Miracle Week

So this past week was great!! We are back up to 14 lessons a week! Hurray!

Sister Osa and I have been seeing so much success in this area. We have 4 progressing investigators right now, and we could not be more excited for them. 

Last week I mentioned finding people we were meant to find, and to show that God really is in the details of our lives, I have a big giant miracle story.

So there we were, Sister Osa and I, looking at our planners and deciding where to go. And Sister Osa was all "let's go back to the new movie ins in 8th ward" and I was like "Okay" and so we DID. And we went to the first house, and guess what? They weren't home. BUT THEN, we talked to these little girls riding their bikes and asked them if they knew anyone we could teach, and do you know what they said?!!!? No. So after that, we went down the street to the people who just moved in across from the Hamiltons (I love the Hamiltons) and we knocked on the door and lots of dogs were barking and the door opens and this super happy man on crutches that looks like Dad comes out and after wrestling with his crutches and the dogs he introduces himself and tells us that he's a Christian and he's spending a couple days with his niece and her family. And we were all "Oh awesome!" and so we all start talking and he tells us about how he's been on a 5 week motorcycle trip from Tennessee to Alaska back to Tennesse with his friend. On his way back home, coming through Utah a deer comes out in front of him and it wrecks his bike a little, but he comes out of this whole thing with a leg injury and the bike still works, it didn't go down at all. So we were all "Woah, you should totally be dead right now!" and he was all "I KNOW!" so after we see his bike and talk for a while he says "So, tell me one thing you want me to know about your religion" and we start teaching him about the Restoration. After a minute I asked if we could have a lesson right there on the porch since he was by himself, and he was all about it! So we sat down with him and talked for maybe 2 hours. During the lesson the family came home and sat in on part of it. He said that we could come back the next day and we did, and sat for another 2 1/2 hours talking about the Plan of Salvation. He had already starting the material we gave him the day before and had a lot of deeply thought out questions. I don't know if I've ever met anybody so prepared to hear the gospel than this man on my entire mission. He agreed to let us send a referral to missionaries in his area and we gave him a couple articles in the Ensign and a triple combination that was in our apartment. 

The only way we can be successful is if we have the Spirit with us to guide our words and actions. We had no idea what this man needed to hear from us, but the Spirit did. And because we listened, we found him, and answered his questions, and were able to introduce him to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. He didn't know anything about Latter-day Saints other than the crazy false stories you hear all the time. You know, the polygamy, horns and tails, cult kind of crazy stories.

Then we were able to bring Lexi and her Dad to a baptism that the Portuguese Elders in our district were having on Saturday morning (we had to wear headphones but I think she still liked it) and she came to Church with us yesterday and brought her cousin with her. She liked the ward and the young women in her class. This has been a wonderful week. 

I haven't crashed my bike for a long time! I haven't melted from the blistering heat!

Last miracle of the week (at least for Mom and Dad): I've started playing piano! And I'm actually not that bad at it! Woo, I have a talent now.

Sorry that I haven't been sending anybody personal emails. I promise I'll start again. Someday. 

Love you! Have a happy week!

Sister Hinkle

Pictures!

My Companion Sister Osa and some giant dog at an investigator's house.

Stake Center mirror selfie!

Mailbox I ran into and left a huge dent in...

Just Kidding

Do you like how I always say I'm going to send pictures and I never do? Lame! I know. 

So this week was pretty great! No wrecks! Mostly because I refused to ride my bike until Saturday. The 4th of July was really fun! We hopped from barbeque to barbeque and at night EVERYONE lit fireworks. We sat in our driveway with Sister Curtis and watched them. Here in Utah the 24th is a big deal, too. So there are  fireworks every night until then. I've heard that Pioneer Day here is waaay bigger than the 4th, so I'm pretty excited to see what all happens that night.

Yesterday we sang "America the Beautiful" like 4 times in sacrament meeting and I am so done with it. We also got to help teach the lesson in Young Women in the 1st ward. Woo, party, yeah! We also saw a little girl there named Lacie who's 9 that's getting baptized at the end of July with her little sister. I've been teaching her since May, and when we saw her yesterday she pointed at us and said to her primary class, "These are my missionaries!" and it melted my dang heart. 

So the people I've been teaching in this area weren't really progressing for a long time. There have been a lot of setbacks, things like not being able to make it to sacrament meetings, only being able to do a lesson once a week, parents not being supportive, yadda yadda. We have a lot of people we're teaching but they just weren't getting anywhere. But this past week things started moving with a few of them, and it was incredible to see the way the Lord can work miracles in their lives if they exercise a little bit of faith.

 I love these people so much. I know that I always say that and I never really go into detail about who they are or anything, but I can't believe how special each of these people are to me. There is nothing that I want more than for them to have the guidance of the Spirit, and to be able to have the blessings that come from entering into the waters of baptism. There is one woman who I feel especially close to, she is really struggling under the pressure of the world right now. She's been through a lot of hard things. The other day we were at her home and she and I talked about how we just feel really close and we knew we were supposed to meet each other. I know she's one of those people I was supposed to find here. I know we were meant to be friends. 

Other people we've been teaching have become a lot more open, and have started keeping the commitments we leave with them. Lately, I've been able to talk about the Atonement in every visit we've had. The Atonement applies to everyone, and every situation.Healing, repentance, comfort, life after death, why we are here on earth, forgiveness, all of that. As missionaries we need to continually exercise our faith in Heavenly Father and in Jesus Christ. As members we need to do the same. As we do that, and trust that They will help us in this great work, we will accomplish great things.

In other news, it's like 89752978 degrees here every day of my life. But that's okay because it's windy and that keeps us from melting into the pavement.

