We were able to talk to Rebecca while she was at the airport getting ready to fly out of SLC . She spoke a lot about her AMAZING district and how much she loves them. Her companion Sister Cox and her whole district.....with a slogan about getting past Satan's pocket knife...hahahaha She knew saying good bye would be hard because all that growth together creates life long friends
June 15th , 2015
My lovely family!!!
Okay first off, business. YES I got
the package! Thank you so much!! Everyone was like "that's HUGE! Obviously
your family loves you" ahaha ;) So nice to be WARM though! That's gonna
come in handy so thank you so much.( we mailed a large warm comforter) Carly
and Sean's baby is SO CUTE! Kyra is Adorable!
SO...this week was CRAZY!! We all
flew into Montana and got there around 12:30 and President and Sister Mecham
were there to pick us up, along with the Assistants to President McGrath,
Curtis and Nelson. We all went back to the mission home and had lunch, then
went straight off to training!
Then we had dinner at the mission home and us
sisters went to a hotel to sleep while the elders stayed at the mission home.
The next morning we got to go to the Billings Temple. SO BEAUTIFUL! Holy cow…..
really its gorgeous. We had an amazing meeting before and some time at the end
to just pray and read scriptures and ponder why we are all here. President
asked us specifically to pray to be re-committed to being a missionary. It was
one of the coolest experiences I've had. The Spirit was so strong. You could
really feel the commitment and the desire oozing(kinda a gross word but the
only one that accurately describes it) from every missionary there it was
incredible.
Then we did some more training, and found out where were going to
be sent off to! It was so fun to see where everyone was going! We're all pretty
spread out! I got assigned to Great Falls with sister Adair as my trainer!
Super exciting.
After dinner with everyone, things
started to get exciting. We drove to downtown Billings (kinda like downtown Sac
but way smaller. No tall buildings just lots of small shops) and they divided
us into companionships and gave us all 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and a
stack of pass along cards and said "Come back in an hour and a half empty
handed!" haha we were all pretty wide eyed but we set to work! I was with
Sister Granotos and we literally could not find ANYONE to talk to. We saw
people walking around but never crossed paths with anyone for some reason.
Finally we remembered we didn't pray yet. As soon as we prayed, we found people
on every corner! And just started opening our mouths and sharing! It was so
incredible. We just shared what we
believe to be true and people were super nice! At one point, there was a couple
sitting on a bench. We got talking and shared a verse from the book of Mormon
with them. Sister Granotos was great and really got them talking and thinking
and they accepted the Book of Mormon! They are so sweet. While we were talking
to them, another guy walked by and said "hey sisters!" in passing.
Sister Granotos and I looked at each other and we were like "We need to
talk to him." So she kept talking to the couple on the bench and I stopped
the guy walking past. His name is S and turns out his family was Mormon but he
hasn't gone to church since he was a kid. We talked for a while and I asked him
if he wanted the missionaries to visit….he said "You know...yea I really
would. I want my girlfriend, T, to meet with you guys again too, she and I both
need this" It was SO AMAZING! Sadly, Sister Granotos and I don't get to meet
with him cause we were both leaving the next day, but the Billings missionaries
will be able to meet with him and Tiffany and I can't wait to hear how things
go. It really is incredible how, when you pray to have the Spirit with you, the
Lord will guide you to where He needs you to be. We are here to help God's
children come to Christ. If we really focus on that, we can be instruments in
Christ's hands. It is such a blessing. Towards the end of our contacting it
started POURING rain! It was insane, but it was so cool to just see a whole
bunch of new missionaries and APs running around in the rain, sharing the
gospel. I've never seen so many wet smiles. It was the best.
So the next morning we all climbed
in a van and drove about 4 hours to Helena. There we all said bye and spilt up!(
that was hard) We met our trainers and everyone went their separate ways!
I'm with Sister Adair and she is AWESOME! Shes
from St George and has been out about 4 months. We're in Great Falls, and we
have a ward and 2 Branches. The missionaries before us, there were a set of
elders and a set of sisters over these 3 congregations, but now its just sister Adair and I! It’s a
little crazy cause we got doubled in so neither of us know the area or the
people. And we don't really have any records for the area so its going to be a
learning curve! It takes about an hour to get from the ward to the branc, so we REALLY have to plan our
time and our miles good so we don't go over. Its gonna be a SUPER busy time but
it will be incredible! We went to the ward this week and we will rotate each
week. We say a lot of prayers and just hope that the wards and branches can
continue to be patient with us as we do our best!
Well, Everyone has to have an exciting first week
right?? We were going to meet with a member
from the ward who needed a visit. Her name is K. we got there to her apartment
complex and the fire alarm was blaring and there were fire trucks coming. We
got a little nervous so we just called her and waited outside cause we didn't
think we could really go up to 4th floor to meet her. People were coming out of
the building so we got talking with them. The more we looked around the more we
realized what a sketchy part of town we were in. People would shout things
that, I'm sure were meant to be a compliments, but didn't exactly come across
as such...haha Well we finally got ahold
of K and her friend N and we had an incredible discussion with him. He’s
having trouble with his living situation. He is having trouble telling what good
promptings are, and what are not so good. We read in Ether and talked about how
to listen and follow the spirit!
After we were done with N, K said she
needed us to meet her friend…. we come in and it smells like really special
smoke. hahah Its a really interesting
living situation. After we got talking for a while, we find out that she is a
Wicca. She is a practicing Witch and she was super interesting to talk to. haha
she talked about her beliefs and we shared a bit of ours. After talking with
her a while, it was getting late and we really needed to go. haha very
interesting night.
Sorry for the long email again…. haha God
loves us, I love you and we love everyone!
Until next week!!
w/ <3
-Sister Hodgson
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