November 7, 2011

FAMILY,
Sorry about the short letter on Thursday. We were crunched for time, and I forgot to mention some things in my last letter. I always seem to receive your letters the day after I e-mail and then forget to write about them the following week. But luckily I got your letters on Saturday and it’s fresh in my mind. For Halloween the branch had a trunk-or-treat. It was a good turn out and we were able to get T there as well. In Iowa, they have what’s called a beggars night, which is the night before Halloween, where all the kids go out and trick-or-treat. I think they do this due to all the parties and all the drinking that happens on Halloween night. So we were told to go inside from 6-9 on both the 30th and the 31st. A couple of days before this we helped close down an apartment in Winterset and scored a Monopoly game board. So we played Monopoly both nights. It was fun, we also had the Des Moines 1st Elders over on Saturday night to
play with us.
I did hear some awesome news about the ground breaking for the Sapporo, Japan temple! I saw that on some church news paper when we stopped by the mission office this week and I thought of Dad. I think that there are 3 temples in Japan now? So sweet. Just think there are people that dad taught on his mission that will be able to go to that temple.
We have a General Authority, Elder Shayne M. Bowen of the First Quorum of the Seventy coming to tour our mission. He will also be with Elder Nash. Elder Bowen will be calling a new Stake President for the Des Moines Stake and, from what I have heard, moving boundaries. This could be great for our branch, we need priesthood and leadership. It will be exciting to see what happens.
Elder Bowen has asked that everyone in the mission prior to his arrival, study the Abrahamic covenant, the house of Israel, baptismal covenant, and the oath and covenant of the priesthood. I have been studying this for a week so far and have learned a ton, so I can't wait to hear from Elder Bowen.
Thanks for getting all of my school stuff ready and signed up. It looks great. I totally forgot about the English 101 and 102 that I took in high school, but I'm glad you were able to find all of that. It probably took a lot of time and effort, thank you so much.
I was looking at those pictures that you sent me of Halloween, Rachel looks totally different, I could barely recognize her. It look like everyone have changed so much. I liked Dad's costume of Where's Waldo, and Grandpa's pirate outfit. I didn't dress up this year, I just wore an orange and brown Wembly suitmate tie (Wemblys are a coveted brand of ties around here) so I thought I would wear my best. We did pass out candy to all of the kids with Elder and Sister Jahn, a senior couple in our branch.
Right now we are headed over to go and see the State Capitol, I will send you some pictures next time.
I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale