Nov. 25, 2013

Hey mom!! Family! How are you guys?! I hope that everything is going great! I am excited to talk to you guys this week! I am so excited to Skype on Christmas! 

It sounds like that you guys had a really pretty good week! Thanks for telling me about it because you know that I love hearing about what has happened with you guys! =)  That is so silly that Olivia is still slaying zombies! Funny that you missed me when you went into the Hillcrest gym! I pictured it when I was reading it and I missed it a little bit too… but it is ok. We had good times while they lasted! =) 

1. My eye is just fine now. I called Hermana Jett to help me out and she did so much for me. Thank you for getting a hold of Dr. Affleck for me. That was a life saver! I got some eye drops and I haven’t used my contacts for about a week now and my eye looks a lot better but I have no idea if it is the same eye or not.  I am relatively certain it was the same thing but I don’t know if it was in the same spot. My memory isn’t too great! But overall my health is good and I am feeling great! Thank you for being concerned for me =) 

2. This week was amazingly better than any other week. We worked really hard and Elder Hernandez has the desire to work too. We found some new investigators. I had a pretty cool experience. We were walking and I saw a glimpse of a guy and I felt that we needed to talk to him. So we turned around and went back to his house. He came out like he was surprised to see us but he let us is. We taught him the restoration. It was really cool! He is named Rodrigo. We are supposed to visit Rodrigo again on Wednesday so I hope it goes well! Elder Hernandez is a great guy! I have learned a lot from him already.  I am excited to work with him! Elder Archuleta is a cool guy too!  I kind of miss Elder Aguirre though. And investigators, we have Rodrigo like a told you and we have searched all week to find new ones! We have a couple but none that are progressing as of now... give us another week =) 

3. Church meetings are the complete three hours and just the same as at home for the order of the classes.

4. The thing that I learned is so much patience but the thing that I learned most is to rely on my Savior. I truly grew so much closer to Jesus Christ this last change.

5. If you want to print the missionary’s letters out and send them that would be great. I have been taking pictures of the ones I can’t read.

In my personal study yesterday I was reading in 2 Nephi. I found this scripture. 2 Nephi chapter two, verse 24. This is exactly like the mission. Just connect all the things to my circumstances in the mission. It is really cool! I love this scripture. Also all of chapter 2 is super great in second Nephi. It makes me appreciate the love of my Savior and also Heavenly Father. 

I hope that you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving week. I am sorry that you are getting rid of the birds.... Tommy must miss me, but it is ok. You can eat him this week ;) ha-ha but I will miss them. I am so thankful for everything that I have my family, friends, the gospel, church, the support in all aspects and everything. I love you guys so much and I hope that everything continues to go well for you guys!!!! I will talk to you next week! Also, a small favor, could you send me my priesthood line of authority... that would be great! Love you guys so much!!!!!!!

Love always, 

Elder Tegan Hall

Nov. 18, 2013

Hey family!!!! How are you?! Ok so I had this nice big intro but all of it erased.... so I am just going to skip most of it but I love hearing your stories about what is happening at home! I really do and they help pick me up. That is nuts that dad sang in sacrament meeting with the choir but so cool! Wish I could have heard it... my butt is really chapped that the whole thing erased.... oh well. Ha-ha

Q and A
1. Ok so this week not a lot has happened. We waited for changes this week and I was really nervous. I get a new companion that is Mexican called Elder Hernandez. We will be in the same Baquedano sector but I really hope that he wants to work hard. I am ready for it. Elder Leiva goes to a different sector. He was bummed and I felt bad for him. So I meet my new comp tomorrow! Nothing is new with investigators. NOTHING. It kind of stinks but that will change!!!

2. Yes I got the camera thing figured out so it works more efficiently. It is sweet! And also I got my Christmas package today. I was really surprised! But happy! =)

3. There are usually two splits a change, usually in the middle and towards the end with the zone leader.

4. I would love instant oatmeal and jerky!! And that is about it. Just whatever you want to send. I am the luckiest elder I think. I get packages and letters so often... I feel spoiled but I love it!!!

5. No I haven’t mailed any letters yet but I will get on that.

The thing that I have learned about the most this change is the Atonement... through all of my pains and trials I have grown so much closer to my Savior and I am forever grateful to him... thanks to Him I can have all the happiness I can ever get with my eternal family and living with Him and our Heavenly Father again. I love the theme that you had at church yesterday! (Strengthening home and family)  Love you guys so much and thanks for all you have ever done for me so I can be who I am and be on the mission! Love you soooooooooooooo much! 

Love always, 

Elder Tegan Hall 

P.S. I couldn’t get pictures uploaded today but I will try again next week. Some of the computers here are crap... but I thought I would let you know I walked more than 100,000 steps this past week!!! Ha-ha crazy! Love you!

Nov. 11, 2013

Elder Porter and I about to eat some lunch!

Me and my comp

Paintballing from last p-day!

