Inwood in the Hood

Dear family,

This week has been awesome. I got to go on a split with Sister Baker since she is my STL now! It was really weird but fun being with an old companion again. We did church tours of the chapel (see pictures). We also had a fun experience street contacting. We started talking to this lady at the bus stop, and she was really nice and Catholic. Then out of nowhere this eavesdropping 7th Day Adventist came over and started telling us that we worship Joseph Smith in place of Jesus and all this false stuff, then a Pentacostal lady came over and gave us all mini Bibles and then this crazy guy was driving by and he pulled over and started screaming at us "Mormons deceive the people! Bleepity bleepity bleeping Mormons bleep Satan bleeping bleep!" *censored for the children* all in Spanish. He pulled over and parked the car, and got out just so he could yell at us. So we had a great discussion with every Christian religion ever and ended up bearing our testimonies of the restoration and giving out two Book of Mormons and two pamphlets, so it was worth it.

We're going to the temple today! Our area is still kicking it. All of our investigators are at the beginning stages, so most of them are just praying about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith to find out if it's true. Ylaura has a Bap date for October 11th and she is so sick! She referred herself to the missionaries and wanted to be baptized right away, and she happens to live in our area. Is God real? We taught her the word of wisdom this week and at the end she asked "Is there ANYTHING else I shouldn't be eating or drinking?" So cute! And so prepared!

I love you all. For all of you in Rainbow Crest... Ugh. Taylor Ranch Ward, I heard you had an amazing missionary activity. That is so awesome. Whenever we do things like that, we provide God with an opportunity to place the prepared people in our paths. Keep up the good work!


Hermana  Hall


P.S.  We went to FAO Schwartz and found some hidden treasures. And a lady just told us to take off our name tags because we look like tourists and people will take advantage of us. #whoops

Choose Celestial

Hermana Baker and Hermana Hall

Dominican Heights

Dear family and friends,

Well this week has been awesome. We've found so many new investigators! God is helping us so much. This area has a lot of people who haven't been able to be visited because the elders can't come in if there's not another guy in the house. But now that we're here they can start meeting with us and hopefully start progressing like crazy and get baptized all of them! I love this area. We've also found some hidden interior design treasures too (see attached pictures).

President Morgan came and talked to us in district meeting on Monday (that NEVER happens). He came to specifically tell us that God gives us hard things to make us stronger, and even though it's hard, if we step right into the hard thing and have faith that God will help us through it, we will come out stronger. In Ether it says "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." That means that, if we are feeling weak and we realize that we are not as good as we thought we were, we are coming closer to Christ! That's what's supposed to happen when we come closer to Him, because He wants to show us how we can become better and fulfill our divine potential. If we humble ourselves and show him that we want to do His will, He will make our weak things strong. It's true.

I love you all!

Hermana Hall

Back in the City!!

Dear fam bam,

Wow. Inwood. What can I say? I LOVE the city! There are SO many people
everywhere and they're all Hispanic! This area is Washington Heights
but everyone calls it "Dominican Heights" because literally everyone
is from he Dominican Republic. They're like the straight-up gangstas
of the Hispanic world. Plus they have cocohelado everywhere and elote
and all of my favorite Hispanic things. I feel like I'm coming home to
a beautiful land of brown people, trains, stairs, trash, and urine.
Mmm. Only problem is that I forgot how darn expensive it is here ($6
for a box of cereal!). So I'll just live off of wheat berries and
pasta. #allaboutthatcollegelife

We (Sister Megan Brower from Riverton, UT and I) are whitewashing the
area, which means that we are opening a new area and are the first
sisters to work here. Which means we are doing a lot of finding
(Heavenly Father knows that I'm the most awkward street-contacter ever
and needs me to tune up my skills so that I can die in Harlem with
Sister Card) and trying to work with the ward members so that we can
is by far the most exhausted I've ever been on my mission, but I love
it!

Stupid Shelby moment of the week: we got permission to go to Stamford,
CT for the baptism of one of Sister Brower's old investigators. Cross
Connecticut off United States Bingo! We got there safely and taught a
bomb lesson on the train to a lady who is the boricua version of Queen
Latifah. The baptism was awesome and then we started heading back...
For those of you who are familiar with my level of spatial/directional
intelligence, this story won't be very surprising for you. We got to
the train station and only had to take one little bus home. But Sister
Hall got us on the wrong bus and we ended up on the East side of the
Bronx. So we walked around for an hour through my old area (luckily I
had a little bit of knowledge leftover) and found the bus I was
familiar with. We got off to connect to another bus, and when we
finally found the next stop, the bus had stopped running for the
night. Then we found the other one and got on the RIGHT bus and got
us back to Manhattan. Then we walked and walked and walked and walked
and walked with the pioneer children until we FINALLY got home at 1 am.
#whoops #mybad

Now for spiritual time: This week during district meeting we talked
about the doctrine of Jesus Christ (our monthly focus). The doctrine
of Christ is comprised of five things: faith, repentance, baptism and
covenants, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We do these things
because it is the only way that we can access the Atonement of Jesus
Christ and be cleansed of our sins. Now, that all seemed very simple
to me before, but we read a passage from Preach My Gospel that really
opened my eyes. It says "Those who do not endure in faithfulness to
the end will be 'cast into the fire . . . because of the justice of
the Father.' The purpose of the gospel is to cleanse people of their
sins so they can receive the Savior’s mercy at the day of judgment.
Therefore, the focus of... the work you do each day is to invite
others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel
through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism,
receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."

So that's the whole point! Of everything! Of everything we all do!
Missionaries and non-missionaries alike! As members of the church, our
whole purpose is to live the doctrine of Christ by exercising faith,
repenting daily, renewing our baptismal covenants by taking the
sacrament every week, and having the Holy Ghost with us and following
His guidance. It's the only way that we can live together with
Heavenly Father and our families forever, and we want our friends and
everyone around us to be there with us. So we have to share the
gospel! If not, no one will know about the awesome plan that God has
for us.

So this week you should all study the doctrine of Jesus Christ. I
promise that if you do you'll feel a greater love for Heavenly Father
and have a greater desire to share the gospel :)

I love you all! Keep up the good work!

Choose Celestial

Hermana Hall and Hermana Brower

Transfers!!!

Dear Family,

Transfers! Woot woot! I'm going to open a new area in Innwood with
Sister Brower! Innwood's at the top of Manhattan and it's FULL of
Dominicans. 100% platano. And from what I've heard I'm going to need
to just out my stretchy skirts because they feed you a ton and it's
all bien heavy. I'm so excited!

Best of luck with everything and your own member missionary work!

Love,

Hermana Hall

P.S.  Some of these pictures show what happens to your hair when it rains and
is humid and sweaty and nasty. Mmmmm.

Saying goodbye to Yonker People.......