Remember that one time I went on a mission?

So, this is my last email!

Sister Meyers and I were soooOoOoOoOOoOOOOooo close to hitting the standards of excellence this week! We worked and worked and tonight is my last night of proselyting. Crazy!

Monday we played football with our zone, which really meant the Elders played football and we ran around the field pretending we knew what we were doing. We also picked up a new investigator that we've been trying super hard to start teaching and it all finally worked out!! Hurray!!!

Tuesday we taught a million lessons and it was GREAT!

Wednesday was MLC and it was great like always because President Chambers is super inspired and we learned a lot about the Atonement. It's such a blessing to have him as a mission president!

Thursday was my final interview with President and it went super well!

Friday the departing missionaries went to the Salt Lake Temple for a session, what an incredible experience!!!

Saturday we worked our tails off

YESTERDAY OUR INVESTIGATOR TOM TOTALLY BORE HIS TESTIMONY IN SACRAMENT MEETING!!!! We haven't stopped smiling since!!! HE IS SO AWESOME!!!!!! And he was totally fearless about it!!!!! It was the best last Sunday a missionary could ever ask for! Then that night we had dinner with a family whose daughters left the Church a few years ago and they sat and listened to the lesson and the dad walked outside with us and told us that that was the first time in 5 years his daughters had sat in when the missionaries were over. AAAH! What a miracle!

I'm not ready for real life. Ugh.

I love seeing how the gospel really does bless us an individuals and as families. I know this Church is true, I know that Jesus Christ lives and He leads it today. I will always be a missionary. I am different now than when I left. I'm better and I'm stronger, and even though serving a mission was the hardest thing I've done this far in my life, I would do it a hundred times over if I could. It is the best thing I have ever done.

Love you! Be happy!

Come listen to me speak at church this Sunday/my birthday/ mother's day at 10 am at

 179 South Kanawha  Street

 Buckhannon, WV

  26201

Sister Hinkle

Sojo for life

This week we had some meetings and stuff. Sister Meyers and I spoke

yesterday in third ward...we live with the bishop of that ward so we

weren't too surprised when he asked us, haha.

Our awesome investigator Tom is getting baptized! We set a date for a

couple weeks out. Sad that I won't be here for it, but I'm so excited

for his family!

No freak snow storms but lots and lots of rain last week.

Saturday we met the Samoan elders at the stake center to get our keys

to the building and it turns out there was a Hindu celebration

happening there that night! So Sister Meyers went that evening to

check it out and see if there was anyone to teach, it was super cool!!

The next day we ate with a family from India and the husband was a

mission president there a few years back and we were able to teach

some of their family friends about the Restoration. It's not every

weekend we get to eat Indian food twice, so we feel pretty lucky.

Also, we ate dinner with one of our former investigators and he made

elk. I ate elk. Weird.

I'm really sad that I have to go home next week, but I'm excited too.

I never thought I'd love Utah so much!

Well, Sister Meyers and I have to go do preparation day things now.

Love you all!

Sister Hinkle

Pictures for daaaaaaays

Another Week in Zion!

My life is so weird. So this has been my week:

Monday we went hiking as a district. We had been walking for maybe 5 minutes when we realized how terribly out of shape we all are (we're the only district in our zone with every companionship in a car). We also realized that some of the elders were afraid of heights...when we were half way up the trail. It was a good experience, though. The Portuguese elders are SO funny! One of them was terrified when we were climbing up this one hill and every time one of us would move he'd yell "be cautious!" and at one point he froze up and couldn't move and he whispered "seestehr, I'm suffering". I almost fell off the hill from laughing so hard. Poor elder.

Tuesday was normal...OH, EXCEPT FOR A MASSIVE WIND STORM THAT HAPPENED. Ugh. I've never seen to many tumble weeds in my LIFE. I didn't even know there were that many tumbleweeds in all of Utah! It was crazy. After the day of getting blown around everywhere, it started snowing! Which was perfect because...

Wednesday we went on exchanges and I had the blessing of going back to the River stake again! Hurray! It was wonderful, except for the fact that our mission got rid of 12 cars recently and one of them was in the River stake. That meant that it was a day of walking around in the snow. Luckily I was with one of my favorite missionaries, Sister Fameitau from NZ and it's impossible to be grumpy around her. Also we visited and taught some of the sweetest people! I love going on exchanges there because it's so neat to see how people have progressed from the time I left until now. We put two people (a husband and wife) on date for baptism May 16 that night! We had an incredible lesson! The bishop and his wife came with us and the Spirit was really strong.

