Senior Scarefest

Friday BINGO was cancelled as a result of the senior Halloween Party and it was totally worth it. I'm still kicking myself that I forgot about it so I left my camera at home. I cannot believe how spirited these seniors got and I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. They went all out with their costumes and they were parading around the place like they were in middle school. There was even a 90 year old lady of the night. I couldn't believe it, tears were shooting out of my eyeballs when she walked in with her fishnets and corset top. My poor companion was mortified, completely frozen solid. Then Wendy, our Asian friend, brought us costumes she insisted we put on right then. I glanced down at the description of the bag she handed me, "Sexy Cat", complete with studded ears and bell collar. She watched as we both put them on and I could feel my companion's innocence shriveling up inside. It was glorious! There we were, two missionary sexy cats standing among 90 year old hookers. Halloween is amazing.

 

I've been in some serious hot sauce training and it's paying off. A few days ago I ate some freshly made salsa that really kicked up in my mouth, but I pushed through the sweat and the tears and yesterday I was able to eat two jalapenos like they were pickles! My Spanish isn't any better, but I feel like they take me more seriously when I can eat the hot sauce. It's the sacrifices we make for the gospel that bring about those miracles. I'm just talking one for team Jesus.

 

We had a pretty rough week so I needed a restaurant break. We were driving around, but I was so grumpy nothing sounded good. All of a sudden I saw the green lettering of the Olive Garden. For some reason I had a double take, asked my companion if she liked the place - never been! - so I flipped a u-ie and we went in for some serious breadstick/alfredo therapy. After we were seated, a lovely waitress came up and welcomed us with 'hi, sisters'. Naturally, our ears are up, we're so famous! Sure enough she was a member...that hasn't been to church in 7 months...and had just moved into our ward boundaries. WHAT?! After she took our drink orders and walked off I looked at my companion and our mouths dropped and I said, whelp I guess the Holy Ghost talks to me through my stomach. We had a great chat with her about church and the blessings of coming back and all chuckled as this was clearly a call from God to get back there. We left happy, stuffed and hopefully helped a lost sheep return back to the fold. It's the Olive Garden miracle!

 

Satan has been a big fat jerkface to us recently. It wasn't until the mission that I realized how hard he works on discouraging us. I love how everything is so cut and dry on the mission because you're only worried about one thing so if you feel anything bad or negative, it's Satan - it makes things so easy! I don't think I was prepared for how much Satan would try to discourage us, but it got me thinking about other times in my life when he was doing the same thing and I didn't even realize it. He's so sneaky and he uses these little negative feelings, moments of frustration or discouragement to take away our feelings of hope and peace so it becomes harder for us to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost. It's a mad genius plan and it works! It's hard to remember that it's the adversary beating us down when we feel that way because nothing seems to be going right but really it's those times when we have to remember that there is only one reason the adversary is working so hard on us...it's because we are capable of so much!

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

Jungle Gym

This week went by entirely too fast that I can't even remember what happened. I'm sure miracles occurred, they always do. San Jose rains miracles. Yesterday popped our bubble when none of our investigators (and we have a ton because we are just that good) showed up even AFTER stopping by one of their houses and helping pack up the car. No clue what happened, but it sure hurts as you watch the clock tick by in Sacrament Meeting and that door is not opening anymore. I sang again in church yesterday because everyone thought my piano playing companion was going to get transferred (which she did not) and they wanted to hear her one last time...that and I think they like to hear me try and say Spanish words. Something happened with her fingers and the piano so there was a bit of a disaster which I was really tempted to cover with some kind of clever joke until I remembered that I was at the podium in front of everyone in the middle of a spiritual number. It ended fine and they all still think I sound like an angel. Presh.

 

We've been teaching a lot of people with kids recently. It's not my favorite. I mean I enjoy a kid as much as anyone, but they don't love boring lessons about the Restoration. Shocker. I've been trying to explain this to my companion, but I don't think it's quite clicked yet. Anywhoo...why she goes on and on I try to distract the children aka I turn into a jungle gym. Now it's strictly against the rules for us to babysit or basically touch children, which I support 100% but I really don't know what to do when three kids start climbing up my lap on top of my head. What blows my mind even more than that is when their parents don't seem to notice it happening. Oh well. Turns out I'm better than a park.

 

Language mishaps continue, but they only make people love me more. The other day we were retelling the wonderful Conference Talk by Elder Holland about Peter and the fishing. I started talking about how Jesus was like come on Peter, get with it, if you want fish I can get you fish, what I need is for you to...eat my sheep. Laughter ensued...white girl doesn't get it. Then last night at a dinner appointment instead of saying 'sangre' (blood) I started talking about 'sangria'...the alcoholic beverage. My bad. Good thing I'm so precious.

 

My current pet peeve is the response to all commitments, "God willing". Will you read this scripture? "God willing". Will you come to church this Sunday? "God willing". Will you stop breaking all of the commandments? "God willing". GAH! Trust me, God is very willing for you to do all of these things. Isn't it funny that people use the excuse of God to not do things that God wants them to do. haha. I love it! But I also hate it. Then I realized, I do it too! I never use those words, but I'm sure I find plenty of reasonable excuses to not do things. We have some investigators that won't get baptized because they are waiting for the voice of the Lord to tell them to change churches. They know everything we taught is true, but they want more, it's God willing or nothing. This happens over and over in the Book of Mormon when people forget they have a part in the matter of faith. We must do out part too. If we want the support of our Heavenly Father, if we want the blessings and the understanding that is just waiting for us, we have to do something about it. I'm learning this starts with simple, honest and grateful prayer. We must do as they teach us in the Book of Mormon and humbly ask our Father to help us with the things we need, make up our weaknesses and bless us with guidance. Of course, God knows what we want and what we need but he only gives us what we wish is often not what we want. Surprise! Ah that's the joys and the pains of life. Isn't it great?! Woohoo!

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

Dirty Work

This was a week of charity and taking out the trash. The golden contact we found last week met with us 2 days after General Conference and had already read and MARKED all the way through 2 Nephi. We were floored. She loves it all. She committed to be baptized on Oct 27 and then the bomb, she's not in our area so we had to hand her over on a silver platter to the Hermanas in our rival ward. That was so hard. Our transition lesson was amazing though and those sisters made me realize how much work I have left to do. I think my mouth was open the whole time at their ability to teach powerfully and to the point...and under an hour. It was amazing! I scribbled as many notes as I could and I'm for sure going to copy them. Two days later we got another golden couple from street contacting and sure enough...they aren't in our area either so basically we just handed that ward 3 baptisms in a month. You're welcome. Charity: check.

 

Saturday was bursting with wackadoo, but it was miraculous. We stopped to visit an investigator and she wasn't there...but her boyfriend that we've never got to talk to us for more than 1 min was. We ended up having a 45 min lesson on the doorstep with him asking questions about everything. I felt a tiny tug in my heart to tell him to marry his girlfriend so she could get baptized. After telling my brain that was crazy I finally blurted it out. He responded surprisingly well and perhaps this was the miracle we needed! Me and my big mouth. Later that night we stopped by one of our favorite members home, a part of town we never go that late at night, only to find all the lights off. We felt like we should knock anyway and their backyard renter (yeah, that's how people live out here) answered the door, drunk as could be. It took about 30 sec to realize we were there for him as he poured out his soul and desire to return to church. We bore testimony of the Atonement and let him know he was always welcome back to church. He burst into tears as we reminded him of God's love for him and surely that is why he sent us there that night. He asked us if we could take away his addictions...uh...sure...and he went to his trailer in the back and brought a stack of...ahem digital ladies and handed them to us. I wasn't going to let my sweet, innocent companion touch that so I took it and then asked him where his beer was. He said he just wanted it that night and in the morning he'd be done, with my gentle, soft voice...let's be honest, it was the Hna Hall 'I'm right' voice I said give it to me. He stared at me like I'd just punched him in the face and I started to get a little nervous but I stood firm and said it again, no more, give it to me. He broke down, walked over to the corner and handed over his booze. Picture it as we left that house, me with a stack of dirty discs in my left hand and a 40 in the other and of course we walked to the car the members came home. Awkward...as I slyly dumped the beer out behind my back and shoved everything else in the trunk as quickly as possible. Then, of course when we got home to dump that trash our member neighbors came home...so I hid behind the bush until they went inside. It just seemed a little too hard to explain what I was doing with beer and porn.

