20 April 2009

Querido Fambly; Handwritten, Mon. April 20, 2009

So, remember the Elder who cast out a demon? Elder Clark? Funny things happen on P-day. Our fearless district leader, Elder Porter, was tired of playing football, so he stopped and was watching the other Elders play football and at two to three minute intervals would yell "Hey, let's go get something to eat!" over and over and over for probably about twenty minutes until we were starting to get annoyed. Then Elder Clark (who's been standing silently next to him the whole time) yells "Hey, We're going to get something to eat" and everyone got up and went to get food (and I laughed. Oh how I laughed).

I guess people just listen to you more when you cast out Demons.

Going back to California sounds amazing! You have to tell me all about your trip; it'll be so fun. I sure love California. I've been dreaming about weirder and weirder things. Shadows of my homeland and themes from out here in the field mingle into dissonance in the steampunk engine that is my mind. Also, there's a lot of Spanish. Bi-lingual dreams. It's hard enough to understand what's going on in English.

I played Basketball again. No injuries, but I think I'm getting better.....

I'm sorry I don't have much to say this week! I made it to the end of my first transfer. I do get discouraged sometimes (Tahiti would be nice) but it never is long before I'm on the top of the world again-totally enchanted by the people I'm meeting and the experiences I'm having.

I love you! Hermana Lillywhite

P.S. Tell Aunt Les THANK YOU!! so, so much for the lovely letter and especially for the awesome CD's! Also, thank you, thank you Daddy for sending me the Fictionpress reviews and for Los Articulos! They are SO so perfect for what I'm studying right now!

P.P.S. I certainly will be writing about my mission when I come home--but, right now, I've got to go LIVE IT!!!

What a Week!

~Hermana Frieszell and I divided our stories in half this week, so you’re getting part of her letter too!
~Hermana Frieszell says:
So great news. Aurora agreed to be baptized! Aurora is a sweet, shy young mother with a 2 year old boy and a new born baby girl. We have been teaching her for sometime. Well we were teaching her and then we thought she dropped us but it turns out that she was just having her baby. So we went back and she still wanted to learn. We have been teaching her for a few weeks now and on Thursday we went and taught her and asked her if she would be baptized. She was a little hesitant as she didn’t know if she would be ready by the 16th but we had her pray right there and she said she felt a good, thumping of her heart. She is so great. We still weren’t able to get her to church but as soon as she goes 3 times she will be baptized.
So we had an amazing week. We taught 22 lessons without even trying and got 10 new investigators and 4 people at church, and 3 baptismal dates.



We are still struggling with getting people to go to church. It seems to be the biggest challenge. However, yesterday we had a pleasant surprise when a family, Cecilia and Juan we are teaching showed up at church. They didn’t seem very likely to come but the member that came with us was very good at talking them into it and they showed up. They have 4 kids and one on the way. The little girl that is 9 is so cute. She was so excited to be there. She had her book of Mormon and it was all used and was so excited to show us that she had it. They also brought their 11 year old cousin and she didn’t understand Spanish very well and wasn’t a very good influence and so they were all like “it was boring.” But that’s just because they had gone to the church of the woodlands and they play video games and have piano lessons there. So lame! That’s not church. But we were so excited to get them to church finally.

With transfer, on Tuesday we got to be a 3-some for a day. Sister Christenson, an English sister who’s companion was going home so she had no companion for that day so she hung out with us. It was fun to be a 3-some. Kind of like a party.

~End of Hermana Frieszell’s thoughts for this letter!
~ME! From here down is Ailsa again!
We've got one lady we're teaching now, Maria Erica, I might have already talked about her a little, she was a referral from one of the members in the English speaking ward, she cleans the building where he works and she had been really impressed by him speaking such good Spanish when he is clearly and very white-bread blue-eyed Texan. Anyway, she had a copy of the book of Mormon in English and we came by to give her one in Spanish and started teaching her. She's SO cute. We can't get her to come to church though (that's always the hardest thing to pull off it seems) she had a wedding this Sunday. She's so sweet though. She doesn't have a very firm base for religious knowledge we think, as she was very surprised when we told her that we were supposed to go to church on Sunday, she seemed to think it was just optional "Extra-credit" or whatever. She asks a lot of questions though, which is good, but it's not like contentious, it's more like genuine curiosity and then once we've explained it so she can understand she doesn't argue the way some people do, she just kind of nods and says "okay."

It might be a bit of journey with her though. She says that God has never answered any of her prayers. We're going to have to talk about that.

We've got two kids we're working with, Daniel and Jennifer Varrera. There's also Orfelda, their mother. She's sais she wants us to teach and baptize her children, and we think she wants to get baptized too. She didn't outright say so, but she says she wants to hear all the lessons too. We think she'd be way into the idea of joining the church except that she's got NO religious background at all. We mentioned a couple of stories from the Bible and she hadn't heard of any of them (Moses/Noah/Joseph/Jesushad12apostlesreally?) but if we could just help her get over her fears about organized 'church' and get her to sacrament meeting she'd LOVE it. Her next/door neighbor and friend Alma Martinez is a less active who I've mentioned before, but she's not been much help getting her friend to church as she rarely goes herself. Still, we're hoping to help them out and get them at church and baptized before the end of this transfer.
Yes, I know Laney-boo is still a rat, she sounds like she’s getting more and more drama-queen-esque as she gets older. Yes, I suppose absence does make the heart grow fonder. She’s so adorably primadona. Tell her she is a GREAT artist, and that she’s only going to get better as she keeps practicing and develops patience. (I can imagine her rolling her eyes here and saying “Yeah, whatever.” Like the fourteen-year-old she thinks she is).
I’m glad my cute little car is better! And tell Jensen that there’s already a picture of Elder Hackett in the batch I sent you. There’s the silly one of the three Elders posing, the short one with the blonde hair is Elder Herrman, the one in the middle with his jacket off is Elder Homer, and the dark-haired one being silly on the end is Elder Hackett. But I DO love that line about the barber. I will use it. Later. Elder Hackett was transferred on Wednesday though, so I probably won’t see him for a while. He was very excited to go back to “Exile” as he calls it. See, here in my zone, we’re right in the middle of everything. We hang out with the Assistants to the President and go down to the office every other day. The President’s house and the Temple are both close by. We’re right in the middle of EVERYTHING, so we see the other missionaries a lot. But there are some missionaries who get sent out to lonelier parts of the mission. Were, it’s pretty much just you and some other mu-cha-cha wandering around the desert looking for people to teach. Elder Hackett likes this set-up a bit more. Still he’s fairly new out here (He’ll probably go home shortly before I do) so I’ll probably see him again sometime.
Pulga is “fun”. I suggested palm reading and card tricks and the other missionaries quoted that “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” scripture at me.
I heard that Lawyer’s in Love song in the store this morning and thought of Daddy. Our leaders are getting “slightly” better. (Worse if you ask Hermana Frieszell). But I really miss my own leaders sometimes. I feel like we’ve got a really good ward/stake. People listen. It’s not just that they’re speaking another language, at least not any more, because I basically am Bi-lingual at this point, I’m just “shy” in Spanish more so than English. (And my spelling and grammatical skills in both languages seem to be getting worse as my communication/understanding skills get better.) They’re just… I don’t know. I can tell they’re trying and they DO care and maybe that’s all that’s important. They just don’t trust us very much. They should have been really excited about us getting a Baptismal date this week and all, but instead he just demanded to know if we’d thought to ask if she and her husband are legally married. I wanted to say “Duh.”. That’s one of the biggest problems that we have here, yes, we’re not stupid, we make sure about papers and all of that before we extend the invitation to be baptized. We didn’t say that though, we just nodded and said “Si, por la ley.” Meaning they’re legally married, and then he continued to chew us out for a few minutes about how we have to make sure every time that they’re married. Sometimes they just treat us like we’ve got no idea what we’re doing.
Anyway, I miss daddy-Bishop-sir and his unparallel leadership abilities.
Well, once more… some stories are better told in person. I really want to talk about this one, but I just don’t feel comfortable with it yet. Let’s just say I have to eat my flippant words about demonic possession among the people I’m serving. I didn’t think this was going to be a regular thing out here. In fact it never even crossed my mind that I might see and hear things like this with my own eyes… Anyway, I don’t have much time. Maybe I’ll wait until I can talk about it on the phone with you VERY soon!
Happy Mother’s day soon!!!
Alright, now, my hand-written letter this week is going to be really short. More like a PS, but I wanted to send you something cool. At least, I think it’s cool. It’s my correlation sheet from this last week and it is AWESOME. Me and Hermana Frieszell tried REALLY hard this week to make our goal of getting 20 lessons this week. We ended up with 22. Next week we’re going for 25. As a result, the rest of our numbers went up too. So, I just wanted you to see a brief outline of some of the main people we’re working with right now.
I LOVE you!
Hermana Lillywhite

20 April 2009

Familia, Monday, April 13, 2009
Everybody has been sending me lovely paper, on which to write them letters, so I've selected one of each of a few of them to write to you today, This means I'll be upsetting my usual front and back pattern for art.
Jensen! You're going to use my art for your x-box stuff?! I can think of no higher compliment from one as nerdy as you are, my darling-sister-pants. I've been keeping my eyes open for Elders who you should date once they're finished here. The winner right now is one Elder Hackett. He's got that nose you like, loves Zelda and is known for his consistency. (He's eaten a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch since he got here like 8 months ago) and for his thrifty-ness. (He clearly doesn't spend much on food, at least.) Sounds like Prince Charming, amirite?
Seriously though, the Elders here are so fun. Real good young men. But I think you should think about serving a mission yourself before you fall madly in love with someone.

