64- A kinda wanna be hurricane

Hi Mom and Dad!

this week was slow...haha. The anticipation for the hurricane really threw everyone into a panic. everyone got there 72 hour kits together, the bread and granola bars couldn't stay on the shelf, and people were buying bottled water like they had a pet camel at home. It was crazy! Some gas stations even ran out of gas.....everyone was panicking.

(From her hand written letter : “ Walmart is PACKED right now, everyone is buying Rice, Water and SPAM! “  , “ we are the only sisters in the zone and are well taken care of”)

As for the missionaries, we were told to get our 72 hour kits together (along with a change of clothes, our journals and scriptures) and put them in our car. We had to be available by phone at all times in case we were given evacuation orders. We got a call Friday morning and the Zone leaders were like "it's been determined that your pad is not a safe place to be during a hurricane" (because we live down in a valley and they were worried about flooding. there is only one way in and one way out of the valley so they decided that we needed to get out) So they told us to leave our pad as soon as possible and head to the sisters' pad in makakilo (the next zone over).

Before we left  we hurried around and pulled all of our papers and beds and such away from the windows and then hurried to the car. we drove through some crazy rain and wind, but as soon as we got out of mililani it was all sunshine. we were like "what?" . so we stayed at the sisters pad all morning.....we were like "woah....free time......what do we do?" being a missionary, we schedule every 15 minutes of our day so we were just supposed to stay in the pad and do what?!!?? nothing........................ so we were a bit shocked at first but then we had fun. Thanks for the emergency chocolate mom:) 

We were kinda hoping that we would get to see a crazy hurricane blow a palm tree over....but nothing really exciting happened....just a little rain and wind. After a while we got the word that the storm had past and that we could return to work.

also, last night someone in our apartment complex was smoking pakalolo..O MAN it smelled so bad....so we lit matches all around our house to kill the smell.....eww! dont do drugs!!!

this week our super solid book of mormon reader didn't get to come to church because he got called into work:(

but he is still doing really great and we'l meet next week.

 love you all and aloha

WEEK 63- trips to Honolulu and Storm watch

ALOHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this week we drove to honolulu a bajillion times! I did see a license plate from Cali

On Wednesday morning we drove to Honolulu. we had to wake up super early to get to the airport then transfer meeting. They had kept the news for this transfer a big secret so we found out who our companions were right there during the meeting. My new companion is sister   Tuimoala!!!! we served together in Kona, so I already know her and love her to pieces!( far right with the tag :)

So the next day (Thursday) we had a pretty normal day which was great! Because we haven't had a normal day since :)

Yes mom there is a little weather supposedly heading our way… a hurricane and a tropical storm..... Hurricane is el and tropical storm Julio.

 we are all good and prepared for it and we went over our emergency procedures with the zone this morning. I am in the very middle of the island so we'll be okay :) keep us all in your prayers ....especially pray that the elders don't eat all my spam if we have to hunker down together at the stake center haha

Friday morning we drove to Honolulu in the to practice for a missionary choir number that we would be singing at a funeral the next day. We also met with one great guy we are working with. He has been doing so well with his book of Mormon reading. he's in alma chapter 20!!!! ya!! awesome, right? he said that he believes that it is truly a book of scripture. He told us "it's no coincidence". He said that he is getting answers to his question. we love to see that! It is so great to hear him say how much happier that he is! he is so excited to learn more!

Saturday morning we drove to Honolulu to sing for the funeral. It was a really amazing experience to sing with so many talented missionaries. And we were led by Sister Warner, who used to be in the Mormon tabernacle choir......so that was a very cool experience.

Sunday. Church. But guess who beat us there? the alma chapter 20 guy. he is so awesome! He was like "i want to come see what church is like" and we said "okay" then he got to church before we did! that's what we love to see!

Monday morning we drove to Honolulu for the Missionary Leadership Council (MLC). It was wonderful, as always, to see President and Sister Warner. We received some great training on charity, and correcting with Love.

Then today we didn't drive to Honolulu....so that's a relief:) haha. but we had to re-give the trainings from MLC to our Zone, so we had a meeting here in Mililani that took most of the morning anyway.

So it has been kind of a busy week.....and the schedule doesn't seem to be clearing up the for next few weeks as well. But Hey, we are loving it and having so much fun! I love being a missionary!

Oh and a great lady that we have been working with got baptized this past week! She was baptized on vacation to Idaho so her family could all be there to see (I know, leave Hawaii to go to Idaho.....I think she has the "vacation" idea backwards...haha) but we are SO HAPPY for her. It has been amazing to see her make these changes in her life and find so much more joy. she and her husband will now be working towards going to the temple. It is such a great journey that they will get to be on together :) (p.s. this is the girl that was living the word of wisdom and her husband hit the alcoholic lemonade out of her hands {i mentioned that a few weeks ago}.....awesome!!! great team work)

well, we have to head out! love you family!

-Sister Hodgson

WEEK 62-haole elders can get you to church!

Aloha  mom and dad!!

We found out transfer news and Sister Oh will be returning to the visitor’s center.  I am going to miss her SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!  But it will be really good.  They really want her back at the VC because she is so amazing!  I am sad to lose her but I know she'll do great there!

The PCC was super fun last Monday.  We saw some shows and hula dancing and everything.

