Hard work pays off… 3/17/14

My awesome Sister Missionary tan lines. 

A cute little turtle we found on a driveway.

Hi friends and family!

Well to start off, hard work always pays off. This week was long, and hard.. and really tested our faith! But we saw some amazing outcomes by sunday because of our hard work. Saturday was the longest day of my life and we tracted alllllllllll day. We did stop by our one investigators house for a quick ten minutes to make sure she was coming to church.. but other than that we did a lot of biking and tracting. My poor companion almost broke down, but i had to tell her she coudln't because then i would. But Sunday was a miracle day. We had four investigators come to church.. four!! Two of them are Marie and Malia, they are 10 nd 9 years old. They are on date to be baptized April 19th! Their mom is a less active in our ward and we found them through tracting.. I'll just start at the beginning. We had just biked to a nearby neighborhood and were locking our bikes up to a tree (yes i know we're nerds) and we heard this "Sisters! are you in this area?" and we went over to talk to the woman. Finds out her name is Leona Simon and she has been less active for quite sometime! She was raised in Somoa, but went to school in Hawaii, her records are still in hawaii. She served a mission in Australia too! Her husband and daughters arent' baptized so we are now teaching her daughters. We invited them to church, but sunday morning we got a text from Leona saying they had guests at their house and weren't going to be able to make it. We were really disappointed and said just try to make it to at least sacrament. Well we didnt' see them for the first little bit, but when we turned around during the opening hymn we saw them sitting in the back and the girls were waving and smiling like mad to us! we were so happy to see them:) 

The next investigator at church is Alice. We tracted into Alice and her son about two weeks ago. Alice is a black women who is 64, legally blind and is in a wheel chair. She looked so pretty when we went to pick her up! We asked her to have some questions in her head when she came to church and promised her that they would be answered if she listened and searched for the answers. She was pretty quiet during most of church, and during the sacrament i tried to explain it to her and she looked at me and said "There you go again trying to tell me about baptism. nah, don't you look at me in that tone of voice!" and just smiled big and cackled. She kinds scares me to be honest but i just smile back and try to laugh! I'm pretty sure she's teasing me. so this whole time i'm worried about what she is thinking about church. At the end we asked her what she thought, and she said she would love to come back and everyone was so nice and she even had her questions answered! Phew! i was so relieved to hear that! SHe said she would talk to us at our next appt more about what she thought and learned. So i'm excited to find out.

ANd our last investigator is Laurann... She's our crackhead and drug dealer .. we're pretty sure. SHe lives in this old shack that we also tracted into. Side note.. we're pretty sure we saw a drug deal happen the other day when we were outside talking to her.. but anyway. She showed up at church and really surprised us! She's our thug we're gonna baptize;) Haha in R.S. she leaned over to us and said "Dis is the first time i've been in a room full women and they aren't tryin to cut each other or rip each other's throats out! Ya'll are nice, I'm comin back fo real!" haha she cracks us up every line she says. Love it. 

So those are our top investigators. Miracles do happen! it just takes alot of hard work. 

We also had zone conference this week. Elder Kopishke came and spoke to us. It felt like a long efy conference. So spiritually fed and exhausted, but really good! I took alot of good notes from that and could go on all day on that, but i'm running out of time. 

Love ya'll and miss ya! 

