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

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 

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" 

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 

I AM NOW SISTER PILLAR

November 25, 2013

My Dearest Family,

So update on my life - Sister Sorto has been ill for awhile and she and the Mission President decided she should go home and get well.  She is originally from Honduras, but left from Georgia when she came on her mission.  So on Saturday she returned to Georgia and hopefully will get better soon. She was an amazing example of trusting in the Lord. I honestly feel like Heavenly Father said, "Sister Pillar, I'm going to give you my best example of trusting in the Lord and I'm going to ask that you learn from her." And boy does Sister Sorto trust in Him. It was a huge blessing and privilege to be her companion.

Because Sister Sorto left I had an emergency transfer and now I am an English-speaking missionary in the LA Young Single Adult ward, and am super excited about it!! I know I said I never wanted to serve English-speaking, but I've wanted to serve in a YSA area.  This area covers a whole stake, which includes parts of Hollywood, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and a bunch of cities which names I can’t remember right now. I live in the Patron apartments, which are on the temple grounds!! I live right next to the temple! Crazy huh?? It is the tiniest apartment I've been in, but it is super convenient. There's a place to do laundry for super cheap and its right next to the mission office. There's a senior couple here on a mission, the Kelleys. I love them so much and they work in the mission office. They are now our neighbors! We have a free place to wash our car and the church building is basically right behind the apartments so we can walk to church. 

My new companion is Sister Harrison and she's great!!! She is from Kentucky and I love her lots already! Sister Harrison arrived in LA one transfer before me. Last transfer she was assigned to a trio and they were covering two YSA wards. Now, the other companionship has one of the YSA wards and we have the other. 

Because of our large area we still have a car, which I'm grateful for, but I hate driving in LA. People are very aggressive here. 

I attended church in English for the first time in six months and it was a culture shock. I was asked to read a quote and couldn’t remember how to pronounce a work in English, but the gospel is still true no matter what language! The ward has a super great bishopric and I'm excited to work with them. 

OH and get this!! Remember the violinist from America's Got Talent!? The one who danced and played and was Mormon?!?! Well she has her own video on Mormon.org. Her name is Lindsey Striling. Look it up! It’s so good. I tell everyone to look it up. Well anyways... she is in our ward!!! I MET LINDSEY STIRLING! She's a ward missionary and came to a lesson with us on Saturday. And she's feeding us Wednesday! Ahh my life is so cool!!  

The challenge is going to be able to find young single adults around the holiday seasons. But challenge accepted. We'll do what the Lord wants us to do here. 

This past week we had zone conference and it was AMAZING! I had the blessed opportunity to go twice because of the Emergency Transfer. It was just as good the second time around. The focus was having deeper faith and higher expectations. We have been asked to pray more. I know that when we have specific goals and faith enough to achieve them, the Lord will make those goals a reality. He blesses our righteous desires. So I've been trying really hard to trust in Him and pray for specific things. The LA YSA has a goal to have three baptisms before February 1st. Will you help us out and pray that we will find, teach, and baptize three people in the LA YSA before February 1st? We need to call down the windows of heaven, and we need all the help we can get. Thanks for already for keeping us in your prayers, but now its hastening time. We need to ask specifically for what we want. 

We have been reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and the other day I read about the stripling warriors. It’s just a great story all the way around, but I love how even though their fathers had covenanted not to fight they still helped in anyway they could. They sent provisions to their sons out in the field. I wrote in my scriptures next to this verse. Mom + Dad :) ha-ha thanks for helping the soldiers. I hope you know how extremely grateful I am for the packages and help. 

Oh and guess what! The Bannon's sent me a package! That was the sweetest thing ever!

As for Thanksgiving, no worries, we are going to a member’s home. She was super sweet and called and asked if we had any Thanksgiving traditions that they could do to make us feel more at home. :) So there will be candy corn. We are excited!!

Thanks for everything! Seriously ya'll are doing great! I hope you see the blessings from your work with the missionaries. 

Love you so much!!!

Hermana (now Sister) Mik Pillar  

P.S. Check out the scarf I have been knitting! And here's a picture of Sister Sorto and me. 

Hermana Pillar & Hermana Sorto 

Mik's knitting project 

ORANGES & COCONUT

November 18, 2013

Dear Family,

Okay so I read that article about the Sisters waiting out the typhoon on the roof of a building in the Philippines. O my gosh!!! I can't even imagine. That is truly amazing and inspiring.

And to answer your question, my new apartment is nice. Nothing fancy. It’s completely gated in, and has a heater but we haven't been able to figure out how that works yet. So I've just been working the sweaters during studies in the morning.  

I'm so proud of all ya's hard work especially with the missionary work!!! Ya'll are going to be the laborers of miracles. I can promise you that.

And yes! I did get your package!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I loved the skirts!!!! They are a total life savior since the zipper on 1 of my skirts broke and another ripped.

As for my life, I’m still getting adjusted to the South Gate Branch. From the few members I've met already, I have to say that I'm going to like it as everyone is super nice. I still have a car for now, but I'll definitely keep in mind about the bike safety.

Oh and fun fact about my zone, Sister Sorto and I are the only Sisters in the entire zone. It was a bit of an adjustment for me, because my first area was mostly all sisters.

Cool story from this week, Tuesday before transfers I was still with Sister Walker. We stopped at CVS to pick up some medication and while we were in one of the aisles this woman started talking to Sister Walker She acted like she had met Sister Walker before. I was super confused.

