Letter #26

Sent:	Mon 8/19/13 12:24 PM

Hi mom! How are you doing today? It sounds like you've been really stressed and busy lately. I hope that this week will be better :)

So, this week past week was pretty great too! Transfers were Monday and that was pretty rough just cause Sister Marble and I have become like best friends and it was really hard to say goodbye but we will be keeping in touch for sure! Anyway, on Tuesday I drove up to Eugene with another Sister who is in the area and we totally got lost! Haha! Eugene is so huge and there are lots of streets going every which way. We went up and down the same street 4 times just trying to find the mission home. It was fun to see the city though.. Lol. When we got to the mission home it was the best! There were tons of missionaries that I served with in Albany and a ton of the Elders knew who I was because Trevor had either told them about me or they used to be companions with him. It was really fun to see everyone again and to hear how Trevor is doing. Which he sounds like he's doing awesome! At the Trainers Training, President and Sister Young talked to us about how everyone of us missionaries was called by Heavenly Father to be a trainer (even if we didn't feel ready or prepared to be) and that He as well as President Young trusts us. I feel very privileged to have gotten the assignment to train. There were only 8 Sisters called to train this transfer and I was one of them. I know that because of this assignment I already have and will continue to learn so much and I know that it will help me to become the missionary that our Father in Heaven wants me to be. Also at the Trainers Training, we had dinner with and President let us ask questions "off the record" Haha! It was great! I love President and Sister Young so much and I know that I was called not only to this mission but to them. They have helped me a lot these past 6 months! Can you believe it's been that long?? I feel like the time is slipping away and it actually kind of scares me. Anyway, my new companion is Sister Collins from Phoenix AZ and she just turned 19 in June! It's crazy how young all these new missionaries are. It makes me feel rather old... She is a super sweet girl and reminds me of me when I first came out on a mission. I was a bit nervous when President asked me to be a trainer because I feel like I have so much to learn still but when we went tracting the other day, we ran into 2 men from EdgeWater ( an anti-mormon church, there's a lot of those around here)

and I started explaining the Book of Mormon to them. They asked a ton of questions and I was able to answer all of them. I felt a little bad because one of the men said to Sister Collins, "She's training you isn't she?" He said that I was very sharp and there was another man we tracted into the same day that said something similar about me being confident and that I know what I'm talking about. It helped me a lot to know that I can do this and that the Lord is with me every step of the way. OH! So, this same day while tracting, we knocked on a door and the man that opened was agnostic. We started talking and he asked where we were from.. He told us that he is related to some people who live in St.George and guess who it is? Brodie Perry! It's kinda crazy how incredibly small this world is because the last door that we knocked on also is related to Brodie Perry. Haha! I told them that I've helped with a few shows that Brodie has been in and they were excited to see that I knew who their relatives were. If you get a chance, will you tell Brodie or Kerry Perry on Facebook that I tracted into his Aunt and Uncle? There names are Dave Sanders and Yvonne. Another thing that has been going on is that Elders are now in our ward and one of them used to live in the same apartment as Trevor in Central Point.

So the best thing I saved for last and that is... MCKENNA AND BRYCE ARE GETTING BAPTIZED THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so so so excited and happy for them! They are the sweetest kids ever and their mom is a sweetheart too. Aaah! I just wish you could meet all of these wonderful people here in Oregon! One day!! :D

Well I don't have a lot of time left but I hope you know how much I truly appreciate all of your love and support. You have no idea how much you mean to me and how grateful I am to have you as my mom. I think about you a lot and wish I could help you out at home cause you sound super busy. You are the most strongest most amazing women ever and I am very blessed to have you in my life. Thank you for everything mom.

I LOVE YOU!!!!

Love, Sister Hall!

