Staying in Yonkers!

Dear family and friends,

Transfers are today! I'm staying in Yonkers! That will give me 7 and a half months here and 4 companions! So weird. But awesome because I love all of the crazy people here and we still haven't baptized the whole city so I guess I'll have to stay til that happens.

My new companion is Sister Ramirez from Mexico. So... That's scary. But maybe one day I'll have good Spanish so this is good. I'm super excited.

Cool story bro: so last night we were one Book of Mormon away from meeting our goal. It's 9:15 and we're eating dinner at a members house. We're shoveling food into our mouths so that we can get home on time BUT WE STILL HAVE ONE MORE BOOK OF MORMON TO GIVE AWAY. The clock is ticking... 5 seconds left on the clock... As we're walking out the door my companion asks the member to give the Book of Mormon to someone. "Espérate" and she walks out of the room and grabs this random girl who was in her house and says "Ella quiere aprender" BAM. We have an appointment with her on Thursday. God helps us meet our goals and then some.

Here's a cute picture of our zone. I know you don't know any of them and you really don't care but I think it's cute so I'm sending it to you.

Have a great week! Share your testimony with someone, okay?

Hermana Hall

Lots of Stuff

Dear family and friends,

Hey hey hey. This week has been fun. We've set a new goal of trying to
give out 35 Book of Mormons (books of Mormon, libro de los
mormones...) before the end of the cycle... Which is on Wednesday.
It's a lot harder than it sounds, but it's been really fun to talk to
everyone and share our testimony of the Book of Mormon. There are SO
many people who are followers of Christ, they just need the fullness
of the gospel! Yesterday we talked to this family and the Dad said
"Yeah we read the Bible all the time. My daughter can quote it all
day. Give us Psalms 28." She's like six years old and she spouts off
the entire psalm. I was like "Gurl you can have my job". IMPRESSIVE.

Also, I forgot to tell you about Hurricane Arthur. Our power lines
went down and we had a party in our apartment and watched the
testaments, lit candles and ate ice cream. It was a SICK storm and our
apartment building looked like the ending of a horror movie.

Speaking of... We just watched Saratov Approach as a zone and now I'm
going to be on edge the rest of the day.

I found out that I'll be staying in my area (Yonkers!) for another
cycle! I'll be getting a new companion on Wednesday but I won't find
out who until tonight or Saturday, depending on if I get a greenie or
not.

Love you!

Hermana Hall

Hump Day

Dear fam bam,

We've had another sick week, so not a ton to report, but there are
some awesome things that happened:

1. Reynoso Family sealing! My favorite family ever. We got to go to
the temple with them and be there for the sealing! It was SO COOL and
it was our very first one. They are the cutest family ever and it made
me so happy!

2. Our ward had a talent show. Oh boy. It was the best thing ever.
From ballerinas to I-don't-even-know-what dancing to Hispanic singing
to Indian dances... It was crazy.

3. We have a bap date! Her name is Maribel Herrera and she is from
Honduras. She moved to Oklahoma (where she met the missionaries) and
then she moved here when she ran out of money. She came to church for
the first time on Sunday and our ward KILLED IT. They were awesome.
They all attacked her with love and kidnapped her and helped her and
sat with her and gave her leftover food from the party the night
before. We didn't see her for most of church because the members were
being awesome! That's the way it's supposed to be people! Bishop came
and introduced himself to her and when he told her that we are her
family here, she started bawling. It was AWESOME! Twenty cool points
for our ward. And we've got a baptism for the 20th! Right before
transfers on the 23rd when I go to Harlem :) (okay that's just my
secret wish... But milagros pasen!

Also, this heat is destroying me. I thought I'd be a little better
prepared after growing up in Vegas but this humidity is grooooosssss.
I can feel my proteins denaturing. Our saving grace is the cocohelado
lady on South Broadway that gives missionaries free cocohelado :)
#ticket2celestialK

I love you all! Thanks for everything!

Hermana Hall

P.S. HAPPY HUMP DAY!

Plan of Salvation

Dear family and friends,

Hmm... This week...

We're still working on finding new people to teach. SO we planned this
super awesome district APF where we stood on the corner of South
Broadway and gave out free lemonade while we stood next to a GIANT
paper layout of the Plan of Salvation. "Want some lemonade?" *start
pouring slowly "Have you ever heard of the Plan of Salvation?" (Of
course not!) "oh let us tell you.... OH LOOK A GIANT BOARD EXPLAINING
THE ENTIRE THING" BAM. Baptized.
But naw, it was SUPER cool. We got to talk to a lot of people and we
found a ton of new investigators. Pictures attached :)

Tonight we ate three dinners and during the third one Sister Hansen
puked in the bathroom three times. Ha ha. Okay it wasn't funny because
we had to cancel our last dinner appointment... But it was a little
funny. #nomorebeansandrice

Anyways, we're still doing good. Our area is still struggling, but
we're working harder on being the best we can be and talking to
EVERYONE. Gotta catch 'em all. I know it's my destiny. Oh and hey
guess what... My halfway mark is on July 2nd. #humpDAY That's in
exactly a week. And that's the day the entire mission is going to the
Yankees Game! Look for us on the big screen.

