Pray for the Taets family.

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

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.

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."

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."

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

Ur pwobaby rite.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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