Catherine Aldous' Christmas Update

Catherine was transferred last week to Eugene 1st Ward, which is the mission president's ward. (She said, "Pressure" :) Her assignment is to be Sister Training Leaders with her new companion, Sister Petersen from Kaysville, Utah, who has been out since September. The mission president says that Sister Aldous and Sister Petersen is a companionship made in heaven. They will work in their own area and travel to go on exchanges with the sisters in Eugene and Springfield. Her mission is also one of the missions which has missionaries assigned to use social media for one hour a day. She is supposed to use Facebook, email, blogs, etc for missionary purposes. This is Sister Petersen:

Here is a wonderful story from her last area, Philomath. (Our family has been touched and impressed by the love and support the members in Philomath give the missionaries, and we have received an email with a picture or a kind note about our missionary multiple times.)  She had an outpouring of blessings and baptisms in November.

If you only have time to read the story's punchline:

"This is a thought that burns in my bosom: this man, who just three months ago, was just a resident of Philomath, is now progressing on the path as a son of God who is learning who he truly is. And how absolutely powerful that the man I met on a sidewalk early in September is now authorized to renew my baptismal covenant. The priesthood he can now exercise and his role in the ward as a priest are part of my salvation."

Here is the full story:

"I'd better tell the whole story of R and B's family. It is very special to me. And best of all, it isn't over. I still plan on attending their temple sealing in a year.

"On a morning in early September, Sister Levy and I were getting ready for our morning exercise. I remember pulling on my running shoes and kneeling in the kitchen for a moment, simply praying to Heavenly Father to ask if we could please find someone. I didn't necessarily mean right then, but I was seeking to exercise my faith. By then Sister Levy was ready, so she hopped on one of the bikes and followed me while I took off jogging down College Street near our apartment. Within a minute or two, I saw a man with a walker and a large dog. In the spirit of "Talk with Everyone" (see Preach My Gospel), I jogged up to him, Sister Levy pulled up behind me, and (a little out of breath) we asked if he would like a prayer that day. He said that he would like that and that we could come over the next day to offer the prayer. We wrote his contact information on a mormon.org card I saw a cross on his necklace and thought that he would probably try to tell us we were mislead when we came over, but I thought it was worth a try. (He mentioned he was attending an Evangelical church in Corvallis.)

"We went over the next afternoon with a fun woman from the ward who was taking us to visit people that afternoon. We had to come in the front door carefully because there were six large dogs in the living room. They jumped and squirmed everywhere for several minutes before settling down. The first meeting with R pretty much consisted of his telling us all about his dogs and about his friend who had just passed away and about his recent medical crises. He mentioned having known a Mormon that he was impressed with. About halfway through the visit, R's wife came home. Sister Levy found out that she was involved in the Young Women's program and had been baptized when she was a young adult.

"Things were pretty slow because of talkativeness. It was about two weeks and 3 or more meetings before we were even able to get 'lesson one' out. But one day, I was on exchanges with two other sisters, and we were determined to do the Restoration lesson, do or die. We decided to do a chapel tour to change up the environment, but it would be the day that the chapel was being recarpeted.  It took two hours, but we did it. At the end, R commented that the pattern made sense to him. "If there were prophets then, why not now?" He said, though, that he had commitments to his church still and that he has the honor to fulfill them. (He was on the Board of Trustees and taught Sunday School.) But he said, "I'm not married to my church" and that, over time, he would consider our church. Others were also leaving the evangelical church, which made him not want to abandon ship too soon. "But I'd have to make sure I wasn't jumping out of the frying pan into the fire." After that lesson, I wrote on the teaching record that I was pretty sure he would be baptized, but that it would take time and patience. I fully expected it to take a year.

"It's hard to summarize all of the miracles and events of the next two months. It wasn't a smooth path. We had some wonderful friends for him at Church that helped so much. One of them gave him a priesthood blessing for health. On a certain weekend, I wrote on a post-it note that I can have the faith to see R baptized "in my day." (instead of letting obstacles control the situation) One day after over a month of teaching R, I woke up one morning and just felt it in my bones that it was time to extend a date for baptism to R. We prepared a lesson about covenants. He got it. He accepted!

"As the time for his baptism neared, his old church started an awful spiritual and emotional attack on him. He was told he was going to Hell. He lost friends. He was raked over the coals in front of the men's group.

