COOKIE DEALER, PART II

Spring is finally here!! The trees and flowers all around town started blooming a few days ago and they're absolutely beautiful. Last P day, 8 of the elders, Sister Pocock, and I went to downtown Nashville since I had never been before! It was awesome! There was live music everywhere, tons of cool stores, and a lot of murals. We also played a sick game of volleyball on sand courts. I got to talk to my sweet grandparents that night since they're visiting my mom and Marc in Hawaii right now!! I love and miss them with all my heart :,))

On Thursday we met up with our district and the Harpeth district, and brought a ton of food to some homeless people under the bridges downtown! It was so nice getting to know these people and hearing a bit of their life stories. They were so kind and humble. We got to share with each of them how much God loves them! After that, us missionaries all got lunch together and ate at a cool park that overlooked downtown Nash and the Cumberland River. We saw a whole crew filming what sounded like a Spanish TV show. Randomly Elder Lewis and E. Croney went over and started speaking to them in Spanish. Before we knew it, both of them were being interviewed and filmed too! It was crazy. Apparently their interviews were featured on the TV show "La Palabra de Dios" last Saturday!

We've gotten to be good friends with the guy who works at our favorite donut shop! We stopped by on Thursday night to see if he was there and ended up inviting him to church on Sunday! He said yes and was super excited about it!!

When we were reaching out to people on social media, Sister Pocock came across a girl named Melissa who said she's a member of the church but hasn't attended in a long time. We asked if there was anything we could do for her, and it turned out she was in desperate need of some help moving out of her apartment! Pocock and I called some missionaries around the area and we were able to round up about 10 elders to come with us and help! The 12 of us moved everything out in about a half hour!! She was amazed and so thankful. We overheard one of her neighbors say, "dang that's a lot of mormons" when he saw us and all the young men in their white shirts and name tags carrying boxes and furniture down the stairs haha. I am extremely grateful God led us to find Melissa so we could serve her in a time of need and help her feel loved! She wants to come back to church with us once she gets settled down and really wants to strengthen her relationship with God again.

We had several more lessons with Nadia and got to visit her this week! She is such a light to us. On Sunday night she told us that after lots of prayer, diligent study, and asking God in faith, she finally learned for herself that the Book of Mormon is true!! We were so happy we cried haha.

We've been working, teaching, and finding with the elders almost every day this week and I have learned so much from each one of them. This transfer has been incredible and I'm gonna be broken-hearted if any of them move to another area at the end of these 6 weeks :(( I love our district family.

Since the elders stalked my social media and found out I'm "The Cookie Dealer" weeks ago, they've all been begging me to make them cookies, so I finally did. When I walked into district council on Monday with all the plates all I could hear was "YOOO FINALLY." and "LET'S GOOOOO." Let's just say I've never seen them so excited. I made a big plate for each of the elders and hermanas in our district and for the zone leader elders. I think every single one of the cookies were gone long before we left our meeting an hour later. It made me super happy haha. After that, we all went out to this little cafe together in downtown Nashville!

Monday night FHE consisted of another super fun/intense game of volleyball. We played several games of Sister Pocock and I and all our elders- E. Johnston, E. Thomason, E. Wilstead, and E. Hart against a ton of the ward members. Us missionaries were undefeated!! The elders also decided to play baseball with my water bottle and starbursts. Very entertaining. On Tuesday the 6 of us had dinner at Andrew's house again and had a bonfire in his backyard!

Highlight of the week - learning how to flip 2 eggs in the air at a time (not using a spatula) without breaking the yolk haha. It takes some serious skills.

This week, the principle of faith has presented itself to me each and every day in my personal scripture study, our lessons, and in everything in between. I feel like the answers to all my prayers lately have just been "have faith." This is hard when you don't know where life is gonna take you or what Heavenly Father has planned. It's sometimes hard to take the Savior's hand and walk by blind faith. Something I heard during one of our lessons this week changed my whole perspective. "Having faith is like jumping off the edge of the Grand Canyon and trusting that God will give you wings halfway down."

In almost any scripture story that talks about a miracle that came through faith, a great amount of discomfort and even fear was involved. Abraham obeying the Lord and sacrificing his son, Alma the younger crying out to be forgiven of his sins, Moses parting the Red Sea, and countless more. Each of these prophets were uncomfortable when their faith was put to the test! The Lord wants to push us past our own will so we will learn to trust Him and have hope in His promises. Pushing aside all of our fears, having unshaken faith, and taking a huge leap is the test our Heavenly Father places before us. His plan is greater than ours. Faith is a principle of action, humility, a broken heart, and full willingness to submit to the will of God. Through faith, we can hope for greater things and trust in the plan our Heavenly Father has for us. His ways are greater.

Ether 12:3-6 says, "by faith all things are fulfilled. Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God… I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Miracles come after we take that leap off the top of the Grand Canyon. Though it's scary, Heavenly Father promises He'll give us wings. Through faith we can conquer anything. We can overcome any trial. We can be healed. I am so thankful for the hope that comes through our faith in Jesus Christ! :)

<3 H.C.

- FAVES!! :,) Sis Pocock, E. Wilstead, E. Hart, E. Thomason

- mural in downtown Nashville

- the bois

- COOKIES

- E. Thomason aka cookie monster

- what the elders wrote on the board after devouring all the cookies

- my beautiful companion and the beautiful spring blossoms

- YSA district and Harpeth district!

- us @ our elders

- lunch with Jordan and Alexis

- rainstorm selfies