PICTURES FOR YOUR PLEASURE & ENJOYMENT!!

BREAKFAST CREPES WITH MY SISTERS!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER WHITESELL

I FOUND BUDDA!!
SISTER HOOD

TRAINER / TRAINING MEETING WITH THE ELDERS
SISTER HOOD ~ SISTER WHITESELL ~ ELDER PHELPS ~ ELDER YATES

ALWAYS SOMETHING SO PRETTY TO SEE!!

BEST DECISION EVER!!!

Welll! It has been an INSANE week! We have been super blessed with so many miracles! Greenies really do have fire! Lemme tell ya! Haha! 

So first! Here's a few of our miracles! 

Doug and Matt

He came outside as we were trying his neighbor. Started talking to him and Doug. We asked them if they had seen missionaries, they said they had seen the elders on bikes. We asked if they had ever talked to them, they said no. Shared Prince of Peace. Matt didn't really watch it because he was telling us about a yoga master thing that reminded him of something to do with the Savior. We asked if they were very religious. Matt said he wasn't but recently he had been going to a Christian church. He said his friends took him to church after he has recently trying to make big changes in his life. He said that some problems were really destroying his life. He told us that he is really trying to get out of it. Before that though, he didn't really give a lot of thought to God. He believes in a higher power but doesn't really know if it's God or not. Talked about the Atonement. He didn't really know what it was. We explained that the Savior doesn't want us to suffer and he has already paid for the hurt and sorrow he feels, but he doesn't have to live with that forever. We told him we could teach him how to overcome his problems. We promised that he would be able to get back everything that he had once lost. He asked what made us different from other churches. We gave him a Restoration pamphlet and invited him to read it. He said that he would. He was super cool. Doug was gone for most of that conversation, but he came back when we invited Matt to meet with us. Invited Doug to do the same, he said he would, ️

Diane: 

So, we read from the Book of Mormon 1 Nephi 10-11 and answered the questions she had, many of them logical. Then we  asked about what things rubbed her the wrong way about the church and she opened up and we talked about some of that stuff, such as baptism being a deal breaker and not seeing her family if she chooses otherwise, and a few other things, 100% spirit talking. She's going to spend some time to ponder each night after her prayer and will hopefully get an "ah ha!" moment over time but it takes time and patience. But the spirit opened her up and will hopefully help her progress out of the eterni-gator phase

It was SUPER COOL!! It was seriously Sister Whitesell asking these amazing inspired questions. I literally said like 10 words.. it was super cool to see the Spirit work through her. She has been working on that for a long time and that's something she really wanted and this week was FULL of that! 

Violetta:

Intro to her... she used to be a member but removed her name from the church records. Since than everything had literally blown up. She lost her husband, her daughter, her home, literally everything! She had been super depressed and struggling, which is totally understandable. She contacted us and we were finally about to meet with her. Last time it was super hard because she just threw all of her problems on us. I mean, we can take it but it just makes it awkward and hard. But this time we met with her, and she dumped more of her issues on us for the first 45 minutes.. I was super tired and I was trying so hard not to fall asleep, so needless to say, I wasn't in the greatest position to feel the spirit.. shame on me. But Sister Whitesell started asking inspired questions and slowly we got things out of her and made her realize that she was mad at God and she has a lot of things she needs to work on. It was SO cool to see the spirit slowly soften her heart! I have never seen anything like that! She even said our closing prayer and took a Book of Mormon...  I seriously can't even tell you... she went from being mad at the church and never wanting to come back to being willing to pray on her own and with us...AND SHE TOOK THE BOOK!!!!  After she prayed such an amazing prayer, she opened the Book of Mormon and started reading... she came to Alma 34:35.. which says "For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked." Ahhhh!!!   she started reading and my jaw hit the floor.. hah! It was NUTS! This was probably the craziest thing on my mission.. it blew my mind.. 

It's cool to be able to understand more fully the impact of the miracles like this that happen. Violetta's lesson actually brought me to tears.. Sister Whitesell was super amazed but it didn't hit has hard. Haha. Super cool. 

But yeah! That's life these days! I can't believe that I only have 5 months left... that terrifies me.. haha. 

Welp! It's been good! I love being a missionary. So many miracles and experiences happen that I would've never had otherwise. Best decision ever! ️ 

Love you all! 

Sister Hood

PHOTO'S FOR YOUR PLEASURE & ENJOYMENT!!

SISTER'S HARD AT WORK!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER WHITESELL

TIME FOR THE ZONE TO PLAY!!

WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!!
SISTER HOOD AND THE ZONE

WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER WHITESELL

CHECK OUT THE VIEW ~ WORTH THE CLIMB ~
SO BEAUTIFUL!!
SISTER HOOD AND THE ZONE

LOVE FEEL'IN THE SUNSHINE ON MY FACE!!
SISTER WHITESELL & SISTER HOOD

WOAH!!!  WORDS CAN'T EVEN EXPRESS THE BEAUTY OF HEAVENLY FATHER'S CREATION!!

THE CLOUDS ROLLED IN AND THE RAIN'S CAME DOWN!! SO AMAZING TO ME!!

THIS WAS ONE OF MY FAV ADVENTURES ON P-DAY!!

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

PHOTOS FOR YOUR PLEASURE AND ENJOYMENT!!

LOVE MY NEW COMPANION ~ SHE IS SO GLORIOUS!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER WHITESELL

AWKWARD!!
Sister Hood & Sister Whitesell

OUR LAST P-DAY TOGETHER
Sister Hood & Sister Singleton

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PLACE ~ LOVE IT!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER SINGLETON

I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!
SISTER HOOD

GIVE SAID THE LITTLE STREAM ~ GIVE OH GIVE!!
SISTER HOOD & SISTER SINGLETON

AN AMAZING PRAYER!!

Yo yo yo! 

First of all, I only say that because I'm going to train!!  WOOP WOOP!! That will be so exciting! I'm sad to say goodbye to Sister Singleton though because we have had so much together and seen so many miracles! It's always a hard goodbye!  BUT! I'm stoked for her to be headed down to Granite Bay! It's right next to C-Heights and Pres. is so close! So that's always interesting! 

Ah!! So many miracles yet again this week! Not with a crazy amount of new investigators, but with our investigators that we have found starting to progress! It's been amazing. So first I will start with someone who blew me away!! 

Mariah:

She is a member in our wards sons girlfriend/fiancé/baby momma... we aren't sure which one of those yet.. haha. BUT! They have the cutest little chubby baby!  Her name is Julia. She's funny. But the Woodwards (her in laws, I guess you could say), invited us over for dinner and Sis. Woodward told us that she felt like it might be a good time to ask Mariah to meet with us. One of the crazy things about this though. We were standing in the kitchen talking to Sis. Woodward and Mariah walked in and the spirit said to me "invite her to meet with you." I was like hum.. maybe I will! Haha. THEN! Sis. Woodward said that and I was like oh! Okay then!  crazy stuff man! 

We talked about A TON of STUFF!! Started off my sharing Families Can Be Together Forever video. She loved it. Talked about the temple a little and how that's Gods plan for His children. We talked about the Plan of Salvation. She said it all makes so much sense. She loves how we have the Terrestrial, and the spirit world because it's kind of an "in between". No ones else really talks about that part so she appreciated that. She said she always wonders about what happens after we die. She didn't seem scared about it but it was something she thought about. The Plan brought her a lot of comfort.  She said in the church that she had been attending, they haven't been welcoming to her or her daughter, Julia. But she has always felt welcome when she comes with the Woodwards. We started to invite her to be baptized and she stopped us and started to tell us of a dream she had where she saw the temple glowing. Before the dream, she prayed and asked God what He wanted her to do and gave it all up to Him. She had the dream a couple days later. She knew at that point what she needed to do and where she needed to be. We invited her to pray about a date and come to church. It was SO great!!  

She is now on date for July 8th!  please keep her in your prayers because her situation is interesting and needs help to make everything go smoothly.. haha. 

Colby and Linda

We shared Mountains to Climb and the really liked it. We talked about taking steps of faith even though we can't always see what's in front of us. Or how we persevere through hard things when we take it one step at a time. We asked Colby if the gospel standards seemed difficult, looking from the outside in. He said for him, he doesn't get the whole point of church if it's just a social thing. He said if he is going to do something he has to be 100% committed to it. He just does see a need for that in his life right now. We told him that we aren't here to drag him into the font but if that is something he would want in the future, that's what missionaries are there for. We let him know that even though he doesn't want to be a part of the church, we are still his friends and everything. It was really, really good. We were able to figure out where he is at in his progression. Linda brought up the talk "Why the Church" and asked if we could talk about that next time. ️

Sylvia

We had lunch with her and it was awesome.  We brought up how we aren't able to find her records and that means that we would want to just start at square one with everything. She seemed totally okay with it. She said she is even a little excited to feel that feeling of being baptized again! She said she was just glowing and clean. We talked about baptism and how it cleanses us. We tried to set a date, but she said she won't know if they are moving or not for a couple weeks so she said she will get back to us. In the meantime, we invited her to pray about baptism and about a certain date she would like to be baptized if she was staying. She's awesome and she really wants to meet with us and everything. She said it will really help her a lot. ️ 

Pam

Pam is so sweet. We shared the Shiny Bicycle with her. It got her pretty emotional. We asked what stuck out to her and she talked about how Jesus came to make mistakes right again. She told us all about how difficult situations in her early life have caused her to have some struggles which she has to deal with in her daily life. She says she can't get rid of the awful feelings that she felt in her youth. We testified to her that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can take that pain away. We explained that Jesus has felt exactly what she felt and He can take it away. We testified of His love for her. We weren't planning on it, but we brought up baptism and talked about how it's another way we can be clean and come closer to the Savior. We invited her to be baptized on July 24th. She accepted! 

We also asked her if she would like to pray about it. Taught her to pray and she said an AMAZING prayer. It was like she was talking  to Him as if He were right in front of her. She knows He heard her. Helped her recognize the spirit. Told her to pay attention to that feeling because that's what she will feel when she can know that what we say and what she is praying about is good and true. She knew the peaceful feeling she was getting came from God. The spirit was SO strong. Invited her to pray about July 24th and ask if that's what Heavenly Father wants for her. It was so good.. she also she said have been reading a little from the Book of Mormon, it's just hard for her to understand. 

Our P-Day was adventurous! We went on a hike with Linda and Colby! That's always an adventure! Hah! 

Thanks for all your support and everything! You guys are the best! I'm excited to tell you guys about my "daughter"!  keep me in your prayers..... haha. 

Love, 

Sister Hood