Giving God a Call and My Missions, If I Choose To Accept Them...

If you would like to know, I got as close to polygamy as you can be as a missionary this week lol. How is everyone? I hope all is well on the homefront! Here on the frontlines things are going fantastic, and seeing as it's pre-transfer week, thats saying a lot! I hope you never get bored of my emails since being in the office! My life is pretty interesting still, sometimes its number crunching and paper pushing, and other times I feel like James Bond. It all depends on the mission I choose to accept ;) Lets take a look at some of them that I accepted this week:

sisters conference

First off, we accepted the mission to be the chauffers for the sisters conference that was held in Lyon on Monday. We picked people up from the airport (pretending to be the security that everyone thought we were), and then on Monday after it was over, we shuttled people from the presidents house to the metro stop. Because we needed to use two cars, we enlisted the help of the local chinese equipe, and so in my pictures you will see 2 chinese guys and 50 women, but dont worry, it was all okay! It reminded me of when I had to go help my mom at girls camp, haha, they decorated flip flops and cried. We just came at the end, but I have it from multiple sources that they cried! ;) So now I am one of 4 elders who has been in the same room alone with every sister in our mission. I dont know if thats something to be proud of or not..... 

chauffeuring 

Transfers! We accepted the mission of planning out transfer trains for everyone. We had our meeting with President and Soeur Brown, the assistants and the office. There were only 10 out of about 90 equipes that DIDNT change! So thats how that went. We have 22 missionaries going home and 17 coming in, that means 17 trainers as well. 

transfer numbers at district meeting 

So we will be hosting about 50 people at our apartment before the week is over! We stayed up late on Thursday night, planning the trains and working on the sheets, and then we finished late Friday night. I was pretty tired this morning... Luckily, we found a good system of doing trains fast and effective, and there have been almost no problems! So either everything will come crashing down tomorrow night, or we just successfully ran the smoothest transfer trains planning in the history of ever! I really hope its the second one haha.

Now for the mission part of accepting missions! A couple Sundays ago we were porting in a little ville outside of Ecully, and we found a nice woman. We were looking at her gate which said "la famille Brochay" and we were speaking in french to eachother sayin "wow! a family! we love familys! lets knock!" Well turns out she was standing on the other side of the gate listening and so when she opened it before we even rung, and heard us say we had a message about families, she knew we were pretty sincere haha We went back a on Sunday and taught one of the best Retab lessons Ive ever taught. She was so into it. She is so wise and knows the answers to all of the questions we ask! She understands the gospel and she doesnt even know she does! She is about 50 years old with two girls our age and a husband. She is so normal its wonderful! We went back on Thursday and taught about the Plan of Salvation a little. She had read in the Book of Mormon, and even told us that while she was reading she put herself in the place of Lehi, and understood how it must have felt to have two sons who were not on the right path. She wants to come to church and keep meeting with us! Her name is Mdm. Brochay (obviously) but we dont know her first name yet. We hope we can get that soon ;) I feel so confident when we are teaching her, because I know that she has been prepared for this message. She is converted to Christ, not to the catholic church. 

We also got AC installed at the office. 

our stake president and Sr. Berachont, an awesome lady 

in our ward who loves the office elders, her non member 

friend who we are teaching, and me at stake conference 

Well, this next week is going to be crazy. As you might have guessed, I will be staying the office for another transfer with Elder Wiberg! I want to leave you all with a little spiritual metaphor: I was talking to a sister who called because she needed help with something. Thats usually why people call us here haha. Afterwards, before she hung up she said, "I've always felt bad for the office elders, because people only ever call when they need help." Then she stopped for a second and added, "I wonder if thats kinda what its like for Heavenly Father." The conversation ended but I have thought about that ever since. When everything is going well for the missionaries, they have no need to call us, but I cant tell you how much I appreciate little letters, calls or texts of appreciation even when everything is going alright. (I got one this week in the mail with some reimbursements and confetti!) This is just like us as humans. Sometimes in life, everything is going right. Life is great! Do we kneel and express our appreciation to our loving Heavenly Father for that? Or do we only ever give him a ring when our water heater is broken or when we are out of money? (metaphorically speaking) He loves us, and He loves to hear from us, not just in the bad times, but the good times as well. Imagine how happy it would make Him to get a little note with confetti, or a call just to say thanks and that you love Him! I know how happy it makes me :) And we are so blessed to know that we can talk with Him no matter when or why! 

I love you all so much! Thanks for the support and prayers! Have a wonderful week! 

Love, 

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary

Killing Vivian and Roadtrippin'

FRANCE 😄

I love France!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Tis I, having come again with the email you have all been waiting for! :) I hope you have all had a good week, mine was great! Super tiring and a lot of driving, but so worth it! This week we spent half of the week on a roadtrip to the west coast. 😎 And the other half catching up on all the office work that piled up in our absense. 

(I cant be the only one that knows that feeling). I just want to say how much I love France; the country, the food, the language, and the people especially! I feel so blessed to be serving in the best mission in the world! In fact, 9 out of 10 dentists recommend serving in the France, Lyon Mission (haha jk, the dentists dont, but everyone else does ;)! The country has gotten pretty patriotic lately as the EuroCup is being held here in Lyon, so thats probably what is bringing this on... Anyway, lets get started, shall we? We shall.

escargot eyes

To end our P Day last week, we found a nice french restaurant and for the first time since Ive been here, we had escargo! Mmmm. It was wonderful, and then on Sunday we had an interregional transmission to all the western European stakes. There were about 71 stakes that took part in the broadcast, and it was great! We heard from Bishop Caussé (woohoo, go france!), Sister Oscarson, and Elder Christofferson, among others. We were instructed on how to strenghen ourselves as members living in Europe, and then those around us as the members do their best to keep the sabbath day holy, attend the temple, and invite amis to learn more about the church. Something that Bishop Caussé said that struck me was that here in Europe, members dont have temples very close, and so it is a big deal to go to one. It takes planning and preparation, and they always find the time to go, even when it takes a lot of time. In the US, especially in Utah, we have temples everywhere. "Having a temple closeby requires a higher level of committment," he said, because we dont have that big time planned or prepared into our busy schedules. Where much is given, much is required. I encourage you all to find time to go to the temple. :)

Brive Eclairs

Our roadtrip! (There will probably be a lot of information in this paragraph that wont make sense to you because you may not know the geography of france or the dynamics of missions, but just roll with me here.) We left early Monday morning in Vivian the Vivaro and drove 3 1/2 hours to a ville called Brive. There we saw Elder Carlson (who was in the moving equipe last transfer) and his comp, and had some of the biggest, most delicious éclairs known to man! Then we kept on going 2 more hours to Bordeaux, where we got to meet up with the zone leaders from Bordeaux and Lormont, and then we split. I went with Elder Boynton (who I replaced in the office), and Elder Bleak (my favorite Chinese elder and one of my best friends) to IKEA! FUN! We got a bunch of furniture and got to catch up. Gosh, I love those two! We all met back up, dropped off the Bordeaux ZL's and took the Lormont ZL's and headed an hour and a half down to the south of France to a ville called Bayonne. It was beautiful! 

IKEA ft. Bleak and Boynton

We dropped off some stuff for the sisters there, and finally rolled into Pau that night to stay the night. Elder Orr (a missionary I hung out with before the mission, and came in with me and a great friend) is there so we got to catch up! The next morning we headed back up to Lormont to remove furniture from the ZL's appartment, stopped at a décheterie (a dump), and then went up to a ville called Angouleme. We had HFC (a Muslim knockoff of KFC) for lunch and continued on our way. While we were meeting all these missionaries, we realized just how white we are. Everyone else is getting super tan, and when I look in the mirror it says "you are the fairest of them all" before I can even ask a question :( haha, anyway. We drove to a ville called Poitiers which is a very classic French ville, and from there went to Limoges. We were driving through the French countryside, seeing little cottages and farms and woods. It was amazing! Guess who we saw in Limoges? Elder Ramsey! (another missionary that came in with me and a best friend!). We went on a tour of the beatiful ville, saw the Europe famouse gare (train station) and built a dresser for them. It was so great to see him. 

Thats where the murder happened. 

us resuscitating Vivian 

We were supposed to leave for Lyon the next morning, so we got ready and headed for our car which we left in a pay parking lot. As we got closer, the unlock clicker wouldnt work. When I tried to turn her on, I realized... she was dead. And the killer? ME! :O I had forgotten to turn her lights off the night before (because they are manual) and she died. Well, we called the elders and asked someone for help. We were directed to a nearby garage where the owner was very kind and loaned us a battery charger box. Some members came to help, but we though the box would work so we let them go to their appointment. Well, the battery in our car is too big and the box wasnt doing anything, so we went back to the garage and asked for some jumper cables, which he loaned us, then asked the first car that came into the parking for help. It was a little tiny beater car, and we accidentally ended up sapping his battery... Oops. We fixed his car and he drove away, then we prayed for a miracle. We needed a big van. I started wandering and saw a man get into his big van so I ran over and asked him for help. He ended up being from Ireland and spoke english and knew exactly what to do! He jump started Vivian and she worked! It was a series of miracles! 

We came home finally, and taught Paul, who is progressing well. I didnt bring any missionary clothes, and we pulled into the office late for our RDV so I borrowed some from one of the senior elders, Elder Walker, and I taught looking like a 5 year old in his dads clothes with eyes as red as tomatos hahaha. 

It was just one adventure after the next, and this upcoming week is our no-sleep transfer planning week, so wish me luck! I personally love it, but it does make me pretty exhausted! I want you all to know that I know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. I know that there was an Apostacy which is why we needed a Restoration. The Apostacy was real. It confused the entire world. But now we have the truth, and I am here to share that, and to help every missionary here to be able to share it! I love this gospel, I love my mission. Have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary

A Week Well Worked

Me on an island in the middle of the park. I like islands ;)

Bonjour from your favorite Frenchie! It seems like just yesterday I talked to you all, but I find they are pretty one sided conversations ;). Lyon is doing just fine! Unlike Paris, it is not flooding, but it has been raining a ton! It reminds me of what I thought Europe would be like, kinda gloomy and rainy, but for the most part its been great over here. My week was full of things, and some of the best proselyting I've done here in the office! We had some wonderful things produce themselves this week  (I'm running out of adjectives!). I'll see if I can pull any funny experiences out of my mind, on y va! 

So we did a moving equipe thing this week. We had to go back to an old apartment and finish clearing it out. Nothing too exciting, we just moved a couch and an armoire. If you've never tried to move here in France, you wouldnt understand, because they have these tiny 2 person elevators, and if they dont have an elevator at all, you have to maneuver down a skinny spiral staircase type thing. Luckily, they had an elevator that could fit most things, so we were able to do it in a rather quick manner. There was a lady who was kinda excited that we were moving out and said she wanted to get the apartment so her daughter could move in, and I thought 'wow, I should be a real estate agent.' Of course I wont be, because I dont want to, but if I did, I think this goes to show that I would be amazing at it. 

Lucas (Bichwan) whom elder Johnson and I contacted on my 

5th day in France and got baptized in February baptized his 

friend!  That's seeing the fruit of your labors! So cool!

We had the opportunity to do some porting earlier this week, so we headed up to Ecully, to a predetermined neighborhood and started. I was a little rusty, but from all the time porting in Ajaccio (shout out to my Ajaccio comps out there who know what Im talking about- elders Johnson and wade) I was able to get the hang of it pretty quick, and it turned out to be a lot of fun! The people were all very kind, and the meanest thing we got was an old man shaking his head in disgust and grunting as he closed the door, but he was so old it was just hilarious! We got a number of a 17 year old kid, and at one point, we saw this family eating dinner, but we sonnéd anyway. The mom came out and said "je vous connais" which is "I know you guys" then she told us to come back on Thursday and that she had 7 kids! Thats insane for a french family, so we were very excited! We had some good conversations too. Well, Thursday came, and we planned very well for this lady (Dianne), and we took Elder Mahaffey with us to teach (hes a senior elder at the office). She let us in and we started going and it was apparent that she was super hardcore Catholic. She said that they believe that their church has had an unbroken line of priesthood since Paul, and that they are really saved through Mary. She loved Mary. She was very kind and respectful, and we had a good discussion. She took a Book of Mormon and gave us Mary medalions in return, but when it came down to it, she said not to come back. It was pretty disappointing, honestly, but it was cool to see a Catholic person who was actually practicing (since a lot of them here dont), and who had a testimony of Jesus Christ anyway. It did witness again to me that the Great Apostacie was real! Because the power of God wasnt on the earth, the churches got all messed up, to the point that people worship Mary instead of her son, the Son of God! Its crazy...

