Please forgive my cheesy Disney song
for a title buuuut I can't help it haha. I'm pretty sure my jokes are going to
get lamer too over time hahaha.
Anyways, what a week!! I left the MTC exactly a week ago today and flew
down under to Louisville! I was sad to leave the MTC but Sister Short gave a
great analogy for it. The MTC is like a milkshake. It tastes really good at
first and you really like it, but over time the milk starts to get a little
sour. But by the end when there's only a little bit left your trying to get as
much as you can and your scraping the bottom and sucking so hard through the
straw that you start to get light headed. When it's all said and done, let's me
honest, you only need one milkshake. hahaha and to some extent that is pretty
true! I was ready to get out here and start doing the work!
The day I flew out was pretty crazy. We had to wake up at 2 in the morning
and be on the bus that took us to the airport at 3. We flew out of Salt Lake by
6 and had a layover in Houston. During our 3 hour layover we saw Avery Johnson!
Buuut the Elders didn't move fast enough to try and convert him haha, and he was
in a hurry so he probably wouldn't have taken our message too well.
We got to Louisville around 5 that night and got picked up by Sister
Woodbury and were able to stay the night at the mission home. It was pretty
packed since there were a TON of new Sisters! And I slept like a rock since I
had literally gone all day on 3 hours of sleep and couldn't fall asleep on the
plane.
The next day we were assigned to our trainers and I met mine, Sister
Mickelsen. I'm the third Sister she's trained so she's got it down pretty well.
She's a really hard worker and I'm learning a lot from her! She's been super
great! After we were assigned to each other we were off to my first area! I've
been serving in Mt. Vernon, Indiana and its a great town. It's pretty small but
it has lots of great people.
EVERYONE and their dog....has a dog hahaha. You would die mom, literally
every house I've been to except maybe a couple have some sort of dog, if not,
some sort of animal. Sister _____, a great lady in our branch who is always
willing to feed us or give us rides, has a ton of Portuguese Water dogs and
pictures and paintings of them around her house. They shave there behind I guess
to swim better.....interesting hahaha. You'll have to look up pictures of them.
The first day I got here, Sister Mickelsen and I taught our first lesson to
a guy named Dan . He's a super great guy who read most of first Nephi
before his second lesson that I was at. He's very open to the gospel, but
whenever we bring up baptism he feels like we're pushy, but he'll for sure get
there. We have lots of great people we're teaching! I wish I had the time to
explain them all but I only have so much.
Sister Mickelsen and I had a fun adventure a couple of days ago. Our area
covers a lot of ground! About 3 towns. We were searching for an inactive and the
GPS took us on some crazy muddy back roads through fields. When we finally got
onto a main road we were able to find the trailer park in the middle of no where
where the man lives. We roll in, looking around for his trailer number when we
notice a TON of peacocks around us. When we finally get out to talk to the
manager to try and track this guy down, they all start cawing, They're like an
alarm system for the neighborhood haha. Anyways, we finally figure out that the
guy doesn't live there anymore since half of his roof is gone so it was a bust.
But it made for a fun adventure!
It's been a good week! Being here has been so great, and the people are
even better! I feel so blessed to be here serving these people that have been
prepared to hear about the Gospel. Thanks for all the love and support! I really
appreciate the letters! If you want to write me in my new area my address
is:
413 E 10th St
Mt Vernon, IN 47620
Till next week!
Sister Hodges
