Merry Christmas!

Hello!

Sorry I was a super slacker last week and didn't email but we were
suuuuper busy with transfers. I am serving my last transfer back up in
Connecticut. I'm about an hour away from Danbury, in Stamford. I was
sad to leave the Bronx but I'm excited to be here too. It's kind of
bittersweet. Sister Tirado is training a new missionary so I'm super
excited for her. My new companion is Sister Hansen. She has been on
medical leave for 7 months and before that she was only in the mission
for 6 weeks so she's a newer missionary. It's kind of a weirder
situation for both of us because she has some experience but she's
been gone for so long so both of us are trying to figure out how much
she remembers and what she's not super comfortable doing yet. But it's
been a really good change for me and a good transition for her. The
ward is super awesome. The most functional ward I've been in my whole
mission. We actually have most of the ward council at correlation and
everyone is super willing to help us with lessons and we've already
had some referrals. It's awesome. They are super on top of missionary
work and we're super grateful. For some reason they think it's okay if
sacrament meeting goes 35 minutes over though. And apparently that's
an every week thing. Plus sacrament meeting is the last meeting so it
makes for some really long church meetings. Oh well. Life can't be
perfect.

I'm pretty sure the weather is confused as to what season we're in
because I didn't even wear a jacket yesterday. It was so warm! I love
it! Makes me feel like I'm back on the west coast. Speaking of west
coast, I saw Sister Nielson at transfers last week, as you all
probably saw on Faceboook. It was so fun to see her and I'm super
excited for her to be here. She's serving in Scarsdale and opening up
an area in the ward President Morgan attends. I know some of the
people in the ward from having served in that stake most of my mission
and I think she's going to love it there.

I got a note from Sister Tirado and she told me that the Reyes family
went to the ward Christmas party that they had in the Bronx the Friday
after I left. I literally almost cried. I am so excited and happy for
them. I mean I know it doesn't sound like much that they went to an
activity but they've been offended by a lot of people so the fact that
they were willing to go to this activity means that they'll be more
willing to start coming back to church one day. I'm so excited for
them!!

Christmas is going to be crazy! We have so many appointments for
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I think we'll be eating like 6 times
between the two days. Which now that I think about it, that's a normal
number of times to eat in two days. But when your eating at members
houses, especially Hispanic members, that's a lot of food. Plus we've
had a dinner appointment every night since we got here and we have one
every night this week. People really love to feed us here. We're
grateful though because it's helped us to get to know ward members
more quickly and start to develop relationships with them. Also super
crazy event for Christmas is that our dinner appointment is with a
family that is related to Fernando, the investigator I taught and gave
up cookies for in New Rochelle. I'm secretly hoping that Fernando is
planning to spend time with his family that day so that I can see him
and see how things are going.

I think that's pretty much all for now. I hope you all have a great
Christmas and remember what this season is really all about - Christ.
I'm so grateful for that birth of our Savior and for all the comfort
and help that He gives to me each day. It's been amazing to see on my
mission how aware The Lord is of my needs and how He is involved in
everything that I do. I'm so grateful to have the knowledge of the
gospel in my life so that I have more direction and more peace. I love
you all!
Merry Christmas!
Hermana Parkin

Christmas Devotional

So this week wasn't as eventful as some other weeks. The area is going
really well. I'm not sure if I'm just less of a stress basket or if I
just knew more what to expect this time around, but opening this area
was way easier than opening up New Rochelle. At least once we stopped
getting lost, it was easier. I'm definitely not a fan if being lost in
the city but now we pretty much always know where we are and life is
great! We have quite a few potential investigator and some less active
families we're trying to work with. My favorite people ever are the
Reyes family. They still have a ways to go before they start coming
back to church and before the two younger kids get baptized but they
still have testimonies buried deep inside and they are full of so much
love. Every time we go over, I just feel like I'm at home with family.
I just love them!

We had our mission Christmas Devotional on Friday. It was so good! A
bunch of missionaries shared their musical talents and sang different
Christmas songs. You all would have been blown away! They were
amazing!! Then both President and Sister Morgan gave super spiritual
talks. After the devotional, we all had Christmas dinner together and
socialized with all the other missionaries. It's the only time the
whole entire mission is together so it was the best thing ever! I got
to see all of my best friends!

Today we're heading into Manhattan to Rockefeller to see the Christmas
lights. We're all excited. If we get home at a good time, I'll try to
send some pictures.

Keep warm and be grateful if your somewhere without snow! Love you!
Hermana Parkin

Tales From The Bronx

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and remembered all of the many
things your grateful for. We had a quiet Thanksgiving but it was good!
I'm really grateful for the family that had us over. We definitely had
a Hispanic dinner with none of the tradition items but lots of pork,
rice and beans. We had a good time!

I also got a haircut from my lovely roommate. I wanted something
different so I went a little drastic and got bangs. I don't think I've
had those since I was a little little girl but I like it! Something
new.

Maybe I've already mentioned this but as much as I love serving in the
Bronx and having all sorts of weird things happen that don't happen in
normal life, I really super hate the way the Bronx smells. Someone is
always smoking-either tobacco or weed. Plus there's always the
occasional urine or throw-up smell. Not to mention the ever present
smell of alcohol or B.O. It's about the only thing I dislike about the
Bronx. So be warned if you ever come to New York and decide to visit
the ghetto.

So this week I decided to keep track of all the funny things that
happened so that I have good stories to share today. They aren't my
greatest stories but I still thought they were funny.

A big plus of being back in the Bronx is that despite being a year
older and more than a few pounds heavier, I know that if I have no
other options, I can still find myself a husband on the streets out
here. One day we were walking past this man in a wheelchair. I was
just trying to be a nice missionary and smiled at him as we were
walking past. He jumps up on his one leg and grabs the back of his
chair so that he can stand and goes "Thank you hunny! You just made a
crippled man walk!" I was in shock and didn't know what to say so I
just said "You're welcome" and ran away. Clearly I'm real smooth in
those situations. Then a few days later, some black gangsta whistles
at me and said "Oooo blondie!" I was a little more prepared for that
one and just ran away gagging. He could have at least come up with a
better pick-up line...haha

We have a less active member that works at a laundromat and we usually
visit her there so we were over there the other day and right before
the lesson, her friend came in and she was interested in the church.
It was really cool and a huge blessing because she seems pretty
serious about it. So we share the lesson with them and then they kind
of go off on old lady chat and I kind of got lost in the conversation
and wasn't sure what was going on when all of the sudden she stands up
and rips off my scarf and starts giving me a massage. I had no idea
what was happening or how I should react so I just sat there while she
massaged me and our less active giggled at us. So strange..

And last story for this week is that we saw a mostly naked man while
looking for a former investigator! He had a very small pair of
underwear on and was a rather large man. It will not be one of my
fondest memories. I'm not sure what he was thinking just opening up
his door with no thought of what he wasn't wearing.

Well I hope that email was a bit more entertaining than some of the
other ones I've written lately. Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Parkin

New haircut! Not the cutest picture of me but my hair looks good so whatever…

What Are You Thankful For?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It seems as though we'll be having a
rainy Thanksgiving here in the Bronx. I forgot how cold it gets here,
especially when we're walking around everywhere. But it's whatever,
it's worth it. For our celebration tomorrow, a family in the ward
invited us over for dinner and that's pretty much our plans. We can't
really do much as far as proselyting goes because people would hate us
if we interrupted their family gathering. But Thursdays are our weekly
planning days anyways so we're usually at home during the afternoon to
plan out the coming week.

You may have seen the pictures on Facebook but we had a really awesome
street contacting activity yesterday. I was lying in bed one night
thinking about something President Morgan had said to us. He was
talking about how tracting was effective back when he was a missionary
because people were really open to door to door salesman. But now the
times have changed so we have to start thinking outside of the box. So I
was trying to think outside the box and I thought "Hey Thanksgiving is
coming up so we should ask people what they're grateful for. But that
would be lame if we just asked them and then didn't do anything cool.
We should make a turkey. And then everyone can write what they're
grateful for on the feathers!" And then I got really excited. And then
I had to share my excitement with my companion and my roommates and
they all laughed at me and thought I was kind of crazy. But then they
slept on it and must of had really good dreams about how everyone
would love the turkey because when they woke up in the morning and
decided that we should do it. So we did! And it was awesome!! We got
to talk to a lot of people and it was an easy way to start talking to
them about the gospel. Plus it was cool to see what people are
grateful for. One person was grateful that they could still be
walking. Another was grateful that he wasn't homeless. Lots of people
said they were grateful for their family and for God, which made me
happy to know that so many people recognize how important those two

things are.

We also had a really super awesome FHE with a less active family, the
Reyes family, on Monday. They had planned on inviting another family
too so right after we got there, Rosa, the mom of the non-member
family showed up. We had a really great lesson about prayer and then
Rosa told us afterwards that she would like to meet with us again and
that she would like to come to church on Sunday. Rose left before we
did so we asked Hna. Reyes a little more about her. She said that she
had forgotten to invite Rosa and her family and that she just happened
to show up at the same time we were there. Which means that God just
really wanted us to meet Rosa or something. It was a miracle and I'm
super grateful!!

We also had a ward Thanksgiving activity last Friday and we finally
had normal church so we've been meeting a lot more of the members.
They are all super nice and I'm excited to be serving in their ward.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and get to enjoy time
with your family.

