Zone conference, P-Day, Sacred Grove, Palmyra Temple, Hill Cumorah

 

Peace in Christ :)

 Helloooo everyboddyyyy ( it is I super grover 2.0.. captain gogurt haha if you're reading this it's an inside joke with the fam 😂) anyway I hope everyone is doing good and is eating healthy and being nice and following christ! ( that totally ryhms :) 

October 21st: Today I hit my 3 month mark! Yay!! Today for p- day we went on a hike through old forge and Elder Anderson lugged his guitar all the way up the mountain. I also drove two hours today! So that was a lotta driving for me cause I'm used to 5-10 minutes back home. Then after the hike we went to this cute Lil diner and I got a grilled cheese! And I got to talk to my family and that's the best part :)

October 22nd: I WENT TO THE PALMYRA TEMPLE AND SACRED GROVE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVA! so that was really spiritual experience I'll never forget. Our friends the Hams and Barb went with us! And Palmyra is beautiful! There is a windows in the temple that looks out to the Sacred Grove and it's just breathtaking. Then we went on a tour through a replica of Joesph Smiths cabin and also learned more about him growing up. Then that night we went to young women's and played a life action among us In the dark cause there was no electricity in the building so it was really fun! 

October 23rd: We visited Kenneth and Jim and got to know them better and they are both such cool fun people! And we cant wait to have more lessons with them! I was frustrated driving today cause it was a lotta driving again but I didn't get us in a crash so that's good. And there's this sweet lady named Lily who we started teaching that texts us every morning and tells us that she loves us so she was the high light of my day:) 

October 24th: We woke up a bit late today cause Sister Nelsons alarm didn't go off so we raced outta bed and got ready quickly then went to do service at Cluster 13! After service Sister Nelson got some really sweet kicks for 1 dolla and they are brand spanking new sooo she was really luckyyy! Unfortunately my feet are longer than hers so I didn't get any new shoes but it was still awesome cause I got to do service! After cluster we helped this sweet old man rake his leaves, then we had dinner with Barb and then we went to Book of Mormon class and learned more about how our trials can make us stronger 😀. Then halfway through Book of Mormon class the Watertown Sisters showed up and we had a slumber party that night!! Jk we went to bed mostly on time...

October 25th: I didn't sleep so hot last night but we woke up and exersized anyways so we could get pumped up for the day! Then we had a missionary meeting, then did some service for a family in the ward! We cleaned some baseboards for them and I squished an earwig! Then me and Sister brown went door knocking cause we were on exchanges! We found an awesome lady named Lily and met her family then we switched comps and me and sis Johnson went walmart finding and this one guy talked to us for like 20 minutes and he was just rambling about how other people need to be better and stuff haha. Then we had a district counsel and talked about Facebook finding which was super cool and talked about having more faith in Jesus christ which is kinda a quinkadink cause that's what I studied in personal study today :) After zone counsel we played volleyball and it was really fun and this kid named Franky plays with us and he's so crazy cause he will run across the whole gym to hit the ball and smack the ceiling! We have hit that ceiling so many times now I'm surprised it's not destroyed. 

October 26th: Today was da HALLOWEEN partayyy! So we started off the day painting with Robin and told her a bit about the church and temples and stuff. Sister Nelson painted a pretty temple and i painted a dumb tree lol it was not taht good but Robin was showing me how to paint so i was just doing everything she told me to do. Then we went to Brandon's baptism and he and Elder Anderson are like besties! Then we went to Barbs and had a lesson with her about temples. Then we had the HALLOWEEN PARTAYY there was a chili cook off, a cake walk, donut eating contest and Elder Ham won that one. Then for tye trunk or treat we gave our car some sweet teeth and we passed out candy while listening to Halloween music. 

October 27th: I love sundays! So today was the big musical number! I was so nervous but I sang better for the real deal Sacrament performance then I ever did in any of the practices which was def Heavenly Father watching out for me. I sang peace in Christ! My comp played the flute and it was so pretty and Rilee played da piano! It was Elder and Sister Hams last Sunday :( so they both gave really inspirational talks and Barb and Jane sewed them a very pretty blanket! Then that night we had a lesson with Kaaya and he's a G.O.A.T

 haha okay love yall!! -sista Hodges 🫶🏼

Baptized by Fire!!🔥

Haha YESss!! As you can probably guess I had my first baptism this week! Andy June was baptized and I'm so grateful I got to be apart of his spiritual journey :)

October 15th: We woke up, packed and headed to zone conference! Zone conference was super helpful and gave me a spiritual boost I needed and also more finding strategies, more ways we can involve member work into finding and more ways we can find joy in the work. Then Elder Armstrong bore his testimony and everyone just lost it, all the sisters started crying and hugging each other and it was so spirit filled! After that we chatted with other missionaries for a bit then went on exchanges! Then last night I was given an air mattress with a hole so I had to wake up like three times in the middle of the night to refill it with air...sooo I got like maybe an hour of sleep haha but it was really funny.

October 16th: Okay so today was one of the best days on the mission eva!! So I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful cause last night I barely got any sleep at all and it was freezing! But it's okay cause we got to go to Volleyball in the morning and even though I'm not super good at Volleyball it was really fun! ( and picture me in pj's and prosoliting socks and that was my Volleyball clothes) Then we started off the day by finding!! And we also made a district goal to see who could talk to people about potato's the most and we won cause we'll I'm from potato land so that was pretty easy. And we talked to EVERYONE we saw and one guy even flipped me off so that wasn't very nice but he's a son of God either way. Then at lunch we found another guy at taco bell who was already in the whitesboro missionaries teaching pool that we retaught at taco bell so that was really awesome! Then the cash register lady gave me a bunch of coupons I now get to pass out to people! So as I hand them a free Book of Mormon they can also get a free taco! Then we had a lesson with Doug about the Plan of Salvation and that was a really good lesson! Then we went to the June's after exchanges and had our last lesson with Andy before his baptism, he cracked a couple smiles so that's always nice cause he always looks like he's sleepy or angry when in reality he's actually the sweetest guy ever. Then  I crashed when we got back to our apartment.

October 17th We helped Barbra Libby clean her neighbors apartment cause her neighbor swallowed a battery and had to go to the ER. Then we went to Burtons house and he was cool, he gave us a Bible from his great grandmother and it's just chilling in the back of our car sooo yah we don't know what to do with it Then we had Book of Mormon class!! 

October 18th: driving was kinda frustrating today ngl but it was still a good day cause we had a phone call with Jorden this morning and service at the rescue center! Them later that day we went to go visit our friend Lindsay and she was drunk and her husband marched up to our car and it was really scary but he wasn't mad with us he was just mad at Lindsay sooo we hope she is doing good! Then Andy had his baptismal interview w/elder Hoffman and Anderson! 

October 19th dang!! Today was nuts! Are teaching pool is crazy, our apartment is crazy and we R CRazy!! So we went all the way to boonville today and knocked around d and eventually we found our friend Nick and he was really interested and excited to read the Book of Mormon! So that was awesome cause we thought Nick blocked us and turns out his number was just typed in wrong! So that's why we are not supposed to judge people! 

October 20th: Today was Andy's Baptism!! The water was like super hot and it felt like a hot tub so during the baptism Andy's wide was like "yasss baptized by fire!!" Anyways it was a great baptism and 2 of our friends came to church so that was cool and the baptism was really spiritual!

Love, sister Hodges 🫶🏼

Picture dump!