Hello!!!

Family!!!!!! I am so excited for pdays just for email! Thanks for sending me letters and emailing me and letting me know whats going on! Please let anyone you talk to if they have written me know how much I truly appreciate it!!!! I wish I could write everyone back but there just isn't time and sometimes when I have a free second on pday I want to just sit haha. So let them know I am showing my appreciation by working harder instead of writing back haha :)

 

So this week was soo awesome! The Lord has blessed us and our area so much!! We set a baptismal date! His name is Aaron...and it is really fun for me because he is 9. His mom is a recent convert but didn't want him to be baptized until he decided he wanted to. It is the best to teach him! The first time we came over he hid from us haha and our lessons last about 15 minutes tops, but deep down he really likes us. I really love teaching kids because we can only plan really simple lessons, but I think they are just as powerful. He is a really cute kid and we end up teaching about 4 kids because his cousins are always over there and it is really a little tender mercy for me to just get to be with kids for a little bit.

 

We were teaching Ban the story of Nephi building the boat this week. Hermana Marquez was reading a verse and Ban just starts cracking up. We asked him what happened and he said he thought of a joke in his head...So we asked him what the joke was...he said "Why did Nephi build a ship?" ...."To get to the other side!!" Haha he thought that was soo funny!  But I thought it was really sweet that we were reading the scriptures and laughing, the scriptures are meant to be enjoyed! In between the lines they are full of jokes haha...

 

One really sweet experience this week was when we finished this lesson with an inactive family and the ten year old boy wanted to say the prayer and in the prayer he said, "please bless the hermanas that they can find more people to take to the celestial kingdom." Haha cute huh? I thought about that the whole rest of the day! That is totally what we are doing, I want to keep that perspective when we are talking to people.

 

Cool miracle of the week!!! On tuesday the people I was looking forward to see the most weren't home when we went! I was soooo sad. We said a prayer about what we should do instead because our backup plan didn't seem right. After the prayer I remembered where we were. We were around the corner from this old investigator who had moved and hna prince and I had gone to say goodbye to her the day this father of this new family was moving things in. We decided to try by them and the mom answered the door and said come in without us even saying anything haha. We looked at eachother like ok! We sat down on her couch and she looked at us almost in tears, she said it is a miracle you guys are here because I was just saying a prayer telling Heavenly Father I wanted to go back to church but I needed help. Aw man! That was such a testimony builder to me! Heavenly Father answers our prayers and I was so happy we said a prayer about where to go and followed the idea that came to our mind. Heavenly Father is in the details of every day and it is so amazing to be a part of it because it always turns out better than we could have planned!

 

Hermana Marquez and I are having tons of fun together! We are trying to only speak spanish all the time...sometimes we just have to stop and laugh because she is like what are you trying to say!! haha. Ok we are at a genealogy center and some elders are hovering waiting for a computer...so I think thats a hint they want a turn haha. Two zones of missionaries got together and played soccer this morning it was so fun!

 

Love,

Hermana Mulliner

Hola Utah!

Family, family, family,

 

This week was soo crazy! We got to know our area and the whole valley really well! I was having this pain in my back and I thought it was just from this workout we did but it wasnt going away for a few weeks so I had to go to the chiropracter. I had him write down what is was so I could tell you haha, my sacroiliac joint was out of alignment...or something!There is this guy here in the valley that is a member and sees missionaries for free and is so wise haha and nice. But we thought his office was in Burbank close to where we live but it was actually clear on the other side of the valley! So that first day we went we had our map out and drove on two different free ways...haha it was bad but we found it and I got to sit in a massage chair thing there so it was all worth it :)

 

The funniest/best thing we have been doing lately is we have been teaching an english class. It is supposed to be a finding tool, we wanted members to bring their friends and we hand out flyers when we knock on doors and stuff, but so far just members have come...I think it's still worth it just because it is soo hilarious!! Oh man, my favorite is this old couple. The Calderones...first of all they are the cutest ever, they are new to the ward and we are the first sister missionaries they have seen before and so Hermano calderon treats us like we were sherry dew or something haha he just is soo sweet to us. But his wife knows a lot more english than he does, so he gets kind of frustrated because she corrects him and she knows a lot of words. so they have little "discussions" in spanish during the class. I work with him one on one for a little bit and the first class we were practicing "brother" daughter sister, words from our families and it was soo cute and inspiring to see him keep trying. It totally motivated me in my spanish and made me so grateful to be learning spanish not the other way around. Also Hermano calderon is my favorite friend now because each week I get to work with him. It's hilarous because they can't say any word that starts with an "s" without adding an "e" like school is eschool or ski is eski. The "th" sound is also really hard for them, so it is soo hilarious but at the same time the cutest thing because they are all trying so hard! I honestly wish you could meet this ward I am serving in...they are soo great.

