Changing Point

Changing Point

So this email will be epic beyond epic because, wait for it..... Elder Bednar came to our mission!!!! BAH! Before I get to the good stuff however I should probably do a few....

Shout Outs!

Victoria I got your note about wanting to join the rugby team and my advice to you is to just try it out. We all know that you are tough enough to play with the boys, but if you feel awkward and out of place after a month still, then you can drop out BUT I think you should try it :)  

Derek! I can't believe you are home! I like that you still get up at 6:30 haha and I will do my best not to die.

Congrats to Sara and James as well for basketball! Thats sweet that you both won!

Happy Birthday to you Grandma!! Love you

Now for some updates on Kingston

So I found out that Will, Maverick AND Ian all got to go to the temple this weekend AND then went to a fireside hosted by Elder Bednar........ BAH!!!! Im like dieing on the inside cause I just want to talk to them about how it was but I guess I'll just have to wait -_- Regardless, how cool is it that they got to hear from an apostle! Apparently right before the thing Macerick and Will made a pact to be single for life and during the fireside Elder Bednar told all the men that if they weren't married by 25 that they were a menace to society haha guess their plans have changed!

As for London things are going well. My update this week will be a little shorter so that I can have time to tell you about Elder Bednar!

Kyri has raised a concern that he doesnt feel ready for baptism so he wants to wait longer.... he has already passed his interview so we know that his concern runs deeper then what he is saying. I'm not too worried though because I know that as he reads and prays he will find the answer he is looking for.

Maria and Daniel are doing wonderful! She is so willing to follow Christ and has the most faith I have ever seen :) Daniel got up at 7 in the morning on Sunday to start getting ready for church cause he didn't want to miss it :) too sweet!

Alright now onto Elder Bednar! So I guess first off, for those who do not know, Elder Bednar is one of the 12 apostles. So just like how in Christ's time he had apostles, so do we... which makes sense since this is His church restored to the earth- of course He would have 12 apostles! Anyways my theme for this transfer is to pray for help to turn my will over to God. Every missionaries worst fear is to come home not completely being changed or not accomplishing what God needed them to do, so I have been really focusing on trying to put off the natural man and just get out of the way, so to speak. So in preparation for meeting Elder Bednar I decided that I would fast for him, that he will be prepared for our meeting and that he would be inspired to help me in this endeavour. So we get to the meeting super early and sit front and centre. If Elder Bednar accentently gleeked it would fall on me. Thats how close we were! An hour or so passes and we are all getting restless... or maybe that was just me... Next thing you know the door opens and there is Elder Bednar! AH! The first thing I thought of was that he looks older in person haha. The three hour meeting that we had with him was just a big disscussion. We had all read 3 talks previously and discussed them with Elder Bednar. It was absolutly amazing! These are some of the notes I took .

-Talking does not = teaching. As missionaries sometimes we talk too much. Instead we should observe, listen and then discern what the spirit wants us to say

-When we pray we should not ask God to do our work for us. In other words we should pray as agents. So instead of saying in a prayer, "We hope that all those who couldn't make it to church today will be able to make it next week"... we should say "Heavenly father some of thy children weren't at church today. We pray that thou would help us as we leave this meeting to reach out to those children. Please bless us in our efforts to reach out to them and bring them back into the fold." In the one we are acting as objects and the other we are agents. (Elder Bednar said that if he goes to a stake conference and we ever say a prayer like that he will do bad things to us haah!)

Ok so I have like 10 minuets left dang it! I will have to skip a few things and get to the part about him answering my prayers.

