Not Working/TRANSFER!

When William left on his mission I had big plans of posting his pictures and weekly letters to a blog. That has not worked out. )-:

We have not gotten any pictures form him yet. And his letters are very personal. Either they have too much personal stuff about our family or he is too personal about the investigators, members, etc. Not bad stuff, just not stuff I would be comfortable putting on a blog!

So, I will be changing this around a little. If you want to hear what is up with him I would be glad to forward his emails to anyone that wants to read them. I know you guys are here because you are William's friends,and I have no problem with you reading the emails that he sends. (I can edit them, if need be! LOL)

So send me your email if you want in on the "Mission Group" mass mailing I do. I have been forwarding to siblings and cousins like this for a while and think this is the best way to include everyone that is interested.

Just a final not of news on Elder Hale... He had his first Transfer yesterday. He now lives in WhiteFish, Montana. Here is the quick note we got from him letting us know:


I got the call today that I am being transferred to Whitefish, Montana!!!!!
It is in the northwest corner of Montana and is in the Kalispell zone.
I will be companions with a one Elder Herber.
My new address is:

3800 Hwy 40 W. #3
Columbia Falls, MT 59912

(Even though my area is Whitefish I will be living in Columbia Falls.)
Whitefish is supposedly one of the most beautiful areas in the whole mission &
everyone in the whole zone here in Great Falls is pretty jealous of me. :D
I will be getting transferred on Monday so I may not be able to email that week.
I am super excited!
Love,
William

You can still send him mail at the mission home and they forward it on. You can use his apt. address as long as you don't send something too close to transfer time! (-:

May 16, 2011

-Monday: p-day we just played basketball all day.

-Tuesday: We visited a couple less active members then went to a bbq :D that was fun. Then we started exchanges. I got paired up with Elder Mudge....

-Wednesday: He made me wake up like 30 minutes early just so we could work out for a full hour...... I did 50 push ups, 110 sit ups, and jumped rope for like 25 minutes straight over the course of that hour. Then we went tracting for 2 hours then had lunch then went tracting for another 3 hours then visited a recent convert and a less active member then had dinner...

-Thursday: Got back with my companion in the morning. We visited like 3 less active families and went tracting for like 2-3 hours and visited a recent convert.

-Friday: Same routine as thursday pretty much we visited less active families and tracted all day.

-Saturday: We went to Cascade which is the other area we cover besides two rivers and we helped a less active family build their house all day! Probably the best day of my mission so far because I felt extremely useful when it came to building the house and we talked about church most of the day while we worked and they came to church last sunday so hopefully we are doing some good there. they fed us lunch and dinner and it really was a nice break from walking all day and people rejecting us.

-Sunday: Elder Hanson didn't feel to good so we went to church and then to lunch and went and visited 2 less active families and a recent convert. then we went home at 6:30 cuz his stomach was killing him. (He is feeling better today)

and that has been my week hopefully the next will be better. We are going to go work on the house again on saturday so I'm pretty excited about that :D Hope all is well in McMinnville sounds like you guys had a pretty big week. (Tell ella that anyone who texts while driving would just put tape over the buttons..... just saying. She should make it so that there is an electrical current going throught the steering wheel and if they only have one hand on the wheel it will shock them.)

Love,
Elder Hale

May 4

me:do you have enough groceries and stuff? Do you have dinner appts every night? How many wards are in Great Falls? I saw that there are 3 ward buildings

Elder Hale: Yes I have enough groceries. Most nights I do. Last night I ate a macaroni grill :) and there are a lot. I think 8 or so.

May 3

an e-mail I got this morning from William. I am going to get some of these things together to send him, but if anyone else is looking for ideas of what to send him in a care package... here are some ideas. Just let me know if you want to send him stuff and we will make sure we don't double up on anything. (-:

Hey,
my companion is on facebook right now, and I have nothing to do so I wanted to send you one really quick email with a list of things I need/want because I forgot to yesterday.
- A GPS (The missionaries here don't have them in the trucks so we have to furnish our own if we want them.)
- Music! Any orchestra music is good ex: Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi... A lord of the rings soundtrack would be way cool too! (There is a cover band that does orchestra covers of modern rock bands and stuff and they have an album where the do avenged sevenfold songs. It is called "Strung out on Avenged Sevenfold" If you could send me that it would be cool, just check and make sure there are no vocals or anything. you could have lucy listen to it i bet she would like it.)
- A rubix cube 3x3 and a 4x4 (if you send the 4x4 send it with instructions on how to do it.)
- Gloves (black and warm)
- another pair of basketball shorts ( just make sure they are longer than the blue pair i left at home)
- about 3 or 4 more t-shirts (just get some of the ones I always would wear)
- a beanie. (one that is conservative and also the one with wolf ears :P)
Thats about it. you don't have to send all of that stuff but as much of it as you could send (especially the music) would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
William

