INTENSE MIRACLES THIS WEEK!!

Well Hello!! 

It's been a great week!! Kinda weird though. We have had everything from amazing miracles to food poisoning to meeting our new mission president to roofing adventures to transfer calls!! Haha. Busy busy week! 

So! For the 4th we had fun... I guess. Haha. We had to be in by 7 pm. So we did our normal thing all day until about 5:30ish then we went to din din! They had a BBQ outside and it was fun. The food was good! Until about 12:30am...... I wasn't affected but Sister Whitesell got wrecked. She was up from about 12:30-7:30... I didn't even know all this was happening because I was dead to the world! I woke up at 6:30 and saw that she wasn't in her bed and I about had a heart attack!!!  but of course, I was mostly asleep still at that point. Haha. I went looking for her in the bathroom and sure enough, there she was laying on the bathroom floor on a ball.  I was very confused.... haha. She explained what happened and asked for a blessing. So we called Elder Call and Elder Grayson over and they gave her a blessing. It was one of those times I was super grateful for the priesthood, more so than normal. ️ other than that though, our 4th was quite exciting! We really wanted to do something fun. So we went to the store to see if we could find any sparklers or anything chill like that. Well, we asked the guy and he said that sparklers were illegal in Chico.....  what.. haha. Sparklers... illegal... in Chico... yes. That makes sense.  goodness me. So, we just bought some popper things and had our own little party.  I'll send a little video of our adventure with that! 

So this all happened the morning that we were supposed to meet our new mission president and his wife! Well, it was a miracle we made it there. Haha. I love getting together with the other zones because I get to see some of my favorite missionaries!!  so many super good friends!  It was also a great meeting! President and Sister Ward are amazing!!! Ahh! So much wisdom! Not to mention, they are both HILARIOUS!  I also really love the accent. They're from Chicago so they say things funny! I love it!! When he said consequences it sounded like caaansequences.  yeees!!  I look forward to my 3 transfers left with them. ️ something amazing that he taught us was what he learned as he was in the MTC. He talked about the weight of callings. So a pillar it seems like it holds up a roof. But the roof makes the pillar stable. That's how a calling works. The weight of a calling stables is in our spirituality and in the church. I thought that was amazing!! So think about that! How does your calling stable you?  

We helped Linda this week!!! It was awesome. We helped her take off part of the roof on one of the homes she is working on! So that was awesome! We attacked that sucker. I enjoy manual labor. ️ we also got to take off paneling inside the house. My destructive self came out a little...  the Elders were like "whoa Sister Hood!"  it was funny! 

Oh man!! There have been some INTENSE miracles this week! I'm pumped to tell you about them! Here ya go! 

Ron:

Ron is the guy we met last week who didn't leave!!!! That was a miracle alone... but he met with us at the church on Friday! AH! It was incredible! Here's our lesson report: 

Asked if he had read from the Book of Mormon. He skimmed over some of it. He said he is really looking for direction in his life. He was never religious until recently. He knows God has a plan for him and he is willing to do whatever it is God wants him to do. ( GREAT START!!) He told us a lot of his background which was really rough. He has come lasting mental effects that he is overcoming. He really wants to be accepted and feel loved (crazy because that's what we got when We studied for him that morning! ) He wants to come to church but won't until he has some nicer clothes so he can feel more comfortable. He is super smart. He has studied about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. When talking about the Saviors ministry, he knew what happened when and where. He loves history. We taught some of the restoration but he interrupted us and told us that he really feels like he can trust us and feels super comfortable with us. It was really cool. He was telling his friend he thinks he is going to join the LDS church and he felt like she was looking down upon him for it. So he said he is going to drop her. He is really serious about this whole thing. He feels joy with us and like he can be himself. He is awesome!! Super solid! ️ 

Okay... well. This alone is UNHEARD OF!! I wish you all coulda been flies on the wall.. that woulda been alotta flies.. so maybe not. But it was amazing! He is most solid new investigator I have ever taught in my missionary lifetime!! But, the catch is that he is actually in the Elders boundary... so they will end up teaching him unless he feels more comfortable with us. But, it will most likely be them. So that's great because we know they have struggled and we are all on the same team anyway! But ah!! He's so amazing! I'm so excited to see where this all goes! Please keep him in your prayers! 