 

As for the food adventures this week, it was rough. Let's just say that the food burns going in and it burns going out. At one house this week, they gave me three plates of food. I stared at it for awhile and just prayed. Luckily she left the room and when she did I took back my plate and scraped the food back into the pot then hustled back to my seat...in such a rush that I sat on the curtain and pulled down the entire rod. Awesome. Whatever, I got out of eating a truckload of beans. And no, we never have dessert, they don't really do dessert or at least not my kind of dessert. We get a lot of fruit, I guess some people think that counts. Speaking of fruit, the other day at BINGO an old lady with dirty hands gave me an apple and made me eat it in front of her. I'm not going to lie, for a second I thought she was trying to Snow White me to death. But I survived.

 

In closing I would like to quote...ok just kidding I have no quote. But we have been talking a lot here about service. For us, conference really focused on service and yesterday we had a recap of Ballard's talk about bees and how it takes all of us to get that honey. I don't exactly know what he said because I listened to it both times in Spanish but I think it was something like that. Anyway, we've seen miracles in this area because of the work of members and friends. There is sweet honey in the work of service. No act is too small, it all makes a difference. As missionaries, we are very grateful for even the tiniest help from others, it really does make a huge impact on someone investigating this gospel and it will lead to a change of heart and life. So thank you for all your service, thank you for helping the missionaries help others. And as Nelson said, if you or anyone has questions or needs help, ask the missionaries, we can help.

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

Like a Rock Star

I feel like a rock star when I walk into the senior center at the Salvation Army for Bingo, I'm not going to lie, it might be going to my head. I walk in and they stomp their walkers, they clap for joy, they start shouting "B9er" and "BINGO". I high five them all as I strut up to the front and start a rip roaring game of BINGO. It's great! One of the highlights of my week for sure. I'm so cool...to old people.

 

This past week was a busy week, we got to take a trip to the temple, then we had zone conference all day and then we finished off the week with General Conference. How bout those mission age changes? That's all the buzz in the mission world. I can't stop thinking about how much older that just made me. There was a lot of mission talk this Conference, or at least that's what stood out being that I'm a missionary right now. I did start feeling a little sweat bead up on my brow when Elder Nelson kept telling people to talk to the missionaries. Talk about pressure! But yes, that is what we want. Please talk to us.

 

We got to see several miracles this week, my favorite is a cute little lady we ran into during some service at a clothing donation site. This was our first time there and we were about to leave when she heard us speaking Spanish and was really shocked to see two white girls doing it. She came up and asked us about our name tags and we talked a little about what we do and our church. My companion mentioned the fact that we had a prophet and her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. So I told her she could come see the Prophet speak this weekend and she agreed! And she actually came. We picked her up from the train station and walked the half-mile to the chapel with her as she talked about how she hadn't planned to come to the shelter that day but something told her to. We talked about many gospel related topics and just as the spirit does, as we sat and watched Conference each and every one of her concerns was directly addressed. Her mouth was open the entire time, it was awesome - just straight miracles from heaven, no big deal. As one of the speakers talked about the Book of Mormon she turned to us and asked how she could get one, she just felt like she needed to read it. We chuckled and assured her that would be no problem. Needless to say this was an answer to prayer, fasting and obedience. We are teaching her tonight and pray things keep going this golden.

 

I ate a jalapeno. I'm not going to belittle myself and say it was a dare, but it was a challenge of faith. I did it and now I know I have faith. Also I'm getting more Latina every day. I even had a nice dark tan the other day (yes, dark is relative) but it's all peeling off now. Bummer. In other news, humorous events of this past week include, watching the Joseph Smith movie with an investigator and the phone ringing right as Joseph kneels down for the his first, world changing, prayer (obviously). Who was it you ask, oh just their pastor. Curse you Satan - using Pastors to thwart our efforts! We re-round the clip and made him watch it again. ha. Then the other day we were with another investigator chatting about the Word of Wisdom and how wackadoo California is with it's legal pot, just as he was talking about how common and even normal around here that stuff is, the aroma of skunk filled the room. Classy. One of our investigators has a HUGE statue of the virgin Mary in her living room, sometimes I can't help but stare at it. The other day we gave her a photo of the Salt Lake Temple and when we went back to visit a few days later, there was the temple at Mary's feet, right above Jesus! It was the best thing ever.

