February 17th, 2014

First of all THANK YOU everyone for all of the sweet birthday wishes!! :) I definitely am a lucky girl to have such amazing people in my life :) I'd say 3 birthday cakes makes turning 20 not quite as bad ;) hahaha. Everyone went above and beyond to make my day special!

I've really done a lot of reflecting back this past week on the start of my whole mission journey til now. Exactly 1 year ago I opened my call to find out I would be serving the people of Houston for 18 months, and I swear I blinked my eyes and now here I am starting the second half of this amazing adventure! 9 months can you believe it?! I wish I could just stop the clock for a little bit! I have to say how much I love being a missionary. I love it more than anything in this world. Its harder than anything I have ever done in my whole life! Its hard work and it pushes you way farther than you ever thought you could be pushed. But I've learned that when you are put in those situations, thats when Heavenly Father can work through us the most. Those are the times where I have really developed and strengthened my relationship with Him, and found out who I really am and who I am meant to become. And it is only through the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ that we can become like Him. I always grew up understanding the Atonement as the way we are forgiven of our sins. But I have learned that it is SO much more than that! It cleanses us, it heals us, it strengthens us, and it enables us. We become closer to Christ and learn of Him as we develop his attributes and characteristics, and all of that comes through us applying His atonement in our lives EVERY SINGLE DAY. It truly enables us to become even as He is. That is His desire for each one of us! We simply just have to model our lives after His and apply His amazing gift He has given to us. It is available to every one of His children! A mission has taught me that every soul is great in the sight of our Heavenly Father. He loves us equally, no matter our circumstances. I have been blessed with the knowledge of this gospel in my life and the knowledge of my Heavenly Father's love for me, and I want every one of His Children to know of it and feel of that same love for them. That is why I am here and I cant think of a more amazing calling than that!
Probably the most important thing that I have learned though, is to have complete faith in my heavenly father. I will be the first to admit that I am a stubborn girl who hates it when things don't always go as planned. Even when I was deciding to go on a mission, I was too scared to pray to get an answer because I didn't feel like I was ready to act upon whatever answer the Lord gave me. Then when I decided to put my trust in Him and align my will with His, I asked Him what He wanted of me and recieved my answer. It wasn't what was ever part of my plans, but it was in His, and His plans are always much MUCH better. I know that now after being here. I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life! and it is because I acted on my faith and trusted in Him. We have to put our full trust in our Heavenly Father. I know without a doubt that He truly knows us more than we know ourselves. He has a plan for every single one of us and each of those plans are to make us the happiest we can be! All He asks of us is to LET GO and trust in Him! Its hard sometimes. Its not easy to give up what you think you want and go through things that you have no clue as to why you are doing them. But if you live worthy of the spirit, and most importantly act upon the promptings that you recieve, everything falls into place. My faith is tested daily being out here on a mission. I have had to trust more than I ever have before. But it is so comforting to me to know that my heavenly father who loves me unconditionally has a plan for me, as well as those I am serving. 

I love being the Lord's servant <3 It is the best thing I have ever done and I know I wouldn't be here without yalls support :) I couldnt be more grateful that the Lord gave me this experience and that I still have 9 more months to give him everything that I have! 

xoxo sister huber

February 10th, 2014

So I'm staying in The Woodlands! Sister Andersen is leaving so it's just me and my brown sister now! We tell everyone we are exactly the same person just different colors haha. I swear we are like long lost twins or something. I think its going to be really good for the 2 of us though. We work together really well and both have the same drive in us. There is so much potential in this ward and there is a lot of excitement here and I feel like things are really going to be picking up! We have already seen SO many miracles in the past few days. Oh my goodness its been so great! Service has definitely been our biggest tool here and we see so many cool things happen from it. We went with Sister Chappell to a retirement home for some service this past week and we were visiting with some of the residents and a visitor of one of them stopped us and said she had heard us visiting with this man and how impressed she was with us and with what we were doing and we had a really good conversation with her and she is actually a new investigator now! She is the one who approached us about it and its all because of the service we were giving. We know the Lord definitely placed her in our path that day! Huge miracle! Then we were at interfaith doing service and a mother and daughter were there as well so we were getting to know them throughout the day and they told us how they have church hopped quite a few times now and how they are always looking for a church so we are getting with them again this week! They're like the sweetest girls ever. Definitely a lot of potential with them as well!

