SICK MIRACLES

8/14/17
okay so apparently this area Lamoyne that i started in has been known to be a "dead area" or something crazy like that. like no new activity or anything for quite a while and yeah Elder Johnson told me that yesterday, haha yeah keep that in mind.  

This week has seriously probably been the most incredible week of my entire life. SO MANY MIRACLES!! absolutely incredible the things that happened this week holy smokes. so Elder Johnson i started out the week super sick haha and yeah it was pretty bad and we couldn't go out and proselyte cause we couldn't risk giving the sickness to anyone else. and that was kinda a bummer for us cause we were looking at all the opportunities to teach investigators and find new people and then yeah we're sick out of nowhere and can't do any of it. but you guys wouldn't believe the blessings that came out of being sick it was amazing!! we took advantage of our extended time to study like crazy and to find as much service as we could do without getting other people sick. we went into Angelé's backyard which is absolutely destroyed from raccoons and storms blew the neighbours' entire tree into her yard haha and she's struggling with like a million other things so yeah we went and cut up the tree with this tiny hatchet which was the closest thing to an ax or chainsaw we could find, seriously if you need something to cut wood don't ever go looking in Lamoyne, no one has any tools. haha so yeah we spent quite a while cutting up this big tree in her yard into firewood that we stacked in the corner and then we replaced light bulbs on the porch that were out and yeah it was a fun project! it felt good to be putting the Lord's time to good worth even when we felt like dying haha. but yeah so our sick days went like that mostly and we tried out this ancient torture tool from the dark ages called a "neti pot" i think? literally the worst thing i have ever beheld in my entire life. its pretty much a cheap plastic tea pot that you put hot water and some solution in and then shove it up your nose and cry and wait for the water to come back out. i encourage you all to study this neti pot and avoid it like the plague. it helped with the congestion i guess, but it hurt my soul. 

so yeah sick days were awesome and we found a ton of miracles in them, Joseph Smith called us on the worst night of it and left a message and he was like, "hey guys I'm not doing anything, kinda miss you guys…. let me know if you wanna hang out or somethin." haha basically that and we were like nooooooo oh my tonight of all nights but then he called again and was like yeah actually something came up lets get together next week and that was awesome. but yeah haha sick days worked out great. haha and then we started feeling a bit better and then ate some old meat and got food poisoning hahaha that was too fantastic. but oh my friday. friday was the best day. thursday night we were feeling a lot better and we were pretty bummed about not being able to teach or anything so we were super excited to wake up and see if we were feeling good enough. the sister of our mission that takes care of all the health needs and all Sister Tampton, who is seriously the nicest sister on the entire planet by the way, she called us thursday and said, "yeah you guys should be going to bed early and waking up without an alarm to make sure you get enough rest," and we had been doing the exact opposite all week haha so that was exciting and we went to bed and got to sleep in a little bit and right when we woke up we shot up and were both like, "you feeling good?!," "I'm feeling great lets goooo!!" and we planned out the day and it was too fantastic. we planned to visit Angelé that afternoon but she told us she couldn't until that night so we had this block in the afternoon and i really felt like we needed to go out finding which was weird cause everyone works that time but we knelt down and prayed about it and we both got up and were like yeah we need to go find right now so we flew out of the apartment and for some reason without even thinking, like we looked back and were like why the heck, but yeah we randomly punched in this address of a referral we got last week and we had called him earlier and he didn't answer so yeah, no idea why we were going there, but the Spirit did. we show up to the house and its totally the wrong house and this old guy comes out and is like who the heck in arthur and rejects us big time and we were like okay haha sweet and started walking back and we saw this beautiful area down the street with bike trails and tons of green and butterflies and it was windy and ah so good but yeah we went to go take a sick picture and ill attach it cause you can see if you zoom in far behind me this person that we ended up having over an hour long discussion with and teaching the entire restoration to. haha so we take the picture and see this guy sitting on a bench super far away and we were like oh yeah lets do it so we walked the trail and as we got close he didn't even get up to leave which was a surprise and then we started talking to him and then he turned out to be a she and she was the sweetest old lady ever and we talked forever about everything and she loved everything about the gospel and she wanted to meet us there again same spot same time next week and that was awesome. haha oh and halfway through our discussion some big guy biking with his wife stops next to us and asks us if we're part of this other church and we're like nope this church and yeah and then HE wanted to hear more about it and we taught him too and then we showed him the Book of Mormon and he really liked it and asked if he could take it haha and Elder Johnson and i looked at each other and were like what the heck is happening yeah and he took it and said he'd read it and was super happy and rode off. the lady told us she felt something different right when we walked up and that she wanted to feel it more. so yeah that was too cool. after that we were so pumped, then we went and visited Angelé and that was awesome, she just happened to have a friend over that lived like three hours away and was leaving right after our visit and she loved how we did service and she loved the idea of the church and everything and she wanted to hear a message and Elder Johnson just randomly pulled up this scripture that we found written on the fridge that morning and decided to read from like fifty thousand years ago about having happiness and joy and it was apparently the exact one they needed haha the Spirit is so awesome. so yeah that was awesome, then we went felt like we should swing by another house of a referall we got and we drove into this suuuuper nice neighbourhood like so nice so pretty and amazing, we hadn't been there before and we found the house and this lady opens the door and for some reason right when she opened the door i felt so happy and i just wanted to talk to her. we ended up having another hour long discussion with her on her porch in her fun little chairs which was also lucky cause she was the only one home and we wouldn't have been able to enter the home anyways and thats a bit difficult to discuss with some people sometimes so it was cool when she was like yeah we can just sit here! and then she got us juice and asked us a million questions about the church and about us and our missions and everything. the referall was her son and she was so excited for him to learn from us. she's catholic and also served a mission and she was so sweet to us and offered so much haha like meals and help with seriously everything. she was super interested in the idea of everyone having their own testimony and everything and she loved that idea. she also LOVED the idea of us having a prophet and she was so interested in everything about him and the apostles and everything. she even had us pull up lds.org on her tablet and open up one of his talks that she wanted to read and she wanted us to also print out a copy and bring it to her. we asked if there was a specific principle or idea she wanted us to find and she was like, maybe like charity or kindness or something? and we found the exact talk right away haha so perfect the Spirit is so awesome. she told us she would call us when jacob returned, but to please return soon ah it was too perfect. she said we reminded her of her sons and she loved that. she asked us what we were planning on doing and Elder Johnson said he wanted to go medical which is what one of her sons is doing right now and i said engineering which is what the other son is doing right now too haha so yeah, the Spirit works in awesome ways. loved that. we walked away to the car and did the biggest and most powerful fist bump known to man and we while we were walking some guy drove by and in english yelled, "GOD BLESS YOU!!" and we were like oooohhhhh my He most certainly did. by the way that never absolutely NEVER happens here haha and we were driving and this lady saw us while she was watering her plants and waved and smiled and i almost started crying, it felt so good. we said the same thing the whole way home, just wait…. WHAT. haha it was too cool. so that was friday. saturday it just continued. so we got this call from Danay Mouhe, the father of the family from the Congo and he told us he had a friend that he wanted us to meet with and we were like noooo waaaayyyy, the friend is also from Africa, not sure where. but yeah we were so excited and so we had our scripture reading with the family Mouhe and that was amazing as always theyve really become family to me here. I've finally got down the names of the seven kids and they still think my name is the funniest thing on the planet, but its okay. Nadga and Louise always run to the car when we pull up cause they know we've got chocolate with us. but yeah, love that family so much. after that we took Danay and Juliet with us to his friend's house and we were led into this tiny basement with maybe four other rooms and this family of nine comes out of these rooms and gathers on the couch and immediately Elder Johnson and i look at each other and are like no. way. the dad Brenard spoke almost perfect french but the rest of the family struggled a lot so we're figuring out how to make this work but oh my, the most beautiful family. ages 1 to 17 are the kids, where the family Mouhe is just 1 to 14 so almost perfect match in all the kids and yeah, beautiful family, sweetest kids and we could immediately feel the strength and unity of their family and the spirit was so strong in their tiny basement room it was incredible. Brenard loved our simple message about the spirit and they came to church the next day and they want to continue with lessons and coming to church and ah such an amazing amazing amazing thing to be here for. the fellowship of members is an incredible thing guys. sunday we had such an amazing group, the new family with the family Mouhe, Rahina came with her kids, and Joseph Smith!! haha he was so cool, he just stuck with us and we were sitting in priesthood meeting and he leaned over to me and was like, "i really like this church. i want to join." and i looked at him and said yeah okay lets do that. he's actually so excited and he wanted to meet up after church but we had meetings so we told him sometime this week. he's such an awesome guy haha he gave me like four job opportunities for after the mission, kinda tempting… the pay is super awesome. but yeah sorry, haha super long email. but thats not even all the most amazing and incredible things that happened this week. we surpassed all of our goals with finding, new investigators, and everything even though we were sick all week. this work is absolutely incredible guys, the Lord always sees our efforts and He cares about all of us. how lucky am i to be trusted with this work and to be so blessed to call myself a representative of Christ. my testimony has grown so much this week in so many ways, but most of all in the power that comes with the guidance of the Spirit. we prayed before every decision and the outcomes are always miraculous. this church is so true and this work is absolutely incredible!! love you all so much!!! 