Elder Sweeney in an old Santa sweater 
we found.  I made him put it on during 
lunch :)

We also got back into contact with the Finland missionaries! Remember our ami, Paul, we taught over skype? Well he moved, and as soon as the soeurs over there found him, they called us and we fixed a RDV. We had it on that same day we taught Dianne, but it went so much better. We were able to incorporate the sister missionaries and member over there into the lesson by translating for them, and found out what is holding Paul back. He wants to understand, and he feels like he doesnt. We really want him to understand too, because once he does, he will be baptized. He is a great guy, and I wish I could meet him in person, but I love him all the same! I love these opportunities I have to do missionary work in a not so traditional way. I feel so blessed! 

A funny thing that happened is that we went to english class which is taught by a different equipe, but we were expecting a potential to come (he didnt). Well a lady walked in and said she had a question. She wanted to know the word for bateau in english. Its a ship. Then she asked if it was masculine or feminine, and we explained that in english there is no such thing, everything is just 'the'. She said, "I think its feminine.", as if she were stating a fact. She was not backing down either. Finally we just let her be sexist and think that all boats are girls and moved on with it. ;) haha I thought that was pretty funny. 

we ran into our ward mission leader and his family and friend 

(who are American) after a Failed attempt at dinner in 

vieux Lyon haha I love them

Today we were able to have our zone conference. Because of all the greves and everything going on here, we were the last zone to be able to have one, but there are still 6 other zones who didnt get to. President asked us to pray for them, and he said it will help them. Our conference was all about binding Satan! When Elder Christofferson came a couple months ago, he promised our mission that we would have the power to bind Satan as we went forth in faith and repentance. That is exactly whats happening! There are miracles happening all over the mission, its incredible to see! No one is leaving their sectors for these 2 weeks where trains are not running, so they are all finding a ton of new amis (because no one else can leave either, plus its raining haha). So even though Satan is trying to hinder us, because of the revelation given to our inspired President, we are succeeding, we are binding him and he is having no more power over us! WOW! The cool thing is that he promised us this not just for our mission, but for our future families and the rest of our lives. If we all purify ourselves and let God back us up, we can all bind Satan. We can all live like its the Millennium today! I was also able to have a face to face interview with him, and let me just tell you how much I love him. He said that he knows we will be friends for eternity, and I agree wholeheartedly! :)

Thank you all for all you do, for the examples you are, for the effort you exert into helping further the Lords gospel. It is truly an act of love. We invite others to come unto Christ because we love them and desire their happiness and salvation. Simple as that. Thank you for your prayers. They are needed and they are felt! Je vous aime tous! Je sais que cette évangile est vrai. Jésus est notre Sauveur. 

Passez une bonne semain! 

Avec amour, 

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary

Going Out, Staying In and Finding the Orange Woman

me and the giraffe at the zoo we went to today

Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green? Do you drink lemonade (nope), or sit in the shade (no), or watch as the clouds go byyyy (HA)? The correct answer is, you teach people about the restored gosepl of Jesus Christ! (those other things are okay too) :) We had a great week here, super busy, and you'll find out why. Its starting to be summer, so its getting hot, and luckily we got AC installed last week, so we will be happy campers here in the office. Something thats weird about France is that the people dont really like AC for some reason (they think it gives you diseases or something), so not a lot of places have it. The ones that do advertise it though! I think people are starting so see some sense in it. Also, I dont know if you have all heard about the greves going on in France (remember when I told you about them a little bit?), well they are starting to heat up as well, and its gotten to the point where the gas problem kinda freaked people, and when we were down in Marseille (I'll explain later), there were huge lines for gas stations. But I think its starting to smooth. Well, that greve at least, but the other ones not so much. There are greves against the trains every week, but now, starting on the 31 until the 11, every day! That makes it so hard as missionaries, because we rely heavily on trains and public transport. But Heavenly Father always figures out a way to help us out of these things, so I have faith that He'll come through! Now lets talk about the week! 

