October 4, 2010

Hey Family,
As for me, everything is going swell. The only thing that I can say is that this area is way too big for one companionship. About 8 years ago there was 8 sets of Elders covering the same area that we are covering now. We are just spread out so thin, and we can only spent 1 day a week in an outside area, which barely begins to make a dent in all the finding and follow-ups that need to get done. And then there is the countless less-active. kind of to put it on a scale of how big this area is, we had district meeting Friday and had to drive 100 miles to get there. We have to spend a lot of time in traveling, and it drives me nuts! The people here are a lot slower at doing things, keeping commitments, appointments, answering phone calls, that kind of thing. So the work is a lot slower than Clinton which I am still trying to get used to. This week we also had Zone conference in Des Moines. It was a great meeting with President Jergensen going over how to better use members in the work, it was kind of a spin off of what Elder Zwick had taught us the week earlier. Our district also had interviews at the end of conference. President is such a teddy bear. Its just so easy to love the guy. As for the area, things have been going slow. Still we are doing a lot of finding with the recent baptisms that went on, and many potentials to follow up on. We were able to talk with a guy named M last night after General Conference. He was tracked into but we have never been able to get ahold of him since. We stopped by his house and he invited us right in. We found out that he is originally from Chile, but is now teaching Spanish at a high school. He went to our church in Chile for about 3 years when he was a kid. His neighbors invited him every Sunday to go with them. After about a 3 year span his neighbors moved away so he wasn't able to go anymore. He still could remember the primary songs that he learned and remembered how the church building looked and felt like. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon, he mentioned that he remembered a little about Joseph Smith, so we went on a talked about the Restoration and what happened to Joseph Smith. We left him with a Book of Mormon and left. The spirit was real apparent in his house as we talked with him, and we are so excited for him.
Mom thank you for the story about Johnathan H. Hale. I was going to ask for it, but you read my mind. And I'm also excited to hear about the Whipple side, I don't think that I even know much about that side of the family. I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale