A better week… 1/27/14

First of all i want to thank y'all for your prayers and the support! I have felt them and can see them working! This week has been so much better and i'm trying to have a better perspective on everything. We actually had two amazing miracles this week. We've been needing some new investigators lately, some more people to work with. So what do we do, we tract and go on a less-active hunt. Usually we hate tracting because people slam doors in our faces or they're not home. But tracting was actually good this week. The time seemed to fly by and my companion and I would use the time to get to know each other more. On saturday, our big miracle day, we were tracting in a neighborhood next to our apartments, we had 15 minutes left and we hadn't had a decent or strong contact yet, so we were anticipating one. We knocked on the last door and a man named Marcos answered the door. He invited us in, miracle! and we sat down with his family, (his wife Ariana, and two little kids). We found out that they were from Brazil and his brother who is still in Brazil is a mormon. So they've heard a little about our church but not much. They were very interested and asked us right off the bat what our conversion story is. Never had that one before! After we shared our story Marcos shared his and so did his wife. I like them already! They explained that they are wanting to be more involved with their faith, not just going to church and such. We said, well that's why we're here! They seemed very interested and said we are more than welcome to come back and discuss more. Miracle!!!! 

After that we went and visited a less active in our ward named Evril Poche, a young woman from Kenya! She was so nice and explained that she is a nurse and works alot, when she has time she likes to go to the singles ward. Well that was a relief so she is still kinda active. But she has a friend living with her named Magdeline who is also from Kenya. She asked us. "what do you believe, what is the process for me to become a mormon?" Another Miracle!! Well that's a very good question and may take some time to answer!! We simply stated that we believed in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, meaning that we now have the same primitive church that Christ had organized when he was upon the earth. She became interested also, and explained that she has been at least in three other religions and she will gladly look into more. She sees that the mormons are good people and she wants to be like us. We asked for her contact information and if she would like us to come and do lessons with her. She was all in and is excited! so are we!!!! They offered to make us some kenyan food so im looking forward to that!

We had stake conference this weekend. It was AMAZING!!  The presidency shared their conversions stories which were so spiritual and inspiring. Then President nickels spoke and he is hilarious! But he pretty much did a throw down. The whole conference was about missionary work and how we can get involved. He asked that they pray specifically for our investigators and the missionaries in their wards by name. We had a member afterwards txt us and say he wants to commit to praying for us and our investigators, but bless his heart, he said i need to know who you are first and who your investigators are. What is this?! He's awesome:) members here are totally stepping up and trying to do their part! i love it. 

We went to Dexter's funeral on thursday. Im gonna miss that old man. We didn't see maxine there sadly. But every family member came up to us and thanked us for visiting and singing to him. The funeral was over in Kennesaw and we saw Kennesaw mountain which is a landmark for one of the civil war battles. WE are going to get permission to go over and see it. On our way home we were driving and i looked around and realized that we were driving right through marietta square!! It is so fun and cute! There is a gone with the wind museum and a bunch of antique shops! We gonna see if we can go there on a pday too. It's like 8 minutes away from us! We did stop for like 5 seconds to take quick pics. I know the other sisters are going to be jealous, they wanted to go there so bad. 

Well i hope everyone has as wonderful week! Jack happy birthday!!!! can't believe that kid is 5. And happy birthday to Kade, hope he has a good one this week. 

Love y'all and take care!!! 

Love, Sister Hulme

Sister Sorenson and I

Marietta Square

Frustrated… 1/20/14

Well i don't quite know where to start. This week has been probably the most challenging so far on my mission. I hate to say that because there will probably be more like it.

Yesterday a sister in our ward informed us that Dexter had passed away, an old man (nonmember) we have been visiting, and he and Maxine were in a bad car wreck. Maxine is a less active and she came to church for the first time two weeks ago. We adored them and will miss dexter so much. Maxine is living with her daughter right now until she gets better. I hope to see her soon, we miss her so much! We wanted to be able to teach Dexter, but he couldn't rememeber or comprehend things enough. But now he has the chance to hear the gospel and be taught! It's a comfort to know about the plan of salvation and the blessings it has.

We haven't seen our top investigators all week, Dorian, and Lisa Rodriguez and her family. Dorian has been super busy with work and school, but we were able to visit with her sunday afternoon. We left a bit discouraged and disappointed. She informed us that she doesn't have time to take discussions or come to church, and she wasn't interested in being baptized any more. My heart sunk and i just wanted to tell her that this should be her top priority! But something just told me that she is not ready or prepared. We are still going to stay friends with her and say hello from time to time, she was okay with that. But it was really hard to have her drop us. I hope she'll come back someday.  

Lisa and her family have been busy also. She had texted us and said they were going through a lot and had to settle things down before meeting us again. I really hope they are ok. She is still interested though and we are keeping our hopes up! We plan on visiting them the end of this week. It's been so long since we last saw them, so i'm looking forward to this weekend. Keep them in your prayers!

We have been doing a lot of tracting and less active hunting. We're pretty much starting fresh and getting a clean slate, but we still have some investigators we're holding onto. It takes a lot of hard work though.

But on a good note, I finally biked!! we just stayed around our apartments because it was my first time. We live on the top of  hill though and it was as beast! I enjoyed it though and we'll probably bike more. Time seemed to go by faster, and it was a good workout!! so biking is a plus!! 

Thank you everyone for all you do. I hope all is well! Love y'all!!

Love, Sister Hulme 

Transfers! 1/13/14

Well this week we had transfers. It was so hard to leave sister Debry and SIster Anderson. I am staying SAndy Plains, which im so grateful for! THis place is truly zion. But it is very weird being in just a two companionship. I thought it would be quiet, but actualy my new companion Sister Sorenson is not quiet at all.  She is from Idaho Falls. Yay another idahoan! She has been out for about 11 months now. I was excited to hear that, thinking that Sandy Plains will have someone who is experienced and can really help me. It's been good.

   We finally met with Pam on Friday. It was soooo good to see her! She and her family have been gone for like 3 weeks. SHe has been reading though and has been taking notes. SHe's doing so well.We finally taught her the Plan of Salvation, which we had tried to teach her for weeks! WE also asked her to be baptized and she said she would think about it. It's hard here in the south because they don't understand why their baptisms aren't valid. WE try to explain that it's not bound in heaven without the priesthood power. She seemed to understand that but i don't really know what she was thinking exactly. Im just really bummed because she told us she would like to try and make it to church this last sunday, so we got a ride for her family and everything. THen last minute saturday night she ditched out and said she was leaving again to see her mom. we plan on seeing her tomorrow, and hopefully ask about her decision on baptism. The other bad thing is that she is moving closer to her mom around January 25. Pray that something will happen and she'll have to stay so we can help her!!! I informed her that there are missionaries everywhere and probably where her mom lives. She said she doesn't want other missionaries cause no one can replace us. That means a lot but still makes me sad. Hopefully things will continue to progress this week and she'll find an answer. 

Lisa and her family actually had a death on her husbands side so we haven't been able to meet with them all week. I'm excited to meet with them again because we are going to talk about the plan of salvation with her too. I think that will give them comfort and bring them hope. WE've committed them to baptism, just not a date. She's still having hard time coming to church. Her daughter who is 9 years old though informed us that she went to church with her grandparents, another church, and it just didn't' settle right with her. When she reads from the children's book of mormon she feels like it is right and she likes it. She's a 9 year old. And that testifies to me that the spirit is real, He testifies of the truth to everyone!

Our other investigator Dorian.. well i just don't know where to really start with her. SHe is still on date for february 8. We had planned a lesson with her this last saturday, but she wasn't home so we had to cancel that. We stopped by her home that night and she said she'd come to church. WEll she came to church but she was so tired and exhausted, and she made sure to show it. AFter church we saw her when driving home (she lives in our apartments) and stopped by, and we told her we'll see her at 2:30 for a lesson. She said ok, hopefully i'll still be awake by then, i'm so tired i want to take a nap! So we asked if we could come by later tonight if that was better, but she decided 2:30 was better. So we went by at 2:30, but she came out and said she still had chores to do and hadn't taken a nap yet. So she ditched out on our lesson. THen to top it all off she said she doesn't know if she can make it to church because she always has so much to do. That really upset me so i briefly told her that i know its hard to keep up with everything, but when we put the lord first , things will work out. She'll be grateful if she attends church. She just said ok.. so hopefully  we'll see her at church. I'm not letting her go that easy! I just felt really discouraged about dorian yesterday and i had a hard time staying positive. 

  We visited Sister Goobs, Narysa Roberts, last night though and she has been fellowshipping dorian. We explained everything about Dorian, but Narysa really brought me peace and said just what was needed. I tend to blame myself for a lot of things and get discouraged easy. BUt she reminded me that The Lord takes time with everyone. She just needs some time to figure things out. Narysa took months to convert and she said it was hard. BUt overtime she became spiritually mature and realized how important the gospel is. Hopefully Dorian will too. Poor girl just has a lot on her plate. SHe is being raised by her 25 year old sister and is pretty much deprived. She is just trying to stand on her own two feet and be responsible, but she doesn't really know how to go about it all. I want to help her and be there for her, but sometimes you have to do things on your own. I'll always be there for her and pray for her. 

  And last of all, we had some terrible news. THe old couple Maxine and dexter, whom we love to visit and sing for, were in a terrible car wreck saturday. Maxine came to church for the first time in years last week and was looking forwards to coming again. I believe Dexter was going to try and come with her this time. He is a non-member. They are in a trauma hospital in Atlanta.. i don't know if they'll make it. But it breaks my heart. They are the sweetest and funnest people to visit. Please pray for them! They say they are lonely at the hospital nd i wish we could go visit them. 

  Thank you everyone for your prayers and support. It always means so much to me. I hope the new year is going well! Until Next week, Take care, Love y'all!

One of my favorite pics in the whole world.  Gosh, I miss these sisters!

We had a good-bye party--that's sparkling cider.  :)

Happy New Year 2014 1/6/14

Well our new year has been great so far! we had a good new years eve, until some bums decided to scare us and light firecrackers on our doorstep at 10:00 at night. You've never seen sister Debry and I run so fast to the other room! I  jumped on top of the dryer and hid in the corner forever. I forgot what it was like to have that adreline rush! We knew who it was, two boys who are basically 30 years old and don't have lives, one actually served a mission. The elders texted us and forewarned us, that they heard from those boys that they had a bet who could kiss one of us in the next two weeks first. Well i'm glad they warned us, we are staying away from them for sure. We saw one of them in church on Sunday and that was weird, you could tell that he felt awkward and knew he messed up somewhere. I'm so glad that this didn't end up in Emergency transfers though. I didn't want them to ruin my stay in Sandy plains. But no worries we have the spirit of the Lord with us and we still act like missionaries.

  We just got our transfer calls and SIster Debry is going to roswell, sister anderson is going to lawrenceville, and i'm staying here! i'm soooo happy, I love sandy plains. My new companion is sister Sorenson. Don't know anything about her yet but i'm super excited. The only thing i'm not excited about is that i have to drive now. and me and cities, especially georgia roads, are not a good mix! we'll see how this goes. Thanks mom for the gps, that's going to help tremendously! Sister Debry is going to let me drive before  wednesday so i can get back into practice. I feel like it's driver's ed all over again! Pray that i can drive!

This week with our investigators has been really good. We have been meeting with Dorian and she is now on date for  the 8th of February!!! she is very excited and absolutely amazing!! haha every time i hug her she comes literally up to my waist, and she's 18. but she's a fireball and is doing so well. We also met with Lisa and her family. they are the family we tracted into and want a church to go to... well they want religion. She is really nervous about going to church but its her end goal. WE will get them there. WE had a lesson with them on the plan of salvation and she and her daughters responded so well! Her one daughter who is 9 said she went to church with her grandparents for the first time and it didn't' feel right. She likes to read from the childrens picture book of mormon. Lisa enjoys our scriptures of the day that we send out in a txt and she does her daily studies around that. She always has a few questions and she is progressing so well. If only we can get them to church. The dad, Jason, is still a little apprehensive about it all. He explained to us that He didn't go in God's house and God didn't go in his. BUt he sees how important this is to his family and he wants what is best for them. He has been sitting in our lessons and at the end of our last lesson he even volunteered to pray! and he prayed right!!! At the end of the lesson i asked each family member if they would follow christ's example and commit to baptism, everyone said yes, even Jason! He said he would take baby steps, but its was an answer and we are taking it! I studied this morning on how the gospel blesses families and i have such a testimony of it as i witness Jason and Lisa's family. THey are growing so close as they read and pray together and they are becoming happy. They feel the spirit in their home and the savior's love. Oh i just love that family!!!!

So we also have some other good news! Karina, who was our last baptism, is engaged to the man who baptized her, Grant Wagner!! They are getting married october 18, and sealed in the temple december 30!!!!!!!!!! And we will still be on our missions so we can go with her! It will be the best reunion for us all, i'm already looking forward to that date. So we are very excited. THey chose the soonest date possible to get sealed in the temple. If you are a convert then you have to wait a year before going to the temple. SHe has such a testimony of the gospel and she wrote us the sweetest card explaining that without our help she wouldn't be this happy. She has gained an entire family through the gospel, not only from the wagners but in the church. SHe feels all that love and support and is very blessed. I can't believe how far she has come! she is incredible:)

Well i hope y'all have a great new year! i have a challenge for y'all....i don't know if i've already committed ya but that's ok.Will y'all commit to bringing one soul unto Christ by next christmas this year?? And i promise that if you do this you will experience so much joy!!! doing the Lords work brings so much joy into your lives,(D&C18:15-18) but more importantly it will bring him and that soul joy. We can all start within the walls of our own homes. The Lord promises blessings when we do his work. Conitnue to be great and i love y'all so much! 

