August 15, 2010

FAMILY,
My new area is the Des Moines 7th branch! My new address is:
708 16th street #6
Des Moines, IA 50314
Its a way cool place it actually reminds me a lot of Phoenix. The area that we cover is down town Des Moines and the surrounding neighborhoods. It is the smallest area in the mission and we share it with the AP's. We are in a car share, so every other week we are on bikes getting around the place. Its so sweet, it's a lot like the area where first Fridays takes place, there are a lot of lower class and poor that live there with many run down neighborhoods, but then you have the areas where artsy hipsters move in and remodel and fix up the place. It's so awesome. The branch is a huge change from Quincy. In Quincy the leadership were very bold and respected as they lead with authority. Here not so much. It is a very laid back relaxed environment. I've been kind of quiet trying to understand how everything works and learn all of the members names. The branch is tiny. There were only about 50 to 60 people there on Sunday, and 12 of them were investigators. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting, it was on enduring to the end. Both of the AP's and I spoke for sacrament meeting. We brought the coolest guy to church, Bro. Haynes. He's from Mississippi and loves the Book of Mormon. From what I heard he went to church for the first time last week on fast and testimony meeting and bore his testimony of how much he loves the Book of Mormon. He has a baptismal date for the 3rd of September, but this morning we ran into some complications with his living status, he might be moving back to Mississippi. We are going to find out tonight.
The Iowa state fair started last week and President approved all of the missionaries to go. We are going today with our district. My plan is to find the weirdest thing deep fried and eat it. I've heard rumors about all of the different kinds of food you can find so that is what I'm up to today. I want to try and sent home a bunch of pictures and packages home this transfer. This will be my last area and I need to start to sent sending things home and consolidate a little bit. I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale
I attached some pictures. I hope they came through. They are all from Quincy. The last library computers didn't allow me to attach pictures to my e-mails.