Called to Serve: "If you don't like the weather...just wait until tomorrow."

The weather here is absolutely crazy. We had a snowstorm a few days ago...then it was in the 70s for a few days...and today it's freezing again with a 60% chance of snow. I never know what to wear! But it's fun because everyone here says "If you don't like the weather...just wait until tomorrow." Boy, are they right.

So they have this rule where you can only go to the mall once a transfer. (me and my comp think this rule might be because of us) But since the mall is out of our zone we can only go once. We were really bummed last p-day that we couldn't go to the mall so we decided we would make our own dresses. We hit up hobby lobby and got to work! We finished them just in time for our training meeting yesterday. It was funny because everyone made fun of us for making our own dresses, but they were quite impressed when they saw them. The mission is making me a great homemaker. I've learned more about sewing, baking, and cleaning in this past month than I have in a while!

We also found the best donut shop in the whole entire world. They are made fresh every morning so we stop by quite often to get the warm donuts. You could say we are "regulars" there. The lady knows us now and welcomes us with our favorite donuts. I love it.

This weekend was stake conference! It was great. Me and my companion joined the stake choir last minute but we had a great time singing. We might not have the best voices, but the songs were amazing!

The theme of the conference was “Hastening the Work of Salvation”. We are big fans of that. There was a heavy emphasis on missionary work in this stake and doing all they can as members to help the missionaries. It is so great. And the members really do help a lot. This is a very missionary minded area.

It is a little difficult to find people to teach unless they are found through a member. We tract here, but it really is not very successful. We have made some return appointments as we tract, but everytime, they tell us they are not intersted anymore or they don't answer. Major bummer. So right now we don't have any solid investigators. But we have fasted and prayed much to find those who are prepared! I feel like something great is coming. Most of our work here is with the less active members. So they keep us pretty busy. But it would be great to find some new investigators we could help as well.

The other night we had dinner in Japan. It was great! Hahah, the father served his mission in Japan so we had dinner Benny Hana's style. They had grills in the middle of the tables with raw meat and vegetables for us to cook ourselves! And rice and noodles and the best sauce ever. It was so delicious. We had a good time cooking and talking. And the father also said the prayer in Japanese. My chopstick skills aren't the greatest...but it was way fun. The members feed us so well here! A little too well sometimes....I'm really impressed that every member here is like a highly skilled chef.

Just a word of advice. Don't feel pressure to feed the missionaries dessert. They've probably had it every night that week. Last night we had dessert and then dessert again at our evening appointment. It's so delicious, but it's not good for my waistline. hahah!

We spent a lot of our week visiting less actives and tracting the neighborhoods. We found some high school kids playing basketball who actually seemed really interested in the Book of Mormon. They comitted to reading and praying about it, so we'll see how they did when we visit them this week. We also visited a less active who has been very active the past couple months. She is now serving as the girls camp director! She really opened up to us and shared that if it weren't for the missionaries...she would not have come back to church. She has been through a lot and her husband is not a member! So we continue to work with her. It was really neat to see that our visits and efforts are not wasted. She was so grateful for our time and love. That night we felt great and had so much motivation to keep going and caring even if we don't feel like it's going anywhere! You never know how you've impacted someone. We've had a lot of meetings this week too, so I feel like this week was all crazy. It was, but the meetings were great too. I got a lot of guidance and inspiration as to how I can be a better missionary.

Things are great in Colorado!! The work is moving forward. Much love to all of you!

Sister Hoer