Transfers

Famshmamaram! First I have to tell you where I am, when the bike sisters in our zone need/want rides places they call the Whetten/Mulliner express. So today we are emailing with them at the family history center in their church building. This cute old english speaking lady works here and she always brings little home made goodies and little chocolate milks for the missionaries who come to email here. Cute huh? 

A lot of changes are happening in the mission this transfer! ...Except me and Hermana Whetten, we are going to party here in Reseda/Africa together for another 6 weeks! I guess the inflow of new younger missionaries has not hit our mission yet because we have no hermanas coming in.

This week was just a week of, I don't even know, weird and funny and crazy. I think we might have set a record for losing the most progressing investigators in the random est ways in the fewest amount of days. One went to Jail, one completely avoided us, one is an old lady and is literally going crazy, every person that had a baptismal date was gone one by one until we now have no one with a baptismal date! Yes, we had a rough start to the week. But it was bearable because we also had the funniest things happen! 

We had a family home evening with a few families in the ward, investigators and recent converts. An hermana brought a dessert called 3 reyes magos, i think that is what it is called. It is something they do in Mexico to celebrate the 3 wisemen. It is a cake, bread thing that has 3 plastic dolls hidden in it somewhere and everyone gets to cut a piece wherever they want and whoever gets the dolls has to cook something for the next party. The first doll the person has to make tamales for everyone, the second has to bring this mexican hot chocolate stuff and the third person brings something else! Guess who got the first doll?! I thought they would let me off the hook and an hermana would make them or something, but NO, they were dead serious. They were all laughing so hard and saying the misionera has to make tamales! I just stood up there in front of everyone looking around at them like seriously you guys want me to make tamales for you. And they all just kept laughing and took pictures. The only person who offered to help me was our brand new investigator we had found that day and invited him to the activity, a 50 year old man, and I took him up on it! So project old man, white girl tamale extravaganza will commence shortly.

I also got proposed to this week! We were contacting people in the street, and this guy we were talking to kept telling us how pretty we were, and when I gave him a pamphlet and told him he had to read it for us to come back he asked me to marry him! uhhh...awkward moment. Then he made us wait in the street while he ran back to his apartment to get us a box of chocolates before we left. When we called and invited him to church he said he'd rather take us out to dinner....

Yesterday at church was one of the best because of Antonio. He wore a white shirt and tie (before he did not wear that), and brought a brief case, we asked him what he had in there and he said all of his church books. A.K.A. His Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets from the lessons. He was confirmed in sacrament meeting and interviewed by the bishop to get a calling! It was so cute to see how happy he was and see him walking around proud with his briefcase! When he talks,sometimes this is seriously what I hear, "Niiiurhiiiiummmoh ya estaiiiujaeeeuium ya bliiiiuulshk" really fast. And by the looks he gives me after I try to talk to him I think that is what he hears when I talk too, but somehow we have a friendship!

For new years eve we had dinner with this family from Peru, a girl for our YSA ward and her parents. They asked how I like the food and I said I like it but it doesn't seem like the spanish culture eats that much chocolate. For the next ten minutes this mom bore her testimony about chocolate! How much she loves it and how she used to not have that much sympathy for people that had addictions to things like alcohol or drugs, until one day. She realized whenever she got chocolate she would hide it so she wouldn't have to share it with her kids, and she thought to herself, that is a type of addiction! And how she has to not open chocolate because if she opens it she has to eat it ALL, but if she just doesn't open it then she can be ok. We had a bonding moment over chocolate and then she sent me home with a ton of the chocolate she had gotten for Christmas! 

Something I learned this week that just hit home to me with all the experiences of this week was about charity. There are so many things we don't take with us when we die. And life on Earth is so short. But charity is one of those things we will have in the next life. Our love for the people in our lives, and our ability to love other people is something that we take with us. We can pray to have more charity and we just need to enjoy and actually be with the people around us. I am so grateful for all the people I am meeting here and for the experiences I am having with them. I am also so grateful for all of you and your support! I love you all so much!!! 

Love love lovey love,

Hermana Mulliner

Adios 2012!

Hello Utah! 