me wearing an envelope hat because we were 

stuck in the office and it’s fashionable

So the beginning of the week saw Elder Wiberg and I traveling down south to Marseille and a little ville called Aubagne, where the ville got closed this transfer. We (as the moving equipe) went to go clear it out so we could get it ready to sell. We spent all Monday working on that with the elders down there. It was pretty fun, but a lot of work. Thats where we saw all the craziness, but we didnt even know why people were freaking out. We headed up to Aix en Provence to stay the night with the zone leaders there and they had a zone finding day, so their whole zone was there. It was a lot of fun to see some friends. We took care of some stuff for them the next day, and headed back to Lyon. 

A picture of Lyon with a French scripture

On the drive, I was getting kind of tired, and I looked at the gas tank and had a thought that we needed to pull off and fill up. We drove through a little town called Orange, and at a stop light we saw this woman sitting outside of a shop, holding a bill and crying. We kept going to fill up with gas, but I had a strong feeling that we needed to go back and find her. We filled up without a problem, and when I told Elder Wiberg what I was feeling, he said he was feeling the same thing. So we turned around, and went back, praying that we could find a parking spot for the huge van we were driving. We did! So we parked and went to the place, and found a sonary for some little apartments up top. We felt we needed to call up, and the first one didnt answer, the second one was a lady who said she wasnt believing, and the third was a man that hung up on us. We were confused, but felt like we needed to call the second one again. The lady answered and this time we just said that we saw a woman crying and wanted to make sure everything was okay. That's when it happened..... She told us she would call the police if we didnt leave, then as we were walking away, she leaned out her window and called us a sect. I was pretty confused, and I could see Elder Wiberg was too. We had felt the prompting and followed it, so why did that happen? As we were driving in silence, I had a thought, that maybe this woman needed to be introduced to the missionaries and one day, she will be reintroduced and remember that on a horrible day, a couple stopped to make sure she was okay, even if she was a little mean. I felt peace knowing that we followed the Spirit, also recognized the miracle that we were able to fill up with gas in a tiny town where we were led, when all the gas stations everywhere else were backed up and running out. 

a beautiful old cathedral in vieux Lyon 

The second half of the week, Elder Wiberg and I were in charge of the office all by ourselves, because all of the senior couples had a zone conference in a different ville. So we held down the fort, answering phones, buying tickets, doing reimbursements and solving a problem with a carbon monoxide scare haha. (It was all good). We kept ourselves busy, and slept well when night came. We even got everything done yesterday and went contacting in our area (its called Ecully, its a pretty nice suburb area of Lyon) and had 4 great 10 minute conversations with people. It was nice to do that! 

Overall, I feel great! I am loving it here, I have set goals to become better and am seeing the blessings that come from devoted service to the Lord! I would encourage you all to take a look at your lives, and find something you want to improve on, it doesnt have to be something big, but with the help of Heavenly Father, the power of faith and prayer, and the gift of the Atonement which lets us get back up everytime we all and restart, you can all get the spiritual summer body youve been wanting! ;) I know thats true, Ive seen it! I love you all! Have a fantastic week! 

Avec amour, 

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary

Hall Burger and The Reggie Analogy

Our scooter day

The sun is shining and I am a little sunburned so I am writing you all as a happy elder! Although that wasn't the case for the whole week, but we can talk about that later. I have a few topics I want to hit in here so we will get to that right away.

The week started off with one of the senior couples, the Mahaffeys, who took Monday and Tuesday off to be with their kids. That left more responsibility on us to be here, so we came in early monday morning and took a call from president where we discussed the greves on the trains here (because FYI the workers of the train companies are all greving ((striking)) every wednesday and thursday until july so that makes things difficult haha) and the Sweeneys told us they were going to Geneve to pick up a lost visa so we took the wheel and were here to hold down the fort all day. Luckily nothing too crazy happened, but we were pretty tired, because all the mission leaders came in for leadership council and also all of the missionaries going home this transfer, so we had 25 missionaries sleeping at our house. It was insane. We are going to play "office elders are in charge" again this week, because the senior zone conference is going on for two days somewhere down in the south. We accept prayers ;).

my 5 companions!

In other news, MLC (the mission leadership council) went off great! Out of the 7 companions Ive had, 5 were there. I'll attach a picture we took but it was fun to be with them all again. Elder Johnson is my zone leader now. So he's been my trainer, district leader and zone leader, and he will be going home at the end of this transfer, as well as elder Lythgoe and Ottesen. I love these people so much! Because of the craziness the day before and the fact that it was a holiday here, we werent able to order the pain au chocolat and the other patisseries we needed for breakfast from the lady we usually go to, so we left at 5:30 that morning to see if we could order some before the conference at 9. We knocked on the side door to her shop and she anwsered and was probably pretty surprised to see two zombies asking for 100 patisseries! She did it though, in two hours! We are like little house elves there usually, just in the background setting things up and taking them down and making food appear, but this time was different. I felt like we were a part of it all! There was a point where president sent everyone out contacting, and we were cleaning up and got to talk to President Brown for a bit. Then he asked if we wanted to go contacting with him, and of course we said yes. On the way out the door we got a ton of calls, which was ironic, but he patiently waited and finally we were able to go. It was awesome to see him in action. He does anything he asks of us. I love and sustain him! 

Hall Burger

Something fun is that we took the Lyon ZL's (who arent ours but we still love them) out to lunch this week. We went to Hall Burger for my 7 month birthday anniversary haha. It was pretty good, as good as Muslim kosher hamburgers can be... But it was just fun to be there. Ill send a picture of that as well. 

Today for P Day we went scootering on our scooters all over Lyon. It was the most fun Ive had in a long time! Thats why Im sunburned, because its so beautiful out here! We saw a ton of sights, scootered along the Soane river and then when we found ourselves in a beautiful mall surrounded by amazing apartment buildings, we stopped and ate sushi. SUSHI!! IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MY WHOLE MISSION!! Haha It was just perfect! 

my 1st Sushi!

And to end, I will tell you about our training. Remember that goal to get 91 baptisms in a transfer? I dont know if I told you or not, but that was a goal President had for us. It was of course inspired like all of his goals, but we came out of it with only 27, which is still good, but not great. So we had a zone training about come backs, and how we can come back from this and bind Satan and be stronger. We talked about consecrating ourselves more, and I had a thought that I shared with them that I want to share with you. Its about my dog. :) His name was Reggie and I loved him so much! The thing is that he was pretty stubborn. When we were walking or when I needed to give him a bath and he didnt want it at all, he would yank his head back, dig his paws into the ground and as much as I would yank he would resist. Sometimes I would let him finish smelling something, but I always knew that if he wanted to get home to have a treat after a nice walk, we had to keep going. If he wanted to be clean and smell nice for the lady dogs, he had to take a bath. I realized that lately I've been doing the same thing to Heavenly Father. He has been helping me on this path to get home, and Ive been resisting. Hes said "if you do this, you will be happier! If you are more obedient with that, you can have some blessings!" and Ive yanked my head back and said "but I want to finish smelling this, then walk at my own pace!" The sooner that I, and we all, realize that Heavenly Father knows whats best for us, and that following Him will take us down the path that leads home, we will be happier and more blessed. Dont resist, let Him guide us! Let Him wash us clean! He can and He will, but only if we are willing to let him. I think I am ready and willing to progress a little more. :) 

last p day

last p day

I love you all so much! Reggie is dead, but I love him a lot too, and even though he was stubborn, he was still a great dog. (that was a random interjection about my dog ha). Have a great week! 

Elder Hall Burger

Your Favorite Missionary

Our scooter day

Our scooter day

The Catch Up et l'Invitation

this happens sometimes

Family, friends, anyone that reads this, hello once again! I feel like its been forever since Ive sent out an email, it kind of has been. But I got to skype my mom on mothers day and thats all that counts! To all you other women out there that have ever been a mother figure to me, I say thank you, I love and appreciate you and all you do for me and the countless others whose lives you touch. I saw a couple moms today on the street, the first had a little girl who wanted to get her stuffed animal and was just so sad so her mom sighed, took her and and went back into their apartment building. The other was a woman pushing a stroller with a little toddler walking behind her playing with 2 balloons on sticks. One of them fell and he was so confused, so she stopped the stroller, picked it up for him, and I dont even think he realized what she'd done, but I did. Thanks for all the little things. 

