Update on the blog posts.

Hello everyone!

Sister Hunter's Mission President has asked all missionaries in their mission to not post their letters to blogs but email their family and friends directly.

If you read her blog and have not received an email from her this week message me your email address and I will tell her to add you to the list.

Thanks!

A Week of Miracles

This week was absolutely awesome. So remember how last week I was like, "I'm going to write down a miracle every week because we do that in district meeting and it's awesome!" Well, this last week the entire week was a miracle. First off, we finally got 20 lessons. Between cancellations or other things we have not had 20 lessons pretty much since the university got out. BUT THIS WEEK WE DID. It was so great. Not only that but we were incredibly busy. We kept having people call to ask us for service or to ask us to come over and for that we were hardly out doing stop bys at all. But then when we did do stop bys we found 4 people that were interested and we have an appointment set up to see one of them tomorrow. How cool is that? This happens practically never. It has been amazing.

The best miracle of all though is one of the less actives in our area. She had been coming back to church really strong for a while there and then all of a sudden she just completely dropped off the face of the planet. She wouldn't answer the doors or phone calls or anything and started going to another church. Eventually we were able to meet with her and then we would randomly catch her. Then we dropped by this last Friday and she had completely turned around and wanted to start coming back to church again. It's awesome because she has been going off an on her whole life, but this time it was only 2 months before she started back again. Meaning I have been here this entire time. Normally it takes years for her to want to come back. It's amazing. It was so great. Love it. Happiness all around.

But yes. This week has been wonderful. We were praying really hard to be able to make it to our goal of 20 lessons and it happened and we were so happy. And our whole zone did great. This week our zone had more lessons and more new investigators than it has ever had. Can you say awesome? Because I can say awesome.

So there you have it. Full of fantastic. What a great week. I hope all of yours went just as well!

-Sister Hunter

The pictures:

-We wrote Elder Covey a note for when they came to inspect our apartment. Our note is in red. His response is in orange. I feel as if it describes our relationship beautifully. 

-But because I don't like only sending one picture: Here is a weird bug sister mertlich and I found in the church a couple of weeks ago in the church

-The Cady's made us each our own pies. Yep. They did. 

-A picture from our elevator ride of last week.

 

What to title this...

Hello family! How are you all doing in your lovely homes and lives? I hope well.
This week was pretty..interesting. We made a lot of phone calls this week to try and find some of the former investigators that were in the area. One of them was spelled Dajana. Luckily she didn't answer the phone because her name is pronounced Diana. I was going to say "Da-john-ah" That would have been wrong.
Sister Bullock and I also had some super special moments this week. I don't even know how to describe them. There was one point when Sister Bullock and I were in an elevator and I walked out of it and turned around and she was still in it. So I turn behind me and the doors are starting to close and we both have this look of sheer panic on our faces because neither of us could think of what to do to prevent our upcoming separation. And then we both realized at the exact same time that perhaps if we stick our arms out the doors will stop. But we both did so incredibly hesitantly because one of my (I suppose no longer) secret fears is that the doors will still shut on my arms because the thing that recognizes that there are body parts there is broken or something. And she said later that she was thinking, "What if these elevator doors are ones that that doesn't happen with." Don't worry. We managed to not be separated and lived to tell this tale. Neither of us with any missing limbs.
I love Sister Bullock though. She is so great. We are getting along smashingly. Which is awesome. Especially since pretty much every single thing we like is different from each other. Like she loves the heat and I don't. I love pets and she doesn't. But we get along awesome. So great.
To completely change the subject, every week in district meeting they have us say a miracle that happened that week so I think I am going to do that on my emails now as well. This week my miracle was last night. Our appointments all fell through and none of our stop bys were home so we were riding back down Maple which is a street where one of our less active members lives. We have been trying to see her but her son has been in the hospital in a coma so we didn't want to disturb her or pressure her or anything while her and her family are trying to cope with this time. But last night I was thinking as we rode that maybe we should try and stop by her. And then I almost completely missed her house but then looked over just in time to see her standing in the doorway and she was waving at us. So we were able to see her and talk with her for a little. I don't know if anything we said helped but I know that it was no coincidence that she happened to be standing there right at that time. I know that Heavenly Father is always watching over all of us and helping each one of us. Even if it doesn't seem like He's there. He always is. He's always helping us and will always help us. IT took me a really long time to understand this concept, but I know it is true. Even when it's hard to believe.
I hope you're all doing well. I miss you all so much!
Love,
Sister Hunter

Can you say confusion?

