June 7, 2010

Hi Family,
Training is going great. My new companion is Elder Wilson. He's from Preston, Idaho, at least he is not from Utah like my other companions. I forgot how green I was when I came out of the MTC, the questions he has are funny. But as for me, it look like I will be here around 12 weeks training him, so don't worry Mom, I'm not going anywhere. The investigators we have committed to baptism are just not showing up to church. Mitch committed (as usual) he would be at church and we even were able to sit down with him this last week and talked more about baptism and taught a few commandments. But he did not show. Angela, we also committed her for church for the third week in a row and were able to teach a lesson about the priesthood, and recognizing the spirit, but she was did not show. Justin I don't think is going to be able to get baptised this month. He wants to be baptized, but keeps falling through on our appointments. His mom, Barbara is excited for him to be baptized but it's just not a priority. The latest person we have committed is Lakeena. She is the most sincere, I think personally, and the only one that is really pondering about what we teach her. When we committed her to baptism she said that the only thing that we need to go over is Joseph Smith. That is the only thing that she is hooked up on, and basically the whole existence of our faith and church. So we are going to hit it on the head Wednesday with the next appointment.
This morning I heard a couple things off a CD and really started to think about it. I'm going to start changing and adjust my teaching solely (? how ever you spell that) to just The Book of Mormon. I need to get excited about The Book of Mormon, and if I can show how excited I think my investigators will be just as excited as I am in the Book of Mormon. And once they are excited about the Book of Mormon they will read, and learn to love the Book and learn all the plain and precious things that Nephi talks about. And then the spirit will touch their hearts and they will know that it is true. I truly feel like people are loving me and not the Gospel or the Book of Mormon that I bring into their life.
I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale
p.s. I forgot to tell you, I went to a Catholic mass last night....crazy stuff but I now have a former investigator's e-mail. He was training to be a catholic priest so I'm going to e-mail and convert!