Letter #25

Sent:	Mon 8/12/13 10:50 AM

Hi mom! How are you?? This week was probably the best week of my mission so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Roberta was baptized on Saturday and it was so amazing!!! The spirit was so strong and I am so incredibly proud of her. I love how this gospel changes peoples lives and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be apart of something that brings so much happiness and joy not only to my life but the lives of every person we teach. The baptism was so special. She has polio, which means that she doesn't have any leg function at all. When she was baptized the Elder baptizing her picked her up out of her wheelchair and carried her into the water. It was the neatest thing I have ever been apart of. I can't express how truly grateful I am to be here serving our Heavenly Father and to have part in something so meaningful and life changing. There is so much more I have to tell you about it but I have very little time today. It's transfer day and guess what? Sister Marble is being transferred :( I am very sad about it but i'm excited for her to continue her adventure in Klamath Falls. Plus she's going to be moving to St.George when we're off our missions so we'll see each other all the time! So you're probably wondering who my new companion is and well, I can't even tell you that cause I don't even know yet. She is still in the MTC and won't be here until Wednesday! I'm not quite sure what President Young was thinkin' but he gave me the assignment of TRAINING A BRAND NEW MISSIONARY!!! I am super excited but also nervous. I know that this will be a growing experience for me and I am anxious to see what the Lord has in store! I will be going up to Eugene tomorrow afternoon for a trainer's training and then meet my new "greenie" companion on Wednesday afternoon! I was also told that we are getting 2 Elders in the ward as well as us and that one of them is Elder O'Neil. And seeing the last picture that you sent i'm guessing that Trevor was companions with him?? I don't know? I thought he was companions with Elder Taumeolau. I kinda feel outta the loop but that's alright. Oh!!! So last week we also met with Jill and her boys again and oh my goodness, Nickolas was being so so silly! All of us were laughing so hard that we had tears in our eyes! I love that family so much!! AND guess what???? Jill's husband Richard came to church yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sister Marble and I couldn't contain our excitement we were so happy! Our Ward Mission Leader kept telling us to put our eyes back in our head! Haha! Anyway, this week has just been so fantastic!! McKenna and Bryce are now on date to be baptized for the 24th of August! They are seriously the most polite kids i've ever met and so so sweet. I hope that you are doing well. I didn't get much of an e-mail from you this week so I hope that means everything is okay. I love you so much and can't tell you how much I appreciate all you do for me.

Love,

Sister Hall :)

Letter #24

Sent:	Mon 8/05/13 12:51 PM

Hello Mom! GUESS WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Roberta is getting baptized this Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't explain how excited I am for her!! She is the cutest little old lady I've ever met!! (Except for my grandma's of course!) I can't even tell you how amazing she is! She truly has been prepared by our Father in Heaven. It's so incredible to think that we only met her 4 weeks ago this Thursday and she's already getting baptized!! I love this work so much and I can't wait for her to experience all the blessings and joy that this gospel holds! Since she has Polio and has no function in her legs, one of the Elders that will be baptizing her will have to carry her down into the font and then she'll sit in a chair and when she's emerged, they'll just tip her back. I really just can't wait to see her in her white jumpsuit! :D Another amazing thing happened this week! We were told by one of the Young Women's leaders that McKenna and Bryce both want to be baptized!! I don't remember if I told you about them but their mom was recently baptized in February and when we met with them yesterday, McKenna said in her prayer that she's excited to be baptized and to be able to go to the temple! They are such great kids and so polite! We also met with a couple last week and they took us out to breakfast. They're pretty great too! There names are Amy and Jerry and they've got 4 kids all above the age of 8!! They were a referral from a member in the ward, and told us that they are very interested in learning more about the gospel. Amy is an animal adoption caretaker so she has like 34 cats at her house and 13 dogs... I don't know how people can live with that many pets. Haha! Anyway, i'm sure you've heard about the fires that are going on right now. I think they said there's 5 or 6 of them and Grants Pass is getting all the smoke from them. People have been telling us that we are now in the "Hazardously Unhealthy" stage of smoke so we're supposed to be wearing face masks...They look silly but make us feel like we're in some horror movie so that makes it fun! We met Tim again on the street this week, this time with his big black friend Ray! They are hilarious!!!!!!! They're moving though so we probably won't see them around anymore :/ but they gave us their information and told us to make sure we write them. Transfers are coming up on Monday, so if you send anything, send it to the mission office address just to be safe. I have a feeling that Sister Marble might be getting transferred. She's been her almost 6 months and at interviews President said something about it.. I really hope we both stay though!! We are like best friends and I just love her! Oh! Another thing that's happening, we are going to be getting 2 Elders in the ward so there will be 4 of us serving in the Redwood ward now. I'm not really sure how it will all work but it will be nice because our area is so huge! We haven't even been to all of our area just because it's so big. Interviews with President went great!! I love that man so much! He is seriously THE BEST!!! We mostly talked about Trevor and how he's doing and pretty much just how amazing he is! ;) It sounds like he is doing wonderful and that makes me so happy and so proud! I am so blessed. Thank you for always being there for me mom. And for always supporting me in all I do. I truly appreciate all that you have taught me and for the way that you have raised me. I am so grateful for our family and for the relationships that we have. Thank you for everything mom! I love you so so so much! I hope you have a great week, with less stress and busy-ness!

