Week 12 in Sarasota

I hope your Memorial Day went well!! I totally forgot to tell you our preparation day was switched to today. So hopefully I didn't scare you too much haha. We dropped Elder Menlove and Elder Willden off at the mission office yesterday. They're flying out today. I'm with Elder Collins in Palmetto until Wednesday when transfers take place. I'll be staying in Sarasota and Training a new Zone Leader, Elder Farr. He came out with Elder Christensen. He's an amazing missionary I'm super excited!!! 

We had a great week! We got to see quite a few people who wanted to say farewell to Elder Menlove. It was amazing to see the impact he's had on so many. We got to see lots of miracles this past week. One particular one happened while we were on exchange. I was in Bradenton. They have an investigator who is working on the Word of Wisdom and preparing for baptism. We got there and found out she'd been living the Word of Wisdom for the past 3 days. I spoke with them this past Sunday and she's still living it! It's crazy! She's got a ton of faith! 

In our area we have a lot of really good people we are working with. I'm looking forward to the miracles that will come this transfer. Things are going great! I love you!!!!

Elder Hale

Week 11 in Sarasota

 Picture with Justin at the temple

Picture with Justin at the "Why I Believe" fireside

This is Elder Menlove's last full week. It's crazy!!! He's working hard and it will be sad to see him go next week but I've absolutely loved serving with him. I'm ready for some amazing miracles this week. We had another "Why I Believe" fireside at the Brandon Stake Center. It was awesome! The spirit was super strong. The University Park missionaries promised their investigator that if he came he would get his answer. We got a call that he did!! Crazy!! He is looking good for baptism this week! Awesome miracle!!! Another miracle happened with the Beneva Elders and a part member family. The wife has been investigating the church for almost 6 years and they had dropped her. They attended a sealing of a couple of the Beneva branch. After the sealing the wife felt she now was the time. So she was baptized and is looking forward to being sealed to her family a year from now. I love how the Lord is working in so many lives! 

We had a great week! We got a text from a man we haven't seen for several weeks. He was apologetic about being so busy and said he has a schedule for reading the scriptures daily. We should be meeting with him soon! We got in contact with several families this week and have lessons planned with them tonight and tomorrow. I'm excited to see where things are headed! The Lord is definitely hastening the work in this area and the entire mission. How grateful I am for that. 

There was a policy change the weekend before last about temple attendance and we were given the opportunity to go with Justin Jacques and the Elders Quorum President to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. It was his first time going so it was super spiritual! Also huge miracle because Elder Menloves birthday just happened that same day they were planning on going to the temple. We got there and there just happened to be a member of the Ward there. It was a huge miracle because it was someone Justin new. The member wasn't planning on going because he usually goes on Fridays but felt like he should go Saturday instead. The spirit was very strong and during Ward council as the Elders quorum President testified of the spirit he felt as he went. The rest of the ward council was very excited to getting involved in the missionary efforts. Justin started his family history two weekends ago and is already 7 generations back on two sides! I'm so grateful for the member who helped him get to that point. Justin is amazing! He's been working hard!

What a blessing it is to be serving the Lord! I'm glad things are going so well!! 

I hope you have a great birthday!! I love you so much!

Elder Hale

Week 10 in Sarasota

 Myakka State Park

(Finally got the Alligator pictures Graham asked for)

It was great talking to all of you! (We were able to Skype with Elder Hale on Mother's day).

Sounds like things are going great! Everyone is looking great too!

Things have been going well! We got to meet with a lot of really nice

people recently. It's been great seeing all the miracles happen every

day that lead us to people who have been prepared for the gospel. I'm

loving the work! Elder Menlove is working hard. It's crazy he leaves

so soon! I'm so grateful for his example to me! I'm glad grandma and

everyone else was there. It was awesome seeing all of you!!

We had a great time today going to Myakka State Park. A member of the

YSA branch took us. It was a blast! Tons of Alligators everywhere! We

had the Beneva Elders come with us. We hiked there for several hours.

Luckily it wasn't super hot this morning haha. So much fun! Well I

love you and miss you!! Hope you have a great day!!!! I also hope you

had a great Mother's Day!! Love youuuuuu

Elder Hale

Week 9 in Sarasota

 Picture with Dawn

 MLC 

1920 edition of the Book of Mormon from one of our investigators

We had TONS of exchanges this week so Elder Menlove and I weren't together for most of it. As a result I got a cold. Elder Menlove caught one too. Besides that the exchanges went great! In Port Charlotte I went with Elder Shakespeare. They are doing some great work down there! An appointment fell through so he was looking and we stopped by a former in the area. Turns out this former used to go to church consistently. We walked in and he had a Gospel Principles book, a triple combination and a Bible all sitting right there on the desk. Crazy! He has a testimony and wants to be baptized. Sadly he's let his family influence him. I actually noticed that a lot this week. There are several less active members and even non - members who read and do everything they should. They just don't come to church and keep all their covenants with God. It's so hard to see that. Thank goodness for those who stay strong and are willing to Endure to the End. We met an awesome woman named Dawn. She "LOVES MORMONS". I can't remember if I told you about her last week. We met with her on one of our exchanges with Elder Rees. He is awesome! One of our district leaders. She is super, super busy and is active in her own church. But after seeing the Book of Mormon play several times she's just super curious. She even is thinking of having her kids join. Hopefully that will turn into a desire to progress to baptism but we will have to wait and see. She is super amazing! Besides that things are great! Very busy! But lots of fun! I have loved getting to know the missionaries serving in this Zone. Seeing the love Heavenly Father has for them and also the love President Cooper has for them. It's been amazing! Well I can't wait to talk to you this Sunday! I hope you have an amazing week! 

Love you so much!!

Elder Hale 

Week 8 in Sarasota

 It's hot!

Some of the sites around Sarasota

This week was great!! There were soooo many miracles! We had Stake

Conference this past weekend which was super exciting! We had Elder

Gillenwater who is an Area seventy attend. He's awesome. We introduced

him to Justin Jacques who was baptized in March. It was awesome

because they have a really similar background. Elder Gillenwater is

also a convert. It was awesome!! We had a huge miracle at General

Conference. The investigators we were planning on having come all had

things come up which was sad. After Stake Conference however a member

of the YSA branch introduced us to a friend of his named Thomas. He's

awesome! Thomas was reading a book the night before and felt he needed

change in his life. He said he had a feeling to call his friend and go

to church the next day. It's crazy!! He's super prepared! We

introduced him to President and Sister Cooper and have plans to see

him later today! Such a huge miracle! We have also met some amazing

people this week! There was one man we met who is Italian but lived in

Germany the past 15 years. He wasn't too interested at first but then

he got excited when he realized I could speak some German. It was

awesome!

Elder Menlove is doing great! He's such a great leader and missionary!

We've been having a blast ! I love this work!! I hope you have another

great week!! Love you!!!!!

April in Florida...The "feels like" has been in the 100s.

Elder Hale