The Change from "What More Can I Do?" to "I'll Give it a Try"

Good Morning family, friends, and ward family,

This coming week Elder Tews will give me the opportunity to start conversations, lead them, and extend invitations to people we meet. Through doing this, I hope to use the enabling power of the Atonement to become a better missionary that I could by myself. I'm pretty excited for the opportunity, but I'm also a bit nervous for it, and I will gladly accept any prayers for help in this goal. These things are part of the reason why I chose the subject for this email that I did.

But it wasn't the only reason. Through using their faith and trying, the Rubios have made steady changes and improvements in their lives. The family comes to church regularly and more of the daughters are reading from the scriptures. I see the promise from Moroni 10 fulfilled for them: as they read, ponder, and pray about the things they read in the scriptures, they come to know it is true, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

On a different note, we used the car a few days of the week. The Sister missionaries wanted to bike more during the week, and so on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, we visited people using much larger wheels. I really enjoy having a car because we can travel further than if we use bike. I also like biking because you can talk to people as you pass by them. Both are great for different reasons.

Have you had a lot of rain, or are your San Antonio people still in a drought?

Maybe San Antonio has felt a minor drought in comparison to previous years, but I wouldn't really know. We had a utter deluge this Wednesday, luckily we had access to the car. San Antonio has the habit of raining on you without your permission, and without giving signs of how long it wants to rain. For me, this feels like a lot of rain. For San Antonio, however, I'll have to ask the local members for their opinions.

How has the Book of Mormon guided you in your work this week?

The Book of Mormon provides scripture references for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we reviewed this with Sister Johnson, we used a different scripture for Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. Each were found in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has guided me in learning the doctrine that I will share.

What is the best tender mercy from the Lord you have received this week?

This Sunday our current Bishop of Windcrest was released and we received a new bishopric. Because it was also testimony meeting, we heard testimonies from our current bishop, his wife, our new bishop, his wife, one of the stake counselors, the new 1st and 2nd counselors, and probably a few other leaders. They shared their testimonies of the restored gospel, and I felt renewed. There are countless others, but I did enjoy this testimony meeting, after the sacrament.

Wait, Something even better. We met with the Rubio family for dinner yesterday and visited them on Saturday, and they are progressing steadily towards baptism. The tender mercy of seeing them make changes in their lives is fantastic.

What is the wisest thing you have learned from Elder Tews this week?

A difficult question, for sure. I've learned that I need to take leadership in our companionship as we meet people. I will need to branch out of my comfort zone even more. I'll talk more about this next week.

What has been your greatest cooking success this week?

For breakfast on Saturday I made scrambled eggs with mozzarella cheese and toast coated with margarine and jelly. Oh, and I also cut up a chicken breast and cooked it with a little help from my companion. Not too shabby.

-Elder Hall

P.S. Thank you to Mom and the Millar family for the letters. I loved them both.

Sep. 2014 Windcrest Ward Missionaries