August 26, 2013 Huh- huh-huh- HOWDY Y'all! :D‏

How are you doing this week?? :) It has been a great week here in the land of Texans! It has been quite the eventful week here in the mission. On Tuesday morning we had OLYMPICS!!!! It's where a bunch of the zones get together in different parts of the mission. IT WAS A BLAST!!! I'm not kidding. One of the funnest days on my mission so far. But don't worry... it wasn't just to get together and play sports. My mission President, President Durrant is all about the work :) So it all was focused on that. During the olympics we had just about every other activity that was things we had memorized out of Preach My Gospel or foul shots or quoting scripture or speed walking :) Hahaha. I am proud to say that my compaion and I won the Bronze medal in speed walking and I made the most foul shots out of any girl there I think. ALSO! I have to have a small glory moment ;) So President Durrant was in the NBA right? So at the end... he asks who all wants to be in a big game of lightning?!? :) I was so happy. I jumped right in line. There was about 30-40 Elders and two Hermanas. The two Hermanas were Hermana Kirkham (My MTC compa) and myself! Haha. Well, I made it to the FINAL 3!!! I was hitting 3 pointers that were coming out of no-where. I am convinced that Michael was helping me out there :) If ya know what I mean. The Elder that was behind me was Elder Chappell that ended up winning the whole game! I missed my 3 and went for the lay-up and HE DUNKED ON ME!!!! How rude ;) But it was such a blast and all the Hermanas were going nuts!! President walked up to me afterwards and he said, "Bien Hecho." With a big grin on his face :) It means, Good Job. Definitely a high light of my mission ;) We learned so much that day about missionary work as well. Every time we have a meeting with President Durrant I walk away feeling like there's nothing in the world we can't do as missionaries. This truly is the work of the Lord. Let Him guide your way and you will always come out on the winning team. You will ALWAYS come out happier. You will always come out better than you would have if you'd done it alone. This week we found some awesome new investigators! I am excited :) We have been needing new investigators for a bit and in all reality we can always use more. We found a couple that are both engineers. They are so awesome! We taught them the first lesson and I guess the husband's mom actually served a mission but he was never baptized. The mom that served married someone who was Catholic or something like that and so they never really went to church or did any of that stuff. They just decided that they would let their kids pick when they got older. Their names are Lili y David. Then we also found another young man whose name is Marcos. He doesn't look like your "typical" Latter Day Saint with his tattoos and such but in all reality what is "typical" anyways? If someone is willing to follow Christ, they are good to me :) He had heard some of the lessons because the missionaries had been teaching the parents of his girlfriend. The parents weren't taking the discussions anymore but he said that he believed that Joseph Smith really was a prophet and that he would be baptized. We still have to work with him because he is now living with his girlfriend but they aren't married. We have our first return appointment with him tonight so if you would pray that is goes well and that their hearts may be open? :) If you are doing what's right, things will always work out. That doesn't mean we'll always have 50 investigators who are dying to be baptized or that everything will be perfect. In fact, I believe in rough times. They shape us into who we need to be. Speaking of rough times and learning from them... I have received so many compliments on my spanish this past week! :) It is still far from perfect and really terrible honestly but it is so much better than it used to be :) I never thought I would make it to this point so I am grateful to be here and grateful to be learning and understanding more every day! I know I couldn't do it on my own so I am grateful for the blessings :) Haha, speaking of which I don't know if I ever sent home the story about my Spanish. It was like my first or second week here in Texas and I was eating at a ladies house. She is from the Dominican and if you think Mexicans are hard to understand Dominicans speak about a 100x faster and leave sounds off of the words. It makes for a fun time! :) But I was saying the prayer to bless the food and I said, "Gracias por este familia y gracias por ellos comiendo nosotros." I was trying to say... thank you for this family and thank you for them feeding us. What I really said was thank you for this family and thank you for them eating us!!! Too embarrassing. But you gotta be careful saying the word embarrassing too because embarasada or something like that is pregnant. We don't have any super solid baptisms here soon but that is okay. I am working my hardest and as long as I am doing that I am okay with the results whether that means 100 baptisms or 0. As you know, I love animals! I have yet to have a dull moment here... the other day when we went for our run we saw a little litter of kittens :) I wanted to hold one but I think they were wild and they all ran away from me and I didn't have the time to chase them :) But they were too cute. We've had a funny week of people as well. For some reason there's been loads of people this week that want to know our first names and we've had a couple guys try to give us hugs! It's always hilarious when you just back out of it or something awkward like that :) It wasn't anything bad just the Christian people of Texas trying to be nice. There really are the best people down here. Of course there are your crazy people and the bad things that happen as well just like any other part of the world but we are always protected :) Keep reading your scriptures and keep doing what's right!!! I testify that Jesus Christ is in reality our Savior and is aware of every detail that happens in our lives. When you are sad, turn to Him. When you need strength, turn to Him. When you are happy and have a grateful heart, turn to Him :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!! Have the best week ever :) A quote that I have been loving lately... You don't find the happy life, you make it :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my SISTER HEATHER!!!!! :)

-Hermana Jenny Hadlock (P.s. I am going to try to get some pictures off but the computers have been being really lame these last couple weeks. If not, double next time!!)

August 19, 2013 Another week here in Texas (:‏

Can I get a HOOOOOWWWWDDDDYYY familia? :)

How are you doing? :) This week was sure a whole lot better than last week. I guess it's after the darkness comes the light right? I realized too how much more we appreciatte the good times when we have had to work through the bad as well. Where to start? I don't remember if I told y'all about the Juanitos or not. They are a family that we recently found and they are such good people. They're also hilarious and always good for a laugh :) I think we had our first lesson with them last Tuesday. The dad had loads of questions about the Bible and things like that.... but it ended up being a really good lesson :)  Anyways... this last week we were knocking doors in a trailer park and there was a guy that walked really fast past us so we gave him a pass along card really fast and he had his Bible in his hand so we figured he was probably going in for a Bible study. We looked at each other... figured why not?? :) And we headed towards the door. A nice lady answered and we were talking to her for a bit we hear Hermana's!!! We turn around and here comes "Los Juanitos"!! The parents names are Juan y Juanita so we call them "Los Juanitos" It turns out that the dad, Juan, was TEACHING the Bible study. He invited us to come in and we figured that if we want him to listen to us than we should listen to him as well. So we went in :) There were lots of Hispanics there and so we decided it was a great opportunity to introduce ourselves to them as well! It went really good. They defnitely do things a lot different than us but all of the doctrine they were teaching was good. How funny is that though?? My awesome companion shared a scripture with them as well when he was asking everyone what they thought hope meant. It was awesome of her. We had a lesson with Los Juanitos again today. It went pretty good but it was hard to not let it turn into a 5 hour session of Bible bashing. But they told us we are always welcome and that their home is our home. I know that if they keep reading and praying that they will get their answer that the Book of Mormon is true. Before my mission I never realized how much depended on the Book of Mormon. We also met Patrick and Betty this week. It's too bad that the both speak English because I want to keep teaching them but I know that eventually we will have to give them over to the English elders. I can't tell you how many people here really are Christians and are very good people. Of course there's always the ones that don't like us but oh well. Someday, hopefully they will see :) About Patrick and Betty. Patrick was great. He is a black man that is into music and Jesus :) We prayed with him and he wouldn't let us say the prayer without joining hands. So all of us were standing in his front yard joining hands and praying. He is so awesome and has so much faith :) I don't have too much time this week but I want you all to know that I am doing A LOT better and we have seen a lot of mircales this week. We have a few people that are so close to baptism and just need to take that leap of faith and trust in the Lord. That's all anyone really needs to do in life really... trust in the Lord :) I hope y'all are doing great!!!

I love and miss you all!!! -Hermana Hadlock

August 12, 2013 FAMILIA!!!!!!‏

Howdy there :)

Well, where do I start?? This week has been one of the hardest if not the hardest so far on my mission. I think it's probably been the hardest. Last Tuesday, I got a new companion! Her name is Hermana Lebaron and she's great! It's kind of crazy, we actually went to the same high school. Can't you believe it?? She had Mrs. T as a choir teacher! Although, I'm not sure anyone can love Mrs. T as much as I did and do. :) Our first day together I realized it was going to be really different than it was going to be with Hermana Ostler. She had been here for something like 6 months and knew the area incredibly well. I now after only 1 transfer was the one who knew the area and had to guide us around. I let myself get stressed, overwhelmed, and just down right upset. For Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I was struggling SO bad. Thursday I couldn't take it anymore and I broke down crying. I felt like I would never be able to learn Spanish, like I had nothing to offer, and honestly if I needed to go home. But I knew that wasn't the answer and I knew that I needed to get out of this rut somehow but didn't quite know how to do it. I had a talk with my companion and then we went back to work that night. When I got home I talked with Sister Whitley who is the member I live with and she helped me a lot. The next morning, I got a blessing from Brother Whitley. Their testimonies are SO strong. Both of them told me they didn't "think" that the blessing would work... they KNEW it would work. After the blessing I was filled with so much peace. I began to get a greater understanding of the work we are doing here and calm down. The Whitley's were right... the blessing worked :) I realized here in the last few days that success isn't measured by how many baptisms we have, the number of lessons we teach, or how perfect my Spanish is. Success is measured by my effort and if I am truly giving it all my best to serve. The single most important thing that I have learned so far on my mission is to TRUST in the Lord with everything you have and second to WORK and give it your best. If you do those things, you will have done valiantly. No one worry, I am doing great once again. Things don't always go how we want them or how we plan them but that's life right?? This week has been full of lots of adventures. We have gotten lost many times but somehow always seem to find our way in the end. This week I want to talk about Chazz. Maybe I talked about him in my last e-mail but I'm not sure. He used to be a drunk. In fact, he was for most of his life. We found him one day when we were knocking in a trailer park. His name is actually Charles but he also goes by Chazz because he was in a band back in New York I think when he was younger. One day his kids came and got him and brought him hear to Texas. After he got moved here he quit drinking. Every day, he marks it as one more day that he hasn't drank. He told us the number and it was 3,000 something. He is one of the nicest funniest people I've ever met and he isn't one of our investigators because he speaks English and such but he was such an example to me of how people can change their lives around. He said, "You can call me Charles, Chazz, anything but late for dinner! " Hahah. He is great :) We found a lot of great people this last week and I am excited to see how the fruits of our labor will show here soon because I know that they will :) You all know how much I love animals and this last week we've had lots of encounters with animals. First off, I think it was our first day together Hermana Lebaron and I saved a turtle that was in the middle of the road. Then, we found a baby bird a couple days ago that had fallen out of it's nest.... I think it was Saturday. I didn't know how to help it :( But then we saw what we thought was the mom so we decided to leave it and hope that the mama bird could help it somehow. I'll send y'all a few pictures! It's been a funny week. It has been SO HOT this week here in Texas but we made it through it. It even rained a tiny tiny bit one night. The people here say it has rained more this summer than they have ever seen it rain before. I'm convinced it's because I've been praying for rain ;) Que mas?? I just found out that Serena Michalsky (my favorite roommate from college) got her mission call to the New York New York South Mission speaking SPANISH!!! I am SO excited for her!! :D It's going to be such a blast when I get back to talk to all of my friends that are serving Spanish speaking. I couldn't be more excited for her :) Just as I said... A mission is hard work but I wouldn't rather be any where else. Here in just 3 days I complete 3 months! Where has time gone?? That means that I am 1/6 of the way done with my mission! One cookie down... five to go :) I hope that all is well back home and that you are all happy and enjoying life! I really do thank each and everyone one of you for your support! I honestly couldn't do it without you. I love you more than you know and hope you have a great week! Thank you for your prayers and know that mine are always sent your way as well :) Enjoy the pictures! P.s. The one with the ice cream is awesome huh?? They are always walking around here so one day we decided to buy one :) LOVE YOU ALL!!! Que tenga buen semana :)

Su favorita Hermana en todo del mundo- Hermana Hadlock!

Some last pictures with Hermana Ostler at transfers :) 

I will miss her! She was great!!

I found Joel Gardner! I went to school with him and was in Madrigals with him and ran the marathon with him :) He was a good friend of mine. He just got here this last week! I probably won't see him again for a long while because he is in East Texas.

My zone.

The ice cream man :)

My sweat and...

All the waters we bought from McD's because we were dying :)

Read the middle sign! 

And I found Jennifer St :)

A kitty we found.

A cute little girl that we had dinner with yesterday!!

August 5, 2013 Howdy there family!!‏

How y'all doin this week!? SO, I have so much to say that I hope I can even remember it all and get it all out. We'll start with Monday... So after I e-mailed y'all we headed to our appointments and such. I got to mow a lady's lawn! First time I've ever done that in a dress but MAN oh MAN it was so great! I don't know why I have this weird thing that I love mowing the lawn but it seriously made my whole day! Then to Wednesday. We went over to this lady's house whose name is Suzanne. She is some Christian religion and is honestly one of the best people I have ever met. Her daughter is struggling a ton and doing lots of crazy things and she said it breaks her heart. But one day she decided that her daughter has agency and so while she was trying to help her she couldn't let it drag her down. So she decided to do as much good as she good for others. I am telling you, this woman is saintly. So after she made us this incredible fish dinner and we had talked for a bit I get this undeniable prompting to share my testimony and tell her that I KNOW our Gospel is true and it has the fulness that she needs. I thought how can I basically tell her that our church is right and hers doesn't have everything? I was so afraid of offending her because here I am looking at someone who is probably a better person than I am and I have to tell her to change? But then I realized that was myself doubting and that the Spirit was the real teacher. I was so afraid of her getting mad at me but I figured if she does, she does. So I started to bare my testimony and it ended with both of us crying and the Spirit was so strong. She's not going to be baptized yet and my companion has been working with her for a while before I got here but it was just such a cool experience. You can ALWAYS have confidence in the Spirit. Sometimes, the person probably will get ticked off and yell at you (had that happen out here too) but it doesn't matter. Don't ever be ashamed of the message you have to offer people. Be BOLD :) Now moving onto Thursday night... We had dinner with the Garibaldi family. The parents were both born in Mexico and both served a mission there. I am surprised God hasn't taken them straight to heaven yet because they are incredible! But I guess he needs good people left here on the earth too :) They call us missionaries angels and treat us as such. So nobody worry, I am being so well taken care of :) But anyways they found out it would probably be Hermana Ostler's last dinner with them and that we couldn't eat with them on Thurs. anymore (just a mission rule that would take too long to explain but it's for good reason. But don't worry, we can eat with them other days.) and so they were really sad. Hermana Ostler said the closing prayer and Hermana Garibaldi was crying. I was holding back tears as well :) Then they pull out their missionary book and want Hermana Ostler to sign it. I don't blame them for missing her... she is the best :) and we have such great talks about baseball! We took it and started looking through and you won't believe who I saw.. the Schulte family photo! The Schulte's are a family that I know in Taylorsville. I believe the dad was actually the one to set Jackson apart for his mission. I went to school with two of the brothers and their older sister came to my mission and apparently ate with the Garibaldi's! :) So she signed their book too. It's crazy how many connections there have been like that. There are so many good people here and everytime I meet another incredible family I realize they are the way they are because of the Gospel and it gives me the drive to keep working with those we teach and that we will teach. I heard a quote in the MTC and then again a couple of days ago... It says something like this... "When you go to bed at night, pray like everything depends on God, because it does. When you wake up in the morning, work like everything depends on you, because it does." Yes, God will do His part and we can have full confidence in that but we have to WORK and do our part as well. If we do that, we truly will see miracles. Whenever I am going through a little rough patch and