Without Purse or Scrip(t)

2 San Juan 1:12

2011-05-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

Peace.

My last letter never made it up here.

2011-05-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

So... even though I've been home from my mission for months and months now... I'm going to post my final letter. Just because I am so clever.

I apologize for the rushed spelling and my tendency to leave certain questions unanswered over the last eighteen months. Leaving was difficult for a minute, then wonderful. Coming back home was a rough adjustment. Is a rough adjustment.

I had the most amazing mission ever:)

All You Zombies (show your faces)

2010-07-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Familia mia

In honor of Jensen's zombie contingency game, and messages about the gathering of Israel hidden in pop culture.
Jensen, get your application in before I come home--I know you want to save it to the last minute like you do, but I want to play, so pretend like the date is the 28th and get it all done so we can chill without threat of death from stress hanging over your head. But, obviously, do your best and stuff: ) I bet Laney has changed. She sounds really different on the phone, all grown-ed up and shiny. It's so good to hear how everyone is doing. It sounds like they are all in very good places right now.

My poor companion. I don't know if I've already mentioned that her and her sister are polar opposites. She just sent her some new (very myspace-esque) pictures of herself, showing of her new hair and new tattoos. She's got a couple of classy stars right on her chest, filled in with leopard print and then a cross on her ankle with the date when their father died and a 'my hero' written underneath (which is ironic since her father hates tattoos) she's also got an owl on her forearm and my favorite are her two new ones on either wrist that say 'thug' and 'nasty'. Yeah... she's kinda ghetto, but hey, so am I after living in Houston for a year and a half.

But also, I understand that the two of them are good friends in spite of all their differences. her sister is just young and angry at God right now, which is hard for the rest of her family to watch. Hermana Taet's mom seems very chill to me. From what I hear, I gather that she's exactly like my companion except not a member of the church yet and with a few tattoos herself. I've got a charming picture on my camera of a little girl we're teaching after her sister decided to write 'Thug 4 Life' on her chest with an eyeliner pencil.

It makes me appreciate my own sisters. I really miss you folks like crazy sometimes! Yesterday was hard. I think it finally hit me that I'm actually leaving. It was ugly. My poor companions didn't know what to do, so they just watched me sort of bawl off and on through all the church meetings. But I'm at peace now. I prayed about it last night and basically said, 'I know that Jesus already suffered through all of this, so I'd like to not deal with it thank you. help me be happy.' and that seems to be very effective, because now I'm just excited to work hard this last week and then hang with you guys next week.

One more funny story:

To start, does anyone know the movie practical magic? If you do, this story is even funnier.

So, as is fairly common among Sister Missionaries before they leave on their missions, Hna. Taets had a lot of people who were like "Sooo... Ya know... a mission is a GREAT place to meet guys. Eh? Eh?"

Rolling eyes forever.

In exasperation she finally said to one friend, "Look, if I go to Texas and I meet a Black and Mexican man with green eyes who speaks Spanish and is a Texan cowboy, then maybe I'll marry the dude, alright?" she was trying to come up with an absurd combination so as to never risk finding him. Ever since then she and this friend have periodically mentioned her mythical black/Mexican green-eyed Texan cowboy who speaks Spanish jokingly. In all of her letters this friend was like, "Hey, have you found him yet?"

Sooo... guess who we tracted into this last week?

His name is Herby Francois, he's Haitian with those sort of green/hazle eyes and he knows Spanish because he's been living in Mexico for a while going to school there.

HILARIOUS. I could have died laughing. Next time we go over to teach him, I really hope he's got a cowboy hat on. Hermana Taets will flip. Exact plot of practical magic, except we're Mormon instead of witches. Sweet.

But, she probably won't marry him. He's a nice guy and all, but nah. They'll just be friends.

Our recent converts are so cool. Alexis (15) and his little sister Cindy (9) both want to serve missions. We let Alexis wear Hna. Taets tag for a minute and it looked so perfect! I also got news recently that Victor Alvaranga, who got baptized when I was in Louetta back in November and then moved into the south mission recently got the Melchizedek Priesthood and is preparing to serve a mission! It was kind of fun how we finally heard from him. I've written him a couple of letters, but I haven't gotten one back from him in several months, so I was just praying hard that he was doing well. When Hna. Bastian was at the temple a few weeks ago, she ran into some sister missionaries from the south mission who did a double take and were like, "Hey! We know you! You're in Victor's baptism pictures!" Turns out they know Victor because they serve in his new ward in the south mission and they'd seen his baptism pics. Soooo cool. So, we got to hear about how awesome he's doing. Alicia is serving in the relief society and all I keep hearing from people over in 6th ward is how amazing the Ovalle family is and how totally solid they've become in just a year. It makes me so happy that my convert friends are still active and are progressing so rapidly in the gospel. I've had such a blessed and successful mission.

To be totally honest, I'm not sure I really did anything. Well, correction. I know I didn't do anything. I just showed up and tried really hard and exhausted myself thoroughly and kind of made an idiot out of myself, but inexplicably got to have joy in a ton of success and good times. Beats me how it works out that way, but I'll take it.

It seems to me that this is a common theme in missionary work. The Lord doesn't always let us see the success that comes from our own efforts, but rather works in such a way to keep those things veiled, while we instead see the success from previous labors and from the spirit of God working on the hearts of men.

It's a little sad now, because we're setting baptismal dates with people, but I won't be here to see them enter the waters of baptism. Still, I'll get pictures in the mail and how great will be our joy in heaven.

With all of that said, I have had the most amazing mission. And I'll be telling you all about it for the rest of eternity.

I LOVE YOU! I will see you very soon.

Hermanita Lirioblanco

Ojala que si

2010-07-12T10:44:00.002-07:00

THANK YOU! I loved getting letters from mommy and daddy at Zone meeting. That was very sweet, and I might have blubbed a little. Or a lot. Aren't my Zone Leaders amazing? I'm so lucky to have them around. Except this week i won't have them around because they have to go to this weird leadership thing that Salt Lake has ordered. We think our mission is probably going to be prototype for some new program. They filmed a new 'the district' which I'm sure will be just as awesome and at the same time confusing as the old one that they made us watch in the MTC. (The District is a missionary training film in which a documentary crew followed around a district of missionaries here in Texas and since they were perfect we all have to be just like them.) Nah, I won't hate. They were good missionaries and some of them are working at the MTC now. But yes, I have greatly enjoyed all your letters, my whole mission, And Jensen and Laney's drawings. I was thinking recently about how awesomely great you guys were at sending me mail.

Zone meeting was way epic. Elder McGary gave us a talk on Faith, but all anybody’s notes said afterwards were, ‘Wow, Elder McGary really loves us’. That’s the truth that the spirit testified of more than anything through the whole meeting. He’s such a great guy. Voted most likely to be a general authority. He’s also, hilariously, the most quoted Elder. In everybody’s talks/e-mails-to-president/pity-cards-for-Hermana-Taets they always have to add an ‘and as Elder McGary says [insert favorite Elder Mcgary Quote here]’.

One of my favorites is ‘keep pushing’ because of its ‘keep peddling’ -esque vibe.

I got to go on a sweet exchange (and very convenient) after Zone Meeting with Hermana Christensen and Hermana Bastian. It was way cool because I got to visit Olivia and her kids and then go to Edith’s baptism with them. I’ve got pictures from the last couple of baptisms we had attached.

Completely unrelated--I've discovered that seaweed is delicious.

Jensen, remember when you promised me you'd have a completed book for me to read when I got home? How's it coming?

My entire district is somewhat disturbed by Jensen's (and Laney's for that matter) birthday present.

"Wait, wait... this is the sister who you said, 'if someone would just give her money she could make the world a better place', this is that sister?" - Elder Kerr

"Yes." -Me

"Why does she want a sniper rifle?" -Elder Kerr

"I expect it's for when Zombies attack." –Me

I can’t wait to meet Vera. Jensen. That is so you. And Laney with her archery set kind of makes me picture Narnia in my mind. We were talking today about how cool it would be to meet Aslan.

I’m surprised my package made it home so fast, I’m glad Laney liked her little Book of Mormon and case—yeah, I did make it. That’s probably what everyone’s getting for their birthdays forever onward until I come up with another idea. And yes, that journal is public. There’s nothing in there that I really care about anyone reading. I might have to censor some of my other journals though. I just write down EVERYTHING. And everything includes personal details about companions & investigators etc. stuff most people don’t need to know, nor would they really want to.

Funny Story of The Week (and my favorite ‘people-don’t-think-I-know-Spanish-cause-I-be-white’ story EVER!): So I was sitting in the bank while Hermana Taets had to figure out some paper-work stuff and Hermana Ang was in the bathroom, so I was just chillin’ with these three other people, all of whom were Hispanic and were chatting with each other. There was a couple, and then a younger gentleman. The older man was talking to this young guy for several minutes before he finally motioned to me, across the way and asked, “Es su esposa?” (‘Is this your wife?’) and the young guy just said, “Ojala.” (Which is a fun Spanish word that’s taken from Arabic, literally it’s like Ala willing or God willing, but it pretty much just means, I hope or I wish.) they all chuckled and then I looked up and said, “Gracias.” Which startled them all and the older guy was like, “?!Entiendes?!” (You understand?!) and then I was like, “Si, hablo espanol.” And we all laughed and this guy looked pretty embarrassed for a minute. When he left he winked at me. Huh. Creepy. But still, it was SO funny. When somebody just says Ojala now we all have to laugh.

Ahhh… Missionary work. How sweet the sound.

We had another baptism this week. The Arzate family! I’ve got pictures from that one too. It was a sweet experience. Not many people came, but there was a very nice spirit there.

Well, I’d better get going, but I hope you all enjoy the pictures! It’s from Edith’s Baptism, and then the Arzate family and then I think I put in one from the Ulloa baptism. She’s a child of record, but her family LOVES missionaries and we go over to their house all the time, so they had us take pictures with her at her baptism. SO cute! We’re not going to get to go to temple as a district this transfer, so this will probably be my district picture for this, my last, and most awesome district. I think they’re more appropriate like this anyway.

I love and miss you all! Next week will probably be my last real letter, because I’m going to be honest… I don’t think I’m going to have much time to write on my last P-day. That’s going to be craziness. I’ll probably just touch base with a ‘see-you-in-two-days’ notsie.

Con Carino, Hermana Lillywhite

God Bless America! LET'S BAPTIZE LADY LIBERTY!

2010-07-06T09:40:00.001-07:00

Querida Familia,

This letter might be short this week, because I just wrote a monster one to President Hansen. It’s a long, dramatic, tear-jerker-of-a-story. I’ll tell you about it in a few weeks. Sorry.

I’m SUCH a horrible daughter. I totally forgot about your anniversary. Horrible person. Right here. I finally remembered yesterday when we were driving along and Elder Inkley started talking about how he had a dream that he got married on the fourth of July. As soon as he said, ‘married on the fourth of July’ something stirred inside of me, and I was like, “hmmm… why did a bell just ring in my mind?” and then he told us about the dream and ended with, “I have always wanted to get married on the fourth of July… or maybe the third of July.”

And BOOM. Se me cayo el veinte. (Silly expression that means ‘the lightblub turned on’, which I just realized is kind of an equally dumb expression in English) I realized that I’d TOTALLY forgotten. I’m so sorry. I owe you cake. Or maybe guilty missionary pie. I invented it here after talking about Waitress with one of my companions during P-day shopping. Lightning hit my brain for a delicious and horrible-for-you treat. I claim no ownership of this recipe. I’ll give credit where credit is due. God inspired it. It’s amazing. There is banana. But mostly chocolate.

I did remember Laney’s birthday though… and I made her present like a month ago. It’s sitting in the trunk of our corolla right now. Hermana says we can go to the post office today after service, but we’ll see. I know I need to sent it SOON. It’s got a bunch of other stuff that I won’t need for the next three weeks and don’t want to pack. A Spanish grammar book—the only journal from my mission that anyone else is allowed to read right now, a plastic rose from Olivia’s wedding and some other fun stuff. Oh! And that article from the Houston Chronicle about us. It’s better in print because it’s in print and Anti-Mormons can’t leave digital comments all over it. But yeah… I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL TONZ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Sorry I’m a horrible person.

Does anybody know the Waka Waka song? It’s all I’ve heard since the world cup started and it’s been stuck in everybody’s head. They tried to teach us all the dance from the music video. I know Shakira is kind of an idiot, but the song is pretty groovy and she’s a daughter of God, so if you haven’t heard it yet, enjoy it, and imagine me trying to dance like that with a bunch of adorable Hispanic young women.

You bought Jensen a GUN!?

…SICK!

Even better that she named it Vera. Wow. We didn’t own a single gun when I left and now there are plural guns. Fair enough. You never know when Zombies might attack. Vera will be so useful just during the beginning of the apocalypse. That’s the sweetest early birthday present ever. It would be a sniper-rifle too. Geez. We’re so cool.

That’s too bad about Airbender. I was super excited for it. We got happy meals and everything and were playing with the airbender toys while I gushed about martial arts stuff and the Elders all looked confused and awed. Well. At least the cartoon is still amazing. But I’m sad that they didn’t adapt it into a very good film. I can wait to see it then. I’d rather start out watching the movies I’ll actually enjoy; twilight, harry potter, Alice etc.

I love it when you talk about the food. You mentioning your diet makes me think of my diet though. I mean the inevitable one that I have to go on when I get home. A member in our ward made us all weigh ourselves when we went over to her house for lunch. Hispanic people are so blunt, they just call each other fat, short, bald etc. Nobody has told called me Gorda or even Gordita yet, but I’m just waiting for it. Some people did ask me if I was pregnant.

Grr.

I’m not.

Fourth of July was fun. Another story I’m going to wait three weeks to tell you.

So, I think I mentioned months and months ago about how the Liberty Tax Credit Union over here had hired dozens and dozens of people to wear these aqua colored robes and Lady liberty hats and dance on the side of the road with signs until the end of Tax season. There was this one girl down who we saw almost every day, and she really stood out because she was dressed like lady liberty, first of all, but also because she was always smiling and just looked so friendly and happy. She had her Ipod on and was just grooving by the side of the road every day, totally into her own music and smiling and waving at us as we drove by. We decided that we needed to figure out how to talk to her. Even though it’s a busy road etc. So we parked and went to talk to her. She was so sweet and prepared! We got to visit her a couple of times before I got transferred and since then she’s continued studying with the missionaries, and tomorrow she’s getting interviewed for baptism! YAY! HAPPY FORTH OF JULY! LADY LIBERTY IS GETTING BAPTISED!

I love this woman so much. I got to visit with her yesterday during P-day and it totally made my life. Missionary work is the greatest thing ever.

I’m loving my life out here in the field, I can’t believe how amazing my mission has been and will continue to be. I love you all and I miss you!!!

Q.B.S.P. Hermana Lillywhite

I call dibs!

2010-06-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Mom & Dad, ah.ha.ha.haaa Mom & Dad, somethingsomething… automatic arms.

Suffering from weird music flashbacks lately. I think I mentioned before that although I haven’t listened to any of my music in a year and a half, I still have it playing loudly in my head at night while I sleep sometimes. A few weeks ago it was Alan Parson Project ‘To One in Paradise’ I think it’s called… or at least, they start reading that poem at the end of the song, but it might not actually be called ‘To One in Paradise’. It’s a trippy song. Perfect for nighttime mind-jukeboxing.

Youth conference sounds like a blast, except for that misguided and overused ‘leap of faith’ thing. That’s so dangerous, I don’t get why they always want to do that. The Elders did it with some of the young men in church a few weeks ago. It wasn’t as bad because they were lower to the ground, but it’s still a cheap thing, I think. There’s got to be a better way to teach about faith. They always feed you so well at those things, and the swords and mock-fighting and archery… well, you know me. Green with jealousy right now!

I LOVE lagoon! The Sisters have started this new thing, where I tell them bedtime stories that are actually just dates I went on before my mission and I did one from lagoon a few days ago. I got some letters from Chantal this week, I hope ya’ll had fun this weekend, it sure sounds like it. Saturdays are a troubling thing to me. The white handbook says that Saturdays and holidays are the best days to find and teach people because ‘most families are together an at home’. LIES!

I’m sure it’s very true in other cultures, but for the Hispanic person living in Houston Texas, Saturdays are the days when they either work, go to Mexico or the Pulga. I swear—everyone wants to make appointments for Saturday. On paper, it looks like our busiest day, but it’s actually the day when we’re most likely to get blown-off. Out of the 6/7 lessons we had fixed in advance, only one of them happened. Then, in the evening we had a father’s day party to go to. That was pretty hilarious. They had a little ward talent show, and Elder McGary read some of his raps and is probably in trouble with the Bishop now.

We figured out that we’ve been teaching a lot more lessons than we were counting. I can’t believed I’ve been out almost 18 months and I just now learned what an ‘other lesson’ is.

A recent convert whose granddaughter we’re teaching right now, had to go in for surgery this week for cervical cancer. They said they got it all, and it sounds like she’s doing well. We got to go visit her in the hospital and the Elders gave her a blessing. She was fine, very cheerful and sweet—the only sad thing was it hurt for her to laugh at all, so we had to try to be as un-funny as possible, which is very hard for our district.

Hermana Ang is doing amazing. Hermana Taets is such a great trainer. I relinquished my position as Senior companion to her ages ago, but she won’t except it. She says I’m not allowed to do that, to which I replied, “I’m senior companion, I can do what I want, and I say, you’re in charge.”

Actually, I think it is allowed, because it’s my last transfer. I should ask… “President, can I NOT be senior companion anymore? I’m tired of it.”

Yeah—I decided to pay for five guys using my home-card, because, firstly, I have no money left for the month on my blue card, and secondly, I remembered that you asked about five guys and I’d forgotten to let you know that, yes, they have it here, so I figured it might be fun for you to see the charge on the card. It was a little more expensive than it should have been, because I also paid for Elder Kerr’s food. He’d forgotten his wallet and was hungry so I took pity on him. He says he’s started drinking caffine and he let a girl pay for him, which means he has to tell his family that he’s walked away from all the values they ever taught him—and on his mission, no less, for shame!

I, on the other hand, have continued drinking caffeine, as I pretty much always have, except for that summer when I cut out soda entirely and lost like 15 pounds. And I have not stepped away from the values you taught me, though you didn’t teach me any ridiculous ones, so that might be why. I feel bad—I may have corrupted a few of my companions. I definitely talked Hermana Russon into drinking a Coke—but I didn’t pressure her or anything, I just explained that caffeine isn’t actually against the word of wisdom (so that she would stop teaching false doctrine to people in our Word of Wisdom lessons) and it’s a personal choice that everyone needs to make, just like eating anything else is also a personal choice, and if you don’t want to drink caffeine, that’s cool, but don’t be a jerk and try to trust this as a rule onto everyone else you see, or judge them harshly when they aren’t living ‘the same standard’ as you with regards to soft drink choices. Then I waited and when someone offered her a coke again, I told her I’d take it if she didn’t want it (like I always did) and she just smiled at me all coy and cute and said, “I think I’ll try it”. Ahhhh, precious hallmark moments.

I probably will stop drinking soda again when I come home, just to lose weight. I can’t really help it out here, because I just drink/eat whatever people give me and am grateful for it, but once I have a little more control over my eating habits… I plan on cutting out a few things. It will be rough though. I do love eating.

Our respective meetings with ken were really good. He’s got me working on ‘parallels’. Basically, I have to draw up a separate plan for everything I might kind of be interested in doing with my life. The hardest one is the ‘social parallel’. He said that I have to draw up plans for dating/marriage etc. But I really can’t figure out how, since I just straight up don’t know of ANYONE at all, who I want to even date, let alone marry. So my plans for that look something like this:

Step 1.) Find poor unsuspecting priesthood holder/dream-guy.

Step 2.) Call dibs.

I don’t know. I think maybe I’ll just stay in the basement for a while and write books. I’m not sure I really want to even date right away. I think I just want to chill with you folks and then I can worry about all of that dating stuff when I go to school next year. That will probably be the plan I present to Ken.

Hermana Taets said that she just chatted with him the whole time. She hasn’t told me too many details about their meeting, but I think that’s probably all there is to tell, since I could hear them both laughing down the hallway. He’s SO friendly. He’s just easy to talk to. He does improv, like the laughing stock guys, and he’s got a total comedic delivery and everything. He also likes to write, so we talked about writing a lot. He told me that I’m the sister missionary who the other sister missionaries talk the most about, because they all love my stories, which made me feel happy. So even though he’d never met me before, he knew all of this stuff about me already because of what they other sisters told him.

Well, I’d better rap this letter up, there’s more I wanted to tell you, but I guess it’ll have to wait. It looks like Hermana Taets needs some help with another question for her uncle. I copied and pasted the paragraph mommy wrote about it and sent it to her as ‘suggestion from mom’ because I figured she should probably just follow your advice, mom. She says thanks!

I LOVE you all so much, and I miss you!!! BESOTE!

Hermana Lillywhite

Hola! Happy Father's day!

2010-06-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
My new daughter is so cool!
Hermana Ang, (pronounced Awwng, or she actually says it like Aang, like from Airbender, but her mother doesn’t like that because she’s not pronouncing it correctly). She’s from Hawaii, most recently, but she was born in California and she’s an eighth Chinese (that’s where the last name comes from) and the other 7/8ths is Filipino. Like Hermana Blanco and Hermana Fitches and Elder Master! The Philippines is representing very well.
She’s so cool, she’s making Brenda (little 8 yr old girl in the ward who is getting baptized) a lai to wear at her baptism and she gave us some candy/cracker lais when she first got here. Pictures to come.
We are officially the coolest district ever. Everyone wants to abandon their less cool districts and join ours. It’s just because we’re all friends and have a lot of fun and work hard together.
At 5 feet, she’s only an inch taller than her sister Hermana Christensen, she’s so adorable and pretty, and she reminds me a lot of her sister, except like the other side of the ying-yang because she’s sooo dark.
It’s going to be funny… Actually, it already is funny, because her Spanish is still just a work in process, people look sort of surprised when she has trouble speaking in Spanish but the huge white girl next to her is doing just fine. We will have fun this transfer. She’s so fearless though, we’ve already made her share the spiritual thought totally alone at several member lessons and she’s doing great!
Our trio is so chill. This is by far the most chill trio I’ve ever been in. Probably because all three of us are pretty laid-back people.
Is anyone else counting? That’s 13 sisters I’ve been companions with and 2 Elders on the way home from the Airport. I counted them because I thought it was funny.
You guys are doing swords for youth conference? Is this like the sexy-Nephite-trek thing that we did a few years ago when we reenacted all the stories from the book of Mormon? Including the battles? That was so fun. Pool parties and Macaroni grill, mmmm. I missed so much yesterday daddy! Obviously, I miss you all, but especially daddy yesterday because it was father’s day and all and all the cute daddies had quirky ties on with #1 Dad or pictures of their kids and cute things.
You’re so intuitive mom. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up, I’ve been trying to convince Hermana Taets to go see Ken (the missionary psychiatrist) ever since she got back from Arizona. I’ve had a couple of companions who’ve meet with him before and they tell me he’s a genius. He’s very good at help people take on a new perspective and he’s super nice. I talked to her about it a couple of times, but she was really resistant. She didn’t want to waste her time, and felt that since she’s dealing with it fine as long as she’s awake, she shouldn’t need to worry about spending time talking to him. But, the nightmares and some stuff that President said to Elder McGary about her (President said he got a clear prompting from the spirit before interviews that we all still needed to keep a close eye on her, because it’s just not over yet) she decided to agree to see Ken, but only on the condition that I’d make an appointment with him too. Sooo… we’ve both got appointments to go talk to Ken this Thursday. I’m probably going to see if he can’t help me figure out what I want to do with my life after I get home from San Clemente, since I still don’t know. And she’ll discuss the whole situation and he’ll do some probing and hopefully be able to help her out a lot with working through her grief.
She honestly is fine as soon as she’s showered and fully awake, it’s just late at night when she’s really tired, or when she’s asleep, or right after she wakes up that she feels horrible and heavy about everything. I think it’s her body’s way of mourning. Like I said before, I don’t think it’ll all really set in until after she gets off her mission and can’t go live with her dad and buy an old house to fix up with him like she was planning. Hopefully Ken can help her work through some of that now so that she’ll be alright later.
So yeah. We’re both going to start talking to the missionary physiatrist. His whole job is just to help missionaries specifically, and I’ve heard he’s very good at what he does.
1.83 at Mcoodonodudos was for a snack sized Mcflurry. I really like the Mcflurries, but I never get them because they are expensive and I can never finish them anyway, because it’s too much, but the snack-sized one solves all my problems there. Heehee. We picked them up on the way to the stake talent show. Elder McGary performed a rap he wrote at the last minute because they didn’t have enough people from 10th ward participating. It was hilarious because he used a word in the rap that’s really bad in some parts of Mexico and totally fine in other parts. A bunch of people complained to Bishop and Elder Mcgary asked, “Obispo… Will Mexico ever be united?” And Obispo said, “Oh, Elder… No,” with a sort of sad resignation.
What else funny happened this week?
Oh! So, on the way to the talent show, I was driving and Elder Inkley, our District leader was sitting behind me, and when we stopped at a stop-light, he (for SOME reason) decided to smother me with a bag of Jelly Beans for several seconds. To retaliate I did the best thing I could think of and slid the seat back as far as it would go while also pulling the lever to incline my seat all the way: The result was my district leader, screaming in high-pitched, pathetic agony, as he was violently pinned underneath my seat for a few seconds until I decided to be nice and release him. It was hilarious. I think he knows not to do that anyway.
We do have fun.
Urgh. Hermana Taet’s uncle Mike just e-mailed her trying to Bible bash. Totally harshed my mellow. She’s so bold teaching people she doesn’t know, but with her own close relatives and family members, she gets really timid… I guess that’s understandable. Still, this guy needs to read some Joseph Fielding McConkie (sp?). He keeps trying to get her to only use the Bible to explain, and telling her that she should only use the Bible to teach people because they won’t believe the Book of Mormon and if she wants to convince people, she should just use the Bible since people believe that. Basically, he’s just got no experience with the spirit or being a Mormon missionary. Probably not totally his own fault. Take it from me though; trying to use the Bible to prove our beliefs or create common ground will lead to more contention than anything else.
For example, experience from a few weeks ago: I usually don’t Bible bash, but one of our investigators had looked up some stuff on the church and was demanding to know where in the Bible it talks about Baptisms for the dead. I let him say (mistakenly) “It never talks about Baptism for the dead in the Bible,” about five times and he kept demanding, “Show me—show me where it talks about that!” Like I said, I didn’t immediately turn to Corinthians, I tried to just commit him to pray about it first, but he would NOT let it die, so I finally just turned to the scripture in Corinthians where it talks about Baptisms for the Dead. He had promised me that he’s be satisfied and let it go if I’d just show him where it talked about it in the Bible and NOT in the book of Mormon. I shouldn’t have shown him, but I did, and then he was just really pissed off that he’d been wrong and that I just proven to the other people in the room that he didn’t know the Bible as well as he pretended to. Far from resolving his doubt, it just embarrassed him and made him angry and I shouldn’t have done it.
I’ve had the same thing happen whenever people are like, “Where does it talk about the Book of Mormon in the Bible?” and then I show them, or my companion does and it’s the same exact reaction. It just pisses them off because they have to admit that they don’t know anything about the Bible or that they don’t understand it all. That was the part that really made this guys angry too, was that he kept trying to get us to admit that we’re just as ignorant about the Bible as everyone else. But we’re not. Sooo… sorry man.
The Bible causes so much contention. Probably because it’s translated incorrectly and misinterpreted all the time by apostate-Christian-churches.
Sometimes people try to argue with passages from the Bible… I remember one woman who got pretty angry about the ‘great and abominable church’ with ‘many harlots’ etc. because she figured it was probably talking about the catholic church, but then her husbands who was more actively investigating the church responded to her ranting with, “Well hun, that’s just historical fact. If anything it’s proving that he’s experiencing a real prophecy since all of that really did happen.” Which I always found REALLY funny, because it’s true. He still hasn’t gotten baptized because she won’t let him.
The Book of Mormon is pretty harsh, but it’s also reasonable. It just tells the truth is all. I’m here to testify of the Book of Mormon and help people receive a witness of its truthfulness. We’re not here to prove that the Bible is true. For the most part, the people I teach believe in the Bible. Good for them. That won’t save you though. It’s a decent start, but it can also be a pretty nasty snag if you’re unwilling to believe that God still has the ability to speak to us now if he wants.
That’s too bad about Bob and Lee losing their jobs! Geez, how harsh. Hopefully they’ll be able to find a new nitch somewhere soon.
Well, I’d better get going, I’ve still got to write my letter to President. I was just going to count how many P-days are left on my mission, but I’m tired and too lazy to do the counting required in my head right now. I know it’s not very many though. I’m still way enjoying myself out here and working hard, I love and miss you all like crazy!!! Mmmmwaah.
Hermana Lillywhite

2010-06-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

2010-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

Baby #2 on the way!

2010-06-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Fambly! (I’m forgotten how to spell familia in English. I did it, but it looks so weird… I’ll try to refrain from writing that word and I’ll just use cute, obviously misspelled words instead.)

Home sounds so wonderful. I have heard about this horrible dance that Johnny Depp does at the end of the movie—I’ve heard it’s so stupid, and for some reason, I’m like… REALLY excited to see it. It might turn out to be one of those things that everyone else hates, but I love. I have the same feeling about ‘Where the Wild things are’. I heard it was horrible, and I can’t wait to see it, because I’ll probably love it. Did you mean to write Christopher Columbus? It is Tim Burton’s movie, isn’t it? Did Christopher Columbus have anything to do with it? He’s the guy who did Goonies, right? And the first two, not-very-good Harry Potter movies? I apparently haven’t forgotten everything about the world.

Except, I saw an ad today for the Dark Shadows movie, with a picture of Johnny as Barnabas Collins and I MIGHT have freaked out in Walmart. Elder Kerr was a bit alarmed. Even more so, when he made the mistake and saying that it looked ‘like it wouldn’t be very good’ and I hit him. How dare he ruin my childhood.

I’m pretty stoked.

Aw, Marin. I love Marin. Let’s go back. That’s fun that the kids get to go visit for a while and work at their dad’s shop.

Hermana Taets is doing well. It was her father’s birthday this last week, and then it was a little rough for her today as well… she wanted to get a father’s day card for her ‘Mormon Dad’ a good friend and a good man who’s family kind of adopted her after she got baptized. She found the card that she had bought for her dad the year before and it was kind of rough on her. And she’s not sleeping well—having nightmares and then just not being able to fall back to sleep for hours. She’s very mature though, and she’s dealing with all of it as best as humanly possible. I’m really amazed by her example. I don’t think I’d be in this good a shape para nada. I’d be a mess actually.

This morning the Elder came over and I made French Toast for everyone, it was pretty fun, though our apartment isn’t nearly as sweet as theirs. They live with the Deaf Elders, so they get a TV. (The Deaf Elders need one for their personal study). We went over there to eat a few weeks ago and watched ‘Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration’, which I don’t think I saw before I went into the MTC. I always get pretty emotional watching it. It’s actually pretty well made with decent acting and menos cheesiness. Not like Legacy. It was hard though, to get too emotional with Elder Inkley playing MST3K on the love seat across from me.

Well, out one big bit of transfer news is that although Hermana Taets and I got our wish and we’ll both be staying here until the end of MY mission, we are going to be trio-training! YAY! NEW SISTER! We saw pictures of the 2 newcoming girls. They look adorable and new. There’s a Sister Porter, and we’re kind of hoping we’ll get to train her, just because Elder Porter is leaving our district, so then we can still have a Porter around which I think would be funny. We’ll see though. What’s more important than funniness is the will of the Lord.

But still. I’m very excited to get to train again before I go home. Hopefully this new chicka will be filled with greenie-fire and will keep me from going all trunky.

What else has happened recently… we saw a guy eating corn-on-the-cob, while driving. I love Texas.

Uummm… Elder McGary read like half my journal. That was weird. I think he was disappointed with all the lack of scandalous secrets.

Sorry. I’m just not all that scandalous: )

I found out Elder Kerr can do a pretty great Joker impression, so that’s been entertaining…

I’m really just excited to meet my companion! This will be my fourth trio that I’ve been in.

Also… HAPPY DADDY’S DAY, DADDY! I wanted to buy you a card today, but I couldn’t find any that I thought you would like or find funny… so, I figures I would send you a big old cyberhug instead. I LOVE you daddy, and I miss you so much. I finished making my new planner for this last transfer this morning, and for Wednesday July 28 all I’ve got down is PARTY WITH THE FAM! I’m going to work hard for this last transfer and I’m way excited to see you all again!

Hermana Lillywhite

Q.B.S.P. -New cool Spanish thing I learned.

2010-06-07T11:01:00.001-07:00

Vuestras Altezas

Thank you so much for not yelling at me digitally about the car. I know I’m a moron, I’ve honestly been stressing about it all week… I’m going to be good from now on. Hermana Forsling diagnosed my problem perfectly once, “You’re fine as long as the car is going really fast, but as soon as you slow down/get to the parking bits, you fail utterly.” And you can tell Papa that yes my companion was outside of the car, trying to direct me. Of all the missionary rules… I still don’t have a testimony of backing. I follow the rule alright, but I’m telling you. The trial of my faith has not yielded a testimony thus far in my mission.

Remember when Hermana Christensen hit me?

Nuff said.

Home sounds absolutely splendid! That’s so fun that you got to hang with Becca and Megan and eat homemade icecream! OOOooo and pool time. It’s so hot here.

I was just talking about Idaho and Preston this week. I sure do miss going up there as a big old family… so quaint and relaxing. Looking for graves as a family is still one of my favorite activities. Don’t worry, everyone’s family is weird. Just… In different ways. Our is pretty different though. I like it: )

Prince of Persia does look pretty cool. I hope I’ll like it. I thought I remembered Jensen being all mad that they cast a white guy, but then she said that she knew all along he’d be awesome, so maybe I’m thinking of the rumors that that blonde kids was going to play Prince Zuko. Whatev.

I’m so excited to see movies… but I think I’ll have to take it slow. You understand. I want to start with the basics. Harry Potter 6 and the first half of 7, since that’ll be out, followed by the Twilight movies I missed and then maybe Lost in Austen and Taken. How’s that order sound to you? Oh. And The Last Air Bender. And Toy Story 3. Dang. Now I’m getting excited. I do so adore movies, you know. But, it’s funny… I haven’t missed them nearly as much as I thought I would. Especially not lately.

Still. That’ll be sweet.

Mom. Can I just say, I LOVE Joseph Fielding McConkie. I was reading one of his talks again this last week. AMAZING. He’s just so fuerte, I love it. I’ll definitely have to borrow that book.

What a week.

Our P-day last week was hard on Hermana Taets. A lot of people are awkward and don’t know what to say so they either end up going, “Uh… sorry your dad died!” and running away or just avoiding her completely. Pretty much it was just our district and Elder Astin who would talk to her at all, and Elder Astin admitted that he was afraid to go up to her, which is why it took his like 20 minutes. So sad. They’re good friends, but even he didn’t know what to say to her. She’s having her 3-year baptismal birthday on Wednesday, so today I’m making her a blue cake (Devil’s food with white frosting and blue sprinkles) and putting a little #3 candle on the top.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. These are some highlights from last week. Olivia got married on Saturday and then baptized on Sunday! It was a very nice wedding, though it started an hour and a half late which was a little stressful on everyone. The baptism was only about an hour late, which is kind of typical for bearcreek 2 ward. I’m so excited that Olivia was able to keep that goal and get baptized on the 6th as planned. She’s been waiting so long. I could just feel it though, the 6th was her fecha. She would be totally ready then, and she was! Her husband was there to show support and apparently he’s been coming with her to church. He’s a really nice guy. He’s just weighed down with religious baggage, like so many other people. God doesn’t make sense to them and they’ve been taught to believe that that is just the way it’s supposed to be. I know he’ll come around. His wife has made so many amazing changes. He’ll see the change in her and follow her example. Hopefully soon. All of their little children are so adorable, I’m so happy to have seen their mother take this step! I’d give anything for those children to be raised in a home with the gospel. Where the parents can look at them and know exactly who they are seeing.

This weekend was amazing though. The whole week really. I had an amazing experience at the temple, and man… I love Hermana Wardle and Hermana Hastings, but it was SO good to be back with Hermana Taets. She’s incredible. She’s doing great too. Nobody believes her when she says she’s fine, but she really is. She’s still sad that her father passed away, but she knows exactly where he is and she knows what she needs to do and there is a LOT of comfort in knowing all that. She told me that she’s kind of nervous that Heavenly Father is possibly just giving her a huge portion of the spirit right now to keep her cheerful so that she can keep working hard and finish her mission and that afterwards, when she has to go home and he’s not there is when she’s going to really break. I don’t know though. I think she’s stronger than that. I think she’s just surprised herself by how well she’s taking it.

I don’t think I mentioned this last week, just because I was so rushed, but there was this hilarious role reversal that went down the night that Hermana Taets came back to Houston. She was all cheerful and AMAZING like she usually is, and just talking with us about everything that happened and asking about how the area was doing, and Hermana Hastings was being REAL quiet. Finally Hermana Hastings lost it and exclaimed something along the lines of, “Why am I SO depressed about this?!”

I figured it had to be something serious if she was going to try to suck attention away from the girl whose dad just died.

I figured wrong.

She was freaking out because her district leader is kind of a jerk and she can’t get along with him. Elder Woodruff. He was in my district in Louetta. I like him a lot. He’s funny. But he IS a jerk. He just decides to harass people sometimes, for the sheer pleasure of watching them get mad. He argued with me once for like 40 minutes about whether anyone’s race/gender will change in the millennium. He didn’t do it because he actually believe that everyone will be Caucasian with perfect resurrected bodies, but because he enjoyed watching me getting more and more pissed at him as he played devil’s advocate.

I sort of knew what he was doing just because I have experience with this kind of thing. (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Foolio. Remember trying to convince me that cannibalism could be classified as a system of government?) But I still just couldn’t stop myself from citing scripture and everything to back up my point. Anyway, he’s apparently started doing this kind of thing with her and she was on the verge of tears upset about it because after getting into another argument about absolutely nothing with me that morning, he wasn’t returning her phone calls and she needed to ask him a question.

Anyway. It was all pretty hilarious because Hermana Taets was like, “Aww, it’s okay honey, everything will be alright. I’m sure he’s just busy.” Etc. trying to comfort her.

Ridiculous. Urgh. I can’t stand girls sometimes.

