The Empty Sea

Well, this week I dove head first into the empty sea and let me tell you, that's never a good idea ;). My first day was crazy, they herded me through a maze of buildings until I wound up in a room with a bunch of other confused looking missionaries and a guy speaking only in French. Well, that's my

Elder Williams and I

classroom, district and teacher. I met my companion Elder Williams in there (sorry Isaiah, he's white). He is from West Jordan and really likes basketball soooo... we do companion exchanges for gym time. But we get along pretty well! He is very clean like I am so I got to take a sigh of relief for that! :)

We were studying like crazy for the first couple days. We only had our teacher (Frere Keenan) for 2 hours in the morning, and that leaves like 8 hours for personal, companion and language study. On Friday we taught our first investigator, Murielle. She only speaks French so it was all in French! We were only supposed to teach for 20 minutes but somehow we ended up teaching for 40 minutes and I could tell she was bored and confused haha but I could feel the spirit so I hope she could! We've taught her one more time since and the second time was MUCH better!

The language is coming along pretty well, I am in NO WAY fluent, but I've been told by numerous people here that if you first take care of learning the gospel and studying to become a better missionary, the language will come at some point so I'm not too worried.

The MTC is a weird place because you're just suddenly a missionary! I have to tell you that the first couple days, I was pretty discouraged. I didn't know if I could do it, and I was focusing all on myself. It was hard. On sunday, our Branch President came into our classroom for a minute and bore a very powerful witness about missionary work. The spirit came so strong, so we had a 2 hour testimony meeting as a district. It was absolutely amazing because almost everyone said that they were feeling the same way I was, but that testimony meeting changed everything. Sunday was one of the most powerful, spiritually enlightening days of my whole life. It was reaffirmed to me multiple times that day that what I am doing is right. That I'm NOT ON THIS MISSION FOR ME! I'm here to share with people that there is someone that loves them, and that gave everything for them to be happy. I'm here to serve others. I'm here to Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel that has brought so much happiness and love to me. I love it so much! Even though the MTC isn't the field, I'm still loving it. I love my district like they're my family! The food is also good, and I havent weighed myself yet but I'll let you know how that goes.

Our amazing district (we only have 1 Seour)

One funny thing, so last night I was getting ready for bed and had my glasses on and was brushing my teeth. Well an elder came up and stole my glasses, and so I couldn't see, and then an elder in my room started patting me down and stole my keys, so I was visciously assaulted whilst blind and they must have felt sorry for me because of how sad and pathetic I must have looked. ;)

Anyway, I love you all! Je sais que l'Evangile est vrai! Je l'aime!

This is Elder Hall, signing off. :)