Love Marci Marquez

Dear Hall Family,

We got your e-mail address with your son (Elder Hall) here in Chile. He is a great missionary. I know from personal experience how exciting it can be to hear from your son or daughter when they are out on the field. Every other Sunday I have the missionaries over for Lunch, and try my best at feed them a little american food, even when they get trunky, lol.

A little about my family and I, my name is Marci Marquez, we lived in Mesa, Arizona for about nine years and we just got to Chile January 10th of this year. We loved it there but it was sure time to came back to our land, our roots, and to do more service for the church as well. We love having your son and his companion together with the other missionary couple in our area, because it sure makes us feel like we were up there. We pray in English, talked of course, well pretty much everything in English when they are around.

Your son is a wonderful missionary, he is kind, has good manners, and seems to enjoy every minute of his mission. I know that he'll have lots of success on his mission here in Chile. I really do hope that we can keep in contact, and whatever you might need please let me know.

Love Marci Marquez

Marks of a Man

Hola familia. 

Les quiero mucho. Yo espero que todo es bueno con ustedes. Todo esta bien aqui. Haha i love you guys so much. I have been thinkin about you so much this past week. It has been pretty hard. I have to say it was a trunky week but its all good. It has been crazy. The rain is insane here. I am so glad that i brought my rain jacket and umbrella or as they call it here paragua or water stopper in english. 

On Tuesday it started raining and raining and raining. And thats when i realized that they didnt have storm draines in the streets...it was insane. The streets were seriously like rivers. The water was up to our ankles. And when a car goes by you have to point your umbrella at the car so all the water doesnt soak ya so most of the time our umbrellas are pointed sideways instead of above our head. It is awesome. 

You will have to tell sister masterson thanx cause she sent me the ward news letter. It was fun to see what is goin on in the ward. Also kayla wrote me so if you see her tell her thanx and i am proud that she is graduating. 

Haha so a funny side note. Something in spanish that i figured out why lots of people here dont take personal responsibility for their actions. But it isnt their fault cause it is a rule in spanish. For example, when they say that they broke something, they really say that it broke itself se rompio. Or if they make something fall they say that it fell itself...se cao. So ya that is why no one here takes personal responsiblity for anything haha. 

It is crazy how americanized it is here. I know i have said that so many times but it is so true. We were in a house and they had the tv on and the kids were sitting there watching the simpsons and they said that that is their favorite show. They also say that none of the shows here are good, so they only watch american movies. Everyone here loves america. 

Yesterday we got to go to a baptism!!! It was awesome, it was a baptism of this guy that the other elders in our distric were baptizing. It was so cool though cause this guy, maricio, his parents are hardcore evengelist or however that is in english (i am forgetting my enghlish which is good) anyways, the day before he was goin to be baptized his parent said that they would disown him if he got baptized...so yesterday he stood up and said it was the hardest thing he has every done but he knew without a doubt that this church is true and it was the right thing to do. This guy was awesome and it was cool to see the conviction that he had. He said he knew he made the right choice by getting baptized. SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a ward noche de hogar or family home evening. We put it together and it was so sad. None of the leaders of the priesthood, yw, ym, or relief society would help us. So we had to do everything. So for service on Friday, we pumped out 400 brownies so they we would have a refreshment. But it was a cool noche de hogar. We had 3 people stand up and bear their testimonies of the book of mormon. This kid who was only 9 stood up and read the part where jesus prays for the children and the angles come down from heaven and cirlce the children. He bore a simple but so so strong testimony of the bom and of jesus and i couldnt hold back the tears. The spirit was so strong and it was amazing to see the testimony of this little kid. This church is so true. 

So my comp had this story and i really wanted to share it with you guys so i am goin to type it up really fast. I hope you like it. I hope one day i will be able to become like this missionary. It is from this book called raising the bar. Maybe you could go get it from deseret book or something...anyways here it is

Marks of a Man

As i jumped on board my flight from miami to salt lake city, i paused a moment to catch my breath. Seated near the front of the plane was an excited young man, probably 19, sitting with his parents. His hair was short and his cloths new and sharp. His suit was fitted perfectly, and his black shoes still retained that store bought shine. His body was in good shape, his face clear, and his hands clean. In his eyes i could see a nervous look, and his movements were that of an actor on opening night. 

He was obviously flying to Utah to become a missionary for the Mormon church. I smiled as i walked by and took pride in belonging to this same church where these young men and women voluntarily serve the Savior for 2 years. With this special felling, I continued to the back where my seat was located. 

