the Great Escape and Elder Halls Cookie Workshop

I dont know about all of you, but I had an awesome week, which will be shared in the following paragraphs. If the title of this is not a hook I just dont know what is! We shall start with the fun and funny stories and proceed to the spiritual ones and then, as always, I will give you an allez-vous! Now that we have the outline, voila! On-y va!

This week I drank aloe vera, but there was some events that led up to that, namely Elder Halls Cookie Workshop. Remember those awesome cookies I made a couple weeks ago? Also, do you remember the chinese people I spent conference with? Well they love the cookies I make for some reason and one girl specifically, her name is YaLi, wanted to know how to make them, and so Elder Brown and I, along with the other chinese elders in our apartment (who I love) taught her how to make them in a hands on workshop. She came up with the name of it and we had a lot of fun, and even better we got to use the cookies to get Chrystelles address! The next day we went to deliver the cookies to her, because her dad was in town and it was his birthday, so we eventually found her apartment and got to meet her completely french 82 year old father, and american husband! They have such a fun family, and while we were there she brought out some aloe vera and asked if we wanted some and we were like "uh.... I guess" so she put some burning hot water into a cup with some aloe vera jelly and stirred it up and it smelt so good and tasted a little worse haha But we got to talk to her husband a little bit about the gospel and we have become great friends with them! We are planning to watch Meet the Mormons with them at some point soon. 

Also this week I had some seriously intense moments. The first one was while we were on a blitz in Clermont. We had an hour to contact and then we had to be back to the gare (train station) to go to a members house for dinner. Well Elder Guyeaux and I were not keeping track of time and when we saw the sisters get on the bus right across the street from the church there, he realized that the train was leaving in 20 minutes and the next bus wasnt coming for 15 minutes, so we started running. And then we just kept going. And it was all uphill. And the buses werent coming. So we are running and I see the gare and we have 4 minutes until it leaves and and we just book it to the platform and the other missionaries are there and I pull off my sweater and just die. We barely made the train and we found out later that we had run 4 kilometers (a little over 2 1/2 miles) in less than 20 minutes in our church clothes. So I was pretty proud of myself and recognized the complete miracle of that! 

One more: our apartment locked us in for some reason and the door to the outside world would not open. We had to go teach a less active who lives right across the street and hates when were late and so we went to the apartment underground and tried to navigate our way through a maze of garages and doors and there were random stairs going who knows where. I was laughing my head off because we were just opening doors and shrugging and running into complete darkness trying to get out of our apartment. Finally we popped out on this side street and got to teach our less active. So this week has been an adventure!

But also Ive felt the spirit so strong as it was stake conference and a member of the area 70, Elder Homer got to come address the Lyon stake. Everything except for his was in French and I actually understood a good portion of it. He talked about having faith to not sink and when the winds come and the water starts to get choppy, hold on, hold out, keep the faith, and just go step by step, and Christ will help you keep walking on the water. It was an amazing conference and Elder Brown and I got to sing in the choir! It was fun to sing with a bunch of old french people! ;) 

We got to see Frederic again yesterday and he fed us as usual. We felt like he needed a lesson on the atonement and repentance, so we taught him the gospel of Christ and repentance and he said that ever since hes been meeting with us hes seen a change in his life and his relationships, hes wanted to change himself and everything is just clicking! I seriously watched as the Holy Ghost taught him, right in front of our eyes! He is going to convert himself, I know it! He denied our baptismal committment but I believe that as he keep reading and feeling the spirit, he will come to understand! 

I love it here! I cant believe its already Halloween and I will tell you what happens with that next week! But I love you all, and I want you to know that I know this is the true church of Christ, that through His grace we can become better, we can walk on water, and heck, maybe we can even speak French! I love Him, I testify of His reality and love for you all, and I allez-vous you all to try to have a little more faith this week. Try to see His plan for you, and as you do it you can walk step by step towards him! I love you! Have a great and safe Halloween!