We taught a lady named --- this week who was a referral from a member in another ward. She is crazy religeous and has always wanted to know what we believed in. We had a 2 hour long restoration lesson with her but it actually went really really well. She got all excited when we were talking about the Book of Mormon and when we committed her to read it and pray about it she was so energetic about it and was like I'm gonna go home and start reading it right now! She said she had a friend that she wanted us to get with and teach too so people have been just poppin out out of nowhere! We have about 3-4 who are kinda progressing right now. They have all been on and off for like forever now. Which can be frustrating at times but they will all get there one of these days :) We are workin on them!

The best week EVER is right in front of us and I am so excited!! :) pray for the woodlands! hahaha love you so so much!!!

 

xoxo sister huber

Sister Le, Sister Huber and Sister Andersen

Working in bishop's taxidermy shop! He told me that I needed to be a surgeon one day. I might just have to pursue it!

Best Sushi I ever had!

February 3rd, 2014

dear family,

 

it was such a spirit filled week this week! i was blessed with so many experiences that really increased my testimony. we had one of the most amazing experiences teaching the restoration last night to president and sister chappell. he is a counselor to president pingree and they are in our ward and have asked us if we would teach them the lessons! we have been teaching that lesson a ton this week, to both members and non members. i dont think i have ever taught it so much in one week ever! like we were teaching it at least twice a day every day in the past week. and we have gotten into such a routine with it that sometimes i wonder if the spirit is even there or if we have just been saying a bunch of memorized words. but the spirit that was in that room last night was seriously stronger than I have ever felt it before. i think even for me it was a huge conversion moment. the spirit that was there as we were teaching about joseph smith and the book of mormon was something i cant even describe. my love and understanding of joseph smith and this restored gospel was increased more than it has ever been before. how blessed am I to be able to share this amazing message with people every single day! It was also a huge testimony builder to me on fasting, and how in tune with the spirit you can be when you are fasting with a purpose. I don't think anything is more powerful than that! We did a FHE at a members house last night with their non member friends and we had been fasting and praying with this family for them to have missionary opportunities and to find people to be taught in their home and the Lord responded to their righteous desires! They have been really looking out for people they know who really needs the gospel in their life and HF placed these 2 amazing women in their path. Their names are --- and --- and boy are they prepared! We shared a message with them and then had a testimony meeting and those girls have the most amazing testimonies ever. It was just one of those days where you go home and are so spiritually exhausted you can't go anymore. Its probably the best feeling in the world! I'm definitely striving to have way more days like those.

Nothing is real new here in the woodlands! It sure is great though! :) We have transfer calls again on Sunday. I don't really know where the past 6 weeks have gone but they have gone wayyy too fast thats for sure :) I hope you all are doing well! Love and miss you!!!!

xoxo sister huber

January 27th, 2014

quite the FREEZING week here! I don't really know what happened but out of no where it snowed!! It didnt really make it to the ground but they canceled school and everything was shut down it was pretty crazy actually! then it was like in the 70's yesterday and its supposed to snow again tomorrow. who even knows!

We had training and interviews this week which is always good :) The thing I love about president is he is so not intimidating. he is just so chill and so real! Like half of my interview he was just laughing about everything haha. he is the best.

We have really struggled with finding people to teach here and we felt that service is going to be the biggest thing we can do to find people so one day we just put on our service clothes and got some rakes and went to an area and started knocking doors asking if we could rake their yards! We knocked a few doors and no one answered so we stopped and said a prayer and asked for guidance and we all felt that we needed to go down this one street so we went and the second door that we knocked a lady answered the door and we started talking and she couldn't believe that we were willing to do her yard work! It took like 3 hours but she was beyond grateful and it opened her heart to letting us come back and visit with her! She's a 24 year old girl and she lives with a bunch of guys in this house and said she has been praying to have some good girlfriends in her life. We are really praying that we can get somewhere with her! We know that The Lord led us to her that day and that she is definitely being prepared to hear this gospel. 

Something cool that we have been doing with the members is a one minute challenge where we teach them how to share the message of the restoration in under a minute. The idea is for them to have something in mind to share with those people they come into contact with when they are asked what their beliefs are and it has been going really well! A couple of the members have said that just days after we did it with them someone came up to them at work and asked them questions about our church and the book of mormon and they were able to share with them really briefly the restoration and now their friends are interested! Its been really helpful even to us as missionaries!  