Yep, I've met some quirky people out here. Texas is sort of like Wonderland that way. Oh, I asked Elder Homer about his mom again, I explained about what you said, but I don't know, I'm worried he's giving up hope of finding his mom. I'm going to keep asking him about it though. He's cool, he won't get angry, he knows it's just because we care.
I've started into my missionary library, FINALLY. Once I've read them all in english I'm going to get the spanish set.
I miss LaneyBug so much. At the pulga this last weekend, the stand next to us was playing the Beatles all afternoon. When "Penny Lane" came on I got all teary and had to fight off feelings of *sigh* by flagging down the nearest person to talk to (pulga is like street contacting, I don't now if I explained it before--you know the cell-phone guys who try to get you to stop at the mall to buy stuff?! We do that, but we're not asking for money, Just your soul.) Anyway, I saw pretty Laney-face in my mind and felt all extrano for a minute. She's such a sweet baby. I've had dreams about comig home too! But they are kind of weird. Still, it's nice to see you all in my dreams sometimes.
I'm learning so much out here, it's pretty amazing..not just about the gospel (though, that's kind of..) the bulk of it, and it's related to everything else I learn) I'm also learning how to COOK, (not just bake, COOK) I'm collecting receipts. I can't wait to make you all FOOD!
I'm turning the Yo-Gabba notebook I've got (the plushy one) into a cookbook.
I'm going to send Jensen and Laney letters too--I made a new poem for her book-I'm gonna send a preliminary sketch.
Anyway, I'm out of time again-there's SO much more I want to tell you all.
But...some stories are better in person, I think. 1 1/2 years isn't so long. Love, Hermana Lillywhite

To those in Zion

I do miss the mountains, a LOT. I feel kinda of lost most of the time actually. I never know which direction I'm facing. It frustrates my poor companion to know end when it's my turn to drive, because I still have to ask for directions, every street looks the same and there are no monuments to guide my eye. She's got a 'not-too-helpful' way of trying to get me to learn my way around though. Here's how it works:

*Approaching the intersection*

Lilly "Right or left?" (Derecha o Isqueirda?)

Fries *Silence* (Silencio)

Lilly "Serious. I don't know." (En verdad. No se.)

Fries "What do you think?" (Que piense usted?)

Lilly "Err... We're almost there." (Aaii... Estamos casi alla.)

Fries "Hermana, you know this." (Sister, usted sabe esto.)

Lilly "I don't think I do." (No pienso que yo se.)

Fries *Silence* (Silencio)

Lilly "Alright, left!" (Esta bien, isqueirda!)

Fries "No." (No.)

Repeated about twenty times a day. A veces en Espanol, sometimes in English.
The mountains are like a fortress for me, and it's especially spiritual to remember in context with our ancestors and the work I'm doing here. But, I know that people who move from flat places to valleys like salt lake have the exact opposite dilemma, they end up feeling trapped. Ahhh… my Jensen, she is so cute with her little face and all. Elder Hackett says you should write him, I told him “She doesn’t even write me, she’s not going to write some random Elder I told her to marry.” But I’m glad you’re keeping busy, and hay, you totally did write me this week, and you usually add in an enjoyable paragraph into Mom’s ever so diligent letters… It’s lovely to hear from you all and get news. The other missionaries insist you’ll all forget me. Try not to, okay? By the by with people writing people and such, I’m sorry but the letters for Laney-my-boo y Ginna-gabobin are probably going to have to wait, I’m SO busy right now and I started working on awesome like ‘mock-up’ designs for my ever-longer children’s book for Laney. New characters include Isabelle Orchid, Old Admiral Bones and Rainbow Roadrunner. Also, I don’t know if I ever showed you Fredrick the owl, and I might add in a page for The Stained Glass Orchard, but that’s actually it’s whole entire own story… THANK YOU! By the way for sending me the Castle Mirrors reviews. I swear, I think that is the worst book I’ve ever written, but it’s been my most consistently reviewed considering I finished it and have just been letting it sit there for a couple of years… I’m kind of surprised when it still occasionally gets reviews. I’ll have to rewrite it one day and make it not so terrible.
My car died! Oh, I could cry… it’s such a good little car. At least Laney had an adventure. I hope that they can fix it, I’d feel so bad if I wore it out just in time for Jensen to get it! Poor, poor Hung Car. They can fix him though, make him better, faster, stronger! Very impressive work mommy, you could probably give Jason Statham some seriously epic competition.
SO sad that Jensen missed the demo. But that’s great that Sifu’s having more success with the school! I’ve been trying to practice, but I’ve just got NO time. I should be obedient and exorcise in the morning, but I’ve got to admit, more often than not I’m like “…Read in the Book of Mormon, or exorcise?” and studying wins a lot, but I should take better care of myself. I’m going to get all gross and pudgy.
Oh… err, I’m not sure I should admit to this. I think I saw a little tiny bit of that movie that absolutely EVERYONE has written me about. This movie would be Taken. We were checking up on a contact from an English member. (He served in Peru, I think, a number of years ago and was talking with the woman who cleaned his office building—the lovely Miss Maria—and I think she must have asked him where he learned to speak Spanish,) anyway, it came out that she has a Book of Mormon in English and she can’t read it! So, he offered to have us come by and give her one in Spanish and teach her. The kids were watching that movie when we came over. It was the really intense bit when the girl gets kidnapped too. But we waited for a minute while she looked for the channel-changer, and I realized when he said “They’re going to take you” that this was the movie that a number of people had mentioned in their letters. Looks very much like a man movie. I’ll probably love it in a year and half. Liam Neeson is so adorable.
So, this woman is amazing though, she’s SO sweet, and she was asking all kinds of questions and midway through our lesson her friends came over and her boyfriend got home and everyone just kind of sat down on the couch and listened quietly. It’s interesting how so often it seems like we end up teaching a larger group of people. Once, we were teaching a man on his balcony outside and his neighbor came out on her balcony with some snacks and sat in to listen. People are usually at least “curious” to know, what’s difficult is getting that curiosity to make them want to actually DO something. So often you’ll talk about how wonderful the gospel is and this happens:
“Wouldn’t you like to have everlasting happiness?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, you can! And we’ll tell you how.”
“No, I’m okay.”
Urrgh.
Oh, there’s so much I want to talk about… Some stories are just better told in person. Here’s one that’s ridiculous either way, and it didn’t even happen to me, so I’m kind of cheating: Elder Herrman got to help our Zone leader Elder Clark cast out a demon.
I didn’t think missionaries did that. We’ve been asking questions since it happened and apparently anyone can cast out a demon, but you’re more likely to get the desired result (the ‘casting out’ bit) with a priesthood holder/true believer. If you just say the words and don’t really have any faith to back you up then you’re just going to look dumb. Elder Clark didn’t look dumb though. He’s English, of course, Hispanics typically want their dreams interpreted, they handle demons on their own. Anyway, one of his former investigators called pleading with them to come help her with her boyfriend/husband (or something, this part of the story I didn’t hear from the direct source) The only part I heard was that the boyfriend was freaking out and screaming at her ever since she’d taken her old Bible off the shelf. So, they took him out to the car and he was talking about how this was such a joke and there was nothing wrong with him, but then he started talking about his life and some of the things he’d been thinking about lately and there clearly WAS something really wrong with this guy. Elder Clark decided to give him a blessing, at the end of it he added the proper words for ‘exorcism’ or whatever you call it, (even though he technically wasn’t supposed to touch him if he did that, was he?) anyway, he said he did it wrong, but it didn’t matter because it still worked, apparently. As soon as he was done the guy started shaking and passed out cold. He woke up again in a few minutes and was fine.
I was advised not to tell you this story because it would scare you, but… I’m going to go ahead and guess that you’ll find it more interesting that scary. Elder Herrman had this to say on the matter: “…That was weird.”
Indeed.
Oh, what else… I have a boyfriend. He’s got pretty russetty/blonde/chestnut hair and big pretty eyes and he’s only a few months old and a puppy. His name is Rocky and he belongs to my neighbors, but he’s SO cute. I’m not sure what breed, but he’s going to be huge, you can tell by his big-old dog paws. It makes me miss all the bad little doggies back home. Is Izzy-Cow much recovered form her surgery yet?
I miss the bad kitties too, I can’t believe Tommy keeps fighting with that pretty neighbor cat. Bad things. Diggy is so fluffy and silly, is his bald patch gone yet?
The weather here has been nuts this week. We were at an appointment with our VERY stubborn, very Catholic investigators and their… I don’t even know how many dogs they’ve got, and when we left their front yard had completely flooded. It was probably about a foot deep, there was no escape, we just had to swim to Hermana Porter’s car. (We had taken her with us to be our miembro.) It’s SO nice when members come to appointments with us, then they can talk to them like normal people and we can be like “Look! She’s wearing jeans and tennis shoes and is all normal and adorable and simultaneously filled with the light of Christ, don’t you want to be like her?!”
Arnie is doing so good, but we’re having trouble getting our other investigators to that point. Our one who’s doing the best right now is Aurora. She’s really quiet and for a while we didn’t think she was really interested, but then at our last lesson she just kind of casually mentioned that she’s read all the way up to the end of 2nd Nephi on her own, in addition to the assignments we’ve given her but she wants to be sure before she’ll agree to be baptized. We still can’t get her to come the church though, and that’s a huge problem… I really don’t get why it’s so difficult to get people to just come. It’s not scary! I promise.
I’m only half way through reading your letter, but my companion is getting impatient to leave, so I’m going to have to finish reading/writing later! I LOVE YOU! Kia Kaha
Hermana Lillywhite

Mis Padres y Hermanas y primos y tios y abuelitos! MI FAMILIA!

