General Conference and Chili Peppers

My goodness! This week has been full of amazing things! First of all: I am staying with Hermana Stokes in Paducah!!!! I am so happy! I would have hated having another companion. 4 in 4 transfers would be rough. I'm glad we get to stay together :D

This weekend's General Conference was super amazing. It seemed like every session had a theme. My favorite were probably the Sunday sessions. I loved especially when the Prophet spoke. It is amazing to me that we have a man on this earth who has been called directly by God. It shows just how much our Heavenly Father loves us. It is interesting to talk to someone and tell them that we have a living Prophet of God on the earth today. We were talking to this 12 year old boy and asked him what he would think if there was a Prophet on the earth today and he said that it would be pretty cool. When we told him that there was his jaw went slack. Haha.

On Friday the Sisters called us and told us that they found this golden Hispanic family for us. We went by on Saturday to talk to them and see if they really were interested and they were! It was amazing. We taught them the Restoration and they both sat down and listened. It is very rare to have a husband and wife (maybe) both sit down and listen. It is normally just the woman who listens to us. It was awesome because I told them the first vision and it seemed like the man had tears in his eyes. It was so great and touching.

In not so great news: on Friday we were in Mayfield KY and we were eating with the Mayfield Sisters at a member's house. They had some small little peppers in a little bag. The member (Who is from Mexico) took a bite of one and she started eating some chips to get the heat away. (Now you know how spicy it is if even the hispanic said it was hot) I decided it would be a fantastic idea to try it. (If you know me you will know that I cannot handle spice at all) It was a very bad idea. I took a little tiny bite (These peppers are literally packed with seeds) all I got were the seeds. My mouth was on fire for about 10 minutes. A little later we had to leave because I had some stomach pains. It wasn't the greatest moment in my life. Don't worry, I'm better now. Word of caution: If you ever see a little red pepper and it is packed with seeds: Don't eat it!

That's all I have for you all right now. I love you all so so much and hope you are all doing well. I hope you all have a great week.
Love, Hermana Hoferitza

Here are some pictures.  The first picture is me and Elder Massey. He has a tie that looks almost exactly like my skirt. So naturally we took a picture. Then the second is me with my ukulele! I look kinda weird in the picture but that's okay.

The Temple!!!

So this week has been pretty awesome. On Friday we got the chance to go to the Temple! It was so amazing and such a blessing. A couple days this week were a little rough for me. The Tennessee Nashville Temple is the tiniest Temple I have ever been in but the Spirit is the same. There is such a feeling of peace there.

Here are some pictures from the Temple. I met Mary Strueling's sister and her Husband. We got to the Temple and a man greeted us and asked us where we were all from. I spoke up first and said Syracuse Utah and he said "You're the missionary we've been looking for!" So I met him and his wife and they took our picture our front of the Temple doors. It was great.

On Saturday we went to a thing called BBQ on the River. It is a weekend of BBQ in Paducah right by the Ohio River. Our Ward Mission Leader took us and bought us lunch. I have never ever been a fan of BBQ until Saturday. That was the best BBQ I have ever tasted. Oh my goodness! We also tried deep fried oreos. They were sooo good. So good, in fact, that we are going to deep fry some with the English Sisters. The Elders want some too so they are bringing over twinkies...yes twinkies. Haha we are just going to fry a bunch of stuff. :D We are all pretty excited.

This week is the last week of the transfer and 2 of the Missionaries in the Paducah area are going home. Sister Smith and Elder Standing. They are wonderful missionaries and will be missed.
I want to know if any of you did the BoM challenge. If not, I am very sad. We have seen a bunch of miracles come from it. One of the ladies in our ward is writing her testimony in a couple and sending them to her sisters who aren't members.

I love you all so so much and hope you have a fantastic week.
Love Hermana Hoferitza

A Week of Contacting

So this week has been nothing but finding and contacting people in our area book that we don't know anything about. It has been interesting. We have found many people who have moved, aren't interested at all, or just plain shut the door in our faces. It was really funny, we were out knocking doors and we came to this house and a man opened the door, saw who we were and said "Oh. No one is home" and shut the door. HAHA it was so funny. We were like "uhh but you are home" haha. We also have a lot of people ask us if we are Jehovah's Witness. Today we were at Kroger (At Kroger we can scan our pamphlets or a Book of Mormon and it gives us a discount. Don't ask me how.) and we handed the lady a pamphlet. She asked "Why does it do that? Is the owner of Kroger a Jehovah's Witness?" I had to bit my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. We said kindly "Oh no we aren't Jehovah's Witness we are Mormons!" She was like "Ooh." It made me laugh.

I am so super excited! This week we are going to the Temple!!! We are going on Friday for the 11AM session!!! It is going to be so great. I have missed going to the Temple.

Anyway, there isn't much else going on here. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.

Love, Hermana Hoferitza

PS: Okay I totally forgot to include this! My District Leader came up with this challenge and it is super fun. I have now challenged all of you to the BoM Challenge. You have to give away one copy of the Book of Mormon to someone who isn't a member of the church. The catch is, you have to do it in 24 hours from right now!!! If you do not complete the challenge in 24 hours you have to give away 2 copies of the Book of Mormon. We have already seen miracles come from this challenge and it is super fun. You also get to challenge 3 people to also do this challenge. We want to try and get this going through out the Mormon community. Let's see how far it gets. To my missionary friends: this is a great challenge to give to members at dinner appointments. It is super fun and a great way to get everyone involved in missionary work. I hope you all get the chance to hand one out to someone. Talk to your local missionaries for a copy of the Book of Mormon to get started. Remember you only have 24 hours!!!

I Feel My Savior's Love...

So this week has been a little insane. We are in the process of finding (which is never fun) and we don't have a lot of people to see since Paducah really isn't that heavily populated with hispanics. We do, however, have an investigator that is thinking about baptism! Anyway, on Saturday Hna. Stokes and I went a little nuts because we didn't have very many people to see. Every appointment we had fell through and the people we went to as backups said that, "Now really isn't a good time" UGH! It was frustrating.

Since we don't have a lot of investigators we do a lot of less-active member work. That is mostly English members. We saw this older lady that is just too sick to go out and move and so she stays in her house all day. I got to meet her for the first time this week. She told us all of these stories that she has from when she was younger. I can't begin to tell you how much I love that woman. As a missionary I have learned that we can have the same feeling of love that our Father in Heaven has for us and it really isn't that hard. I looked at that woman and I was nearly moved to tears at how much love I felt for her.

Yesterday we went out to Metropolis, Illinois (Home town of Superman :) ) and we met with an amazing man and his son. The only reason that they are less-active is because their son, Adam, is in a wheelchair. He had an accident 10 years ago that made it so he can't walk or talk. He was an amazing young man and had a lot of things going for him when the accident happened. Now he can't move. It is very sad but the second I looked at that boy I loved him. He is in his 30s I think. His dad takes care of him. They have a LOT of land and he built houses for all of his daughters on the land. He loves his son soooo much. It is amazing. Hna. Stokes told them that I sing and Brother Schneider asked if we would sing for him. We said of course and sang O My Father, which is Adam and Brother Schneider's favorite song. Adam loved it. I asked him if he liked my singing and he blinked once (Which means yes) We promised that we would always sing and play the piano when we are there. 

I absolutely love being here in Paducah. The work is hard but it is also so rewarding. 

I love you all so much and I hope you have an amazing week. 

Love, 

Hermana Hoferitza

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Here are some pictures from Buena Vista:

Paducah, Week 2!

Paducah is awesome! I love it here!

Last night we found this golden investigator from Mexico. She listened to The restoration and she told us that she felt like there had been something missing in her life and that this might be it. We asked her if we could come back and when would be a good day. She doesn't work after 5:30 and she is off EVERY SUNDAY!!!!!!! We were so surprised when she told us that because most Hispanics can't get sundays off. We invited her to church this next Sunday and she said she would love to go. We are going back on Wednesday. We are sure she is going to be baptized. I sure hope so because Hna. Stokes has only seen one of her investigators baptized and she didn't even find him. She said that she barely did any teaching so I really hope that this new girl will be baptized. (Crossing my fingers)

There is an English family in the ward (We are in an English Ward) who is like our family. They are awesome. They fed us dinner and it was delicious. Unfortunately the members of the ward are scared of the Spanish Missionaries for some odd reason and there is one family who signed up to feed both of the English pairs of Missionaries in the ward but didn't even touch our calendar. Yeah that happens. But it's okay.

We went down to Clarksville on Friday for Zone Conference.  We spent the whole day there. It takes about 1hr30m to get to Clarksville TN from Paducah and I had to drive. I was thinking the whole time "Now I know how dad feels during road trips" The Conference was great. One of the Elders from my MTC District is actually from Clarksville and I saw his plaque in the church so I took a picture and sent it to him. He is in the SLC West Mission.

We get to go to the Temple on the 26th! I'm so excited to go. Unfortunately we need to find a ride down there which isn't too fun but my Zone is small so hopefully the members who drive us will be able to go in with us.

There were a couple days in August when I wanted to die because it was so hot. I can handle heat when it is a dry heat but when it is a humid heat you just don't dry off. My entire body was sweaty! I'm glad we are coming up on Fall because it is getting cooler outside. My prediction is that I will stay in Paducah for at least 3 transfers because apparently Missionaries are forgotten in Paducah and stay there for a while so I am thinking that I will be here for Christmas. Apparently winter here is brutal and it is supposed to be a worse winter this year than it was last year. Last year the missionaries had to stay in their apartments for like 5 or more days (not consecutively) because there was ice all over the roads. I also hear that the cold just gets into your bones. I'm okay with the cold because you can always put more clothes on. There is only so much that you can take off in the summer.