As I sat in my seat, i looked to the right and to my surprise saw another missionary sleeping in the window seat. His hair was also short, but that was the only similarity between the 2. this one was obviously returning home, and i could tell at a glance what type of missionary he had been. 

The fact that he was already asleep told me a lot. His entire body seemed to let out a big sigh. It looked as if this was the first time in two years he had even slept and i wouldnt be surpised if it was. 

As i looked at his face, i could see the heavy bags under his eyes, the chapped lips, and the scarred and sunburned face caused by the fierce florida sun. 

His suit was tattered and worn. A few of the seams were coming apart, and i noticed that there were a couple of tears that had been handswen with a very sloppy stitch. 

I saw the nametag, crooked, scratched and bearing the name of the chuch he represented, the engraving of which was almost all worn away. I saw the knee of his pants, worn and white, the result of many hours of humble prayer. A tear came to my eye as i saw the things that really told me what kind of missionary he had been. I saw the marks that made this boy a man. 

His feet the 2 that had carried him from house to house, now lay swollen and tired. They were covered by a pair of worn out shoes. Many of the large scraped and gouges had been filled in by the countless number of polishings. 

His books, laying across his lap, were his scriptures, the word of god. Once new, these books which testify of jesus christ and his mission, were now torn, bent and ragged from use. 

His hands thoes big strong hands which had been used to bless and teach were now scarred and cut from knowcking at doors. 

Thoes were indead the marks of a man. And as i looked at him, i saw the marks of another man, the savior, as he was hanging on the cross for the sins of the world. 

His feet, thoes that had once carried his throughout the land during his ministry, were now nailed to the cross. 

His side now pierced with a spear, sealing his gospel, his testimony, with is life. 

His hands, the hands that had been used to ordain his servants and bless the sick, were also scarred with the nails that were pounded to hang him on the cross 

Thoes were the marks of that great man. 

As my mind returned to the missionary, my whole body seemed to swell with pride and joy, because i knew, by looking at him, that he had served his master well. 

My joy was so great, i felt like running to the front of the plane, grabbing that new, young missionary and bringing him back to see what he could become, what he could do. 

But would he see the tings that i saw, could anyone see the things i saw? Or would he just see the outward appearance of that mighty elder, tired and worn out, almost dead. 

As we landed, i reached over and tapped him to wake him up. As he awoke, it seemed like new life was entering his body. His whole frame just seemed to fill as he stood up tall and proud. As he turned his face towards mine, i saw a light about his face that i had never seen before. I looked into thoes eyes. Thoes eyes. I will never forget thoes eyes. They were the eyes of a prophet, a leader, a follower, and a servant. They were the eyes of the savior. No words were spoken. No words were needed. 

When i came through the doors, i saw this young man in the arms of his parents, and i couldnt hold it in any longer. With tears streaming down my face, i watched these loving parents greet their son who had been away for a short time. And i wondered if our parents in heaven would greet us the same way. Will they wrap their arms around us and welcome us home from our journey on earth? I believe they will. I just hope that i can be worthy enough to recieve such praise, as im sure this missionary will. I said a silent prayer, thanking the lord for missionaries like this young man. I dont think i will ever forget the joy and happiness he brought me that day... 

I love you guys tons. Someday i will be like this man. The church is true. Jesus is the christ, the very son of God. He is my savior and redeemer. You guys are awesome. Live worthy so some day we can all live in the kingdom of god together forever in never ending happiness!!! 

 Love ya 

Elder hall

Fat is where its at...

Hey family

So it sounds like you have having a blast without me. Mom i am way proud of ya that you ran that 5k. That is so sweet. That is crazy that jason is marrying carissa. If you see him tell him congrats. Ya i heard that shae is pregnant again. That is awesome you guys will have to send me pics of the new little neices and nephews for me. Wait, so you said that adam is getting divorsed? I dont know if i got that right or not but that is sad if it is right. And of course you get a dog now when i leave. I thought you guys said that you are never goin to get a pet again...ya whatever haha. 

This week has been awesome. It was really hard but cool. One thing really quick, there is this kid here that left for his mission about 3 months ago and he is in the slc mission. And his parents said that he is in the campo or the country which i thought might be alpine so maybe you could look for him. They said that he speaks really good english and so if you find him you can find out more about chile.  

Make sure to tell grandma hall thanx for the letter. I got it and i loved it. It was great to hear what is goin on back at home and to get a real letter that i could actually hold and read. Dad and lyndsie happy b-days. I love you guys tons!!! So i am officially fat...i havent checked my weight in a while but i know i am. My face, my stomache and my butt are huge...haha it is awesome. But i thouht i might as well look on the bright side, so i have adopted this quote that elder despain, an elder that lives in our pension said, “Fat people are harder to kidnap. Fat is where its at...” ya so that is my new quote i hope ya like it. 

