I can eat 8/7/2013

Real quick funny story. On Saturday during lunch Bro Juncker, (he is legit) 2nd counselor in the Bishopric took us to a steak house. 18oz Tbone steak was the special, he made us get it. It came with a salad bar. Then came with a decent amount of fries and a piece of garlic bread. Man, I totally downed that. Then our wml wanted to talk to us over dinner before the Priesthood Session. We met at Pizza Hut, I ate half a pizza. Then after the Priesthood Session we had ice cream sundays with bananas. Man it didn't even phase me. I can eat so much. It is terrible. Elder Tubbs was sick after just eating the steak he didn't even have his fries or bread. I am totally gonna try the BW's hotwing challenge at the end of my Mission. Expect me to come home with a winners shirt! Just wanted to let you know I can eat a ton! Mission life...

Hit by a car this week 8/7/2013

General Conference-

      Man so many have asked me what my favorite talk was, and I will tell ya! Elder Dube's Talk. I love how everyone supported our Prophets statement that the missionaries and the members must work together. He was really bold in that talk. He came to our mission with Elder Holland. That was a sweet talk. There were some interesting one's. Like the EXCLAMATION POINT talk that was pretty interesting. Idk why there are catch phrases and stuff, all in all it was a pretty good General Conference. Interesting topics, depression, council of the disposition of the Tithes,  etc. The best part was the theme about members and missionaries working together. I like how the night after the Conference the member supposed to come out with us joint teaching (A once every 3 month commitment) bails on us. So my invitation to you all is this. Do the things that you felt inspired to do. Watching General Conference alone won't change your life. Do something about it. Then the blessings of the Lord will come to you. Be ye not hearers of the word only but doers also! Ya!

       So I made german apple pancakes. They looked kinda weird, then I set em out and they looked weirder and shriveled. Sad. I just needed another pan mostly. But I made corn bread and apple pie. The Sisters brought taco stuff. It was cool. Although we weren't able to get anyone to come to Conference. That was lame. We did find 2 unconventional families last week. Sandra a past drug dealer and daughter combo, who we see today. Also we were knocking a street. and a lady let us right in. We taught her and her grandson the restoration real quick cause her sleepy 40 year old son was leaving. We are goingback over today. It is always good to find new people.

         Ha so I got hit by a CAR THIS WEEK! on my bike. It wasn't bad at all, I was riding through on a green light on the cross walk and the driver of the car was looking to the left for an opening. I saw him go for it. And He saw me and braked pretty hard, I braked too. He barely hit me. Just made me put my foot down. I was fine. But I couldn't remember the rules, we have to call President Clements or the vehicle coordinator for every accident, and Sister Clements. I tried Sister Clements she didn't answer. I just got the guys info. He felt way bad. He was nice. My bike just got a scratch. No damage really. So that was exciting. Then right after that we taught the grandma lady the restoration. So that was cool. Priesthood session online. Did you guys still go to churches? I just figured out the woman in the Church did something for General Conference... haha.

          Well tomorrow I go to Bloomington for Leadership Conference. I am excited cause a ton of my friends are leaders. Some people in the Nepali, Saint Paul district. Elder Shreestha is a Zone leader. Elder Smith is a DL. Elder Ware is a Dl he was just barely transferred out of the district. Our whole Zone was changed. It is crazy. Only us and Elk River areas had no changes. This is out of 12 teams! Crazy. St. Cloud Zone is kind of stinkin. We have a new Zone leader and Elder Bollinger. They are like demanding things left and right. It is interesting. They should just carry IMO. Our district is in a slump too. It is kind of hard out here. I don't know what to do. Any advice? So our p-day is shot, this will be short. We have 3 appointments during p-day hours.   I am doing well. I love hearing about you all. Good Night, and good luck!

Didn't think I knew that did ya Dad. I watch documentaries!

 

