Service Softens Stoney Souls -February 15th, 2016

Whats up everyone! 

What a week! 

We've been trying to stay as busy as we can and this week we accomplished that goal. Our week was full of service and teaching! Which are my two favorite things, so you can say we had a pretty good week:)

Elder Westling is just awesome! He's such a great missionary and works really hard. He's also totally hilarious and really fun to be around. We get a long great and I'm really excited for the rest of this transfer and all the experiences we'll have together. 

As the subject of this letter says "service softens stony souls" this is a quote that President Hanks says a lot and I really love it. We also had many experiences this past week that proved that this saying is very true! 

Throughout the week, as we gave service, we saw the people who we were serving open up to us even more. And as they opened up to us, it gave the spirit a chance to touch their hearts. It's an amazing thing to see, how something as small as raking leaves or baking cookies for someone can help soften stony souls and create an opportunity for the spirit to touch them and help them draw closer to Christ. I challenge everyone to take some time and serve someone around you, whether you know them or not, whether they know about it or not, just serve someone. And I guarantee that the results from your service, love, and selflessness will be amazing to see. And that you will also be blessed in your own life for turning your arrows outward and focusing more on others. 

Obviously this isn't something that I'm perfect at either but I'm definitely trying to become better at instinctively serving all those around me! I'm very grateful for all the excellent examples of people, who constantly are giving selfless service, in my life. 

This week was also valentines day.... and if it weren't for my family I wouldn't have even brought it up! Obviously cause I'm a missionary and Valentines day just makes you trunky so you try not to think or talk about it haha but I just had to give my amazing family a shout out and express my gratitude and love for them. They do so much for me and I can't express how much I appreciate it. I mean, you know the love is real when your family takes the time to pack a box full of candy, food, treats, some other random stuff, and even fit a balloon in the box as well haha! Ya ll are just the best! 

Anyways, sorry there are no pics... I promise to try to be better this week at taking some for y'all! We've just been so busy and it's hard to remember... but I promise to work on it! 

I hope you all have a great week! I'll talk to you next Monday! 

Love,

Elder Honn

Missionaries in a Parade! -February 8th, 2016

Hey y'all!

This week was good but pretty different. We had transfers without a transfer meeting so that was pretty weird... but it was still awesome cause I got to see some of the Elders I'm close to! I also said goodbye to Shurtz and got Elder Westling!

Elder Westling is great! He's from a small town in Utah (4th companion from Utah...). He's really enthusiastic about the work and has a burning testimony. On the drive home he was very open with me and shared his conversion story and bore testimony to me. The spirit was so strong and his story truly touched me. He's become such an amazing missionary over the course of his year and a half served and I can't wait for all the experiences we'll be able to have together this transfer.

Funny little story that happened on Saturday. Our District was in a parade in Talladega haha! It was so much fun! We just sat in the back of a truck and threw candy and random stuff out to people and families on the streets of Talladega. We also threw a bunch of mormon.org cards out as well so it was great! Everyone loved us and would say stuff like "God bless" and what not.

Saturday was also my six month mark so that's cool! haha to be honest I totally forgot about it and then remembered on Sunday when someone asked me how long I had been out. I'd like to thank everyone for all the support and love I've been shown this past six months. It means the world to me! I love all of you so much! It's been a truly amazing six months and I absolutely can't wait for the rest of the amazing experiences I'll be able to have during the next year and a half.

Sorry, this email is pretty short but we have to drive down to Birmingham to pick up a car today so we're a little rushed. I'll talk to you all next week though!

Oh yeah, happy Valentines day too! Love you guys so much!

Elder Honn

Transfers Again? -February 1st, 2016

Hey everyone! 

Dang, this last 7 weeks/transfer feels like it's flown by! But none the less, we did have transfer calls this past Saturday! The news is that Elder Shurtz will be leaving and going to Mississippi, and I will be staying in Talladega. My new companion will be Elder Westling. I've heard a lot about him and apparently he's a pretty funny guy so I'm looking forward to meeting and getting to know him! 

So normally, I wouldn't know my new companion or where Elder Shurtz was going until Wednesday of this week but about a month ago the decision was made by the leaders of the church to stop doing transfer meetings completely in all the missions. So now they're trying to figure out a new way to do Transfers and this time involved just telling us who our new companion will be and where we will be going! So there ya go, now y'all don't have to wait a week to hear who my new companion is or where I'll be going! 

This week we were able to teach quite a few amazing lessons. I feel like that's kind of been the subject of this transfer; being able to teach lessons! Such a blessing.

