Information Overload‏ / One more thing!‏

This week was probably the fastest week of my mission. SO MUCH HAPPENED! This just might be an information overload, but I hope you enjoy and I hope I remember everything...

So, on Tuesday we had Zone Training. Sister Hokafonu and I gave an instruction on the importance of Preach My Gospel and how we can better use it in our studies. It was super fun and definitely a call to repentance for me. I've literally been given the "How to:" guide to missionary work and I need to study it more. We then went to Buffalo Wild Wings (it's basically tradition here...) with the Jones Falls sisters and started our exchange! I went to Jones Falls with Sister Hubenthal, a fellow Roy, Utah missionary! We live, like, two streets away from each other. And didn't even know each other ha-ha. But she's an awesome missionary. She couldn't wait to tell everyone we were both from Roy on our exchanges ha-ha. 

On Wednesday we exchanged back with the Jones falls sisters and went on another exchange with the Alameda Hermana’s. I got to throw it back with my MTC companion Sister Hart! She came with me to the Peake! Oh, and that exchange was MUCH much needed. I think I needed it more than she did. It's interesting, because usually we don't do exchanges with the same sisters twice in a row, but both Sister Hokafonu and I felt like we needed to be together again, and Sister Hokafonu needed to be with her companion, Sister Sears. So we did and God totally directed the entire thing. That's exactly what needed to happen. On that exchange we were all able to get help that we needed from each other. Big decisions were made, and stress levels were decreased. It's the best. On that exchange we had a busy day teaching our investigators Connie, Michelle (who flat out recognized the Spirit as we were teaching and said that God was telling her she needed to get baptized again, by proper authority this time, and she needed the gift of the Holy Ghost. Holy Cow, amazing lesson), Tearra and our Recent Convert Sandra, who was super sick, but wanted us to teach a lesson anyway, and Jaunea, a new investigator who got to understand more about Prophets in our lesson!  We had a full day and Lily took us out to Panera for dinner and then to dessert at Coldstone. She's the best. She had her 26th birthday yesterday! Happy Birthday Lily! 

On Thursday Sister Hokafonu and I were finally companions again. We got to have lunch at Golden Corral with the Empty Nesters in our ward. Yum. Food is the way to my heart. And we had an amazing dinner with the amazing Wood family again. They are seriously the best. An answer to prayers. It was funny, in the middle of dinner their little boy wanted to show us a toy, so his parents said yes and next thing we hear is a big box of cars coming crashing down the stairs.... we all laughed so hard lol. We just hear "Uh oh" a few times at the top of the stairs. He was too scared to come down until his parents said it was okay! ha-ha. So funny. I love kids ;) 

We also got to get in with the Jones family and all of the committed to living the Word of Wisdom and it was an amazing lesson! Their two kids put on our name tags and said they wanted to be missionaries :) I'll attach a picture of that one :)  

On Friday we had our last exchange of the transfer with the Ellicott City sisters. Sister Bullock, a newer missionary, got to experience Baltimore for her first time with me :) She's such a sweet heart. The first time I met her was at the Sisters Specialized Training a couple of months ago when she was brand new. We were all telling the person in front of us the first thing that came to our head about why we loved them, and it couldn't be a physical thing like, "I love your hair," it had to be deeper. I stood in front of her and the first thing she said to me was, "When I look at you I see Christ..." Oh my goodness, best compliment ever. I seriously wanted to cry. I don't know how true that was, but it just goes to show how amazing this sister is. Seriously. She's the best. We had a great exchange! We got hit on a couple of times and a lady stopped traffic in her car, honked at us, and yelled, "Whatchu doin' in the hood? Get outta da hood!" then drove away looking at us like we were crazy. It was hilarious! We even found a new investigator named Marilyn! She was in my GPS as an active member... turns out she was actually a potential investigator... that was an awkward conversation, but we taught her the restoration and it was amazing!  So many blessings in Baltimore :) We then had to exchange back that night instead of the next morning because we got permission to go to the PHILADELPHIA TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE on Saturday morning with our investigator Sis. Hackman!!!! WOOT WOOT!! Sis. Hokafonu had to drive home because I had a migraine... and she got lost, which made us late, but it was an adventure. 

