Monday, March 29, 2010

The Village of Milledge!!!!!!!!!!

Things are going well. Jessica's baptism might be pushed back. She also prayed for the first time last Saturday and it was amazing! She said how thankful she was that these sisters could come help her and that she could turn her life around. It made me wanna cry. This is the first baptism I've had that it's actually been someone that I've found and baptized. Brother Davis (from Cochran) said that that was what made it all worth it. Was when you baptize somebody that you found, not that someone else had found. :D We don't have any baptisms coming up besides hers, but her mom and her baby's daddy came to church with us, so maybe they'll be baptized. Pray for them. We met a girl yesterday named Tawana and she was excited to talk with us. We just contacted her on the street and she told us her address so we could come back. She was excited and called us 'her new friends.' :D,

Zone Conference is this week. They're having it down in Tifton again. Bishop Dubray is coming. He's one of the co-writers of Preach My Gospel. So it's bound to be good. And I'm excited for General Conference. We'll be going to the chapel here in Milledgeville. Most of the members will be watching it at home since the BYU channel now plays it. But we'll be going to the chapel.

Not much else exciting is happening. It rained like crazy yesterday and we were actually told by Elder Ludwig to go in early cuz he'd been watching the weather channel and it said that Milledgeville had a severe thunderstorm warning. I swear, I've never seen so much rain in my entire life! If Utah got half this much rain, we'd have a flood. No bueno.

Anyways, the church is true and live life to the fullest, because every second you spend angry or upset, is another second of happiness you can never get back.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Pictures from Georgia

**The captions are what Katie wrote on the back of the pictures. Enjoy!**

Welcome to Cochran!

Our car. :)

Zone Conference. Macon Zone Sisters.

Emily Stiles' baptism.

Emily & Shawn on Emily's baptism.

An awesome church sign. "The church where God is glorified, the people are edified & the devil is horrified."

What!? No mail!? Sad day!

Our bedroom.

Sis. Hatfield & I on the day of transfers.

With the Davis'.

Did you know it snows in Georgia? Yeah, me neither.

Sister Hardman & I enjoying the SNOW. :)

Playing in Sis. Hardman's funky hat.

Sister Hardman, Sis. Truehaft & Sis. Robinson & me on the day that Sis. Robinson went home.

Me, Sis. Hatfield and Sis. Hanson at Zone Conference.

What is this peculiar white stuff?

See! I've learned how to cook! (Actually, it’s just celery soup) :)

A sign in front of a trailor park. 8 & 9 are my favorites. "Pins? What’s a pin?" "Live and play at own risk? I know I’m in Georgia now!"

Monday, March 22, 2010

New Companion

I am still in Milledgeville, but I have a new companion. Her name is Sister Rolfson. She's from Canada. This is her last transfer, which means I'll be the one sending her home and I know that it'll make me a little trunky, so I try not to think about it too much. But, I'm still the designated driver. I like listening to her speak cuz sometimes her Canadian accent comes out. :) She's an art major and she's the youngest of four kids. She has three older brothers.

As for our investigators. Jessica is committed for baptism on April 2. She's 19 and has the cutest little girl. And we are now teaching Sister Julia (an 81 year old sweet baptist woman that LOVES the Sisters) and she is "chewing" the idea of getting baptized. She came to church yesterday so that's promising. But as for that, not much else is happening. The ward is still the same....kind of hard to handle, but it's all good. Jessica came to church yesterday with her baby's daddy, so I'm believing she'll get baptized...I hope her boyfriend joins her and then they can get married and then sealed and then happily ever after.....pray for them all. Jessica also came to a relief society activity on Thursday. It was great, because that meant that all the sisters could go too and enjoy a free meal. :) But it was called Daughters of Zion and Sister Rolfson and I sang "As Sisters in Zion" and it was really good. They had good food and a good program. The program was all about famous women in church history....Eve, Ruth, Mary, Emma and Lucy Smith. It was really good.

Before Sister Hardman got transferred to Rincon, she and I wrote another song/poem:

"MY SAVIOR'S TOUCH"

I can see it coming,
Through the fields of clover.
I can feel it coming,
Soon this change will be over.

There is sunlight,
There is moonlight,
There is my light,
Never faded.

I see the stars,
They seem to be glowing.
'Look at you.' they seem to say.
'You're growing.'

It's been hard,
There's been so much.
But all is healed,
Through my Savior's touch.

I wrote it the day she left. I hate change. I just want my routine back. *sigh* oh well. I'll visit Sister Hardman after we both come home. She only lives near Logan, so she's close by. We could go to the temple and stuff sometime. But life is good. It's hard, but I still love it. It's when we find people like Jessica and Julia that make it all worth it.

Monday, March 15, 2010

I'm an Old Green Weenie!

So, yeah, I'm old. According to a five year old little girl, and I'm a green weenie. According to my ward mission leader and our elder's quorum president. Bah. All cuz of those stupid hot dogs. We are teaching two families right now and it's wonderful! I love serving a mission and things are so great. Transfers are this week and I pray that Sister Hardman and I don't get transfered. I love her too much to get transferred. So, tomorrow, we find out. It's the great and dreadful day....*twilight zone music playing* I've never been more scared of the APs in my entire life. I was shocked to get transfered from Cochran, so hopefully I don't get transferred again...but knowing my luck, I probably will. BAH!!! But, it's all in the Lord's plan. But after being on my mission, I'm rethinking my career path. I still wanna major in Special Ed, but I'm actually thinking of going straight into counseling and being a counselor for abuse victims. Especially people who have been sexually abused. I'm really thinking like that is what the Lord has in store for me. But, I feel like that's what I need to do. Anyway, have to go.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

I Be Speakin Southern!!!

**From an email sent Mar. 8**

Hey y'all and yee haw!

Ok, I am now speaking in a southern accent. I've really picked up on it down here. I love it. It makes me sound funky. Sometimes I'll say something and not even realize that it's southern term. For example: "That there church is down the skreet, past the barkin' dog." Yes, I know I'm weird.

Last week was a looooooong one. Enjoyable, but long. But on Tuesday, I got quite a shock to my system. It was about 11:00 in the morning and Sister Hardman and I were driving to one of our appointments, and our cell phone rings. Sister Hardman looks at it and says "It's President." And then she answers it. I hear the conversation and he's asking for me. Sister Hardman says "One second, let us pull over, because she's driving." And then President says, "No, just have her call me as soon as she can." Then Sister Hardman hangs up. So, naturally, I start freaking out. Why was the President calling me? At first, I thought it was something to do with my family. That something had happened. Why else would President want to talk to me? So, when we pull up to our appointment, we are a little early, so I call President Bowman. And he answered and I said "Hi, President, it's Sister Hoggard, how are you?" And then he says "I got up this morning and saw that it was raining, so I called to see how you were doing, because I knew this would be a hard day for you." (He knows that the rain makes me feel like crap because of my fibremylagia.) But isn't that sweet!? He called to see how I was, just because it was raining.

Our investigators are well....being a little.....well, I'll just put it this way, they are being very...."southern-ish." If you don't know what that means, ask Jeff. He'll tell you. I'm sure he remembers. One of our investigators is a man named Joseph. He used to meet with the elders. And now, we're meeting with him. He likes the sisters a lot. It's interesting. Sisters get into a lot more places because we don't look quite as intimidating as two young men in suits. Anyway, we're meeting with him again tonight to actually get a sit down lesson with him. His baptism is set for March 28th. Please pray for him. Another is this fifteen year old boy named Brandon. We're still waiting to make sure that it's ok with his parents that we meet with him. He's really sweet. We're also teaching a family. The grandmother used to be a member, but has been baptized into another church, so she'll probably be excommunicated soon unless she starts coming back. But her two grandsons, Caleb and Matthew haven't been baptized and they are baptismal age. So, hopefully, we'll get the go-ahead from their mom and we'll be able to teach them and get them baptized, cuz they both want to be baptized. The Patrick's haven't been able to meet with us. They've been really sick. Sister Patrick actually had to take Brother Patrick to the hospital on Friday. So pray that they'll get better and that their hearts will be softened. We were able to meet with two guys the other day that totally bashed us. We were meeting them at the church with a member couple to help us teach. Finally, the member had to step in and tell them to knock it off. She said that us sisters were good enough to meet with them and help answer their questions, but that we weren't here to be bashed. It was horrible. I cried the entire way home. It's horrible when someone can take something that I cherish and totally use it against me to rip me apart. I keep thinking of part of the song that Sister Hardman wrote: "I have tried to warn you, but my words have only grieved you. When we stand at judgment day, what would ye have me say? I reached out for you, but I could not retrieve you. Would you dare to tell me then, 'I don't believe you.'" I hope their hearts will be softened one day. It might have just been because his friend was a "preacher in training."

Monday, March 8, 2010

News from Milledgeville

**Edited from an email to the family on March 1**

Here's a howdy from Georgia! Things are well down here. I'm glad things are good back home. Our car has been giving us a lot of trouble. It doesn't start without a jump. I'm glad all is well back home and down in Mendoza.
Well, our teaching pool has picked up a bit. Thanks to all our tracting. We are teaching a couple named Kelly and Faye. Kelly used to meet with the Elders, but quit. So we went by to say "hi" and we were able to teach him some things. Faye is really quiet, but Kelly can really talk. He's only about Jeff's age....yeah....36, right? But, anyway, he and I have really connected. He is so spiritual and he and I can talk for hours about spiritual experiences. I know that he is one of the people that I promised I'd find in the premortal world. I can just feel it. I challenged him to baptism and he said he'd pray about it. So pray for him. Pray for the both of them.
Also, Julia. She's 81 years old. She used to meet with the other sisters before I got here. With Sister Anderson and Sister Jenson, I believe. She's been listening to the Book of Mormon on CD and Sister Hardman and I can see in her eyes that she knows it's true. Pray for her.