The Musick family.  They have taken us in and shown us so much love.  They are my favorite!

We just raked up a mess of leaves and it was cold! But the manual labor felt good.

Me, Sister Goobs, and Dorian

Sister Goobs 12/30/13

This is Sister Goobs, or Narysa roberts. She's the best! we love her! she has such a strong testimony.

Happy New Year 12/30/13

Hello Family and Friends!

Christmas in Georgia was wonderful! Thank you to everyone for the wonderful presents and goodies! I loved hearing from y'all and getting your fun cards. We had such a great christmas! We pulled out our beds into the living room and slept by our little 2 foot tree with  millions of presents underneath it. On tuesday night we watched the Nativity, and Mr. Kruger's Christmas.. because they were the only ones approved, and we had such a fun night. On Christmas morning we woke up super excited and wide awake, it was very easy to wake up at 6:30 then! we started by reading in luke 2, matthew 1, and 3nephi1. Then we said a prayer and then busted open our presents! I loved them all. We have so much sugar and treats though, we are so sick of them and we giving them out like crazy. But i did enjoy some of them:) We visited three families that day, we had a breakfast lunch and dinner appts. When we got home we realized what a mess we had left in our apartments. It took a couple of days to clean up. 

It was sooo good to talk to everyone too! Next time we have to plan Skype or the calls better because apparently i took too much time and my companions were a little annoyed by it. I felt bad, but i have a big family:) We were really worried that we would have a hard time jumping back into the work but the next day we were excited, and it just felt natural, familiar to be a real missionary again. We noticed that because of christmas we had slacked off a little bit on the work and the rules, but we also noticed that it just felt so good to be a normal real missionary again. We sort of missed it.

We had a baptism on Friday for Karina.  She is such a doll and i love her so much! We met her by a family named the Wagner's. she is dating their son and came to dinner that night we had dinner with them also. WHat a coincidence! She became interested in taking lessons and lo and behold she is now baptized! She has come so far and we have just been here to witness the spirit do it's work with her. She was absolutely glowing on Sunday after being confirmed. We're pretty positive that she and the Wagner's son will get married but not for another year. That means they can go to the temple! They are working on that and i'm so happy for them. Karina actually pulled us aside on Sunday after church and thanked us for all that we did for her, this gospel and church means everything to her now, and she is so happy and grateful to be a part of it. She had known about it for a while from her boyfriend, the wagner son, but she didn't know what she was missing out on. This work really does bring so much joy and i'm grateful to be so involved in it all. (D&C 18:15-18) 

On Sunday we had one of our investigators come to church, her name is Dorian. SHe is 18 years old and lives in the same apartments as us. We met her last pday when we came up to email. SHe wants to find a church, (church shopping) and she was interested in ours. We had a lesson with her on friday, and we had our friend Narysa (sister goobs) with us, she is a member of our ward. (i'm telling ya, us members have a huge role and are vital to this work!) We found out that she lives with her sister who is 25 and their mom committed suicide two years ago. SHe wants to find peace and happiness, and she knows that her mom is telling her to find a church or something to help. When she came to church, she grabbed all sorts of pamphlets, cards, and in sunday school she was writing down notes on her program with a bunch of scriptures on them. She then asked to look at my PREACH MY GOSPEL book and asked if she could get one. I told her she could but she would have a cheat sheet for all the lessons we would teach her. nah, its probably better for her to just have the book instead of listening to us! She is such an angel. We wish transfers weren't' next week so we could all be here for her baptism. i know she will be baptized, cause she is amazing! 

We had to teach the lesson though in Relief Society, on Hastening the Work. We talked about the roles as missionaries and as members. Member really have the biggest responsibility. If you think of it as pyramid.. Members are the foundation, next is home/visiting teaching, then comes us missionaries, and last is the investigator, less active, recent convert. The most influential and biggest priority is the members on the bottom. They have the biggest responsibility in inviting, befriending, serving, and sharing the gospel with others. Each step of the pyramid leads up to the top, (the investigator, less active, recent convert). The missionaries are there to assist the members in the work. I felt like we pretty much gave a throw down to the relief society and guilt tripped them. But they were so involved and really enjoyed it. At the end we gave everyone a mormon.org card and committed them to give it to some one within the next week, and we would followup with them next sunday. AFter church we got home and already had one sister call us saying she gave it out! We were very proud of her. We also encouraged that they have people or a friend come over when they have us over for dinner. We thought of making it so we couldn't come over at all unless someone was there, but we might lose some of our dinners and those are too important to us:) 

I have such a testimony though of missionary work. Not because i'm a missionary but because as a member this is our calling and we must share the gospel with God's children. We have been so blessed to have our testimonies and have the gospel. But we must not take this blessing for granted. It is a commandment for us to share it. The only way to keep it and strengthen this blessing is to share it. I want to continue sharing it after my mission. After giving that lesson I plan on being a better member and representative of Christ by doing what the Lord has commanded us after my mission. There are so many blessings and it brings so much joy! Alma 26 will tell ya a lot of those blessings. 