Thank you for your words of encouragement! I appreciate it greatly! At times I feel that I am not good enough in the sight of God but then if I wasn’t good enough I would always have His help with me. But yes I read my patriarchal blessing but not as frequently as I should! I need to read it more and I will start doing that! I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and my Savior too. And what more? My family!!! =) love you guys 

Thanks for the update on your week. I love hearing about it and that everything went well!! You guys are such a great example to me and I am so proud and thankful to call you my family!! =) love you guys

Q and A

1. The week was pretty good. I feel like that my companion is unmotivated and he feels like the zone leaders always put him down because he isn’t exactly obedient but he tries to be. When he gets put down, I get put down.... it is hard but I have prayed and fasted for the help of the Lord to help me out with this. During my fast on Saturday, my companion wanted to go to internet to work on the lists of people that we need to verify but I told him no because it wasn’t our assigned day. With inspiration and revelation from the Holy Ghost I was able to help us both figure it out and it went well. Thanks to the help of the Lord I was able to help us figure out our problem.

Last Monday when we were in the super market buying our food, we saw an old investigator. Turned out he wanted to talk to us and we put a visit in our schedules. We visited him the next day, David, and his wife. We talked about the restoration and he was really interested. He promised to go to church yesterday. We also made various visits to less actives this week and recent converts. But yesterday, only two people went to the church under our charge, a less active and a recent convert. That was a bummer. But it is all good because we are going to go to the houses of the people who didn’t come and lay down the law. ;-) We had interviews on Friday with the president and my interview went really well. I was able to talk about some of the difficulties I have had and President Warne was very helpful and gave some good advice, '' be an example through your obedience and service''. I have tried that the past few days and from what I can see it has helped. Yesterday we ate lunch with the Kohle family. It turns out that Brother Kohle was companions with Tyson Stewart!!! How cool! We took a photo and I will send it to you. But that is about it for the week besides that it flew by!

2. We find out our new companions and areas on Saturday. You will know next Monday!

3. My calling in the young men’s is alright. The Young Men’s president is pretty hard and closed to advice. We try to help him out with how we can get young men to the activities but he doesn’t listen. He just says that it is their fault and thanks to that, none of the young men want to go to mutual and even the church. We are trying to figure out a solution.

4. Ya, the house is pretty gross but it feels like home kind of... nothing like Idaho. But we have also done a lot of cleaning this past change and the house is a lot better than it was the first change. So that is a plus!

P.S. I received a packet with some pecan brittle on Friday!! And some other things too! Especially a card from my two favorite girls in the world! Love you guys thank you and I would say that I am definitely the most lucky of all the missionaries there is =) 

Thanks for all you words of advice from you and from other people. I am so glad that you are always trying to help me out! I love you guys so much! Over all, I love the mission and although sometimes I am kind of tempted, I could never go home until I have finished my service because this is what I want to do. I know that my Savior lives and thanks to him, I am happy!!! A happiness that will endure forever! Thank you for all of your examples, thoughts, prayers, and everything! Love you and ttyl!!!

All of my love, 

Elder Tegan Hall

Nov. 4, 2013

Hey everyone!!

I am pretty darn good. Sometimes I just feel like I am alone and doing this by myself with someone who doesn’t care much for me. It is tough but I just have to keep my chin up and remember my Savior. Sometimes I wonder if I am good enough for a mission. The standard is so high out here that sometimes I feel so incompetent, like I am not cut out for this and that Heavenly Father is, I don’t know, half pleased with what I am doing.... but I think he is happy with me when I try my best right even though if I didn’t do everything perfect?? This is definitely the hardest thing that I have ever done and sometimes I just want to give up.... call it good... take a nap... but I know that the Savior has suffered the pains I have too so with Him I can do it, even though it will be hard...

1. Ok the week was mediocre... we didn’t find one new investigator this whole week in our sector and the numbers for lessons with recent converts and less actives were ok... I feel like we lose time and people’s houses but this week is a new one with 7 new days to do something good! The worst part is we didn’t find any investigators in our sector but the best part was that we did find a new investigator (Me and elder Leyton) in Rengo when we did divisions. Elder Leyton told me lets go to that house. I saw dirt bikes in the back and I thought, “We are in!” =) The guy was outside and we started talking dirt bikes for a bit and how I rode when I was home and then we ended up teaching him the restoration of the gospel. It was a great lesson!!! All three of us felt the Spirit so strong and it was cool. Elder Leyton and I both have the same amount of time in the mission. Elder Leiva and I are doing pretty good. This change is already two thirds of the way over! Crazy... 

2. Halloween was just about like the USA but there weren’t as many pumpkins because they are expensive down here. But kids still trick and treated and Elder Leiva and I gave out pass along cards of the church to some kids! Ha-ha it was cool. The missionaries didn’t do anything special for the holiday.

3. My feet are getting better. I talked to Hermana Jett and she got some cream stuff for my feet and they are on the mend.  I think I have allergies in Chile too because I am waking up with a stuffed nose now and sneezy but I have some medication.