Our district on saturday volunteered at a homeless shelter in conroe and I have never seen anything so sad in my entire life! these people literally live in the forest. they are lucky if they have a tent and sleeping bag. some of them live in their cars in parking lots and they all line up at this center to be fed and to keep warm and get some help. Sister Ae I were in charge of getting them food and we sat down and talked with them and they shared their stories with us and it was sooo so sad. I felt guilty after for all of the things that I have that I take advantage of. It was one of those experiences that I definitely needed to have because a lot of times I dont even realize or recognize how blessed i really am! We usually are the ones humbling the people here but this time it was definitely the other way around! These people were so happy too and so strong and so grateful for the tiny things they did have. It made me feel like such an ungrateful little girl! That night I came home and couldn't even ask for anything in my prayers I just spent probably 10 minutes straight thanking my heavenly father for everything I had and was grateful for and it was the best feeling ever! Its something I definitely need to be better at! Its been a really good week for sure :)

I love you all!!!

xoxo sister huber

Training and Interview day

January 20th 2014

BEST WEEK EVER. ahhhhh :):) we finally have investigators who are progressing and its such a miracle!! we have been fasting and praying for so long for people to teach and after 2 months we were finally blessed with someone! Grandpa sent me a letter a little while ago that I really liked. It was from a talk that someone gave in the MTC at a devotional and he shared it with me. He was talking about Ammon and his companions on their mission (Alma 28:8) and how just like they did, we are going to experience incomprehensible joy on our missions but that in order to have that you are going to have to experience hard times as well. Every time that you are struggling or suffering through something, it is just preparing you to experience that joy that is to come! And I can now say that it really does come!! Sometimes not right when you want it, but when the Lord feels that you are ready :)
So their names are --- and --- and they are SO great! Its a mom and a daughter and they have been going through a lot of things lately in their lives. They are friends with a family in the ward and --- is planning on going to BYU this fall. So they came to church for the second time yesterday but this time they stayed for all 3 hours! We taught them after church at the members home and actually ended up teaching them all of the lessons in like 2 1/2 hours haha it was so crazy but they just kept asking question after question! They had tons of questions about the temple and stuff cause thats what the topic was in sacrament meeting and after we talked with them about baptisms for the dead they totally agreed with it and said how it just made sense to them! Like are they ready or what?! they are just so awesome. Also our ward members are probably the best in the entire world :) best ward ever!!

Christmas Conference (Sister Huber is right in the middle)

January 13th, 2014

crazy crazy week here! I dont even know why but it was so exhausting. Sister Ae and I both crashed after planning last night and didn't even hear when our DL called to get our numbers haha. we taught 34 lessons this week! the most I have ever taught my whole time being out here. We also stayed under our weekly miles for the first time ever hahaha so HF really is blessing us.

We started out the week with a little companionship heart to heart and all felt that we needed to work on having more specific prayers and having full faith in the lord and aligning our will with His. When about Wednesday hit we realized that all of our lessons so far had all be centered on faith. It was really cool to see how each was so different, but all had the same underlying message. so we kinda relized that we needed to more fully understand that the lord has a plan for us and for this area and that nothing is going to happen unless we show Him that we trust Him and include Him in this work! he definitely blessed us by giving us so many opportunities this week to teach!

January 6th, 2014

Another new year and the weeks are seriously flying by! Ever since I got here I thought how cool it would be to have a poly companion cause there are SO MANY OF THEM here in the THM. like, so many. and who woulda known that I would get one?! I was so excited to get another comp who isnt from utah or idaho. hahaha. even though I am one of those. so there's nothing wrong with them :) haha Her name is Sister Ae and she is straight from hawaii! She is like samoan and tongan and all of those crazy poly races put together. and she is so dang funny. the trio is crazzyyy fun! Not a lot of missionaries like trios and not a lot of missionaries like living with members but it seriously is like a big party every day and I love it SO much!!! The more the merrier! We definitely need her here!

We still are working on finding solid people to teach. We did a lot of street contacting this week and got a lot of lessons that way, so really its just about planting those seeds with people right now and being out where people can see us. That is the one bad thing about having a car is that we aren't really seen that much. So we are working on being in public places and actually walking places like most missionaries in the world have to do! Its good for us anyways :) It was a slower week and not a ton went on but we are keepin the faith! our force just got bigger so things are gonna be happening :)

Sister Andersen, Sister Huber, Elder Harris & Elder Christensen

Sister Huber, Sister Le & Sister Andersen

New Years Eve 2013