The members have been offering us dinner appointments like crazy. I barely bought anything this week just because we’ve got so many dinner appointments. The members are really sweet about it. Several of them have had to deal with loss recently as well. Hna. Nunez lost her two little boys, Hna. Marin’s brother just passed away and her husband went nuts and is now in jail. That actually happened the same day as Hermana Taet’s father dying, so when Hna Taets saw Claudia (her daughter) they hugged and Claudia said, “I’m sorry about your dad,” right as Hna Taets was like, “No, I’m sorry about your dad.” And then they were both kind of like, “Hey—God has a plan.” It was this great little connection they made immediately. We’re going over there tonight with ten other missionaries. Sounds kind of like a party, I know, but President gave permission since they family is in hard times and they specifically asked if they could please have us all come by. And President too, actually, but I don’t think he can make it.

Creepy nighttime phone calls: OOoo, I knew this would happen at some point in my mission.

Somebody called while Hermana Taets was on exchanges Martes (she JUST got back and they took her away from me for 24 hours. Tramatic. In Hermana Taet’s words, “Wasn’t I just on a week-long exchange?!”) Anyway, Hermana Gurney was here with me in Fairbanks and somebody called us at like one in the morning, disguising their voice and they wouldn’t say their name. I only talked to him for like 2 minutes before he hung up. He wasn’t being perverted or anything, it was just weird because he wouldn’t reveal his identity and was asking me about how to get closer to God. I tried to reason with him, “Just tell me who you are and we’ll come by tomorrow (more like send the Elders) but I can’t do much to help you if I have no idea who you are and what your situation is. Also. It’s 1 AM. Don’t know if you noticed but it is.” He got all triste and hung up pretty fast. I was pretty sure he was drunk, but the voice was just so creepy—I can’t figure out if he was talking through a napkin or what.

Anyway. I was sufficiently freaked out. Hermana Gurney asked what had happened and I told her not to worry about it and go back to bed. Just a drunk call. But honestly, I just didn’t want to scare her, because I figured if I told her that I was freaked out, she’s the type who’d just get scared with me and offer no emotional apoyo or comfort.

Also, did I mention there was a thunderstorm?

So… Couldn’t sleep for a bit. Every little sound or movement out of the corner of my eye made me flinch. I was positive the guy with the creepy voice was going to break into our apartment and rape us, so I just thought of some plans; push couch in front of door, grab bucket knives from drawers, call the Elders! That seemed like a good idea, after all, they could probably at least tell me a story or sing a song and calm me down so I could sleep. But, I didn’t want to wake them up, so instead I just prayed harder (had already been praying). I’m a rational person, for the most part. I knew that I was just freaked out for no reason, but I couldn’t get my heart to stop beating so fast. Finally I remembering my prayer going something like this, “Listen Heavenly Father, I know I’m just being stupid, but honestly, I’m scared right now, and I don’t want to be, I just want to go to sleep… soooo… I’m just going to keep praying to you until I fall asleep, so if you want me to shut up you’d better just knock me out, alright?” and I don’t remember anything after that, so I must have fallen asleep immediately afterwards: )

God is so patient with me.

The Elders said that if it happens again we should call them, and they’ll sing “Disturbia” (Elder Kerr can beat-box way good. sp? On Beat-box. So not gangsta soy.) which will not calm me down, as such, but it will make me laugh, which is almost better.

Then though, he called us back again this morning. He’d ditched whatever was disguising his voice before and we ended up talking on the phone with him for like 40 minutes, giving him all the spiritual consejo we could think of and trying to get him to reveal his identity. I’m pretty sure it’s a member. Somebody from the ward who needs some help and is too ashamed to come to us in the open, so he’s trying to get help in secret. So sad. He called at like 4:40 in the morning this time, so we just got up when we were done talking with him. I don’t know how much good we did. Every suggestion we gave him was rejected immediately. “Prayer/study/saying my name/not drinking doesn’t work for me.”

Whatever. I’m glad he called back, because I’m a lot less worried about it now. I just hope we can figure out who it is so we can really help him. It’s hard when he won’t reveal any personal details at all.

Thanks so much for sharing with me about what’s going on and your thoughts. I really do appreciate it a lot. I know I’m coming home soon, but it doesn’t really feel like it yet. I’m excited to keep working hard to the very end. I really love the letters I get from everybody. They have this amazing recharging effect. Oo. Tell Chantal I’m sorry, I just remembered that I wrote her a letter like three weeks ago and it’s buried under all of my stuff on my desk. I haven’t finished/mailed it yet.

Anyway, I love you all very, very much. And I miss you like crazy. Whenever anyone asks me what I’m going to do after the mission I’ve taken to exclaiming, “I’m going to talk with my family.” And then they’re usually like, “…and later?” to which I respond with a shrug.

HERE’S ALL MY LOVE COMIN’ AT YOU FROM HOUSTON! PEACE YA’LL! Yeah, North Side.

Mwah&corazones

Q.B.S.P. / Hermana Lillywhite

The Car Thing

2010-06-01T08:35:00.001-07:00

Mommy thank you so much for your letter this week! It really meant a lot to me to have your testimony of the plan of salvation in writing. I got to read it yesterday at the memorial day BBQ that we had in Bearcreek park. The missionaries in Citiview where nice enough to bring it up to me from the office. We've got temple today, so I don't have a ton of time to e-mail, but the Zone leaders told us that we were good to come beforehand to the college to write e-mails. Anyway, I loved your letter and also the package. The lotion and E-oil you sent is amazing. I've only been using it for a couple of days, but it's so nice. My poor scarred legs aren't so bad. Except that now I'm working on new scars since being attacked by more bugs. Man. They are huge here.

My week was a little stressful, but good. Hermana Hastings and Hermana Wardle are great. The three of us had some great experiences together, but I'm so happy to have Hermana Taets back. She came home Sunday night--I drove down to the airport to pick her up. She's really excited to be home soon. It's kind of hard for her, just because she wants to get right back to work and normal life and everyone is treating her really weird. Either not talking to her at all, or just not talking about anything except that her father's just died, which, thank you, she remembers. She's so strong. It's a real inspiration to me. Obviously she's in a lot of pain and needs some love and understanding from everyone, but I'm of the opinion that healing comes with time more than anything else and that the best thing to do is just seguir adelante, and she feels the same way. It was kind of a rough first day back for her, but she's cheerful and I know she'll be fine.

She had a lot of stories from last week. I haven't gotten to hear them all yet, just because she's barely been back, but she has told us some wonderful/funny/heartbreaking things about going home to be with her father in the hospital for his final hours and then having to plan and attend three very Catholic funerals in two different states.

Mother, remember how you want to be buried in a plain pine box? Just letting you know, it's the most expensive one apparently. Everyone was a bit slap-happy at the funeral home after having cried all weekend. The funeral director was getting annoyed.

There was a place on the program to put a scripture but Hna suggested that the put ACDC lyrics instead since that sort of fit her dad's personality a little better. Her aunt said, "As long as it's not highway to hell." which made everyone laugh pretty hard for a WHILE.

Also, she got blessed by a Catholic priest at the funeral with her nametag on and everything, which she said was the most surreal experience that she had to try not to laugh during.

Right after her father passed away her younger sister said, "Dad always said that if anything every happened to him, everything we would need is in the acorn." So they ran home to search his house for this ceramic acorn that they both remembered seeing floating around somewhere, kind of. After tearing the place apart, they finally found it and figured out how to unscrew the bottom of this big old rock thing that kind of looked almost like an acorn, they found his will inside. ('There's always money in the banana stand.")

The saddest part of the whole experience is that as his legal... decision making person... Hermana Taets had to be present at the hospital to make all the medical decisions and this includes when they told her that they could either do a surgery that might save his life, but leave him as a vegetable or let him pass away. She said it was the most horrible, nightmare part. She was agonizing other the decision for a long time. Or what seemed like a long time. She prayed and basically just said, ‘I don’t know what’s right. Please help me do what’s right.’ And when the moment of truth finally came, she had a total stupor of thought, and the only right thing seemed to be to let him pass away.

We had a good long talk last night, and we decided that she probably won’t really start grieving until after her mission, when she goes home and has to try to pick up where she was without him. They were planning to buy a house together and fix it up.

I know that she’ll be fine. She’s very strong. Even if she doesn’t have much spiritual support from her family, she has a double portion from the Lord. And we’re all here for her tooJ

Urgh… now to business.

Mom and dad... I don't want you to start dreading my letters or anything, but I've got more bad news. This isn't nearly as bad as last week's bad news, but it's still going to be pretty upsetting to you. You see, I got in a car accident and it was totally my fault, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to pay for the damages. And when I refer to myself, you'll understand that I have no money, so I'm really refering to the abstract concept of you, probably needing to pay for my mistake and then I pay you back at a future date when i eventually have a job/money again. I was REALLY hoping to avoid this situation through my whole mission and I was doing great until the I hit that pole. Basically what happened was... well, I don't really know actually and neither does my companion, we've been trying to figure it out since it happened. Remember how I used to misjudge the distance in the garage way bad and hit the mirror? Well, the mirror was fine, but I was at this weird angle so I mised the mirror and than somehow managed to get the car jammed awkwardly between this pole that holds up one of those fake-roofs in apartment complexes, and the curb. So--I couldn't go up onto the curb at all, because it was too high and the angle was such that the car wouldn't let me, and I couldn't move backwards and forwards in either direction. Long story short, we eventually got the car unstuck, but not before scraping up the side something nasty.

So nobody was hurt ect. But I've been commanded to refer to it as a car accident, Because I had to fill out a report and they made fun of me when I called and said, "Err... I had a car thing."

"...A car thing?"

"Yeah."

"You mean a car accident?"

"...No... It was just..."

"Is the car hurt?"

"Yes."

"That's an accident, Sister."

Okay. So I'm kind of a dummy sometimes. I don't know how much it's going to be, but it's dented up all ugly. I really hope it's not too bad, and I'm SO so sorry. I don't know why I'm not black dotted already. I really thought they would just take away my driving privileges, but they haven't. I made Hermana Hastings drive all last week as a result of just not wanting to deal with it. Plus, she likes driving.

I really have to go. Sorry to close on a flat note there, but I figured I should let you guys know… The office will probably be calling you as soon as they figure out how much is owed.

I love you all! (I hope you still love me:)

I miss you, but I’m working hard. I won’t be ready to come home until the very last second and even then… I know that there’s a part of my soul that will always be here. But I am excited to see you all again.

Love, Hermana Lillywhite

P.S. A lot more stories later from this week... but I've got to go!

Pray for the Taets family.

2010-05-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

How I so love the Opera. And, getting called Strippling Warrioress. Nice. And a midsummer night’s dream. All my memories of home are glossed in sparkly rose-glass-osity. And your letters always make me sigh. It sounds idyllic. So perfect in all it's craziness and glamor. Thanks for updating me on everybody’s comings and goings. That’s cool you could recognize that she was trying to say Urdu. The couple of times I’ve run into people on my mission who don’t speak English or Spanish as always kind of fun. I like trying to communicate without language. It’s an interesting experience.

Before Friday, I suppose this letter might have just focused on the fact that we’ve got these eleven awesome people who want to get baptized and how utterly exhausted I am all the time… but the vitamins are helping. Silly expensive little things. I got the Flintstones ones because they’re classic and were the same ridiculously expensive price as the other ones. I’ve started running in the morning again, which I should probably keep up since I’ve been feeling a lot better physically than I have in a long time. As Hermana Taets says, “We need to get rid of the tortilla weight.”

I only have one story this week.

Friday after district meeting we were giving the Elder’s a ride to their next appointment when the phone rang. It was our Zone leaders, letting us know that President Hansen had been trying to call us for hours and that he needed to speak with Hermana Taets immediately. We had been having some problems with our phone (we got a new one on Tuesday and I still haven’t figured out why it rings sometimes and doesn’t other times). We switched seats so I could drive and she could talk on the phone. President Hansen let her know that her father had just had a stroke and was in the hospital in Arizona dying.

Hna’s parents are divorced, and her other sister in a minor which meant that legally, she is the only person who can make any medical decisions for him. The first words I heard her speak after she was on the phone where, “…So… I have to go back to Arizona?” Yes, she did. The church had already made all the arrangements; they’d purchased her ticket for that afternoon and had been trying to frantically get in contact with her so that she could make the flight. We went home right away and she packed a carry-on bag of clothing, got a blessing from the Elders and then I drove my companion to the airport to send her home. She tried to stay positive and cheerful. At one point she laughed bitterly and said, “I’ve been telling him to quit drinking since I could talk.” And again later, “Should I give him instructions on what to do in the spirit world? Find the glowy people with nametags like this, and listen to them this time!” She also insisted on talking to president about the arrangements for the area, “Listen President, you need to be VERY careful about who you send over here to take my place while I’m in Arizona, we have eleven investigators with baptismal dates!” she was trying so hard to seem alright, and it turns out that she’s one of those people with this amazing ability to sound absolutely fine and in control of her voice even when tears are streaming down her face.

We must have looked pretty interesting at the airport. We went with her as far as we could, but had to leave when we reached security. The Elders teased me a bit; “You’ll be back here in ten weeks Hermana.” Then we left and I was companions with two Elders for a bit, while we reenacted an episode of Seinfeld and tried to remember where we’d parked in our frantic hurry to get my companion on the plane.

Honestly, it all happened so fast that it didn’t seem real. I don’t think it set in that she was really leaving until she called me from Arizona the next day to let me know that her father had made it through the night and that she was still hopeful, and a little weirded-out while playing Apples to Apples with her mother and sister and Arizonian companion in the hospital waiting room. Her family wasn’t handling it well. Her mother is a wreck. “She still loves him.”

My temporary companions (because President Hansen maintains that Hermana Taets should be home in a week) are Hermana Hastings and Hermana Wardle. They have nobody they’re really teaching right now so are required to momentarily abandon their area and be my companions in Fairbanks since the work-load here is considerably heavier. They are both wonderful sisters who are being a big help to me. Saturday was when everything sank in. It was a hard day. I think Saturdays always are. You always have a ton of appointments set up for Saturday, but you notoriously get stood up more than any other day of the week.

Sunday was stressful because I knew that Hermana Taets wouldn’t call until after church so she could find out how many of our investigators and recent converts came. I was anxious for the call all day. On our way to go eat dinner at a member’s house (as a family/the whole district, all seven missionaries in the ward) she finally called. Her voice sounded very cheerful when she asked me who had come and we discussed that for a moment, then I finally demanded “Pues, como esta?” (How is he?) and she said, “Mi padre fallacio este manana.” (My father died this morning) “A lo mejor, voy a regressar en una semana. Premiramente nessecito ir al Illinois para el funeral.” (I’m probably going to be back in a week. I need to go to Illinois for the funeral first.) then she told me she was fine and that she needed to go.

We all have a lot of questions right now. Our district leader is wondering if she’ll come back at all. Elder Porter and Elder Kerr are wondering if it’ll really be a week. I think she will come back and I’m wracking my brains trying to figure out what I can say or what I can do to try and help her when she comes back.

Because of how rushed we were, Hermana Taets and I only got to have one thirty second conversation alone during the walk to and from the mailbox before we jumped in the car with the Elders and raced to the airport.

“I’m fine.”

“Estas segura? I would not be fine.”

“…I will be fine.”

“He’s-”

“He’s in God’s hands. Whatever happens… I’ll be alright, eventually. What’s important is that I get this taken care of fast and come back here quickly.”

I think she means it. She’ll be back. I’m trying to think of what I could do for her.

Elder McGary and I only got the chance to talk for a second, but his big question is, “When she comes back… is she going to hate me?”

I told him absolutely not. The dream he had can still be prophetical. She has a choice here just like with everything else. She can either be bitter about it and look at the dream he had as a string dangling in front of a cat or it can be a hope and a great strength that keeps her tied to the truth and the love she has for her family for the rest of her life and into the next world. Because she’s Hermana Taets, and she’s amazing, she’s going to be hopeful. She’s going to look at the dream that he had just a couple of weeks ago as a great comfort, another tender mercy of the Lord that he offered to her to give her the strength to get through her earthy father’s death.

Ultimately, what she told me is true. She will be fine. She might even be normal. Elder Kerr has a theory that she’s the type of person who probably won’t even emotionally deal with his passing until after she’s completely her mission and has to really go home. And by then, we’ll all be there and her family will hopefully be better equipped to offer comfort as well, since as of right now, they are not in such good shape.

I hope she’s doing alright. It’s hard to be away from her. But she’s where she’s supposed to be right now. And so is her father, and I think she recognizes that.

I love you all very much, and I miss you. Thank you for your prayers and your letters, I got some great ones lately, and I’m sorry I haven’t had time to write everyone back yet. I’m slowly working my way through the list for the couple of hours I get on P-day to do it.

BIG hug and kisses all around, Hermana Lillywhite

hasta que el dinero nos separe

2010-05-17T09:55:00.001-07:00

Spanish television shows only last for like three minutes. The big one right now is hasta que el dinero nos separe. I don't know what it's about, I assume all the usual drama, but it's a play on the phrase "haste que la muerte nos separe", "Until death do us part"/"Until money do us part" it makes more sense in Spanish and is a clever title. I might look it up when I get home. The other big one is "Corazon Salvage" (savage heart) and I think "Sortilegio" (Sorcerer) just ended but that was pretty huge. We occasionally have to know these titles. Especially when teachign children about the law of chasity. Aylin actually inturrupted us once and said, "Oh, okay, entounces, no debamos hacer nada que esta en los novellas?" (Oh, okay, then we shouldn't do anything that is in soap operas?"

Very good Aylin!

I'm sorry that Jensen and Laney aren't feeling well! That bites. President told me I should start taking multi-vitamins to improve my damaged innume system. They are dang expensive is what's lame. So to make it more fun, I got the princess/flinstones gummies. It was equally expensive but whatever, I jsut relaly don't want to get sick again. Why does Laney get strep every five seconds? Poor baby... That's good that they were both able to go through with the test and do well. It's true, Sifu has this method of sort of 'pre-failing' people. But not in a mean way, just in the way that he figures out before hand if you're going to pass or not and tells you to test or not to test depending on what your performance will inevitably be like. That way always the reassuring thing for me about testing, was that, i knew he wouldn't let me do it unless I could pass. It made it way less stressful. Still a little ominious. I definately remember looking at the clock saturday morning the week before and thinking to myself, "In exactly one week from now... I'm going to be in so much pain."

Good times.

Pobrecita Penny Lane. She'd awesome though, she doesn't need to stress.

Man, I can't believe that it's just about summer time. Or is it summer time? Chispas, I don't know. They're already selling Raspas on the side of the road, I think that makes it summer.

Bonco sounds like a blast! I'm so looking forward to your letter. My companions and I always love reading the comics.

According to president Hansen--with regards to Elders in missionary leadership having revelatory dreams concerning the missionaries in their districts/zones, "You are a worthy Priesthood leader. It'll happen."

Sweet.

I want a revelatory dream, but I'm pretty sure it's unessecary for me right now. My life is kind of awesome. Actually, my life is so awesome that I'm occasionally paranoid that something really awful will happen to me soon. After all, every story with a tragic ending seems to start with "It seemed like she had everything..."

Gulp. I'm doomed.

Really though, everything is going VERY well right now. In my new area, and in my old area! Bearcreek 2 had a baptisimal date for the various people that I taught over there for almost every weekend this transfer. *faint* I worked SO hard, and then I got transfered before I could be there to see it... but that's okay. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back. Yesterday, we jumped back over there for Kathy's baptism. I'll send pictures... Bearcreek 2 has this cool thing that happens. At just about EVERY single baptism, some nonmember whose attending, decides they want to get baptised. Yesterday, it was Kathy's father. Everybody was all emotional, it was a beautiful experience, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it!

Remember how I told you that when I told Hermana Blanco that I was from Maryland she just said, "Oh. That's nice." and I was like, 'Yep. You're from Maryland.' hahaha, well, turns out she just wasn't really paying attention, because Hermana Blanco (who is now called Camila, since she's not a missionary any more) heard that I was born in Maryland she said "REALLY!? My parents where just telling me the other day that they remembered some Lillywhite's who had a little baby about my age!"

Remember the Blancos? They apparently remember you! And baby me. Que precioso!!!

She's really a sweet person, she flew back to Texas after only being home for less-than-a-week to go to the Mexico/Angola soccer game with some recent converts who bought her a ticket. We got to see her a couple of times while she was here, and she was all adorable with her skinny-jeans and her Coach bag and a fancy phone and cute hair and everything. Sigh. I used to be cute. Me hace un poquitito trunky to be honest, but not as much as my poor companion. ("You're like 6 months out, you can't get trunky yet!" / "You're dead! Why AREN'T you trunky?! LOOK AT HER!")

I went from being in a very young district, filled with missionaries who were newbies, to a half dead/half done district. Elder Porter (my first district leader) is going home this transfer and then me and McGary go down together next transfer, so the rest of the district makes fun of us mercilessly for being 'ya muertos'. We're probably the three least-trunky people in the district is the sad part.

Anyway, it was really fun to see Camila and hear all about her adventures as a normal person.

There was a tragedy with the family she was staying with though. One of men there was working on the house and there was a horrible accident and he lost his middle finger. They rushed him to the hostpital but couldn't reattach it, so now he's got this gnarly finger, and he won't keep the bandage on because it bothers him... he seems alright though. Cheerful, to say the least, he was teasing his daughter by touching her plate with the stump and she was like "NO LO HAGAS!" and he would just giggle.

We all drank topache (sp? I'm pretty sure I'm spelling it wrong) accept minus the bottle of tequila, since that would be very, very bad. Even without the tequila we were suspicious of the length of time that the pinapple is stored. We asked the Bishop and the Stake President though and they both assured us that topache is fine. No alcohal. We drank a lot, because it's delicious. We also played "Loteria" which is sort of like Bingo but less lame and not for white people. It was a lot of fun. I won: )

There were no more 'up your pony' moments, although my whole district wants those T-shirts.

Man. So many stories, but I'll probably leave it at that. Most of them are better told in person.

I LOVE and miss you all like crazy glue. Besitos y abrazotes!

Hermana Lillywhite

What the Houston Chronicle doesn't know.

2010-05-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

"You're not the only one, who is your father's son."

2010-05-03T10:04:00.001-07:00

FAMILIA!

Hermana Christensen is so ready to take over the whole city without me.

Big news this week is that after 6 months in Bearcreek, I’m getting transferred to 10th ward, Fairbanks area with Hermana Tates. She’s the same age in the mission as Hermana Christensen. Her trainer is going home Wednesday, so I’m going to be greenie breaking again! I’m really excited to go to a new ward, but I’m going to miss Bearcreek a lot. Still… this is a good time to leave. We’re finally starting to see a little bit of success, so now I can go before I screw it up.

Seriously though, Olivia, one of the women who we’ve been teaching finally accepted our ‘proposal’ (that she just go ahead and get married to her husband and then Baptized) and ever since then we’ve been making wedding plans! I’ll have to come back for the wedding (June 5th) and her baptism (June 6th) but it won’t be too difficult since Fairbanks is really just down the street. She came to church yesterday and so did her husband and we have a lesson with them both tonight. Yesterday at church she was talking with the bishop about booking the building and getting the license and everything and she’s got her sister working on invitations. We’re so excited! And so is Olivia, you can really tell that she’s developed a strong desire to follow the commandments and the Lord.

I did have some wonderful mail this week, so I’m holding off on sending the sad-face pictures. Tell aunt Les that I’m sorry and she’s not chopped liver: ) I haven’t mentioned her letters publically in a while—partially because I haven’t gotten her letters recently, but we might be going down to the office tomorrow… maybe, so I might be able to pick up any mail there. If not, I won’t get any until next week, because that’s just the way that transfers work.

This question may seem totally removed from all relevance, but I’m trying to come up with as many names of real people as possible from the initials G. B.

So far I can only think of Gerard Butler and Gob Bluth, but I’m sure there are many—probably many, many, other people fictional or historical or still living who have those initials and if anyone can think of them off the top of their head—do tell me.

I’ve learned that I’m been correct all along in the ‘immediate-family-only’ e-mail thing, so never mind about what I said last week.

Immigration has indeed become a hot topic around here too. One of our less actives (unprovoked) declared to us with great pride and zeal that she’s been in this country for 23 years and (has never learned English) BUT she came in with proper paper work and she’s been a legal resident the whole time, never once has she violated the immigration laws and she’s seen the blessings that come from it and she’s also seen the difficulty that her illegal friends face, on account of being illegal. A few of our other, not-so-documented-people who we visit are very upset. But for the most part the attitude seems to be, “Bring-it-on!-you’ve-got-nothing-on-me!” which is also something unique to this area. Usually most of the people we’re working with are illegal, but in this ward, people are pretty good about having their paper-work in order.

Our ward mission leader told us a funny story about how he had to take the citizenship test when he was serving as a missionary in Idaho about 20 years ago. Apparently he couldn’t remember the names of any of the Supreme Court justices and was kind of amazed that the question was even on the test. He nearly failed, but everything worked out for him, partially on account of the testing advisor being sympathetic to the church.

It’s really getting bad out there isn’t it? At least that’s what everyone is telling us. Politically it’s getting more and more divided and hostile and basically ridiculous and people are legitimately scared. I think you’re definitely right that we’re seeing the fulfillment of all those prophecies in The Book of Mormon.

We do have Kohls here, I’ve never been… I was under the impression it was a kid’s clothing store, but it sure doesn’t sound like it from your description. I’ll probably refrain from buying any more clothing on my mission, and continue with this money-saving trend I’ve started where I just take dying missionary clothing and wear that. It doesn’t always fit perfectly, but it looks good and has already survived someone else’s test. I’m not going to be bringing back much clothing—but don’t worry mom, I will bring back all of YOUR clothing that I took with me, though, I’m not going to lie, it is a little worse for wear. I don’t think anything I own is fully intact anymore.

I’m not crushed that we won’t go snowboarding. There’s no snow or mountains in Texas, so I’m not sure how we’d manage anyway: ) I hope you guys will make a trip out to Texas with me sometime. I’ve got some sealings/missionary farewells/post-paperwork baptisms I might get invited too and I’d love to have company for the trip! Although, mom might have to avert her eyes when we’re driving/walking around. There are SO many stray animals in this city. That’s crazy that Lauren gets home before I do! But you’re correct—it makes sense with the way transfers work in her mission. Since she came into the MTC during my… I think 6th or 7th week, that means that her transfers would be about 2 weeks removed from mine and… whatever, it works in my head. I actually still have never written Lauren, I thought about it a couple of times, but I sort of feel like we’re in contact because I get to read her letters that you forward me, and I’m pretty sure she gets mine as well… It’s pretty awesome that we got the chance to serve our missions at the same time. Her letters are always a real inspiration to me, she’s doing some much good over there in Argentina! It makes me excited to go out and work for another week.

Uncle Dan and Uncle Filly’s Honduras trip sounds so FUN! I love Honduranians . They are always so funny. Especially Victor and Hermano Medina. This reminds me. I need to learn to talk in Vos.

Don’t worry, I will be cooking when I get back. I’m not sure how good it’ll all be. I’ve learned how to make a lot of things, but most of it to be made well, requires a great deal of practice, which I haven’t yet devoted to it. So… Most of my cooking for you, might qualify as ‘practice’ more than anything. Salsa Verde is amazing, and I actually can make that myself now. As spicy as you want it. That’s one of the few things I’ve learned to make that I feel pretty confident it. It’s sooo simple and it tastes so much better homemade.

This “The Ark” thing sounds suspicious. Is it in the same genre as “The Garden”? The Michael Mclean musical? Ooooh Michael Mclean. As my companion once said “He is kind of a freaky genius… but. That Concert was just a little too special for me. I was honestly worried I’d accidentally joined a cult.”

I’m confused about the Garden. The actual Expiacion song is basically brilliant but what the heck man, it goes from being an allegory to literal to an allegory again and most of it’s just seeds and trees and mill stones singing and you know what—the land lord kind of has a point, it’s his property. Then again, I’ve already expressed my contempt for the soliciting laws, so maybe I’m actually with the Gardener after all. What a rebel I am.

He’s responsible for so many songs that make up the soundtracks for the movies we’re supposed to occasionally watch with our investigators.

Anyway, I’m sure Ameer will do very well… I don’t suppose anyone is going to tape it for me?

I’d better get going… The word count is informing me that I have typed 1,391 words. Eer… 2, 4, 5…. I can’t keep up with it for some reason.

I love you all deeply, from the bottom of my heart and I am SOOO excited to call you on mother’s day. I hope it’s alright if I do that calling early in the morning to let you know what time I’ll call later that night thing, just since I still don’t know what the word is on that. HUGS AND KISSES AND HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

MWAH, Hermanita Lili

P.S. My companion has just informed me that “The Ark” is a Michael Mclean original, to which I replied, “Good heavens, I was joking.”

"Come and see me, and bring all your friends."

2010-04-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hola familia mia!

I’m glad the package arrived safe and sound and that you’ve enjoyed the pictures I sent. I’m also glad that the Castle DVDs work. The guy at the shop warned us that all sales were final and so we couldn’t return them if they were messed up. I only paid about 20 bucks for all those DVDs (plus Sons of Provo) though, so I wasn’t too concerned. They looked alright to me, just a couple of little scratches.

This week was a lot more fun than last week. No flu. I do have a nasty cold now—I think it’s like you said mom, after you get something like the flu, you’re more susceptible to other illnesses. My companion and I have been running on cold syrup these past couple of days. I got a call Sunday morning from Hermano Solano in the Obispado asking me to give a short talk in sacrament meeting. I agreed to it, and gave the talk with minimal preparation aside from picking some sections in Predicad Mi Evangelio to read and expound on. Everyone says it was really good, and Hermano Solano thanked me for telling the ward ‘exactly what they needed to hear’ which worried me a little. I hope I wasn’t too mean. I don’t really remember much except that the usual stage-fright was totally absent as I stood up and started to talk about missionary work, in what I thought sounded like slightly slurred and cold-syrupy Spanish. They I lay down in the mother’s room for a bit.

But that was just Sunday, in the days previous to Sunday it wasn’t so bad. A sore throat and some trouble sleeping is all. We managed to find a couple of new investigators and new contacts. Out of all my areas, this has been my hardest and the one of which I’ve had the least success, and… I’ve spent a third of my mission here. I love this ward so much. I really feel like we are finally on the brink of a turn-around and like we’ve going to be finding some amazing prepared people soon here. I don’t know if I’ll stay or go, but we find out this weekend and I can tell you in my letter next week, whatever my fate may be. I can speculate that if I stay in this area, then I’ll probably spend the rest of my mission here, otherwise, I’ll have one more area and probably just one more companion… We’ll see. The anticipation of transfer calls, always drives me mad. There’s something so surreal and making appointments and plans that I might not be there for.

I’m not offended that you haven’t had any dreams about me, mom. It’s okay. All your dreams sounds horrible—even worse than regular nightmares because they translate perfectly into the real world and are situations that you could actually find yourself in. I’m sorry! I’ve been having more and more dreams of that nature too recently, but always with bizarre, unbelievable elements mixed in to keep things from getting too settled into reality.

I keep hoping that I’ll have a cool ‘investigator-dream’ experience, but so far, no luck. Hermana Christensen and I were discussing it and we decided that a ton of people should probably have a dream of us sitting on an old wooden porch, playing the guitar beside a corn field and then we say something like, “Come on down to Houston and bring all your friends!”

And then we knock on their door and they’re golden. How sweet, right?

That’s all I ask for. Honestly, I’d like just one miraculous-dream baptism before I go home.

I have dreams about being at home too. More recently than before. It’s always a little weird though, because I’m never supposed to be there.

I LOVE the Old Spaghetti Facotry. Man, I’m hungry. I just realized I forgot to eat today. How silly. I’ll have to take care of that after my letter. Crown Burgers sounds like my kind of joint.

You may have noticed that I don’t talk about my investigators much. I think I already explained about that before, but just in case I didn’t, I wanted to assure you that I am teaching people… well, okay, for a while we weren’t just because we could find anybody at all for the last two transfers almost, but generally speaking I usually have a handful of people we’re teaching. There is a lot of heartache associated with things not working out the way we’d all hoped though, and so I’ve elected to basically only tell you guys about the people who are getting baptized/progressing nicely into the church, which sadly isn’t too many of them right now. We often see a glimmer of hope, but it takes time and patience for many of these people to make the kinds of necessary changes that they need to. For example, our two main investigators right now are only not members of the church ya, because of legal problems that are keeping them from marrying their ‘husbands’ or to clarify, the father of all their kids. It’s hugely frustrating to watch them struggle like this, but don’t think I’m discouraged at all. Every incorrect choice brings disappointment, but God never gives up on us and I’m not about to give up on anyone either. I know that the people I’m teaching right now will be excellent members of the church one day. I hope I’m around to see it, but if not… no importa ahora, I still have to do everything I can to help them right now while I’ve got the authority and power to do so.

Last order of business: if you’re ever around people who say something along the lines of, “How’s Ailsa doing… oh, I need to write her!” encourage them to do so. I’ve had a recent slump with mail, and by recent I mean that I don’t think I’ve gotten more than like 3 letters in the past 2 months that were not from other missionaries. And at least one of them was new nametags from the mission office. Which is kind of like being from missionaries? Whatever. It doesn’t count. I have taken sad-face pictures with the camera looking out of my perpetually empty mailbox, and I am fully prepared to send them to everyone I know, begging for mail. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

But seriously, how is everyone?! What’s going on in the world out there?

Also, I’m going to ask president if it’s okay for non-immediate-family personnel to email me. I had understood ‘no’ for my whole mission, but never thought to ask about it until recently, since it finally dawned on me that the missionaries around me are communicating though e-mail with pretty much everyone they know. I’ll check and find out if it’s allowed and then maybe it’ll be easier for certain people to tell me how their merry lives are going. Letter-box mail is still very exciting and fun however. I don’t want that to cease entirely.

We recently watched the David and Goliath ‘Liken’ musical. I forgot how terribly adorable it is. Also. Daniel Beck is kind of a stud. Even with the shaved head and silly antics. Since we were watching it with a member, I felt restrained from making a comment mientras such as, “Hermana, I think I’m coveting Saul.” But later she said something about David sort of being “The Mormon Zach Efron.” And we giggled and then remembered that it has been about a decade since we were 12 year old girls and should probably grow up.

Seriously though, how do we all feel about a David Epic? How heartbreaking and Oscar-worthy would that be? Of course, to tell the story in real detail, one will require a bit more than the usually 2 hours. How about a miniseries? Are miniseries dead? I think it’s a decent length for some stories. That Jane Eyre they did was amazing, and let’s just gush about Pride and Prejudice for a minute… anyway. Enough of that.

I miss you all so much, and I LOVE you! I’m really excited to talk on mother’s day. I’ll hopefully have details about that next week, but for now I can say that you should plan on an EARLY pre-phone-call to let you know what time I’ll be calling that night since I probably won’t know until the day before. It’s likely it’ll be the same as before 7 or 8 o’clock.

When I say early, I mean before 7 o’clock Sunday morning.

Sorry.

MWAH! CYBERHUG!

Hermana Lillywhite

Sister Salsa and the Polydactyl Kitty

2010-04-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

Ur pwobaby rite.

2010-04-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hi fambly!

Well.

I don’t have much news this week. I spent about 3 days in bed with the flu. Monday night after P-day last week, I started to feel a little funny, but I just lay down and figured it would go away by morning but instead I was kept awake all night by stomach pain until I finally crawled into the bathroom and threw up for a while. It was pretty miserable. We also had Zone meeting and weekly planning to get done and ultimately didn’t get to do a great deal of work this week… as far as numbers go, this was the worst week of my entire mission, although my district leader, in an appreciated attempt to be positive, pointed out that our ‘member present at investigator’s lesson’ stat. was a perfect 100% which he said he’d never seen anyone achieve before.

So, we didn’t get a lot of work done, as a result of me being totally out of commission and passed out under the influence of Nyquil. The Elders gave me a blessing and after that I got well pretty fast and went back out into the field. My poor companion had to entertain herself for a while, which she claims not to have minded at all. She read a great deal of Jesus The Christ and wrote dozens of pages in her journal.

I heard from one of the other Sisters, that Sister Hansen once attributed missionary sickness to us occasionally needing a little time to pause and examine ourselves on a mental/emotional level. After months of neglect, a little time of reflection can become necessary. Mostly, I just had some superbly bizarre dreams. My most recent ones include Johnny Depp and I as Alice and the Hatter respectively, but in a setting reminiscent of Tom Petty’s music video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” accept I don’t turn into cake at the end and get eaten, instead I just chucked a chair at Johnny and started to choke him, but then I woke up. I feel bad, I don’t know why I’ve ever do that to poor Mr. Depp. I love him. I also had a pet Monkey for a while, was Home for Conference with you lovely folks! And had to confront my district leader, Elder Parker after finding out that he’d ended his mission early to convert to Judaism. I also started to teach Stephen Fry a first lesson, but only got as far as defining what a prophet was because he had so many comments.

So. That was my week.

I’m so sorry that Jensen didn’t get into the animation program. Her artwork looks amazing, thank you so much for sending me that link. Whatever Jensen ends up doing with her life, I’m sure it’ll be fascinating and that she’ll be very successful. Those silly pets of ours are so much fun… Everything sounds really nice back home. I hope you have great time with Bonco, I’m glad you’re not stressed, as you’re always an awesome hostess.

I miss you all a lot. I’m really looking forward to talking to you in a few weeks on Mother’s day! I am determined to send that blasted package today. I keep putting it off, but I’ve got it all together, and I just need to do it. I love you all very, very much. This letter is short because I spent most of my computer time reading the old Christmas Letters posted on dad’s blog. Good memoriesJ

Hermana Lillywhite

Terribly cheerful, in spite of everything.

2010-04-12T09:44:00.001-07:00

Oh! I'm so sorry, I forgot to mention last week how the Easter Candy miraculously arrived perfectly on time, so we we muching on that while watching conference as well. We still have a lot left, but it's going pretty fast. Thank you so much for that! It was such a wonderful Easter Surprise to have those goodies in time. I don’t have much news this week… it was kind of a rough week, filled with lots of finding and searching and praying and occasionally passing out. Man, I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted my whole life. We’re working hard because right now our teaching pool is um… nonexistent to be honest. It’s a great opportunity for us to do some hard-core finding.

