​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!!

Hey Y'all!

I am still here in Collins Hill the best area in the whole mission! we got two new people Sister Kafu, who is from Sacramento California and Elder Fowers who is from good ole hyrum Utah. they are both super fun and such good missionaries and we have seen many miracles this week! 

first off! HEATHER IS BAPTIZED!! i can't believe she is baptized! it was an awesome time and her son Tristan made it to the service which is also another miracle i will get to! she was baptized on Saturday and i got to give the talk on baptism! it went well. at least a bunch of people told me they liked it but maybe they said that because i told everyone that this would be the first official talk that i have given that you guys didn't proof read like ten times before telling me i could give it. :P they all thought that was pretty funny. after we went to their house to "celebrate" haha we had an all southern dinner. We had ham, collard greens, black-eyed beans, potato salad and deviled eggs. it was all really delicious! then i helped Heather and Tristan clean up in the kitchen while jimmy, Sister Arbon, sister Kelly and sister kafu went to the living and talked. I love helping people out in the kitchen and they appreciate it to. then we played monopoly for a little while. no one seemed to get into it and so put it away and had apple cobbler which was amazing!! then we were all super tired. they couldn't figure out what was wrong with us because we were super quiet and looked exhausted! we told them after a spiritual high we get that way so later they took us home and we all passed out! but it was an awesome day! 

Now about Tristan! Tristan is their son, he's seventeen years old but he turns eighteen in November. at first he wasn't interested in all about religion and i had tried to talk to him about it but he would always shrug it off or just ignore me, so i put my testimony in a book of Mormon and heather put it on his bed for me. we were over there on Tuesday night with the elders for heather's interview  the next day we asked if we could come over and teach a lesson he said yes. so we went and taught him the first lesson. this was a miracle! we could not believe that he is reading the Book of Mormon and Praying. he even came to the baptism on Saturday and is trying to come to church on Sunday!! its crazy!! 

Another miracle that happened this week was we were weekly planning, Sister Arbon felt like we really needed to go see this guy. He had knee surgery a couple months ago and they hadn't been back to see him sense. so we planned him in for the week. well! we were checking out mail and this guy came limping up to his mailbox which is near ours. Sister Arbon said hey nice yellow shorts he said thanks we then continued to talk to him, he told us about his knee surgery and about how he use to meet with missionaries. It was him! it was amazing! so we set up an earlier appointment! 

We were in Coordination meeting and the Elders were talking about who they were visiting, they started talking about this guy named Mike. it was hilarious because we had planned in to go see him that week and they tracted into him! some of these people just really need to be taught! 

After we taught Tristan's lesson we were walking back to our bikes when Sister Arbon sees this guy sitting on his porch shirt less smoking and she decides to go talk to him. Turns out he was baptized three years ago but he got super busy and has fallen back into old habits so we invited him to come back to church. it was super cool! 

We also got yelled at by this lady who told us this is a no scoliciting area. we told her were weren't selling anything we were just talking to people. she didn't like that response and told us to leave her a long. it was funny. we also ran into a guy who opened the door and said you ladies never learn! you never learn! shaking his head at us. we were so confused so i asked what we never learned. he said he was an atheist and he told us if we wanted to come in he'll convert us. it was so funny! 

but yeah! that about sums up my week! oh yeah! it was halloween! we were suppose to be in at 6 but then we got special permission to be at jimmy's house till 8. so we got to hang out there. then i went to bed early. it was awesome! :) 

p.s. our picture is on Facebook! we are famous! if you go to the LDS missionaries page you can find me and my district on there in our Halloween get up! 

Spiritual thought of the week has to go along with fast sundays! 

Sister sorenson in my ward got up and said "you can have a slow sunday, where all you think about it how hungry you are or how you have sit in church all day! Or you can have a fast sunday, you can have an amazing spiritual day and touch someone elses lives" 

have an amazing week! 

Love Sister Hanks

 - stone mountain selfie!

 - we decorated cookies on halloween oh and cupcakes!

 - This is the Parker Family from left to right Tristan, Jimmy, Heather, Sister Arbon and Me

 - Heather and I

 - Elder Lee got a Bunch of fake mustaches and we put them on after district meeting it was hilarious!

Hey Y'all

This week has been amazing! we have seen so many miracles and i don't even know where to start. :) 

   First off! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BESTEST FRIEND!! i can't believe she turns 18 today! i love you mucho kylee and i hope you have an awesome birthday! everyone give her a hug for me! 

     On Wednesday of last week Sister Arbon and I got to go to a New missionary follow-up meeting. that was really good. it was really fun to see my MTC family. They are all still here and doing good :) we also got to go to dinner with Sister Todd that night to a place called Panera!  its Mexican food and i ordered the spiciest thing on accident! i downed like 5 cups of water while eating it. plus she got us two appetizers and we each got our own dessert! i got fried ice cream! which i love! we finally got to meet with this family that Sister Arbon tracted into. they were super nice and had ton of questions but we think they are going to be baptized they really like our religion so far. 

