My Week 'N My Late General Conference Notebook #Ponderization

This past week in a paragraph: I went on a split with my good old friend Elder Laumatia on Tuesday whom I roomed with back in the MTC.  It was really fun and we talked to a lot of people on the street that night.  We ran into one guy who was fluent in Japanese but wasn't Japanese so he had us guess where he was from.  Korea?  It is Asia right? Laos? Sri Lanka?  It turned out he was from Mongolia which definitely was a first in my life.  He seemed interested and he gave us his meshi for his wife's business of making French Pastries.  We tried it out the next day and it was quite delicious.  The next day I went on a kocan with Elder Nakatsuka (yes Japanese) and we had a lot of fun talking to people on the street OYMing.  No new investigators but we almost had a guy meet us again.  We testified about God's help and I talked about when I first came to Japan how it was hard but God helped me learn a little bit of the language so I could speak with people.  Other than that last night we finally met with a Brazilian less-active we had been trying to meet with for awhile and set up an appointment to come back later and teach her and her non-member boyfriend about temples.  That should be fun!  The Brazilian candy was a nice treat as well.  I think I am addicted to Pacoquita now!

Well, another part of my week was consumed with GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!  Sorry, with this excitement you might have thought Christmas came early in Japan or I was just going back to my half-Canadian roots to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving but as a missionary General Conference is basically our March Madness.  One and a half days of just pure spiritual revelation!  So cool!  It was definitely an exciting conference even though it was bittersweet a little bit.  It was hard to say good-bye to the deceased Elder Packer, Elder Perry, and Elder Scott who I had grown up listening to in conference for the past twenty years.  I really loved Elder Bednar's talk about the last testimonies of those who he had served with in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and to see their witness of the Savior.  It was a fitting good-bye to those humble servants of the Lord who had been in His cause serving us for a large portion of their lives.

Recently as a missionary, I have been given the opportunity to get to know or meet a few of the brethren speaking this year.  My former mission president President Yamashita gave a closing prayer and I had previously met Elder Aoyagi, Elder Whiting (he said a prayer), had heard from four of the twelve apostles when I was at the MTC and had Elder Ballard and two of the newly called apostles, Elder Rasband and Elder Stevenson, come to our mission back in February and had the opportunity to shake their hands.  With this rare opportunity as a missionary to see so many great men, my testimony has been really deepened in the leading brethren of the church.  A great theme this conference was that God calls the weak and magnifies them.  I have learned of the truthfulness of that statement.  Those General Authorities I have met have seemed like normal men besides the fact of the Spirit emanating from them as they speak with power and insight from God.  I remember a time in the dark, cold winter of Takayama when President Yamashita visited our four man District Training Meeting.  I will forever treasure that experience to be with a member of the Seventy and his wife with only four of us elders.  I have a personal testimony that our leaders are truly here to serve us and the Lord and their humility is a witness of their dedication and service to the Lord.  Most of my testimony in the leading brethren of the church have been following their counsel long after the closing prayer of General Conference or after having seen them.  I bear my testimony that God's servants will never lead us astray and that God stills directs his church today through the strong and the weak.  I understand the feeling of being inadequate to a calling given to you as a missionary and I have seen in my service how the Lord leads and directs those weak ones he calls.

One talk specifically that struck me this week was by Devin G. Durant.  'Ponderize' is making a strong run to make it into to Webster's Dictionary next year.  My goal is that we will use it so much that it becomes official by the next time he gives a talk in General Conference.  How amazing it will be once we all take one scripture a week to memorize and to ponder about throughout the week.  How many of us will be scriptorians in no time!  How many blessings there will be once we pick a scripture once a week to ponderize!  We will all be bouncing up and down with joy when it becomes our turn to share a spiritual thought in our weekly meetings.  All seminary students will have scripture mastery finished in 25 weeks.  Our non-member friends will be able to see our weekly scripture as we post it on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter, or make a board of Pinterest just for Ponderization.  No missionary will have to think twice about which scripture to share when they visit a member.  All families will have an opportunity to grow together in their family scripture studies.  The possibilities are endless!  From now on, each week, I will post my own ponderized scripture at the bottom of my e-mail in order to catch the fever.  So pick a scripture today as a family or with your friends or as a seminary class.  Or, you can just use the one I send out too!  

I'd like to give everyone else a challenge as well.  Ponderize General Conference and the words of the living prophets! Take one each week and Sunday (to keep it holy) study and ponder it and apply it throughout the week.  I will be sharing my thoughts on a General Conference talk each week in my e-mails for awhile so if you have a hard time deciding which one to study I got your back.  So everybody log out of your e-mail and get to ponderizing!  I know that as you do so you will be able to accomplish all the goals you set during conference weekend and be able to follow all of the Spirit's suggestions to improve you have received!  

I love you all and have a great week!

"Is any thing too hard for the Lord?' -Genesis 18:14

Pictures from the week

1) McDonald's swag with my homeboy Elder LAUMATIA!!!

