(Autumnal) Equinox Euphoria

I'm not sure what determines the timing of the emails we receive, but I'm always glad when they come sooner rather than later!  As always, it was GREAT to hear from Melissa today.

What a creative, alliterative, and non-forced subject line.

Well, folks, I've got a big ol' list of things to e-mail you so let's get going.

First, we'll do some investigator updates. D*, who used to have a baptism date for October 14th, cancelled our appointment for this week and hasn't returned our calls since. So that's a bummer - hopefully we'll be able to get in touch with her, see what's going on, and re-set a date. S*, our new investigator that I told you about last week is progressing and doing very well! She is so excited to learn and couldn't wait to discuss her reading assignment with us. She invited us over for lunch (we're making pupusas!!) and a lesson this next week and we are praying that she'll have a positive reaction to the Restoration DVD we left with her as homework. P* is doing well too! He's been too busy to meet for the past couple weeks but we finally saw him last Saturday. He told us he wants to get baptized - he knows it's the next step for him and he wants to do it! He is praying about whether 28 October or 11 November would be better for him. I love that for him it's now a "when" instead of an "if."

We had a cool referral from President Packard this week. Apparently after one of the Zone Conferences with Elder Haleck (details to come) this woman (P*) came up to President and gave him a book.  President asked if there was anything he could do for her, and she just asked for him to pray for her. He said, "I can do ya one better [he's from Texas, don't forget now] - I'll send two angel missionaries to come pray WITH you." She said that would be great and it turns out that she lives down the street from us. Yay!! So that was a cool experience. We called her and she said she was too busy this week, but we're going to check in and try to schedule something for next week. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

So the Zone Conference with Elder Haleck and his wife was just GREAT! I got so much revelation. I love revelation. I love learning things beyond (or even unrelated to) what's being actually said and just learning straight from the Spirit. A lot of the trainings were about working with members, so that was great! Elder Haleck also went into some straight up doctrine. (As Angel Bruce (R. McConkie) would tell us, we learned, "truth, DIAMOND truth. Truth unmixed with error. [Because] truth ALONE - leads to salvation." :) Can you tell I've been soaking that in this week? haha. Back to the conference...) He read through 2 Nephi 31 with us and asked, what is it that Christ is asking us to follow Him in? In obedience and submission to the will of the Father. He focused on the idea of "real intent" and how we can't just ask our investigators to pray this way, we need to pray for them in the same way and then they will recognize us as servants of Christ - then we become credible in their eyes. He also posed the question, What is the relationship between steadfastness in Christ and enduring to the end? His answer was: constantly focusing on Christ (especially taking the Sacrament regularly) is the only way that we CAN endure to the end. Ooh love it.

At the end, he (Elder Haleck) told a story of when he got to sit in on the room where mission calls are assigned. On one side, Elder Nelson was assigning Senior couples and on the other side, Elder Cook was assigning the other (normal?) missionaries. He said that in most cases it was extremely quick - he (Elder Cook) would look at the picture of the prospective missionary, look at the other computer screen of missions and where there are upcoming needs, and just call them out loud. There is an "operator" who runs the slide show of missionary pictures and records where they are verbally assigned (how awesome would it be to have THAT job!?? I know it's a sin to covet callings but regarding THIS issue, call me a SINNER!). So yeah, that's how most of the assignments would work. But every once in a while, Elder Cook would say, "Go back 8 slides." (or 7, 3, 5, whatever). So the operator would pull of the picture of a missionary that was assigned several minutes ago. Then he would say, "Pull up the Sapporo Japan (or whatever) mission - who is the mission president there?" So the operator would split the screen and pull of a picture of the mission president and his wife with their names. Then Elder Cook would look and confirm and say, "This missionary needs this mission president. Reassign him/her to that mission."

So cool, right? Elder Haleck asked Elder Cook (after he was done for the day) what that was all about and Elder Cook told him that the Spirit works really quickly in these cases. But that sometimes he (Elder Cook) would feel impressed to change that initial call based on NEW revelation. He said that in those cases, the Spirit told him that that missionary was with that mission president in the pre-mortal existence, and that he/she had been assigned to that mission president's "team." So Elder Cook would make the reassignment to fulfill that foreordination/agreement.

WHOA!!! Isn't that amazing? I was bawling. I think I definitely fit into that category. I have felt such a strong connection to both President Evans and President Packard and his family that I don't doubt for one second that I was assigned to both of their "teams" before I came here, and that that could be on reason that I felt the need to leave on my mission so urgently - I think it's interesting that I am the only Sister missionary who gets to have her mission split exactly in half with the first half under Pres. Evans and the second half under Pres. Packard. Once again we can see the Lord's hand more in hindsight than we can in the moment. Awesome.

Friday the 21st was the "one year in the field" mark for Sister Lopez and me! We celebrated by making homemade pizzer. It was so fun!

Two more funny things and then I simply must go.

The first is some excerpts from a recent letter from P* (my favorite old man from Oxford). I had asked him a couple questions like how his summer was, favorite scripture, etc. His answers made me laugh out loud!

"Have you seen Quincy yet? Or the Old North Church? Right near the Old North Church you will see a statue of me called Paul Revere HAHA!"

"Well, I don't have a favorite scripture but I like the words that say, 'And it came to pass' and 'verily I say unto you.'"

"The best part of my summer is, when the kids downstairs go back to school. They don't bug me as much. Now it's just weekends."

Oh man. He is hilarious.

Whelp - I will have to share my BoM insights next week. I love you all and am so grateful for your support! Thanks for writing, have fun car shopping, and please start working on the cats' Halloween costumes. I would like for Presto to be a can of Crisco (this costume should require the least amount of work on your end), Zorro can be Thriller Zombie MJ, and you should rig up some kind of contraption for Cleo to wear so it looks like she's being swooped up off the ground by a pterodactyl.

Love,

Sister "Next week is transfers so don't be expecting an e-mail until next Wednesday" Broekhuijsen

Week 3 of Transfer 9 - Weird!

Today's email got here a bit sooner than the past couple of weeks…of course it's never as soon as I want it to be!  (But then again, the public library probably isn't open at 5:00 a.m.!)

Hello to you and you and YOU!

Once again I just feel like a very lucky girl. The weather has continued to be absolutely delightful (not that my sense of self-worth is directly tied to the forecast), and I'm consistently reminded of my blessings. Autumn is just an easy time of the year to have gratitude.

Last night we got to go up to the Cambridge Stake Center for a fireside. Clayton Christensen was the speaker and it was (unsurprisingly) amazing. P*, our investigator, came, which is why we got to go :) It was announced that the topic would be the History of the Church in New England, which is cool, but it turned out to be more about story telling. He (President Christensen) LOVES story telling as a way to teach/make a point. He and a woman named Karen Smith Daley spoke about this process of turning over 200 interviews into transcripts, and then compiling those transcripts into a book, which I believe is now available. It's called For All the Saints and, from what I can gather, it talks a lot about building up the Kingdom specifically here in New England, but it will likely teach principles that are universally applicable. If I were allowed to read it right now, I would run swiftly to my nearest Deseret Book (which I'm guessing is several thousand miles away) to purchase it and then read it while running (perhaps less swiftly, at this point) back to my area to resume missionary work. That's how good it is. You should go look it up and read it and then tell me how right I am about it being awesome.

One of the main themes he shared was from D&C 20:19-21. President Christensen pointed out that when the Lord established that system, it wasn't just that He would use the weak members to tide the church over until more capable members could come in - this is just how the Lord WORKS. It reminds me of a phrase I've been pondering about a lot lately - that the Lord doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the CALLED. Very humbling and makes me feel better about being a missionary. I'm expected to not be awesome at everything, but I AM expected to rely on Him.

So that was just wonderful to get to feel the Spirit so strongly and learn from a hero. It was also fun to be back in Cambridge - I got to say hi to a lot of people I knew and loved from the LP wards! Such a blessing to get to see them again. I love people (<-- who AM I??). One more thing about yesterday and then I promise I'll move on. In Sacrament meeting I learned a lot from the two speakers. A brother from our ward and then a High Councilor.

* Something he said made me ask myself, "Do I petition the Lord to manifest Himself through ME through spiritual gifts?"

* Everyone knows that Christ can take something good and make it better, but another miracle is that He can take something bad and make it good - our suffering can be productive!

* Korihor would have taught (to use a farming analogy) that you shouldn't waste your time preparing the ground, or watering or fertilizing until you see the sprouts poke through the soil and know for sure that it's worth it, that it was a good seed. But even a non-farmer knows that you have to put forth the effort for at least a little while WITHOUT seeing outward results - that's where faith comes in!

Anyway I just loved yesterday. I feel so grateful to be here in a place where I get to learn so much from the incredible people around me. It makes the "I'm all set"s seem not as bad :)

In other news, I got the package you sent - thanks so much! It arrived quickly - on the 13th, which I believe was just two days after you sent it. Impressive. It actually arrived faster than the letter! Anyway it was very much appreciated. I've been sharing the Annacdotes and Dave Barry quotes with my companion/roommates and we've all enjoyed that. I've worn both of the new shirts you sent, as well as the necklace. The DINOSAUR TRANSFORMER was awesome! (Duh. With a name like "Dinosaur Transformer" - it would be impossible to be lame). Thanks, Garrett! Also the dinosaur sandwich cutter is also awesome. I had to laugh at myself as I reasoned through how I would use it. I thought to myself, well, I'm cutting out bread as much as possible (I seriously haven't bought bread in like 3 months) so I won't ever really make a sandwich.... I guess I'll have to make COOKIES! haha. Because clearly, cookies are less bad for you than bread.

Our week was very lovely. It flew by (they always do, lately) and I feel like it was a good one. We have two new investigators! S* and L*. They were both contacted on the street by Elders in our district and then given to us as referrals. And (wonder of wonder miracle of miracles) they BOTH turned into new investigators - meaning that they didn't cancel the appointment, they were actually home, and they accepted a return appointment. AWESOME. S* is from El Salvador (and is going to teach us how to make pupusas - SCORE!!) and L* is from Sierra Leon. I LOVE Boston. So much more diversity this side of the river :)

We also had good interactions with our members! Of our many member lessons, two stand out as being particularly rewarding. One was with C*, the woman who was baptized into the ward the week before we got here. She is a delight - I think I've told you about her before. She just soaks things up and is so loving. She writes songs about church/the Spirit/her conversion, and always texts us things like, "You know, you REALLY left the Holy Ghost with me - I can't stop writing!" haha. She makes crafts for us and just appreciates getting to meet with us. I love her - I want to write her for the rest of my life. The other was with Sister G*. I KNOW I've told you about HER before - she's the one from Nepal with the awesome history. Anyway she is doing the BYU-I pathways program to learn English. They use the Book of Mormon as a main tool to teach English (which, I don't know if that's the smartest idea since it's not really written in modern English, but no one consulted ME about it, so I'll just stay quiet). She's really excited about it, but she has a distinct disadvantage because everyone else in the class has a Book of Mormon in their native language (most are Chinese, Haitian, Spanish, or Portuguese speakers) but the Book of Mormon hasn't yet been translated into Nepalese! So she asked to meet with us and we got to go through the first two chapters of 1 Nephi with her and pause after every verse and explain words to her. It was such a cool experience and we know she really appreciated it.

The musical fireside is coming along okay. We're going to need to spend a lot of time on it this week to get the outline done by next Sunday, but it's doable.

Things back home sound exciting! Lots of basil, fun dates (that girl you took to Homecoming is CUTE, Joshua! And she looks really nice. Good choice), and a bow-hunt within city limits! Wowzer.  Thanks so much for those updates, I really do love to hear how home is doing!

Tomorrow morning we have to be at the train station at 7:00 to get picked up to go to a special Zone Conference tomorrow. What a treat! An extra Zone Conference is like, better than a dead rat with rabies! [Editor's note:  She's really not insulting zone conference - "a dead rat with rabies" is just one of those inside family jokes…]  Elder O. Vincent Haleck of the Seventy is coming to our mission! I'm so excited - it's going to be a blast. It's my first visiting general authority - apparently I just missed D. Todd Christofferson last year (BUMMER!) as well as President Eyring and President Packer when they came to rededicate the LP Chapel. But I'm not complaining. The point I'm wanting to make is that I'm excited.

Before I close I want to share a couple pictures and an explanation with you. One day we were eating lunch outside between appointments because it was lovely weather and the timing worked out perfectly. I was a little tired/sore but still hungry. So I decided to lay down with my bag of baby carrots on my belly and eat it like that. Then I decided that I wanted to dip my carrots in Sister Jordan's salsa. So please picture that scene in your head - it probably looks a lot like this:

 

I love you a lot! Thanks for the updates you sent. I love to hear how you're doing and I am always comforted and happy to hear that you think about me and pray for me multiple times a day. The feeling/acts is/are mutual.

Ciao,

Sister "I bought a belt today for two dollars. TWO DOLLARS!" Broekhuijsen

P.S. Lately, during my lunch hour, I have been reading the Liahona in Spanish, translating it to English in my head, and then comparing it to the Ensign. I am getting good. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm now fluent in Spanish. Congratulations!

Crisp

Once again, I was losing hope that we would get an email today, and once again I was pleasantly surprised!  Here's the latest from Melissa.

Hello all!  

