4/4/2022
I asked my companion to describe this week in one word and she said SPIRITUAL or UNPREDICTABLE. Not one word but she couldn’t decide. I agree with her! This week has been a very special week with success, pure joy, new opportunities, excitement, disappointment, and of course some exhaustion lol. This week I have to say my one word would be FULL. I am so full of gratitude for this gospel, my family, friends and prophets apostles.
This week on Tuesday I had an amazing opportunity to go to the temple again! I am one lucky missionary. This time I got to go to the Maridian temple. We were invited by this sweet couple who took us, our district leaders and another set of sisters in a different zone. We got to start from the bottom of the covant path and work our way up! So we first did baptisms and confirmations, then we did an endowment session and to end we did a ton of sealings. We spent from 9:30 to 4:30 inside the temple and it was amazing! I was so amazed by the artwork and the spirit I felt that day. Such a touching and very powerful day. My favorite moment would have to be me simply looking over at my companion and seeing her dressed so beautifully, with no words I walked over and gave her a hug. It brought us of tears. Boy do I need and love her! I love this quote from the sister who took us she said this walking into the temple. “You can not get discouraged for you are doing a great great work. I just know that God loves you to pieces for sacrificing 18 months of your life.” – Sister Hoksema
Out of my comfort zone!! Long story short I have been praying my uke but not often enough. We were heading out to this sweet grandma’s house to share a message and set up conference for her. Sister Schmidt asked, where is your uke? I was NOT playing and therfore didn’t bring mine with me. Well the spirit( possibly peer pressure) told me otherwise in the middle of this lesson. Sooo I played sister schmidts uke for this sweet old lady and Sister Schmidt sang. It was not perfect, I was shaking so bad, but it was a special moment.
We had a few mini spontaneous opportunities to serve this week. I can’t believe how excited I get to serve! I am basically designated bathroom( bathtub) cleaner. Everytime we are asked to clean the bathroom somehow it turns into my job
I don’t mind though! We also did some gardening and helped with a college project. Super great opportunities to serve. Heavenly Father knows we were wanting to serve because not one of these was planned. Talking about service a sweet member gave us the sweetest service this week. She is moving and packed us 3 huge boxes of meat, canned food, snacks ect. She just knocked on our door and said I have been prompted 4 times to bring this food to you. So thoughtful! After talking with her to her on our doorstep for awhile, we soon realized she needed us. That’s why she was there. The first thing she said when she stepped in out house was, ” It feels so peaceful and nice in here.” It was so cool to hear how special our home felt and just talk to her about the things she needed us for. Such a blessing to us! It was so nice of her to serve us so greatly.
This has been a very full week with spiritual opportunities. We had another amazing BOM study thus week that was completely led by the spirt. We planned it out one way and didn’t go that way at all. Its amazing how many people really open up tonus when the spirit is present. We had another really amazing lesson with Peggy. She is still progressing big and is continuing to gain the desire to stop smoking. I really love Peggy, she calls us her girls 
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Wow! Never in my entire life have I ever been so excited to watch General Conference! What an amazing experience! My heart melted when the prophets first few words were about missionary work. We watched the conference sessions at a few different members houses, with the young women and with Peggy. I really enjoyed watching it with these people and because we did I saw miracles. We asked the young woman leader if she could help us set up a general conference session with certain young woman. Addy is a girl who loves the gospel and is wanting to know more but doesn’t have the home support she needs. Long story short we hoped to connect with her through General Conference and that’s exactly what happened! God works in amazing ways. Addy asked us to come over, she is now a new friend we get to teach!
While planning our route yesterday I said we need to go to a certain house today. Last time we went this sweet 90 year old couple was sick. We went there 1st and they invited us in. The wife Linda is not a member and was slightly interested, she watched conference with her husband. She is a very sweet and faithful woman. As we were talking the BOM came up. I gave her the BOM I had in my bag and I whispered to Sister Schmidtn “intro”. We then read the intro with her. We set up a return appointment and made her a new friend, we believe she has a lot of potential! What a miracle we decided to go there and go there 1st. Because we went there 1st we could spend that time teaching her. So excited!
Lastly on the spiritual side if this week we had an amazing zone council. The training was nice but I was so nervous for some reason! We were practicing door approaches, where there where real converts behind the door. Our door approach went well! Whewww and we were givin great feedback we took to the field. That night we put that practice into action. We knocked on a door we felt good about. There we made instant positive connection with Fredrico! We talked on his doorstep for about 15 minutes. Heavenly Father magnifies our efforts. I know that with my my whole heart. That was his way of saying. You got this and you’re ARE doing it. We invited Fredrico to an upcoming event and he invited us back over for what we called ‘Fun time’.
Along with all of the spiritual experiences I have had a lot of fun experiences this week. One being sports morning. I decided I was going to win chair soccer! I was running all over the place and was actually staying in quite long. Besides me almost giving myself a broken nose and breaking my butt due to Sister Oliphant taking me out I really enjoyed it more than I ever have. The other members in my district said, “Gee Sister Howick you went ham!” 
The next fun thing we did was a harmless fun prank on our Zls. We decided to make their truck look like a just married car. As soon as the clock turned 9 o’clock we immediately got to work. Sister Schdmit blew up balloons and I tied them together. We made a just married sign and we bought a huge bow. It was a lot if fun to decorate their truck for them to wake up to it in the morning. Such a fun memory! We also spent this morning in downtown Boise at the zoo! So much fun!
Pictures: Zoo! CONFERENCE! Prank! Temple!