Saturday we woke up early to make it to the church to go to the open house with the rest of the ward on the bus! We got special permission to go because Sis. Hokafonu was in the Pennsylvania Pittsburg mission before and she was promised she could go, and President wanted to honor that promise. So off we went and it was AMAZING! The Spirit was so strong and our investigator had so many questions answered. I truly think that was exactly what she needed to make the decision to get baptized. We're hoping to hear from her soon! So GOOD! We got pictures :) There were people handing out anti-Mormon stuff on the sides, which is sad, but we just ignored them. Some members grabbed some stuff thinking it was good, but when they found out it was anti, they gave it to us to get rid of it ha-ha. So Sister Hokafonu and I did more anti-Mormon destruction lol. We have a video. It's hilarious. Hopefully I'll be able to send it. 

Yesterday we had Call-outs and I found out that both Sister Hokafonu and I will be staying in Baltimore together! Sis. Hokafonu will be finishing her mission this transfer, so I get round 2 of "My Plan". We also found out that Elder Oaks will be visiting our mission on September 17th :) That'll be fun!!! We also got to feed more goats and pick up a new investigator on Sunday! Her name's Carol and she's super prepared! After the prayer, she recognized the Spirit and the light in our faces and said she wanted that for herself! SO GOOD! 

So, that's the information overload for the week. Well, for the most part. This week I also had a really good conversation with my mission President about my release date. We decided that it would be better for me to be going home closer to my 18 month mark, which would be in the November transfer. I've been praying a lot about it, and, long story short, God told me that I needed to go home in November to prepare for school and a few other reasons that are unknown to me. SO, I will now be going home on Thanksgiving. If you want more details about my decision and such, please just talk to me. I'm not expecting everyone to support this decision, but I do hope that any questions will be asked directly to me. I know that this is what God wants me to do and that's all that matters. So, I'll likely be ending my mission here in Baltimore. I have 2 transfers left and I will be making them the best transfers of my mission! I'm so grateful God has a plan that is individually tailored to everyone. He knows us and He is aware of each of us. I love Him and I know He answers prayers. 

Here's to the best transfer yet! Hurrah for Israel! 

Shout out to my Little Sister for starting College today! Also, shout out for my niece Ali for turning 6! Happy Birthday! 

Quote of the Week: "God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and with His help, where you are willing to go." Elder Holland

Scripture of the Week: Alma 57:21-27

Pictures:

Jones falls sisters, sisters Hubenthal and Haertell; gross pickled pigs Hna Hart and I found on exchanges, a watermelon we ate, B'more Rat, the Hermanas; MD hat Sis. Hart gave me :). Baltimore building. Sister Bullock and I. Philadelphia. Temple pics! Cool bridge in Philly. A huge box of Poky thanks to the Mason family. Destroyed anti material. And the Streater fam. 

Love, 

Sister Humphrey

PS

I forgot to mention something HUGE! So, over a year ago I started teaching a man named Chris, my very first investigator. He was going to be baptized while I was teaching him, but he still had to overcome an obstacle. A year later and he's finally baptized! Chris got baptized on August 27th and hopefully I'll be able to send you all some pictures when I get them. I didn't get to go, but I did get to hear about it :) SO COOL! Miracles are everywhere :) 

Love, 

Sister Humphrey

The Struggle is Real‏

So, I've been sitting here for, like, 5 minutes trying to figure out a creative subject line for my email this week. Nothing. So you get that. My mission brain is mush right now. This week has been interesting to say the least! On Monday we got to go out to Texas Roadhouse thanks to my bestie Lily! She's great. We ate like queens that night ha-ha. 

On Tuesday I got to give an instruction in District meeting. We are trying to teach more like the Savior and use stories and analogies and it’s made teaching so much more fun! I got to use a gymnastics analogy for the Plan of Salvation. Yup. I'm still me just as a sister missionary! We got to do some service for a lady in our ward who is struggling physically quite a bit. It was nice to be able to simply help someone who has done so much for us. Service is the best :) Lorely, an awesome young adult in our ward also made us dinner on Tuesday :) Authentic Mexican food. It's the best! She said we were the first sisters she's ever fed. I feel super special ha-ha. She's hilarious and her little boy Paco never fails to make us laugh. Paco loves to eat dog food. He threw a big fit when Lorely told him he couldn't have any more lol. She thinks it's disgusting, which is true. It reminded me of that one time my little sister ate dog food... sorry Lu, couldn't keep that one secret! 

