IONA here I come:)

Alright soo it looks like I'm going to be transferred this coming Wednesday to Iona! I will be white washing into the area with my New companion Sister Mafi! She is from Hawaii and I only hear great things about her:)

It's been hard to say goodbye to everyone and there were some tears here and there but I know there are certain people here that I will stay in touch with. The people of Pocatello are always in my heart!

Earlier this week We got a prank call from our zone leaders I answered the phone and on the other end was a "new investigator" wanting to "be baptized".. well after some serious thought of how we were going to get them back we finally came up with an Idea and so far I think it will be successful. One of our zone leaders nick name is Chewy and so we posted flyers everywhere on the campus with a picture of chabacca  on is saying COMPEATION PRIZE INCLUDED call this number with your best chabacca impression and leave your contact info too. There number was under it. We'll see how it goes.

On a more spiritual level we set a date with one of the most inspiring men I have met. He is from Algeria and grew up with his mother teaching him Christianity and his father being Muslim. We got a call as soon as we got home so we rushed to the institute building to meet him. He had so many questions and we invited him to be baptized on march 2nd his response was that he will probably know sooner and so he would want to be baptized sooner as well. GOLDEN!

Fmaily and friends I miss you guys a lot thankyou for everything ! I love you all !

Love,

Sister Hoof

(pocahoofus)

Please Write me!

Morning Everyone! I cannot believe it! seahawks won! What a great way to end the week! Last night was one of the hardest nights to teach people! The whole night I was doing my very best to overcome the natural man and not think of what the score was. Well heavnely father was so very thoughtful of me becuase as we were passing a cafe with the superbowl playing I could help but try to look in seeing if I could catch what the score was. than an older gentleman turned to me making gesture with his hands what seemed like like wings and than two thumbs up! AH I was so stoked to hear that the seahawks were winning! haha

There are times when I am very much reminded that we are just instruments blessed to be here to help and facilitate. The Spirit is the real teacher and the only perfect teacher that can help guide and direct those. This last Saturday we came across a pastor and claimed she knew alot about mormonism. I was so worried that this was going to bring contention but it was cool how the spirit worked. All we could do testify and let the spirit do the rest. She may of not gotten anything out of it but I did. I was overwhelmed with the thought how she is a daughter of god and even though at this time she may not accept the gospel heavenly father was going to provide a way. There is a qoute that was said "How can the instrument tell the master what to do" -elder Maxwell. I am very much of a believer that trials are blessings! We learn so much of ourselves and the potential that our heavenly father truly sees us having. I miss you all so much and want to hear from you all!

write me!

1246 yellowstone ave F-3

Pocatello Id 83201

Love, Sister Hoof

Power of the Spirit and Conversion

Wow I love being a missionary so much ! I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record but here is the truth! I love it! What a blessing it is to witness someone's conversion. It is truly the purest joy someone could feel and experience. Last night we met this gal who is a student at ISU. She is catholic and was pretty shy at first. She let us in and made it known that she was not interested in the church at all.  On a side note I am in a trio right now. We were able to start easing in to her beliefs and getting to know her a bit more. Than we were able to get on the topic of prophets and the importance of having a living prophet today. The conversation just sky rocketed from there! The spirit was so strong and you could feel the love that our heavenly father had for her. She has accepted to take the lessons and afterwards we could just see the light in her eyes and that she had grown very comfortable to us. She explained that she was worried at first but so happy that we came in. That it made sense and that she felt so happy! AH I love it being a girl as well I was in tears.  Heavenly father has been preparing this young lady for awhile and I'm so grateful to be able to help facilitate.

 This next Sunday we are putting together a fireside please pray that we will have a great turn out and that we can teach by the spirit. OUR trio has been working so hard on putting this event together and hope it is another successful time to get people together and get excited about

I love and miss you all and hope to hear from you soon.

Mission Pictures

A Baptism for Sophie

Hey Everyone,

 These last couple of weeks have been a struggle but very rewarding. It's mainly because everyone was gone for the break. Making it hard to find people to teach. Heavenly father truly has a plan for everything and even though trials are not enjoyable they really give us the opportunity rely on the lord and your able to see the potential that our heavenly father see's us as. I've gained many experiences and have ben able to act/ live his commandments. So we have been able to teach this girl named Sophie. She is an exchange student from china studying here at ISU. We met her during the last break around thanksgiving. We had been teaching her for about two months and had invited her to be baptized. She told us no and that she didn't want to be pushed. We continued on visiting her and after asking her to read the book of Mormon and to pray of it is true the night prior we felt prompted to ask her again. I was so worried but we couldn't avoid the prompting to ask. We did and she had this big grin on her face and said yes. she wanted to be baptized on the 1rst.  and to start the year off right we were so excited but the thing was we had only really taught her two lessons and had only a week to prepare her for her baptism. Than on top of that she was so busy with school and homework we were left with less than three days to teach her. Sophie has been an amazing example of faith. It's amazing how everything pulled through. But heavenly father was able to provide. The baptism was so great! I couldn't believe how much she had grown in such a short amount of time. She shared her testimony with us and it was very tender. I know that I'm not a perfect teacher but the spirit is. What a blessing it has been to experience this. I look at her as my own sister. Sorry for the short letter everyone! and thankyou for your prayers and letters I love you all so much !