As we exited our abode today, our skin was greeted by nothing short of cool air. WHAT? Yes. Isn't that lovely? It is FALL in New England, people! What a delight! I'm a lucky girl to be here in this beautiful city at this beautiful time of the year. 

I feel like I don't have that many updates since the last time I wrote you! Andrew was able to come up with a full second e-mail in just 36 hours but (fortunately) my life is much more stationary. :) 

Investigator update, P* was too busy to meet with us again this week. That was a bummer. He is a software developer and they've got a deadline coming up this weekend so he's been putting in a lot of extra hours. Hopefully he'll be ready to focus on spirituality with full force once that's over. We are still meeting with D*, who has a baptismal date, as well as J*, our Bible study man. We have a new investigator, K*, whom we met while looking for his sister who was on our potential sheet. He is pretty nice and so far wants to keep meeting with us, so that's good! 

We had a couple of really great lessons with members this past week! I love seeing people prayerfully draft a family mission plan - so far all the plans I've seen have been pretty different from each other, but that's what's so great - they're perfect for the family! I love that people make specific goals and have obviously made their personal missionary work a matter of personal revelation.  We started working with this woman named C*, who was baptized the week before we got transfered in, and confirmed our first week in Boston. She is such a sweetheart! She is pretty lonely and has a lot of challenges but she just has so much faith. She really wants to do what's right and she writes songs about the Book of Mormon, prayer, stuff like that. It's so funny because she actually has a very high-pitched voice, but when she sings it's this rich, chocolately, 1940's alto - SO FUNNY. I love it. We got to meet with a less-active woman who is another really inspiring person! Her name is S* and she and her parents were among the very first people baptized in Albania. Like, literally she and 40-ish others were baptized in a group as soon as it was legally acceptable. That was I think 11 years ago? Anyway, she has a lot of faith and wants to come back to church soon. 

Saturday was Elder Ludlow's birthday. He's an Elder who was actually in our district out in Oxford, and then got transferred into our ward just a couple weeks ago - we love him! For his birthday we bought some Snickers and Milky Way bars and arranged them in an L (for Ludlow, of course) on a sheet of aluminum foil, drilled holes in them, and stuck 20 candles in this piece of work. Then we made them stop by our apartment on their way home because we told them we had a teaching record for them - hahahahahahaha. They were not mad at our lies, luckily. So that was fun! 

Yesterday was a GREAT day! We had a nice time at church (with a visiting choir from the Haitian ward doing the musical number in Sacrament Meeting - AWESOME) and then did some planning. For dinner we got picked up by Sister Packard and driven to the mission home - we got to have dinner with President Packard and his family! My GOODNESS I just love them so much. We are working on putting together a travelling musical fireside that we can take around to all the Stakes in the mission. President loves me, and I love him. His family is just so amazing. It was wonderful to get to spend time with them. I requested an interview with him and asked for advice on how I can be a better companion. He gave me some wonderful counsel and a Priesthood blessing and I feel a lot better! I was happy to (again) feel such a strong confirmation that he is the person God wants to be leading the Massachusetts Boston Mission at this time, and that I am meant to be here at this time, too. I'm so blessed.  

I hope you are all doing well! I love you so much and appreciate your e-mails. 

Love,
Sister "I love Autumn" Broekhuijsen

Whew! In the Nick of Time!

I was basically giving up on getting an email from Melissa today and thinking that we might have to wait at least another day, when a "cute little miracle" happened and an email CAME!  Yay!  (Also, yes, I totally stole that quote from Melissa, of course.)

Wow. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here known as: time is going by really, really quickly! 

I can't believe it's e-mail time again, and I even had to wait an extra day because of Labor Day! haha. 

This past week was good, though it's kinda blurring together.  

I have good news on the D* front! She has agreed to prepare herself for baptism on October 14th. She still has a lot to learn but we are happy that she is willing to take this step. She is so willing to learn more and just honestly wants to do exactly what she should. She really wants to please God and is fantastic at recognizing His hand in her life. 

Wednesday (which, as you now ALL know, was Michael Jackson's would-be 54th birthday) was a HIT! It was such a fun day. Sister Jordan and I dressed up in black and white (with red accents. Oh yeah.) and we made chocolate cupcakes with white frosting. I bought sparkly silver sprinkles (I think you know what for) and black decorating icing (which was extremely hard to work with so don't judge my designs on the cupcakes). Sister Jordan bought black and white zebra muffin liners. It was AWESOME.

We made up little hand-outs to give to the missionaries in our district that said,

As a wise man once suggested,   

"If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make that change." 

