Monday, June 27, 2016

Mon, Jun 27, 2016 1:13 pm One of the best ways to be a missionary is to be HAPPY:D

Dear family and friends,





I have learned so many valuable lessons this week. I think the greatest lesson I have learned is that the best way to be a missionary is to be happy. We share the gospel of happiness. We share the plan of happiness. We share the only way to find happiness in this life and joy in the world to come! Why are we not happy? Haha, I think back to so many moments in my life and I wonder how those times would have changed if I allowed myself to be happier! Hmm, well I can't change those things...and I don't want to. But I can change now. So what I have been working on this week is to be happy. President Burt always says, "You can say anything with a smile on your face." It is so true. I have noticed that as I focus on being happy, I actually have more love for God and for my brothers and sisters, I repent quicker, and I have the Spirit with me more!! It is just so good. So that is my invitation to all of you this week...BE HAPPY! Smile even when you really don't want to. Be positive even when you really want to complain. And give someone a compliment especially when you really don't want to!:) It changes everything!

So last week I sent a picture of me and First Nations lady named Teresa. But I forgot to tell the story. So Teresa is an investigator that the elders just passed off to us. Two of her sons were baptized a few years back. One of those sons was in a car accident with her daughter and her husband. All of them were killed. So as you can imagine, this has taken quite a toll on her life. But she loves learning about the gospel because it brings such peace to her heart. She wants to be baptized, but she has already moved to a different part in B.C. but she will have the missionaries over soon. It was incredible to meet Teresa and get to know her story because as I did, I realized that I had just barely met her Sister, 2 nieces, and her son in Surrey. Her sister and 2 nieces just barely got baptized and I was able to teach them on exchanges. It was such a neat connection. I know that Heavenly Father allowed me to be a part of Teresa's story. I am so grateful for that special experience. 


Yesterday in Sunday school, Brother Burgess, our teacher and ward mission leader asked, "Why do we have faith in Jesus Christ?" Well we have faith in Him because He is the Son of God, He died for us, and He atoned for our sins. We have faith in Jesus Christ because He is the only one we can rely on and depend on 100% of the time. Out of all the things God could ask us to put our faith in, He has asked us to have faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Find out why!!! 


So funny story. Kind of. Our car had to be towed this week. Seriously?? Haha...but I smiled the whole time so I could keep my commitment. It's actually pretty funny. We got in our nice new repaired car, and it started making the worst sound I have ever heard in my life. So when Matthew the tow truck guy came to get our car, he taught us a valuable lesson. "We don't have bad experiences, just bad perspectives." So true!!!

Then we got a referral from a visiting member to go visit a nonmember in the hospital so we did. Her name is Maddy and she is a Christian. She loved visiting with us. After our closing prayer, she said "What you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." I love that!

We got a referral from a member in our ward to teach a cute young family from Thailand. They wanted help learning English...so we tried to teach them English, but Sister Moore and I aren't the greatest teachers when it comes to English so our lessons soon turned into a lesson on Jesus Christ and how to pray. Emily loved learning how to pray because she knows God can help her learn English. So Emily and her husband, Earth, and their daughter Bentley all came to church yesterday!! So many miracles!

Well I know that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus Christ gives His all in this great work and so I am doing the same. Missions are definitely not easy, but I love my mission. It is the greatest experience I have ever had. I know God lives and that He love us all equally. He loves the sinner and the saint, the sad and the happy...He loves us all. :):) I hope you all know that God loves you!:):)

Love, Hermana Hoth















Monday, June 20, 2016

Mon, Jun 20, 2016 4:03 pm God Speaks Spanish.

Dear family and friends,

So this week the elders in our ward had a baptism! Her name is Brenda and she is so incredible. Sister Moore and I were able to go over to their home before her baptism to have dinner and teach them. She is amazing and so prepared! So we were able to go to her baptism on Saturday and sing at it. So fun! And guess what! President Burt came! Haha, I talked to him for a bit and then turned to greet people walking in and there was an investigator there who spoke Spanish so of course I start chatting away! Haha, I hear President Burt behind me say, "It's always about Spanish." Haha...but really. We have been finding so many Spanish people lately. It is such a tender mercy for me because I miss Spanish work at times! But it's not ALWAYS about Spanish, it's always about God! And God has commanded me to learn and speak Spanish so I can talk and teach His children. And I realized, as I continue to learn Spanish, I am becoming more like Heavenly Father....because He speaks Spanish. Isn't that neat?:) Haha, I love President Burt.


Haha so we finally got our car back after a week of not having it. Wow, I have never ever been so grateful to have a car in my entire life. It really hastens the work here in Kelowna!! 

Well we had the most amazing zone conference this week! President and Sister Burt really do so much for us and are so inspired. I love and respect them so much. President told us that we should not become discouraged with ourselves because we are not baptizing every week. He said that there are baptisms happening all over the world every single day because of your diligence and service to God. We received so many commitments during zone conference, and I received even more from the Spirit. God really wants me to give it my all! What I loved from zone conference was a training given by Sister Burt. She based her training off of the talk "Of regrets and resolutions" by President Uchtdorf. So good. In the talk he says that some people were asked at the end of their lives if they regretted anything. The top 3 things that they regretted are 1-not spending time with their family and loved ones. 2- Not reaching their full potential. 3-Not allowing themselves to be happier. Wow, this really opened my eyes. Do I let my family know how much I love them? Am I really becoming the person God needs and wants me to be? And am I happy now? So what have I been doing about it? I have applied it. I allow myself to be happy in every moment and just trust God. It's not an easy thing..try it! I have learned that life is not a destination, but a journey. We don't start life hoping, waiting, longing for the end. We don't start our missions that way either. We start with the hope of enjoying and loving and learning. We can't wish away the precious time that God has blessed us with. We can't say "I will be happy when....." We must say and allow ourselves to "be happy now!" :) President Uchtdorf finishes his talk by saying, "I pray that we will not wait until we are ready to die before we truly learn to live."

Emily, Teresa
Hermana Hoth & her new comp Sister Moore!!
Making new friends in Kelowna ( Erin )
Robinette, Em
Moore, Hoth, Jacob, Jordan
Sister Goreous, Emily
Moore, Rick, Hoth
Recent Convert BBQ 



So we have a new investigator from Honduras! YAY! The Elders found her for us and we were able to meet her yesterday. Wow, Heavenly Father helped me so much. He brought my Spanish back to me. So half of the lesson was in English and half of it was in Spanish, but all of it was by the Spirit. It was incredible that as I would talk to her in Spanish, Sister Moore would know exactly where I was in the lesson and testified so beautifully. 
She is such a good one! Love her! 


Pretty View

Jib
Then the other day we were going to go visit Jenny, one of our recent converts and she wasn't there! So we waited for a little bit, hoping she would come. Then we saw a lady walking towards us. The Spirit was telling me to wait for her so we could talk to her. It was crazy, she looked so much like my friend, Laura, from Sidney. So I HAD to talk to her. It wasn't Laura from Sidney but it was Laura from Mexico. She was incredible! So friendly and said that we can come visit her and just gave us her address. So many miracles. Haha...I have been fasting and praying for a Spanish branch to open here. 
So lets hope that happens!



Oh, and Oscar came to church again! He sure loves it! So cool to have been part of his conversion story!  




With Jenny


I have learned so much about my companion. Haha she is so fun and funny.
1-she doesn't make ramen noodles right. They are so easy to make...how do you mess it up? Haha.
2-Everyone always tells her that she reminds them of someone. Haha, I did that when I first got here. She reminds me of Sister Wright and Katie!:):) Haha.
3-She often has a surprised look on her face. I have never heard so many people ask someone if they are surprised. In fact, I've never heard that before. So funny.
4- She is seriously the most Christlike person I have met. She is so good!

I loved this quote from a little boy's talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. "Get off your phone and computer and be an active participant in your life." 

"It's not really important why you came , what's important is why you stayed." -President Burt

Have a great week! Love you all!
Love, Hermana Hoth

Monday, June 13, 2016

Mon, Jun 13, 2016 1:37 pm Walking for days.

Dear family and friends,

My heart is just so full!!! There are so many miracles happening here in B.C. in all the areas I have served in. Christine and Laura are doing great in Sidney and both fighting to quit smoking. Please pray for them...I love them sooo much. Raul is going to receive the preisthood in the coming week. Oh my goodness. My heart is just sooo full! 

So we were able to teach Oscar again this week!:) He is doing great and he came to church again! We told him that the elders would be teaching him now because we go to a different ward and he was SO SAD. Seriously heart broken, but the elders were able to meet with him this week too and everything worked out well! So he is working hard for his baptism on June 25:) yay!

We had a miracle this week with our investigator, Patricia. She has been investigating for a long time but has always been held back by smoking. Sister Moore and I were talking about how we would help her and we thought it would be good to set a plan with her to help her quit. But when we got to her lesson she is the one who brought up baptism and smoking. She said that she is quitting today and she chose her baptismal date for July 9. WOW! We were blown away. The Lord works so many miracles and He is just blessing us so much here in Kelowna. 






I am learning so much from Sister Moore. She is seriously the sweetest person ever. She has the biggest desires to serve God and just forget herself and go to work. I'm grateful for that. I love working and I love being diligent and to have a companion that wants the same thing is such a blessing! She is so good!

So this week has been a trial of our feet!!! Not so much the faith..haha. The sisters before crashed our car and so it had a few dents so it has been in the shop being repaired. So that puts us on foot all the time, except for when we can get our members or the other sisters to give us rides. We are so sore...I don't think I've walked this much my whole mission! Haha, but anyways. We were walking home the other night from a hard day. I don't know why, but it seemed to just be a hard day for both Sister Moore and me. So I just said a prayer to Heavenly Father in my head that He would please bless us with a miracle because we had worked hard all day long. And immediately when I ended my prayer, a potential investigator came to my mind and then I realized she lived just a few houses down. The first time we met her, she wasn't super interested, but we thought we should stop by again and offer service. We knocked on her door and she answered and looked so confused why we were at her house again. But we told her that we just wanted to see how she was doing...her heart was completely softened. She talked to us for a long while and then told us she would love for us to come back and do service. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for a beautiful miracle!!!

I love the gospel so much. I learned this week that "the purpose of the gospel is to cleanse people of their sins so they can receive the Savior's mercy at the day of judgement." I love being a missionary and teaching the gospel and crying repentance.  I help people become clean from sin and find pure joy through Jesus Christ. I love God and I love Jesus Christ. They are so good and so perfect. Their love is real. I love Romans 8:32, 37-39. God loves us so much! Nothing can separate us from His love! 

Love,
Hermana Hoth

Monday, June 6, 2016

Mon, Jun 6, 2016 6:34 pm Miracles in Kelowna!




Goodbye to Hermana Wilson & Surrey


With Sister Shi

With Sister Gregory


Saying hello to Sister Huszti again! She is serving in Kelowna west


Dear Family and friends,

Oh my goodness. It was so hard to say goodbye to my family in Surrey, but I feel so strongly that Kelowna is the place where God needs me. I didn't get to see everyone before I left, but I got to call them all so that was great. So first of all...Kelowna is sooooooo hot. So hot. And second, I do not know how to speak English. For the past 9 months of my life, I have been speaking Spanish every opportunity I had and now I can't. It's hard to be out of Spanish work. Also, everyone keeps saying I have an accent. YES! I have always wanted a Spanish accent. Ha, during lessons a few Spanish words will slip in and I keep forgetting that my companion can't understand me when I speak Spanish, but it's all good. I am loving it! 
Okay, so we are on fire here in Kelowna. My companion, Sister Moore, has only been out for 12 weeks so she just finished training. She is incredible. I have never met anyone so sweet and she always has the Spirit. I am so grateful for her, she is teaching me so much. She is my first Canadian companion so that's pretty cool. She is from Rocky Mountain House Alberta. I already love her so much! She reminds me of Sister Wright a little...so I already know we are going to be GREAT FRIENDS!