 

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed Conference. For the record, I did not fall asleep and I even had to watch some in Spanish. There were many powerful talks as usual and I was particularly struck by the discussion of Peter and the Apostles after Christ's death. They knew not what to do, but the Lord patiently reminded them the job of followers of Christ is to feed his sheep. I feel lucky to be doing that full time right now. It's totally weird and we see some crazy crap, but we also get to see the Lord's hands working miracles in countless lives as he lifts, changes and blesses his sheep...all of them. We work with a lot of His sheep that have strayed and it can be some of the hardest work, but it's also a great blessing to see the light come back into their eyes when we enter their house and remind them of the covenants they made and the happiness they can have again. Just as the Lord did not give up on his apostles, he does not give up on us, instead he asks us to follow him, follow that perfect example and think not of fishing fish for ourselves, but with his fishes feed those he puts in our path. They are not kidding when they say there is no greater work...it's for sure work, but it's so worth it.

 

xoxo,

Hermana Hall

Heat Wave

It has been 100 degrees here in San Jose the past two days which is not exactly foreign to me, but it is the hottest it's been since I got here so that's been weird. So I have no idea what's going on with the weather, but it's killing us because, remember how I said no one here seems to have air conditioning...yeah. Oh and how they all have pleather couches that just stick to you real nice when you're all good and sweating. I was basically dying in someone's home the other day trying to bear testimony of the gospel and at the same time realizing I was super glued to that couch. I had to stand up real fast and hold in the scream because that ripped like duct tape.

 

Well our special musical number was quite the sensation on Sunday. I stood up there and as soon as I started to sing I could see peoples mouths drop open as the voice of an angel filled the chapel. ha. Or it could have been the fact that I was singing in Spanish. But everyone was shocked and complimented me mucho. That was nice. I was praying so hard the Holy Ghost would sing for me and I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

 

Well all the gangbangers love me. I mean, it's not really something I've ever done before, but apparently I can speak the word on the street or it might be the name tag and my angelic body guards. We have a lot of ex-gang member investigators and we meet at lot during service throughout the week. They are surprisingly respectful and are always saying sure thing, lil' white girl, plus they are all about Jesus, sure that's mixed in with a lot of messed up grammar and swear words but they know about their Jesus.

 

This past weekend we got to watch the Women's General Conference...in Spanish. I actually really enjoyed listening to it in Spanish because the voices were melodic and I didn't have to hear the squeaky, crying mom voices they all have. haha I'm terrible, but it's true! Why do they all sound like that?! I don't get it. But the conference was really good. I'm always amazed when I understand what's going on in Spanish, but it turns out I actually can understand and speak it. Miracles.

 

We've been hyping up General Conference this weekend to everyone we see like it's a big ole party. The other day while contacting on the street we ran into a group of Catholic ladies that shared their love of BYU TV with us. They even watched the Women's General Conference - my mouth dropped open - like even when you didn't have to out of guilt? haha j/k j/k. They talked about how much they love the BYU programming and the uplifting messages so obviously I mentioned General Conference coming up this weekend and what a great chance it is to hear from the Lord's prophet . They were super excited and are having a party to watch it. What? Ok, yeah, do that with all your Catholic girlfriends and then call us when you want to get baptized. Perfect. It was a great reminder to me though that our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, is not just the Mormon Prophet, he is God's prophet for the entire world and when he speaks he is speaking to the entire world, whether they know it or not. It is such a huge blessing to have these leaders of God's church here today, even the Catholics know it! Since being on my mission I have a great appreciation for the words of the prophets, they have hit me harder, stronger and are much more clear. It's a gift to missionaries, so I am looking forward to hearing all the glorious council they will have this weekend. What is amazing too is how personal conference can be and that's because their words are truly inspired so the Holy Ghost can touch each of our hearts and teach us something very unique and special just for us. We've been encouraging people to have some questions, concerns or thoughts in mind as they watch General Conference this weekend and listen carefully for those individual prickles of the spirit. I would encourage all of my friends reading this to do the same and I know that as you really listen for those answers things will stand out that seem like it was meant just for you, because that's how awesome this Gospel of revelation is. Something broadcast to the whole world can hit the heart of one person like a ton of bricks. The Holy Ghost is the best teacher in the world! I'm so glad he has my back.