6/28

Good week behind us! Ray is still on target for July 11, we had an awesome lesson with him and Bro. Arguelles at church yesterday. We see him 3+ times a week now, and he continues to soak everything up. He insists that he's a "toughie", but he accepts commitments with very little, if any, resistance.

You don't know about the Arguelles family--I don't think. They are good friends with the Osmonds and are our adopted family out here in North Bergen. They live in Secaucus (pronouced SEE-kwah-kis or Suh-KWAH-kis, depending on what type of Jersey accent the person you're talking to happens to have) and have two awesome kids. Stephanie served a mission in good ol' Fort Worth, Spanish speaking, and AJ, 10, insists that he's going to serve in Haiti ever since the earthquake hit. Both Bro. and Sis. Arguelles were baptized as teenagers after being Osmond fans and wanting to know more about the church. They are some of the "oldest" members in this area, and still remember the days when sacrament meeting was held in a little rented room in Jersey City and the then ranch included members from all over northern NJ. Every time we come Sis. Arguelles herds us into the kitchen, opens the fridge and pantry, and says, "Sit, girls. EAT." I LOVE them to DEATH. The longer I am out the more I fall in love with the members here--both in this area and my last--especially ones who, like my own parents, are pioneer members, the first in their families. Their stories are inspiring. Their testimonies lift our hearts and give us the strength to go back out after a hard day. Seeing the sacrifices they make to build the kingdom out here makes me more and more grateful for all of you!

Another all-mission conference coming up next week, at which time we will finally meet the long-awaited-and-anticipated Cherry Hill missionaries. I am so torn! I love North Bergen, but I want really badly to go down to Cherry Hill, as well. We'll see what happens. In the mean time, we found several new amazing people to teach this week, Ray is doing well, INDEPENDENCE DAY IS COMING, and I get to play the organ that day because the organist is out of town!!!!!!! I am so excited. I really hope the music lady chooses The Star-Spangled Banner. How could she not? OH my goodness. Caroline, you have to find the recipe for cherry slab-pie and send it to me, I don't think the holiday will be right without it! I can't wait to see how they celebrate the 4th Jersey-style.

6/21

Transfers were last night and Sister Bean and I are staying in North Bergen, glory allelujah! HOWEVER--in two weeks there will be a mini-transfer when the Cherry Hill missionaries come, and then nobody knows what's happening. It's gonna be crazy! But we're all really excited for them to come and are determined to make them feel at home and happy in the Morristown mission.

This week was absolutely nutso. We went to the temple, had all-mission conference, AND had the fireside w/ the Osmonds! The temple was wonderful. I have never felt such a need to go before, nor have I felt so good being there. It was very renewing, peaceful, and comforting. All-mission conference was great--I always love conferences. It got us really pumped for Cherry Hill, and for missionary work in general. Not to mention I got to see all my favorite sisters! Being on the far-east side of the mission we don't get to see the other sisters very often, so that was fun. I think we have the best sister missionaries in the world! Thursday night Jay Osmond and his son Jason gave a fireside. They are HILARIOUS. I was a little disappointed that they didn't sing, but they had wonderful stories and testimonies to share. Sorry, I didn't get any pictures with them--there were several older ladies in the audience who swamped them as soon as "amen" was spoken, and it was past curfew. BUT, some of my favorite members from Paterson came as well, just to see me! I got pictures with them instead. :) Cici, you said that my blog is your homepage, so if you're reading this, HI! I LOVE YOU!!!! Say hi to everybody for me. :D

Coolest thing happened Friday at Ellis Island. So there's something crazy going on with the parking on the island, so we had to park in Liberty State Park and walk a mile or so, and there was a huge air show going on over the Hudson, between the island and Manhattan. Took me back to the shows on the base when I was little. I kept thinking of Dad and knew that he would be drooling if he was there.

So time is going by way faster than I would like it to. I'm nearly halfway through my mission, which has led me to ponder a lot on what has happened for the last 7-ish months, who I've met, how I've changed, etc. I'm so grateful for the experiences I've had, especially the hard ones. It has made me realize just how precious the gospel is, and how incredible blessed we are to have it. How few people enjoy/have enjoyed what we take for granted every day! I think more than anything I've learned how to pray. You cannot survive one day on the mission without praying your little soul out. President has practically threatened each of us with certain doom if we don't continue to pray like a missionary for the rest of our lives.

6/14

Sorry, it's gonna have to be short today, but first of all THANK YOU FOR MY PACKAGES!!!!!! I've been listening to the motab CD over and over and over and over all week long (thank goodness Sister Bean likes it too, hee hee), and I've been "really" disciplined witht he mango, so I still have some left. :) Caroline, that cake was perfect! I don't know how you managed it, but it came out of the box flawless, and it was absolutely delicious! I don't know how you knew to make a coconut cake, but I've been super obsessed with coconut lately. Weird. Monday I bought all my favorite foods (including Cap'n Crunch, yogurt pretzels and ingrdients to make Bang Bang), and I bought a coconut. It was quite an adventure to open and I've been munching on it a bit at a time all week. I tried really hard not to let anyone know it was my birthday, but the word got out and after district meeting the zone leaders threw a mini party. I was actually rather impressed with the cake they made (definitely didn't compare to Caroline's, but it was good!), and the district leader and his companion bought me a case of rootbeer. They heard somewhere that it's my favorite. Don't know where that came from, but I was delighted all the same!