Love, SIster Hulme

Youth Firesides 3/10/14

Hello Family and Friends!
> This week has been another week, but it ended with a bang! This last weekend was incredible! On saturday we had Elder Quentin l.Cook , Elder Parker and Elder piper of the Seventy come and speak to us.It felt like yesterday we were just listening to Elder Oaks, and that was 5 months ago!  To be honest, as a mission we were so excited but a little nervous that we were going to recieve a throwdown, but it turned out to be exactly what we needed to hear as individual missionaries. They all spoke on the power of agency and having more faith in this work, in the people. AFter Elder Parker spoke, i felt like singing hallelujah! Ha He knew how to preach from the pulpit. But Elder Cook's talk was amazing of course. Everyone felt like it was meant just for them, and I felt like it was just for me!! He explained to us that we have to remember that our investigators and the people here have their agency. But we have our faith.Our faith can be so powerful, and when we have faith in the Lord and these people, miracles occur. At the end of his talk, he bore such a sincere testimony that brought such a strong spirit. I remember his words exactly saying "I've heard the Savior's voice, and i know He lives!" Of course we all know that the apostles and prophets are literal witnesses of CHrist, but to actually hear it in testimony is something else! He then stated that he knows and feels that many of us are dealing with trials at home (death, conflicts, divorce, parents, siblings, family..) but gave us words of comfort and assured us that we are blessing them with our service. Our families now and families in the future will be greatly blessed eternally because of us. Our father is aware of us and loves us sooo much. This struck me so much and i was in need of hearing that! The Lord is indeed aware of me and i know He loves me. I see little miracles from Him everyday and I am so grateful to know Him and feel His love for me!
> Sunday was another stake conference. We were expecting to hear from Elder Clayton but he had family matters. So elder piper spoke to us, along with our stake president, mission president and his wife, and they also had some youth from the stake get up and bear their testimonies. Of course, it was very focused on missionary work. Sometimes i worry that the members are getting tired of hearing about it, but everything revolves around missionary work. President Wolfert spoke on how missionaries can help the members more, because really everyone gets the idea that we need to work together, but some dont know exactly what to do. so the ideas he gave we really great. Our ward mission leader actually gave us a list of 101 ways to do member missionary work, and it has some great ideas. Alot on differnt topics, such as book of mormon, Church meetings, Family history work, etc. I've been impressed this week too from the members in our ward. I'm seeing new people step up and rise to the calling. This is what we need. When we first got to the area, i knew they had trouble with missionary work, but i didn't think it was that bad. But we've found that they want EVERYONE involved, Not just the usual people, they need the whole ward. So we're focusing on families that can be more involved and what they can do better. I know alot are scared, nervous, and just don't know how to go about it, so we'r trying to help them. yesterday actually we were at dinner and the wife just said, you know i have some neighbors who i have felt prompted to talk to but i dont' know how to. So we jumped up and said, We got 5 minutes, lets go say hi! she looked shocked but did so anyways and it turned out great! so i think they just need the little boost and help.
> So We started this thing called missionary night at the Torrez's.. Every other sunday now we are doing firesides with the youth at the Torrez's home, a family's home in our ward. They are so fun and awesome! We only had a handful of youth but we did have one bring a nonmember friend and we were really impressed with that. Our lesson for the night was focused on the Atonement of CHrist. We did an activity that i'm sure many of you have heard of.. We asked for a volunteer who was well built and really tough. A boy named Nathan stepped up and was our volunteer. We had a plate of cookies, and went to the first person and asked if they wanted a cookie, they said yes, so we told nathan to do 20 pushups because she wanted a cookie. We did this for every person in the room, and nathan had to to 20 pushups for each person whether they excepted the cookie or not. By the 6th person, he was shaking and really struggling. He was definitely feeling tried. And by the 10th person i wish i could have stopped him and do it for him! Many people had volunteered to do their own pushups but we said, nathan volunteered and only he can do them. He was exhausted and was pushing through every pushup with all his might. By the 13th person, the mom actually asked that he stop and not do anymore, she thought it was cruel! But we said he had to keep going, not everyone was offered a cookie yet. I was so pleased and impressed with Nathan's determination and effort! And by the last person.. number 16.. he did the last pushup with triumph! He was dead, and exhausted to the core! Many people thanked him for doing that for them and for being so wiling. My heart just reached out to him and i was grateful also for what he did. I then shared the scripture from Alma 7:11-13 about Christ's atonement for us. after witnessing Nathan's suffering for each of us, I pictured what it was like for our Savior. of course it was nothing compared to that, but it became so much more real to me! I thought of how we were also watching the savior as he suffered for us, after every pain and affliction we each thanked him, just as they thanked nathan. We must never forget what Christ did for us, Every time we feel so blessed from God, we need to remember the best gift from Him, the atonement of 'our Savior. some of us may reject it and not accept the gift, but we must show that we love our savior and accept this wonderful gift. And we can do this through God's loving commandments, and by following the Saviors example for us. He has shown us the way and we need to take those steps with faith. In the end , we will be eternally grateful. I know we will! My testimony has grown tremendously this past week on the atonement. I know it is real, and I know the book of Mormon testifies of His atonement. I'm grateful to read it everyday, and feel the Holy Ghost testify to me.
> I love y'all very much and and grateful for your prayers!
> Love, Sister Hulme

