Awwwkward!

HOLA!


Not much to say about this week...love you guys!!!

Love,
Hna Mulliner

Psych! there is a lil more to say about this week! Hey I just thought of this...dal you should start emailing me from your mish email so we make sure that is set up right and everything and we can contact each other before you go bye bye birdie on us! also you should put everyone in the fam...the chosen ones...their emials in too so you have them there before the mtc, an elder in my district didn't know anyones emails haha it was sad he couln't contact anyone for a lil chunk of precious time...

Ok so I really don't know what I say in this messages to the outside world...it is hard to decide what to say and I am so excited to communicate that I don't know what comes out when I start typing! Ah! So much happens in a week its hard to know what to share about our posh mish life over here on the west coast. But every week has seemed to kind of have a theme. This week was a little friend I will call AWKWARD!!! He followed me around everywhere I went this week! haha. I feel bad for ever teasing a return missionary about being weird or awkward because I learned something this week. A missionaries awkward rador goes out the window!!

So I have been trying to just forget that I don't actually know what others and I are saying when we are trying to communicate in spanish and try to have more confidence and just talk more. Haha, but really though, I have been trying to trust more in the gift of tongues and in my calling as a missionary and not worry about the language or saying it wrong or saying the wrong thing or feeling dumb and just talk more! Plus Hna Prince has been encouraging me/forcing me to be a part of the lessons in an unplanned way more. So we are trying to figure out how to teach better in unity i guess. Whew we had a lot of rocky moments.

We were teaching lesson 3 about the gospel and we have this bridge thing we made and pics and scriptures we share. At each step I was trying to say something or ask a question. My thoughts are kind of like this blurb of random! I am not very good at connecting it to things, so I would say something and then there is this awkward pause where everyone wonders if that is all I am going to say, if I am done or ...haha...aw and he even laughed at me at one point during the lesson! It was very awkward the whole time. We invited him to church at the end and I thought I understood his response so then I moved on to ask him to read this chapter in this book we've been giving to people called the Book of Mormon and he said he woud read it. But when we were walking back to the car Hna prince explained to me that basically what happened is we invited him to church he said um and then I was like cool how bout read this chapter?! Haha ...hna prince is being very patient with me :)

Then we had this really awkward end to a lesson. It started out awesome. Maria this super sweet, kind, middle aged woman who is going through kimotherapy. She has a son who just got baptized in to the english ward here and they are just the nicest people I LOVE seeing them. The spirit was really strong as we were watching this video about families being together forever when her brother walked into the house. Everyone's faces dropped. We had never met him or heard about him. We were able to finish the video and testify and we were about to sing a song that she told us she loved. When her brother started asking us all these questions! If our songs were from the bible etc and then alex, the son, started telling him to calm down and they were in each other's faces...the spirit left really fast. We skipped the song and just asked if we could leave with a prayer and he asked us if we were going to have a woman or a man pray and went off again ...he said the prayer and we hurried out of there. maria felt so bad and kept apologizing, but it was actually really cool because we all felt the stark contrast of the spirit when we were talking about our message, and the spirit gone when her brother was talking to us. And then an icecream truck came by and she bought us ice cream haha.

The coolest experience happened yesterday. We were in this lesson with a new investigator we had only met once before. He is an older man that knows A TON about the bible. We brought a member with us and it turned out really interesting. The first 30 ish minutes our investigator and the member kind of bible bashed...we were both sitting there wondering what to do to bring the spirit or if we can teach anything or how to recover. And I was thinking this is a perfect lesson to end the week...super awkward situation! haha. It was a cool moment I had help from Heavenly Father...I interrupted them, and in my head for a minute I was thinking oops what am i doing haha. But then I kept talking and what came out made sense! I told them we respect them both because they both know a lot and love sharing what they know and we are learning a lot from them. But, we all know there is only one true church. And the only way we can know which church it is, is through prayer and feeling the holy ghost. So these points we are talking about are important, but don't reaIly matter. I was soo surprised I was able to be kind of bold and they both were totally listening to what i said! The investigator was looking at me really sincerely. The spirit was there and we were able to talk a little bit about the restoration and have a powerful ending to the lesson.

I just feel everyday how much the Lord's hand is in what we are doing. I love you!!!!!! Thanks for your letters!!!!!! They strengthen me sooo much throughout the week!!!

Love,

Hna Mulliner

Pics

Adventures!