Love ya,

Elder Hall

Princeton for Six more weeks 9/30/2013

        Princeton 6 more weeks. 4 1/2 in Princeton son!  It will be good we could get Debi baptized and maybe some other people. No transfer for me. Some people in our District got transferred, but it will be good. So that is that. It is the last week of the month. It was the first week in a while that we were in our area the whole week. But we had no miles. We probably biked 60 miles this week. One day Elder Tubb's got 3 flats. Idk why, I changed them all out except the last one I gave up on that one. Idk if it is from the tire or what. His tire is really loose it almost slides on the wheel, idk if that does anything. But biked like a banshee ,it was pretty sweet. Um, no one came to Church. It was kind of a downer week. Although as our joint teacher fell through last night and we didn't know what to do, we ended up tracting the rest of the night. We found this really cool chill girl named Aisha who we taught the restoration and she said yes to be baptized if she found out it was true. We are going back over on Wednesday. She said she would read the Book of Mormon and also go to Conference. We played some football with these dudes during our dinner Saturday. Played pick up football, that was fun. Got my clothes a little dirty. But baylife. We also talked to some ex drug dealers. One is a member, but I think he was still drug dealing when he got baptized. Tom Loftus 25 year old. Met up with him and talked for a while. Then also a lady we met before named _______ was at the library. She is in Minnesota on parole and getting her life back together. She has custody of her daughter. She was caught with possesion of marijuana, for like 2 ounces when she had 12 pounds she was with a youngster in shotgun (not sure what the purpose of a youngster is),  the big timer was in the back, and they were dealing to the youngster's grandma. Pretty cool lingo. She took the blame for it all.  she is trying to change her life, we are gonna bring her some stuff for her apt. So it has been one of those weeks. But we had that last hour miracle so that was cool. We will go at em again this week. We will give em heaven. Ya Rourke goes home in a week then I am done for. Not too much with me. Still DL, still training, still in Princeton.  The Curtis's in the Ward are going to Utah. I have aquired a lot of stuff. I will send it with them to give to you guys at Home.. They are staying in Saratoga Springs. That will be really helpful. Looking forward to Conference. Have fun eating the traditional German Apple Pancakes. Sharwan you better watch Conference.  Love yaaaa write me. Mom and Dad letters inc. Back to this style of email. Saves like 10 minutes. Nuff saidddd love you all. 

Elder Hall

Zone Training and Exchanges 9/23/2013

Dear Family and friends... just kidding I don't have friends to send this email to.

          You get a good looking email today. Man you are so lucky. Some families are really lucky to have a spiritual child that probably brings his journal to the library when he emails to share all of the experiences that he had this week. Well I haven't written in my journal since I have been in Princeton so don't expect that! (I am busy is the reason mostly:)  But you guys happen to have the brother/son of Konnor Hall, and this is just how I do things.  I will give you guys an introductory paragraph. I will most likely talk about the places that I have been this week, and who I was with.  One of the paragraphs will probably be random stuff.  This paragraph I would consider the most important of the three. The last paragraph is what is going on in the area with me and my Companion, (this might be equally as important as paragraph number two,  just for this week).