Elder Hall

Frenchionnaries

This week, this week. There is a lot to tell you all about this past week! The windows of heaven just burst open and miracles were thrust upon us, so thank you all for the prayers and bonjour! I hope this week has been a great week for you all, too! 

I'm going to go ahead and start with my companion, Elder Brown. I told you a little about what I thought he would be like last week, and not to brag, but I was 100 percent right. Elder Brown is from SLC and he was just born to be a missionary. Our first nightly planning was so awesome, I felt like I was in a bishops interview haha He is helping me be so much more obedient and how to follow the spirit. He always asks me what I think we should do and doesnt budge until I say something, and usually its something that I think the spirit is telling me to do. He is the district leader so that makes me the district monkey and that literally means nothing! But along with him, our ward also got a new DMP which is a ward mission leader. His name is Syo and he is from New Caladonia and he is just the best! At our first meeting, he told us that the work is hastening and so because of that our ward has to shape up in missionary work and fast. We planned a bunch of stuff that I believe will help our ward become better at being missionaries and because of that the amount of miracles we are going to see is going to skyrocket! (Im using the word miracle a lot but thats because theres no other way to describe whats happening here). Also, remember last week how I told you that I thought I was getting fat? Well, that quickly stopped happening the minute Elder Brown got here because now we have a workout schedule planned for every morning and even though its freezing and I look like a new born deer who got hit by a car when I exercise, we do it a ton and now I can eat all the patisseries I want! 

So we saw a lot of amis this week, and guess what? Remember Aaron, the ami who opened his door and told us that he knew what we were saying was true? Well we went by to pass him this week, as we have been doing for four weeks and hes never been home. Well we stopped by, waited for a while, stuck a note on his door and left. As we were walking down the sidewalk we found him walking right towards us! He said hes told his family and friends about us, and he got a phone so now we can contact him! We gave him a book of mormon in spanish and he said the only way he can find out if its true is if he reads and prays about it! THAT IS A MIRACLE PEOPLE! We made some banana bread and took it to him and are seeing him this week! 

We have a new ami named Chrystelle who is so prepared as well. We got to teach her about temples and we had a rendez-vous with her this morning where we felt prompted to share the plan of salvation with her. She said that when she feels like for sure this is true, she will be baptised! Shes also kind of like an older sister and gave us coupons and helped me look for a good coat to wear haha 

Another ami is Frederic. He is 21 and lives on the 16th floor of this apartment building that overlooks all of Lyon and its so cool! Every time we visit him, he insists on feeding us, and he works at a big grocery store so he always has the best snacks! haha He is reading the Book of Mormon and says that he loves it! We had an awesome lesson about the restoration and he said he has trouble accepting absolute truth but we can back up our claims, and we told him that if he prays, God can back up our claims too! He said that he wants to keep learning and find his faith, and I believe that he has been prepared for this. I know that if we can keep teaching him and just hanging out with him (because being friends with your amis is just as important as teaching them!) he will get baptised. 

Everything is falling right into the place where God wants it to be, and I am so humbled and happy that I get to be here to help! I had a conference this week where president talked about how God helps us grow, and its by letting us do things on our own, and if we fail, he will be there to help us back up. He knows what we have in us, our potential, and by letting us fall, we begin to realize it to! A quote I really liked is "The greatest achievements in life will oftentimes follow failure in the same pursuit." So my allez-vous this week is to keep trying! When life gets hard, remember that God is there, and turn it into a growing opportunity. 

I love you all! I love being a frenchionnary and think that its the best thing to be in the whole world! We are seeing the hand of God everyday. I know He's there and loves us, and this is proof that when times get hard, they always get better! 

Until next week,

Elder Hall 

Transfers, Brains and Baguettes

So this week was a big week for me. I hit my transfer mark, that makes 6 weeks here in France, and along with that, there is always a lot of change. You who know me know that change is something I try to avoid like the plague but on missions that is almost impossible to do because you can run but you cant hide (and you probably shouldn't be doing either ;) ). So with that being said, lets get this thing rolling!

