so its official! I am 21 and older then about half of the mission. which is so weird!!!

We had a pretty awesome week! lots of miracles and lots of fun!

Tuesday we had Zone meeting! I love zone meetings because we get to see all of the other missionaries in our stake and we get to have trainings and just have a good "break" kind of. plus we had choir practice!! it was so much fun! afterwards we went with all the sisters to get pizza from a place called Mellow Mushroom which is a super good place to eat. we had dinner with Grandma Sally which is always a blast and we helped her start packing for her move this next week! we are so sad she is leaving but excited because she's moving to UTAH!! she is moving to bountiful so I will get to see her after the mission.

A cool miracle happened on Wednesday! we tried stopping in on a Former Investigator. Right as we were pulling up a car of young adults pulled into the driveway and ran in the house. we thought it was weird but figured we would try anyways. so we went and knocked on the door and instantly the smell of Pot overcame us. we could hear them laughing and having a good time but they didn't answer the door which was fine by us. so we decided to stop by a less-active that lives just a street over. His daughter answered the door and told us that she had never been to our church, her dad didn't attend anymore and they go to a different church where she has only been once! we asked her if she was interested and she said she was so we are meeting with her this week sometime!! we were super excited!

We ate with Grandma sally again on Friday! she feel so bad that people have stopped feeding us so she is feeding us multiple times a week now, which makes us feel bad! we love her dearly! we showed up in Civilian clothes (haha that's what we call jeans and a tshirt) and we planned it so we were both wearing BYU gear and she just about died. she was so happy! she posted it on Facebook for all to see.

Saturday we got to meet with a  Referral from Sister Fudge. She is an awesome lady, who's Lutheran and has been going through a lot lately. she has a lot of fellowship in the ward and is GOLDEN!!! she said we could come back and we left a pamphlet with her to read. I invited her to come to church, she didn't but hey! it was worth a try! she will eventually!

Then come Sunday!

MY BIRTHDAY!!! I woke up to the house (well more like the wall) decorated by the lovely Sister Grayson. she is the best.  then we headed off to church. we sat down and were greeted by many people and rosemary came in and gave me a birthday present. Then we were sitting down and waiting for sacrament meeting to begin when in walks our investigator JIMI!!!! ah!! we were so excited! we sat down behind us and said hey sisters! by the way happy birthday! it was awesome! He stayed for most of the meeting but had to leave early but it was still awesome!! we want to put him on date not for this Saturday but for next Saturday. we are so excited! after church we went home and took a nap and had some lunch then headed out. we tried to stop in on a potential but had no luck so we went to Grandma sally's to make copies and found all the Priest there and lizards. it was fun to catch lizards and I actually HELD ONE!! it was crazy! it was 77 degrees yesterday! it was so nice!! We then went to the Alveraz house to talk to the kids and Araceli sat down and talked with us!! it was another miracle!!  just as she was about to sit down we all happened to look out the window and watch this lady back into our car! ah! we started freaking out! we watched the car rock back and forth then we thought the lady was going to drive away so sis grayson and I ran outside and nothing happened to either car!!! such a miracle!! we contacted the lady and she invited us back to talk to her more. she also told us that shes a Rapper and she use to write her own songs but then she got writers block, so she turned her life over to Christ and now she raps about Christ. :) we meet some of the funnest people in the south. we are excited to start teaching her. We ended the night with an awesome dinner of Salmon from the Sherman's who overslept on their nap and apologized for not making a birthday cake. plus we saw sister Schluesner. :) shes a great southern lady.  We headed back and after calling in numbers the sisters came over and we celebrated my birthday and talked about our days and usual things sisters talk about. They left and we had some quiet time. I was writing in my journal when Elder Kelley called and we were discussing the miracles of the day when there was a pounding on the door. it scared us so bad. so I went to the door and looked out the peep hole to see the parkers standing there. I opened the door and started screaming. I then had to apologize to Elder Kelley and hung up on him
(I know im so nice but hey. he done it to me plenty of times) I got to see Jimmy, Heather and Marleigh! it was awesome! they brought me a cake, a frozen balloon a picture of Tristan (he had work and couldn't come) and a walmart gift card! it was an amazing way to end the night! we talked for a while before they decided to go. I adore them so much and I seriously don't know what I would do with out them.

This week I decided I was going to work on my Humility. Holy cow did I need that! the Lord sure humbled me quick and then picked me back up by ending my week with loads of miracles! you really can't do anything with out him its so amazing and he will help you out with anything! I had so many prayers answered this week and I can't even tell you how grateful I am for it. I love my Heavenly Father and I am so grateful for the blessings that I have received and the growth I have felt these last 6 month and I can't believe I only have 1 year left. its crazy!! time flies way too fast!! 

My words of wisdom for this week come from a talk give by Brother Jenkins of our ward. He talked about Charity, he said "Poor does not equal humble, Charity does not equal Wealth" which is so true. now a days people think that having charity means donating lots of money to a charity. which is not the case at all!! and just because you are poor doesn't mean you are humble. some of the most prideful people I have met are some of the poorest but it can also be the other way around. remember that Charity is the Pure love of Christ and you don't have to spend money to prove that you love someone.

Love Yall!! Have a Fab week!!

Love Sister Hanks

 

I don't even know how to start off this weeks email. so many crazy things happened and i can't even believe its only been a week. 

We got to have District meeting on tuesday this week which was so crazy!! it threw us all off but it was our final one, we lost Elder Freeman and Sister Sanders. So as our last district meeting we had a blast! we took Formal family photos! this is one of my Favorite ones! we are standing/sitting Oldest to youngest. (out the longest to newest) so Elder resinkin is last and Sister Grayson and Elder Freeman go home together.  I love our district it is so much fun! After we had to run off to go to the country club with Mrs Donna.

It was delicious of course. :) 

Later that night we got out of lesson so we could go get our goodbye Journals from the Elders so we headed to their place. as we were drving they texted us saying that they weren't home yet and we could meet them at 9:10. so we went home, planned and put on normal clothes.  WE then drove to the elders apartment. it was foggy that night and we could see cops lights flashing as we got closer we saw a bunch of people and a car. i was like oh! a car accident! sister grayson said hey that looks like Elder Flake! (one of our assistants) 

i said that's funny. he wouldn't be here. (the accident was right outside of the Elders appartment complex.) so we went to buzz in but the elders didn't answer the phone. i said wuoldn't that be weird if the Elders were in that car accident? so we tried calling them again. no answer. so we moved to the back of the line then we followed three people through the gate. we got to the apartment and the lights were off. that's weird we thought. so we decided to go knock as we were getting out of the car the Elders called us. Elder Freeman said sorry. we wont make it there in time we got in a car accident! i screamed i knew it! is everyone okay? Elder freeman said yeah he's fine, no concussion he's walking around. i said wait? who is? Elder resinkin is! he was hit on his BIKE!!! so we said we are coming!!! so we ran down to find out it was Elder Resinkin and he indeed had been hit by a car! while riding his bike!!! the EMT's said he was fine but he may need to go get checked out at the hospital just in case. We found out that he had ran a Red Hand. and so the car honked at him but didn't slow down. He was hit when the car was going like 40 mph!! he is totally fine!! he went to the emergency room and no broken bones no stitches nothing. He was soo lucky!!! 

So they took our car for three days!! it sucked!!! we were on bike again but no one would take us out at night and we didn't want to walk around or bike at night so we just had to stay inside it was awful. One night we did decided to go out when it was dark and we were only out for an hour before we were super creeped out and went home. we finally stole our car back so we could use it. 

Our investigator finally came back into town!!! we were so excited when he finally texted us!! we went over and talked about coming to church and he said he was going to come!!! we were soo excited! then we invited him to an acapella concert that we got to go to. but he bailed on us but!! the concert was super cool!!!  it was an amazing concert! i wish i could send yall the videos i took but they are all too long!!! 

I gave my talk on Sunday about Hope. People said i did really well and Brother Crow said i could tell my parents that my talk was amazing and they don't have to edit and rewrite my talks for me anymore. haha :P i got many laughs and made some people cry! i think i was successful! grandma sally said i talk to fast but i think i did really good on my talking speed! 

I will leave you with a quote by President Monson:

"Sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. Daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take place of living in the present this is the day of our opportunity and we must grasp it." 

This is so true!!! we need to live for today and not worry about anything else! sister bennion gave a talk in stake conference and she talked about living for today. Thinking about how they did good for the day and the next step is tomorrow.  i have come to realize that this advice is very true! as a missionary you give your all for one day!! all day you go out and do as much as you can so when you go to bed at night you can say alright Heavenly Father i gave my all today. i feel successful! i will do it again tomorrow. 

I know this church is true and i love the gospel with all my heart!!! 

