Power Prayer

Ah the mission life, another week full of random, strange, miraculous and awkward events crammed together in a glorious mesh. Our recent converts have been having some serious trials recently. This past week their son was shot in the street and it made the news, so I heard. He's alive and now in jail. So that's you know, totally normal. Since he's alive, we are hoping this might be kind of an Alma the Younger tale where he has some sense knocked back into him and becomes the world's best missionary. That would be awesome! Then the other day she finally got some really great news at the court, was so happy and then came home to an eviction notice - because of her crazy son. Yikes. I get nervous every time we go over to their house that something else bad has happened. They must have some big blessings ahead of them. They are still so strong, faithful and optimistic, if nothing else they have been a huge example to me in some serious trials, not just the kind of trials I have like when the cereal I want to buy is not on sale. Are you kidding me?!

 

Let's see, we were asked if we could cast out demons this week. I pulled out my wand and was ready to take care of business. But it turns out he was serious so we set him up with the Elders and we got the heck out of there. I got attack hugged by a drunk guy - he just wanted a birthday hug! Ick. I gave him a picture of Jesus and told him to go pray. He wanted a picture of the virgin Mary. Speaking of virgins, (awkward transition) we found this awesome video of the parable of the 10 Virgins. It's really captivating...until the end and all of a sudden it busts into this awesome 80's ballad talking about saving drops of oil and shows cheesy shots of people doing 'good' things. I busted out laughing the first time I watched it, then made my comp watch it and of course we took it to a family that night for FHE. I couldn't wait until that part to see the reaction of the 13 yr old. It was worth it. Oh and I think they learned something gospelly too.

 

The other day we had a lesson with a member referral and it was super awkward. They were happy to see us and invited us in, but didn't offer us to sit down. So us being polite and ladylike we patiently waited and commenced with pleasantries. Before I knew it my comp is busting out the Restoration and we are all still standing! And there we were, all 4 of us standing in front of couches for an hour. Several times I thought, it's probably ok if I just sit down, but I kept thinking I'll wait for a break to ask. Then I couldn't remember how to ask. Then the longer the standing went on the more awkward it became to say something. At one point I thought the investigator was about to sit down and I felt so relieved, but no, she just put her leg up on the couch. What?! How are you not super uncomfortable right now with all four of us standing in the middle of a couch filled room talking about Jesus! Ahh. Needless to say they didn't invite us back - my guess is they don't want to join a church they think they have to stand through. Me neither.

 

This week has been the week of prayer miracles. We pray like a billion times a day as a missionary. I am not going to lie, sometimes I don't want to pray in the car with my companion, but we do and we need to. This past week we have really seen the blessings and miracles that have come from our prayers as well as prayers from you, my family, the ward here and those in the temple. We've been struggling with several inactive families who love our visits but can't seem to make it back to church. The other day we did our usual stop by and at the door, their non-member, adult son announced he was going to take his parents to church on Sunday. What?! Yes, please. And thank you. Yesterday, a part member family we'd been working with invited us for dinner and afterward we were able to share a wonderful message on prayer with the non-member father who didn't run from us this time and at the end he committed to pray with his family every day. What?! Yeah, these are miracles from prayers. It's also very timely because my comp and I have been talking a lot about Alma the Younger recently and how the angel appeared to him to snap him back into gear because of the faithful prayers of his father and the whole town. This week I want to add my testimony to this amazing Book of Mormon story of prayer. I have never been very good with prayers, basically a prayer slacker, but I have gained such a great appreciation for them as I can see first hand everyday how Heavenly Father answers them. He never answers in expected ways, because he's God and he knows better, but he always answers with more blessings than we could imagine. I also want to thank all of you praying for me, my brothers and all the missionaries around the world. It is by the faith of your prayers that angels are truly visiting people and changing their lives - in fact, saving their souls. Thank you and never stop believing in the power of the prayer.

