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