sad to be leaving Sister Tebbs!

As for this week things have been going really well! We taught Amanda about the law of chastity. It was kinda nerve racking cause we knew that we would have to invite her to get married before she could get baptized. Things were going pretty good. She understood the importance of the law of chastity and everything but I could tell it didn't click with her that being common law doesnt mean you are married soooooo I looked her in the eye and said she would have to get married before she could get baptized.... awkward silence hahaha! Maybe not the smoothest way to let someone know, but it got the job done. We talked it out with her a little more and narrowed down her major concern to the fact that they dont have a lot of money for a wedding. I have faith that things will work out though :) We invited her to pray about the law of chastity and told her that God will answer her prayers. 

We meet another single mom on the streets. Her name is Danielle and she has a 4 year old son named Dominic. She is SO sweet! We taught her the restoration and talked about how having God in our lives and having a living prophet has blessed our families, especially when it came to us being raised with good morals. I told her about how having a relationship with God while I grew up helped me to make good choices and not fall into the pressures that come from high school.The spirit was strong and she is super interested and has committed to work towards May 4th as her baptismal date! SO EXCITING! When we asked her why she wants to meet with us she talked about how she wants her kids to have a better life than she did and thinks that God can help with that. We promised her that He will help her out and more cause she is His daughter and He loves her. It was a powerful moment :) 

Man I just have to say that we are being blessed with amazing people to teach! After dropping like 20 investigators, God has come through with prepared people who desire to learn about his son. Missions are amazing :) 

Also I got to teach all the relief society ladies how to line dance this week hahahaha! It was SOOOOOOOO funny and I never thought I'd be saying this on my mission but its a good thing I went to Ranchmans ;) (Oh good heavens… -J)

I'm running out of time… some things never change haha. I love you all though and hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Oh and check out this video!  It is absolutely incredible so share it with your friends on facebook :) 

http://easter.mormon.org/

Dad if you have a Haiku could you do the honours? im outta time again! 

A Haiku For You (By Dad)

Grief and Pain

Love

Victory Over Death

Sister Hall

Goodbye Tights!

Goodbye Tights!

Shout Outs!

LAUREN GLENN YOU MUST EMAIL ME ASAP. IF YOU DONT THERE WILL BE ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES! (lauren.hall@myldsmail.net)

No tights weather!

So I'm sure you all are dying to find out if we met our goal of 15 member presents annnnndddd.... we didn't haha... BUT we did get pretty close with 11 so we are happy :) As for the zone we had a goal of getting 100 member presents this week, we totally made it! It was honestly a miracle and we could not have done it without God considering last week I think we got 64.

We have decided that Wayne has no need to be baptized due to his disability. In Gods eyes he is prefect and therefore has no need to be washed clean of any sins at this point cause he isnt capable of that.

We got to meet with Amanda this week and she is absolutely amazing! We talked with her about why she wants to meet with us and she expressed the desire to raise her kids with good morals. She talked about how on her side of the family there are a lot of addictions, etc... That's when I felt prompted to share the story of my dear mother :) I told her about how my mom was raised in an environment that wasn't the best and that she desired more for her family. She found the church when she was young and chose to get baptized. I expressed to her for how grateful I am for my moms choice. I was raised in a family that is centered on Jesus Christ with strong morals and standards that helped me to make good choices while growing up. If it wasn't for Christ and his teachings I'm not sure where I would be at this point in my life, but I know I would not be as happy. The spirit was strong and I could tell the experience touched Amanda. At church Amanda was able to meet lots of different people and really enjoyed herself. She has committed to work towards May 4th to get baptized! It may take longer though cause we found out she isn't married... when we asked her why she isn't married she said that she has always wanted a big wedding but can't afford it, as well as she knows a lot of people who get married and then get divorced. She thinks marriage puts too much pressure on people. This coming Tuesday we are going to talk with her more about the law of chastity. I am a little nervous cause I have never had to invite someone to get married, but I have seen miracles and I know that the spirit is capable of changing Amanda's heart. Our next goal is to get her husband to sit in on discussions to get him more on board. Keep us in your prayers!

Time is running short again, but I made sure I would have time for a Haiku

Line of the week:

Sis. Tebbs to me: "You are FULL of emotion. I can see it in your eyebrows."

Scripture of the Week: 3 Nephi 27: 14-15

"And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil--

And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works."

A Haiku for you:

enduring

faithfully always

to the end

Love you all! You are in my prayers always :) Do good this week!

Y.O.S.O

Sister Hall

We eat shwarma ... we are in love with it

This is my new cat named Spanks (dont ask about the name haha).  We found Spanks in the ghetto near our place and he walked around with us all our doors

But I Get Up Again

But I Get Up Again (titled by dad since Sister Hall didn't write one...he also did the scripture and Haiku:) )

So we got to celebrate Christmas this week for missionaries- a.k.a General Conference. It's funny how excited we all get for general conference now.... I remember as a kid dreading conference week cause it meant 10 hours of church! Now I count down the days! There were a ton of good talks given. Here are some things that stuck out to me:

• Prayer is meant to change US, not God
• Be grateful IN our circumstances and not FOR things
• Elder Scott's talk was wonderful! Full good advice for bringing people into the gospel. I'm pretty sure he is the one who talked about how we need to love them and by loving them they will feel God's love.... that doesn't really do it justice...
• I also loved Elder Ballards talk on the importance of Follow Up! He invited all of us to invite our friends and family to take the discussions from the missionaries at least 4x a year AND invited the family members of missionaries to read preach my gospel. When I sustained Elder Ballard this week as a prophet, seer and revelator I promised to support him in his calling and now have the responsibility to heed his council. Isn't that GREAT!? :D

