WEEK 54- full but broken

Well holy cow. If any week of my mission has been a rollercoaster-this

one is for SURE!!!! Had some of the best hi lights, awesome miracles!!

But also my heart is breaking a little. But this is life. When we love

hard, we fall hard sometimes too. Anyway.

Let's start with the good! SOOO...M!!

She's the one where Sister Fletcher just

guess the "secret knock" and it was awesome!! So she's doing amazing.

We've meet with her 3 times in the past week. She's been through SOOO

much in life and is finishing going through AA stuff...she's super

open and doing awesome!! She's never really had religion in her life.

Like at all. So we're starting from square one. We literally spent

almost an entire lesson on the first point of anything ever, which is

"God is our loving Heavenly Father

We did have  a little bit of a

miracle/Spiritual slap in the face though...haha so in our first

meeting with her she took like 10 minutes and expressed how much she

doesn't feel comfortable in church buildings and things like that and

how she is not comfortable going to church. We knew it was a concern

for her so we were trying to be conscientious of that. So when we went

in to meet with her again, we were thinking that all of this is

superrr new to her so we didn't want to overwhelm her with commitments

and everything...and if shes never had religion in her life then

baptism, reading the Book of Mormon and praying to a God she never

knew was there is all pretty new and can be kinda scary...right? So we

went against better judgement and decided not to invite her to church

just yet so we didn't freak her out.

Yes. Total lack of faith. We've repented since I

promise. Haha but anyway. We get in there and start talking with her

and then she's like "so I've been thinking. I want to come to your

church. When does it start?" Whaaat?? Haha it was first of all a

miracle that her heart has been comforted and she's been feeling the

Spirit touch her and wants more. And also a call to repentance for me

as a missionary to have faith and invite. Haha lesson learned.

So early on in the week we went to see the Zmoleks! Randy

was at work, but Ty was in a grumpy mood...so we sang some primary

songs and watched a Mormon message about the ugly duckling and our

true identity as children of God. In the video, President Uchtdorf

says that when we know who we truly are, we can change the world! So

that's what we did. We changed the world. We talked about what it

means when we say God loves us, and then, the duct tape came into

play. Haha we all became super heroes to change the world!! So we had

CTR super hero bands and Ty decided that his super power was to go

around and make kids happy by telling them God loves them. He is now

"Happyman" most precious thing of my life.

Also another fun week because we had 3 exchanges this week

One of our biggies his week is P!! She's a referral from the Fadely's,

 And she's awesome. We've been meeting with her for a

while now and while we were on exchanges things went super well! Her

sister just passed away so we had an awesome chat  about the plan of

salvation. Sister Shoemaker, who I was with, is killer!

It really has been an amazing week! Then Saturday and Sunday kinda

messed with us a bit... Lots of stuff    But basically  it's

been a tough week for the Z family…a Lot going on and basically

She's sending the boys to live with their dad in Washington for a

while it was one of the hardest things of my life to say goodbye

to those boys.

All I  really know is my heart hurts a bit. A lot a bit.

 

 Anyway. Sorry if that didn't even make sense. That's one thing that

I've learned on my mission though, is that when you open up and love

people, it's the best thing in the world. But it also hurts a whole

lot when things don't go the way you expect them to. I definitely know

that God has a plan for each of us. He loves us all no matter what.

And whatever choices we make in this world, good or bad, we can grow

and change. Change is always an option with Christ's atonement. And

thank goodness for that. My heart is full. A little broken but full.

Broken because I love people that are getting hurt and hurting others.

But full because Christ is our older brother, because He knows what

each person is going through. And because He loves us and with Him,

things always work out.

 

I love you all so much! Thank you for your amazing examples. I'm so

grateful to be blessed with the family that I have. Love you tons!!!

Until next week:)

W/<3

Sister Hodgson