Week 2 in Collins Hill

Hey Ya'll i can't Believe it has been two weeks!! this is insane! i swear i have been here forever! Sister Arbon and Sister Kelly keep saying that they forget that i haven't been here that long, they say it feels like i have been here for forever. :P This week went by soo fast too! i have the best news!! but i think ill save it for last!! because it's soo good. :) so i have been tracting a ton this week. haha only like 4 hours total but im pretty sure i have knocked on over 200 hundred doors and its only week two. :P We got to meet the other sisters investigator. She is a gorgeous 19 year old girl! who is super interested in the church. We went to Breakfast at the Crandalls house where we had German pancakes which were delicious. After we went tracting. One of the coolest part of the area im in is that i am a biking area. which is super nice because hopefully i can keep off the weight. cross your fingers i stay in a biking area. The average weight gain in Georgia is like 40 lbs. which is a ton! so we get to bike everyday and our area isn't a small area at all! plus its not flat at all! it has soo many hills! they are steep too!! this week i was able to bike from the bottom to the top of the one we go up and down every day! i was soo proud of myself and so was my companion. we also found out the hard way that most of my skirts are way too long. :P haha i kept getting them stuck in my tires as i was biking but i do have a few that work and i just bought three more. On Tuesdays we have District meeting which is where we all meet together at the Church as a district and have some training's and talk. :) its really fun and super spiritual. no one in my district can play the piano except me so i have been trying to learn some new songs. so we dont' have to sing the same three over and over again. but its kinda hard because im really only around a piano on Tuesdays and that's it. :P i have to tell you about some of our members!! The Crandalls are this cute couple who have three little kids, two little boys and one little girl. they are soo much fun to be around. She stays at home with the kids and he works all day. they have fed us twice now. but she makes cute little videos from their trips to all over the world and her kids first six months. they are so much fun. Her husband love photography and Filming. The Lloyds!! they are the family who took the picture of all of us out to eat! they have 4 kids? haha one of them is exactly like Kylee. :) her name is Annie and she is gorgeous! her and kylee's personality is exactly the same. They came and played soccer with us on Saturday and then decided to take us all to Firehouse subs! they paid for us too!! they are soo generous! Brother Lloyd is in the bishopric and sister Lloyd teaches relief society. Their Youngest is 4 and is soo cute! she loves hanging out with the missionaries as does the entire family! The Seaburgers are this couple who just got married two years ago, she is 21 and he is 24. they are soo funny! one day our dinner was canceled on us so we called them up and asked if they wanted to feed us so they took us out to a place that is kinda like Pizza Pie. It was loads of fun. they gave us marriage advice and we told stories. :) its cool to see/hang out with someone around our age as well. :) This week i got to meet a recent Convert. Sister Dunn was actually the one who baptized her. we went and visited her and shes starting to have some problems. She is probably the sassiest person i have ever met and she is hilarious. She is so down to earth and very real with us. but she came with us to the Broadcast and she loves the church. she just needs to included in the ward more. we had a lesson with her and she taught herself. those are my favorite lessons where they do all the talking and light bulb after light bulb go off. the spirit is amazing. :) I saved the best for last!! she is a 66 year old lady and she reminds me of Grandma Debby. they would actually get along really well. :) she is so nice and so easy to talk to. :) she has been coming to church and to activities and loves talking to us and loves talking about the gospel. ready for the good news?? *drum roll* I asked her if she would be baptized and she said YES!! i officially have my first investigator on date!! i was soo happy she is going to be baptized on Oct. 11!! isn't that exciting?? woot! my first official full week and i have someone already getting baptized. :D she is soo excited as well. The Church really is true! God loves us so much!! He sent his son Jesus Christ to die for us so that we can return to him. I mean really how hard is it to live the gospel? not hard at all! "Life is Hard, The Gospel isn't." I promise that if you follow God and have faith you will receive many many blessings. Lots of Love and Prayers! Sister Hanks Sorry I don't know why the pictures show up twice! I'll work on that. Stephanie

- They have frozen Yogurt here! we get it like once a week. :)

- This is what an average neighborhood looks like in Georgia we went tracting here on Thursday and that hill is like every other hill that i have to bike up in our area its crazy!

- This is the picture you got from the Lloyds! we played soccer for like an hour and we were all about to leave when sister Lloyd said are ya''ll hungry? lets go get lunch! she took us all out to lunch! They also text his picture to my mom and told her they loved me!

- This is the shopping carts at the closest store. you have to put a quarter in to get to use it then when you put it back you get your quarter back. we always have to make sure that we have Quarters.

- this is my gorgeous bike!! its soo great. :)

First week in GA

Hey Y'all!! these last six days have been insane!! My Last day in the MTC we got blessings from our wonderful elders before we got on a plane to come to Georgia! it was awesome of them to give us and each other blessings it was an amazing experience and it helped a ton. :) The next morning we got up at 2:40 am to get on a bus and come to the airport to fly to Georgia! it was sooo early and we were exhausted! i got to call my amazing family. which was awesome but super hard because i bawled for like 10 mins before and 10 mins after. but i was soo glad i was able to talk to them. i can't wait for christmas! we got off the plane and ran into some elders that picked us up. then we got to meet President Bennion! he and sister bennion are soo cool and nice! then they handed us a Book of Mormon some Mormon.Org cards and a couple pamplets and said we are getting on the Marta which is the train at the airport and we are going to talk to people. This was the scariest thing i have ever done in my life! i was freaking out and i started crying because i was sooo scared!! Sister Garver reassured me that i was going to be okay because i still had her to help me. Then Elder Coleman said oh yeah! funny story your doing this by yourself!! then i started really Freaking out! But i met some awesome people on the bus and slowly got more and more comfortable with it. i gave away a Book of Mormon and a lot of Pass along cards! i did soo good! So my first day here I met my companion!! her name is sister Arbon. She is fabulous!! i sadly don't have a picture of her because its been so busy we haven't had time. :) but she is awesome and we get along really well! My mission is a tracting mission! so day on we went door to door trying to talk to people its actually a lot of fun. :) i have met so many awesome people! I haven't met a lot of the other investigators yet. but i will this week! something fun that we get to do every saturday is we get to go play soccer! its soo much fun! all of the missionaries in my area get to go and then we invite investigators or anyone really. this week we had some people show up that heard we played and wanted to play! it was a ton of fun! Elder Lee totally stepped on my foot and its soo bruised right now but it was soo much fun and totally worth it. One Last experience hopefully your not sick of them. :) on my first day we went tracting in our apartment area. a mission is soo hard. haha i am having a ton of fun. but i have been hissed at and i have been rejected i have been told that there is weed in the bible. haha its been amazing and i can't wait to start this next week!!! lots of love and prayers!! Sis. Hanks 10103 Holland Place 1175 mckendree Church Rd. Lawrenceville GA 30043 If you are going to send letters or Packages you need to send them here please!! or else i won't get them! i will let you know when it changes!

I will work on finding out how to turn the pictures the right way

Jordan Made it to Atlanta!! She called us at 5:45am when she got to the SLC airport on the 16th. The first time she called I couldn't hear her. She called back right away, we talked for a few minutes and then it hung up. It took her 6 Min. to call back!!! We are all awake now sitting on my bed freaking out waiting, except for Josh who was in St. George on business. There was a problem with her calling card, so she called back using her debit card. We called Josh and got him on speaker phone, then each of us talked to her. Addie went first said hi and then Jo asked what was she was learning in school. Addie said "ABC's" then Addie looked at me and said, "That's all I want to say" She walked out of the room and went back to bed. We all had a laugh over that. Jordan was emotional, so were we! She said it was the hardest thing she has ever done, but the best thing she has done. Her testimony has grown so much! She has learned so much about the gospel! It was so good to hear her! She hoped she could call back when she got to Atlanta, but no such luck. It has been a long couple of days. I have checked my email at least 200 times. The mission president had said they would email us when she got there. I assumed that meant that evening. An email came, finally, this afternoon that says she made it to Georgia safely. She is happy and in good spirits as she trained and left the mission office, with her companion, Sister Arbon. Her address to send packages and letters is: 1013 Holland Place Lawrenceville, GA 30043 She did tell us that she loves the letter and please keep writing her.

First email!