 

Oh and just so everyone can be at ease, I have mastered the art of parallel parking once again. It's hilarious how tedious backing up can get on the mission so you really only want to do that once. Now if only I could master backing up out of a lesson that just went an hour too long...

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

Yeah, we can see you there.

The overfeeding of the short, chubby redhead has begun. This is what happens when you start becoming popular in a ward, people want to express their love with food. I love me some food, but man. I tried to be careful in my prayers about this, we really want to have dinners with members, but I also don't want to die from bean overdose. It's a rough line. I'm walking it. Also I drank oatmeal water. Exactly that, oatmeal...in water. It was a real drink. I enjoy me some aqua frescas but this was a new one. It wasn't as bad as it sounds but it does taste exactly as it sounds. Weird. After the dinner, the member wanted us, just the two of us lovely missionaries to sing hymns to her. So we did. I'm sure it was angelic to all who hearkened upon it.

 

The past week our investigators started scattering from us like roaches in the light. I just compared our investigators to roaches. My bad. But you get the idea. The other day we got stood up so as we drove off we saw him hanging out at his spot by the payphone on the corner. He saw us, we parked and he RAN! No joke. He ran from us. bahaha. That was a first for me. I couldn't stop laughing. So yeah, it's hilarious when people try to hide from the missionaries as if they think they are magically invisible. Even if we didn't have the power of sight, we have the power of God, we can feel you there. Nice try, we'll stalk you down another day. We stalked down another investigator last night and it ended up being an awesome lesson, we made her cry - the good kind - and picked up three of her family members as new investigators. Bam, bam bam!

 

We finally got to visit with our bird loving friend yesterday as well. He's a young single guy so I obviously felt it best to try a little "flirt to convert" only I remembered I can't do that so I asked the cute, single girl in our ward to come along. mwahaha. She's a little shy, but agreed. Towards the end of the lesson I felt really strongly that I should ask her to share her testimony of the Book of Mormon. I talked back to myself in my head saying that was just cruel to put her on the spot like that, but I did it, I opened my mouth and I threw her under the bus...and it was amazing! Her testimony was so sweet and so powerful. It was a perfect way to end the lesson. After she thanked me for making her do it and said she wants to do that more. Phew. I'm not telling her about the flirting thing though. That's my secret plan.

 

The highlight of the week was another baptism!! It feels a little like cheating because it was a 9 yr old girl of an recently reactivated family that we haven't taught much, but still we had a baptism on Saturday and it was awesome. We got a few potential investigators there too. Miracles!

 

Last week I had to teach district meeting again with last minute notice. I think the district leader likes taunting me. Shocking. As I was preparing for it I kept thinking man I wish I had a computer and could Google some articles about this. The closest thing we have to LDS.org google is a stack of old Liahonas so I went there. I pulled out one Ensign hiding in there and obviously the perfect article was right there! Who needs Google when you have the spirit?! Anyway, the topic was on goal setting and planning, A Time to Prepare by Elder Ian S. Arden. He happened to mention some time suckers like catapulting birds...my answer was clear - I needed to have an Angry Birds game/analogy. So I did. It was awesome. The gist, if our goal is to knock down those bricks to get the pigs (comparing investigators to pigs, I should think these things through a little more) then we must use the tools we have (different types of birds for scriptures, prayer, planning, etc) to achieve our goals. The Elders loved it and I quite enjoyed it as well. Making goals was not something I was good at before the mission. There is an awesome quote in Preach My Gospel from someone important that basically says if we don't set good goals we will one day look back on our lives and realize we didn't reach our potential (that's Hna Hall interpretation). I feel that way about my pre-mission life and I struggle with some feelings of regret by not setting better (more spiritually based) goals for my life. It's very clear on a mission how important setting goals and planning are, but I'm starting to really see the value of this in every aspect of life. If we don't set good goals with a gospel perspective in mind - goals that make us stretch a little bit - then we will never truly find our potential. What a shame. I want to be more awesome, so that is my new goal. Come be awesome with me...spiritually speaking of course. Yay!