We’re cheerful always though. I really think that Sister Christensen and I were chosen to work in this area and at this time, because we’re both able to continue working—with no success, but without getting horribly depressed. I mean, we definitely have our moments of tristeza. The other day when our investigator wouldn’t open the door I started scratching at it like a hurt puppy and yelping a little. We’ve also taken to just saying the words “Harry. Carry.” When something particularly devastating happens. I don’t think I’m spelling it right, but you get the idea. We try to have a good attitude is the bottom line. We keep each other laughing and optimistic. Honestly, all these people we teaching are going to be awesome Mormons one day, it’s just that the time isn’t always right. But we’ll keeping working with them until it is.

Our Elders keep us laughing too. They are pretty hilarious. Too many stories to tell them all. Our District Leader right now is Elder parker and he and his companion were in the MTC together, so they’ve got tonz of stories and jokes together that date back from those days. Elder Manship and Elder Geldmaucher in our ward with us are just plain funny. They’ve taken to inventing things. The latest invention that they showed us was a tube of toothpaste that they’d hollowed out and fit with a slightly pointy appendage from the inside of a floss container so that they could inject yogurt into cupcakes. They said it worked wonderfully, although the yogurt had the slight taste of toothpast which after eating few, made them both feel rather ill.

Elder Parker is going to create his own ‘Spanish Missionary’ themed valentines next year. Including such classic lines as, “You and I are like Pan Dulce and Abuelita Chocolate. Together, we’re delicious, but without each other, we’re gross.”

Home sounds charming and classic. Fresh veggies! Yum! I’ve decided I want to learn to cook. I’ve decided I want to learn a lot of things actually. Can I major in “Renaissance Woman” please? Poor Bella baby. One of our member’s cats went into heat a few weeks ago, and we went over to visit them and they were all just sitting around watching her yowl and trying to figure out what to do with her. She’s fine now. Cute kitty, she’s got her appointment to get spayed too.

Wow I had no idea Kate was living in Salt Lake! I have not heard from her since I left. Silly woman. That’s cool that she’s got a job down there, but sad about her family. It’s too bad her siblings can’t follow her example and have some kind of stable life. I know it’s rough out there, but I’ve seen people do some amazing things with their circumstances, whatever they may be. That’s good that Syndie’s happy too. I haven’t heard from her either.

Send me pictures of Shazi all promed-out! And put Jensen’s animation project on youtube and send me a link! I miss you guys so much. I saw the super-dymanic pictures on Dad’s blog. Very cool looking family I’ve got there. I like your assessment of “Mike”’s grades in Jensen’s art class. It’s so true.

I’ve taken to making the comic stripes you’ve sent me into book marks. The one about Jane Eyre needing to be re-written with vampires is in Sunkitty and His Friends and I’m now using a “Bizarro” double-feature (The Politically Correct Meeting of The Posture-Challenged Person of Notre Dame and the Different-Looking Individual and Laundry-day for Santa Muerte) for my 1,001 pitfalls of the Spanish Language text book. The other missionaries enjoy them as much as I do.

“Yeah. My mom gets me.” I tell them.

Good old Kimber. Such a charming, charming place it is. I share stories of Kimber occasionally to the other missionaries.

We received permission to watch The Prince of Egypt, so we’re going to have a little part today for P-day and put the movie on, and I’m going to make empanadas. The sweet kind. I came make the savory ones, but I’ve decided I like desert empanadas. They’re not so good the way taco bell does them, but I’ve got a recipe from a member who I trust.

I’m sorry my letter is so very short this week… But, I’m going to try my best to get that package off for you guys, so hopefully, receiving the first season of Castle on DVD, and other goodies will make up for the brevity of this little cartita.

I LOVE you all, sooo much and I miss you terribly, but I’m happy doing the Lord’s work and don’t really want to see you until July 28th. But, when that day comes, there will be much rejoicing.

Hermana Lillywhite

Hola, Happy Easter!

2010-04-05T10:38:00.001-07:00

Your week sounds wondrous, and so does your food. Geez… I am gonna need to bajar some peso here pretty rapidito. You guys are going to think my Spanglish is so weird. And someone pointed out to me recently that I’m starting to sound like the locals when I talk in English. No all the time, but man… My language skills have really descended.

I hope Jensen gets into the animation program! She’s got such talent and skill. I’ll hire her. Missy’s new business enterprise sounds exciting! I’m sure she’ll do awesome. I’m sad I never got to meet either of our little rats… But it sounds like they were well loved in our home.

True or false, California is really going to legalize it? Holy bad-idea Batman. Who is in charge right now? And who do I have to bribe, beat and betray to put myself in a position of power so I can fire all these idiots?

Ashley’s mad. She’s also decided to reenlist in the Army. I’m pretty sure she’ll be in charge of the Army pretty fast here. Then she’ll institute nationwide Marshall Law and start shooting.

We got the chance to go to Zone Leaders council this last week. I have not been made a Zone Leader, last I checked, but I still got to go, which was very, very good for me, because the meeting was incredibly good. It was a nice little preparation on studying repentance and the Atonement that got me prepared for Conference.

Can I just gush about conference for a little while? I LOVE prophets, I decided. I am so glad we are not living in a time of apostasy, because, that would really be awful. I’ve now got a renewed appreciation for living in the dispensation of the fullness of times. The whole weekend was very inspiring and very fun. We started it off by going to Ashley’s to colour Easter eggs. I was so excited as conference started I took some great notes. Or, at least I hope they’re great, I was writing so fast that I think there are some parts that don’t make sense. But wow, that was exactly what I needed to hear, exactly what my investigator’s needed to hear, the members… everyone. It was so amazing. I can’t decide what my favorite talk on Saturday was. Elder Bednar is just so straight-up with everything he says, and Christofferson’s talk about William Tindell was fascinating. Really—they were all incredible. I don’t know that I have a favorite. It was so interesting on Sunday when Elder Andersen made a point to say that there are no assignments/collaborations for talks. They all just speak on whatever they feel the Lord wants them to speak on, and they prepare talks with no real knowledge about what everyone else is going to speak about. It was an answer to an unasked question I had concerning the program. There was a strong emphasis on The Atonement and the Savoir, which isn’t unusual at all, but they were also hitting the issue of the family and preparing for the future/teaching children A LOT, whereas I remember last conference I felt like there was a lot of missionary work in the talks, and last April there were a number of Temple talks.

But, as with the Lord, it all operates on inspiration. Even if they were assigned topics, they would be inspired topics and we could be confident that it was exactly what we needed to heard about.

When Elder Holland started to speak on Pornography, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed for about a half second, just because I always look forward to his talks and enjoy listening/re-listening to them and wasn’t sure there would be much of a need for me to have a talk on pornography permanently on my Ipod, the way his other talks will be. (When I have an Ipod, obviously) But man. That was awesome. He’s just so cool. The man has a gift from God to just lay it on the table and stand for truth and beauty and all that’s good, and it could be my favorite talk.

Possibly. There were too many to make a sure judgment.

President Monson was in rare form Saturday, making us all laugh. Then he talked about Death.

SOOOO touching. Nobody noticed me getting a little emotional here and there, I hid it well. This one was a hard hitter…

I actually heard Elder Rasband’s WONDERFUL talk at the same time dad did. And wasn’t Elder Uchtdorf’s talk on patience wonderful as well, daddy?

.

Wow, except that would be apostasy, so I’m going to backspace over that madness and just leave this line up here so you can wonder what I said…

I do NOT have the priesthood. But…

My companion and I decided to attend the Priesthood session of conference as well. We didn’t want to alarm the brethren with our feminine presence, so we slipped unnoticed into the mother’s lounge at the chapel and enjoyed two extra hours of conference a little early! We hadn’t gotten the chance to do personal study/eat dinner, so we did that by listening to conference and eating Wendy’s in the mother’s lounge.

The elders found it pretty amusing. They didn’t know we were there, but we told them the next day.

Don’t worry though, I’ll attend the semi-annual Mormon woman shopping extravaganza from here on out. Although I LOVED going to the priesthood session, I am not, as such, invited. It’s true.

I think they should probably have everybody watch that talk right after they open their mission call. That’s probably what I’ll do with all future missionaries within my influence for the rest of my life. It was such a powerful, perfect explanation of just HOW important our specific, inspired calls are. Also, there’s a CD I procured a copy of out here called “Conversion of a Catholic Priest” which shares some pretty powerful stuff on the same subject. So cool. I’d send it to you, but I might end up with one last companion who hasn’t heard it and didn’t hide in the Mother’s Lounge to eaves-drop on the Priesthood session. Everyone needs to know how important their calls are, and that their decision to serve or not to serve doesn’t just affect their own lives.

Also, I love Elder Uchtdorf. He’s so very German and charming.

I’m going to try to send that package off today. If I can’t manage it, then I’m sorry—hopefully next week. I was going to send home my journal that I just finished this weekend, since I deemed it acceptable for others to read besides myself, unlike all the other journals I’ve ever kept, but I took all my conference notes in the last couple of pages, so I will probably have to do some ‘gleaning of therefores’ for my personal study over the next few weeks before I send you that. I love you all so very much, I pray for you and miss you terribly, and yes, I too, cannot wait to talk to ya’ll on mother’s day, which is, as you said, just around the corner.

Don’t fret, I’m not trunky, nor am I ‘anti-trunky’. I’m happy. I’m happy with my mission so far, I’m happy today and tomorrow looks pretty keen and in a few months when I see you all again, I will be so happy! My life is amazing, I’ve got nothing to complain about really, and I don’t see the point in being too terribly anxious for the future, or for dreading it. I’m at one with my situation. It’s a good situation. But… I do miss you and think of you often, and I’ll be so excited when I can give you all great big hugs again!

BesitosYAbrasotes, Hermana Lillywhite

Houston is a dumb place to park.

2010-03-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

I'm REALLY enjoying being able to drive again. I didn't give my companion the keys back until yesterday. Have I mentioned that Texas drivers are about 10 times worse than Utah drivers? And the parking spaces--I don't get it. Everyone here buys these gigantic trucks, but then ALL of the parking spaces are compact. There too small for our little Malibu 2010, so I don't know why they do it. It's downright dangerous is what it is.

Anyway, that's enough ranting about the traffic. I don't want to sound ungrateful, especially since I can finally DRIVE! YAY! I'M FREE! And yes, I did notice that they had included an envelope for me to send them the paperwork directly, but only after I'd already put together the letter for y'all. I'm so glad you enjoyed the Twilight Musical. It was all Hermana Christensen's brilliance, after I mentioned to her that when I was 14 I had this idea to make an Alice in Wonderland musical using entirely contemporary music. She said "YOU SHOULD WRITE A TWILIGHT MUSICAL!" as soon as it was said, ideas for songs started to explode like fireworks as a gift for my birthday from the muses. Don't worry though, I've only given out three copies. One to you, one to an old companion and then I mailed one to Sister Singleton in the East mission as I figured she'd appreciate it.

Your collective week sounds lovely! I've got to admit, I am very excited to go to art exhibits to see my little sister's work displayed. Do you have a picture of her project that you could send me?! I'd love to see it. That's so sad about Steve, I hope his family is working through it alright. When it rains it pours is right. I can't even imagine what it must be like to lose parents/children when they're still relatively young like that. But the funeral does sound like it was nice, as strange as it is to say that. So Maddox is really all it's cracked up to be? I saw the pictures of the old Lillywhite home on dad's blog. Laney looks so big! She looks like Cat. For a second I thought it was Cat. Crazy! She's going to be so grown up when I come home!

I'm really looking forward to my Easter Package. And Conference. I probably will not get the chance to go down to the mission office this week, but as long as you sent it through the regular post they should forward it to me. So, I might get it Saturday. THANK YOU!!!! I'm very excited. This is my last conference in the mission field! I'm still holding out for that announcement about sister missionaries being given the option to extend 6 months. The Elders are talking about the possibility of 3 year missions.

As for my week...

So. Wednesday night we had Hermanos Solano with us. Hermana Solano served in the South mission, and Hermano Solano was one of her ward mission leaders. After her mission they ran into each other again in none other than... MURRAY! Yep. They had their first date in Murray park and now they are married and he's the second counselor in the bishopric and she's the adorable very blonde blue-eyed lady in the ward who speaks perfect Spanish. So, we were walking from one apartment complex into another and suddenly, in front of us... there was a little kitten!!! It was SO cute, and way too young to be wandering around on it's own. We caught it and snuggled and it fought to get away for a moment than calmed down. It was a feral little thing, but very sweet. We knocked on the apartment it was hanging around and they said it wasn't theirs' and that they already had a cat and didn't want another one, but that it had been hanging around on their porch for a while annoying them and they had no idea where it came from and figured it was just stray. We asked a few more people but no one had any idea and it was getting late and dark.

"Can we keep it?!" Hna S

"Absolutely not." Hno S.

"Please!" Hna S.

"We already have a cat and two dogs! You don't need any more pets!" Hno S.

"But it needs a home!" Hna S.

They argued back and forth about it playfully while I wrestled within myself. Finally, we just went to see if our investigator was home, and she was! So we taught her while little "Sarita" as we had started called her (to the exasperation of Hno) fell asleep in Hna Christensen's arms. Our investigator didn't want the cat either.

"Listen Hno. You guys need to take the cat. At least for the night," I started to explain to them, "If you don't. You'll be forcing me to be disobedient."

"How will that be forcing you to be disobedient! You guys can have pets!" Hno S

"NO WE CAN'T, IT'S AGAINST THE RULES!"

"I had lots of pets on my mission!" Hno S

"You served in an apostate mission honey, everywhere else, missionaries aren't allowed to keep pets." Hna S

"What?! Sure they can!"

"No they can't... Can we take her home?"

"NO!"

This went on for several minutes as we walked back to the car, now I was holding her and she was so little and cute and clinging and sleepy, "Listen. I can't take her home with us... AND I CAN'T LEAVE HER HERE!"

"Sure you can! She'll be fine, she'll get bigger!" Hno S.

"She'll get eaten! It's Texas!" Hna S.

"Well... she... we can't take her home!" Hno S.

"Why not? We already have a litter-box and food and everything she needs and she's so cute! Look at her!" Hna S.

"Hermanas, do you want some cat-food and a litter box?" Hno S asked us as he pulled the keys out of his pocket and went to unlock the car.

"HERMANO! You cannot seriously leave us with this cat!" I finally cried.

He sighed and relented, FINALLY. ("YAY!" -from Hna as she took the kitten from us.) But only on the condition that we call around and find someone else to take her the next day.

My journal entry that night ended with the line 'I'm pretty sure the Solanos have a new pet.'

Turned out it was true. They decided they were keeping her pretty fast. She is adorable. And guess what mommy! Remember those funky six-toed kittens that you were always cooing about? Guess how many toes Sarita has?! 21! She has a cute little sixth toe on one of her front paws. She is SO CUTE! I took pictures. They will arrive with the package I'm putting together.

We did a LOT of service this week. Way more than normal. We had our regular service at the theater, building sets with Ben. I'm basically a carpenter. It's very holy of me, I think. The next day we went to go help the Medina's paint their new little house that they bought, and then on Saturday we totally renovated this members 6/10 acher backyard. I got to ride on a riding lawn mower. It was pretty boss. It looked AWFUL when we got there, but she made us juevos racheros and I thought of Uncle Phillies yummy juevos racheros that we always have at san clamente, and then we were put to work. two hours later it was completely unrecognizable. It looked AMAZING! We really did a good job if I do say so myself. There were 8 of us working on it, so we got a lot done in just a short amount of time.

As far as missionary work goes, it was actually kind of a rough week. Lots of slammed doors and 'missing' return appointments. We're not discouraged though. Quite the contrary actually. I feel certain we're on the brink of a new dawn for this area. Wow. That was rather epic. I mean it though, I think we're going to see some miracles this transfer. I'm glad we've got this opportunity to put most of our efforts into finding.

Yesterday, Hermana pointed out to me that it's my 'T-minus 4 months' countdown day. I'm on section 122 in the doctrine and covenants... Reading backwards so I'll land on 1 on the plane-ride home. I've been told it's an old missionary tradition. I hadn't realised this until she pointed it out. It's also her 5 month birthday in the mission. In response I wrote this semi-agnsty self evaluation in regards to the Christlike attributes in Preach My Gosple. I just want to share part of it, the clever bit on Obedience...

Journal Entry-Obedience, obedience, obedience... my love, my precious. My worst enemy. My hero. I don't know why I have so much trouble with you my sweetest friend. We all know that whenever I break up with you, I'll just crawl back, hurt and tearstained and begging you to take me back again. I had such a recalcitrant youth (word my Stake President taught me in my pre-mission interview). I flirted with Rebellion all the time, but it was such a joke. I knew it would never go anywhere, really, and so did Rebellion. No matter how he enticed me, and as fun as a day at 'Naughty-World-Amusement-Park' sounded, I just could never go along with it. Every time I found myself on a date with Rebellion I always felt like I'd been tricked into it. Besides, he knew that I harbored a not-so-secret torch for Obedience all along. I was too shy to talk to him. "He's too good for me," that kind of thing, but I knew that I'd never love anyone like I loved him.

When Obedience and I finally got together, I was a little young, but I still gained a real determination to maintain the bounds we formed. So, I'm a crap girlfriend. Still, I'm trying. I'm just being a jerk is what it comes down to. I know that Obedience will always take me back, and I totally take advantage of him. I know I can change though. I'm getting better. And Maybe then Obedience and I can really commit. He's said all along that he's ready with that ring whenever I'm ready with my heart.

-So, there's part of my entry from last night. Eccentric, affected, whatever you want to call it, I think it's kind of clever. Hope you enjoyed it!

I just got mommy’s little reply, I’m glad Jensen likes Castle! My companion was gushing to me about it. It sounds like exactly my kind of show. Well, I’d better wrap-up and send this. I LOVE you all so much. I hope you have an amazing Pascua and conferencia! MWAH, mwah, mwah! Os amo.

Besito, Hermana Lillywhite

Remember what the doorknob said.

2010-03-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

That’s lame about dad getting stranded. I’m so sorry! It sounds like one of those situations that was not really anybody’s fault and just a mess. How frustrating.
The whole situation with politics is freaking people out here. We’ve been having to talk to people more and more about the signs of the times. “It’s really bad out there.” The members keep telling us. I have no doubt that it’s as bad as you’ve described it, or probably worse than we even know. That’s CRAZY. I wish I could say I was surprised though…
I’m in a bit of a hurry this week, so I’ll just share one little story. I’m working on a letter to Grandma and Grandpa right now, and I’ll be sending the paper-work for my license to you today as well. I’ll see if I can’t include a few little fun things… I’m sorry I can’t write much today.
This week was… Fascinating.
First of all, transfer news is that there is none. After all of that stressing I get to stay here with Hermana Christensen for one more transfer. In fact our entire district is staying the same. Very uneventful. I totally satisfied. I really wanted to get the chance to make a real difference for this ward and in this area, and I don’t feel that I’ve done enough yet. So, I very happy to report that I’m staying.
Sacrament meeting was awesome. A leader from the stake was visiting. He got up and talked for about 15-20 minutes about how awesome the new Alice in Wonderland movie is. It had relevance to the theme of his talk, and I and everyone appreciated the wonderful analogies that he made—but I must say, I pretty much know the whole story now. Thanks a lot.
So… I was inhibited slightly by the fact that I was half trying NOT to listen. It’s especially easy to ignore what someone is saying when they’re speaking in Spanish, but I couldn’t help but catch a few things. So… true or false…
If you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to be surprised, don’t read the following. Possibly. He could have been totally making stuff up and I never would have known.
Alice is older and about to get engaged?
Somebody dies?
The caterpillar turns into a butterfly at the end, giving great significance to the whole story?
The Red Queen turns into a dragon and gets her head chopped off by Alice, who has a sword?!
Alice falls in love with one of the Wonderland characters?
He explained plenty more about the movie. Plenty. But this is what I remember being a little alarmed about. Later, we had a plan of salvation lesson with a less active girl who hadn’t come to church, so we caught her up on what she missed. Including how Alice in Wonderland related to the Plan of Salvation, which turned out to be the ultimate point of this man’s talk. She had seen the movie as well, and was very confused but tried to correct us on a few things.
“Nobody dies…. (five minute pause) OH! Her dad dies! It’s not important though.”
“The caterpillar doesn’t die. There is a butterfly, but… I don’t know, that’s weird.”
“The Red Queen doesn’t turn into a dragon! There’s no dragon! (five minute pause) … OH THERE IS A DRAGON! I FORGOT!”
“Alice doesn’t fall in love with anyone.”
Ten minutes later.
“…I think Alice falls in love with The Mad Hatter.”
I think the difference in the perspective and focus of a 45 year old high priest and an eleven year old girl is fascinating.
I can’t wait to see this movie. I’ve heard it’s terrible, and I’m pretty sure I’ll love it.
My companion actually wrote something really awesome about the man’s talk, that I hope you’ll find as inspiring as I did.
Hermana Christensen’s Thoughts in Wonderland:
Sometimes, I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Sometimes it feels like I am traveling through this strange place far from home. That is probably because… I AM. Sometimes life feels like a dream, but the most real and intense dream you could possible think of. That has huge effects for my real life when I wake up.
Sometimes I feel like my mission is wonderland. At times I wonder how I got here. At times I feel lonely, and want to go home. Most of the time I am absolutely in awe of this fascinating place. Sometimes I do things that make me grow. Sometimes I do things that that make me shrink and feel very spiritually sheepish. At times I feel like there is a wicked monarch who wants to shop my head off and has an unusual fetish for the colour red… probably because there is. That’s odd.
Sometimes my investigators are crazy but charming Mad Hatters – AND SOMETIMES THERE’S TEA PARTIES, don’t worry, I never drink it. Sometimes I meet mean Cheshire cats who confuse me. At times I want to just sit down on the side of the road, throw my hands up, and say “I DON’T KNOW WHERE I am going, I’m just trying to move forward!” most of the times it’s just so random and seems quite curious.
Here’s is the thing; Wonderland is not all. I am so thankful that I can see or at least know abu9ot the end of this crazy, rabbit hole called life. I just need to keep following that little white “espiritu santo” rabbit who is always late for a very important date – hopefully it’s a baptismal one! I am thankful he never stops and that I am constantly running at a marathon sprint to keep him in view.
On day, I will wake up form this crazy “Dream” and find myself peaceably asleep under an apple tree, but that doesn’t mean I should just sit and wait for that time to come, HOW BORING! I need to be decisive and bold and make the best of this time _ I don’t want to wake up to a nightmare. Be bold. The choices you make matter. There is more to life than Wonderland. So many people don’t understand that and end up being twiddle dee and dumb victims of their current circumstances. I am more than some random stranger wandering through an unfamiliar land. I will leave this place one day. The decisions I make now matter. What to be is up to me.
These are the lessons of Wonderland.
-End of the thoughts of Hermana Christensen.
Anyway. I didn’t mean to write the entire letter about Alice, but this was a very significant meeting. The investigator we had there, LOVED it. He said that the talks had given him exactly what he needed to strengthen himself with his life right now. Excellent stuff.
I LOVE you all so much. I miss you, my darling family. I pray for you every day, and especially grandpa right now. Kisses and hugs to all.
MWAH! Hermana Lillywhite

Leaving the One to Find the Ninety and Nine.

2010-03-15T08:47:00.001-07:00

Techincally the one keeps leaving us. But he's our only sheep and he's a very good sheep. We'll see him at church.

Man. This week. I don't even wanna talk about it... Well, I do, because I always want to talk. Y'all know that!!! But this was honestly a very rough week. We've been finding so many people recently, but then, for various reasons we can never get back into contact with them. We're relentless in trying to track them down, but it's to no avail. I've never had so many doors slammed in my face than in this area. I've never had SO much difficulty getting the members involved as in this ward. That's the truth, but here's another truth—transfers are next week, and I don't want to go anywhere. I hope they leave me here with Sister Christensen.

But, I'd never request anything for transfers from Heavenly Father. I learned a long time ago some important lessons from my Trainer and my Greeniebreaker. DON'T make transfer requests. It's just not a good idea to ever try to pretend that you know better than God where you should be, who you should be with or what you should be doing. Just because I don't think I've fulfilled my purpose here doesn't mean I have any idea what I'm talking about. Next week, I'll be able to tell you what the final verdict is.

As rough as this week was... it was also a blast. I had a lot of fun knocking doors. We went on exchanges with the Spanish sisters this last week—Hermana Gurney came over here to hang out with me for the day, and Hermanita went over to be with Hermana Gurney's baby in Westgreen. It was a very informative, helpful exchange for a lot of reasons. I think the thing I liked the most was getting to see that Hermana Gurney has grown SO MUCH as a teacher. She hasn't been my companion, and we actually haven't spent any real time together since the MTC on account of never really serving all that close by. It was interesting, because I realized that Thursday (the day of the exchange) was my one-year anniversary of being in Texas. So it was a fun reunion for the two of us. She's really grown a lot since the MTC. We were also able to commiserate a little on account of our areas being so similar in personality right now.

Hermanita Christensen is learning a lot of valuable lessons early on. Middle class people are often comfortable. People in general, regardless of circumstances can become comfortable with their situation, no matter how poor, godless or degrading it might be. But middle-class often have the added challenge of overcoming their own societies opinion that, they're just fine as is. They don't need to change. They don't need to push themselves or progress any further. Just wait it out until you can retire, until you're body is too worn out to move like it used to, until the kids are grown and out of the house. It's an attitude that I've developed a somewhat hostile intolerance for. I've never been more 'uncomfortable' in my whole life. I trespass on people's privacy, try to break into their lives and help them develop a desire to change. Admit their faults and come unto Christ. I walk around in the heat or the snow in what I've come to loveingly refer to as 'church-lady-chic' trying to get strangers to open up to me and trust that I really am what I say I am; a servant of their father and a messenger from their brother. I might have to pack up my half of the apartment in a week, and go live in a new-old apartment with some chick I don't know and be instant best friends. There is nothing really comfortable about my life, and I've never been happier. Comfort is nice from time to time, but it also has somewhat inhibiting qualities. We're much more prone to new growth and development into a stronger being in a environment with some aggravating elements.

My companion said it beautifully in a lesson a number of weeks ago, when, after our investigator had just finished sharing with us his feelings, concluding with the statement, “But... I'm comfortable at the Pentecostal Church.” and without hesitating she said, “God doesn't want you to be comfortable, he wants you to be a Mormon!”

At that moment, I realized she didn't need me anymore.

I don't know though, maybe we'll get to stay together for three transfers. I'd like that. But as I already said, I'm morally opposed to transfer requests.

Bishop came out with us last week, and that was very nice. He also apologized for not having supported the sisters very much at all over the past few months, which I appreciated. He asked if we've been have ward correlation, and I admitted that although it's scheduled for 9:30 on Sunday morning, typically, us missionaries arrive, write in our journals for about an hour while we wait for someone to show up, and then give up and go study. Bishop said he would take care of that. This week, we only had to wait 45 minutes for the Ward Mission Leader. Hey. I'm just happy he showed up. Then, I was surprised when Bishop actually invited us to come into PEC also. A meeting that the Elders were previously invited to, and we weren't.

I think the Elders might have said something, because they asked us last week, “Why aren't you invited to PEC? It doesn't make any sense, they always ask us questions about the families you're teaching and we're like... we don't know, ask them. But then they don't.”

Yeah, I don't know why we weren't invited before, and I don't care. I've been invited to PEC in other wards. And It can't possible be the lack of Priesthood, since the relief society President is supposed to come. The point is, now we can come, which is good, it was very informative actually. We also let them know that we're having problems getting lessons with our one solid investigator right now. He's got a date for his Birthday (May 27th) yeah, WAY far out there, but he was forced to get baptized by crazy people a couple of years ago, so he's pretty determined to do it on his own terms this time. Hermana Estrada tried to point out that he might not be alive in May. Cheerful woman.

So... we're going to back off of him for a while and try to find the other 99 sheep that were lost.

So, that's where I'm at right now.

Home sounds so charming! Wow, President McDonough was in there for a long time. I'm happy for daddy as choir director, he will love that! You're fancy bishopric party sounds like good fun. I'm excited to get Laney's new letter. Can I have Grandma practice too? Or does it default to Mom Pratice on account of me not having children? What was the Opera that Jensen saw about? I really want to read her funny Opera essay again. I think I must have mailed it home with that last package of letters I sent... I'm glad to hear that my license is... coming along. I hope that Grandpa is okay and that the test result come in quick.

I love you all sooo so, much! I heard that Bad Romance song in a restaurant this last week when we went with out zone and thought of silly Jensen grooving along to it. Also... they're remaking Clash of the Titans? Seriously?

I adore you all terribly and love and miss and hug you! MWAH!

Trying to find decent mozzarella in Houston is like trying to find meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.

2010-03-08T09:31:00.001-08:00

Familia y Amigos...

Daddy is released!!! How do you feel, Padre? Estas cansado? That's fun that you two get to be sleepy ward miembros for a bit. Good for you! Also, good for you to have dinner with missionaries and recent converts. That's the idea. Our ward is not doing amazing right now, but I did get to go visit my last ward Louetta, last night for a baptism of a woman who I taught while I was there. Also named Joanna. It came as a huge surprise, since the last I heard (at Christmas time) was that they stopped teaching her after I left the area. So I was really excited to get a call this week letting me know that she started coming to church in the last few weeks and has been preparing for baptism! It was a lovely service. As usual, I played the piano. I forgot that no one in that ward knows how to play until we were on our way there and I suddenly wondered if I'd been invited for the sole reason of my abilities to tocar. Joanna looked beautiful and very happy. Her family was there to support her, and it was nice to visit with some of my old friends there.

Dinner sounds delicious, I hope both Joannas feel comfortable and happy in their respective wards.

Yeah, our ward is a little silly right now. We had an AWESOME stake conference in which they gave a huge emphasis to member missionary work. So. Hopefully we'll see some improvement soon. Or at least have correlation sometime this transfer.

Transfers are coming up, and I really don't know what to expect. There's a lot about my situation here which reminds me of when I was being trained by Hermana Frieszell in 6th ward. It makes me suspect that I'll stay here for a least one more transfer and Hermana Christensen will get sent to the ghetto to be greenie broken. But—that wouldn't follow the recent established pattern of me being the one to leave an area and my companion being left in charge of my old area. Or—maybe, we'll both just stay here. I just want whatever the Lord wants. And. I want to know about it. That second part is a problem sometimes.

Our investigators right now. Good heavens we have a lot of them. But very few who will come to church or accept any of the commitments we give them. We're working with a couple of lovely families, and an apartment filled with men from Guatemala. They are funny and all at differing levels of interest. Ranging from “I want to get baptized and go on a mission and tell everyone about the Mormon Book!” to “Well... I'm a sinner, and I'm kind of okay with it.” I'm a little unsure about how sincere these statements are. I think they both are probably a little more towards the middle than they're letting on.

The Earthquake in Chile is a topic of conversation and prayer everywhere. We got to read about the missionaries and members there, and how they're all doing well. I guess Moroni lost his trumpet but the damage wasn't too bad? That's crazy that Lauren felt it over in Argentina too. We're definitely facing up to some major signs to the end of days. It helps to increase my confidence in our leaders. If they receive warnings about stuff like this and act on it, then we just have to be wise enough to head their advice...

Ooo Roma. I was thinking about you the other day.

It's impossible to find fresh mozzarella in this city. They have this sorry substitute; whole milk mozzarella. I've used it to make a medio-capreze dish, but it's just not the same. And they look at you funny when you ask for oil and vinegar with bread. But that's okay, I learned how to make fresh salsa, so I guess it's a fair trade.

I got Laney's letter!!! It was SO CUTE. I want to see a picture of this silly bruise. I also finally received some letters of Chantal's. I don't know why, but the office seems to have difficultly sometimes, getting letters to people. Mostly to me though. And to Hermana Christensen, because there's a Sister Christensen serving nearby as well. So they sometimes get each other's mail. Silly office.

I haven't done too many magic tricks. I do show kids my puzzle ring and teach them how that works sometimes, but playing cards are not allowed (Don't get me started). So I don't own any right now. Every once in a while, when it comes up I'll mention to people how I LOVE cards/kind of collected them and had a deck with me at all times in case of spontaneous poker games, and usually other missionaries are sort of like, “Really!?” and I'll be like, “I don't gamble you silly boy, I just like games. And magic tricks. And cards. They. Are. Pretty.”

Actually. A memory is coming back to me. I think I did show somebody some card tricks once in Crosstimbers... They had a deck sitting at their kitchen table and I feel like we were waiting for somebody to get off the phone or come out of the bathroom, so I did a few tricks to entertain during the pause.

I think that's all for news this week. We've got another Zone Meeting this week. Apparently the one with the reporter didn't count? So, we're holding another one. We've also got more exchanges, this time, with the Spanish sisters in the Westgreen ward. Hermana Gurney will be coming here with me for a day! Yay! MTC companions reunited!

Honestly... kind of can't wait for Alice in Wonderland. I'm glad that Jesus and co. enjoyed it. I typically enjoy whatever they enjoy. Also. Johnny, Helena, Tim... Was Danny Elfman involved at all? I've been following their careers thus far. So, I'll continue.

I love and miss you all like crazy. I hope everything is well back home. It sounds idyllic as usual.

Hermana Lillywhite

Please. Call the police. I dare you.

2010-03-01T08:44:00.001-08:00

Family!

We had Zone and Stake Conference this week, but still managed to find 10 new investigators. We also went on exchanges with the English sisters, that was way fun...

We met a very angry man while knocking an apartment building where a member had sent us to find her friend to teach. He threatened to call the police if we didn't leave the complex immediately. We tried to talk with him for a minute about Jesus Christ, but he was seriously hostile, so in the end we just went to go try and contact the referral (nobody was home) so we left a note and then slowly left the apartment complex. Poor little Sister Smith was kind of freaking out and really scared that the police would come and arrest us. Sister Hoskins and I took a more insolent view of things.

If the police want to arrest us for trying to spread the gospel, than great. Lots of cool people have been arrested for preaching. I'll be in good company: Joseph Smith. Martin Luther. Alma. Paul. Jesus...

Chances are, the police are Mormon. And if not, I'd probably just say something along the lines of, “Hey. Man. I know that Houston is the third largest city in the country and that you've got a staggering crime rate... isn't there something else you'd rather be doing right now than dealing with a couple of little girls trying to talk to people about Jesus? Like actually protecting people from real dangers? I know, I know... It's been a long week. Would you like a card to receive a free copy of the book of Mormon? How're the kids? Do you go to church sir?”

Probably the police wouldn't even come. They'd just recommend that the apartment staff ask us to leave. They didn't though. Just the guy.

The family that e-mailed you is a family I met while in Tomball for the day. They were VERY nice and made us breakfast for dinner. Very sweet family, they asked if we should write you and I said absolutely, since most of the people I teach and know don't really speak English, so they can't as such... communicate. They also don't really have the Internet, more often than not.

I actually sent valentines for mommy and daddy tambien, but I just got the letter back and it was all damaged. What a waste of postage... I'm almost out too, I'll have to go to the post office. I still haven't managed to get my license. I received the copy of it, but I can't use it, because it's the copy of the license I had when I was sixteen, so it's expired by a number of months. I DID renew my license before I left, but nobody seems to have a copy of that one? The mission gave me a copy of my old one two. But it's starting to look like they can't find the copy that I KNOW they have, of my newer license. I know they have it because, they made me come into the office to specially make a copy of it when they were renting a new apartment for the sisters back in Louetta. But no. I still can't drive. I'm going to send you the paper work today. Sorry about that, I've just been so busy, but I really need to get that license.

The only other bit I have to tell you, I think, is that we were kicked out of the adult session of Stake Conference. Pretty hilarious, actually. See—we were told we should come and bring our investigators/recent converts. So... we did! We were also told that we should get rides with members so we didn't waste miles. So... we did! Then, the general authority who was presiding, came up to President Hansen as they were preparing to start the meeting and told him that “The Missionaries shouldn't be here. They need to be teaching right now. Please invite them to leave.”

I love it when they use the word 'invite' like that, when really he meant, “Get. Them. OUT!”

So, President Hansen told Elder Porter, zone leader, and he came and gathered all of us and we had an emergency 'What the heck do we do for the next hour and a half?' meeting.
None of us have cars, we all came with members, as we were attempting to be obedient.
We're 40 miles away from our area, and 15 miles outside of our mission.
It's dark. Sisters aren't technically supposed to do any tracting after dark in our mission.
In the end we just decided to go knock some doors anyway, as we had no other option, really.
President Hansen apologized profusely after the meeting.
Nothing much came out of it. Elder Frost and Elder Lang met someone who sounds pretty awesome. His Mormon friend has been trying to get him to come to church with her for years—that was really cool. And the Zone Leaders met someone who prayed for their souls not to go to hell and for their eyes to be opened to the error of their ways. That's always interesting. Aside form that, it was just a fun, funny night. I tried to be a comedian about it and get everybody else to look on the hilarious side of life, because it was looking like a few people were going to come over all depressed about getting kicked out of our own church meeting. I started to compose an Opera in Spanish on the spot about the experience and spread cheer and funzies por todos lados. I don't remember the music anymore, and for the most part the lyrics are just exactly what I've written but in Spanish, which is much easier to rhyme in.

We've been finding people like crazy recently, but we've also been losing them like crazy. I don't think I've ever been dropped or shoved off so much in my whole mission. This area is a little tough. But it's okay, because, like I said, we are finding people like crazy. Maybe this is just a violent sifting process here... we're bound to find the elect if we continue like this.

You also say that the week was normal, but it always sounds way interesting to me... All the little things that happen to you guys and important to me. Thank you so much for sending my debit card. I still haven't activated it. I'm not sure how. That stupid answering system leads you in all kinds of irrelevant circles. I think I'm just going to pound buttons until I can talk to a human being.

All these natural disasters are pretty serious then? We don't know much about it. Just what we here from the members. It's so sad—but I guess we have to come to expect it in these days. I'm so sorry about little Ben! Poor thing... Does George miss his brother? Little Bellatrix sounds like a doll.

Yeah, there's a couple of Elders who are like, “Your sister should write me.” to which my typical response is, “Fat chance. She won't even write me!”

I LOVE you all so very, very much. MWAH! Thank you again for my card and for all the funny comics. Me and my companion read them and giggled incessantly.

Love, Hermana Lillywhite

The secret remedy: Bunny Tea.

2010-02-22T10:01:00.001-08:00

Familia mia!
Que tal?
Man, this was a good week. I was way sick and had to spend a few random hours passed out in bed, but we still managed to get out and do a decent about of work in spite of the fact that I was sick as a dog. Jackie Reyes, a less active woman who we teach, grabbed a sack of limes and cinnamon sticks and honey and gave me very specific instructions on how to make… BUNNY TEA! She said, if I drank it before bed three nights in a row, I’d be cured.
I don’t know if it’s actually making me better, but it’s DELICIOUS!
There was a pretty nasty incident down here in Austin last week. I don’t know how widely the news spread. Some sad, sick Pilate with a grudge against the IRS decided to have a mini-reenactment of 911. At least, that was what I understood from the couple of minutes that I watched on the news at a part-member home. They don’t speak English and wanted us to translate what was going on for them, so they’d know if they were supposed to panic or not.
The REALLY awesome thing that happened this week was that I had the very wonderful privlage to go with Ashley to get her patriarchal blessing. It was INCREDIBLE! Very inspiring, empowering blessing. She was so nervous, SO nervous. But she’d prepared herself well and now she is so happy! It was wonderful to see the change from freaking-out to peaceful tranquility and joy.
Aside from that, there is little report from my week…. Oh, except that we had a really weird Zone Meeting with a reporter present who asked us questions and is apparently planning to write an article for the Houston Chronicle about missionaries. That was strange. The whole zone was super uptight. They gave good answers I thought, but geez… relax a little people. Let’s not forget we’re having the time of our lives!
Your week sounds like it was filled with delicious food. Best kind of week there is. I keep thinking to myself that I’m going to lose some pounds and get back into shape. But I just don’t see how. I’m way NOT willing to give up food. I’m just not. And, well… I LOVE to exorcise. But It’s kind of hard to PROPERLY exorcise out here.
I had a weird dream that I joined the Army a few weeks ago. And then again last night, I might have had the same dream. It’s listening to all of Ashley’s army stories, I’m sure. Thanks for sending the picture from the Davis’ baptism. I really want to print out a copy of that, but I sent it home before I got the chance. Let Chantal know that I finished the ‘book-summary’ notebook and will be sending it to her for her scrutiny as soon as I can find proper mailing material
Oooo, Magna Charta, Russian History, World Wars…. I kind of am excited to be able to study again—I mean, I study now obviously, but I’m excited to study history. There’s a number of subjects I’ve become more interested in recently, and they are just that much more fascinating with it being impossible for me to study them. It sounds like you’re an awesome teacher mommy. I hope those kids realize how lucky they are to have you. I know I’ve come to realize how lucky I was to have all of you as my family.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAZI! YAY! Is she 17?! Really!? That’s crazy. How old do you have to be to run for president? Is there any way we’d be able to put a bid in for 2012? Any chance? She’s even more a minority than President Obama, being an Arab American Mormon Woman. And she’s a genius. She’s got my vote, straightup.
I’m going to write Nannette a love note today, I think… I need to find out what the East Mission Address is, but I feel confident that the office should have that. I can’t believe she’s here in Houston already! That’s crazy! I was thinking to myself the other day, ‘Nannette should be going into the MTC any time now, right?’ but she’s already here! That’s nuts! I can’t believe how quickly time goes by. Hopefully, there will be a Multi-Mission conference soon so we can take a precious picture together that I’m sure the ward will cherish and hang up somewhere in the capilla.
Wow, I really don’t have much to say this week. I guess I’m tired. I spent a great deal of time passed out asleep lately, but I’m still a little exhausted. I was happy to hear that you folks got to go to the temple this week. I was just thinking this morning how I’d like to try and go to the temple a least once a week for pretty much the rest of my life after my mission. I’ve been really blessed to have a temple so close by that we get to visit so regularly.
Yeah… having my debt card would be cool. Hopefully I’ll have it by next Monday then? It usually takes about two days to get from the office to the apartment. That’ll be good. In the mean time, I’m just trying to be thrifty, which isn’t so hard. Members have been giving us all kind of food lately. It’s VERY nice. And there’s a family of investigators that always gives us food too. They say that they’ve started to notice that for some reason, whenever they feed us, they have more than enough for themselves, whereas, before, they were struggling to have enough for everyone to eat.
I LOVE you all, and I miss you! Jensen’s plan to skip a semester is admittedly ‘not allowed’ I know, but I’ve got to say, part of me wishes we could all just quit life for a few months and play. Alas. Life goes on.

KISSES! YAY! Hermana Lillywhite
P.S. There’s a catchy song I can’t listen to that some of Ashley’s Army brethren did a video to on youtube. The name of the song is WAY familiar. It’s called, The Ding Dong Song, and the band is apparently called ‘Gunther and the Sunshine girls’?! I’m pretty sure it’s already on Jensen’s playlist. She digs the peppy dancey stuff. If it’s not, then it probably should be.
P.P.S. My companion came up with a brilliant idea for a television show this week. Children ages approximately 8 and younger acting out famous stories from literature, mythology, scripture etc. Like Master Piece theatre except with BABIES! It’ll be a children’s show of course. We’re planning to call it “Small Expectations”. Pretty sure we’ll make a couple of ‘trial-run’ short episodes with primary kids from church first, and then… Hollywood!

Well. I didn't get mugged.

2010-02-16T09:40:00.000-08:00

Fambly!
So yes, my wallet was stolen. I’m a dumb bunny. I forgot I live in the third largest city in the world and that outside of cute little suburbias like Murray wallets get snatched all the time and it’s no big deal. The staff at the store were sympathetic but they basically just smiled and said, “Yeah… sorry about that. We don’t have cameras or nothing, so you’re kind of screwed sweety.” And went back to work.
I was just looking through the cards, trying to find an appropriate one for daddy, and we turned away from the cart for about 30 seconds. Maybe a full minute. And when we came back, our wallets were gone. Way triste. Everything in it can be replaced except for the gift cards that I had from birthday/Christmas (yeah, I’m sad about that), and the wallet itself, which I had actually made myself while I was due to train and freaking out a little and needed to do SOMETHING with my hands to keep from pulling my hair out. And there was some extra fabric and a zipper around that Hermana Forsling had left me, so I made a wallet. I was rather fond of it… and I’m sad that I didn’t get to enjoy the giftcards. I was actually planning to use one of them that day for something specific, but I didn’t end up buying it on account of getting robbed. But, I didn’t have any cash in there at all, and my social security card wasn’t there either. A la major they didn’t even find my cards since I made the wallet very cleverly and it’s got the missionary handbook in front, obscuring everything from view. It’s likely they saw that it was a book and just tossed it, but we checked the trash cans and didn’t find anything, and the Walmart people didn’t either. If they did keep in, then hopefully they read it.
It’s a hassle to replace everything, but it’s just stuff. I’m okay. Mommy! I got the new wallet you sent me! I love it, it’s soooo pretty! Gorgeous. I don’t have anything to put in it yet, but I’m slowly filling it. It’s a very nice wallet, and I love it! Thank you also from the Valentine’s day candy! And to Grandma and Grandpa too! My companion and I have filled ourselves with great amount of chocolate. It’s been wonderful.
Sunkitty and His Friends finally arrived! Turns out it was at the office at my apartment complex for a while now, it’s just that the silly office people there forgot to tell me about it. I even came by once and specifically asked if anything had arrived that they might have forgotten to mention to me, and they said ‘no’. Then the next day, I felt like I should ask again, and this time the lady looked at me all confused and was like, “You live in 509, right?” and we said, “Yes.” And she said, “Didn’t they tell you about that?” and went to go get my package which had apparently been there for several days. How silly.
Anyway, I finally got to see it! YAY! It’s beautiful! I can only recognize one editorial change, the word “vanquishes” in place of “kills”. I still prefer the word ‘kill’ there, but I suppose vanquishes is softer. It is a children’s book. But, yeah, I didn’t pick up on any others. I can barely remember writing a lot of these poems. I know I did, because it sounds like me, but I’ve just forgotten so much. Anyway, I LOVE it. It is lovely. I did lots of squealing and jumping up and down when it came. I also turned the comic strip into a bookmark since it was so very appropriately a bookmark for me.
By the by, I randomly remembered a flash back of reading the inside jacket of a novel that was Pride and Prejudice except Mr. Darcy is a vampire? Did I dream this up, or is it a real book? I’m pretty sure there’s about a hundred different versions of this story by now.
Your trip to St. George sounds SO fun. Temples and shoot-outs and good food and Grandma and Grandpa! Wonderful! I forgot about the Olympics. That’s so fun. All the PC stuff is pretty annoying. We very seriously offended two of our investigators last week when we told them straight-up that the other churches don’t have authority and teach false doctrine and are therefore Apostate. We explained to them about True Vs. Not True about ten different ways, but they still didn’t get it. This morning, I finally realized that the problem they were having was probably more that they think we’re saying that everyone else is going to hell because they’re in the wrong church—of course, we’re NOT saying that, but that’s probably what it sounds like to them, since all their previous experience with religion has including mass condemnation of everybody.
We might watch that clips of that Heavenly Father’s Plan is Big Enough for Everyone talk from last Spring’s conference with them and explain that being in the wrong church doesn’t mean you’re damned. It just means you lack understand and knowledge of God’s plan and thus, will have to eventually learn about all that. If not in this life, than in the next.
So you guys got a Plan of Salvation class this week? We had Ward Conference. I’m sorry to say that my relief society class sounded like it had some similar problems to yours’ mommy. Our topic was Reverence. Which is a really great and profound topic, and definitely could of gone somewhere, but instead everyone just went off on horror stories about investigators being offended by how loud the classes were etc. and how some horrible people can’t control their kids etc. For the WHOLE. HOUR.
She also made us take our shoes off. I didn’t mind that part, she was trying to make a point about Moises when he communed with God through the burning bush. It could have been good, but everything seemed to go wrong the second she had us put our shoes back on.
The Plan of Salvation, is so hard to teach sometimes. Because it’s SO important. And It’s so easy to fall back on the cutesy “My Turn on Earth” version of events. I try to teach exactly what Preach My Gospel says. People do often have trouble teaching the ‘Satan sought to destroy the Agency of Man’ part of the lesson. I almost prefer NOT to have members with us for that lesson. Same with Word of Wisdom sometimes, because more often than not, I have to pull the investigator aside later and say, “Hey… Coca-Cola is okay. That’s not actually in there—he’s just crazy.”
Law of Chastity on the other hand… It’s nice to have a cute older couple with you when you teach that lesson. Otherwise it gets awkward and often seems to turn into a challenge of “Well what do you know about it?!” and then I have to be like, “Well I—okay. Nothing.”
I’m so sad my valentines didn’t make it to you! Somebody got hungry at the post office I guess. I thought about sending them in a padded envelope, but my companion was able to successfully send a few off like that, so I thought it might be okay… That’s too bad. Did daddy like his card? It made me giggle. I still want to see a copy of that picture of the sister missionaries from his mission who dressed up like nuns. Also—could you guys e-mail me a copy of the picture of the Davis baptism from my camera that I sent home? I forgot to print out a copy of that one. It’s the last baptism photo on there. The only white people.
This week was… kind of rough. We taught a lot of lessons but none of our investigators are progressing and we didn’t find anyone new really. We did finally get the chance to teach the Jehovah’s Witness wife of an old investigator, which was awesome, but then, they didn’t come to church, which is depressing.
We’re working hard and I know we’re with the people who need us right now. I love you all, and I LOVE being a missionary in Texas!
I miss you and I love you! Hermana Lillywhite

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2010-02-08T09:27:00.001-08:00

First order of business...

*Clears throat

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY! DADDY BIRTHDAY!

I hope you have a great birthday daddy, and that you recognize the great gift and blessing and wisdom and experience. And that there is lots of delicious cake/pie to eat. YAY!

Pobrecita bebe, estas enferma Lanita? Poor thing. I hate strep. I feel like I got in annually for a few years too. I'm glad Jensen is enjoy her acting class, especially when it gets silly and new agey. If you can enjoy things when they're silly and new agey than you're set in the acting biz. Or so I've been told. Have no personal experience, although I would like to scream in horror and pretend to die in some movie someday. Maybe Johnny Depp could bite me in that Dark Shadows project that keeps getting put off for years since I was like 12. Denim's monologue sounds great. Quirky. Perfect for Jensen. Has she had to learn to cry on cue yet?

I think animation is a perfect choice for Jensen. I can't tell you how happy it makes me just to hear that there is a young blonde Mormon girl in Utah who is NOT majoring in elementary education. Animation is good and interesting, and she'll have a ton of fun work opportunities. The world always needs artists. Okay, so maybe there's that whole 'starving artist' cliché, but let's be honest here. Jensen is made happy by artsy stuff. Esto quiere dicer: GO ARTSY JENSEN!

Oh Hook dates. I remember those charming things. It sounds like your class is doing really well. They certainly have an excellent teacher.

Mom, I love it when you describe the food. Last I checked, I'm down to a more respectable 145-150 range. I'm going to try to get healthy again. It's a little rough though. People keep giving us food and it's SO good. Plus, we have a car. I think all the tracting we did this week helped. I LOVE having a companion who likes to tract.

Well... Now I've got to admit that I haven't received the package yet. But! I did guess what it was by way of a number of hints. Also, some people wrote to me about it:) Soo.... THANK YOU! MWAH, MWAH, MWAH! I LOVE it. Or, I'm sure I'll love it one the package actually gets here and I get to see it. It's close to transfers, so they often hold up all the mail at the office until everybody's new addresses are legitimately fixed. So... I may NOT get it until next week if it's still taking this long, but anyway. I LOVE YOU! THANK YOU! GRACIAS! Clearly, I am a genius. What editorial changes? What did you do to my work?

Just kidding, I'm sure I won't mind. I just can't wait to see the thing!

I'm self promoting like crazy. President Hansen said he's going to purchase a copy. And I wrote a notice on the board at district meeting.

“What is this?” *Elder Verhs motions to my note on the chalkboard.

“My parents have secretly published one of my books while I'm been on my mission. And as my comrades, you are all obligated to buy it.” *Me

“Sweet! Do we get a discount?” * Elder Frost

“No. Why would I do that?” * Me

“Because... we're your friends?” *Elder Manship

“No. Wrong. Because you're my friends, you'll buy it and pay full price.” *Me

“What about if we recommend it to people? Then can we get a discount?” *Elder Frost

“...What do you not get about me wanting your money?” *Me

Alright, I know that all sounds horribly miserly and prideful/arrogant/covetess or something. I'm sure it's some kind of sin to joke about wanting lots of money, but I thought it was hilarious and they all said they'd buy one after their missions if they remember or want to.

I'm very excited. I sort of want to take a surprise trip down to the office to pick it up, but we're already kind of shot on miles and it's only the 8th and I'm not supposed to.

This is transfer week, and in spite of the fact that my companion and I are both staying in the same area in the same ward, we've been transplanted into a different zone, along with pretty much all the other Spanish missionaries in the mission. I'm back in Houston zone, where the Spanish Language and big stats reign as King and Queen of the ghettos of Houston. Except I'm in one of the nicest areas of the city still, so I'm not in the ghetto at all. It'll be interesting to see how my Houston Zone experience will be now that I'm way out here in the suburbs. Elder Parker, who definitely does NOT have a secret fanclub of which I am treasurer is my new district leader. His daddy in the mission, Elder McGary was one of my favorite district leaders so far. Elder Parker is hilarious. I think I mentioned him before... remember a story about an Elder with a slightly deformed leg (subtle, you don't notice unless he points out that it curves funny) who used said deformity to alarm us all on Halloween and make us think he'd broken it. I was looking around for the phone to call an ambulance when he got up and ran away giggling with glee while Elder McGary was right on his heels ready to choke him. Funny kid.
He also had one of his friends back home write him a fake Dear John letter that was pretty chistoso. I've been trying to get my hands on a copy for a bit now. It includes a romantic morning/surprise-make-out scene on the Y at BYU and a two week engagement.

Elder Frost is leaving us—but he's just going across the street to Westgreens and Elder Manship's new companion will be Elder Geldmocker; the one who almost died in August but then was fine. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that he'd come back out... then Hermana Thomas left, but she's apparently doing great according to President. She was joking before that she wants me to be her trainer when she comes back into the field.

We worked HARD this week. We tracted a lot and found a number of new investigators. For the first time ever a white person let me into their home (monumental moment in my mission, let me tell you). And I've got to think of something else to say at doorways aside from, “...we're here to share a message about Jesus Christ...” because I've been starting to get a lot of people who just say, “Thanks. Already know him very well actually,” and slam the door. If they really knew him so well you think they'd recognize his messengers on their doorstep, am I right?

My poor companion is sick. She's pretending not to be, but she totally is. She's got a terrible cough and she's exhausted. She's asleep on the couch right now, face sort of half buried in her mini-quad. I might have to pretend to be sick also, just so that she can get some rest.

I'm glad you like the book ideas. Some of them are still in their infancy, but the larger part of these ideas are pretty much fully formed aside from not being written down. That's funny that you say that about the mission show, because that was my idea too... I want it to focus on one meetinghouse and the two/three wards that meet there. At least one of them will be Spanish. The missionaries, because of transfers/going home will be constantly changing. So we'll be bringing in new actors and characters all the time to play the main people, occasionally checking up on what going on with old characters, but for the most part, the consistent characters on the show will be the ward members & the investigators who are left behind while their missionaries come and go.

You see, I diagnosed the main problem of the missionary-movies as being that they're far too focused on the missionaries themselves and their frankly uninteresting life crisis, and not enough on the work—O sea, los miembros e investigadores.

I'm not saying that the show will be totally devoid of missionary drama, I'm just saying it'll pretty much take a back seat to what's actually going on in the field and is relevant to the work, and not so much on hidden demons/girlfriends back home/crisis of faith of the missionaries, although I'll certainly include those elements if a relevancy can be made to the work.

Whatever. You should probably help me with this. Not that it's too terribly important. We all know that Sunkitty and His Friends is and always will be my best work.

I'm seriously so excited to see it. Kind of freaking out every day when the mail comes. My companion is fearing for my sanity. If it doesn't come today, I'm going to call the office and see if it's there, and if it is, I'll make Elder Manship or Conrad or Barlow get it for me since they all have to go up their tomorrow for transfers.

Hey as long as we're secretly publishing each other's literature, how is 'The Rickety Old House' coming along?
SO excited to read that one too.

I'd really better go though, but THANK YOU! Best present ever. I hope my letter made a little bit of sense. I LOVE you. I miss you most dearly. Besito.

Hermana Lillywhite

OOOOoooo, I love surprises!

2010-02-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

Fambly!

I'm glad my package arrived safely. It was starting to warm up in Texas, but then it's gotten cold again just these last couple of days... hopefully though, it'll warm up again shortly and then stay warm. Probably, it will warm up again shortly and proceed to be too terribly hot for a long while afterwards. Thus is the way of Texas. I'm very excited about this surprise. And suspicious because of the mysterious nature of the thing... a ver.

Yeah my nails have been consistently long like that since the MTC. I'm not sure what happened, I just stopped cutting them. I thought it would be hard to play the piano with my nails that length, but it's actually not bad at all. I did cut them short again like a day or two after I took that video though. Two of them got snagged and torn so I decided to start over. So now they're short again, but I'm not going to keep them that way, I've decided I like having long nails. I don't get too many opportunities to practice the piano. Especially now that I'm in a ward were we have several people who play the piano, so they don't need me to be the unofficial ward pianist like in the other wards I've served it. Hermano Ivory (the funnily named very white man in the ward) plays really well. He always plays Clarie de Lune for prelude every week. It's my favorite thing. I look forward to hearing it while we're greeting everybody at the doors of the chapel.

I was going to ask if they let people pose nude for art classes at BYU. I guessed the answer was probably 'no', but still, when you said 'figure drawing' I was like, “hmmmmmm....”. Too bad. I mean—err, great. Good for BYU. Hopefully Jensen will never have to work on any project that requires her to know how to depict human genitalia, because she will clearly never know how to go about drawing it. And hopefully that wouldn't be necessary for video games anyway. However, buff guys in speedos = probably good to know.

I'm glad daddy got to go out and ride. It's still miserable and cold there though right? Cause, it's kind of chilly here. My companions have been putting together a list of book for me to read as well. The only reading goal I've made for myself so far though is that I want to finish reading Jesus El Cristo by the end of the year. I'm on chapter four right now, and reading it for part of my language study every day. So, as an expert on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, what do I tell the people who ask me about that? Because so far I've just given them a vague answer of, “You know... I'm not entirely familiar with all the details, but my understanding is that some church members were involved in that and they will have to suffer the consequences of their actions. But the church as a whole didn't authorize or condone their actions, and was in fact pretty upset when they heard about it after the fact.” How's that? What would you say to these charming people?

Studying World War II now? Fascinating. And sad. I was trying to remember the name of that Ben Stein movie the other day... the one where he talks about Intelligent Design and religious persecution. Did you folks ever see that? I can't remember what it's called, I just remember I liked it a lot.

This week was honestly a little discouraging. We're still working with Elena to get her ready for baptism this next week, but she's struggling a bit. Her children have been sick, and she didn't come to church yesterday because her daughter was coughing so much, and she decided she'd better take her to the hospital. Getting people to actually physically come to the church has always been the hardest thing for me, but Elena came under her own power. We had dropped her and she still kept coming... The rest of our week was kind of rough too. We found some people and them abruptly lost them, and then lost some other people. It's all been kind of rough and crazy. But we just try to be positive and spend our energy making each other laugh during moments when it would be easy to murmur.

Speaking of that, I've got a number of books bouncing around in my head.

(*=Old ideas that I could never write because of a lack of inspiration, that I now have a completed summary/plan with which to execute the various projects.)

Untitled Sister Missionary Memoirs
Rosenrot*
MirrorGirl*
Curse of the Twelth King*
Salvages/Semilla/Sakura
Untitled cutesy 7 Princesses Novel
Redboat*
A Lullaby for the Innocents: The Adventures of Philip the Happy Vampire.
Untitled missionary themed TV script project

These are probably what I'll be working on when I get back. The vampire one is actually going to be a fairly serious novel. Although not really, because we honestly have enough dramatic vampire novels around. But, I'm planning on working with a very good artist I know who happens to be studying Modest Figure Drawing: A Prerequisite to Non-Genitalia Studies at BYU, to help me put together a comic strip about Philip that will be much more light hearted than the book and will probably come with it as 'a free gift with purchase of book' or something adorable like that. He won't drive a shiny silver Volvo or dramatically try to commit suicide in Italy. He might have a cool Barnabas ring & cane combination.

Hermana Christensen has a good friend in the art program at BYU. Stephanie White. Does Jensen happen to know her? From her letters, she is hilarious and they should clearly be besties. She makes me laugh and she's just writing my companion.

Speaking of making me laugh, who in the world is this Lady Gaga creature?! I leave the world for a couple of seconds and a new superstar rises?! We were at the house of a part member family and their cute little daughter began to tell us all about her favorite music. They're going to put together a list of Artistas Latinas to check out when I get home. But she apparently is in love with some song call “Bad Romance” that sounds rather peppy & groovy. (It's Ashley's Ring Tone.) So I guess, she's hugely popular right now and it sincerely shock everyone that I had no idea who she was. (HELLO! MISSIONARY!)

But this chick sounds very odd.

Well, not much else to report that wouldn't severely depress you to hear about it and me to write about it. I'm not discouraged or anything though, don't worry. I'm just a little bit disappointed that I was incorrect in my previous assumptions about how our investigators were progressing... But, tonight starts a new week, and I am confident that we are doing what we should be doing and that we, and the people we're teaching will be greatly blessed for it. Maybe not soon, but soon enough. So. Onward. In the mean time, we can continue to make each other laugh to keep from crying.

I love you all, and I pray for you, and I miss you!

Hermana Lillywhite

2010-01-27T18:26:00.000-08:00

More pictures here.

"...He'll Testify. He says he's been to Texas, and it's the only place to be."

2010-01-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

Dearest darlingest queridita familia,

I'm glad I'm not hurt too. And it makes me smile to think of Jensen's excitement at my home-coming being compared to her excitement at the release of an awesome movie. I am kind of like an awesome movie in some ways that I've failed to see as I've written that sentence. Anyway, I am also excited to see you all again too. And to see the Harry Potter movie. Me and Jensen will be reunited in our high-pitched squeals about movies as they are released soon enough. Wow, we sure seem to be having a lot of baptisms in our ward recently. I can only remember going to 5 convert baptisms in my entire life before my mission, and it sounds like we've had several this last year. That's exciting. Or maybe I was just clueless and not paying attention to what was going on around me. I very easily could have gone to a couple hundred and just not really understood. Now I get it though. It's a big deal, and it's very exciting.

I LOVE ward soup party! That was always my favorite party. It's just like every other ward party we have, except with delicious, delicious soup! The soup you made, kind of sounds like I would eat the whole thing before we ever even got it into the gymnasium to share with the ward. My poor car. Pobrecito carrito. I'm glad he's all better now. Adorable little Hung Car. I'm happy you are all taking good care of it.

I can't believe Laney is reading legitimate novels now. That's so exciting. She must be so grown up... crazy. It's good you got rid of those extra channels if it was costing so much. The more I think about it, the more I think I might just elect to just have a way nice TV and an impressive library of movies and no cable at all. If there's a show on TV I want to check out, the lest I could do is be social and find a friend who has cable and wants to have a party and watch it with me, and then if I like a show, I can spend the movie I might have used to pay for cable on the box-set. There's probably a flaw in this plan somewhere, but I don't see it yet. Maybe when I actually watch TV again, I'll think of what it is.

Lauren's letter this week had we laughing pretty hard. Mission dreams ARE the weirdest things. I had a psychotic one last night. Mom, if you want to give me an interpretation of this one, it'll be appreciated: basically I dreamt that the prophet announced a sign for the world. In a nutshell this prophecy went like this: 'This afternoon, at approximately 3:42, it will begin to rain blood from the sky. This will come as a sign unto the world that the war has begun (I don't know what war this is referring to. All the significant ones are sort of going on all ready) there will be many who will try to deny this sign. But I prophesy as the Lord's representative that it will come in such a way that none shall be able to deny it.'

So, an emergency mission conference is called and President Hansen brings the whole mission down to the Hafer building, and gives us instructions to stay calm and pray for a confirmation and for the Spirit to bring us peace. Seems logical right? I mean, he only warned us about this so we wouldn't freak out. So, we wait for this sign to come, and sure enough at exactly 3:42 the sky opens up and great drops of blood begin to fall. But it's not just raining outside—blood is pouring from the ceilings inside the houses, in the closets, underneath the precautionary umbrellas that the Elders are holding out for us, and pretty soon, everyone in absolutely drenched in blood. It goes on for a few minutes before the blood is slowly mixed in with water and it turns to normal rain and then stops.

Like I said, psychotic-missionary-dream. As it was all ending, I remembered thinking to myself, 'Hijole, I wish I could watch the news right now.'

Anyway, this week was charming. I can only think of 3 of the twenty appointments that we had that was actually scheduled in advance. Everything we had planned this week fell through, but we had a lot of random 'teach where you find, find where you teach' experiences come up. We had some great experiences and some heartbreaking ones. Including a cita with an investigator in which we were planning to teach La Palabra de Sabaduria (word of wisdom) that he rescheduled three times, and stood us up for all three, then we tried to drop in twice by surprise to teach him... So, we tried to teach him the Word of Wisdom FIVE times this week, and the last time we went over, we couldn't teach him because he was drunk. I knew he needed that lesson. His mother is a less active member of the church. She says he doesn't drink much. Hence why he got so smashed after just a couple of drinks.

Elder Frost and Elder Manship found a man who claims to worship the devil and also drinks. Elder Verhs and Elder Conrad found a woman for us to teach (a very white bi-lingual matriarch of a very Hispanic family) who has a lot of questions about the spirit world and believes what we've taught her about it, but rejects the idea of modern revelation, so she wants us to only teach her out of the 'Real Holy Bible'. We're preparing a lesson using bible scriptures to teach about the spirit world, and that also simultaneously teach about the great apostasy, so that we can help her come to understand WHY modern revelation is important. She seems like a rational person. Aside from the gigantic sparkly Santa Muerte with cash offerings and the baby Jesus in the fireplace. But those might be her husbands. We'll baptize him too:)

We have been teaching a really wonderful family who kind of what to adopt us. They said they always wanted daughters (they've only got too sons). If only we could get them to come to church.

One of our former investigators, Elena, surprised us this week by calling one of the members and asking for a ride to the church. We explained to Elder Frost that she's been to church four times already and has had just about all the lessons, so if we could start teaching he again that would be incredibly awesome, since the only thing that was keeping her from getting baptized was that she and her esposo, still weren't legally married, but then she left him and moved out of our area which is how we lost track of her and she ended up as a former investigator. Anyway, he asked us if he should interview her for baptism, and then, I guess she just straight up told him “I want to be baptized on the seventh of February.”

Hopefully, we'll be able to help her keep that commitment. She's still struggling a lot right now. But she's keeping more of the commandments of God and trying hard to improve, so hopefully she'll keep that fecha! We'll be praying for her.

This week, there was a lot of talk thrown around about whether or not the Holy Spirit testifies of truth in the form of artwork. Some would argue that it doesn't make sense for the truth to be testified of in the middle of something that is essentially a lie (art). But I sort of go with the V for Vendetta phrase 'Artists use lies to tell the truth, politicians use lies to cover the truth up'. I remembered that line from that movie at some time last week. And the awesome bit with all the dominoes. And I tried to recite what I could remembered of his 'V-words' monologue right at the beginning of the movie. “In view a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the ?vestitudes? of fate...” I couldn't remember the rest very well at all.

Anyway—the point is, I'm going to have to go with yes. The Holy Spirit testifies of truth where truth is found. Why else would Jesus teach in parables? Did all of those parables actually happen, or is it possible that his use of parables confirm this little theory of mine that as long as you acknowledge the fiction in the piece, the truth can shine forth?

Just sayin'.

This conversation actually started because of an incident in Sunday school class that I remembered from the year before I left, when Sister Singleton mentioned an article written by an ex-member woman who had said that she first began to doubt her testimony of the church when she felt the exact same feelings that she had come to recognize as the Holy Ghost while watching Beauty and the Beast with her daughter, and she realized that it wasn't the spirit at all, it was just good feelings. I remember raising my hand and saying, “I'd like to submit that Beauty and the Beast is true.”

Anyway, so, we were talking about this and the following decisions have been reached.

Beauty and the Beast: truth, beauty, love, kindness etc. (The Elders also voted Belle as the most attractive Disney character, inside and out. Pocahontas gets second place. Gaston wins for most weak-sauce villain. Dude, she's not your type. She's far too intelligent, if you ever did get married, she'd figure out how to manipulate you in about three minutes and you'd both be miserable forever. See those three blonde triplets over there? That's more you, just go pick one. All three maybe. Also, the wicked step mother in Cinderella was pretty weak as well. Geez Cinderella, just leave. She's not going to do anything about it.)

Hercules: elements of the preexistence seem to be eluded to, along with a heavenly parentage and “En serio, I can become a god one day?!” (Hercules won for the sisters in the same category of most attractive. Tarzan got an honorary mention. As did Jane for the attractive category. Charming accent.)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Clearly testifies of the Apostasy. Anyone watching it, who is paying attention during the hellfire number is bound to suddenly be like, “Hey... you know... I'm pretty sure the catholic church does not get their authority from God.” (Frolo wins in the villain category. He's a creepy priest who secretly worships the devil, and I seem to remember some Esmeralda coveting.)

Lion King: Prophets are essential and their guidance will lead us the reign in righteousness. Also, it's Hamlet and Kimba the White Lion combined in a blender.

“Far longer than forever...” -Eternal families

“Deliver us!” -duh.

Save Ferris! (Doesn't testify of anything we could think of. It's just a funny movie.)

“So here's us, on the raggedy edge.” -Clearly all about Agency and Freedom.

Also, “This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love fig-newtons.”

Alright, alright. Talladega nights was pretty much just silly, although there was that split second moment when everybody is talking about their own personal favorite version of Jesus when inside myself I sighed and was like, 'Wow. That's kind of exactly like the apostasy. And also. The Book of Mormon is awesome.' I still think that whenever somebody mentions that scene. The rest of the movie is kind of ridiculous, but I'd say that moment at least emphasizes a need for modern revelation to help man discover the true nature of god. Ignorant people make up their own gods conforming with their own personal wills and vices, etc.

This was an interesting discussion. Thought I'd share. Several people got in on it and tried to justify their favorite movies. We're still working on Waitress for Elder Conrad. I'm sure it testifies of something good. That's a great movie.

We had Temple this last week. That was incredible. I love going to the temple. I bought myself some presents as well. Including the soundtracks for Prince of Egypt and the Swan Princess that were being sold at the church bookstore there, for like 4 dollars each. I can't actually listen to them as a missionary, but they're normally like 18 dollars each (the owner found them in bulk somewhere and was trying to get rid of them) so I figured I'm ship them home. I'm putting together a book of stuff to send home, letters and unneeded winter accessories and those two CDs etc.

I also found not one but TWO cheesy Alma 17-? romance stories about Ammon and Abish or the Princess he refuses to marry. Did not purchase. Do not plan to. I can't read them anyway, and I'm not real sorry about that. I still do kind of want to make a very epic, big-budget, artsy film about the story of Ammon, using very little dialogue and long beautiful shots to tell his epic story. Who's the guy who was responsible for all the prettiness in that movie 'The New World'? Do you think he'd take pity on my project? Somebody ought to do some decent movies using the Book of Mormon. 'It could be a way powerful conversion tool!' -Hna. Christensen.

There will not be much romance in my movie. He's a messenger of God for sobbing out loud.

...He's busy.

But don't worry. Abish and the Princess. And the Queen. And all the other women in the movie, will be gorgeous, so as not to lose our male audience. Ammon will be pretty too. Como no?

Alright. I've talked of nonsense long enough. Just to reassure you that this isn't what's on my mind all the time, I do want to let you know that I'm happy and excited about life again. Although this week had all that craziness that I explained about the citas falling through, it really was a pretty incredible week. It's strange having P-day on Mondays, being the day after Sunday, since Sunday, is always such a dramatic day. I typically go from miserable to elated about fifty times on Sundays. It's the end of the week when we see how all of our work that week has effected, or hasn't effected the people we are teaching. Every less-active, recent convert, or investigator we see in church, is call for a massive hosanna shout and every empty seat leaves one feeling empty themselves. It's pretty exhausting, and if there's a baptism that night (which there was last night, the Elder's investigator Juana) then the stress
and the joy is all combined into a cocktail of terror that leaves one wanting a nap and a hot bath.

So. On Mondays, I'm frequently not-quite recovered from all this. Which I think makes me write like a crazy person. But, that's why we have Preparation-day. (And because we've got to do our laundry sometime) ...we need to recover from the damage of last week and prepare for the upcoming struggle. It doesn't always quite do it's job though... Typically when six o'clock rolls around, I feel a little like that boxer who's sitting in the corner, sweating and bloody and looking not-quite up to the next round, and then the bell rings and it's time to go!

Speaking of time to go, I'd better get. I love you. I miss you like Buster misses his left hand (another show we're trying to find a gospel relation with, tell me if you think of any).

MWAH!

Hermana Lillywhite

Attempted MansLaughter

2010-01-18T08:17:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I usually wouldn't be able to write to you today, but since we've started doing our e-mail and laundry at Ashley's (with permission from president, of course) I get to e-mail you today! GREAT week. Okay, actually it was pretty stressful and we had a lot appointments/members cancel on us last minute, or just not even show up. It was pretty frustrating.

I know how important it is to have members with us at our appointments, but being an HOUR late, because we're waiting around for our member is just ridiculous. If them being late was unusual, I wouldn't complain, but it's not. It's pretty typical actually. But an hour is too much. As Hermana Christensen put it, “Well it's acerca de tiempo!”

Debbie, Tony and Shannon got baptized which was the highlight of the week. The service was gorgeous. English wards are so formal. They were so happy, and looked like a family of angels. I got a picture to send you all when I print out pictures next.

Here actually it's much left to comment on for this week... Zone meeting was very good. President Hansen shared some remarks that were very appropriate, I think exactly what I needed to hear. Hermana Thomas had her surgery on Friday. I don't know how it went, so I'm going to write her today.

Also, my companion hit me with the car yesterday. That was fun.

Well, actually it was terrifying for the couple of seconds before I figured out I wasn't injured—after that though, it was just hilarious. Poor thing, she was utterly convinced she'd killed me for a minute, but I'm fine. I'm sore. Very nearly bruised and that's about it. It's this silly backing thing that we have to do. Whoever isn't driving (obviously me, yesterday) has to stand outside and signal with your hands if it's okay to go/which way to turn. But it was dark and hard to see.

Yeah, so, aside from that, there isn't much to share... we've been doing a great deal of finding lately. So everyone who were teaching is brand new and just learning to walk on baby-feet. I love them all already, and I'm pretty sure they're all getting baptized though. Maybe not this transfer, but soon enough. Hermana Christensen seems to have a knack for finding people, in addition to her attempted manslaughter of my person, she has many talents. Whenever we go knocking we seem to find a new investigator. Good people too, very solid. I hope we'll be able to help them.

Home sounds charming. Yes, do tell me how the silly 2012 movie goes. During our lessons, I typically ask if they've got questions, and I've been frequently hearing “Is the world going to end in 2012?” to which I usually respond, “Well, I'm not sure, but I'm going to take a confident stab at no.”

One of our little recent converts in this ward Jaquelin, was very seriously concerned...

“But, the Mayan calender ends! Why didn't they make anything more after 2012?” -Jaqu.

“Well, they had to finish sometime!” -Me

“What do you mean?” -Jaqu.

(To put things in context, she had just brought out her new “Cute & Cuddly Kitten Pictures” calender to show us what kitten pictures had been chosen for our birthday months. She's 10.)

“Well—it's like... say the Mayans really liked kittens, okay, so they decide they're going to make a cute kitten calender and they take their ancient camera and take like billions and billions of pictures of kittens and then they start to make a calender, but they're still eventually going to run out of pictures of cute kittens with which to assign months for this calender, right?” -Me.

“Oh.... okay!” -Jaqu.

“Yeah, and you know, they couldn't just keep making calenders forever, eventually somebody's going to be like, 'Wow, okay, we're covered on calenders for the next couple dozen centuries, we can probably give it a rest and do something else for while, I'm sure there will be time sometime in the next two thousand years to make some calenders for after 2012,' I mean, they're an extinct civilization for sobbing out loud, they wasted they're time counting up to 2012 in the first place, they could have stopped ages ago and it wouldn't have mattered for them anyway, why should it matter for us?” -Me.

“That makes sense... so when is the world going to end?” -Jaqu.

And then, we moved into a rather brilliant lessons about the millennium, and left little Jaquelin much less frightened about 2012, and looking forward to the second coming, rather than fearing it.

I think my understanding of the 2012 theory is inherently flawed. But that's okay, I helped a 10 year old girl get a good night's sleep and had her imagining Mayan kittens, so all's good.

Anyway, tell me how you like the movie.

3.6? Good work Jensen! Ra ra ra. Si se puede!

I got Sifu's word about the Kung Fu test. Sounds intense! You know what else sounds intense? The political climate. Urgh. Kind of glad I'm missing it.

Carmen! Ooo, cool! I was totally thinking about Opera this week. I don't remember why. It had some relevance... Anyway, that lame that the musicians sacrificed a good show for their own selfish reasons. Three minutes? Honestly? How totally unprofessional and without keeping in the spirit of art and beauty and love. They should be thoroughly chastised.

I'm so sorry about your tooth, that sounds painful. Sad too, that you couldn't even get a hold of your dentist... Something like that needs to be handled quickly.

Well, I love you all and miss you terribly. I'm looking forward to mommy's letter this week in the mail.

Os quiero mucho,

Hermana Lillywhite

2010

2010-01-11T11:52:00.001-08:00

Hey family! I am very well, I went to see the doctor this week and he gave me some stuff to start taking and scolded me for not properly medicating myself before now. I already feel a lot better, so I guess he had a point. Aside from ill health this week has been really great. We lost all our top investigators in just the space of a few days, (moving to Mexico/Oaklahoma/dropped up) but we had some success knocking and contacting referrals and now we have a great deal of new people to work with who I'm really excited to teach! Hermanita Christensen is incredible. She's a fearless sister, ready to take on any challenage and we've got a lot of the same taste in everything. She was going off about how much she loves Meryl Streap and 30 Rock and I thought of Jensen.

Oh! That reminds me. Last week, after I was done writing you, Ashley woke up and came out of her bedroom and was humming to herself, "01189998819901197253." Turns out she's a huge fan of the IT Crowd and the Mighty Boosh and all my shows that I left behind so I could serve God. Once again, thought of Jensen. You'd dig these people, they are adorable!

Hermana Christensen had a dream that she taught and converted First lady Laura and President George W. Bush. She said that she some how ran into them here in Houston and gave Laura a Book of Mormon, then a few days later they got back into contact with us and asked to be baptized! Then I had the same dream, except it was Hulk Hogan and his wife (ex-wife?) and I was giving them couple's counseling, but also preparing them for baptism.

I also had a dream that Michelle Obama started insulting the Prophet (it wasn't Monson or Hinckly, I think it might have been Benson) durring a press conference, because of some false accusations that were being put against the relief society being a secret organization to overthrow the government. So, I went to lay the smack-down on the first lady, but then I woke up before things got violent--but man, she made me mad. I don't have anything specific against Michelle Obama really, I seem to remember being annoyed with a couple of stupid comments she made in the past, but I don't really remember what they are now. And I might be mixing her up with Al Gore's wife. It has been a year, after all, since I read a newspaper or watched the news or listened to talk shows etc. I don't know anything about the current situation, so this whole dream came completely out of left-field. Whatever, it made my companion laugh, so that was fun.

Your trip to California sounds wonderful mommy and daddy! So does that mean daddy's all recovered from his pneumonia? Once again, I love the food. It sounds like Meredith has married into a very nice family, and so has Tanner for that matter:) San Clamente sounds dreamy. I've got to admit, I'm slightly devistated that that Sea Cliffs place was sold, remember how determined I was to becoming wealthy and eccentric and buy it myself? My dreams are dashed... Oh well!

Dracula's Castle is still for sale, right?

I'm really looking forward to those two weeks of paradise with you folks. Although, I'm not so much looking forward to the gigantic presipice of nothing that follows those three or so week after I get home from my mission. It's alright though... I think I might take your advice and just figure it out when I get back. I can't really devote a sifficient amount of attention to it now anyway. I just wish I'd put a LITTLE bit of thought into my post-mission plans before I left. Do you know if august-september is too late for me to apply to Graduate school at BYU for the Spring sememster in 2011? I don't really have money or anything, so I might want to get a job and work on that for a bit anyway, but I would like to get on with my studies before too long.

I'm glad that you got the opportunity to visit with family. And various missionaries:) Our mission President was just stressing the importance of asking for refferals from everyone, so we've gotten a few new people to teach as a result of that council.

I'm reading Jesus El Cristo for my language study. I've read it in English which makes reading it in Spanish a lot easier. I doubt I'll finish it before the end of my mission, but I've made a goal to finish before the end of the year. It's the only real new years resolution I bothered to have, since I think I'll actually fulfill it, which will be kind of amazing. Maybe I'll read it while lying on the beach in my swimsuit in august. Probably. I also want to read Crepusculo (Twilight in Spanish) and the Harry Potter series.

Ashley is preparing to get her patriarocal blessing this next Sunday. We're suberbly excited for her. Hopefully God will let her know she's supposed to go on a mission, since us telling her this seems to have little influence. She typically just shakes her head or makes up some excuse like "I'm so NOT sweet and innocent. I can't be a sister missionary!" But she can and she should be. She's got her albedrio though, but hopefully upon reminding her of that she'll go to the Lord in prayer and then make the right choice. She's our source of knowlegde on the outside world. She's told me about two movies: Legion and Daybreakers, neither of which she's seen but that she thinks look interesting/like I would like them. Don't really know what either of these are aside from one of them being about vampires and the other about angels, which is a fun contrast.

Shannon and Christopher got married. The wedding was small and thrown together at the last second, but really quite lovely. It was a nessecary step for Shannon to get baptised this saturday with her mother Debbie and father Tony. (This is the family I met on Thanksgiving who the English Elders are teaching). I thought about Meredith and her wedding which was going on the same weekend and hoped you all were having a really wonderful time.

I'm loving it here, but I do miss you all a lot. I hope everyone is well and happy! MWAH! I love you!

Hermana Lillywhite

Hermana Christensen

2010-01-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

My new verde verde is Hermanita Christensen. Wednesday night last week all the Spanish sisters in the mission gathered to take the new sisters greeny-tracting (knocking doors their first night) but on account there being a demand for missionaries to attend a combined 3rd&5th ward party we just ended up driving all the way down to tickle downtown to take them to this party and meet some of the ward members. Hermana Christensen came with me and Hermana Russon in our car to go down there, (this is before we knew I was going to be her trainer) so she got to see me in traffic/when people don't give me proper directions and invent exits for me to take off the freeway), which may not have been the most uplifting experience—but the party was awesome! (depending on who you ask) I thought it was awesome, because the Castillos of 5th ward were there, and I love that family! I met the mom on memorial day last spring and talked with her for a while and she asked to met with the missionaries in her area and now she and her mother and her seven children are all members. And Alicia and Janet and Yolanda came (three of my recent converts from 3rd ward) and Alicia's tia who just got baptized and who I haven't gotten to see since the first time I met her when Alicia brought her to general conference (my last week in Crosstimbers) and Luis! Another one of my recent converts. So I was like “YAY! Everybody came!” but pretty much nobody else besides them came, so everyone else was pretty sure the party was a failure. We still took pictures and had a blast, and I got to talk with everyone who I haven't seen in ages for a while, before we had to run back down to the mission home to get the girls in before nine.

The next day we had breakfast at the mission home and then President announced who would be training who, then we got to go to the temple and then (on account of it being new years in Texas which means drunk people and fireworks, we were under orders to be in by five o'clock. Hermana Diaz made us papusas. Awesome. And Tamales. With banana leaves. Yum.

Hermanita Christensen is ADROABLE! 4'11” and blonde with big blue eyes. She was a cheerleader in high school and is just a lovely little energetic thing. She's so excited to work, and the girl's got NO fear. I'll just be like “...You should probably talk to that guy,” and she's like, “Okay.” and there she goes. It's amazing. She's so determined to speak Spanish and since there's that whole lack of fear thing, she just does it, and talks, even if it's not totally correct, she just speaks and tries her best and people are understanding her. She's going to be fluent in no time, I'm positive. She's from Royal City Washington and she constantly has to tell people, “No, no, it's really not anywhere near Seattle.”

She's a great missionary ya.

Well Steven got confirmed this last week, he almost didn't because he was too terrified to get up in front of everybody in sacrament meeting, so the bishop made arrangements to confirm him in his office with just his mom and a couple of people there. It worked out great and he's got the gift of the Holy Ghost now.

I'm doing great, entounces... Oh! Remember my pink pillow-case that's covered in mini Salt Lake temples and cute little babies and girly stick-figures? The one that I got in my Mission-Prep class? Turns out that Hermana Christensen's aunt is the woman who draws all those little stick figures. Hermana recognized the pattern and was like “That's my aunt's drawings!”. Very funny.

Pregunta: What is a 'Charismatic Christian?'

We knocked on some woman's door (frequent activity for LDS missionaries) and she answered and said “Sorry, I'm a Charismatic Christian.” and slammed the door. Let's lay aside that completely contradictory nature of the whole situation and just examine this practically... Que quiere dicer ESO?
I'm pretty sure I'm a Charismatic Christian. I'm a very Charismatic Christian. I've got charisma for miles, what does that have to do with anything?

I know, I know. It's some sect I know nothing about. We were both just a little confused however.

It must be so weird not having kids running around por todos lados en casa. Jensen's at BYU and Laney's at school. Poor daddy in bed! And mommy at school too. But I'm glad you are all still trying to have some fun. I'm excited about the existence of the Sherlock Holmes movie. And New Moon sounds like exactly my kind of girl-fest. Didn't I already explain to you mom? That brilliant thing about the Twilight series is that there's NO plot until the fourth book and then they throw everything at you all at once. And somehow it works for me. A very well written, creative first-person narrative completely devoid of all traces of plot, except for a couple of nods to Jane Austin and the Bronte Sisters. Up until book four that is. Then it develops it's own plot so fast it kind of smacks one about the head and shoulders. It's a bit uncomfortable for people who are not inexplicably madly in love with the story like me.

Good for ginna on her grades! That's so cool that you guy get to go to Meredith's wedding. Please send pictures! I'd like some shots from the Kung Fu test too. I like to see the carnage.

Well, not much else to report on this week. I got some awesome letters from people recently and some SWEET Christmas presents. Thank you to aunt Nuggie and uncle John and Kat and Daniel! We are disfrutaring a lot in all the goodies and little, incredibly useful presents. And thank you to Aunt Les and Aunt Missy and Filly for your presents! And I just got uncle Dan's letter, I'm way excited to hear from him... I still need to send out my belated Christmas greetings to everybody. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do it today. As this is getting ridiculous.

Last little bit of good news! Remember in that weekly breakdown that I gave last transfer, who I mentioned teaching the Medina's inlaws at Thanksgiving? And then I threw up as soon as we left cause I was all sick? Debbie and Tony and their daughter Shannon, have all just gotten their interviews for baptism yesterday. It was awesome. I just remembered the first time we taught them...

“So, we teach in Spanish, and go to the Spanish congregation, but there's some very nice young men who teach people interested in coming to the English congregation, if y'all would like them to stop by sometime and talk to you a little bit more about this.”(motioning to the pamphlet I just handed them)

“Yeah, yeah, I think I'd like to hear more about this.” -Debbie

“Sure. They can come by.” -Tony, “But... you know... We're catholic. So...”

I just smiled big and said quietly inside myself, 'Not for long.' (sinister chuckle)

Okay, so it can' be that sinister since I'm wishing for their eternal happiness and salvation and that they might receive the opportunities to enjoy in the blessings of god in this life and well as in la vida venidera. But I just like the comic-book imagery. We are trying to take over the world, you know.

It was a really touching experience to speak to them again on Christmas Eve. There had been a huge change in them, and you could see how they were just so full of hope and joy now. The Elders officially love us. Elder Frost when he interviewed them said he was totally blown away by how prepared they were and how spiritually sensitive they were. They've been able to pick up on how everything that's happened to them in connected. How God has been leading them to this place at this time to make this decision. It's so beautiful. I'm so happy that I could be involved in helping them find the truth. Their baptism is scheduled for the 16th. I'm really looking forward to it!

I love you all. Mommy, I miss you all like crazy too. I can't wait to see you all again, but I know I'm in the right place and I'm doing what I should be doing. 6-7 months isn't really all that long when you think about it. I hit my year mark this week. That's nuts. I still remember exactly how it felt when I was walking away from all of you and I was saying to myself, 'Don't look back, you're just going to sob louder. It's okay, just keep going.' and then there was this other voice that you like, 'You won't see them again for a year and a half, turn around!'

Man, it was rough. But time does fly. 2009 is over with, and with 2010, I'll be back home with all of you!

I LOVE you my family!

"Congratulations on your recent conception"- Hna. Hoskins

2009-12-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

Familia!

I love you. Getting to talk to you on Christmas was the best Christmas Present ever. I hope not knowing when I was going to call didn't make things too stressful for you. Next time, I think I'll call that morning and let you know when I'm going to call later, since that's apparently totally legit. Transfer News: I'm staying! I get to stay here in BearCreek, probably for two more transfers, I'd guess... But little Hermana Russon is leaving, she's going to go to LittleYork to be companions with my old companion Hermana Bastian. I'm sad that we only got one transfer together, but I'm really looking forward to this next experience. I don't know who my companion is yet, because I'm going to be training one of the new sisters coming in on Wednesday. And President doesn't assign our trainers and trainees until after he's met them all/prayed about it. So, next week I'll be able to tell you about my new companion. I'm way excited to train, I think it's going to be a blast. So far, I've been very blessed with amazing companions. So, we'll see how this goes. My MTC companion Hermana Gurney is also going to train. She gets to White-wash train in her baby-area—meaning the area she served in when she first got to the mission—Westgreens, I'm so jealous! I'd love to whitewash City View, but they've only got Elders serving in that ward now... They took the sisters out shortly after I moved to CrossTimbers last summer, so I probably won't get the chance, but I can imagine she's as excited right now as I would be if I got to go open up the City View sisters area. Elder Herrman is also training, so when we all get together to meet our Greenies, it's going to be a bit of an MTC district reunion. Very fitting, I think.

The subject line is what Hermana Hoskins said when she found out I was going to train.

Christmas sounds like it was really wonderful! I had a great Christmas here. One of the happiest and most meaningful of my life. I didn't get homesick at all actually, I looked forward to getting to talk to you all on the phone and after I hung up, I was a little sad for a split second. But then I saw that dad had hung up at exactly 59 minutes and 59 seconds and that made me laugh. Hurray for exact obedience! And I remembered that next time I talk to you isn't really all that far away. This was the long stretch of months and it's ya llevar acabo-ed. How's that for horrible Spanglish?

We had a wonderful dinner with Ashley and her mother. I got to hear funny/terrifying “Drill Sergent Stories” from her days in the army.

Getting to play with the family is so priceless though. I'm really looking forward to getting to see you all for Christmas next year and spend it as a family. But no... I actually didn't get legitimately homesick, just a touch nostalgic, we'll say. Our Christmas P-day was wonderful. I already told you a little bit about that. I'm not sure when Hermana Thomas is going back, but I'm sure she'll be fine. She's got a large chunk of good saints praying for her and she's a strong/righteous person, so whatever happens, she'll be fine, and hopefully she'll be back out here with us in just a short while. When I described to Ashley how I'd been trying to at least cry silently during President's prayer (and then failed miserably) she said that was exactly what happened to her when she started coming back to church and working through the repentance process. Every Sunday in church as they passed the sacrament and she couldn't take it she would try to at least sob quietly, but it never worked and people always stared. But the experience helped her gain and more profound appreciation for her baptismal covenants, and now that she can take the sacrament again, she doesn't take it for granted.

I loved Jensen's description of the movie Avatar as “Ferngully on Steroids”. I think I'll have to see that one when I get back. And Ferngully. I don't remember much about that old movie, except that I liked it a lot as a kid until I was old enough to start getting annoyed with the unintelligent, irrational conclusions reached by some of our adorable environmentalist brethren and then it just made me exasperated.

And Sherlock Holmes sounds pretty slick. Holidays and movies always go together... I was so happy when the Zone Leaders told us we could watch the Peanuts Christmas special. I loved my presents from all of you and I especially loved getting those letters from you folks. I think that was the best gift I got to unwrap. I'm happy, I'm healthy more or less and I'm so excited to be out here doing the Lord's work! I love you all like crazy! MWAH.

Hermana Lillywhite

Hermana Salsa

2009-12-23T12:13:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T07:54:00.001-08:00

Familia!

First off... announcement... Steven got baptized last night! YAY! And His less-active older sister came. It was a wonderful baptism, though it was nearly a bit of a disaster. Poor Hermana Russon was a little stressed. I was too, secretly, but I didn't let it show, because no body needs two panicked sisters at a baptism. It was just a problem with the whole program not showing up for a few ages, and also we had no baptismal jumpers for Steven. He's 12, but he's really tiny. We ended up using an adult jumper and just rolling up the sleeves. Then, the only other jumper we had (the rest were dresses) had a broken zipper when Pompo tried to put it on. So he was struggling with that in the bathroom for a little while, trying to beg safety-pins off of people and stuff. In the end it all worked out though. He got baptized and that's what's important, and his less-active mom is making lots of friends in the ward.

La Hermanita Diaz just got home from her mission to Argentina. We got to talk to her a little at the Christmas Party Saturday night. “Raro.” was all she kept saying when people would ask her how she felt. Raro is like weird. She looked a little bit uncomfortable and out of place. I was watching her saying to myself, “Aww... that's going to be me one day. How cute.” We made arrangements for her to come out with us this week, and when I pulled my planner out she say it and was like, “Oohhhh. I miss that.”

These planners are amazing. So efficient and practical. I said the other day that God himself probably designed them, and I wasn't being cheeky, I actually think these planners are a product of revelation. But everybody laughed, and I was like, “No. I'm serious.”

FELIZ NAVIDAD! It's Christmas this week. We are SO excited! This has been a really wonderful, oddly warm Christmas season for me. I told Hermana Russon about the Stained Glass Orchard Christmas story that I've got in mind to write when my hands are untied and fate returns the quill to it's rightful place in my hand. I clearly have lost all my writing skills, and will need to be periodically reminded when I accidentally use words that don't exist in English. All this great Christmas music that you folks sent me and also that I discovered here, has got me piecing together a soundtrack for the motion picture. Which is a little strange, since I haven't even written the book yet, and have no funding.

What's the song called on the CD you sent me...? Track 6? Really gorgeous rich baritone voice and the lyrics are a narration of when the Angel told the shepherds to go to Bethlehem? “Prepare and go, the Angel said, to Bethlehem...” Something a long those lines. I feel like it's familiar to me, but I can't think where I've heard it before. Probably as a special number in church or something... anyway, I REALLY love that song.

Home sounds so brilliant. Everyone's continuing in their common vocations in life... rescuing animals, singing Christmas songs, repainting the bedroom. Actually, I managed to impress some of the Latino men I've taught, because they'll occasionally talk about how difficulty tiling is and then I just shrug and say, “Yeah. Been there, done that.” in Spanish. I definitely do remember when we took on that particular project. I bet it'll look gorgeous, I hope you all have a little fun working on that.

Yeah, I remember you mentioned about dad's sabbatical. I thought only professors got sabbaticals? If you guys do decide to go to the grand canyon or something, do send me pictures. And be careful. I keep hearing stories about people falling to their deaths recently. Tenganse cuidado.

I ended up sending off a little Christmas package last week for y'all. I don't know if you'll get it until today in the afternoon or tomorrow though, just because of the high quantity of mail etc. Holidays, ya know? Plus, I didn't send it priority. But it's just got this rather nice picture of ME that I thought you would appreciate on an artistic basis, and plus I'm in it looking quite snug in the Tejas snow. And you can see my nametag. I really like this picture. Ashley, who works at Walgreens, developed our footage and then decided to redo the display, so now there's a bunch of pictures of missionaries hanging up in the foto department at her Walgreens. She says people sort of look funny at it sometimes, and she just chuckles and takes their money.

There's also a copy of a CD that I've fallen in love with. Track #11 is particularly amazing. I love it, because it's very much a Christmas song, so I think about Christmas and my savoir... but it also sounds a lot like the Violin bit in Serenity to me at the beginning. Plus it's quite dark and rich. Mmm. Sounds like chocolate to me. But yeah, I don't know when you'll get that. Or if you'll get it. Tell Chantal I got her letters, and I'm working on her Christmas package. I'm sending her the same CD and a Book of Mormon, that she must cherish forever. I'm also nearly complete with my story-summary-notebook, which I told her she could have while I'm gone, since she asked about what ideas I've gotten while I'm on my mission, I figure she might like to read them herself and send me her thoughts on my righteous madness... But first, she's getting a Book of Mormon for Christmas and a Jenny Oaks Baker CD. So is Brighteyes. I know it's not really a surprise if I write what their getting in here, but hey. I'm a missionary. What did they think they would get from me this year? I might actually wrap them up in paper and then write IT'S A BOOK OF MORMON! On the wrapping, just so the surprise is really utterly ruined.

BABY RATS! I love little ratties. I'm glad the kitties are more or less being good about the new pets. Diggy is so silly. I can just picture him sitting, totally serene and gentlemanly inside of the rat cage with the little sillies playing with that ridiculous fluffy tail he's got.

The Christmas program sounds charming. Silly Laney. Give her a kiss for me. I feel like me or Jensen did that once too? Did we? I wish I could hear you all sing! I was trying to figure out if any of the songs on that CD were done by daddy's chior.

Good job in school Jensen! Let me know what her final grades are. Would you do me a huge favor and PLEASE please please, TALK with Mr. Darcy before I get back?! That is, assuming that he hasn't moved back to England to marry someone named Elizabeth or Jane or Georgina. I love hearing of romance. So delightful. The thing I'm going to regret about this attitude is that someone will probably hold me to it when I get back, but I'll worry about that later. For now. I'm Hermana Lillywhite. Soy misionera.

Good luck on your Kung Fu test Jensen! And tell Chantal I said MWAH as well! You'll both do great. Send pictures of the carnage.

Well, I'm just going to end my letter there. There's tons more I could say, but since I get to hear your voices on FRIDAY! YAY CHRISTMAS! I'll just leave it here. I LOVE you and I miss you, but I've felt it again and again. I'm here for a wise purpose and this is exactly where I want to be this holiday season. Besito and besito.

Happy Christmas! Hermanita Lillywhite

RIP MEMO

2009-12-14T10:33:00.001-08:00

One of my investigators died this last week: Memo, who was very old, and I never actually met the man, but he enjoyed drinking, smoking and reading the Bible, he was living with a family who we're still teaching, because shortly before I got here, he moved out and we weren't able to get back in contact with him until he was checked into the hospital. But then he died. It's very sad, but he was very old, and as we explained to the children Alison and Jorge, his name has just been given as a referral to missionaries in the spirit world, and they're going to finish teaching him all the lessons so he can get baptised too. I can't get a straight answer as to who this man was in relation to this family. He's apparently not a family member, but just a close friend who was staying there for a while while he looked for work.

I got everybody's packages! Thank you to Aunt Kim, and Mommy and Daddy! I had a very happy Birthday with lots of fun stuff to open! (Mom, I didn't open the stuff that was marked X-mas, was I supposed to wait? I'm so curious! Am I supposed to open everything in the box, or wait...?) And Aunt Kim's donnescitos for me and my companion were adorable!

The CD worked great and I love your selections!

This last week was really amazing. We had sister's P-day which was SO much fun. And very inspiring as well. We had a sister's conference that night with just us Sister Missionaries (And the presidency and the Assistants and a random husband of the singer who was really nice...) Mostly just us girls though.

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the English sisters. That was very fun. Sister Hoskins wants to learn Spanish so badly. Both her parents speak Spanish (mom's Hispanic and her dad is a returned missionary who spoke Spanish) but she never bothered to learn... but she was way awesome.

I got to go to the temple for my birthday which was amazing, and wonderful. And then Friday we had the huge yearly service project, Navidad en El Barrio, which was SO fun. Just about the whole mission was there to put together gifts for underprivileged children. It was a blast.

Not to much else to report on, this is going to be a short letter this week, but I'm really happy to have gotten to hear for you guys today... And I loved getting those packages! I had a very happy birthday and a very happy week, and I especially appreciate you guys remembering my birthday. I'm way excited to see those pictures!

MWAH! I love you. Hermana Lillywhite

Snowday!

2009-12-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

Querida fambly,
Home sounds so lovely! I was warned repeated that I was going to get really homesick for the holidays, but so far, I’m very much fine. I miss you guys, and it sounds like you’re having a wonderful Christmas season, but so am I! I do wish I could see little baby Bella playing with the Christmas tree. You should probably send me some videos of Christmasness at home si quieran. I love that Laney used the line from Miss Congeniality, that is so her. The treats you’re making sound amazing! Yummy, yummy… Mexican dulces, are NOT that great, but luckily, they recognize that and usually will finish meals with more Americanized desert or fruit. Which is good. Because you can’t eat rice pudding or tamarindo for every meal, and not enough people know how to make flaun(sp?). I don’t think I spelled that right, but you know what I mean.
Poor daddy, I’ve been kind of sick too. I think it might be allergies, actually. I’ve never had them before, but apparently a lot of people develop them when they move here. I love your paragraph on Jensen, it so embodies her completely. Excellent writing. I’m glad she’s being cute and taking care of herself. Gina-ga-bobbin, you’re probably going to have to reteach me a ton of Kung Fu. I remember very little, it’s a problem.
I’m glad you liked my card mommy! I wanted to wish you a happy Birthday in time, so I hope it got there fast… I also meant to write you a happy birthday note before, but I forgot, because I’m silly. So… HAPPY BIRTHDAY! YAY!
Everything sounds lovely and homey… They keep us very occupied during the holidays, I think as a way to put off any homesickness that might arise, especially among the newbies. So, this week—today, actually, we’ve got an activity and a conference with ALL the sisters, which means we’re probably going to have to do some P-day stuff, like shopping, tomorrow. We’ve also got service tomorrow, interviews & probably planning on Wednesday, and then… guess what I get to do on Thursday?
TEMPLE DAY! What a great present for me. I am so excited that we get to go to the temple for my birthday… I had pretty much forgotten all about it. So, before, the exciting thing about Thursday was that we get to go to the temple. I just now, as I was writing this, remembered that it’s also when I turn 22. Crazy. I feel old. I also look, dress and talk like a tex-mex church-lady. Gosh. I sure grew up interesting.
Friday, we’ve got Navidad en El Barrio (Christmas in the Neighbourhood) Barrio is also the word we use for ward, but this isn’t actually a church thing. It’s a community service project that we get to take part in… Next week is more or less normal I think (Which is good, cause I’d like to teach a little this month) and then the week after that, we’ve got two pdays… regular and then mission p-day, and then temple as a mission, then another community service thing and then Christmas.
Crazy month.
They don’t want to give us any time to think about anything, I think. Which is probably really good.
Alright… well, news and stories. I’ll just do highlights: Last P-day, we went to go do our Laundry at Ashley’s place, and when we came over, she was sleeping on the couch and then she told us about her night/early Monday morning. She’d gotten a call from a co-worker at about 2 in the morning and he asked her to please come pick him up because he was drunk out of his mind and couldn’t drive home. She’s pretty sure he didn’t even mean to call her—probably thought he was talking to someone else—but she went to rescue him anyway, and after she’d loaded him in the passenger seat she was like, “Okay, where do you live?”
His response, before he passed out was, “I don’t know… Houston?”
So, she took him home, tucked him into her bed, read him a scripture, which he didn’t remember, and then slept on the couch until we showed up a few hours later.
Just… just imagine, waking up hung over to find yourself in a strange house where two missionaries are sitting cross legged in the living room studying “El Libro de Mormon” & “La Santa Biblia”. Maybe it’s mean, but I kinda wanted to mess with him and just speak Spanish for a while, for an added measure of surreality. I didn’t though, I was very polite and we introduced ourselves formally after he finally woke up a few hours later. We talked to him a lot about missionary work and the gospel while Ashley got herself ready for work. They left the house together after Ashley’s mom got home, and apparently talked about the gospel the whole way home. He admitted that he is looking for the truth, and that he thinks everything we were talking about was interesting and he would like to know more. He’s gringo though, so we can’t teach him… but I now his missionaries and they’re great, so I don’t mind giving him away to them.
We spent the rest of P-day waiting for our Laundry to get done and watching “The Book of Mormon Movie” which Ashley had on VHS.
Oh. My. Chispas. Y. Hijole.
HOW DID THAT GET FUNDING?! HOW DID A COUPLE OF HALF DECENT ACTORS PARTICIPATE IN THAT, I ASK YOU!? Who is… responsible? I must, have them brought before me forthwith.
Alright, so Kirby is always fun, and there was something weirdly appropriate about him as Sam, but mostly it was just WRONG. And Pilote (I don’t know the actor’s name, but he’s Pilote from El Cordero de Dios) is such a good guy, why was he involved?! Nephi’s a good looking man and all, but geez… the whole thing was just so… It was just wrong. I felt like I’d been battered and assaulted after it was over. I really lament the possibility that any non-member ever saw that.
Because, let’s be honest… It’s kind of fun to go all MST3000 and watch bad church movies with active members, but people can NOT think that, THAT is what the Book of Mormon is like. Nephi was so whiney. Huge. But he acted like a little girl, and his nasty brothers were so unbelievable… And acting was bad. The writing was AWFUL. The sets—well, it was Utah, so it wasn’t bad except for being recognizable. Artistically, I just had a huge problem with it. I would have done everything differently. Every single shot, from the beginning to the end. Different angle, different actors, different costumes, different… all of it. The daughter of Ishmael… hijole, let’s just not get into the romance. Let’s not. That was uncomfortable.
Aside from all that, I liked it.
Actually, it did help me appreciate the awesomeness that is the book of Mormon in comparison to the horridness of the movie in which they tried so hard to depict some of it. Which, is good, because it got me all geared up for Zone Conference last week, which was all about The Book of Mormon, and how great it is.
I’ve NEVER read the book of Mormon like this before. Before my mission, I loved it, and I loved reading my scriptures, but now, I just eat it up. I’m actually depressed sometimes when I have to spot reading. I’m almost to the war chapters in Alma. And I can’t believe how enthralling the story is. I’ve always understood it, I think, but sometimes the strange words were awkward, distracting, but I’m so used to it now that it just doesn’t bother me. I’m so into it. Jensen. One day, when we are both insanely wealthy and eccentric geniuses, we shall have another go at cinematic depiction of some of these stories. It shall be awesome. Work on sketches and story-board. NOW!
So yeah, Zone Meeting was amazing. It was all about using the Book of Mormon more in our teaching.
We have a new baptismal date… Lauren is a cute little girl who we just met last week. She’s got friends in the ward, but she doesn’t speak Spanish. She wants to go to the Spanish ward anyway though, because her mother does speak Spanish and her mother will probably start coming to the Spanish ward. It’s not a problem in the young women classes, since there’s minimal Spanish among the younger people, but in Sacrament meeting, she needed me to translate. It was intense. I just had to lean over with my mouth by her ear, tune into whatever was being said at the pulpit and go into this kind of trance, just filtering the Spanish in through one ear and letting it come out in English. It was very cool, but I’m not sure how well I did. I didn’t really have time to think about it, I just had to talk. No time for correction/etc.
There were a couple of moments when I’d miss a word because they’d talk quietly, or someone would cough or a young child would start screaming and I’d usually get totally derailed and just have to try and pick up the strain again… I’m pretty sure there were a couple of moments like this, “I know that Jesus Christ is my Savoir and that he died for my sins, and I know that God—BABY screaming, that was a baby screaming, sorry, what’s she saying?! Oh, yeah—we are all God’s children and the Gospel is…” and I’d just say the interruptions like a talking subtitler or something. Hilarious. Lauren seemed to find it pretty amusing too.
She’s so great. Her parents want us to teach her because she’s supposedly a ‘problem child’. She’s twelve though, and adorable and very nice. I think she’s just been through a lot. She’s moved all over the place. When I first met her, I remembered this line from Jane Eyre, when Mr. Rochester says something about Jane being like a little bird that is afraid to move too suddenly for fear of being struck, or something like that. That’s Lauren. She’s very still.
We’re working with her mom too. She thinks that she’s already been baptized. We’ve yet to explain that without the Priesthood… No vale. Next lesson: Authority/The Book of Mormon is so great.
It snowed on Friday! I’ve got pictures of me being dorky in the snow. And some video of how Texas looks like Utah sometimes. It’ll be part of my Merry Chirstmas stuff that I send to people.
Well, I’d better say goodbye, we’ve got to get going so we can make it down to the mission home for the activity. I corazon all of you.
Missing you, and giving lots of cyberoisty hugs! Paz & Amor a vosotros.
Hermana Lillywhite

