YOYO!

Fam fam fam... shmam what is going on?! I miss you!! So I can't believe Dals call!!!!!!!! No spiders thats perfect! I am so excited for him but I wish he was coming into the mtc THIS week! haha. I am also soooo excited for him that he is not learning espanol, lucky punk! I seriously am sooooo excited for him! i want to hear from him what hes thinking, what hes feeling, what hes thinking about what hes feeling, and what hes feeling about what hes thinking...lol but really. tate what did you think?
So this week was sooo hard and sooo good. the keyboard im using is dumb so sorry about the typos and errors. so another apostle came on down to little provo this past week....no biggie. elder l tom perry! this week was really hard b/c my compenera got really discouraged..which i totally understand and don't blame her...but it was just made it kinda lonely some days and I was laughing by myself a lot haha. I decided i want to read the BoM by the time I leave so i have been carrying around this little book of mormon and read whenever there is a little minute...i dont know if ill be able to do it but well see.

So this week our district got chosen for a little somthin somethin. we are now required...yes required...to be up and at the gym at 5;50 in the a.m to be the guinea pigs for this new exercise program they are testing for missionaries...haha! there are about 20 districts that got chosen...what are the chances! there were also three groups within all the districts chosen...one that is not required to go but can go if they want, one that is not get training just seeing they will do it and figure it out on their own.. and one that is required to go every morning! yes of the three we are in the required1 haha it is so funny tho the workouts are called things like the "stripling warrior" 'carry on" stuff like that. we also have to train our trainers in the field on this program and do it for a couple months...this is also in addition to our gym time which is cool but i am showering about 5o times a day...lol jk noth that much but extra times now.

I was really worried about getting up early because we can't go to bed earlier and i am exhausted already so getting up would be really hard1 but I am just learning that really when we are obedient the lord provides a way. like we only have a half hour to shower and be in the classroom....k...that is not long enough is what i was thinking. but Iwant to be obedient and was thinking about how i wanted to follow this but it didn't seem possible and i had this idea of how to do my hair..i know sounds dumb..but it works and is a lot faster haha. the spirit is so strong here at the mtc and i tried hard this week to just enjoy that. not stress out. which was something i had to conciously think about haha. but i noticed i really limit myself. when i am worried about the spanish or teaching skills i am worried about my capabilities. when really if i am trying to be obedient and doing my best thats all i can do...i should get out of the way and let the Lord work through me because he'll be able to do a lot more than i can.

My favorite quote this week "what we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly"

Sacrament meeting is so stressful here because we all have to prepare talks and then they just call two missionaries up to speak after the sacrament.. in espanol! that is the key....we have to speak in spanish! it scares me like no other! we decided it is a lot like hunger games. we also chose our district leader to be the one to volunteer as tribute if anyone from our district gets called up to speak.

Well man time goes by fast on here love you!

Hermana Mulliner

P.S. Also had a super cool experience this week in the trc....which is my least favorite thing here...which i know is wierd bc that is what ill be doing every day in the field! but we have to go teach lessons to members in spanish and this week was just a struggle...i was struggling to remember the words and wasn't conjugating right at all! haha. it was just not very smooth or anything at all...the last guy we talked to was a very recent rm and he could tell it was a super struggle and helped us a lot...he could tell we were exhausted when it was over and kind of discouraged that we just couldn't say anything. He stopped us as we were walking out and said sisters i just want you to know I hve sat here through 8 sets of missionaries and you are the only ones who testified to me. Just know you are bringing the spirit even though the language is a struggle...and know that sisters pick up the language faster than elders out in the field. I cried! haha just because I had putmy heart into trying to communicate witht his man and i didn't think i did nay thing right. I felt the spirit very strong that I need to stop worrying about the language...which is hard but im trying.

Still Here...

Family!!! You all sound like you are doing so well!!! I don't know if I have told you....but I'm lovin the letters!! Gracias!!!! Really it is such a boost to hear from someone and you are all so encouraging. Mom the packages are AMAZING! I felt weird getting a package from you on mothers day insteado f the other way around but wo that was the best because it was unexpected and mothers day was hard. I miss you.

Spanish makes me feel dumb. I am tired of feeling dumb! Half the time I really don't know what is going on and it is so frustrating to not being able to communicate everything I want to. There were some really frustrating moments this week. I am working hard at trying to learn spanish and trying to be obedient so it is kind of frustrating that I don't feel or see the improvement I want. At the same time...it has been amazing and such a learning experience tosee how when we have faith the Lord blesses us. We were "invited" to start going into our lessons without any spanish notes. Just go talk. That is a piece of cake for the rest of our district haha but pretty much seems impossible for us. But we realized we were scared to go in without notes, and fear isn't faith. So we decided we would try to rely on the Lord insteadof our notes. It was so crazy, we had planned to teach the plan of salvation..we went in and seriously our spanish is sooo horrible...it has got to be pain ful to talk to us! We take forever to get one thought across. so we realied we would not have time for the whole lesson. we had the thought to just share one scripture...so we did..and our investigator started crying. We looked at each other like what do we do! We didn't want to talk because it just felt so good. We testified...even though the words we were saying probably didn't make sense haha. We just realized that it is not our spanish that teaches them it is the spirit. And even though we did not teach the whole plan of salvation, we only shared one tiny part, the spirit was so strong there and our investigator came closer to Christ. I just feel like I am getting so much more out of this than I will give to anyone. I am so happy to be on a mission.

A branch presidency wife shared a story with us...of this convert who knew the church was true because of some missionaries. The sisters knoced on her door and started sharing a message, their spanish was so bad she had no idea what they were saying but she said she knew whatever they were saying was true. I was kind of bummed and kind of excited to ehar that story. Maybe I am needed in a situation like taht haha where someone needs to just feel something not understand it by the words haha! Elder Holland said, "Christ had the same wish, that it could be better,easier or different at times.If you are going to call yoru self his disciple or missionary how dare you ask to get by without some little price, a few moments in the garden with tears, a few steps toward calvary.it was never meant to be easy, it was not easy for the Son of God himself."

So the Lord seriously sends me humor to be able to make it through. This week though the humor was so random! We went to devotional and sat down inbetween some elders. The devotional started and this elder plops his foot up on his leg, like you know how guys cross their legs the guy way, but he had his shoe off! So that was on the left side. Then this foreign elder on our other side, idk if he was nervous or what but he was bouncing his leg, like he was in a hurry, wehn you move it moves the whole row. So we were bouncing up and down with a stinky foot in our face through the whole devotional. Sister Lynn the sister from Taiwan in our room is so funny. She has pretty good English but she will still say the funniest things. One thing that is hilarious is she doesn't have to shave her legs because she doesn't have "fur" haha. And her and I were the only ones in the room gettting ready one morning and I turn around and she has her arms up and tweezers out. Lol she plucks her armpit hair...ouch!!! Tate you will appreciate this one..The other night we were waiting on one sister to be able to turn off the light...she ws finally ready so we turn off the light then we hear this from sis Lynn, "now i can scratch my bum" lol! She always tells me I could buy the cutest shoes in Taiwan because I guess all the cute shoes come in the small sizes there. I am so grateful for a companion that will laugh with me, we physically could not keep running the other day in gym because we were laughing so hard. I am grateful the Lord makes our weaknesses seem funny instead of seem impossible haha.

We heard from Elder D. Todd Christofferson this week! Those talks are always soo good, but my favorite part is always the end. When you hear, see and feel an apostle bear testimony of Christ, it is so powerful. They also always sort of bless us at the end too and I like that, haha. My favorite thing he said is he was talking about how missionaries have the same commission as apostles, so they see us as their companions! Cool, but he was saying how important and grand our calling is, but the Lord will magnify us to be able to fulfill it, and (this was my fav part) ¨through angels and the spirit He will be with us." They always just make any feelings of inadequacy or fear go away and you have this excitement to go talk people!

Mothers day was brutal! We look forward to Music and the Spoken word but someone should have warned us that it is all about families on mothers day! It was just this chain reaction, those lil kids made me miss Ella and Reese, and then it was all about moms so I was thinking about mom and ....man we were crying through the whole thing haha. Hermana Walker and I are embarrased to cry infront of eachother for some reason, so we were both like tilted the other way in our chairs crying haha!

A sister came up to us and told us this story...of two lil twin boys. one got placed in a room with a bunch of toys and cried. the other got placed in a room with manuer and was so excited because he knew their must be a pony in there if there was that much poop! Lol then she gave us a handful of milkduds and said you need to have a good attitude about everything...even poop! haha.

The kung fu elder is doing really well. From all your letters sounds like he is part of the fam now. We asked to take a picture with him, we wanted a ninja pose with him...obviously ... and we wanted to look legit so we asked him to teach us a few moves that we could do in the pictures. It was so funny cause he started do all this crazy moves even though we just wanted a picture so he just needed to choose one and hold still. Holy cow though...He could have talked for hours about this. It got our whole district up and practicing these punches and stuff haha, but I think it made him feel really good and we got to know him a lot and our whole district became better friends. We just realized how when you sincerely ask someone about something they are interested in you really get to know them.

Everyone in their letters keeps saying...its ok if you write in spanish I can translate it on the computer or something...haha like you all think i am not writing in spanish for your sake. I do love you guys and want you to understand me but also I just am not at that point yet! I only have one day to write so I need to do it fast! So maybe in the future I will be writing in spanish! Lo siento! I love you all!!! Hope you have a good week!! I would love some pics if you get the chance :)

Love,
Hermana Mulliner (sha)

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!

How is everyone?!?!?!?!?! Tate get feeling better dude!! Dal sounds like prom was awesome!!! Can't believe you are graduating, so sad I am missing it! Mom your class sounds no fun haha! The lil chicks are sooo cute! We are supposed to tell you we will not be able to call on Mother's day. :( I miss you so much!! We get to run outside for gym now and we run past the street where I made you guys turn in before you dropped me off to cry. It makes me laugh! and makes me miss you a lot.I love you so much and appreciate the letters and packages and dearelders so much. We were hitting the pinanta the night of cinco de mayo and a we had a knock on our door....we thought we were in trouble...it was a branch presidency wife and we thought o no...she came in looked at what we were doing and then said..well i need a turn to hit it! lol so she hit the pinatat with us! When you send a nother sd card I'll send ya the picks and there is one video but i found out I don't think we are supposed to video so ooops. Thanks for the package it was awesome! Do you guys have plans for the summer already? When is school out? Sorry your call hasn't come yet dal! That might partly be bc of me haha...it is kind of nice to have something like that to look forward to each week...and once it comes I won't have that news to look forward to anymore haha! YOu would crack up at this one elder in my district. He is hilarious but doens't know he is hilarious! He is this skinny latino boy from arizona going to boise on his mission and he is into karate. When he is walking around he does random karate chops and stuff as he goes.Haha its great. At dinner another elder poked a hole in his pie (no se why...elders can be so weird!) and this elder got way made and said, "If you ever touch my pie again i'll karate chop kick you in the face!" and he was serious. Haha it was soooooooooo funny. Hermana Walker and I get a kick out of the things he says bc we are always thinking, who says that! We get kind of loopy around dinner time, everything becomes funny! We just sit there and talk about all the dumb things we have said and done that day...which is usually a lot!! haha but for some reason it all becomes HILARIOUS at dinner time! so it is the best to sit by him at dinner because then everything is even more funny!

How are Ella and Reese? Are you guys doing anything new and fun? Thanks for the pictures from the girls! LOVE THEM!

So wow!! This week was so good!! I was humbled a lot this week. Sunday was mission conference and President Brown told this story of this missionary in the MTC last year whose mom unexpectedly passed away while he was here. then his dad died of cancer of few months later when he was in the field, and he stayed on a misison. Then later that nightwe got to watch the movie called Joseph Smith prophet of the restoration or something, and I was jut blown away. You see what he and his family, and all the early saints went through. I recommend watching that movie...with a box of tissues! I just realized I am complaining about learning spanish and people have gone through much more for this gospel. It was just a day of feeling the spirit and realizing I am nothing compared to this whole work, and what some people have gone through.I am more committed to the gospel and to become the best missionary I can after that day. One of the speakers told us "you are opening the doors to the celestial kingdom to the children of God." I liked that perspective a lot. And then to top it off there is ice cream in the cafeteria on sundays! With brownies to mix in!

I think the shell shock of being at the MTC kind of wore off this week. We are getting into the routine of things and really learning a lot. Today a whole district of elders in our zone are leaving which is way sad because that is a lot of familiar faces that wont be around at meals, gym, devotionals etc. any more. But we are supposed to get 4 sisters this week! So the whole comfort zone thing....guess what I got assigned to be this week? Haha the music coordinator for our branch! lol I don't think the branch president knows how much of a joke that is! But he'll probably find out when he sees i can't lead music in english...I REALLY can't lead music while trying to read/sing the song in spanish! And that is probably one of the most scary things I could think of to do.

