January 18, 2011-Three Long Weeks Without A Letter

hey everyone,
alright so i dont know if you guys got my email from last week. if you didnt, my bad. i sent it, but i guess it jus got lost in that crazy cyberspace hahah. but if you didnt get it, im sending it right now:
hey guys!
its been soooo long since we´ve written hahah ok not really. but
either way, its cool to be able to write you all again. even though
its only been a couple days since we last talked, they´ve been a good
last few days.
new years was alot of fun. we didnt go as all out as we did on
christmas with food and stuff, but still it was alot of fun. we hung
out with 4 other missionaries, ate fideos (cant remember the word
right now) with chicken, played chess and a couple other games
like that, and played hide and seek hahahah yes im still a kid and i
still like playing stuff like that haha. then at midnight
evverryonneee and their dog started setting off fireworks, so we went
on the balcony and just watched them for like 30 minutes. it was all
pretty tight. it sounded like you all had a really good new years too.
so i think that the only real new thing thats happened since then
was the lesson that we had with a guy named richard yesterday. i dont
know if i ever talked about him and his family. like we found him, his
wife, and his wife´s sister like 2 weeks ago just clapping a house.
the wife´s sister, angi, came out and started talking to us. she told
us that they had talked to the missionaries once before and let us in.
so we talked with them, and met richard. he´s such a capo! like
they´ve all been going to the evangelist church, but they dont seem
super convinced about it. so since then, we´ve been going over and
teaching them. yesterday we were only about to talk to richard, but it
was such a good lesson. we had planned on talking more about the plan
of salvation, but when we started talking, he asked us a couple
questions, so we just ended up answering those questions that he had.
its awesome cause he´s super sincere to know if this church is true.
he told us yesterday that he really wants to believe that it is. we
invited him to be baptized, but i dont think we did that great of a
baptismal invitacion, and he just told us that he´d like to go to
church before deciding. but we´re expecting him and his family to go
to church this sunday. i know that if they go, they´ll know that its
the true church of Jesus Christ. so we´re gonna do everything that we
possibly can so that they all go. he does have to get married too, but
we talked to him about that yesterday and he didnt seem to have any
problems with it. i dont wanna say this too early, but i really feel
like he could be on of God´s chosen.
other than that little experience, guys, i think thats about it.
but this week, we´ve got alot of hopes. we´re hoping to take out
atleast 3 new baptismal fechas. we really do have faith that it will
happen and that the Spirit will touch these people´s hearts so that
they feel the need to be baptized.
mom, as far as new years resolutions go, ive got a goal for
baptisms that id like to have this year. but im just gonna keep that
personal for now haha, sorry. other than that, im working really hard
to not just be a better missionary, but to also help other
missionaries to be better. like i know thats not really something that
you can measure, but i think that at the end of my mission ill be able
to feel if ive really accomplished it or not. dad, sounds like you and
sean have had a blast with the wii golf. why wouldnt you ever
play stuff like that with me when sean was on the mission?!? hahah no
its cool. i prefer playing for real anyways, even though im not much
of a golfer haha. sean, now you and emily get to go back to the lovely
work/school life...you guys are sooo lucky! hahah dont have too much
fun with all that dude. paige, im still wearing a helmet the first
time i go driving with you hahah. bridg, thanks for the email. sounds
like its been a fun week. have fun this week in school. it really is
crazy that you only have 4 months before you´re 14! i cant believe it
either haha.
well guys, my time is up. thank you all for your love, prayers, and
emails. have an awesome week and we´ll be hearing from each other next
monday. until next time...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall


last week:
alright so that was last week. sorry i guess this letters gonna be extra long hahah. but yeah, i think as far as this week goes, its been kinda off and on. like my comp and i were really hoping that some awesome things would happen. we had some cool things that happened, but we were hoping for a little more i guess. but we´re trying to take out all the good that happened and correct the bad. like i told you all last week, we were hoping to take out baptismal dates with richard and his family. but we went by his house and one time he wasnt there. another time, we went by and he was busy with some family stuff. he felt kinda bad cause he wasnt able to talk to us. then on top of that, he was planning on going to church with his family, but his litle daughter got sick and he ended up having to go to the hospital. so yeah, we havent been able to talk to him or have any progress with him this week. but thats the good thing about the mission. there´s always a next week.
as far as some of the good things that we´ve got going on...we found another really awesome family. elder gutierrez and i are excited cause we´re starting to find alot of families again. like this one is sweet. like last week, we found an older lady named olga. she was nice, but she talked sooooo much and made it really tough to teach. but after that, we set a day to come back. when that day came, we were thinking about not going cause shes just a talker. but im really glad that we felt the need to go back cause when we did, we were able to find her daughter, gisela, and her son-in-law, guillermo. and yes, theyre married already! but they are seriously so awesome. we taught the restauration, and gisela told us that she believed it all. and when we gave them the book of mormon, she was so excited. she told us that she loooves to read and that shes gonna read a bunch and pray to know if its true. she convinced her husband to do it with her too. what a capa. yeah, so we´re also hoping to take out baptismal dates with them sometime soon.
we had another cool experience. there was a woman that came to church yeserday with her 2 little kids. we started talking to her and found out that she was an investigator from like 2 years ago. she loooved the church, but her husband literally wouldnt let her come. but she went yesterday all by herself. i dont know whats up with her husband now, but she went to church. it looks like a miracle to me. shes coming to church this sunday and then we´re gonna start teaching her. i think she can progress fast and really well.
well this week is transfers again. its gonna by sooo fast! i dont know whats gonna happen. i could easily leave, but at the same time, id like to stay. well i guess well see what the Lord needs me to do.
k guys, i gotta take off. thanks a bunch for the letters, and especially your prayers. please remember our investigators in your prayers. i love you all. until next week...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall


today:
well i hope you get this email. if you dont then i dont know what to really do. so you better get this email haha.
alright so first and formost, ill let you all know what happened with transfers. pretty much all of us were thinking that i was gonna leave. like i really didnt want to leave, but we all kinda figured that thats what was gonna happen...but its a good thing that i didnt start packing my bags, cause elder gutierrez and i are gonna be staying together for another transfer!!! its really crazy cause this is gonna be our 3rd transfer together and thats not usually something that happens. it looks like president stapley is starting to do it with more companionships. but when we found out, we were sooo stoked! we were like celebrated and screaming like crazy hahah. im excited to be with gutierrez for atleast one more transfer and im glad to be in the area again cause i really think that we´ve got alot going for us.
so as for last week...i think that we were hoping for a little more again. it wasnt a bad week though. we´ve just got high expectations and we havent been able to reach those expectations yet. but we did have another good experience this week...on like wednesday morning, we were getting ready to go eat lunch and we were doing some contacts right before. when we were walking, i saw a house that i had never seen or clapped before, and i felt like we needed to talk to those people that lived there. so we did a contact in the house and a lady came out. we talked to her and she let us in almost right away. after talking for a little bit, she told us that she had always wanted to talk to the missionaries before cause she wants to find a church, but she never did. she we had a really good first lesson. then like 2 or 3 days later, we went back and taught her again. she just seemed to believe everything and feel that everything we taught was the truth. so we were able to take out a baptismal date for her for next month. she seems pretty ready for the gospel. we just need to find out if shes married or not. that could be the only thing preventing her from getting baptized in the next couple weeks. but we´ll just see what happens when we go by this week.
lets see, we also got a reference from a member, who´s friend is dating an lds guy and wants to learn more about the church. like, she already knows about it and stuff, but we´re gonna try and start teaching her too cause it would be a really good opportunity. we´re hoping that that works out and that she starts to take the lessons.
mom, sorry for not being able to hear from me for the last 3 weeks. i really dont know whats been up. its kinda weird. dad, sounds like them lakers are starting to turn it up a little bit. someone told me today that theyve won like 8 in a row. atta boy hahah. sean, dude im way down for that job when im back at byu. that would seriously be wayyy sick. if you really can hook me up when im back, it would be so tight (ps- the other day, i almost almost almost thought i saw a blue bird fly by the window. but i was deceived hahaha). paige, im hopin that youve already sent gubdaddy´s letter cause i saw him today and he told me that he still hadnt heard anything from ya. hes startin to lose a little hope. you better get writin hahah. bridg, hows school going? ill bet that youre loving being back and everything haha. dont have too much fun...
k guys, you better get this email. i dont know what to tell ya if you dont. but either way, i love you all and hope you all have a great week. thanks for your prayers and everything. until next week...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall