the work will accelerate!

Hey Everyone,

Man, I feel like a million things happened this week and lots of things are changing. Yet I don't really want to e-mail or write letters, not like me, I know.

We had zone conference, which was awesome. Now as a mission we are committing everyone to be baptized in the first lesson. I can already see how the Lord is hastening this work right now!

We went on exchanges with the english sisters last Thursday to Friday. Sister Davey came with me in my area, and Sister Moss went with Sister Anderson in her area. Sister Davey is awesome! She has such a fire for this work! While I was with her, I realized how much I love spanish. And it's just weird because at the beginning of my mission, I hated it. I hated speaking, singing, hearing, etc spanish. But now I can honestly say I love it. And when all of this is over, I'm going to miss going to a spanish branch, I'm going to miss speaking spanish.

Raquel still has a baptismal date, but we haven't been able to contact her since we set that date, nor has she been to church. I don't really know what is going on. I pray that we can figure it out and that she really can be baptized.

Hna. Coronado... she knows she needs to get baptized. We would have set a date, but she wants to get baptized the same day as Danny (he turns 8 today!), but we don't know when he's getting baptized. Plus, they are going through a way hard time right now, and there's a lot going on. We're going over tomorrow night, and hopefully we can set a date!

This past Sunday President Espinosa (branch president of Spanish 6 OKC branch) asked in our meeting before church if I would speak on the importance of members in missionary work. So I did. I wrote down a few thoughts, but I had no prepared talk or anything. I really feel blessed that I can just speak, in spanish, without having to worry about not knowing how to say something. The gift of tongues truly amazes me! Then Elder Lewis spoke, but he didn't know he was speaking until they announced the program after the passing of the sacrament. So basically, he had the time I was speaking to prepare something.

As I spoke, I felt something different. Like, I've already heard everything I was saying, but it started to sink in. I really felt like I was catching the vision of missionary work, and specifically missionary work in the Oklahoma City Mission, specifically here in the Spanish 6 Branch in the south, as I was speaking.

Paty and Alejandro showed up to church after sac mtg. Their kids are back from Texas now. I was so glad they made it!

Reina Ortiz, she's in the central elders' area, but we received permission to visit her, also was at church. She showed up right before the third hour. She's awesome! She said she never wants to miss church again. Hopefully, she can come!

I really feel like Satan is hard at work right now. He doesn't want us to succeed. He doesn't want us to be happy. He sees that here in the OKC Mission we are trying to accelerate the work and he doesn't want it to happen. I know that this really is the Lord's work, and nobody can stop it. But Satan is still trying to take us out one by one. But we can't let him. I know it's hard. There are so many things working against us, but I also know there are a lot of things working with us, we're on the Lord's side.

Transfers are next week, which is crazy. Honestly, I feel like this wasn't even a full transfer because of everything that happened during the first two weeks or so. But time continues to fly. I really can't believe that August is coming to an end and most kids have started school. This time last year I was doing last minute things to get ready to leave on the mission.

We're going to go bowling today, finally! I'm excited! But I gotta run!

Love you all tons! Thanks for all you do. Corey and I really appreciate all of the prayers, support, and love.

Love,

Hermana Christina Hogewoning