This is my First week in the MTC and it has been so hard and so amazing at the same time!! My first day i got to say good bye to all my family at the temple and then They dropped me off at the MTC. it was super Scary. My host took my luggage and me and I was whisked away to The main building where I went inside and said my name about ten times to ten different people while they handed me stuff and sent me to the next person not explaining anything. Then I was showed my room, we rolled my suitcases in there and left them. I was then taken to my classroom where I met my awesome teachers Sister Thompson and Sister Wells. We went from class to a devotional which was super good there are a lot of missionaries here and a good amount of them are Sisters which is super exciting!! Our first day we learn about conversion and about our purpose as missionaries. :) We met our first Investigators. way fast right?? Its our first day and we were already planning lessons. Ashley and Danielle. We are teaching Danielle shes a 76 year old Japanese American woman who loves badminton. :P The spirit is so strong here I feel it every single day. It was the first time a teacher was demonstrating for us and the spirit hit me like a bus it was insane but sooo cool! We actually taught our first three investigators at like 6 o'clock that night. It was crazy! but we learned a ton. We didn't even ask them questions we just started preaching to them. We didn't ask them or teach them to their needs. I have been learning a lot about teaching to their needs and listening to the spirit. My favorite quote of that day was heavenly Father gave us his Son, Christ died for us and we serve a mission for two years Its amazing to think about it that way. (this is day one and day two combined) Day three We planned lots of lessons. That's what we did like all day! We just planned tons of lessons we figured out how to plan different lessons and how to plan to the Investigators. I learned soo much all the days are kind of a blur so hopefully it'll all make sense. Day 4 We met a new Investigator Named Patrick and we got to teach him a district. It was super interesting and i think we did pretty well. We are working on asking inspired questions. Which is sometimes super hard to do. We taught our first official lesson with Danielle and we got her to pray!! It was soo cool! We also Got to teach a new Investigator Patty and we actually did really bad for that one. It is really hard to teach the doctrine really simply! As if we are teaching children it is soo hard but I am trying really hard! Day 5 We went to mission conference which was super good we had a lot of good talks and I learned a ton from it about serving and how we are suppose to be acting! We got to go on a walk around the temple with our district which was a lot of fun but super hard. Because that's where we said good bye to all our families! But we pushed through. Another thing that we get to do at the MTC is we get to fast. Which was super hard for me because I really don't skip more than breakfast and its mostly just because we forget to eat. But it went really well. a lot of our elders were home sick and thinking about going home so i fasted for them and it actually worked!! We still have all of our elders so far and they are doing amazing!! Day six! We Committed Danielle to Baptism!!! We actually got her to say yes to be baptized and during the second lesson! It was soo cool I hope she stays committed to it! We did this awesome activity where we all sat in a circle and told everyone our fears most were about teaching and leaving our families then our teacher said we are symbolically going to give them to Christ then we all stood up and faced the pictures of christ in the room and gave our fears to Christ I cried for like ever but after I could feel his love soo strong! and I know he is taking care of you guys! We had a devotional last night and it was really good at least the part I didn't sleep through. :P My branch president was sitting behind me and my companion and two other elders and me and the two elders fell asleep but I was the only one that got called out for it. because I move in my sleep! My head bobbed all through it. and the elders hold really still when they sleep but its soo funny! we have an elder, Elder Fry who snores every time he falls asleep which is hilarious in the middle of class. :) That is all i can write for now! I can't wait to hear from you all! i am only in the MTC for the next 6 days and I would love to get letters!!! Here is some words of wisdom for the week! Remember who you are, Remember to always Listen Carefully, remember to always say sorry, remember to have kind regard, remember that you get an abundance of blessings every day, remember to be grateful, remember to understand the atonement, remember to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, remember that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. Sister Sitati The Gospel is the best gift you have ever been Given Brother Sitati Lots of Love and prayers! Sis. Hanks

MTC

I (Jordan's mom) am going to post from Jordans letters for her on this blog to hopefully keep you all updated on what she is doing.  I am not the best at computers, so be patient with me.  This post is more of a test, so I can figure all this out.  We have not heard from her yet. 

We went down to Salt Lake the night before Jordan left to go to one of Jordan's favorites, The Melting Pot.  We met her grandma and grandpa, and Uncle Trevor and Aunt Darci there.  We had a great time and ate lots of food.  

 Grandpa Andy, Jordan, dad Josh, and brother AJ

 Aunt Darcie, Jordan, Uncle Trevor

 Sister Kylee, Grandpa Andy, and Jordan

 Yin Yang chocolate fondue

 Flaming Turtle fondue

The whole family spent the night at Grandma and Grandpas.  In the morning we went to use a gift card she was given to the missionary mall.  We had lots of time until the restaurant opened, so we went to Bridal Vail falls. 

We went to the Brick Oven at 11.  So did quite a few other missionaries families. They sat us all in the same room.  We had lunch and then went to the Provo temple to say goodbye!

We dropped her off and watched her walk away.  Got in the car and we all had a good cry.  Addison said,"Wait, JoJo's going her mission today!?" That made us all laugh.  AJ said,"Can we go pick her up tomorrow?" 
We can't wait to hear from her!  We love her and are so proud of her! Wish me luck with this Blog!