Monday, December 23, 2013

10 MINUTES LATER I WAS SANTA


December 23, 2013

My Dearest Family!!!

I GET TO TALK TO YOU IN TWO DAYS! HOLY MOLY!! I'm a bit excited. Also, thanks so much for the stocking!!!!  That stocking is seriously the cutest thing i have ever seen in my life!! I hope y’all have questions though because I don't even know what to tell you all. Just as a heads up I want to hear James play the 12 days of Christmas and see this new toy Dad and James use to makes the pens. That's so cool.

It sounds like you have all been very busy lately and hopefully the holidays will be a nice break. Mom thanks so much for the funeral potato recipe! I was telling Sister Olson about it and she was like that's a terrible name. So we now refer to them as cheesy potatoes. :)

The member we live with was like, “hey I have this authentic Santa costume”. And I was like oh really. I had no idea what an authentic Santa costume was. She got it out and was like here put the wig on. So first I had the wig and the beard on and the poor woman was laughing her head off. I've never seen her laugh so hard. 10 minutes later I was Santa.  See the attached picture. J

Things are going great here in LA. I love the weather, that's for sure! And this past weekend we had a Christmas Devotional with the mission. It was so well done. There are some very musically talented people in the mission. I think everyone was blown away. Then afterwards they fed us a Christmas feast! 

This week things are going a little slow just because not a ton of people are around, but it’s just putting our creativity to the test. :) A cool experience was on Sunday. We had an investigator at church and a recent convert introduced himself to her. He told her she needed to be baptized and that it would totally bless her life. It was such a simple testimony, but so strong and so powerful. I felt it and I know the investigator felt it. Never pass up an opportunity to bear your testimony!!! 

A few weeks ago we stopped by a member’s house randomly. We had been in the neighborhood and had an hour and half left before curfew. Well we got to know her and invited her to pray and then to invite someone to the Visitor center for the Christmas season. We hadn't really had a chance to talk to her since then. But she bore her testimony the other day at a testimony meeting and talked about us coming over and then the missionary experience she was able to have in the following weeks. I was so touched; the Lord really does put us in the paths of those that need us! 

Keep the faith! 
Love you lots! And talk to you soon!!!
Sister Mik Pillar 
Santa Selfie
Santa Pillar




Sunday, December 22, 2013

ARE YOU PART OF THE INN CROWD OR PART OF THE STABLE FEW?


December 16, 2013

My Dearest Family!
I can't believe McKenzie is already leaving!! That's super exciting! She's going to love it!! 

Editor's note, Mikayla cousin entered the MTC on December 18, 2013. 

Glad to hear the Nativity was a success! Not going to lie, I kind of missed it this year. The Visitor Center is great, but it just not the Apex Nativity. 
And Maddie's getting her wisdom teeth out?! When did we all get so old? 

This week was good but pretty slow. We are running into the problem that everyone is leaving for the holidays, which makes staying busy really hard to do. Our new plan of attack is to contact all the YSA aged people that are still in the family wards. It’s still a work in progress seeing as there are over 700 names and we cover the whole stake. Our area is HUGE and then lets add in LA traffic. So it takes forever to travel from one side to the other, but we are starting to figure it out. This week is transfers, but both Sister Harrison and I are staying, and we have big plans for this coming year in the LA ward. We are going to change things up... hopefully for the best! I am excited to stay in the YSA area, but I do miss working with the Spanish community. 

Well I would like to point out that I will speaking to ya'll in just nine days!!! Can you believe it!? Its so weird to think how much time on the mission has gone by. By the end of next transfer I'll be almost half way. Crazy!!! 

Here's a quote that another Sister gave me the other day about Christmas that I really liked: "Are you part of the INN crowd or part of the STABLE few?" It’s amazing how much stability we have in our lives when we put the gospel first. We've been talking to a lot of our members recently about why the gospel is so important to them. And I have loved their answers. One of the most common answers was that it gives us a purpose. We are accountable for our actions and know that we are striving to achieve something greater. How lucky are we! Sharing the message of our divine potential is probably one of my favorite things as a missionary. We are royalty. And one day we will inherit the kingdom. 

Well, love you all lots and I can't wait to skype!! 
Hermana Pillar 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

WHAT WILL YOU GIVE CHRIST THIS SEASON?


December 9, 2013

Hey Family!
I am so sorry but I don't have a ton of time today!! Ahh... they put a limit on the computers now. One would think an hour and half would be enough, but sadly its not.

Okay and first off…THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT BEAUTIFUL TREE! I felt so loved so please tell everyone thank you for me. It was so sweet and so kind and I really appreciated it. And I thought your Beehives did a wonderful job cutting out the tree. It looked great to me. 