      So this week has been pretty good. Monday of last week was pday and I can't remember what we did. Actually, I played a little bit of basketball during it. Our carpet got replaced. It was freaking grosse. So we had to be gone all day. Move all of our couches, desks, dressers (The Princeton apartment has a lot of crap) out on Saturday night and take it back in Monday night. So we did that all Monday. That was pretty fun. So no proselyting Monday night cause we moved in and organized our furniture. Then Tuesday was... decent we found a cool lady from Mexico whose name is Beanay, the spelling I have absolutely no clue. Pronounced 'BNA'.  Kinda funny. She is a new investigator whom we taught the restoration and invited to be baptized. She is really nice and we are bringing a Spanish Book of Mormon to her tomorow. That is pretty cool she was the last house of the street that we were gonna hit up. One of those stories. So if she gets baptized it will be nuts. I actually don't have many stories like that. I thought every door was gonna be like this, one more knock Elder! Then people would just be getting baptized, left and right. Elder Holland said the biggest problem we should have as missionaries should be getting pneuomonia from the Baptismal font. We should be tapping out after a few hours of a Baptism. We are gonna have to step it up. We have an average of 4 Baptisms per missionary on their mission. President Clements is invoking a lot of change and we have gone from 20-30 Baptisms a month to 53 projected in September. He is a really smart guy. He is a little tired from what I observed on Thursday, as he didn't eat lunch at our training and was .... could just tell he was tired. He is really giving it his all, which is a great example for me. So Wednesday we did studies and did some service for Debi about her house, filled some holes with puddi and stuff.  Then we went to Bloomington with an exchange with the Assistants to the President. Which was very conveniently planned. Ha!  Princeton is 30 miles from St. Cloud and Bloomington is about 100 ish. So with a trip to St. Cloud on the following day (Thursday) they really hooked us up.  Ha!  But it was good. Although me and Elder Mcdonough didn't teach, I think Elder Tubbs and Elder Neely did. It wasn't the best exchange Elder Mcdonough was kinda tired, but it was good. He is a good Elder. We got there at 3:30 and left at 6:30 to go to St. Cloud for our training with our Zone and Pres. Clements. Also Sister Clement's trained.  Zone training isn't a big deal like Zone Conference. Lunch is provided at Zone Conference, Zone Training is just tiny as heck. We had a quick interview then exchanged with the Elders from Buffalo.. I went to Buffalo and Elder Ware, a Buffalo Elder (0bviously..), went to Princeton. They saw a less active and taught Debi. They set a baptism date with her.  She still has to give up smoking but she said yes to October 26th. She played the piano at Church yesterday. It is her calling. A Part member we teach named Rinehart who has come to Sacrament about 20 times got a calling yesterday, Gospel Principles Class President. Actually, Co-Pres. with his wife. Bishop is sly because we wanted him to come to all Church meetings so he did that. They came all 3 hours it was sweet. Things are going well. Out teaching numbers were down but not too bad. We only had 4 days basically in our area. A team in the district didn't do anything. For numbers they got 0's on everything. It was pretty bad.
     Things with me are going good.  I have been trying really hard to eat healthy.  Replaced a good amount of meals with shakes.  Even ran on Saturday morning 2 1/2 miles.  Smoked my Comp who weighs 45 pounds less then me.  So I don't know if that is a good thing or not.  Eating tons of spinach shakes. Healthy ... ish meals and whatever I get fed.  My problem is I can eat so much now. And exercise so little. Hopefully I will play some ball today and burn off some steam.  
      So one week from now you will know if I am staying. It seems like a just a little bit ago I was just like,  Ahh I am staying, dang it. THREE months is a good amount of time in Princeton for me. It is a good starting area I think. Get your sticks area out of the way early! Ha, I bet you guys are thinking Konnor needs to have a better attitude and get over being in the stixx. My attitude is great and I work as hard as I would any other area.  It really is just a lot harder out here and I am still not used to it. Princeton has around 4,500 people compared to 120,000 people in North St Paul, the two areas are totally different. Princeton is one of the smallest places in the mish. Good ward and everything, I would just rather work in a place with a condensed Ward and more people. My friends are all home but Rourke who comes home in October. Chris sent me a picture, maybe I will send it to you guys. Hope things are going well. Not sure what is going on with all of you. Usually only moms update... which is skewed probably towards mom's agenda so send me the real update. Via post with paper, son. I'm all about the paper. Email's I forget about. Happy birthday this month Mom. I know it is September something, I just don't remember when. Ha sorry:) Love ya!  Your a good mom.  Brysons or Ben's is the same month. Happy Birthday to you too. Sorry I don't remember. Oh well. Last week was pretty bad with thinking about music and friends and basketball. I got pretty distracted. It's that being out a year thing. Ha I was eating a banana and spinach at Zone Training and Pres. C was just chilling in the hallway with us.  Everyone was eating healthy  apples and yogurt and stuff.  President C was like man you are the healthiest Zone in the mission what is the deal?  I said, "We are all sick of being fat"! I told them how the AP's weigh you before your exchange because they like the surprise on people's face. They get all mad and say that scare is off.  But I weigh 190!!  It is bad. I need some of the extra weight. I would like to be a strong 175.  I think that would be a good weight for me... but idk. I left at 162. Ya math that one! That is a 56 pound gain if i keep it up the rest of my mission. So that is a fun statistic. So a challenge to everyone but bryson:) If you can beat me running a mile when I get home then I owe you something.

Before Missions-after Missions photo coming in one year!

New Carpets 9/16/2013

So this week went ok. I am starting to try to lose weight.  I have been replacing meals with Dad's shake and drinking tons of water.  I made a shake today with a banana and the powder, but it had spinach in it.  It wasn't as good as the normal banana one but probably healthier. I was in Elk River earlier in the week. Went on an exchange with Elder Sieler and picked up a Montana accent!  He has a pretty good accent, it is funny.  He was actually Elder Weatherford's MTC companion, so we talked about that a little bit. It was good. Their area is hard!  I was being really bold with people on the exchange and nothing came out of it. They don't teach Gospel lessons much in Elk River and that's gotta change. I don't know what the key is there. We also had New Missionary Training Wednesday where we had the fun opportunity to wake up early and drive down to Bloomington and participate in that. It was good, all the Trainers and their Companions were there. I saw some people I knew.  Elder Crandall is a pretty legit hmong missionary.  He is going home that is the last time I see him!  It was good.  We were there for forever though.

