Fake Spring

I think I checked about 48 times before this email showed up today!   Sometimes I am somewhat less than perfectly patient.  Anyway, here's what Sister Broekhuijsen had to say this week:

Well, just like every other year of my life, we had fake Spring this last week. In case you didn't know, Fake Spring is when the weather pretends that it's not actually winter anymore and gets you excited for 2-6 days. Then, just as you pack up your leggings, peacoat, and long socks, it becomes winter again. :) The Springy days were beautiful but I also love in between weather. Where a cardigan and scarf are just perfect. What I'm saying is, it changed, but I'm not complaining at all. I'll take anything (including freezing winter) over a hot humid summer (which is inevitably coming haha).

Well, this week was a very weird one for me. Just in terms of timelines. I know we're not supposed to do that, but I can't help it. If I go home the early transfer, I'm flying home on February 8th. If I stay the late, then it's March 21st. WEIRD. That means that either way, I have less than a year left out here! That is super weird to me. Things are going well though. I think I just said "Weird" like 30 times. sorry about that. My diction just isn't what is used to be (along with my memory, singing voice, pharmacy skills, and pop culture trivia). Star Trek is still with me strong, though, for some reason.

Has anyone seen Hunger Games? Every member and their dog (that's right - in Boston it's encouraged/popular to take your dog with you to the movie theater) saw the midnight premiere. Have we heard anything from reliable sources about the adaptation? I heard they strayed a lot from Katniss' viewpoint during the actual games which is a bit disappointing. Hopefully it's great. I hope you all get to go see it as a family soon.

The other day in a restaurant I heard a song I really like. I know that is slightly apostate... sorry about that. But we just can't avoid ALL music! It is called, "Tell Me One More Time about Jesus." Or something like that. That's the chorus anyway. I liked it. Here's the problem... it may have been a country song. I couldn't even tell!!! What is WRONG with me?? Ma, can you please look it up and tell me if I'm officially starved for worldy media to the point that I enjoyed a COUNTRY song? Gah.

This week in District Meeting I was asked to give a training on helping investigators get revelation from the Book of Mormon. I focused mostly on the "getting revelation" part - why it's important, how we're different on this topic, etc. I found a quote in the Book of Mormon institute Study manual (coolest thing EVER, btw) by Elder Dallin H. Oaks that I loved, "What makes [Latter-day Saints] different from most other Christians in the way we read and use the Bible and other scriptures is our belief in continuing revelation. For us, the scriptures are not the ultimate source of knowledge, but what precedes the ultimate source. The ultimate knowledge comes by revelation." Isn't that nice? It was a good little reminder and cool to think about. Also involved in my training was Elder Talmage's commentary on a story in Matthew. Found in Jesus The Christ page 361 (in my version... hopefully the same in yours.) Look it up and let me know what you think!

Our investigators are rather nonexistant. P* still meets with us (though she always has some fabulous excuse like being out of town (haha that is real I just like to make it sound like she's lying to us) that keeps her from coming to church. Grr.) and even said that she notices a difference in her life from before we started meeting with her until now. When she prays she always thanks God for letting her meet us and says, "Thank you for sending my sisters to me... I really learn a lot and I really love to learn from them." and then usually she goes into the weather, "I don't like the snow and the rain because it is very cold for me, but it is good for the plants, so thank you for the water for the plants because plants are nice and they are good for make you happy." haha. S* still needs to be transfered over to the CRW Sisters, the next time we meet we'll have to do that. Also Su* hasn't said a WORD to us since taking the GMAT. That's a long time! Grr. Hopefully she wasn't just meeting with us to get her ecclesiastical endorsement! :( Elder Winegar found someone who fits in our age group, which is nice. So we'll be contacting her this week. Also we have some members who have told us they've got some friends interested in meeting with us (only on an informational basis, but still...) so hopefully we'll have some nice lessons this week. It is still hard not to "see the fruit" but I'm doing okay. I don't know how to balance (is there an echo in here?) the idea of being okay with not seeing the fruit and not getting apathetic. I don't want to get hardened, but that's kindof how I feel. I guess I'm just running low on hope. I have faith that the people that God wants to have learn about the gospel will be able to learn, but I don't really have a lot of hope that I'll be involved in that. It's hard because the wards and ward leaders also don't get to see the fruit - it's not just me. So that makes it hard for me and my people-pleasing ways. I know that I'm ultimately only responsible to God, but how do I know if I'm doing enough?