There's also been lots and lots of thunder and lightning storms this week. It's so hot and humid so they've been happening at night. I'll be leaning up against my wall and it feels like I'm getting a back massage because the thunder is so strong! It's been fun driving through some of those lightning storms :) One Wednesday, Sister Hokafonu got her gold teeth removed! She got to keep her gold and didn't have any bad reactions to medicine this time, so that was a blessing. We got to teach Tearra the first half of the plan of salvation with Sandra and she loved it! She also announced to us that she's 4 weeks pregnant! She's super excited to be a mom! We just hope her boyfriend will put a ring on it soon! Her progress is going really well, though. She just has to come to church two more times, get married, and then she can get baptized! We also found a new investigator named Connie this week! She was sitting outside on her porch waiting for us to stop by and deliver a bible. We gave her a Book of Mormon as well and taught her more about it. She loved the idea of having more scripture and said she'd like to learn more! So, we'll be going back this week to teach her the Restoration. Hopefully she gives us enough time to talk. She's a talker ha-ha. 

We also had dinner with a new family in the ward. The Wood family. They are seriously an answer to prayers. We've been praying for a family to help us in missionary work in the ward and then they come and within two weeks they already invited us over for dinner. They said they bought a mini-van (even though they only have 2 kids) specifically so they could pick people up in Baltimore and take them to church. Who does that? I LOVE them! Oh, and I met another stray kitty. I named him Bob Lynn this time. Shout out to daddy! He just really needed some love ha-ha. Pictures will be attached ;) 

We found a couple other people to teach this week as well as Connie! A mom named Gina stopped the elders on the street and wanted to learn more, so we met with her and she has two kids and she wants to take her entire family to church! She just got out of an abusive relationship (her boyfriend was just killed... sadly, that's a common thing here), and she's looking towards God. She's super great and has soooo many questions! We also started teaching a lady we met yesterday named Jaunae. She was a former investigator of two years ago and we randomly knocked on her door. She said she felt like God had sent us to her because it was perfect timing and she'd been feeling like she needed to go back to church! YES! I love spiritually planning! God definitely puts us where we need to be when we need to be there :)

Other fun events from the week include mowing a lawn for over an hour and a half in 100+ degree weather, receiving revelation at Missionary Leadership Council (seriously, I love that meeting. I learned so much about righteous suffering and the Atonement. It's because of the Atonement that God can soften hearts. There's a power in righteous suffering that I can't explain. I've felt it, but I can't explain it. And the more you get to KNOW your Savior, the more you can feel that power and that's what leads you to have "no more disposition to do evil" like it states in the scriptures. So Cool! I just want everyone to feel that power!); we hit up tag alley last Monday and I have pictures to follow. I was asked to play my flute on the 17th when an Apostle comes to visit our mission... so I'll be practicing that quite a bit! We got to talk to a cute old lady named Grace (I think I mentioned her a few weeks ago... she's the one that kept saying, "you're so beautiful! You look 16!" yup, she still said that when we visited again...) and her two granddaughters were there! They all said they wanted to visit our church and see if they like it! Hopefully you'll be hearing about them again soon :) 

On Sunday we got to teach the youth Sunday school class because the teacher didn't show up... so we talked about preparing for missions! And one of the elder's investigators, a 13 year old girl who came with the rest of her family, was there and she wanted to learn all about how she could be a missionary one day! Boo yah! I love hearing that! 

That was another week in the life of Sister Humphrey! Hope you were entertained enough. Between getting caught in rainstorms and making a fool of myself in public, my life could be made into a comedy. It's pretty great. I have one more week this transfer and will be finding out Sunday if I will be getting transferred or not. I hope I get to stay in Baltimore another transfer, but we'll just have to wait and see! I LOVE IT HERE! Just saying. I hope you all have a great week! Keep praying for those missionary opportunities! They're out there! Members make the best missionaries :) I love you all! 

Quote of the Week: "The work of our missionaries is a magnificent expression of the Lord's redeeming love." -Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Scripture of the Week: Alma 56:45-48

Love, 

Sister Humphrey

"My Life Be Like..." -Grits‏

Ha-ha, the songs I learn as a missionary. Enjoy that one. So, this week was pretty eventful! Kinda. Let's just say, being stuck inside as a missionary for three days straight with absolutely no entertainment (not even the Restoration video!) will drive a missionary crazy. That was my week. Ha. 