Thursday everything melted, which was great. We also gave a garbage man a "Because He Lives" card. We're just proselyting to everybody out here. We tried to talk to these two men who were cement cutters, but they we're a little grumpy. Oh, also our district leader and his companion needed to borrow the keys to our stake center to use the copier and one of them had set their jamba juice on the roof of our car and it got knocked over so then we had this weird streak of pink down the side of our windshield.

Friday we finished weekly planning and went to fill out progress records and found the stake offices decorated in pink princess party decorations. We're not really sure who did it, or what it was for, but we thought it was hilarious. The people in this stake are so funny. I grabbed a balloon and created an alien out of it. On the back I wrote some extremely clever jokes, because, you know I'm really funny and whitty. <-- Lies. That last sentence was nothing but lies.

Saturday we rediscovered out love of old seminary videos. Also we learned that Taco Bell has pink startburst slushy beverages.

Yesterday we decided to go to 1st ward to see two return missionaries speak! One is our friend Megan that just got home and comes out with us occasionally, the other was and elder that served in Oregon and actually lived next door to Sister Meyers' brother! Crazy! What a small world. They gave their talks and it was over and they were just about to close the meeting with a song and a prayer and then President Christiansen (stake presidency) started whispering something in the bishop's ear. Weird. They talked back and forth for a minute and then President stands up and tells the congregation that he felt a very strong impression TO HAVE SISTER HINKLE STAND UP AND BEAR HER TESTIMONY TO EVERYONE BEFORE THE MEETING CLOSES?! WHAT??! WHATEVER! We were sitting near the front and I almost threw up! I didn't see that coming at all! Do you know how many people there were at that double homecoming?!!? My legs went numb and I almost fell over when I started walking up there and gave probably the shakiest, speediest testimony of my entire mission. But those words were totally inspired because I didn't know what to say, but I opened my mouth and felt what I needed to say. It was so cool. The Church is so true.

Then this morning we discovered we could find mormon.org profiles of people serving in our mission and we spend probably 20 minutes taking screen shots of them and laughing.

Anyways, that's my life! We picked up a new investigator this week and we are STOKED!! He is awesome! He's a 13 year old boy and he has a stroooooong testimony of the gospel! Hoping I get to see another child of God enter into the waters of baptism before I go home.

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle

Weeky McWeekerson

Howdy!

So it's been a fabulous week! Zone conference Tuesday went super well!

I gave my departing testimony. The only bad part is that I was getting

over a cold and crying at the same time and I coughed this really ugly

cough that was really high pitched in the middle of bearing my

testimony. It was so dumb. But other than that Sister Meyers said it

wasn't so bad. Uuuuuuugh.

What else? Oh. President and Sister Chambers came out with us for a

couple of hours Thursday night, it was terrifying and wonderful all at

the same time! Just kidding. They are some of the most loving people

I've ever met and it was a huge blessing to have them be part of the

lessons we were teaching that night.

Everyone around here seems to be getting baby chickens.

Our stake had stake conference this weekend. There are 88 missionaries

serving from this stake. Crazy! I wonder how many are out from ours.

Well, I think our district is going hiking today so I'm going to run

and get ready.

Love you bunches! Pray for missionary opportunities and then

courageously take them! Be like Paul! And Ammon! And all those other

awesome missionaries! When you love people, sharing the gospel with

them is a lot less scary.

Sister Hinkle

I'm sitting in a chair

So just to start off with, last Monday Sister Meyers and I went to a

jewelry store that everyone talks about here and it's basically the

great and spacious building from Lehi's dream (1 Nephi 8) but probably

with more glitter. After we stumbled around for a while (glitter

blind), we found our way out! We then discovered a less blinding and

expensive store and got matching rainbow unicorn earrings. Best.

Purchase. Ever.

We also did a lesson for our stake president's family home evening!

While there he broke out the pictures from his mission in WV and I got

to see a picture of Dad twenty some odd years ago sitting in the

living room eating. What's new?! Haha. He also had pictures of Roy

Chapman's family. It was the craziest thing!

This was a week of meeting after meeting after meeting. But we were

still able to teach a lot of people! So that was great. :) We got to

do a happiness training for our zone! Sounds lame, but it wasn't.

President Chambers brought up D&C 128: 19-22 and we talked about how

no matter the persecution that comes we should choose joy because our

Savior was the most persecuted person that walked the earth, and He

was also the happiest. It doesn't matter what the world thinks when we

know what God and Jesus Christ think!