Sister Huszti and Em's new comp Sister Moore 


We have already had so many many miracles. One of my favorite miracles is Oscar. So it was our first day together and we were out finding in Downtown...it doesn't even compare to the Downtown in Vancouver..so I love it! And we were just talking to everyone we saw and then I saw Oscar pass us. It seemed like he wanted to talk to us, but we were talking to someone else at the moment. So after that conversation, we kept walking and we ran into Oscar again. He came right up to us and was wondering what we were doing. We explained to him that we are missionaries. And guess what...Oscar is from PERU! So he speaks Spanish. We told him that we could meet with him again and he asked, "but what will you teach me?" And so we explained the Restoration a little. Two days later we were able to meet with him and we brought a YSA member who just finished serving her mission in Peru. Like a dream come true...right? We taught him the Restoration and he was so excited to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. Then...another miracle...he came to church! He brought his Book of Mormon and told us he had read the Introduction. We weren't able to stay with him during church and we will have to pass him to the other missionaries because he is YSA. But he told everyone that he is excited to come to church next week too. So we will have another lesson with him tomorrow. So golden, please pray for Oscar. 

Then we met Julie yesterday. So Sister Moore and I were feeling a little lost when we were finding. We decided to say a prayer. We received different promptings, but we went with the direction that Sister Moore felt. We were walking along the street, meeting everyone, then we met a thin lady with a bright orange shirt. Sister Moore's favorite color is orange so we HAD to talk to her! Julie said that she went to our church for a while but now she doesn't go to any church. She doesn't agree with the Bible. Right when we met her, I knew she was special. I just kept praying so hard that she would accept the gospel. She asked us a question about faith and immediately Sister Moore pulls out her Book of Mormon and reads from Ether 12. The Spirit was so strong. Then we offered to say a prayer with her...by this time we could tell that her heart was softening a bit. We asked her if there was anything specific that she wanted us to pray for. She began to cry and said that she has been struggling with depression for quite some time now. We prayed for her, and we all felt the Spirit so strong together. At the end we were all tears, but we couldn't do anything except rejoice that God would send us the Spirit! Julie said, "You know what. I feel something different with you. If this is God...then God is real. I can see God in you." She completely changed. She took a Book of Mormon and wouldn't give us her number, but she has ours. So we are just praying and praying that she will call us. Please pray for her too!!!! This scripture reminded me of this experience. When the two apostles of Jesus Christ were with Him after His resurrection but didn't even know it. Luke 29 "And they said one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"

So Kelowna ward. Haha...interesting. Well, the ward is incredible and I am so excited to be here to work with all of them. Yesterday was quite interesting though. During sacrament meeting, we had someone get up to bear their testimony, but instead he just said anti things. He had to be escorted out and then we had quite the debate going on in Sunday school. I hear that it's not usually like that. But I was able to meet the Bishop, the leaders in the ward, and most of the members. They are so amazing! And we have so many recent converts to work with. I already love it here so much!!! 

Well I want to share my testimony of Jesus Christ. Yesterday, I was reading 3 Nephi 11 when Jesus Christ visits the people in the Americas. The people heard the voice 3 times. The first 2 times they didn't understand it. But the 3rd time they did. What was the difference? The 3rd time, all of the people had their view on the heavens where the voice had come from. They had their eyes fixed on where God was. And then they could understand the voice which was introducing them to their Savior, Jesus Christ.  "Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name-hear ye him." We often have moments like this in life. God is trying to talk to us, but if we don't have our view or focus on Him, we cannot understand Him. It is when we put our view on God and make Him our priority when we can hear Him and understand that He is introducing us to our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. In those moments I have learned that my Savior can comfort me, bless me, help me, support me, and heal me. All can be right through His Atonement.:) I know that's true. 

Love,
Hermana Hoth

Pictures from the internet of Kelowna