Love,
Hermana Parkin

Seeing Old Friends

Well I don't know that there's that much to share this week. I love
serving back in the Bronx! I haven't met too many of the members yet
because we had stake conference on Sunday but the ones I have met
are awesome. The area is really fun. We're in the northern part of the
Bronx so it's a lot different from my old area in the south Bronx. And
by really different I mean that it's just a little bit less ghetto but
still really ghetto. We're also lost a lot because we don't know any
of the buses in this area but it gets a little bit better everyday. At
the very least we can find our way home name, that's probably most
important so that we don't end up dying on the streets of the Bronx.
Sister Tirado, my new companion, is awesome. We get along really well
and it's always fun to be together. Plus our roommates are awesome so
we're just always having a party.

Stake Conference this past weekend was probably one of the best things
ever. There were really awesome messages. And the best part in my book
is that I'm serving back in the Westchester stake, which is the stake
all of my old wards are in except Danbury. So I got to see a lot of
the members from the Concourse and New Rochelle wards. It was so much
fun!

Also Manuel, one of the investigators we were working with in New
Rochelle, got baptized!! I'm so happy for him. And I talked to Maribel
and she is getting baptized at the end of December. She finally moved
out of the apartment she was sharing with her boyfriend and she really
wants to get baptized. I'm super happy for her too.

I think that's everything for this week. No crazy stories from the
Bronx yet but don't be surprised if there's some next week! :)

Love,
Hermana Parkin

Me and my new companion, Hermana Tirado

Back to the BRONX!!

Transfer calls are in and this sister missionary is super excited! Why? Because I'm going back to the city!!!! And not only back to the city, but back to the Bronx!! I'm going to the Olmstead ward, which is the east side of the Bronx so we meet in a different building and stuff than my old ward. But I'm still excited. I've been released as a Sister Training Leader and I'm re-opening up an area over there. They used to have two sister areas in that ward and they combined it into one like 6 months ago or something and now my companion and I will be opening the second one back up. So that means whitewashing again. My new companion is Sister Tirado. She's Mexican but I'm pretty sure she grew up in the states. I don't really know much about her and I've never met her but I've heard she's cool. But this means I'll probably be ending my mission in the Bronx, which also means I'll have spent more than half of my mission there! So crazy!

I am also sad to be leaving Danbury though so as always transfers are bittersweet. There were lots of tears on Sunday when Orquidia and Pamela found out that I was leaving. I'm going to miss them and lots of other people so much! Plus, I had a pretty amazing companion and once again, I don't get to spend very much time with her. Does this mean I'm one of those missionaries that no one can stand so they just have to keep sticking me with new people? Because it's pretty rare that I ever stay with one companion for more than 6 weeks...I hope it's the opposite and that God just thinks I can go be companions with whoever and it won't matter because we'll just get along and be friends. haha

It's officially FREEZING here. It kind of snowed yesterday but didn't stick. And it's just super cold and it makes me wonder why I thought it would be fun to end my mission back in the city without a car that has a heater. No actually I think that the Lord knew that I would much rather walk around the city in the freezing cold than the super humid, gross summer. So I'm counting this as a blessing.

We get iPads tomorrow. TOMORROW! It's so weird to think about I don't even know what else to say.

Well hopefully next week will be full of more stories from the crazies of the Bronx. I'm so excited to go back. I think everyone in the mission thinks I'm psycho that I love it there so much but people there are just awesome and there's always some crazy adventure happening. It's going to be the best!

Have a great week! Love you all!

Hermana Parkin

Busy, Busy, Busy

So this week has flown by! We've been so busy! On Friday we had the leadership meeting with the NY NY South missionaries. That was really good and I really enjoyed the presentation both of our mission presidents did about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Facebook presentations were a little weird and we're still trying to figure out how to make the best use of these tools but I know it will come with time and once we have the actual equipment, we'll be able to do a lot more.

We had two exchanges as well! I spent Saturday with Sister Westlund in Danbury English. That was a good exchange. I met one of the coolest families too! They are converts of like 10 years or so and they have stayed super active since the whole time they've been members. Their oldest daughter leaves on her mission in December. They're rock stars. Yesterday, I spent the day in Newburgh with Sister Lounsbury. Newburgh is like one of the highest murder capitals in the world. So that was legit. Sisters aren't allowed in the city though so we were safe. (Did I already tell you all that fun fact last time I went on an exchange in Newburgh? Maybe so...) That was a really great exchange as well. I love people able to go and serve with other sisters for a day so that I can have even more people to learn from. It makes life a little crazy but it's really good too.

We all thought we were going to die from TB this week. Pamela called us on Sunday and told us that she had TB so we all freaked out and thought we were all going to get TB and then we'd get sent home early. So anytime we cough or tired or anything, we comment about how we have TB. But she just told us today that she went to the doctor and she's was treated for TB when she was younger and so therefore she will always test positive for TB. Sister Morgan still might have us go get tested just to make sure but we're pretty positive that we're going to live.

Destrie had his baptism on Sunday! He asked me to give a talk about baptism and I basically had no idea what to say. But the baptism as a whole was really awesome! He's so solid and going to be an awesome member of the church!

I think that's all for now. I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Parkin