   Thursday was soo busy! but it was a ton of fun! we went tracting that morning and knocked on this lady's door. she loves Christ and seemed pretty interested. she said that the Jehovah's Witnesses had come by before and were teaching her but they couldn't answer her question. her question is How did all the Cultures start? you should help me out! because i really can't find an answer! we are going back in two weeks. so let me know! After we talked to her for a while the sisters picked us up to go serve Ice cream since we had p-day on tuesday we switched it to thursday. there is this old man who comes in everyweek and loves to just talk to us about life. this week he gave us dating advice! he told us to watch their dates because thats how they are going to act and that's how they are going to look! he also said watch how they act around/to waitresses if they get snappy with them then they are going to get snappy with you. he is a hilarious guy and we love talking to him. He likes refering to himself as the jerk in the ice cream shop. haha then we went to the kelleys to make popcorn and cookies to go BOOing. :) it was a ton of fun! they fed us dinner which was Chicken and green beans and homemade Ceasar dressing salad. Guess what the sauce had in it?? anchovies!! it was delicious but so weird!! sister castleton said "this has a little bit of a fishie taste." then they continued to explain what was in it. yep its official i have eaten anchovies. i can't get over it either. after dinner we went out and BOO'd people it was a ton of fun. we have yet to be BOO'd but hopefully it starts spreading here soon. it might just be a utah thing though.. oh well it was fun! 

   Friday we did more tracting and tracted into a family who use to go to church all the time but never joined. her ex-husband was mormon and they love the church! they want to come back! heres the problem they are sooo busy! we are never going to have time to teach them! its crazy! so hopefully soon they will be able to find sometime for us to come over. :) We had Pizza night at the Simpsons. She is pregnant and its quite exciting for all of us. :) she is due in march! she's hilarious! she was telling us all about pregnancy and what to expect. After Dinner we went over to heather and Jimmy's house i don't remember exactly what we did. but we did something important. :P oh! wait! no we didn't have time! we didn't go over there. they came to us. we had run out of time to go over there so we told them we needed to take a rain check and they said no they would come to us. we sat outside and got to know their oldest who is getting engaged sometime here soon. she is 18 and is on her second semester of college. its crazy but its nice to be around someone who is close to my age. :) 

     Saturday we were walking down the road to head out to tracting, when we hear BOOO MORMONS! i was freaking out cuz its kinda ridiculous what we get yelled at us. but we turned and saw jimmy pulled over across the street. that man can find us any where. they told us to get powerade from the house because we need to stay hydrated. :) so we did. we got to talk to his son, who is a senior and high school. he is hilarious! so much fun to talk to. we asked him for referrals and he didn't have any. so we left him so he could go to work then we went tracting. that night was the Fall Festival for the ward! all the missionaries dressed up as wizards from harry potter it was awesome. Sister Arbon and I got to judge all the desserts! they were all soo good! we had a ton of fun and then the parkers Found us again. :P so we went to their house and jammed out to Gopel songs and get this!! i will replay the conversations we had! 

Jimmy: so heather has decided that she's joining the church!

All of the sisters jaws drop 

heather: OH yeah! when can i get baptized guys?

I HAVE ANOTHER BAPTISM!!! WOOT!! we celebrated!! plus jimmy met with a counsler on sunday so he is on his way! two more baptisms!! its soo exciting!! God really does answer prayers!! and Miracles happen every day!! on sunday they came to church and we set up a date! heather is going to be baptized November 1! its so exciting! i get to give a talk on baptism!! woot! :) 

My Favorite quote this week that has helped me out is : Find the motivation or desire, search it out and let it roar! - Elder Cleaverly

Sometimes its super hard to be motivated. in the real world or on a mission. we just need to figure out what motivates us and continue down that path! i challenge you to find something that you need to be motivated for, whether its getting up in the morning or its going to the gym! maybe its not eating snacks or candy! figure something out to help you be motivated to do it! and always remember you can pray! God can help you with anything! and everything! I love you all! 

Lots of Love and Prayers! 

Sister Hanks

- This is my District Leader Elder Lee (the blonde) and his Companion Elder Roy (the ginger) 

- Me, Elder Roy, Elder Lee and Sister Castleton. she didn't want to be a wizard she wanted to be a princess instead. :) 

- This was a sunset the other night it was gorgeous! i really do love it here! 

- i have the coolest family!! they send me the best packages! thanks guys! 

- Sister kelly and I she goes home in december and is dying out here! 