Extrano a mi familia... MWAH! Les amo, muchisimo.
Did everyone experience a very feliz pascua? I did. I got PACKAGES! Which was honestly so, so lovely! Thank you so much for all the wonderful Easter goodies and for the new paper on which to write more letters to vosotros. My companion laughed so hard when she read how much weight of candy I’d been sent on the boxes. It’s mostly gone already, we gave some to our less-active’s kids and the children in the apartments around us. Also, we tried to give away a little at the Pulga, but I think they sensed that if they stopped for candy they would have to listen to us, so mostly we just ate it that day. I did managed to flag people down though—and in Spanish, none the less “Hola, buenas tardes, usted ha placticado con misioneros antes?” Y el dice “Mande?” and I’ve got him! Yesss, now you have to listen to me talk about the restored gospel and give me your address.
We also realized that although we’d mysteriously run out of chocolate-chips, if you crush up candy bars and add it to the cookie dough, it’s kind of way better than regular chocolate chips. Delicioso. Yes, that candy went to good use. We shared it with the other missionaries as well, but it was just so yummy and we were running low on food, so we ate… probably more than we should So good. Thank you so, so, much Grandma and Mommy! It was wonderful Easter surprise, and helped us to feel a little bit more… normal, for a few minutes.
We must have watched Lamb of God ten times with our investigators, less-actives etc. Trying to help them feel the importance of this last week. I'm not sure it worked, why is it so hard to get people to come to church? We actually offered candy, and we sent members to go pick them up and everything and they mysteriously vanished. Es la vida, pero, que es eso? En verdad. Still, we did absolutely everything we could, outside of violating their agency. I know if we keep trying, eventually we'll see results.
Everything home sounds idylic! I miss those silly ragamuffin kitties and feral rat-boy. Diggy sounds so silly with his bald-patch. ("I'm afflicted with a (Censor*SECULAR*Censor)" but you know:) And bad Tom, fighting with pretty girls, cual es su problema?
That’s funny about Gram and Herbalife, I still haven’t had the opportunity to try some but Hermana Frieszell insists “Oh, you will.”
I see the brand-name everywhere, bumper-stickers and scripture cases ect. I think it’s so funny… That’s so sad about Charlie Young’s farewell, and the Atonement is such an AWESOME missionary subject too. He totally could have tied that all into an Easter message if they’d given him the chance. The dumbest part is that “How can I prepare for a mission?” has got to be the stupidest, most backwards subject to talk about, here’s my answer: You CAN’T.
I’m not saying “Don’t try.”, I’m just saying, “Sorry, you can’t do it—but try anyway.”
You’re going to hit the field and no matter what, you’re not going to be prepared. There’s always going to be a million things you wished you’d done before you left to make yourself into a better missionary sooner. I have yet to meet an exception to this, I’ve meet missionaries who already know the language, like adorable Hermana Dewey who lived in Chile for two years so speaks both English and Spanish fluently, already, she admits that she doesn’t feel prepared to teach people in any language because she understands the gospel but isn’t sure she can explain it to people clearly, then there’s the missionaries (so, very, very many) who can’t figure the language out but have explaining and teaching the gospel down to an art in their own language (which is now useless to them). There’s people who’ve wished they’d gotten into better physical shape, people who’ve wished they had studied the scriptures a little better, people who wished they’d gone to mission prep and people who wished they’d gone out with the missionaries in their home ward when they had the chance so they could start experiencing what it’s like sooner, I’ve meet people who’ve felt like they should have started learning how to talk to total strangers sooner, missionaries who wish they’d taken the time to learn how to cook/clean/do laundry. Missionaries who wished they’d taken the time to break some of those ‘un-missionaryish’ habits a little sooner (swearing/not-looking-people-in-the-eyes/saying ‘um’ every five seconds etc) . Even people who’ve done ALL of this stuff (and it’s a good idea to do all of this stuff) come into the field unprepared. You just can’t really… ‘prepare’ to become a missionary. You just have to do it. Everyone comes into the field with a long list of “things I probably could have done to come into this better prepared”.
So… Do EVERYTHING you can think of to prepare, then go in comfortable in the knowledge that you’re still totally unprepared. That’s my advice.
I’m SO happy Alejandra is going on a mission! That’s so great! She’s going to have such a wonderful experience, and I just know she’ll be able to touch the lives of so many of God’s children out here in the field.
I’m curious, mommy and daddy. My companion has a rather… shall we say… Elitist view on who will be admitted into the Celestial Kingdom and especially who will go to the Highest Kingdom there-in. I’m… a little more ‘happy-bunnies-and-dulces-of-hope’ about it (“Hippie.”- She accuses) I’m not saying she’s like 144,000 about it or anything, and I’m not saying it’ll be particularly crowded, but, anyway, I thought I’d ask for your much valued opinions on this subject, especially on how the ‘ubber-righteous’ of the Celestial kingdom will also be sorted into three categories.
You talked to MANDA! Yay! I love my Manda! I got a lovely package from her &Nafoolio this week too, but of all the lamosity, when the silly UPS man delivered it, I was out working (for a change, she added sarcastically with a roll of her eyes) and instead of leaving a slip or coming back later, or even leaving it on the doorstep(although that’s not safe in gunspoint) he tossed it over the side of this little fence that encloses our ‘porch’ (a slab of cement about two inches wide that we can sort of stand on in order to see if it’s raining or not) it’s hard to explain, but the point is, I didn’t find it for a few days. We’re not sure how long, but when I finally did find it, it had clearly been out in the rain for a while. It was fine, which was awesome and the contents were heaven-sent! So lovely!
I’m so glad you liked the picture card, I wanted to send it to you ages ago, so I’m so happy I finally sent it---I want to keep typing, but mi companera is getting antsie, I’d better finish this by hand! I love you all, Glory to God!
Hermana Lillywhite

Familia, April 6, 2009
I completely forgot to mention in my letter last week that I met Elder Argyle at Zone conference-he was looking for me! (Hermanas are much easier to find) It was very fun! Also, I've been meaning to write the Margetts, but I can't find their address-I know I've got it somewhere, but I can't find it.
That is so cool that Jeremy is going to Uruguay! That is on my list now, there's so many countries I want to visit later. That's where Hermano Hadly and Hermano Richardson served, they sometimes like to line up missionaries at the MTC with teachers who served in the same place (or so I've been told) like with Hermano Antonio teaching a class of state-side spanish speakers. So maybe he'll have one of them as a teacher! Anyway-I want to go there. And Ecuador, and Spain and Guatemala, Argentina-Honduras sounds amazing too. My investigators/ward members always recommend their homelands very convincingly. Want to go to Mexico when I get back?
I had my first exchange this week! I went up to the Woodlands for a day with Hermana Marsh, it was really interesting...Their area has a lot more money than ours. Posh-Texan.
I've been trying to practice KungFu but it's so frustrating--I don't remember my forms! I'm going to keep working on them though--maybe it'll come back to me, the way Moonlight Sonata came back to me inexplicably the other day (not all of it, sadly) I'm sorry. You keep asking where my companion is from, and I keep forgetting to answer. She's from Washington. She's a quarter Japanese though, if that answers your real question.
Oh! I have to tell you. Remember Herbalux from Ugly Betty? It's real!! But they call it Herbalife and hispanic people SWEAR by this stuff. I so do not get it, but keep in your mind an image of Hilda wearing her little button and being taught the restoration by ME, totally happened last week. I haven't gotten to try any yet, but the other missionaries assure me, it WILL happen. They love this stuff. Oh, it's funny how you mention all the stuff I don't ask for. It's not that I don't need anything from home, it's just that I forget every week to ask. My clothing is really not working out so great--it's HOT here, I've got too many long sleeved blouses. Does anyone make a shirt with pockets?! That would save my LIFE. Also, why are thigh-highs so hard to find? And why didn't I bring a photo album to put pictures in? What is my problem?
I honestly don't notice much anymore. I've gotten out of the habit of wearing make-up--I'm pretty sure I look a bit dumpy most of the time too.
But! I am not gaining weight. Which is amazing with how much I EAT. We live off of avacodoes and Tortillas and Crema, which is like sour cream, but Mexican and better. I'm learning to cook some pretty delicious things too...I can't wait to cook for you. I don't think I ever related Arnies' full story--It's pretty great. So, Hermana Frieszell and Hermana Taylor found him knocking, he let them teach him and partway into the first lesson he asked if they knew where he could find the "Mormon church" as he was interested in joining them. Turns out, he has a friend in Mexico who was baptized and recommended he do the same. but he's hispanic and a lot of hispanics kind of don't bother with the internet-so he'd been unable to find "the Mormon church" in the phonebook or anything.
I love this man. He's so smart, he's the newest member in the ward and he's already reading all the lessons in the handbook and asks questions and everything. He's so great.
Wasn't conference incredible? I watched a little in spanish, but the translation is really irritating unless it's pre-recorded, so we started only listening to those..in spanish, I mean.
I'm kind of tempted to just gush about conference for the rest of this letter, I'll just tell you my favorites: err...never mind, I started to look through my notes and realised I'd just end up listing all of them. How adorable and shivering was Anderson?! I already mentioned that Perry answered my prayers. Elder Holland is my hero--President Monson made me sob like a child...It was so wonderful. I LOVE conference. The only thing really that made me sad was just that this is usually a time we all spend together, and that was hard. I hope all the family had a wonderful time!
Is anyone else REALLY excited about the LDS version of the Santa Biblia? cause us spanish speaking missionaries are FREAKING OUT!!!ARRRBA!!!
Seriously. There was some dancing.
I was so happy to get a couple of lovely letters this week! Mom, I want to tarry--but you knew that already, I poured over that chapter you sent me.
I LOVE the scriptures. I always did, but it's different now. I already gushed a bit about Ammon. I love the missionaries and the warriors and most especially the missionary warriors! One hour a day is NOT enough study time.
I love Alma so, so much. And Daddy I read all those articles you sent-they are GREAT please send more when you feel inspired, they helped me out a lot with some of my personal study in Alma/Mosiah this last week.
I've got to go--I've only got 2 more minutes of Pday! I love you all, Hermana Lillywhite
P.S. Happy Easter! I love chocolate--do I get a package?!

