The Woman at Lunch

Our district GQ shoot. (I'm the hottie on the side)

Here we are. My last P-Day in the MTC. I just want to clarify that I've loved it here! I love my district and my teachers and I wish I could say the food but... My excitement lies in the fact that in a week from today I will be treading on French soil, listening and parlé-ing (LOL yeah right). This week went by super quick (as all do) and there weren't as many cool things that happened but still enough to fill an email and 10 minutes of your life! ;) 

Lets start with this: our two teachers, Frere Keenan and Seour Waldron both went on vacation this week so it was like we lost both of our parent's again. We had some substitutes who were actually pretty cool but it was nothing like the originals. I did, however, spend 3 days speaking almost solely French. It's called an english fast and it is super helpful! I am feeling pretty good with he grammar and tenses and whatnot. 

On Friday we got our travel plans! We are flying from SLC to NYC, to Paris, and leave at 3:30 AM next monday and get to France at 10 AM on Tuesday (france time). I am so excited! I have two Livre de Mormon's and I'll be wielding them like some kinda spiritual cowboy ready to have a draw with a poor unsuspecting spiritually weak French person. HA! Also on Sunday Elder Orr, Dame and I went to see the Joseph Smith movie in all French and I actually understood a good, lets say, 68% of it! 

*high fives all around*

It's so interesting to be speaking in another language and not have people understand you. I kind of think that everyone speaks French until, alas, no one knows what I am saying to them. But in case you think I need some humbling, don't worry the tables will be turned pretty quick on me in 6 days. I have no doubt about that! But I was doing a language assessment and I accidentally said I had 3 dads instead of 3 brothers, so look out France! ;)

We've had some pretty great devotionals here this week. Elder Echo Hawk (< THATS HIS REAL NAME :D) came and talked to us about true conversion and why we are on a mission. He said, "We can either make 1 big decision to be a loyal disciple of Jesus Christ, or we can make hundreds of tiny decisions every time a moral dilemma comes up." I love that! He also said that MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK IS ESSENTIAL, so that brings me back to the challenge I gave last week. ;) People will be blessed by your testimonies! I promise it! I have been so blessed by the strong testimonies of all of those around me, missionaries or not! And that reminds me of something that happened this week.

Me and Nicki + others cuz that's how mission pics roll ;)

At lunch every day, there are MTC workers who sit and eat before we come in and a lot of them are handicapped and very special spirits. There is a woman who helps them all and on my first week in the MTC I would talk to her every day and found out that she served in France a while ago and became her friend. Her name is Nicki, and I appreciate her because of the service she gives to others every day. I've come to love some of the workers she helps as well. Well a couple days ago at lunch she told me she had something for me so to stop by the table and grab it. I went over there and she gave me 4 of the old missionary pamplets, all in french, that she used on her mission, still in pretty good shape and told me that she was looking through some of her missionary stuff and found those and she knew exactly what she needed to do with them; give them to me. I can't tell you how happy that made me! It taught me an important lesson: there is nothing, NOTHING more fulfilling than showing true, Christlike love for others. I think that lesson is going to help me so much as I embark on this new journey to Lyon. There are so many people all over doing so much good, and imagine how happy they can be when we add the true gospel of Jesus Christ into the mix! I can't imagine how happy I'll be to see that change lives! AHHH!!! ITS TRUE, PEOPLE! The gospel is true! God loves you so much! Help is just a prayer away! The Book of Mormon is so true and Joseph Smith is a true prophet. I love you all and want to tell you THANK YOU or all that each one of you have done to help me get to this point. The scripture this week is 3 Nephi 7:18. Read that and think about how you can strenthen your faith so that people get angry with you because they can't disbelieve it! :) 

Je t'aime taime tres beaucoup! 

Elder Hall