-Elder Halliday

here are some pictures

for some reason canada doesn't know how to put stop signs in places where you can see them until the last second. try my friends, to find the hidden stop signs. also Elder Johnson dropped a bowl of squash soup on the carpet and it reminded me of a story of Mom's cousin. and theres the notecard of the only Songo we could find that I'm trying to learn to teach the family Mouhe and this new family. annnddd yeah, enjoy

I wanted to send you a quick note before I head into Phoenix for court…

Hope you had a great week.  A little busy here workwise for me.  I haven’t had a day off since last Monday and won’t until this Friday.  Just normal cases though.  People dying and such.  One of them was a guy that shot himself with an AR-15 rifle.  He had a huge hole in the top of his head but the first officer arrived and thought "he was still moving and alive."  He was concerned about being shot so he moved the rifle out of the guy's lap and even took a folding knife out of the guy's pocket and threw them across the room so he (the officer) felt safe.  It's crazy how dumb some people can be.  I had to explain to him how the body works and how the dead guy wasn't a threat, partially because he was already dead, and partially because the guy was now missing his left eye so he (the officer) could just move out of the guy's vision if the dead guy came back to life and tried to assault him (the officer).  Pretty ridiculous. 

Zane has his farewell open house last night.  I feel so bad because I forgot to do the breakfast for him.  I didn't remember he was leaving this week.  He said he thought about it during the previous week but didn't text me because he thought he was out of the quorum for 2 months so he was most likely forgotten.  Pretty sad.  He's excited to go though.  It was good to see all your friends there.  Charter and maybe Bryce are coming to the house on Wednesday for dinner.

How is the teaching going?  Did you get the baptism commits like you were hoping for?  Any follow-up with the guy on the bike?  

I love you and am so proud of you. LOVE, DAD

sounds like work is getting crazy! thats good! sorry its taking so much time from you though. hahaha i can't believe this guy, did he legit think the zombie would shoot him? or knife him? jeez. 

i can't believe zane already had his farewell talk! time is flying! bummer about the breakfast deal though… I'm glad he's excited!! he's going to kill it in DR. 

teaching is going so awesome!! the language is starting to come a lot better and yeah, not too big of a roadblock anymore. now I'm working on learning Songo haha its so weird. there are a million languages spoken here. sadly english is just not one of them thats common. we've got two people that are working towards baptism now, Rahina and Joseph Smith, and now we've got this huge African family and they think they want to work towards baptism too so yeah! super excited!! thanks so much! good luck at your trial! love you

It's Dad,

Awesome letter!  I live that you're already getting into homes and teaching! That's so amazing.  That was first week and it set me up for the rest if my mission.  It's strange how when you expect to teach, you are blessed with opportunities.  When I was in leadership positions, I was really frustrated with missionaries that expected rejection. I would go on splits with them and teach with them and they were always amazed that there were people that they hadn't spoken to in their areas that actually wanted to hear the Gospel.  What a blessing for you!