P-day is Stupid Sometimes

Seriously, I have no time to do anything. I'm sorry, I can't write an e-mail today. Not a real one, the employment office where we usually print and write e-mail decided that Monday would be a good day to fumagate (sp?). So, we're forced to borrow the mission office computers for five seconds to print anything they've sent us and explain why you're not getting an e-mail! So, sorry, But I'm sending the picture card and the usual hand-written letter this week. I love you all!

Mwah, Hermana Lillywhite

P.S. HOW AMAZING WAS CONFERENCE?! I could die. L. Tom Perry's talk was in answer to my prayers.

Ailsa's Mission President and his wife Sister Sharon Hansen

Serving since July 2008

From the Church News:

Todd B. and Sharon Hansen

Todd Bailey Hansen, 52, Texas Houston Mission; Higley Groves Ward, Gilbert Arizona Highland Stake; ward mission leader; former bishop, high councilor, stake mission president, temple ordinance worker and missionary in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission. National sales director, Genentech, Inc. Born in Cedar City, Utah, to Robert Carvel and Ann Claire Bailey Hansen. Married Sharon Elder, four children.

A stake Relief Society president, Sister Hansen is a former ward Young Women president, seminary teacher and gospel doctrine teacher. Born in Van Nuys, Calif., to Morris Day and Verna Ingram Elder.

It is SO wonderful to hear about everything that's going on---mommy thank you for beinga busy body, I completely agree with your suggestions. Elder Porter took charge (which is good, as I mentioned before the leaders in my ward are more likely to listen to an Elder than a Sister,) and took all of our suggestions to the Bishop for us. We've got a list coming together of people who'll offer to give rides to investigators and less actives... the only thing I haven't been able to get ANYONE to agree with me on is the nessecity of getting these poor kids to church with or without their mom.

I really didn't think this would be a hard one, but apparently there's some interesting opinions about teaching/baptising/doingANYTHING with children who's parents aren't members or aren't active. Elder Porter (our fearless leader who sort of resembles a muscular red-neck Pooh-bear, though if you mention this to him he turns into "grumpy bear") says that he NEVER teaches or baptises the children of in-atives, or helps them get to church because it's their parents respondsibility to step up and take care of their child's spiritual well being. Although I agree with the sentiment that Ideally one would re-activate the family in order to baptise their children, I'd have to say that I think it's silly of him to outright refuse. If the children have a real desire to go to church and be involved, I wouldn't let their dead-beat parents get int he way of their spiritual education... I think it's different in different circumstances. Anyway, so, it seems everyone else agrees and isn't interested in helping the children if they can't help their parents. This makes me madder than I can say without breaking the white-handbook rules about correspondance with family members, so i'm just going to say that I'm working hard on loving everyone who is realy, truelly, sincerely trying to help me, I can tell... in the mean time, I'll just have to keep working with the parents. I can't figure out what Orfelda's hang-up about church is. I think maybe she's just scared. She doesn't know anything about religion, and she doesn't believe us that church isn't scary and filled with people who are there to judge her. I just know that if we could just get her there, she'd make friends and probably really love it and then she could take her poor kids and their adorable cousins to church.

That's so wonderful about Brandon and Kelly and little Merrick! I can't wait to meet the little guy, I bet he's precious and adorbale just like his padres.
A blizzard?! I am so happy I am in Texas, although the weather here was a little crazy last week. Mostly it was warm but it was FREEZING at the Pulga on saturday morning. (Pulga is like a little outdoor mall thingy where people set up tables and sell things, we stand at our little table and try to get people to stop and talk to us long enough that we can get them to give us their name/address/phone#.) We taught an entire first lesson to a Jehova's Witness and he actually listened politely and then told us no. He was nice though, kept complimenting us on our Spanish and asking if we were from El Salvador. I think he was just trying to be nice, I'm clearly a white girl who looks lost and speaks bizarre spanglish.

It also hailed last week, while we were tracting. I bet you never thought I'd write home and say that I'd gone tracting in the hail, huh? You'd think people would have sympathy on us and let us inside, but no. We still taught a lesson but it was in the doorway (before the hail started).

I'm getting pretty good at recognising where hispanics live. There's an art to it. Look for the following staples: Aloe/Frog figurines on the lawn/next to the aloe, dirty work-boots left outside, poka music, heavy richly patterned drapes obscuring the view into the apartment or house, an impressive collection of satalite dishes, virgin-Mary light-up clock in the window or outside on the balcony. Avoid: American-flag paraphanelia, cutsiey arts and crafts décor, horse-shoe themes or interesting door-knocking shapped like bull-horns etc.
Actually, we taught a lot of lessons in English this week. We were doing a lot of tracking and West-field (the English missionaries in our area) told us to go to a couple of different aparment complexes because they swore that there was a ton of hispanics living there—so we took their advice and found a lot of black people who were very interested to hear more about the gosple, but who we can’t teach because we have to refer them to the missionaries in their ward: West-field. I told Hermana Frieszell, “I think we’ve been dupped.”
It’s so good to hear from home, mom are you still crusing the boards all the time? Please tell me stories, I’m sure to face some of the exact same junk out here, you’ve got more experience dealing with these people than I do. Jensen, I think I forgot to tell you last week, your penguin picture is SO COOL!
It’s weird being out here with all these people who didn’t see The Dark Knight because… well, they were out here! Pretty much, everyone has a least heard a little about it (enough to be very anxious to see it when they can in about August-September (when the majority of the whole mission is going home, including my companion and the reast of my Zone except for Elder Herrman who obviously came in the same time I did and Elder Porter who’s about a year in.) So, let me just say, I’ve been getting questions, which is a little bad because then I have to TELL them about the movie, and then I want to watch the movie, which I can’t do. Batman is just so cool. He wins. He wins the universe.
Also, thanks for telling me about the Kung Fu test, can I see pictures of battle-wounds?! Did Chantal go?! When did Randy and Ian come back?! Why haven’t I heard about this from you or Chantal?! You must tell me all! Is Mike gone? Who is KEVIN?! Tell Sifu to write me. In Spanish.
I saw some Jehova’s Witnesses our tracting the other day. A couple of girls like us. I turned to Hermana Frieszell and asked, “Should… Should we rumble?”
I thought it was funny. She just blinked at me.
The birds sound like car alarms here. It’s what they hear when they are young and they group up learning to speak this way. A bit like an accent, but for birds.
I’m sorry about not sending the picture card yet, there’s so good stuff on there too… A picture of a typical hispanic doorstep and a door we knocked on before we realised that that huge bolt on the knob meant that somebody didn’t pay their rent (don’t you love the ghetto?) And everything from the MTC too… I’ll work on that.
I wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for granpa’s testimony grandma, it became the subject of my personal study when I got it, and was very lovely and touching to read. I think you’re right that I got some of my writing talent from him, for sure. I’m glad he enjoys my letter as well. I try not to make them too terribly useless.
I need some help. In the white handbook it says not to ask for donations to local causes, but I really need some help with this one. Remember my investigator Carolina? I think I figured out what she needs.
Do you happen to know a smart, good-looking returned missionary who speaks Spanish and would like to marry a sweet, spunky, VERY pretty 31 yr old with two children, two teenaged sisters and a mother who all need financial support?! I think we might be able to not only get her baptised, but we could possibly figure out a fast-road to the celestial kingdom if we could just find this guy.
We took them to the employment office and that was basically what the guy told us “What they really need is a man. Preferably an American, to take care of them all.”
I swear, this society. At first I was exasperated by his response, but the more I think about it the more I start wondering if any of my teachers from the MTC would like to move to Texas. I could play the song for them and everything.
My companion sings in her sleep. It’s ADORABLE. Almost Laney-type songs too, with a little squeaky “lalalala” voice.
Mom I got one of your letters, I don’t think it’s the one you were talking about in your e-mail today though because you didn’t mention the preacher or my Bishop, but you did mention my music! I’d love to get some ‘acceptable’ songs put on it. I’m seriously so dissapointed that it’s come to this… but now there’s the sadness that I’m not sure my Ipod is working. I think it’s a little problem that could be fixed by a trip to the Istore, but I just don’t have time. The light still comes on when I plug it in to charge, but then it won’t play… so, I’m going to send it back and maybe it just needs to be looked at by someone compitent. CDs, might be a better idea for now, just because all the cars have CD players and in the car is one of the only times we get to listen to music.
Okay well, my companion is looking bored, I think I’d better wrap up this letter and go home, but as usual I’m going to do a hand-written letter that should arrive later this week… I love you all! I miss you, but I’m not homesick, I really love it here, and I’m enjoying every day… but at the same time I can’t wait to see you all again and tell you everything about it. Gosh, it seems like I haven’t seen you in ages or something, we should hang out pronto. I’m really busy right now, but let’s get together when we’ve both got more time… how about in like a year and half?
Hermana Lillywhite