This week especially though I've really noticed an increase in the power of the spirit that I've had with me. Its been such a huge blessing. For a while, at the beginning of my mission, I was really wondering how I receive personal revelation and this week really helped me to begin to understand and grasp just how the spirit speaks to me and guides me. For a while I've been making a huge effort to be the best missionary that He wants me to be and this week I really saw the blessings from that effort. I'm so grateful for this opportunity that I have to be a tool in the Lords hands to bring about this great work. 

This week Elder Shurtz and I also had a couple of amazing visits with David. We had a lesson with him about the Word of Wisdom at the beginning of the week then at the end of the week we met with him again. He told us how he had really thought about everything we taught him and how when he got home he had taken every one of his packs of cigarettes and ripped them all in half! He said he's done with them and is happy he wont have to spend so much money on them each day. That was so amazing to hear and such a miracle to see the change in him. Seriously, it takes some people months or years to quite smoking! I know that it is only through the power of our Savior that he was able to quite smoking cold turkey. And I have full faith that he will find strength in and through the Savior to be able to persevere and continue on this path of better living. 

I'm excited for all this week has to hold and for the new experiences I'll be having! Talladega has so much potential and I look forward to being able to further the Lords work in this area. 

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!:)

Sincerely,

Elder Honn

Singing in the Rain/Snow! -January 25th, 2016

What's up everyone! 

Another great week! This week we were all over the place! First we started off by having our P-day on Tuesday because of MLK day so that was a little weird for us but I hope y'all enjoyed the break and spending time together! 

After our Tuesday P-day we had interviews over in Birmingham with President Hanks on Wednesday which were great. He's such a great President, spiritual giant, and huge role model (figuratively, and literally haha) to all of his missionaries. It's been a real blessing to be able to have him as my mission President for the first half of my mission. 

Along with interviews, on Wednesday we also had the opportunity to watch a Missionary broadcast from a few of the Leaders of our Church. It was a great broadcast and I learned quite a bit about how to best accomplish the work of the Lord in our area. 

The rest of the week was spent teaching, finding and trying our hardest to progress the work in our area. And guess what! It actually snowed! It snowed in Alabama! haha it was a month late but it was still pretty cool! Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all very cold and rainy days and on Friday it actually ended up getting cold enough to snow. Granted it wasn't a lot but it was still snow! 

Which explains the subject of this letter and connects it to the picture I attached! Haha some of you might not know about the play "Singing in the rain" but the picture is of me trying to do my best impression of the play while we were tracting in the rain/snow haha:) Good thing nobody drives while it's snowing in Alabama or this picture would have been a lot harder to get... 

Anyways, I love all of you and I hope y'all have a great week! 

Sincerely,

Elder Honn

"Those who know do, those who understand, teach." -January 19th, 2016

Hey everyone! How y'all doing?

This past week was really good! It felt pretty long but we were able to stay busy the whole time so that was awesome.

We've been really blessed this transfer to be able to teach quite a lot. Which has been amazing and I've learned a lot from it. Hence the title of this letter. This week we definitely accomplished our responsibility as missionaries to teach!

We had a couple experiences teaching this week where the spirit was just so strong that I'll share.

The first was with an investigator named Alyssa. We brought the Sisters with us to help fellowship her and make her feel more comfortable and it went really well! The Sisters connected so well with her that we were able to have a really good time together. And when the lesson came (we actually did the lesson in a fast food restaurant haha) the spirit was so strong. The Sisters are very good teachers and missionaries and did a really good job bringing the spirit into the lesson even when we were in a fast food restaurant. It was really perfect too because as soon as they started teaching, the whole restaurant kind of got quiet and peaceful, it was really cool.

The second experience was with another investigator named David, who the Sisters have been teaching. Elder Shurtz and I took a member with us and the spirit was so strong the whole time we were in his home. Everything we taught, David was just loving and eating it up. David's story is very amazing and he has made leaps and bounds of progress in coming closer to Christ in the past couple of years. Anyways, while we were teaching we asked the member to share his testimony and conversion story and it was very touching. It went along perfectly with the lesson and even had a lot of similarities to David's story. So at this point, the spirit was just so strong. Elder Shurtz and I both recognized it and invited David to pray and ask his Father in Heaven if these things were true and if he should be baptized. He agreed and said a beautiful prayer. After the prayer we all took some time to listen to the prompting of the Holy Ghost and then we extended the invitation of baptism to David and he agreed. He said he still isn't sure on an exact date but that it will be soon! Such an amazing experience!

I'm really loving Talladega and all the people here. This past week was really great and I'm really excited for all this week has to hold! 

And I hope you all have a great week as well! 

Love, 

Elder Honn 

Steadfast in Christ! 

