Here are a few quotes from Sister Calderon, our new trainee:
"Will you just chill? Take some Hawaii cough drops or something."
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| Hermanas Harris, Calderon, X. and Amendola |
"Another prayer? We are just saying HELLOOO to you today!" (that was directed at the ceiling... haha...)
This one was as I was trying to fall asleep: "Sister Harris, you are so naturally beautiful. You just wake up in the morning, like, "Aaahaaaahaaaaaaaah aaahaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaaaaah!" <--- That's the song Ariel sings when Ursula is taking her voice.
Last night she was telling us (for the 3rd time) about how she accidentally called a group of elders 'guys' and how they freaked out. She was dramatizing her would-be response, and said, "Woahwoahwoahwoahwoah. I'm NEW, chumbucket!"
We had temple shift this week, and we were talking to someone about who was in charge of driving, and she said she was, and added, "God said give her the keys, and so they gave me the keys!"
She was telling us once about her shower routine (not sure why... but you know, that's how it goes) and she said it takes so long because "I shave, then shampoo my hair, rinse it, conditioner, rinse it, shampoo again..." we interrupted her and asked her why she had to shampoo twice, and she said, "It says shampoo, rinse, repeat!!"
Oy.
Then she was talking about how she loves shoes, especially Uggs. "I bought this pair of sparkly Uggs right before I came out. They were SO cute. I wore them like 3 times. BLESS. THOSE. SHOES."
"Raisins rogues sans panini? What the heck?" (Reading the side of the bag of red seedless grapes).
In the car once she was talking about how people in Utah get married so quickly. "I don't know what the secret is in Utah. Maybe it's the water. I need to drink more of that stuff."
And this one is probably the one you should put on the blog: "I want to be a talk show host, because if there's one think I can't get enough of, it's talking!"
(THEY WERE ALL TOO FUNNY AND I HAD TO PUT THEM IN!)
Ok so this one takes some explanation. So Sister Amendola told me about this song she learned from a video that teaches sign language. It says something like, "I like apples on my pizza, I like apple pizza please. Put more apples on my pizza, don't forget the extra cheese." Then you change what you put on it. Anyway. It was stuck in my head in the shower and I kept mixing up all the words and making up new verses, like "I like popcorn on my pizza, I like popcorn pizza please, put more popcorn on my pizza, don't forget the extra cheese" and "I like carrots on my popcorn, I like popcorn pizza please, put more carrots on my popcorn, don't forget the extra cheese?" When I came out of the shower, I was telling SIster Amendola about it, and Sister Calderon was listening. She said,
"OKITHINKYOURPIZZA'SFULL."
Anyway!
Speaking of pizza, last Tuesday we made a pizza with rosemary dough for the crust and put bell peppers and onions on top. It was SOO good. ^_^ A cream cheese sauce would've been better maybe but I didn't know how to do that so... we just went with the regular kind.
On Wednesday we finally had a lesson again with X. She made us crepes. She's the cutest! She also gave me a birthday present! It's a beautiful grey and brown scarf. It looks very elegant. And here's the super cool thing. She LOVES Hermana Calderon. She just was straight up and bold with her and loving and Xachi kept saying, "Wow you're so powerful! I love having you hermanas here, but YOU speak my language! You have such a way with words! What you said has entered my heart. I feel it very strongly." So... that's good! Like I said, she's an incredible teacher. and a rocking awesome missionary!
On Friday Sister Calderon took her first solo tour at the Battalion! WOOO! Very proud of her. :) She's doing awesome! We also had an adventure with the cars. Turns out the Chevy Cruze had a recall on the axle, so we had to take it into the nearest dealership, which was thankfully only about 10 minutes away. So we went and they checked it out, and we had to wait for about an hour in the dealership. I had never been inside one before. It was all so fancy. It was pretty fun. We especially enjoyed the complimentary herbal tea and water and fruit. We got to share the gospel a bit, read some scriptures, etc. Not bad. :)
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| Laundry day is a special day! It the day we get ready for laundry... |
Saturday we had choir practice and threw together a song for the Fireside on Sunday. Good news: Heavenly Father helps you when you're missionaries. It literally just came together and it worked out perfectly. Very neat. Then we had temple shift, and afterwards went to the corner store that our member just opened. Such a cute little shop! If anyone goes to La Jolla, go buy something from him! It's off of Judicial. It's in this little square for an apartment complex called Crossroads something or other. It's so cute. ^_^ Get some frozen yogurt or something.
Sunday we had the fireside. It went really well! The song wasn't flawless but it sounded fine, and that's not bad considering we literally only practiced it with the piano ONCE. The testimonies were really unique but good and the messages were awesome. :) One is called Wrong Path or something. It's by Jeffrey R Holland.
