Dad,
Here's a little re-cap of my missionary week:
Monday we went shopping with Carissa and picked out a very lovely and modest dress for her upcoming baptism! Her baptism has been pushed back to next weekend since this weekend is General Conference and we feel like Ryan might not be as prepared as he needs to be to get baptized. Tuesday we saw Sister Carroll, it was a really great experience. Her brother-in-law passed away this past week and before we started the lesson she was talking about it and we both felt the impression to call the Elders and have them give her a blessing. We asked if she and her husband would like one and they agreed. The Elders were able to make it five minutes later and in Sister Carroll's blessing it said, "Your Heavenly Father misses you and wants your relationship to be stronger." I think that really hit her. We invited her to church... again and she said her and her husband will talk about it and they both realize they need to come... We are so close! We were able to help the Harris' fix their light in their house. This is a funny story, so the Harris' have a vaulted ceiling which is about 18 feet and they didnt have a ladder. So we call around and find a member with a ladder but they were going to be out of town. So they said they'd just set it outside and we would go over and pick it up and the way to Dave and Kozelle's. Since we couldn't find anyone with a truck to haul the ladder in and we couldn't strap it to our car we decided to walk it from the members home to the Harris' house. So picture this... Two young girls, in skirts (white ones... not smart when carrying a dirty ladder), walking down a main road with their scripture bags and this huge extending ladder.... It was quite the scene. But it only took us 6 minutes to get from one house to the next. We love the Harris's! So we got that light fixed and its all good now. The next day was kind of rough, we did a lot of service for our invesitgators (Carissa and the Lopez family) during the not so productive hours in the day and that night we went and saw our list of potential investigators from the area book. It was kind of dark out and we decided to see Shannon. We knocked and she let us in! We taught the whole first lesson and it was the first time we met her! It was so great and Sister Grenfell and I taught super well. We set up a return appointment and she is now one of our new investigators. We took Carissa and her kiddos so a baptism on Saturday and it was pretty cool. I think she really felt the spirit. We asked her what she thought of the baptism and she said "Well, it was kind of industrial" SUCH A CARISSA THING TO SAY! She is super outdoorsy and naturey! She told us she wanted to be baptized in a river or lake. I love her. Saturday night we were able to go to the Women's broadcast. Here's what I took away, I really felt the spirit when the choir sang. There were mothers and daughters, inside I was a little sad just because I started to miss mom and thought about her a lot. But I thought about how she was there with Hailey and Shelby and how beautiful they looked sitting next to each other and that made it a little better, I still cried but it was okay. Then President Eyring spoke one of the first things he said was "Look at your mother and just thank her". I said a little prayer of gratitude in my heart for mom. I loved when he said "You were tudored by him (meaning God), you'd be faced with challenges perfectly designed for you" he continued and talked about how Heavenly Father smiles down upon you every time He sees you help one of His children along their covenant path. He talked about how EVERYONE is a child of God and when we realize that, the things we thought divided us falls away and things that had separated us seem so small and insignificant when sat next to the true fact that each of us are his children. I felt the spirit so strong and came to understand my purpose as a missionary so much more as he was speaking. He mentioned the full time missionaries and THAT'S ME! I felt the prayers from you and mom and the kids comfort me and make me feel like I am in the right place. After conference we had a zone fasting meeting. MAN, that was powerful. We decided to do a zone fast for a couple purposes 1. For the increased faith of each individual member of our zone, 2. The working of miracles by that faith, 3. These miracles causing a baptism for each companionship before June 30th (when President Toombs leaves. We talked about the plan for our zone and the way by which we could accomplish these things and something I liked was when our STL talked about righteous desires. We talked about how God will grant us the righteous desires of our hearts. When our actions and wills for ourselves line up with God's will, there is nothing we can't have. He will give us everything because its what He wants us to have. The goals we set are soemthing He wants us to have because they are righteous desires, they will hasten the work and bless His children. It was a great meeting and Sister Makasini gave a very powerful prayer in which she mentioned every single one of us missionaries in the zone. We all really felt God's love for us and there wasn't a dry eye afterwards. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. Sunday we had all 5 of the Lopez women at church, it was their first time! AHHHH! We had quite a few less actives there as well. This week was a great one and Im so thankful for all your love and support, your prayers and your thoughtfulness. I love you Dad and I hope you know you are the best! I was wondering if you might be able to send me one of your mission journals or tell me a story a week or something from your mission. I really want to know all about it! I LOVE YOU! XOXOXO
<3 Sister Hoopes
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