its cold man

10/17/17

another awesome week! yeah so p day is tuesdays from now on. except the 23 its on monday. yeah no idea. but this past week was awesome! crazy how fast time is flying out here, second transfer is about finished. every day feels like two seconds long, just super busy every day haha. kinda like it was back home but just a different kind of busy. I'm super grateful for the things i learned back home with work and everything, learning how to manage plenty of jobs at once has taught me how to budget time and prioritize things and thats been super helpful, can't thank you guys back home enough for teaching me that. i think back a whole lot to all those awesome opportunities I've had to work with all you guys back home, seriously thank you so much. haha and the skills that came with it have been helping a ton too, we've been painting and renovating and roofing and things like that a ton for investigators and less actives and members alike and every single opportunity has lead to awesome miracles. service truly is such an incredible opportunity we have, i feel like i learnt the most when serving here. such an awesome opportunity to be able to devote two whole years to service! i couldn't love it more. 

everyone is doing fantastic here, all the investigators are doing too awesome. Ronel one of the Haitian guys is so excited about the church. he told us the first visit when we filled him in on the restoration and the Book of Mormon and everything that yeah its all true haha and we  were like weelll yeah haha that was pretty easy. but we told him he should still read the book and pray about it all and he was like oh yeah thats cool okay! he totally did and this last visit he said he knows its true and wants to be baptized. so thats been fantastic, super cool guy. he's learning french still but speaks super well, he asked if he could pray in creole and we were like yeah of course and creole actually sounds so much like french, like i was able to understand his whole prayer. super awesome guy. he's been such a pleasure to work with. his buddy Sony we haven't been able to see this week cause his phone line is out, so we'll see where that goes. the other two Haitian guys Asnel and Benjamin are doing great, meeting with them this week and we're super excited. haitians seriously are the best. 

Bernard and the rest of the Nadji Adjim family are doing awesome as always. always something amazing to learn from them. the other day after our service we brought our crates of food to their house cause we felt bad that they have to pay an overpriced rent to live with some garbage landlord and man their gratitude is incredible. Elder Johnson was ahead of me when walking in with his huge box and they all followed him and were like ooohhhh my this is incredible and just so happy haha and then i came in with the other ones and they were speechless. haha so much food ah it made me so happy. its incredible how the Lord finds so many ways to take care of us. i love how aware and quick to remember this family is, such a beautiful lesson I've been able to learn on gratitude. haha and they showed up to church and Bernard had a whole new set up with a new suit and slacks and shows and even a fedora hat and he never takes off his sunglasses cause the slightest bit of wind kills his eyes and man he looked EXACTLY like Ray Charles haha. and he got so many compliments and he would die with excitement every time and give a huge hug every time id say something about his new clothes. such a sweet humble guy. but yeah president is actually meeting with him today to start interviews for the baptism of their family! we miiiight need to keep waiting for approval from the first presidency for Bernard's baptism (just for some things in the Congo, not a super big deal or anything that should cause problems) but thats what we're going to find out today! super excited! they're all so excited haha. 

the family Mouhe is still doing awesome. they really feel like my family here. and they treat me likewise and i love it haha. i feel like an eldest son again. except with some little black brother too which is what i ALWAYS WANTED but its cool. haha Bienvenue the youngest with like 18 months i think is so awesome haha. he just started talking and all he says are bye bye and Halliday. so proud. he repeats it over and over the whole lesson haha and it gets all the kids doing it and they put it into songs and chants and its just fantastic. totally something i would do. no one here can even pronounce my name, i don't even know how its pronounced honestly. 

we found this super cool guy who wants to come to church, and he looks EXACTLY like the Winter Soldier from Captain America. the hair and face the metal arm and everything. ill try to get a picture someday. super cool guy. the sisters found this other new guy named Eric and i learned a fun lesson from him. he came to church for the first time and brought his daughter who's like 20 and before anything to imagine these folks just picture Luna Lovegood and her dad from Harry Potter, thats them. looks personality and everything. but yeah he came in and the whole meeting he was just loving everything. then in the hall he ran into a member holding a Book of Mormon and for some reason i guess the sisters never even brought up the Book of Mormon haha but he lost it when the member casually was like yeah its another testament of Jesus Christ and Eric was like noooo way what how?!?! this is amazing!! and we walked up and were like yeah you want one? and we gave him one and he reacted as if we handed him a million dollars. he kept flipping through it and eying it with the biggest smile and he was just blown away at everything. then at the end of the last meeting he just repeated over and over again laughing and super emotional and all going "oh my gosh i found it!! i found the true church!!" haha such an awesome reaction. i feel like sometimes we take for granted how amazing that really is, we seriously do have THE true church! we totally have an entire book the testifies of Christ! written by prophets which we still have today! we seriously have the most amazing church, i realized i can always improve my appreciation of what we have after seeing Eric's reaction. haha i could take millions of rejections and cursing and spit to see a reaction that legit to finding the one true church of Jesus Christ. 

Joseph Smith totally called us! wants to get baptized as soon as he can! right now its planned for the satruday after the next. super excited!! he had to get some things figured out with himself for a while, but now he's set on what he feels and knows to be true. so excited for him!! 

but yeah, everyone is doing great, i would love to say everything about all our investigators, but these emails are long enough. José and Johanne and Jacob and Rahina and Khuman and Miriam and Mac and Emmanuel and Myrn and Mamad are all doing fantastic and your guys' prayers truly do miracles. i honestly can't thank you all enough for everything. we see so many miracles every day. 

its like cold here haha what the heck. last week it felt like christmas and i loved it! it was chilly and lots of wind and i soaked it up and now its already like way colder than it would back home haha. i love it so much though. this place is seriously too amazing. 

but yeah, such an amazing mission. can't thank you all enough for everything you've done to help me get here and be who I've become. i love you all so much and i love this gospel so much. i hope everything is fantastic for you all! i invite you all to see how you can better show your appreciation for having found the true church of Jesus Christ!! show it by inviting others to church or by serving your neighbour or whatever! there are so many ways! love you all!!

-Elder Halliday

i realized we kinda look like the sketchy guy you see on all the "neighbourhood watch" signs.

i had like multiple people ask if i am russian the day i got my haircut from Emmanuel. like with one person yeah okay maybe they've got a similar looking friend who is russian but no multiple people. do i look Russian? 

and i felt like it'd be cool to show you guys how I've been working on my organization skills!