May 1

Here is William's e-mail that he sent to Adrian:


ok its finally p-day here in Montana so I guess you want an update on everything.... I sent a letter explaining what happened right after I got here so I will start after that. I got called to Two Rivers area in Great Falls Montana. It was an amazing drive through Montana to get here. I went through mountains and forests but as it turns out Great Falls happens to be the most flat, brown, boring looking area I have seen yet lol. Oh well. My companion, Elder Hanson, has only been out about 6 months or so and he seems pretty cool so far. We had a baptism on Saturday which was kinda cool except for the fact that we now have no investigators and pretty much no referrals.... TRACTING!!!! Thats what I will be doing for the next few weeks most likely until we get some investi"gators". ****(Personal edit)*****In some areas in montana almost everyone is a member but there is an inactivity rate of like 80% so missionary work here is focused on reactivation efforts. There are a lot of Indian reservations in Montana... like 7 or 8 i think so hopefully I can serve on one just for the experience... everyone says they either love or hate it. I really don't know what else to say. Just write me back with questions you have for me and I can answer them.
Love,
William

Here is the e-mail I got from him, basically answering questions I sent him:


I live with Sister Manning. She is like 80 years old or older... I have no idea, but we live next to the church In Great Falls, MT
Great Falls is flat for the most part. There are some hills around it. It is a lot like Murfreesboro.
Dinner appointments have been great. The food they make here is amazing... I will get fat.
My trainer has only been out 6 months but he is way cool! His name is Elder Hanson and he is from SanDiego, CA.
The mission home is in Billings and honestly I have nothing to compare it to..... its like a house with an office on the bottom floor....


Then he and I sent several e-mails back and forth to each other while he was at the computer. I will put my questions in red and his answers in black:

what have you done today?

nothing really. just woke up and cleaned some and hung out with my companion and a couple of other missionaries. did my laundry and am now just writing emails.

do you have to go to the church to email? are you going to have a blog and FB like some of teh missionaries do?I am looking at your address on Google Street view but she has a GIANT tree in her front yard, and I can't see teh house. I can see teh neighbors on either side, just fine. Do you have your own entrance? What about the kitchen, etc?

I am at a college campus right now using those computers. I will have FB and a blog after this transfer (6 weeks). and no we share the same entrance but she lives downstairs. we share a kitchen though.

It looks like a ranch house, does she live in the basement?

its a small house in like a little subdivision. and yes she does

what kind of car do you have?

chevy colorado. same as tennessee missionaries

Did you take the mission truck from Billings to Great Falls?

i rode a bus from billings through bozeman and butte then got off in helena then rode in a truck to great falls. its a pretty big town..

a Greyhound bus? with Elder Hanson?

no just with the other missionaries in that area.I gotta go now. tty next monday! send me some letters k :D
love,
william

Leaving the MTC

Hey guys, Tuesday is the BIG day. Elder Hale will fly to Montana on Tuesday so if you are using DearElder.com to send him (daily?lol) letters then Monday at Noon MST is your last chance for the free daily delivery.

After that you need to use his Montana address. You can still use DearElder.com, they just will charge you for the price of the stamp.

E-mail 2 April 20, 2011

Let me just preface this with the comment that his Indian name would be HeWhoWrites LittleWords!

ok awesome! yeah I bought a hymbook and I got my name engraved on it! it looks sweet! We sang the Day Dawn is Breaking in sacrament meeting as a district for the special musical number and I sang some pretty epic bass! I really can't think of anything to write....... I think of things to write about all week but then when wednesday gets here I cant think of anything interesting...... except maybe the fact that ELDER RICHARD G. SCOTT SPOKE TO US LAST NIGHT AT DEVOTIONAL!!!! it was wayyy cool and he gave an Apostolic Blessing to all the foreign speaking missionaries! lucky them. I leave the mtc in 6 days! but anyways thats about all the interesting things i can think of right now.... so i will talk to you later!
love,
william