"He covenanted. He understands the restored gospel. He earnestly desires the temple. He wants to bring his whole family with him. He was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. I love him and B and their children. I am very fond towards his puns and talkativeness.  Last night, after his ordination, he said to the small group, 'We need to take count of the angels in heaven, because I think two of them are missing.'

"This is a thought that burns in my bosom: this man, who just three months ago, was just a resident of Philomath, is now progressing on the path as a son of God who is learning who he truly is. And how absolutely powerful that the man I met on a sidewalk early in September is now authorized to renew my baptismal covenant. The priesthood he can now exercise and his role in the ward as a priest are part of my salvation.

"I love the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."

Love, 

Sister Aldous

Photo of R's baptism

Catherine thought she would have to develop a greater appreciation for dogs if she was going to be a missionary. This family has 6 large dogs! 

Early December's record-breaking cold and snow in Philomath

Elder Jansen Hall - December 16, 2013

Hey Yall!

So Christmas is commin faster and faster. The weeks an days get busier and busier. I hope yall are enjoyin and havin a happy holiday season! Now im tryin to remember what all we did this week. Hah usually by this time of the week I have forgotten what happened in the past week. But its been good here. Nothin much has changed. Its cold just like the rest of the US.

After almost a year I finally got my camera to the temple! haha

O yes yes. So this week somethin very special happened. This doesn't happen very often as a missionary, but we got to go to the temple! I was so excited! I love goin to the temple! You can always feel of the spirit so strongly there, and you can receive answers to your questions that may not come anywhere else. Now a lot of people not of our faith think that we keep people out and only certain people can come into the temple and we have secrets in there. Totally wrong, first off its not secrets, but its sacred. Anyone and everyone is invited into the temple as long as they are livin the way they are supposed to and can treat the temple as sacred, like its supposed to be. I was also able to have a talk with President Hanks and he again taught me a very powerful lesson about bein unified, not judgin, an not holdin someone to a higher standard that they cant make at that time. One thing I have learned so much as a missionary is to be interdependent. We all have a little bit of independence in us where we want to be by our selves and do our own thing. We all also have dependent in us where we depend on someone to help us. But as we are interdependent we can rely on each other and help each other as companions. Now this can relate to missionaries, marriages, and anything else when ya have a partner or companion. Its a very good skill to develop, a hard one none the less but will bring tremendous results!

So a lot of this week was spent tryin to take care of the ward Christmas party. Im not sure what all ive told yall but basically our ward mission leader and the sister that left North Port signed us up to be in charge of the Christmas party since no one else wanted to do it. We were gonna do that Mormon.org slide show and then have food and play games. Well on top of that, our ward mission leaders wife had someone in her family pass away, so they had to up and leave a few days before the party. So we went over to his house and finalized all the plans. Now for the slide show. I didn't realize how long this would actually take, an let me tell all yall that haven't worked to much with technology, it gives ya a big head ache. What ended up happenin, was we got as many voice recordins as we could of families answerin 3 questions, Who are you? What is your testimony? How do you live your faith? Then I told everyone to email me pics and I would put it all together. Well one, I don't have a personal computer so we ran back an forth between the library and members houses tryin to get this thing done haha I spent 3 days workin on it and got it done a few hours before the party started. But to make a long story short we got the party all set up and everyone was amazed at how well we did! Everyone loved the slide show and we had a couple non members there to view it which was great!:) There could've been more people to show up at the party but it was good none the less.

The reason why I tell ya that, is because since we as missionaries had to run the whole party by ourselves, that took up most of our week. We were able to tract some more and are goin out tomorrow to see someone that told us to come back. We are still tryin to find 1 investigator but I know that we will! Today I was readin in the scriptures in Alma. Its Ammon, Aaron and his brothers talkin. I feel like this answers so many of my questions and gets me to stop complainin. So this is them lookin back on the beginning of there mission. Everyone thought they were fools for goin to preach to the Lamanites. Then when they tired the first time, they got rejected so they were gonna go back to there city. Well the Lord stopped them and told them to go back. So they went back and over a little bit of time baptized thousands of Lamanites that ended up burying there swords and dying because they would not dig them up. Here are the verses.

26 But behold, my beloved brethren, we came into the wilderness not with the intent to destroy our brethren, but with the intent that perhaps we might save some few of their souls.

 27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to aturn back, behold, the Lord bcomforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with cpatience thine dafflictions, and I will give unto you success.