We made it through another week in Collins Hill 3/3/14

Hello Family and friends!

Don't worry, sister dunn and I are still alive. A little sore from biking but we're stronger and it's building character! I have to keep telling myself that as i slowly pedal up these big hills here:) My companion and I had a little thought one day, imagine Christ riding a bike.. riding a bike!!! sometimes i wish I could call president and say "go put your wife in a skirt then on a bike, then have her ride up the hill, does that look christlike to you?" It's a good thing i have a strooonggg testimony that motivates me and keeps me going everyday. Honestly i don't care what i look like anymore, we just have a good ol' time:) Haha so one day we were biking out of our apartment up a hill,and we saw that the elders were just leaving their apartment too. So sister dunn and i were like :book it! they cant see us, this is kinda embarrassing biking up a hill, in a skirt, with the cutest helmet!" so we werer trying to hurry and thought we made it, but right when we start to bike up another hill, slowly, and i just said "oh i love my job.." , we hear this " heeelllllooo sisters!!" and the elders DRIVE up next to us and just smile and wave. Those punks!! if i wasnt' a missionary... nevermind. But sister dunn stopped and said, "sis! lets blow up their car and see how they like it!" haha, oh ya i forgot to mention!!!! We got home friday afternon from our service at the nursing home and there were police cars everywhere and firetrucks, out in the front there was a big gang and we thought it was a drug bust for sure! but nope! even better, right across from our apartment there was a car that got BOMBED!!  in broad daylight!!! we don't live in the holland park apartments, we live in the holland hood! but dont' worry, we just invested in some pepper spray and a tazer. and even better, we have God's army surrounding us:) 

We've witnessed some awesome miracles though, i'm pretty sure because we are diligent and are biking sisters. One day we were locking our bikes up to a tree, and at the house next to us a woman shouted at us "sisters! are you in this area?" we knew it was a member, sure enough it was! her name is Leonna Simons and she is from hawaii, has three little girls. She has lived here for a month and hasn't been to church in awhile. her daughters aren't baptized and Leonna actually served a mission in Australia. Well we've visited her twice now and she is now letting us teach her daughters! so keep your fingers crossed and them in your prayers that they'll be baptized! you know there are some families that you just have a connection with adn know you knew them in the pre-earth life, and i feel that with her family. They are so cute and i'm excited to teach them. 

Other miracles this week is that each night when we've had team ups for our lessons, our appt bails, and we've had to find other people to teach for that night. but it's awesome because things work out and we end up finding a new investigator and a lesson, and i'm pretty sure its because we have a team-up! The lord works in mysterious ways, wherever we go, even if the lesson fails, we are there for a reason. 

So the ward has really been stepping up in missionary work.