We'll start with the food aspect because I realized you guys haven't seen nearly enough pictures of me eating! ;) This week I had my first baguette!

Yes, thats weird because Ive been in France for 6 weeks but when you're busy preaching salvation there is no time for baguettes! (but there's always time for patisseries). So I had it at zone conference, which was very good by the way. We talked about the emphasis the general authorities are putting on sacrament meeting and the sabbath day. Here in France, sacrament meeting is usually the last meeting of the church block, but the general authorities changed that, not just here but throughout the world. So now, in every ward, sacrament meeting is the first thing! Its pretty cool, and I saw a change in the reverence of our meeting yesterday. But I am going to talk about that more later on, we're talking about food here! The baguette was delicious! I ate a whole one with cheese and yum. YUUMMM! I am getting fat, I know it, and if I could read the kilogram scales, maybe I could verify that. Also, they have things here called kebabs which are like calf or lamb meat inside a burrito type thing with different sauces and I got mine and it was also really great! Lyon is the cuisine capital of the world but because of our limited funds, I'll just stick with kebabs haha.

We met with Pecheur again this week. He is Muslim and likes to talk so we don't get a lot of teaching into our appointments, but he is so interested in the gospel. He came to a missionary stake fireside last night and he loved it! President Brown talked directly to the amis and Pecheur felt like it was just for him. I feel like he can commit to baptism soon, we just need to have enough time to teach him haha.

So more about our ward, because I have come to love them so much! I am in the Porte-des-Alpes ward, obviously, and I have just started to learn a lot of the members names. But this past week they had a ward Halloween activity and it was so fun! They had us split up into Harry Potter houses and then play activities and count them for our houses. I got to know my team well and even though we lost a lot it was still really fun! They had some amazing food and a room where they cover your eyes and you touch things. We were all expecting the things to be fake because they felt super gross but lo and behold, we were touching pigs brain, squeezing liver and weird little beef things. They don't mess around here hahaha. But on Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting and all the members here have such strong testimonies! I actually understood them this time, whereas last testimony meeting was my first in France haha. But they are so caring for each other. When someone starts crying during their testimonies, its a race to see who can run up with a tissue the fastest! But a lot of them are first generation converts and to see how strong they are is inspiring! There is a little boy named Caesar who always draws me pictures and he is so great haha.

This week as also transfers as I said before. And it was pretty nerve wracking because I didn't want to really leave the ward and the blooming miracles I was seeing here. President called us and said "Elder Hall, you are going to be... staying right where you are. But you are getting a new companion, his name is Elder Brown." So today, actually a couple hours ago, I met my new comp and said goodbye to Elder Johnson. But Elder Brown is so amazing! He seems like the most obedient, caring missionary. I feel like we are going to be seeing a lot of miracles around here in the next 6 weeks. I'll keep you informed! And with that, I want to give my allez-vous to tout le monde! I know as missionaries we get a lot of prayers and so we see miracles a lot, but allez-vous pray to see the miracles in your lives, and maybe pray for us missionaries to see some miracles too? :) MERCI!I love you all so much! I am so proud of the people you all are!Dieu vous aime, et moi aussi.Elder Hall

our Halloween activity after we had decorated

Cute to Death

Well we find ourselves together on this Monday, after being spiritually fed and the week has come and gone as always! I have a lot to tell you about this week!

Let's start with earlier this week! Remember how we didn't see any of our Amis last week? This week we saw a grand total of... 1! Haha his name is Pecheur, which means "sinner" I'm French but he is so funny! He is so enthusiastic about learning about the gospel! At a pretty spiritual point in our lesson, he tried describing the spirit as follows: "Right now, our hearts and minds are not with us. They have travelled to an alternate dimension, a different universe to be closer to God." And I was like, "You know... I can see it." Hahaha but he came to general conference and is totally going to come to church!

From the top of the Cathedral

This week I went on what we call a Blue Exchange. I went with Elder Arné to Clermont again. It was one of the most fun days I've had here, and we also saw a bunch of miracles. We went contacting for a couple hours and met this lady who told us it was a blessing that we talked to her because she loves Jesus so much and wanted more of him! We took a break to go up to the top of a giant cathedral and took over this beautiful French town! Ahh, it was so cool! After we contacting and doing the work, we wanted to make cookies so we did and 1) it was so fun to make cookies again! 2) THEY WERE SO GOOD! I'm sending a picture so you can see them.

Now for general conference! So the first session for you all is in the morning but it starts at 6 here, and they were broadcasting it at a chapel, but I went to the institute with two of the elders in the trio that are in our apartment, and elder Johnson went with the other one to the chapel so we could be with our Amis. But they are a Chinese equipe so all the amis at the institute with us were Chinese and I love them! They also love me a lot for some reason. Conference was so amazing though! I don't know about you but I heard a LOT about faith, sabbath day observance, and listening to the Spirit. Every talk was so cool! And the 3 new apostles too! Honestly, everyone here could have sworn Bishop Causse would be called but we're a bit biased 😉.

So after one of the sessions, the Chinese people (who heard me singing the intermediate hymn) desired me to sing for them. I refused but they are pretty persistent, and so with some piano accompaniment, I sang "She Don't Know She's Beautiful" by One Direction to a bunch of Chinese people in Lyon, France. They loved it but I can definitely say that this conference ranks up there in one of the most interesting ones of my life haha They gave me a Chinese name which j can neither pronounce nor spell, but it means "cute to death", hence the title.

And for those of you who've heard about the flooding in France, all the missionaries are okay, but it might make transfers next week a little harder... Haha and yes, transfers are next week! 😮

I love you all so much! My allez-vous to you all is to sing for some Chinese people this week lol no. Look for the Spirit more in your life and figure out how you can follow Him more! As we heard a lot of, the more we try to be worthy, the closer we can be to the Spirit, and the more that He can testify to us. Keep being amazing disciples! Have a great week!

Je vous aime!

Elder (cute to death) Hall

The Real Meaning of P-Days

Salut! 

Just an update on how fast missions go, this is the beginning of my 5th week of the transfer, and Ive almost been in france for a month! Wowow... it seriously is flying by. This week though was a lot of tombé-vous (which are when amis cancel on us) and contacting, and some dinner appointments, which I love always! So this email might be boring and short but I'll try to spice things up for tout le monde! 

We have a less active who we visit sometimes named Pni (penny) and he is Tongan and plays for a rugby team here. He is awesome and always up to give us food. He has a nonmember friend named Genesis who is also huge and also plays rugby, and weve become pretty good friends with them. We teach Genesis with Pni and its always with food, but I love teaching them because 1) they speak english, 2) they are like best friends and because theyre islanders they are so fun to be around! Its awesome to see how they are best friends and Pni wants Genesis to see how much the gospel can bless him and his family and to share the gospel with him! He's a great example of member missionary work! 

On Thursday, we had a zone conference and our guest speaker was a member of the area 70, named Elder Adler. I was asked to give the opening pray and of course to give it in French. Saying prayers isn't normally a problem for me because I've said a bajillion prayers in my life and like a ton in French, but this was in front of a general authority, and 80 other missionaries, so I was praying all week that I would be able to say a good prayer, and I'm sure that Heavenly Father was like "this is ironic". But the time came and I got up to say the prayer and was blessed to give a pretty good prayer, but I'm convinced that the Spirit just gave me all the right things to say. Then we had an amazing conference! We were taught about, well, so many things, there wasnt really an overall theme but we learned more about obedience, we learned how better to follow the influence of the Spirit and about the atonement, temples and how to improve in companionships. Wow, haha it was crazy! Elder Adler promised us that if we would give a powerful testimony of Christ every day in French for 30 days, by the end of the 30 days, we can bear a testimony that we never thought we'd be able to in French or English, so I'm working on that.