I got to go to the Saturday morning session of General Conference! And

to make it better, I got to go with Sister Ricks and Sister

Kahaiali'i! There were a bunch of other missionaries from our mission

too but I mostly talked to them. On the way to downtown and home on

trax our group was just sharing the gospel with everyone. It's neat

that no matter where you go or what time it is there is always an

opportunity to do missionary work! We have some of the best

missionaries in our mission. I love these elders and sisters so much.

Saturday afternoon we went to a wedding! Our investigator from NY and

his cute wife got married and we got permission to go! It was great :)

They are some of our favorite people.

We watched conference with one of our ward mission leaders and his

family yesterday. It was fun. We also had Easter waffles with a cute

sister in the third ward last night.

Bishop Newman put up a trampoline in his back yard this weekend for

his grandkids. Sister Meyers and I thought it would be a great idea to

jump on it this morning for workout...we forgot how terribly out of

shape we are and after about 10 minutes we were DONE and decided to do

something else.

Tomorrow is my last zone conference! I am so sad! I'm going to miss

the days of people thinking I'm Sister Hinckley from Virginia :(

mostly I'm going to miss teaching people though.

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle 

I'm wearing a skirt with chikens on it.

SO, the news we've all been waiting for! *drum roll*

Okay, maybe just I'm the one who's been curious to find out.

I am dying in the South Jordan Highland stake, and Sister Meyers is the one to kill me.

Double blessings! Because I love this stake and I love my companion.

Our investigators are doing AMAZING!!!

One of the great people we're teaching has been really afraid to tell her husband that she's meeting with missionaries because he hates the Church. After a lot of prayer she took a step of faith and talked to him about it, and guess what?! His heart has been softened and he's totally fine with it!!! AAAAAAAAAAH YEEEEEEESSSS!!! We are so happy for her! She came to the women's broadcast on Saturday night and she looked so happy! She totally loved it! She's so awesome. The other day we went over for a lesson and she was trying to find Meet the Mormons and accidentally came across a video that makes us look like a freaky cult. When we got there she was looking for and said, "I don't think this is the movie I'm looking for" and showed us the first couple of minutes. Man were we glad we got there in time to let her know that nope, that was definitely not the movie she was looking for. The video didn't phase her at all. She is one of those people who easily recognizes truth and when she does she follows it, she also easily recognizes when things aren't true and stays away from it.

Another couple that we're teaching hasn't been to church in years and tons of people said they'd never be interested in having missionaries over. They are some of the sweetest people I've ever met, the sisters started teaching them right before I got here, and yesterday was the first time they stayed for all the classes at church and didn't leave after sacrament meeting.

Another person that we're teaching is getting married on Saturday!!! Sister Meyer and I might be able to go for the ceremony! We're super excited for them.

Our hearts are so full right now! We love all of these people so much. We want them to have every blessing that Heavenly Father wants to give them.

It's true that as missionaries we go through a lot of hard times, but the good times make up for all of it. It's been such a blessing to be the Lord's hands and to find people that are so ready to include God in their lives.

I love you!

I'm never going home!

Sister Hinkle

Piiiiiiiiictures

OH my GOSH

This has been the most fun, exciting, crazy weeks of my entire mission!

After district meeting on Tuesday we went on exchanges with the River

stake sisters! I got to go back to my old area and work again for 24

hours. It was such a blast! I was with Sister Fameitau from Auckland,

New Zealand. I am so happy with all the work she's continued to do

there. People that I taught months ago are progressing, people that

were baptized last summer are active in the church, people who weren't

interested before and interested now, I am so grateful that Heavenly

Father put her and Sister Rice in that area and for the love they have

for the people who live there!

At the end of exchanges I had to run to Sandy for a meeting I didn't

know about (once again because I never read the announcements on

Mondays...oops) and when I got back to SoJo we got a call from one of

the assistants to the president informing us that we were inheriting a

new companion AND her stake that Friday. So we packed up our room so

we could move everything quickly on the 24th since our landlords and

us have to be out the 25th, and packed clothes and food for the rest

of the week because Friday morning we moved to West Jordan.

Sister Meyers and I didn't mind though because we were SUPER excited.

Sister Meyers was excited because our third companion is her MTC

companion and they were together in Sandy during the summer. I was

excited because our second stake is the MOUNTAIN VIEW STAKE!!! It's my

favorite area of my entire mission and I was so heartbroken when I was

transferred out. I also get to live with Brother and Sister Curtis,

who have been my favorite landlords, so that's a huge bonus. I've been

able to see how the work has gone since I've left and been able to

meet a few new people the sisters have been teaching. It's so great!!