I hope everyone has as happy new year! And as a missionary i challenge y'all to bring one soul unto christ by next christmas! it starts in our homes but get out of your comfort zone and find someone! Love y'all! Happy new year of 2014!

Christmas Eve.  

Our beds in the living room.  We were so excited!

Christmas morning.  What a mess!

Waiting for the font to fill for Karina's baptism.

Beautiful Karina.  I love her so much.

My umbrella broke and wouldn't go down so i had to sit in the front seat the whole ride home with a big umbrella in front of me. The sisters couldn't stop laughing. I was ticked. It seems like i have to buy everything twice at walmart cause i either lose it or it breaks.

Merry Christmas!! 12/23/13

I am just loving this time of year! And I first want to say thanks to everyone for the letters and presents. I'm excited to see what's inside. We have so many presents under our little christmas tree it looks awesome. I also got some christmas cards from families, y'all look so good! We've really been enjoying this christmas so far. We've been doing so much caroling! it's so fun. SIster anderson has a beautiful voice and so does sister Debry. We do a fun trio and everyone loves it. We love it too. We actually sang Silent Night as a trio yesterday in sacrament, and we joined in the choir program. It was so fun and the spirit was so strong. It reminded me of the fun program they do at my home ward, of course it didn't compare to wonderful talents we have at home. It was so fun to be involved with the ward though. We had at least 5 of our investigators come to church yesterday and they really enjoyed it. We have been teaching a family, a mom named Lisa and her two daughters who we tracted into. They have been really looking for a church to go to because the daughters have never been to church. They call it church shopping here ha. But we gave them a church tour and they seemed to really like it and be positive about it all. That was 3 weeks ago and they haven't come to church yet. The mom has been out of town for business for a couple weeks and on Friday she had told us that she was sick. We called them and invited them to church for this sunday, telling them that it was our christmas program and they would really enjoy it. But we were so bummed that they didn't show up. The mom did tell us that she's nervous because she still doesn't know what to expect and she doesn't like being the center of attention. We told her that the ward members were very nice and welcoming and they would help her. She obviously is very nervous and scared to show up. We are going to work very hard with them though. They are so sweet and this is just what they need,  This is what everyone needs but they are ready. Yesterday we went to visit Maxine and dexter. Ha they are two oooolllllddd people who live together. She's a member but he isn't. Maxine sounds like the old lady car with the gruffy voice off of the movie cars, who sells the bumber stickers. Dexter is hilarious!!! He wouldn't stop talking about how he loves to see us young beautiful girls and the special feeling we bring into their home. i'm pretty sure he's cross-eyed and has bad vision though. I had a hard time understanding what he's talking about and following him, he would say " and that there right there yep and this that yep and god is here and that's what i feel and that's what im going to say and that's what i'm doing. yep!" haha he's such a crazy gomer. WE sang them a couple christmas songs, and after wards we looked at them, and he would just opening and closing his mouth and nothing would come out, like he was speechless, shaking his head like a dummy. Ha my favorite was at the end we shared a christmas poem with them and we asked him what he liked about the poem considering he acted so amazed by it. He could only say "well, honestly i dont really remember what it's about but i bet it was just great! you girls are so great! i just love having ya here and that there!...." ya you get the idea. haha. I hope to see them many times again. Maxine did say though that she wants to come back to church but she doesn't own a single dress or skirt. We told her it didn't matter. Then she said Dexter won't stop yapping his mouth away. But we said that doens't matter either, as long as you come. 

I'm so excited for this week and what it has instore. I love this time of year here and i'm so grateful that we get to celebrate not only our savior's birth but what he did for us, His entire life. May y'all have a very merry christmas and remember the gift that our  father and Savior so graciously gave us. Also remember the challenge from conference.. bring one soul unto christ this christmas.. yep we are! this friday we have a baptism with Karina. She is so excited and we are too. Have a great week! 

And im super stoked to talk to the fam!!!!! love y'all!

Love, Sister hulme