Back to the Basics -April 25th, 2016

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great week!

I don't want to say our week was normal or average because no week is really normal as a missionary but as far as missionary work goes, it was a pretty normal week haha! But it was still a great week! 

To further explain the topic of this email; Elder Westling and I went without a GPS this week... SO we had to stay mainly around Talladega and just stick with the basics of missionary work. Aka tracting, visiting people, service, and doing what we can without a GPS. I know that to anyone who served a foreign mission or who served over twenty years ago, this is probably going to sound like we're pansies that need GPS BUT when you serve in Alabama, people live in the absolute middle of nowhere in the boonies sometimes and you have to be able to find them so we rely on GPS a little bit... 

Anyways haha! That kind of explains our week! Not a whole ton to report on! 

Just so everyone knows, transfers are next week so we will be receiving a call to find out whats happening this Saturday. So next Monday I'll be sure to let y'all know the news!:) 

This email is going to be pretty short so I thought I'd include a talk that I read recently from this month's Ensign. It teaches us about how we can better recognize and resist the temptations and tricks of the adversary. I loved it and I hope ya'll do as well. 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2016/04/young-adults/recognizing-satans-counterfeits?lang=eng

Again, I hope that y'all enjoyed that and were able to learn something from it like I did. I know that as we strive to be strong and resist the temptations and tricks of the adversary that He will notice our efforts and bless us with strength and courage!

I hope ya'll have a great week and I'll talk to y'all next Monday! 

Love, 

Elder Honn

Pics: We had a Zone activity this morning and went on a hike to an amazing waterfall in gadsden, Alabama. It was amazing and made me feel like I was in Hawaii again haha! 

Another Week of the Lord's Work! -April 18th, 2016

Hey y'all!

Another busy week!

We had interviews at the beginning of the week with President Hanks. His last interview with all of us before he leaves in two months... it's gonna be hard when he leaves. He's done so much for this mission and it will never be the same because of him. I'm sure the new mission President will be amazing as well though!

This week we were able to do a bunch of service and it was awesome! Just to sum it up I learned two things from the service. Pressure washers are a lot of fun and Elder Westling can fix almost anything but only when the Lord is involved haha!

I was also able to go on and exchange with Elder Lee this week! We had a really good time and had some great experiences. Elder Lee is our district leader and he's a fantastic missionary. We taught some really great lessons and spent time with some great people. On Saturday we also had the opportunity to volunteer at the local pound in Sylacauga, which was a lot of fun! This pound is awesome as well, I asked if they ever have to put down any of the animals and they said no, almost all of them get adopted. Which is awesome! Anyways basically Elder Lee and I just cleaned all the dog kennels and whilst doing so, I played with all the dogs and puppies a lot! haha it was a lot of fun! 

Other than that, this week was great!

I saw an awesome picture/quote thing that I thought I'd share with y'all. It's made me rethink and change the way I've been praying, and I really like it. 

Here it is: 
​

I saw this and really liked it. Lately, I've been thinking about my communication with our Father in Heaven and how at times I can get caught up with just asking for things I want or need help with and not considering what He wants for me. I've implemented this into my prayers this week and I've really felt a difference as I pray and speak to Him about my desires. I'd recommend trying it!

Anyways, that's all I've got! I hope y'all have a great week and I'll talk to you next Monday!

Love,

Elder Honn

Ask the Elder, Round Two! -April 11th, 2016

We meet again! haha what a week... felt super long but now we're here, another Monday, another week ahead of us! Time is just a weird thing... anyways! Getting off track haha... This week, while long, was really good! Elder Westling and I have been continuing our efforts with the less actives in our area and we had a lot of good experiences because it. Not a whole lot of stories that were really worth talking about in my letter this week though so I decided to fulfill my lovely Mother's request and answer some questions again! I hope y'all enjoy!:)

- What has been your biggest challenge this week?