We're only here till Wednesday (transfers) though. Also,usually Sister

Mayall finds splits so we're mostly in the Highland stake working and

then we meet up again when she can't find a split. We've all been

teaching like CRAZY since Friday too! Which is a really good thing. No

complaints here!

Tomorrow we move our stuff to the Newman family's house.They're so

great! Bishop Newman is one of the bishops in the stake and he's

really funny. We're excited to move in with them! We are going to get

call about transfers on Tuesday, too. We think Sister Meyers is

getting the boot and I'll probably get a new sister to train on how to

be a sister training leader. OR they're going to make the Country

Crossing stake the stl area again and call two new ones for SoJo.

Lately people have been getting transferred their last six weeks

though, so who knows. Maybe I'll get the boot and go to  Bluffdale or

Draper or something. I think it would be fun to keep Sister Meyers as

my last companion though.

Nothing else new except we had a lesson at temple square Saturday

night and it went GREAT!

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle

OH MY GOSH

Sister Meyers and I worked our tails off this week! It was great! 

One of my favorite people that we're teaching, his name is Tom and he's investigating the church! He was a big giant miracle, because apparently the 9th ward hasn't been doing well with missionary work for a while and they've been praying for missionary opportunities. Then one day we were walking past the bishop of that ward and he told us that they had moved in and we began teaching him that night! I probably already emailed about him, but he is 100% prepared by the Lord and that family is one of our favorites in the stake. Him and his soon-to-be wife knew each other as kids in New York and after lots of years they found each other again and fell in love and now they live in Utah and are getting married on Easter weekend!! They are super funny, and they even invited us to their wedding! We probably won't get permission to go because it's out of our mission boundaries, but we'll still ask and see.

We also found 3 new investigators this past week!! One of them is a man named Bruce Lee. Yes, that is correct. I am teaching a man named Bruce Lee on my mission. If you hadn't heard already, my life is AWESOME. We also started teaching a man and his daughter. They are SO friendly! It's amazing to see how the Lord leads us to people who are ready to hear the message we have to share! We taught them the message of the Restoration and they believe it's true!!! They haven't been to and LDS service before, they haven't read the Book of Mormon before, but they felt the Spirit tell them in their hearts that it's true and it reminded me how Heavenly Father really is a God of miracles! That this is something we all already knew before we came to this earth, and our job as missionaries is to help them remember. They are willing to study the Book of Mormon and come to church, and to pray about what we're teaching them to gain a stronger witness that it's all true, that God and Jesus Christ really did appear to Joseph Smith and restored the Savior's church to the earth again.

Something I've learned a lot more about recently (and you'd think I'd already know it well by now but we're always gaining insight on things I guess) is how to teach the pattern of dispensations and apostasies in the scriptures. I've always had such a hard time trying to teach people about it, but there's a neat chart thing on the ipad that makes it 9845023470128437102458710294875102987 times easier to teach.

-God chooses a prophet

-The prophet teaches the gospel and leads the people

-God blesses the people

-The people gradually disregard or disobey the teachings of the prophet. They eventually reject the prophet and his teachings and fall into apostasy (forsaking or abandoning the gospel of Jesus Christ).

-Because of apostasy, people lose knowledge of the gospel. Priesthood authority is taken from among them.

-When the time is right and people are ready to follow Him again, God chooses another prophet, restores the priesthood and the Church, and directs the prophet to teach the gospel. 

That's what? 8 sentences? Oh MAN I've been making that WAY more complicated than I needed to.

I think that's why people have such a hard time sharing the gospel with those around them. We feel like we have to make it  more complicated than it really is. In Preach My Gospel there's a whole section on "Teach for Understanding" and it quotes President John Taylor saying "It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself, and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it." In the same section there are some great scriptures on why plainness is important. It doesn't matter how well versed we are, or if we know big words or not. What matters is our conviction and testimony of what we're sharing. The most simple and straightforward we are, the easier it is for the Spirit to testify to the hearts of those who are listening. Sincerity and simpleness are what counts.

Anyways, there's Sister Hinkle's missionary moment for the week.

In other news, we went on exchanges again this week! We went with the River Ridge stake Sisters! I stayed in the area and had Sister Malufau as my companion. That girl is one of the funniest people I've ever met. She's Hawaiian and beautiful and I'm not afraid of anything with her, because she knows exactly what to say in all situations. I think my favorite thing about being a sister training leader is how I get to see all of these wonderful examples that the sisters in our zone are to me. I get to learn great things from each of them and see what I can improve on and how I can better do God's work. We really have some of the most hard working and dedicated missionaries in SoJo right now. We love the Lord and we love doing His work!!!