starting to get down I think of President Hinckley and the advice his dad gave him when he was struggling on his mission... "Forget yourself and go to WORK" and one more " The secret to work is WORK" it is so true! I can't stress it enough. If you came out here and didn't work... the mission would be miserable and would take forever. But here soon I complete 3 months and I don't know where the time has gone. If you just go to work, miracles come :) Now to Saturday night. Hermana Ostler and I were super anxious because we knew that transfer calls were coming. On Tuesday we had gotten a call that she was going to be made a Sister Training Leader (kind of like a Zone Leader or Assistant for the Hermana's) and so we had to go to a meeting. While she was in training I got to go work with Hermana Kirkham ( my old companion and Hermana Ruesch (whose cousin I went to school with) and it was a blast! But at that meeting we got hints that Hermana Ostler would be moved. I was way sad because normally trainers stay with their trainee for 2 transfers. Anyways, the calls came Saturday night for transfers and sure enough... a few minutes before 10:30 we got the call! Hermana Ostler is leaving and I am staying here!!! This means a lot of things... 1. I am way sad because Hermana Ostler is so stinkin' great and I don't know what I'm going to do without her talents in every aspect of the mission and her deep love for sports! 2. I am staying here in this huge area that I still don't know and my new compa and I are going to probably be SO lost for a while! It's going to be a wild ride/adventure! Hermana Ostler knows the maps like the back of her hand and so I'm aspiring one day to be that good :) but she has been in this area for 6 months! So I don't expect immediate progress. But if the Lord left me here, He knows I can do it. So I know I can :) But please, PRAY FOR me! Hahah.  3. I get a new companion. Her name: Hermana Lebaron! GUESS WHAT! Apparently, she went to Taylorsville High School. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure. Did we know any LeBaron's in T-ville? She's a bit older than me, so I didn't know her in school. But how nuts is that?!? I am excited to meet her and get to work! 4. I get to stay with the Whitley's for one more transfer :) Unless they move us to an apt. They are THE best! Look at her blog if you haven't... it's moronitenfour.blogspot.com. The work is going great here in Texas :) Oh! and Joel Gardner who I went to school with (He was in Madrigals with me) is getting into Texas today!! I hope I see him at transfers tomorrow. People from Taylorsville are just serving everywhere together with all of them going to Mexico with Jackson and him coming here! What can I say? Taylorsville is the best :) Also, a funny story from today. So we all know how much I love car washes... we started through the car wash today and all the sudden I feel water hitting me and I see Hermana Ostler freaking out and jumping all around and I look over to see the window down and water BLASTING in our window!!! SO stinkin' funny! Her first reaction was to get away from the water but then we were both frantically reaching for the button to roll the window up! Ah, it was HILARIOUS :) We got the window up and were laughing for the rest of the car wash. Gotta love it! I'm pretty sure God has a sense of humor and laughs at all of us here all the time. Pray for me this next week as we go through transfers tomorrow morning. I'll keep you all in my prayers as well. Keep doing what's right and you'll be blessed! :) Sounds like all of you are doing well :) I am so excited for it to cool down here in the next couple months. Yesterday our thermometer said 111 plus humidity. GROSS :) hahaha. But don't worry, I drink loads of water. Take care and have a great week :) LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!! Keep the mail coming. I love getting letters :)

Su favorito- Hermana Hadlock- del mision de milagros

fotos: 

Here's the lawn I got to mow Monday night :)

I can't believe I didn't put this in the e-mail... BUT MEAGAN got baptized! :) She is the sister of the last people I sent you that got baptized :) She actually decided to do it before them but her date was just a little later. Here she is :) Love this girl SO much!

The Schulte family.

An ice cream I made. First one on the mission :) I'm so good ;)

Some carrots from the food bank we serve at :) Biggest I've ever seen!

One of Hermana Ostler's and I last pictures together as a companionship!

Also, look at my bun! It's from the thing you bought me. This picture is from today :) 

Hermana Ostler right after we got the window up. You can see the water dripping off the window and steering wheel I think. Love you all! HAve a great week :)