What's cool is that we were all about helping the members any way that we could.
On the friday before conference we got to meet some of the members coming in for conference and truly try to uplift them/help them with their struggles (we know that we've all got 'em :) ) and that led to us meeting an older single woman named Gina who unloaded on us (she must have liked my dimples too) and also a member named uh..Sister Gysler from Switzerland. Sister Gysler was really really nice and gave us great advice about staying a "pearl of a girl", protecting our virtue (don't waste time with boys who only "want to play") and staying faithful for our children and not giving into peer pressure and staying true to our promises. We shared a message from President Monson about the role of women (I felt like she embodied that which President Monson described) and afterwards she shared some more advice with us (she spoke in this really sweet soft voice with a french accent) and then said that she wished she could give us something (she had brought swiss chocolate for all their friends here in Utah). But no chocolate my friends; she was not sure she had enough for her friends. However, reaching into her purse she found 1) Granola Bars ("they were made in switzerland...they're swiss") 2) Wet wipes ("these are ALWAYS useful") 3) tissues ("you can always use these") 4) Pens ("pens are ALWAYS useful, you can always use a pen"). It was hilarious. No worries, mom and dad, we protested receiving any gifts the ENTIRE time. but we for sure will use the pens, wet wipes and tissues.
Back to conference though...we all made goals for the members that we would invite to have their friends called and we set goals for how many names we would receive. Now, as President put it into perspective for us we did it for "Gethsemane; Calvary; The empty tomb; Spring of 1820". So in total we will be contacting 2,421 names. What's cool is that for each name we received we put up a leaf on a tree and then for each 100 names we had we put up one fruit. It was incredible and we all, after a long weekend of work got to sleep in until 9 am on Monday (which was not as enjoyable for me because I woke up about every 1/2 hour after 6 am).
Life is so good though and I LOVE missionary work. It makes everything better and is the most welcome distraction for ANYTHING that might be going wrong. I got to see Randy, Kaycee, and Ryan Holland which was great!
Ok. sorry it was a long one. I love you all!! Take care! and Keep being good examples and sharing the gospel!!
Love, sister Hulet
Sorry! this will have to be quick! I was wasting time deleting emails. But I wanted to write quickly. This week will be good. We all get to attend the Relief Society meeting on saturday and then the next week will be conference!
Zone conference was great. We got to take a tour of the basement/rehearsal area of the tabernacle and talk about how we can be more accomodating and personal for the guests. It was really good and Sis Yang and I have been striving to get to know the guests better and be willing to adapt to what they need and want to see.
We had some Hutterites come through and that was...interesting. They know about the New Testament and attend church every day twice a day for 30 minutes and then on Sunday for 2 hours. Dedication, my friends. They are all very self-sufficient too in producing their own food and making their own clothes so it reminded me of the Amish. I almost laughed when Sis Yang asked them if they wanted a DVD and they had to tell her that they don't watch TV. oops. I couldn't really save her on that one. oh well. The one guy was interested in phone contact to learn more.
In the RC I listened for about 30 minutes to a guy that was pretty emotionally unstable (as in, his girlfriend left him 3 yrs ago, he's still heartbroken and suffering from bipolar disorder and various health issues, feels weighed down by things he's done in the past) and I did my best to comfort him. He said I was a "nice lady" and that he felt I was "the only one [he] can talk to" after only 20 minutes or so. Oh my girlish charms. Just what I dreamed of: a 51 yr old man who is falling apart. So never fear, I just might get married with guys like that falling into my lap.
It's been a really good week and I've been very blessed with good companions who help challenge me and whom I'm able to work with well. I would tell you the funny things that sis yang does but it's just not as good as it would be in person. Also my old roommate....hehe...sis hezekiah. so funny. :) Anyway, I better wrap this up and attach some pics. We went to the Masonic Temple today and Sis Yang took my camera (classic asian....she went crazy taking pics).
