The Next Mission Adventure

Hey all!!

So the big news for the week is that I'm a trainer now! President Morgan called me last Thursday and asked me to train one of the two new Spanish sisters and I about had a heart attack but said yes. Up until today I've basically just been a nervous wreck and was pretty convinced that I'm going to be the worst trainer on the whole planet and that my companion was going to hate me. Sister Alvarez kept telling me that I was crazy and that I was going to be a great trainer. I'm still not really sure about that but as soon as I met Sister Barker, I knew that we were going to have a great time together. She is so great. She's so ready to be here and to start working so I'm really excited to be with her. She is from South Jordan, UT. She's pretty terrified to be serving in the Bronx and she's convinced that she's going to get mugged. Which does make me laugh a little because that was the least of my worries when I got here. But I'm really excited to be working with her and hopefully I'll be able to do a good job training her. I'm just going to trust that the Lord will help me.

Having Sister Alvarez leave was hard because she's going home so I won't see her for at least a year. But luckily for me her family moved to Provo during her mission so we'll pretty much be able to be friends forever because I'm already planning on hanging out with her all the time when I go back to school. I'm really grateful to have had her as a companion. I learned so much in the short time that we served together.

We have a new investigator, Feliz, who is super awesome. He is friends with Tianabelle and he'd had read parts of the Book of Mormon before we even met. So he knows a lot about the church and we're really excited to work with him.

We're still working with a lot of less actives and it's slow going because a lot of them are hard to get a hold of. But it's been going good too.

Love you all lots!

Hermana Parkin

Hermana Parkin and Sister Alverez at M&M World.

I Learned the Hakka!

So sadly, Sister Alvarez and I still aren't working with a whole lot of investigators. At least not any that are progressing. But we have a few potentials that we are excited about and we're working with a TON of less actives. Which is actually probably better for this ward anyways. They really don't need a lot of new members. They just need the members they already have to come back to church. So we're keeping really busy and it's been really great work. This one less active couple is AMAZING. They have really strong testimonies and the husband was a bishop for 5 years. But there was a disagreement between him and the stake president like 7 years ago or something and he decided that he would take a break from church and come back when there was a new stake president. It's sad that disagreements like that push so many people away from the church. I really think we'll be able to help them come back to church. Some of the other less actives we're working with are a bit harder. There are a lot of people that have to work on Sundays so that's a huge obstacle to getting people to come back to church. But we're going to keep working hard to help them out.

It's already almost the end of another transfer! Sister Alvarez heads home next Wednesday, which I'm really sad about, and then I'll get a new companion. I also hit my 6 month mark this Friday. What the heck?!?!? How did 6 months already go by??

It is literally freezing out here. I've heard it's colder in Utah so I shouldn't complain. But I hate it! Why can't everywhere have weather like California where all you need to wear is a jacket. No gloves or hats or scarves required. I do manage to stay pretty warm though. I probably look crazy with the amount of clothing that I have on. But I don't care. The only part of me that I can never keep warm is my face. There's just no way to cover up your face. Unless you want to look like a robber or something and I don't think that's a really good combination when you're trying to do missionary work.

I pretty much can't think of anything else to tell you....OH! I learned how to do the Hakka the other day. One of our roommates, Sister Lotulelei is Tongan and she knows how to do it. So now I can be all cool like the people from New Zealand. Minus the part that I'm really not that good and I'm definitely not that intimidating. But it was still fun.

We also met the senior couple that is going to be serving in our ward. They are really nice and we're excited to have them here. They are going to be a great support for the ward.

Love you all!!!
Hermana Parkin

The Work is Picking Up a Bit

Hey Everyone!

There's not much to tell from this week. We had a really good sister's conference on Thursday and a really good training conference on Tuesday so that was really good and we learned some really good things. President Morgan has also changed the key indicators so we have some harder goals to reach each week but I think it is going to be really good.

We've been having some really awesome experiences with the ward leaders. They trust us and want us to help them so we're excited to do whatever we can to help them out.

We've postponed William and Solimari's baptism again for later in February. They just aren't sure about it yet and we don't want to push them.

The work is picking up a little bit, which is awesome. We've had a lot more appointments this week, so it's been really great.

Tianabelle is probably the best recent convert on earth. She loves going out with all of the missionaries in our ward to other appointments. She also got a calling last week to make the programs for sacrament meeting and she's so excited about that. They also asked her to learn how to lead music and she's also so excited about that and wants me to help her learn. It's a good thing that's a skill I myself have had to learn the past four months in this ward so that I can actually help her. So we're really happy that things are going so well with her.

I hope you all had a great week!
Love,
Hermana Parkin

First Split Ever!

Hey all! 