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

 

P.S. more people should write me. Probably. :)

BINGO

Whelp this was a weird week. We must have smelled really bad because we got cancelled on a ton like we were way out of style...which just couldn't be true. We just started getting popular at church too and our dinner calendar was filling up...but then they all cancelled on us. ha! The Elders were super jealous of our dinner calendar. They only had like 3 days. haha. Suckers. Yesterday was awesome though and some how we got 5 lessons so that fixed our numbers for the week and they weren't totally embarrassing to report anymore.

 

Finally people are noticing my hair around here - geez! One lady we were visiting shouted out during my companion's testimony, has your hair always been red? haha. Yes. Then she talked about how amazing it was for 10 minutes. I enjoyed that. Later in the week someone else asked me what color I use. Uh...no girl, this is for realz. She was super jealous. I enjoyed that as well. Maybe they are a little color blind in Cali.

 

This week was a disaster at the old folks Bingo game. I guess I'm now the new caller for reals. I don't mind, except for how cranky they can be! They don't like it when you get fancy or try to make jokes. The other day I was asking if they were ready for black out and they were like 'mehhh' which is old person for 'yes'. And I shouted back all cute 'me too!' Well they thought I said B2 and it was a huge to do. Later I started spinning the balls and the latch popped open and they went EVERYWHERE! I thought the seniors were going to kill me the way they glared at me in disgust. Later though, I realized they didn't hate me when they started repeating the way I said numbers, which is just hilarious. Also they like it when I say 'niner'. ha! Later an old lady came up to talk to me about God, but for some reason she had to be really up in my bubble so much so that she kept spitting all over my face. It was so gross, but I played it cool and then I ran to wash my face trying not to think about what was dripping on my face at the moment. Ahh good times with the oldies.

 

So, I'm driving now and I feel much safer. I'm very confused with all the freeways, but slowly getting around. Thank goodness for GPS! I also feel bad for making fun of my companion with her parallel parking skills because it turns out, our parking spot at the apt is really really hard and I'm not good at it either! Maybe it's been so long I don't remember how. Someone Google and send me a diagram...or tips for dummies. ha. Speaking of cars, I keep seeing twins of Red Dragon around town. I miss her and then I remember one of them could be her! She only lives like 15 min away! How fun. 

 

I got a hilarious letter from my old college roomy, C. Oh man. That was a gem. She mentioned her first Sunday in Uruguay and how she had to conduct the music and how interesting it was. I laughed because I have the same problem. No one can play the piano or lead...or sing. Music on Sundays is very interesting. Not only that but the hymns in Spanish are different, for one I don't know the words, for two the rhythms are slightly off so when I'm leading it's...well it's a disaster. So I just smile. I find that works for almost everything. Thank heavens. 

 

This week I've been thinking a lot about grace. Since we have nothing to study but the gospel it's all I know right now. I heard there was something called the 'olympics' going on - what's that? Rebekah mentioned recently in one of her letters about the rapid learning rate on the mission. It's so true! Mainly because that is our focus all the time, but the Lord really blesses you when you focus on His word and His children. Thank heavens because I need it. But anyway, grace. We listened to this awesome talk recently about grace and I really liked it. We hear a lot of people talking about how they are saved by grace, but he pointed out yeah, we are all saved by grace but more importantly have you been changed by grace? I thought about this for quite some time and realized I don't exactly know what that means. ha. I think I'm learning a little more about it and how we are not sent here to be passive in this life, but everything we learn, accomplish and care about comes as a result of the grace of Christ. As we learn to accept his grace or follow his example, we gain more and this is how grace changes us. Simple enough right? ha. In the mornings before we study, we are told to get up, exercise, shower, pray and sit at a desk before we begin. This helps us be alert and ready and not drift off back to sleep. Most of the time it works. But I'm seeing more how this is in life too...there are several steps we should take before we start to 'study' so that we can get the most out of it and don't drift back to sleep letting all the opportunities for growth pass on by. I think I had a lot of dozing off before the mission...oopsy. I'm trying to catch up now! Lesson learned: praying while you're still in bed is just more sleeping. My bad.