I love you!

Love, Sister Hall :)

Letter #23

Sent:	Mon 7/29/13 5:18 PM

Hi mom!!!!! I don't have much time today. We just got back from going to the Oregon Caves! President Watts took the whole zone and it was so fun! So this week was absolutely incredible!! The lady we met last week, Roberta, is amazing!! We met with her on Wednesday and also Saturday and we were able to set a baptismal date with her for the 10th of August only after knowing her for a week!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so so SOOO excited for her! The first time we met her she told us, "now you mormons don't drink coffee, now do you?" We said no and she said, " Well i've got to have my cup of coffee everyday. So after the first time meeting with her we knew that she would have a challenge with the Word of Wisdom.... Saturday we taught her about it and why it's so important. She told us that she only had about a teaspoon left of creamer left so she went and poured out the rest of her coffee and said, " okay, no more!!!!! :D She is seriously SO golden! She also told us that the day before we invited her to be baptized she woke up at 3 in the morning with a question about baptism and that she stayed awake studying the book of mormon and the other material that we left her. She told us that since she's been meeting with us and reading from the Book of Mormon, that her anger towards her stepson is starting to disappear and that she feels that what we've been teaching her is filling in the pieces that she didn't know were missing. The whole lesson was very spirit filled and I couldn't help but hold back the tears. Heavenly Father truly is preparing people to hear the gospel and I absolutely love being an instrument in his hand. I have never been so happy in my life. I love this gospel with all my heart and I feel so very blessed to be apart of it. I can't explain the love I have towards the people that I am teaching and for my Savior.

OH! We totally met Moses this week!!! Well not really but he looked like him! Haha he had a white turban and long beard with a huge staff! We talked to him on the side of the road for about 45 minutes and he even started talking in Hebrew! It was pretty awesome! We asked where he was going and he told us that he was going to work which was to milk goats... Lol! Only in Oregon! :) I'm sure you've heard, but there has been crazy fires all over and the smoke is insane here! Most of the time we can't see the mountains and it's been snowing ash. The sun was like blood red one of the days and Sister Marble and are were freakin out! It was so cool!! We have interviews with President Young tomorrow and I am so excited to see him!! It seems like it's been forever and he just always makes my day! Transfers are also coming up soon on the 12th. I'm really hoping that Sister Marble and I will both stay here in Grants Pass but she has been here for almost 6 months so there's a big chance she could be leaving :( We've become like bestfriends! Anyway, I hope that everything is going well back home. I didn't have time to read any e-mails today so I will print them out and read them when I get time! I love you so much!!!

Love,

Sister Hall :)

Letter #22

Sent:	Mon 7/22/13 11:56 AM

Hi Mom!