Mariah

She was one of our investigators on date, but unfortunately, due to the situation we had to take her off for a minute. It's okay tho. She should be back on soon!! That part of the miracle!! So she is the one who is living with members and had a baby with their son, Will. Will wasn't at all into getting married. So our dilemma was that Mariah needed to find a place and get a job or marry Will. It has been rough because she is in school, can't really find entry level jobs in a college town because they're reserved for the college kids and she has to take care of Julia all the time! So! It's been interesting. Here's the lesson report for this week! 

It was a good lesson. We talked about her life and how things have been. She said she still has not had any luck with the living situation or a job. We talked about the Importance of doing our part and working hard. She let us in on a couple things that have been hard for her. She has a really strong desire to be baptized because her life isn't easy right now... that's what she told us. We talked about Satan putting hardships in our way, especially when it's something very necessary for our salvation. Talked about fasting (again, what came to us during studies), the purpose of it and the power it brings to our lives. Sister Woodward bore her testimony on fasting. Invited her to fast with us for 2 meals on Sunday to have confidence in the Lords plan and to make everything  work out okay. She agreed. Also invited her to read the Book of Mormon daily. ️ she's awesome! 

So!! We reminded her to fast and everything. She unfortunately wasn't at church.... but we did go about our day fasting as well for the same purpose. So around 5 or so we felt like we should text her to let her know we missed her and ask about her fast. She said all went well so we asked if anything had changed since Thursday. Then she hit us with it!!! Her and Will are getting married!!!!!!!!!!! What the what!!!! This is NUTS! We were freakin out! Fasting absolutely works... man! Nothing super insane like this has happened like this when I have fasted because, I guess I never had a strong enough need before! So that was a huge testimony builder for me and SUCH a huge answer to our prayers! Such a miracle! ️ 

Are you ready for more!?!  Can you handle the MIRACLES?!!! Because I can't! HAH!  

Stressly

I don't know if y'all remember Stressly! This is Rebecca's boyfriend. We have been teaching them both with the Elders, which apparently has been going great! So! We went over with the Elders this week and Rebecca had a crazy migraine so she didn't come out. So we just taught Stressly! So, his situation is interesting. Rebecca is a Less Active. That's how we met him And he was only really there with us because of Rebecca. But slowly his heart is changing! We have been reading the Book of Mormon with them and they have on their own too. So we asked Stressly about what he read. He asked some very good questions! It was impressive. He said that the Book of Mormon really intrigues him because it's about his ancestors, since he is Native American! Later in the lesson, HE brought up baptism...  WHAAAAAA?!?!? Okay. Now this doesn't happen people!!! Especially with this man! Ha! So he said that he remembered when we invited him to be baptized but he said he wasn't really interested. But he said that he would be interested in following through with that in the future!! Hah!  guys! This is amazing!  Then Saturday we stopped by because it was his birthday and Rebecca told us that he had been reading the Book of Mormon out loud! She said he read like 3 and a half chapters!  this is nuts.. haha. 

Ok!! Last big one! 

Pam! 

Aww.. she's just the cutest! ️ I love her so much! We hadn't seen her in a couple weeks and if was kinda freakin us out! But luckily we ran into Stephanie who told us she wasn't home and to stop by later. (Miracle!) But when we did stop by, Pam gladly let us in! So we planned on just reading the Book of Mormon with her. So we read the intro to her and she really liked it. We talked about the promise of the Book of Mormon and what it means to have real intent! We invited her to pray about it right there since the spirit was strong! Man... it was the simplest prayer I have ever heard... this is what it consisted of: "Dear Heavenly Father....(jumbling of words..).... is it true?........ in Jesus name.."  the spirit was SO strong at this point. So we asked her if she felt different. She said she did and we asked how. These are her words: "like it's true.." that really got me. Man! She knew. The spirit was there and it was so powerful. we bore testimony and promised her that that feeling will deepen over time as she reads it every day. So that's what we invited her to do. I made her a cute little prayer rock to help her remember to pray. ️ so cute! I love her so much! She is such a pure and special spirit! ️ we changed her date though because we need to make sure she gets everything she needs. So that's no on Aug. 5th, at least that's what we're shooting for.  this was also something that has never happened on my mission. I have never seen someone receive a witness that the Book of Mormon is true like this. It was amazing. Sister Whitesell's jaw literally dropped.  it was awesome. 

We have been SO blessed! It's been such a great week. I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing us so much. Man. It's incredible. ️ too much. 

Well, I'm really sorry this is so long! If you are reading this part, you're a champ! Hahahah!! It was worth the read tho, eh? ️ thanks for everything! Love you guys! 

Love,

Sister Hood

 Let Him shine through you!