Transfers Approaching and Workload Increasing

Hey Friends and Family,

Man, this transfer has flown by. I guess in a mission where a typical transfer is about a month, it's not too hard. But, I'd figure clocks were tampered with if it wasn't my own watch telling me. Nevertheless, life goes forward.

This transfer has definitely been a new experience in my mission. After assisting in the church's genealogical work for so long, the church's personal historical work has definitely been a big shift. It's kind of funny. This transfer started off with us having the zone's normal workload taken away. About a week later, it was given back to us temporarily, and now this week it's been given back permanently. The Church History Department has left it up to the various teams in acquisitions to choose whether or not they want us to put Annual Histories through the processes we've been doing. Two of the largest teams have chosen to do so. What this means is next transfer in the collections zone is going to be just as busy as was expected when they sent us here. Really busy.

So, we'll see what transfer's brings on Tuesday. This past month has definitely been a good one. I've quite enjoyed it. I also feel ready to see whatever this next month brings.

A little bit on the specifics of what's happened this week. On Monday, we had a branch dinner for those departing from and arriving into the mission, followed by a movie with the rest of the Young Elders. Wednesday we had a conference with the CHL Director Keith Erikson. He talked a bit more in depth about Saints Volume 2, and it was quite interesting to hear about what went into it, and a little bit about that time in history. If you haven't tried giving it a read yet, I would highly recommend it. It definitely doesn't read like a normal history book, it's almost at the same reading level as a YA novel.

One little aside about Saints. Saints is a leveled history. Kind of like an iceberg. The book is the top level that you see above the surface. If you want to go even deeper on a subject. There are original digitized sources online. If you're reading the book online, it has links straight to them. There are the Church History Topics essays on the gospel library app, josephsmithpapers.com, and so forth. There is honestly more information out there, and easily accessible no less, than you could read in a life time. It definitely tells us a lot about our faith's history, beliefs, and heritage.

On Thursday we helped set up for RootsTech all day. Lot's of manual labor and driving to various storage. Quite a good experience. Also, on Thursday and Friday night, I taught classes for the training zone on the doctrine of Christ, which I quite enjoyed. Yesterday we had a temple trip to Bountiful. We attended the 8:00 am session. I always learn something more every time we attend. This time was no exception and I could definitely feel my understanding increase.

That's pretty much been it. This next transfer's going to be a big one if I stay were I am. If they send me somewhere else anythings game!

I hope you all have a good one!

-Elder Hall