 28 And now behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the world—not upon the mercies of the world alone but upon the mercies of God.

 29 And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets; yea, and we have taught them upon their hills; and we have also entered into their temples and their asynagogues and taught them; and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been bstoned, and taken and bound with cstrong cords, and cast into prison; and through the power and wisdom of God we have been delivered again.

 30 And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our ajoy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some.

 31 Now behold, we can look forth and see the afruits of our labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are bmany; yea, and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us.

When we feel like we are doin the Lords work and cant see any success, just remember this story. They were physically beaten and scourged and still knew the Lord needed them. They were PATIENT and because of that were able to effective tools in the Lords hands! Right now I haven't seen a single investigator in North Port. Everyone all around us is baptizing and I have asked so many times why we cant even have just one person. Well my afflictions are nothing compared to Ammon and Aarons, but I need to have a little more patience and pray and the Lord will help me. Let us all take this story into our own lives when we cant find answers to our questions or have a trial that seems a little to long and hard, the Lord will help us out!

I know that this Christmas season as we reach out to others and help them in their trials we can see ours start to fade away. I Love yall so much and hope yall are doin well and have a great week! Remember, "Blessins brighten when you count them." Hope yall are happy!:) Love yall so much!

Love Elder Hall:)

December 16, 2013 -- Elder Dana Sorensen in Valencia, Spain

This is the Savior's work
(Home teaching is like missionary work to the members)

Happy Birthday to you both!

Christmas is getting closer. It´s great to have an entire season dedicated to celebrating Christ, although Christmas is a little different here. They put much more emphasis on the three wise men than on Santa (you write your letters to the three wise men and they bring you the gifts). Christmas day itself is pretty much the same, but January 6 there´s another holiday just as big called Día de los Tres Reyes Magos, which celebrates the day the wise men visited Jesus. I haven´t seen it yet, though, so I´ll let you know how it goes.

It´s been a very busy week. We´ve been running from one thing to another all day every day. But, it´s a lot better than having nothing to do.

The highlight of the week was definitely Estrella´s baptism. We´ve been meeting with her and Alejandro every day for the last two weeks. We´ve all seen a big change in her as she has prepared herself for baptism. She was very nervous about the whole thing (so was Alejandro, since he was the one performing the baptism), but we kept reassuring them that there was nothing that could go wrong.

Anyway, she was baptized on Friday night. All the missionaries from our ward and all the members that she has become friends with (a lot of them) came to the baptism. It was a very nice service and all went well. It was an amazing experience, expecially since we´ve been working with her from 0 to get her to this point. As she came out of the water the spirit was so strong that it brought tears to my eyes. Another child of God returning to the fold. Quite a miracle, considering that two months ago she didn´t want anything to do with the church. She said that the thing that got her started was what she felt at Alejandro´s baptism and at the session of General Conference she attended with him.

Saturday night there was a Stake Choir Concert. It was very good, although you must understand that nobody in Spain can sing. Still, everyone participated and it was a lot of fun.

Sunday night we came to the church to watch the Christmas devotional. It was great, and I was able to see it in both Spanish and English.

I´ve been reading in D&C. One thing that I have been focusing on is the Gifts of the Spirit listed in D&C 46. In Preach my Gospel it says that as missionaries we should earnestly seek after and develop these gifts. So, I´ve been trying to figure out how to better develop and use them in the missionary work. I´m very grateful that there are so many opportunities every day to preach and teach and develop myself spiritually.

My companion, Elder Buttcane, is a great example to me. He has the right attitude about missionary work, and the experience to know how to do it right. I think too often the focus of missionary work is on contacting. That´s all everyone talks about and encourages, contacting contacting contacting. But, they should be focusing more on working through members. With Elder Buttcane, we have been working very hard to strengthen the ward and the ward´s missionary work. In my mind, teaching a member´s friend in the member´s home is better than spending all day long talking to people on the street, and a lot more successful as well. Right now we´re focusing on Home Teaching. It doesn´t really get done in our ward, but really Home Teaching one of the most important ward functions. It´s like missionary work to the members. So, we´re hoping to help the members see the importance of it and get going with it.

I have one question: Is church there still from 1-4pm? I think I´ll have time to do the skype call here around 8pm, which is noon in Utah. I don´t want to make you miss sacrament meeting, so maybe we can do it earlier. Just tell me your schedule.

