October 11, 2010

Hey Mother, family,
Well, this week has been a tough one. I had training meeting this week in Des Moines again for 3 days. It was great training to go to, but oh boy it was hard to get through. We were bunked in a small apartment with some other elders, and I did not sleep well. The third day was the hardest for me, I woke up not feeling good, and Satan has just been hounding me all day long, I don't think I have ever had a day like that where he has just worked and worked on me as much as he did. I just seems like I haven't been myself the last week or so. I haven't felt good, Satan has been taking advantage of that. I have been literally drained of energy trying to keep my head on straight. It's just been a weird 7 days, hopefully everything will get back to normal. So please say a few extra prayers for me.
Thank you for the letter with all that family history, it was awesome. I didn't know all that cool stuff about them and how they were in this same area fighting against the opposition, and here I am doing the same thing today. It just gave me goose bumps when I read both accounts from each side of the family. I really want to go back to Winter Quarters and look for their graves. Our teaching pool has finally begun to grow. It's taken some time but we have really been able to meet with some solid people this week. We met with this guy named A, who actually knows a member in the ward. He's started to read the Book of Mormon, but hasn't ever been able to find time to sit down with us and talk. Finally Saturday we had our first lesson with him. We talked about the restoration and committed him to baptism at the end of the lesson, but he felt like he wouldn't be ready in a month to be baptized, so we set up another date to come and talk with him and get him ready. Elder Johnson is leaving the tri-companionship. Our zone leader got called to be an AP, so Elder Johnson was called this morning to be a companion to the ZL in the Boone area for the rest of this week until transfers. So unfortunately I think I will need to invest in a GPS for this area. Elder Johnson had one and it really keeps us effective with this huge area so we won't get lost. I just wanted to let you know.
I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale