Tennesse

Okay, so I don't know if I mentioned this in a previous email, but Tennessee is coming up everywhere and it's starting to freak Sister Loveland and me out. It all started with that man from a few weeks ago back in WJ from there that we taught. Now we see cars with TN license plates, people are moving here from TN, the Sister who took over my last area is from there, people talk about it in their cars and at dinner appointments or they have family that just moved there and we have no idea WHAT it means, but we're taking it as a sign that all the people we're teaching from there are ready. WEIRD.

Anyways, last Monday we were able to go to and see Justin get baptized! Last Saturday I got to go back to WJ and see Lexi get baptized! Wahoo! West Jordan is on fire, and so it South Jordan, Sister Loveland and I taught 13 lessons last week and it's going to keep on going up! We have three progressing investigators and we're hoping to pick up more here in the next couple of days!

We had zone conference last Wednesday, so our regular Tuesday morning district meeting was cancelled. Then Monday night we get a text that we were going to have a zone meeting, and we were like "oh, okay weird" and when we got there our zone leaders told us that our zone was in charge of the musical number for zone conf the next day and we were all singing "I Feel My Savior's Love" as the opening song. So that was kind of exciting.

Our zone conf was awesome. It was about the worth of a human soul. We talked a lot about how much our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ really REALLY love each one of us, no matter what we've done, or where we've been. They are always ready to welcome us back. We also talked a lot about the phrase "Come follow me" and how we as missionaries have already come to the Savior by coming out on missions, but now it's time to follow Him. We can follow Him best by being obedient to His commandments and to mission rules. Something he mentioned was about how in the Utah Salt Lake City South mission we are pioneers of missionary work, he said "if we figure it out here, the rest of the world will follow". I thought that was really interesting, because it's one of those things people tell you to make you feel better about serving in SLC, but then when your mission president says it, it just means more.

Looking over my notes, there are three things stood out to me as I'm writing this that I just want to include:

"Understanding the worth of others' souls will be the source of my success in life"

"True beauty comes from righteousness"

"We can become like Him. We can see that we have divine potential, we are created in His image. We are gods in training."

We started teaching a really REALLY funny less active family that wants to come back to Church. We were talking about hard thing that we have to go through in life, and one of the suggestions the husband gave was "being too attractive...I really struggle with that" and we completely lost it. We laughed the whole way through that lesson. Reverently laughed, of course. ;)

We went on exchanges Fri-Saturday and Sister Prenatt form Fairmont came here while S Loveland went to another stake. We had a really fun time! She told me about things that had been happening in our stake back home since I've left. It's weird how life just goes on without you when you're on a mission, haha. We helped a woman get ready to move and she gave us all the jenga blocks we found. I was ecstatic. We played extreme jenga when we got home with the 2+ games worth of blocks we got.

Yesterday S Loveland and I saw some peacocks walking around in one of the neighborhoods. Also, we went to ward council in 9th ward yesterday morning and everyone sang "Country Roads" to me. My life is so funny.

I was reading the Ensign a few days ago and came across an article about how we can let our light shine to the world and about how others who are sensitive to that light  will be inspired to seek greater light themselves. There's a part I really liked from it that says,

"We do not serve our Savior very well if we fear man more than God... We are called to establish the Lord's standards, not to follow the world's. Elder John A Widtsoe declared, 'We cannot walk as other men, or talk as other men, or do as other men, for we have a different destiny, obligation, and responsibility placed upon us, and we must fit ourselves to it.''

That combined with the zone conference makes me think a lot about how each person is a child of God. We need to help each other remember who we are, and not only that but Whose we are. We were created by Him and we need to know that every person we see is one of His children, too. By being an example and by sharing our testimonies with others, we can help them understand where they came from, why they are here on earth and where they'll go after this life, that they are precious children of the Most High. God is real and so is His Son, Jesus Christ. Following the Savior will lead to eternal happiness. The Holy Ghost will give us promptings and as we listen to those promptings we know that we will be blessed, and other will be blessed through us.

I've also been studying Isaiah, so that's going okay. There was an article on that in the Ensign too. Fun stuff!

Love you! Be happy!

Sister Hinkle

Sister Loveland:How would fried broccoli taste?

Me: I don't know

Sister Loveland: LET'S DO IT!!!!