Hey fam! So when does dal go into the MTC again? I can't believe it is almost august! Mom thanks for the dear elders I LOVE getting them! What are you guys doing this week? the rest of the summer? when does school start up again?

 

 

So this week was a week of adventures!!! On saturday we were planning and we realized that none of our investigators are really progressing...haha...and we are trying to convince them to read and pray and come to church instead of them actually wanting to learn. But we were really excited for that night because we had some appointments with some people we had met the day before and they seemed really solid. So we were really excited to go out and teach some powerful lessons and meet new people who want to learn! .... we went and had some disappointing experiences. This one lady we met on the street and talked to was really interested. We showed up at her house for the appointment right when their whole family was coming home and her husband was not happy that she invited us over, it was pretty awkward haha and sad. Then our other appointment wasn't home and our backup plan hadn't worked out either. So we prayed about which of the other back up plans we should do. While I was praying I felt like I should say "or go knocking" even though that was not one of our back up plans (cause actually I haven't grown to love knocking yet haha). When we were talking afterwards Hma prince said she had a specific street come into her mind so we decided to go there, we hadn't been there before. When we got there haha we were like this is weird because it wasn't a residential street it was business buildings. We decided to get out and walk for a minute. then this van pulls up and this latino family piles out and hma prince hurries over and starts talking to them. They were super friendly and wanted us to come over until the mom said wait...are you guys mormons? haha we said yes...and she was SO rude and then she just walked off. The girls said sorry but we have to respect our mom and we are on our way to church so..bye. Haha so we were left standing on this empty street off buisnesses haha. Again like nothing is working out today and what shoudl we do! Hma prince was kind of discouraged...she had half jokingly asked me everytime one of our back up plans had fallen thoruhg "hma is our church really true?" haha, then I was kind of joking but trying to cheer her up said do you want to go to church?! haha and we thought about it....and went to church! It was an Evangelical church...party! Haha we sat behind the mom and she was dancing really really hard core the whole time and looking back at us, lke to show us that she is really religious or something! We had to leave early because it got late so I don't know if we were supposed to go there for someone esle or for us. Because we walked out of there and I have never felt so strongly about the restoration! We decided to go by a recent convert on the way home and it was a miracle...she was out with one of her friends (who isn't a member) and they had missed their movie so they decided to come home. When we had pulled up to her house I had this line from the intro to the book of mormon in my mind. so we hadn't planned a lesson for her but decided to share that and...we had the most powerful lesson about the book of mormon because we were both feeling so strongly about it after that experience in the church. It was so cool to feel and see the difference of being in that church, and being in the lesson with these people. The book of mormon is so true, the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is so true! You should all read the intro to the book of mormon!

 

 

Haha this week was also the old lady week! We met so many old ladies! A super funny thing that happened was we met this super sweet old lady named was ofelia. We talked to her for a while and became friends. as we were talking about religion we were just talking and she said,"there are just 2 religions I CAN NOT stand...(she said some church) and the mormons!" haha we had a member with us so we al looked at each other and kind of just laughed. We asked her why and shared a scripture and then told her that scripture came from a book of scripture called the book of mormon...she just looked at as us and stopped for a minute. Then she said "so you guys are mormons?!" haha Then it was a really sweet moment she said she never lets people in and never talks to missionaries but she felt some different with us (and because she kept saying I looked like a porcelin doll haha) and she would love for us to come back. It was one of the moments where when we got back to the car we were like that was so cool!

 

 

We also met these 2 really funny old ladies sitting outside having girl talk. They were so funny, but when we started talking about religion they were really cold with us. It was amazing, I feel like I witnessed a miracle with them, we could see and feel their hearts change. They were super cold about religion and what we were saying and then by the end we had given them book of mormons and we had to interrupt their reading so we could pray with them and leave. It was so cool!

 

 

I love you guys! Thanks for the letters!

 

 

Love,

Hna Mulliner

Half Way Through One Transfer!