Turns out that this woman had in fact met Sister Walker before (approximately 8 months before.) They had set up a time for the sisters to visit her but something happened and the appointment fell through. Well fast-forward 8 months to a random CVS that we usually don't shop at and that she doesn't usually shop at. We spoke with her a little bit and she invited us over again. We stopped by later that night and she fed us oranges and coconut (its amazing try it!) and gave us a copy of her children's book The People Zoo. It was a super pleasant visit and just a huge testimony builder that Heavenly Father does in fact put people in our path. I left the area so I'm not sure what happened since then, but it was a cool experience.

So I read in Alma today. There is some seriously good stuff in there. I read about Helaman's Stripling Warriors. I loved in Alma 53: 20 how it says "they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted." It just goes to show that true integrity and true virtue are characteristics in all things and in all places.

Keep reading the Book of Mormon!!

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Hna Mik Pillar

I LOVE THIS PLACE

November 11, 2013

My Dearest Family,

Ahh so much to tell you and I just can't seem to type fast enough. The biggest news is this week is transfers and I'm so sad to say my time in Cudahy has come to an end. We received the calls last night and I'm leaving. I'll be honest, I cried last night. I'm devastated to leave Cudahy. I love the ward and the people here, but it is not my place to stay any longer. So I'm off.  I'll still be in the same stake (Huntington Park Stake,) but in a different zone and I'll now be in a branch. I have totally mixed feelings. I hate to leave, but I am excited for the new adventure and what is lying ahead of me.

 My new companion is Sister Sorto. She is a native from Honduras. We know each other a little bit because we arrived in LA the same day. English is her second language, but she's already amazing at it. I'm excited for all the help I'll be receiving with my Spanish. We'll be making the transfer this coming Wednesday.

Another crazy thing is that the LA mission will now be teaching the gospel is the Farsi. There are only 8 Farsi speaking missionaries in the world and four of them are in the LA mission. Rumor has it that the Book of Mormon won't even be printed in Farsi until April. The Elders just got their calls switched to the new language. I know one of them. He was called Spanish speaking and now will be learning a new language. Another crazy thing is they may be covering more than one mission. So I guess we will find out. The whole mission is stoked though for the new language. I believe the LA mission now has 8 languages. (English, Spanish, ASL, Tongan, Samoan, Korean, Chinese, and Farsi.) I have to say that I love this place.

Okay so update on the week.... 

Monday we probably had the most epic ward FHE in the history of ward FHEs! On the first Monday of every month the ward is having a ward FHE. November was the first one and the missionaries were in charge. We did a reenactment of the Iron Rod. The first fifteen minutes were a spiritual message and a brief description of 1 Nephi 8. We had done a lot of preparation before hand and built our own version of Lehi's dream in the gym. It took about five trips to Home Depot and a couple hundred feet of PVC pipe. We then filled the pipes with Christmas tree lights. When the lights were off, the PVC pipe glowed. WE HAD A GLOWING IRON ROD!!! It was soo cool. Then with the aid of three fog machines, we filled the room full of fog. On the stage in the gym we found a stage prop that looked like a great a spacious building, so obviously we used that. We asked the English Elders to help us out and they were up on the stage the whole time mocking and pointing at the people to hold to the rod. We then asked some of the people in the ward to be temptations. As people walked through the fog filled room, they had members tempting them and asking them to let go and come with them. Everyone was given a ticket. If they let go of the rod, they were had to give up the ticket. Pretty cool huh? Then at the end was the Tree of Life. We just used a fake Christmas tree and hung powdered donuts on it. Probably not the same thing Lehi ate in his dream, but close enough right?? Everything went great minus the fact that fog started spilling into the chapel during the spiritual message and no one had any idea what was going on. But overall it was a success! Plus, so many members told us it was great and they learned something!!! I was proud that we had done our job. 

Another miracle from the week was we had 8 less actives at church and 1 investigator. We have been visiting this one family for a few weeks and their one son, B., has had no desire to go to church. We'll Saturday night he promised us that he would go to church on Sunday. So we stopped by Sunday morning to give him a wake-up call and bring him breakfast, but he was already up and basically ready! I was so proud of him. He came to church with his mom. And he liked it! Seriously one of the best Sundays in my mission. 

Then last night was the departing missionary fireside. (It’s basically a testimony meeting for all the missionaries who are returning home and always super good.) I've wanting to go all transfer. Heavenly Father answers prayers because after hardly having any investigators all transfer, we had one that was willing to go last night. Everything came together. The investigator's family went, and even B. came!!! Ahh Iwas so happy! I was stoked. Yesterday was just amazing. I love being a missionary!!! LOVE IT!!! 

I hope all is well. Know that I pray for you all every day. I love you!!! I encourage all of you to read 1 Nephi 8 and think about where we you are at on the iron rod. I found a quote in the Ensign that says "Holding fast to the iron rod entails, in large measure, the prayerful, consistent, and earnest use of the holy scriptures as a reliable guide for the journey to the tree of life - even to the Lord Jesus Christ." MAKE SURE YOU ARE READING THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERY DAY!!!!!!! You can't hold on to the rod if you aren't reading every day. I promise you the Book of Mormon makes all the difference. So keep reading. 

Love you!!!

Hna Mik Pillar 

Missionaries saving souls in the "mist of  darkness"