First of all two thousand twelve, two thousand shmelve! This year has flown by! Can you believe December is already over? I got my mission call in the mail a year ago!  Second,Christmas was SO GREAT!!!! Talking to you gave me a big boost! I think we should do that every Tuesday! I really appreciate all your support you guys are the best! Honestly. The rest of Christmas was just a regular day. We weren't allowed to knock doors but we just visited some recent converts and families in the ward. We actually didn't visit as many people as we had planned because people kept wanting to feed us and my stomach was not keeping any food! All week it was a struggle, I don't know if I ate something bad or had a virus or something but I couldn't eat. But it provided some entertainment, this one really cute Mexican Hermana likes to feed all of us missionaries after our district meetings on Friday  her food is really good but really authentic and she expects us to eat TONS! The elders told us she would be really offended if we didn't come so they said they'd help out. Every time the hermana turned around one of the elders would slip something off my plate. It was pretty funny because there was trails of food all over the table! I would just have to take a bite of rice when she looked my direction. I am all good now, finally, because I have been dying to eat some of that chocolate I got for Christmas! 

Alright, I wish I could send the spirit of a baptism through email! Antonio's baptism was amazing. It was mostly amazing to me because we had been reviewing everything for his baptism and we realized that from the first lesson we had with him to his baptism was exactly a month! He was so prepared to hear the gospel. It was a special baptism because the hermano that he chose to baptize him is only a convert of 2 years and this was his first time baptizing someone. Both talks at the baptism were people who were also converted recently, and they didn't give a talk they just went up and bore testimony to him about how the gospel has changed their life. It was really amazing to be surrounded by these people who have changed their life to be baptized and then reach out and be there to support Antonio at his baptism! I can't express how cool it is to be a part of missionary work. I hope while everyone is making new years goals you set a goal about what you can do to be a part of missionary work. Whether that is helping convert yourself more or reaching out to someone else, but seriously you will see miracles when you do! 

One of my favorite miracles this week happened yesterday at church. Hermana Whetten had to give a talk in our reseda ward and I had to give a talk in the young single adult ward, they meet in the same building at the same time so we went on splits with the members. Every time I sat down to write the my talk it just wouldn't come. I had an idea of what I wanted to say and things I wanted to use, but I wanted to have it written out because I was really nervous about the spanish. But for some reason I felt like I shouldn't write it all out, it didn't feel right every time I tried. So, I went up to the pulpit with a Liahona, my Libro de Mormon and a paper with 5 bullet points on it....AH! I get nervous to give talks in english, this was in spanish and I didn't know exactly what I was going to say! It was the coolest thing! Well first of all, this boy in the ward had his parents in town from Mexico, they were quite a bit older, and they sat front and center and they were soo cute. They nodded their head and smiled at me the whole time. So I recommend that if you are nervous to give a talk have a cute old Mexican couple be front row. I went up there and started by bearing my testimony about missionary work because I was nervous and couldn't think of anything else. After that somehow I was able to talk for 15 minutes. Stories came to mind, a part of a talk I had read came to mind, and I was able to express them in Spanish  Which I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but usually that is really hard for me! The Holy Ghost really can help us know the things we should say in the moment we need them. I also learned that I only need to be willing to testify of things that I know, then the spirit will back me up and be there with the people I am speaking with. I don't know why I couldn't write my talk out but I am really grateful for that experience because my faith grew so much. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Hermana Mulliner

Feliz Navidad!

I honestly cannot believe it is Christmas! Jethro who is 5 and Elijah who is 7 gave Hna Whetten and I some christmas gifts yesterday when we were at their house for dinner. First of all we each got 7 coins, I got quarters and Hna Whetten got dimes and nickles...but we both got 7 of them.Then she got an apple and a broken jewelry box, I got some catadryl creme and a big eraser that I am supposed to give back to them next week when we come. Haha I don't know how they knew what we wanted!

 

This week was random and crazy! The temple...amazing. Afterwards, the hermana that drove us up there told us she was going to give us a tour of LA and Beverly Hills haha I don't think that was approved but it was an experience...6 white missionaries packed into a suburban with a Latina Hermana driving us around the ritzy hoods.