I LOVE YOU ALL,

Hermana Hall

Quinceanera

Dear everyone,

I am being cooked alive. It is SO hot and humid and I'm slowly roasting away, but still getting large because of the crazy amounts of rice and beans that we eat.

But it's all good! We have a new elder in our ward and he's super sweet and ready to work. So we're going to town! We had a quinceañera this past weekend and it was legit. I said the prayer and they kept taking flashing pictures of me and throwing off my Spanish. Blew. I'm attaching a video so you can know how to plan mine when I get home. We also had our ward Father's Day activity and it was LEGIT. The Relief Society planned a dance and it was hilarious. Too many hips. We also sang at a wedding for one of the members and had really good seafood (I haven't had seafood in almost 8 months). Best food ever.

So yeah we kind of had a party weekend. And it's World Cup so every Hispanic home is off limits for the next month. Okay not really, but no one wants to talk to us when the Mexico vs. Brazil game is on. But we keep working!

Today we played street ball and all of my athletic abilities have been officially lost. But that's okay because we're still those legit white girls who play basketball with Hispanics on pday (how many times have I said legit in this letter? = not legit)

Anyways, I love all of you and thank you for your support! We're praying for miracles in our area and I ask that you all pray for us as well :)

I love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Hall

Dominicut

Dear friends and family,

My companion has been sick again this week so it's been kind of uneventful, but I will tell you about one of our less active lessons.

We want to visit Hermana Reyes, who hasn't been to church in almost a year. We brought some members over with us a couple of weeks ago and we had a really good lesson and she came to church the next Sunday.  Then we went and visited with her and she just talked and talked and talked and talked about how good she felt.  She talked with the bishop last Sunday and she resolved a lot of things.  She said she just felt amazing and light and she was skipping on the sidewalk and jumping to touch the leaves on the trees and she loves the birds and all of this wonderful stuff.  She told us that she wants to have the Spirit with her so bad that she is willing to do anything to have it with her.  She is changing her thoughts, her actions, and everything in her life just to have the spirit with her.  She reads her scriptures and prays and she LOVES the gospel. Her goal is to go to the temple in 3 months.  She is amazing and I just love her! And this all came from two members coming to her apt to invite her back to church, where she felt the spirit and realized that she needed to change her life.  Go reach out to someone this week!

Other than that, we're trying to get Sister Hansen over her sickness so we can get back to work!

I love all of you guys and I hope that you can do something to reach out to someone this week :)

Love,


Hermana Hall

P.s. I almost forgot, (Aunt Suzanne is going to hurt me...) so as we know, my hair is super obnoxious and grows way too fast... So it's been getting a little nasty and I've been living with a mullet (proselyting in the front, pday in the back) but we basically live in the Bronx so unless I want to go get a dominicut at one of the 5000 barber shops here, I'm stuck with just finding a pair of scissors and letting someone take control.  So this guy in our ward (Elvis) offered to cut my hair because it was so gnarly.  As he's cutting my hair I ask "so where did you learn to cut hair?"  "When I was in the military".  AWESOME.  But don't worry, this marine did a good job and now I have escaped the grasp of the evil 80s hairdo. Yay!

I Love My Mission

Dear family and friends,

This week was a great week! We had mission conference on Friday and it
was amazing. Elder Snow from the seventy came to talk to us. He said
that he LOVED our mission and talked a lot about faith, the focus of
our mission for the last couple of months. He talked about the spirit
and how it will sanctify us and that with the spirit, we can do
anything. We just have to have faith that God with help us to reach
our goals and be obedient and faithful so that the Spirit can guide
us. It was a great reboot for us as missionaries and helped us all get
the personal revelation that we needed.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference. Our stake
president was being released, one of the reasons for Elder Snow's
visit in the New York area. It was an amazing conference. We talked
about hastening the work and then in the morning we talked about the
Lord's vision for Zion. The new stake president, President Jeffereys
talked about how he church is not a country club for saints, it's a
hospital for sinners. We should all be physicians in that hospital,
and be the healing hands to help those who are spiritually sick. It
was an amazing conference and amazing to see the mantle pass from
President Taylor to President Jeffereys.

Funny story: on the way home from stake conference (which ended at
930pm) we were late getting to the station so we missed our train. So
we waited for the next one and hopped on, only to find out that we
were on the wrong train SO we hopped off at the next stop and sprinted
all the way back to the station that we had just come from, only to
watch our train pull out from the station right as we got there. So
then we just had to wait for the next train, which would be arriving
in an hour, at 10:50. Did I mention that we were stuck in Kingsbridge
in the Bronx? The sketchiest place ever? But we made it home by 11:30
so it was aight. And we were all alive. Winning!

Training calls come tonight and transfer calls come on Saturday. So
we'll see what happens!

I love my mission. Even though I still struggle with feeling
inadequate and not being he perfect missionary, I'm really trying. I
make mistakes every single day and I can see myself failing at times,
whether it be with helping the people, helping my companion, or being
completely obedient, but I can also see Heavenly Father changing me
into the person and the missionary that I want to be. The Spirit
really can change people, and it sanctifies us. I've seen it time and
time again. We just have to be living worthy of it and willing to let
God change us into the people that He knows we can become.

I love you all!

Hermana Hall

Choose Celestial

P.s. Pictures of us being stuck in the Bronx and of us with Elvis
walking to our member-with lesson in the rain