Best week of my life!

THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!
           
           But really. Not only is Elder Holland coming, but I get to be in the musical number for that meeting. AND even cooler then THAT....Sis.Johnson and I were asked to come and do a musical number in Elder Sorenson's (site director) home while Elder Holland, Elder Hallstrom and Elder Seldon are all there for lunch. Sis. Johnson is going to sing I believe in Christ and I am going to play the piano. It's the opportunity of a lifetime and we are freaking out just a little bit! It will just be so incredible to be that up close and personal with an Apostle of the Lord. We are so excited.

     

             So that's mostly what we have been preparing for. We also had to pull together a musical number with a bunch of missionaries for Zone conference. It was such a disaster! The song we picked ended up being harder then it looked and our pianist could quite master it and then we had NO TIME to practice! It sounded so awful when we ran through it just before and Sis. Johnson just kept saying "I am going to cry!!!" and I just kept saying "no you are not. Its going to be fine." Oh boy. It really was pretty bad. The Elders that sang with us had good voices but didn't really know how to read music and the flute and violin sounded sooo flat. Eeeeek! We did it though and it is what it is! Gonna practice more next time!

       
            We had a guy from the Church headquarters come and do some training with us this week. It was really neat. He mostly just talked about how important visitors centers are and how we need to apply everything we know about missionary work in our tours. It mostly  was just a good reminder to keep doing what we are doing (although we have alot to improve on!) Elder Sorenson said he told him two words referring to how we all were doing...perfect and spectacular. So..not a bad review.  Of course how could anyone come to Kirtland and not just fall in love with it. It is the most beautiful place on earth and we are all just so happy to be there!

     
       Then we had Zone conference too this week! It was powerful. Our Stake President (I am back in the Kirtland Stake by the way...first stake to be organized ever!!!), Pres. Haymond taught us out of the book of Ether. He pointed out how God told the Brother of Jared to make the boats "tight like unto a dish" (its say that phrase 5 times in one verse so it must be important) and then how that was the only reason they were able to survive all of the crashing waves and ferocious winds(trials) it took to get them to the promised land. He asked us "how tight are our vessels?" and then proceeded to help us understand that that is why exact obedience to all of God's commandments is so important. We don't want to leave any cracks for Satan to get in. It was so cool! Then of course President Vellinga got up and inspired us all to be better. He is the best mission president ever! 
 

        We had so much fun going to the Zoo on Monday! It rained and poured all day (good thing we had umbrellas!) our shoes were soaked (it took them two days to dry) but it was oh so worth it! Its a really nice Zoo! Then for dinner we went to Piada's (Italian Street food) it was delish, and for dessert...frozen yogurt! Yummy! It was such a fun day. and then we had three awesome lessons that night to top it all off!

       Kirtland is getting busier and busier and so its harder to get everything done in our area that we need to! I feel like we are always behind in everything! At Kirtand and in our area. Its so hard to keep up with it all but It is manageable and God is definitely helping us. One thing I loved that President Vellinga said in Zone Conference was "The Lord is the one who is Hastening the Work....we just have to keep up with Him." SO TRUE! GOD is just doing it! We just have to work hard enough and be worthy and keep going going going so that we can keep up with this great work! Its hard but so worth it!
 

 Funny story of the week:

          
So we had just finished up an awesome day in our area and were heading home. Usually Sis. Johnson knows how to get home but we ended the evening in a weird part of town so we used the GPS and I just clicked the "GO HOME" Icon. Well I had a thought pop into my head that maybe it wasn't set as our house in Kirtland so I double checked with Sis. Johnson "that go home button will take us home to kirtland right?" and here was our moment of miscommunication...in her head she heard "we are going home now right" haha so we go along our merry way. Half an hour later we pass a sign that says "Welcome to Aurora" and then just on our left appears the Barrington apartments. We drove all the way to her old home in AURORA!!!! which is like 50 minutes away from Kirtland!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH we just screamed and screamed for a second. "WHY ARE WE IN AURORA!?!?!?!" We had already been running late and now it was hopeless. We were supposed to go on Exchanges starting that night too! Ugh...we had to call and cancel and then start the long trek home! It was so horrible and hilarious. We laughed about it the whole way home...I still can't believe we drove all the way to Aurora! Oh boy.
  

      Side note: had a really intense Stake correlation meeting with The Stake president. Mission president and the zone leaders in the stake and the sister training leaders. The pressure was on! It was really neat though to see those men work together and to be able to counsel with them on how as the leaders we have to help this stake. It was so cool!
 
     Well all in all we had a great week. Not as many lessons as we would have liked but we did have 9 nonmembers at church yesterday! It was so awesome! 3 of them were our investigators. They all loved it and will hopefully be back!
       
 -Alexandria and Kayla are progressing very well and are excited to get baptized on June 27th.
      
  -We also have an investigator Jason who is going to go a fireside in Hiram, OH with Sis. Elaine S. Dalton and her husband and we are going to take him on a tour through the Johnson Home before it starts (this will be the first time I get to go there!!! finally!!!). It will be so good for him and we feel will really help him find his testimony.
   The work is going well and we are stepping up our game and really focusing on talking to everyone! Miracles happen everyday!
 

      I love you all so much! Have a fabulous week! The church is true!

                  Sister Hannah Newren