Gilroy - July 16, 2013 photos

Patriotic Missionaries

 

How not to use a bike rack on your vehicle.

Dr. Billings treats a patient.

 

Hump day!

More patriots.

Hello Gilroy!  Now get off the fence railing.

 

Hump day - burnt offerings.

Laborers in the vineyard.

 

 

 

 

December 16, 2013 - Redwood City

Wow this last week was one of the best weeks of my mission! It was super busy which is probably why it was so good. The two days that I was waiting for my trainee to come in I was in a trio with my roommates who work in the English program. Spending just two days with them made me realize that we work in completely different worlds. I couldn't even believe that we were in the same city! President Watkins talked to us about how Menlo park pays the highest amount of tithing dollars in the world every year and I definitely saw evidence of that. The few houses that we went to were unreal! He related Menlo park to an hour glass and how at the top there are a ton of really rich people and then the middle of the hour glass is the few middle class people and the bottom is a ton of poor people. It was a fun and interesting change for a couple days but I definitely like working with the Spanish speakers :)

 

Anyway, my new companion is Sister Baird (yes, just one more letter than my last companion) and she's from Massachusetts. She's 19 years old and came from the Mexico MTC. She's SO adorable! I love her so much already. She's really willing to try anything and just brought so much enthusiasm (greenie fire as other missionaries call it) to the work.  We've already seen so many miracle! This is why I love training!

 

On Saturday we planned Yaser's baptism and everything went great. I'll send pictures if I have time. His girlfriend spoke and gave a perfect heartfelt testimony at the end. She's planning on going on a mission and I hope Yaser starts considering that as well. His mom came and was crying during part of it so maybe she'll be ready for the gospel one day as well.

 

On Sunday we took Melissa up to the Oakland temple to see the Christmas lights. I saw Scott's sister and her family there! I don't know her name but probably the only sister he has that's living in California. They were sitting right behind us and I turned around and recognized them as the Fitzgeralds! What a small world! But anyway, Melissa is progressing very quickly and is excited for her baptismal date on the 28th of December.

 

We found a new investigator this week named Roberto and he seems really solid. He said the prayer at the end of our first lesson and told heavenly father that he would be coming to church because he had promised him (god) a long time ago that we would go back to church the first time someone invited him to go. When I heard them say that I was SO grateful that we had stopped him on the street to invite him to church. Sure enough, he showed up on Sunday! He even turned down a job offer so that he could come.

 

Remember Enrique? We started teaching him my first week here and he came to church on Sunday for his second time! He wants to get baptized when he gets back from mexico in January. So many people are just SO prepared I can't even believe it. I feel like I can barely keep up with all the work that there is to do. And to make it even harder to keep up, we got put on bikes again. Which I'm secretly very happy about...it just makes it harder to get to more appointments. But I know the Lord will make it all possible.

 

Christmas is coming so soon!! As far as Skype plans, our bishop invited us over to his house to use their computers in the afternoon. We're having a Christmas breakfast as a zone at 1030 so I think after 12 will be the best time. Does that work with everyone's schedule? And where will everyone be? Texas? Utah? I'm planning on using my google account (kristenhope1990@gmail.com) to do a google hangout again. Hopefully that works for everyone! Do you need a specific time?  Maybe we can finalize that next Monday. I can also call you Christmas morning to finalize plans if needed. I can't wait to see everyone!!

 

Speaking of Christmas, a member gave us a huge Christmas tree to put in our apartment. It has lights and we decorated it with pass along cards and it spins in a circle. Life could seriously not get any better!

 

Well I love you all and I'm looking forward to seeing all of you on Christmas!!!! NEXT WEEK! :)

 

Love, Hermana Billings

December 10, 2013 - Redwood City

Once again I'm emailling on a Tuesday. This time it's because we were asked to be hostesses at the creche exhibit. Which was AWESOME. They did a complete makeover on one of the chapels in Palo Alto and had 350 nativity displays from 65 different countries. Such a cool experience. I wish I could send pictures of some of the creches but no photos were allowed. Anyway, here I am emailling on a Tuesday once again!

 

This last week was the end of the transfer and I was asked to train a new missionary which means sister bair got transferred. She is now in Livermore (where I started!) and I will meet my new companion on Thursday. There are only 3 sisters coming in this transfer and 2 of them are spanish. Although it was sad to only have one transfer with sister bair, I'm really excited to train again!

 

On Sunday I went to the despedidia for sister green and sister wallace...my first two companions are already going home! It honestly seems like just yesterday that I met my trainer sister green. It was good to hear their testimonies but sad to say goodbye.