I don't really have much else to say, at least not that I can remember. There is a man here in the family history center at the stake center that's putting in new computers so hurray for that! That means I won't have to use one that's equivalent to the size of my bicycle. 

That's all I got! Keep my in your prayers. I love you people!

Sister Hinkle

PS Tell Mema I said happy birthday and I'm sending her a card in the mail soon.

PPS Tell everyone in our ward I said "what up" except you can make it less cool and  just tell them I say "hi" or whatever

PPPS can somebody PLEASE give me Jency's email address??!!?!?!! and Chris's too? thanks!!!

Series of Unfortunate Events

So remember my last email when I was excited because I didn't ride my bike very much, resulting in no crashes?? Well I had two really fabulous bike wrecks last week to make up for the week before.

The first one happened Tuesday morning, we were biking down 2700 and I was a little too close to a fence and my handle got caught on one of the fence posts. DUMB. Then on Friday night we were heading up to the 7th branch activity. Sister Osa was in front of me and for TWO SECONDS I looked into the yard beside of us and when I looked back up she was far ahead and this mailbox was right in front of me. And my bike. And it was getting closer. I slammed into that thing sooo hard! The bike stayed there, the mailbox fell off of its post, and I hit the sidewalk...with my whole body. We thought my hand was broken for a little while, but it's normal size again, a little blue-and-purple-ish, but normal size. Maybe I should be a stuntman for a living. hahaha

Another exciting thing happened! One of our investigators, Justin, is on a business trip in Florida for the a few weeks. We are able to teach him via Skype. Woohoo! The blessing of technology! Our first Skype lesson was yesterday and it went really well!

So lately we've been hearing a lot about the group of women who want to hold the Priesthood. I wish they understood that protesting isn't going to change God's mind. Protesting isn't going to change doctrine. This is the Savior's Church, and He isn't going to take back the truths He taught because people don't like it. If we  pray and ask God, study the scriptures searching for answers, we will find out for ourselves that He does not conform to man's will, we are here on earth to learn to become like Them, and align our wills with that of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. That's really all there is to say about it. It's really upsetting to hear about these people getting so angry, but they need to exercise their faith.

In other news, the past couple days has been the Mountain View stake conference! President Chambers and Sister Chambers were there and spoke on missionary work. We have eighty-some stakes in out little tiny mission, and 218 missionaries. If members are included, it's more like 300,000 missionaries, though. We're all called to be missionaries! Yeah!

Share the gospel! 

Sister Chambers read the conversion story of an Elder who served in the SLCS mission. He was into a lot of bad stuff growing up and got kicked out as a teenager. On his own, it allowed him to get into even more bad stuff with his roommates. He had no interest in religion whatsoever, he was content with the way he was living. He ended up taking a class in college and met an Latter-day Saint friend who invited him to church one Sunday. She attended a Spanish ward,so he didn't understand it, but he felt the Spirit and he knew that it was where he needed to be. After that he attended and English ward and was eventually baptized. He ends with saying we can't decide who we should share the gospel with. Had that girl looked at him and said..."Mmmm, no. I don't think he'll be interested" he never would have had the opportunity. The Savior invited everyone, no matter what they had done in the past, no matter who they were. We should invite everyone too. We don't know who's waiting for us to reach out to them.

So, that's my happiny happs for the week. A big giant wad of opinions and stories and bike crashes, but that's my life and it's all I have to write about.

I actually have pictures this week! Don't worry, they're not of my injuries. 

Love you! Jesus loves us, ALL of us!

Sister Hinkle

Weeky Week Week

So we had a super good week this week! I didn't ride my bike for like 4 days! Woohoo! 

We had a miracle this past week!!! Sister Osa and I were on splits last Wednesday, and she got some referrals from a member. She then left to Sandy for a 24 hr exchange like a day later. While she was gone I totally forgot the information she gave me, so we were going to visit the same member to get the referral information. On our way to the members house, we hear someone call us over. We turn around to see a man named Daniel, we talked for a little bit and he said, "So you're missionaries! I want my daughter to be baptized! She's 12" and I'm pretty sure my jaw actually dropped to the ground. We had our first lesson with her yesterday! It went really great! She is the sweetest little girl and she is super excited to start coming to the ward and keep learning about the gospel!! I already love her so much. I know I say this all the time, but it is incredible how I can feel the Savior's love for the people I'm teaching. I know Jesus Christ loves us, because I can feel His love for others. 

I am serving in such a great stake, the people who live here are incredible. I love being a missionary. I love bringing people closer to our Savior. I know this is His Church, He stands at the head of it. I really know that. 

Katie sent me part of the General Conference talk from President Monson in her email today, and I really love it a lot. 

“We must remember that those mortals we meet in parking lots, offices, elevators, and elsewhere are that portion of mankind God has given us to love and to serve.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!

Dale Carnegie, a well-known American author and lecturer, believed that each person has within himself or herself the “power to increase the sum total of [the] world’s happiness … by giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged.” Said he, “Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime."

May we begin now, this very day, to express love to all of God’s children, whether they be our family members, our friends, mere acquaintances, or total strangers. As we arise each morning, let us determine to respond with love and kindness to whatever might come our way."

I love you! Have a happy week! 

Sister Hinkle

Short

So today was temple day! We went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple as a district and it was great! I also did some laundry and...yep! That's pretty much my whole day. I am continuing to be really good at wrecking my bike, we are teaching lots of lessons each week. Things are always getting better!! Lots of new people moving into the stake!

Sorry for never sending any letters, and sorry for such short emails all the time!

Love, 

Sister Hinkle