Monday-Sunday Breakdown

2009-11-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

It sounds like you guys had a great Thanksgiving. Mmmm. I love food. I think I’m going to have to think about these letters a little more… I think I know exactly which teacher to ask, but I’m not sure how to get into contact with him…
Okay… where to start?!
Usually, you may have noticed, I don’t do a day by day accounting of my time here, just because it usually takes SO long to try and explain everything, since all the actions of the day are results of long, long preparation in advance and foreshadowing… but, I’m going to TRY. It might work this time, since I’m new to the area.
So…
Monday: Wrote you charming folks, very fun, then went and played with the English Sisters in our Zone. I’ve never had English sisters in my zone before. They’re hilarious. We went to the home of a member in their ward, and I took tonz of covert pictures of her house, her daughter is an artist and she’s done all the decoration herself. Gorgeous stuff. She taught us how to make lip-gloss and bath salts and sugar scrub. It was a very fun and girly day… We’re around Elders so much that I forgot how being girly can be a blast too… Then the Bishop ditched us for the family home evening we were supposed to have. Everyone forgot to tell us it was canceled, but it was okay, because we sat and chatted with the man who was doing some painting on his house and he seemed very interested in the church. We gave him the address and hope to hear from him soon…
Tuesday: In the morning we had an appointment with Ashley. Ashley is a less-active girl in the English ward who isn’t allowed to meet with Elders anymore on account of them continually falling in love with her. She’s ADORABLE and nineteen years old, and fascinating. Her life story will be a book; probably written by me. She started reading miracle of forgiveness and spent about forty-five minutes telling us how horrible she felt and how she couldn’t finish it because it was too depressing and making her feel even worse than she already did about what a terrible person she is. (She’s not a terrible person though, she’s actually really amazing.) Anyway, she literally threw the book away from herself dramatically and claimed she’d never pick it up again. We got her to agree to finish it by December 7th. The anniversary of Pearl Harbor, which she appreciated because she’s in the Army. (Or, she was in the army, that’s part of that amazing life story though, and I might have to explain all that later…)
Anyway, then we had some lessons fall through, which was lame because we had Hermana Medina with us, and she’s the best member missionary. But, it worked out alright because we ended up running into a family (Castillo) we’ve been trying to get back into contact with for a while. They were NOT doing well. They were about to get kicked out of their apartment and had no food and no money. We prayed with them and promised that we’d get them some food, at least.
So, our next lesson is with their neighbor and she just happens to have a couple pounds of rice/bread/tostados/cans of food etc. that she’s trying to get rid of, so, we had a quick lesson on generosity, and then she gave us a ton of food to give to the Castillo family. They were sobbing. Everyone was pretty elated and it was a wonderful experience for our Thanksgiving week.
We had several more lessons fall through that day, but we ended up doing a lot of good. We gave the Elders a ride home (they’re on bikes) and they gave us two referrals to check out the next day. It was a great day, but I was actually pretty ill… coughing so hard I was making myself sick. I ignored it though and now we move on to…
Wednesday: More stuff fell through, but we checked out those referrals the Elder’s gave us.
On our way there some guy very obviously checked us out, “Looking good ladies.” (eyebrow wiggle)
Eww. I was just about to give him a card but I was so shocked I ended up just standing there dumbfounded. I’ve never felt less cute in my entire life. I try to rock the ‘church-lady’ chic as much as possible, but seriously sir, what is your deal?
Hermana Russon and I got a pretty great laugh of it. Got lost in this huge apartment complex and found a burned down laundry room (why do the laundry room’s always burn down? Is it the crapy dryers in this state?) The first one explained to us that she had told the Elder’s to go away, but since they didn’t speak Spanish they didn’t understand her and so they wrote down her information as a referral for us. We offered to share our message anyway. She accepted after a minute of explaining that she’d catholic and she’s going to live and die a catholic… But we’ve heard that before.
She mentioned part-way into our plactica that she has a Mormon friend who just moved into the apartment complex next door, and that she came from Utah. We didn’t know of any new members in the area so we asked for her address and name, and then the doorbell rang and the son of this member happened to be outside. We asked them, “Are you guys looking for the church?” and he said, “No.” he corrected the information the woman had given us and said that his mother was home right now.
So, after our lesson, we went to meet Isaura, she opened the door and immediately burst into tears when she saw us. She was wearing a green tank-top over some very new looking garments. She invited us in and explained that she had just gone through the temple right before she moved here. She’s a recent convert to the church and is living with her daughter-in-law here in Houston right now. She’s got no way to get to the church building, no job, no car, no clue and she’d just been praying that someone could help her figure. So, we arranged for her to get a ride to the church. She showed us her collection of books. She loves to read Church literature and is part way through “El Milargro de Perdon” as well, and will probably be starting “Jesus El Cristo” pretty soon here.
Then, on the way home, Hermana Russon noticed some people struggling to pack up a car on the side of the road and suggested we stop to help, so I pulled over and we walked up to these people and they gladly accepted our ayuda. We started chatting with this one woman who was curious to know all about us. Her name is Maria Ester and she’s fun. She practically runs this fellowship and was telling us all about her beliefs and asking us questions about ours for about 40 minutes.
My favorite part was this.
“Do y’all believe in the gathering of Isreal?”
“Uh… Yeah.” (me, smirking, trying not to add, ‘that’s what we’re doing right now ma’am, wanna be gathered?!’)
Part way into this we both had the strong impression to give her a Book of Mormon. We did so, and she started asking us, “You mentioned that Jesus Christ visited the American people, where is that part?” so we marked 3rd Nephi 11, “Where does it talk about Faith?” so we marked Alma 32, and “Are there any prophesies about our days?” so we marked a number of chapters with that one, and then, “Where’s there a discourse on Baptism?” so I marked Mosiah 18.
Then, Hermana Russon, being amazing like she is was like, “There’s a promise in this book… right here (opening to Moroni 10) that if you ask God, he’ll tell you if these things are true, and he’ll give you a witness of them.” And Maria Ester folded the page over and said, “I’ll be sure to read that first.”
We had some more amazing lessons and turned in a little early on a result of both of us now feeling pretty crummy physically. I feel so bad, I think I got my companion sick!
Thursday (THANKSGIVING!) : Breakfast at Ashely’s. She made us an AMAZING meal. Blueberry muffins, pancakes, bacon and sausage and then some amazing tex-mex with tortillas. SO good. We enjoyed this feast and she started to tell us her story of how she really became converted to the church. She was baptized when she was ten, but fell away rapidly and remembered NOTHING and was pretty bitter as a result. After that she lived in Mississippi. You know. That place where missionaries aren’t allowed to go because they still occasionally get tarred and feathered? Anyway, she started her religious search when she was a little older as a teenager and before she joined the army. As she was telling us her story, I was repeated reminded of Glen Beck. She kept saying things like, “I did NOT want to be a Mormon!” and talked about all the deep questions she had and how she actually got kicked out of one church that she was going to for a while for asking too many deep doctrinal questions about the war in heaven and the role of Lucifer. She told us the whole story… which I’m still working on slowly since it’s quite long, but she’s really cool… for our lesson I pulled out my copy of Glen Beck’s conversion on CD and was like, “You need to listen to this guy”. Turns out that she LOVES Glen Beck, she’s been listening to his show for years, and her mom was listening to him even before he got famous, but she’d never heard about his conversion. So we listened to it and the whole time she was like, “THAT WAS TOTALLY ME!”
It was great.
We also watched a few scenes of the Testaments in Spanish and made fun of the dubbing while I parroted back the best phrases of the movie, like “Yo se tu nombre” and “DONDE ESTA MI HIJO?!” “Si tu no lo sabes, quisaz ya no sea tu hijo!” and we spent entirely too much time there, but poor Ashely was all alone for Thanksgiving because the rest of her family left town and she had to work from like 2 in the afternoon until who knows how late… so we spent some fun thanksgiving time with her before she had to go work and it was all very pleasant.
We had lunch with our ward mission leader and his adorable family. I started to feel pretty headachy and miserable, but toughed it out and ate tons while playing Mexican train with Hermana and two of the girls. They’ve got a very big, fun family and the Elders came too, so it was a great time. Then we had an appointment with Isaura. It was really nice to go over to her house. Her room is like a little sanctuary. She’s got all her books and her church music going and her window overlooks the little pound at their apartment complex. We visited with her for a while and made last minute plans for her debut at church… then, we were supposed to go to the Medina’s house for dinner. The Medina’s are those awesome member missionaries I mentioned.
By now, I was feeling really sick, but I felt like we were supposed to go to their house and like we couldn’t just go home. So even though I almost threw-up twice on the way there we showed up and met with the family and chatted for a while with them while I TRIED to eat but failed on account of being so sick.
It was good we went though, because part-way into it some in-laws of one of the kids showed up and Hermano mouths to me, “No son miembros” (They’re not members) they only speak English too, so some quick operations were put in order and they sat these people right in front of us and were like, “HAVE YOU MET THE MISSIONARIES?!”
“Err… no.”
We told them all about what we do and bore some powerful testimony. The spirit was very, very strong. As we were about to leave they asked us for pamphlets and how they could learn more. So we supplied them with some good stuff, and they were like “Well, we’re catholic…” but remembering the way they said it made me remember that line from ‘The Conversion of a Catholic Priest’ talk that I was listening to a while before, where the missionary responds to that same statement with “Sir, we’ve just shattered your faith so significantly that you just said that to reassure yourself.”
Good day. Powerful testimonies… Then, We got in the car and promptly pulled over after half a block so I could throw up a little.
Friday: District meeting was pretty groovy. We’re still sick, so we didn’t do much else that day except teach Stephenie, an amazing woman who’s just getting back into the church and whose husband is planning to get baptized as soon as he get home from Mexico in about a month and a half… we tried to do planning for the week, but we were both so ill we just ended up sleeping for most of the day—in between frantically running between half a dozen other appointments that all fell through. But. We saw a frog. He was big and squishy and I petted him and it felt weird.
And, I got an idea for a vampire novel. Hermana Russon picked out the name Phillip Graystone of Coventry for our main vampire hero. She is so cute. A little innocent thing, she’ll probably never read the book, or if she does it will be the “Hermana Russon edited version” that I will make specially for her and other sensitive readers who don’t need a lot of violence and intensity to keep their interest.
Saturday: Zone meeting, which we pretty much missed because part way into it my poor companion just about fainted and so we went out to where she could lie down and I wrote a rather brilliant little essay on why missionaries get sick and what the spiritual implications are, and I think I’ll have to share that with you later, because although it is great, it’s also long and this letter is already turning into a novel and I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!
So, That night we decided to check up on our investigator Elena who last we heard had to cancel our appointment for work and because she and her husband got in a huge fight and she kicked him out. (they’re not really married, and she said it was because she’s sick of him doing drugs and drinking all the time) so we went by to see how she’s doing, but she wasn’t there, HE WAS! Edmundo was at their apartment, alone, drunk and crying hysterically because actually, what really happened is that Elena left him and took the kids and all of their possessions, so now he’s got no clothes, no furniture, no car, and he just lost his job and is depressed out of his mind, so we just sat there with him and let him cry for a really long time. We taught him a little, but I don’t know how much he’ll remember. I think it was just good that we were there, he kept thanking us for coming by and apologizing for being such a wreck.
We called his fellowshipers (The Medinas, who are sort of like main characters in my life right now) and told them about what was going on…
Sunday: Good day to come to church, all the lessons and everything was amazing, I could talk about them for a while, but I’m seriously running low on time and space… Anyway, Steven and Jackie came, a less active mom and her 12 year old son who’s going to get baptized as soon as we can finish teaching him all the lessons. Isaura and her nieto came with the Alvareses who also spoke in sacrament meeting and did a great job, and then the Medina’s brought Carmen and her two kids of the Castillo family who I told you about earlier. It turns out that while we were sick/in other appointments, the ward really stepped in to help them. They used the food they got to make a bunch of tamales and they sold them and got enough cash to pay the overdue rent. Huge blessing. And then like half the ward went by to visit them, so they FINALLY came to church. We’re hoping to give the whole family baptismal dates soon… so, that night, there was a baptism. I was playing the piano and Hermana Russon was leading the music, and then low and below, the Medina’s show up with Edmundo who looks sober and isn’t crying anymore.
It was a BEAUTIFUL baptism. The spirit was amazing and everyone was in tears. This woman is one of the Elder’s investigators and her whole family has been members for years and her husband finally got to baptize her. It was a very touching story.
So then, after she was baptized we went back into the relief society room for the rest of the program, but Edmundo was missing and so was the principios del evangelio teacher. We left to go find them, and walked in just as Hermano was explaining to Edmundo that he can get baptized as soon as he feels ready and that he just needs to talk to us about it. So I briefly explained the other requirements for baptism and then the Bishop came and told us to join the rest of the ward please. I sat down next to our district leader who asked me, “Do you want me to interview Edmundo for his baptism?” I thought he was joking at first, but after the program they both disappeared and when we found them, they were having a baptismal interview. So we straightway went and told Hermana Medina and there was much rejoicing and tears.
Edmundo was crying, he knows that this is the answer he’s been looking for and that this is how he can have a better life.
So. That pretty much catches you up on my week. It was a pretty cool week! I didn’t really get the chance to explain everything, or in very much detail, but I wanted to give you an example of what my days and weeks are like, since I really feel like my letters don’t do any of it justice… I LOVE being a missionary. I love Texas, I love these people. I LOVE the Lord and his work and I am so happy to hear from you guys, because really, that’s what it’s all about. You are my motivation to help these people a lot of the time, because I just look at their lives and I can see how much their missing, and I have it. I have exactly what they need. I’m out here doing this so that they can have families just like mine. So they can raise their children in a home with the true gospel of the lord supporting every step. I mean it when I say I miss you all like crazy, but that’s one of the main reasons why I love this so much, is because I love you and I miss you, and I want these people to be able to have the same eternal perspectives for their families as I do with you!
So… this letter is a little monstrous, but it does a pretty good job of hitting some of the highlights of my week. I didn’t get homesick at all this week, which is good, because I’d been warned I might. I hope you’re all happy and well, and doing as good as it sounds like you are. Os amo, besito, besito, BESO!
Hermana Lillywhite

Welcome to Bearcreek!

2009-11-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hey fambly mia!
The members definitely will not let us sit at home and eat macaronis&cheeses on Thanksgiving. Especially not in this ward. In Sunday school, the teacher asked,
“How can we help the missionary work in our ward…?”
“Feed them?”
“Food?”
“Do we give them food? Is the answer food?”
“Have them over for dinner!”
So, after this array of cries from the class he turns to the missionaries in the classroom, “Sister, on a scale of one to ten, how much does feeding you help with the missionary work?”
“Err… Almost three.”
I had to be honest. The entirety of this message was translated from the original Spanish to English for the convenience of the English Speaking audience. A direct transcript of the event is available on request.
I LOVE eating with members. It is one of my favorite things. We’ve already got an invitation to come over for lunch on Thursday to the Salazar Familys’ place. I’m excited to get to know the people in the ward. I’ll never knock dinner appointments to much, because they are awesome. Not if you’re trying to lose weight, mind you. As said, it is not, as such, calorie counting food.
It’s good food too. I’ll have to make some for you.
OOOooo, I so want to see this picture that caused audible gasps from the class. I bet it’s gorgeous. I do so love your style Jensenbubby.
About graduate school… so, apparently I don’t take the test until after my mission. But in the mean time, I’m supposed to complete the other steps on the checklist. One of which is to get three letters of recommendation. I’m going to ask President Hansen for one, and then I was hoping to procure good recommendations for recommendations from you folks? Ideas? Who are they expecting these letters to be from?
Anyway, my new companion Hermana Russon is ADORABLE! She is one of the sweetest, nicest people I’ve ever meet. She’s from all over. Her dad is a chemist and they’ve moved a lot as he did work with different labs, I guess. She’s lived in Canada and Connecticut and Arizona and a bunch of other places and slip my mind, but right now her family is in Tooele. Of all places to end up, right? She’s sort of annoyed, because now when people ask where she’s from she has to be like, “*sigh* Soy de Utah…” like so many other people. The typical response to this answer is: “Oh. The factory.” Or, “Ay, la fabrica.”
She’s very cute. Me and Hermana Forsling used to mercilessly make fun of the hundreds of girls at BYU Idaho who were majoring in Elementary Education. But now I feel kind of bad about that, because that’s Hermana Russons major, and although, there are more LDS girls in training to be elementary school teachers than society will EVER need, given any sort of baby boom or what not… I’m pretty sure she should be the one to actually get the job. I think I want Hermana Russon to be my kids’ elementary school teacher, is what I’m saying. She’s so patient and kind, but she’s a very hard worker, and she’s very determined. She’s a bit hard on herself, which is ridiculous she’s already tearing it up out here, she speaks Spanish way more confidently than I did when I was her age in the mission and the little mistakes and things that she does make are hardly noticeable/easy to fix with a little bit of time and practice. She’s not really much of a greenie, I keep telling her, because she’s already got this.
The area is different from what I’m used to. I’m officially out of the ghetto. This place is actually pretty nice. Not like Woodlands, or anything, but life seems much more comfortable here. We’ve got some great people we’re working with. A little boy named Steven who’s twelve and whose less-active mom wants him to get baptized. We’re working with both of them… a man named Carlos who doesn’t think he’s ready to get baptized because he still uses bad words. And this great guy Eduardo who just went down to Mexico for a month and a half, but is going to get baptized when he comes back.
My district is a little weird. I’ve never been around so many very, very English missionaries. Usually, I like English missionaries. I was around them a lot at the office, but I don’t know if the APs really count. Especially since Elder Briscoe actually did speak Spanish, and was loco. But whatever happens and wherever I am, I’ll learn to get along with a love the Elders I serve with.
I’m glad you guys dug the CD I can’t listen to! I’m excited to hear it one day, and groove to it’s happy/peppy beats.
As far as B-day and Christmas goes… There actually are a couple of songs I have yet to have on CD that I’d like. There’s two Christmas songs that the Mormon Tabernacle choirs does, “What shall we give to the babe in the manger?” is I think what it’s called… I don’t remember if that’s the title exactly, but it’s really pretty and has a “tumtatumtum,” bit and a line about “him who will carry the tree” which I’ve heard dad say before, so I assume he knows it. And then I love their version of “Carol of the Bells” and I don’t have either of those. If you wanted to burn me a Christmasy CD including those two songs, I think I’d have a very happy Holiday season!
That’s all I can think of specifically right now… I know there’s a lot of essentials that I probably need. Make-up/footy-socks, I’ll probably need another pair of gel inserts right around my year-mark… But I’m living pretty light these days. There’s not too many places to put things. Food/goodies are always good… They don’t seem to last long, hehe. OH! And I just remembered, there’s a target and a Walmart that we shop at sometimes and also there’s a couple of restaurants where we can go, and I guess what some of my companions family’s do is they’ll get them like a gift-card for cracker barrel or Chilies or anywhere like that, if you guys wanted to go that route.
But whatever you wanna do! Lo que sea, como quiera, tal vex, quizas… ya.
A traffic ticket?! Mommy. That’s cute. And he didn’t knock of the miles because of oldosity, it was because you’re PRETTY! Duh. I’m sorry your record is broken. But now you’re just like the rest of us. You get traffic tickets too. One of my companions got pulled over a few months ago. I really alarmed the officer because he asked her to back the car up and I jumped out of the passenger seat to “hechar aguas” and he was like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” and I was like “I’M SORRY IT’S A RULE! We’re missionaries, we have really weird rules!” Because one of us has to be outside of the car when we’re backing up, to make sure we don’t run anyone over.
He calmed down and didn’t give us a ticket though. I think once he realised we were harmless church ladies and that the posted speed limit is hidden behind a tree he let it go.
I am so glad that Laney’s interested in Greek Mythology. It’s so fascinating, isn’t it? I like the image of her drawing Athena in church. Naughty little primary adorables.
Hey, has anyone seen New Moon? Did it come out this last week or is it not out yet still? Two little girls in Louetta, Mariah and Ariel were going to tell me all about it, but then I moved. They got to go meet “The Wolf Pack” and were very excited about it during our family home evening about missionary work. The lesson might have gotten derailed a couple of times. Just imagine you’re daughter being like, “Yes… and…Alice’s psychic abilities are kind of like when we get member referrals.”
No, I’m just kidding, it didn’t ever get that crazy.
The baptism and dad’s talk sounds wonderful and inspiring… Tell silly Jensen that she should always go to baptisms first and play video games later. Preferably with whoever just got baptized:) And could you send me a copy of daddy’s talk maybe? Si existe?
Well, that’s my letter this week. I LOVE you all, so much. I miss you like crazy, and I’m starting to get really excited to hear all your lovely voices on Christmas day. That’s pretty much the best present:)
BESO! Hermana Lillywhite

Transfered Again!

2009-11-16T10:34:00.001-08:00

Hey family! Super fast letter this week, but there’s an explination.
My big news for this week is I’m being transferred again!
I’m headed to ‘the land of milk and honey’ as they call it. Katy Zone. Bearcreek area. My new companion is Hermana Russon, she’s adorable and still new. She’s actually the newest sister in the mission, aside from the Hermana who’s coming in Wednesday. She’s only been here two transfers. I’m her second companion in the field which either makes me either a ‘greeniebreaker’ or a ‘madrina/godmother’ depending. I really don’t know what else to say—this week was good, but crazy. We’ve found a lot of people recently and now I’m being sent away, so I’ll probably not get to teach them again.
Hermana Bastian is going to be companions with Hermana Gurney, and Hermana Willis is staying here, and Hermana Green is coming to be companions with her. It turns out so that a lot of my companions are companions with each other then. Very fun.
I love that you referred to Victor as a Mayan Prince. He’d love that. I think that’s very much how he sees himself. And how he acts. He’s really sad that we’re being changed up. He threatened to get a ball and chain to keep me and Hermana Bastian here. And Maya sounds really cool, I think I understand now.
I’m SO sad, I can’t see any of the cool stuff that Jensen has ever sent me. Every time she tries to send me one of her videos, I CAN’T open it. I don’t know what the deal is. I really want to see this tea-party! And the dancing bag of flour and everything else she’s tried to send me, but I can’t figure out how to get it to open. It’s very depressing. I’m happy to hear about your recent attempts to be more girly. I hope they are satisfying and fun. You need to try and talk to Mr. Darcy. Tripping on his front porch is totally acceptable.
Your getaway sounds like it was a lot of fun! I love the food. Still, I always love the food.
I’m glad to hear that my stuff all made it home… about those pics, maybe don’t put all of them on the internet. Especially not the ‘9 months’ tradition shots with the belly. Very silly stuff.
OH! My BYU grauduate packet arrived. It’s freaking me out a little. I guess I’ll have to look into working on that check-list, right?
I can’t believe I’m leaving so fast! I feel like I just got to Louetta and already it’s time to book it. Crazy. But I’m excited to check out another part of this amazing city. And to be companions with Hermana Russon. I hear great things about her. She seems very sweet. We’ll do a lot of good.
I’m so excited to hear about all the sisters who are leaving on their missions! It’s honestly the greatest thing. I’m so excited for them to go out and have these same experiences. It’s inspiring and wonderful, beyond description.
Another short letter:) I’m sorry again. I know that it must seem like not a lot’s happening. Don’t believe it, a lot is. It’s just hard to explain sometimes. I’m pretty sure that when I get back I’ll never shut up. Also, another explanation, it took me like an hour just to open my e-mail. Myldsmail is freaking out again. So I’m just about out of time already. Very lame.
I love you all so much and I miss you!
Hermana Lillywhite

Ailsa Mission Pictures

2009-11-14T18:34:00.001-08:00

More pictures HERE.

Guess why July 28th is important.

2009-11-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

Alright, I prayed about it, took it to the temple and talked with President and I’ve decided to go ahead and take the option of staying the extra transfer. So, my official date for when I’m coming home is July 28th. I’m super happy to have this time to serve the lord, so I want to stay as long as I can without actually screwing up transfers. YAY! So, make a note of that everyone.
Que es Maya? Why is Jensen playing with it? Is it fun? Que es? Thank you so much for the recipes and the funny comics! And for the inspired Job Scripture. I love that the sisters dressed as nuns. I wish we could get away with that, but no… hehee.
Laney’s drawing of dad made is great! I love how she label’s everything. So detailed. She’s a very good artist too.
Did you get the first package I sent as well? With my Ipod and stuff? I don’t remember you mentioning it, so I’m a little worried that it never made it home… If It did, know that I’m not sure the Ipod works any more. I tried to get it to start up again, and it did a couple of times, but then it just stopped working… So I don’t know what the deal is.
Please enjoy the pictures! And the videos, I’ve got some good ones on there.
We took our recent convert Victor out with us to a lesson for the first time last night. He did GREAT! He’s going to be such an amazing missionary. He’s got no fear to talk to people, and he shared a powerful testimony. It was really amazing to see. I think, I might have to make a trip back here in a year to go to his farewell… And Maria and Goyo’s baptism, as we’re all still waiting on the divorce to go through.
Aside from that, I don’t have much news, but I really love hearing about home and everything that you are all doing.
So, Jensen refuses to date her whole life and then meets Mr. Dracy? Typical. Not allowed to get married Jensen, until I get back, but you should probably ask Mr. Darcy out. “You’re English, right?” isn’t bad, but let’s see if we can’t top that. A job at the creamery sounds like fun. I wish I had more to say, I’m sorry, I promised myself once that I’d never become one of those missionaries who scribbles three lines home every p-day. I just really can’t think of anything else to say!
So, Grandma and Grandpa wrote me. I guess that Grandma is doing well, I’m so glad. And she gave me fun family news. I’m super excited for everyone.
I guess I could tell you all about food—it’s always one of my favorite things in your letters. I’ve been learning how to kind of cook for real, having had a couple of companions who knew how to cook and then a couple who didn’t. Real Mexican food is pretty different from Taco Bell, but I still like Taco Bell, weirdly enough. I had Papusas yesterday from an El Salvidorian. AMAZING! I must learn to make them. It’s simple enough, but easy to go horribly wrong. And then we had some tostados covered in pico-de-gayo (sp?) and avocado. Then some fun sort of taquitos that were filled with mashed potatoes instead of meat. Interesting, I liked it a lot. I’ve learned to make some pretty great salads, and Hermana Forsling loved it when I made her capreze (sp?).
Oh, and I have to make my district leader cupcakes because he finally agreed to call us on the phone and say “Hello Angels!” and then we answer back, “Hello Charlie!” but we all had to make him a separate treat. So worth it.
I’m sorry again, for this short, lame letter, but hopefully getting all that stuff from me earlier can make up for it. I love you all so much, and I missed you a lot this week. I had some weird post mission dreams. Very strange. I’m not sure how I feel about going home. Sometimes I feel happy and sometimes I feel really sad, and sometimes sick… But one thing is always the same: seeing all of you again is going to be a very sweet experience. I LOVE you. I’m working hard, and praying hard, for all the people of this city, and for all of you.
Love and kisses 7 HUGGLES! ~lovin’ you lots and lots~
Hermana Lillywhite

Yay!

2009-11-02T10:54:00.001-08:00

Dear Fambly!

I’m so sorry you have a cold mommy! That’s awful… I started to get one this week, but I killed it before it could form… guess how. It’s pretty weird actually, I downed a ton of super spicy food. Two members made us soup with tons of peppers and suddenly I’m all better. I’ve heard that before, about eating a pepper to get rid of a cold, I think it might be true. Halloween sounds like fun. I LOVE Halloween. We get so many people asking us what the church’s stance on Halloween is. There’s a lot of confusion, especially in the Hispanic culture. But I still LOVE dressing up and eating candy, and spookyosity, so Halloween is for me. I’m glad Laney wore that 1870’s costume, I wants pictures! It’s such a great little outfit. I’m glad you had a lot of trick-or-treaters. I worry that it’s not becoming cool to do that, but tradition is so fun… Go beg for candy kids! What movie did Chantal and Jensen watch?
I can’t believe it’s November already either. I feel a little crazy to be honest. Such back in May right now.
I’m sorry that you’ve got no ‘free’ nights daddy! But you’ll be blessed for the work LINDSAY WASN”TA MEMBER ALREADY?! Dang, I missed that. We’ve got sisters in the ward now? Rock on. That’s okay about not telling—sometimes it’s better to keep in super secret like that. In my last ward, there was a baptism were the only people who knew were the guy getting baptized (dry Mormon for years, coming to church every week with his active family but refusing to get baptized) he finally decided he was ready. The only people who knew about it were the Sisters who taught him, their district leader (because he needed an interview) The brother baptizing him and his father in law. He got in the fount after another baptism and his wife burst into tears when she realized what was going on. I don’t know what a carbon fiber rear derailleur is, but I know what $735 is! I’m so sorry! Is that a fancy bike bit? That’s awful, I’m so sorry daddy.

Mommy, you’re costume sounds amazing. I LOVE Halloween. I think I’ve said that a couple of times, but not being able to dress up has made me realized that I LOVE Halloween! I’m dressing up as much as I can for the rest of my life, I think. I wore my English Nametag for a little while on Halloween and pretended that my costume was to be an English missionary. My district leader looked like he might shoot me. You’d like my district leader now, I don’t think I’ve talked about him or anyone much lately, because we always seem to be running late on P’days here (like today, again) but I’m sending the camera card home, hopefully today, and you’ll be able to see him on some pictures and videos and you might get an idea about his personality. I’ll have PLENTY of stories about him and all the other Elders in my districts later, I’m sure.

Thank you so much for that story about the minister. It’s wonderful to remember how the Holy Ghost can and does touch all of us and can give us spiritual promptings. At times, I get so frustrated with leaders of other faiths. It’s hard to be all lovely about it when you’re out here, because they just prove to be such a problem. But it really is true. In the end, they’re just doing what they think is best, and if they continue on that path then they’ll eventually make it home.

I made a list of topics…

OH! IMPORTANT! I need a recipe for Lemon marang pie/ banana. I I don’t remember which, or how it’s spelled, but my Companion needs this recipe by next week, and there is NO WAY that her family will ever respond to her request for one, so I thought mine might be able to help us.

SAN CLAMENTE 2010!!!! EPICOSITY! Yes. I reacted all crazy in real life last week, but I was super mellow in the email for some reason. I am so looking forward to being beach-bums. I made a list of happy-thoughts, that are specifically post-mission, in order to vencer the sadness that sweeps over me whenever I think about ending my mission. It’s not good to be all “lot’s wife” about it, right? I’m happy here, and it’ll be hard to leave, but if I trust in the Lord than I know that I’ll have a lot of amazing experiences later in life too. Like San Clamente

Remember when I once compared a couple of Elders I knew to Paul and Barnabus? Well, I still do that a lot. I’ve met a LOT of Book of Mormon characters out here. I’ve definitely met a Nephi and a Jonathon, and they other day I decided that my District Leader is pretty much Phinieus? (SP?) from Numbers. I’ve spaced on his name, but it’s something like that.

I love it when people look at me like they can see three very muscular Nephites standing directly behind me with their arms crossed.

I love you and I miss you all. I’m sorry my letter is so short again this week. I got totally giped, on account of time today and only got about 30 min to read and write my e-mail… it’s very sad, but hopefully things will be a little better next week.

MWAH/ Hermana Lillywhite

Excellent Week

2009-10-26T10:43:00.001-07:00

I have awesome news again. Remember how last week was the best week ever? So was this week! Alicia and Janet got baptized and Victor was confirmed. Pictures to come from the baptism, you’ll have to notice how Alicia had to be stylish and wear her own white clothing. Which is SO Alicia.
AND! During an adorable lesson in which we were teaching Victor how to tie a tie he admitted to us that he wants to serve a mission. YAY! I baptized another future missionary! Did you get the letter with all the pictures from the temple and his baptism yet? Tell Sister Child’s thank you for the money and tell everybody I said hi out there!
Sounds like the kwoon is growing right along. Wow that’s crazy! Nick is getting married?! And he’s a police officer! Wow. It’s crazy how we grow up… I remember that kid. Crazy. CRAZY. I hope Jensen and Chantal are gearing up for their test.
Laney memorized the Jabberwocky poem!? Oh, my heart! That makes me so happy. There’s a street called jabberwocky in our area. Well, not really. It’s on the map. Actually it’s on all the maps, old and new, but we CAN’T find it, which is to bad because we really wanted to knock it.
District meeting was really weird. We actually watched Elder McGary and Elder parker playing Darth Vader. (This means that Elder McGary would pretend to choke him from across the room and Parker would choke from his seat).
The only other thing I can think to say is that my feet are pretty mangled these days. I took a picture. It’s bad. And those spots are coming back, the ones that mean I need more sunlight. The missionary dress-code and lack of tanning salons are not good for my skin. I need sunlight! And Vitamin D. Which is sort of like the best part of sunlight. All in all, I’m a little messed up physically, but that’s okay. I’ll take care of that later. It’ll have to be dealt with eventually.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! For the Halloween package. I was SO happy when I saw it waiting for me at the office there. I LOVE candy. Too much. I shared with the other missionaries and I’m sure we might get a couple of trick-or-treaters. We’re supposed to stay in at seven on Halloween night. I’ve got the pulga during the day, so it’ll be nice to just relax a little. Pulga is always SO draining.
I’m not too worried about school. I guess I should ask somebody about this whole GRE thing? I’ve got my interview with president coming up. Or I guess I could just write about it in a letter, I forget who it is who takes care of schooling stuff around here. Anyway, Creative Writing major sounds interesting… Then I could be a creative writing teacher. I could also pursue Spanish too.
I’d be totally comfortable going English for a little while. Some people freak out about the idea, but I’m open to it. I love Spanish though… I’d like to finish my mission as a Spanish missionary, but if he wants to send me English for a couple of transfers until we get a few more English Sisters out here, that would be alright with me. I know the language. I don’t feel uncomfortable speaking it at all anymore, so I think I wouldn’t have a problem if I stopped for a few months and then came back to it. And that’s the risk with sending Spanish missionaries English, is that they might forget their language. I don’t think that would happen to me.
Dang, poor BYU. That’s pretty terrible. One of our assistants is a BYU football player. I hope he hasn’t heard. I’m sorry about health care too, I hope nobody gets sick! I’m working on not getting sick out here myself. And yes mom, I’ve gotten A LOT of ideas for books. It’s actually not to bad, being unable to write. I thought I’d be really frustrated, but I’m okay. I just jot down some ideas in my journal every once in a while, and then I feel better. I don’t know how interesting my journals are going to be. Most of it’s jokes the Elders tell, or just a quick note of “Man, so much is going on, I wish I had time to write about it. Bye.”
I’m trying to do better, but I think this is the worst Journal keeping I’ve ever done. Sister Hansen and you both brought up the importance of keeping a good journal in one week though, so since then, I’ve been trying to write every day, a least a little. It’s tough sometimes though. I’m just SO busy. And on that note. Tell everybody who I should be writing right now that I’M SORRY!
On that note… Short letter this week. I’m so sorry, it really was an amazing week. My journal entries for this week are good actually, but I’m afraid my letter is going to be a little bit lame. I LOVE you all, so much. More than I can ever tell you. I hope everyone has an amazing week, and that I’m able to write a less-lame letter next week. I miss you, and I love you!
Sister Lillywhite

2009-10-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

In Awe

2009-10-19T12:02:00.001-07:00

I am in awe. This was probably the best week... of my mission. Possibly. I don't know. I've had some pretty amazing weeks, but this one... it's up there.

Laney’s ‘notes’ from conference read like some of the modern poetry I was forced to read in the English department at the University of Utah. Very interesting stuff. I’d love to show it to a psychiatrist.

Speaking of. I think it’s best that I go into the English department. Jan. 15th huh? So what do I do, anyway? I didn’t even think about this before… I probably should have. I’m sure there are some people who are thoroughly disgusted with my lack of foresight about my whole life.

So the Kung Fu test happened for some but not all?! Chantal wrote me about how he kept changing the dates… I hope Jensen get’s the opportunity to test soon. Study hard, m’baby! I’m o ashamed, I don’t remember ANYTHING. We are going to have to whip my bum back into shape, I’m telling you…

Everything sounds like so much fun. And all the food sounds delicious:)

I had a very amusing freak-out moment once when I was still back in Crosstimbers. It wasn’t a bad freak-out, it was more just very, very funny that my whole life suddenly came to me in a flash and I found myself sitting on the floor of an apartment in the ghetto of Houston, in an ugly jody-dress with a black nametag and some chick talking about the eternal salvation of a couple of cholos. And I just paused and looked up at Hermana and said, “How did I get here? Where am I… WHO THE HECK ARE YOU!?”

Every once in a while that happens. I really can’t figure out how I ended up a church lady, but hey! All’s groovey. I’m blissfully happy and fulfilled and I’m pretty sure I might actually be sort of like a good person. Maybe even a messenger of Jesus Christ.

Wow. I sure do miss you all a LOT sometimes. It’s weird to think that Christmas is sort of coming up… I’m excited to hear all your voces dulces again.

This was an incredible week. One of the best of my life. I had two, really amazing baptisms that I got to go to, a temple trip… I met some new amazing people and I feel like the ward here really sincerely wants to help with the work here. It’s an amazing new place… I miss my old areas, I always do, but I LOVE Louetta.

The two baptisms were Silvia, who’s story I think I’ve already told… if not, I’ll write in on the back of the photo I’m going to mail home. (Probably next week with another package.) and Victor. Victor is AWESOME! Yet again, I’ll have to send that story with a picture. But it was a very powerful weekend we had. And I’ve got another baptism this next Saturday as well. The field is really coming alive out here. I’m so excited to be a part of this work.

I am also so excited for Nanette! That’s so great that she’s coming down here to gorgeous Houston. She’s going to be such an amazing missionary… the East Mission Huh? It’s the Houston East mission, but here, we just call it East. Sometimes they refer to us as North, but we’re just “Houston” really. Anyway, we might actually see each other if they do another multi-mission conference, like the one I just had last transfer. I met lots of missionaries from the East and South mission then. But those aren’t scheduled in advance, they just happen sometimes, and we usually don’t hear about it until a few days before. And yes, Elder Costa came and spoke to us at that last one, he’s very entertaining and very inspiring.

Oh! Fun fact: Sister Willis, one of my new companions, loves the Mighty Boosh. I sort of snorted in the car after remembering a random joke from the show, and I started to explain it to her and she was like: “Oh my gosh…. You just discovered a really deep part of me because I LOVE THAT SHOW!”
It was excellent. I’m pretty sure we’re the only two people in Texas who’ve ever heard of it.

My story telling habits are now pretty well known. It seems that whenever I run into a new missionary they look at my tag and say, “Oh. You’re the one with the stories.” So. Now, I occasionally host story time. I’ve tried encouraging others to share, but they just want to hear.

Just FYI. I don’t know anything about how transfers work, but I had a funny thought the other day and I think… maybe… I’m not trying to prophesy or anything like that, but I DID have this thought and I wanted in on the record just in case I’m right.

I think… I might go English next transfer.

I just did the math and I realized that in order to keep all the English sister’s areas open (and there’s only five) one of the Spanish sisters is going to have to switch to English for a while, and I just have this feeling it might be me. I have evidence to back it up too—President only sends Sisters English when their Spanish is good enough that when they go BACK Spanish speaking after a transfer or two, they will still remember everything and be able to communicate just like before without loosing any ability. He also doesn’t like to send sisters English right near the end of their mission, but more in the middle… and out of all the sisters, I’m probably the only one in the middle, with good enough Spanish and who would be totally okay with it.

Honestly, I think going English would be really interesting. Most Spanish Speaking missionaries are ardently against it. like… violently, violently opposed to ever teaching white people, but I think I’d be okay with it. it could be interesting to go teach white people in the belt-buckle of the bible belt for a little while, and I know I’d learn a lot.

But then, Hermana Willis pointed out, “Because you’re okay with it, it probably won’t happen to you. It’s more likely to happen to a Sister who will throw a huge fit about it and then learn a lot and grow as a result.”

So, she’s got a point. Whatever. I’m just saying, if you get an Email from me and I’m all like “HEY folks! I’m getting banished out to college station to serve English for a while!” just know, I’m totally cool with it and prepared for that kind of a change, and I’m not one of these lame “Spanish-pride” missionaries who are dissin’ on the English missionaries while still trying to figure out how to roll their rrs and use subjunctive tense.

I wanted to try and explain all the spiritually wonderful stuff that happened this weekend… but it’s hard to write about for some reason. I’m working on getting over that, sorry:) But I’ll include at least some explanations about the baptisms.

Also, there was one other baptism this weekend that touched my heart… I didn’t get the opportunity to go, but all the same, I’m so happy I got to be a part of it in a sort of round about way.
Do you remember Veronica? My recent convert? I walked up to her in a parking lot and then she and her two children who were old enough got baptized with her? I love that woman so much.

She joined the church, terrified that she was going to be spending every Sunday sitting alone on the bench, because her husband used to listen to missionaries but had sent them away forever when they started talking about baptism (this was years ago). She had always been curious about what they were teaching him and about why he had been so opposed to the church, so that’s why she invited us to come and teach her. Anyway, she wanted to her husband to be with her in the church. But he refused to have anything to do with it. He didn’t come to her baptism or anything, and whenever we were over there, he wasn’t. I’ve never actually met the man…

Then Elder Dorion and Elder Morin white-washed my old area after Hermana Frieszell left. And Veronica still had a number of recent convert lessons that she needed, so they were over there all the time. Vernoica’s husband, did NOT like it. He would get drunk and make up all kinds of things in his head about what was ‘really going on’ between his wife and the Elders. So, they were welcome over there. It was really horrible for Veronica, but she stayed strong, coming to church and bringing the kids and talking to the missionaries when he was out.

Then… apparently kind of out of the blue, he called the Elders up one night, tearful and repented and explained that he and his wife had been talking and he knew the church was true (had apparently known if for a really long time) and he knew he needed to defeat all of his vices and get baptized.

And yesterday, he was baptized!

Alright… there’s my stories for this week. I’m overjoyed. I really want to bask a little in the glow of the Lord’s success in this campo for a bit… but, I sort of can’t. Not for very long at least. There’s a lot more work to be done.

I LOVE you, my darling, sweet family.