 This past week Elder Westling and I's tiredness kind of caught up to us and hit us like a wall so the main challenge was to find the energy to work our hardest from 6:30 in the morning to 9 at night. But we did it! And we saw many blessings come from our efforts. Another challenge that this last week held was having investigators not keep their commitments. Sadly, this happens quite a lot in missionary work but it just hit us pretty hard this week. But hey, you fail and you try again and that's exactly what we're going to do this week! 

- What has been your biggest concern? 

Lately, I've had a couple concerns. I worry about if our investigators have an actual desire to learn and progress or if they just like having us come over. I worry if they're actually forming and developing their own testimony and are continuing to grow or if their okay with their spiritual complacency. I also worry about if I'm giving my absolute best and working my absolute hardest for the Lord 100 percent of the time or am I at times relaxed and comfortable and not pushing myself as hard as I can. 

- What has been your biggest success?

My biggest success has been developing a true love for the work. Missionary work isn't easy but it's worth it. And when you come to learn and understand that, you start to develop this love for the work that you never would've expected yourself to have. I love everything about my mission. The ups, the downs, the people you become close to, the crazy people you meet and talk to, all of it! I've learned so much in these short eight months and I'm so excited for everything else that I'll be able to experience from the rest of my time in Alabama. 

- Who has been your favorite person this week? Why? 

My favorite person this week has been my companion, The Elder Westling. We've been together for a good minute now and have had so many experiences together and throughout the whole time have gotten a long very well. We work hard, we have a lot of fun, and we support each other through everything we go through. We've learned and grown so much together and I'm grateful for the opportunity that we've had to serve together. 

- What has been your most significant tender mercy?

One of the most significant tender mercy that I've had has been a very strong trust in the Lord that has developed even more while on my mission. It has been one of the biggest blessing because it has made my testimony that much stronger and immovable and has taken away a lot of the worries of day to day life. I trust that when I do my part and keep my life in line with the Saviors teaching that He will do his part and guide my life and manage the things that happen in my life. I've been asked how I'm so relaxed and calm about almost everything and I've realized that it has come from my blessing of having a personal trust in the Lord that everything is in the Lords hands and everything will happen the way it's suppose to. So that's been a pretty significant tender mercy if you ask me:) 

- What are you looking forward to this coming week? 

Everything!! We have a stellar week ahead of us packed with tons of service, lessons, and even interviews with President Hanks! Each week has so many experiences in store for us and I can't wait to attack the week and have those experiences! 

- Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

Wow, that's a hard one. Especially just to pick one! I've been studying about faith and in Alma 32 he compares faith to a seed, as most of us know I'm sure. But like I was saying, I've been studying this chapter and I've loved it! I think its amazing how you can still learn new things about something as simple as faith. That's one of the reasons why I love this gospel. No matter how much you study and read the scriptures there will always be more for you to learn. So I challenge all of you to get studying!;) There's a world of knowledge that is just waiting to be obtained. 

Well, I guess that concludes our second game of Ask the Elder haha! I hope y'all enjoyed and were able to learn more about life as a missionary in Alabama. 

I'll include a couple random pictures from our week. I hope y'all enjoyed the pictures from the hike as well! We had a blast all thanks to the Stewarts!

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

Sincerely,

Elder Honn

Steadfast in Christ! 

The pictures: 

-When you see a random Ford Gt in Talladega...

-When you get bored in the car and start playing with your camera...

-When you hit your year mark and burn a shirt! Elder Senyolo from South Africa was transferred to Anniston a couple weeks ago and he's just too cool! It was a pleasure to be able to be there with him during his year mark!

"Choose the Harder Right Instead of the Easier Wrong" -April 4th, 2016

Hey y'all! 

Such a great week! And what an even better weekend! 

As I'm sure most of you know, General Conference was this past week. And for those of you who don't know, General Conference is an event in the Church where, for the course of a weekend, we hear inspired messages from the leaders of our church. The main meeting is held in Salt Lake City, Utah but because of the blessing of technology we have in this era, we are able to broadcast the sessions all over the world so that members everywhere have the opportunity to watch. 

