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!!