Conference, how much do we truly love the Lord? (Oct 13)

First...before I begin...HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! 50 years old, grabe. Bata pa ikaw ;) So glad you all had fun in Utah, I love all the pictures! Everyone looks so happy and for now i'm okay with Kobe taking my place, He's cuter than I am anyways :) How did you like your birthday dad? Tell me all about it! I'm so proud of mom for being sneaky and surprising you with the trip. So awesome! 

I finally got to watch General Conference. It was better than Christmas, oh my, I loved it! ("EXCLAMATION POINT!") Isn't conference just the best? I want to talk about everything, but there's so much! The most important thing I think we can all learn from conference is that we need to be more Christ-like. We have so much we need to develop before we will be ready to meet Christ. My favorite talk was the talk on developing our Meekness. Giving all the credit to the Lord and allowing His hand to be in our lives every day. To turn to Him always, rely on Him, have faith in Him. To have a desire to do His will, to do His work, all because we love Him. That is the most important thing we can do. Remember the first great commandment is to, "love the Lord thy God". Do we really love God? I'm all of you are saying, "Of course we do!" That's what I said to. But what are we doing to show Him we truly love Him? Are we turning to Him always, praying and seeking His guidance before we do anything, loving ALL His children, doing His work? What are you doing to show your love to your Heavenly Father?

This week is truly going to put my love for the Lord to the test. The Sister's who lived with us got transferred out and their area got closed. So we now have their old area and our area...it is so huge. We have about 5 missionaries go home last transfer on medical release (2 from my batch), and only 8 total missionaries come in. So things are starting to level out. We've have about 30 new missionaries every transfer, so to only get 8 was super weird. So I'm now white washing my 4th area haha. The sisters had the city, and a lot of the neighborhoods around the city, so it's a lot to cover. They also had a lot of investigators. We finally just got 6 golden investigators in our area, and now we have all of the sister's too. Needless to say, we are going to be busy. I love how the Lord trusts in me. Time after time He's trusted me to white wash an area, and I don't feel like i've ever done it as efficiently as i could. This time will be different. We're so excited to work hard! It's probably going to be the hardest working transfer I've had, so it'll be a huge growing experience. Sister Purificacion and I are excited :)

That's about all the happened. There were 8 missionaries in Calbayog, 4 Americans. Now there's 6, and I'm the only American. I felt so overwhelmed on transfer day, saying bye to the sisters and hello to a huge area. But conference really came at perfect timing. It opened up my eyes to a lot of inspired thoughts, things that we as a companionship can do to be more effective. this transfer there will be no distractions, all work, no play. And while I'll miss all the fun from last transfer and having sisters in the apartment, it'll be so good for us. So I'm motivated and excited for the work!

Again, thank you all for your love and support. Work hard, and strive every day to be better :) When you do that, you'll see success, I promise that, the apostles and prophets promise that, and the Lord promises that. When you are obedient and desire to work hard, and then go and act on those desires, you'll succeed in everything you endeavor to do. I love you all!

Love, 

Sister Hogge