They called some new ward missionaries, three of which are sisters, one a youth, so that will be very helpful. To be honest, I feel like the work and the ward is better here than my last area. People seem to be more involved, but its because we are asking them to be. I've really learned in just the short time that I've been here that you have to have courage and be bold. Sometimes i look back on my last area, and i have regrets on what i could have done better. But who doesn't have regrets? And really i didn't know much better when i was there. I studied Jacob 5 this last week and i loved vs. 47. Even the Lord questioned why there was bad fruit and no good fruit, and He asks "What could i have done more in my vineyard? Have i slackened my hand, that I have not nourished it?", and he explains that he was very grieved. But later in the chapter in vs. 61-64 He says that this is the last time that they will go down and labor in the vineyards, the end draweth nigh, so they must labor diligently and with their might. I thought of how I wish I would have worked harder in Sandy plains, but i still have alot of my mission left. I need to focus on my area i'm in now. I need to think of it as the last time in His vineyard, the end draweth nigh, so I will labor diligently and with all my might. I'm not saying that there was no good fruit from my labors in Sandy Plains, I know there was good fruit. There was much good fruit! But i'm always learning how to be a better missionary and I want to apply it to my work. I'm excited for the work here, I'm really growing to love the area more and more! I have feeling that i'm going to love this area the most so far. 

This week we're expecting another visit from a general authority, or some general authorities. Elder Quintin L. cook, Elder L. Whitney Clayton, And Elder Erich W. Kopischke are coming to talk to our mission and Georgia Atlanta mission, so that's exciting! we've really been treated here to hear from general's so often. We are also having another stake conference, even though we had one at the end of january. I dont know if its because something big is happening or just because they will be in the area so they decided to have another one. Either way, its a blessing and we're lucky to have them come. 

That's all the big news from this past week. It's been crazy but good. 

Thanks for the love and support, Love ya'll!!

Sister Hulme

The car that was bombed.

Collins Hill 2/24/14

Hello Friends and fam!

So I yes i was transfered to a new area, Collins Hill! It's in the Lilburn stake, and we are in Lawrenceville and some of Suwanne GA. So far its been crazy, but good. My companion is SIster Dunn, she's from Logan Ut, so just over the hill! actually mountain compared to here. SHe's a blast ans a fireball! She's been out for 10 months and knows how to work. We are here to baptize nations, I love it!! SHe was the sister training leader in my last zone, thats a sister zone leader. I guess President wolfert had told her that Collins hill is a great ward but needs some building up. THe ward needs to be more involved in missionary work and he needs us to do the work!  THere are three sets of missionaries in our ward, one set of elders and two sets of sisters. Crazy i know! ANd we are the only set on bikes... let me tell ya how much we love it! FIrst of all, president what are you thinking?! Apparently he said we are the "Guinea pigs" in trying out the first set of sisters on bikes only. He thought we were the tough ones to do the job, idon't know what he saw in me but hey i'll take it as a compliment! Oh and did i mention that we are whitewashing?? That means that we are both new to the area, so we have everything new, a teaching pool, area book, everything, we are starting out fresh! And it's pretty hard and stressful, but its alot of work and i'll take it! So much better than i had before. Im not scared of hard work, but it is hard work! ANd to add to it all, we inherited an elders apartment and it was a disaster when we got there. Its old and nasty, and its in the heart of the ghetto!! We had to spend a whole day cleaning it from top to bottom, we pretty much drenched it in bleached. THe members have been very helpful and have come to clean the carpets and give us stuff. We can say though that the spirit can now dwell in the apartment and it's starting to feel like a decent place to live in. Oh man is it in the ghetto though! THe other night we were in bed for like 20minutes, and there was a loud pounding on the door and i saw some lights flashing around through the windows. Scared the living tar out of me!! I asked my companion if we could say a prayer, i was shaking to death, ha bless her heart she was dead tired and didn't care but she put up with me. I did feel so much better after we said a prayer, but it took me awhile to fall back asleep. We are soo in the ghetto. We tracted some of the apartments that we live in the other night also and I realized and told my comp that we are the only white girls in the complex! SHe was like, you're so right! What was president thinking?! One thing i love about my companion is she is sooo obedient and she adores the Wolferts, the mission president. I love hearing her talk them up, instead of my last companion talk down about them.

