District finding time=ALL OF THE MIRACLES!!

Well hello there! 🤗

It has been an interesting week! It has been kind of a weird one! A lot of people have bailed on us or just fallen off the face of the earth.. haha. Typical missionary work! But we did see some awesome things happen! Aw! My heart was so full this week! 💖 I'm so stoked to tell y'all about it! 😃 

We had an awesome Book of Mormon class! Gabe came! He was baptized in December. He is awesome! We had a super cool conversation about Mosiah 2! We talked about how we are forever indebted to our Savior for His sacrifice. In that chapter, King Benjamin is talking about being indebted forever because when we keep a commandment trying to repay Him He just blesses us, and there we are back to square one! Haha. It's kinda funny to me.. 🙃 I believe He just laughs as we try to repay Him because we are like "DANG IT! How am I going to pay this one back?". I have found myself doing that all the time! Sometimes the blessings are just too great and you don't know how to accept them! I know, especially on my mission, that I have felt that! Man! Way too much joy and gratitude to fit into one little me! Haha. I love Him so much!! 

Tuesday we had District Meeting! It was so cool. So we studied chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel. It talks about our purpose as missionaries and how we can be successful in fulfilling that purpose. So my awesome District Leader, Elder Smyth invited us all to share what OUR purpose was individually when we came out. I don't remember a lot of what I said, which is good because it was lead by the spirit. It's funny when you learn things about your own feelings.. haha! But I remembered talking about how much I loved being a missionary and how I have seen that I was sent to Northern California for a reason. Correction: ALL OF THE REASONS! There's so many things I have been able to do to help people come unto Christ. And in the process, my testimony has grown exponentially and I could never ever turn away from anything in the gospel. I simply know too much. Ah! I can't even experience to you how I feel about missionary work...I couldn't at District Meeting either. It has become who I am. I feel like this is one of my sole purposes in coming to this earth: to be a missionary. It was just such a powerful realization of why I'm here and what all these experiences and hardships and miracles have added up to. I have pondering on that a lot this week. I can feel that the mission has passed thru me, instead of me passing through it. It's really incredible. I'm so grateful for the spirit and how it guides me to understand my own feelings and thoughts. Haha. 

Well! I got to go to Mission Leadership Council again! Aw, I missed it! I got to see so many homies!! Gah! I love them all so much! It was great to be able to be counseled by President and Sister Ward and the AP's. I look up to them so much! This month we are really focusing on obedience! It's kinda funny to see the other missionary's reaction. Haha. We were all like "ohhh boy! He's gonna throw down!" But he only chastised us a little. It's always good to get a smack on the wrist, if you will. It was just very uplifting and made me realize that I'm falling short in a lot of areas! Ah! So stressful! But thank goodness for my Big Brother! Man, do I need Him. Something else that was super cool. President talked about missionaries who are going home. He said that we need to go through the last stretch of our mission like nobody knows.He talked about how at the end of a race, you don't slow up through the finish line. You SPRINT through that line. 

On Friday, we left weekly Planning to contact Shalimar. She is one of the new 'gators we picked up my first week here. We have run into her a couple times, but none of those times were good to actually have a lesson with her. So we wanted to try again. We get there, she doesn't answer. So we tried a couple other people but nothing. So we decided to head back to the church to finish planning. As we tried to start the car, the key wouldn't even turn in the ignition... it was super weird. So we messed with it and nothing.. so the next thing sisters always do in a time of confusion and distress (especially when the situation involves cars) is call the Elders. Hah! We let them know what was happening so they came to rescue s. What would we do without our awesome Zone Leader's! 😁 Well, in the meantime, I saw this as a PRIME opportunity to tract and work the area a little bit since we haven't really done too much this week. So! I jumped on it. I was not going to waste this time.. The first 3 doors we knocked, nothing. Then I felt prompted to knock the second floor of the complex next to Shalimar's. 

We had knocked most of this one before except for those 4 doors! So that's where we went! The first door we knocked on, we met Sarah! She opened the door and said "hi! I'm a member but I'm going to work right now!" Well, haha. We were a little taken back because it's always interesting when you tract into members you didn't know existed, let alone lived there. Haha. we talked for a second. She said she would love to meet with us and get back into it. She has been going through some stuff and could really use the gospel at this point. Her husband is not a member but he's huge but super nice. haha. So that was awesome!!!! We set a time for Wednesday to see her again. She was kind of a little sporadic.. it made me wonder about her mental state, but hey! It is Redding! What can you expect! No, but they were way cool! Then! We hit the last couple doors but nothing. Then we saw that the Elders were there waiting by our car. Elder Clarke got in with the key and started it right up.... typical. Turns out that it has a steering wheel thing that locks or something.. I dunno. I was still amazed at the miracle that just happened! CLEARLY we were supposed to be there right then! It was so cool too because in my morning prayers I had asked Heavenly Father to help us be in the right place at the right time that day.  And BOOM! Miracle of the week.. 😁 This kinda thing is nothing new either! It has happened time and time again. For some reason, we can't leave a street or something. Obviously, it's never the right time to leave! So I have learned to go tract because there is someone Heavenly Father needs us to find. It's amazing. We were very blessed!

Gah!!  District finding time=ALL OF THE MIRACLES!! It was amazing! So we went to see this potential named Kenny. That was awesome. He is super spiritual already and said we could come back. Then! The spirit poked me super hard to go visit this one former. So ended up on her street. As we for out of the car, she was a house I felt prompted to knock on. So we hit it up. The lady wasn't interested. So we started walking down the street to our original destination! As we walked past the next house, as I walked halfway past it, I just like stopped and looked into the yard.. it was super intimidating. All these cigarette butts everywhere and all this garbage everywhere.. BUT, if there's one thing I have learned about following the spirit and tracting, it's those are generally the best places to hit! So, I told Sister Dee to come back because she had walked ahead. She wasn't super thrilled because she wasn't feeling well... so I felt bad that's why I hesitated. But we knocked on it anyway. And we met these 2 teenage guys and they were so cool! We bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon and the spirit was so strong on their porch! Ah!! My heart was so full!! I can't even explain it to you! 😁 It seemed like a normal missionary moment, but it was so amazing.Heavenly Father hears prayers and makes it possible to make our goal! I'm so grateful that we were able to be instruments in His hands! Ah! It was great! 

Fun times! Aye aye aye.. so there's this lady.. she came to church a few weeks ago before I was here...  she went nuts. She had a MAJOR melt down and the leaders asked us not to invite her into RS.. she had to be taken in another room to get calmed down and then they talked about her gazillion questions. So! That's that fun. But Sunday, guess who showed up again!  Oh yes! It was her again!  The whole ward saw her and cringed.. luckily though, we had a very pleasant, but random visit with her! All of her questions came during Sunday School. So we just took her to the foyer and had a chat. It went super well! Haha. It was funny because some of the brothers in the ward kept coming out to check on us. I'm grateful she didn't have a complete melt down. 

It was cool though because the spirit brought to my remembrance something from my seminary class like 4 years ago while we were preparing for Book of Mormon class. My seminary teacher made the point that something is valuable because of the price willing to be paid for it, right? Well, how amazing, unfathomable and incomprehensible is it that the One being who never slipped up nor speak ill, who descended from His Father's presence to save each of us, lowly sinners who, on a daily basis willfully rebel against His Father and our Father.. His price was beyond priceless. Because of His unspeakable sacrifice, our value is priceless. He sees in each of us godly qualities. After all, that is how He knows each of us. We spent all of that time with Him before this life. He knows our potential. That's hy He made that sacrifice. So we could meet our full potential through Him. He made it possible for us to make it all the way. What a blessing it is that He can see through our sins. He sees us separate from them. All He sees is our divine nature. That's what He and our Father are trying to magnify in us by giving us commandments and the gospel. That's how we magnify the gods and goddesses within ourselves, through the gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

We went to Weed and McCloud falls! Gah! It was gorgeous!!!! I'll send pictures too! So kinda funny.. I basically fell in the river trying to get to the other side. So that was awesome...I didn't mean to go swimming. I'm generally good at avoiding apostate behavior buuut, not today I guess ...just kidding.. it was only up to my waist. Haha! It was gorgeous though! So much fun! 

I love you guys! Have a great week! Please none of you die from those fires!! 

Love,
Sister Hood