Cousin Jansen AKA Elder Hall update- A Rock without hands:) 3/19/13

Hey ya'll, Happy St Patricts day! I hope everyone had a great green filled day:) I know I did! But this week has been really good! We started out with a training meeting on tuesday. It was down in Birmingham and it was for all the new missionaries and thier trainers! It was such a great meeting! President Holzapfel talked and man he is so amazing! He told us a few things. One is we need to do our best and leave the rest to the Lord. That is what the atonement is all about. He related this statement to missionary work but I wanted to relate it to all of you. If you do your best every day with everything that you do, and maybe you do make a mistake, then part of doing your best is repenting of that mistake and not thinking about it. Leave it up to the Lord to fix it and everything will turn out ok because the Lord never loses. You will always be on the winning team:) The next thing is that He takes you as you are, and asks you to become. Wow what a strong statement! The Lord love us all and he accepts us how we are. We are all different in our own special way and the Lord loves that. But he knows what we can become and asks us to work on that. Now that is a very big thing to handle, to become like the Lord wants you to become. But as we turn to him and get his help along the way he can help guide us down the right paths, shape us into better people, and eventually become as he is! And most important with that statement, DONT WORRY! The Lord has blessed us all, and when you worry you are letting satan win. So please dont do that:) But those are some of the things we learned:) Now I want to talk a little about my area, which I dont know if I have told yall about it much but if I have im sorry for saying things twice haha but Corinth is the furthest area away from the mission. It is also the biggest area in our mission. You can literally drive an hour each direction and still be in our area haha but anyway the mission president before President Holzapfel would send missionaries he didnt like to Corinth to get rid of them. He did this for a long time and because of it this area became the worst area in the mission. My president is trying to change that. Missionaries call would and still kind of call Corinth outter darkness. I dont know why the Lord trusted me to come to this area, but im glad I have had the oppurtunity to have Corinth to be my first area! I have learned so much from it and I know that we are changing the area. President had me and my companion stand up during the meeting and talk about our area and our baptism we just had. He then got a little emotional and with tears said, "Corinth isnt outter darkness!!!" That made me feel so special to know that he cares about each area. And so does the Lord! He cares about each and every one of us individually! Transfers are on Wednesday and Elder Galorath and I are staying in Corinth! I love it here! I love the people and I love being apart of changing an area around! Now Its not because of me or my companion that things are changing in this area. It is the Lords work! It is him that is changing the area for us! He has truely blessed us! I have come to learn that missionary work is this. You work your butt off! You study harder then ever! You tract and serve and love the people with the greastest love you have! Then because of that work the Lord will bless you with a miracle of getting a new investigator. Getting to teach someone. Its not by our efforts that we change lives. Its through the work of the Lord because he is working harder than any of us! He works 24/7. Day and night! And I love him beacuse of that!:) He has truely blessed me! But I want to mention some people real quick. Scott is doing great! We have gotten him to come and eat with us at a members house and we have taught him several times! We have had powerful lessons and he knows and wants to get baptized! We need to teach him a few more things but he will probably get baptized this week!:) John is still great! We went and taught him about family indexing on friday. On sunday he had already done 84 names! He is doing great and we taught him about the priesthood so hopefully he can get it this week or the next! We still teach alot of less active families and are trying to get them back into church which alot have started coming back! Well I love you all! I love my mission! I love Corinth and the chance that I get to serve here! I know that Christ is working and preparing people for me to teach! I love him so much! I love this Gospel! It is true and it changes lives! I am witnessing it change scotts life right in front of me! I love the priesthood and it is a very real power that blesses lives! Again I love ya'll!!:) Love, Elder Hall