Day of Thanks

Hallelujah!  Melissa sounds so happy.  She no doubt appreciates this great week even more after having endured some "less-than-great" weeks.  Thanks to everyone for your letters, prayers and support.

This was such a wonderful, wonderful week. I feel so blessed and I really am HAPPY! 

First of all, let's talk about M*. She is amazing. I don't know if I've told you about her yet, but she's a member and she is the little sister of my friend, G*, from BYU. She is just the coolest girl ever -- served her mission in the Philippines and is someone we've been teaching the member missionary lessons to. She set a date for herself (because that's just the amazing kind of person she is) to give out a Book of Mormon to someone by Thanksgiving. We met with her Wednesday afternoon and she still hadn't, and she was headed to work until late. So we didn't think it would really happen and started talking about how we can reset the date, blah blah blah. 

SO. Wednesday night, we got a call from her and told us a miraculous story about how she had gotten off work early, then took a different route home than she usually does, then a guy asked her for a couple bucks so she started talking to him. His name is A* and they talked for like 45 minutes and he kept asking her, "Why are you so happy? You just look so HAPPY" and she realized she needed to give him a BoM and bear her testimony of it! So it totally was a gift from Heavenly Father. She invited him to come with her to Thanksgiving Dinner the next day, and guess what? He CAME!!

Fast forward to Thanksgiving. It was a FANTASTIC day. We got all our studies in the morning which is always a treat, then we went up to M*'s house so we could use her computer to type up a little handout. The bus we take to get to M*'s is the 64, which is sometimes driven by our favorite: L*. Well we were blessed AGAIN because it WAS L*! We set up an appointment with her for next week. That was a cute little thing to have happen to us! Then we headed over to the dinner which started at 2:00. Luckily, M* and her roommates were going to the same dinner we were, so that was fun. There were SO many people there - probably around 40. Janna always makes a Thanksgiving dinner for the people who don't get to go home, and this year it just exploded. The food was delicious and the company was fantastic. About an hour into it all, A* ("T") showed up! He is a big black guy and told us a few times that he felt really uncomfortable being surrounded by a bunch of "really nice white people." haha. Too bad we weren't more diverse! Ha ha. He is just a really sweet guy, and even though he was really weirded out that we were all "so nice," and he couldn't believe that the three of us (M*, Sis. Meier, and I) were SINGLE, I think he had a fun time.  We got some good pictures with him - I'm hoping to send off another SD card soon.

So that was really cool to have that experience with T.

Later that night, we were at the chapel hanging out with our Zone. (We had permission, don't you worry). Most people were playing basketball but I was with a smaller group watching "On the Lord's Errand" (The Pres. Monson biography). This guy wandered in who looked relatively homeless. He made his way down the hall, looking at all of the pictures and bulletin boards, then came and watched the movie with us for about 5 minutes. Nobody knew who this guy was but I felt really prompted to talk with him. So we went into the kitchen and I offered him some food. He started talking and we heard his story. His name is G* and he's from Ireland (double squeal!). He's here in the U.S. only for like 3 weeks to try to stop his alcoholic friend from hurting himself. He said that he got really really angry with someone, and then took his anger out on some girl on the street by yelling at her and saying some sarcastic remark. He felt really bad about losing his temper, and just started walking. Then he walked by our church and came in! "I feel different now, though." He told me, "I'm really glad I came inside because there's a different feeling here than on the street." I explained that it was a church house for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said he's never heard of that church before, but when I mentioned "Mormon" he said, "I ran into two Mormon MISSIONARIES yesterday! They gave me a card with a picture of a beautiful building and the address to one of their churches - they told me I should check it out sometime." Sure enough he pulled out a passalong card with the address to the church in Roslindale. I explained that we were the same church and he said, "Now I want to keep my promise to them - now that I know THIS is the church - I WILL go on Sunday." He asked why I was so happy (I see a theme here) and I gave him a Book of Mormon and bore my testimony to him. He said that even though he doesn't read very well, he will read it - for ME. 

By this point all four of us Sisters, M*, and a couple of Elders were all in the foyer talking to him. He was so, so funny and teasy (<--- not a word). Eventually he had to go. He pulled out a piece of paper with directions to his homeless shelter and just asked us to point him toward the river. He kept saying, "I just have to cross the bridge and then I'm at the shelter. I know where to go." Maren looked up the address on her phone and it was definitely NOT within walking distance - it was a 20 minute train ride away! He kept saying that he just had to cross the river, but no. We told him that he was in CAMBRIDGE, not South Boston, and that he had gotten off at the Harvard T stop, not the Broadway stop. He couldn't believe it. Once he finally accepted that we were right he said, "I must've been led here. I know I was led here by God. I was SURE I got off at the right stop. Then I got in that argument and just walked right in here. I've been LED here."  

OH MAN it was just so cool. He's so sweet. We took him down to Broadway and walked him to his hotel / homeless shelter / trailer park. He called us all his "angels" and thanked us multiple times. When we were walking across the bridge I was hit SO strongly with the realization that there are people in this world, in this state, in this CITY of Boston who don't know that God loves them. That is something that is so easy for me to believe, and it is my responsibility to teach them of His love for them. (I'm getting a bit teary here, "bear with me" haha). It was SUCH a cool moment. 

So that was an amazing thing to have happen. What a lovely Thanksgiving Day! 

Let me give you a little update on L*. She went home to Maine for Thanksgiving with her family and had a really hard time. Her mom told her that she is brainwashed, etc. Obviously she knows that not true, but it's so hard for her to not have her parents' support in this. After a couple really hard days, she sent another text to us saying, "I still want to get baptized. I hope you know that." So that's good. She's so strong, really a good inspiration for me! And, on a less spiritual note, she bought a miniature turtle and named him Moroni. HA!

The weather here has been AMAZING! On Saturday we didn't even need jackets. Short sleeves, people. That's what I'm wearing. This is definitely a blessing.

Looking forward to going to the temple on Thursday as a zone! That will be amazing.

I love you all - hope you like my stories this week! Know that I feel so loved and blessed and taken care of.

-Sister Broekhuijsen

P.S.  I found this video on lds.org of MY CHAPEL! This is MY CHAPEL that I meet in!!! The video is in the chapel where I have Sacrament Meeting every week! I feel so very famous. Thought you'd be interested in seeing the building and the inside. I know a lot of the people in these pictures/videos. 

http://lds.org/church/news/president-eyring-dedicates-cambridge-chapel-rebuilt-after-fire?lang=eng&query=longfellow+park 

Boston Photos

On Monday afternoon we received a little package in the mail from Melissa.  Included was an SD card from her camera with some fun photos.  Here are some of our favorites!

As Melissa said in her audio annotation to this photo - "Who ever heard of a speed limit of 14?!?"

This was taken from a member's apartment in Boston.  What a view!

This is taken from Melissa's apartment.  So pretty!

What an amazing sunset.  Yes, our daughter is a gifted photographer 

as well as an awesome missionary!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks to all who have sent cards, letters and packages to Melissa - she really thrives on them!  If you're wondering how you can send her stuff, check out the "Write to Melissa" tab at the top of this page.  And now, for your reading pleasure…

Well hello!

My emotions are like a rollercoaster. Right this second I am doing very well, but I have several tissues here with me just in case, because I'm very volatile :)

This week went by really quickly. There is a phrase here in the mission that "the days are like weeks, but the weeks are like days". This week that's been the case for sure. A lot of really long, draining days, but it's been good.

The weather has been miraculously nice. We've still only had one snow storm since I've been here! Can you believe it? Blessings. It's been dry and relatively warm - so cool to be this late into November and not be walking through gross snow all day long. 

I have good news in the L* department! We got to meet with her (I went with Sis. Barben so that she could have one missionary from the ward she went to, and one from University). It was a great lesson - she is so sweet and has been talking a lot to her Elders and has a baptismal date for December 31st! She will be IN UTAH then, because her family is goes to Utah every Christmas break to go skiing. So Sister Meier will be home by then, and can orchestrate all the driving. It's going to be awesome. We still get to teach her because she's choosing to come to LP2 instead of University Ward because she can't make it to the UW's block (2:30-5:30) and prefers LP2's 9:00 time anyway. So that is a huge blessing for me to get to associate with her. She is going up to Maine for Thanksgiving with her family, and is bringing up the fact that she wants to be baptized. She is really nervous because her dad and brother are both atheists, but her Elders fasted for her, she fasted, and WE fasted for her this week - that her family's hearts would be softened. We are very optimistic. She is such an amazing girl and we love to teach her. She's so prepared for this! Yesterday the gospel principles lesson was on the Law of Chastity and she LOVED it - she was making all kinds of comments, AND she said the closing prayer - it was so sincere, a really cool experience.

I've heard from a lot of people this week - so that was fun! I had a bit of a mail drought the week before so it was a nice change. Thanks to all my friends and family who wrote! It means a lot to me.