You would all be proud of me because this past week I played football american twice and I caught every ball that was passed to me! (air high five) Today for P-day we had a zone P-day and played a lot of sports, ate some lunch and played more sports. I was drinking a lot of water, and I really had to pee, but there werent any bathrooms at the park, so I was trying to hold it and it was very much inhibiting my ability to move at all. So I had my zone leader be a look out while I went discreetly behind a tree. When I finished, an elder called over to me and was like "were you peeing, Elder Hall?" and then I just died because the whole zone knew and so I covered my face in shame and embarrassment and everyone was just rolling on the ground laughing. Thats what I call a P-day... I'm sorry haha 

Anyway, I have hope and faith that this week is going to be amazing and we will see a ton of miracles! I love you all, and because I am working on my testimony this week, I am allez-vous-ing you all to work on your testimonies a little bit this week! See if you can share your personal witnesses of Christ with someone every day! I promise it will be a blessing to you! 

I love you all! I cant wait for General Conference! Listen hard! :) 

With a load of love,

Elder Hall

The Chill and the Crazy

Bonjour to you all! Here it's bonsoir because it's like 6 pm haha but it's been such an amazing week! One of the best ones of my mission, perhaps one of the hardest ones, but I've seen more miracles than I can count! I just love Heavenly Father so much! So let's get started cause I don't have a lot of time today! On Tuesday we saw our miracle ami Aaron, (the one who just opened his door for us) and we taught him the rétablissement (or restoration) and while we were teaching his eyes filled with tears and when we asked him to pray and ask Heavenly Father if our message was true he said... Get ready for this... "I know it's true. I feel something right now and you guys wouldn't be sacrificing 2 years of your lives if this wasn't true. I know it is." AHHHHH!!!! We are seeing him again tonight and committing him to baptism! I always love teaching him because I walk away so happy and it is confirmed to me once again that this message IS TRUE! 

We passed 6 amis to other equipes this week so our ami and teaching pool dwindled quite rapidly haha but the Amis we still have are the shiz and I love them and their faithfulness!

I got the opportunity this week to go on an exchange with my district leader to a little ville called Clermont-Ferrond. It was so beautiful and so green compared to the city. I never get to leave the city a ton because we have so much to do here so it was great to have a change of scenery. I said that this week was hard because all throughout this week I've been missing my family and then I could feel satan working on me because I kept thinking about my weaknesses and faults and about how I could be such a better missionary but I'm not. So this was all happening on this exchange and then the miracles all started pouring in! We found a guy and taught him the first lesson just in the street, and then Elder Ottesen (my district leader), while we were doing studies found this paper with a name and number on it, so we called and it was a lady who wanted us to come over 2 hours later. So we show up and she opens the door and it smells like smoke, she's drinking and she has cut marks up and down her arms. We went in (there was a man in another room) and this woman was just broken. As we started teaching her, she couldn't get enough. We were going through the pamphlet and it was like reading a book to a little kid, she was so into it! When the priesthood got taken off the earth she was like "oh no! What will happen to the church?!" It was awesome! She wants to change so bad, she told us. I felt the love that Christ has for her, and I saw the power of the atonement work in just that small amount of time! It completely changed my attitude and made me so much happier! 

We went to an old roman theater and it was so cool!

Something funny that happened was on the exchange as well. We went to visit this guy who called Elder Ottesen and he invited us in and he was legit crazy. Crazy Adrian is his name haha so he started talking to us and told us that he wanted to buy this big orange family book that the Mormons sell and we told him about family history but he really wanted this orange book. Then he kept saying that he wanted to be baptized by Pastor Jean and we tried teaching him about priesthood but he was super attached to this idea of pastor Jean so we told him we couldn't help him there and he was making up words and you all know how much I love made up words! I was trying so hard to contain my laughter! I actually LOL-ed once haha so that was crazy

Ive had more food and its amazing! The weather is a lot like Utah here haha (this is the end of this random little paragraph)

This week I really came to the realization that is really cool and helped me a ton: I realized that God has as much faith in me as I do in Him (and probably more). He wants us all to succeed so much! We each have so much potential and He sees it, we just need to see it as well! Think about it, we are all Children of God, we have the greatest source of help of all! As we keep doing what is right, keeping the commandments, and serving others, we will see more and more our divine potential! So I allez-vous you all to go to the temple this week, and if you cant do that, look in the mirror and think about how God sees you, because I promise its magnificent! 