For me personally, I've loved how much my appreciation for conference has increased while on my mission. Back home I enjoyed conference weekend and the messages it brought but for the most part, I just loved being able to lay around all weekend and eat food! But during the two conferences that I've been on my mission for I've really developed a sincere love and appreciation for Conference and all that it offers. It truly does provide a much needed spiritual reboot and I'm so grateful for it! I loved so many of the talks and can't wait to apply the principles taught more fully into my life. 

I challenge everyone to re-read the conference talks and to continue to study the inspired messages from this past weekend. 

One of my personal favorite messages that was shared this past weekend was one by the living Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. He spoke about making choices and said this "Choose the Harder Right Instead of the Easier Wrong". I loved his talk and especially that message. In this life we all make decision. Most of us have made the decision to be members of this church, which is not an easy thing! We hold ourselves to a higher standard and try our hardest to keep our lives in line with the teachings of Christ. While pondering about this message I was reminded about one of my favorite mormon messages by Henry B. Eyring called "Choose this day". 

Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cw8I8eukaI

I promise all of you that as you continue to be courageous and choose the harder right (and by doing so, choose to serve Him!) you will be blessed! I'm definitely not saying it will be easy but I promise it will be worth it. The lord will see us making the right decisions and be with us to provide comfort and ease our burdens. And these things I say in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Love,

Elder Honn

Pictures from a hike to Mount Cheaha!

A Week Full of Hallelujah! -March 28th, 2016

How y'all doin??

What a week!

Elder Westling and I didn't have a whole ton of random things we had to get done so we were able to do some really great work! We've been continuing our hunt for all the less active members in our branch and we've seen some amazing blessing come from it! We've also had some pretty entertaining experiences haha!

I hope all of you had an amazing Easter weekend as well! This past week we shared our Easter message with as many people as we could and I loved it! Our message was so well received. One of the many blessing of serving in the South, most people are happy to talk about our Savior! And this week it was really just amplified. It truly was a week full of proclaiming Hallelujah.

This week we also went on an exchange with our Zone Leaders and I got to stay in Talladega with Elder Neser! We had a pretty cool experience that I thought I'd share with y'all.

Elder Neser is a Spanish speaking missionary and we had originally planned the exchange so that Elder Neser could come with me to teach a Cuban family that we met. Sadly right before our appointment they cancelled....we were originally pretty disappointed BUT we decided to still have an awesome night and work hard! We were talking and decided that we weren't going to waste Elder Neser's gift of speaking Spanish that he has been given so he offered a beautiful prayer, in Spanish, that we would be able to find and teach some Hispanics in Talladega. We then remembered that we had seen, what we thought was, a Hispanic child holding a yard sale. So we headed back that way and knocked on their door. The kid answered and invited us in! His family was sitting at the dinner table eating but invited us to come in and sit down with them! (doesn't happen a whole lot) They ended up not being Hispanic but we still had an amazing discussion with them and shared the church's Easter video! They loved it and said that if we ever needed a place to rest or a meal that we could come to their home! Such a lovely family and I'm very grateful to have been led back to them so that we could share the gospel with their family.

We then had another appointment to teach someone. Then after that we were heading home and I realized we still hadn't talked to any Hispanics! We had five minutes before our main curfew so we ran to Walmart! We walked in the main doors and low and behold a Hispanic family of six! Elder Neser stopped and talked to them and they were really friendly and nice! I obviously had hardly any idea what was being said but he told me it went really well and they wanted us to come to their home and teach them! So we have a follow up appointment with them this Saturday! We also went and walked around the whole store and found that they were the only Hispanics in there! And they were on their way out.

So I wanted to share this experience with y'all to testify that our prayers, no matter how simple, are answered! It might not be in the way that we were expecting and it might not be when we thought it would happen, but they are answered. Why? Because our Father in Heaven loves us so much and all he wants to do is bless us, if we will just turn to him and ask for guidance and help. I council everyone to take his out stretched arm and communicate with our Father in Heaven and involve Him in our lives.

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

Love,

Elder Honn

Transferir el número tres en Talladega! -March 21st, 2016

What's up y'all!