Pic: Service for an investigator! We replaced all of her wooden fence pole. They had become rotten in the ground and about two feet had broken off into the ground so we had to dig them up, pull them out, and replace them. This wouldn't have been too bad normally except for the fact that we were dealing with Alabama red clay which is basically cement when its dry. So with this piece in particular, we had to douse the ground in hot water to even be able to wiggle it. And I just ended up getting on the ground and using every ounce of muscle in my body to pull this out of the ground. It took quite a while and became personal so when I actually got it out, I was pretty happy:) 

Coming Closer to Christ Every Day -January 11th, 2016

Hey! I hope yall had a good week! 

This week was good! Elder Shurtz and I are getting a long really well and have been able to do some good work. I've said this before but he's a really good missionary! He has so much personal motivation with everything in life and is also a very good teacher. So put those together and you get a very solid missionary that I'm very happy I have the opportunity to serve with and learn from. 

Talladega is doing very well as well. We are still doing a lot of less active finding which has been really good. We've had some amazing experiences from it and have seen some success! 

Other than that, it's just been a regular week!  We had Zone training this week which was good and after zone training we had a pretty amazing experience that I'll share real quick! 

But before I do, i want to explain a thing we do in the great ABM. In this mission we have this thing called Emmaus experiences. If any of you know the story of Emmaus you will probably understand and if you don't then I invite you to open up the scriptures and learn for yourself. The story is in Luke 24:) But basically an Emmaus experience is when we realize and notice a time when Christ was walking with you. So in this mission we always try to notice these experiences in our lives and share them with other missionaries regularly in meetings.

Anyways, we had just gotten some food after the meeting and decided to do some store contacting. We walk into this store and instantly a worker starts talking to us. We end up talking to this guy for like half an hour and during this time he expresses how he has really been wanting to come closer to Christ and has been trying to find a way to turn his life around for a while. He said that when he saw us come in the store it was like a sign from God that he was doing the right thing. As he went on to tell us about his life it was amazing to hear all the things he had gone through and how he developed this desire to be closer to Christ and live a better life. And at the end of our conversation, there was a little bit of silence and he just started smiling and asked us if we were even real. At first we didn't understand and said of course we were real and he responded with saying that we couldn't be real and that we had to be angels because of how much he needed us at that time. Amazing! 

Sadly, he didn't live in our area so we gave his info to the other Elders for them to teach him and hopefully they will also be playing basketball with him today! That was such an awesome Emmaus experience for me and I was so grateful for the blessing that heavenly father gave us of connecting our paths and letting us help this awesome guy. 

So yeah, that was one really cool experience we had this week that I thought I'd share with y'all. 

And along with it I'd like to extend the invitation to everyone to try to notice those Emmaus experiences in your own life and notice when Christ was walking with you. I know that if you do, it will strengthen our testimony even more and that you relationship with Christ will become so much more personal. 

I love you guys, and hope you all have an amazing week! 

Love, 

Elder Honn 

Steadfast in Christ! 

The Best Way to Spend New Years Eve -January 5th, 2016

Hey everyone!

I hope y'all had a great week and Happy New Years! I hope everyone had a fun night and was able to stay safe.

My New Years Eve was amazing. We had a baptism on New Years Eve at midnight! It was such an awesome experience. His name is Brother Anderson and he has been investigating the Church for a while and finally decided to get baptized. He wanted it to be special and unusual so he chose to do it new years eve. And what better way to start fresh than being reborn on New Years Eve, right?

So the service started at 11:30 and he was baptized at 11:55. The spirit was so strong the entire time and he and his family were so happy and were just glowing the whole night.

I only taught him once so I had nothing to do with it and was transferred here when he already had a baptismal date but it was a huge privilege and blessing to be able to be part of such a beautiful thing. And to be able to witness someone taking such a major step in their life to come closer to Christ.

On Sunday, I was also able to stand in on the circle and confirm him a member of the Church and give him the blessing of the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was all just such an amazing experience and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to participate in it all.

This church is SO true. It's amazing how much happiness, joy, and comfort the gospel brings into peoples lives. It's such a beautiful thing.

Other than that, our week was really good. We've been able to stay busy and have had the blessing of being able to teach quite a few people! Talladega is awesome and I'm loving every minute spent in this area. There as so many good people here!

Anyways, sorry this email wasn't the longest but I don't have a whole lot of time today. I hope y'all have a great week though and I'll talk to you next Monday!

Love,

Elder Honn

Pics: Good ole Alabama sunsets! And Elder Shurtz and I rocking the 2016 glasses! haha that picture was taken at like 1:30 in the morning so we were deep in the durp zone!

I'm also waiting on someone to send me the pictures from the baptism so I'll get those to y'all as soon as i get them!:)