SHE IS GLORIOUS!!!

Well Fam and Friends, 

I now have a child. She is glorious bouncing baby girl!!  Just kidding!!! But only kinda... she is a girl.. hahah. It was a crazy week! My life was flipped upside down, basically! So on Tuesday, Sister Singleton, me, and Sister Gill drove down south! That was super sad but fun! Sister Singleton is now down in Granite Bay, which is super close to C-Heights. The houses are just on steroids there. Haha. She seems to really like it though. After I spent Tuesday with her and her new comp, we caravaned down to the mission office Wednesday morning so I could pick up my child!  i was so nervous when I got there... AH! It was bad. I was talking to President Marston right before the greenies came in and he was like "Sister Hood... don't look so nervous!" And then I freaked out a little because I thought I was hiding it. Haha! So he came over took my under his wing (literally, but only as much as a mission president can with a sister...) and calmed me down, haha. It was cute. I love Pres. But my nerves seem to chill out as the day went on. We had presentation and training for training.. haha. That was helpful. But Pres. made me nervous again when he told us "I'm giving you these babies.. they know nothing about the mission." He's right though, their minds are so fresh and the imprints of bad and good will stay! That's the scary part because I'm not perfect by any means! Haha. 

Anyway, let me tell you about my "Mija". ️ Her name is Sister Whitesell (white-cell). She's so chill! I appreciate that... haha. The word she used to describe herself is Obedient. Yaaay!!!  she's way cool though. She loves nature and actually went to BYU for a couple years for the wildlife conservation degree. So that's pretty cool! We're gonna have a fun time on our PDays!! She's from Wayland, Massachusetts which is like 25 minutes out of Boston. So that's super cool. We have fun. She just wants to learn everything and she's amazed at how missionaries just talk to people. Haha. I was the same way though. I remember when Seely Weely would just talk to this random person it would blow my mind because I just couldn't do that for the life of me at that point. How the tables have turned! Haha, Sister Whitesell is adjusting pretty well. It's interesting to just lead by example and then she'll follow.. like the other day! She told me to get to the prayer carpet to start comp study! Haha!! I laughed. ️ It's so cool.. she's awesome!   #Blessed. It's also super cool to see her figure out what the spirit feels like and what promptings feel like. She told me it's crazy to her that I just talk about the spirit and how he told me to do something just like it's a normal thing. Haha. I didn't even realize that I made it so nonchalant.. I guess you just kinda get used to promptings and stuff so you just go do it. Haha, I dunno, it just kinda blew her mind. ️ But it's been cool to see her recognize the spirit and follow it. She has made some really cool comments that members have needed and testified with the power and authority a missionary has. So it has been awesome to see her start to see everything work! Training has taught me sooo much in this past week.. oh my goodness. It's comforting though because I realize I know what I'm doing more than I feel like I do, even though at the same time I don't. Haha. It's always interesting.. 

Our days have not been normal really so it's been hard for her to get the feel of what it's like because we have had random meetings and everything. So Saturday was our most normal day. It was awesome. She got to help me teach the Plan of Salvation to Pam. That went well. Pam is so cute. Haha. We found out with her that in 2012, someone pushed her down backwards and she smacked her head on the pavement which obviously caused some brain damage.. breaks. My. Heart! Who does that!! ☹️ she's the sweetest lady... but I'm grateful that we felt inpired to knock on her door.  We also invited her to come to a baptism the other ward was having. So Sister Bohan picked her up and took her to that. She said her favorite part was when he went into the water! How cool is that.. ️ 

We also invited Mariah to come to the baptism too! It was awesome for her! She's so cute. I'm so excited for her. We had a lesson about the restoration with her this week. She told us she had already read the Book of Mormon and had prayed about it. We asked what she felt and she said that she had felt a lot of peace. Haha. She is SO prepared, it's insane! ️ I'm so proud of her! She's so great! Please continue to pray for her! We still have to figure out her situation with her baby girls daddy.. so! That will be an interesting chat. Haha.  

Something super cool that a member in our ward talked about last night at dinner blew my mind. So we were talking about forgiveness and she, being a seminary teacher, comes up with these super cool analogies and stuff. She drew the earth with the veil around it. She made the point that the veil kind of skews our prospective because we can only understand with what our senses tell us. Then related it to us and our sins. Us being the earth and our sins being the veil. Our sins skew our prospective of ourselves and of others and their sins. The part that really blew me away was when she talked about how the Lord sees us. He sees us completely separate from our sins. To Him, our sins do not define us. He says that He cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. But He doesn't look at us that way. He looks at us as His child. Though we have sinned and done things wrong, He sees beyond that. He sees what we can become as His children. It reminded me of on my very favorite scriptures. Romans 8:16-17--

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." 

We are potentially "joint-heirs with Christ" who are on our journey thru mortality. We are potential Gods and Goddesses clawing our way to the top. That's how our Heavenly Father and our Savior see us. Not as some sinner who is so vial that the Lord cannot even look at us. We are His children and He knows what we can become! I just thought that was super powerful! 

I love you guys! ️ 

Love, 

Sister Hood