 

Basically the best thing that is going on in Reseda is Antonio Gutierrez! He is that investigator I told you about that we found my first week here...he is getting baptized next week! (He is the one that talks really fast and slurs so we don't exactly understand him half the time where we just point to the pamphlets haha.) It has been the funniest best experience teaching him. He is from Peru and he is just a cool guy. He was so prepared. He has kept EVERY SINGLE commitment we have given him. He reads the book of mormon every day, has come to chruch every week since we met him, and he even randomly had a tithing slip in his house before we taught him tithing because he saw them at church and wants to pay tithing. Latinos are not known for being on time, but he will text us 5 minutes before our appointment is supposed to start and ask where we are. It has been a miracle to see his progression. He didn't believe the Book of Mormon was true when we first met him, he asked us for evidence, he wanted to see the gold plates and wanted proof. He would tell us that we haven't convinced him yet. But it was so cool, at the beginning of every lesson we would ask him where he was in the book and if he has been praying about it etc. And one day we asked him where he was and he just said are you going to ask me if I believe it? Becuase I do. It was such a testimony builder to me becuase it was so simple.  He came to feel the Book of Mormon is true through reading a little bit every day and praying about it. That probably sounds like a really generic missionary thing, but it was so faith building to see it happen to someone! The spirit really can change people. He felt it was true and no longer needed physical evidence....seriously missionary work is the coolest.

 

A little miracle that happened this week was our exchanges. We were planned to go on exchanges and I was supposed to stay in our area and Hna Whetten was going to leave. But we got a call the day before saying they felt like they should switch it...so I got to go spend a day in North Hollywood wit Hna Marquez! That was a Christmas gift to me because they set up a lesson with Ban!

 

The weirdest thing I ate this week was a grasshopper :) 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! 

Love Hermana Mulliner

Hello Hello!

I am going to start off with some Hermana Whetten Wisdom! "Any excuse, no matter how valid, always weakens the character." "There is a difference between eating to live and living to eat." Deep huh? Ya so don't worry about me, I am getting life coached every day! Spanish update: now I am understanding enough to recognize what I am not understanding. Haha, sometimes it is frustrating because I feel like I can't have my personality when we are communicating in spanish. But I can tell I am learning.

 

This week was really awesome for us! We found 6 new investigators. For some reason our pool of investigators pretty much consists of middle aged single men. haha. Which is a struggle and a blessing. It means we always have to find a member that is available to come with us and usually pick them up and drop them off, but that means we always have the help of members in the lessons and our investigators get to know people from church. This week was an eye opener for me. We met a man who straight up told us he is addicted to drugs and alcohol but wants to change his life. After our second lesson with him when we got in the car I just had to cry. We teach him in an empty apartment because he literally has nothing right now. He doesn't have a job, and his family is far away. His circumstances have made him really humble. I thought to myself, this man seriously has nothing and has nothing going for him...why would he care about Joseph Smith or the book of mormon right now? Shouldn't we be hleping him get some food or find a job? Like he has some more important issues right now! It is painful to see someone in such sad circumstances. I am so glad I met him and had to go through this thought process. I learned and was able to testify to him that no matter your circumstances, the story of Joseph Smith and the book of mormon are important! Because through the prophet Joseph Smith, Heavenly Father restored the priesthood and the church of Jesus Christ. It is through Christ that we can truly change and have hope for anything! So actually anyone struggling with anything, what they really need is the knowledge of the restoration!    

 

I am looking forward to this week because we get to go to the temple! Love you!!!!

 

Hermana Mulliner

Week 2!

Whew I honestly cannot believe this is the start of my third week in this area! It is really weird that it is Christmas time because there is no snow, it's not even cold. Everyone is asking me why I don't have a jacket and I am thinking for what? Some highlights from this week was meeting this inactive girl who introduced us to her blue log, recieving some african tea, doing yoga with Hermana Whetten, actually attempting to do yoga with Hermana Whetten, but my favorite part of the week was last night because it was our stake christmas choir activity. Every ward in the stake sang a christmas hymn, which was a little tender mercy for me because I got to see all the members from North Hollywood! Including Hna Marquez. When our ward was walking up to the stand to go sing some of the kids from North Hollywood ran up and gave me a hug...aw I teared up! It was also a proud teacher moment haha. North hollywood sang a song in english, so it was really fun to hear it after helping them pronounce the words in english class. It is really hard to switch areas. But Reseda is great so it hasn't been hard to be here!

