July 21, 2014

Well this week was crazy busy! We went to Return and Report in Boston on Wednesday which included a trip to the temple! We spent the day doing training both for the new missionaries and for the trainers. We went through all the basics of missionary work. Even as a trainer, it's a good refresher. President Packard talked with us about our temple covenants and then we went to the temple! I love the Boston temple. It's so beautiful inside and out. It's nice to be able to go every once in a while. 

Thursday we had a zone conference which was also great. It was long though....we got to the chapel at 8:30 am and didn't leave until 5:00 pm. We talked a lot about how we can help prepare people with baptismal dates for their baptisms. We talked about allllll the things we need to do to help them. It was a good training, but it was looooooong. And Sister B and I were still tired from our all day training from the day before.

Friday we had another meeting! And more training! Luckily it was just district meeting, which we do every week. And it was just in the morning haha 

We had another lesson with J though. It was awesome! We talked about the Restoration with him. We taught him with our Ward Mission Leader, H who's getting ready to go on a mission. It's fun to see him get so excited about missionary work. We're trying to get him as involved in the missionary process as much as we can so he'll be prepared for his mission. He'll be the best prepared missionary ever! He helped us plan for the lesson with J and after the lesson we talked about what we should do next. So next lesson we'll be talking about how to recognize the spirit! And J said he will come to church this Sunday. He couldn't go yesterday unfortunately, but he wants to go next week and he's going to bring his friend M.

We also received a referral from the office a few days ago. Somebody called the mission office and left a message in Spanish. Sister V, the missionary who works in the office called us and said all she could make out was J, Hartford and Hospital. So she called us and left the name and number. We called and as it turns out, J, a member from the other stake in Connecticut has a Catholic friend in the hospital here in Hartford and he wanted a priesthood blessing. So we went and visited him with our Branch President and H yesterday to give him a blessing and, of course, a Book of Mormon. He's going into surgery today. I'm not 100% sure exactly what for (he told us, but medical language in english is hard to follow sometimes, let alone in spanish haha) but we're hoping everything turns out okay for him. Hopefully he'll want to meet with us more and we can share the gospel with him and his family!

O is doing well too. We had a lesson with them yesterday. We walked into their apartment and both O and R were sitting on their couch with electric guitars in their laps, watching a YouTube video on how to play American Woman. They just decided to buy electric guitars one day, but were confused as to why it sounded so bad when they played. Well, we helped them tune their guitars so hopefully American Woman will sound right :)

We had a good lesson though. We talked about how to receive revelation. O's problem right now is that he is looking for signs, so we tried to help him understand that the spirit doesn't always work through signs. We talked about how the spirit talks to our minds and our hearts and how it's different for everyone and different for every circumstance, but how we can find answers through the scriptures and through spiritual promptings. It was a good lesson. O promised to read the Book of Mormon everyday to find his answer.

Okay, can we take just a moment to freak out that I'm turning 21 in just a matter of days? I was thinking about that a lot this morning. I'm turning 21. I guess for whatever reason there's a bigger difference in my mind between 20 and 21 than between 19 and 20, but holy cow! I'm turning 21!

Also the number of days left before the second coming of your daughter are dwindling. The hour is not yet, but nigh at hand.

Yesterday was a bit of a stressful day. One of the downsides to not having the elders in our branch AND training, is there's no one else to translate. And of course, I'm the only one who plays the piano. The first part of sacrament meeting was stressful. I was trying to get the translating equipment to work and then all the sudden I had to play the piano. Then the stake president showed up so I needed to be translating for him, then the ward clerk was out of town so I had to take attendance. And my companion was giving a talk. When in doubt, ask the missionaries! Hahaha but it's those days that make me LOVE being a missionary. It's a fun stress. 

Well I love you all so much!  I hope you all have a great week!

Hermana Hutchinson

July 15, 2014

This week was interesting. We had exchanges with our sister training leaders which went well. I was with Sister W. She had really wanted to get called spanish speaking, but didn't so when we went on our exchange, she asked if we could speak Spanish all day which, of course, I was happy to oblige. She spoke really well! It was a fun day. 