Love sister Hoof

Happy Holidays! Love Pocahoofus ;)

First off sorry i'm slacking here on writing to ya'll but it's not only you but my journal has been feeling pretty forgotten here too. Just know I try ! Okay Another thing I need to anounce to all of you. Now most of you have recieved a christmas letter from me. Those that I had addresses for. Well please forgive me I made a huge mistake on those christmas letters! I ment to say read the scripture 2 nephi 19:6 instead I directed people to read 2 Nephi 9:16... Understand that I am human and sometimes don't get enough sleep.

Alright MOVING ON.. Last wedesday we heard that president might be changing his mind and that this next tranfer there will be some adjustments.. meaning I or my companion possibly will be transferred. Which makes me sick! I love this area and do not want to leave. Mama braegger and I are PERFECT together and cannot even think of being with someone else. It feels like a terrible break up. The upside is that I know I will be serving on  a reservation.. no one in my district believes I will be serving there mainly because the rez is closed to sisters. I have no doubt though I am pretty postive it will happen. Since we are on the topic of reservations and lamanites it seems that no matter where I go in life the same jokes of native americans will follow me where ever. I've heard all the jokes and names. For example; I've been called wind spirits,many feathers , sacagwea and many more. Well as of last thursday I've been given a new nickname . Pocahoofus.

On a more serious note Christmas is coming up! And I am so excited to be celebrating my third month with my dear family over skype! I love christmas and it's been great to be celebrating with many of our investigators and less actives. Many of which we have seen such an improvement and growth. One in particular has grown immensly. We have been working with her for about 2 and a half months and finally on saturday night she stayed up till 3 reading the B.O.M ! I love it! I just hope she keeps up the same motivation and continue on praying.Saturday we invited one of our investigators to come with us to a dinner the flyer said a night in bethlahem we thought we were just going to eat and watch the program. on a side note our investigator is alreqady struggeling with joining and thinks that some of the stuff we believe is diffferent.Well when we arrived we soon saw that the gym was decked out as if we were in bethleham and markets with food were everywhere. Here's the catch we had to all dress up in our robes and eat on the floor. Thank goodness sophie thought it was awesome and was more than willing to play along. It was AWESOME.

I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Everyone! Well man I am grateful for you guys! Thankyou so much for all of your love abnd prayers! It was much needed! I have been struggeling alot health wise and doing this last week I was dragging my butt! Just to get to my appointments. Do not worry though! The members here are my family! They have been helping me out so much and I've got everything I need here to get better!

Amazing thing happend the other day! It was thursday and I think I was having a little cry sesh. By the way side note ever since I've been a missionary I've opened up to this whole new emotional thing. Where I cry alot. It's happy tear majority of the time! hahah anyways this time I was just having a hard time with my health. I turned to prayer that I could recieve some comfort. I felt guilty though to ask for anything at this point because I had slept in for an hour. It was during mmy lunch time when the member we live with called "mail!" Luckily I got a letter from my dear friend McCall biddle! I love you ! man It was exactly what I needed to hear. Than I recieved another letter from the lady named Cindy Kunz. I did not recognize her name and was confused. I opened it up and she had expained that she had called the mission office and had asked if she could write someone on the field that would need some help. WELL I guess my name came up :) she is a lady from Idaho who's son is actually from Washington! She had explained a little bit about her conversion story and Her AMAZING testimony. She had wrote in it that although she didn't know me that I was in her prayers and that she was very proud of me and the work I was doing. It followed with a scripture and by that time I was back to happy tears. Man I am so blessed to have a loving heavenly father who knows me and knew in that moment what I needed at the time. I have made a friend through letters. Life is so cool! 

Another little story. I was teaching this investigator about our heavenly father and our redeemer. I was getting really into and when it came time for my testimony I had said " derek... I know for a fact that heavenly father loves you, He know you by name. and wants the best for you",.... The guys started laughing. I was kinda taken back. I didn't know what he laughing about. When he finally caught his breath he said my name isn't derek it's david. Well I am very grateful for my investigator DAVID who is very forgiving and has looked past my flaws.

 I hope you all enjoy your thanksgiving bunches of love! From your favorite MISSIONARY!!

SISTER HOOF