Monday, October 24, 2016

China is Not in Asia



The sister's nephew that I mentioned last week backed out right when we went to meet him and ran away, but it's all good. One day. 

Just a fun little anecdote to start this email off: In English class we had the students name all the countries they could in Asia, so they named off Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. After that they were stumped, so to help them out I said "China?" They responded, "No. China is not in Asia, Elder."

 [No pics this week, so I decided to show a couple of before 
and after pics. The one on the left is from a few weeks ago. 
The one on the right is from the MTC. 
I think he looks grown up. Do you?]


So Tuk Laak was alright this week. We didn't really get to teach a lot, but we keep finding new investigators that totally fall into our hands. One of them stood up during English class and said, "I just really love Jesus," and then sat down. Then he said he wanted to meet with us. At church this other guy showed up with a member and said he wanted to learn. We already had 5 investigators that we picked up at church, and 2 of them scheduled with us for this coming week. The work here is going well; it's just sort of difficult since everyone can only meet at 5 or later, but we are dealing with that. 


 [Left: MTC; right: a few weeks ago. I think he's beefed up a little...]

I read a sentence in Preach My Gospel that said, "The relationships you create with ward and stake leaders will bless you for the rest of your life," so I focused on that this week. Bishop really likes us, so we are going to try to swing by his house and teach him once a week, since he's only been a member for a couple years. We plan to seek referrals from him since there are tons of people all around him. 
 


We have a car wash coming up on Saturday, so this will be the third one on my mission. 

Love, 

Elder Hall

Saturday, October 22, 2016

How Will You Use Your Strengths?



WOW Meredith's teeth look so straight. What the heck? I almost forgot she had braces. Wait, when did she have braces? Also Nick looks like a super stud. 




Tuk Laak last week was pretty good. There were a lot of people that stood us up, but that's normal. It's just different from the provinces; here you can't just go to people's houses to meet them you have to actually set an appointment and then remind people. I'm still transitioning back to city mode. This area is pretty infamous for being a difficult area, and I remember people telling me that they had only gotten 5 or 6 lessons a week in this area before, and I can see why, but we're really trying to go hard with members. There is a member named Ming Sophal who has a nephew that lives with her and the ming wants her nephew to learn, but he's Catholic. So we invited him to English class and shared some of our beliefs, but he wasn't super down. Then the other night the sisters called and said that they convinced him to just try ONE lesson, and he said he would, so the pressure's on. We have one lesson to hit him with the truth. There are also other members that are showing us to other less active members that haven't been met in a long time. This area will start to get going. Especially since President just set a standard of excellence for 18 lessons a week. In most areas that's a piece of cake, but that's what I am striving for in this area. 



Ammon spent probably his whole life sitting on his papa's (King Mosiah's) throne with his papa. When he was a baby all the way until he was messing around with his friends pretending to be king when he was teen aged. Then as a grown man, he was on a mission and found himself placed in front of King Lamoni's throne--a very familiar environment for him. I assume that somebody else that wasn't as comfortable with royalty would have made some cultural mistake or maybe would have just been too scared to speak with boldness, but God knew Ammon's strengths, so he used that strength to accomplish His work. Think of how many strengths God has given us, and then think of how we can be like Ammon to use those strengths to advance Gods work. 

 Alley soccer.

That's all I got. Elder Christensen has a couple videos that he will upload in just a sec. I love you mom!

Elder Hall