Staying in Allatoona

Allatoona Lake after dinner with Amber and her family on Tuesday night

Well, hello there!

This week, Sister Evans and I have been working really hard to try to talk to lots of people and teach lots of people too! Looking back at our week, most of it was green (we put our schedule and daily plans in what is called the Area Book App, which is super nifty and basically contains everything we, as missionaries, need in order to do our work in an organized fashion), meaning that we spent a lot of time finding. Amber continues to be awesome, but we are sad that she will be out of town for a bit this month to go visit family, so we won't be able to see her as much. Hopefully her adventures won't slow her down in her progression in the gospel, though.

Part of the fun this week was the weather, which was actually pretty mild due to some pretty intense rain and thunderstorms throughout the week. Also, I have learned that when it rains in Georgia, it doesn't just sprinkle, it completely flash-floods. Overall, it is awesome, but also a little bit scary when you are driving and within a few seconds you go from sprinkles to a deluge of water on your windshield. Fun stuff!

The big news of the week is that I am staying in Allatoona for another transfer (6 weeks) with Sister Evans. The even bigger news is that we will now be spending about half of our time on bike because we have been asked to share our car with the Elders in our area. Why now? (That is what I asked myself when we found this out last night/this morning) Because our neighbor ward, Woodstock, is getting Sisters! It should be an interesting summer, but with the Lord's help, we will survive. Feel free to pray for cool weather in Georgia and that the drivers will be aware of their surroundings.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

the sunset last night from our apartment window!

Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane

Apt. 333

Woodstock, GA

30189

another cool bug

Bugs and Bears

Hi-five bear!

Hello Everybody!

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there, especially mine! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful dad here on earth and a Heavenly Father who loves me more than I can possible imagine. So much, in fact, that He sent me here to Georgia to share that glad message with all the people here! :)

 District Meeting on exchange+Zone Leaders, the lunch crew
 (Sister Evans took the picture for us)

It has been a pretty good week here in Allatoona! In terms of missionary work, we dropped 90% of our teaching pool, but we are really, really excited for the remaining 10%! Possible the best part about this week is that we hit what is called "The Standard of Excellence" for our mission! For anybody reading this who doesn't know missionary lingo, that means that we hit the goal set by our mission for each companionship in each area in the mission. In the case of the Georgia Atlanta North Mission, that means three things. #1, we have one person with a scheduled baptismal date. #2, we had one investigator come to church. #3, we found 3 new investigators OR contacted/intorduced ourselves to 70 people. #1 and #2 were fulfilled by the same investigator, Amber, who is just awesome! She is married to a member who recently decided to come back to church after 10+ years of being inactive, and she really wants to know for herself if it is all true. Every day, she tells us about little miracles happening in her life when she reads the Book of Mormon and prays to her Father in Heaven. Basically, Sister Evans and I just adore her and are so glad we get to teach her! Her baptismal date is at the end of July, so I may or may not be there for it, depending on whether or not I get transferred next week. We'll see!

Bug on the car (mostly I'm just really proud
 of this picture of a cool-looking, little bug!

Besides the actual missionary work, I have been having lots of fun as a missionary! On Tuesday I got to go on exchange with Hermana Rhoton and experience District Meeting with a district (group of missionaries) other than my own, which was exciting, and then I got to be a Spanish missionary for the day! Then on Saturday, Sister Evans and I had the chance to have lunch with some people who Sister Thorn and I had helped to move back in April. It was so good to see them, and they are going to keep meeting with the missionaries where they now live! While Sister Evans and I have been tracting, we have been noticing lots of bears (wooden or metal, not live, sadly), which Sister Evans tells me is a California thing, so I took the opportunity to give one a high-five yesterday evening. Missionary work is hard work, but also the most rewarding work in the world, so I am glad to be doing it.

Fun Georgia Fact: There are a lot of bugs here, and so far, I have been blessed with companions who seem more attractive to the bugs than I am! We are learning the importance of bug spray and benadryl cream very, very quickly!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane

Apt. 333

Woodstock, GA  30189

Hiking the Appalachian!

The one picture I took today at Amicalola Falls State Park 

Hello world!

This week has been pretty great! The flowers here in Georgia are in full bloom, the birds are singing, and we are working hard! In terms of missionary work, nothing really spectacular has happened this week. We see lots of little blessings/miracles each day, and it is truly amazing to be a servant of the Lord.