 

Yesterday we had such a cool experience!! We kind of had a rough morning, I was frustrated that this week our numbers were really low because of this chiropracter thing and we had to use a lot of our miles for the month getting there. and then in personal study I read in the bible and the chapter made no sense! I was like why does the bible have to be so confusing!  I wanted to feel good reading the scriptures and instead it was this abstract deep message I was not understanding. It was super hot in our apt. And we felt like we had been working so hard but right now our area does not have a lot happening. Haha we just kind of let all these frustrations out and felt like we wanted to sleep all day! But it was so cool because we had an hour left in the day and we had nothing left to do but knock. We prayed about this street we were thinking about and got out and it was not looking very spanish speaking ish, but we decided to walk around a little bit before we leave. so we walked through this apt complex and decided to knock on a door...she was a member in the english ward and gave us a referral to someone on the street over. We walked over to the next street and on the way we talked to these people sitting in the grass...they were so cute and we ended up teaching them a whole lesson, and they taught me the longest spanish word I've learned so far (parangutirimicuaro...ya i'm still working on it!) as we were finishing their 35 yr old son came over and started talking to us and it was like this little hand off, they went inside and and we started teaching him. Haha. He started telling us all these crazy things that were happening in his life and he said I don't know what it is but I am so glad I met you guys right now. So we ended up finding 3 new investigators by the end of the night and we didn't even get to make it to our referal! Isn't missionary work so cool?! 

 

I love you all sooo much!!!

 

Love,

Hermana Mulliner

Start of Transfer 3!

Well, well, well... 4 days with my new companion ... and....it is so great!  Her name is Hermana Marquez, she was born in Mexico but has lived in California most of her life. She has been out on her mission for a little over a year. She is a convert for about 3 years now, and the only member in her family. Wow, huh?! She is really awesome, and a super hard worker. I have already learned so much from her. As I was introducing her to everyone at church yesterday everyone told her to tell me she doesn't understand english and only speak spanish with me! Haha so I hope my spanish skills will improve a lot this transfer. So far we haven't spoken a ton of spanish because we actually had to get things done and things happen at about .01 miles an hour when I'm thinking in spanish! Haha but now we kind of know what we are doing together, this week we are going to speak a lot more spanish! It is very different, she is native so she speaks beautiful spanish, but she doesn't know the why behind anything. She just knows it from speaking it with her parents she never studied it in school or anything. So she knows how to say it right but she doesn't really know how to correct me or study with me. So I can learn from talking with her but she can't answer any of my questions...which will probably be good for me so I don't think about things so hard and just do it.

 

It was really funny the first day she was here because she doesn't know the area or the peopl at all...so it was totally up to me what we did. We didn't have any set appointments so I sat looking at our empty planners thinking...HERMANA PRINCE what do I do?!?!?! These past few days have been a really cool experience for me. I prayed harder than I ever have before because I needed to introduce her to this area and take the lead for the first few days. I felt a desire this week to be a missionary the Lord can trust to take care of an area and love the people like He would if he were here. (no pressurehaha). We have made a lot of U turns haha but I would remember a certain street, or feel like we should turn, and then we would be where we needed to be!  