Thank you for your support. I´m very grateful for such a great family and so many friends. The Church is true. This is the work of the Savior. There´s nothing that can stop us if we´re on the Lord´s side. God has a plan for each one of us, and His purpose is to bring us happiness. That knowledge brings peace in life.

Until next week,

Élder Sorensen

Elder Dana Sorensen - December 10, 2013
We've seen a lot of miracles this week

It´s great to hear that you´re all having a lot of fun for the holidays!

We´ve seen a lot of miracles this week.

On Tuesday night, we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with a less active family. Through "coincidence" and a series of events, we arrived late and ended up meeting with the entire family, something that the Hermanas have been trying to do for months. It´s great to see how the Lord has plans for every one of his children.

You said you wanted some more pictures. Here´s one in the metro station. My companion did indeed roll his eyes. We got stuck there for a half hour last night waiting for the train, and we were the only ones there. Not all stations are that fancy.

The biggest news this week is Estrella, our investigator and mother of our recent convert Alejandro. She has been working on quitting smoking and coffee. By herself, she went from 5 cups a day to 0, and 10 cigarettes a day to 5. So Tuesday night we set up a plan with her to quit smoking (smoking one less daily cigarette every three days). And, we committed her to be baptized on the21st of December! She didn´t feel quite ready but we were confident that she would feel so by then.

The next morning, on Wednesday, we visited her again. She had had a spiritual dream during the night, and she now feels confident and ready for baptism. She also decided that once her pack of cigarettes ran out, she wouldn´t buy any more. And, because she had already quit smoking, she decided to move the date of her baptism up to the 14th! So many miracles in so short a time. But guess who´s baptizing her? Her son, Alejandro, who was baptized less than two months ago!

We´ve been visiting her every day. She is soaking up the spirit like a sponge. We´re just teaching and reviewing the last few things before her baptism. She is so prepared. Just two months ago she wanted nothing to do with the church. Alejandro´s baptism (an amazing baptismal service), and a session of general conference opened her up to all of this.

Yesterday we had Zone Conference. I always come away from conferences like that with a new commitment to work harder, be better. It was a lot of fun, and included a Christmas devotional where we basically sang every single christmas song in the hymnbook. It was very spiritual. We ended it with a video slideshow of every single baptism from this year. It was amazing.

I´ve started reading D&C since I finished the Book of Mormon. It´s great because it´s written directly toward missionaries of our day. As a missionary it´s interesting to see how all the scriptures are so focused on missionary work.

I´m about out of time. Thank you for all your prayers and support. They really make a difference.

Until next week,

Élder Sorensen

I'm sorry to hear about Dad.  But it's great that it's treatable.  I'm also glad that the gospel brings so much peace in situations like this.

I didn´t get the package yesterday from zone conference. That means it hadn´t arrived yet as of last Friday. Spain mail is super slow during holidays though. A senior couple will drive up and get everything before Christmas to bring down here to Valencia.

This is the paella some members made for us as zone conference. It´s huge. That fed over thirty missionaries with about half left over. It's a traditional Spanish food, meaning it's pretty bland. But it's alright. Sometimes the latinos spice it up a bit.

Elder Jansen Hall - December 10, 2013

Hey Yall!

So this week Ive heard that its freezin all around the United States. Well its no different here. Its been cold, and windy just like always, and the past couple days really rainy as well! But hey cant complain cuz I guess it could be snowin and then everyone here would freak out like its the end of the world and crash there cars and t town would blow up haha so ill stick with the rain.:) Did I ever tell yall how bad Bama drivers are?

Merry Christmas! Haha my lovely humble charley brown tree:)

This week has been full of funny, good, sad, moments. Well start off with Tuesday. We headed out of our apt and started bikin down our hill. Well Elder Bean was infront of me and he crossed the road. I saw a car and it was comin, it wasnt to terribly close, but I wanted to hurry up so as to not get in its way. So i took about 2-3 pedals and then my foot slipped..... Well it hit the ground, and that knocked me off my seat onto the bar of my bike, then i guess i hit the breaks cuz all of the sudden i flipped over my handle bars, smaked my head on the cement, and then did another flip and rolled over by the curb. It was so fast i didnt even know what had happened. My comp saw a little bit of it, but it felt like one moment i was on my bike and the next I was layin on the ground next to the curb with my pride shot down the floor and my body in pain hahah I wasnt gonna get up until I heard the car slam on its breaks and it was a lady inside she was horrified haha so i got up painfully and told her everything was ok and she left. So thats the sad story of the week.