Last night I had an experience where I opened my mouth and the Lord filled it! A member brought an elderly Jewish lady that she takes care of to the choir activity. This Jewish lady had a ton of questions about mormons. She was an intimidating lady, in a wheelchair and her voice was raspy because of a health problem. She was asking all the different reasons for why mormons do different things and what they believe about certain things. About the temple, scriptures, family history, etc. I was praying the whole conversation because I was feeling like this was a life long build up of questions she had wanted to ask! When we were on the way home I was thinking about her, and realized how did I think to say all of that! Haha, in the moment I didn't recognize it but afterwards I realized I had a lot of help answering those questions.

New years and the Christmas season is an awesome time to be a missionary because people are in the spirit to make change! We met a man this past week and he accepted to be baptized at the end of the month! Our lessons so far with him would be hilarious to an outsider just watching. He talks super fast and kind of slurs his words together so neither one of us can understand him well, so we just sit down and struggle to say what we want to say and then point to things in the pamphlets to answer the question we think he is asking! I think some of our investigators have the gift of interpretation of tongues too!

So, Hermana Whetten and I are doing well, we are working really hard and both have desires to keep improving so missionary work wise we are doing great! But not going to lie this is a companionship I haven't exactly figured out yet. I am trying to do yoga in an attempt to bond with her haha but I am still talking with myself most of the time...in spanish haha. Thanks for the extra letters this week, I seriously appreciate them sooooo much!!! Being a missionary is really soo cool, actually just being a member of this church is so cool!

love,

Hermana Mulliner

Area Numero dos...

Hello Fam!!!! Primero! My new address is:

 

7123 Etiwanda #14

Reseda CA 91335

 

If you can't tell by the street name, yes, I got transferred to Africa!!!! :) Please send me a letter this week!

 

So the area is awesome!! It is a little gold mine of people ready to hear the gospel!! The area itself has the same feel as North Hollywood because it is only about 20 minutes away on the other side of the valley. Except it is a lot bigger. The ward is awesome. We also cover the young single adult branch for our stake...I don't exactly know what that means we do yet, but sounds fun right?

 

My companion is Hermana Whetten and she is great! From New Mexico, we actually met in the MTC, she came in when I was leaving. She just left her trainer so I think she is adjusting to things being different than what she is used to, when we saw her trainer at a stake activity the other day she cried! haha...so I am praying that I am not messing her up! She really likes to excericise and is a really hard worker. I wish I could send you a pic but I forgot my camera. We are different but we both have the same desires to really improve our spanish and work really hard so we are getting along. She is kind of serious so I am laughing by myself a lot of the time haha so if you want to write me this week that would be appreciated :) Our spanish is about the same, so this week has been really funny! I feel like I have improved a lot already though just because we are both forced to speak a ton more because neither of us has a crutch with the language. So it is good, and kind of a little bit painful haha. I have been telling all the members I am from Mexico...some of them actually believed me!

 

We have had some amazing experiences this week. Our very first night together we were a little lost. I didn't know the area or the people and she was really nervous about being the one to know the area. We mixed up the Moreno family with the Morales family! Common error. We showed up for what we thought was our dinner appointment to the morales house. The Hermana was not there just the dad and kids...so we realized they were not feeding us haha. Hermana Whetten hurried and whispered he isn't a member! We were able to have a really great lesson with him. We were late to our actual dinner appointment but the Lord is working miracles in funny ways with us :)

 

We had Don R.Clark from the 70's come to our zone conference yesterday, wow! My eyes were opened to a lot of things! It was funny because I was thinking ok, i think I kind of feel like I know what I am doing now, then we have a training from a general authority and I realize a ton of things I need to change! One thing he talked about was praying over our ward lists about where to go and where to get referrals.  Last night all of our appointments canceled so we decided to try what he said. We sat in the car with our ward list and prayed about who we needed to visit. We decided on this girl who is a recent convert. We went to her house and she wasn't home, but her mom was. Her mom is not a member, we told her we did not know exactly why we were there but we prayed and felt like heavenly Father wanted us to come to her house. She let us in we were able to talk with her and teach her. It was a cool experience because I felt how the Lord really can guide us to the people that will listen.