2) Welcome to Nagoya

Lucky Charms and Arabian Knights

This week I got more adjusted to my new life in Fukutoku.  We
had a lot of random things pop up that took away some dendo time (like
prepping for Zone Training Meeting) but we still had a lot happen.
Tuesday was a split with the Assistants.  Elder Tanner (who actually
is from Las Vegas and went to Centennial High School) kocaned with my
companion and I went with Elder Sato.  It was pretty fun.  He had been
here in the area before so he took us out and visited a few people he
hadn't said goodbye to and tried to get things going with them.  We
actually randomly on the street met an investigator that was wanting a
meshi (a business card with your name and address on it) from him.
Because of that we have been able to start lessons again with her so
it was a cool little miracle.

On the other side of the kocan, Elder Tanner and Elder Moulton were
teaching our French investigator when his friend from Iran randomly
came over.  He could only understand a little bit of the lesson in
English but he was SUPER interested.  So, they made an appointment
with him two days later.  So we went and met him and he is SUPER
SICK!  When we met him I thought he looked more European because his
skin was a little lighter but I guess Iranians come in a different
array of colors too.  We had to speak really simple Japanese with him
since his Japanese is better than his English but it was super cool!
He had been away from his family for eight years; I thought two
was bad.  His real name is hard to pronounce (or even remember) so
everyone calls him Jack.  He likes super hard-core Persian poetry from
the 12th century (which if anyone looks up anything about the Persian
language, it is supposed to be super in depth and super hard to
understand) and loves reading!  So, we taught him lesson 1 centered
around the Book of Mormon and he asked us if he could read it all.  OF
COURSE YOU CAN!  He even said he would be baptized if he came to know
that it was all true!  And did I forget to mention he is super buff
with flowing long brown hair?  He would totally pass of as a Knight
any day of the week!

On Friday we taught at ZTM.  We had prepared a lot for it the last two
weeks and have been praying about it a lot.  It went really well and
it was cool to see us be lead by the Spirit.  We had a whole plan laid
out with the two Sister Training Leaders in the zone but we followed
it a lot less than we thought we would.  Randomly in the meeting,
scriptures or quotes popped into our minds we shared and members of
the zone shared some really good insights.  A couple things we had
planned at the beginning were skipped at the beginning and then shared
at the end instead, without any of us planning it with the other
people!  We talked a lot about being ourselves as we dendo and we had
all the missionaries write their name on the top of a piece of paper
and pass it around to everyone in the zone so they could write on of
their talents on it.  So at the end, everyone had a piece of paper
with compliments from everyone in the zone!  It was so cool!  Not to
mention the Sister Training Leaders dressed up Harry Potter style to
give a training about how missionaries are all wizards.  Wand equals
faith but we still have to find out how to use the wand/our faith in
order to use it.  Cool huh?

The rest of the week we tried to practice what we preached and be
ourselves and make friends when we OYMed and talked to people on the
street.  It worked out really well and we have had a couple of really
good talks with people, even if some of them were drunk coming back
from a wedding or not interested in the end.  Also, we visited a few
members' homes this past week and one family didn't have any rice to
feed us so they instead gave us Lucky Charms.  Let's just say I have a
new favorite family in the ward, even if they technically live outside
of the area and our zone and we had to get permission from the
assistants to even visit them.

The spiritual thought for the week is about prayer.  I have had two
different experiences with it this week in regards to teaching.
Before ZTM, I was able to take a couple minutes to pray to God to help
guide us as we taught since I was kind of a little nervous about
addressing the whole zone.  God answered my prayer in a very evident
way and it was rather a miracle in how we were lead by the Spirit to
change some things around on the spot.  The next experience I had was 
Sunday when I was teaching the Gospel Principles Class in Japanese all
by myself.  I was able to pray before this lesson began too in order
to ask to be lead by the Spirit.  I started out and the results were
quite different compared to ZTM.  I was slow to speak, made a lot of
mistakes, and it was hard for people to follow along with me in the
book.  It was luckily on prayer so it was something I always teach but
the group setting was still a bit rough with not many of my questions
being answered.  I shared a video at the end and bore my simple
testimony about prayer.  After the closing prayer, people thanked me
for teaching like they always do even though I did a sub-par job.  I
felt good after the lesson though and felt like the recent converts
there were touched by the Spirit.  I didn't flow perfect Japanese or
even keep the class's attention for the whole time, but, nevertheless
my prayer was answered and my teaching and preparation helped them in
some way or another.  I know that God answers every one of our prayers
and is always listening.  Sometimes the answer might come in an
unexpected way, in what seems like a delayed time but it comes.  The
prayers that all of you say on us missionaries' behalf are answered
everyday and the Lord protects me and others here in Japan and
throughout the world and our investigators all the time.  

I pray that you all have a great week and enjoy the cooler Fall weather.  
I love you all!

Elder Hall

1) Me accidentally burning myself with cooking oil...

2) Me with all of the zone

3) My week described in a picture #dokireunion


4) Selfie (using infrared because there wasn't enough light at night)
with some kids at a members house