So I forgot to tell you a story last week. We didn't have a curfew for the 4th of July so we got back a lot later than usual. We walked into our apartment complex from the parking garage and I saw a guy, I thought he was leaving so I held the door open for him, but he just stood in front of us. I let go of the door and tried to walk around him and instead of moving to let us by, he just put his arms above his head. So we awkwardly walked past him and started waiting for the elevators. He was staring at us for a while and muttering something about disney characters then said, "So are you guys movie stars or sports players?" "Neither." "You're not?" "No." "Well do you drink?" We explained to him that we were missionaries and he drunkenly told us he would come to church the next day, but we had to go wake him up. Then we got in the elevator and died laughing. It was really funny.

We had a really cool experience this week with contacting. We had an appointment with S and decided to just walk to our dinner appointment after. We stopped by the car and grabbed 5 copies of the book of mormon and started walking to our dinner appointment. We walked for about 30 minutes without any success. We only had about 30 left until we had to be to dinner and we resolved that we wouldn't walk into their house with the copies of the book of mormon. We kept walking and praying that we would find someone. Suddenly, two black guys called us over to them and started asking us about our church. We gave them each a copy. We kept walking and found two more guys (okay, so maybe they were drunk) and gave them each a copy. We were less than a block away from our dinner appointment and already 20 minutes late, but I wouldn't back down. We said we would give away 5 copies of the Book of Mormon so gosh dang it, we were gonna give away 5 copies of the book of mormon. We started walking down the street and at the end we saw a man walking towards us, we resolved to give him the last copy we had. When he got closer I said, "Hi!" But he cut me off saying he didn't have time and kept walking. We walked for a few more yards kind of crestfallen. We turned around to walk to our appointment when we saw him walking towards us. "I'm sorry, I felt bad," he said, "I'm just so used to people asking me for money." I told him we actually wanted to give him something. We gave him our last copy of the book of mormon and happily walked to our appointment. We felt bad though because we got there a half hour late. but as it turned out, the members had got home late and were just finishing up dinner when we got there. So in the end, everything worked out perfectly. It was a cool experience. 

We haven't been able to meet with J yet. We had to reschedule our appointment for Friday. O is still doing great though! We had a lesson with him yesterday about Jesus Christ and showed him the Beacuse of Him video (easter.mormon.org) He liked it and he promised he would pray this week to be able to see the hand of God in his life this week.

Well this week should be interesting. On Wednesday we're going to Boston for Return and Report. It's a meeting for all the new missionaries and their trainers. We'll talk about how this transfer has been going and get more training. Then we're going to go to the temple together. I think we're the first group that will get to go. Before, the new missionaries and their trainers would just go to the temple grounds and take pictures but now we can actually go into the temple, which is exciting. Then on Thursday we have a zone conference, which will take all day and another training with our ward mission leaders and bishops. Then we have district meeting on Friday, which is just the morning. But it will be a week of meetings! Our proselyting time is being cut in half though, but the days we are going out are already packed. We have a lot to do this week and not a lot of time! But we'll make it work.

I also got a phone call this week from the mission office. Since my return date falls in between transfers, she asked if I wanted to go home October 24 or December 5. I told her that I wanted to go home in December. Sorry Mom, I'm just not ready to go home yet! There's still too much work for me to do here.

In other news, the world cup finished last night. Germany won, beating Argentina 1-0. The Netherlands came in 3rd, beating Brazil 3-0. When you're in the Spanish program, you know everything about the world cup, weather you want to or not haha it's all the members talk about. 

 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Hermana Hutchinson

July 7, 2014

As the 4th of July got closer and closer, I realized that it was my first Independence Day in the US in 2 years! It was kinda weird to think. The actual 4th of July ended up being really lame because it was rainy and cold all day. The fireworks show we were going to go do got moved to the 5th. We moved our zone 4th of July festivities to the 5th. We had a Zone meeting in the morning and got back together in the evening to watch fireworks in New Britain, CT. I thought it was going to be lame, but it ended up being a really cool display...I mean, it wasn't Boston, but it was cool.

 

The night before the 4th, there was a wicked awesome thunderstorm though. Idaho thunderstorms just can't measure up. The sky was basically a giant strobe light of lightning and it was raining really hard. Luckily we managed to get into our apartment before the downpour. We opened our blinds all the way, turned off the lights and just watched the storm from our 19th story window. It was so cool.

The weather over here has been really hot. June was decently hot, but then July hit, it got really hot and humid. It's not as humid now since the thunderstorm, but it's definitely more humid than Idaho. It's even more humid than Chile. We've had our air conditioning on since last week. It's been HOT. I'm definitely grateful to be in a driving area for my second summer of the year....