The rest of the day went better. We went to the stores because thats where everyone was an we were able to talk with people. That night I interviewed another man for baptism! Our district is amazing right now!

The next day Elder Bean was sick so we stayed in most the day.... It was the first time either me or my comp has been so sick we've had to stay in. But I was able to stay busy and keep myself productive! On Thursday we had zone trainin. It was a great meetin where we learned about how to incorparate the message of Christmas into our teachin. Then after that we started our exchange with some elders in my district Elder Mckinnon was with me in North Port and Elder Bean went down to Demopolis. We were gonna exchange til today because of how long the drive was and we dont wanna waste there miles. So this was the only way to do it. That brings us to Friday. The whole day it was pourin rain. Then Saturday was super cold and windy! We were able to go to see the Lavatai family again. It was the daughters b day party so we told them we would come. It was so much fun we got to play volleyball and eat a ton of food! haha we actually have heard that they talk about us as missionaries alot which is a good thing! I know that as we are friends and real people instead of baptizin robots then we will see a lot of success! Then we met with the ward mission leader, Bro Posey, He is awesome! Then we went to Mattius baptism. Thats the man that i interviewd. Right before it started President Hanks showed up and watched the whole thing. It was great! Then president took us out for ice cream. He is the greatest guy! He really does take care of his missionaries really well! And he is a great example!

That brings us to Sunday. It was a great day at church and we were able to go to the Christmas brodcast! Earlier in the week I called Bob, he is the one that lived in Utah and was basically a mormon but hasnt been baptized he saw us while we were ridin our bikes? I dont know if yall remember him, but I figured I would call him and invite him to the Chirstmas devotional. Well our ride there made us late but we walked in and there he was sittin by himself!!! I couldnt believe that he actually came! He sat through the whole things, then one of the members in our ward afterwards got talkin to him for a while. They are gonna go out to lunch in later weeks. But this was my first sign or hope of any success that ive seen since ive been here in North Port. Its not really big or anything but it made me so happy to know that something as little as a phone call and invite could help someone, and that he actaually came! He also invited us over to his house to eat and watch mo-tab with him next week! Again, he said he doesnt wanna be converted, but I know as we are friends with him and care about him the spirit will be the one to convert him. I cant wait to see how it turns out!

Well im doin great here in Bama land. Dont have to much time to email today, but hope that yall are havin a happy holiday season! I know that only a few people were able to witness Christs birth the first time He came into this world, but this 2nd time every nation, kindred and toungue will see Him. How will we usher him in? Will we be sittin back in our "Mansions above" or will we be out workin the the vineyard and helpin the Lord with his great and marvolous latter day work? Its your choice! I love yall so much! Have a great week! And remember, especially this time of year to Be Happy!:) Notice all the little blessins around ya!

Love Elder Hall:)

There's a Roman road next to my apartment!!!

Dober dan!

 

So I have a story for everyone first. One day in November, Elder Lyman was tracting on his birthday. He tracted into a super nice lady who happened to know the curator of a museum in Celje. When she found out that the only day we have to go to museums as missionaries is on Monday (the one day of the week that every museum in Slovenia is closed), she gave us the curator's number. The curator opened the museum for us on Monday, and gave us a tour of Celje's underground museum. This morning I saw an ancient Roman road, cool Roman statues, and artifacts from the Celjski Grofje, or the famous Counts of Celje. I learned that there's a temple of Hercules on the hill across the river, a Roman Necropolis in Lava (an area in Celje), there was an old basilica where the post office is, and that the main road of the Roman city of Celje is the one Kišori lives on. Just down the street from me, they're also doing construction on the road, and it's halted because they found MORE Roman ruins and they're currently excavating. SUPER cool!!

Okay, now that my little nerd moment is over, here's how the week has been. :)

Zone conference was on Tuesday, and it was one of the most interesting ones I've had. It was all in Slovene! Only none of us knew it would be, which was unfortunate since Sister Flanders and I were teaching at it. President and Sister Rowe, as well as the APs, don't speak Slovene, but whenever a Slovene missionary was speaking, it was in the langauge. It was really cool!

After the meeting, we also had a great surprise. The Ljubljana members had made us a TON of traditional Slovene food as a surprise to show how much they appreciated the missionaries. It was delicious! The members here are wonderful :) I don't remember all of the names, but they made things like kranjska klobasa, štruklji, prekmurska gibanja, and potica. See if you can find any of the recipes online! They're pretty great!