Oh man i'm just rambling. So about the ward. We've already had a few of the women come on teamups with us and thats good. But in R.S. yesterday we asked the R.S. president if we could take a few minutes in the beginning to introduce ourselves and mention that we need teamups and help from the members. Well, her response wasn't so friendly, she glaringly  said back, we have a very short amount of time so; i hope it doens't take long. Ouch! well we did our part and then it kind of turned into a mad house. THis ward has a lot of drama! Some mentioned that they want to come and have signed up for team-ups but have never heard a reply back from the missionaries  or are too busy whenever they need them. WE tried to clear things up and said that they need not worry, we will use them as teamups but they must be willing to sacrifice time and effort when the Lord needs them. Hopefully that did some good. We had correlation after church and it took forever, we discussed and split up the ward among us missionaries. We have an awesome ward mission leader. That calling takes alot of work! I admire and respect those who have the calling, if they fulfill their duties well. Alot depends on the ward mission leader. WE met with him the first day we got here and we talked about some good things and what needs to be done here. We haven't met with the bishop yet. Alittle disappointing, we've tried to arrange it, but he has stuff come up. He plans on having us over for dinner though soon, well he informed us, but we want to talk about work, not food:) ha 

We've been doing a lot of tracting.. alot! We already have some investigators though. A man named Jovita and an old sweet woman named Doung thi tha... we call her ta. she's from vietnam and speaks very little english. Ya, we'll see how this goes, but it'll be fun! Not much else to talk about. The weather has been so nice and beautiful, No jacket or tights kind of weather, love it! I'm considering it a blessing since we're biking. 

Continue to prayer for me and sister dunn! THanks for all your prayers nad your words of encouragement! THey were much needed last transfer. We need the people's hearts to be softened here in Collins hill, especially the ward. so keep that in mind. 

Love ya'll!! 

Love, SIster Hulme

A cake some members made for us at dinner.

A friendly toad on the road while tracting.  :)

Transfers! 2/17/14

Hey family and friends!

So i had very little time on pday to email and didn't have time to write an email to everyone, so I have a quick few minutes tonight! We got our transfer calls yesterday..... I'm going to Collins Hill, in Lilburn area, and my companion is SIster Dunn. She is from Logan and she is awesome and i love her!! We actually are going to be the first biking only sisters in our new area for hte whole mission! Yes, we will have no car and will be biking the whole time:) THis is real mission business. I'm soooo stoked and excited! Apparently President Wolfert told Sister DUnn (she was an Sister Training Leader before) that he thinks we're the toughest girls to try this out. WEll that's a compliment! and i hear that the ward is amazing with missionary work! I'm so excited! Also we are white washing our area. that means that we are both new to hte area and are starting fresh, so a lot of work! 

Well that's all that i have time for! Please send all mail to the mission office, not my apartment address here:) thanks! Love ya'll!

Love, SIster Hulme

Just another week in Paradise!! :) 2/10/14

Well we've all recovered from the serious snow apocalypse. Except we're receiving more warnings today about part 2 that's coming tonight. And everyone is frantically preparing for it. We are preparing by getting some more smore supplies and firewood:) But really i think people are going to be more cautious and aware this time. When they see a flake of snow they are going to bust it home so they aren't jammed or stuck in traffic. Snow is a different story here. I'm grateful for the good equipment we have at home and the conditions! Looks like home got pounded with snow!! from the pics it looked beautiful:)

This week we've been really working hard! And it's been a blast! We met with one of our investigators named Arnold. He's an old man in his 70's and he is the biggest red neck! He is always sitting outside next to his big yurt tent and fixing something or chopping wood. We tracted into him once while he was outside. Well this time when we stopped to visit him he was wearing his cut out hunting shirt, his hunting military hat that says booger on it, and khaki shorts, with his wool socks with the browning hunting sign on them, and some old croc shoes. Just the sight of him makes me smile. I noticed a cool rabbit skin hanging on his fence. He explained that he woke up randomly at 4:30 that morning and took a step outside and spotted the rabbit in his yard. And of course that bunny was a gonner in two seconds with a pellet rifle. He skinned it and was cookin the meat at that moment. I love this guy!! WEll we got to talkin and asked if he would come to church this sunday. He explained that he hadn't planned it into his schedule for this week so probably not, but he was gonna surprise us and show up someday. We asked him what his plans were instead for sunday, and he said nothing. He does nothing everyday. Some people these days, we're gonna have to change that. He is reading the pamphlets we give him though! 