This week has been pretty interesting! We went to Rockaway on Saturday to help finish up the relief work. Unfortunately, there really wasn't much to do. They split us up into groups with the South Missionaries so we got to hang out with some Spanish missionaries and some Creole missionaries serving down there and that was cool. But all we did the whole day was help this guy clean out his shed for 30 minutes. They didn't have any other work for us to do after that and everyone else in the area had everything cleaned up already. So we went back to the church and waited for everyone else. From what I've heard, most everyone's experiences were similar. So although I'm glad we got to help out that one guy, I was disappointed that we had to waste so much time at the church because we had no way of getting back to our area.

Yesterday, I had my very first split ever! This last transfer President Morgan called two sisters to be traveling missionaries. They still have their own area but they're in charge of going on splits and stuff with all the other sisters. I stayed here in the Bronx and Sister Alvarez went up to Yonkers. The traveling sister I was with, Sister Richey, has been out 2 or 3 months more than me and she is an incredible missionary. I learned so much from her and it was a really great experience! I'm excited to take what I learned from her and apply it to my own missionary work.

We also found out that we will be getting a missionary senior couple in our ward in the next couple weeks. They are Spanish speaking and are going to be fully involved in the ward, which should be really cool. We're excited to meet them.

The work here has gone a bit downhill. We had to drop some of our investigators because they weren't progressing. One of the older ladies that we've been working with for a really long time and who we have really struggled with finally told us that she is considering baptism but she is also leaving to go the Dominican Republic next week and she'll be gone for 2 or 3 months so that's sad. At least we planted the seed and hopefully when she comes back, the missionaries will be able to start working with her again. Or maybe she'll even find missionaries in the D.R. Caren and Mariela, the granddaughters of two members in our ward who were supposed to get baptiszed on Saturday have dropped us. We went over yesterday and they told us that they've decided to get baptized in the Catholic church. We're not really sure what happened, especially with Caren because she loves our church. We think maybe their mom, who isn't a member, doesn't want them to get baptized. We're planning on talking with the grandma to see if there is anything we can do but we also don't want to cause any problems so we'll see what happens. We are still working with William and Solimari, but they couldn't make it to church on Sunday so we're hoping to have their baptism on the 19th. But besides them, we pretty much don't have any more investigators anymore. So we're busy knocking doors and trying to get in contact with the member referrals we have. Luckily, Sister Alvarez and I have a really good time together so even though things are hard right now, we're not walking around like sad puppy dogs or anything.

I hope you all are doing well! Love you all!
Hermana Parkin

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a Happy New Year! or a Feliz Ano Nuevo! Mine was pretty uneventful but I kind of liked it that way. We had to be home by 6 so that we didn't die on the streets or anything. One of my roommates is Italian (like legit from Italy and is learning English for her mission. Cool!) and so she made us deep dish pizza and this fried dough thing that is sort of like fried pizza but doesn't have a name in English. It was so great! Then we played some games and made some duct tape mustaches. You know, the normal things that missionaries do when their home early and don't have much else that their able to do. =]

This week has been kind of a poopier one. Every appointment we set up has canceled on us. It's making me pretty sad. But then I read this scripture this morning in Alma 38 verse 5 (ok I'm making up the verse. I can't really remember but it's definitely in the beginning of the chapter) and it's Alma telling Shiblon that he needs to have trust in God. So I decided that I definitely need to have more trust in God and so even though this week has been kind of poopie, I know it's going to get better because I know that God will help us do whatever he wants us to do. We do have a baptism on the 12th for William and Solimari. They are so great! Solimari was pretty much jumping in excitement on Sunday because she loved it so much. I'm really excited for them because they have been SUPER prepared by God for us to find them. In between the first time we met and the second time, both of them had read up to chapter 4 in 1 Nephi and their only 13 and 11 so it takes them even longer to read and understand what is going on. Sadly their brother Enrique can't get baptized because he's only 7. He's sad about it, which makes us sad. But he won't have to wait long. We maybe have another baptism this weekend for Caren and Mariela. I think I already told you all about them last week. They have been coming to church since September but they are super hard to meet with because their mom doesn't care if they get baptized and so because she's indifferent, she pretty much always has some reason why we can't come over. If we can meet with them tonight and have the interview tomorrow, then they can still get baptized but I think it will probably be postponed for later on in January.

We got a phone call from the Zone Leaders yesterday and President Morgan has decided that he wants the entire mission to go down to Rockaway on Saturday for one last time. I'm excited about it, especially since it sounds like the whole mission will be together. Plus we had Caren and Mariela's baptism set for Saturday and President Morgan asked us to try to change the day, so it must be pretty important to him that everyone goes. So that should be really good!

Today for p-day, Sister Alvarez is going to teach me how to make some Dominican food and then we're going to try to make this Honduran bread and some other random stuff. So hopefully when I get back from my mission, I'll know how to cook all sorts of random Hispanic stuff. I'm pretty excited about that! Maybe my family should be a little scared though because their going to be the first people I try my Hispanic cooking skills on. Except for maybe a companion here and there.

Thanks for all the support and love! I hope you all have a great start to the New Year! Love you all!

Hermana Parkin