Had a slight scare w/ Ray this week. His best friend of many years passed away and when we went to visit him he was so distraught that we thought he might drop us. We worried about it all week, but then Sunday rolled around and he came to church! He heard a lot about Preach My Gospel there and is now begging for a copy. Last week we found two young men from the Dominican and Cuba and taught them a lesson outside their apartment, just to find out that one of them, Rochet, had a copy of the Book of Mormon and had read the whole thing. I thought he was joking, but then he said something about "Nefi". I asked where he'd gotten it, since he claimed never to have spoken to missionaries before. Story goes that someone gave it to his grandmother, who gave to his father, who gave it to him. We had to turn him and his friend over to the Spanish Elders, but they called us a few days later to report that they had gotten four new investigators from that one referral! We ran into Rochet on the street after that, and he happily reported that he is meeting regularly with the missionaries. So! Even if the person you give it to doesn't accept the gospel, you never know who will be affected by the Books of Mormon you place!

Time's up. Again, thanks so much to everyone who sent packages and so many lovely cards and letters in the mail this week, it was so fun to hear from so many people I haven't talked to in FOREVER!

I love you all, keep being good.

Love love love love love,

Sister Black

A note from Caroline: Thank you to everyone who sent the "lovely cards and letters" for her birthday. As you have read, she really enjoyed them and I'm sure it made her birthday that much more awesome! Thanks so much! :D

Catch-up post

- Mother's Day we got to talk to Holly! It was good to hear her voice, and she sounded like she was doing well... Well, unless you take into consideration the fact that she had limited use of both her arms. She fell down a set of stairs by getting tangled in her own feet (she said it looked like she'd been clothes-lined at the ankles) and caught herself with her hands at the bottom of a short flight of stairs (8 steps or so). They thought she'd broken them, but she didn't. But she couldn't move them much and couldn't type to send us an email the next day. But besides that she's happily serving in her capacity as a missionary!


Holly's letter from 5/17 -

So my arms are doing much better. I have some gnarly bruises, but my range of motion is much better. I still can't drive and I look a little funny when I brush my teeth or eat or do anything like that, and my hair looks a little crazy 'cause I can't really reach my head very well--but most of all it gives me and Sister Bean an opportunity to laugh. And the ward members keep having us over for dinner and giving me chocolate, so I'm happy!

Our investigator Ray came to church on Sunday--whoot! He really enjoyed it and he continues to accept and love everything he learns. He says he's not ready to accept a baptismal date yet, but he's steadily moving closer to that point. Hooray! Also, I fasted yesterday because I was getting so desperate for something good to happen, and last night this cool Filipino guy we taught a couple weeks ago called us to set up an appointment. At the very end of that one lesson his wife came on the seen, said "We're Catholic" and practically kicked us out. On our way out we tried to set up a return appointment and he said, "Uh...I'll call you sometime." We didn't think we'd ever hear from him again. Three cheers for prayer and fasting! It works.

Sister Dennis went home Wednesday, and Sister White was transfered (they were the other companionship of sisters in our ward). Sister Fonua and brand-MTC-new Sister Tolman were doubled in. They are awesome. I met Sister Fonua my first night when we were contacting in Newark. She is a wonderful missionary--we went on an exchange last week and I have already learned a lot from her.


Holly's letter from 5/24 -

Last week was BUSY, and this week is looking like it is going to be the same. Wonderful treat with Zone Conference on Wednesday--I always enjoy Zone Conference. Lots of talk about continual conversion, becoming master planners, and making executive decisions to be different. There is no 'try' in our mission! You either are or are not the missionary the Lord expects you to be.

President did a good job of getting us all riled up and raring to go. He promised us baptisms every week if we do our part, which was more than enough to perk up my ears! I especially felt like I needed a spiritual boost this time. The work is never easy and the past couple weeks have seemed especially stubborn as Sister Bean and I have sought to turn our plethora (sp?) of potential investigators/media referrals/other investigators into solid, progressing investigators--and then to turn THEM into baptisms. I have found over the past 6.5 months that just when my companion and I have discovered someone/something really good, that is when the adversary pulls out all the stops.

BUT. He's not very smart, because then I know exactly what I'm doing right, bahahaha. :D

So, Sister Bean and I have been especially prayerful about our investigator Ray, and we had an awesome experience with him the other day--a wonderful respite from a long streak of running on a hamster wheel, so to speak. He came to church last week and loved it, but he has still been stand-offish about baptism. We decided to focus an entire lesson on it and do everything we could to get HIM to give us the right answers, instead of us telling him what he needs to do. The majority of the lesson was spent reading verses from all the standard works about baptism and authority. Ray's wheels got turning as we asked him to tell us, based on what the scriptures teach us, why baptism is so important, what it means, what its purpose is, etc. By the end of the lesson Ray was telling us that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that the blessings he sees in the church are "proof that Joseph Smith really was a prophet", and about a dream he had the other day that he was covered in pure, clear, blue water, and that he has felt light and happy ever since that dream. He recognized that as an answer to his prayers. He agreed whole-heartedly to be baptized and is praying for a date.

