Monday, April 22, 2013

April 22, 2013

If you are knocked down 7 times get back up 8.
1 message

Maren Hale <maren.hale@myldsmail.net> Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:08 PM

To: The Hale Family <thehalefamily10@gmail.com>

Hey family!

I loved reading all the letters today. One from the family, one from Jake and one from Steph. I miss you all so much but your letters sustain me from week to week. I am so proud of Jacob, he already sounds like a missionary. :D

This week has been a little crazy. I mean trying to add a third companion to a well established companionship was/is hard but its working. I know that God has put her here with us, with me for a very specific purpose. Her name is sister Peacock by the way. She is from Roy UT and is 22 years old. She reminds me a lot of Tania. As I watched her go through this first week I remembered what I felt my first week here. I remember being so frustrated because the picture of what missionary work should be in my head was not matching up with the reality all around me. Its a hard knowledge to come to. 

Anyways. Life is good. We should be getting a new apartment soon. There will be a new senior couple moving in at the end of April and we'll be out. They apparently already have it chosen out but they wont tell us where it is. I am kinda scared. What if its ghetto? Haha. No, I am sure they have found a really nice one for us. 

So this week we had an awesome culture night. Over 150 people came to our small chapel! As missionaries we danced to the "hoe down throw down" by miley cyrus... yeah... it was fun... we didn't look to good but i think people had a good laugh. Here are some pictures :D I wish more people had come to church as a result but alas... no... we will keep working on it though. Planting seeds. That is what we are doing.

On Saturday night we had an awesome lesson with Santos. If you remember he is the one that we feel is very precious to our Father in Heaven. If we could just get him to come to church I think he would be baptized next week. Its so hard to teach him because he's pretty hard to understand (even the native members we bring struggle) but there is something really cool about the Spanish Language and the Holy Ghost... something that my trainer taught me. You can always be 100% certain that even if you don't understand all the words you will understand what you need to understand in order to teach by the spirit. Pretty cool huh? I see it happen every single time we teach him. In this lesson in particular we all felt the spirit very strongly. A miracle is coming his way. Any prayers on his behalf would be much appreciated.

On Sunday night we had 3 hours of an empty schedule... every missionaries worst nightmare. So we tried to stop by a less-actives home but no one was there. So what did we do? We prayed. Almost as soon as I started to pray the name of one of our investigators came to mind. Her name is Olga. So we drove to her house and she had just barely gotten home from grocery shopping and had some time so we could teach her. I love it when the spirit lets us know where we need to be. Its so much more productive than trying to guess. We got to teach her an awesome lesson and again, felt the spirit. She set up a return appointment with her for tonight and when we were planning for her we all felt like we needed to switch topics from the gospel of Christ to the plan of salvation. Its just such a testament to me that our Father in Heaven is very aware of each one of his children.

Family I am sorry. Three people and one computer doesn't leave much time for each of us to email. Hopefully next week we will get library cards and go to the library so it doesn't take as long and we all have tons of time.

Tania, What is going on with you? Mom told us about the boys but what it new in your life?

Nathan, good to hear that you are getting into a little mischief... haha. 

Caleb, I am so so so so so so so SO proud of you! I wish I had had the guts to get into choir in school. You are going to be awesome!

Isaac, I am so proud of you and your mad art skills. Will you scan/take a picture of your winning piece and send it to me? 

Simeon, you spent three hours sanding your pine wood derby car? that is dedication! I think I probably would have given it 15 minutes and then given up. 

Mom and Dad. Thank you so much for everything. I am so grateful for the parents you are and for the sacrifices that you are making and have always made for us kids. I realize more and more every day how lucky I was/am to have grown up in the home that I did. I love you!

So I want to leave you with some thoughts from my personal study this week. I was readying in the last chapter of Mormon and 2 things jumped out at me. #1 in vs 3 and 4 Moroni is talking about how we are going to end up where we are the most comfortable. Everyone is always so focused on the actions the works of this life when really that doesn't matter nearly as much as who we are. (Kinda like the 4th missionary). It just so happens that our actions usually coincide with who we are. #2 Moroni is talking about how God is a God of miracles, always has been and always will be. As I was reading through those verses I had the question of what that means for our day. I know that there are still healing's of the sick but it seems like less dramatic than in that day... the very next verse talks about how if we ask we will receive. It is just as miraculous for the blind to receive sight as it is for us to receive an answer to our questions by the Holy Ghost. Its a Miracle. Do we always recognize it as such? 

I am so grateful for everything that I am learning while on a mission. It feels like its only been a few weeks and forever at the same time but I am loving every minute. 

I love you!

-Hermana Maren Hale

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