Louetta

2009-10-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Fambly,
Hey! Sounds like everything is groovy back home. Dad’s continuing with his Bishoply duties, huh? Senior Bishop? Is that a thing? Does that mean he’s been Bishop the longest in the stake? Yeah, that’s crazy, but I was thinking about it the other day, and I don’t really remember a time when dad wasn’t in the Bishopric, and I have to stretch my little mind back to before he was Bishop to when he was a counselor. I do have vague memories of when he was first called into the Bishopric though, but before that… nada. Me mente esta quebrantado ya.
That’s the weirdest funeral I’ve ever heard of… I don’t think I’ve ever been to a secular funeral. I must not have, because that’s just foreign to me. Why would you want to be remembered like that? Crazy. Don’t worry mommy, I won’t let that happen to you, or to you, daddy. There will be classiness for all to disfrutar.
Lane’s so adorable… I haven’t gotten her newsletter yet! It’s transfer week, and they like to hold the mail and packages until we’re all in our new areas and settled, also, it’s Columbus day. But, lucky for us the church’s employment office is open, so we came to do our mail since it’s fairly close and we had to drop some stuff off at the mission office (right next door) anyway.
Jen’s enjoying her classes? I just got that AWESOME picture she did of Poison Ivy, with MY costume. Everybody dug it. It’s gorgeous and it looks so great, I’m glad you’re continuing to improve, and that you FINALLY drew something I asked you to draw ginna! Bien hecho. Laughing stock sounds hilarious! Please, please continue to tell me everything you can remember about their shows. I can just see it all in my head. Man, that’s funny.
The garden sounds gorgeous, I love veggies… today, while I was shopping, I ended up getting mostly veggies without even realizing it. I hadn’t grabbed any sweets at all (accept for some pop-tarts). Not because I was making an effort to be healthy, but just because I wanted to eat veggies. Thanks for describing the food again mommy. We had a bit of a funny experience last Friday (my third day in our trio). There was something wrong with the tire on our car, so we went to NTB and had to sit there for THREE hours while they fixed it, argued on the phone with the mission car-guy for a little while, and dealt with a crisis (money missing from the register. Lots of cussing and angry mechanics). So, there’s a big old TV that they have to leave on during business hours, but because we were the only people there, they did let us change the channel (but not turn it off). We finally switched it to the news in Spanish and decided to call it slightly Apostate Language Study, just because we didn’t know what else to do. I learned some new words. Cabellos de fuerza (sp?) = Horsepower.
But before we got them to switch the TV for us, Rachel ray was making something that looked pretty amazing. And Dr. Oz suggests that the color of my alarm clock might be keeping me awake at night, and that it’s too warm in Houston to get proper sleep. Anyway, watching the cooking show made me so hungry. I love hearing about the food. Dinner sounds like it was delicious.
After a bit, the mechanics got tired of fighting with their boss about the missing money and one by one tried to escape. We ended up teaching two of them about the Apostacy and Restoration for the last hour and a half or so while we were waiting there. One of them was Iranian and didn’t know anything about religion in general, he said, but he was very nice and open minded about it. Said he was curious to know what the big deal was. The other guy was Hispanic, but clearly preferred speaking in English, though he tried to bash with us using that good old “Well, if you read the bible in Spanish, which is really more correct it says this…” one of my favorite arguments that people bust out when their talking to gringos, so then I just pulled out my brand new Reina-Valera and was like, “You mean this bible in Spanish?” and he kind of went, “Uuh, yeah. That one.” And didn’t knew where to go from there, because he was lying about the difference in the Spanish/English translation. He stopped trying to argue with him once he figured out that we speak and read Spanish fluently. I think he was kind of impressed actually, because he just took the pamphlet and read a little while I continued to explain about modern day revelation and prophets.
Very fun day.
Saturday we had the pulga again. We ran out of supplies, which turned out to be a really good thing, because then people who talked with us, couldn’t just take and card and run off, they had to stay and chat. I taught a woman named Yazmin who used to meet with missionaries in Spain and seemed genuinely interested. She lives in… I think Elder Dorion’s area (my old area) which is typical. He’s just going to go ahead and baptized everyone I find, which is cool with me:) I’ve really got a firm belief in the right missionaries being put in place to teach the right people. It’s something that’s been proven to me again and again, which makes it easily to turn over the wheel to someone else once you’re finished with whatever you’re part in their story happened to be.
Have I told you guys about Pulga music yet?
Okay. Remember the Weird Al Spoof where he redoes a bunch of rock music as Polka music?
Pulga music is that, but they also translate the lyrics into Spanish. Then, get yourself a cowboy hat and some very classy stingray leather accessories (that’s who’s buying all of your merchandise dad, Pulga people.) and you’re stylin’ for intercity Houston Texas and you’re very, very cool here.
It’s incredible.
My Trio is so fun! I love these Hermanas. Hermana Willis is super smart, she’s only two transfers older than me and Hermana Bastian, but she really knows what she’s doing. And Hermana Bastian is a real sweety. Very in tune with the spirit, especially when it comes to spur-of-the-moment changes in plans. I don’t think we’re ever going to be just sitting there after everything falls through and going, “Uh, what do we do now?” she always seems to have lots of ideas popping up in her head. She and I went into the MTC on the same day. In fact, I think in one of my earlier letters I told a story about the companion that Hermana Thomas was supposed to have? That’s Hermana Bastian.
Guess what? I’m finally funny in Spanish. And not because I’m making mistakes, but just because I’m clever and saying clever things. This is cool, just because I was told once that I’d never be funny in Spanish, but I have told at least five jokes and I’ve made investigators/members/my companions laugh. In Spanish, “Ja ja ja ja”. So. I win.
Also, learning to play the piano has turned out to be one of my best assets on the mission. It’s sort of a rare thing here. I played the piano in sacrament meeting and relief society in my last ward and now it looks like they’ll need me to do that here too. I also do it for most of the baptisms as well. Or, at least for the ones when Elder Meade wasn’t there. Very useful thing that. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to be relief society pianist in our ward abck home, otherwise I’d have no luck trying to play all these hymns on the fly. But I know most of them pretty well now. Finally. So, in case you were wondering, I think that was the purpose for that.
The last thing I wanted to tell you about was Victor.
Victor. Is. AWESOME.
He’s twenty years old and he’s getting baptized this Sunday. I’m so happy I arrived here in Louetta just in time to teach him. He’s such a great young man, de Honduras, he likes to speak in vos sometimes, which is my favorite. He’s very funny and he’s got such a strong testimony that’s developed in him so fast, and he’s just smart, he just totally gets it. I hope everything goes well, he’s determined that this Sunday is his fecha. Very secure in that. So… Yay! Also I’ve got another baptism this Saturday back in Crosstimbers. Silvia is eight years old, barely. Her parents are waiting on a divorce to mom’s real husband hiding somewhere in Mexico, and some vicios, so they’re not members, but still very much a part of the ward in the mean time. She’s such a great little girl! Adorable, I can’t wait till you see her and go, ooooo cute!
So, that’s all the news I’ve got for now… I love you all tonz and tonz, and I miss you like crazy, but I’m sooo happy here and I can tell that you’re all safe and happy back home. I’m sorry if there’s some questions I forgot to answer ect.
Les amo a ustedes.
Hna Lirioblanco
P.S. Do I need to worry about registering for school next spring at some point? Somebody pointed out to me that it’s something I’ve probably got to take care of, before I return home. HEARTS! Mwah.

me voy otra vez!

2009-10-05T10:44:00.001-07:00

Wasn’t conference amazing?! I LOVED all the talks, but I think Elder Holland’s is the one I can’t wait to make every single one of my investigators watch, again, and again, and again for all eternity. Powerful man, that. Powerful talk! They were all so great, I LOVE conference as a missionary. It’s intense, but it’s incredible. Some of my recent converts and investigators were able to come and watch conference with us at the capilla. I was so glad to have them there…
Well, the only other bit of news I’ve got is that Transfer calls were Saturday night and I’m apparently finished in Crosstimbers for a while. Hermana Forsling is staying here and she’s going to be companions with Hermana Thomas—one of my old MTC companions. And I’m heading out to Louetta area to be in a trio again! My new companions as of this coming Wednesday will be Hermana Bastian and Hermana Willis. I know them both a little bit and they both seem really nice, and I’ve been to Louetta a couple of times on exchanges. I like the area, its right next to my old place in Gunspoint, so I’m still in the ghetto. Home sweet home.
I’m sad to be leaving, but I know it’s the right thing for everybody. I think it woke up a few of our recent converts. We told them a couple of times that this might happen, but I think they didn’t really believe it until I told them, “Ya me voy.” And then they were kind of upset… Antonia said she would have been better behaved if she’d known I wasn’t going to be here much longer. (She gave us all a heart attack last week when she ran away from home, but she’s back safe and sound and was just hiding at a friend’s house.)
Oh, drama, drama, drama. And from what I know of Louetta, I’m about to dive headfirst into some more drama. I’m bound to have the most dramatic mission ever. Okay, well, that’s an exaggerations if there ever was one; Dan Jones? Ammon? Alma? Abinidi? My mission is a different level of dramatic, not even tickling theirs, but still. Days of our lives… Or, more likely, “Dallas”. Hah. Houston, we’re a little off from Dallas…
Anyway, I’m probably being silly and not making much sense. Sorry! I’m a little jittery, having to pack and say goodbye to everybody while simultaneously being llenada del espiritu santo por medio de La Conferencia General.
I’ve obtained quite a lot of stuff since getting here four and a half months ago, but Hermana Forsling gave me some vacuum bags to pack with, so I should be okay for now. I’m going to have to start giving my clothes (that I took from Sisters who went home) away. Don’t worry mom, I’m keeping all the nice stuff that’s really yours… I don’t know if you’re going to want any of it back though. Heh. Sorry. The mission is hard on clothes.
Your guy’s conference weekend sounds amazing! I love La Puente, of course I remember that place… it’s too back they lost the reservation, but Bucca de bepo is my other favorite, so good for you guys! Fine choice, well done everyone, well done. Papa’s joke to the waiter is pretty funny and adorable. Macbeth sounds like it’s going to be amazing! Ooo, I wish I could see it! You’ll have to tell me all about how is goes and what it looks like and what Dan and Philly are doing/wearing. Beards nice and long, ya?
I’m sorry you can’t find good serviceable shoes. I have the same problem. In the missionary dressing guidelines for sisters it says that shoes must be practical/comfortable/attractive. I don’t think they realize that they’re asking for a miracle with that particular combination. Size 8? Good job! Are you a six then? Clearly, I was the problem all along. I should learn to cook/eat healthy. I’ve been doing pretty much all of the cooking for the last four months and I’ve found I REALLY like it, but I should learn how to make stuff that good for you and not just delicious.
I LOVE that conversion story! It’s so great! I love it when everything just lines up like that. Like dominos. It’s so beautiful to watch somebody’s life change. I especially enjoy the effect of seeing the truth and God closing in on all sides around somebody! Beautiful. Great, great story… It must have really been something to hear him tell it in person.
Well, my letter’s going to be short again this week, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go! Thank you so much for details about how everything is going. Everybody sounds good and happy. I hope Grandma has a speedy recovering and that all of this helps with her pain. I LOVE you and I pray for you all the time, I hope everyone is healthy/happy and was fully inspired and uplifted by the words of our living prophets; God’s representatives on the earth.
Hugs&kisses and amor for everyone!

15. yeesh.

2009-09-28T08:39:00.001-07:00

Hey family!
I just love you all so much! You don’t need to worry about me getting discouraged. Dissapointed is probably a better word. It never lasts long though, typically some miracle shows up to save us whenever things aren’t going well. I can’t really help but be happy constantly, so that even during sadder moments, it’s not quite so bad. It reminds me of that line about the Three Nephites, how they didn’t feel pain save for sorrow for the sins of the world. It’s hard to watch other people so unhappy and lost. I myself, am perfectly cheerful. But I’m sad for them sometimes. But you don’t need to worry about me getting discouraged, I know I’m out here doing the right thing and it’s vastly more rewarding than I could ever express. Every day I have a couple of dozen moments where I just have to stop and say to myself, “I am so happy I’m here right now! I can’t believe I ever considered NOT doing this!”
We’ve got transfer calls on Saturday, so next week I’ll be able to tell you what’s up—if I’m going anywhere or if I’m getting a new companion or what. Me and Hermana Forsling have been together for three transfers here in Crosstimbers, which is the longest that either of us has ever had the same companion. But, she’s only got one transfer left before she finishes her mission, and we don’t know if she’s supposed to just stay here, or if there’s one last place she needs to go to…
I forgot to say… I’m SO excited that Nanette is going on a mission! Sweet! That’s so cool, she is going to have such an amazing experience. I’m so glad that she and Alejandra both decided to serve, that’s just about the whole of my single adult class from our ward now… what’s McKenzie up to? :)
This movie you’re describing sounds way neat. I dig the concept immensely. I bet it was neat looking too… Fun analogy for the internet/gaming world too. I LOVE weird movies. I suggested in the car on the way here (we got a ride with the Elders on account of having literally NO miles left for the entire month) that we ask permission from President to watch New York Doll some P-day, none of them had heard of it, so I told them a little about it. Hermana Forsling insists it will never fly (on account of President’s disapproval of Rock Music).
That’s a really interesting story about Charlie down there in ‘somewhere in Mexico’:) There’s some pretty dangerous places out there, but with the protection of the Lord… well, I’ve seen it at work. That’s cool that they just started teaching a lesson. I can see that being super effective… Sheesh, scary.
School sounds like it’s so much fun! You haven’t been wearing your high heels and stuff to class have you? (I probably would, actually, now that I think about it) but that’s pain! Wow. That’s a relaly good idea to have the students write out the stories in paragraphs occasionally as well. Good practice for them on writing papers.
The Baby kitty sounds SOOOO cute! I can just imagine this little blackish/grayish-strippedy-green-eyed little fluffy muffin playing with our two big bad boys. Adorable! As far as names go, I still say we should do our usual gig of having like 50 to answer to.
It’s so weird to hear my name now. There was a random side character in The Work and the Glory (we watched it for a P-day, interesting movie, too dramatic/not enough funzies/uplifting moments if you ask me… also, not enough violence.) anyway, there was a side character with my name, and when they said it, I expected everyone’s head to turn and look at me on reflex, just because that’s usually what happens when my name comes up in a movie. And it didn’t happen. And I realized it’s because NOBODY here knows me as anything besides Hermana Lillywhite. Weird moment. I giggled and then they looked at me, but they were just confused.
I’m sorry I’m the one who was keeping you pudgy. I suspected as much. Especially since all my companions mysteriously gain weight around me. Even on exchanges. Hermana Forsling says it’s because I inadvertently encourage people to do, and eat, and say, and be whatever they want. This is both a good and bad thing. It’s a power I must learn to control.
I’ve actually gained fifteen pounds. Not cool. And also, a little confusing, since I don’t consume nearly as much sweet stuff as I used to, am fasting frequently and often miss meals on account of just not having enough time to eat… I’m pretty sure it’s all the avocado.
Also, I did actually learn how to make some more stuff. Next time we make caramel apples, I can make caramel sauce from scratch and it’s REALLY good. There’s something called a “Hello Dolly Bar” that Hermana Forsling showed me, “Chocolate Coma” courtesy of Hermana Frieszell. Papusas, tortillas, torta (Mexico this means sandwich, Spain it means cake, I’m talking about a sandwich) this really delicious Apple Cake recipe that one of our investigators gave us… Platanos con Crema, and Hermana Nunez taught me how to make some real good salsa. It’s spicey though, but I LOVE it.
I’m working on a cute little recipe book in one of the Yo Gabba Gabba journals I’ve got. Because there is totally a party in my tummy.
OH! And Toritlla chips. Really good ones.
Okay, so maybe all that would be why I gained fifteen pounds. Plus, it’s hard to exorcise properly, and now I’m not even on a bike anymore. Our area requires cars. Whatever. I’ll just have to whip my bum back into shape.
Well, I’d better get going, I’m really happy I finally got to read your letters! (The website was having difficulties for a bit) I’m crazy busy, but I LOVE you, and I pray for all of you. I’ll be praying especially hard for Grandma this week, I hope everything goes well!!! I LOVE you.
Lovin’ you lots y lots Mwahmwah, Hermana Lillywhite

Letters! Yes! I win!

2009-09-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

Familia mia,
I’m so happy! Today is a good day, a random Preparation day in the middle of the week is healthy sometimes I think. I hope you all remembered about Monday being a regular day… sort of, it started out normal but then we had to go all the way to the office for a kind of ‘Surprise Zone Conference’ with Elder Paul B. Johnson. Excellent, excellent thing, that. Very inspiring. Then I was on exchanged yesterday, so, today is P-day! I missed you all terribly this week because of the extra-long wait. Baseball playing was really fun last week, I made it to home base, thanks to Elder Zambrano. And Elder McGary almost killed me when I slid into first and he just about landed right on top of me with the ball a split second later—but I was safe! Hermano Martinez said so and there was much rejoicing. Good day. Good game. My companion got sunburned. So did everyone else except me and the other ‘not-white’ people in our zones. (I count as not-white in comparison to these rubios.)
It was a crazy week… we had Interviews with president the next day, then Zone meeting/President and Sister Hansen’s anniversary (they bought us lunch), then temple the day after that, then district meeting the day after that, then we woke up at ‘way-too-early-in-the-morning’ to go to South Houston for a Multi-Mission conference with the South and East missions to hear from President Costa, who is an AWESOME 70. He’s very inspired, said exactly what each of us needed to hear and made us laugh while chastising subtly. Beautiful thing.
Then Sunday. One of the most depressing days of my mission so far—or it might have been, except that some really great things started happening more towards the evening. Miracles, let me just be vague, because I don’t have much time and I’m just not sure this is a good ‘letter-story’. Then, the not-pday Monday happened, and exchanges… I was sent to go work with Hermana Bastian again, in her area, which boarders my old area. We got a referral by accident, that was supposed to go to Elder Dorion and Elder Morin, but they didn’t know that and made an appointment with the man. When I looked at where he lived on the map I was like “Yep… That’s my old area. That’s not you guys.” But we went and taught Mynor a first anyway. He’s from Guatemala and he’s married with four kids (boy 13, twin girls 9, and another boy 8) and I think they’re all going to be baptized pretty fast here. He had a book of Mormon from his uncle back in Guatemala and he says he’s really excited to learn more.
This week has been crazy and wonderful. I’m working with so many genuine people right now. We’ve just got to keep working and watch out for trouble, it always comes, doesn’t it? Hermana Forslying and I are really hoping they’ll leave us both here and together for her last transfer, which starts right after general conference. But wherever the lord sends me or her, I know it’s the right thing. I didn’t want to leave my first area, but God took care of the people I was teaching and now their baptized or they’ve got dates, or are otherwise well in the care of their father in heaven… and since I came here I’ve meet people who I can’t imagine not knowing. I’m so glad I came, and I know wherever I go, I’ll find the people I’m supposed to help, and I’ll love them just as much as I love the people I have to say goodbye to—if only for a moment!
I got several letters from Chantal this week! MWAH! I’m working on a letter to you right now sweetie, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write, but I LOVE you! And I got one from Mr. Jacob Cantwell. Oh my, it sounds like I’m living in a rather dangerous area. Funny story in relationship to previous topics—for the Mutli-Mission Conference President Hansen asked all the Elders to wear blue ties and all the sisters to dress in blue. We’re in the north side of Houston, and we went down to the south. Now, I’m positive that Preisdent Hansen wouldn’t know this, and neither would any of the missionaries who work with him, but when gang members from North Houston go to South Houston, they wear blue. It’s the “North-side Gang Colour—son!”. So, our mission was inadvertently participating in modern day secret combinations, which I found pretty hilarious and also disturbing… mostly funny though.
And I got Mommy’s package! So I feel very loved. The rice crispies were delicious! My companion and I squealed for joy when we got them, and thank you very much Shazi for the letter! And thank you Sifu for your letter which was also contained in the package, pretty, pretty, pretty calligraphy! I’m going to be sending you a letter soon as well and then you can tell me how my Spanish is grooving along. The Baby kitty is SO CUTE! I made a funny noise when I saw her, I’m sure. She’s so ADORABLE! I wanna cuddle. I can’t though, for a bit. And thank you for all the funny comics and the sox and the yummy juice-instant things and the letter! Seriously, I feel so loved. Everybody was telling me how right around 6-8 months you just stop getting mail from anybody because they all forget about you and move on with their lives. But I get love! Yay love! (This is from Elders who stop writing after the MTC, I’m pretty sure is the difference there too).
Anyway, everything sounds amazing, I love it when you go into detail about the food. Me and Hermana Forsling were discussing it and we decided that we LOVE the food bits. Also, Shakespeare Abridged sounds awesome! I definitely have to see that again soon. Elder Meade, who recently finished his mission, was in that play in high school, he played the guy who has to be all the women, he said. At the time he had curly, thick, beautiful hair down to his shoulders (he showed us a picture), but he wore a wig for comic-relief purposes anyway.
I REALLY need to send you guys a package, I know. I’m ridiculous. I have a picture card and other things that I just really need to get back to you folks! I don’t know if I’m going to get the chance to do it today, but maybe Monday? Maybe? Please? I don’t know, man. Life is crazy.
The trip sounds enchanting. I hope Grandma is doing well and that everything goes good with her surgery, I’ll be praying for her extra hard. And yes, that has got to be the most appropriate nick-name for her!
Kimber sounds like a lot of fun, I knew you’d love it! And yes, I think being a teacher would be really fun, and more likely than not, that’s what I’ll end up doing… As much as I’d love to stay home and write books, I’ve always known that’s not really a practical plan to base your life around, but teaching others to express themselves with language would be so rewarding! And as a missionary… I’ve definitely discovered that I do love teaching. (even if I figured out that I like it more on a personal, one-on-one level)… still, that’s definitely what I’m going to have to look into when I get back. Hermana Forsling has basically convinced me that if I don’t go to graduate school I’m a terrible person, so… haha, I’ll probably be doing that too.
I love your description of how daddy gets Laney out of bed and just stands her on her feet in the morning—that’s perfect! I sure do miss you all a lot. But I’m so happy right now, and getting your letters and hearing about all the things your doing helps me feel close to you, especially out here in the fields, it’s easy to feel close to your family when you’re serving Heavenly Father.
The Luvin’ you lots and lots is a reference to… That Thing You Do? I had to think hard, and I’m not 100 percent sure that’s right. I’m losing it, folks. Pop-culture is slowly draining out of my ears at night and being replaced by… well, mostly the Spanish Language actually. Sometimes at night in my dreams I can hear my old playlist. I had a really interesting dream about getting trapped in an Investigators house during a flood and we all watched the rain bury the house through the windows while “Behind Blue Eyes” wafted through the rainy air. I love The Who.
Also, I did manage to remember The Fifth Element in its entirety last week and I rehearsed the whole movie to Hermana Forsling over the course of a few mealtimes, I even had a go at performing what I remembered from the Diva’s Aria. Hermana is sold, she loves the movie and she’s never even seen it.
I hope that everyone is wonderful and happy. Content with life, school, classes, work ect. I know that I’m doing a great work for my God right now, and I know that I am a member of his true church, restored to the earth and in possession of the authority and power of God through priesthood keys, and that Jesus is the Christ, the savoir and redeemed of the world. Even when I get discouraged or when faced with disappointment, I can’t deny the necessity of every day of work that I’m doing, and of every trial and challenge. I’m so happy and so filled with love, for all of you, and for every child of God I see.
I LOVE you family, and I miss you terribly. I’m sure I’ve forgotten to say something important here, and perhaps I’ve said a great many silly things, but what's important is; I love you!
Hermana Lillywhite

LETTERS! Hay dos! cha-chacha...

2009-09-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

(MY MISSING LETTER FROM AUG. 31st! I accidentally sent it to Toddlillywhite@totallynotevenareale-mailaddress.com which was very silly of me, but at least the e-mail and everything is working alright. I’m just a dumbbunny.)

Fambly,
Stake conference this weekend. What a rush! Sadly, this may be my last stake conference in Spanish, since they announced that they’re taking three of the wards in the stake (including the two I’ve serve in) and meshing them up with the English stake down the pike. NO idea why they didn’t just split the stake in two. It’s MASSIVE. There are like 15 Spanish wards, (well, 12, now) and they’re all HUGE wards. Anyway, so, the stake conferences from now on are going to be in English with ‘spanish-rooms’ in the building where there with be translators (probably us).
It was a great experience, three of the speakers were English, so they had a translator come up and translate the whole talk. It was very fun, and funny. Hispanic people are so casual, whenever he couldn’t think of the English word in Spanish he’d just look into the crowd and say, “Como se llama?” and like twenty voices would shout out the word he was searching for, from this massive crowd of Hispanic people. So fun. President Hansen spoke. He bore his testimony in Spanish (and did very well) but his talk was in English with some random Spanish words thrown in for funzies.
Then, I had the WONDERFUL experience of getting to go to a very special Baptism. Do you remember the Ecuadorian family I told you about ages and ages ago? The one when I requested help in finding a handsome, sweet, funny, smart Spanish speaking return missionary who would like to marry an adorable spunky Ecuadorian lady with two small children a mother and two teenager sisters to take care of? Remember her? Her name is Carolina and she and one of those teenaged sisters, Marisol, just got baptized last night. It was WONDERFUL. I think I owe Elder Dorian cookies or something, because he came into City View to take over after Hermana Frieszell left and he’s really trying hard to find and work with all the people who we were teaching there. It was SO exciting and I’m so happy I got to come and see them finally get baptized, after all the months and months and months… I think they were like my second lesson with investigators ever. My first week here I taught them. Nelly and Maria Jose still need some time, but I know that mi Padre Celestial has been preparing them for a long time to have this. I’m sure it won’t be too long before I get to go back for another baptism for this family. I’ll be sending pictures soon.
Hermana Frieszell’s parents came to pick her up—their spending about a week down here in Texas, we just went to Breakfast with them, for P-day. They’re super sweet, nice people. It was cute to see them trying so hard to communicate with the ward members in spite of the language barrier. I even got to jump in and translate for a second there. Very fun.
But Carolina and Marisol’s baptism was perfect, beautiful. I was so happy to go. They are so happy! The ward has really stepped up to the plate to help this family. The little kids are so cute and I’m positive that Nelly and Maria Jose will be joining them soon.
I sure do miss you guys, I hope everything is well. I’m so sad to hear about Grandma’s heart! But that’s good that they were paying attention enough to stop it at the last minute. I’ll be praying for her. Laney will like Mr. Evan’s class, it’s good to hear about them. That’s so cool that Alejandra gets to drive to her mission with her mom! I’d love that so much. Yeah, we had to do the same kind of thing with a guy in the other ward. He wasn’t legal either so they had to take him straight to the mission by car. I LOVE Complete Works-Abridged, it’s so hilarious. Have fun and tell me all about it please! Jensen is such a little stress-buggy. Jensencita. CHILL. It’ll be okay, I promise. Her classes sound like fun… Mommy, you must tell me all about school and your class and how prospy is doing these days!
I loved getting your letter from the campout. It did smell like campfire—very fun, and it sounds like it was a great little trip. I’m glad to hear that you and missy and Sarah are enjoying Sifu’s class! I remember coming home covered in red marks. That was soooo divertido. I love hearings about you all having a blast, I do hope you’re taking every chance to enjoy yourselves thoroughly. The article about Gary Ceran was really inspiring too. I’m glad to hear that he’s still working hard, I know he’ll be rewarded for it. Are they almost done with those blasted malls yet? What’s the deal? I got into a rant the other day about that whole situation because somebody made a comment about political leaders in Salt Lake and the church and it got me off on Rocky Anderson and then the sky bridge and the mall and what a ridiculous design the gateway is and a lot of other subjects that probably aren’t even connected, but seemed relevant at the time. It’s amazing I still remember stuff like that after they shoved another language in my head in nine weeks. I do think I may have forgotten how to walk in high heels at least. Which is an unnecessary skill at the moment anyway.
I don’t think there’s anything left to talk about right now… Just that I owe some serious pictures, but it’ll probably have to wait another week, since we don’t have the miles to go to Walmart. We’ll just have to shop at Food Land, as suspicious as it is.
I adore you all with your lovely, lovely faces and celestially sprinkled spirits!
Hermana Lillywhite (todavia una poca rara)

Dearest Darlingest Fambly Whom I Heart Mucho,
I miss you!!! I felt soooo sad all week thinking that you hadn’t gotten my letters! Sister Chestnut gave me a call last Tuesday night to let me know that there was an issue with my letters. But, the issue turns out to be me just not having a brain—so there’s the letter that I accidentally sent to a non-existing e-mail address above. And I’m very, very sorry. Muy sorry.
This week we had zone conference and some more fun, fun things. We’re going to play softball today. I really like softball a lot I decided. You stand there at the base and everybody moves in real close and starts to yell things like “Here’s the out!” then you swing and miss at a murderous ball for a few minutes until you’re out, then you sit down and write in your journal until the inning is over and then stand in a field for a few minutes and avoid the white ball and it all starts over again. Softball is cool. My kind of sport.
Actually, I’m finding I actually do enjoy sports a lot more than I realized I did. I’m just no good at them! And playing sports as a missionary is a little weird. I’m not sure I give my full approval. But hey—I’m going to play today at least.
Oh wow, so I do have a little bit of cash! Cool. I need to be smart about this though. Working at the school itself sounds like a good idea… and if I can get into BYU I could try to work at the MTC. Every return missionary applies, and few get the job, but I might as well try. Otherwise, those options you talked about sound really good. Tell daddy I’m sorry if I’m spending too much! I’m really trying to be smart about it… I think I might need to warn you in advance about this week though. We’ve got temple this week and there’s a couple of investigators/recent converts who need presents, for their belated/upcoming baptizes. I’m going to TRY to be prudent, but yeah… also, The church has asked us to buy the new translation of the Spanish Bible that they’ve just put out. I don’t know how expensive it’s going to be, but they are THICK books. I saw the “cheap-give-away” copies and they’re way better bound than the other books we give away because they’ve got so many pages. So, I’ve got to pick up one of those and some other stuff as well…
BABY KITTEN! Ahhh! CUTE. Cute.cute.cute.cute.CUTE! She sounds AODRABLE. I want to cuddle. Send me pics pronto! I must bask in the cuteness described.
Kimber sounds like it’s turning out to be really wonderful! How many students do you have in your class? That’s so cool that Jensen and Shazi got to share their experiences at the school. I can’t think of any really great stories right now, but if they come to me later I’ll tell you about them. Oh! It’s already come in handy to know the hook-dates on my mission. Good stuff. You’re going to do great, and I bet you can help to make the school a success.
That’s sad about Sister Noyes and Brother Davies, but I’m sure they’ll have the support of the ward and daddy to help them and the families. Pancreatic cancer’s very painful isn’t it? It’s hard to see people suffering, but we’ve got an advantage in the church of having an Eternal Perspective. Still, that’s pretty terrible, but it won’t last for any longer than it’s supposed to and eventually, everything will be alright.
That’s funny about those dreams Alejandra’s mom had about her, also very revealing and interesting… I love hearing about people’s dreams. Some missionaries get exasperated and start mentally rolling their eyes when an investigator/member starts talking about their dreams, but I love it! I know that God speaks to us through dreams. And often times, the spiritual language of dreams is very personal. It’s funny sometimes, sure, but it’s also sacred revelation for these people—so that’s very neat. I’m glad that Alejandra and her mom are doing well. This is a rough time for both of them!
My stock of thigh-highs seems to need constant replenishment, but it’s gotten better since Sister Hansen made a new rule: we no longer have to wear ‘medias’ (Nylons) unless we’re in a situation in which the Elders need to wear their suit-jackets. So much of the time I’m actually wearing those little footsy-sox underneath my shoes! You know, the kinds that just go around the foot, and not even up to the ankle? It’s hard to find kinds that stay on, but the ones they sell at Kroger and Fiesta just hanging around are pretty good. I’m wearing a pair with ‘ositos’ (little bears) on them that Hermana Castillo gave me from her last trip to Fiesta. So… If you happen to come across any of those, por favor!
As for my opinion on kitty names, these are all REALLY good. The only real reason to use Luna or Bellatrix is to keep in the Harry Potter theme though, since Bastet & Miss Moppet are such GREAT cat names. Bastet is nice and intellectual. Also, any Goth kids will think we’re one groovey Adams-esque family. Miss Moppet is totally classic. But Luna also has some “kitsch (sp?) cache” with the anime crowds who remember Sailor Moon and her little black cat Luna… and Bellatrix is awesomely Harry Potter and also a round-about reference to Helena Bonham Carter, who is awesome… I don’t know , these are some fine choices. You’re probably going to have to give her all of them, but in what order?
Well, I’m going to keep this letter shorter today as well, just because you’ve got my letter from two weeks ago too! And also because I’m hoping I’ll get to chance to do some hand-written funzies today while I’m hanging around in the dug-out.
2nd Nephi 31… Excellent choice
Tengo bastante amor para vosotros. BESO!
MWAHMUCHO/Hermana Ailsa Chrisitan Lillywhite

Querida Familita Mia,

2009-09-08T12:14:00.001-07:00

No se si eso (aqui, por arriba) es correcto. Creo que, si, pero mi espanol es de los estados unidos, entounces... nunca se!

I'm so sorry I didn't write yesterday! It was laborday, so all the libraries and everything was closed. But the happy news is that I get to write to you today! YAY! Felizidad por la vida, AIIIAYAIAIAYY!

I really am excited today, I don't know why, I think it's because of the extra day, I was extra excited to hear from y'all. I'm always way stoked to get your letters, but today, I just feel like I'm extra excited... So, I'm confused, I thought Jensen got a solo room to herself, but you've mentioned Luma as a roomate of hers? Explain:) Maybe she lives right next door or something? Anyway, that's excellent that she gets to make some new friends, and ginna-ga-boobin, I'm SO happy that you like all your classes. They sound boss. Especially the movie-watching one:) I've got to be honest my little sister, I still don't think movies are evil. I'm probably not going to be able to sit down with you for a month and watch all these shows, like you've been saying, but I don't think it'll be too weird to watch TV again... you just have to be EXTRA nice to me, start me out on milk. Disney movies... Pixar! Ya know? Then we can slowly ease me into romantic comedies and some action adventure... SLOWLY though. Anyway, Luma sounds nice! Is she in any of your classes? Your other classes sound like they're perfect for you as well. You'll do awesome! Just keep working hard.

And mommy, your class will be great! I can already tell from hearing you talk about it. It's going to be so cool. Those kids are way lucky to have you. I certainly will be praying for you! And for your adorable kimber-prospy students. If they give you guff, just tell the kung fu teacher and he'll beat them up. That's what the other teachers did when we were bad.

Yeah, there was a thing brought up about money the other day... OH yeah! Guess who is in my district now? Elder Lang! The one from Aunt Nuggie & Uncle John's ward. We were talking and it turns out that my companion and Elder Lang are basically set up already for after their mission. They've got cash/jobs/schools, everything lined up. So me and Elder Lang's companion, Elder Remmington, were being kind of quiet and then he just goes, "I'm broke." and I just sort of nodded and was like, "I think I might be broke too." and we had a good laugh about it. I don't actually know if there is any money for school for me when I get back... I guess I can always work for a while and save up. There is bound to be a job for a bi-lingual hypergraphian with a bachelor's degree in English, right? But I really do want to go back to school... I just realised I'll probably have to try and figure out a couple of details about that at some point.

Laney is so silly... half finished homework in your desk, huh? Silly rabbit. She's so cute, I miss her face and her sillyosity. How's she liking school so far? Any fun new friends?

Choosing your fast day in a forty-day fast as fast sunday is cheating!But it might have worked... good idea, haha. That's a really cool idea, I hope you guys see some success for your missionaries. They sound like great Elders from what you've told me. It's hard in some of those areas, but that doesn't mean you can't have success. Oooo! I want to see Uncle Dan in MacBeth!So cool. Totally unfair... they'll just have to do it again next year, says I. I'm glad he's happily working away on a new script--I can't wait to read it, and the old one! [redacted].

Was that Museum movie cute? I saw a poster for it a couple of times, so I knew it was coming out at least, which is more than I can say for most movies. (It's so weird to be all cut off sometimes). Yummy... food and gelato. I haven't heard from Chantal in a bit, what's the deal, babs? Que estas haciendo? Tell her I said that.

Yeah, the weather is unbareable. It was REALLY hot yesterday too, but we had fun... You'll never guess what President actually let us do... we went to a Baseball Game!!!! Coolest P-day ever. It will probably never happen again, because SO many missionaries were there. It was funny. You could just look across the stands and see all these white shirts and ties with little nametags (I think Hermana Forsling and I were the only sisters who came though). We ended up on the bigscreen alot.

It was a way fun game, Astros vs. Philies. The Philies pitcher has a real attitude problem, but so did a bit of the crowd (The parts that weren't occupied by scores of missionaries). Aside from that it was a way fun, wholesome game of ball! Completely with cute little kids and dogs and sportmanship and all of that. I'll be sending my ticket and the funky astros apron they gave me home to you folks to charish. I like baseball, I realised. It's really fun!

There were like dozens of flyballs too. A few came right close to us but we never caught one. By the end I figured they should just hand one out to everybody in the crowd as there had been so many. I don't know if the game was on TV or anything, but if you can find any clips of it, you might see me, or some of my homies (I don't know if it's inappropriate to refer to the Elders as 'homies') in the crowd. WAY fun game. The Astros won!

That's such a wonderful story about Katherine and Matt! I love that. It's so sweet... That's a nice mission President who would allow that too. President Hansen would probably okay that too. At least, I'd hope so. He's strick on some things and not-so-much on others, so it's hard to tell. But that's soooo cool! Lucky Elder:)

Well, this week was pretty chill. Well, not really, actually a lot happened, but you know that whole 'some stories are better in person' thing, I've mentioned? This was one of those weeks. I didn't find out that my companion can do cornrows. And there was an adorable incident in which one of our recent converts, Antonia (15) stole the keys to our car and set off the alarm when we were standing outside next to the car, looking for the keys. She's such a joker. It was pretty funny.

This week is going to be zone conference! I'm super excited. Zone conference is always so uplifting. This has been a pretty battered transfer so far, but I know that hard times come and go. And we'll be fine, we're in the lord's hands after all.

I LOVE you all, os amo muchisimo! I hope everything is as lovely and prefect and the same as it sounds. I miss you all a lot, but I'm so happy! And I know it won't be long before I see you all again and get to touch and hear and smell you too:)

Kissito, Hermana Lillywhite

Eighteen months, baby.