My little miracle this week was the Urrutias. I visited them once briefly my very first week here. They are less active members and haven't come to church the whole time I've been here. But the first night Hna Marquez was here and our only set appointment fell through, she looked at me and said "Where are we going next?"  I kind of freaked out inside, and was racking my brain of every investigator, potential and member, but only their name came to my mind. I wasn't totally sure where they lived or couldn't remember their story exactly and they weren't the usual people we had been visiting. But they were the only people I could think of, which in the moment I was like come on think think why can't I think of anyone! And I was embarrased at first because I had been living here I should be able to think of someone to visit or something to do! But in that moment I couldn't think of anything, only the Urrutias came to mind. I think i learned something about the spirit. It usually just feels like one of my own ideas. I was freaking out because it didn't seem like what we normally did or didn't seem like a grand idea, when really the spirit was telling me what we actually needed to be doing at the moment. We found the house and they were outside, and we were able to talk to them and read with them and invite them to church. And ...they came to church yesterday!  :)

 

We knocked a whole entire street and were only able to talk to 3 people! One of the guys we talked to said, "You should tell people you are Jehovahs witnesses, then people will let you in!" So that's our new tactic. ...what do you guys think?

 

I love you all soooooooooo much!!! Being a missionary is soo cool...everyone should do it!

 

Love Hna Mulliner

Transfers...

Family!!! This is the reason I love pday, just for email! Thanks for sending me emails!

 

So President changed how we do transfers. We use to get a call from our district leader on Sat morning about who was being transfered where and who our new companions would be. Now...we get a call sat night but the only info we get is who is being transfered, we don't know where they are going or who the new companions will be. Then we wait until Thursday and every companionship in the whole mission meets and I don't know exactly haha but then you find out where you are going/who your new comp is! So Hermana Prince is being transfered :( I don't know who my new companion will be yet until Thursday morning! I am really nervous. Change just totally freaks me out!! Haha but at the same time I know transfers are inspired so I know it will all work out. To be totally honest this is the conversation going on in my head, "I am nervous that I don't know the area good enough, and I don't know who we are supposed to see when and how often, that we really only have one investigator right now, and people can't understand me! Haha but at the same time I'm not worried at all because its fun when adventures aren't perfect! There is a lot more to laugh at that way! haha. I will not be doing it alone, my new companion will know stuff too. And also I think when I feel a little inadequate I re-realize how much I need to rely on the Lord. Why is it so hard to stay humble?"  Yesterday at church an Hermana came to ask me something about the dinner calendar and she knew hna prince kind of was in charge of that so she was telling me that if we ever don't have dinner to call her and I just started crying! I told her thanks because I was nervous about hna prince leaving and she was so sweet she gave me a hug and told me if I need anything to call her and she wants to feed us and that it will be ok. Haha this little mission has been a trick! I thought I was coming to serve other people but I feel like other people are serving me all the time!

 

My favorite experience from this week was when we were knocking. This lady took a long time to answer the door and she was acting really weird. She wouldn't look us in the eye and seemed really sad and said she wasn't interested and she didn't want to pray with us. When we were about to knock on the next door we all (we had Giselle with us) felt like we should go back to that door. We stood there for a minute and talked it out haha, we all felt like that was weird and wished we could've shared more with her, but at the same time she said she wasn't interested so we didn't want to be annoying by knocking again. Since we all had felt the same way we decided to be annoying! She opened the door really fast, we all felt like maybe she was waiting for us to come back. But we told her we felt like we should knock again and talk to her.. We gave her a book of mormon and it was so cool to see, you could tell she felt the spirit because she started looking at us by the end.

 

Sometimes I am nervous to do things like that or to talk to people but Hna Prince told me why are you afraid to do that? That is why we are all on earth together, if Heavenly Father didn't want us to talk to each other or help each other we would all be on our own little Earth's!

 

Love you all soo much!! Have a good week!!

LOVE,

Hermana Mulliner

AHHH!!!

Hello family!!!! I wish I had time to read all of your emails before I write you because I am dying to know what happened this past week!!! And how you are all holding up and what parties you are up to with only a few days left for the little dal guy.....

