Week 67- whitewashing Maui

ALOOOOOOOOOOOOHA!

so I'm on maui! Yay! It is like 4 billion degrees over here! i am serving in a city called Lahaina, which is Hawaiian for "Cruel Sun". so you get the idea. it's HOT!! I have already gotten so much tanner and it's only been a few days.

Well, I am in a tripanionship. It's me, my Baby/trainee, and another sister who has been out for like 7 months. so it's been pretty interesting to figure out how to make a two person job into a three person job haha. but we're doing alright. the reason we're in a tri is because the other sister's companion-to-be is home for medical right now.( I have a picture of my and my Greenie, but we did not have the other sister yet)

We whitewashed in....which basically means, we're all new to the area and we don't know what we're doing. Usually you willl have a companion there who has been there for a while, but not with a whitewash. So, we flew in Wednesday morning, and our zone leaders met us at the airport and gave us a car. then we followed them to Lahaina and they showed us to our pad. Then they left us....all alone................in the middle of who knows where! so we grabbed our map, got in the car and went for a drive to the bottom and top of our area. our new area is huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we cover one ward here, and it takes us like 40 minutes to drive across it top to bottom. in Rocklin, I think it takes like 10 minutes to cross the ward boundaries. any way, we spent the first day just basically being lost.... but we are getting to know the area better now. the Lord has really been helping us to learn it quickly.

This is a picture of our zone minus the 4 other elders that live off on another small island!

Oh and I forgot to mention there was like no food in the pad when we moved in.....not even top ramen! there was like ketchup, some tortillas, croutons, some apple sauce....that kind of stuff( must have been elders living there before )... and there was a forth of a bag of dry cereal with yogurt/oat clusters (no milk) which I ate....then later found out that it expired half a year ago -major stomach ache! but we've been surviving! The Lord provided. Some members gave us some food, and we picked up some snack too. I am glad that we actually get to shop today!

We live right by the beach in a hotel/appartment. The room is kind of tiny and we have the three beds and all the luggage crammed in there so it's pretty messy. my bed is right by the back screen door. so at night, I like to open the screen and just look at the stars for a bit. I can lay my head down on my pillow, and touch the floor outside at the same time.....so it's like modified camping:) But I love it!

This week has been pretty overwhelming, with the responsibilities that I have as senior companion in a tripanionship, plus trainer, plus whitewasher-ing-ness. But I have been doing my very best to rely on the Lord. He has given me the comfort and strength that I have needed. He has shown me time and time, again over these past few days especially, that He is SO aware of me and my needs, and my goals and hopes and desires. I got a blessing the night before transfers and that has been a huge comfort to me. but even in just the little things, I can feel his love.

 I lost my Preach My Gospel book and had looked around and couldn't find it, then I prayed, and right as I did, I found it!! And I just felt this overwhelming feeling of love. Even though I had no idea where I was or what I was supposed to be doing,, I knew that God knew where I was. I knew that He was aware of me, right then, in that moment, in that little hotel in Lahaina. I knew that He was helping me through this crazy week and I knew that He would continue to help me. He has helped me to feel of His love for me, of His love for my companions, and His love for the people that we are meeting here. I know that I can't do this alone. This work is greater than anything that I could ever do on my own. But as I rely on Him, I know that I will be successful in accomplishing what He has sent me here to accomplish.

In Isaiah 41:10 it says "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." I am so thankful for this promise.

Aloha Nui Loa. (I love you a lot forever!) I'm on Maui! No Ka Oi! (It's the best)

-Sister Hodgson

Week 66- transfers and wondering if I am doing it right.....

aloha!

Well we love PDAY….

We got to go and clean the battleship at Pearl Harbor  which was super fun as always!

We had some fun this week… We have this one sweet sister who comes out with us on visits a lot while she is preparing for her mission. we went to visit this one house but the lady wasn't interested so we turned and as we were walking away, my companion went to look at a sign that was hanging by the door. The other sister and I kept walking then my companion read the sign. it said "we shoot every third salesman..." and she turned around and ran to catch up with us so quickly!!! she was like "wait up!" haha

So this transfer was a 4 week transfer since a bunch were headed back to college life.  The next two are 7 week transfers and then we will be caught up and go back to 6 week transfers…..SO…. i guess I am going to go off island. I'm flying to Maui Wednesday morning. It looks like i will be team training a new missionary. So i'll be in a tripanionship I think. should be fun. so that's the news.

