I Love Being A Missionary!

(I posted last week's letter yesterday--still working on my timing;)

 

Family!

This has been an amazing week. We are teaching more lessons than ever and there have some great memories. The Waldens are still doing great and he just got a really good paying job, so we can definitely see that their family is being looked after. The Mccormicks are doing well and it seems like all our solid investigators are still moving right along. We just need to set a few marriage dates and the baptisms will flow after that.
     Transfers are coming up in a couple weeks and I've been here for a long time, so I'm trying really hard not to just want to spend time with the people I've grown to love the most. I've been rebuked by the spirit though and Elder Van Halder and I are hungry for the best week of missionary service we've ever had. We feel like there is so much we can do and we are confident we'll be blessed with bounteous blessings.
     We had a really cool experience as we did service with a part member family this week. They were preparing for a big garage sale, so we helped them move stuff around and get ready for it. We got to talk to him a lot and gain trust with him. Then his daughter and her boyfriend were there as well, so we got to have gospel conversations and answer a lot of their questions about the Church. The daughter doesn't live in our area, but we're going to get missionaries over there somehow. They seemed prepared for the gospel.
     I love being a missionary right now. It seems like we have plenty of struggles, but there is always so much comfort about how important this work is. I have truly grown to love these people and I've seen them change and become something better. I've seen me change and become something better. I love the blessings of this gospel. I've heard the questions asked of why we live this gospel when it is so hard to live. 2 answers stand out. 1) It makes me happy 2) It is true. Here we find truth and eternal joy. What more can we ask for? This gospel pushes us to reach for everything which is so readily available to us. Without this we would find a world of contentment and sin with no hope or vision. Too often I forget what matters most, but Elder Van Halder and I have made it a goal to bear our testimonies as often as possible. Sharing what we believe leaves an imprint on the heart of the hearers and testifies to ourselves our true priorities.
I love you all so much! HFF!
-Elder Hoddy