So yesterday we ate with the arizona family and it was awesome. It is crazy to see how much i have missed eating american food. Something so simple as a salad. Salads here are lettuce and nothing else. And the dressing? The dressing is oil and lemon juice... i hate the salad here. So yesterday this family had fresh lettuce and ranch dressing. Oh it was amazing, i loved it!!! 

I dont know if you guys remember noris but she is the investagator that invited us over to have lunch with her. So we taught her lesson 3 which is the gospel of jesus christ. She is a pretty hard core baptist and so that was so hard. We taught faith and repentance. She totally got that. But then we taught baptism and she was like ya i have already been baptized... so we are like ya that is great but you have to have the proper authority. And she was like but my pastor went to school and is qualified to baptize. So we showed her heb 5:4 that no one takes this honor upon himself save he is called as was aaron. And she got really upset and was like, so you are saying everything i have done in my life is wrong... we explained it to her and she seemed upset still but i think she understood. So we told her that she has to pray and find out if this is the true church or not. We can talk all day to people but it wont change anything, they have to have that testimony or we can sit there and prove them wrong a million times using the bible but they will still not believe.

So my comp was like i will pray and you need to pay attention and i know that you will recieve an answer. So she was like ya i know that if this church is true i will get an answer from god. So my comp starts prayin and in the middle of the prayer her fire goes crazy!!! This fire just blows up and is burning huge and loud... i was like, there is your answer...well i didnt say that but i wanted to. It was the weirdest thing but i hope that she will gain a testimony for herself. 

Ya this week has been good. It is crazy to see how much we can really change a ward. Yesterday we had the ward missionaries set apart and its awesome to see how the church is exactly the same down to the smallest things. It is hillarious cause you have everyone in this ward. You have brother mower, brother call, the hadley family, the sweeny family, just everyone from our ward you have the exact same people here. Its awesome. 

So i have decided to do something really strange. It is a little theory that i have come up with. Here it is “if you do something every single day that you really dont want to do then you will be more able to control yourself, your life and everything around you. So for example, one day this week a hermana gave me pineapples for lunch...i hate pineapples but i decided to eat every single drop of it, and i did. Other example, i decided that i love hot showers. So i decided to have a cold shower...it was a short one but i did it. So that is my theory and i think it really does work. Ya, anyways enough about my stupidity. 

Ya well i dont know what else to say, i feel like i am just babbling on so i will stop but i just want to let ya know that i almost got pecked again. But once again i dodged it, i am getting really good at dodging. It is goin to be weird at the end of my mission when girls go to hug me or something and i dodge them...ya it will be awesome. Anyways sorry, i better go. I am proud of you all and i love ya tons. Have an amazing week!!! La iglesia es verdadera. Realamente jesucristo vive!! El nos ama. Si segimos el, podemos tener felicidad en esta vida. Les amo mucho mucho. Tenga una incredible semana. 

Con amor, 

Elder hall

Was great to talk to you...

hey family,

well thanx everyone for writting me...wait no one did :( haha jk it is all good i guess. i got to talk to you all yesterday and that was awesome. it was cool to hear how everyone is doing and stuff like that.  

so this week has been good. nothin too crazy has happened. i gave 2 blessings this week. so far i have given a lot of blessing on my mission. it is hard in spanish cause i cant talk very well but it is awesome. also it is hard cause everyones names are like maria chavez galves martinez cabello... so it is hard but it is awesome.

this is for jacob my little friend. i have gained a bit of weight and i dont care that much but i am having a hard time fitting into my pants so i would like to lose a little weight, and jacob was a weight trainer or whatever so i was wondering if he could put a little program together really fast of what i could do for 30 mins a day. i dont have anything to use but a pull up bar... so if you could do that that would be great. all the weight is on my butt and my stomache. also if you could give me ideas of food i could have that would be good to eat that would be great.

mom i have a little homework for ya. if you could send me some recipies of easy stuff to make that is quick and easy and good that would be awesome. Thanx mom. 

Anyways i am sorry cause i dont really know what to write this week. I talked to you guys yesterday and i dont know what i can tell ya that i havent already told ya. Sorry...it would be a lot easier if you guys could send me your questions so i could answer them. And to do that you would have to write me...but ya. 

I love you guys and i hope ya have a great week. All is well in chile. 