So, no matter what is thrown at us, life is good.

ALSO -
If you are planning on "joining" us for Holly's birthday "party", all letters or cards must be in the mail no later than next Friday. Thanks for making this the best birthday a sister missionary could wish for! :)

5/3

This was just one of those weeks. It felt a little bit like trying to run through deep mud. Many of the new investigators we found last week juked their return appointments and we had difficulty getting members out with us. But Sister Bean and I did the best we knew how, and all in all I would call it a successful week, let the numbers be what they will.

Saturday we visited our investigator Ray for the second time with the Bishop's wife, Sis. Christensen. He has been taught previously, has read the entire Book of Mormon, started over and is now in 2 Nephi again. He has nearly kicked his smoking habit and is now working coffee. He attends sacrament meeting at the Spanish ward because it is the only shift he has off as an animal technician--but he's been praying that he'll be able to get Sundays off and--turns out someone is leaving his job, the next person who comes in will be junior to him, and he will be able to choose his own hours. :) It was a wonderful lesson--despite the random interjections of his hung-over friend, Jerry, haha. We fasted for him on Sunday and will be seeing him again Wednesday. Sister Christensen bore her testimony about the experience and members are inviting us over and asking to go out with us. So, life is good!

4/26

Ack! I am always so short on time, but here are the highlights from this AMAZING week!

Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the first quorum of the Seventy visited us on Thursday. I cannot adequately describe that experience. He changed the way I think about myself, my work--pretty much my whole life. He talked a lot about the vital importance of the Holy Ghost, our identities as disciples of Jesus Christ, and the power that those two things hold. He challenged us to change a lot of things, but President Bahr's "Change Your Heart" theme prepared me well. Sister Bean and I got to work applying his instruction immediately, and.....

We found eight new investigators within 48 hours. Suddenly I cannot think of anything better to do than work. I have always enjoyed the work we do, but now I live for it. I cannot wait to finish shopping today and just get out there and find more people, because they are EVERYWHERE. Oh my goodness, we could not turn a corner without finding someone else who had been prepared to hear and accept the gospel.

For FHE tonight, study "Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon" (Ezra Taft Benson). It will rock your world.

Forgot one little detail last week. We had a couple really hot days and I realized that there was no way I was going to survive the summer with my long, thick, frizzy locks, so--I chopped my hair. It's really short. I'll send pics soon.

4/19

Sister Bean and I are sure that the state of our apartment was the result of years of culmination. BUT--we've worked hard to purge it of all uncleanliness, and, entering our fourth week here, we are finally feeling comfortable and at home in our apartment. Diane, our wonderful landlady, is helping us "sisterfy" it, including shampooing the carpets (it STILL smells like elder) and putting pretty curtains on all the windows.

Oh my goodness, Diane is a riot. We feel like we are living a sitcom sometimes. There are three floors/apartments in the house. She lives on the first floor, we're on the second, and Tommy and Ray are on the third. It's like a big Italian family. Diane frequently cooks dinner for the whole building--including "macaroni and gravy" and ham. We got a message the other day from her--"Just cwalling to see when yous are gonna be home--I've got some ham for yas." On many occasions we come home to find foil-wrapped dinners waiting for us in the fridge. Just an example of normal everyday conversation: [Tommy stomps down the stairs] Diane: "Tommy! Is that you makin' all that noise?" Tommy: "You don't like it, move out!"

The work has ups and downs. Overall Sister Bean and I are making good progress. It's been a little like slogging through mud as we've struggled to get things organized. It is SO important that the area book is in good shape so that new missionaries like us can hit the ground running. So we're still working on that. But, we continue to find new investigators every week. We had a tour of the church on Saturday for our investigator, Cathy. She's been meeting with missionaries for quite some time now but has never gone to church or made any other step that would help her progress towards baptism and seems almost terrified of doing so. The tour was very helpful. She seemed much more comfortable with the idea of coming to church, and is praying about being baptized on May 9! We have high hopes for her. We're struggling with Nabil, who had a baptismal date for April 25--he didn't come to church, so his date will have to be pushed back. But we still have high hopes for him.

Sister Bean and I are both wracking our brains for other ideas on how to get people to church. I never would have expected it to be so, but it is THE hardest thing to do as a missionary! Even committing people to baptism is easier than getting them to go to church. We're also trying really hard to win our ward members' love and trust. Previous missionaries'--ahem--lack of effort has left them slightly less than welcoming. There are a few families that love us already and frequently have us over, but the vast majority of the ward distrusts us. SO. Sister Bean and I are planning to do some major brown-nosing this week to win their affections. We'll also be finding as many people to teach as we can through our own efforts to show them that we mean business.