Yesterday we had interviews with President. And at the Battalion I got to see an AWESOME miracle. :) I wrote a bit about it, and Sister Kennedy wrote the ending.
Here's the story.
One day I was standing in the lobby talking to some sisters at the front desk, and I felt prompted to go outside. I merely glanced outside to see if anyone was out there, and my eye caught a glimpse of someone walking with their bicycle, looking at the Battalion but hurrying on. I thought, “Oops, too late, I missed him.” The Spirit and I had a battle in my head: “You can still catch up.” “No, I’d have to run.” “Well, RUN.” I had been praying all week for the ability to recognize and obey the Spirit, so I repented and jogged all the way to the statue, catching up just in time.
I spoke to him and we had a friendly chat about the Battalion, what it was, etc., and he said that he helped organize after-school activities and that he might have the kids come through some day. He mentioned that he had often walked past the building, and had always wondered what it was. He added that after seeing all the friendly sisters outside waving all the time, he felt like he should check it out. He said he didn’t have time that day to take the tour, but that he would definitely come back soon. I gave him some Battalion cards, and he went on his way. After he left, I felt such peace and excitement. I knew the Spirit had prompted me to go out and talk to B, and I felt the joy and thrill of following a prompting and planting a seed.
Many times here at the Battalion we don’t see the fruits of the seeds we plant, or even much growth. As time went on, I started wondering what ever happened to B. It had been over a month since we had met, and I wondered if he had ever come in or not. For the past week or so he kept coming to mind on a daily basis, but I just pushed it aside, accepting that sometimes we just never see the end. Then, as I was greeting a cute member family from Fresno, I saw B. walking past with his bicycle! As soon as I saw him, I knew Heavenly Father was answering my prayers, and that a miracle was in the making.
I waved, and he saw me and stopped and parked his bike on the street and headed up the stairs. I went outside and greeted him again. He remembered me, and my name, (“Like you said, it’s Sister Harris, because your ‘hair is’ always covering your name tag!”) and said he had time to take the tour. He was so excited that he left his bike on the sidewalk. I told him he could bring his bike inside, so he grabbed his bike, put it in the lobby, and joined the two families in the intro room. Throughout the whole tour, he was just beaming from ear to ear. At the end of the tour, I ended up taking the pictures of the families, and so the other sister on tour was able to talk to B.
-Sister Harris
(Sister Kennedy wrote)
I had just come from dinner break and the senior sister asked me if I would hop in on the tour that Sister Harris had already started. I obliged, and as the video played, Sister Harris informed me that B. was a miracle in the making. Throughout the rest of the tour I just prayed that he would feel the spirit and that Sister Harris and I could bring the spirit and have a chance to share the gospel at the end.
After the tour, we were in the artifact room and B. asked if the artifacts were real. I assured him that they were all genuine, and then guided him to the case with the Bible and the Book of Mormon, telling him that it was my favorite case. I then asked him if he had ever heard of it. He hadn’t, so I explained a little about what it was and that’s why we are sometimes known as “Mormons”. I asked him if he was religious at all and he told me “kind-of”. He said that most of his life he had been Agnostic, but he didn’t want to be. He doesn’t like the fact that he questions everything, so he has been going to a Christian church and praying a lot, but doesn’t feel like his prayers are really being answered. I told him that as missionaries, our purpose is to help people find answers to their prayers, and I asked him if he would like to meet missionaries. He said yes!
As we talked more, I testified of the power of the Book of Mormon and of prayer, and how these two things combined with church will help him to answer his prayers. He was concerned that his prayers were not being answered because people told him that their answers were like a “punch in the face”. I explained to him that this usually isn’t the case, but that they come slowly, with time.
When we receive a referral, we are told to let the missionaries that come to their house give them a Book of Mormon, but the spirit told me that he needed to hear a scripture, so I grabbed a nearby book, and read to him Heleman 5:30 which says “And it came to pass when they heard this voice, and beheld that it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul”.
He read it again, and he looked at me and said “I love that.” I told him to keep it, and he was so touched. He asked me if he could meet with me and Sister Harris. It broke my heart, but I explained to him that we had our assigned areas in which we teach, but he could visit the battalion and tell us how his journey was going! He said he would, and asked me how soon the missionaries would come. I told him “as soon as possible!”
Sometimes it’s hard to be at the battalion because you plant these seeds and almost never see the growth, but its days like these where I see the miracles that remind me that the work I am doing is making a difference, and that the Lord sees and appreciates my labors, and it makes it all worth it.
-Sister Kennedy
So there you go. :) AWESOME. I love being a missionary!!!
I think that's most of what happened. Love you all! :)
--Hermana Harris
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