I love my Lord, I love this work, and I love all of you! 

Jusqu'a la prochain! Je vous aime! 

Elder Hall

Feeding Myself and Others

Bonjour tout le monde! Pleasantries from France :) Its still nice over here, although its pouring rain right now and has been for a couple days, but I like rain so ca va. I heard everything at home is going great and that the Area Conference from Elder Ballard was tres bien! It was 9/11 this week so Im sure that everyone over there was being patriotic but it was weird here because it was just another day, but we remembered before we went to bed and said the pledge of allegiance. Let me just start this off with my second week noticings of France. 

First of all, whoever told me that there are no kids in France was sorely mistaken! There are obviously not as many here as there are in murica but there are always ladies pushing their kids in strollers and the little parks have kids in them usually and also there are always children running around the church and I usually dont even know where they came from haha And then there were dogs. So many dogs. They just do their business on the sidewalks and keep on going! People will bring them on the buses and stuff and they are all so small and shaky and pathetic looking haha But I like them because I love dogs so its fun to see both children and pooches. Sometimes when were walking down the streets I will just realize that Im in France and get super happy haha I really do love it here! 

Our ward is amazing! We had 3 mange-vous this week, which are just dinners and a lesson, but the food is great! We got tacos one night, a french cheesy potato thing another, and at an African couples house they gave us fried bananas, plantaines (which I accidentally called placentas), these awesome sauces, chicken, and plums and we ate it with our hands. The sister just kept piling a ton onto my plate and I ate it all. It went right through me haha But it was delicious! The members help us so much in our work as well! They will come visit amis with us and fellowship them at church. Its exactly how member missionary work should be. 

me eating a millefeuille (good luck pronouncing that)

I had my first patisserie this week and mmmmm it was delicious! Ill send a pic of me with it haha And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, our zone is doing a pushup contest for a week and it started on Friday, and since then Ive done 650 pushups. I hurt yesterday. I couldnt move my arms haha but I am way strong now so its all good! ;)

K, lets talk missionary work! So last monday, just a couple hours after I emailed you, an amazing experience happened! We were texted out of the blue to meet with one of our amis, Hana, and she said her mom was coming too. So we met with them, taught them the Restoration, and the Spirit was super strong. Then right before we were going to end, the mom, Sonya, said "I want to come closer to Christ. Can I be baptized?" :O It was so cool! We set a baptismal date for the 3 of October, and then this week she moved into another sector so some other missionaries in our zone are teaching her. Weve handed off 3 of our amis this week to other equips (companionships) but its ok because as long as they are coming closer to Christ it doesnt matter who teaches them!

I set a mission long goal to "feed 5000" like Christ did, but do it by having conversations with random people, plant a seed of faith and trust, and give them spiritual nourishment or just a little love. Its helping me go outside of my comfort zone way more and I know Heavenly Father is putting people in my path to talk to! 

We had a Zone Training this week on being exactly obedient and it was great to learn more about how I can improve as a missionary! They said that the key to missionary work is work, and if we are working hard, we wont have time or energy to be disobedient. Missionary work is hard but its so rewarding! God blesses us when we are obedient, when we serve others, when we love our neighbors! He does! My companion is such a great example of this! He always wants to be obedient, work hard and be a great missionary. I love getting to serve with him! 1 Nephi 3:6-7 talks about being favored of the Lord because Nephi didnt murmur. While both he and his brothers went and did, the difference is that Nephi went and did with a good attitude, having faith in God. This week I want to allez-vous you all to try and be more obedient to the commandments of God and the council of our prophets and apostles, and do it with happiness! I promise that you will be blessed as you do so, and you will see the hand of the Lord in your lives!

I love you all so much! 

Je vous aime!

Elder Hall