How's it going? Sounds like you've been crazy busy lately. I hope you are doing well! I also hope Kurtis is okay.. Let him know that him and Sheila and the rest of their family are in my prayers.

So this past week was another great one!!! The work is really starting to pick up and we found 5 new solid people to teach!! On Friday and Sunday we had back to back appointments so by the end of the day we were absolutely pooped! But I LOVE having appointments and teaching people! One of the new people that we are teaching is Roberta! She is wonderful! She is 77 years old and the sweetest lady :) She got Polio when she was 10 and so she's in a wheelchair. And she has like over 2,000 roles of yarn! Not even joking!! She loves to talk so sometimes it's hard to stick to the lesson plan but once she finds that she's off topic she'll catch herself and say, "okay, now where were we?" Haha she is just great! Another lady we are teaching is Joanne! We tracted into her in May and told us to come back in July so we went back on Tuesday and she told us to come back Friday. She is really interested in the history of the Book of Mormon and had tons of questions about the Plan of Salvation. We were able to answer all of her questions and she invited us to come back another time!! She's big into Family History work so we were able to tell her about family search and about the family history center at the church and she seemed to be super excited about that! She showed us one of her geneology books and we're pretty sure some of her ancestors are pioneers that came over from Missouri. The other lady we started teaching is Katie! She is Brandon's mom. I don't know if I told you about Brandon but he is a recent convert that we've been seeing every week. He's 16 and the happiest kid ever! He always has a smile on his face! Yesterday he told us that he's having a hard time deciding on whether he should go into the military or if he should go on a mission. Anyways, when we met with him mom, she told us that she had met with missionaries right before Brandon was born and said that she prayed, and prayed, and prayed about if the Book of Mormon was true and she said the answer she got was no.. So this week we are planning on finding out how she got that answer and help her to feel the spirit that she once felt when she was taking the discussions before. She used to be a wicken? Like witchcraft stuff so that was a little different. We also met with Jill again!!!!!!!!!!! Aah! I just love her so much! I know I've said that like a million times but she really is amazing! So when we went over to her house, we walked in and Christian and Nicholas were sitting at the table just waiting for us :) Nicholas had poured us all drinks and passed out cookies :) I sat next to Christian and he said look what I got! It was a Bible that he got in Portland. He was so excited about it and when we gave him and Nicholas a Book of Mormon they were even more excited! Jill told us that last Sunday after church, Christian asked if next Sunday he could be baptized!!! We asked if they had thought about a date to be baptized and she said that her birthday was on the 7th of September and her mom's was the 10th so she was thinking around that time but she wanted to make sure that her mom was there. I am so excited for them and can't wait for them to be the newest members of the church. She already has so many friends in the ward and everyone is so welcoming to her. It is so important that members of the ward show that love and friendship because most of the time that's what somebody is looking for when investigating the church. It's not so much the doctrine at first but the feeling that they get. Another lady that we've been meeting with is Carole. She is an inactive member and has been for over 20+ years. She is friends with a member in our ward and has accepted to let us come over and teach her! She smokes pretty heavily so we are going to try and help her quit that addiction. We also met with Charley and he is doing pretty good. He's been super tired because of the radiation but he seems to be doing good other than that. We talked to him again about baptism and he told us that he doesn't think that he can make that big of a commitment. But the thing is, he's already doing everything that qualifies him for baptism, he just has super low self esteem and doesn't feel worthy. It makes me really sad but we are not giving up on him. I really just love being a missionary and I love seeing the tender mercies that Heavenly Father shows me everyday. I feel so incredibly blessed to be apart of this work and there's nothing else I would rather be doing at this time in my life. I love you all so much and hope that you have the best week! You are in my prayers! Oh!! And that is so cool that Elder Holland is going to be in St.George!! What is the new mission they are making? And do we have missionaries in our ward??

I LOVE YOU!!

Love,

Sister Hall :)