One highlight of this past week was that we had Zone Conference! Yep! On Thursday, we got to drive to the Roswell Stake Center to have a combined Zone Conference with the Roswell Zone. I got to see several of the people I came to Georgia with, including my MTC companion, Sister Willey! The conference itself was wonderful, although it was our last one with President and Sister Bennion. I have learned a lot from them, and we are all sad to be seeing them go, but we are also excited that we get to break in our new Mission President, President Marsh, in the beginning of July!

some flowers we saw while tracting this week!

My spiritual highlight of the week was a fireside put on my our ward missionaries on Saturday evening. A previous member of the ward who works for the Church Education System led an awesome discussion on the Book of Mormon and all the things we gain from it. My favorite part of the event was hearing the testimonies of various ward members as they contributed their thoughts and ideas. I have come to really love the ward here!

The other highlight of this week was today! We went on an adventure! One of the laurels in our ward offered to drive us to go on a hike, so we got permission to leave our zone to go to Amicalola Falls, where the Appalachian Trail starts! Sadly, all the pictures I took are on my camera, so I won't be able to email them today, but I will try to get some to y'all in the next few weeks! The hike was only a mile each way, but included several hundred stairs. At the top was a beautiful view of the landscape, so it was well worth it! I also got my first taste of what it may feel like in a month or so when summer is in full force as we hiked through the humidity that accompanies all the greenery we were hiking through!

I hope you are all enjoying your summers and that you all have an opportunity to share your testimony this week! Love y'all! :)

Love,

Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane

Apt. 333

Woodstock, GA

30189

Happy with a package. . .finally!

Camping on the Mission

From 5 June 2017

Allatoona Lake from the campground :)

Hello everybody!

Allatoona has seen some pretty amazing things this week, and I am excited to tell y'all about them!

First of all, we have an amazing new investigator! Amy (not her real name for the sake of anonymity) is the wife of an inactive member of the church who recently turned his life around. She has come to church for 3 weeks in a row now and told us on Wednesday night that she wants to learn more about the church and find out for herself if it is true! Although we haven't been able to meet with Amy very many times yet, she has been keeping in touch with us each day (daily contact can be difficult with most people) and asking us questions, which makes our part much, much easier!

The same night we first met with Amy, we also met M&C, who were referred to us by the Hermanas (Spanish Sister missionaries) in our area. At first, we were afraid that M would never let us get a word in to actually teach him, and for that initial meeting, it was difficult. However, we left him with a cliff hanger that there are prophets on the earth today, and told him we would come back the next evening to tell him more. When we showed up at their door on Thursday night, M was surprised that we kept our word and then let us teach him the whole Restoration lesson (we kept it pretty short, just in case). We were just so glad that he was interested enough to listen. Sister Evans has been teaching me this week that you can tell if somebody really wants to learn by how often they will just listen to you! I had never thought about it before, but it was easy to see the difference between M&C and some of our other investigators right now, which means we have our work cut out for us!

Now I will explain my title. On Saturday, we had an appointment with an investigator we've been teaching for a while, and when we got there, nobody was home. We had just made the appointment the day before, so we tried calling them but didn't get an answer. Fast forward past several other disappointments that afternoon and we get a text that said investigator totally forgot and took a spontaneous camping trip with her family, just 10 minutes up the road from their home. She told us that we could come visit her there if we would like. Since all of our other plans had fallen through for the day, we went to see her at her campsite. Mostly, it was just really wonderful to be able to feel the peace that comes from sitting at a picnic table next to a campfire with a lake less than 20 feet away. I hadn't realized how little nature I have been able to enjoy since getting here. Civilization seemed so far away and it was a blessing that I was able to recover for a bit from a hard day while working with an investigator who seemed happier than she has been in years. Heavenly Father definitely knew that I needed some peace, and "going camping" (even for just a short while) fit the bill pretty well. :)

I hope all is well with all of you and that you will take a moment to stop and enjoy the beautiful world around you!

Love,
Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane
Apt. 333
Woodstock, GA
30189

Short Week

From 30 May 2017

Hello everybody!