Luckily, I had a wonderful time getting to listen to TWO fast and testimony meetings yesterday. I took a lot of notes and will share some of the things I learned - there were many things I felt were personally directed toward me.

-We can pray for the gift of perception to know how to help other people and be more aware of their needs

-I shouldn't focus so much on what I'm giving UP when I serve the Lord, instead I should focus on what I'm getting (improving, learning, becoming)

-assumptions and deep thoughts and big words are nothing compared to a personal testimony of truth

-When we do His work, we have His power.

-There's a Plan of Salvation (capital P, capital S) but also personal plans of salvation unique to each of us.

-Instead of praying for a boat to take me to the Promised Land, I should follow Nephi's example and pray to know where to find ore to make tools to be able to BUILD a boat according to the instructions of the Lord.

-Even when we feel frustrated by our inabilities to form cohesive thoughts or to communicate as clearly as we swould want to - Heavenly Father speaks our language and knows our thoughts and our desires. There is no language barrier!

Now for some more funniness from Sister Edwards:

Trying to say the quote, "I'm a poet and I didn't even know it" she instead exclaimed, "It rhymes and I didn't even know it!" haha

Talking about some squirrels (remember how we have a forest in our backyard? Remember how squirrels are hilarious? That's how we got on the topic of squirrels) who she thought were tricking each other (this story sounds way weirder when I type it out than it did at the time) she was trying to reference the phrase, "good cop, bad cop" but she said, "oooh look! They're playing good cop, nice cop!"

Lastly, after I told her that I write down all these little gems of hers and e-mail them out to you, she said, "Your parents are going to think I'm a disability or something!!" haha it was great. Needless to say, I'm still well entertained in my companionship. Sister Connell says funny things too, but I never have paper near me when she does.

Well, I love you! Thanks for everything. Hope you're enjoying the change of weather/term,

Sister "Salad is my favorite food ever" Broekhuijsen

 

Spring Has Sprung!

Melissa was in rare form as she wrote today's email!  Remember to divide everything she says by the "Melissa factor" of dramatic expression!  :-)

Hey all!

This week has been pretty unpredictable weather wise. But looking back, it DID have some pattern to it. It followed a pattern known as: If Sister Broekhuijsen wore a long skirt with boots and leggings then it was hot, and if she wore short sleeves, a short(er) skirt, no leggings, and no coat then it was cold, damp, drizzly, and windy. Ha. I'm not complaining though because today I finally got it right and it is GLORIOUS outside! I guess we're a couple weeks ahead of Utah (altitude difference, I suspect) because our crocuses are at their peak and the daffodils are starting now! So pretty. I can't wait for tulips to start going for it. There is also a big ol' magnolia tree right outside of the library and it is STUNNING this morning. I love Boston and I love Spring and I love Boston in the Spring.

The week was good. Nothing too exciting investigator wise, but we met with a lot of members! Our numbers have been really good lately. Our success and happiness are not directly related to our key indicators, because there are weeks when the numbers aren't good but we still feel fulfilled and pleased with our efforts, but when our numbers ARE good, it's easier to feel good about how you're doing.

Yesterday was a bit disappointing, though, because none of our investigators showed up to church. P* called last minute and said she couldn't come (we even had it all arranged to have a member go pick her up!!) and S* couldn't come either. H* has essentially dropped us, so we haven't really had any contact with her this past week. And S* took the GMAT on Saturday so she was out for the whole day yesterday. So that's hard, but there WAS good news! It's not quite as miraculous as Andrew's story from this week, but a man showed up in LP1 yesterday and when he introduced himself after sacrament meeting (an awesome tradition that every ward should adopt) he said, "Hi, my name's R*. I went to Jerusalem last year and felt like I needed more religion in my life. So after I came back to Boston I was lead to this church." HA! He had a lesson with the Elders and now has a baptismal date! So cool. So that is good news, for sure. Now let's just get some people for US to teach!! Gah.