Love sister Hanks

I don't even know how to start off this weeks email. so many crazy things happened and i can't even believe its only been a week. 

We got to have District meeting on tuesday this week which was so crazy!! it threw us all off but it was our final one, we lost Elder Freeman and Sister Sanders. So as our last district meeting we had a blast! we took Formal family photos! this is one of my Favorite ones! we are standing/sitting Oldest to youngest. (out the longest to newest) so Elder resinkin is last and Sister Grayson and Elder Freeman go home together.  I love our district it is so much fun! After we had to run off to go to the country club with Mrs Donna.

It was delicious of course. :) 

Later that night we got out of lesson so we could go get our goodbye Journals from the Elders so we headed to their place. as we were drving they texted us saying that they weren't home yet and we could meet them at 9:10. so we went home, planned and put on normal clothes.  WE then drove to the elders apartment. it was foggy that night and we could see cops lights flashing as we got closer we saw a bunch of people and a car. i was like oh! a car accident! sister grayson said hey that looks like Elder Flake! (one of our assistants) 

i said that's funny. he wouldn't be here. (the accident was right outside of the Elders appartment complex.) so we went to buzz in but the elders didn't answer the phone. i said wuoldn't that be weird if the Elders were in that car accident? so we tried calling them again. no answer. so we moved to the back of the line then we followed three people through the gate. we got to the apartment and the lights were off. that's weird we thought. so we decided to go knock as we were getting out of the car the Elders called us. Elder Freeman said sorry. we wont make it there in time we got in a car accident! i screamed i knew it! is everyone okay? Elder freeman said yeah he's fine, no concussion he's walking around. i said wait? who is? Elder resinkin is! he was hit on his BIKE!!! so we said we are coming!!! so we ran down to find out it was Elder Resinkin and he indeed had been hit by a car! while riding his bike!!! the EMT's said he was fine but he may need to go get checked out at the hospital just in case. We found out that he had ran a Red Hand. and so the car honked at him but didn't slow down. He was hit when the car was going like 40 mph!! he is totally fine!! he went to the emergency room and no broken bones no stitches nothing. He was soo lucky!!! 

So they took our car for three days!! it sucked!!! we were on bike again but no one would take us out at night and we didn't want to walk around or bike at night so we just had to stay inside it was awful. One night we did decided to go out when it was dark and we were only out for an hour before we were super creeped out and went home. we finally stole our car back so we could use it. 

Our investigator finally came back into town!!! we were so excited when he finally texted us!! we went over and talked about coming to church and he said he was going to come!!! we were soo excited! then we invited him to an acapella concert that we got to go to. but he bailed on us but!! the concert was super cool!!! Linda came and brought Mario with her!  it was an amazing concert! i wish i could send yall the videos i took but they are all too long!!! 

I gave my talk on Sunday about Hope. People said i did really well and Brother Crow said i could tell my parents that my talk was amazing and they don't have to edit and rewrite my talks for me anymore. haha :P i got many laughs and made some people cry! i think i was successful! grandma sally said i talk to fast but i think i did really good on my talking speed! 

I will leave you with a quote by President Monson:

"Sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. Daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take place of living in the present this is the day of our opportunity and we must grasp it." 

This is so true!!! we need to live for today and not worry about anything else! sister bennion gave a talk in stake conference and she talked about living for today. Thinking about how they did good for the day and the next step is tomorrow.  i have come to realize that this advice is very true! as a missionary you give your all for one day!! all day you go out and do as much as you can so when you go to bed at night you can say alright Heavenly Father i gave my all today. i feel successful! i will do it again tomorrow. 

I know this church is true and i love the gospel with all my heart!!! 

Love sister Hanks

I don't even know how to start off this weeks email. so many crazy things happened and i can't even believe its only been a week. 

We got to have District meeting on tuesday this week which was so crazy!! it threw us all off but it was our final one, we lost Elder Freeman and Sister Sanders. So as our last district meeting we had a blast! we took Formal family photos! this is one of my Favorite ones! we are standing/sitting Oldest to youngest. (out the longest to newest) so Elder resinkin is last and Sister Grayson and Elder Freeman go home together.  I love our district it is so much fun! After we had to run off to go to the country club with Mrs Donna.