 

Just a reminer to all: stop at stop signs! We were stopped at a stop sign and this car comes around the corner really fast without looking or stopping, we both were screaming....quite a bit! All of a sudden right before it actually crashes into us, the car stops. It crashed into our little angel forcefield! We have no idea how it stopped because there was no screatching and the person was looking at us like did I just hit you or what just happened. I know all of your prayers are protecting me and helping me, and that Heavenly Father can work miracles.

 

Something that stuck with me from Sister Hall's talk yesterday at zone conference was about Christmas. She was talking about how it will be different for us without all of our normal traditions. She was teaching us from Lehi's dream, and as we were reading about the tree of life she stopped and said, that is your Christmas tree this year. (top that! tree of life for a christmas tree!) The gift we can be striving to help people recieve is the gift of the holy ghost. She also challenged us to try to understand Christmas not just enjoy it. That helped me realize that it is a special thing to be a representative of Jesus Christ at Christmas time! I miss you all a ton! But her "mom" words helped me feel like even though I miss home I can still give my full heart and effort to the people here.

 

Love you all so much!

Hermana Mulliner

Dia de accion de gracias!!!!‏

Isn't it easier to say thanksgiving in english?!?!!  OK I have so much in my head I want to tell you! First Thanksgiving was awesome! We had potential for about 5 dinners...somehow we managed to eat only 1 ! The elders were late to the dinner (because they were at an other dinner haha) so it really worked out well for me, because the hermana was kind of annoyed at the elders for already eating and being late so while we were waiting for them she told us the plan, she was going to act like she didn't know they had already eaten and make them eat a ton and watch them suffer. Haha I was all for it because .... then she paid no attention to us and I got away eating only one plate! whew! We were told thanksgiving was a great day to proselyte...but we do not agree! People are either not home or busy being with their family, so we spent it trying to visit people and failing haha. But we had a really awesome lesson with Javier so that made the whole day worth it. One miracle that happened that day was we went by a lady we're not sure if she is a member or an investigator yet haha because she was baptized, she says into our church but her mom had the priesthood...so we are looking into that! But she has just had a horrible life and every time we go over there she swears all over the place and tells us crazy stories and we barely get to teach her. I was kind of feeling like we are not getting anywhere here! But we visited her on Thanksgiving to help her make food for her family party, and somehow we were able to teach her, and we went around saying things we are grateful for, and she basically bore her testimony. It was really sweet and I felt how much Heavenly Father is aware of all of us, and no matter what your circumstances are, there are things to be grateful for. And no matter how small the steps are, if we are moving towards Him, that is enough.

 

Second, dog poop. For the third time! We have an investigator named Rosa, we met her at a members house, and we were just friends with her at first. We started going over to her house to help her two little girls with their homework, because she doesn't understand english super well. They are seriously the cutest little family. We started teaching her and she has just been so loving to us! When Hermana Marquez got sick she wanted to come take care of her, and she calls us to make sure we have somewhere to eat. Anyways her husband works a ton so we hadn't met him yet. This was the night we were going to. And we were really excited to meet him and just have an amazing lesson with their whole family! It was dark already and we had to park kind of far away, and this street didn't have sidewalks (and yes mom I had the tazer!)  So we start walking and like two steps later I realize my shoe is totally covered! Sick!!! No grass nearby. It was so embarrassing! Her husband opens the door and his first impression of us is me trying to explain that I stepped in dog poop so I am going to leave my shoe outside. So I am sitting there on their couch teaching them with one shoe on. Haha before we left they gave me a pair of shoes because they had a pair that fit me perfectly....they were her 10 year old daughter's! 

 

And last...I found out I am getting transfered. Oh my gosh, I didn't realize how comfortable I had gotten here and how much I love all of these people. Yesterday at church my bladder was right next to my face! It felt like I was leaving home again, it was really hard. I was also really bummed because Javier didn't come to church so I don't get to say goodbye to him. Hermana Marquez and I have become really close and I...I stink at change! But we just keep saying it will all be "good and perfect!"

 

OK Love you all like crazy,

Hna Mulliner

 

Send mail to the mission office this week:

 

23504 Lyons Ave suite 107

Santa Clarita CA 91321