My pday last week was great! We went shopping, like we were planning, and it was hilarious to see those Elders so excited about their new suits. They all value my opinion very highly, for some reason, and even after we left they called and asked me for more suggestions -- a big confidence boost :) We also did get to go to Target and I got some BOOTS! yay! They were only $35 and I suspect they are cheap in more than one way, but they are comfortable and they are boots. So that is nice. I also got some gloves, long socks, and tights. It was good to get those.

On the bus ride home from the mall, we sat next to a lady who was wearing blue sunglasses. She told us that the reason she wears blue lenses is because, "You know how everyone is always high all of the time? Yeah." Which made very little sense to us. Then she said, "Wait, are you guys high right now?" We said, no. Then she goes, "Do you WANNA be?" The answer Sis. Meier gave was, "No - we're MORMONS!" haha. She was so out of it - kept drifting in and out of the conversation. It was quite entertaining, but sad of course, because she is messed up.

It's actually been a WEEK of crazies, now that I think about it. On Thursday we were at a bus stop and a guy was going around and very politely asking people for change. We knew he was headed for us so I braced for impact. He saw our name tag and said, "Wait, you're ELDERS!" We said, "Yeah, we're Sister missionaries!" He said, "Well, yeah, Sister Elders, but still Elders, right?" We just said yes because.... it was just easier. He then told us that he knows a lot of the Elders "over in Harvard" and then told us, "Yeah, I would LIKE to join your Church, but I'm the devil so I don't believe in faith" and then walked away very calmly. It was hilarious - I've heard so many stories like that, but that was the first time I actually got to experience it.  

One more funny story - we were on the subway Saturday night and a big group of probably 6 or 7 people got on and sat and stood all around us. It was only 6:45 at night but they were completely inebriated. One girl, in particular, could barely walk. They had her standing right in front of me, between two guys, and they were all holding on the the bar above, but she clearly NEEDED it. She was so floppy that they started playing "tetherball" with her - they just shoved her from one person to another while she held on the the handle bar above her. Then someone slurred at her, "Your WALLET is hanging out of your PURSE!" So then her boyfriend pointed at me and struggled, "She doesn't TRUST you! She thinks you're going to steal her WALLET! But I think you look like a very TRUSTABLE person." Then he saw my name tag and said, "You even have your NAME on your SHIRT!!!" Unfortunately/fortunately I had to leave at that point but it was a funny time.

I expect my Thanksgiving to be great. I'm a bit worried that I'll get weepy just because it's my first ever major holiday away from home. But we are having dinner with Janna (and G*, our favorite pizza guy, AND another friend of Janna's) so it should be lovely. I need to be less selfish - lots of people manage to be away from their families for Thanksgiving for less substantial reasons than mine! I should be and am grateful to be HERE. I just need to remind myself of that.

Well, that's about it for me! Again, thanks to everyone who wrote me. I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!

-Sister Broekhuijsen

A Better Week

Thanks to all you blog readers for your prayers in Melissa's behalf.  It sounds like she's doing better.  Here's what she had to say today:

Hello all!

This week was pretty routine. We did give our training in Zone Conference and that went well. We spent all day Monday and Tuesday preparing for it, so it was nice to have it pay off. What we mostly wanted to talk about was the improvements we've made to the member missionary lessons we've been teaching people, and that's what we wanted to spend the most time on. Then about halfway through the presentation we found out that about 1/3 of the missionaries there had never even heard of these member lessons, so that kind of threw us off. haha. Even President Evans stood up and was surprised because teaching these member lessons was supposed to be a mission-wide practice! So we had to back it up and change the focus a bit, but I still feel good about how it went. We made little hand outs that said, on the front, "Don't just work hard, work SMART" and of course had a pack of smarties taped to them. Then the back said, "Members already know the "what" and the "why," teach them the "HOW"!" So that was obviously adorable and appreciated. :)

We tried to cram in a lot of lessons for the end of the week since the first three days were totally devoted to this training and then the conference itself. We had some good meetings with members, and even have two new ward missionaries who just got called so that's a blessing! I feel really close to these Relief Society sisters that I get to work with. So many of them are so nice and feel like real friends. I hope I get to stay in these LP wards for a long time. I love getting texts at the end of the night from members wanting to share with us how THEY spread the gospel that day - that is really rewarding. I also love talking to the RMs about how much they loved their missions. It's cool to be able to remind them of the joy that comes from missionary work, and making them feel more like doing more missionary work in their post mission lives. 

We had a miracle occur yesterday. Do you want to hear about it? Of course you do.

