22 and 2 months

Hi y'all! 

Welp, I'm officially 22 and as of today I have officially been gone for 2 months! It's crazy because the first month felt like a YEAR but the 2 month felt like a week! Time is really starting to fly by and I am loving being a missionary more and more every day.

Saturday was my birthday, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your wishes and love! I had the best birthday and it was so fun to open some packages from home! My companion Sister Smith is amazing! She went out of her way to make me feel special. She decorated our apartment with streamers and balloons while I was sleeping and even recorded herself singing happy birthday for our alarm in the morning! It was so sweet ha and she made me pancakes for breakfast :) We made a cake and took it over to a less active families home and they sang happy birthday and ate it with us and then we were able to have an awesome lesson with their 15 year old daughter who isn't a member. We spent the afternoon knocking and then went out to eat with a super nice couple in the ward who took us to the best restaurant. I finally tried some shrimp and grits and it was delicious! and then they also bought me a cute little cake and we took it over to another members house to eat it ha naturally my birthday was filled with lots of food and cake and of course before the night ended we stopped at this really yummy ice cream place for ice cream. It was funny too because the Elders all showed up there at the same time as us haha 

But even besides my amazing birthday it was a really good week! I have really felt the Lord's hand in my life this week as I have tried to be more consecrated and submit my will to Him. Yesterday I got to speak in church for the first time. I was asked to speak on Alama 5 and having a Mighty Change of Heart. I invite all of you to go read that chapter and focus on that change of heart. It was such a good learning experience for me. In order to have a change of heart we first need to be humble, trust in the Living God, and remain faithful unil the end. I love that reallly all three of those go together. I have been learning so much about each of those attributes and striving to develop. One of the first big lessons I learned beginning in the MTC was that the opposite of faith is fear and that fear blocks having trust in Heavenly Father. In D&C 63 it say's that their prayers were not answered because they had fear in their hearts and didn't trust God. As I have put all my trust in Heavenly Father to protect and watch over my family and trust Him to change me, I've been so much happier. I have felt so much more peace and also been able to feel more joy. 

Our purpose in this life is to progress and become more like our Father in Heaven. And the only way to do that is through Him. He has given us everything we have, our bodies, our families, our temporal blessings.. if we give those back we're simply returning something. There for the only thing that is truly ours that we can give Him is our agency or our will. Having a change of heart requires us to turn our will over to Him by being humble, trusting and faithful. :) I hope that makes sense. 

Also, I would just like to share a quick testimony of the Book of Mormon. This week Sister Smith and I tried to really focus on using it in every teaching opportunity we had. In preach my gospel it says Tte Book of Mormon combined with the spirit is the most powerful resource in conversion. It really is! As I have spent time every day studying it and learning more about it it has strengthened me so much. When we open it up and share from it while teaching it lets us get out of the way of the spirit and gives the investigator and direct line to learning from Heavenly Father. We had more lessons than ever before and taught with so much more unity when we turned everything back to it. I know that the Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Jesus Christ and is the solid evidence that Christ's one true church has been restored to the earth again. 

I hope y'all have a great week and know how much I love and miss each of you!! 

Ps. Sister Smith has a blog too and it www.southcarolinasister.blogspot.com check it out!

Love,

Sister Hendrix 

stay sweet! :)