Elder Hall's Final Testimony

Wake up to an alarm and you roll out of your futon.  Go to the bathroom in order to momentarily postpone your thirty minutes of exercise.  Come out and exercise, get a bowl of delicious fruit granola and then bow your head to pray.  Read a talk or some Japanese book you still manage to have from the MTC as you slowly munch waiting for your companion to finish his time in the shower.  Hear the shower door open as you are slurping up the leftover cheap milk from the nearby Japanese supermarket in your bowl and hurry to jump into the shower.  Scrub, rinse, sing a quick song and get out, only to face the ever so burdening question of "Which tie should I wear today?"  Go to the kitchen to get a drink of water and happen to see the clock at 7:59.  Finish the knot on your dangling tie, gulp your drink, and rush into your study room.  Hit your knees hard on the floor and bow your head to ask for the Spirit to guide your studies that morning.  Jump up in your rolly chair and open up your Book of Mormon.  Something doesn't seem quite right now as you rummage around for the answer on your slightly cluttered desk.  "Ah, my name tag..."  You grab it, slid it onto your white shirt's pocket and with that click Elder Hall has officially started his day as a missionary.  

That click of my slip-on name tag hitting itself against my shirt pocket has brought many mixed emotions these past few days.  I realized I wouldn't be hearing it (even though it may be a sound thousands of missionaries never quite noticed until getting to my age) very many more times.  After today I will hear it just once more as I get ready to hitch a ride to the airport to catch my plane back home to America.  That ritual ceremony every morning seems to happen as fast as my mission happened.  I came out a young 18 year old immature scared little elder and am now going back a much different and tested person.  I am so grateful for the experiences I have had and the growth I have undergone on my mission.  Now I am leaving with many mixed emotions.  On one hand I see my family again after a two year separation but on the other hand I leave those I have come to love in Japan.  On one hand I get to move on in my life to getting an education and starting a search for my next companion but on the other hand, I leave the life as a missionary that I have come to love and cherish, even with all the hardships contained in the package.

Luckily this last week was good and we worked hard.  It was a lot more normal than I thought it would be though.  Member appointments, four lessons planned on Saturday and all but one fell through.  It rained, I got way sick my last two days and had to push through it until the end.  We had a really stressful Eikaiwa party where all these kids came out of nowhere that we hadn't planned for and we had to make up an activity for them (coloring always works I learned!).  We found some good P.I.s and one really good 15 year investigator!  I liked how it was a normal missionary week.  Yeah, it would have been cool for someone to run into the church asking for baptism but just working hard until the end in normal circumstances made me appreciate and truly love the time I have spent as a missionary even more.  I wish I had just one more day to experience the joy I have felt being a full time missionary over here in the blessed country of Japan.

Even with all these feelings of sadness, doubt, and confusion, I can still feel the Spirit's sweet and quiet assurance that I truly did my best and helped people as much as I could have.  Even with mistakes, times of disobedience, times of laziness and times of disappointments, that with the help of others, I rebounded from those and was able to get back on the track of hard work and diligence.  I think that is what true joy is no matter what happens in your life, to you or to those you love, you feel that quiet reassurance that everything will be alright or that burning in your bosom knowing what you are doing is right.  Joy truly is the reward of missionary service.  Not just for others you bring to the gospel, but yourself as you lose yourself in the work.  In my call letter, it promises the following, "The Lord will reward you for the goodness of your life.  Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children.  We place our confidence in you and pray that the Lord will help you become an effective missionary." 

I have felt that promise from the prophet of the Lord come true and I feel like the Lord accepted this two year sacrifice.  I didn't part the Red Sea or anything big like that but I did see many small tender mercies and miracles from God as I tried my best to live as a missionary.  I know I will always cherish this experience.  I know that this church is God's true church and he restored it through Joseph Smith so we could find happiness, in this life and the next.  Christ lived, died and now lives again and guides this church through a living prophet Thomas S. Monson.  I know God is our Father in Heaven and Christ is our older brother who loves us so much that all that they do is lead and guide us in this life so we can go back home to live with them and our families forever.  I know the Holy Ghost will lead and guide us as we pray and ask for his guidance and seek to be as obedient as possible.  Our everyday choices determine our destiny but by being obedient to God's commandments and his will for us, we will find joy and make our lives the best.  I am excited to see my family again and know that we can be together forever.  This is my testimony and my wish that all may come unto Christ and be saved, for his burden truly is light.  I leave my final testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

See you all at the airport,

Elder Hall

ホール長老

Ponderizing Scripture

"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day"

-2 Timothy 4:7-9

Monday Flashback

"Personal Study"

"One year older and wiser too!"  6/1/2015

Pictures

This less active bro Sudo Kyoudai who just came to church for the first time in ten years!