Mi familia! Friday, March 27, 2009
I love everything! I love Houston, I love the people, I love the random wildlife, I love the ghetto that is my apartment complex. I get made fun of by the other missionaries because whenever we see a flower or a butterfly or other kinds of wildlife or babies or buildings, I always exclaim "I love _____!" It's true though. I do love the babies and the silly insects and this random raccoon we saw the other day and the half burned-down apartment complex across the way...
Oh! I got in my very first Bible Bash this last Thursday night. (It wasn't a REAL Bible Bash, since Hermana Friescell and I refused to call upon scriptural defenses--we basically taught the first lesson and then got chewed out. We're pretty sure he is a preacher of some kind.)
Anyway, we were knocking on doors in the apartment complex across the street from us, and we got one man who sort of seemed hostile-he didn't say anything mean, he just was looking at us like we were little cockroaches and the way he said "Bueno! Dame su messaje.." just wasn't friendly. So he let us in and partway through the lesson, I suddenly got the impression that he was a preacher of some kind. He hadn't said anything to suggest this, there were no signs on the walls-save for the usual religious paraphinalia that decorates every Latino home. When we asked, he said that he went to a Christian church, I think Holy Cross was in the name (Santa Cruz). Anyway, he wouldn't really say anything else, but he let us finish then went and got HIS bible. It was one of those gorgeous, heavy duty/leather case deals with an insignia of a dove stiched into one side. I've already been in quite a few homes and most people have a bible, but this is the kind of Bible that gets carried around; there was a well-worn handle in the case. I realized then that he WAS a preacher. He chewed us out, the usual over-used (try not to roll your eyes, Hermana Lillywhite) stuff that EVERYONE says, "The Bible is everything God ever meant to say", \ "Prophets ended with Jesus" etc. We tried not to argue with him beyond, "Dios puede llamar un otro profeta, si quiere. El es Dios! Sabe?"
He wasn't listening so we decided to leave--but not before reminding him 3 TIMES that he had admitted that he beleived God answered prayers, so that meant that he needed to pray about what we'd told him, and about Profetas SINCERELY before we would be satisfied. He lives REAL close by, and I'll probably be in this area for 3-4 transfers at least (Thomas S. Monson apparently recommended to the mission Presidents of the world that they should keep missionaries in their first area for about 6 months (or 8).
So...I may go visit him again later since he only lives across the street and ask if he's prayed about Profetas yet.
The Hermana who was here before us says she thinks she knows who we're talking about, because she met him too, and she says we're right, he's a Preacher if it's the same man.
So - it looks like everything my teachers ever told me is true. All Hispanics have the same exact entertainment system, the children are so cute it breaks your heart. The food is amazing. I'm probably going to have permanent emotional damage by the time I hit my 2nd transfer. The lamest rule is that you can't drive your Investigators to church. Less actives are some of the nicest and most frustrating people in the world. Don't worry about the Language--it'll come. Morning studies are VERY important. You're going to feel incredibly hurt and guilty whenever you talk to someone without sharing the gospel..Tamales are SO much better when they're made with banana leaves instead of corn husk. Don't aggrevate the fire ants. Nobody knows what the word Albedrio means, or Apostacia, and most of them don't REALLY know what a Profet is. Speak slowly, it helps. And SO many other things that they told me that REALLY help a lot.
Remember Elder Homer who I mentioned in my email? The one in "Pay it Forward"? Well, he's turning 21 this Thursday (we get Cake Friday) and he's also looking for his birth mother. I don't know the whole story, but he knows she's living here in Houston probably and he has a first and last name, but that's all to help him find her. He doesn't know what she looks like, except that he's got VERY blue eyes and he thinks her's might be the same. I really think he can't have been called to the same city that his long lost mother is living in for no reason. They should meet on his 21st birthday, I think. He's such a neat person, I hope he finds her.
All the Elders are really nice, on (Wednesday/Tuesday no recuardo) we did service with Elder Conrad and Elder Olson. We got to go to the Arbolidum and help out there, they were making it hard to focus because they kept telling stories and making us laugh. It sounds like being English speaking in this mission is pretty entertaining too--they have a lot more experience with running into Preachers and the like. I guess it is part of the Bible Belt, isn't it?
Anyway, the Arboledum was NEAT. There were cute little frogs and lizards all around and we ran into a family of members from Colorado (I think).
Oh--I think I figured out one of the main problems with "missionary" movies. The focus is way too much on the missionary and not enough on the people they're teaching\talk to on the streets. That was one good thing about Errand of Angels, is that you saw them with a lot of investigators, even though only the one lady got baptized, there was a much better focus on the people BESIDES just the missionaries.
I spend all of my time with the investigators\lessactives\random people who don't really want to talk to me. I seem to remember God's Army in particular being a lot about missionaries together in the apartment\at parties..and that stuff is real, but it only lasts for a few minutes; then you're back to tracting or (hopefully) going to an appointment.
So, that what's wrong with the movies. (Though I DO like The Best Two Years.)
Now. I love bishops. Mostly, I love Daddy, but I Love Bishops. And I love the Bishop of the ward I'm serving in, he's a good man...But he made me very angry yesterday in P.E.C. We had a baptism, you know. BIG deal. Very excited. You think he might have offered a congratulations or something, right? Instead he just sat us down and chewed us out. (In Spanish, so the good news is that I understood all of the very ignorant things he told us.) He says that we need to bring specific requests. The ONLY thing we've asked of him since I got here was to PLEASE introduce himself to Arnie. The newest member of his ward, you know? We actually brought Arnie up to talk to him, and he completely blew us off. He also complained that our Baptismal services are too long and that they are at inconvenient times, like Sunday after church or Saturday morning when he'd rather be with his family.
(It's good I can't speak Spanish very well, because if my 'Spanish-brain' was a little faster I might have said something like "I really don't care sir, much sir. I don't get to hang out with MY family for about a year and a half--you can go ahead and wait 30 minutes later this afternoon." or maybe "Arnies wife is dead. He might be able to hang out with her for all of eternity if we can just get him to the Celestial Kingdom!")
Anyway,-maybe it's too soon to tell, but Hermano Prestwich had a story about one of his Bishops who was a bit like this. Hermana Frieszell says that it's just different in different wards. Sometimes the Bishop is really involved in and excited about missionary work and sometimes he's just busy and tired and doesn't want to deal with it, or is openly hostile towards missionaries because of bad experiences in the past or the like. El Periodical in Evangelio talks about learning to gain the trust of the members and the Bishop, but it doesn't really specify HOW aside from baptising people. Maybe if we do that more he'll give us a break. Hermana Frieszell says that part of it stems from general misogynistic sentiments in the culture. For the prayer in sacrament meeting, the Hermano actually asked for God to make the Women in the ward be more loving.
It doesn't really bother me yet, mostly, it's just funny/a little pathetic.
It's just that we work so hard. We really care about this work a lot, and you'd think that other members and especially our leaders would be able to relate.
I know Daddy, I know, it's the Bishop's right to advise us about anything he sees fit to in his ward. I'm sure his heart's in the right place, he just doesn't really understand that he comes off as apathetic/prickly.
Why is it so hard to get people to church, I ask you?! Yesterday, one of our Investigators, Orfelda, blew us off for a lesson we'd scheduled with her and her children for that afternoon and then we were all supposed to go to church (we can't give them a ride, but their less-active neighbors can.) They'd actually thought of this themselves and told us about their plans, then we scheduled this appointment to make sure this miracle actually happened.
It didn't. Orfelda..well, I'm not sure where she went, but she told her children to get a ride from someone else, because the Martinez family wasn't going to be around either. But, of course, she didn't call us, so we came by before church, and there were 5 adorable little Hispanic children hanging around who wanted to go to church, and NOBODY would give them a ride! The adults were all just lounging around, telling them to get rides with other people. They were SO upset. It was incredible, I couldn't help but think of all the spoiled Mormon kids in Utah who complain about going to church. Is it safe to say that their parents are going to have to answer for this one day?
I really feel how lucky I am to have had my own sweet family in my life, and to have been raised in a home with the gospel imbrued (I used one of my old words!) in every word and action. The children here are so heartbreaking. Whenever I see a child now, I think about what Hermano Richardson said about the blessing that children can have, and how much more secure and loving a home is with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know this is true now more than ever, the contrast between the disposition and prospects alone..Parents just LOOK at their children different when they fully understand what God intends for them. And there's so much more-but it's lights out, and I think I'd better wrap up this epistle--sorry the ending is a bit abrupt! I love and appreciate you a little more cada dia.
Hermana Lillywhite.

