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