Tuesday, April 16, 2013

April 15th 2013 Stephanie



                                                                   April 15th 2013

Dear family 

   WOW, a monumental week. The Hale family has 3 missionaries out in the field at the same time!!!! Jake how are you doing? How is England? I am so jealous that you are there!!! Have a blast and learn tons and take lots of pictures. You only have two years on a mission and your whole life to look back on it.
Maren I hope your health is better. It’s the worse being sick in the mission field. I don’t even know what you have but I am praying for you and I know god is watching over you.
So this week, I am not going to lie, was kind of hard. Being in a new area and opening that area is hard. We have been walking the same streets over and over again trying to find someone to listen to us and we have been praying to find a family to teach. Our area is so small!!!! My companion is from Guatemala and she is so short. Hah!! I feel huge next to her. I’ll try and send a picture. Oh, but story really fast. So flippin cool, we had the coolest experience....so Hermana Massina and her companion contacted a director of a school in our area and get this she wanted us to come to her school and teach the children the gospel!!!! Wow right. Apparently, they are having lots of problems in the school. So we went with our zone and wow so much fun. We got to use Mormon messages. We talked about seeds and how they have such potential to grow into something big and then related it to them. How they have so much potential and if they let God help them, they can achieve lots more!! It was so much fun. We played a game and then related it to the message. Our age group was 15 year olds and it was incredible how much they were paying attention. We got a lot of references. The director was so happy but she wanted us to come back and well ....practically call them to repentance with terror and fear, because we gave a lesson of the love of God for each of them. But she wanted us to teach them that is was wrong to steal and to be disrespectful and to not fight, drink and smoke. So we will see if the President will let us go back and we will see what we will teach if we do. It was an amazing experience one I will never forget. I love teaching the young people today because they are so ready to hear the gospel.
   We also had a baptism this week. We baptized a family Hermana Massina taught and we got here and our job was to baptize them. Man it was a scary time because we were suppose to start at 7:00 and well we ended up waiting almost an hour for Rudy the father of the family to get there. We baptized him and his son and we are working with the mom now. They are a really great family but wow I am learning patience with them. They have 3 kids and well to put it nicely, I have never seen more disobedient children in my life. We go and help them get ready for the baptism and for church and it literally takes an hour and half to get out the door. Once we do one of the kids is throwing a tantrum and we can’t leave. Wow, sorry I am not complaining. This family really is amazing they have been being taught by the missionaries for a long time and finally they were baptized!!!! I got to hear the father’s testimony too and wow that was amazing.
    Oh and we have been trying to find people and we contacted a man on the street one day and he didn’t seam really interested but he invited us back to his house. On Sunday, we went to visit him and when we got there he seemed a little annoyed at the first but as we started to teach him I could see a change. It was so incredible. The spirit came so strong and I was able to testify of well you guys about our family and well I started to cry no surprise there, ( hope you all know how much I love you all family grandparents aunts uncle the whole crew ) but the spirit came so strong and he started to ask simple questions. He was accepting the answers and he even asked the question why are there so many churches?  We were like sweet. Let us tell you of a boy who had the same question and ah it was so perfect. At the end he took the pamphlet in his hands and said thank you the message was ....well bonita or pretty in English. I wanted to shout and say yes it is pretty and true. It shows the love of our God and you can have so much peace and joy in your life if you will work to know that it is true. He said he would pray and I told him that we had a movie of the first vision and that we were going to pass by and give it to him to watch with his family. Ha I walked out of the lesson thinking oh shoot I don’t have a movie to give him hah ......but don’t worry I found one now so we are good.
    I love seeing the understanding come into the faces of the people. I love being a missionary. This last week was hard but I am so grateful for the things I have learned through it. I have never prayed more. I have never worked harder to find a new person to teach. After that lesson I was like already planning his baptism I was so excited. Hah my companion thought I was crazy.
    Well family I don’t have much time. Know that I love you tons. Read this scripture if you get time. I am learning about humility and wow it’s so good. D&C 67:10. We have the promise that we can come to know god!!! How cool is that. In the scriptures it also says that this is life eternal that they may know the one true god. ....I don’t know I really liked it. Family this gospel is true!!! I have felt the spirit testify to me so many times in every lesson I give. I am coming to have a greater love for my Savoir and redeemer. His atonement is infinite and eternal; it can reach anyone at anytime if we come to him and ask for his help. I loved what Elder Holland said that if we are facing a trail of faith that we need to hold on to what we already know until further knowledge will come. I felt like I learned that lesson this week. God teaches us through trials. Many times it’s the only way we learn. Try and find what it is that God wants us to learn.  The faster you learn it the less you have to be in the trial. Hah. I love you all and pray for you all. I am so amazed that we have 3 missionaries out now. I hope you all can feel the blessings ....I saw the picture of Disneyland and wow people and changed so much!!! Stop it all. You all don’t grow any more. Hah Nate looks like you have put on weight congrats!! aha 
   I’ll try and send pictures.
 Love Hermana Hale 




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