YAY! I had my first Baptism yesterday! It was so special, Arnie (Arnulfo Gomez) is so solid, such an amazing member of our church. It was so exciting to see him get baptized, and Hermana Taylor (Hermana Frieszell’s companion before me) got to come, which was so neat because she found him tracking with Hermana Frieszell, but then she was transferred, so she didn’t think she’d be able to come, but she had a fireside at a chapel nearby, so they let her run over. It was so cool!
So how was everybody's week?! Mine was incredible, I was so happy to get your letters! I’ve got a lot to tell you and I tried to make a list… I’ll start with silly things first. There’s an Elder here named Elder Homer, he’s an actor and the first thing he mentioned was that he was in “Pay it Forward” he’s the kid who pushes Haley Joel Osmond into the knife and kills him. My response to this was, “…You made me cry.” And then he said, “That’s what everyone says.” And rolled his eyes. He’s super funny though, you should keep an eye out for him if you watch that movie again. All the Elders and Sisters are really funny, we’ve got a sort of code… I think it’s common among all missionaries because I heard some of these expressions before… here’s a brief vocab/phrase list for missionaries.
The Be Born: when you arrive in your mission from the MTC.
Mother/Father: The missionary who trained you.
Son/Daughter: The missionary you train.
+Grandfather/+Grandmother: The trainer of your trainer.
Aunt/Uncle: other missionaries trained by your same mom or dad.
To Die: When your mission ends.
To Kill: When your companion’s mission ends but you’re still here.
To Kill Each Other: When you both finish your missions at the same time.
The dramatic life-analogies seem kind of appropriate though. At first I thought it was weird. But then, like I usually do, I thought about it way too much and decided that the MTC is our pre-earth life, then we go into the ‘real world’ and forget everything they taught us/have to relearn everything they taught us with real-world application, and we have families and we meet people who we knew before sometimes and it’s really surreal, then we die and go on to fulfill our true purpose and have families like the ones we came from. This pretty much means that you (my real family) signify my heavenly family in this analogy.
I may include this in my book about missionary work. Depending on how it is received by people who aren’t as crazy as I am. What do you think?
My companion and I teach an English class at the chapel on Tuesday nights, it’s way harder to teach English than Spanish. English is… well, there are rules but we break them so much. There’s exceptions for everything, it made me like of Brian Regan, “I before E accept after C, and when sounding like A as in neighbor and way and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say.”
English is silly.
We have a car! But the miles are so limited we’re afraid to use it anymore this month, we’ve also got Bikes, and I’ve learned it’s actually pretty easy to ride a bike in a skirt, it’s just hard to keep the skirt from blowing off. We’ve also got our feet… Oh, my bike helmet is a little sad. I’m pretty sure it’s an egg-carton. I’m going to die. Actually, I’ll just look for another helmet when I get the chance.
Oh, the way sad news I have is that in our mission President Hansen has decided to go beyond the white handbook when it comes to what music is acceptable. Only hymns, pretty much, is the new rule. It has to be “sacrament appropriate”. This means I’ll be sending my Ipod home soon… I’m pretty sad about this, but I’m trying to be obedient. The really lame thing about this is that there’s apparently some country singers who took it upon themselves to do their own renditions of the hymns and everyone seems to have this CD and they play it and I think I’m going to hurt someone. I can’t stand that kind of nonsense with religious music. I swear it’s got to be some kind of sin. It’s a crime against the genius that God inspires in people to create music for him, when talentless pop-wannabe musicians just ‘borrow’ and then violate sacred music. Seriously.
Lucky for me, my companion seems to feel the same way. We listen mostly to hymns in Spanish. The music itself isn’t much better than the country junk, but at least it’s interesting for me to try to sing along in Spanish.
Everyone says my Spanish is really good, but Hispanic people are so nice, I don’t know if I should believe them. I do understand a lot. The other missionaries say that I seem to understand a lot more than is normal for new missionaries, but I can’t really say everything that I want to, or anything that I want to sometimes. But my speech is good enough that I can carry on a conversation and teach about gospel-principles, with some hand-gestures involved…
Oh! I also wanted to talk a little about my area, City View.
I’m in the ghetto.
A lullaby of my neighbours arguing and car alarms going off between strains of sirens puts me to sleep every night… But I’m sleeping really well and continuing to have bizarre dreams. With car alarms.
Greens Point is the name of the little place where I live. It’s got a nickname, I was advised not to tell you, but I think you’ll think it’s funny, it’s often called Guns Point. I don’t know what everyone’s talking about though, so far everyone I’ve talked to has been really nice. Except for that preacher (That story is in my other letter). There’s all these adorable little kids in our apartment complex, they’re all black (I think my companion and I are the only white people for a couple of miles) and whenever they see us they always say “Hi! Where are you going?! Why are you always leaving?!” and then one of the other little kids with say, “They have to tell people about Jesus”. They are so cute. My companion says that there is a certain amount of respect that black people have for “church ladies” which is why they have us live there. We’re actually a lot safer, because people don’t want to rob from the church ladies or give us a hard time. Since we’re Spanish speaking we usually travel out to other parts of town to proselyte.
My companion is so great, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you a little more about Hermana Frieszell before… she’s from Washington, and she’s 24 years old. She’s been out here for about a year, and I think that Greens Point/City View is like her sixth area. She’s moved around a lot more than is normal for missionaries. I’m her first baby, but she’ll probably have the chance to train again before she goes home this summer. Her Spanish is really solid, but she says it took her a while to feel like she was fluent (about nine months). She and Hermana Drainy are the oldest Hermanas. She and I are a lot alike, she’s really laid back, doesn’t really worry about being on time etc. as long as we get everything done that we need to. I try not to have a hard time with it, I do have a lot of experience waiting around for Jensen, so, no big deal
The dollhouse sounds incredible! You have to finish it before I get back, it sounds so neat! I love that there’s history/a ghost story to go along with it, that is just so cool! I bet Laney is having fun, I want to see her drawings of the ghost lady! Eliz. Tilley? We are so awesome. I just remembered how cool our family is. Jensen, you are so cute. You’re not allowed to tell me that there’s a million things you want to tell me but you can’t because it’ll take too much time. Pick one and write me about it! I want to hear what’s going on! Good luck on the test, I hope you EARN your RedSash. I’m excited for Chantal to get her black too, she needs a sash to match her soul. I hope she seriously considers the Air Force, I think she’d love it!
Shazi is going to conquer Kimber?! Sweet. So sweet. Dulce. Yeah, she’s better make sure to go to seminary. Aww, tell the kitties I said “Mwwahhola!” and tell Chester “…” which means I love you in Hispanic ratty-speech.
I’m starving. We’re fasting today with two or our investigators. Carolina y Nellie SantaCruz/Puig. We’re hoping we can find them work were they can attend church on Sunday. They both want to, but they need to work and neither of them can get Sundays off. So, we took them down the employment office today to help them out. I LOVE this family so much. Nelly is the mother and then Carolina (the r is almost said like a T Catoeleena), her daughter has two children, Rafael and… I’ve never seen it written but I think it much be written like Paula, but it’s said “Powla” and then Nelly’s other two daughter (both teenagers) are Maria Jose and Marisol (Marisol is a nickname, I’m not sure how to say or spell her full name). They’re from Ecuador, which is apparently the most beautiful place on earth. I think we should visit sometime… anyway. You know those investigators who missionaries say they just love WAY too much, and you want them to get baptized so bad?! Well, I want everyone to get baptized, but this family is a major focus for us right now. They are just so sweet, and so curious, I really hope we’re able to get them to church. They came to our Baptism yesterday (they were late because of work and missed the baptism itself), but they still came by, which I think says a lot.
Anyway, I’d better get going, but I’ll be sending you my other letter for the week soon enough. Goodbye, I love you all con todo mi alma!
Hermana Lirioblanco

Dear fambly, Monday Mar 16, 2009
Mwah, and also mwah. This is really difficult, but wonderful. I'm not sure what to say. I love everything. I love Lucky Charms because the marshmallows stick to the bottom of my spoon. I love the other missionaries, they are all so nice--I love my companion, she imparts her wisdom upon me. I love the members--my ward is amazing and they FEED me! So delicious! I love the investigators, they are all so loving and understanding of my weak, weak language abilities.
They really take care of us here (when they can) because we work hard. It was raining constantly since I arrived, which was fine--the Texans were happy to have the water--the Latinos didn't want to leave their houses and seemed to think we were a little crazy for leaving ours.
But today we had sun!
We just taught another lesson with Carolina and Nellie and Maria Jose y Maresol--they've got two little ninitos (carolina's) a little boy and girl. They are so cute and they're always running all over the place. It makes me miss Laney.
We played volleyball today with the Elders. I'm amazing--I'm sure I'll get a contract with Nike any day now. One of the Elders actually said "Good eye!" to me when the ball went flying an inch away from my face into the out of bounds area. I thought of Brian Regan, "What did I do?!" "You avoided getting hit in the face." "Oh good, I'm glad I did that!"
I'm not sure what else to tell you about this week. I'm honestly still a little overwhelmed! I decided not to send the card from the camera yet--actually, I wanted to, but I don't have a padded envelope to send it in right now...I'm sure there's still plenty more space on the card though..I'll send a few more pictures home until then, one quick one of me and my companion Hermana Frieszell! (She's so smart! I'm learning so much from her!) OH! I don't know if you're hanging onto my letters, but I hope you are because I want to compile them when I get back. I've been keeping all the letters people send me too--but there's getting to be A LOT and I'm running out of places to put them, so I might have to send some home--please keep them safe for me if I do! I don't want to, because I want to be able to read them...but I'm not sure what else I can do! Anyway-it's not something I have to think about until I get transferred, but I thought I'd bring it up because I'm very tired and writing nonsense. Anyway--I'm sorry! This letter is a little pathetic, and it's also the only one I wrote/will write this week. Pitiful--I'll do better next time-I promise!
I love and miss you all like billio (this means muchos!) Yo amo ustedes! ( not sure if this is correct. Too tired to think...but I really do love you all so much!) Hermana Lillywhite
P.S. I saw a SANDY! (like a lot of them actaully--squirrels are all over in some of these neighborhoods! Texas squirrels!)