Hmmmm...I can't think of anything else. Oh! Except yesterday a man that's been less active most of his life walked to church with us yesterday!! He said he'll only go with his wife (who's out of town for somewhere around a month), so naturally we stopped by to invite him to come with us! He was outside watering his lawn and after talking about fishing for a few minutes he agreed to have us meeting him Sunday morning and walk down with him! The whole way to the building yesterday he kept saying "I don't know HOW you got me to do this" "I have no clue WHAT you said to change my mind" and we kept reminding him that it was the Spirit that helped him make that decision, not us. Turns out one of the talks was all about boats and fishing. One thing my mission has taught me is that there are no coincidences. 

Well, I love you! This is week six of this transfer. Next Wednesday is transfer day and we'll find out who my last companion and where my last area is. HEARTBREAKING.

We think that since I have this streak of changing companions almost every transfer I'll get someone new in the area and Sister Meyers will leave after being here for around 6 months.

Crazy. Time goes too fast.

Sister Hinkle

Digital Disciples

Firstly, sorry about not letting you know our preparation days were switched. I didn't find out until after I was done emailing last week...mostly because I never read the announcements when I get them and just wait for someone to tell me later in the week...I should probably stop doing that. But we get to go to the temple today! Woohoo!

ANYWAY! Last week was an entire week of iPads iPads iPads. And now we have them! Tuesday was a giant meeting where two members of the 70 came and talked to us, Wednesday we had to read two handbooks on using them, Thursday we had our zone training meeting and went over the mission training plan with our zone, and Friday we got them!!! Unfortunately, I was so excited that when we were setting them up I accidentally typed in "elizabeth.hinkle@myldsmail.COM" instead of "elizabeth.hinkle@myldsmail.NET"....

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

The poor zone leaders spent a good 40 minutes trying to fix it for me. In the end we're not actually sure what worked,but after a lot of searching through settings and clicking random buttons we got the right email and password and everything set where they need to be. We have the coolest interactive pamphlets on these things! We've been teaching like crazy the past couple of days and they're a great tool to help in our lessons. :)

This past weekend was weird. Actually this past week was weird. Monday our district went bowling and there was a TON of elderly people there competing. But that's not the weird part, the weird part is THAT I WON THE FIRST GAME. OH, YEAH! ME. THAT'S RIGHT! How it happened? I have no idea. Will it ever happen again? Probably not. But for one glorious game, I was the champion.

 After our giant mission-wide meeting on Tuesday morning we walked outside of the mission office to find a ton of snow that just showed up. It turned out to be a massive snowball fight in the mission office parking lot. It didn't last very long because firstly,we had to get back to our areas and save souls, and secondly because snow ball fights are actually really cold and not fun, just in case you didn't know that already.

Our landlords decided to put their house up for sale this past week just to see what would happen. Thursday during out ztm we kept getting texts about different showings going on at our house. It sold that day, which, by the way, was the very first day it went up for sale.They decided to accept the offer and now we're HOMELESS. Well, not really, the high councilman over missionary work and stake president are looking at different places where we can stay and we still have about 2 weeks till we're officially kicked out anyway.

Friday was my dumb thing where I broke my iPad for a while

Then our weekend happened. During it, we

-met someone that is in the band "The Lower Lights" (they play folk church music) and got free CDs

-did a bunch of service

- got invited to ride with the Redford family to get ice cream in their limo

-jumped on a trampoline 

-found out that one of my favorite families from the  River stake (Miesenbachers) and friends with our ward mission leader's family (Watkos) and got to see them

-wrote a song titled "My Creepy Elk Head" to the tune of "My Little Pony" about an elk head that we saw in a family's living room

-used iPads

-got into lots of doors

-ate pizza 4 times

-accidentally broke our microwave

-found out we have a mutual love for cob houses

I can't think of anything else, but that's a good amount.

The work is still amazing over here! Miracles happen every day. I love this stake, and I love these people. I know that God and Jesus Christ are aware of us and our needs and He knows how to help us. I get to see His hands in people's lives every single day.

A big huge giant miracle that happened recently was when a cute sister texted us asking us to come teach her husband about the Plan of Salvation. We've been trying to get a hold of them for weeks and haven't had any response or answers at the door. On Sunday we fasted for help to find someone that's ready to be baptized in March, and BOOM we walk outside of someone's house and see her text. Our lesson is tonight!!! We are so excited to help him gain a testimony that life really does go on after we leave this earth!