Well. This week. Super special. Super awesome.
I got called to ..kind of train? But not really? It's an interesting story. My new companion is pretty awesome. Her name is Sister Bullock. She is from here in Ohio. She was serving in Arizona (Phoenix, not scottsdale, sorry, steph) but then had to go home for medical reasons and is now here waiting to get a call to a completely different place. So she basically is going to have 3 different missions. How fun is that! But yes..so I'm supposed to be 'refreshing training' type of thing? I don't know. It's interesting. President called the night before transfer meeting to say he wanted me to go so I could meet her there like all the trainers meeting their new missionaries. But I'm not really training. But then he wants us to go to training meeting on Friday. So it's just all sorts of weird. But hey. It's fun. And Sister Mejia is training so I got to see her there and we'll be half riding up with her on Friday. So that'll be awesome.
Sister Bullock is super cool though. I enjoy her. She understands sarcasm and loves cheese so we can be friends.

This week has been pretty crazy what with transfers and everything. I miss Sister Mertlich quite a lot. She is such a cool person. But we all must move on. She got called to be a sister training leader though. So that is quite exciting!
I am also now the 'oldest' one in Bowling Green. In the sense that I am the missionary that has been here the longest now. That is weird. But awesome. I love Bowling Green. It's so great. Especially now that everything's not dead. But it's also starting to get terrible humidesqueness. So that's less fun.
At the interfaith bible study we go to on Wednesdays they asked me if I'm killing off my companions. I told them they'll never know.

We had to give a talk yesterday in Branch with the theme of anything father's. I gave one for the first time with just bullet points instead of writing it all out. So that was special. Fourth talk ever given. I actually managed to last 15 minutes too. I am proud of myself. Look at me. Growing. Shucks.
I was reading the book of mormon this morning and something in it reminded me of that talk that President Uchtdorf gave a couple conferences ago about doubting your doubts before you doubt your faith (it was uchtdorf right? Or was it Holland? Pretty sure it was Uchtdorf). But it was really cool because I had this realization about it. Before when I thought about it I always thought it meant that if we doubt anything we should immediately write it off because it means you're not letting your faith take over. But really I think he meant that when we have doubts we should thoroughly 'investigate' those doubts and not let those doubts seep in to other aspects of the gospel that we know to be true. That we should never say, "Well this one little bit seems to be wrong so every other thing is obviously wrong as well." I think that is what he meant by it. Which I'm glad I realized that. Because we all have doubts sometimes, and pushing them into a corner doesn't make them go away permanently. Studying them out and finding them to be wrong or baseless does. And then when we have studied it out and proven those doubts to be wrong, our testimony of that thing is that much stronger. It's really cool.
And there is my two cents for the week. I bid you all adieu.
-Sister Hunter

PS Sorry this is all over the place. My head is all over the place today. Not literally though. It is in fact in one piece on my neck.

Pictures:
Me sitting in the back of the van with all of the luggage on the way back from transfer meeting. It was my favorite moment. How do you fit 5 missionaries and 3 of their luggage in a minivan? Tetris and mad skills. That is how.
How lovely the bruise on my foot is progressing
The bruise and cut I didn't realize I had on the back of my leg for a while because I was so distracted by the fact that my foot was swelling up to a gumball and then exploding from within.

A wedding, a performance, transfers, and a broken foot

This week has been pretty crazy. We attended the wedding of a member in our ward whose name is Lizzie. It was really beautiful. They were adorable. We then had a musical performance thing in the church on sunday evening called Women at the Well. Which some of you may know very well but I knew nothing of. It went great. Sister Mertlich and I were only in the choir BUT WE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Not really. But it was great! 2 of our investigators came and a lot of people from the community and other wards so it was quite the success! 

And sadly transfers are upon us and Sister Mertlich is leaving me. I am really really sad about this. Because she is wonderful and I love her. And we only had one transfer together. But it was very likely to happen since she is a Kirtland sister. But I am going to miss her so very much. I will be staying in bowling Green for another transfer though! So that's awesome! But this will probably be my last one. Maybe not though. We can hope right? I would love it if I could stay here until Jessee and Laura come back for school. But it's probably not going to happen. 