So I just wish mine and sister walker's (which by the way i never have to say or write my own name ahah so i think i mightve signed some letters sister walker last week...haha it was really me, sister mulliner, that wrote them lol) lessons could be recorded so you could see them, cause it is quality entertainment. This week we had the most hilarious lesson...it wasn't supposed to be funny though. So our investigator didn't see why she needed to be baptized again because she was already baptized in another church so we were practicing our lesson in another room and the resource teacher came in to "help" us. sometimes they are so eager to help that they overhelp so its not really help. He basically told us to change our whole lesson and we were teaching in ten minutes...that is a lot of spanish to remember in ten minutes! But he showed us this cool object lesson with a paper. The paper represents the gospel, in its fulness like how it was when Christ was on the earth, then when He and the apostoles died we didn't have the priesthood and there was no prophet so people took bits and pieces of the gospel and formed their own churches. At that point you rip up the paper in to little pieces and form piles to represent the different churches. How they are all good and all have parts of the gospel but not the fulness. Then you tell the Joseph Smith story and gather all the papers together to show that the gospel has been restored to its fulness just like how it was when Christ was on the earth. Idk if that makes sense. so we were going to try to explain and do this little demo in spanish with only a few minutes to prepare. We were very nervous!

It ended up going like this. "El evenagelio" (the gospel) as we held up the paper. Then we got nervous and panicked... so we just started ripping it up. Then we just said "iglesia...iglesia...iglesia.." (church, church, church) as we put the papers randomly around. Then we looked up at her....then we started into the Joseph Smith story and my companion said "Dios y Juesucristo se le aparecieron a Jesucristo" God and Jesus Christ appeared to...Jesus Christ. At that point I could not hold it in anymore, I started laughing, our investigator started laughing, and we all just laughed haha. So we basically ripped up the gospel in front of her!

My favorite quote from this week was, "We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today, God sees us in terms of forever." -Elder Wirthlin

I just have to tell you yesterday was the happiest day so far in the MTC. Hermana Walker and I were talking during gym and we were both telling each other how something was jut good today. I just had the thought....people are praying for you. I have never felt the prayers of other people for me before. But yesterday I could feel it. We have been trying to only speak spanish to eachother outside of class...but we forget or get discouraged after two words when we realize we can't say anything in spanish! (our conversations sounds SO foolish and probably don't make any sense to anyone else b/c we know eachother and know what we are kind of trying to say haha) so we get discouraged before we even get to breakfast. But yesterday we did not forget to speak it to eachother, and i don't know exactly what was different because we still talked worse than a two year in spanish but we kept doing it and we just felt like we learned a lot yesterday. Thank you for thinking of me and praying for me. Even though spanish has not gotten much easier I do not feel alone and my faith is strengthened by you even though I am not with you! I feel so much support and I realize I could not do this without that. Thank you. Thank you so much for your letters and dear elders! I really can't tell you how exciting it is even if it is two sentences to hear from somebody!! Please keep writing!! I love it!!

Love you so much! And can't wait to hear from you guys!

Love, Hermana Mulliner

p.s. mom im not expecting packages every week haha! but if you send another one done iwth tates teach or something beofer I leave the mtc it would be nice to have a box of granola bars and some reg size sticky notes. The werther lil things and jolley ranchers have been my fav! and i love the nut mixes things youve sent! really your packages ahave been the best!!!!! thank you!!!! Love you!! Happy mothers day!!!!

May 1, 2012

HELLO OUTSIDE WORLD!!!

So...BAM the gospel is so true!!! Last tuesday after I wrote we had devotional and it was Elder Nelson! Wow two apostles already we feel so lucky. And it was soo good! I immediately felt so bad for complaining so much about spanish in my letters last week. The best part was at the end he invoked an apostalic blessing upon us and that is probably the strongest I have felt the spirit since being here at the MTC, and that is saying something because the spirit is so strong here all of the time. I just felt the Holy Ghost bear witness to me of the doctrine of of the Gospel and of our potential. He explained how it is a commandment to be perfect and many times that is overwhleming or daunting to us, but really that should be so exciting that that is a commandment. God commands us to be perfect because he sees that potential in us! Isn't that so cool?!

I also read this quote by Elder Samuelson "just as we should not lower the standards that the Lord has established for the conduct of His servants, we are also not authorized to raise them..Be sure that you do not have higher standardsfor yourself or others than the Lord has established." I just realized so much this week that I was setting standards for myself. Maybe it isn't God's plan for me to know a lot of spanish by the time I leave the MTC (even thought I really wish it was!). I am the one putting that standard on myself. The Lord is just asking that I work my hardest and do my best.

Oh, also Hermana Walker and I were studying out in the hall this past week and three elders came up and starting talking to us which we were kind of annoyed at first because we were trying to study...not talk. They asked us what language we were learning and we started into how hard the spanish is (haha like you have heard way too much from me!) and they asked us to bear our testimonies to them in spanish, we were thinking who are these elders and so annoyed they were taking up our study time. But they wouldn't let us not do it so even though we still are really bad at it we did it and the spirit just came so strong. Then we asked them to bear their testimony in their language...get this...they are learning hmong!!! It has 8 tones! They sounded like Dori from finding Nemo when she tries to speak whale haha only there were no recognizable words at all. So we were humbled a lot because these elders were so willing to share their testimonies in their super hard language and that they are learning that language! I am grateful to be learning spanish!!

Did anyone watch music and the spoken word? they talked about how work that seems beyond our capacity is a blessing because it brings a happy exhaustion at the end of the day. It is possible and awesome to be physically tired but emotionally renewed. I just loved that because I am sooo tired at the end of the day, my brain is fried! (Like the other day I asked my teacher how to say taco in spanish!!) but at the same time I feel so happy and so content when I go to bed. We had to teach in the TRC this week and we also had to teach an investigator that same day so that was 3 lessons in spanish in one day! Holy cow we were so nervous for that day becuase that is a lot of talking in spanish haha. But once we pray to start a lesson the nerves go away because the spirit is there, and even though our spanish is bad we are somehow communicating with the person. We taught this really old guy with a horrible memory! He seriously asked us the same question three times right in a row and did not even realize he did it, we felt bad cause we had to take turns looking away to laugh and we could not look at each other the whole rest of that lesson, but it was great practice, ask me to tell you about after Christ's ressurrection in spanish now and I have that down!

So this whole mission thing has been a game for the Lord I think, called, How to push Shalee the farthest outside her comfort zone as possible. Haha, so we do deomstrations and practices A LOT here. We learn a concept and then the teacher of the workshop or whatever will call on someone to come up and do a demo with them...I hate doing this! I am so bad at pretending to be an investigator and it is not my favorite thing to be up in front of a lot of people. Especially missionaries where everyone knows a lot haha. But somehow I get "invited" to come up! That is the other thing, teachers don't tell you or ask you to do things, they "invite" you haha we are always laughing because they "invite" us to memorize a bazillion things everyday but we realize they are not inviting us they really mean memorize this scripture by tomorrow. Anyways I got "invited" to come up and do a demonstration about how to teach an investigator to pray and it turned out to be a really good experience. It was the first time I really felt the spirit working through me while I taught. Afterwards I sat down and thought I don't even know how I just did that. Hermana Walker and I also got assigned to be coordinating sisters, which is pushing outside our comfort zones because part of that means we have to "invite" the sisters in the residency halls to obey the rules, we feel very awkward doing this but we also just laugh because the Lord is having us do a lot of things we probably wouldn't have done before :)

Thank you so much for your letters!! I honestly cannot express to you the support I feel and how much that has helped me!!! Thank you thank you thank you thank you for writing and dear eldering. Dear elders are so good to get! If I haven't written you back I will and please write again! I feel like I am in a little bubble here at the MTC and it is really nice to hear about life. Thank you for your support I felt very loved this week :)

Love,
Hermana Mulliner

P.S. Mom those packages were AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! holy cow i wish you couldve seen Hermana stulls reation!! she has never felt so special before i don't think! She has been asking me for make up tips all week and is loving it. She especially loes the little bag....that was a cute touch. their visas didn't come so they havent left yet don't know when they will be able to. Thank you thankyou!!!!! please tell the bishop thank you for his letter, made me cry:) Thank you soo much for the packages the food is great! And we got 2 new sisters in our room this week one from taiwain and one from af haha they are both going to germany. now our room is starting to be stinky iwht six of us in there...ugh. But they all love you haha!!! I am not going to write everyone hand written this week becasue I don't have time so this is it :) I love you and miss you and can';t tell yo uhow grateful I am for your support. I am not much better at spanish...serisouly hahah...but I liked your grateful idea. please keep updating me on dals mish!! love all your dear elders! and the choc covered almonds were my fav!! you can use my checks if you need to buy anything for me. um rick and sharon sent me a check ill send it home can you deposit it? thanks! or use it for whatev! the sd card is a great idea. I din't get any pics of the flowers i did of jean and ben and emily though so cute! Thanks again for the pakcages!! also they stopped printing pics here so no more pics for a while...lol.tell lys to send pics in her package.also i could use another journal....but it could be super cheapy one :) ok love you missyou!!!! it is so hard to say goodbye in emails!!! But time to go do laundry!! I think my letter sounded very down last week bc i got so many encouraging letters this week I am so grateful for them I am going to try to write people back but tell anyone you see/hear I really appreciated it, i seriously get mail everyday and I need it!! it is so nice!! it is such a blessing bc not every missionary gets a lot of mail. ok really love you bye!!! oh i wrote tate a letter so he isn't getting an email so tell him not be left out!