Love ya

Elder hall

Pulgas or Fleas

Hello family. ¿Como estan? 

All is well in chile. I am loving the work as always. It has been a good week, hard as always but everything is coming along. I am loving everything that i am doing. The spanish is coming along so well. I can almost understand all that is being said. Also i can speak ok but i am working on that. Ya everyone says that after 6 months hit, everything comes together but i am hoping to get it faster than that. That is my goal but ya. I almost have 2 moths here and it is crazy. 

So guess what i have...pulgas or fleas. Great eh? They attacked me the other night and my arms are covered with bites but we bought this spray stuff and it seems to have killed them...for now but we will have to see who wins the fight eh? Haha so i have one change under my belt. I am still in the same area and with elder hansen. He was made distric leader so i am helping him with that and everyting is goin well with that. I am loving our sector and everthing. 

I checked my weight a couple days ago and guess what...i am now 165... i think but i am not sure yet. I am sure i am though. It looks like my cheeks are getting fatter and my stomache is for sure getting bigger. It is getting harder and harder to fit into my pants so i need to lose some weight soon or i am dead. I will keep you updated but i hope that i wont come home 300 lbs...but right now it is really looking like it will be a possiblity so you maybe could pray for me that i wont come home looking like a suma wrestler. 

Yesterday we had a great Sunday dinner in the home of a member. They lived in arizona for 7 years so they could speak english and they made homemade pizza for us. It was amazing, i loved it. But what made it even better was what else they had...ranch!!!! sweet eh? It was awesome, i soaked my pizza in ranch and took advantage of that. 

Dad that is cool to hear that you got to do that joseph smith thing. I love when you and mom did thoes kinds of things for the ward. I have a question for ya though. I have always been able to come to you and find out answers to my questions but now you are thousands of miles away so it will take a week for me to find out,...unless you want to send me a dear elder tomorrow cause Tuesdays is when we get letters and pouch...anyways, my question is i was reading in true to the faith in pg 62 about temple work. It said we do baptisms and sealing and endowments but it also said that we give priesthood for the dead...so i was wondering about that cause i never did it and i have never heard about that so if you could let me know what you know and what you could find out that would be great. 

I was so proud of me and my comp. We are getting really couragous because this past week we were on a bus coming back from pomaire and we decided to get up and sing. So we just stood up in this bus packed full of people and started singing our hearts out to a hymn. It was so cool, i felt the spirit and i am sure someone on the bus felt it too...but when the people started booing and throwing stuff at us...jk it was cool i think the people enjoyed it, i hope the tears were from joy...anyways it was awesome. 

Yesterday we did a mini spit with these other missionaries. They were both latins and so i went with an elder named elder bessera, who is from chile. So that was way cool to not be around anyone who could help me with my spanish and i had to use all the spanish i could and i couldnt look for help from anyone and i had to try to understand cause no one was there to tell me what they said. But it was amazing to see how much i really know and how much i really understand. I love getting out of my safe zone. Anyways we went to this contacts house and they let us in. So it was this mom and we sat down and started talking to her. Then her daughter comes into the room and so i stand up to show repect and to shake her hand. She was around 16 and (pretty) i didnt say that...anyways i made a mistake by standing up because in chile they greet each other by kissing...so she thought i was goin in for the kiss and i didnt realize it. All the sudden my comp says “we dont do that” and then i realized she was goin in for the kiss and i barely dodged it haha it was awesome. But she was a great investagator and so we are goin to come over on Tuesday and see how her reading went. 

Today for pday we woke up at 5 and climbed this huge hill next to melipilla. It was so cool, we got to watch the sun rize above the huge andies and see the city. Then we made a fire and roasted hot dogs and marsh mellos. It was way cool. So it has been a good pday. I think that i might get a hair cut today cause it is getting long but i am not sure. I am glad that you guys like the pics and like my part. I thought it was pretty sweet. But i love you guys so much. I hope all is well. Thanx for the letters and everything.

Oh ya, i almost forgot, this Sundays mothers day. Haha, ya i am way excited to call you guys. What is goin to happen is tomorrow i think or later this week i get to call ya for like 2 minutes and set a time and date (most likely Sunday) that works best for you guys. We get to talk for 45 mins and i cant wait!!!!!!!!! So i will call moms cell probably but ya, tomorrow make sure to keep the phone with ya and ya i cant wait to hear from ya all. 

Anyways i love you guys so much. This church is so true. Jesus christ lives!!! I love you all so much and remember that your son, brother, grandson, uncle and whatever else loves candy and mountain dew, which we dont have here...

Love ya tons

Elder hall