Elder Bridger Hall: Soaked!

Austin's baptism!

Hey everyone! My goodness it’s 2018 I can’t even believe it! I go home this year! Man that is so weird. Well a happy new year to everyone! I would also like to wish my pup Buster Bluth a very happy birthday! He’s 4 years old today! I’m excited to tell you guys about my week, it was crazy!

Last Monday was Christmas as you all know, and I had the best time talking to my family! Those little kiddos are getting so big! I’m happy that everyone is doing well and enjoying life!

Tuesday was probably my favorite day of my whole mission. We spent the morning grocery shopping and then some sisters called us stranded because their car broke down. It took us a little bit, but we got the car to start! You can just start calling me the car doctor or something... haha NO. Anyway, we had district meetings and our zone is doing so well. I am so proud of them!

Ok so rewind to Monday night. My boy Austin is getting baptized on Tuesday in Milwaukie and I have no ride over. Everyone I call turns me down. I finally have this thought, ‘hey President Bullen goes to all the baptisms and he’s pretty close by.’ I call President and he says he would love to give me a ride!

Now back to Tuesday. President and Sister Bullen come to pick me up at our apartment. Elder Wallace goes with some other elders for the evening. I get in the car and we start driving, just the three of us! President hands me a stack of papers and asks me to read them and give him feedback. We have a really nice hour long drive talking about missionary work and what we can do to change some things. It was pretty cool!

Then we had the crowning event of the night! Austin got baptized! I was so happy for him! I started teaching him back in August. He was so happy and I was so honored to be the one to baptize him. It was a special experience I will never forget!

Because this was the first time I had ever baptized someone in my mission, I didn’t quite think of how wet I would get... so of course I didn’t bring an extra shirt. I wrung it out as best I could and threw it back on, still soaking wet. Luckily, I was wearing a suit so it wasn’t noticeable, but I was FREEZING. hahaha I am so dumb.

So President and Sister Bullen and I get in the car and start back home to Beaverton. Because of how crazy our day was, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now 7:30 and I was STARVING. As we’re driving, President gets off the highway in Lake Oswego, so I ask where we’re going. He says, “Elder Hall I’m buying you dinner. Will you let me do that?” I graciously accepted and we pull into this chic Thai restaurant. He brings in this stack of papers mentioned earlier and we spend all of dinner discussing. I felt like I was about to make a multimillion dollar business deal or something! Haha you could tell President has had many important meetings over dinner.

So that was my Tuesday. And it was just so neat and so fun. I will never forget it!

Flash forward to Friday at MLC which is always a party! Haha I love all of my mission leader friends! President Bullen and I concluded on Tuesday night we needed a reform of planning and how to do it. Well on Friday, he pulls out 8 of us and let’s us know that we are going to be a special committee to figure out this planning thing. We spent the rest of MLC trying to figure out some place to start. It’s going to be an adventure.

This week has brought many emotions for me. Talking to my family, seeing someone get baptized, being responsible for a big assignment, learning that my family is moving, finding out a dear friend is going home from their mission early, and hitting 2018. There’s been points where I almost fall apart because I don’t know how to handle it all. And then I remember some advice a close friend told me that was reiterated in church yesterday, amazingly enough. It’s this: Control what you can control and then have faith that the Lord will take care of the rest. So that’s what I’ll do.

I love you all so much much, I hope you have an amazing week!

With love,

Elder Hall