 

This week we had an awesome miracle! A 17 year old girl (mayte) who was baptized (by my second companion sister wallace when she was here) last year has a non-memeber boyfriend named yaser. So mayte spent about a week in utah with an lds family to check out byu campus and decided that she wants to go on a mission. She has SUCH a strong testimony and is a huge example, especially to her boyfriend. He took the lessons with her last year but decided not to get baptized. Anyway, while she was gone we received a text from him asking if we could teach him again so that he could be baptized on dec 14th (this saturday!) At first we wondered if he was just joining because of his girlfriend but then we found out that he hadn't even talked to her about it. He remembered everything that he was taught last year from the previous missionaries and can interpret and understand scriptures extremely well. He said he knows he's ready this time. Once again, the lord is sending us so many prepared people!

 

Remember the arabic man we met at the restaurant? We promised him to bring a book of mormon in his language. The night that we had planned to bring it to him we "somehow" met a member (brother henry) in the stake who speaks arabic. I never would have even considered asking if any members spoke arabic! But the lord helped our paths cross so we asked him if he would come with us that evening to introduce the book of mormon to our arabic friend. We sat in silence while they talked about the book of mormon and restoration. At one point, brother henry smiled and then turned to us and said, "he (the arabic man) said that he know's it's a good book because it's about christ". I know we won't be able to teach him but I at least felt that we had done our part in giving him another witness of jesus christ and I just pray that he reads it.

 

Another investigator that we've been working with is enrique. we met him my very first week here. He is doing awesome! He came to church for the first time (he works on sundays) and everyone was so welcoming. Last week he told us that his son was going to have surgery in mexico to get a tumor in his stomach removed so we taught him about fasting and asked him if he would like to fast together. He had SOOO much faith. I could see it just burning in his eyes. When we went back to ask him how the surgery went he said it was a miracle. The tumor in his sons stomach was gone and all that the doctors could find were the remains of the tumor. He's progressing so quickly! He'd be baptized already if it weren't for his work on Sundays.

 

We've been reading the bom with him and when we read 1 ne 8, I drew a picture of lehi's dream. It wasn't a pretty picture or anything but after the lesson he pulled out his wallet, carefully folded it up and put it in his wallet. I asked him why he wanted to keep such a poorly drawn picture and then he pulled out another piece of paper. It was the plan of salvation that we had drawn during our second lesson with him. Also poorly drawn. He said that it doesn't matter what they look like but the meaning behind them.

 

Well Christmas is coming SOOOO soooon. Downtown redwood city turned into the northpole overnight. there's a huge tree decorated with lights that we can see right out our apartment window. The train tracks that run RIGHT by our apartment (that I used to hate because the loud train keeps me up all night) now are my favorite because there is a train that goes by at night that is decorated in chirstmas lights. We also had our ward chirstmas party this last weekend and almost every single one of our 15 investigators showed up! This is why Christmas is the best.

 

Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes y que estan disfrutando la epoca del nacimiento de nuestro salvador. Tenga buena semana!

Con amor, Hermana Billings

December 2, 2013 - Redwood City

Hola familia! Espero que todo esta bien y que su dia de accion de gracias estaba lleno de comida :) This week was INCREDIBLE!! And I can't believe that it's December already. Tomorrow is my 14th month mark! Wow. Well I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was really really good! As close to perfect as it can get without being at home with the family. On Thanksgiving morning after we did our studies, we went to a park and played touch football with our zone (with permission from president of course). It was so fun! Almost as fun as playing soccer. And I was SOO sore the next day...but definitely worth it.

 

After our football game we taught a few lessons and then we went to dinner at the Ruiz Family's house. It was INCREDIBLE. I'll send pictures but even those won't do it justice. He went all out and cooked a very very fancy american style Thanksgiving dinner. He even made gluten free gravy for me :) The only thing missing was mom's gluten free apple pie! We tried to teach a few lessons after dinner but we were only able to teach one and we ended up going with our roommates to their investigators house and being forced to eat a second dinner! Even though I was full, I was glad because it tasted more like the food we have for Thanksgiving at home. The Ruiz dinner was more like food you would have at a restaurant. Although still very delicous! Plus she was all alone and had prepared TONS of food for just herself. She was so happy that we came over so that she could have someone to share it with.

 

Anyway, that was pretty much it for Thanksgiving. I gained 4lbs in just that day....but it's gone now again thank goodness.

 

As for the HIGHLIGHT of the week..............AMBER GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By far the happiest moment of my mission as well as my entire LIFE. I've been plenty happy before but never ever as happy as I felt at her baptism. The whole thing was such a miracle. If you remember, she was going to wait until June to get baptized because that's when her boyfriend had agreed to get married. Well it turns out that he wasn't exactly faithful to her and she found out about a lot of things that he had been keeping to her. Horrible situation. But luckily she turned it into something positive and saw it as her answer to get baptized and move on.