It was delicious of course. :) 

Later that night we got out of lesson so we could go get our goodbye Journals from the Elders so we headed to their place. as we were drving they texted us saying that they weren't home yet and we could meet them at 9:10. so we went home, planned and put on normal clothes.  WE then drove to the elders apartment. it was foggy that night and we could see cops lights flashing as we got closer we saw a bunch of people and a car. i was like oh! a car accident! sister grayson said hey that looks like Elder Flake! (one of our assistants) 

i said that's funny. he wouldn't be here. (the accident was right outside of the Elders appartment complex.) so we went to buzz in but the elders didn't answer the phone. i said wuoldn't that be weird if the Elders were in that car accident? so we tried calling them again. no answer. so we moved to the back of the line then we followed three people through the gate. we got to the apartment and the lights were off. that's weird we thought. so we decided to go knock as we were getting out of the car the Elders called us. Elder Freeman said sorry. we wont make it there in time we got in a car accident! i screamed i knew it! is everyone okay? Elder freeman said yeah he's fine, no concussion he's walking around. i said wait? who is? Elder resinkin is! he was hit on his BIKE!!! so we said we are coming!!! so we ran down to find out it was Elder Resinkin and he indeed had been hit by a car! while riding his bike!!! the EMT's said he was fine but he may need to go get checked out at the hospital just in case. We found out that he had ran a Red Hand. and so the car honked at him but didn't slow down. He was hit when the car was going like 40 mph!! he is totally fine!! he went to the emergency room and no broken bones no stitches nothing. He was soo lucky!!! 

So they took our car for three days!! it sucked!!! we were on bike again but no one would take us out at night and we didn't want to walk around or bike at night so we just had to stay inside it was awful. One night we did decided to go out when it was dark and we were only out for an hour before we were super creeped out and went home. we finally stole our car back so we could use it. 

Our investigator finally came back into town!!! we were so excited when he finally texted us!! we went over and talked about coming to church and he said he was going to come!!! we were soo excited! then we invited him to an acapella concert that we got to go to. but he bailed on us but!! the concert was super cool!!! Linda came and brought Mario with her!  it was an amazing concert! i wish i could send yall the videos i took but they are all too long!!! 

I gave my talk on Sunday about Hope. People said i did really well and Brother Crow said i could tell my parents that my talk was amazing and they don't have to edit and rewrite my talks for me anymore. haha :P i got many laughs and made some people cry! i think i was successful! grandma sally said i talk to fast but i think i did really good on my talking speed! 

I will leave you with a quote by President Monson:

"Sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. Daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take place of living in the present this is the day of our opportunity and we must grasp it." 

This is so true!!! we need to live for today and not worry about anything else! sister bennion gave a talk in stake conference and she talked about living for today. Thinking about how they did good for the day and the next step is tomorrow.  i have come to realize that this advice is very true! as a missionary you give your all for one day!! all day you go out and do as much as you can so when you go to bed at night you can say alright Heavenly Father i gave my all today. i feel successful! i will do it again tomorrow. 

I know this church is true and i love the gospel with all my heart!!! 

Love sister Hanks

 

 
 

That's right! i am staying in Kennesaw for at least 6 more weeks! Sister grayson and i were so excited when we found out!!

This week has been crazy!!! full of fun stories and lots of miracles!! so be ready!!

On Tuesday we had Dinner with the Loveland family. They have the cutest kids. Taiven who is almost two was cracking himself up! it was so funny! he was making us all laugh so hard!! we did an activity where we had a dollar then we smooshed it and asked if they wanted it. every one except tommy who is four said yes. tommy said "no!" haha so we asked him why then he got all shy and said never mind ill take it.

wednesday IT SNOWED!!! we went to linda's to teach a lesson to her and as we were sitting there linda said "oh no!! it's snowing!!!" we turned around and we saw HUGE flakes!! it was amazing!! so we said we had to go, because the mission president might call and tell us to go home and we didn't have our phone. so outside we went and boy did we have fun! we heard it was ryan's birthday so we went to buy him a Dr. Pepper and we almost died in the gas station parking lot!! every one was freaking out!! they were all filling up their cars and buying snacks and water! it was crazy! haha or their twelve packs of beer. where ever their priorities were. :P we stayed at ryan's for about an hour and a half. we asked them if we got stuck there if we could stay with them. they both said no (half jokingly) and on our way we went. we stopped in a church parking lot and took pictures, ate snowflakes and slid around on the snow! it was a blast! then we got the call to go inside. so we called and cancelled our dinner. we went home and the sisters called and asked if we wanted to walk to dinner. so we did! Sister Sanders wanted pizza and so we walked to Maddio's only to find that it had closed inspite of all the weather! so we looked around and everything was closed except for a place called Cook-out. so we went there which actually turned out to be a cool experience! everyone in the resturant found out we were missionaries and on of the employee's we gave a Book of Mormon! the sisters are teaching him right now!! it was so meant to be! Heavenly Father knows how to make everything work out just right.