Mi familia!!!! what is up with all the fire in utah?!?!!?! I got dallins letter last pday and I got a dear elder from mom today! Thanks!!! it is THE best to get letters!! So we went on a hike as a district this morning and some youth from the ward came with us, it was really cool! But that is why we are emailing later.
So I am basically fluent in spanish now! .... haha gotcha! Mom I loved the quote from Pres. Monson from your email this past week "sometimes courage is the little voice that tells us...I'll try again tomorrow!" I am trying to just enjoy the journey of learning this language. I carry around this little notebook to write done words I hear that I don't know and sometimes with some people I have to write a ton! or like during church I write a whole dictionary! But sometimes I just stop writing words and realize the situation that is happening. And just say a little gratitude prayer that I get to learn spanish because It is kind of hilarious that this person is talking and I have no idea what they are saying! Or with hna prince this week I stopped her while we were talking to clarify something and we realized we were talking to each other but we were having two seperate conversations! haha. I am driving now, which is good because I am learning the area better, but it kind of bad for us because I often miss the turn or go the wrong way because I don't know what she is saying!

This week was really random. Some people give missionaries the funniest escuses for not wanting to listen haha. The best we ran into while we were knocking this week was this old lady who had her door open a crack so we just said hello instead of knocking and she just talked back but didn't move to come talk to us or anything, then finally she said she was naked so she didn't want to talk to us right then. There is this lady who we have set an appt with every week and she calls and cancels last minute every time...this week her excuse was that she just had a surgery (we were like oh sad but perfect we can come help her!)...her surgery was getting a mole removed from her armpit! haha. Our apt is infested with lil ants! I know that word in spanish now! hormigas! we call them our hormiga amigas. But they are EVERYWHERE! Haha we were in a lesson and we had our scriptures open reading from the book of mormon I had given mine to the investigator so hna prince and I were sharing her scriptures when this little hormiga comes crawling out of the side of the case across the page. haha it was really hard not to laugh.

I also met my new boyfriend this week....he is 2 years old named Alan...haha his mom and dad are recent converts and their daughter just got baptized yesterday! When his mom realized I was learning spanish she had him go get childrens books and tell me stories in spanish. We filmed them so I can use them for language study. I don't know why, but it is so adorable when little kids speak spanish, that motivates me to learn because I wish I could communicate with them! The baptism was really special to attend. There is such a special spirit at baptisms! It really inspired me and motivated me to want to be a better missionary and help someone get there.

We had a really cool lesson this week. We were knocking doors in this apartment complex and this guy told us he was definately not intersested in what we had to say, so we asked if he knew anyone that we could visit that would be. He wanted us to go talk to these punk kids that always sit outside the complex. He said several times, ya go talk to them. We saw them on our way up but we were both nervous to talk to them. It was three boys about our age ish with tatoos and just appeared kind of rough. But we decided to go talk to them and it ended up being so cool! We ended up teaching them the whole plan of salvation with all our little pictures (they secretly loved the little pictures) haha on the sidewalk outside their apt. They just kept asking questions and we were able to talk with them for a while and we could feel the spirit and we could tell they felt the spirit. We gave them both book of mormons and they said they'd read and we are going back this week! It was just so cool, first of all because it is so fun to talk to and teach people who actually are interested in what you are saying. And because we both faced a fear, we were scared to talk to them and they ended up being the nicest people we talked to all day, you really cannot ever judge people and you never know who the Lord is preparing. It was also such a reminder to me that so many people don't have the gospel. We are so blessed to live with the knowledge of the restored gospel! .... if you take a second to think about that then you just want to go tell everyone about it!

It is so awesome to be a missionary. I am learning so much from Hna Prince, our ward members, and our investigators. I Love you all so much and seriously am soooo grateful for your support for me and your testimonies you share with me.

Love,
Sha! (Hna Mulliner)

Letter sent home (7/2/12)

FAM!

So actually not much time to write haha!  I got Dal's letter today th ough- thanks D!!  Here is a pic of me and Carson, Elder Vance.  Also Dal, that scripture is Heb. 10:35-36.  Tomorrow is exchanges - I am going with Hermana Bush, I am kinda nervous!

Love,
Hermana Mulliner

!HOLA!

Family!!!

I haven't read your emails yet I am going to print them and then read after...so I'll probly have time to write a letter or two later today and I'll reply to those there. Also I have a small request...I haven't gotten any mail yet...can someone write me a letter?! It can be small but it would be really nice to get a letter during the week...you can even still dearelder it just costs the price of the stamp now. Maybe you have written and it hasn't got here :) Oh mom tell Robbie I did get his letter...that Burbank address is the new address...So we cover two areas North Hollywood and Burbank....we were living in Northhollywood with 2 other hermanas but they moved us so we live in the Burbank area where we have our own apt (which is a safer and nicer area:)). Its sad to not be with the hermanas but I think we are more focused when it is just us. So ya the burbank address is the right one! maybe these are answered in the email but..How is everyone doing?! Did we hear about Todd this week? Is tate doign any bball this summer up in iderho? the pics are so cute...i was wondering if you could send an actual pic or two of the fam if you get a chance that i could carry in my scriptures because a few investigators have asked and it would be fun to show them. What is dal doing for work? What are you doing for the fourth of july? mom are you taking anymore classes?I love you guys and miss you lots! I get soo excited to emial on pday! Thanks for emialing me!!!