I had a little miracle of my own this week, too. last Friday, Sister Burr and I were running toward the Charles (super pretty at sunrise) and this 60-year-old Asian lady stopped me and asked for the time. I told her it was one minute to six, she seemed confused so I said, "5:59." She said, "Oh, I'm-uh waiting for the 5:54 bus." Sister Burr and I just sort of looked at each other and then explained that the bus has to start down around the corner at Oak Square and then travels around to the different stops and THEN it picks her up haha. She asked if we were heading to work and we said, no, we don't have a normal job, we're missionaries so we TEACH people. She got really excited and asked if we teach English. We told her that no, we don't, we teach about our church. She said, "Oh, you teach about-uh your church? Do you think you can come teach-uh ME?" hahahaha. It was great. But wait

DUN Dun dun...
Then the bus pulled up! Right then! So we tried to get some contact info like an address or a phone number or something but she was very worried about missing her bus so she just kept repeating, "5 huh-bvuh street" while walking frantically toward the bus and holding out her hand to show all five fingers. "FIVE HUB-BVUH STREET!!" and pointing to our right. Man it was crazy. So she drove off in her little bussy-poo and Sister Burr and I spent the next 15 minutes running around trying to find a cross street that sounded like "hub-bvah" that had a number 5. No luck. There is a Hobart street right there, but there's no number 5, plus there are like 3 bus stops that would have been closer than the one we found her at. So the goal is to be there again tomorrow morning and hope that she always takes the 5:54 64 bus :)

One more spiritual thing and then some funny quotes for you.

At church yesterday we sang hymn #145, "Prayer is the Soul's SIncere Desire." It was a good reminder for me that I can always make my prayers more sincere (hard to do since I say so many of them a day!!) but I especially liked verse 3, "Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near." Isn't that sweet? Man I loved it. That's a good little gem of a hymn that I've never fully appreciated.

Now some "Sister Edwards says the darndest things"

-Telling us that she thinks the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is stupid, she was trying to relate how disjointed and dumb it is, she said, "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk. If he gets a glass of milk, then he's gonna want a PUPPET SHOW!!!" hahaahha

-After MANY conversations about Jimmy Fallon and how awesome I think he is, and many references to his show and to especially the spoof of Friday that he performed with Stephen Colbert, Sister Edwards asked me, "Wait, Jimmy Fallon is the guy with long curly hair that plays the saxaphone, right?" GAHH! haha. Lesson learned, Kenny G = Jimmy Fallon apparently.

-Admiring the new buds on the bushes on the walk down the hill to our apartment, "Look! Those bushes are SPROUTING!!"

-Sitting on her bed late at night, complaining about our new eating plan which involves a dissapointingly high amount of salad-eating, "Ooohhhh I'm so hungry. Ah man I'm munchy... <glances out the window> that MOTH even looks good!"

So as you can see, I'm doing very well in the entertainment category. Overall doing well in almost every category. I'm a bit discouraged (which is rough because everyone's advice to me when they see/hear that we don't have any/many progressing investigators is: "Well, just keep it up, don't get discouraged!" - haha, easier said than done!) because I've been here for almost 5 transfers now (The first day of Spring is actually my 6 month mark of being in the field!) and haven't been directly related to any baptisms. L* and D* are sort of "mine," but I just want to see someone through the whole process. I know it's not all about baptisms, so mostly I want to be able to TEACH PEOPLE ABOUT THE GOSPEL AND I DESERVE THAT OPPORTUNITY BECAUSE I AM WORKING HARD!!!!