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My very last Sushi in Japan!

My final DTM

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Y.O.S.O. (You Only Serve Once)

This week has been all over the place.  Stress, cool appointments, problems to face, meeting bros on the street, leaving the area, racing around to hunt for less active's, and comeback Sundays where your stats random,y go through the roof when the last week was abnormally low.  Just normal missionary life.  I really wish I could experience this a little bit more besides the time I have left out here.  You only serve once.  No second chances, no extensions, no callbacks.  Once it is over, it is gone for ever.  I am sad that is coming up soon.  I am really glad for the time I have left and the time I had this week as well.  Nothing out of the extraordinary, just tender mercies flying about as we try our best and sometimes trip up.  The mission man.  If you aren't out, I recommend you go.

Monday after Pday we visited a less active as we went to go find my camera that I lost which we found by the way.  Tuesday and Wednesday we went around visiting people that weren't home.  Thursday was an exchange that was way fun!  We were talking to so many good people that we had no time to make it to the people that we wanted to visit.  But, we found some people with good potential and then later invited their investigator to baptism which he kind of said yes.  It is hard to explain but it is always fun to invite because you never know what to expect.  Friday was District Meeting and Saturday we went to a city higher up in our area and talked to a lot of people and one old guy had a ten second memory and we talked about the same thing with him for ten minutes.  He was hard to leave because we would say we had to go but then he would forget that we would have to go. Haha.  Sunday we talked to a cool guy riding a bike wearing sunglasses and holding an ice cream cone in his hand.  He believed in God, wanted to hear more, and was done to meet so we will eat out with him this week!  We have WAY too many meal appointments set up because I want to eat all the good Japanese food.  I hope I don't get fat at all. #morningexercise

I have been thinking a lot about the joy of sharing the gospel.  I have been thinking of how I can measure my overall success as a missionary now as I get closer to the end.  Obviously there can be no numbers counted up or a way to know how many people you have actually changed but the only thing I can measure is my own progress.  I still have faults, I still joke around a little too much sometimes, I still let my weaknesses get to me but serving others has really changed a lot of my priorities I feel like.  I can confidentially feel like I have been able to be successful because I have changed and improved.  I am really sad at this time as I think about leaving soon but I also feel peace that so far I have been able to serve the Lord to the best of my ability.  I heard once that you have an eternity to prepare for your mission and an eternity to look back on your mission but that you only have two years to live it and love it.  Hopefully I can live this next upcoming week in order to look back on my mission and be pleased with my two years service.  I guess we will see what happens.  I will email you all again next week and I love you all!  Enjoy the increasingly hot May weather!

Elder Hall

ホール長老

Ponderize Scripture

"And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth! Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

- D&C 18:13-15

Monday Flashback

"I don`t think most missionaries get to see the full fruits of their labors and I don`t think most people see the effect of their good deeds and actions.  Something as little as picking trash up on the side of a street or smiling to someone can change a lot.  So I guess the lesson is to just keep on pushing, keep doing your best.  You may never see just what comes of your good actions but trust me, someone else will always be blessed as we do our best by living and sharing the Gospel of Christ.  I`ve been able to see just a glimpse of the results of my actions and I am excited to help out more and improve people`s lives once again in Numazu."

- "The Return of the Bean" 5/22/15

 My final exchange and a sweet guy from Nepal? (Yokkaichi happens to be a hotspot for Nepalese BTW)

Buddhism, my friends

Member Appointments!!

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Finding 101 and Time Lapses

Just another great week.  I feel like I say it every week but I am a missionary so I can't lie at all so it must be true!  We had a lot of member lessons again and are inviting everyone to our English class party later in the month.  The ward is sick and helps us out a lot.  On top of that they are way fun to be around!  Hopefully everyone can bring a friend or three!  Also other unrelated news is our recent obsessions as a companionship and apartment of making time lapses of ourselves doing normal things really slow so it looks like normal speed.  I will attach a couple for you.  We also had a pizza party in the middle of the woods with an older member who invited a bunch of his nonmember friends.  It was way good and we got to talk to a couple people about what we do as missionaries, even though nothing concrete came out of it.

We also spent a lot of the week focusing on beefing up our finding which has been slugging off a bit.  And boy, did it deliver!  As a zone we have been studying one chapter each week from good 'ole Preach My Gospel and this week was the finding chapter.  We were trying to think of ways on how to diversify our finding approaches.  We have a couple of activities in the making but since they are more long term activities, we wanted to come up with something more short term we could do now.  In the midst of this thinking, we decide to go to a little island thingy called Nagashima (Long Island in Japanese) that is thirty minutes away by train to visit less active's that may or maybe not be presumed dead.  Not much logic behind that decision!  We are looking for one of the addresses in this place with a bunch of rice fields and a few houses when we stumble upon a guy during some yard work.  We stop to ask him where to go and it turns out he spoke fluent English and wanted us to teach his kids English.  All in the middle of basically nowhere!  Cha-Ching!  New investigator!  Just another experience proving that the Spirit is the only way to find.  We are visiting him tomorrow to teach their family and it should be really fun, even though it is a bit far away.

The finding streak continued later this week as we were walking to the train station yesterday.  A businessman was walking very briskly past us so we stopped him and talked.  I don't know if you know anything about Japanese businessmen but they are basically some of the hardest people to get a conversation going with.  Each time you try to stop them, they just look at their watch and run off with the excuse of no time or just keep moving on their way to catch a train.  We thought this guy would be the same but luckily, he chatted with us as we walked together to the station.  It turns out he has been studying a BUNCH of different religions because he is interested in such things as "What happened before this life?" and "What is next after this life?" which we luckily have the answers to.  The stoplight before the station we all three just stopped and plunged into an hour discussion about our purpose in life, why there are so many churches, and how he can know for sure what is true.  This guy really wanted to know the truth and asked SO many good heartfelt questions.  "If I ask a different God will I get an answer?"  "If I ask about something wrong will God lead me to the right answer?"  Way, way, cool, prepared guy.  His name is Nakazaki San and he sadly lives in a different city and wasn't willing to give us his contact information quite yet.  We gave him fifty different ways to contact missionaries (our phone number, Mormon.org, LDS.org, Book of Mormon, church address, pamphlet) and even if he doesn't he will for sure study us up and eventually get back in touch.  One of the most prepared people I have ever met in my mission though.  I am lucky enough to be along for the ride with the Spirit!

These two experiences and other small ones throughout the week have made me think a lot about the Spirit and its role.  Elder Hales gave a great conference talk last month entitled, well, what else but "The Holy Ghost"!  In it he says that "the Holy Ghost provides personal revelation to help us make major life decisions... In these matters, Heavenly Father expects us to use our agency, study the situation out in our minds according to gospel principles, and bring a decision to Him in prayer."  I think it is an interesting concept.  We can't just blindly ask God for the Spirit and get it doing by nothing.  Like most things, it takes work.  We first have to study it out in our minds, come up with our own plan, and then ask for confirmation.  If we prayed all the time at each intersection we come to which way we should go, I think we would lose sight of our personal role in receiving guidance.  Instead, as missionaries, we pray to have the Spirit throughout the day and do our best to live worthy of its guidance.  We pray before planning to have ideas come into our minds and feelings into our hearts and after we make the plan we pray to make sure it is right.  Then the next day we pray over it again just to double check and sometimes we pray when our backups go out the window and people cancel.  It is my testimony that God does guide us as we seek his help, even in the little things.  Tender mercies are out there and as we do our best God will bless us with them.

I love you all and I hope that you all have an amazing week!

Elder Hall in Japan

Elder Hall on a train in Japan

More of Japan