4. Last Monday I received three letters, one from you, Casey Carpenter, and Alan Sargent, and two packages, one from you with peanut butter and treats and from the Windmillers with jerky! =) I couldn’t be any more lucky than last p day! Ha-ha and Elder Leiva loves jerky so he is always asking for it but I don’t want to eat it all right away! Ha-ha but I do share.

5. The thing that I love about Chile is the food (except this last week we had some nasty seafood stuff like clam with poop and dirt) and then I love the people, especially the kind people who say hi back in the street and also when they let us in their house to teach and talk with them. I hate the dogs right now. They are always barking and it is hard to hear at times but I am accustomed to it. 

I love your emails and am so glad that you send them to me with everything in them. It is a stress reliever for me which, trust me, I need every week. I don’t have much more to say other than I am going to send some pictures your way of this week. I am going to try and start taking and sending more! And I will try that idea with the camera. By the way, we went paint balling for p-day today and it was a blast! Loved it and it was a killer-way to relieve stress!! ;) I love you guys so much and I miss you all extremely. Thanks for the letter you sent me this last week. It was dated Sept 4. I have read it a few times to help me get through some rough times. Thank you. I love you guys. I wish I could just give you all a hug and then return to work... I love the work but it is definitely hard! I will talk to you all next week. Love you so much more than I can say!

Love always, 

Elder Tegan Hall

Sorry for no photos. Next week. I am out of time! LOVE YOU ALL =)

October 28, 2013

Me, Hermano Godoy, and Elder Leiva

Hey family!! =) How are you all?! So nice to hear from you. 

Thanks for telling me about the week! As always I love hearing about all that you did. I am glad that the missionary moms had a good time at lunch together ;) ha-ha sounds like a blast! Tell them hi for me please! =) Sounds like nothing to out of the ordinary happened which is good. Congrats to dad for selling the first one of those Oreions!! =) how exciting!

1. My feet are decent... the left one is really peeling badly. I dry it every night after I get to the house and take my shoes off. Recently I have started putting athlete’s foot cream on it and we will see if that helps. It gets progressively worse as we walk but only slowly. I have not bought shoes yet. I didn’t have the time to do it the last p-day but I hope today I can be able and do it! While I am thinking about it, I can’t believe how fast this past week went by! Yesterday I was thinking, wow I can’t believe that it’s already p-day tomorrow! That is cool =)

2. As far as cooking, sometimes I will boil some soup or fry an egg but nothing more than that. We don’t really have the time to cook... and our oven doesn’t have a door. We only have a stove top. Ha-ha but as for now there aren’t any recipes I would like. I will let you know when I want any. Thank you so much for your kind offer! 

3. Yes they do celebrate Halloween but I am not sure quite what they do... after this next week I will know and then tell you in the next letter. =) But it looks like it will be about the same thing as home.

4. The zone leaders just walk. The only people that have cars are the old couples that work in the office and the three sets of missionaries that work in the office, as for everyone else, feet on the street, or bicycles. 

The "Zone" last p-day at lunch! I'm in the very, very, verrrry back!

5. We have worked a lot with less actives and recent converts lately. We had a good turnout in the church of less-actives and also got a recent convert who doesn’t go to church very often, to go! =) That was great! A lady named Magali called us this week and said, “Hey, I want you two to come and visit my son.... turns out that they are a less active family and haven’t gone to church for a while. It is the mom, Catalina (15), and Pablo (13). They are all baptized but don’t go to church very often because her work doesn’t allow her time. We went to their house and started talking and Catalina ended up bringing two of her non-member friends to visit too. We had a great lesson about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I felt the Spirit so strong and I know that they all did too. So as for now the two friends are our investigators and the family is some of our recent converts. Catalina and Pablo went to church yesterday. Christian, Jorge, and Anita nothing has happened with them... Norma and Orlando are no longer because they won’t go to church but they’re a nice old couple. Andres and Carla we haven’t talked to them for about a week. It is hard to get a hold of them and put a time that we can visit them because he works lots of hours during the day and Saturday and Sunday are his rest days....  =/ not much with investigators. I have had a difficult time with Spanish this last week and I don’t know why.... I think I haven’t been praying sufficiently for the Lords help in that. Also I feel like the Spirit has been lacking in my life as a missionary. I have a hard time of thinking how I can apply the gospel to peoples’ situations so I think that the Lord is trying to teach me something and I am trying to learn what! 

I just want to share one passage of scripture before I check out. It is about the Atonement and it really helped me realize what Jesus Christ did for us as our infinitely generous brother. It is

1 Nephi 19: 7-9. Super good and it definitely helped grow my testimony and faith. the time is going fast.... I miss you guys every day and I pray for you always... thanks for all that you do for me and all of your support. Christmas is only two months away!!! Skype, ha-ha! Send my love to everyone and tell them thank you for me please. I love you guys and I will talk to you next week. I appreciate it... I appreciate EVERYTHING! 

I cut my hair this morning...

               All of my love, 
               Elder Tegan Hall

            it turned out to be a little bit too short... ha-ha won't make that mistake again!!!