As we sat in the chapel right before LP1's Sacrament Meeting began, a member, Stephanie, turned around and introduced us to the woman sitting next to her (whom she had just met--although we didn't know that at the time). Her name is L* and we started talking to her and found out that this is her first time here at the Longfellow Park Chapel, and her second time at an LDS service at all. Want to know how she became interested in the church? She is a self-titled "theater nerd" and so after she saw the Book of Mormon Musical on Broadway, she thought, "Hmmm.. this isn't as weird of a religion as I thought it would be. In fact, this is actually something I want to learn more about!" So she got on mormon.org and started IMing with some digital missionaries, then became really good friends with them. They sent her a copy of the Book of Mormon with their testimonies written inside and she's been reading and loving it. I went with her to the next two meetings as well and she had a lot of questions but was super cool and open. Gospel Principles class went well and she took a lot of notes. She loved the idea of eternal marriage and wrote in her notebook, "When you get married in the temple, it's not just 'Til death do us part'!" 

The members clicked with her really well, and she made a lot of comments to us about how she feels really welcome here, and feels like this could really be the church for her. She already doesn't drink alcohol or coffee for personal reasons, and just wants to learn and come closer to God. Sister Meier and I were stunned - it's funny because we do so much work every day, trying to increase our teaching pool. Not ONE person whom I've contacted on the bus or the street has returned any of our calls or set up an appointment with us, but then things like THIS happen and we realize that we just do what we need to do and we'll be blessed. The only problem is that after all this excitement, we found out she is only 20 years old. BUMMER. We can only teach 25-30 single females. Bugger. We'll have to let the other sisters in University Ward teach her.  But it was a cool experience nonetheless.

Another cute little miracle that happened this week is that one morning we were running for the bus (it wasn't the actual bus we needed to take us into Harvard, just a bus that would take us up the long, dreary hill) and the driver saw us running, slowed down, honked at us, and told us to just hop on there! We didn't even have to run to the bus stop! That was a very charitable man, I tell you. It made my whole day! I felt a little guilty just getting off like two stops later (once we got to the top of the hill) but we made sure to thank him for his kindness.

We have some fun plans for this Pday afternoon - we're going shopping! The Elders really want us to come with them to buy suits - they want our input. Apparently some big suit store is going out of business and is on a closeout sale - $500 to $600 suits for less than $100. They are thrilled, and it's going to be a hilarious experience. We're also going to Target which will be good because I need to get some leggings. I have no nylons or leggings and as such my legs are usually freezing. haha. So it will be nice to get those and check out some long socks and just get geared up for winter. I dressed up in red and khaki today so I'm hoping to get some pictures in front of Target. Represent!

Well, I love you! I hope you're doing well. I would love to get some letters. That means you, friends!  [Emphasis added by the editor!]  :-)

 -Sister Broekhuijsen

P.S. I got a letter from Seth this week - apparently they got a new cat recently - he taped some of her hair to the letter for proof! Absolutely hilarious. :)

Remember, Remember the 7th of November

The post title this week is brought to you by: the subject line of Melissa's email - such a poetess!  <--- That's a word, right?  Anyway, this week's email is shorter than usual - or at least the parts I'm going to post.  I'm going to exercise my editor's license and ask that you wonderful blog readers please pray for Melissa this week.  She is having some  difficult challenges, and a few extra prayers would go a long way!  Thanks!

Saturday night we got a call from the APs that we are supposed to give an hour training at Zone Conference this week (Wednesday) on how to work with members. It's crazy because we've been working so much on revamping the member missionary lessons that we teach! We've been making a lot of changes and even joked about giving a training in ZC, but we didn't think it was realistic because sisters never give trainings! So... Pres. Evans obviously made the decision with the Spirit because we've been working on exactly that. Weird but cool. I knew that Sister Meier would jump on the opportunity, and that we'd be able to give a great training.

So this week I got a new bed! Yay! My old one was creaky and covered with plastic because it used to have bed bugs. Yeah, gross. So now I have a new bedframe, boxspring and mattress. It is such a blessing, I love it! 

Also this week we went on splits with some YW from a Stake in New Hampshire. It was fun but since we only had three hours with them, that's only enough time for one appointment at someone's house (because it takes an hour to get anywhere). So we had members meet us at the church. 

This week I got a package from the Primary! They have been using the theme "Now and Later" by focusing on what they can do "now" and what they can do "later" to spread the gospel. The smaller kids drew pictures and the older kids wrote lists and stuff. Seeing "Sister Broekhuijsen" spelled out in little kid writing was hilarious. Some gave up after B-R-O-E-K :) I liked that Caden Brinkman ( I THINK it was Caden) said that one way he can spread the gospel later is by "Being good at cursive" hahaha. That was a fun package.  

I love you. So much.  I love to think that you pray for me multiple times a day. Please keep it up because I really need it.  

Love, 

Sister Broekhuijsen