Danbury is Awesome!

Hello!

So the news is that Danbury is awesome! I don't know why every time I get transferred, I think I'm being doomed to some terrible place. Because I always love it. I'm pretty sure everyone that lives in Danbury speaks either Spanish or Portuguese, which is awesome. Plus the members are just as cute and all the other members I've served with. And the missionaries that I get to serve around are fantastic and my companion is the best in the land. And we have the coolest investigators even though some of them are really hard to teach (but what's new really with that?) and life is just really awesome. I miss the people in New Rochelle, but I love Danbury just as much as any other place I've served. I hope that I can just finish out my mission here instead of get transferred somewhere else for the last two seconds of my mission.

To elaborate a bit on how my companion is the best in the land, Sister Wankier is basically just an amazing missionary. We get along SO well and we like the same things (especially chocolate chip cookies so that might be a serious problem) and we both want to work hard and we both have the same ideas on how to do missionary work. And we basically think the same too because there are multiple times each day in the lessons where we turn to the other one and say "That's exactly what I was going to say!" Also she wants to speak Spanish with me all day long and that is also the greatest because I always want to do that but don't always have companions that are super motivated to do that. Moral of this story? I LOVE her and life is amazing.

Orquidia and Chelsea, who are two of our baptismal dates are probably some of the most solid investigators ever. Orquidia's sister was baptized a year ago and is super strong in the church and Orquidia has been investigating for about a year. They are finally ready and actually want to get baptized and they are so committed. I mean they basically know everything already but when they learn something new, they are right on board with it because they already have a really solid testimony. Orquidia's son Hansel is also getting baptized and the elders are teaching him. They will all be getting baptized on the 8th of September and this is going to be the first family I've ever seen baptized (Orquidia is divorced) so it's going to be so cool!

Our other investigator that has a baptismal date is Destrie. He's Hawaiian and doesn't speak Spanish...But his girlfriend (who also happens to be best friends with Isamar, who is the daughter of Ingrid, who is Orquidia's sister. So basically everyone we teach is somehow connected to the same family.) was recently baptized into the Spanish Branch and Destrie doesn't want to go to the English ward. He's been and he likes the branch better and says he wants to get baptized in the branch and stay in the branch. It's kind of a weird situation and we don't really know what to do but to do what he wants. He's an awesome investigator too and really has a desire to know for himself that everything we teach is true.

That's some of the basics of life here in Danbury. It's great and I love it and I'm excited to be here!

Hope you're all having a fun first week of school and whatnot!

Love,

Hermana Parkin

See Ya Later New York!

Well I am here in Danbury, CT! I've been transferred from New Rochelle up here to the Danbury Spanish branch. All I've heard are amazing things about the branch so I'm excited to be here. I'll be serving with Sister Wankier, who I don't really know but who seems awesome so I think it will be a great transfer. I will be serving as a solo Sister Training Leader though so that will be really different.

New Rochelle was so sad to leave. We met with Fernando on Monday and he told us that he wants to get baptized on September 15! I am literally SO stinking excited for him! He has been taught for officially one year and one day today. It's about time he decides to get baptized. He told me that he is going to make sure that I can come back to New Rochelle to be there for the baptism so we'll see if that actually happens...

Last Wednesday we went and did baptisms in the temple with Leydi. Lorena, one of the ward members came with us. It was such a cool experience. Leydi loved it and she said she felt like her aunt had accepted the baptism and confirmation. She's so cute. I miss her so much already! She is going to bare her testimony on Sunday in Sacrament meeting and she is super nervous but I know she'll do an awesome job. She has a super powerful testimony and she'll invite the spirit strongly as she bares it.

I guess that's really all I have to share this week. I'll probably have lots more about Danbury to share next week but I haven't even seen my apartment yet so I pretty much know nothing except for how awesome everyone else thinks it is.

Have a fabulous week!

Love,

Hermana Parkin

This one's for Grandma Staheli! Hermana Parkin folding fabric for a memeber.

Temple Baptisms

I'm Related to My Companion!

I got attacked by mosquito's! Literally attacked! I got like 25 mosquito bits in one night. Not fun. I've been taking allergy medicine to help them go away faster.

Fernando is being crazy. He told us the other day that he knows the church is true, he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and he wants to get baptized. But he's waiting for a "special day" to get baptized. We don't know what that means but we've decided that we're just going to let him decide to do it whenever.