Thursday it was clear which was good i needed to go get my blood tested to find out why i was so exhausted! so we went on a rode trip to Marietta! it worked out well!! i figured out that i have a Vitamin D deficiency! which i am so grateful for!! its funny the things we are grateful for that seem to be a burden to others.

​Saturday the ward threw a Celebirthaversary. it was a family dance! they had a photo booth and everything!! it was a blast! although we couldn't dance, we had so much fun watching!! we judged a coloring contest . they learned line dances and just had fun partying. we should do that at home :)

On Sunday i get to give a talk in sacrament meeting. i am soo nervous!!! i better not screw it all up!!! that would be awful!! The topic is Hope. 1 peter 3:15. i really don't have anything prepared except an excerpt from True to the Faith (LOVE that book!)

I love  y'all!!

The church is true!!

​Hey Y'all!

This week has been an amazing, stressful, full of learning week! probably one of my favorite in the whole 5 months i have been serving.

Tuesday Night we retaught the Commandments to a sister. (we decided to reteach the lessons because we don't know how much she was taught, if she understands ETC. because we didn't teach her.) Sister Jacobsen came with us and they connected perfectly! at the end of the lesson i committed her to not smoke! at all!! i had no idea i was going to do that but i did!! i bore strong testimony that she can do it! it was a very spiritual moment for all of us! as we left Sister Jacobsen said "i didn't know you were going to do that, that was very brave of you." I told her it wasn't me, it was the Holy Ghost prompting me to, i told her that anything is possible through Jesus Christ if we just have faith. she was shocked and we said good night all praying She would take my Challenge.

Wednesday we had a bunch of interesting Experiences. We caught an investigator at home by surprise. Her little kids happened to get the door open and then got mom after we asked them too. she was shocked when she found us at the door. She told us she would call when we could come over.... we are still waiting for that call. We taught a sister the plan of salvation. we read from the Doctrine and Convents and she loved it!! she is just soaking up all the info we can give her.  WE also got together with the Elders and practiced the song we are going to sing at the baptism. it sounds gorgeous! plus its my Favorite song!

Thursday was the Baptismal Interview. Elder Burrows came and gave her the interview. it went well he said. she passed and that part was over for all of us. whoosh. check that off the stressful list. she had smoked 2 on wednesday and one thursday so she couldn't smoke at on friday or else we would have to postpone that baptism.

On thursday we also found out that we had lice. ha ha that was fun to find out. so in the middle of weekly planning we called sister Mckinney who is our nurse. she said we had to do an 8 hour long process to get rid of it. well we had to go to our interview which she wasn't very happy about but we had to go. then we found out that the stuff need to stay in our hair for 8 hours and we had to clean EVERYTHING! it took us all day friday to do that. We started on friday, our district called us in for district meeting and we did it over the phone while i applied the stuff to sister graysons hair. then we gave our training then i combed sister graysons hair. then we switched. her hair took like 2 and a half hours to do and mine took an hour and a half. it was great! then we had to wear these shower caps for eight hours. but our hair was incredibly soft after we did this treatment! EXTRA BONUS!!! She didn't smoke at all!! woot! and the Elders took our car so it turned out to be a good thing for everyone. lots of miracles that day.

WE had an amazing baptism on saturday!! Rosemary is officially a member of the true church! she had an amazing service which was super spiritual and lots of people came!! the elders and us sang our song and i gave a good talk on the Holy Ghost! it was all soo perfect!! Elder Resinkin got to give her the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday and he did awesome! He is a new missionary, he is almost done training so yesterday was his first time. it was funny because earlier in the week Rosemary asked if i could baptize her. i had to explain to her that i couldn't but any male member of the church could. it was a scary moment. the Elders even asked if she still wanted to be baptized after we told them what happened. but she said she just needed to think more. it was perfect. She is doing so well and she has so many friends in the ward! this gospel has done her wonders!!