-Brother Michael Jackson

Today, more than ever, let's focus on helping others to bring about this "mighty change" in their hearts (Alma 5:14).
Love,
Sister Broekhuijsen & Sister Jordan 

Isn't that adorable? We are seriously SO cool. So we went around delivering those, then we got to have an HOUR long conversation with our mailman. He is so nice - he has an amazing memory and can always recall what mail we received or tell us who we sent mail to last Thursday... it's kinda creepy but also really impressive. So we left a note on our mailbox that said, "Mr. Mailman - please knock! We have a gift for you!" He did as commanded and we gave him a cupcake and then talked to him for an HOUR. He told us about his religious history, and said that he's sometimes given rides to the elders cause he lives right by the church! Cool. So that was great. Then we headed up to Cambridge to go to CEOC. That was a delight because I got to carry a rubbermaid full of black and white cupcakes over an hour and a half on a bus and two trains! They did their trick - it was a GREAT conversation starter! One guy stared at me and asked in this big, tough-guy voice, "hey - can I have a cupcake?" I grinned and (probably too enthusiastically) yelled, "SURE!", whipped the container open, and offered it to him. He was a bit taken aback and  declined the cupcake (WHat?? Don't ask if you don't really WANT it, buddy!) but I gave him a passalong card so hopefully it was a positive experience overall.  

We've been having a lot of bogus media referrals lately. It's a bummer because they are close enough to being real (as in, the city DOES exist, and the phone number matches the city, and the street exists IN the city) but they are not. For example, we walked up Forest Street in Roxbury. The house number that we were referred to was #20. We walked up this monstrously steep hill and found that it jumped from 16 to 22. NOT CUTE, PEOPLE! So that's happened 3 times now (just since coming back to Boston in July) and then we had another fun experience where the referral was for apartment number 77 in this building in the middle of Chinatown. We got there and *surprise!* the elevator was broken. Do you want to know what floor #77 is on? It's on the 7th floor. Do you want to know how many stairs there are between ground level and the 7th floor? Well, that makes two of us. I wish I had a number because I would feel impressive. But if sufficeth me to say that there were a great many stairs and I was exceedingly sore afterward. The BEST part of that story is that we got up there to #77 and no one answered the door. So we started writing a note to leave when two OTHER huffy-puffy people made it up the trecherous journey and started walking to the door. "Are you G*?" I asked. "Uh... no." "Well do you know the G* that lives here in 77?" "Lady, NObody lives here - we're the cleaning crew that just got hired to get this ready for a resell!" BOOo. So that was a bummer but still we were positive and didn't even complain. I'm clearly over it and not even bitter. In fact, I don't even talk about it any more. It's just OUT of my mind.  

We had a lesson with a man named D* (NOT the same D* that stood us up a couple weeks ago) that I met on a bus. He came up to me after riding next to me the whole way and asked, "What is your purpose?" Pah! How often does THAT happen? So we talked for a while (actually the whole train ride up to Boston) and he gave me his number! So we met in Boston common with JP, my Ward Mission Leader from LP2! [Editor's note:  LP2 was Melissa's first area.] He is a screenwriter, and D* mentioned that one way he expresses his testimony is by writing screenplays so I thought it would be a good fit and *pat pat pat* it was. Good job, Sister Broeky! So that was nice! 

I got a package from Kelsey and Lizzy for my one year mark! It was SO adorable of them! It was cat themed, and contained cat pictures from a coloring book, a cat puzzle, kit-kats, letters, and fantastic puns like such as, "It's a meow-acle! You've reached your 1-year mark!" hahahahaha. It was a total surprise and arrived EXACTLY on time. So they get a shout out :) 

Pday yesterday was great! We found a new grocery store (well, more like produce stand) that has AMAZING prices. Seriously, my apples were less than HALF what I was paying at Stop n' Shop. Also we went to Rainbow. I KNOW I don't need any more clothes, but the clearance rack just GOT me! I bought a red blazer (for 7 DOLLARS!) that, with a little embellishing could TOTALLY look like a Thriller jacket. So... I think I know what I'm going to be for Halloween this year :)  

Well, that's about all I can think of for now! I hope you had a lovely Labor Day. Sad that Andrew's e-mail is so lamely short this week but I'll try to be okay with that. 

Love,
Sister "for once in my life I'm excited for Halloween" Broekhuijsen

Monday Holidays Are the Worst!

Sometimes I wish P-Day was on Wednesday or something - there are SO many Monday holidays!  Anyway, hopefully we'll be hearing from Melissa tomorrow (Tuesday.)  That's what I'm counting on, anyway!