HI! My new Day of Prep. is Monday!

Texas is GORGEOUS! I walked off the plane and I can immediately tell why Texans have that "Texas pride" this place is really something special. The people have all been really nice to me so far, (I' sure the door slamming and cocked pistols will come later). My new Companion is Hermana Frieszell, I think they may have sent you a picture of us Thursday when we came back... They said they were going to e-mail you with a little information about the mission and just to say that we'd arrived and were okay. I don't know if they did though... as for addresses, it sounds like it's best to just send things to the mission office. At least for now. I'll tell you if anything changes, but right now that sounds like th emost practicle thing. The mission office is in my current area, and we end up dropping by often enough that it makes sense to send my mail there. We have our weekly meetings here and this is where we come to e-mail, and also a lot of our investigators need to find new jobs and this is where they come to get help with that... so this is fine. Also, I'm not sure but I think that they will actually forward things to our apartment if they know we're not going to be in the office soon.

That's so cool about George Taylor's library! I'm indebted to him. And yes, I do love my own little library at home... I miss my books, but it's alright, i don't really have time to read anything but the scriptures right now. I haven't even started Jesus the Christ yet, though I want to devore the whole four books in the missionary library before I leave.

I never did meet Elder Lang, I looked for him, but yeah... I didn't see him at the MTC. Still, he'll be here for the next transfer, so depending on how things work out, I'll either meet him then, or... well, it's hard to tell, but I'm sure I'll meet him at some point. If my Spanish becomes particuarly awesome, or if they decide to put me in a trio again, than there's a possibility I'll be training as soon as this next transfer. They have the sister missionaries start training really FAST. There is a Hermana here who I met at the MTC and she's already training.

My mission president and his wife are really wonderful, lovely people. They're both working on their Spanish and getting pretty good. Word on the street is I might at some point end up as a Bi-lingual missionary, meaning I'd teach in both languages. We have one companionship here that is made up of one English and one Spanish speaking missionaries, so they both teach in English but then I guess when they're teaching in Spanish the English sister just smiles and nods?! I hope they are least teach the poor thing how to testify in Spanish.

So... I've got my first baptism this weekend!!! It's so exciting, is name is Arnie and he's totally golden. Seriously, he is... Hermana Frieszell and her last Companion Hermana Taylor met him about a month ago and he let them right in and after they'd taught for a few minutes he asked if they were 'sort of like the Mormon church?' then he explained that he'd been looking for the Mormon church for a few years now but couldn't remember the real name (the first thing they told me is that Latinos pretty much don't use the internet) but his brother in Mexico had told him that he should find the Mormons. So, he's just so smart and so great, he has questions sometimes but he just accepts the answers we give him, and he's so nice!

Everybody keeps saying how lucky I am to show up just in time to teach the last few lessons before he gets baptised. We've also got some other investigators, who need a little more help. Carolina and Nelly and two other daughters who are sort of semi-interested but probably won't think about it seriously unless their mother and sister do.

Let's see... what else can I say?! I went tracting my first night! I talked to people in Spanish and English and I wasn't scared. I felt a little silly because they were all sort of smiling at me like "Oh, that's so cute, the white girl is trying to speak Spanish!". But Latinos are always a million times nicer than white people, I'm learning. White people are kind of mean. Black people usually find the first excuse to say 'God bless' and leave. Sometimes they don't even open the door, but just yell "Not interested!" through the keyhole. We've had a lot of people saying things like "Weren't you just here this morning?"

Houston people are pretty nice though, in all. I've been told by a lot of people that we're in a bad area, kind of ghetto and dangerous, but it just looks like a cross between murray and california to me. Except there's more churches. And gigantic chocolate crosses for easter treats.

Anyway, we share our area with Elder Herrman, who I know from the MTC and his comp who's also our District leader, and there's also a lot of English speaking Elders around. Our ward is Spanish---I went to Spanish church yesterday! It was awesome, I understood a lot and we had three people to keep track of. Arnie, and two less active members, Ramon and Maria. Church when you're sheparding people is a little different. I would guess it's a bit like going to church when you have tiny little babies with you and you have to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't take off across the street the first chance they get.

Alright... well, I'd better get off the computer now, I'm going to write a regular letter too though, so hopefully you'll get that in just a couple of days... I just want you all to know that I'm happy and I'm heathy and I can sort of speak Spanish, and I miss you all a lot and I love you. I know you're prayers are helping to sustain me, and I pray for you every day too!

Hermana Lillywhite

Fambly! Friday marzo 6, 2009
I basically didn't get through ANYTHING that I wanted to talk about in my email today...I had to end it with the weird story about when that teacher yelled at me in front of all the missionaries. The point of that--if you couldn't understand the last few hurried sentences of my email, is that I very sincerrely want to help people WANT to change. I'm not there to tackle them kicking and screaming into the font. Nobody is going to want to change if the person who asks them does it wrong.
I've got a lot to learn, but I've got at least one comparative story to work with. At Kimber, the method of getting me to follow the dress code was "Your shirt is making it hard for the boys to think about Jesus." Gee--why didn't that line work on me? And here, Hermana Saylor managed to convince me to follow the dress code by simply showimg me that it was part of what I'd signed up for (and not forever) and that she knew we could all look pretty and feel professional even if our options are a bit pathetic.
But there is a time for Boldness-I'm a big fan of BOLDNESS. I read through the story of Abinadi this week. I love Abinadi. I used to wonder why the first few chapters seem SO focused on the corruption of King Noah and his priests.... So--is it really bad out there? last days? That kind of stuff? I pray for you every night, I hope all is going well and as normal and wonderful as it sounds.....
This week has been pretty emotional, I think it's just because it's my last week here which means we're seeing less and less of our teachers (the significant font of motivation at the MTC) and we're facing more and more teaching appointments.
One of our progressive investigators Alassandro, speaks English, Spanish and Italian. He is from Italy, so when we gave him a Book of Mormon, I signed it Gilioblanco (which I've no idea if I spelled it correctly, I supposed I could have tackled the nearest Italian missionaries). Anyway, he's VERY real-his cell phone went off while we were teaching him and he answered it and chatted for a few minutes in Italian with one of his friends. After our lesson, Hermana Thomas was like "that was rude" and Hermana Gurney said, "Well, he told the person on the phone to hurry; remember, he just picked it up and said "pronto" (hurry in Espanish). I didn't want to crush her little happy feelings, but I think I remembered Dad saying once that "Pronto" is just how you answer the phone in Italy. She was a bit disappointed when I told her.
Speaking of Italy, I have a dream to share. It's pretty cool--I hope you like this, Daddy. I had a Dante's Inferno dream--but instead of going through all the circles and up through the whole Divine Comedy, I travelled through the three Kingdoms of Glory (actually, I woke up before we got to the celestial Kingdom, probably because my subconscious realized that I shouldn't be able to comprehend it.) The Telestial Kindgom was glorious--but Dim, the people there were changed-like Demons with demonic appendages (wings/horns etc) they loved it there, and they fought with eachother constantly. Those who came to try to teach were attacked. When they spoke to each other, there was no sense in their words. It was all giving me a headache-I had to leave. We went through a tunnel up to the Terestrial Kingdom. Here it was calmer- the people were more humanoid, but still not quite correct. They weren't fighting with eachother, but waited patiently for the other to share his opinion. But I still couldn't understand them, their views were warped--unfamiliar. I know we were still in the wrong place and I wanted to keep going, but I couldn't because I woke up.
So, all of this was still on my mind, along with Dante. I really felt this strong desire to READ Dante all week. Last night, we had our final meeting with our other Spain-nativa progressive investigator, appropriately named Beatrice. It was very hard. Beatrice has always made teaching seem SO real. She's a very good actress, and she'd never broken character. She explained (in Spanish) that she had done like we asked and prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was the word of God (again/for the third time) and that she'd felt a change in her heart, she'd felt the spirit just like we said she would, but she still couldn't join the church because she just wasn't sure, and she couldn't turn her back on her family and her heritage. We let her talk for a long time and I just didn't have any idea what to say to her. I finally figured out, right then, that I'm going to spend the next 16 months walking around with a smile on my face and a broken heart. I'm going to meet real people, just like her, who know the gospel is true but can't or won't accept it. I knew all this before-but it's really powerful when you feel it. I can't even describe it. The closest I can get to it is to say: "This is going to be really, really hard and I'll be lucky if I make it through this without being emotionally ruined for all of Eternity, because I just can't save everyone."
I was speechless. In any language, I had no idea what to say to her to make her understand. I just told her that I knew this was God's will for her and that he'll help her and her family through this difficult time. Luckily, Hermana Gurney (who is basically fluent) managed to save us, while I just sat there and tried not to burst into tears. I didn't cry-but with Hermana Gurney's, Beatrice got really close.
Finally, after our lesson was over, Beatrice broke character, for the first time ever, we really got to talk to her. She served in Barcelona Spain, and she's been back for about 1 1/2 years. Her younger brother is serving in her same mission, with her same mission president and she got most of her questions and doubts from her brother's letters when he was talking about real investigators he's teaching in Spain. It was really neat to finally meet her for real. She wasn't even a real investigator-but like with everyone else I teach, I feel so responsible for them! I just love them so much.
Later that same night-we got kicked out of one of our usual studying spots because they needed to have a meeting. We were down in the basement and we went into a room we'd never noticed before--it's just this little door sort of shoved in there-looks like a janitor's closet. It's NOT. It's George Taylor's secret Library! I know that I shoud know who George Taylor is (there's a building named after him here) but I don't-I just know that I LOVE him! (Edsitor's note: We have since learned that this is John Taylor's (Natalie's Husband) uncle.) He had so many great books--including the book I'd been thinking about all week since I'd had that dream--The Divine Comedy!
So, for our study, Hermana Gurney read from the discourses of Joseph Smith outloud while I copied a few of my favorite literary passages in my journal. We all discussed the Prophet's discourses and lost track of time completely and ended up staying way past our study time.
So, I think I need to learn Italian. Awesome-I think I know someone who can help a little with that. Daddy, thank you so much for all your letters this week! I especially loved your musings on the End of Days, and also when you wrote about testimony. I'm not sure you realize--you included what is pretty much a perfect Door Contact in your one letter--at least that's how the teachers have been telling me to do it. Clearly, you knew what you were doing as a missionary if you can still remember the key opening points. My Door Contact is terrible, it's basically like this, but in very-bad-spanish "Hi, I'm a missionary and I have a message for you about Jesucristo. Can I come in?"
Yeah, My teachers just noticed that it was still really bad; it's not just the words though--I somehow manage to really make people uneasy when I first meet them. Hermano Prestwich says I should smile more. It's hard to smile and think about speaking Spanish at the same time. Anyway-I'm going to take your advice because I think you basically just explained to me perfectly what my teachers have been trying to help me understand.
Oh! And of course, the brownies were AMAZING, thank you so, so much. I crave real food. I may get very large in Houston, but here--I'm starving. Also, this paper is so, so cute! Thank you mommy, and the picture of Tommy made me laugh so much. I'm glad Laney liked getting her own letter, I hope you didn't cry too much! But I cried when I wrote it, so if you did, that's just fair.
All right, this is starting to turn into a five-stamp monster--I've got to stop, but I just want to say Jensen, I LOVE you! Don't stress about class, you're a genius, remember--also, thanks for writing me again and how was Watchmen?!
Also, enclosed is a "33" napkin like I described! I earned it by chatting with some Elder actually. I think he was a teacher, who speaks like six languages fluently. They read WAY too much into it, but it's signed by three witnesses and everything, so I guess I deserve it!
I love and miss you all!!!! Hermana Lillywhite
P.S. Elder Master and Elder Wadsworth seem to have made it. Tonight during our final testimony meeting/thing, Elder Wadsworth expressed his appreciation for Elder Master and Elder Master in his usual form said nothing about Elder Wadsworth. Anyway, Elder Wagsworth said two really fantastic things that will be in books later. My books. 1. "Elder Master gets an average of 42 pages of Anti-Mormon crap from his dad a week. If I was having to deal with that-instead of getting an average of four pounds of fudge a week from home, I might not make it."
2. "You're so strong Elder Master. You're like.. A Cockroach! You just WON'T DIE. You're a beautiful, muscular Cockroach."
What am I going to do when I get to Texas and there's no Elder Wagsworth around to make me smile?!
PPS I'm going to send you the photocard on my next PDay (whenever that is) there's some cute pics of Me and Hermana Porter/ I printed one out, and I wanted to send it to you, but I like it so much I think I'll keep it--but it's on that photocard--along with pictures of my teachers and other people whose faces you should see! I really want you to be able to put faces to these people I'm talking about!