 

It was a miracle because right when she found out that he wasn't faithful to her a lady from the del rey park ward, who is a real estate agent, called and asked if she would want to look at an apartment in San Jose. Amber went with her to look at it and decided that she wanted to move in asap. She moved all of her stuff within two weeks and changed her kids school and day care and everything. Luckily San Jose is actually closer to her work. But still....HUGE sacrifice and change in order to be baptized.

 

 When she went to her apartment one night she opened the fridge and just started crying because a member in the ward had filled her fridge with food. She said she had been praying because she wasn't sure how she was going to be able to buy groceries for the week. Other than that, there were a ton of other small, yet crucial, miracles that happened leading up to her baptism.

 

As for the actual baptismal service, it was beautiful! She was late getting there because of traffic so I got to see Sister Champlin and talk to her for awhile. Her and I really had a special bond and it made me miss her so much! I've really loved each and everyone of my companions but she feels more like family than a friend or companion. When Amber finally showed up we quickly took a picture as soon as she was in white. There were SO many missionaries there because Sister GG and I started teaching her in April then Sister Champlin joined us and then we passed her off to the sisters in the other ward and all of us have new companions now. So there were 10 sister missionaries and I think 8 elders. Maybe more. Even though the elders didn't teach her, she would always invite them over for dinner. Everyone loves her! Plus the Del Rey ward (the ward I was working in ), the gavilan hills ward (the one we passed her to) and the Glenview ward (where she moved to in San jose) AND her non-member mom and brother. So she had a lot of love and support there for her that night.

 

"Amber's missionaries" sang "I'll go where you want me to go" right before she was baptized and she just cried and cried during the entire song. She was baptized by the same brother that baptized her son, Brother Zollinger. I honestly can't even explain how happy I felt watching her be baptized. It's way beyond words and even thinking about it right now is brining tears of joy to my eyes again.

 

After she changed into dry clothes she stood up in front of everyone and bore a beautiful heart-felt testimony about the gospel and the truthfulness of this church. I wish I could have recorded it so that I could watch it over and over again! I know her children are going to be blessed because of the decision of their mom. The stake president got up at the end of the service and said "You've got guts Amber!" And I coudln't agree with him more!

 

Well as far as investigators and lessons her in my current area....we met some awesome guys on the street the other night. We were walking downtown and a man that owns a restaurant stopped us and asked if we could talk to his friend. We said of course and sat down at one of his tables. His friend moved here from egypt about 2 months ago and only speaks arabic so the restaurant owner (who also speaks arabic) translated our simplified version of the restoration for him. He told us that his arabic friend loves god and wants to learn more about Him so we promised to bring a copy of an arabic book of mormon. Before we left, we asked if we could sing a song and we sang Silent Night. Both of them got tears in their eyes and said they felt something weird but good. We asked them how they felt and they said they had chills but felt something warm inside. We testified of the spirit and promised to come back. It was such a different experience from any that I've ever had before but I felt very drawn to the arabic man and I haven't been able to stop thinking about how much the gospel can bless his life. So we will keep our promise and return soon :)

 

Remember JoseLuis who was recently baptized? He's doing so great! He was ordained a priest last Sunday and this Sunday he blessed the sacrament! It was so cute to see a 65 yr old man up there learning how to participate in priesthood ordinances for the first time. Before church started I was looking around the room and my companion asked who I was looking for. I said I was looking for JoseLuis and she said, pointing to the stand, that he was going to bless the sacrament. I guess my surprised reaction was pretty funny because she started laughing. I was surprised, but pleasantly! We stopped by his house after church to give him a gift from our mission president that he gives to all of the recent convernts. He wasn't home, but his family was! So we asked if we could teach them and they are GOLDEN! They couldn't wait for us to come back. That was our first time at his house because we teach him at his daughters house where he spends most of his days taking care of grandkids. So now we have two househoulds of family members of JoseLuis to teach.

 

I learned a lesson about judging who's ready to accept the gospel this week. We received a phone call from a sweet old lady that asked us to come teach her so she could be baptized. Of course we set an appointment! But when we arrived at the address that she gave us we realized that we were at a mental hospital. And not only that, but a CREEPY one. As my companion said, "I feel like we just walked into a horror movie". It was seriously creepy. But we knew we had to go meet her so we said a prayer and of we went! It turns out that she lives in the assisted living part of the hospital. She met with missionaries in the past and called us because she's ready to be baptized now! MIRACLE! She came to church with us on Sunday so keep her in your prayers. Oh, her name is Yadira.

 

Well I think that is all for this week! I really hope that all of you had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying the Christmas season! I sure am loving the Christmas music!! And now I can listen to it without annoying my companion....I think I started listening to it in July.