There were lots of other great stuff in conference as well, but time is of the essence and is not on myside right now so I will move on :)

For two days we helped one of our investigators Pam scratch the paint off her trailer. Only problem was she didn't have any scrapers so we were left with a butter knife and a BBQ thing hahaha! It took wayyyy long and was a little tedious but a nice change up from the regular missionary stuff. The weather was nice out too so Sister Tebbs and I decided to work on our tans ;)

I also got to meet this awesome lady named Christina! Maddy actually is friends with her and told me to stop by and visit her in an email a couple weeks ago. This week we finally were able to meet up and got to visit with Christina in her home. She made us some tea and bought us some delicious red velvet cake (courtesy of Maddy). We were able to talk with her a little more about the church and explain what the Book of Mormon is and how we have a prophet on the earth today. It was super cool visiting with her and hope that we will get to run into her again!

OH! She also gave me a letter from Maddy and Tyler telling me they are PREGNANT!!! WHAT THE WHAT!!!! haha I legit freaked right out and died laughing at the picture! I like our little nose picker already ;)

Christina!!!

This week I had a life changing moment on the bus! (So im slightly over exaggerating but the experience was really cool)! So bus contacting can kinda suck at times. Usually it sucks when you have contacted everyone on the bus so you sit down and enjoy the ride and then next thing you know the bus picks up a ton of people and you have to go contact them. You have to get up out of your seat and "casually" walk over to them. Meanwhile they see you zeroing in on them and they start to panic. Anyways I had one of these situations. I had been sitting down when I saw this young mom get on with her daughter. At first I didnt think too much of it, but then I noticed this small quiet prompting advising me to go and talk to her. (I've been trying to pay more attention to these quite promptings) I battle with myself for a few minuets, bite the bullet and talk with her. Her name is Amanda and I ask her if she has ever taken her daughter to church. She says she hasnt been able to find one yet. I give her a low down on families and God and ask if we can share more with her. She says yes! We see her on tuesday! Huzza for listening to promptings and awkward bus contacts!!!

We have to get 15 member presents this week and we normally get 8.... we texted Chris our YSA buddy and told him we are stealing him all week haha (Tyson says a "member present" is when you have a member at a lesson- he says 15 is a VERY high number!!)

Running super short on time sorry love you all!!!!  

Scripture of the Week: D&C 1:1-2

"Hearken, O ye people of my church, saith the voice of him who dwells on high, and whose eyes are upon all men; yea, verily I say: Hearken ye people from afar; and ye that are upon the islands of the sea, listen together.

For verily the voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape; and there is no eye that shall not see, neither ear that shall not hear, neither heart that shall not be penetrated."

A Haiku For You

Prophets, Seers and Revelators

Conference

Christmas in April

Sister Hall

Me and chris at conference. Chris tried to pon off a big peice of cake to me and the ended up with that gaint thing hahaha! karma!

I Get Knocked Down

I Get Knocked Down

Soooo big news. I am getting emergency transferred. We got the call last night from president. Im not exactly sure whats going on but apparently something went down with a companionship and now I'm being moved up to Timmons... or more appropriately being exiled to Timmons. Before you continue reading this look up on google maps where it is and you will understand why I am being exiled..... do you get it now? It is the farthest area that you can go. I leave tommorrow bright and early which just so happens to be April 1st..... Which means that it is also April Fools day.... Which means happy April fools! hahahhahahahhahahahah

Anyways back to reality and back to some Shout Outs!

Thank you to Sister Laing for the package! I've already eaten all the butter fingers ;)

Also some wicked exciting news from Kingston...... Steph got her mission call!!!! BAH!!!! She is going to the Czech/Slovak mission and reports on August 13th!!! AH I am SO excited for her! She is going to tear it up out there! BAH! Im seriously grinning from ear to ear and it's starting to hurt haha!

As for this week, we have taken a bit of a hit..... Maria dropped us out of the blue. She just decided that she didnt want to continue to meet with us anymore. It was right out of left field and I took it pretty hard. I love her and Daniel SO much! We are also putting Kyri on the back burner for right now. He feels right now like he just isn't ready for baptism but he knows everything and we dont want him to get annoyed at us constantly talking to him about it so we figure we will let him figure some stuff out. We were also dropped by a couple other people this week. All in all it was a bit of a roller coaster, but that's what mission life is like! You just have to role with it :)

On a brighter note one of our investigators, Wayne wants to get baptized on the 20th :) He is special needs so we are letting him pick his own date and everything. He is such a sweetheart though and LOVES coming to church and going to baptisms! 

As for other exciting news, we went tracting in a half way house! For those of you who dont know what a half way house is, it's a place for people who have just gotten out of jail. I should clarify that we did not know it was a half way house until later but once we knew everything made a lot more sense... we were wondering why everyone was jacked with tattoos haha! It was a fun experience and we met a cool guy named Joe. I told him that God could help him change his life and that he should come to church and he got this big smile on and said he would come check it out. Actually funny thing, we saw Joe on the bus today coming to email!

We have also found ourself our very own YSA buddy out here. His name is Chris Wild and he got home from his mission in July. I've been missing the YSA a lot so Sister Tebbs and I have adopted him and now he comes out with us all the time. :)

Well thats all for this week :) Do good and ask someone what makes them most happy.

Line of The Week: After talking to Joe for 5 min

Joe: "So you girls know this is a half way house right?"

Me: "Hmmmm no we didn't, but that makes a lot more sense."

Joe busts a gut laughing

Scripture of the Week: St John 14:18

"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."

A Hiku for you

four seasons

 where has the time gone

way too soon  

Sister Hall