Elder Austin Halls: Week 86 He is Risen

Hey-O,

Started off the week by getting a brand new car. The church usually switches their cars out at around 50,000 miles and ours was a few thousand past that. We're now driving a new Malibu and it's got a pretty nice interior. Really spacy and it has WiFi in it for now. We're spoiled rotten... Later that day we went and saw a lot of our investigators. Our teaching pool is getting big these days which is awesome. We're actively teaching about 15 investigators which is probably the most I've had in my mission. We found 8 new investigators last week and the zone leaders just referred us another guy with solid potential. Things are happening here and it's amazing. We basically spent most of the afternoon on Tuesday doing quick visits with investigators and following up on commitments. Dorothy is doing amazing and is cutting cigarettes out of her life! We're super happy for her!

Once a week we usually make a trip to a little store called Las Palmas where they sell tacos and your typical Hispanic things. It's usually gold for finding and we try and buy something so it looks like we're actually there for that reason Ya know? Anyways we've had a few short talks with a guy named Javier and this time he had enough time to watch Prince of Peace and accept a Book of Mormon. He's moving soon, but it was cool to teach him in this little tienda. Go missionary work. Hah later that night we saw Manuel with Bro. Reyes and there's just something about having Hispanics teach Hispanics. It helps our street cred a lot and Bro. Reyes did an awesome job teaching him. You could tell Manuel respected him and it went super well! 👍🏽 I wish I were Mexican.

Thursday was a solid day. We ended up having two splits with two different members so yet again the trio wins out. I love doing splits because getting two lessons done at once is fantastic. We got a lot of work done which was needed!

Friday we met these new guys that are super solid. I was amazed at their faith and I think good things will come. I don't want to jinx it, but we're pumped to teach them and I haven't seen so much faith and love for Jesus Christ in any other investigator. We also got to see Jorge and he's making things hard. He basically told us that he wants to read all of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants before he gets baptized. We tried to tell him that that's unnecessary but who knows if it sunk in. We tried to explain that the scriptures are like instructions to setting something up. If we wait until the end to start putting the thing together it won't go very well. It was a valiant effort... We need a few more lessons with him to get things hammered out. That night Elder Nelson and I went out and found some new people to show Prince of Peace to. Easter time is always good to find those open to a message about Jesus Christ and we're taking advantage of it!

We had a good Sunday at church with a lot of people showing up out of nowhere. Janet spoke in Spanish with the combined English and Spanish congregations and she did awesome! It was great for her because she hasn't been to church for a long time and she got a lot of love from the ward. Dorothy came too and I was so happy! She was outgoing with everyone and said she loved it. Dorothy is great. ☺️

Random thoughts

Elder Condie fell asleep during a dinner back at the apartment and so when we needed to leave Elder Nelson and I woke him up by whistling super loud. Haha he gets up and was just shocked into speaking jibberish. Literally no other way to explain it and I was dying. Craziest thing. Haha I had no idea what was going on and neither did Elder Condie. That guy was out cold. 😂
We saw a guy holding a cardboard sign on the side of the road that said:"Why lie? I need 5$ for a beer." Honesty, pass it on. Pittsburgh at its finest.

I hope everyone had a good Easter Sunday and you were able to spend it with family and friends. I focused a lot of my studies this week on the Resurrection and I truly am grateful for the Savior and his sacrifice for us. My testimony of the Resurrection can be summed up in the words of one of my favorite hymns:

"He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days’ prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered; man is free.

Christ has won the victory."

Christ truly has won the victory and I'm happy to be out here telling people about it! Hope you have a good week!

Stay out of trouble,

Elder Halls