Well, it seems like it hasn't been that long since I last emailed you, and I don't think I have a whole lot to tell you about. Also, I haven't taken any pictures since last Thursday. Sorry. :/

There is one thing I want to tell you all about, so here it is: On Sunday night Sister Evans and I were able to see several miracles during the last few hours of the day. After a quick visit with some recent converts who are moving away for the summer, we drove to  a street we had picked during planning to go tracting. When we arrived, we didn't quite feel like that was where we needed to be. We decided to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father what He wanted us to do with the last 2 hours of the evening. We felt prompted to try a less-active who we had met a few weeks prior, even though she hadn't responded to our text. As we drove to her house, we devised a plan to avoid spending the whole evening there (this particular lady can talk and talk) because we still needed 4 more contacts to reach our goal of 70 for the week. We were able to not only say hello to the less-active, but also provide a small bit of service for her. By the time we left her house, we only had 15 or so minutes to go finding if we were going to be home at 9. We pulled into a neighborhood that turned out to be townhomes (hooray!) and knocked on two doors. The first one didn't answer, but the second one did. Lori was friendly and let us in to talk to her for a bit, which was great, but we still needed 3 more contacts. After briefly teaching Lori and setting up a return appointment for the next morning, we only had about 2 minutes, but we decided to go talk to a group of 3 boys who were playing basketball down the street in order to reach our contacting goal for the week. When we got back in the car to go home, we only had about 10 minutes to make the 15-minute drive home. We prayed that we would be able to make it home quickly and safely so that we could be obedient, and at 9:00pm we were in the door of our apartment (Tiwi didn't even have to get on our case) after catching almost every light green. Heavenly Father definitely helped us reach both of our goals, for 70 contacts and to be home on time.

Really the only other exciting thing that has happened is that yesterday was Memorial Day and I got a free waffle! In honor of Memorial Day, Sister Evans and I decided to have Ether 2:12 on hand all day while we were trying to talk to people. It reads, "Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written." Neat, right? Heavenly Father has been preparing this land for thousands of years, and I am so blessed to be able to live here and enjoy the freedoms I do! Sister Evans and I celebrated Memorial Day by going to Waffle House for lunch. For those of you who don't know, Waffle House is a little diner-type place that is all over the place here in Georgia. It was my first time going there, so our waitress brought me a free waffle, and I have to say, it was pretty good!

I apologize for not having more to tell, but the Lord's work goes forth here in Allatoona and it certainly is keeping us missionaries busy!

Love,

Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane

Apt. 333

Woodstock, GA

30189

A Number Two

From 25 May 2017

 Sister Evans and me outside the Temple

Well. This week. Has been. A busy week. First of all, a week for a missionary is the amount of time between preparation days, so this week has been 10 days long. Secondly, a lot has happened, so, as my family would say, it has been a #2. That is Houghton code for "it has been a busy week!"

I met my new companion, Sister Evans, on Tuesday morning last week. She is an awesome missionary! Heavenly Father obviously had a lot He wanted me to learn, so He put Sister Evans with me to teach me all of it! The big thing I started noticing during our first couple of days together is that Sister Evans is very, very diligent, which is SO important in the mission field. I am very excited for this transfer (at least) that I have to work with her!

the Temple

You may be wondering why my week was so much longer than normal. Let me tell you. Even though it is outside the mission, this morning, my zone got to go to the Georgia Atlanta Temple! The Temple is a beautiful place where we can feel God's love ever so strongly while we do service! For a better explanation, feel free to look at mormon.org. There are a couple good videos about temples on there. :)

 Hermana Solis, me, Hermana Rhoton, and Sister Evans
between interviews yesterday

The big lesson I learned this week is that, as a missionary, my efforts and returns won't always match up/balance out, but that is OK. Heavenly Father expects me to do my best to invite others to learn more about the restored gospel because He wants them to experience the blessings of living it. Therefore, my effort should always be pretty intense. However, the results I may or may not see are gifts from Heavenly Father as He sees my work. Basically, my job is to do my very best at scattering sunshine, and I don't have to worry about what comes of it as long as I am trying. You know why? Because "every little thing, is gonna' be alright!" This is God's work and He'll take care of things! :)

I hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Sister Houghton

701 Downsby Lane

Apt. 333

Woodstock, GA 30189

 same crew with President and Sister Bennion! :)