Hermana Millington - Notes from New Jersy

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Birthdays and Ellis Island - April 17, 2017

Ellis Island
4/3/17


 

This week was awesome :) it went super fast, actually! You know how time flies. And I also got the dreaded 4-month email about flights home and my release date and everything. Man, that was weird. Good thing I still have a lot of time, though :)

Here's some awesome things that happened this week:
We had an Ellis Island training with almost all the sisters in the mission and that was way fun! I  mostly hung out with Sister Davis and Sister Hettinger, my MTC homies. I love them a lot :) it's crazy to see how much we've grown and changed through these months.
 
Then a couple days later we had our shift at Ellis! It was really fun, it was nice and busy. I met some people from France, Germany, and Finland! So I added those to my list. I'm up to 43 countries now!

Sis Gaytan  & Lady Liberty

We had some good times contacting on the street this week, including finding some guy that had to have been a preacher. He kept quoting scriptures and telling us to be brave and prepare ourselves for when Jesus comes again. We also went contacting in ShopRite, this grocery store, because there was no one on the streets. We invited some people to English class and I was blessed with the opportunity to give some lady a quarter to be able to pay for her groceries :) she'd better be at class! Haha. We also got called "mi amor" a lot of times. That's good too.

Also this week was Sister Gaytan's birthday!! Wednesday! She's 20! Woo!! It was fun. That was the first time we went to Ellis so she got to see all her old comps and buddies. Then we accidentally left our phone in another sisters van so we had to drive to Passaic to go get it (about 45 minutes away) After that, we went to a froyo place to find ourless-active that works there. We got an appointment with her! And we contacted in the street and met a lady from Mali and a Dominican guy named Julio that we're going to see this week. Then we had dinner with the Guevara's and Sister Gaytan ate so much she had to unzip her skirt to be able to survive he car-ride home. Haha! She's such an angel. Seriously I love her a lot. She's so quick to just laugh and loves to have a good time :) but she's so good with people, her love is so apparent in the way she talks to them. And she works so hard! Such a good contacter. She's awesome.



We had a cute branch Easter activity that night and that was fun :) the kids in our branch are literally my favorites ever. The people here are just amazing.

Me & Sis. Smith
 
We had our first exchange this week-- and Sis Gaytan's first exchangeas STL! It was with Sister Flinders and her brand-new companion Sister Court. Poor thing literally has like 2 weeks in the mission. I asked her if she had any questions at one point and she was like "yeah, um..I just feel like there's a ton to do and I'm so afraid of forgetting things.. will it get better?" Haha YES! IT DOES GET BETTER!! And we found out they'd been waking up at 5 to get all caught up with the Facebook training videos and everything and poor little Sister Court had no idea that that's not normal! But Sister Flinders is a great trainer, she's helping her a lot. Sister Court grew up in the Marshall Islands and was adopted when she was 6. She remembers a lot about it, though. She told me about her childhood a little bit: she literally had nothing and her parents were good to her. Everyone on those islands is super poor, but her family was even worse off. She has a cousin serving there and she read me some of his email- they shower with buckets, the ocean is the bathroom, and all they eat is rice with fish they've caught or birds they've killed with sling-shots. Crazy!! Anyway, she was adopted by a sweet LDS family in Utah. She was baptized when she was 8 but definitely knows the other side. Her testimony is so sweet and pure. I really came to love her a lot on our exchange. She's still new and pretty timid about things, but she's going to be great. And we taught this lesson and she couldn't understand a word of it, but she walked out and couldn't stop talking about how awesome it was!! Haha greenie fire. It's the best!! And it was an awesome lesson, totally a miracle that the whole family was there and involved with the lesson. It was with some less-actives we have a super hard time meeting with. Also she told us that Sister Flinders' birthday was the next day! So that night we had mug cakes and ice cream. Then when they went to bed Sister Gaytan and I decorated the kitchen a little for her. We had a good little lunch together and enjoyed the rest of the exchange. I love exchanges. I love my assignment as an STL :)
Easter Sunday was fantastic! We had a lovely program with the English ward and Korean branch and it went well. I got to conduct the congregation songs! That was fun :) there were some beautiful musical numbers and I felt the spirit really strong testifying of the truth of it all. It really is all true. I don't know any clearer or simpler way to say it. But Jesus Christ, our older brother and best friend, died for us and overcame death for us. It's truly the biggest miracle and most important thing that has ever happened in the world ever. I felt His love and the power of His grace many times throughout the day.
We had a couple lunches with the Rondoy's and the Mendoza's. The Mendoza family is one of my all-time favorites ever. Their dad served a mission in Mexico and the mom is from Switzerland, but she speaks Spanish and English as well as French. They have three adorable kids. They're super willing to have us over and help us out with our missionary work.   We had a sweet lesson with them about the atonement.
Also I'm working on memorizing the Living Christ again! It's going well so far :) I love that document a lot. It's been cool to study it a lot again.
Anyways. Life is good here :) we have a couple exchanges coming up this week, and interviews with President, and zone conference! Nonstop party cause the party don't stop.
I'm praying for you all the time! I love you :)
happy easters (RIP Bunny ❤️ ps I tell all my comps about Bunny-- his legacy lives on)

 
Hermana Millington
 

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