General Conference Weekend

Another Hello from Des Moines!

I forgot to mention in last week's email that when we were driving over to the baptism on March 29th, the traffic was crazy downtown and certain parts were blocked off.  Turns out the Younkers building, downtown, burned down.  (Younkers is similar to the Macy's out west.)

Downtown Des Moines after the fire.

 

Update on Gary. . . he is still amazing and I continue to learn so much from him and his desire to be baptized!  But with that in mind, the closer someone gets to making/keeping covenants with God the harder the adversary tries to prevent them from doing such.  We were supposed to have a lesson with Gary on Tuesday with the Relief Society president's family, but approximately an hour before the appointment Gary called and said that he had run out gas and he was so embarrassed, but that he might be a little late to the appointment.  7:40 p.m. rolls around and we finally receive another call from Gary saying that he had a gas leak, but after further investigation they found out that it was a loose fuel pump, so he wasn't able to make the lesson on Tuesday.  Now this was crazy because Gary's car is less than a year old, so we were sure that the adversary is trying everything possible to prevent him from continuing towards his baptismal date! 

Thursday evening we were able to have a lesson with Gary in another member's home!  We watched the Restoration DVD, and then talked about following the prophet in preparation for conference, and then when we got to the Law of Chastity, Sister Brown started talking about it, but then her mind drew blank and she says "well Sister Call will explain it, since I'm getting tongue tied"  Haha that's what we have companions for!  Anyways it all went well! 


Gary watched the Saturday afternoon session, and the Sunday morning session of General Conference at the Stake Center with us, and then for the Sunday afternoon session he went to the Henry's home!  Something incredible that I learned this past week from Gary, was staying true to your conviction and what you know is right.  During conference on Saturday his girlfriend broke up with him, and so he briefly mentioned it, but said he wasn't going to let it deter him.  He never said that it was because of the church, but I would be willing to bet that the reason his girlfriend broke up with him, is because he is wanting to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


Conference was amazing and by far one of the best weekends of your mission!  It is such a spiritual power charge and you can receive so much personal revelation if you are searching for it!  Saturday morning session we were able to enjoy it at Elder and Sister Crapo's apartment with a brunch they provided!  Once again, another reason to love senior couples!  The next three sessions we watched at the stake center, which were basically only missionaries there.  But it was my first time ever watching conference broadcasted to a church building, and not in a home or at the Conference Center. 


I loved the messages from Conference and it was really neat, because on Friday we had Zone Training Meeting and one of the trainings we received was about charity and love, and then it seemed like during conference many talks were regarding loving one another and being true to our faith!

What a wonderful opportunity we have to listen to prophets, seers, and revelators, and if we follow their counsel, we will not go astray and we will experience peace and happiness in this life and eternal joy to come!

I loved conference!  Another little miracle from this week was Patricia who was a media referral, whose water lines had frozen over a month ago.  We decided to give her a call on Thursday and her water was back on in her home, so we were able to go over Friday and teach her the message of the Restoration!  She works on Sundays so that will slow things down a little bit, but we are excited to teach her!

 

Another joy of being in Des Moines is that our apartment is the hotel for sister missionaries!  We had sisters with us both on Monday night and Tuesday night!  Which was fun!  Tuesday night the sisters were Temple Square sisters who were returning to Salt Lake from their outbound.  I love having sisters in our apartment, but the only downside is that you do not get a full night's rest and you don't get to catch up on your sleep either. 

 

Everything else is going well!  I hope you have a wonderful week! 

Love you lots!  
May we all strive a little harder to be a little better!

 

Love, Sister Call

 

I am so excited for Dallin!  it was so fun because Thursday as we were driving back to our apartment for the night, Sister Strayer called and said she had news for me,  I had completely forgotten that the call was supposed to come that day, until she said something!  I was freaking out too when I heard Paraguay!  So neat!  And I loved being able to hear the news probably not a whole lot later than other people! 

 

Editor’s note:  Hannah’s brother, Dallin, received his mission call to Paraguay Asuncion Mission on Thursday.  Sister Strayer, a friend on facebook, had seen the post of Dallin opening up his call and kept Hannah posted.  Dallin enters the Argentina MTC, July 17, 2014.