So this week wo don't even know what to say! I am so excited for Dal to be on his mish because it is just amazing to be a missionary! My favorite part about being a missionary so far has actually been when we have been with the recent converts or less active members in our ward. I feel so priveleged because people really open up and share what is really in their heart. What I have learned is when we prepare we have the spirit with us and when we have the spirit with us the Lord really does work through us. Like last night we had dinner with a recent convert member and we were going to share a a missionary scripture about praying for others who don't know the truth yet. Then this woman started crying and telling us about how hard it has been for her lately because her husband isn't a member and she really wants her whole family to be in the gospel. (ok so i don't really know what people are saying but something cool about not understanding is I can really feel when the spirit is there strong, and it is usually when people are talking about somethign that is really important to them) It is just cool to be there when people really open up and I just feel for them and want to help them. It was cool last night because I didn't know what this lady was saying her problem was but she was crying and talking about her family and I was just praying in my heart to have Heavenly Father help me know what to testify of or what to share with this woman. I thought of a scripture DyC 101:16 and when there was a break I showed it to her. It was cool because afterwards when we were walking to the car Hma prince was like that was awesome Hermana you understood what was going on that time and that scripture was perfect! Haha I told her I had no idea what was going on! But it was just such a faith building experience and confidence builder to for me because I am always nervous to say things in emotional situations like that because what if what I'm thinking is way off because I don't really know what they're saying. Then right after that we had a half an hour before we had to be somewhere so we thought about what we should do. We decided to go by this other ward member who we hadn't seen at church...it was amazing because on the way to the members house on the same street is a recent convert family and the dad was outside...immediately when we saw him we both thought, Oh maybe that is why we are over here. We stopped and talked to him and found out his brother had just passed away. We went inside and found out that actually their grandma had passed away 3 weeks earlier so they were struggling financially trying to pay for both funerals etc. It was so cool! We were able to share some of the plan of salvation and they had some questions on their mind! I just love being on the Lord's errand! And it is just amazing to me we rarely do what we have planned haha because we always run into someone else and realize that is who the Lord needs us to be with at that time.

The best person we met contacting this week was Claire! She is an atheist Yogi...that means she is hard core into yoga haha. She wouldn't open the screen door and wasn't that receptive to our message but it was hilarious because she did some intense yoga poses for us, and she showed us some pictures of her doing really hard yoga poses on her phone. It was hilarious! Oh we had our mission conference or something i dont' know what its called but the last one with pres and sister martin...which was really really inspiring! And really sad to say goodbye to them. I saw Elder Vance there! My favorite miracle this week was remember that apt i told you we got into last week cause the gate was locked? So he wasn't home last week so we went back and we went up to the gate and turned the knob...and it opened! Haha we both looked at each other and were like were you praying? Me too! haha it was so cool...when we left I turned around to just see and it was locked. Isn't that cool?!

Last night we went to help at a fireside in an english stake...it was weird to be around so many white people haha it is definately a different culture. I know I haven't been here that long but last night I was wishing we were with our spanish stake. I don't know everything about their culture but I feel connected to it haha and I love and admire how loving and accepting they are. They hug you and welcome you right when they see you. And they are all so very understanding about learning spanish. Hma Prince is a great companion! She is helping me a lot. Her spanish is super good and she has a lot of respect with our members and people we meet because of it. I love being her compaion because she makes missionary work fun, she really enjoys being with people and uses her personality in everything we do. I am learning a lot from her. She also is soo patient. I am still kind of struggling remembering everything...haha but she doesn't get annoyed repeating everything.

Love you guys sooo much! thank you for praying for me and for all yoru support! Love you

Hermana Mulliner

Pictures!

Here are some pics Shalee emailed home from her first area in California!!

New Address!

Shalee's New Mission Address is:

Hermana Shalee Jo Mulliner
2535 N. Buena Vista
Burbank, California 91504

She would love to get some mail!