What the Houston Chronicle doesn't know.

Querida Familia Mia,
It was SOOOO nice talking to you all last night. I miss you like crazy, but I’ve got to tell you things couldn’t be better right now and I’m blissfully happy in my new area with my new companion. I wanted to tell you this one story about her, just because I know how much you love prophetic dreams mom, but also just because it’s a great story that reveals a lot about my companion. So, as I mentioned (and as the article in the Houston Chronicle mentions) she’s a convert and the only member in her Catholic family. Her parents are separated, she told me she’s never even seen them kiss. It sounds like they’ve been apart for a long time. She has a younger sister who’s just graduated (miraculously: ) from high school and who lives with her mom and her mom’s boyfriend and a dad who is probably the one who’s the most against her involvement in the church. They were NOT happy when she joined and they were even more upset when she wanted to serve a mission, but since then, everything has kind of settled a bit into this area where they are mas o menus comfortable with it. Sort of.
(SIDE NOTE: Cute story about her mom. Her mom was at work a few months ago and her work mate came in crying hysterically, and she was like "What's wrong?!" and her friend said, "My son's joined the Mormon church and now he's going to go be a missionary and I don't know what to do!" to which her mom replied, "Honey, my daughter did the same dang thing, and it's going to be alright, don't you worry." the kid just got his mission call to Peru. Her mom sounds like she's way nice. A very fun, sweet person... just not interested in religion.)

Anyway, so she’s tried talking to them about the church before, but they typically just get mad/don’t care even though it’s part of her soul etc. you know how it is. And when she went into the MTC there was this incident where her companion got to call home Christmas Eve for some reason (usually missionaries are not allowed to call home on Christmas in the MTC) and so the guy at the office told Hermana Taets that she could call her family too since she had to come down there with her companion. She tried calling home and left a message for her mom, but her dad didn’t pick up. She left and figured she’d get to e-mail him again next P-day (she hadn’t heard from him in almost a month) later that day she and her companion got called down to the office again to take care of something, and when she was done they were just leaving when a worker stopped her and said, “Let’s try your father one more time.”

So she called her dad and this time he picked up. He was a little panicked—he’d been expecting her to call Christmas day and had been planning to wait home all day by the phone for her to call. He said he hadn’t gotten a letter from her in three weeks, and they figured out that something was wrong with his e-mail account which is why neither of them had gotten each other’s letters. She burst into tears on the phone, which of course led dad to ask, “What’s wrong?! What are they doing to you? Do you want me to come get you?!” So, she had to explain that she had only gotten to call him by chance and that she was just so grateful to be able to talk to him.

She shared this story a few weeks ago in district meeting, and Elder McGary whipped out his planner while she was bearing her soul and wrote something down, which she thought was kind of weird. Then, the other night, while the four of us (Elders Porter y Mcgary/La Hermana Taets y Yo) where on our way to visit a recent convert family (when I told them the story about how I learned to drive a stick) Elder McGary goes… “I had the weirdest dream last night,” then some guy raced by on a motorcycle and both the Elders were far too distracted (Elder Mcgary loves to ride motocross) to continue the thought until we got to the Petinos, but once we got there he said again, “I had the weirdest dream last night, and it was all about you Hermana Taets.” O.o.

Usually not something missionaries say to each other, but I refrained for giggling because he was being way serious. He said, “Do you remember at our district meeting about Tender Mercies when you told the story of getting to call your dad in the MTC?” and she was like, “Yeah…” and he explained that he’d suddenly gotten a very strong impression that her family would be sealed in the temple one day. In this life even. He didn’t know how to tell her, so he decided to keep the impression to himself, he wrote it down in his planner. Then, Friday night he had this dream that she and her family were getting sealed in the temple.

He wrote it down in his journal in more detail and she asked if she could read it, so Sunday morning he photocopied it for her and ripped the page out of his planner to that said, “Un dia la Hermana Taets y su familia sera sellada en el templo.” He also had the exact same dream Sunday morning.

You’ve kind of got to know Elder McGary to appreciate this. He’s NOT a ‘revelatory’ kind of person. While telling the story of how he had the dream again he started it with, “So I woke up at five and when I saw the clock, I was like, ‘Sick! hour and a half more sleep, right on!’ and I rolled over and was out and then I had the same dream again.” He’s just such a guy. But, as I pointed out to Hermana Taets, he is her Zone Leader. I’m not sure if that means he’s entitled to receive personal revelation on her behalf, but I suggested she ask President about it. This kind of stuff doesn’t typically happen to Elder McGary, he says. It was strange too, because there were some intensely personal details in the context of the dream that Hermana Taets had never told him.

Reading his journal entry about it was especially amusing since he ends it with, “One day, maybe I’ll tell Hermana Taets about all of this, but I know she’ll think it’s weird, so I don’t know… Aside from that, life is cool. We’re going to the Petinos tonight, it’s gonna be sick! So yeah, all’s good with me. Peace, Elder McGary. “ But then he cracked and told her about it a few hours later. He and Elder Porter are awesome zone leaders. I need to send some pictures from the ‘Pulga Training’ that they did last week. They were trying to encourage us all to ‘embrace the culture’.

My new area is really tight. As far as people go, it feels like a cross between Gunspoint and Crosstimbers, kind of on the ghetto side of life. But the ward is like Louetta, and I’m seeing elements from Bearcreek as well, so it’s kind of like all my areas combined, but then with its own unique flavor as well. The people here are SO kind. The members are great, everyone seems very willing to help. We’ve meet some great new people this week and we’ve got some wonderful investigators who are progressing rapidly. I hope I’m able to do some good here!

I was sad to hear about my car, but I can’t say it surprises me. Poor Wong Fe Hung was getting pretty battered by age. Such a good little car he was… Weird that the engine exploded though. Is that the car equivalent of a heart attack? I want to see the pictures so I can make my own little memorial : (

I watched Rachel Ray make ‘blue mashed potatoes’ with ‘blue burgers’ once and it looked way good. Maybe we’ll have to try that. The garden sounds lovely. I also can’t wait to play with that bad kitty. I’m thinking about where we should go for dinner as a family… La Cae (sp?) is a fine suggestion and so far it’s winning just because I’m not sure the offer will come up again. Also, I don’t know what it means in French but in Spanish it ALMOST means The Fall, except it doesn’t at all. But I’m open for other suggests and I suppose it’s not necessary to figure that out just yet.

Well, I’d better get going, I still need to write my letter to president and then we’d better get out of here. I love you all like crazy and I miss you all like Buster misses his left hand. MWAH!

Con Carino, Hermana Lillywhite