       I love missionary work so much, I don't think I like missionaries that much. There are some funny one's.  It is just interesting.  Elder Tubbs I think has been sheltered from the world.  He is so surprised that so many people smoke or drink. I think lots of missionaries are like that.
      Ohhh funny story. We were at this park last night and we talked to these guys who were about my age they actually reminded me of my friends. They were pretty funny. We were just talking to them about stuff. Found out they drank every weekend. A few of this group had kids. One was going to Jail for about a year in October for stealing 5g worth of stuff. Then they commented, "like man sorry we are probably tainting you guys or something".  Elder Tubbs replied "Well, actually I used to be pretty wild and rebellious". And he was dead serious.   The guy who was going to prison laughed, "Oh I am sure"!  We all started laughing, I was laughing pretty hard as He thought he did some crazy stuff. Elder Tubbs told them how he threw this little tv off of a bridge in the middle of nowhere and then they threw rocks at it when it was on the ground. The guy who was going to prison said "... pretty crazy".  It was super funny.  Elder Tubbs is the guy who you could tell is Mormon if he was in normal clothes.  His favorite word is 'goodness'. So that was really funny. We are driving around a ton cause this week we have exchanges with the assistants in Bloomington. The next day we go to a training up in St. Cloud.  Bloomington is twice as far from St. Cloud as Princeton. ... With Ap's... Hopefully it will be good. We are wrecked for on our miles. Hey how the heck do you get a tubeless stem out of my wheel.  My tire went flat, I went to put a tube in and I don't know how to get the old stem out. 
     The Sisters in the District set a date with a 12 year old last night. I got Debi an Ecig Laniard so she will always have it with her. 

     Oh man Wednesday we got a call from the landlord she said new carpets were coming Monday and that everything had to be out. We have so much crap in our apartment. So we did that Saturday morning with 2 guys from the Ward. We had to literally get everything off the carpet so our closet shelfs are filled and our kitchen has tons of stuff in it. We get to move everything back in tonight. But our carpet is nasty, it is as old as the apartment so the new carpet will be worth it. So that is pretty fun. We have taught some new people and had some cool experiences happen. Taught a lady the restoration while helping her do a puzzle. She was Catholic. We also taught a really sincere lady who has had 9 back surgeries because she had domestic abuse after the first one. We see her tomorow. She was cool. I am not sure what to do hey transfers are in 2 weeks!  Wish me luck.  I'm training but ya never know!  Well that is it with me.   wbu?   guys?

Nepali work was the happiest time of my life 9/9/2013

Sep 9, 2013

All my friends are home. It is kind of surreal. I am doing well. We had district pday. Played some cards bball and went to space aliens A good kinda expensive restaurant alien themed. We even got a pic with the alien! haha. I got a haircut really short. I like it:) We also went to some outlets. I hate going to the nike outlet I love nike stuff! it was fun though. I am going on exchanges to elk river tonight. Debi tried quitting smoking this week but its been hard for her. We made a rap about it that was a knock off of an Eminem song. . We went on a 2 day exchange with the zl in st. Cloud it was a good exchange. Elder tubs comp and Elder saunders Zl got their bikes jacked. We were upset but we went and played bball when we got back e tubs bike was there missing his seat and seat post and light. That was it though. His was brand new so that was good. It was locked to the rack . It worked out ok. Saunders didn't get his but his bike was junk. Man I just got a weird feeling reading my friends emails, they are all home. They sent like their last emails where they are sad. 1 year left. Man them talking about school and stuff I have no idea what I am gonna do. I never wanna go back ha. I hope I can stay out here longer. And go back to nepali work. That was the happiest time of my life I think. I really learned to love people. I will ask for it or something. I don't know what I am gonna do when I get back, I might do slcc or something simple. Work and pay tuition. I think I need to do it. So idk, Dad hook me up with that sports dude. I love sports. Thanks so much I gotta be quick. Emails are always rushed so write me if you have time I will write a handletter back to everyone I get. This week We go to the new missionary training last time I trained I didn't get far enough to that point so this is good I get to go! ha it will be good. Always a revelatory experience. I love you all. Starr got promoted, she is a really good person she deserves it! She is really good with people. Sharwan went to 

college. Colby idk what he does, I don't even know where he lives! Ha. Write me send me updates. The Perry kids wrote me and it was just them! So I know if they can do it, so can you. I love you all.  Sorry this email stinks but deal with it! I love you all.  I am going through the time in my mission that will make a big difference, I have learned a lot in 1 year.  But I have 1 year left and that's a good amount of time.  How I use it will be big.  I am in different positions too so it is interesting.  It just gets harder but it is good for me.  A nap every now and then would be nice.

  Peace bras