Well that's the only big thing from this week. My comp and i are doing so great. She's so fun and we do a lot of fun stuff together lately. We're just spontaneous and crazy some days while tracting and we make some good memories. I really don't want transfers next week to come. Im praying that we'll both stay in sandy plains for another transfer. Things are just getting good! 

Well i hope y'all are just enjoying life and all is well. I have heard so much good news and it makes me so happy! The Lord is watching over us and has blessed us so much in our lives. Just remember to always thank him and put him first! 

Love y'all and happy valentines day!

Such a Crazy Week! 2/3/14

I don't know exactly where to begin! And this is going to have to be kinda quick and to the point because we have to get going to the church soon, our zone is having zone olympics and we have to be to the opening torch ceremonies on time, or we are disqualified, ya it's intense!!

So we had our district meeting and interviews with our president on Tuesday, but at 11:30 our president told us to go home asap because a bad snow storm was coming and here in Georgia, they don't know how to handle snow! So what do we do? we drive all the way to walmart to get smore supplies, and then head home! Oh my goodness, i'm glad he told us to go home at that time, it was coming down. and because of the humidity it automatically freezes. They of course don't have the equipment, or the tires for this weather either. As soon as we got home we searched and came up with an idea for a snowsled. We grabbed some tape and some cardboard and went to work. When we went outside people got the biggest kick out of our idea! They thought it was genius, others thought we were crazy and said to get inside, its dangerous to be outside. Please people, we're from idaho, its better for us to be outside! We were loving the snow! and I could tell that it made sister Sorenson's day so that made me happy also. Well our sled didn't last long so we went back inside and started up a blazing fire. We whipped out the smores and hot chocolate and played some uno.. SIster sorenson killed me. It was funny because all the members in our ward were texting us, seeing if we were ok and were safe and warm. Bless their hearts, but we replied that we were more than ok, we were in heaven! They thought we were crazy. We pulled out our mattresses again into the living room and had a slept out. SIster sorenson was just loving every second. It was good to have a little stress reliever for her, and i'm glad that she was happy. On Wednesday we still couldn't drive because every road was covered and jammed packed with people's vehicles, they just parked them or slid off the road and had to walk home! We heard so many crazy stories. The roads were really icy and they just don't know how to drive in it at all. And living at the top of a big hill didn't really help at all. It did for sledding though! We couldn't believe all the cars jammed on the roads. It looked like the end of the world and everyone was walking on foot. We Got out on Wednesday, just walking around. We packed food and water to give to people in need. Some were stuck in their cars over night and needed help walking home. We helped a family walk to their home and had to carry their groceries for about a mile. THe dad was wearing sandals! They were troopers though. It cracked me up because the thing everyone walked miles to the store for.. .was beer. We talked to a guy for a mile and he was carrying a 18 pack of beer the whole way to his friends house. He was kinda crazy but nice. 

Our investigators are doing good though, they all survived the storm ok. But sadly, Lisa txted us this morning and she is going through some rough family issues and said she'll have to hold off for a while. It broke our hearts, but the Lord is preparing her. We are stil really hopeful in Lady and the Goncalez family, oh and magdeline, the lady from Kenya. It was hard to get out this week and see them but we met plenty of other people! Oh i almost forgot, we had exchanges this weekend. I went to Woodstock and i got to meet brother henderson again. He is an old man who is a recent convert and is such a cutie! He was writing some songs on a guitar and he played them for us. But he baptized one of the sisters investigators this saturday. Makes me so happy to hear that he's using his priesthood!! 

Well thanks y'all for everything! i hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Hulme

Building my "sled" out of cardboard and packing tape.

Sister Sorenson and I

Ready to do some serious sledding.

I built a legit fire on which to roast s'mores.