What do you guys do for meals? Do you get to eat at members houses? Are there a lot of members in the area? Ward? Branch? How was church?

Lots of questions.  I know you're busy.

Love you! 

yeah haha it was set up really well! the missionaries that had this area before us really worked hard! right when i got settled in we had a lesson fifteen minutes after and it went great! and we've found a few more! the rejection is plenty haha but its not in the slightest bit discouraging. we knock every door! sometimes the language is a bit rough cause seriously a lot of these people come into canada speaking a language that only 6,000 other people in the world speak. but it still goes amazing!! i love this work so much!! contacting is so fun cause you really never know what kind of person you'll run into haha its amazing. but yeah the meals are amazing! we just make really good sandwiches and yeah members feed us a lot! we've got a full schedule of DA's! its been amazing. not a ton of members, its a small french ward, but they're always willing to help and love the missionaries! church was awesome!! bore my testimony in testimony meeting and that was awesome! got to know basically the whole ward haha and met this guy everyone calls papi cause he's 100 years old this upcoming year and he's basically related to everyone there in some way haha its so cool. and he walks everywhere! he's just got a cane and thats it! 100 years old and he only looks like 78 opt something. so awesome. but yeah this is so amazing being here!! i couldn't be happier!! love you so much!!

-Elder Halliday

thats so awesome!! thank you so much!! so my retainer broke, is there a way for me to get one here do you think or what? its not a big deal just wanted to letcha know. BUT OH MY GOODNESS MOM THIS PLACE!!! this mission the people oh my goodness ah i can't even tell you. i love this sooooooo much and my companion loves it just as much and we're killing it here. ah i love this so much mom i can't even exaggerate that. sorry I'm lacking a lot of pictures ill get a bunch this week especially with the Muehe family i need you to see them haha they're adorable. but ah i love it here so much. 

What a great week!  The girls are doing so well in school!  Kennadie is increasing her ACT score by a lot so she is getting pretty excited to see how she does.  She is doing so well in all her classes-she has 137% in ap English , and that's her unweighted grade. I think school is just her thing.  It's almost time to start applying for scholarships and college-and I have no idea what I am doing. 😬  let's see...Charter came over for dinner Wednesday and that was great. Then later that evening shannon, Weston and Kaitlin came over and we ate cinnamon rolls that alyssa Bennion brought from rise up. Dad really enjoyed having your friends over-it felt like having you around. Dad got called out last night and again this am (just a 5 hour break between dead bodies) but he got after an officer last night that messed up his crime scene-I'll let him tell you about it. It was funny.

      It was dads and my anniversary last Tuesday. Dad came home around like 9 am and we decided to go on a hike to Hortons spring just past payson. It was lovely!  It's a forest trail (pretty flat) and all along the trail is a creek, so kind of like fossil springs minus the awful hike in, but also no cliffs or jumps. Just beautiful springs the whole way. We packed subway in and it gave me awful diarrhea which was a bonus. We ran out of tp and napkins about a mile from the trailhead so I was feeling pretty desperate towards the end of the hike. But still really fun and beautiful. Dad has all the pics on his phone so I'll have him send you those.

    Vidangel is working so we are watching scary movies over here like there's no tomorrow. Which is usually the case for vidangel-the ruling changes from day to day lol.

     Dad asked the porter girl from higley groves ward to hoco for Connor ward by pulling her over. OHMYGOSH it was so funny. She freaks out and pulls over to the left side of the road, then gives dad like a car wash coupon for her registration and it's not a real traffic stop but dad just couldn't stop himself from being like-"so, is there a reason you pulled over to the left side of the road?"..."ok, this isn't registration. This is a car wash voucher. " poor girl! But he just couldn't pass up a teaching moment I guess. Then Connor comes to the window dressed as a pretend cop and gives her a ticket that says "homecoming?-Connor" and flowers. It was awesome.

