This week Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
came to Oahu! He spoke to all of the missionaries on the island. Because I was
in the choir, I got to sit on the front row, and boy was that a super great
experience! He shook every single person's hand and looked us right in the eye.
His wife also spoke, and Elder and Sister Soares. Sister Holland was so sweet
and smiley, and every time we were singing I would smile super big because I
was so excited, and she kept smiling back at me!! Then during the last song,
she waved to me and mouthed "I love you". She totally made me cry. I
had been having a hard day and I really needed to feel special. Her whole talk
too was on feeling good enough- just what I needed to hear. Elder Holland told
us to work hard and go to bed exhausted every night! He made me want to work so
much harder and be so much better! It was really neat to be there and listen to
an Apostle of the Lord.
We had a neat experience this week
in a lesson. My companion was talking and then she finished her thought and
looked at me. That's kinda how we trade off talking, so that meant that it was
my turn to speak. I had nothing to say. My mind was completely blank. Then I
just started talking, and a really neat thought just jumped out of my mouth.
When I finished, our investigator Ryan said "that's really crazy, because
I was totally thinking about that exact thing in sunday school today."
That was a strong testimony building moment for me to see how the Lord works
through ordinary people to do extraordinary things. It was neat to see the
promises from the scriptures fulfilled. Doctrine and Covenants 38:8 says
"Open your mouths and they shall be filled". Doctrine and Covenants
100:6 says "for it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very
moment, what ye shall say."
This week was zone conference. I
love President Warner and his wife. They are so sweet! Also, something they do
at zone conference is they have every missionary prepare a talk on the same
topic, then during the conference they call on a few to speak. The topic was
"the importance of recognizing the Lord's hand in our work" and guess
who had to speak? yup, me. I was super nervous, but it went well. Also, the
assistants to the president and the zone leaders did a dance number from high
school musical "we're all in this together".....that was inspiring;)
haha it was really funny.
I almost forgot! one night this week
we went to go pick a sister up from the airport! she was coming in from the
marshal islands for a doctor's appointment. and guess what time the flight came
in? that's right, 2:50 am. So we got up at 2:10 and went to the airport and
drove around for a while but didn't see her. One hour passed, then two, then
they closed the airport because everyone had landed. I was like
"ummmm...excuse me mr. security guard, is anyone else going to come
out?" he told me not till tomorrow. Which is super unfortunate because we
had no idea where this sweet sister was. so I ran all over the airport and
couldn't find her. Then we called the assistants and they said to just go home.
So at about 5:30 we got back to bed. but I got up in time to still do personal
study! i was just 5 minutes behind schedule. anyway, apparently she ended up
not coming but nobody told the Assistants so they couldn't tell us. Fun times:)
On Thursday night, after my companion
had just fallen asleep and I was about to climb in my bed I heard someone
pounding on our door! I ran to my companion's bed and shook her awake saying
"there's someone at the door!" she shot out of bed and we ran out to
the front room. They shouted "It's the Honolulu police" and I was
thinking "really?!! we can't catch a break" I had no idea why they
were here. Then they said again "It's the police!" and I recognized
our zone leader's voice. It turns out they were just checking in on us. Our
phone died because we lost the charger in the move and we asked them for a new
one. But now we're all good and we can charge our phone again! yay!
oh and one more thing from this week
that I forgot to include in the big email. After church, one of the sweet young
mothers (21 years old, mother of 2, non member husband whos out of town) in our
ward mentioned that she was going to have to go shopping because she was all
out of food and she felt bad starving her kiddos. We thought about it and told
her that as friends and missionaries we know that keeping the Sabbath day holy
is so important! SO we told her we would bring her some of our food. I am so
grateful that we have such wonderful members in our ward who had given so much
food to us, so we had plenty to share with this sister.
Okay, to answer this week's question
a normal p-day is like this:
get up, exercise, personal study,
more personal study, then we pick up our carpool buddies and go emailing and
shopping. We throw some laundry in the wash, then we usually have a zone
activity (hiking, basketball, frisbee). then at 6:00 we drive everybody to
dinner and go to our dinner appointment. Then we might have time to visit a few people
before dark, but usually we don't so we just go back home and do more paper
work.
One of my favorite p-days is any
p-day that we hike! I love hiking in Hawaii!
Who know's what we're doing today!
......wait, I do. We're taking our car into the shop to repair the dent from
the flat tire incident. but other than that. WHO KNOWS! :)
Have a lovely week everybody! and
don't forget to pray!
-Sister Hodgson
