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.

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.  :)