Being able to serve a mission for the Lord is such a huge blessing. I can't imagine what my life would be like had I never come here and met all of these wonderful people. I can't imagine what kind of person I would be without having the restored gospel in my life. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is our Savior and I know His church is on the earth today.

I love you! Choose happiness!

Sister Hinkle

Isaiah 2:2-3

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it."

"And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."

I love these verses because they remind me that all these great things are happening right now! We have temples everywhere, in many nations. We're inviting everyone to come up to the mountain of the Lord, or the temple, so we can be taught the ways of the Lord together. We have the blessing and opportunity to bring those around us closer to God every single day.

I love my companion so much! She's such a blast. The other day we and the sisters in our zone all had an OYM marathon. We set a combined goal of everyone talking to at least 26 of our brothers and sisters we saw outside that day, and we reached it! Hurray! We have some of the best sister missionaries in our zone. They all work so diligently. We are getting a brand new missionary in my old stake on Wednesday straight from the MTC! I'm super excited to meet her. The River stake is going to be a great first area for her.

As a companionship we taught 25 lessons last week! It's been so fun :)

I love this stake! We are still seeing tons of miracles :) Like yesterday, for instance, we totally got the wrong time of a ward council, so we were wandering around in this church building trying to decide where to go instead, and we ended up walking past one of the bishops, who just so happened to have a referral for us! We went by the referral last night and it turns out a man just moved here from Pennsylvania who wants to join the church! The Lord is so involved in the details of our lives. I feel so blessed to be His hands here in South Jordan again.

We have lots of meetings the next couple of weeks, we we'll see what kinds of exciting things are in store for the USLCS mission.

Have a happy week! I love you!

Sister Hinkle

PS, We ate cactus jalapeno soup for dinner last night. I just thought that as note worthy

PPS A few weels ago they put these things in our cars called Tiwis and they track our driving and yell at us when we do things wrong, and it's only yelled "check your speed" at me 3 times in the past week, so my driving has improved considerably.

PPPS we also met a couple yesterday who have SEVEN CATS and they all live inside and it doesn't even smell like cats, so haha, it IS possible!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Soooooo. I am really running out of email subject lines.

 I don't have a lot of say this week. We've been working hard. Our zone conference last Tuesday was great! I love President and Sister Chambers so much! About 20 missionaries gave their departing testimonies, I'm not sure how many gave their departing testimonies in the Thursday zone conference. Crazy to think we're loosing so many people! A lot of the people going home soon are in our zone, too. We're going to get a whole bunch of different people over here in Sandy. 

We found out that we're getting ipads in our mission this spring!! Woo hoo! I'm really excited not to carry a big fat heavy bag all day long. 

I got to see the stake president (Pres Sohm) of my last area in SoJo at our conference! He's in charge of the fleet of the Church (so every car that the Church owns in the world) and they taught us about some black boxes they're putting in our mission's cars. The boxes record how well we're driving and make sure we're all being safe.

This transfer is flying by! Next Wednesday is our transfer day, and I'm pretty sure I'll stay in Sandy since I usually stay in an area 4-5 months. Excited to see what happens! It doesn't feel like it's been 6 weeks already.

Sister Kahaialii and I feel like we've really gained the trust of the members in this area, so we see a lot of good things ahead. We only went to one ward yesterday for church, and the whole testimony meeting was centered around missionary work and serving others! It was amazing! We also asked all of our ward mission leaders to bear their testimonies in their wards about missionary work and having faith in the Lord and also having faith in ourselves and our neighbors. Great things are going to happen! We won't let a couple of slow weeks discourage us. It's usually right when you feel like you can't push any farther that something big is about to happen. I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to find many people this week that are searching to be closer to their Heavenly Father and their Savior Jesus Christ.

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle

P.S. Thanks for all of your warm weather prayers!!!! It hasn't been below 30 degrees for weeks!

Sister Hinkle: master of eating gross food

So this week was great! Cailee was baptized on Tuesday night, and confirmed yesterday. She just glows all of the time. So many people came to support her that we had to move it into the chapel. When it came time for the actual ordinance, everyone was crammed into the Relief Society room and we could barely see up to the font. It was wonderful!!! We love that family SoooOoOoOOooo much! We're super excited to start the new member lessons with her this week!