The answer I was looking for came to me  in this advice. "God expects progress little by little. Be a little better today then you were yesterday. Lighten up and quite worrying!" I need to get over myself in other words. Hahaha I chuckled when the inspiration came to me but I'll continue to work on it :)

So I almost forgot to tell you guys the best part of the meeting with Elder Bednar! So near the end of the meeting Elder Bednar opened up the floor to the missionaries to ask him questions. Before he would call on someone he would always wait a little to allow the spirit to direct him to who needed to speak next. Then with only a short amount of time to spare he called upon one elder. This elder stood up and started to describe how he has felt Elder Bednars love for us, how the mission has been very hard and how guilty he felt for his weaknesses. Then with tears running down his face he asked if Elder Bednar would tell us all how much he loved us and if he would give us a "pat on the back". At this point Elder Bednar walks off the stand... oh no... here it comes.... he walks over to this elder and embraces him and tells him how much he loves him and that he can do this... yep it happened and every sister in the chapel is wiping tears from their eyes. That moment was so tender. It was as if the Saviour was reaching out to this elder. Very powerful :) He also told the elder that Heavenly Father sent him to Toronto just for this elder. So amazing!

Scripture of the Week: Romans 8:31

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?"

Love you all!

Sister Hall

Sister Tebb's and I

Tim Horton's drive thru sign that all the missionaries who go through London sign!

All the people I came out with from the MTC at Elder Bednar's fireside!! 

London Calling

London Calling

Shout Outs!!!

So I got an email telling me that Jake, Winnie, and Maverick went out and handed out passalong cards to drunk people at the clubs at 1 in the morning. I stinking LOVE them!

And on that note, congrats to Jake for his first street contact!!!!

Also Go Western!!! (hahahahahah!! Jokes ;)

->for those who dont know Western is Queens rival university and Western happens to be right here in London haha

Also Congrats to Jill for blowing up the BBQ! I just about died laughing! (J- the BBQ is fine!! It's my face that suffered....haha)

This was my first week away from the YSA and it sucked BUT London is actually pretty sweet and I stinking love all our investigators and Sister Tebbs so it's not too bad.... but Kingston YSA will always have a piece of my heart.

Notes from the Kingston YSA about Sister Hall!

Kingston YSA group shot!

So first off, Sister Tebbs makes my heart happy :) she is out going and really positive and loves to work hard. We will do great things :) This area is doing really well and we have a lot of investigators.. too many to talk about so I will just tell you about a few.

We are teaching a 10 year old Jamaican boy named Kyri and he is stinking smart!!! He is a 30 year old in a 10 year olds body! He probably understands the scriptures better than me and LOVES Nephi :) Since he is so smart we have been having him teach us the discussions. We call him Elder Williams and everything! His mom got baptized back in december and his date is for the end of March.

Next on my list is Maria. She is this an a.ma.zing woman from Africa. She used to be Muslim, but had a dream that she needed to be Christian so she started to secretly read the Bible. In order to become Christian however she had to leave her country so she moved to Western Canada with her kids (her son Daniel is over 8yrs old so we teach him too!). Ever since she has been learning as much as she can about Jesus Christ.  She has had a really hard life but has the strongest belief in Christ. Back in Africa she would drive for miles to go to church (80 dollars in gas money every Sunday) but she said that it was worth it :) This week her and her little family came out to church. They all loved it! Maria and Daniel are working towards getting baptized on April 13th :)

Sister Tebbs and I are working on the east side of London which means we get the ghetto!!! SWEEET! Usually they give the sketchy areas to the elders but somehow we lucked out ;) Really it isn't that bad, but we sure have met some interesting people! London is different then Kingston in that there aren't a lot of people walking on the streets where we are and like no one takes the bus cause they all have cars so the people we do talk to on the bus have met missionaries a hundred times. I'm already starting to feel at home though :) Our apartment is nice AND there is a gym! What What!! Finally some weights and a treadmill! Oh how I have missed them :) 

Line of the week: This one comes from Winnie

Mave: Hi
Winnie: Do you have a second
Dude: Not really, what is it?
Mave: Do you have a belief in God?
Dude: No
Mave: Ok

Dude walks away. Winnie quickly walks with him. 

Winnie: Would you mind if i gave you a card? It just talks more about our belief, you should check it out!
Dude: yeah ok.

Jake + Gang walk out.

Jake: DID YOU DO IT?!?

Winnie starts motioning for him to shut up, the guy passes Jake, walks into smoke's. 

Winnie: Dang. I just gave him a card, I'm not going in there, it looks like i'm stalking him
Mave: Oh... haha

Everyone walks into Smoke's -- forced to go in ;P

Scripture of the week: Alma 33: 11

"And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto the in all mine afflictions, for in the is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgements away from me, because of they Son."