As you can see by the subject of this email, the main news from this past week is that we got Transfer calls on Saturday. I will be staying another transfer in Talladega with Elder Westling! I'm very excited for all the amazing experiences that the Lord has in store for us during this next six weeks!

One more piece of amazing news that we had this past weeks! We were with Zak and we thought that the next step for him would be the temple. So we called our Branch President and talked to him and found out that they have a youth temple trip to do baptisms for the dead on the ninth of April. We then called President Hanks and got permission to go with Zak and the youth! So we will be going to the temple with Zak to do baptisms for the dead! We're so excited and SO grateful for the opportunity that we've had to be involved in this amazing journey of Zak's.

Other than that, this week has just been super busy with a bunch of random things. A couple meetings, some more service, an exchange with some other missionaries. We also finished raking a lawn of a less actives that was literally covered in a foot of leaves. We used something like 48 garbage bags..... it was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun! Good thing we have some hard working Sisters in our area as well to help us! I'll include a picture of the finished result:)

On a different note, recently we've been sharing a video with as many people as we can. It's the new Easter video that the Church has put out. Its called Hallelujah and it's a very amazing video that I would encourage each one of you to watch. If you watched it already, watch it again! If you haven't watched it, I encourage you to do so. I also challenge everyone to not forget the true meaning of Easter. Easter is a time to remember all that Jesus Christ has done for us. And I urge each of you to do just that! Remember.

Because of Jesus Christ and his resurrection we will all be able to live again after death, and I testify of that! I promise that if we can always remember to proclaim Hallelujah or always praise the Lord that our lives will change and by doing so, others lives around us will change as well.

Here's the link to the video and some other Easter material!

https://www.mormon.org/easter

I love each and every one of you and hope you all have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Honn

A Blessing Named Zak -March 14th, 2016

What's up y'all! 

I hope each one of you had a great week! Especially my Pops! Who, as most of you know, celebrated his 50th birthday this past week! From what I hear you had a great day and I'm very happy you enjoyed your package! Sorry, it was a little late.. we've had a hectic week haha! 

I'm a little pressed for time today because we had a zone activity today! So I'm very sorry but I won't be able to reply to yalls emails today but I definitely will next week!:)  We all went to the Civil Rights Institute in downtown Birmingham! It was such a cool place and I actually learned a lot. It was really cool to learn about the history of Alabama and it gave me a lot of respect for the people who had to go through those horrible times. Martin Luther King Jr is now one of my heroes! 

Anyways, what I mainly wanted to talk about this week was, just like the title says, a blessing named Zak. So three weeks ago, Elder Westling and I received a phone call from our Branch President and he told us show he had this boy name Zak in his office asking to be baptized! Elder Westling and I were so caught off guard and surprised but amidst our excitement and aw we were able to set up an appointment with him to go to his house and teach him! Zak is 14 and has two friends in our branch that have been fellowshipping him and inviting him to mutual each week. And as these past three weeks went by we were able to teach him all the lesson, and have him attend church each week! Then on Saturday night we had the immense blessing and opportunity to participate and perform Zak's baptism. He had been so excited to be baptized since the first time we met him and the night definitely lived up to his expectations. Everything went perfectly and It was such an amazing night. I had the opportunity to be the one to baptize Zak and Elder Westling was the one to confirm him a member and give him the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday in church. 

Wow. Word's can't even express how amazing it felt to be a tool in the Lords hands and help someone fully accept Christ and follow in his footsteps by being baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost. It was such a spiritual night and was one that I will never forget. His whole family who are not members came as well to support him and they all loved it! It was very special to see them being touched by the spirit as they watched their son make the step closer to Christ and be symbolically reborn. 

I am SO grateful for this opportunity that I have to be in Alabama, serving our Lord and Savior and helping others come closer to Him. This gospel is perfect and so beautiful and word's can't express how grateful I am to be a member of His true church. 

I love you all so much and I'll talk to you next week! 

Sincerely,

Elder Honn