Anyway, since we last left each other, I was busy solving problems and such. Well since then I have received a new companion and made it through my second transfer week, this time I had to take the reigns so I was praying pretty hard that I wouldn't steer us into a wall. Luckily I didn't, but I did steer 3 other things. The reason being because as of last Monday, the moving equipe was demolished, and the office elders (thats me and my new companion) are now full time office and moving elders. That means that on top of our office work we are in charge of closing and moving apartments all over the mission, as well as equipment and furnishings. So we have the 3 cars, Vivian (the vivaro), the Duchess (the moving equip mid size van thing) and the Yaris. I have my own fleet haha

the three ami,s, till one of them 

peaced and then there were 2

So now that the useless information you dont care about is out of the way, I'll tell you about my newest companion! His name is Elder... Wiberg! I know, thats the same last name as my sisters family. He's from Ohio/Minnesota and he is catching onto his job pretty fast. He's only in his 4th transfer which is super impressive and his french is great! I'm still trying to learn more about him so I'll fill you in when I get the good stuff ;) I said goodbye to Elder Lythgoe, and was sad we didnt get to spend more time together. I love him so much! But we'll see each other soon enough. 

As you can probably tell, we've been pretty busy around here lately. Last week we didn't get to bed before 12 at all, and then with transfers we were up early every day, but all the missionaries got home safe and sound and on time, while there was only 1 new missionary who came in, so while the President and AP's took care of him, we took a nap :). We have been driving all around to IKEA and to people's apartments to fix things and install lights haha Its quite an adventure. 

Today we saw a slow moving bicyclist almost hit into a slow moving pedestrian and it was like slow motion. The pedestrian wasnt very happy, so he stood there with his arms in the air while the bicyclist wobbled down the street. It was hilarious. 

Switzerland! From our trip a while ago

The office is still doing great, I've learned to just dance when I am on hold, and everyone always laughs but its not fair because I wasnt born to be groovy! We are definitely busier than ever before, which is a good thing. I want to insert a little spiritual thought that I studied this week to help out a friend. I learned about why people have to go through trials that may not be caused by the misuse of their own agency: Through the Fall of Adam and Eve, they and their posterity could now experience disease, death, and suffering. But on the other side they could feel true happiness and the redeeming power of Christ. Isnt it funny how that works? We experience many trials, which give us opportunities to learn and grow and to distinguish good from evil, that's why we are even here in the first place. There is a lot of hardship in the world; disease, natural disasters, wars, civil unrest, pure evil. This is just a result of our fallen nature as men and women. It's an enemy to God. But the more we choose to approach Christ, the stronger we can feel His and our Heavenly Fathers love, and thats when faith comes in. Because when we have faith, we use the atonement, we trust the atonement, and PMG says, "All that is unfair about life will be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ." 

Switzerland! From our trip a while ago

That is my testimony. I know that Jesus Christ atoned for us! ITS ONLY THROUGH HIM that we can find happiness in a world of sorrow and distress. I testify of that! Don't let your trials, whatever they may be, drag you down. Let the Savior lift you up. He will. He always does for those that come to Him. I am here to invite others to come unto Christ, and this is my invitation to you. 

I love you so much, have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary 

Problem Solving 101 and the Great Swiss Outing

Hello from your office missionary! It's been a crazy week, a lot of stuff has happened and I'll try to fit it all in, and if not, I will see my family on Sunday so it's okay. I think I've mentioned this before and you'll probably know it by the title of this email, but we are problem solvers here. We solved a lot this week, including the old lady dilemma, a terrible grève, and the day that shut down the office. I'll get to all of those. Then we'll talk a little about our great Swiss adventure! We have a lot to get to so let's get started!