     Im so excited to hear how your teaching is coming!  It's hard to wait a week between letters with so many cliffhangers!  Did the guy on the bike meet with you?  Did he read the BOM?  So exciting. Not like, diarrhea on an 8 mile hike exciting, but pretty exciting still!

     Reese babysat for mayor Daniels last night, it was supposed to be easy with just 2 kids, but when the parents left the 9 year old invited 15 boys over to have some kind of battle with nerf pellet guns and poor Reese came home crying. It was pretty rough. But she said "well, the hard babysitting jobs still teach me a lot" lol.

     Church callings are still good!  Not running out of steam yet. If anything I get more and more motivated to better fulfill my calling every week. Church is the best place in the world, and primary is the best place in church!

      Well, I can't promise I won't write you more later, but I don't know how to put this in drafts on my phone so I'll just send it. I love you, and we are always praying for you. Here are some pics and such. ❤-mom

oohhhh my those stories are too fantastic!!! i can't believe kennadie is already there in life ahhhhh so spooky… she's gonna do so great though I'm so excited for her!! I'm so glad my friends still come by the house! that makes me so happy, they emailed me and told me how nice you all are, which is totally true. I've told lots of people here about you. hahah dads story is too awesome. some people really are so silly hahah. but you and i both know that that would 10000% be you if you were in a room with a dead body and it had a gun and a knife. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!! that sounds SO fun!!! I'm so glad you did that! so jealous. Elder Johnson and i have been talking about marriage and all that and how soon that is now. well like two years but still… spooky… i can't believe you had diarrhea hahahah not even surprised though. thats too funny. I'm so sorry… no way vidangle works again?!?! thats so fun!! live it up while you can! 3=

haha okay i accidentally hit some keys while trying to hit enter and i think I'm gonna leave that there. dead serious 100% accident. but OH MY DAD!! thats absolutely incredible!!!! hahahaha i love that so much. hahah and she definitely learned a lesson too haha oh my. 

but yeah teaching is going so great!! our bike friend wants to meet up this saturday and we ran into him again on the street and he's so excited to meet up! we didn't get to ask him about the BOM but he seems really excited to talk more about the Gospel! 

haha ooohhhh reese that poor kid… good for her for having that attitude though haha she's so awesome. so proud of her. I'm so glad everyones doing so well!! i love you all! thanks for that video, that made my day! 

-Elder Halliday

I’m glad you explained the 3- because I thought you made that on purpose and I’m like what the….

i can’t believe the week you had-even with the down time being sick!!!  I’m so glad to know you have a mommy out there to tell you guys to get rest and how to get better.  But I’m so glad you were being thoughtful of others and not getting them sick.  Was the bad meat from your fridge?  Because I know you like to take risks with old food and all.  Hows the budgeting?  You running out of money too fast?  Whats the plan for winter clothes and thermal garments? 

hahaha i know, it was too perfect to delete it I'm sorry. but yeah this week was insanely awesome!! i wish you could've seen our reactions at the end of the day, just whaaaaat how why wow. such an incredible time here. but yeah haha it was bad from the fridge, super old. nothing too bad with the food poisoning though, just explosive diarrhoea. but the budgeting is great! we went shopping for the week and used like hardly anything and we have lots of food and lots of dinner appointments with members. the members feed us sooooo well here haha its amazing. lots of good food from all over the world. and i heard the winter clothes are actually cheaper in the winter, but I've been keeping an eye out for opportunities to save some money on that purchase if it comes up. we'll see. but hey think you could send me the enchilada recipe real quick?? 

Remember when you went with a couple buddies to pick up pizza and They Gave it to you for free and something else I can't remember? I'm just taking your reaction from that night and multiplying it by like 8. :)

   So glad budgeting is going wel and members are feeding you!!! Ok, here's the recipe, but feel free to change it around. You can't mess it up, it's just a simple recipe that you can make better with your own additions. Basic recipe is:

hahahaha YES okay yeah take that reaction and multiply it by a billion. seriously the sickest day ever. but yeah its great!! ah thank you so much! we're gonna do that tomorrow! we've got a dinner appointment tonight. I'm so excited! thank you so much!! love you so much! love you all so much!!