Bishop asked me to give a talk this past Sunday because he somehow found out that I was probably leaving the ward. I don't know how I've gotten stuck talking twice in this ward when one of the elders has been here for two cycles longer than me and has never given a talk. But it's okay because then I could tell the ward that they stink at loving people and being friends to people and that all of the less actives and investigators feel like they don't have any friends. I mean I said it way nicer than that and people said I did a good job so hopefully the message got across to them that if they want to show God that they love Him, they need to show His children love too. I know it's hard because I'm pretty sure I didn't even know when there were investigators at church in our ward but we can all try a little harder. I bore my testimony at the end and told them that I might be leaving in a week. That didn't make Fernando or Leydi very happy. Both of them told me that I wasn't allowed to leave and that I had to stay there. haha I'm going to be sad to leave them if I do get transfer but I think it will be good. As much as the ward needs to fellowship them, they need to stop relying on me and go make friends too.

Veronica is doing awesome. She keeps reading the Book of Mormon and she asked us to start teaching her boyfriend because he doesn't really know anything about God. That will be great because they're going to need to get married if they want to get baptized at some point. So if he gets converted to the gospel too that will be way better.

Things are going really well. We're mostly just really excited to go and do baptisms today with Leydi. We're going down with another member and with Sister Brog. Plus Leydi had a dream that her aunt wanted to be baptized and was going to accept baptism and so we were able to do some of her family history work and find her aunt so she can baptize her and Leydi is so excited about it. Sister Richey and I also found some family names to take with us and in the process discovered that we share the same great-great-great-great grandpa on Grandpa Staheli's side. His name is David Sabin. We thought that was pretty cool!

Hermana Parkin

The Work is Progressing

I think I mentioned last week that Fernando came to church and that he's progressing more than he ever has in the past. So this week he came to church again and he's participating in the lessons and stuff and it's great. So we had a short lesson after church and talked to him about baptism and told him that we felt like he could be ready in September (which is legitimately true. That's not even because President committed everyone to have a baptism in September. It's because Fernando could have been stinking baptized already and now he just needs a stinking goal.) and he said that he would pray about it. So we were pretty excited about that because Fernando has been investigating the church for SO long and he knows it's true and he's doing almost everything he needs to do. He just has to stop smoking. Sister Richey went over yesterday while we were on an exchange and she didn't have a lot of time to talk to him because they were running late, but he told her that he doesn't understand why he is being pressured into baptism and why it has to be in September. It's probably good I wasn't there because I probably would have freaked out a little. Pressuring him is literally the last thing we've been doing. We haven't even talked to him about baptism since probably the third week I was in this area. So that's 12 weeks without even mentioning baptism because we knew that any type of pressure would be bad. And we also only mentioned September once. We just told him that we had been praying about it and thinking about it and felt like he could be ready in September. We didn't even give him a day in September! We told him that if he wanted to get baptized in September that he could pick whatever day he wanted. So basically I don't know what the heck we're going to do to help him. I mean there must be some underlying problem, but I've done all I can to try to find out what that is and he's told us that he want's to get baptized so I just don't understand. We're going to meet with him again later this week and hopefully we'll be able to get some answers about what the heck is going on. So whether or not Fernando will ever get baptized in this life is a to be continued story...

Veronica on the other hand is doing great. We're not sure if she'll be ready for baptisms until maybe October if she keeps progressing the way she has been but she loves what she knows so far. She is reading the Book of Mormon a lot and understanding a lot and always asks really good questions. So we're excited to see her keep progressing. 

Manuel has officially gone to Boston for work and won't be back for 3 or 4 months. We're SO bummed because he told us on Saturday that he turned down his friends offer to go to church because he liked the church he's going to (aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and he also said that he thinks he would get baptized ones he clears up the few doubts he had. So basically he's awesome and now he's gone and no one will know about him when he comes back. But luckily he is now friends with some of the members and he said he was going to keep in contact with them and with us so that should help. We were hoping to send missionaries to him in Boston but he'll be working 7 days a week until 8pm so that makes it a little hard for any missionary to visit him.

Leydi is doing absolutely fantastic and we're going to the temple with her next Wednesday. She's never been before so she's SO excited. And the family history specialist in the ward is helping her find family names to take with her so that we can do that work while we're there. It's going to be the coolest experience ever! We're sad a little bit though because she told us that she still doesn't feel super comfortable at church unless she's with us and that's not good. We've been trying to get people to befriend her but it's been more difficult than it should be. We're hoping that she'll be able to have a good relationship with the family history specialist since she's a young mom like Leydi.

Sister Richey and I are also doing great. Missionary work is the greatest and I love it! It's been fun to be a sister training leader and work with some of the other sisters and learn from them so I've been enjoying the exchanges we go on. I have a feeling I'll be getting transferred this next transfer though but I think it will be a good change. Even though if it happens, I'll miss everyone here in New Rochelle so much, it will be refreshing to have new problems to work with.

I hope you are all doing fantastic!

Love,

Hermana Parkin