I call dibs!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 2.) Call dibs.

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

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

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

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

Hermana Lillywhite

Hola! Happy Father's day!

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

Baby #2 on the way!

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

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

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

I’m pretty stoked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hermana Lillywhite

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

Vuestras Altezas

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

Remember when Hermana Christensen hit me?

Nuff said.

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

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

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

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

Still. That’ll be sweet.

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

What a week.

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

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

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

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

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

I figured wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also, did I mention there was a thunderstorm?

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

God is so patient with me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mwah&corazones

Q.B.S.P. / Hermana Lillywhite

The Car Thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Urgh… now to business.

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

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

"...A car thing?"

"Yeah."

"You mean a car accident?"

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

"Is the car hurt?"

"Yes."

"That's an accident, Sister."

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

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

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

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

Love, Hermana Lillywhite

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

Pray for the Taets family.

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