So in the mission when they train a new missionary they call them their “daughter”…the trainer is the “mother”.  Rachel’s whole group that came out 66 weeks ago have been “barren’  there has not been new proselyting sisters coming in … most go to the visitors center.  So she is so excited to train…to “be a mom”…she jokingly sent this picture to us saying “I am a mother !!

Our ward is so great. They have been getting very involved in the work and have been helping us a lot. I am going to miss these great people!

We had another lesson with our great book of Mormon reader. We taught about the word of wisdom. and he loved it and said he's cutting out caffeinated drinks and soda too. he's awesome! So then we still had time so we taught him the law of chastity and the law of tithing and he agreed to live all these laws and keep these commandments. He is so prepared! I am really going to miss having lesson with him!  

I am grateful for my weaknesses~they help me learn~ I just want to be able to do and be what the Lord expects of me and give everything to his work.

sorry this week's letter is so short and uninspiring. We have been finding out transfer news and such and I can't think of pretty much anything else. I promise that I am learning a lot and that we had a great week! but sorry that I couldn't convey that in this letter.

love you all!

-Sister Hodgson

Week 65- time flies!!

So sorry that last week's was so rushed! I didn't even get to talk about amazing book of Mormon reader. Okay so he came to church yesterday! yay! He just told his boss that he needed to have Sunday mornings off so he could go to church. SO we had a lesson with him this week and talked about the plan of salvation. He said that he loves everything that he is learning and it all fits perfectly with the things that he already felt in his heart. Last time that we had a lesson with him he said he was in ALMA 20. and this time he said he was in ALMA 43. and I was thinking "Ok, slowing down, only 23 chapters this week?" then I was like "wait, he still read 23 chapters!!! that's awesome!" then he told us "ya I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything so I started back at the beginning and read to alma 43" WHAT!? so he didn’t just read 23 chapters.....he read the whole book over again up till alma!!!! Amazing! he said he read for 8 hours straight once. He says he's watching the countdown at the bottom of the page till the Savior comes and he's always cheering for captain moroni and he's like "is he going to be okay?!" haha. so good!

This week we had zone conference and Elder Reis from the district videos came and gave us a training on how to plan. It was awesome! He taught us to really focus on the way that the brethren have intended us to plan. One of his assistants talked about not just planning to do "missionary things" but planning to do what the Savior would be doing. It was super good! Sister Warner talked about integrity and President Warner talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We also had a fireside in Laie last night. All of the missionaries on this island got to come and hear Vai Seka hema speak. He was the first tongan drafted into the NFL. He is currently a stake president somewhere on the mainland. But he was so funny and inspirational and just talked about how the things that we learn on our mission will bless us for the rest of our life (and not just the spiritual things, but like speaking and time management and everything!) It was super good! And the view on the drive was breath taking...gotta love the islands!!

We met with a less active mother and her adult daughter who maybe forgot a little bit about living the word of wisdom haha.....so we taught them about the word of wisdom and helped them to set goals for that  I love their faith and willingness to be obedient.

On an much less spiritual and much less mature note : this past week or so there have been HUGE swarms of gnats hanging out in Wahiawa.......in case you have never had the pleasure of walking through huge swarms of gnats, I'll just tell you it is extremely unpleasant. We try to act as normal as possible in public....we just fan our faces, squint our eyes and don't breathe....but when we get back in the car i'm like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" i have one in my eye!!!! And we pick them out of each other’s hair and stuff..........it''s so gross!!!

Our ward is so awesome and supportive of the work here. Our ward mission leader is so dedicated and the ward missionaries are great! We have made so many friends here in the ward. the families who fed us lunch on Sunday packed us a sack dinner to take when we drove to Laie for the fireside that night! so thoughtful!

By the next time I email, we'll know transfer news!! We always go crazy to know! haha missionary life:)

love you mommy and daddy!

-Sister Hodgson

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