We had another exchange this week, this time with Ljubljana. I was in Celje with Sister Brown, the newest sister. It was fun! She has a really strong desire to learn the language, and we did really well with SYL. We spoke in Slovene pretty much the whole day! We also had an interesting contacting experience. I stopped a woman on the street, just by asking how she was doing. She stopped and said, "Slabo!" (bad). She then started talking about how she lives alone, her sister is super sick, she lost a child, and all sorts of other things that had happened to her. She was practically in tears at a few points! We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her that it could help her, and she gave us her phone number. Hopefully sometime soon we can meet with her and help her find comfort!

On Friday, we had a few "door miracles" that were pretty cool. Friday was Miklavž (St. Nicholas Day), and we decided to do something for an inactive family. We bought copati (Slovene slippers) for all of them, and stuffed them with candy. We ran to their apartment in the morning during exercise time, well aware that the blok would be locked and we would have to get lucky or wake someone up by buzzing their apartment. Within a few minutes of being at the blok, someone came outside and we managed to get in! We met with the family later that day, and Milena (the mom) was wearing her new copati. She definitely suspected us, but we played ignorant Americans who don't celebrate Miklavž, and I think she bought it :)

We also miraculously got let into a blok where another inactive lives. There's no way to get into his blok without a key--there aren't any buzzers. We waited outside for a while, and someone came down. When Sister Flanders started going in, she literally got dragged from the door! The lady who had opened it said she wouldn't let us in, because she wouldn't want her neighbors letting other people in. She did, however, let us into where the mailboxes were (we were there to deliver a book to the inactive, so we could have put it in the mailbox). While we were debating whether to just leave our excuse to visit the member in his mailbox, someone else came up and the door didn't close behind him! We were able to get up to the apartment and deliver the book. The member was super nice, too! He looked really sad, said he would let us in if he had a bigger room (which was okay, since we wouldn't be allowed to go in alone anyway), and said he'd come to church some Sunday.

I think that's all for this week. Until next week! Čao!

Sestra Erin Jones

Elder Tanner Clement, 12-03-2013

Hola! 

You asked where my new companion is from, Elder Alvarez is from the state of Tamaulipus, Mexico. He is really great and he knows the scriptures well. We don't have transfers until the 23rd of December (which is rather unfortunate as I may or may not spend Christmas with all of these great people here in Los Mochis, but I believe. Oh I want to stay here another exchange so badly. We are so close with so many people). I have not picked up any packages yet but we will be having the Zone Conference this Thursday and I believe I will receive them then. 

So there I was, typing in the Ciber, when all of the sudden, the phone rang. I was thinking "hmmm... who could be calling us?" But in spanish, so more like, "Ay... ¿Quién podría ser que está marcándonos?" I answered. Rosario told me that she could be baptized the next day! Woohoo! We were so excited for her! But there were a few problems. 1) It is preferred that there is a member of the bishopric present during a baptismal service but they all said they had to work far away the next day. 2) We need to fill the font and be in the building while it is full (regulation) and it takes a while. 3) We did not have baptismal clothes and our only hope had school and we could not contact her. 4) Her baptismal interview happened about a month previous and we weren't sure if it was still valid.

Miracle 1) The bishop and one of his counselors were able to come from work for a few minutes. 2) We had the district meeting in the church that day so we were able to clean the font a bit before and study and have the meeting while it was filling up. 3) We called some Zone Leaders from the Los Mochis zone (we are actually in a different zone with little towns outside of Los Mochis) and they said they had baptismal clothes. 4) We called the president and talked with him about the situation and he said it was fine to baptize her (I was impressed by this because neither of her parents are members and that is pretty much a requirement for youth these days. Also because an interview is valid for one month and it was one month ago to the day that the interview was conducted). 5) The sister missionaries knew which buses we could take that would take us directly to the other church to pick up the baptismal clothing and we saw them on the way back and so they showed us how to get back to our church. 6) We arrived just in time to organize everything. 7) The baptismal clothes fit perfectly. 8) Really probably the biggest miracle is that her mom said it was ok for her to get baptized because it was her birthday. Her mom was randomly against the church right before her other baptism but she softened her heart and said it was ok. Rosario got baptized. Horrah for Israel!! We were so happy for her! 

