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 :)