Disclaimer: we prayed during all of these problems and so all the credit goes to our loving Heavenly Father who lets us learn, but grants us tender mercies. 😊

First, the old lady dilemma: one day Elder Lythgoe and I were driving to an old apartment to clean it out so we can get rid of it. Here, to separate the bus lanes from the car lanes, they have quite large cement barriers. Well, there was a car right next to us that accidentally ended up on one of those barriers, and when we saw it was an old lady inside, we decided we should probably stop and see if we could help her. So we pulled over and ran across the street, and took a look. One tire was not even on the ground, and the car was stuck there. So we tried to push, and not even I, who am comparable to Thor, could get her car off of the barrier. Then a couple other guys stopped and tried to help but still no budging (but they did compliment me on my bulging muscles). So we talked to her and told her that her car wasn't budging and called a tow to come and then just left her. We did, however get her number so we will see if that takes us anywhere. PROBLEM SOLVED!

Next, I think I told you about the strikes here in France. They are called grèves. There was one this past Tuesday, which was also a zone conference at Bordeaux, and for those of you that don't know, missionaries rely heavily on trains as transportation, and grèvers rely heavily on trains as something to strike against. So we were awakened at 6 am by some missionaries who had no way of getting to zone conference. We rushed into the office and started looking up train times as a wave of calls from stranded missionaries all over hit us in the face. We worked for a good 2 1/2 hours and finally got everyone on some kind of public transport heading in that general direction. There were people on trains, buses, members cars, it was like rat race haha. PROBLEM SOLVED!

Now about the day that shut down the office. We came back from running an errand right before all the senior couples went home one Wednesday night and they said the phones weren't working, which is a problem (and we need to solve problems). So I thought I was trained on this and went back to reboot the phone box by unplugging it and plugging it back in. The phones didn't start working, but something did happen... The next morning when we came in, the senior couples were all in a panic because the Internet was down, the phones weren't working and a guy was cleaning the carpets. That means that any missionary or company that needed to get a hold of us couldn't, and we had no way of doing any work online anyway, so everyone went home except us, Elder Sweeney and Elder Walker and the carpet cleaner (he was just hanging out during all of this). Elder Sweeney and I walked to the closest Orange store but they couldn't help us, so I found their number on a receipt and called. Basically I was on and off of hold with them for the next 2 hours, and finally got a RDV scheduled when someone could come take a look at it. In the mean time we did all we could do with little home offices. It was a glorious sight when the worker came in on our glistening carpet to fix it all. Turned out the box didn't reset properly after the shut down so now I know all the right cables to plug into what. PROBLEM... created, but SOLVED!

The best part about this week was the fact that we got to go to Switzerland Friday and Saturday with the moving equipe and help them out with a bunch of stuff. I've always wanted to go into Swiss so it was a dream come true. It was so pretty! There are a bunch of fields of yellow flowers in bloom and it is exactly how I pictured Switzerland to be. We went up to Lausanne and took some missionaries to IKEA to get some new furniture, then cleared out a load of old, broken stuff. There was one point where we passed through a carnival, and I learned that in French, cotton candy is called "beard of papa". We went to Martigny which is this absolutely beautiful village nestled in the Alpes, and we delivered some beds. When we finally rolled into a Geneva equipes apartment to sleep, I couldn't believe how calm and quiet it was outside. Literally all you could hear was the sound of cow bells. The next day we went to deliver a couch to some sisters, we cleared out a garage in another apartment, and then went up to Yverdon to do some things. It was kind of like an exchange because I got to drive with Elder Wilson almost the whole time. He is so funny, and really tall. We had a lot of fun eating too much Swiss candy and trying to find reception to contact our lost companions haha. I drove a lot, we had a ton of fun and it was amazing to be in Switzerland finally!

This all helped to testify to me again that our Heavenly Father loves us so much. He created this world for us to learn and grow, and He loves us enough to let us struggle sometimes (whether it's with work, family, illness, shutting down your mission office on accident). It is a love that none of us quite understand, but that all of us can feel. I testify that He is there, that He sent His son to save us and to bring us back home. It's a marvelous work and a wonder.

I love you all! Happy birthday Jansen and Isaiah (you old farts)! 😉

see you all on Sunday!

Avec amour,

Elder Hall

Your Favorite Missionary