This week has been a lot about faith. Everything we seem to be involved in this week had to do with faith. Faith is such a strange concept but it is amazing! That is one of the first principles of the Gospel. Faith is believing in something that you cant see. what is believing though?  Believing is by definition : "accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of."

then what is faith? faith is acting on that belief! so as Rosemary did is she showed Faith because she acted on the belief that baptism is important. So how can we show faith everyday? well by acting on it!! when you recieve those spiritual promptings, or when you say personal prayers or reading scriptures. you have to act on them! make them personal! include them in your life! this brings it on to how can i apply the scriptures i read? well MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK!! have you read the book, The power of everyday missionaries? Sister Grayson and i are! read it! it will help you to do member missionary work! it isn't that hard! we would all benefit greatly from being missionaries. not just the people you are sharing the gospel with but you and your families will. i can testify of it!  and it all come down to having Faith. isn't this gospel great?

The church  is so true!

Love Sister Hanks

well Y'all we saw some amazing miracles this last week and we also had a ton of car problems as well. :)

Tuesday we had a zone conference! I love szone conference! the president get to come and instruct us on how to be better missionaries! plus this was the first time we got to see the entire new zone! I found out that the Elders from my MTC district were in there!! it was so awesome! I got to see them and take pictures with them and we had a good time just getting to catch up with each other and learning together. I love those Elders and I am so glad they are doing so well!

As we were driving back on Tuesday we noticed lots of lights on our car dashboard were on and the car was beeping at us and If I know anything about cars, when a car beeps at you it means somethings wrong. so we had to call Elder Residori and he said that the lights on meant the brakes were malfunctioning. so we needed to take it in but we couldn't go until wednsday because it was 5 o'clock and they were closed.

Wednesday we tried to drive to the nearest Pep boys but the one the GPS took us too didn't exsist. it had left that building so we had to drive to Marrietta. We drove to marrietta to the pep boys and they told us the dealership need to look at it and fix it. so we called up Elder Residori again and he found a dealership. so we drove over there and they told us they needed to take our car in over night and they would give us a rental all they needed were my driver lincense and insurance so we had to call Elder Residori again and fun fact! the church doesn't cover rental cars! so thank heavens we have amazing members in our ward! Sister Futrual came and picked us up. while we were waiting for her we went to the closet Mcdonalds to use the restroom. while I was in the restroom I heard someone talking to my companion and I was thinking "go sister!" but when I came out I soon found out that he was trying to ask her on a date. so I tried to explain that we don't go on dates as missionaries and I messed it all up so he has mixed ideas about us. but hey! he left us alone. Sister Futrual made it to us and she was so nice and took us out to dinner! we didn't get home until 7:30 and we decided to go out on our bikes and ride 0.6 miles to the assisted living home and we almost died!! haha we are definetly not in shape. or at least as much as we thought we were. so we talked to Sister Rice and then the ride home was soo much easier. :)

Thursday we started off by weekly planning and anxiously waiting for the phone to ring to let us know our car was done.  finally at 1 we got the call. so sister futrual kindly drove us back to get our car. we were so happy to have it back!  We drove back and straight to Rosemary's house where we had an amazing lesson and committed Rosemary to BAPTISM!!! that's right!!! we are having her baptism this Saturday!! we are soo excited!!

Friday we struggled to find team ups for a lesson with Araceli and finally Sister Scherbel came out with us and Araceli didn't even show up it was so frustrating!! but we will catch her next time! we want to comit her to baptism for March 21st.

Saturday we went to the church to find a suit for baptism. we found out that the Kennesaw ward only baptizes people who are xl and little kids. She tried on some dresses but she doesn't want to be baptized in a dress for fear that it comes up on her. I don't blame her. so Brother Ward sent out and email to find her one. We also had Stake Conference that night! it was amazing!! I got to see everyone in the zone again and Rosemary came and loved it! it was so good! it was all about how councils work in the church it was really cool to find out how they are effective. :)

Sunday we had stake conference again and it was so good! Sister Bennion talked about how we need to take everything one day at a time. which was perfect for me. "The key to Happiness is taking everything a day at a time." :) it was amazing! the message got to us that the Marrietta building had a ton of baptismal suits so we asked our zone leader and he just laughed and showed us where they were. and they had two. so we told our ward mission leader and he asked the alatoona ward.