Love you all! Keep up the great work! The gospel is great and we need to share it!
love, sister hulet
p.s. I will get those letters out. I promise. Sis yang keeps us busy and bedtime comes so quickly.
It's getting cold here. just thought you should know. and not half as pretty as PA is in the fall. not even a third as pretty :)
pics: me with Sis Zarate Sis Tandiman (like candyman); Me with Sis Hofmann, Zarate, Javier, Yang, and Tandiman. then..sis Yang. at the Masonic temple. yay. (I think that's right. I don't know the order of the people in the pics so you get to figure it out :) )
Congratulations to becky for finishing Jesus the Christ before me. Perhaps though...it's not about "spehd". :) haha, just kidding.
So one of the first nights that sister yang and I were working together we greeted a couple that walked in pretty casually. We asked if they wanted a tour and they said they would prefer to just walk around. Sister Yang grabbed a map for them and then we started to walk with them. We were heading towards the Assembly Hall (first permanent chapel on T square) and they were talking about Tai Chi. Eventually it bridged to talking about the religion and how there are so many, etc. and we got to share with them all about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and then the Temple. It was great! We kind of tricked them into taking a short tour with us and we got to teach them! So great! Best of all, they will be having the missionaries come visit them when they return to england. So that was pretty much the highlight of my week.
Otherwise, I learned (finally) how to say Pennsylvania in Mandarin. "Been-Joh!" and while Sister Yang would go around saying "Mah Chong!" all the time when she was happy or as a victory shout, she has switched to "Been-Joh!" Crazy asian. Her goal is to gain 10 pounds before conference to make her trainer (Mah Chong, who is coming for Gen. Conf.) happy. I would try and describe what she's like but it's hard when it's not in person.
Also, Mandarin is "Johng-wehn" in mandarin and everytime Sis Yang calls for the mandarin speakers I think of Shanghai Noon. "John wayne? That's a horrible cowboy name!" Alas, who in the world has seen Shanghai Noon?
Anyway, love to all of you! It's been a good week. And I hope school and work and play goes well! Oh and happy labor day! I was told why we celebrate labor day and it's not really the best reason for a holiday, but why complain about a day off in the normal world?
Everyone loves a good disney movie, am I right? Ok, so my mom proposed that maybe I do a monthly letter to friends/family. That way it can be super-long only once a month, I won't run out of things to say, you can write me letters and I won't mind replying by normal mail and we all go home happy. It will be a weeding out of those pretend friends I have (i.e.those who haven't written/sent out their letters that I've been told have been written...chelsea...). Kind of kidding about that, kind of not. I think it's an idea. If there is strong protest, I may be persuaded to keep this up but, really, do you want this email to appear every single week?
Moving on...we had transfer conference today and I know you are all excited to find out the new assignment. My comp is going out! She's headed to Chicago, IL. So I'm really excited for her. My new comp is "Sister Yang (YAHNG) from Taiwan!" (said with a high pitched asian voice). She's adorable. I'm almost fluent in mandarin (or will be) haha. Anyway, I'm excited. I'll be in North Zone and my specific assignment is programs so we'll be involved in "Called To Serve" musical/testimonial programs to motivate youth to do missionary work, go on missions, etc. So yay me. I get to sing. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm, I'm actually really excited. And sister yang will be awesome. I wonder if I'll get paired with tiny asians the rest of my mission...
Moving on again...this last week was cool because I was on some exchanges (Kwok is District Leader) and I got to learn a lot from the different sisters here. We met some amazing people and (I think this was from the past week) there was one man who had been reading the Book of Mormon for a while and was interested in the church. He's recently divorced and we took him around Temple Square showing him the visitor's centers and the church history museum, trying to help him realize what the Book of Mormon means to us and what it meant to the people at the time and seeing if he wanted to meet with missionaries. I hope it turns out.
This week we've been focusing on really trying to get to know the needs of people as they come here on temple square and focusing our time on those that actuallly want to talk to us as opposed to those who we continue talking to even though they show clear signs of uninterest.
