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

Baptism Pictures

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!! My Christmas was wonderful and very relaxing (and also happened to be my 5 month mark. Crazy!! I'm almost a third of the way done with my mission but I feel like I just got here..). We spent our afternoon with a member and his family and we helped him build a new TV stand and they fed us and it was great. Then we went to Tianabelle's and she let us use her computer to Skype our family's. It was so great!! I didn't cry, which I sort of feel bad about now because a lot of the elders said they cried. Hopefully my family still knows that I love them even though I didn't shed any tears...Then we had Christmas dinner, which consisted of pizza. Yep, that's right. But it was actually so awesome. Even though it wasn't big and fancy, we loved it because it was calm and relaxing and we didn't have to think about anything. But also for an explanation on the pizza. Hispanics celebrate Christmas on the 24th, so we did have a big dinner at a members house on the 24th. The 25th is pretty much just another normal day I guess.

I got a new companion last Wednesday and she is seriously so awesome. She is from the Dominican Republic and this is her last transfer on her mission so sadly, we won't be companions for very long. But because her first language is Spanish, we speak Spanish pretty much 24/7 and it's so great. My Spanish has already improved a lot because of that and it helps a lot because it feels more natural when I speak it all the time. It is kind of hard to switch back to English sometimes though because I just want to talk to everyone in Spanish and then I start talking and realize halfway that they don't speak Spanish. Anyways, Sister Alvarez is pretty much the missionary I want to be. She is super obedient (not that I'm disobedient, but she is a rockstar at obedience) and she is always looking for opportunities to serve and she is an amazing teacher. I love her. And I'm so grateful she's my companion.

We're hoping to have 5 more baptisms this transfer. I know that sounds crazy. But we're pretty sure we can make it happen because we're working with some really solid investigators right now. All 5 of them are children. Two of them are grand kids of a member couple and they've been coming to church since September. Both of them want to get baptized so we just need to finish teaching them the lessons. The hardest part is finding them at home. That's why they haven't gotten baptized sooner. But they came to Bethany's baptism and they loved it and they really want to get baptized so we think this will help us be able to meet with them more often. The other three are kids of another member we find knocking doors. She didn't know how to get in contact with the church when she moved here from the Dominican Republic so we're excited to help her get back to church and her kids are practically jumping up and down to go to church so we're really excited to work with them.

Today has been a relaxing p-day. I'm finally getting around to all of those letters I've been procrastinating. So if you've written me a letter in the past 2 months and I never responded, you should be getting one pretty soon...

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday and remembered the importance of Christ in our lives. Have a great New Year!

I love you all!
Hermana Parkin

Merry Christmas to all!!

Hermana Parkin did not write a group email this week but she asked me to pass on a couple of things.

Bethany was baptized on Sunday and it went great! She is very excited and Hermana Parkin is excited for her.

Today was transfers. Hermana Parkin has a new companion, Hermana Alvarez. She's from the Dominican Republic and she is transferring to the Bronx from Connecticut.  Hermana Parkin is excited to have a new companion and even more excited that she know's Spanish so she's hoping she will help her where she is still lacking. Hermana Parkin  heard from other missionaries that Hermana Alvarez is super cool so she's excited to get to know her.

Hermana Parkin will be able to Skype us on Christmas day. We're all excited to get to talk to her and see her for a bit. The mission president asked the missionaries to either call or Skype but not to split the time. So Skype it will be!

Hermana Parkin asked me to wish you all a Merry Christimas and to tell everyone THANK YOU for the packages, letters and cards!

Baptisms!

Ok just a quick email today because I'm running out of time!

Tianabelle's baptism was so awesome!! Sister Pipes and I couldn't find anyone to give the talk on baptism so we ended up doing that together and I was super nervous for that because it was my first talk ever in Spanish. But it went well. There were a lot of people from the ward there to support her. She is just so awesome! I wish I could explain how cool she is. On Sunday after her confirmation she told me that she feels like when you've had a really long hard day at work and then you come home and shower and you feel refreshed and relaxed. I thought that a really cool way to explain how she was feeling and it's obvious that she recognizes the difference now that she is baptized.

Bethany is getting baptized on Saturday!!! This isn't super ideal because she won't be able to get confirmed until the next Sunday but we feel really good about this decision and Bethany is SO excited. When we went to her house yesterday, she told us that she had read all of the little pamplets that go along with the lessons over and over again so that she knew them really good. She's so cute; I love her!

One of our investigators, Manuel, has been really hard to get a hold of the past 3 or so week so we sort of dropped him because he wasn't acting super interested. But then on Sunday, he showed up to church for the first time! It was crazy and awesome!

Missionary life is going great. We've seen so many miracles and it's the best! 

Love you all!!

She's Getting Baptized!!

Hey there!

 

Sooo it seems that I've forgotten to mention that we have continued to help out with the Hurricane Sandy relief. We have had the opportunity to go down every weekend. It's been a really great blessing, especially since it looks like the work will never be over. As far as we know, they are going to continue to let us go down as long as the stake has set something up. Sister Pipes and I have decided not to go this Saturday though because....

 

....Tianabelle is getting baptized!! Yay!! I mean that's assuming that the interview tonight goes well and there are no secret skeletons hidden in her closet that we've never heard about. But I'm 99.9% that everything is good to go and we're really excited. Tianabelle is really excited and lots of people in the ward are excited for her and it's just going to be so great! We have decided to hold off on Bethany's baptism because of some sort of outside circumstances. But she is also definitely going to get baptized soon, we're just not completely sure how soon yet.

 

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to come down to the chapel above the Manhattan temple and hear from President Morgan, Sister Morgan and Elder Paul V. Johnson of the first quorem of the 70. It was a really good conference and there were a lot of messages that I needed to hear so I am really grateful to have had that oppotunity. Elder Johnson is so awesome. You should look up some of his talks online and read them because he's great and you'll learn a lot. The only stinky part was that we basically sat in the hot chapel from 10-3 (minus an hour lunch break in the cultural hall) so it made for a kind of long day.

 

During the conference, President Morgan told us that by April, the mission will have increased the number of missionaries (counting all the ones leaving and coming in) by 46. So instead of 150ish, we'll have 200ish!  And the March transfer is going to have 40 missionaries coming in, which is insane! My transfer had 15 and that was considered pretty big. Also Elder Johnson said that the number of girls working on their papers/getting their calls right now is the same amount of sisters who are currently serving. So around the whole world the number of sister missionaries is going to double! That's so cool!!!

 

Those are basically the most exciting things going on right now. The work is still going really well and we're working with some really awesome investigators. I can't believe I already have my first baptism! Sorry to those of you who are still waiting for a letter back from me. There's not a lot of time for letter writing, especially when you live in a huge city with tons of things you can do each p-day....But know that I'll be thinking about how I should be writing you back as I'm standing in front of the Christmas Tree in Rockafeller this afternoon. =] Love you all!!!