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