One funny thing that happened this week. Last night the Sister Training Leaders wanted to pull a prank on the ZL's since we all live in the same apartments. We were going to call them and tell them that we all had to leave by the end of this week because they were closing the Paducah area. We got our Ward Mission Leader in on it but then he blew it. He has a conscience and told them that it was a prank. That wasn't even the funny part. We tried to get our DL in on the joke but he wouldn't answer. They called like 15 times. No answer. We went home and waited until 10:30 to get a call from the DL to get our numbers for this week but he never called. We didn't think much of it but in the morning we were a little confused because the ZL's texted us and asked if we had heard anything from him. We told them no. Later we received a call from the DL and he told us what had happened. They fell asleep right when they got home for the night (9:00) and didn't wake up until 7:20 (Which is bad) to someone banging on their door. They got dressed really quick and went to answer the door. It was the Bishop of their ward. Turns out PRESIDENT ANDERSEN called the Bishop to make sure that they were alive. They checked their phone and found like 30 missed calls and texts asking where they were from the ZLs, APs and President. Yeah they were in a little bit of trouble.

I don't have much else to talk about but I love you all and I hope you are having an amazing week!
Love, Hermana Hoferitza

Paducah!!!

I have almost been out three months now! It's crazy how fast the time goes.

I am loving Paducah. We get a full time car, which I drive, since my companion, Hermana Stokes, doesn't have a license.

She and I are becoming really good friends. Fast. On Saturday we weekly planned, since every Friday we spend in Mayfield helping the Spanish Elders there, and for step 13 we made a friendship scale. 1 being "Want to kill each other" to 10 being "mega-super-awesome best friends". We are in between 8 "good friends" and 9 "best friends". By the end of today we have decided that we will be a 9 on the friendship scale because we are going to build a fort in our apartment. Story behind that idea: last night our DL called us for numbers and he committed us to doing something that would strengthen our companionship. He told us that he and his companion were going to build a fort and eat fudge in said fort. We told him that we would now be doing the same but that our fort would be better than theirs. Now it's a competition (Which we are so going to win because we are going to make ours big and have popcorn and a puzzle and pupusas (it's a hispanic dish) and watch The Joseph Smith movie on our iPads)

I get along really well with Hna. Stokes. She was on the color guard at her high school in Oregon. She said she really enjoyed it. She also likes Doctor Who and everything else British. All we talk about is books and books that she is going to write when she gets home. She is awesome!

We are in an English Ward with only about 4 Spanish members. We have to translate during sacrament meeting if there are any investigators...well Hna. Stokes does. We didn't have any this week but we are hoping that next week we will get one or two.

I am having an amazing time here in Paducah. Hna. Stokes is teaching me a lot and I am learning a lot.

I hope you all have an amazing week and I will talk to you next week.

Con amor,
Hermana Hoferitza

PADUCAH???

Looking good in Buena Vista.

This week is the last week of the transfer! Everything on Saturday was fine and dandy. We weren't worried about transfer calls because I'm still in training. During studies I wasn't even thinking about it...until our phone started ringing. We hoped it was only a text but Hna Cruz picked it up and saw that it was President Anderson. Here is the deal: If you get a call from Pres. during the day you are either training or you are being called as a leader and if you DON'T get a call from Pres. you have to wait til the end of the day when the ZL's call with the transfers.

Hna. Cruz answered and Pres. called her as a TRAINER!!!! She is training another missionary in a different area (Which means white-washing) and I was being sent to PADUCAH KENTUCKY!!!! I am being transferred to Paducah AWAY from my Mission Mom!!!!! I am not happy! Especially since I'm not even out of training yet. I am going to have a Madrastre (Stepmom in spanish) and I will also have a sister.

They are also whitewashing our area with Sister Training Leaders. We had to visit with all of our investigators and the members in the Branch and tell them what was happening since both of us are leaving. Everyone was sad. I am still sad. I don't want to leave Buena Vista. I have grown to love this area so much and I am just starting to really get to know the members. :( But I guess The Lord wants me in Paducah. I guess it is a little rare to go up to Paducah because there are only 2 sets of Spanish Missionaries in that entire zone, one set of Hermanas and one set of Elders. I'm excited but also nervous. I will also be driving the car that we have full time since my companion doesn't have a license. I'm pretty nervous about that too. I haven't driven in 3 months, but I'm also excited. I am ready for this new adventure and to get to know more people and bring them closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.

This week has been pretty crazy weather. On Wednesday it was hot all day long and I felt like I was going to die but then that evening we had a crazy storm. Of course Hna. Cruz and I walked to our appointments in it. We were walking up a hill and it was like a river. It was super fun. We got super soaked.

Saturday was crazy too. It was hot and humid again and then at 5 o'clock a storm came out of nowhere. Everyone had been telling us that Saturday was going to be hot and to be careful but no one said anything about a storm so it hit us by surprise. Luckily we had a ride home for dinner.

I hope everyone is having an amazing week. I am thinking and praying for all of you.

Love, Hermana Hoferitza