My brilliant moment of the week? There was a man that sis kwok and I saw getting a drink from the warmest-temperature outside water fountain here at the square. I decided to be helpful and walked up to him as he finished his swig of water and said "That's not my favorit-" and he nodded "-water fountain" and he walked away. Kwok burst out laughing the instant he walked away and I couldn't help but laugh. wow. in the words of jen "rude!" but funny.
Oh! and I wish I could have recorded it, but Sis Kwok took a cantonese tour with some people here in SLC for a USANA Convention (health supplements,etc) one of the guests was a man that sounded like a chinese bear. Every single time he spoke it was a growl and it was in cantonese. Haha, I tried really hard not to laugh every single time he spoke. He spoke with such passion too. It reminded me of the russian bear from "Brother Bear" (yes. another disney movie. surprised? you shouldn't be...)
It's slowing down here and I can already tell that fall is going to be interesting. It's hard to stay busy when there is no one to talk with. But we press forward with the work. The members we've met have been wonderful (I'm sorry I complained so much before) and most of the people have been great.
Good experience I had: Sis Kwok and I had a tour and we took four people around. In the tabernacle we shared about what we do in church and I asked what their church services were like. They were all methodist and one explained, extensively, the various services that could be seen at a methodist church. so confusing. but we moved to the Assembly hall and talked more about the book of mormon being a record of people in the Americas who knew of Christ and finally saw him after he was resurrected. Kwok asked the man if he thought that God would manifest himself to another people and the man at first was ready to say no, but he thought about it and said that he knew God was great and couldn't say that He wouldn't share that same love for the people in the Middle East with others throughout the world. Point made. :) He was open to learning more and I was ecstatic.
We also had a wonderful family from Armenia request to have more information and I was happy!! I love missionary work!
Something I have wanted to better identify is how, specifically, the book of mormon and the knowledge we have in the church has helped me so if you write me, I'd love to hear how the gospel has helped you and your lives and families.
Thanks for all the love and prayers! I need them!! Be good!!
Sister Hulet
The thing that sticks out from this past week is that I met different clergy/ministers/pastors. Four to be exact, but compared to how many aren't of that persuasion, it was a lot. It's interesting sharing the information about Temple Square and the beliefs of the church to them because when people are devout in their faith (as evangelical leaders are) they close their mind to hearing about the beliefs of the church as more than just some other religion.
It's nice though because we all share the faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer, but from there it gets a little messy. I especially like how they will dismiss Joseph Smith and his experience and conspicuously look around to show their uninterest. soo nice. But they're always so nice and I have had some great discussions with them in which we've been able to clear up misconceptions about the beliefs of the church and things that they hear.
I did speak with a really nice and interesting man the other day who is Muslim but has investigated many beliefs of different churches and I got the impression that he practiced Islam but believed that we all need to find our own path, that faith that best fits with us, to lead us to God. I had previously known that there were similarities between Islam and the LDS church, but we pin-pointed those beliefs as we were talking. I offered to have missionaries visit him to discuss more of the church's beliefs but he declined and said that he felt that he was at the age where it was more about finding "intensity" of life; in remember God in everything he does.
My sister-in-law and her family (along with my nieces) came to visit me (bytheway, thanks for stopping by Elo; it was great to see you and the girls). No worries Hulet family, I am still annika's favorite (I know you were all concerned but I win yet again!).
I've hit my 3 month mark and I can't believe time has passed so quickly.
Good luck to those of you who are starting/in school. I hope you kick all the other kids' butts ("but I don't want to kick the other kids' butts"--movie anyone?) and for those who haven't written me: my love for you is waning.
Be good! If you want me to talk about something specific I'd love to know. I never have any idea what to talk about and I feel kind of bored saying much of the same thing every week.
Love Sister Hulet
(ten points to those who know the movie quote I put in the subject line)
Sister Hulet
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