RELYING ON THE SPIRIT IS THE ONLY WAY TO BAPTIZE NATIONS!!

What up e'rybody!! 

Wow. Where do I start!! Aw man! So!! Tuesday was transfers and so it was soo busy! At least in the morning. Sister Seely was just getting her mounds of stuff packed!  jokes, jokes. It wasn't too much stuff. I just say that because I know it will get her feathers ruffled!  It was good though! We took some selfies and she was gone...  but in the mean time of packing and waiting for the member, Sister Fitzgerald showed up! That was fun. She joined in on some of our selfies! She's so cute. She is from South Weber!! So between Ogden and Layton. She knows Jared Benjamin and Jessica Greer! Small world... We have had an awesome time so far!! 

We are on the same page and wanna get out there and work our booties off!! I have already seen why Heavenly Father put us together! I have learned so much from her! she is so passionate when she teaches and it makes it so powerful!! I'm amazed! She's also really good at coming up with these random analogies on the spot that go PERFECTLY with our lesson. Super awesome. Her thoughts blow my mind... she has this epiphany journal where she writes all these amazing quotes and stuff! So! I am starting one this week! It's gonna be great!! But she is from... guess where?!? UTAH!! Hahaha!!! Shocker.... but she lives in South Weber!! So only like 15 minutes from us!!!  it's also awesome because she came out 2 weeks before I did. So she will go home with me! She's a riot though!! We do duets in our opera voices... I play the man and she plays the lady.... hahaha... its super great!! We have lots of fun! We have tons of fun! We have also become good at going totally by the spirit! Of course we have plans and stuff but we most rely on what we feel! And it has been AWESOME!! So that's my new homie! 

We had 7 lessons on Thursday alone, then CRANKIN' 'EM OUT! And 23 was a our total for the week! The spirit is such an amazing thing! Just driving down the road and a prompting comes and we are able to have amazing lessons. It's so cool. I have learned a lot about that this week!! Relying on the spirit is the only way to baptize nations!!! 

So we went to the women's conference at our stake center!! It was amazing! But when we were supposed to be meeting at the church we were just on our way back from Sister Bingham's because we made German  chocolate chip cookies!! They are TO. DIE. FOR.... O MY GOODNESS!! And these homemade cheese stick things... they are super good!! So that was fun... but we got left... so we had to drive up to Anderson.... that was bad. But!! We had 2 gators there and we couldn't just not go... haha. It was super good! Kodi and Barbara came. That was great! Man. It was super spiritual. And my notes from that are on the thingy I sent y'all!! Super great! 

So after church yesterday, Sister Trapane called us and told us what Kodi said. So ya know at church, they talk about baptism and everything. And Kodi said that she "knows how to go about baptism".. so from what Sister Trapane said, she is thinking about it and loves, loves, loves the ward and how she feels there. But we all know that it's more than that... so that's our task tomorrow! Is to go over that and talk about it! So that will be fun! 

One more thing!! So we taught Margurate this week and that was great! We taught her the Plan of Salvation. She LOVED it!! She said she felt "something strange". She couldn't quite describe it but we all know it was the spirit! It was so great. One of the miracles we saw from following the spirit though. So last night at like 8:30 we had finished seeing someone and, it being Sunday night, we thought we should go put in lesson reports so we could be on time for numbers. But Sister Fitzgerald was like Nah! We can get one more! So that made me think of Margurate. I thought it was because she was close to the wifi but it wasn't.. haha. So we went and stopped by. We decided to show her Wrong Roads. It TOTALLY hit home with her! She was going on and on! She said that was exactly what she needed to hear!! It was so great!! Aw man... we were so grateful!! 

Your spiritual thought this week was an answer to my prayer on Thursday! So I had started my studies with the questions: "What can I do to be more humble?". I opened up my studies letting Heavenly Father know that this is something I want to work on. Slowly the spirit put thoughts into my mind and I wrote them down. I then felt prompted to search in gospel library "Be thou humble". (This is why we love iPads ) So I did and I found a talk with that title. So ya know, I read it of course. It's by Steven E. Snow of the Seventy. He starts off talking about hymns and how we got our hymn books and I was thinking "Heavenly Father.... are you sure this is relative...?" see there you go... I need more humility... shame on me.. But then at the very end of the talk he quoted President Kimball when he said "How does one get humble? To me, one must constantly be reminded of his dependence. On whom dependent? On the Lord. How to remind one’s self? By real, constant, worshipful, grateful prayer.”. And there you go! It's so amazing.. and it's funny because in district meeting the day before that's what we were talking about, prayer and having truly heartfelt, sincere prayers and not just making it a routine. Which I am somewhat guilty of in the mornings because I'm still dead.. BUT! Nonetheless, I have seen my prayers and my life change as I have really thought about what I want to say and let Him know that I am truly grateful for all of the blessings He has given me in my life. Most of them, I don't feel like I deserve.. what a loving Father we have. I'm so grateful for the gift of prayer. There's an EFY song that I love! The lyrics fit right in. It says "He hears every word that I say. He knows just how I feel. And I can pray for answers and I can turn to Him for peace, just to be heard. He hears every word." I know that to be true. I see it every day! For myself, as a missionary and for our investigators. Prayer is just so amazing!! We basically have constant communication with our Creator, our Father who is also the most powerful Being in the universe!!! Ahh! It's just so great... I just feel so grateful... ️

Also, not on the topic of prayer! But I felt like I should add this in! I like in that quote how it talks about our dependence.. well!! One of my very favorite scriptures came to mind, Mosiah 2:21. It talks about our dependence! I would love to invite you all to read it and let it sink deep into your heart! Let yourself be dependent upon the Lord. It's a glorious feeling to depend on Him. Who better to depend on than He who created all things, loves each of us so much He suffered and bled from every pore, then gave up His perfect life for each one of us? I can't think of anyone we need more than our Savior. I love Him with all my heart. If y'all can't say that, I invite you to get to the point where you can. Learn of Him, pray to know Him and soon enough, you will feel that love overtake your heart. It will change your life.. I know that is true because I feel it everyday! 

But yeah!! That's our week!! I learned a ton and my confidence in myself, the spirit and the gospel has sky rocketed. It's been amazing! I love you all so much! Thanks for all you do! I pray for y'all all the time! 

Love, 

Sister Hood!!