Sorry I have run out of time! You all are pretty alright :) Have a wonderful week, be happy and live the word of wisdom for there is wisdom in that commandment.

Sister Hall

All the sisters serving in our ward :) We were filling up the font and this is the thing they use to scoop out hair and bugs... its a strainer attached to a hockey stick with duck tap... So Canadian! I love it!!  SIster Tebbs is the tall blond in the green shirt:)

Chile flag for Dad!!

I'm Going To London!

I'm Going To London!

WOW that's right everyone, the mission has been expanded and Im heading over to London! Haha... psych! They are shipping me back across the mission to London. When I got the call I was super shocked and kinda felt like crying. Kingston is my home and I love the people here SO much! I get so sad when I think of leaving them :( I wasn't expecting the move because the YSA area in Kingston will be closing after this transfer due to all the students leaving so I figured God would have me stick it out for one more go, but nope. I really really don't want to leave YSA work either! Man have ever been spoiled... Ok, Im over it. London will be a fun adventure. Family work will be interesting and will take a while to get used to. My new companion is Sister Tebbs AND she is actually my literal sister :) (Sister Williams trained her right before me) But the best news of all........ IM IN A BUSSING AREA!! I have been needing a new challenge so this will be really exciting!

Anyways, my letter today will be quite short due to the fact that I have a long list of people I need to say goodbye to so I will just give you some of the highlights.

• Sister Taylor and I made a black man breakfast. HAHAHA! So Will was going to skip out on church to "study" haha but we weren't going to have any of that so we went over to his house sunday morning and quite literally kicked him out of bed and made him some eggs :)
• We helped a bunch of guys clean up from their rager of a party Saturday afternoon. So we were tracting around and we knocked on this one door and ended up talking to these guys for like 10 min. We asked them what they were up to and they told us they were just cleaning up their place from a party they had the night before. We asked them if they had any girls in the house and they said there were so we asked if we could come in and help. We spent a good 40 min cleaning up stale beer and wiping down walls while we got to know them more. They were super funny and at the end of helping them clean one of them got out his guitar and played us a song (they were all musicians who went to the college for music). It was an experience I will never forget and very unique to YSA work :)
• Jaime is one of our new investigators that we found through Will and Shelby. She has such a special place in my heart! After meeting us for the first time (we didn't even teach her anything) she told us how she felt so much better about things. She was really depressed up to that day over a break up but since meeting us she just felt so good! Since then we have taught her twice and she has opened up to us about her past. She has had a really, really hard life and doesn't have the best situation. I just want to ship her home to Calgary and have her live in my room! Anyways everything we teach her she just eats up. When we told her that God wants to forgive her for all the mistakes that she has made and that she can be forgiven she got the biggest smile on her face! She can't wait to be baptized :) She also asked us if it was alright if she could start telling people she is Mormon haha! Apparently at school she was reading her Book of Mormon and people were asking her is she was Mormon so she just started saying yes. AH! I love her SO much and I am so sad to be leaving her :( She is scheduled to get baptized on the 30th though so that makes me very happy.

Sorry for the short letter this week! I love you all very much though and I am grateful for all the prayers :)

Line of the week: While teaching Ryan, one of Will's friends with Will

Me: "So Will, what is the Word of Wisdom?"

Will: "Well you know it's keeping your body clean and all that, but there is also the law of chastity! Sex is sacred and only for marriage and you know, you get to take your girl to the temple and be sealed for eternity. Its real important."

Ryan: "Oh man, Will are you a virgin?!"

Will: "Oh ya man...... born again virgin all the way man!"

..... Me: "So about the word of wisdom..."

Scripture of the Week: D&C 1:32

"Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven."

A Hiku for You

leaving home

it's never easy

bye for now

Sister Hall

Y.O.S.O

I Have A Belief

I Have A Belief

What A Stinking Awesome Week!! 

Shout Outs!

Thank you to the Canyon Creek YW for the chocolate and Happy Birthday to my dear Aunty Wendy!!