As to incredibly exciting news: I thought I broke my foot yesterday! I accidentally dropped my bike on it and the part where you squeeze the brakes fell right between the bones of my toes so when I picked it up it was creepily sunk into my foot and then began to swell immediately. I included a very terrible picture of the swelling. It didn't last very long before spreading out across my whole foot. My whole foot is swollen now instead of just the awesome goose egg looking thing. But luckily one of our fellow sisters has her LPN or some sort of nursing something and she said it is not broken so that is good! 

And we have a lot of things happening today that we want to do so we are making emailing short so I shall end this here! I hope you enjoy the pictures! Sorry I have failed at remembering cameras and cords and taking pictures every week. 

The first one: Sister Mertlich and I. She had to buy those glasses because bugs kept flying into her eyes. 

The second: I decided to lay on the couch upside down. So we all decided to do so and make Ohio out of our arms. Because obviously that's the next step you take when laying on a couch upside down.

The third: Our investigators Melodie and Charles! The ones that played the music in the park! I love them!

The fourth: A terribly blurry picture of my swollen foot! Hopefully you can see how far up it swelled. It was pretty gnarly. 

Another Week Down

And I don't really know what to say about this week. I went on exchanges with Sister Turpin and that was super fun and a lot of happiness. It was strange being back in my old area. I was kind of sad because we weren't able to see Sister Fenn or the Chases. But that's okay. Because I see them at church still of course. But yes. Fun times. Sister Turpin and I took a series of incredibly beautiful pictures together. I would show you but guess who forgot her camera cord again! 

We were able to go to the baptism of the woman that drove us to Kirtland this Saturday (the baptism was saturday. She drove us last wednesday. In case that is confusing). She is so incredible. She received a special invitation from Elder Holland to be able to attend the meeting. Seriously though she is amazing. She was telling us in the car on the way down that she wrote this letter to her old preacher that she is very close to telling him that the only defense she has for joining this church is the Book of Mormon. If he wanted to ask her any questions she told him he had to read that book first. How amazing is that? 

I think this week I've grown to love the Book of Mormon more than I previously had. It's considered the keystone of our religion for a reason. We put everything on that book. When you come to know that it is true that is how you know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that every other aspect is true. It's a lot of weight to put on something.  I also love that we invite people to read it and ask God for themselves. It's not a moment of, "Here this is the truth. Accept it." It's, "We know this is true. But you shouldn't take our words for it. Read it for yourself. Ask for yourself. Find out for yourself." And as we read in Moroni 10, "and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart and real intent he will manifest the truth of it unto you". Ah people. Missions. They're great.

Speaking of which, my other favorite part of the week: Sister Mertlich and I were on our bikes paused for cars to go so we could cross the street and all of the sudden some random guy sticks his fist out the window and is like, "Mormons!" in the most excited way possible. It was hilarious.

And with that, until we meet again familia y amigos. 

Memorial Day Weekend

Has occurred. And for that reason emailing could not happen yesterday during preparation day as the library was closed. And for that reason there is now a very limited amount of time to email today. So I apologize now if I don't get to any of your letters. Next week I will do so! 

This week was incredible. Why was it incredible do you ask? Well, I will tell you. We were able to hear from Elder Holland! And Elders Hallstrom and Seldon. But Elder Holland! The message he gave us was amazing. 

My favorite part was when he told us the saddest thing for him is when full time missionaries return from their missions and then fall away from the church. He said, "We can't go out and find the sheep when we have to go find the shepherds as well." So he said in order to not do that we need to stop thinking that when we come off our mission we are going back to 'real life'. He said, "THIS is real life. THIS right now is the CLOSEST you will ever get to real life." Which I realized I have definitely been guilty of thinking about it that way. Not so much as real life more of 'normal' life. But how we are living right now is how we should be living all of the time. We should be devoting this much attention to the scriptures and trying to understand them more. We should be feeling the spirit as much as we do. We should be trying our hardest to live the best lives we came and make the most out of the time we have. Not just now but always.

There was a whole bunch more but I don't have a lot of time today so there. Take that. Run with it. Steph and Andrew, remember this. I will say more next week! 

But yes. It was great and amazing. And things are going well. I hope things are going well for the rest of you too! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Hunter