So the drug addict lady--D. She actually dropped of the face of the planet. She stopped answering our calls, stopped answering the door. So we stopped contacting her. I guess it wasn't her time yet, but she'll come around.

This week started of kind of meh as far as missionary work goes. But yesterday ended up being a really great day! We got a referral from the mission office so we went and visited him with our ward mission leader, H. The referral's name is J and he's from Mexico. We had a great lesson with him. He kept telling us that he really wants to change because he knows what he's doing is bad. He kept talking a lot about how he felt like there was "something" that he needed in order to change, but he struggled putting into words what he was looking for. We gave him a Book of Mormon and shared Alma 7:11-13 and Ether 12:27 with him and talked about how our weaknesses will become our strengths through the power of Jesus Christ. He also kept asking us why people believed in saints and even though we told him we didn't worship saints, he said, "I know, but my question is, why do people believe in saints?" All we could say was that we had no idea. He's a really great guy and we're excited to work with him. We could tell he had a real thirst for the truth and we know he'll find it.

We also had an appointment yesterday with one of the Elders' investigators, O. He is living with a less active member, R. Wow. They're both amazing. We got there at 6pm, thinking it would be a quick appointment, but we ended up staying for 2 1/2 hours talking about the gospel. O is so cool. He also has this desire for knowledge and truth. He was almost quoting Alma 32 when he kept saying how he had a "desire to believe" but he just wasn't there yet. He desired to have a spiritual experience so he could know, not just in his mind, but also in his heart that Jesus Christ is his savior. It was a cool lesson we had with them. They are both wonderful people. O is one of those "jack of all trades". He's done just about everything and he's good at all of it. Right now he's has a great job at an insurance company called "The Hartford". This is the insurance company that insures JLo's butt. They also insured Baby Ruth and Lincoln's house. He told me he'd refer me if I ever wanted to work there haha

So there's also a kid in our ward named J C. When I first got to Hartford, I was told that he didn't want anything to do with the church and when he turned 18 he was going to leave. Well he turned 18 in June and all the sudden... he wants to serve a mission! I have NO idea where this came from, but we're all really excited for him. He's been hanging out a lot with our ward mission leader, H, who's also preparing to go on a mission. H has been such a great influence on J C! I didn't know J C very well before, but I've seen a huge change in him, it's been so cool. So we really want to start working with him more and helping him prepare to be a missionary! We've been teaching his youth class on Sundays so we've been getting to know him better. He's a really good kid! I love seeing how the gospel changes peoples lives.

Hope you all have a fantastic week! Love you all!

Hermana Hutchinson

June 30, 2014

So this week was wonderfully busy! I loved it. We did a lot of work with the members, which has been fun. We helped plan a fireside (and give the fireside haha) we visited a member who recently had a "mini-stroke", helped L prepare his first talk and  helped the relief society with an activity. It was lot of fun. We also have been "less active hunting" We felt inspired to go to a nearby town called New Britain and there, we found a less active and his non-member family. It was awesome. We gave everyone copies of the Book of Mormon and left them with a homework assignment to read Alma 32. One of them is supposedly really interested and wants to come to church so we'll see what happens. It's been a great week.

So funny story, we were sitting in our car, parked on the side of the road when this guy came up (he seemed very intoxicated) to the window and asked for 35 cents. I told him we didn't have any change and he said, "That's okay, God bless you both. You're both beautiful." Then he pointed at me and said, "You're as beautiful as the sun." Then he walked away. Sister B and I burst into laughter. Gotta love hartford.

Speaking of Hartford, it's been treating us to a fireworks show every night this week. Clearly, the firework laws in Connecticut have to be different than those in Idaho because they sell big fireworks at walmart. All the hispanics buy them and launch them off at night, starting around 8:30 before the sun is down. After we finish planning we open the windows and watch. We've seen some big fireworks, like commercial sized. I'm hoping to see a firework display battle one night, but it hasn't happened yet. It's one of the perks of living on the 19th floor in an apartment.

Well everything is going really well here! Sister B and I are still getting along well. We are always laughing and joking, but also having great spiritual moments together too.

Have a great week!

Hermana Hutchinson

Oh, just for the record, I looked up Connecticut firework laws and fireworks are illegal, just like they are in Idaho, and yet, we still get a fireworks display every night. One night, right after are particularly big firework, we heard the cops go to the house it was launched at. We thought for sure the fireworks would be over, but no, 20 minutes later they launched another one. #hartford