Right before the baptism Sister Chambers texted us and asked if she could come out and teach with us Wednesday night. Sister Kahaialii and I almost fell over and died! It's not like we could say no! We were a little nervous but the next night she came with us and we got into every house we went to! We had a great lesson with a boy who is hard to catch at home and he actually had tears in his eyes when we left. We met a lot of people who have become less active and set up some appointments for this week. It was wonderful! We had a lot of fun and we were able to visit with some amazing people. We also had a car, and were able to cover 3498570243987 times more ground, so that made it all the more sweeter.

SO, now I want to talk about something important. I am proud of myself because this week, they served us fish for dinner TWICE and I didn't even throw up! That's right everyone, as far as those families know, I totally like fish. I didn't even make a face or anything. Go me! Personal best!

On Monday we got special permission to hang out with some sisters in the Sandy West zone (we're Sandy East) who are going home soon. We ate ice cream and then went to this place called Sheels (sort of like Cabellas but way smaller) and look for a snorkel...don't ask why because I'm not even really sure. Anyways, the exciting part was that we saw a cute lady that I love from my last area and got to visit with her! I was so happy! They have dead animals there, and one of them is a moose. Those things are terrifying!

Last Thursday we had a sisters meeting, and I got to see all my sisters in SoJo!!! I miss them so much! It was great to see my old companions, too! My trainer Sister Swain goes home in a couple of weeks, she sang a solo at the meeting and it was BEAUTIFUL! She is wildly talented. I remember when we were both new missionaries back in Kearns. Missions go by too fast! That couldn't have been over a year ago! Sisters meetings are the best, because they're nicer to us than the elders. President and Sister Chambers gave every one of us a rose and they had boxes of giant heart cookies. It was the most girly church meeting I've been in since testimony meeting at girl's camp a couple years ago.

Sister K and I have been doing some heavy door knocking this week, because we are desperate to find people to teach! We know there are people here ready to receive us and our message, and we're working hard to find them.

I found an old notebook from last summer and was going through some zone conference notes. President went over the story of David and Goliath and talked about how when we're prepared (studying, praying, being obedient) we know that God is with us, and he said when we know God is with us we need to run towards the very things that scare us most, because that's when we'll see miracles. I know that as missionaries continue to go and work, and run towards the very things that scare us most, we'll continue to see miracles all over the world. I know that the power behind us is so much greater than any obstacle Satan will put in front of us. The good side will always win in the end.

We've got zone conference this week! I'm excited to see what's in store. I love my mission so much. It's the best thing I've ever done, and I will never regret it.

Love you! Be happy! I feel like I'm forgetting to write about something but oh well! Next week!

Sister Hinkle

I have a baby niece!

So it was super exciting to see 42897309857 pictures from Dad this morning when I got on the computer. I yelled "I HAVE A NEW BABY NIECE!!!" And Sister Kahaialii went "awww" and the elders didn't say anything because they're elders and they don't care about babies. I can't wait to meet cute baby Nya!!

Last Monday our district went bowling, and I didn't lose! Miracle! We also went to a place called Zaxby's and they gave us all free food. Double miracle!

Also, I got my Christmas box from Katie last week, and inside were a variety of great things, but the greatest of all was WONDER WOMAN FOOTY PAJAMAS! WHAT? Cape and everything! I will not be sending any pictures of that, though. Sorry, everyone.

It's been pretty warm the past week, mostly in the 40s, no one expects the warm weather to last long, though. We've been running around everywhere, we're trying to make sure we're teaching people in every ward. It's a lot of walking/biking but it's definitely worth it. The gross inversion has been super thick for a few days. I'm probably going to turn green or something. Adventure!

The other night we were walking to someone's house and saw a bunch of kids playing outside. They saw us down the street and one of the them yelled "It's the sister missionaries!" and the whole lot of them ran over to us and showed us the snow fort they were building. Then when we were eating at a restaurant with some members and a little boy we'd never seen walked by and started waving and told us "hi sisters!" My heart=melted.

 Waaaah, I love kids and I love being a missionary and I love the gospel and I love Utah. I never want to go home. No offense.

I found out that there's an elder serving in Elkins right now that's coming home from his mission in a couple of days to one of the wards I'm covering right now, super cool! I'm excited to hear what he says about serving in WV among the hill people. Also, there's a woman we met recently who has a daughter that lives in Morgantown. I think she's got a calling in the young women organization or something. So that's pretty neat.

We started teaching a few people last week! They are all great and we're excited to help them come closer to our Savior. I love meeting so many of God's children, and helping them see that they have infinite worth.