I know that I won't see all the fruit of my efforts, but I would like SOME fruit. Like maybe some small cherry tomatoes or some little baby alfalfa sprouts of success. I guess it would be less frustrating if everyone was in the same boat as us, but our roommates, because of their age groups, are seeing all kinds of progress! I just want to be a part of the much teaching that is going on. That's probably a selfish, prideful desire, which is probably why I'm being denied that kind of opportunity for now (and the past 6 months.) If someone suggests to me that I'm supposed to be learning patience, I'll probably punch their face off and then stomple it into the ground and then spit on it and drive a semi truck over it and scrape it up with a spatula and burn it and then use the ashes to write the words, "SHUT UP" on a bathroom stall. And then splash toilet water all over it (for good measure).  [In case you didn't figure it out, that was the part that needs to be divided by the "Melissa being dramatic factor!] 

Ha. This sounds mega dramatic. And I feel a little dramatic, but don't worry, I'm not doing this bad. I just am venting to you, but I still have hope that I'll see some direct success at some point. I'm not for a second doubting that I was supposed to come on a mission. I know I'll never regret coming out, I don't doubt that I'm supposed to be here in these wards at this time with these companions, and I don't want to have this challenge taken away from me. I just want to be strengthened by the Lord to be able to deal with it better. I want to know what He needs me to learn/prove/express to get to the point where we can start seeing some people progressing through the gospel and changing their lives for the better.

That's what I want. :)

Well I love you, and hope that you are all doing well! Thanks to the Scoresby girls (Jen, Ashley, and Anna) who all wrote me this past week.  

Pray for me to get some patience, please ;)

Love,

Sister "And I thought I hated St. Patrick's Day BEFORE I came to Boston" Broekhuijsen

Highs and Lows

So, Melissa didn't provide a creative Post Title for me today so I had to make one up.  It's not as good as what she would usually come up with, but it's better than "Weekly Update" which is all we got this time!  :-)

Hello all!

This week was quite bipolar. I had a conversation once with a friend who had a theory that women can experience a higher range of emotions than men. He was trying to decide whether it was worth it. He was all for the being able to experience higher highs, but wasn't so sure it the lower lows would be too much to negate the effects of the highs. Well. I'm here to tell you that nothing can make the highs not worth it, and that the sores of the lows are soon forgotten but that the soaring highs never could be.

So we had two investigator lessons with member present this week. Usually we're lucky to get one (not for lack of willing members, just the standard lack of available/interested investigators) a week so we were really grateful. First of all, Su* is great! Wait, I just realized I don't think I told you about Su* last week. I'll tell you first about our favorite Dutch pharmacist, S*, and then tell the story of Su*.

So we had a lesson with S* on Wednesday. It went so well! We wanted a member to be present, and since we're in a trio, we thought it might be a little overwhelming to have 4-on-1 so we went on splits where M* taught with me, and the other two did other missionary business without me. The lesson was great (M* is a really good teacher) and S* told us that she feels God has often placed people in her life at particular moments to help her, and that it wasn't a coincidence that I sat by her on the bus. She was intrigued by the idea of the Book of Mormon, and agreed to meet with us again, and pray to find answers for herself in the meantime. She is just wonderful - her answers are thoughtful and I can tell God has been preparing her for this her whole life. Here comes one of the bipolar moments, though, she is not in our age group. Just by a year. But that means that we'll have to pass her on to our roommates, who already have 6 progressing investigators. We have none. So that will be hard, but I know it's just a selfish sadness because *I* want to be the one teaching her. When I focus on the fact that she will still be learning and that she can have the amazing change in her life that can only come from learning and living the gospel of Jesus Christ, I feel better. It's just a big bummer, you know?

Now to Su*. She is from Nepal and wants to go to BYU for her masters, so she called up the mission and asked for some help with all her forms. They called around 'til they found someone in her area who went to BYU and I was the lucky duck that got to help her. So I was on the phone with BYU admissions office a bit, getting details on the ecclesiastical endorsement, and then helped her set up an appointment with the Bishop in LP2. We met with her before her interview and taught a first lesson. OH MY. It was the best first lesson I've EVER taught, and definitely the best lesson we've taught together as a tripanionship. Her response was awesome, too! She said she agrees with a lot of the doctrine already. That she's always thought she could have a close relationship with God, and almost started crying as she realized that He truly is our FATHER. It was a really sweet moment. She is taking the GMAT this Saturday, and then will be more free to meet with us. So that is just lovely news. We are so blessed to have found her and to get to teach her. Now we've got to see if we can get our hands on a Nepalese copy of the Book of Mormon! :)