So, on Monday we got to see our recent convert Teresa and watch "Miracles from Heaven" with her. That movie is adorable ha-ha. She cried :) We got to do some good service for her and now she's out of town for three weeks. I miss her already. 

On Wednesday we got to go on exchanges with the Eldersburg sisters! I went to Eldersburg with Sister Warner and had a blast! She's such a hard worker! She's been out almost 9 months (oh and I hit my 14 month mark...), and we just went so hard! We gave away nine copies of the Book of Mormon!  And we picked up a new investigator for them and talked to a bunch of people. It was great. I love days where you just work work and work! And I got to eat at Panera's and try this thing called Sno-fluff, which is basically a snow cone with marshmallow fluff on the bottom and top. It was diabetes in a cup, so that was great :)

On Wednesday, Sister Hokafonu had to have a wisdom tooth pulled! She was hilarious ha-ha. The medicine she was on made her look like one of the "leaners" you see around Baltimore. She was so out of it that she walked into the apartment, went to the fridge, and dumped all her stuff in there... including her scriptures. I have pictures, don't worry ;) Then she went straight to her bed and slept with her sunglasses and shoes on ha-ha. She was so fun. The dentist also did it for free. He even volunteered to take her gold teeth off, for free, if she wanted him to. She's been wanting her gold teeth off for a while now, so she said yes and we'll be going back this week to have that done! That was a miracle. It's over $2000 just to have them removed and he's doing it for free. Such a blessing. Missionaries are seriously so spoiled. People are so generous. I actually love people now. It's weird.

Unfortunately Sister Hokafonu had a really bad reaction to her pain medication, so we ended up staying inside from Wednesday until Sunday, basically. With no movies. And nothing else to do. I updated the area book, cleaned the entire apartment, and read my entire binder full of talks. I almost went crazy. Almost. Sister Hokafonu slept, and I didn't talk to anyone really. Ha, being a missionary, but not being able to do missionary work is rough. It was funny, our last day inside, the Elders dropped off "17 miracles" for us to watch, but they didn't check inside the case and the DVD wasn't even there.... I had already lost all hope of being able to watch something that I wasn't even mad. I laughed. Out loud. I'm sure glad that's over. 

Sister Bindrup did get to come see me, though! She and her family bought us groceries :) And Sister Hokafonu felt well enough to try going out to lunch, so they took us to Olive Garden :) Her family is so cute ha-ha. It's fun being able to see Bindy. It's weird seeing her without a tag, though. She's a blast :) 

On Sunday we got to start working again! Sister Hokafonu wasn't 100%, but she was doing better! Our investigator Tearra even came to church!!! WOOT WOOT! She's officially moved in to our area and we're officially teaching her now :) SO GREAT! We ended up teaching Singing Time in Primary, which was interesting. I gained a greater appreciation for my Mom, as she's had that calling multiple times and she's currently serving there. That's a hard calling ha-ha. We had to teach the kids a song I'd never even heard in my life. I'm so glad kids are so loving. I made a fool out of myself, but they didn't care! Kids are the best :) I love them! :) 

We also had an amazing lesson with the Jones family! They really want to progress and be baptized, but the mom doesn't want to feel like a hypocrite at church. She knows she's not doing everything she should be, so she doesn't want to come just to "look" like a good person. We explained to her that no one who goes to church is perfect, and that's why we need church. The Spirit directed the entire lesson and we ended up sharing the account in Matthew 3 when Christ was baptized and it was so good! They realized how important it really is to be baptized and committed to coming to church next Sunday. I pray they actually do. It felt so good to be out working again! We drove home in a giant lightning storm and we felt like rock stars :) God is good.

That was my week for ya! This next week will be super busy! I'll be emailing again in no time! I hope you are all praying for your very own missionary opportunities! They happen everywhere! Just while emailing my mom a man came up and started asking us about the church. It's amazing :) I love being a missionary! 

Quote of the Week: "God gives us difficulties to bring out the best in us." -Marvin J. Ashton (Yes, mom, I totally stole that quote from you today.)

Scripture of the Week: 2 Timothy 1:7 "God had not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 

Love, 

Sister Humphrey