Sandy is doing great! I love being a missionary. I love doing this work. I love these people and my companion and Salt Lake City and I never ever want to go home ever. It makes me more sad every time people ask me how long I've been out. Sister Kahaialii and I have been working hard and the only thing we can do is work even harder. No time to waste, every single minute counts.

I might have already talked about this, but a couple Sundays ago we were in Gospel Principles class in one of the wards. The brother who teaches it has a very strong testimony of the Church. He loves his calling and his lessons are wonderful. He is a convert to the church, and is extremely bold and totally fearless in sharing his testimony with people.This man is also a quadriplegic, and therefore very limited as far as physical abilities go. At the end of the lesson he was speaking to a young man in the class who was about to leave on his mission. He told him "go out and serve with everything you have, give absolutely everything, don't waste any of it. Remember that some of us who want to serve never get the opportunity to."

I'VE BEEN CRYING ABOUT THAT EVERY SINGLE DAY! Now I have even more determination to serve God with all my might, mind, and strength because now I'm serving in place of every person who wants to serve a mission, but never has the opportunity. This is the Lord's work, and it will not fail.

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle

Pics on pics on pics

A little girl we're teaching named Rylee, who needs to read her scriptures

A head dress we found at somebody's house the other day

I'm not sure why my camera messes picture up like this, but here's an example of the advertising Sister K and I have been doing lately in the different church buildings. I blocked out our number, that's what that giant white square is

this is a toilet paper 4 square court we made last Monday. It lasted about 3 rounds, then we just used tape

That right there is a limo, and a man wearing a bright red suit coat and a top hat. We saw all this happening while walking down the street at about 4 :30 in the afternoon. We have no idea what was going on, but whatever it was, it was fancy.

This is what Utah looks like on Sunday mornings!

Sister K and I came home last night to The Restoration: Candy version, on our doorstep. We didn't stop laughing for the rest of the evening.

Sister K and I played the same game of risk for about 3 weeks last transfer. She eventually beat me

we found a tire in a church parking lot on Saturday night!

​ I'm a lot less buff and strong than Sister Meyers is

The holidays are over!!!!!!!

This is a Nascar tree that my land people had in the kitchen. I had to get a picture of it for Daniel. I can definitely see Daniel with this tree in his house.

​Cute Sister Kahaialii on Christmas morning!

here's every goose that has ever existed on the face of the planet. They all decided to congregate in a park one day

This is what my new area looked like before it snowed everywhere, so pretty!

This is one of the funny posters we found on a church bulletin board that was intended to be serious.

This is another really funny poster we found in the same building. I blocked out the name. Is stake bean specialist a thing? If so, I definitely hope to get that calling one day​.

a picture of the glass kisses Mom and Dad sent that I gave as Christmas presents. woo yeah, look how artsy I am. Photography, yeah.

The past two weeks have been BRUTAL as far as missionary work goes. The one thing about Salt Lake is, nobody is home on holidays, they all leave and go to St George. Probably because it's warm, so all their grandparents move there and they go to visit. This week is going to be super great, though! We are excited and have some wonderful plans. Everyone out here keeps bringing up the fact that I don't have much time left, and it's stressing me out! I am so grateful to be in this area and to have the companion that I do. I know that there are people that the Lord has prepared to receive the gospel. I know that He will help us because this is His work! I know there are people waiting to hear our message, and we need to be diligent so we can find them.

IT WAS SO COLD THIS WEEK. OH MY GOSH. I literally thought I was going to fall over and die. Okay, maybe not, but it was SO SO SO COLD.  We've gotten really good and strategically placing hand warmers/toe warmers/body warmers all over ourselves to keep from freezing. There is a reason I wasn't called to Alaska. We are so excited when it's above 30. We're just entering into the bitter cold season over here, though. So for the next two months we're going to be doing our best to set up appointments to keep from having to walk around all day knocking on doors

Our focus this month as a mission is to help people keep commitments. When we help people live commandments, they receive blessings and gain a testimony that what we're teaching is true! We get to invite people to experiment and find out for themselves if what we're teaching is real or not. My favorite part of teaching people is seeing them live the gospel and watching their lives change. I have seen people overcome the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Christ, and every single time there is overwhelming joy in their hearts. Their joy brings me joy. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see other people receive blessings.

Anyways, here's a picture Sister K and I took this morning.

I knew if I didn't send one now I never would.

Well, I think we're going to go play jenga and clean and eat pickles.

Keep us in your prayers!!! Pray that is stays above 30 degrees!!!

I love you, be happy! :)

Sister Hinkle