Sorry I don't have much time left because we have to start again at 6:00 and we got here a bit late to write but we have found many new people to teach and a new method to teach members that we need them to help us. That's right, we are using the M&M method. Booya. We put about 15 M&Ms in a bowl face down that represent the world in darkness. We then take two brown M&Ms (the missionaries) and drop them from above. When the M&Ms flip to the 'M' side up, they are members (and the person who dropped the Elders can eat it but we don't do that in real life). We then continue dropping the Elders for a bit. Then we change it up and say that when you flip an M&M, you can still eat it, but we are going to replace it with a brown one and you can use it also with the Elders. This is an example of the work together as it works so much better when you are dropping 10 brown M&Ms. I love you guys! Thanks for all of your support! 

Elder Clement

Elder Jansen Hall - December 2, 2013

Hey Yall!!

This week has been a really great, fast, weird and busy week! Its startin to get really cold down here now and when the wind blows you freeze like none other! This cold is so weird. You can put on as much stuff as you want, but you are still cold underneath it all. You shiver all the time and there is no escapin the cold haha its hard to compare with Utah cold but both are good i guess haha. This week we had 2 more baptisms in our district! I cant believe how many we have had in this district the past transfer! It seems like all I do now is interview people for baptism. Also transfers were this week and we recieved 3 new members of our district. We had a very good district meetin to get to know everyone and ill talk about that a little later. Everythin here is going great! Its kinda funny because when I first came out I didnt really like Alabama to much, but now its my home, and my family here. Its wierd how much its grown on me but great none the less:)

Now before I go on with the rest of my email, I do just want to talk about somethin yall are probably wonderin. Yes I know that Alabama lost... To explain the title of this email, we had district meetin durin the game so i knew no one in my district was watchin. Well after we came back to the apt and some elders cut there hair. Then we needed to go back to the church to interview a girl for baptism. It would be her and the sister missionaries there so we needed another male there with us. Well as i call down the list of men in our ward everyone would send me straight to voice mail. Haha everyone was in shock, and were super angry. Well as we biked that night, everything was just super quiet, like nothing ive ever experienced before. I called it the deadly hush haha but now today its rainin and everyone is mournin and prayin that somehow we can get into the championship haha from what it sounds like to me it was a bad coached game hha but enough of that.

The alabama floor is in there locker room.:)

So like I said this week has been very busy and wierd. We werent able to have a lot of big numbers this week. But this week we have still been doin our best to stay busy and do good things. We have been workin alot with members and tryin to get the live mormon.org thing done. Elder Bean also broke his bike this week and it took a while to fix it. We couldnt go very far without it haha but this week like i said we had 2 baptismal interviews and also a little exchange.

For Thanksgivin we got up and first things first went to the turkey bowl. It was great. There were a ton of people. I played QB for our team. I had at least 7-8 throwin touchdowns and there was a guy that came later and played all time QB that I got a couple of touchdown catchin the ball as well. Our team ended up winnin!:) 

This is how I dressed up for the turkey bowl!!

Then we came back and got ready and went to an older families house for thanksgivin lunch. There were only 6 people there and us which is a little different but it was great! We ate a lot and tried not to. Right after that we went to a ward activity where they invited all those that didnt have families to go to come to the church. So our second meal was also big and very successful! Then we went to another family for the last of the night. They BBQed out and fed us a lot of desert. It was a great day though!

Things here are comin along great. We are still tryin to find a good investigator. Hopefully this week we can get back into a couple homes that we've been over to. But the last thing I want to mention is our district meetin. We had some activities to get to know everyone better. Then we came up with some inspiring quotes that we are gonna all memorize and keep us motivated on our missions. The last thing was our districts culture. We all came up with it and I love it so much! I think it can apply to yall as well!

Armor of God

No one left behind

Good Shepard's

Exemplary

Light

Steadfast

We all need to put on the Armor of God and be Steadfast in Christ! We need to be exemplary and not just settle for the lesser things of the world. And we need to be a light to the world. (This is something that sister Hanks talked about to us) We need to be Good Shepard's and leave no one behind, that includes ourselves. As we do these things, we will be angels to everyone this Chirstmas Holiday!:) Thats my challenge to yall. Find ways to be ANGELS to yourself and to others this month!:) Also watch the new mormon message on LDS.org its so great! I love it!

Well hope that yall have another great week! Tis the season to be jolley! And Happy:) haha

Love yall so much!

Love Elder Hall:)