Look out, this girl is getting out the elbow grease! Gonna make it shine!

That's one hard workin' girl!! :) 

DASHING DADDY OF MINE, 

Well Dad, this week has been MUCH better. We were able to meet with several auxiliary leaders, all of which have responded extremely well to our invitation to let us help and to be of use and service to them. The young women's leader is the most on board! We have implemented several things with her that will help her young women to grow and the be more involved in the gospel. We have started preparing a musical number we are singing with the youth, we introduced the song Come Unto Christ, to the girls yesterday by watching the video of it. THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG, and even though we had a couple girls that weren't too enthused the majority were really excited! We are going to have Cole Hardy (ym, age 14) play the piano, Kyle Bodine (ym, age 13) play the cello and Anna Jensen (yw, age 15) play the violin. WE ARE TOO EXCITED! The youth are stoked to use their talents and be involved! We also talked to Sister Eames (yw president) about how much the girls are teaching in their yw classes (like the new curriculum outlines). She said they weren't doing that. We asked her if that was something she thought her yw could benefit from, she said of course. So we are starting to meet with the young woman assigned to teach on Sunday, during the week, to help her prepare her lesson in young women's! We are seeing a massive change already in how the ward responds to us and accepts our help. We are seeing the benefits from being close to the ward already. Its amazing how much changes in one week, especially when you act the way that Heavenly Father has instructed!

 WOW! Another miracle, we DOUBLED our lessons taught from last week! And we have planned to almost double it again this coming week. We had 5 less active members at church and we found 8 potential investigators! We spent 29 hours proselyting and 6.5 hours doing service. WE WORKED SO HARD! On Saturday, we didn't have any set appointments and man was it rough, we spent all but 2 hours on Saturday (for lunch and dinner) contacting people. By 4 we were running low on spirit and energy. We kind of hit a brick wall, if you will. We talked about it for a little while, discussed what we should do to feel better and we both decided we needed blessings and to get back to work. So we called our zone and district leaders and they gave us blessings. The spirit was so strong and something was said in my blessing that has been said in every single one of the blessings I've recieved on the mission. That was, that as I serve here it is to prepare me for what is to come which is to fulfill my purpose as a wife and mother. I don't know why, but I find a lot of comfort in that. It also been said that while I serve and love here Heavenly Father will show me who I really am in His eyes. After the blessing I was ready to go, my spirit was up and adam once again and I was ready to find, teach, and baptize! I have come to know more and more on my mission that the priesthood is the true and living power of God, given to us to aid us and help us to come closer to the Savior and to our Heavenly Father through saving ordinances but also through helping our spirits to know and understand who we truly are.

 As far as living conditions go, I love living in an apartment for the most part. Sometimes it gets a little lonely and I wish we had someone to come home to to talk about the day but I like the privacy. I don't have to worry about blow drying my hair at 7 in the morning or 10 at night, that's nice. But I have noticed that I am a tad of a clean freak since I have been out, I'm washing dishes ALL the time, wiping mirrors, vacuuming, organizing, decorating, rearranging.... ALL THAT JAZZ. I do like making it feel like our own though, it's just hard to do it alone. My comp doesn't care too much about cleanliness so that was something we addressed in our companionship inventory, it's gotten a little better! YAY! So for the first two weeks I was there we didn't have a table or chairs, just two church tables and metal chairs that we used for our study desks. So we would eat on our beds or just stand and eat from the kitchen counter, this week we got tired of it so we asked around to see if anyone had anything. We figured people here probably have 3 extra of everything and we were right! Now we have the cutest little dining room table, two chairs, and a rug even! I AM ONE SUUUUUPER HAPPY CAMPER! We wrote some thank you cards and we are just really happy about it! 

So pops, all around, life is good! I am doing my best, staying positive and trying to help out my companion. She is still pretty tired of this area and told me yesterday that she really has no motivation to stay on a mission besides the fact that there isn't anything else for her back home. Her boyfriend is serving a mission right now too and he's the only reason she came out. He left and she didn't really have anything back home so she decided to go. She said that he is the only thing that motivates her but he hasn't spoken to her in quite a while so it depresses her as well.... Any advice? Haha I feel that with any missionary it will never be enough to do it for someone else, the only thing that can be a true and CONSTANT motivator is Heavenly Father and being who He wants you to be and working hard every day to become who He sees. I have tried explaining that but she says even though she knows that God wants her to be here and that she wants to be who he wants her to be, its still not enough.... I was like.... WAHHHHHHHH! UH OH CHERRY-O! So at this point we are at a stand-still. She really is great, don't get me wrong. I just want to help and don't really know how. I guess for now we will just keeping working hard and maybe she will find her purpose in the work! :) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST! I AM PRAYING FOR YOU AND THINKING OF YOU! XOXO 

<3/ SISTER HOOPES