So I guess the biggest news I have for everyone is that Ian got baptized!!! Thats right, Ian got baptized on March 1st :) It was quite a crazy road getting there but also an experience I will never forget. So the first time we were able to see Ian was on Wednesday and we had gone a whole 2 weeks with just texting. When we talked to him about where he was at, he confessed that he still didn't feel ready. We started talking with him to see what his concerns were and he told us that he still felt that he needed to have at least a 50% belief in God before he got baptized..... we pondered on this for a moment and realized how Ian had been mislead. I cant believe we didn't catch on to this sooner but thank goodness for the spirit AND Steph and Rach. We started to teach and testify to Ian that God does not expect us to have a perfect faith or even a faith that is near perfect. He asks us to have the faith the size of a mustard seed. We talk about this subject for a while, then Rach and Steph talked about how somedays their faith is at an 80% and other days it is at a .02%. This caught Ian's attention he stopped to think for a few minuets and then asked us what the difference was between the statement of "Do you believe" and "Do you have a belief".  That was the key... that was what was holding him back. It was how the baptismal interview questions were worded! When we told him that he could answer the questions, "I have a belief in God", his face light right up. To him, "Do you believe in God" implied that you had a certainty above 50%. That night we set up an interview with him for friday and then the next day he would get baptized.... Most last minute baptism ever!!! 

At Ian's baptism he got up and bore his testimony. He talked about how he realized that it was a greater act of faith to be baptized not totally convinced that there was a God than if you had a stronger faith. He talked about how he received a confirmation during the talks that he was lead to this church for this day, to be baptized. He also said how every excited he was to receive the Holy Ghost. He talked about how he had noticed in his life that when he felt the Holy Ghost it helped him to make better choices like doing his homework instead of watching a movie. He knew that having that constant companionship with him would be a huge blessing to him and would help him in all aspects of his life.

....where the heck did this guy come from?!?! I dont even know if I can recognize the spirit that well! It has been so incredible to see someone who struggles with his scepticism put that aside and take a big leap of faith. I can already see a change in him. He is opening his heart and is working on how he defines himself. He no longer wants to refer to himself as a sceptic but as a believer.When he received the gift of the Holy Ghost he had the biggest smile on his face and later described it as the most calming feeling he had ever felt. He is stinking awesome! 

Ian! 

On another note, Shelby is wonderful :) She has been sharing the gospel like crazy with her friends and roommates. We have already taught 2 of her roommates and she has been right there and has taught and testified right along side us. It is SO amazing- I mean we have only known her for 1 week! We had to move her date back just a week because she wasnt able to make it to church this weekend and she was so sad! I honestly have never met someone so prepared as Shelby is! She has been our little gift from Heavenly Father :) 

We had to move Shelby's bed..... such a gong show! 

This week we also took Jake out street contacting :) We had meet up with him at Tim Hortons and challenged him to come talk with people on the street with us. He took our challenge but as soon as he got outside he started to get cold feet. We tried to get him to contact someone but I think it was a little much, however he stood by us with THE biggest smile on his face while we talked to people. Then during testimony meeting he got up and talked about how he went out with them missionaries and how intimidating it was. He didn't think it would be so scary talking to strangers but he just couldn't do it. Then he went on to talk about how ever since that experience he hasnt been able to stop thinking about all the people who pass him by who dont have the gospel and how we need to be sharing it with those people :) He is going to do great things! And yes we are taking him out again. 

Line of the Week

Sis Taylor: "How many cars have you high jacked?!"

Will: "Ya well you know..."

Sister Taylor: "Cause I've done at least 3!"

Will: "Oh ya!? Come on whatever!!!"

Sister Taylor: "Ya just stop, I am WAY more black than you!"

-> I just about DIED laughing!

Scripture of The Week:  3 Nephi 12: 20

"Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Sister Hall

Y.O.S.O 

This is me and Sister Hillman! Her family was in the first ward I served in out in Hamilton. She got called to serve in Spain but is waiting for her visa so now she is serving in Down Town Toronto!!! It wsa so cool to see her cause we used to take her out with us all the time

Me, Elder Kunz, and Sister Taylor