 

So I will start by telling you my little miracle yesterday. I was praying really hard that I would be able to focus all day because I knew it was D's farewell and everyone would be getting together and I was a little sad to be missing all of that. Guess what happened?! ....I understood everything at church (and they were talking in spanish)!! Sometimes it is easy to get distracted and be thinking about other things once I start to not understand, but I was able to keep my mind focused the whole time because I understood what they were saying! Then we were running around like crazy yesterday because Ban got baptized.... our mission leader forgot to start filling the font, and we couldn't find a key to unlock the door to the library to show a little video etc (also ban's mom had us do the musical number at the baptism...ya I don't know what the deal is with all this musical stuff someone must be praying that I can overcome tone deafness...). It actually wasn't way hectic but I think I was just nervous for Ban all day. I wish I could express through email how amazing it was. It was such a tender mercy for me to have the baptism the day I knew my whole family would be getting together. So first of all tons of the ward came to support. There were over 70 people there. After Ban was baptized we were showing a video called Reflections of Christ and it is jsut a really powerful video. I was standing on the side of the room and I was just so happy because everything went smoothly and Ban was so happy. I was looking at everyone and just felt so much love. I was looking at the faces of all the people and I realized this room was full of my family here! Hna Prince and I got to bear our testimonies after the video ended when Ban came back out and it was such a powerful experience. I felt so strongly how we are all children of God, and Jesus Christ is the reason for everything in the gospel! It was such a blessing for me to get to teach Ban and it was so special to see how much it meant to his family for him to be able to get baptized. Hna prince and I were talking about it and both felt like the baptism yesterday made everything hard that we have done these 2 transfers worth it. Dal...I am sooo pumped for you to leave this week!

This week we had an awesome experience finding! We had spent days basically doing straight finding activities because we really wanted some new investigators and were really inspired by our training last week! But we had 0 new investigators still. We had no idea how that was possible when basically trying to find new investigators was all we were doing haha. We were trying to be really creative one day and took turns deciding on an activity to do. We looked into some service in the community, went knocking, looked up old investigators, were talking to members...everything! We had ten minutes before dinner and were going to look up this inactive teenage boy. We were unsure we even had time but decided we might as well because we were close. We found his apartment and the door was open with a guy sitting on the couch. We thought it was him so we said hello and this lady answered and asked if we spoke spanish, we said yes we were missionaries, and then she opened the door and told us to come in.  We thought it was his mom, come to find out he had moved a few months ago. This lady and her son who was the boy on the couch moved here from Guatemala and had spoke with some missionaries there (we aren't exactly sure if they were mormon missionaries lol). We prayed with them and set a return appointment. It was just very ironic that it was the last ten minutes we had and the place I was expecting it the least. Heavenly Father basically put them in our hands, all we said is we were missionaries and she opened her door to us!

 

Being a missionary is so cool! It really is! I love you guys and will be praying for you all so much this week!!! I am so excited to hear about this past week, please write me about this upcoming week too!

 

LOVE,

Hermana Mulliner!

Hermana Sha reporting in...

Family family family,

 

I am not going to lie, it is kind of hard sometimes to be all the way across the world in california(haha) when I know you are all getting together and doing family things as Dal gets ready to go and tate is home. So please write as often as you can. Any detail means a lot to me! I know you are all busy and things and I am too but it is such a boost to hear from you. And I wish I could be there for some of the stuff thats going on!

 

This week....where to start. This week I felt how much the Lord wants to bless us. The ant battle got really intense this past week...and we were definately losing. We lost a lot of food this week because of those little guys. One day we packed our peanut butter around with us all day so they coudln't find it haha. But we were running low on food and didn't have time to grocery shop again. But I was so humbled one day because every house we went to they offered to give us some food. We didn't mention to anyone that we were running low on food. It was so humbling because these people that were giving us the food had even less than us. We even got icecream. We came home and during our planning session we both felt like all day every where we went Heavenly Father was just giving us a little hug. We were totally taken care of, given more than we needed. At breakfast that morning we had talked about how watermelon always sounds good when it is so hot...and throughout the day someone randomly gave us a watermelon! I just felt how much heavenly father wants to bless us and wants us to have good things and how he will answer our prayers through other people. Even when we don't feel like we necesarily deserve it at the time. Heavenly Father loves us. I was so grateful for the example of the people we were with that day. Even this morning, we haven't gone grocery shopping yet today, so we were just going to make it through til then...but while we were doing our laundy we were studying outside the laundrymat and this old man came up and offered to buy us some donuts from the donut shop next door.

 

My favorite quote the past little while has been "God doesn't expect immediate perfection, but he does expect immediate progress." Isn't that comforting?! Life really isn't about our own abilities. But on trying to rely on the Lord and improve. I can just feel that so much with myself as a missionary and really strongly with the members and investigators we visit. God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He loves us so much. He notices the little efforts we make and that is enough.