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

A Fairy Tale Thing

Well, I failed at food eating for the first time. We had dinner at an inactive member's house the other day and she served us the biggest plate in the history of mankind with rice, shrimp and...MUSHROOMS. gag. It actually tasted just fine and I gulped down the mushrooms as best I could but there was just no way I was going to fit that plate in my belly. It may look like I can eat that much, but really I'm a bird. Unless it's coated in chocolate - then I can eat everything. I got about a fourth of the way and knew I was doomed so I started eating strategically - only when they were looking at me and I would put a tiny bite in my mouth and chew real slow. Then wait. Then repeat. I still had half a plate full when they offered me more. Ahhh! But luckily they took pity on me and said I didn't have to eat it. They were probably a little offended, but they are just going to have to get over it. They should probably just come back to church.

 

After dinner we watched the Joseph Smith movie with them and talked about the Restoration. They have a non-member adult son and he was like yeah I believe JS was a prophet. And we were like really?! What?! Let's talk...but then he just talked...for 2 hours. I was having the hardest time understanding him, it was really hot in there and I was stuffed with rice, shrimp and did I mention mushrooms so I was basically half asleep. Then of course, I had to pee real bad. I didn't know how I could politely cut him off so I did my best to be patient praying he'd come up for air at some point. Finally I couldn't handle it so I blurted it out and they were like of course silly goose (only in Spanish) and I stood up only to find my dress stuck in the couch and my unmentionables out on display. Ahh good times. It was just a poquito awkwardo.

 

We did a ton of service this weekend. I think I mentioned it before that San Jose is a pilot mission for no tracting and for Just Serve so we do a LOT of service during the week. The stake had a clothing donation program Saturday and it was so amazing. It reminded me of the Pismo Beach Disaster Relief (someone better get that) and it was stellar! We gave out like 30 copies of El Libro de Mormon and tons of Jesus movies. The Latins love Jesus. All things Jesus. It's great! It was such a huge success, I was so impressed. We had a few homeless people stop by too which I'm sure was very needed and thank heavens no one tried to get naked and try on clothes in the middle of the cultural hall. Phew.

 

Things are still booming out here in San Jose for the Lord! We got two new Elders - really tall. One is from Guatemala and the other is a whitey, but they are both super new and super pumped to work hard. Thank heavens! Things are just going to be bursting at the seams here. We are going to have a line at the baptismal font in no time! We have some hurdles with a few of our investigators like David A's BFF - apparently his pet bird is sick so he to be with her and can't come to church. Um. I'm learning compassion with that one or at least fine tuning my tongue biting skills. But we keep getting new investigators so we are never lacking for people to preach the word to! We've extended several baptismal invitations and they all said yes - shocking, but awesome. haha. Thank goodness for the spirit! He's pretty amazing.

 

At one of our lessons recently we were talking about the trials and stages of life and while my companion was talking and I was day dreaming...I mean, listening intently...I was thinking about fairy tales. ha. That sounds hilarious. Anyway, it's religiousy, I was thinking about how our existence really is like a fairy tale. We often say life isn't a fairy tale, but we just haven't made it to the end yet. We start out all happy, singing with the birds and bunnies in the premortal life with God then we come down here to be tortured and poisoned by the wicked step mom, but then, finally then - we live happily ever after in our kingdom in heaven with God. Ta-da! I enjoyed thinking about that this week. It gave me a new perspective. Yeah, life is rough. There are a lot of poisoned apples, but thank heavens there is always someone to save us. With the understanding of the restored gospel we know we can all have our happily ever after. I am so thankful for that. I'm also thankful for the prince I know is waiting for me...on a white horse, slaying dragons.

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall