November 29, 2010-Gobble, Gobble

heyyyy!
alright so guess what i got today...? your guys´ package came today! i opened a bunch of stuff and was wayyy stoked. thank you all for that stuff! now, im definately set on memory cards for the rest of my mission haha. i even gave elder gutierrez a 2gb card that i had but hadnt used yet. since he didnt have one with alot of memory, i just gave him one. but i freakin loved the magazine clippings of kobe! those are soooo sick! im so gonna stick em up somewhere hahah. i also read a couple of the letters. seriously be sure to thank all the people that took the time to write those for me. its awesome. the pictures were super sweet too! dan looks a little older now. haha my comp and i were joking that you guys were trying to make me trunky or something for sending those pictures of when he got home hahah. but no worries, cause it doesnt make me trunky at all. ive got too much time left anyway.
alright well im writing you guys with some really great news this week...milagros and agustina got baptized on saturday and were confirmed yesterday. it was actually kind of crazy cause during the week, a member called us and told us that milagros wanted to ask us if they could change the baptism to this week. i dont wanna say exactly why she wanted to cause its kinda personal, but ill just say that for personal girl reasons, she wanted to wait to be baptized this week. but my comp and i talked about it for a little bit and we decided that we still had to get them baptized this week. were just persistant like that i guess. but the thing was, we didnt want to baptize agustina on saturday and then wait another week for her sister to get baptized. its way better for families to get baptized together. so we went over to milagros and agustina´s house and started talking about it with them. after talking for like an hour we were able to convince her that she could still get baptized on saturday. after she talked to us, she felt alot better about it and agreed to still do it that day. but it was a really great baptism. we had a pretty good number of members that showed up, so that made it alot better. so yup, theyre officially members now...now we just need to help mary. she still just needs that signature from her husband to get divorced. shes planning on going to visit him again sometime soon. so keep her in your prayers. we´ve also seen a little progress in the dad too. he told mary that if they were gonna get married by court, why not get married in the church too. so we´re gonna try to work with him also. thats cool cause at first, he wouldnt even say hi to us.
even more good news is that that girl that i told you about, agustina´s friend micaela, is gonna get baptized this saturday too. we´re pretty stoked. we´re gonna try to work with her mom too so that she can go back to church. but the mom is really nice too and really wanted micaela to get baptized. so we´re just teaching her everything and this saturday she gets baptized. its awesome cause shes already gone to church twice and really likes it.
other than that, elder gutierrez and i are working hard to find new investigators. we´ve been focusing so much on getting some of these people baptized that we havent been able to find as many people as we´d like to...its gonna be a little tough this week cause all week weve got leadership meetings with president stapley. but still with the little time that we´re actually gonna have to work, we´re basically gonna be teaching micaela and looking for more investigators.
mom, thanks a bunch for sending me that package. i thought it was so awesome. my comp is soooo excited about all the candy haha. but for me, more than anything i just love the letters. dad, i dont know if you had anything to do with those pictures of kobe, but if you did, just know i think its way sick. im gonna show em to all the lakers fans here . oh and i didnt get to read your letter that you wrote yet, but im plannin on readin it soon. but i did see that at the end, you just wrote, ¨peace out¨ which is something you would definately do haha. but yeah i laughed alot about that. sean, dude i heard that the lakers lost to the jazz! how do we lose to the jazz?!? and i think someone told me that we lost to indiana or something too...que?! que onda che?!? im definately not worried or anything cause the lakers can pretty much turn it on whenever they want, but still...we should win those games. paige, wow i saw that video of you singing. wow! First of all, i really like that song. but wow you sang super well. i was telling my comp that it sounds like your voice has matured alot over the past 1 and a half. it was really good. bridg, i know youre not ¨thrilled¨ about going back to school and everything, but its only a couple more weeks. in no time, its gonna be christmas break again. these are the best times in the school year...right now and finishing of course.oh yeah and be sure to tell dylan, rylan, tyler, and jared mcdonald (yes i know who he is by the way) thanks a bunch for those letters. i was cracking up so much. those kids are so hilarious. dylan´s letter was super funny...he drew me a turkey haha. sorry i couldnt understand a word in rylan´s, but he wrote his name really well so i understood that. and tyler asked if i played baseball when i was little...i never played for a club, but i always loved it. hes probably better than me already though haha.
alright guys, we´re gonna take off now. we´ve got to go teach micaela in 30 minutes. but thanks again for the package and everything. i love you guys and hope that you have an awesome week. as dad would say, ¨peace out¨ haha...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall


ps- enjoy the pics guys! 3 of them are from are from the baptism and the last one was just for fun while we were doing service at someones house haha

November 15, 2010-Grateful

heyyy everyone!
hey so i didnt even remember that michael howells had gotten home already! wow it feels like just a couple days ago when he left. thats so awesome! be sure to tell him that i say hi and to tell him congrats for me.

well its been another good week for elder gutierrez and i here in el triangulo. i think that i told you all that we were hoping to take out more baptismal dates with people this week, but unfortunately we havent been able to do it. i am really excited though cause there have been alot of really good things that are happening...as you know, milagros and agustina are going to get baptized on the 27th still. we had stake conference here on sunday, and we were able to take mary and agustina there. milagros couldnt go cause she woke up and was feeling kinda sick. but shes all good now. mary and agustina really the conference and all of them are really excited for the 27th...rossana is still getting ready for her baptism on the 27th also. we´ve been working really hard with her cause she has smoking problems and also drinks. the drinking isnt really a problem for her, but shes been smoking since she was like 15. so this week when we went to her house, we brought her a big back of mints and hot candys so that whenever she gets the urge to smoke, she can just suck on a mint hahaha. hopefully that it works. she seemed to like the idea haha...we´ve also got the baptism of hugo for the 4th. he wasnt able to make it to the conference on sunday, but really really wants to get baptized. like as soon as possible, so he keeps telling us that ¨si-o-si¨ hes going to church the next to weeks so that he can get baptized hahah. its pretty crazy cause when we first found hugo, i felt like something wasnt right. like he was just so excited to get baptized and asking us when he could be baptized and all this stuff. like i was way excited too, but i just felt like something was weird. but now that we´ve talked to him more, it just looks like hes one of those really prepared guys that you find every once in a while.
Ok so ive got another crazy story for all of you. so the other day, we were walking in the morning and just kinda trying to find people that we could teach. i saw a guy outside of his house and decided that we should talk to him. so when we first started talked, he seemed like he was gonna try and bible bash with us. but we just kinda bore our testimonies, instead of bashing back at him, and he completely changed his attitude. he let us in and started talking to us. but here´s the crazy part, when we asked if we could start with a prayer, he stands up and takes out a revolver and a huge hunting knife. the first thing i thought was, ¨crap, i was hoping to live a little longer than that.¨ hahah but he just took them out and set them on the table. then he asks us, ¨do you know why i have these on me?¨ and i was like, ¨hopefully they arent to kill us...¨ hahah but he told us that he always carries them on him and that he was a marine before he retired. hes just super super protective and wants to protect himself from all the people ¨outside of his house.¨ im just really happy that we got along with him well while we were talking to him outside of his house. but hes turned out to be a really awesome guy...just a little intimidating with the gun and knife haha. but its cool cause the first time we talked to him, he told us that there were 3 churches or doctrines that he thought could be the true ones of Jesus Christ, one being ours. the second time we came by, he told us that hes started to believe that ours is the true church. so yeah, i thought that you guys might get a kick out of that little story. you just never know whats gonna happen here in el triangulo.
mom, as far as thanksgiving goes, lets just say that most people dont even know what you do for thanksgiving so im not expecting any kinds of plans for that day. argentines seriously have a holiday like everyday for whatever reason, but they dont celebrate thanksgiving. kind crazy huh. oh and to answer your question on whether you or dad look any different, ive gotta say no. i guess that means you dont look any older, so ill bet youre both happy to hear that ...dad, bummer that the lakers had to lose on moms big day, but from what people have been telling me, its sounds like we´re still dominating. be sure to keep me posted on those guys. sean and emily, how are you guys doin now that the snow is about to start falling. wow that sounds so crazy cause here its starting to get alot hotter. but im actually super excited for the heat. i guess im just more of a sun guy. paige, so whats new of there at home? are you doing anything besides dating and stuff like that hahah just kidding. bridg, i saw the picture that mom sent with you just in the backround. what are you doing? youre making such a dorky face hahah. its pretty funny though.
well i think that thats about it for this week. other than those things that i told you, its been pretty normal. elder gutierrez and i are hoping to have a better week this week and just keep getting these investigators ready for their baptisms. id really appreciate all of your prayers for them...i love you all. i hope you have an awesome week. oh and before i forget, it sounds like we´re gonna change our pday next week to wednesday again. so plan on me writing wednesday instead of monday. until then...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall

November 10, 2010-California Hugs

hey guys!
well first of all i want to be sure and wish mom a happy early birthday! i noticed that you didnt mention anything about your birthday in your email hahah so if that was your way of testing me to see if id remember haha i think i passed. but i hope that you have an awesome birthday tomorrow. be sure to let me know next week how it went and what you guys did and stuff.
well i know that i said that we were gonna change our pday to today cause we were gonna go to capital, but what happened is that monday morning, president stapley called me and told me that he felt like the missionaries for now shouldnt be going to capital. it was actually really cool what he told me cause he said that he felt like something inside him told him that he hadnt been listening until then and that he had to start listening more. i told him that we would all respect that. so we actually had pday on monday like normal. we just didnt write emails that day. but it was fun cause it rained on monday, but we went and played soccer in anyways. it was seriously so much fun, cause we were all racing around in the rain. it was a blast hahah...
well to fill you all in a little bit on everything that has happened, i guess ill start off by telling you all that brenda got baptized this sunday at like 8 in the morning. i wanna thank you all for your prayers for her and her family. we didnt end up sleeping over in the church like we were kinda planning, but we did end up waking up at 5 that morning to get to the church at 6:30 to fill the baptismal font. we made sure that it was nice and warm for her and everything too hahah. the baptism was really great too. i think we were all a little tired, but it turned out really awesome. then she got confirmed right after when church started. im attaching some pictures for you guys so that you can see. just ignore the dorky face that im making in the one. my comp is making really weird faces too, but thats just cause it was super bright and he couldnt see anything.
we´ve also had some other really awesome things happen this week. i think that it was either last monday or tuesday, when we had a lesson with mary, milagros, and agustina. we had a really good lesson where we talked about the plan of salvation and the importance of baptism here on the earth. we were able to take out a baptismal date with milagros for the same day as her sister. so they´re both gonna get baptized on the 27th of this month. they were also able to go to a baptism from another ward and able to see what its gonna be like. milagros came back from that even more excited for her baptism, so we were really excited about that...then i dont know if it was that same day or the next day, we went over to visit rossana. shes seriously progressing so well now! like the other day she told me that she read in the book of mormon for like the second time in her entire life not counting when we´ve read with her! it may sound like something little, but coming from her that was huge. but she told us that she has her answer about the church and everything, so we were also able to take out a baptismal date with her for the 27th of this month. i know that the Lord has really blessed us here in this area, especially lately. the thing now is that we want to keep up with that. we´ve been focusing alot this week on working with all the people that have baptismal dates, and finding new people to teach.
mom, happy birthday again! i hope that its a great day for you. oh and it sounds like its gonna be alot of fun since uncle jeff, aunt krista, and all them are coming down for thanksgiving. be sure to tell them all i say hi. dad, i heard that the giants won the world series, which surprised me alot. from what i heard, they had a wayyy good pitching staff. well i guess its better than some team from the east winning. gotta support a west coast world series, right? sean, dude im way stoked about the lakers. i cant believe that theyre already starting! crazy stuff dude. theres a friend of mine in the zone that i always talk to about the lakers. and hopefully the chargers are startin to bounce back a little too. im gonna try to not get my hopes up though. paige, it looks like the dance was alot of fun the other week. im also looking forward to seeing some of those cheerleading moves that mom told me about. i may have to show you some of my own too. bridg, i looked like you had a really good time at the halloween dance at your school with your friend.
alright guys, well im gonna get goin. but its all good cause this monday ill be writing again like normal. hopefully ill be able to tell you that we´ve had more success and been able to take out more baptismal dates with people. thanks for the prayers on behalf of our investigators, and for me. i love you all. until next week...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall

November 1, 2010-Halloween Hugs From Home

happy halloween everyone!
dang from everything that youve all told me and showed me from pictures, it looks like this halloween has been way fun up there in the northern part of the world. I remembered about halloween the day before, but totally forgot about it the day of. then i remembered again yesterday. so as im sure you can guess, halloween isnt the biggest thing here in argentina. to be honest, alot of people dont like celebrating halloween down here cause its not one of ¨their traditions¨ but whatever its all good. there are alot of people though that have an awesome time for halloween too.
well alot has happened here in el triangulo with elder gutierrez and i this week. to start off, we have a little nine year old girl named brenda diaz whos how family are members. weve been teaching her off and on since i got here, but her family was kinda inactive, so we didnt want to baptize her just for the sake of baptizing her. we want her to be able to go to church all the time and stuff too. and she really loves going to church on sunday which is awesome. but weve got her mom coming to church alot more often now, so we decided to put a baptismal date with brenda for this sunday. we were planning on doing it this saturday, but the dad wouldnt be able to be there, so we just said that wed do it sunday morning before sacrament. we´ve been talking about how we´re gonna do it exactly cause the hot water comes out super slow in the font here and brenda cant be in cold water or she´ll get sick. so elder gutierrez and i have been talking and we´re thinking about sleeping over saturday night in the church and starting the hot water early in the morning. but whatever we end up doing, i think that itll all turn out well...ok so heres a cool story taht i think youll all like. so we´ve got an investigator named rossana. we´ve been teaching her since a little before i got here. but from what she had told us, her life has had some challenges and 3 times in her life, shes prayed and asked God to send her help. and all 3 times, the missionaries came by a little after. the missionaries had come by 2 times before us over the span of a couple years and she would listen, but never read, prayed or went to church. like seriuosly never. shes always willing to listen to us but we could never get her to complete any of those 3 things. to be honest, ive been more than ready to drop her for a while. but last sunday, we got her to come to church for the first time in her life! the next time we went to visit her, we asked her what she thought, and she seriously loved it! like she loved everything about it! she told us, ¨if i had known that your church was like that, i would have started going a long time ago!¨ hahah can you believe that?! it was seriously so amazing. she told us right after, that she was finally really believing and she told us that she was going to read and pray. i was seriously so shocked. its the fastest change in someone that ive ever seen since ive been in the mission. we´re planning on taking out a baptismal date with her tomorrow. it was cool also, cause yesterday we said that we were gonna pick her up to go to church. but we got to her house a little late, so she took her kids and just started going by herself hahah. i guess you can say that she ¨kinda likes church¨ now. but its really true that getting someone to go to church can change everything. after years of refusing to go, she went once and it changed everything about what she thought about the church...and the last little miracle of the week happened yesterday haha. so the other day, elder gutierrez and i were walking and trying to focus on finding new investigators. we passed a house and i looked in and saw a guy in the window. he kind of nodded with his head and we just kept walking. but once again, i got like half a block away, and i got that little prompting in my head saying that i had to go back and talk to him. so i told elder gutierrez that we were gonna go back. so we went back and talk to him, and he told us that he had listened to the misisonaries before, got to church, and was about to get baptized but had moved away before he could. he said that he wanted to get baptized in the church. so yesterday we went by and taught him a lesson and set a baptismal date for like december 4th. it was just one of those unexpected things that happen in the mission. but ive learned alot about those things. one is that there really are people who are just waiting for the missionaries to come by and to talk to them. the second is that you always have to listen to the prompting as soon as you feel it. you never want to have to live with the thought that you ignored that prompting of the Spirit telling you to do something. cause you never know whats gonna happen...ive gotta say that im really happy with everything thats going on here in this area. for the last 4 weeks, we´ve taken out atleast one new baptismal fecha with investigators every week. and in that span of 4 weeks, we´ve taken out 8 baptismal dates in total. and the best part is that we´ve still got more to go.
mom, to answer your question about being fed here in el triangulo, the members are actually all really awesome. any day that we realyl wanna get fed, we can set up a lunch with someone. its pretty cool haha cause i know that there are alot of missionaries who dont have that. dad, i know that youve gotta be excited about the lakers starting up again. can you believe that we´re already saying that?!? shoot the lakers are playing again! hahah and it sounds like all is goin well from what sean tells me haha. sean, hahah i was laughing so much when i read that first line in the email. ¨sacked! and delicious!¨ dude i totally remember that will ferrell commercial thing with the football player and the twinkie hahah. ¨nothing can stop me from getting that twinkie!¨ hahah ¨spinmove!!¨ haha so funny dude...about the picture of emily for halloween. haha wow umm to be honest i realyl dont know exactly who she is hahah. but its sweet costume! hahah. sounds like you guys had some fun...dude go lakers, atleast the chargers arent totally tanking either, and you know youre gonna have to listen to all that music with me later. paige, have fun at homecoming. shoot 2 homecomings in a couple weeks! thats impressive. and about going back to blonde, im sure gub-daddy´s gonna love it hahah. it doesnt really matter, blonde, brunett, he´ll love either one hahah. bridg, sounds like trunk or treating was alot of fun. dang i remember doing that when i was way younger and it was awesome. ill be the halloween dance was alot of fun too.
well even though this week was pretty crazy and awesome, i think this week is gonna be right up there with it. we´ve got some good things going and we´re realyl excited. thank you all, especially for your prayers for the investigators that we have here, cause we can definately feel them. i love you all. until next week...
con cariño,
elder ryan hall

ps- by the way, this week we´re changing our pday to wednesday cause we´re going to capital or something. so just so you all know, ill be writing you guys then