October 27, 2013
It was a great week here in Olney! Sister Airmet and I had two investigators come to church! It was awesome! There have been a lot of good things going on here! I miss Kentucky sometimes, but Olney has really been great and I've learned so much just being here a couple of weeks! We have a baptism this Saturday! It's for a nine-year old girl. I met her my first day here and it was chaos. She hadn't been taught any of the lessons and she was supposed to get baptized that Saturday, but we had to postpone it and have been teaching her the lessons like wildfire! It's been a little stressful, but hopefully things will be all ready to go this Saturday!
Things have been great with Sister Airmet! She's only been out a little over one transfer and she is a dynamite missionary! I have to remind myself that she hasn't been out very long. It doesn't even feel like I'm training her sometimes. We get along really well.
I can't wait to get the conference Ensign! Conference was SOO good! President Monson even said it was one of the most spiritual he's ever attended! WOW!
I can't believe that you have so many missionaries in Quincy! That's so awesome! I hope the ward really helped their investigators feel at home. I'm sure they did. We have an awesome ward in Quincy. And that is so awesome that they had that many investigators at church!
I'm happy everyone is doing great! I sure do love you lots and I hope you have an great halloween! :)
LOVE YOU!
Love love love,
Sister Hodges
November 4, 2013
It was a really great week! We had a baptism on Saturday! It was wonderful. Her confirmation on Sunday was great too. And we had three investigators there to see it! We have this great investigator, who I just love. She's in her 50's and started reading the BoM before the sisters even got there. She has soaked up everything we've taught her. She has gone to severel different churches her whole life searching for the truth and she feels she has finally found it. She asked us "Who do I talk to if I want to be baptized?" and we were like "uhh... us!" haha.
Halloween was the greatest day ever! So, sister Airmet and I may have spent all of our missionary fund on candy this past Monday...including a giant rice crispie treat, cookie dough, and halloween captn crunch! Then came Halloween day. And it was pouring rain! We had just recieved a training at district meeting earlier that day on contacting. So, with a new zeal to talk to people we headed to the walmart parking lot! People were moving fast to get out of the rain so we restorted to jumping in puddles for a bit then moving on to something a little more effective. Probably one of the greatest moments on my mission. And Halloween was bomb with all that candy but I still feel a little sick.
I can't wait for the Ensign! It was one of the greatest conferences ever! I still can't belive President Monson said that is had been one of the most spiritual conferences he had ever attended!
As for the mission question I'd say I wish I would have known my scripture masteries and how to mend clothing and how awesome conference is. I'm happy I knew how to cook and had a good basis on how to study scriptures and the Gospel.
It sounds like that Relief Society conference was awesome! I love how he compared the tree of life to what sounds like Elder Uchtforf's talk, the Hope of God's Light. That is one of my favorite talks!
Elder Nelson's talk was so great! I can't wait to read and study it!
Me, Breena and Sister Airmet :)
The elders in our distric-aren't they classy?
contacting in the rain!
The Seniors are in Town
November 12, 2013
It has been a great past few weeks here in Olney! I got to celebrate Halloween Sister Missionary style. A.k.a. with a giant rice crispie treat. And ended jumping in some puddles at Walmart since the rain chased away all of the people we could talk to.
This past week a new couple rolled into town. A senior couple to be specific. Elder and Sister Thaxton are the new senior couple that arrived Wednesday! If you can imagine the nicest, Utahest Mormons, you've got the Thaxtons. They are nice older couple in their 70's. We got to spend a few days with them visiting people and helping them know what to do. We've already had quite the adventures with them. Elder Thaxton is a little hard for hearing and so you have to talk a little louder for him to understand him which led to a recent adventure. The Thaxton's were taking us to our house. We were passing through a stop light. The light had turned yellow right before we could pass through but I guess Elder Thaxton didn't see the light change so we slowly went through with Sister Thaxton yelling "Arlind. Arlind! Arling! It's red!" And Elder Thaxton didn't really understand at first so Sister Airmet and I are dying in the back seat trying to not laugh since we would be crying if we weren't laughing. So, it's been great to know them and spend that time with them. It's like having grandparents out here! Super great.
White Squirrel Count: 6
Reliving My Childhood
November 18, 2013
Guess who was back in action this past Saturday? One of the greatest duos ever! Sister Hodges and Sister Mickelsen! Let me rewind and give you some history. Sister Mickselsen was my wonderful trainer--A.k.a. my mom in the mission field. When I was born in Mt. Vernon she was the one who raised me and taught me my missionary ways. Fast forward-- we were back at it again! And not only were we together, but we were back together in Mt. Vernon of all places! It was a wonderful day! Mt. Vernon has just taken off and we got to see some old investigators that we had found that are now planning on getting baptized. The whole day was a little weird since it really was like reliving my childhood, but it was quite the adventure since thats the only way Sister Mickelsen and I know how to do it! To top off the night we went to knock on a less-actives door. This lady had a few cats running around and I thought I saw one at the corner of my eye next to a food bowel on the ground right next to us. When I finally glanced down and looked at it, it was definitely not a cat. It was a possum! Just staring right up at us.
Yesterday was a pretty crazy day too! There was some crazy temperature changes from cold to hot which meant tornado weather! I vaguely heard of some tornado watch warnings and after some weird clouds and rain, lo and behold, there ended up being three different tornadoes in our area. But don't worry, the closest one was about 20 miles away so it wasn't in Olney. Our sirens went off for about one minute after a linger-longer at church and everything was fine for Sister Airmet and I for the rest of the day.
Hope all is well with everyone!
Sister Hodges
So, guess what!
My companion, Sister Airmet, knows Darren's companion, Elder Larsen. What?! What a small world we have in the church.
They went to jr high together.
*Janna's Uncle Bob has sent her a few packages. One day when ordering on Amazon, he forgot to change it back to his own address from Janna's. The result--see the pictures. Janna received some pretty random things in the mail. Uncle Bob said he had already reordered everything and had it shipped to the correct address, so he told Janna to find an new home for all the things he sent. Now the following pictures will make some sense.
All the boxes I got from Uncle Bob-It was like Christmas!
Sister Airmet and I modeling the t-shirts from Uncle Bob.
November 25, 2013
Parts of this weeks letter from Janna.
She is in Olney, Illinois.
Our week was pretty good here. We found out that we are going to be a trio!! Crazy stuff. We squished a bed into our sleeping quarters.
Sounds like it'll be a fun Thanksgiving! Sister Airmet, me and the new sister will be at Rene's. I'm excited. It'll be a blast!
The seesters in the District!
Our forever classy elders
All of us! Don't ask me what us Sisters are doing.
me, Sister Reeder, Sister Airmet
Razers from Uncle Bob
Mouth wash from Uncle Bob
it's a white squirrel!
POSSUM!