2009-08-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Phew. I’m beat. My favorite member got arrested for unpaid parking tickets, but everything’s been sorted out now. We were worried she might run into immigration problems, but since her paperwork is actually being dealt with right now, they didn’t try to deport her or anything, and she’s a trooper. She made friends with all the toughest Hispanic ladies in the cage and described how the police trembled in fear when she was released a few hours later. (I think I already sent you a picture of Hermana Castillo once, and some of her precious children.)
We also enjoyed a lovely ‘goodbye-Elder-Meade’ dinner appointment with a family that are members of the ward in spite of not being members of the church… (waiting on divorce papers to go through in Mexico so they can get married legally.) Their oldest child has already been baptized though, and we get to start teaching the second oldest just in time for her to get baptized Oct. 8th; her eight birthday. It was a very fun evening. I tried to get footage of Elder Meade getting his face smashed into a cake but it didn’t work out. I do have pictures of the aftermath.
We’re working with some WONDERFUL people right now. It’s stressful, but it’s soooo rewarding.
Oh! It’s transfer week, and the only reason I didn’t bring that up sooner is because my news is boring: I’m staying and so is my companion! Actually, very few Spanish missionaries changed at all, except to regulate some things that were made wonky by sooo, so many missionaries having to go home this week. But everyone who wasn’t leaving was basically just left alone! And then they paired up the companionships who lost someone—or made them trainers. Very slick transfer, which is a little unusual for president. But I’m REALLY happy that I get to stay here for at least six more weeks with Hermana Forsling. It’s her second to last transfer and she’s praying that they’ll just leave us together/here, until she dies. There are so many wonderful people here, I could honestly spend the rest of my mission in this little apartment in the ghetto and be perfectly happy. But—I said that about Gunspoint too, so I guess the lesson in to trust in the Lord that wherever I go, or wherever I don’t go and whoever I’m with/not with, is all for my good.
It’s the last P-day for a lot of missionaries, I was expecting something big, but I guess they decided to keep it pretty low-key. We’re just going to get food at a BBQ place here called The Hungry Farmer and say our goodbyes and then maybe play some sports if we don’t just spend the whole time reminiscing.
Funny moment of the week:
*Hermana Forsling notices some black marks on the back of Elder Meade’s shirt*
“What happened?!” –Hna Forsling
“Two years, baby.” –Elder Meade
“…Did you just call me baby?” –Hna Forsling
“I’m practicing.” –Elder Meade.
“Don’t practice on sister missionaries.” –Elder Brady
Best district meeting ever.
I assure you, we got a lot of work done and had some wonderful spiritual moments as well. I’m such a softy these days. Remember how I cried pretty easily before? It’s gotten SO much worse now. I try to keep it under control, but seriously… Don’t know what to do about that.
Hugh B. Brown, Profile of a Prophet and God is the Gardener—I think I remember listening to this at Kimber years ago. Hermana Forsling has a copy on tape that we’ve been listening to. Good stuff—powerful. Also, I think I forgot to mention before, daddy—THANK you for the talks/articles. I really can’t get enough of this, don’t hesitate to send me more goodness.
Apparently Phill Collins recorded all of the soundtrack from Tarzan in Spanish. According to the new music guidelines that President set, it’s not okay, but it’s still something I’m going to want to participate in later. Tarzan in Spanish. Sweet.
Mommy, I LOVE that poem you sent me. It’s gorgeous and it’s so true. Just in keeping with my newest theme of every lesson “God loves and knows you”. I’ve decided that this is a simple truth that has been completely and utterly lost on pretty much everybody. No matter what we’re teaching, we always figure out a way to trace it back to that. It’s amazing to see the light in people when this precious reality starts to come into them. It’s so taken for granted by us as latter-day saints. And that story about President Monson and Uchtdorf is hilarious! I love it, totally warms my heart. It sounds like it was a very wonderful and busy Sunday. I hope that Grandma is doing okay, I’ve been praying for her! Let me know how everything goes.
I sure do love and miss you all bunches… sorry this letter is so short this week! But there’s not much more that you need to know except that the church is true and that this message we have is the most wonderful, most important thing for all the world and I know these things because I have felt the truth of them por medio del Espiritu Santo.
Love, Hermana Lillywhite

Hola! Did you say hello? No I said hola, but close enough

2009-08-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

Familia,
Phew, I’m sleepy. Luis was baptized yesterday. It was a very stressful day. All the elements were combining against us to thwart our plans for helping Luis receive a remission of his sins, but after frantic phone calls running por todos lados del mundo and some fervent praying/begging we were gifted with SUCCESS! Luis is very excited, he looked so cute yesterday. He’s twelve and small for his age, so he was practically swimming in the jumpsuit. I’ll send pictures soon.
Aside from that, I’m not really sure what to report on this week. It went by SO fast. Elder Meade said some more funny things… I can’t remember what they were though, but it definitely had to do with tracking down Elder Bone (he prefers Elder Hueso, but is very white)’s girlfriend when he goes home in nine days. He and Elder Remington wrote a song about her actually. She hasn’t written him in a while, so the titled it, “Kirsten, write this Bonehead.” It’s sure to be a hit someday among miamaids (Damitas) all over the western front.
Two former missionaries from our zone got married. Like. To each other. It’s quite the scandal actually. Hermana Forsling was companions with the Sister, while the Elder she just married was their district leader. So, she’s pretty weirded out by the news, along with everyone else who knew the two of them. I think they make a cute couple actually, but I greatly disapprove of the clothing they’ve got on in their engagement photos. Why are crocs trendy? Why, I ask you? I mean if you really think they’re all that comfy, fine, but don’t take pictures! Why would you ever want evidence of that? And engagement photos, really!? Our ward mission leader and his wife also met in their mission when he was her district leader, so they think it’s the best thing ever. I just don’t understand.
I went on exchanges with Hermana Frieszell and that was REALLY cool to get to hang out and work with her for one more day before she goes home. She’s not happy about her time being up at all. She didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t bring it up at all except right before the exchange was over and then she just said, “Okay hijita… what of my stuff do you want?” I think she’ll be happy though. She’s just a super hardcore missionary who’s pretty sure there are a few hundred more people out there who need to be converted.
I’m taking some of her clothes and one of her Spanish books that I enjoyed reading.
I’m so sad to hear about your short/triste visit to San Clamente! How sad… it’s just not the same without everybody else there, is it? I’m glad you guys got the chance to go for a few hours, but seriously… we’ve got to figure this out so that we can have our family reunion thingy in San Clamente like before. Somebody get rich! Jensen?! Can you do anything about this? You’re clever, go make money. You’ve got the looks, you’ve got the brains, let’s make lots of money…
I really thought that I’d forget all music that wasn’t hymns, but no, random little snippets of songs come back to me at little intervals. The other day it was dépêche mode.
This movie (Lost in Austen) sounds like EXACTLY my kind of thing. Geez, I am such a girl. I really want to see it, but you’re right I’ll enjoy it fabulously with all of you in like a year. Time sure does go fast. Somebody pointed out to me the other day that I’m approaching the half-way point and I just about had a heart attack when I did the math and realized that they were right. Crazy. I can’t believe that, I don’t feel like I’ve done nearly enough… I guess I’ve just got to keep improving—work harder, proclaim the gospel to every creature and all of the goodness of life!
It sounds like your visit with the Lillywhites and our whole Californian branch of the fambly went way groovy though. I LOVE islands, I’m so jealous. And mommy, to your question about Hermana Forsling being familiar with In and Out Burger, my companion replies: “I’ll have a cheeseburger with no onions, fries and a chocolate shake, thank you very much.”
There are no In and Out Burgers here… It’s very sad. There is a suspicious looking “MR. BURGER AND SEAFOOD!” on Jensen street. We once saw a man on a horse trot up to the door, dismount and tie the horse up outside so he could go get himself some quality fast-food from the ghetto. It was an amazing moment in my life.
I’ve never eaten there.
I love it when you tell me about the food! I LOVE food. It’s a problem, I think I’m gaining weight. They told me it would happen. I don’t understand how, as I’m on my feet so much.
Anyway, I LOVE your nice long letter and hearing about your trip, it sounds like it was REALLY fun. That’s really sad about the ward not paying attention to the cute little white-haired man… Being just plain friendly is an important part of missionary work for full-time missionaries and everyone else.
Wow, I can’t believe everyone has to go start school again! It seems like it just got out… well, good luck to everyone! Work hard y’all. I don’t have much time left, so I’ve got to get going, thank you SO much for the nice long letter, it’s so good to hear about everything back home, I look forward to getting the San Clamente carta. I hope it wasn’t as miserable as you made it sound and that you were able to enjoy yourselves a little. I agree about the ‘not-beach’ bodies with all the tattoos and navel jewelry. What is that?! I got in a conversation with a ‘missionary’ from another church who had a large tattoo of a naked woman on his arm and was wearing a Santa Muerte shirt. I gave him a card, but he wouldn’t give me any of his information and he just wanted to debate, so I pretended not to know what he was talking about. If he ever gets baptized he should get the tattoo removed… or at least go buy her some clothes.
I heart you all with all my love. I hope everything is as pleasant and summery as I imagine it in my head! Live life, be cheerfull! MWAH! MWAH! Good luck back at school and work and life everyone. I miss you all like you were chocolate. Besssito.
Hermana Lillywhite

slightlylessdrama

2009-08-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Dear family,
This week was REALLY amazing. Junior is making great progress. I got to have a very awkward law of chastity lesson with three teenaged siblings, and that was actually a lot of fun… Luis did not get baptized on schedule, but it’s okay, we think we can help him resolve his doubts in time and take this important step. We’ve got some great new people we’re working with and all in all, everything is going quite nicely.
Remember how I have special powers sometimes? Well, the second I realized that another Elder was going to have to come in and replace Elder Geldmocker (I still am not certain how to spell his NAME) I immediately selected from a group of like… well, I don’t actually know how many Spanish Elders there are, but there’s a LOT, and I totally called it. Elder Poole came to replace him. He’s going home at the same time as Elder Meade, Elder Briscoe, Elder Luke, Elder Cypert, Elder Argyle, Elder Drysdale, and Hermana Friezell—so basically all my friends plus a couple of cool people I really wanted to serve around but never got the chance, on account of them being so OLD! And Hermana Forsling is getting up there too… along with Elder Rost and Elder Dorian (who I’ve decided is Daddy, when he was a missionary). We’d better get some cool people out here soon. Anyway, Elder Poole is an interesting fellow. He’s a convert and everyone says he’s got a very interesting conversion story, but that it’s better when he tells it. I’m not sure how I predicted his Emergency Transfer to our zone, but I think he and Elder Rost will be a legendary companionship (for about two weeks before he goes back to BYU to do whatever it is people who already have their Doctorate do after their missions, get married to the woman responsible for his initial interest in the church, if I’m hearing the rumors right.) Elder Meade has a similar story, except that he’s not with her anymore, and also his story involves him being the lead singer in the band at his old church (yep, one of those) he has pictures on him as his Christian Rock-star self with long curly hair, and I guess he had a beard to at one point. (When he visited BYU for a couple of weeks). So, the other missionaries are all doing well, besides going crazy on account of being on their way home.
I’m so happy to hear that you performed a wedding in Spanish, daddy! That is so cool. I wish I could have heard it! Awesome, chido. We’re really hoping to have a wedding soon so we can get two of our investigators baptized…
Also, THANK YOU so much for the package! I needed more thigh highs and inserts and I certainly needed millions of candies! Yay dulces! I think that’s what I squealed when I opened it. Also, I don’t know if I ever said thank you Laney-boo for the newsletter! And all the clippings were really fun. I’m surprised to see that The Mighty Boosh performed at comic-con, I remembered that they started playing it late-night in America shortly after I left, but still… That’s cool about New Moon too, I saw a poster in Walmart the other day and was fairly jealous for a split second of all the silly people who get to see it before me! I also tried to watch a trailer for the next Harry Potter movie in Chile’s a few weeks back, but Hermana slapped me and brought me back to the world of “Soy misionera! Voy a trabajar en el campo de Dios, VAMOS!” I’ve got to be honest, I don’t feel a gut-wrenching aversion to pop-culture, still. I know missionaries who do, and I respect their feelings by not bringing it up/not getting stranded on the way out of chiles or walmart, but still… do not personally feel a sickening “DE BABILONIA!” electric shock when such things come to my attention. Does that mean I’m a bad person? Hermana Forsling says ‘No’, but Hermana Friezell says ‘Yes’.
Anyway, thank you SO much for the comics and goodies and the big bright lovely, wonderful package of LOVE! And especially thank you for the conference on CD! I’ve got this last session on DVD in Spanish, but I’ve really been wanting to listen to it English for my personal study sometimes. I really appreciate the Lauren and Cody’s letters too, and the talk from you, daddy! I have the best family ever, pretty sure: )
I think some people (especially people you like to make analogies and ties things together) often make spiritual connections with secular things. For instance, I LOVE that that Elder used Alice in Wonderland in his talk, it’s an excellent point and I’ve read those books, so I know that they are chalk-full of other really wonderful tidbits like that. Things that could be easily applicable to gospel subjects. I think it’s a great idea to use that same line for class, mommy. If you haven’t read Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, borrow my copy. They’re very short books and there’s a lot of good stuff in there. The Cheshire Cat is quite wise if I remember correctly.
Anyway, the point is, I think that stuff is important and inspired too sometimes. And I’ll always remember that one teacher at the MTC who applied every gospel principle to Rocky effortlessly.
Oh, before I forget… HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENSEN! MWAH, MWAh, MWAH!!!!! I give you nineteen kisses! You’re all adultish, how silly of you… I’d recommend not getting any older, unless you want to serve a mission, then you at least need to make it to twenty-one, but after that you can stop. I’d recommend stopping, in fact.
~Estas son las manunitas que cantaba al Rey David, hoy por ser tu dia santo, te las cantamos a TI!~
FELIZ COMPLIANOS!
Everything sounds so fun back home, I’m glad Jensen and Chantal are carrying on the tradition of funfunfun. Jensen don’t get discouraged about the animation program! Just work hard and apply again in April! And if you talk to a counselor and pray a lot I’m sure you’ll be able to find a solution. Remember, your heavenly father wants you to be happy and successful and he’ll help you out, you just need to ask and work hard and be patient!
I hope ya’ll are enjoying the river, give my love to the fambly! I do so miss them… Daddy, I’m sorry you had a rough Sunday! I loved your reference to the conference talk, it’s one of my favorites! There’s so many people who need to hear that talk… I’m going to print it out and give it to them, good call. Thanks for the reminder!
Anyway, I don’t have a lot of time today because we’re going down town to play… I love you all SO much, and I miss you like crazy, but I’m cheerful and I’m joyful every day and I’m SO glad I’m here, about my father’s business. I so adore you, my lovelies. Sorry this letter is so short, there’s a lot more I’d like to say, but I got to go!
Love, lovey-love-love, Hermana Lillywhite

whatadramatic7days

2009-08-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Mom, you are absolutely right about the whole, cycles and waves thing, because although the last couple of weeks were rough, this week was AWESOME. Chito. Or chido, I don’t know, I’ve only ever heard people say it, and the Spanish ‘d’ sounds kind of ‘th’y sometimes and ‘t’s sound like ‘d’s so sometimes I have no idea which of those letters is actually in this word I’m using. Anyway, that’s just awesome in Spanish. Point is: this week was amazing.
It was looking like it was going to be a struggle at first. We had an Elder in our Zone who had to go home because he almost died. Elder Geldmocker. (I think I’m wrong on how to spell the name, but that’s how it sounds) He’s gotten some kind of an injury in the MTC and not gotten it properly taken care of and then he came out here and it kept getting worse, but he wouldn’t tell anyone anything about it until he couldn’t walk anymore and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery to remove a 2 inch-wide, foot and a half long blood-clot in his leg and a ton of dead muscle. He still doesn’t know how serious it was an neither does his family, because the President hasn’t told them yet and because he’s all drugged up (last I heard, that’s probably different now) Anyway, he’s missing a huge chunk of his leg now and has to go home, but they say he’ll have full use of his leg in about a year, which is a MIRACLE considering how bad this is. They asked up to fast and pray so he wouldn’t DIE, but they really weren’t expecting the possibility of a full recovery. So, the whole mission fasted and prayed like crazy and he made it through the night, opened up his cute little eyes and looked at his companion Elder Rost and said in a very ‘out-of-it’ way, “Did you do anything fun last night?”
“Kind of. I prayed for about five hours and didn’t eat anything and cried a lot.” –I’m sure was Elder Rost’s response. (Elder Rost has been voted most likely to be prophet one day, by the whole mission, FYI. He’s going home this transfer, along with the Elder Briscoe, who was voted most likely to be a general authority.) These are not formal ballots just so you know.
So, now, Elder Rost is temporarily companions with a Member who’s leaving for his mission soon, and Elder Geldmocker is going to go home in about six weeks when the doctors allow him to leave his hyperbaric chamber.
We FINALLY got Emily confirmed! And we got her brother an interview for his baptism. Triumph… what a battle that was. And, Junior (Eduardo Junior) the brother of Patricia and Antonia, finally agreed to talk to us. We gave him a Book of Mormon ages ago and have been trying to get him to open up to us, but whenever we ask if he wants to have a lesson, or wants to talk to us he always refuses and goes back to listening to Insane Clown Posse and Korn, redoing all of Pink Floyd’s stuff. We refused to give up on the lad however… anyway, we finally got him to talk to us. He’s read like all of first Nephi and started into second Nephi and he loves it! When we asked him to come to church, he agreed and then he actually came!
I think he’s a got kid… he’s just got a way crappy life and lives in the ghetto and is really angry, but he’s got a shot, especially with his two sisters to help him out.
And our home is Ghetto. Let me tell you… Just this last week I’ve taught lessons to drug addicts and prostitutes. We had somebody get up to go meet his dealer in the middle of our lesson. We had to explain to a woman that the Holy Spirit definitely did not help her find the keys to the car she was trying to steal from that man. There was a big old party last night covering about three blocks in totality where we had a couple of appointments and the cops came and periodically arrested people.
And one of the less actives we’re working with is a really awesome high school senior/football player, who’s afraid to leave his family alone in the house because there’s a group of other high school kids trying to kill him because of some way ancient grudge with his older brother, (he insists they’re not in any gang he knows of, they’re just cholo-wanna-be punks). They attacked his mother already and hauled his brother off to somebody’s house to mess him up and he broke in and threw him over his shoulder and beat people on his way out of this place. Crazy life this kid had. So, his family is kind of afraid (especially his mother) for him to not be around to protect him, and the police apparently do nothing here, accept occasionally arrest people at loud parties and turn on their lights so they can run red lights every five seconds (which I see ALL the time). But he still needs to come to church. He’s just really confused about life and desperate. He started talking about how everything will be better when he gets out of school because then maybe he can get a job somewhere far away and get his family OUT of the ghetto. We told him about BYU and the football scholarships and how he still needs to go to church as going to church will help you out with all of that.
So. Life is going really well. We’ve got a LOT of work to do, a lot of people to work with… We’re making progress with all of them. I’m doing really great right now actually!
We had Zone conference (the meeting with the three big zones close by, which is about 64 missionaries, and President & Sister Hansen) And our 70 was going to be there. Elder Villareal. I’ve heard him speaking before when I was invited to Zone Leadership training/meeting thing, a few transfers back (Since sisters aren’t Zone leaders outside of the temple square mission—correct me on that if I’m wrong, some people have said that there are sister zone leaders in other missions too—anyway, there are no sister zone leaders in the Texas Houston Mission, but they invite a lot of us to come to the leadership meetings at random so we can help them out, and since there’s only like… I think 16 Sisters in the whole mission, with about a hundred and forty Elders. It works out that you’re more likely to go to Zone Leader meetings as a Sister than you are as an Elder. Which I find amusing.)
Anyway, Elder Villareal is a great, powerful very Dr. Kimber-esque speaker, accept that at this particular Zone Conference, he confused about 64 missionaries way bad.
You see, President Hansen spoke to us first, then had to disappear for a while, to go find out about and held poor Elder Geldmocker (sp?) (because all of that was going on at the same time) for a reason I’ll expand more on later—and we were left alone with Elder Villareal for about three hours. So, the first half on Zone conference, with President Hansen, was all about the Love of God, and how so many people just gloss over that in their lessons and in their LIVES. They know that God loves them, but they have no idea what that means, and they don’t really feel that it’s true. Or, they just straight up don’t really know that their Father in Heaven actually loves them. So President Hansen was talking all about how we need to help people understand this principle and show how it ties into everything else, as the whole reason for everything that we teach and everything that we do in life. It was REALLY great. Then Elder Villareal got up and basically started to refute a bunch of President Hansen’s teachings and showed us a lot of scriptural evidence to suggest that God actually only loves people who aren’t sinning. He said it like this, “God doesn’t love sinners. It’s like you with your groups of good friends, if one of them starts behaving in a way that’s contrary to the standards of the group, their kicked out.”
So… This is all much more complex than I’m making it sound, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to explain the conclusion we finally came to about what Elder Villareal really MEANT to say, without llevar a cabo-ing all my time here, but the summed up version of this is that our zone conference in short felt about like this: 2:00-3:00 “God LOVES you, so much.” 3:00-6:00 “Actually, he doesn’t really love you all that much because you’re a sinner.”
And 64 missionaries went back to their campos to work, feeling very confused and questioning their testimonies.
I know this wasn’t his intention, but that’s pretty much what happened.
But, it turned out to be a good thing, because then I went home and for the first time in my life actually asked God if he really loved me. I’d never questioned it before, so I’ve never bothered to ask him.
Hermana Friezell is ending her mission this transfer, along with most of the other missionaries who I love (All my friends are OLD!) In her parting testimony, she says she thinks the reason why missionaries grow so much on their missions, and why they come back with these unbreakable convictions about the gospel is because we all get told, every single day, by everyone and everything around us that we’re wrong and we’re stupid and we should just go home. And all that battery that our testimony takes out here is what makes it grow. When we doubt, and are able to overcome that doubt, it fortifies the base.
So, then, I was randomly selected, two days later at Zone Meeting (Just our little zone of like 20 people) to share my testimony about Heavenly Father’s love, specifically. My concluding remarks were basically just that even if God can’t show us his love because we’re far removed from him, it’s still there. He loves the vilest sinner in the world exactly the same way he loved that person when they were born pure and innocent however many years before; exactly as he loved them when he was raising them as a loving father, in the world before this one.
The next day, in District meeting, we decided to openly discuss what exactly had gone down at Zone Conference and basically check to make sure that everyone in our district had made peace with this and was no longer struggling with doubts as a result of that rather interesting 3 hour meeting with Elder Villareal. They asked me to go first, so I said “Well… I already cried hysterically and shared my feelings,” to which Elder Meade replied brightly, “I remember that!” and we all laughed and I was incredibly depressed because Elder Meade is going home with almost everyone else I love at the end of this transfer. Anyway, I summed up my thoughts again and then Elder Meade made a really interesting point. He said that God can’t directly be with people when their sinning because… he’s God, but that’s why he has US. Missionaries. And Saints and other good people, who are none-the-less sinners, and capable of going down into the dirt to show these people God’s love by proxy. I’m pretty sure this is what Elder Villareal was trying to say, it’s just that his way of saying it was confusing.
I’m SO glad to hear about all of the goodness back home. Your dinner with the Candiloras sounds like fun! And yes, and hour and a half is way too long to hang out, but that’s about what happens with dinner appointments sometimes. I think the official rule is no longer than an hour, but a lot of the time, you get there and they’re still cooking or something like that… time management is one of the hardest things. I’m sure they were stressed, that’s probably why they left without teaching anything. But still, it’s way good that you were there and able to visit with them. I sure do love and miss that family, they are such good people. Really wonderful folks, I’m praying for those missionaries with you.
That’s so fun that Becca and Megan came to visit! I love them, so much. And I miss them. I was going off about Serenity the other day and Hermana Forsling called Serenity “A Utah thing” (She’s from LA and greatly dislikes Utah.) So I had to correct her and let her know that there are plenty of sophisticated Californians who dig Firefly as well, citing Becca and Megan as ejemplos.
Thanks for the monies… and Lucille Childs is SO sweet! I’m going to write her a little letter today, I think I’ve got her address in my book here, if not, I’ll just send it to you and you can give it to her? Raging Waters! No fair! It’s so HOT here. I’m dying for a little raging waters… I’m glad everybody had fun, I’m making sure to collect all the promises of fun things from you!
I’m way looking forward to my package too, I’m going to try not to spend too much money this week (we’re going to the temple Thursday and I’ll be tempted to buy everything. I need to get some fabric today to make a case for my English scriptures, and I think there’s some other stuff I might need to get from the little distribution center there… but I’ll try to be thrifty.) Everything sounds SO lovely back home, are you excited about teaching Kimber soon?! What do you think of the curriculum?
I really love and miss you all A LOT. But I honestly can’t believe that it’s agosto ya. Time flies, and I think it’s because I’m truly happy, busy, engaged in the harvest of the Lord etc. I love you all SO, so much. Sorry, this letter is a little long and random this week, but there’s so much more I’d love to say, but I’d better get going! OH! I just remembered as I was typing that… remember that woman who had that problem that I talked to you a little bit about on the phone on mother’s day? Well… She got baptized YESTERDAY! I couldn’t go down to see it on account of never having taught the woman, but I was still so overjoyed to hear that she was ready to take that step. Her story is so amazing to me. I can’t wait to torture Elder Herrman for details when he gets off his mission six months after me.
Anyway, I LOVE you. Besito, besito, besito and glory to God!
Hermana Lillywhite

Let's hear some chatter out there!

2009-07-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hey! The pics from Alice look great—I dig it. Anne Hathaway looks beautiful, and of course, Helena, my love and I like the girl whose playing Alice. Do I even need to mention my undying love for Johnny? Probably shouldn’t. I’m a missionary you know.
This transfer so far has been a little strange. A lot of the missionaries who were around when I first came out either went home, or are about to leave. So some of the mascots of my mission so far are starting to get all trunky and lame. Some of them are awesome right up until the end though. Like Elder Rowberry, who was an Assistant when I came out. He just went home. He does that thing kind of like Buster in Arrested Development with giving random backrubs, except not creepy. Anyway, he walked up to the Elder Next to me the Monday before he went home and was rubbing his shoulders and then he looked down at me and just said, “I’m sorry. I can’t touch you.” I laughed and he laughed and then muttered something like “Just a few more days…” and walked off. The other Elders and I watched him walk off, a tired broken shell, losing all yet gaining himself in the process… it could have been a very deep moment except that then a bunch of them laughed and Elder Meade added, “Few more weeks! Yes!” As he is next to go home.
I don’t know how I feel about these new kids who’re coming in. None of them are as awesome as the Elders who are leaving right now. I’ve been assured that they’ll get more awesome as they llegar a ser better missionaries.
This last week was pretty rough again, my Hermana Forsling is still ill and we think we’ve figure out I’ve got some pinched nerves in my back that are causing random pain at inopportune moments. Like in the middle of lessons. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but it’s really annoying. Also, Emily, who’s pictures I still haven’t sent you, has NOT been confirmed yet. She was supposed to be confirmed two weeks ago, but Babylon is calling and yesterday the excuse was fishing. I don’t know what we’re going to do… Pray a lot. And try to explain to her, again, with power and authority, WHY she needs to come to church every week and keep the commandments of God; with love and boldness, but not overbearence. We’re working with such great people right now though, I really feel like they all have desires to know more and to be in good standing with their heavenly father. Our big success of the week was getting a inactive woman and her less-active son to church! They’ve been making excuses (some of which are pretty good) for why they can’t come for ages, but we finally got them in the building, all spiffed up and greeting old friends too.
Also, a dry Mormon couple just moved into our area. They were already in our ward, but they had to move, the rent was too high, so they came over to our side of town, and are crammed into a little apartment/casita thing. It is way too small for how many kids they have, and two more are on their way up from Mexico. Eight people shove into two little bedrooms… Anyway, they would have been baptized ages ago, except that their not actually married and can’t get married on account of the woman having a husband who is SOMEWHERE in Mexico, she has no idea where, and the divorce is taking forever to go through. The second the paperwork is final, they’re going to get hitched and then baptized. She’s there are church every week with this army of kids. One of the boys is baptized and the two girls coming up from Mexico are going to need to be taught and baptized too when they get here. This is a really sweet family, I’m so glad that I get to teach them.
I’m glad you liked the pictures! I was going to send more, but I left the disk home on accident… I need to send my whole camera card soon.
That family, the Castillos, are SO funny. We went to drop in on them Friday night and got a big surprise. Hermana Pidwirbecky! I haven’t mentioned anything about her yet, but she was one of the last sister missionaries in this area before they switched it to Elders only. They just BARELY re-opened the area with Hermana Forsling the transfer before I got here. Then the whole masked-ET deal happened, and I ended up here too. So, we hear about Hermana Pidwirbecky ALL the time. She’s the missionary who baptized Hermana Castillo and I think 2 or her children. (Roberto, the one who looks like Sokka, wouldn’t have anything to do with the church until last September when Elder Lowry and Campbell showed up.) she’s still got one son, Mario, who’s, I think 22 or 23, who won’t ever listen to the missionaries, and usually hides in his room when we’re over.
Anyway, Hermana Pidwirbecky was visiting! We were really confused to see this unfamiliar car in their front yard and then Brendita squealed all excited “Porgque hay tantas Hermanas?!” when we walked up. Anyway, Hermana Pidwirbecky forced Mario to listen to us. Which we greatly appreciated. He’d come out of his room to say hi to her (I think he used to take discussions with his mother when she was baptized like 3 years ago) and Hermana Pidwirbecky was like “Sit down you big baby it’s not going to kill you to listen.” He actually participated in the lesson too. More so than his active LDS family. (Roberto & Reyman son bromistas.)
Fun, fun. I like this muchacha.
So, we had a little help that night. And we’ve meet some new investigators this week who are all very special and wonderful and I can’t wait to work with them some more… But seriously, times is hard, yessir.
Roberto got into a fight this week at mutual too. But we’re pretty sure it was the other kid’s fault… Javier is a boxer and a martial artist, like Roberto and depending on who you asked Javier either gave him a friendly hug from behind or tried to put him in a headlock and a fight broke out. At church. It was pretty bad, we heard about it from a bunch of people, including non-members. Anyway, one nice thing about this was that the parents seemed to all kind of wake-up a little. A bunch of the kids had been off at EFY or youth conference or los dos, and when they came back we were all shocked to see a couple of families sitting together that NEVER do usually. Teenagers bore their testimonies and a bunch of the guys cried, and the girls with attitude expressed humility. Very nice. Javier also bore his testimony and started to cry, then asked for forgiveness from the ward for anything he might have said or done to offend them.
So, the ward seems to be changing and growing together as a lovely family… I’m excited for the youth. Since, I’ve got to be honest. Before this last Sunday, I would have told you that this is one of those wards with the way-scary clichish youth that need to be smacked around by the Holy Spirit a little. There was an especially huge change in one girl in particular.
Anyway, so that’s what’s going on with me! Back home sounds lovely and idyllic, except for the presence of rattle-snakes! That’s really terrifying! Don’t go wandering around in the woods. Were you very close to it? because it sounds like you were. Were you really far away from immediate medical care? Is there such a thing as ‘single-serving-anti-venom’ that could be shoved in a first-aid kit? Nobody is allowed to be bitten by venomous serpents while I’m gone, okay? There’s something in the Bible about that. It must have been fun to see Aunt Nuggy & los ninos. I sure miss them, and all of you of course.
It is HOT. It’s so tempting to swim sometimes. You’ll be out tracting and you’ll notice somebody has a pool. (Well, that’s a lie, nobody owns pools around here unless their drug dealers, but you see them at hotels/apartment complexes sometimes). Anyway, you’ll see water and… well, we’re trying to be good and not drown. Hermana Forsling always asks me if we can go swimming and my response is usually “Yes darling, when you go home in November you can swim.” Which makes her angry, as she does not like being reminded how close she is to dying.
Is Kimber curriculum. fun? Sometimes random facts come back to me. They’ve been nearly useful before too. I really want to see this slideshow! Somebody send it to me, PLEASE! The sixth movie sounds like a lot of fun. I’m glad they left in the part with the birds… I’ll try not to be too jealous. But, Ginna, you go ahead and geekout for me, okay? You have to do twice as much geeking-out with me not there.
Well, I’d better get going. Hermana Forsling is part of an All-start basketball line-up between the 3rd ward and 10th ward missionaries. I’m going to go be a cheerleader for 3rd ward. (Which means I’m going to read Jesus The Christ on the stage while they play and occasionally clap in acknowledgement of superior skill. Sports are fun and all. I’ve figured out what I don’t like about them. TALKING. I don’t like the ‘chatter’/’hustle’ junk. It’s so annoying. Let’s all just get tired and sweaty and talk later. These guys are chatterers… silly verbalosity. Totally unnecessary for proper battle. Random sound effects and giggling I approve of, but chatter. No.
I LOVE you all so much. I’m working hard. Not discouraged in spite of the roughness. I know God is giving us the help we need and that we’re with the people who need us. Tengo muchlurve para vosotros. Besito.
Lovelovelove/Hermana Lirioblanco

2009-07-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

A New Transfer Begins!

2009-07-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Dearest familiares,
Have I mentioned yet that I am officially a master of Spanglish? I speak Spanish, sure, and I speak English, but when it’s just me and my companion, other Spanish-missionaries or certain recent converts, we all automatically fall into this third wonderful dialect, a fusion of the two idiomas. The best is when you tack on English endings to Spanish verbs. IE “So she dejared the guy and was saliring out the house when he’s like ‘que es eso? Te quiero!’.”
I’m also picking up some weird southern stuff too. “I used to could surf, but now I’m a missionary.” And since I’m living in the disputed ‘most-ghetto’ part of Houston, I’m having to at least learn to interoperate certain phrases and words that white people usually don’t use. I completely forgot the other day that white people typically don’t walk up and kiss each other, and I really startled a pair of English Sisters by swooping down on them.
The English members they were with looked a little alarmed too, but they’d heard me say “Hola!” and saw the Jesucristo badge and basically just rolled their eyes like, “Esas Hermanas... todas son locas.” Except they don’t know Spanish, so it was more like, “Girlcrazy.”
I’m NOT learning pure Spanish is the sad thing. There’s too much of a mixture of people here, so I’m picking up all kinds of stuff that’s exclusive to certain lugares. People correct me all the time, but the different people (depending on where they’re from) with contradict each other frequently. The Bishop is sixth ward said that we should basically just use what’s in the text books, because it’s the most universal ‘pure’ form of Spanish.
I’ve GOT to send you all the picture card soon, it’s getting so fun and full. Also, I need to send back my Ipod so it can be rellenared. I meant to send it out sooner when I sent that package last transfer, but totally olvidared the whole deal. I’m going to try to stop the Spanglish. Transfers are this week and Hermana Forsling and I are going to stay here in Crosstimbers for six more weeks. Next transfer is going to be a big deal just because SO many missionaries are going home. Since I’ve gotten here the question frequently comes up between missionaries, “When are you dying?” (meaning when do you return home) and the typical response is that this missionary rolls their eyes and says “I’m dying with everyone else.” When they say that, they’re all talking about this next transfer. We’re losing a lot of missionaries and we’re not getting very many in for a bit… should be interesting.
This week was very busy. We taught a lot of lessons and found some new people and… We had a baptism!!! It was very exciting. Our investigator Emily, was baptized yesterday. It was wonderful and lovely, but a little sad just because her brother was supposed to get baptized with her, but changed his mind. He came though and agreed to a date in two weeks! YAY! And her mother was there, which I know meant A LOT to her, because the rest of her family is not supportive at all. We’re working with the mom too, but she’s got some word of wisdom problems and she’s afraid to come to church. She says she’s “not ready.” Which is very sad, but, I look hopefully on the fact that she’s taking it all very seriously. We’ve talked a lot about baptism and we know she wants to do it, but you kind of have to go to church first. And keep the commandments of God. We’re working on it.
Emily’s excellent though. She was so excited and so prepared… I feel really lucky to have been trusted with teaching her and her family.
Aside from that, this week was kind of slow. I had a very strange dream about being invited over to a member’s house to try and teach their friend who turned out to be a serial murderer. I can’t figure out whether I was trying to get away from him, kill him, or baptize him. It was a bit of a mess in my head.
We taped Elder Meade playing Pacabel’s (sp?) cannon and singing “The Black Parade”. It works perfectly. I think we should have somebody’s parents put it on YouTube with the tag “Mormon missionary performs My Chemical Romance at Baptism”. It’s misleading since he did it after it was over and mostly everybody had left, but Emily would appreciate it at least.
She wasn’t along at the baptism either, some friends of Patricia and Antonia were baptized too, a family of 6! (minus dad, who was there to support his family but didn’t get wet). The Zone leaders have been teaching them even though they live in OUR area. This is fine, since it was a member referral to them and they had originally been teaching them at the member’s house in THEIR area, but when they found out that they lived in our area and were friends with our recent coverts, they sort of, kind of, maybe, very blatantly forgot to mention it to us, and we had to find out from Patricia and Antonia. This is how the conversation went.
Antonia: “My friends are really excited about the baptism… but they’re kind of confused about some stuff.”
Me: “Oh yeah?”
Antonia: “Yeah—I was talking to the mom and she’s all like, ‘sometimes I don’t’ get what their trying to tell me’ so I told her how you guys always explain everything real good, and I said it was too bad you couldn’t teach them.”
Me: “Well, missionaries always teach the people in their area, you know why?”
Antonia: “Cause we live close?”
Me: “Silly girl, yes, that’s part of it, but the other thing is that we’re assigned to work in specific areas so we can teach the people there… I was supposed to come here and met you! And guess who assigned me?”
Antonia: “God.”
Me: “Exactamente. And your friends live in the Elder’s area, so they’re given the same ability to teach and receive revelation for the people in their area as we are for the people in our area.”
Antonia: “…But they live over there.” *points”
Me: “…Where?”
Antonia: “Behind the school.”
Me: “Huh.”
Antonia: “Is that your area?”
Me “Sure is.”
But, the happy news is that we now have a new family of recent coverts to teach. And their recent convert/part member too, with a couple of members who live real close by and love to go with us to lessons. So, all is well in the ghetto. The Elders were pretty embarrassed when we called them out for hiding it from us. We’ve been teaching a lot of less-active and recent convert lessons recently. The one huge problem I have with being in Houston Zone verses being in North Zone where I was before is that HZ is so concerned with baptismal stats that they tend to work really, really hard to baptize people and then they just most on. Hermana Forsling and I don’t dig it. We’ve decided to go be damage control for this ward for a bit.
Life back home sounds so wonderful. When do you start work at Kimber mommy? Have they made you go to any kind of summer-training thing? How’s the weather? Is dad biking a lot? Is Laney all grown up? Is Jensen ever going to finish… um… a multitude of stuffs? Also, I never got to see those short-films you know! And, I haven’t seen drawings from her in ages, and this new clip-show sounds hilarious! Yo queiro ver! How are mis padres doing!? I’ve decided I have the best parents ever. I knew it before, but out here in the field, that fact is reaffirmed every day.
It sounds like my silly friends and cousins are being taken good care of. How’s laughing stock? Still funny? Am I every going to get that DVD? I paid for it like a year ago and they said they’d get it to me when they got copies! Remind them. Poor Shazi-kins, why is she wandering around looking like a boy?! She’s not a boy, she’s a pretty, pretty girl. I can’t wait to read Dan’s screen play. I was tempted to get him to send it to me, because he as much said he would on the phone at Mother’s Day, but I figured I should try to follow some rules. This whole obedience thing is kind of new for me, but I think I’m… well, I’m working on it! The biggest problem I have is getting to sleep on time. We’re always in bed by ten-thirty, but then somebody will giggle and someone else will ask “…what?” sleepily and this always seems to start a long story about some memory of that day or other. And sometimes we hear stuff outside and then have to get up to move the couch in front of the door and get some knives. Better paranoid than dead, I figure.
We figured out this week that they… for SOME reason, decided to put the two most intimidating sisters in the mission together. Appropriate that they sent us into the ghetto too. It’s all very fun. In turn, they just put Hermana Thomas and Hermana Blanco together, which means that the two smallest and most adorable sisters in the mission are also companions.
What’s this about John Cena being bizarroworld Matt Damon? I went to the pulga last week and there were John Cena shirts everywhere and then Hermana Forsling got a package with some articles shoved in between rice krispy treats… Anyway, the movie looks fun.
I don’t hear much about the outside world, as you can probably tell from that last paragraph. But the political stuff sounds awful. Poor Sarah. Poor USA. What’s to become of us? Hermana Forsling says that by the Jewish Calendar it’s only been about 1600 years since Christ died, so we might have another 400 years before any likelihood of the millennium comes about. What are your thoughts?
We’ve got a barbeque today. Should be groovey! I LOVE you all so very much. Do take care, and tell that silly Laney-bug to work on a newsletter!
Hermana Lillywhite

2009-07-12T16:37:00.000-07:00