Ailsa's MTC Zone

We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.
Dante, Inferno Canto 34

Last 30 Minute Email

I'm excited, because after today when I write messages to you on e-mail, I won't have the creepy blinking counter giving me a heartattack with it's red flashing glory.

This week has been really quite awesome and incredible... I'm sort of freaking out now, because we'll be leaving to actually go out to the mission-field on Wednesday! That's five days! I can count that on one hand. I'm freaking out.

RC has become really cool. We've started doing Spanish phone calls, which is very entertaining. The other night we sat down and started dialing and Hermana Thomas suddenly gasped and looked at me in horror. "Como?" i asked her, to which she replied, "I just realise... I don't know Spanish!"

We did alright though. It's harder on the phone that in person, because they talk faster when they can't see that you don't understand them, also, you can't read body language or anything. I talked to a couple of really nice people though, who slowed down for me. One guy stopped every coupld of seconds and asked, "Entiende?" And I was like, "Si, yo pienso." it was very silly.

It's really amazing that I've managed to learn as much Spanish as I have. Thank you all so much for your prayers, they are definately helping. I'm not sure my faith is sufficient enough to account for my level of Spanish. I'm not really confident that I'll be able to talk to people the second I hit Texas soil, but I am confident that I'm learning it, and not more slowly than I should be... In fact, I think this is like lightning-speed, rapido learning that's going on here. Every once in a while I toy with the idea of quitting English entirely, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible until I get to Houston, since I still have to talk to so many people here who don't speak Spanish.

I had a nasty scare this week. It was about ten o'clock at night and a voice came over the intercom and said my full name, not just Hermana Lillywhite, and they told me I needed to go to the Wilford Woodriff building and up to the front desk. I was terrified, I was sure that someone was hurt/dead or i was being transfered to a Poland Mission or that Texas had split from the US and now we had to get Visas and mine wasn't coming through so I had to stay an extra month! I threw on a coat over my pijamas and ran through the darkened lanes of the MTC with Hermana Gurney behind me, concerned and in her slippers. We got up to the front desk and they returned my nametag.

How lame is that? I think I've lost my name-tag about three times since I've been here, but they usually just put it in my mailbox. Why did they have to get me out of bed like that? Que es eso, donde esta mi fiesta? Seriously, it was junk.

I've got one more funny story before I talk about something... arguably more serious.

So, I've changed A LOT since I've gotten here. But this week, something happened that made me realise I haven't changed that much.

We went to the TRC for an appointment with one of the evaluators. We were supposed to do a pretend door-contact and then come inside and teach the first lesson in Spanish. So, our teacher was totally nice, and he warned us that he was going to be completely realistic and stop along they way if we happened to "dig ourselves into a hole". So, he shuts the door with us on the other side and I knock. I coudl hear him inside and (we were all speaking in spanish but I'm going to write in English to save time) he's all "Who's there?" and I said, "The missionaries!" and then he said something else, but it was hard to hear through the door. I asked him what he'd said and he said something else, still not intelligable through the door, but I thought he's said to come in "entre", so I opened the door and smacked him in the head with said door.

Instead of having a laugh and starting over he decided to play it for real and started telling us off in Spanish. I apologised and even managed a hacked explination for why I'd opened the door, and he was using I word I didn't know "grosera" Hermana Gurney said she thought it meant grocer, but I pointed out that it made absolutely no sense for him to call us grocers because I had attacked him, so I assumed the word meant rude, and sure enough I was right.

Anyway, he begrudgingly let us in after I apologised for about a million years. Don't worry, I only leave for the field in a few days, then I can really smack people in the heads with their front doors. Seriously, I am going to "Astonish people" but not in the right ways, I'm a bit worried.

Really though, It was good, I learned something to never, ever do. I for sure would have done in out in the field if I hadn't gotten it over with here, that's just me, I think.

The last thing was just a small incident that turned into kind of a big deal. It also displays that some things about me will probably never change. I was in the sort of longue with my companions planning for the following day and we were in there alone, so I had my feet up a little on the couch-cusion next to me. My feet weren't actually on the pillow, but my legs were still slightly elevated, and keep in mind, I'm a missionary so I'm wearing a pretty long skirt--anyway, there's some Elders around us planning too, probably like eight people in all and this teacher comes up to me and says VERY LOUDLY "Sister, put your legs down. This is a consecrated building and we want to treat it with respect."

First off... I don't even know this punk. Seriously, I'd never seen this teacher around before, and I've been trapped here for 2 months, so who is he and why is he barking at me? Then there's all these missionaries around looking sort of shocked by how rude he was and also nervous because they've got their legs elevated a little too... Anyway, I don't want to go on about it for ages, but at the time, I did go on about it. I was really mad. He was right--sure, but that just wasn't enough for me... and then I had an epiphany. I'm going to be asking people to make major life changes.

I can't just walk up to them and yell. There is a right way and a wrong way to ask for something, and thus far in my life, I haven't figured out how to ask, the RIGHT way. A request, no matter how small, will not be headed if you don't ask it with love and real concern for the person, minus the pride at being 'in the right'. Just knowing that I've got the rules on my side isn't going to be of any comfort to them. Look how angry I got when someone asked for me to do something really simple in a way that I didn't like?

So, I thought about how Hermana Saylow might have asked me to put my legs down... I realised then that my method is a bit more like whatever-that-guys-nametag-said. I need to develope the ability to show people that they can be better, instead of just telling them that they're wrong.

I've got thirty seconds left, I'd better sign off! I love you all so much.