So we got a referral from the visitors center too. The guy who went to the VC said that he wanted to know if the book of Mormon was really scripture from Heavenly Father. So we came to his house and gave him the restoration video to watch. The next time we came by he said that he had watched the video and read a lot of the book of Mormon. He wrote us a two page essay on why he wants to investigate the church!!!! haha ( that's pretty awesome right?)

Also we are working with two ladies who were baptized in December but who haven't been coming to church. One of the ladies is really old and has some memory issues so she tells us the same stories over and over. She loves to tell us about the haole elders who used to walk with her to church when she was a little girl. So we were thinking about how we could help them to come to church and that was our inspiration! We sent our district leader and his companion (two haole elders ) over to her house Sunday morning, and they walked with them to church! It was so great to see them there! we are so glad that they could come!!! gotta love our haole elders! It is always good to see people come back and enjoy the spirit at church again)

We have a super great district and zone, but it's all subject to change now! we'll know a lot more next week! Wednesday I'll find out my new companion. I am super excited to know.

sometimes, especially as a missionary, I feel so much pressure to be the  PERFECT missionary! which is a totally unrealistic expectation. but Sometimes the thought stresses me out. Someone shared this scripture this week which I love! and it totally makes everything make sense: Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.  Moroni 10:32

Only through Christ can we reach that perfection. SO we need to rely on Him in all things.  Lets all set a goal to not try to be perfect on our own!!!  It's depressingly unsuccessful!  But we can turn to the Lord for strength- that's where we find joy and are able to reach our full potential.

love you ohana!

-Sister Hodgson

Week 61- Chocolate chip cookies

Aloha!

I don't really remember what we did this week....it seems like every week just smears together and I have all these great things to share but I don't know if I already shared them or not..... But I am journaling every day and in December we can read through a more detailed overview of my mission.

We are working with some part member families. In both cases it is the wife who isnt a member. Both are doing well. one of them has been living the word of wisdom (although her husband, who is a member but not enjoying the blessings of the gospel fully, is not) and she told us that she has been doing really well! She told us that her husband is even supporting her. she said with out thinking, she asked to try his hard lemonade and right before she took a sip, her drunk husband hit the glass out of her hands and shouted "you can't drink that!!!" so he spilled the lemonade all over her!  gotta love the spousal support:)

It sounds like sis Oh will go back to the VC and I'll stay here. I am kinda excited....but kinda ready to have a new area. we have knocked on like every door in this town......I feel like belle in the beauty and the beast singing "there goes the baker with his tray like always- the same old bread and rolls to sell. every morning just the same since the morning that we came to this poor provincial town" etc...

but im singing "there goes the hobo with his dog like always.... and there goes jim our stalker friend..." haha. but I know that if I stay it is for a reason and it is just up to me to find out what that reason is. Heavenly Father puts all of His missionaries where they need to be!

We got to go to the temple this week!! yay temple trip Tuesday!! and something really special was that president and sister warner came to our session! it was so great to see them again! now we are emailing in the library at BYU Hawaii campus, then we will go to the PCC again! woo hoo! oh and for the first time we got to have a tour of the visitors center!! President wants us to know what is going on in there so we can recommend people to come and see from experience! It was so great! I loved the family video! we'll have to watch it when we go to Hawaii together:)

Probably the happiest part of the week was our friend A. He is working to come back to the church. he's been less active for most of his youth/young adulthood. so he is the older end of YSA now so we work with him and the YSA elders work with him. this week he told us that he had been praying morning and night like the elders invited him to do and he had been focusing on being grateful, like we invited him to do (after reading pres. utchdorf's talk). He said that he felt so much happier!!!! and he met with his bishop and is doing all the right things to get back on track!!! we are so happy for him!!!!there is so much joy in helping someone work towards the the temple! that's really all that we do as missionaries. sometimes it seems like we are trying to help people to work towards baptism.....but the reason that we even care about that is because we want  to be baptized to eventually go to the temple! and we need to go to the temple to make those promises to God and to learn and to receive all of the blessings that He has in store for us!!

it is so important!!!

One of our little blessings this week was the chocolate chip cookie miracle:

siter Oh and I had one of those days that just felt kind of unsuccessful  and we were talking about who was having us over for dinner tonight and we said "you know what would be really nice? a salad....and a cheesy pasta.... and bread" just getting fancy with our wishes...then in my head I thought "and chocolate chip cookies!!!"  I just laughed to myself and thought "I know that Heavenly Father loves us .....I don't need to be so selfish and picky in how I want Him to bless us. let's not be childish" so I just offered a silent prayer of gratitude to Heavenly Father for all that He has blessed us with. So then we went to dinner and guess what they were serving? okay don't guess, I'll just tell you- salad and pasta with cheese and bread and.....drum roll please.....chocolate chip cookies!!! And I know that it seems like such a silly little thing, but it was Heavenly Father's way of telling us that He was so aware of us , and even our simple wants and wishes.

We are His precious children! He knows that things we hope for (big and small). and He love us! Tell everyone that!!!! That is what missionary work is- telling people of God's love. He loves all of His children so much and He wants us all to have joy and to one day be able to return and live with Him.

I am so grateful that He always gives us little miracles and reminders of His love. Keep an eye out for the little miracles He will give to you today, and everyday. and let us always remember to thank Him too.

aloha nui loa!

-Sister Hodgson