Yesterday it was pouring rain all day and we really didn't want to go tracting in it. so we just did drop by's all day! we stopped by a member and had the most awkward time. she barely answered our questions and never asked us any. I still need to work on my people skills. haha then we got a call from Brother ward saying that Alatoona in fact did have a ton of baptismal suits and we needed to call him so we rushed over to our sisters house and got a hold of the Elders who had a key and drove to Woodstock. we met Elder Evans and Elder Roy there. while Rosemary tried on suits we chatted with the Elders. I discovered that Elder Evans is from American Fork, UT and he is GOING HOME WITH ME!! I was so excited! I told him we were going to be best friend. Elder Roy just smiled and said "when she says that she means that, she told that to me too." we laughed. I found out that Elder Evans is a cowboy and he rides Bulls in the rodeos in American Fork all the time! it was so cool! but the best part was we found a baptismal suit!! we could cross that off our baptism planning list! Its amazing how the Lord works! He is constantly blessing us! I love it! I love seeing it in our everyday lives!

I have seen so many miracles coming out on a mission! in Georgia and at home! its amazing! I can see proof everyday that my Heavenly Father loves me and wants to bless me and all I have to do is let him!! I learned about a name that we call Christ that I had never heard before He is the High Priest of Good Things To Come! isn't that amazing!? I was so shocked when I found out and it is so true! when we come unto Christ we know that the bad times aren't always going to be there. that Good time will always come to us as long as we

1. Don't EVER give up.

2. Be Faithful

3.Keep our Covenants

Life is amazing and I Love this Gospel! I love sharing it with everyone and seeing how it changes their lives! I love you all! keep smiling!

Love

Sister Hanks

Hey Y'all From Kennesaw!!

I can't believe I have almost been in Kennesaw for 3 months!! this is crazy! I feel like I have been in Kennesaw forever but also not even that long!! I hit my 5 Month mark on February third. it was crazy! I can't believe that I have lived in Georgia for 5 months!! I love it here! this seriously is the best mission in the whole world. :D

 This week has been a good week! we saw many miracles and made many new friends this week!

One investigator is still moving along. she is still following the calendar I gave her that has her read scriptures and come to activities the church throws, oh and most importantly Church on Sundays! we believe we are getting he super close to on date. SUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEERRRRRR close!! we will find out tonight when we go over for Family Home Evening! She came to Craft day with us and had a ton of fun! as did we! now our apartment is all ready for valentines day. she also came and did service with us. so that was lots of fun. she was welcomed back into the ward with loving arms! everyone who knew her came over and gave her a hug and talked with her! it was amazing! I love this ward!

Another investigator was avoiding us all week! it was so frustrating! we caught her at the best time!! none of the Kids weren't home and she got called back into work to go to paychecks. ugh. we were so close! so we are going to try and stop by again this Wednesday and catch her.  we need to figure out what's holding her back from being baptized. Sister Grayson hasn't even met her yet and we have been here for 3 weeks!! its crazy! we are going to be working a lot with her. I was thinking about texting her every day a scripture for her to read because she sometimes has problems with reading.

Another asked us when he could be baptized and we told him as soon as he comes to church one more time. but that was about a month or two ago and he still hasn't and as soon as Sister Garver left he did too. We don't know what to do with him.

Last Monday we learned how to make Homemade Biscuits! they were delicious! and super easy to make! :D Sister Rice taught us how to make them for dinner, then we added Sausage and Bacon and Country Ham to make it a delicious dinner. we had a blast! I think my favorite part was when she told me my dress was out of style. ha ha she said "my dear your dress is very out of style we use to wear those years ago." She is an 80 year old lady. I told Grandma Sally and she said "Your dress is ADORABLE!! I don't know what she is talking about!" I agree. :)

We dropped a Lady who we had been teaching this week. Last week we had a lesson with her and she Brought her pastor with her. He was the rudest person I had ever met. We took President Futrual with us and the poor man just got verbally attacked. he was so polite to them and so nice!! and they just said "your wrong," "that's not right." "someone is right and someone is wrong and I'm not going to say who." when he said that I wanted to laugh so bad!! He then encouraged us to pray about what we are saying and see if God will tell us the truth. We encouraged him to do the same. She started attacking the temple so I started to bear my testimony defending it and that was when I started being attacked. Sister Grayson jumped in and stood up for me. they just told us we were cursed angels. we finally just sat back and listened to them yell at us. so this week we dropped her. she asked us if we were coming over for a lesson again and we told her we had service that day and she kept giving us times she was open we finally just told her we were busy with people who were investigating and reading the book of Mormon. she then responded with how we don't believe in Jesus Christ and how we can't support our religion with scripture.

