hermana hilary: wowzas!

Oh the missionary life.. there once were two Sister Missionaries contacting a random gentleman on the streets of Madison New Jersey. The three of them were standing next to a shop and having a pleasant conversation about some gospel related topics, the spirit was there and all was going well and then all of a sudden, BAM! A bird flew right next to the two Sister missionaries and right into the shop window.. dropped to the ground, fluttered around for a little and then flew away! Okay it really was quite funny. Hermana Millward screamed so loud that I think it scared the man we were talking to more than the actual bird did. Little did we know were were actually in the set of a windex commercial

Man, this has been a great week. Most definitely a week of miracles. We were in Madison earlier that day stopping by to visit a previous investigator. We walked up the stairs to his apartment and knocked on the door. He came to the door, but it wasn't him. So we ended up talking to him, Fankie, for quite a while. Amazing experience, got a return appointment, and asked him if he knew where our guy lived. He said maybe the floor down. So down we went, knocked on the door and a lady came to the door. Also had no idea who we were talking about. So.. naturally we taught her. She let us in and we taught about the restoration of the gospel. I think sometimes we talk about the first vision so much that is becomes something so normal to us. But when we were telling her Josephs first vision, at the point when he said, "and he spoke unto me, calling me by name, and said pointing to the other, this is my Beloved son, hear him!" Her face was of pure astonishment. Almost the face you make when you hear a glass plate hit the ground behind you! It really is incredible. That was a really special lesson to me. So real. I cannot believe the help we get from the spirit. Sometimes my companion will look at me and I know that's my que to speak and I will just start talking. Spanish comes out but a lot of the times I have to ask Sister Millward what I said during a lesson becuase I will speak with nothing going through my head translating it! But we made another apointment with her too and then asked her if she knew anyone else that would need a message about Jesus Christ. She told us that she thought maybe the door across from her and the one across from Frankie. Up we went. Knocked, well, in short, another guy answered the door, we talked to him, and we also have an appointment to come back and teach him and four other guys he lives with. (that should be interesting) All of this happened from a prompting to visit our lost previous investigator the night before. I wish I had time to sit and write all of the things that happen from little promptings but that would take far to long. So I have had the solution to just hire a camera crew. That'll be fine right?

Okay how great are companionships! We are up laughing every night in tears because of some of the things that happen to us during the day. One of them being when we were at a members house and getting to know her and her daughter, my companion had to run up to the bathroom so I got to know the family while she was gone. (p.s. I'm sharing this story with permission) A bit of time had passed and she came back down and starting to share a message with them. At one point in the lesson the Sister left the room to grab her phone from her daughter to get a contact number for us. My companion turned to me and whispers, "I dropped my ring in the toilet!" I started to laugh so hard my eyes were watering. Do you realize how hard it is to be laughing that hard and to make sure that someone in the other room doesn't hear you? Sister Millward sucessfuly retreived the ring though, and spent a lot of time scrubbing her hands, hence the longer bathroom break.

I had my first real trial yesterday.. Fast sunday and we had three appointments back to back after church. All with members. That usually means food. Which was great, we were hungry. So the first apartment we got to we were sitting at the table while she finished making our meal. I was watching her shred carrots and put them in a bowl, get out a box of raisins and mix them together. Then, she got out mayo.. thats fine. I can handle that wopping spoonfull of mayo she just put in. But then, she put in another, and another, and another. I'm pretty sure she used 1/3 of her jar of mayo with two shredded carrots. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of mayo. She served a huge spoonful of it on our plates and then added two huge chicken legs. First of all the chicken was fabulous. The problem that we had, is that we know in the latino cultures, if you don't finish whats on the table it means you didn't like it. My comp had a huge serving of noodles on her plate and I didn't because I'm allergic. But that meant that those carrots had to be eaten... So I did. She never stopped cooking. We ate and she cooked. She made us this thick corn tortilla with ham and butter. Im nauseous at this point. SO FULL. We finish that and two bowls of fruit are put in front of us. Finished em, like a champ! We left with smiles on our faces and stomachs beyond full. The most daunting part.. was that we had two more appointments left and I was already so full I thought I was going to throw up. This was easily the weakest part of my week.. It still makes me laugh that the most overwhelmed I have been here is when we were fed too much.. That's one of those strange lessons on gratitude that I have had. I said a small prayer in my heart that my stomach would be empty (and not by throwing up) for the next lessons so we could show them that we loved their cooking as well! Somehow it was! Little blessings.

What a great week! So many good memories and even more spiritual experiences! Love you all so much!

H. Schwendiman