Elder Bridger Hall: Bless You, Elder

Burrito Boy! Costa Vida stop!

Happy December! I cannot even believe it is Christmas time. The weather has been unusually nice here... It’s freezing, but the skies are blue and the sun in shining. Where is my gloomy Oregon winter? I was so prepared for it and now as the Beaver would say, “Wally, I’ve been tooken!” Haha that was mostly for Maddie. This week was crazy crazy!

So Wednesday was unusually gorgeous outside! We decided to go down to Clackamas Community College and hand out surveys. We tossed around a football for a few hours and ended up talking to over 60 YSA aged kids and got information for 12 of them! It was pretty cool. We even handed out a Book of Mormon. It was a pretty fun and successful day!

Thursday. Holy cow, Thursday. Elder Carl B Cook of the Seventy came and did a mission tour. We had an absolutely incredible zone conference! He taught from the scriptures all day about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I loved every minute! I was asked to sing a solo in the meeting and I think it went well! I sang, “If The Savior Stood Beside Me”, one of my favorite primary songs. The spirit was with me when I sang, and many testified of the spirit thereafter.

The next day, we had an MLC. What an opportunity to learn from such an incredible man! We sat and discussed the mission and where we needed to go. One of my favorite things he said was, “Goals are not just wishes, they are desires of the heart.” Sister Cook said something I loved as well! She said, “The climate is perfect for a miracle!” How right she is! We are SO CLOSE to our goal of 20 baptisms for this quarter in the Milwaukie stake. I believe we can do it!

Saturday morning we had the awesome opportunity to volunteer at the Nike Cross Country Nationals! All of the best cross country teams in the nation came to run. It was an enormous event! It was televised on ESPN with commentators, reporters, and crazed fans, the whole nine yards! It was nuts! We were on the course making sure spectators didn’t cross the course during the race. We got front row seats to the whole thing! Not only that, we got some SWEET free hoodies! Shoutout to Devin for hooking us up! It was super cool!

The stake had a Christmas party this week and us elders got a picture with Santa! I’ll include pictures.

I’ll have to admit, we’ve been pretty blessed with visits here in the OPM by Elder Ballard. So when I heard it was a Seventy coming, I was not super excited. It was sort of a let down. As amazing as zone conference and MLC was, I still was kind of feeling let down that we didn’t get to hear from an apostle. Elder Cook got up at the end of MLC and bore his testimony, that he was on the Lord’s errand, that all he taught us was from the apostles, that the Lord knew us. I felt the spirit strongly. Then after the meeting, Elder Cook shook each of our hands. When we got to me he grabbed my hand and paused. He held my arm, looked me in the eyes and said, “Bless you, Elder.” For that moment, it was as if no one else was in the room. I suddenly was filled with such love and care. Godly awareness as I’ve come to call it. It was a moment I will never forget.

I know without any doubt that Elder Cook is called of God. I know this gospel is true. Joy will come in no other way than following the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love you all, have a great week!

With love,

Elder Hall