 

 

HEY!
Two more weeks until transfers! i can't believe it! i have almost survived my first transfer! i won't be transferred because im still training so i have another six weeks here in Collins Hill and then i will probably stay another 6 weeks here after that so i can be senior companion in the area. woot! Sister Castleton is going to be leaving us but Sister Kelly is staying here, president said she is dying here. We are hoping for a trio and we keep asking president about it! it would be so much fun.   we would be an amazing and powerful trio too. we would do soo good! so cross your fingers.

This week was soo good. i don't even know where to start! How about a baptism?

She had her final interview Wednesday with Elder Lee and she passed with an A+ and two gold stars! it was soo excited then we had to wait until Saturday for it to happen. when Saturday finally came around we got a ride to the church to practice singing our song. oh! Sister Kelly, Sister Castleton, Sister Arbon, the Elders and I sang a song the baptism! we sang When I was Baptized. :) it sounded super good! so we went early to go practice it, because we hadn't sang with the Elders yet, as we were practicing Sister Bennion (mission presidents wife) walked in the room. she said "y'all sound lovely we are singing a song at a funeral on Monday and you get to be my choir!" that's the next story! then she showed up, she was so excited! we took her to go change into her suit and then took pictures! Then we had the service and a good amount of people showed up which was awesome! She had to be baptized twice because the first time her foot came up. but after her baptism she was so happy. She kept walking around telling everyone she was a Mormon. it was so funny. After the baptism the ward members had brought some treats! it was way nice so we socialize for a bit then they all left. We also had interviews with president, which went well. i love president and his wife they are lots of fun. 

Oh so Sister Bennion's Choir. it was a ton of fun. we learned a song in two days. She gave it to us the night before and then we practiced it that morning its called as a child. it was super pretty. We went to someones funeral and sung it. it was fun and kinda awkward and really good for contacting. The Piano she had to play was a really crappy one and didn't play the accompaniment very well. they had an opening and closing song and us missionaries were the only ones singing. it was so awkward but we were very happy to do it. After we were done Sister Bennion took us all out for brusters. Brusters is a Georgia thing. they serve ice cream and milkshakes and its all outside at a walk up window its super cool. 

On Saturday night we went to go play soccer, I LOVE playing soccer! it is so much fun. we had quite the turn out too. We were about to start when Jimmy and Heather showed up. So we talked to them for a while then we started to play. some took the game WAY TOO SERIOUSLY!they gave us all positions and then told us what to do and they would get upset at us when we wouldn't do it, or do it correctly.  heather got some great shots ill send them to you later. Heather and Jimmy left to go to publix (a grocery store) and asked if we wanted anything we requested water. so they got us water and then got each set of missionaries (3) one pumpkin to carve! we have yet to carve ours. ours is actually in their car still. whoops. we'll get it sometime. haha Tristan wanted to take us to Steak and Shake but he couldn't drive us there or take us home, we aren't allowed to be alone with males there has to be a female present, and they wanted to take the elders out too. The sisters and elders aren't allowed to eat together. (its kinda silly. they use to be able too) so Tristan and Heather took us (Sister Arbon and I) to Steak and Shake and Jimmy took the Elders to Golden Coral. which jimmy loves for some reason. it was so much fun! Tristan is hilarious and so is heather. Heather is going to be converted i know it! jimmy even told her! Tristan is going to take some time but i can see him eventually coming too. they are so much fun! and Jimmy hopefully set up and appointment with the bishop so he can start coming back. they are a great family and they have said that they expect to be invited to my wedding and can't wait to come visit in Utah!! Heather came to church this last Sunday too. and she CRIED! it was amazing! she said "these people are getting me!" she loved sacrament meeting and hopefully she will come this Sunday as well! woot! 

We got Pedicures today!! it was soo awesome! my first pedicure and its on my mission. we are seriously spoiled here. but i love my toes. so did all the other little Asian ladies in the salon too. haha it was a birthday present to sister castleton. very worth it. 

OH! i almost got attacked by a dog this week!! it was so scary! and weird! it was at an investigators house who we go over there all the time, i have been there like 5 or six times before and the dogs have never had a problem with me but for some reason this time they did, he smelled my hand and started barking at me then almost got my hand! i had to run out of the yard! they had shockers on them so they can't leave the yard but the owners didn't call them off! my poor companion was just standing awkwardly at the door talking to them while i was at the end of the driveway staying away from them! it was scary and weird. but all is well! 

My quote and Challenge for a week! "The Father and Son have planned and prepared for your victory. If ye desire, then ye shall have." 

Think of a way to share the Gospel this week, ask God for help or even just ask him for Missionary opportunities. He wants us to succeed and made it that way. Then tell me your stories!! i would love to hear them!! 

Lots of Love and Prayers! 

Sister Hanks

~ Baptism

~ This is all the people in my zone! there are a ton of us and we are quite the silly group. 

~ Only in Georgia do you find Scriptures inside of Egg cartons. haha its one of my favorite scriptures now. 

~ Sister Arbon and I matched one day. We totally didn't plan this.

~   this was before she got baptized! 

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