Mik in the CLAM: KNITTING, FREE T-SHIRT AND A GLOWING ROD

November 4, 2013

My Dearest Family!!

Happy Be-lated Halloween!!! I hope it was fun for yall! The Trick or Treat sounds like it was fun. Halloween day, we had to be in our apartment by 6pm for safety reasons. Sadly, we didn't have any trick-or-treaters so there really wasn't much of a celebration. We did buy Halloween socks though and apple Carmel suckers (Sister Walker introduced them to me and they have changed my life.)

This past Friday we went to Abuelo (Grandpa) C.'s home. His wife hasn't been to church in a really long time, but they were feeding us dinner. We had tamales, which were sooo good!! Afterwards, Hermano C.'s daughter taught us how to knit! I actually know how to knit now. Who knew that would have been one of the life lessons I would learn on the mission??? And for one of the first times in my mission, someone gave me homework to do. We were assigned to finish our scarves. So mine's about an 1 1/2 but I am sooo proud of it. Its all Sister Walker and I do during our lunch break, its pretty exciting. I'll send you pictures of it soon.

Also, our ward is doing Ward FHE's now. It’s only the first Monday of each month and tonight is the first one ever. The Bishopric talked about how the first one had to be incredible and a huge deal and then... they put the missionaries in charge of it. No pressure, right? Well I hope we will deliver. We are doing a reenactment of 1 Nephi 8 about Lehi's vision with the iron rod. So far we have three fog machines and a glowing rod!! It’s only taken about 4 trips to Home Depot to get all the PVC Pipe, but it’s going to be legit. I am so stoked.

Plus, when we were picking up one of the fog machines from a member, he had a bunch of old t-shirts in his garage. So he gave one to Sister Walker and one to me. I am now the proud owner of the boxing t-shirt from when Martes fought Moreno in 2012. Sister Walker was lucky enough to get an Alicia Keys shirt. We both felt pretty special.

This weekend has been full of miracles. Its just been another testimony builder that our Heavenly Father does love us and does help us out in our times of need. In my Book of Mormon reading, we read about Ammon and his amazing example to King Lamoni and how through him and his brethren they were able to convert many souls unto Christ. But the whole thing started with Ammon's service to the King. It just proves Mosiah 2:27 when we are in the service of our fellow man, we are in the service of our God. I invite you all to look for those opportunities to serve your fellow men this week. This past weekend I really tried to just loose myself in the work, and it was amazing to see the miracles that happened as a response. One cool story was at a part member family's home. We stopped by randomly to invite them to ward FHE tonight and hopefully meet the husband who is not a member (yet!) We have tried meeting him before, but haven't been successful. And finally Saturday, we found him home. At the beginning, he said he would not go to the FHE and had no interest. We talked to him for a little bit, and Sister Walker was very bold with him. (I was so proud of her.) By the end he had a change of heart and said he would go and he would wear a bright color shirt so we would be able to find him in the crowd. :)

We have these things called OYM (Open your mouths.) Basically its just talking to a stranger and leaving them a mormon.org card or a popular favorite is a picture of Jesus with a free Jesus the Christ DVD on the back. So usually the goal is to get 10 OYM a day. Doesn't usually happen and my companion and I have been terrible at doing them recently. So our whole district made a goal to get 280 is one week. Which means our companionship HAS to get 10 every day. So we weren't in our area yesterday because of church and then Sister Walker had a baptism in her old area so we drove all the way to that. But we decided to make it a goal today even though its super hard to do so on P-Days because you are just out and about and not in the area. But so far we have 9 for today!! I took a bunch of pass along cards in my pocket on our morning jog, which usually turns into a walk after a while and we passed them out like candy while people were walking to school. Heavenly Father really provides a way to get the job done. So cool!!!

We were supposed to get a mini-missionary this weekend; they do them a lot in this mission. We even went all the way to pick her up and then she didn't show up. And from what we heard that is so out of character for her, that we hope all is okay. I talked to the APs and was like, “ can we be number one to get a mini missionary next time”. They were like, “okay”!

OH, and we went to EL POLLO LOCO!! Haha

Love you all. Keep up the great work! I am so proud of ya’ll and hearing the ways you are sharing the gospel and working with the missionaries. Keep the faith!

Hna Mik Pillar