Dear Hoddys,
This week has been the best ever. The ward members are super awesome and
they love me and Elder Nelson, we committed a girl named Bethany to baptism with
the date of August 3rd, we got invited to a Roman Catholic church with some of
my favorite people in the world, I got attacked by a 80 year old lady
with Alzheimer, and overall it seemed like we just spend most of our days
laughing.
The week started off well because we got to play soccer for P-day which was
a blast. Then we had dinner with some of my fave members which was super
awesome. We were talking about how to get home because they live like 10 miles
away, and I just had a great idea of how everything would work and it totally
made sense in my head, then my companion suggested something else that sounded
super stupid to me because the sisters were going to stop at an appointment and
we were going to walk the rest of the way home. I trust my companion a lot
though so we did that and while we were walking home there were a bunch of
people on a porch, so we went up and talked to them and met Bethany. She's this
super awesome 19 year old girl who has lived a pretty tough life growing up in
the foster system and stuff. We talked to her for a while and she wanted us to
come back. We went back later in the week and she's super excited about the
stuff we talk to her about and I can already see how the gospel is blessing her
life and how much more it will bless her life. The next time we talked to her we
committed her to a baptismal date and I'm pretty confident that she'll keep it.
It seems like these kind of faith building experiences are happening every day
in my life. It is so fun to see how the Lord works. Our mission president said
that missionary work is the Lord's work. He uses us so we can become better in
the process. The Lord could easily convert anyone he wanted to, but missionary
work is another way that we as his children can build faith and have good
opportunites to grow. I love it :)
Ok so there's this LA member in our ward that we love to visit because
she's kinda crazy, but she's so awesome! She's super into native american
culture and she tells us all these cool things. We went over this week and she
had built a huge medicine wheel in her back yard and she had us walk around it
and explained how it worked and stuff. We keep trying to get her to come to
church and I really hope she does, but dang it is so fun just to go over there
and see what she has to teach us.
Our new mission president got here this week which was super sad because
President Taylor is an amazing man, but President Walkenhorst is so awesome. He
is 7 feet tall so every time I talked to him it was like looking to the peak of
Everest... jk but he's ridiculously tall. The Walkenhorsts are some of the
nicest people I've ever met. They spoke at a youth conference and we took one of
our investigators so we got to go. We had a dinner after and a couple of the mia
maids came up to me and were talking to me and then told President Walkenhorst
that they wanted me sent to their ward because I was a Hottie. That is like the
very situation that mission presidents try to avoid so I'm pretty sure I will
never be sent to that ward. Haha Elder Nelson was super funny about it
though.
On Saturday we got to do tornado cleanup again which was super exciting. I
used to be exhausted when we would go down everyday, but it's been a while so it
was such a good break from the normal proselyting days. We were cleaning up
trees for most of the time and there was a broken tree surrounded by a bunch of
bushes that was right next to a greenhouse, so we cleared away the bushes and
there were all these little kittens. They were super cute and we had a lot of
fun playing around with them. The owners of the property were pretty excited
about it and we had some good conversations with them. These tornadoes and
service opportunities are amazing.
Oklahoma has been such a good experience for me so far. My testimony grows
everyday and I get to see the light that the gospel brings. Just remember that
nothing will ever make you as happy as living the gospel. If you try to do
things that invite the Spirit into your life you will find love, peace, and joy
(Galatians 5:22-23). I love to hear from all of you and it's so fun to see how
your life is going. I miss talking to you so much, but I know we have eternity
to spend together. I'm here because I wanted others to have that too. You are
the best parents I ever could have asked for and the best siblings.
I love you all,
Elder Hoddy
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