Church yesterday was good, despite the fact that I was doubly tired (woke up early to finish our progress record and prepare a training AND lost an hour. Flipping, fetching Daylight Savings Time. Why did we listen to Benjamin Franklin??) Last week we had a big meeting with our assistant Ward Mission Leader about how we can improve the trust between the members and the missionaries, and he suggested that if we don't have any investigators come to church, we should go out contacting for the last two hours instead of going to SS and RS. Ugh. I hate contacting because I suck at it. I don't like doing things that I'm bad at. I only like doing things that I am good at. Judging from Andrew's e-mail this week, it sounds like I should get some tips from him in this department! But I want to be better at contacting, and the weather was FANTASTIC (seriously - we heard it was 60 degrees yesterday and is supposed to be 65 today!) so it wasn't too bad. Aside from the fact that I don't know how to contact and I'm bad at it and the few people I DID talk to were uninterested. But it was an interesting experience and hopefully shows the ward even more how much we are willing to work.

Now we are going to move on to some less spiritual things. But don't worry, cause they're funny.

-This week, at M*'s house for a dinner appointment, I had the opportunity to video the world premiere of, "My Best Friend Huck...My Dog" music, lyrics, vocals, and guitar by Sister Edwards. It is a HOOT and I can't wait to send off this SD within the next couple of weeks so you can experience the next worldwide phenomena.

-At another dinner appointment, the hostess bought a ton of sushi rolls for dinner. They were the most BEAUTIFUL sushi rolls I've ever beheld (besides yours, of course, Papa) and I had a famous (though I'd never heard of it before) Boston Lobster roll. OOOOH man. If you thought lobster was good, and you thought sushi was good, and you thought that they'd probably be pretty good together, then you thought RIGHT! Probably like 20 bucks a roll. But we're getting some when you come visit me in grad school ;)

-This week we have been into saying things in limerick form. We say whatever we would normally say, but force the pentameter and vocal intonations of a lovely little poem. It's hilarious. We have full conversations like this. One time, Sister Edwards couldn't think of a response to my suggestion (which was, of course, proposed in the explained fashion) so she said,

Great.....
I think that is.....
great.

hahaha it was so funny. Even though it doesn't really sound like it now that I'm rereading the story.... I promise it was.

-Do you want to know what builds self confidence faster than just about anything else? Being whistled at by 2 drunk construction workers every day for a month and then have them one day run over to you and hit on you until you flash your nametag and an overly enthusiastic smile and have them recoil in horror and call you a nun. We politely gave them a passalong card :D

Well family, I love you. Thanks so much for always e-mailing and thinking of me. As the weather warms up I've been a bit more homesick for beautiful Utah. I bet your crocuses are just lovely, and that your daffodils and tulips are starting to bud. But I know I'm here for a reason, and I am determined to not only survive, but to thrive.

Love you,

Sister "I'm not looking forward to the thousands of drunks I'll get to interact with all next weekend" Broekhuijsen

And the Verdict Is…

I'm STAYING!

We got our transfer texts or "t-texts" this past Saturday night and guess what? I get to stay in my wonderful Boston! Same wards. Love it. Also, we are staying in a trio. So that will be really fun. I absolutely love these sisters that I get to work with and feel very lucky to get to stay with them for presumably at least 6 more weeks.

As my health has been improving, we're getting a lot more done! Interesting how that is related.

Our lovely investigators, P* and H* are just as disappointing this week as last. P* at least is still willing to meet with us, but H* has blown us off two weeks in a row now. Nothing we can say seems to convince her to take the leap of faith and budget time in for spiritual things -- she's just too focused on school. So that is frustrating, but we are doing the best we can. We got a TON of referrals last week so that is exciting. Also, probably the highlight of my week is that I contacted a woman, S*, who is very promising. We're meeting with her Wednesday morning and I have high hopes that she'll continue to take the lessons.