Our response is the response to anyone who doesn't believe that the Church Of JESUS CHRIST Of Latter-Day Saints doesn't believe in or know of Christ.

As Representatives of Jesus Christ we can testify to you in the name of Christ that we know our Lord and Savior and love Him. We worship Him with every fiber of our being He means so much to us. This is Christ's church on the earth today. We have prayed about it so many times and through the Holy Ghost we have come to know if the truthfulness of His Gospel. We encourage everyone else to pray about it as well. As missionaries we challenge everyone to pray and study our message. We know that God doesn't lie and you will never come to know the truth like we have unless you pray and ask our Heavenly Father.

I know our Heavenly Father loves us and I KNOW He answers our prayers! every single day! I encourage y'all to look for the tender mercies in your life! write them down in a journal every night. see if you can recognize His hand in your life every single day. I know that you will be able to find it. The Church is true! I am so grateful for it in my life. It has given me so much comfort and joy!

I love Y'all!!

See ya in a week!

Love

Sister Hanks

 

Kennesaw Week 8

So I somehow kicked myself off of Jordans blog and haven't been able to get back on it!  I know I have great computer skills! Instead of trying to play cathc up I'm just going to post the last few weeks.  Here ya go!

Hey yall!

Hows it going??

its week 8 here in Kennesaw and good things are happening. First off Happy Birthday to My Beautiful Mother!!! she is the best!! i can't believe its her birthday today! she's getting older but she doesn't look any older! as sister Grayson says "your moms a babe!!" yes yes she is. i love you tons mom!!

Our First accomplishment for the week was teaching 4 boys ages 6 and under a family home evening lesson. that was rough! but we were successful! the mom had texted us earlier asking if we could show her how to do FHE because she didn't know how to. so we did an object lesson with the Holy Ghost. we blindfolded the boys and had them listen to the Holy Ghost. it was a lot fun and i think they learned something from it.

Tuesday we got to go to the mission office to get the evil box in our car fixed it took like 4 hours! it took forever! we finally got it installed and on the way back i had to get a Check your seatbelt violation a speeding violation and a Aggressive Driving violation. i didn't wear my seatbelt for like a mile before i finally got to scared and put it on. we got a speeding one easily and then as we pulled into the mission office parking lot i sped up then slammed on the breaks. haha just as i slammed on the breaks and elder turned around and looked at us. it was hilarious his name is Elder Cope. he was concerned and i threw open the door and told him we were alright! we didn't get an aggressive driving violation. so it wasn't fixed yet. well Elder Residori decided to take like a two hour lunch break and didnt bring his phone with him so we couldn't get a hold of him so we just waited for him. Sister Residori could hear our stomachs growling because it was 2 o clock and we hadn't eat since 7 am that morning. so she let us go to Wendy's and get some food. it was really cool because this was the same Wendy's that i ate at on my first day with sister arbon and it was the same with sister grayson so naturally we took a picture with the sign. it was awesome. we got back and Elder Residori was back and he fixed the tiwi! yay! we were free to head out! on the way home we stopped by Collins Hill. to drop off some supplies to the elders and sisters down there. So i got to go see Heather and Tristan and Sister Arbon and Sister Anderson! it was so nice and soo much fun! it was soo nice!!

We made it home just in time for Dinner. :D

We met a new Investigator. He is from China and he loves to listen to music. he loved the first time we met him and he invited to go to lunch at his house. so we took Grandma Sally and went. We got there and invited us to sit down. a little while later, he called from the kitchen "miss Hanks, can you come help me in here?" so i went to the kitchen and helped prepare lunch. just me. no one else. Sister Grayson and Grandma Sally thought it was hilarious. i didn't think so, i put bowls in the microwave and decorated them with some green stuff. set the table and tasted the soup. then he let me sit back down. after a lunch of lots of Tofu (which i don't like) and really spicy fish. we got talking about the book of mormon and how it will help him loads in his life. i then gave him a copy after looking over it for a bit he asked if i would autograph his Book for him. i said sure and Grandma sally convinced him to let Sister Grayson autograph it too. later he called us and told us he wasn't coming to church and that he was a needy person and he needs to see me every day. so we are handing him off to the Elders.

This week was a good one!

Scripture of the week!!

Helaman 5:12

This is the ultimate advice! all you have to do is Build your rock on Christ and the Devil can't get to you!! always remember that Christ and your Heavenly Father love you dearly!!