Thanks for the pictures from Maddie's b-day. Maddie... you're a babe! Love you and I cannot believe your 17!!! That's so old. haha ;) 

Quick updates:

I am now residing in Beverly Hills! I have no idea how I got so lucky, but here I am and I love it. It’s so nice to be in an actual home for the holiday season. We are going to have an actual Christmas tree!

We live in this huge house and it has a super nice backyard. We live with an older sister, who isn’t married and doesn’t have any children. She loves to play the piano so she made us sing with her the other day. Ha-ha.

She's like got serious connections; she's a friend of President Monson. We were telling her about our YSA ward and the struggles we were having with all the members going home for the holidays. She was like "well ya’ll just got the pits. I'm going to call President Monson about this." Ha-ha-ha I love her so much! She is the sweetest thing. She's even been helping us in the finding process. She's inviting over her cleaning ladies in hopes that we can meet with them and talk to them a little about the gospel. 

Oh and get this... we totally set off the house alarm the other day. Cops came and everything.  Luckily Sister … came home while we were explaining to the cops who we were. And we even invited one of the cops to the visitor center for one of the Christmas programs and I really think she might go! Sister … said it is a $200 charge every time the cops come. We talked to the mission office and offered to pay for it, but I guess the church will cover it. 

Oh and Sister .... doesn't have a computer or internet so I'm not sure about Skyping on Christmas.  I'm still trying to work that out and hopefully will have an answer by next week. 

We have a couple of potential investigators right now. So fingers crossed. One of our investigators is D…who is great and still stoked to be getting baptized on January 4th.

This week for “finding” we went caroling. We went with a few people from the ward, and it was super fun. We didn't reap any investigators, but some seeds were definitely planted. 

On Thursday I had my six-month training. It was so great and so inspirational. I love trainings. Its crazy to think I'm already 1/3 of the way done. The training was a good reminder that we've come pretty far, but to still keep going and improving and progressing. I made some new goals and am excited to go to work. 

This Christmas season has been beautiful and it’s been a real reminder of the actual meaning of Christmas. It’s been so great to see so much service and love. We were asked what we will give Christ for His gift this holiday season.  It really got me thinking. What am I going to give him? I'm still working on my list, but I challenge you to do the same. We only have a few short weeks left, but what will you give Christ this holiday season? If we go about it with an eye of faith and a heart full of service, miracles are going to happen. I promise. 

Love you lots,
Hermana Mik Pillar 

LA Temple & Vistiors Center

"Christmas Wishes Tree" 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

DEEP FAITH, HIGH EXPECTATIONS AND THEN THE MIRACLES COME!


December 2, 2013

My Dearest Family,
It sounds like Thanksgiving treated you well minus the fact that Dad and James were sick! Sorry about! Things here in LA have been great. We were super lucky enough to be invited to KaRynn Sheranian's home for Thanksgiving dinner. World,  just so you know... the Sheranians can cook! Holy smokes the food was so good!! Afterwards we went to our Bishop's. He had some people over who didn't have anywhere else to go for the holidays. After that we still had some time on our hands, so we went around the neighborhood to invite people to the Christmas Concerts that are held every night at the LA Visitor's Center. I found out that a lot of Jews live very close to the Mormon Temple and its Hanukkah...

Okay so a few weeks ago we had zone conference and the big push in the mission right now is to have deeper faith and higher expectations. We've been asked to pray a lot. So Sister Harrison and I took this to heart. Monday night we decided we were going to find an investigator by Tuesday who wanted to be baptized. We texted everyone we could think of in our ward to pray for us the following day. Members, less actives, the Bishop. I asked everyone we saw in the mission office to join in as well. I asked the members as well to talk with everyone they came in contact with and have a missionary experience. And that day we talked to everyone on the streets. Everyone. I've never talked to so many people on the streets before. We had some really neat experiences and some really good gospel conversations. It was amazing! However, at the end of the day we still didn't have a new investigator. And honestly, I wasn't quite sure how to take that. Here I thought we had done everything right, but didn't know what to make of it. 

Let's fast forward to Friday. We were going about our day when we saw that we had a missed call. I called the number back and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello! This is Sister Pillar. 
Brother in the stake: Hello is this the LA YSA sisters??
Me: Yes..?
Brother in the stake: Hi I have a friend that would like to be baptized.

I'm pretty sure the angles were singing in the background. We now have a new investigator, who came to church on Sunday! She's super nice and wants to know what she has to do to be baptized. So four words my friends, Deep Faith, High Expectations and then the miracles come. 

Well in the middle of writing this we just got an announcement. We are moving apartments again. Second time this transfer. Beverly Hills here we come! (We will be living with a member.)

Love you lots!!
Sister Mik Pillar