 

I had an intimidating experience this past week. I was asked to give the training in our district meeting. But then our district leaders companion got sick so they couldn't make it, so the zone leaders came to our meeting. I was intimidated to do a training with my own district but then the zone leaders had to be there too. haha. But something I feel like keeps happening to me is the Lord makes me go outside my comfort zone. Then I am really humbled. But then I rely a lot more on the spirit and then everything turns out ok.

We had zone conference this week. (we won the cleanest car award haha). President Hall is really amazing. He did a training on finding more with the spirit. Instead of working hard hard hard, working hard with the spirit and in a more inspiried way so we are finding more people who are prepared. I am so inspired by this knowledge that Heavenly Father is preparing people. If we are doing what we are supposed to then our preparation will meet heavenly father's preperation and we will find people who are ready for the gospel! Missionary work is so cool! Dal I am so pumped for you!

 

Love you LOTS!!!! Miss you LOTS!!!!

 

Hermana Mulliner

Uh...

So did I mention that this week was hot?! After knocking one day we got in the car and it said it was 120 degrees! Haha I don't think it was actually that hot but it was really hot. It is kind of hard to work in the heat it drains my energy just existing haha but it makes us feel like we are doing really hard missionary work ALL the time because we are sweating even if we are just sitting. But, on the bright side, I discovered an elder who can eat a lot of food! So, now, "randomly" I am next to him at dinners.

 

I had a little celebration this week because....wait for it....wait for it....ok....I talked on the phone in spanish and I talked back in spanish all by myself (without the phone being on speaker so hna prince could clarify or tell me what to say back)!

 

Ban, our investigator that is 14 and is developmentally behind, is gettting baptized soon. We have the best lessons with him because he is so funny and so honest and has the sweetest heart. But we asked him about the word of wisdom to see what he already knew about that. He said he already knew what it was. So we asked him what kind of things we shouldn't put into our bodies....he thought for a minute an then said, oh ya, salt water. Haha so just a little reminder in case you forgot that part of the word of wisdom, no salt water :)

 

This week was so interesting and different. We ended up visiting three different people in hospitals. This one old couple that are recent converts is so cute! She has to be in a hospital bed in her house all the time now. But this old man is soo cute, he is so encouraging about me learning spanish. Every time we go there he has me say the prayer so I can practice and every week after the prayer he talks for a few minutes about how much I've learned. He really is so sweet. But we were rolling on the floor laughing this last visit because they were telling us funny stories about them learning english. He said he learned how to say the phrase "ham and eggs" at the very beginnning when he was learning english. Now when they go to any restaurant if he can't pronounce the thing he wants in english he says "just give me ham and eggs." haha for any meal at any restaurant he orders ham and eggs because thats what he can say!

We had such a cool experience with this other recent convert. She and her husband both ended up in the hospital a few weeks ago and they are not doing so well. We had been going by their house, calling their children trying to track themd own because no one knew what happened to to them. When we finally found out where they were we visited them and it was one of the saddest experiences. We went to the nursing home where they were and it was painful to be there because it was just so sad. I cried on the way home because I just couldn't believe that was their life right now. It was really hard. That first time we saw them, Susana and Fernando, Susana was sooooo grateful. She calls us angels and held our hands the whole time we were there. Fernando was not mentally doing so well and was moaning and crying the whole time we were there. All we could think to do to calm him down and bring them some peace was to sing. We sang them some hymns and had to go, and on the way out we had the thought to give them a book of mormon. we pulled one out of my backpack and she said thanks but she couldn't see without her glasses. we told her thats ok she can just hold it or look at the pictures in the front. When we came back the next day it was a miracle. She pulled out her book of mormon and there was a corner of a page where she had marked where she had stopped reading. She was able to read the book there without her glasses had read a lot in just one night. Physically she looked and seemed the same, not so good. But she was like glowing with hope. I just really felt the power of the book of mormon so strong, in about the saddest environment she could be in she was so optimistic!

 

I love you all so much!!! have a good week!!!!!

 

Hermana Mulliner!!!