It was so cool to see the way that the Lord's hands were in this work when I met her. I sat next to her on a long busride home, and complimented her purse and just made a bit of small talk. Then a couple minutes went by and as more and more people crammed onto the bus, she leaned over to me and said, "This is why I like getting on the bus at Kenmore [the first stop] -- I get a seat!" I agreed that that is a great thing, and then we just got talking! We found out she was getting off just a couple stops after mine, so I asked if she works in the city and lives out west. She said yes so I asked her what she does for work and she said she's a pharmacist. ha! Great! I got to geekout with her and talk about how much I love the idea of replicating or enhancing a normal function of the human body through a pill and we had a nice little talk. Then she asked what I do, and when I told her she said she's had Mormon friends before! Plus she's Dutch!! I don't want to jump the gun, but this just felt so non-coincidental. I was promised that I needed to be on my mission to help specific people and I really hope that she is one of them.

I'll share one spiritual insight with you, and then tell you some randoms in bullet point form. :)

In district meeting this week we talked about charity. As defined in the scriptures, we know that charity is the "pure love of Christ." I had always interpreted that to mean that it's Christ's pure love that we can and should learn how to emulate and radiate for the benefit of other people. Obviously that's a valid and helpful definition BUT you can also interpret it to mean OUR pure love of Christ. As in, our pure love FOR Christ. As in, developing ourselves so that we love nothing and no one more than we love Christ. I just LOVED that idea and I think that the scriptures (the Book of Mormon especially) are an excellent way for us to learn about Christ so that we can learn to have a more pure love FOR Him, which is prerequisite for us truly expressing charity toward others.

Now here we go with the randoms:

-Haymarket last week was amazing. It was just beautiful and the cannoli from Mike's Pastry was remarkably delicious. When we all come back in fall of 2013 to visit I'll definitely take you there.

-While AT Haymarket, we received a wonderful compliment from a rather inebriated man. He saw us from afar and just started yelling, "Whoa! Whoa! Is it Charlie's ANGELS up in here? One... Two... Three... BEAUTIFUL women!" hahahaha.

-This morning I ate some dinosaur oatmeal that an Elder found at CEOC and saved for me. It is the coolest oatmeal you've ever beheld, and even though it's almost TOO sweet, I will still eat the whole box because of its pure awesomeness. It starts out as normal oatmeal with these little, raisin-sized "eggs" which dissolve (hmmm... I wonder what they're made of. Surely not pure sugar, right?) as they touch the boiling water and hatch baby dinosaurs that taste like sprinkles! It is so cute.

-I'm on a stupid Dell again today. But I'm not going to complain about how slow it is, or how much I hate it, or how crappy the resolution is, or how archaic internet explorer is, or how much I hate typing on such a tall keyboard, or any of that. I'm just not that kind of girl.

-I got to call 911 after another highly intoxicated man almost fell into the tracks at a T stop the other day. It was very exciting and we learned a lot of interesting things about him as we waiting for the paramedics to show up. First of all, we asked him where he was trying to go and he told us, "I'm going to Heaven... I go wherever God leads me." Then we found out that his name is both "Amos" AND "Alpha and Omega." Also he doesn't like Mormons (but is somehow very attracted to them, as evidenced by his kissing Sister Edwards' hand), and he doesn't like "nonsense." For the record, his definition of nonsense was me calling the paramedics. It makes for a great story :)

-The other night I had a dream that I was fighting Voldemort final-battle-of-HP7.2-style, but I couldn't remember any spells other than "expecto patronum" and "avada kedavra" — — not super helpful. I think it's symbolic of the fact that I'm forgetting a lot of my worldly knowledge (I can't remember celebrity names for the LIFE of me sometimes). I mean, obviously it's a good thing that I'm letting go of those things, it's just funny that this dream is how my subconcious chose to tell me.

Well I hope you can all have a delightful week. Thanks for your support and prayers and special thanks to those who write me. I love getting letters! hint hint.

Love,

Sister "please bless that the wifi is fixed by next Monday" Broekhuijsen