 

I love you all! Les quiero mucho!

-Hermana Billings

November 25, 2013 - Redwood City

This week I received the BEST news of my entire mission. Amber (from Gilroy) called me last night to invite me to her baptism this Saturday at 6!! It's all I've been able to think about since she told me. I still can't believe that it's even happening. If the rest of my mission is horrible, her getting baptized will all make up for it. She decided that she doesn't want to marry her boyfriend afterall and decided to move out to an apartment in San Jose. She'll be getting baptized in the Gilroy ward right before she moves. And I just PRAY that her new ward in San Jose will take her under their wings. So this Saturday I will be going back to Gilroy!!!! I still feel like Gilroy is my home so it will be really good to see everyone. Amber asked me to speak at her baptism and I feel very honored. She really is the greatest inspiration to me that righteousness really is more powerful than wickedness. I would have bet that she wouldn't have been baptized until after I returned home from my mission but I was wrong. And I'm glad that I was wrong!

 

Anyway, besides that fantastic news we had a really good week. Normally we set companionship goals for lessons taught etc. but this week our district leader decided to hold us accountable as a district. On Sunday, we were 16 lessons behind for the month as a district (3 companionships). He told us that we all needed to get at least 6 lessons that day to meet our monthly lesson goal. On a typical day we usually teach 3-4 lessons so we knew that getting 6 would be a stretch. And Sister Bair and I had already met our companionship goal for lessons and we didn't have a single lesson appointment but we pushed ourselves to find more people to teach to help out the district. We ended up teaching 5 lessons and sure enough, our district met our goal and we ended up getting 17 lessons as a district that day! It was interesting taking a team approach though because I know it pushed us to do more than we would have done without that perspective. But missionary work really should be a combined effort and it taught me a really important lesson about working together to bring to pass miralces. I would never have thought getting 17 lessons between 3 companionships (on a Sunday nonethelss) would ever be possible. But the Lord always provides a way :)

 

I had a meeting with the other STL's this week and we had the opportunity to talk to President Watkins daughter who just got back from her mission on Tuesday. She was serving in Arizona and her mission used ipads. She told us of all the amazing things the missionaries were able to do with ipads including scheduling appointments, using it as an area book, google maps with investigators and members pin-pointed, showing mormong messages and communicating with all of the missionaries in the area. It sounds like a dream!! By January there are supposed to be 30 missions in the U.S that use ipads and hers was #8....so I'd be lying if I said I'm not praying that the San Jose mission gets picked to use ipads soon!

 

We had a really neat experience this week. We had just spent about an hour contacting. In other words, we had just spent an hour being rejected by people on the street. We were heading back to our apartment, walking down a hill, and I was thinking how sad it is that so many people just casually reject such a good thing. Then we saw an old lady in a wheelchair with bags of groceries on her lap, pushing herself up the hill with her legs. Clearly she was struggling so I ran down to her and asked if I could help. She said no because she didn't want us to waste our time. I assured her that it wasn't at all a waste of our time and started pushing her up the hill. We took her about a block or so to her destination and had a nice conversation along the way. She was very grateful and let us share a pass along card with her. We said goodbye and started towards our apartment again. As we were walking down the hill, a construction worker on the overpass above us yelled something down to us. We got closer and asked him to repeat what he said. He thanked us for helping the lady up the hill. His simple thank-you made me realize that there are still good people out there. It really touched me that he would thank us. I thought about that experience later that night and just imagined that construction worker watching the old lady in the wheelchair struggle, but not being able to help her. I'm so glad that we were able to help her and that there was someone else watching out for her. The sad part is, several people walked right by her without even hesitating to stop. But there are still good kindhearted people out there! Sometimes you just have to look closely :)

 

By the way, I got hit by a car on my bike this week. But don't worry I'm fine. I was kind of shaken up from it for a few hours afterwards though. It was a rainy day, but the sun was still out and I was about to go through an intersection when a car decided to turn right at the last second. Luckily they had been at a stop so they weren't going very fast. I didn't even see the car until the last second and I slammed on my brakes but the ground was wet so my tires slipped on the ground. I wouldn't have even looked up to see the car at all but a car behind me saw that I was about to get hit and started honking. Thank you car behind me! By the time I got back on my bike, the light had turned red and my companion was already on the other side. She kept going and going for a few blocks before she even realized that I wasn't behind her. She said she was pretty shocked when she turned around and didn't see me. But we reunited just fine! The zone leaders found out and of course were really dramatic about it and gave us someone else's car from the zone. So now we're in full car :( At least for now. And seriously....I'm okay. I didn't even get a scratch or a bruise on me.

 

But anyway, I hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving! We've been invited over to a members house for thanksgiving with the spanish speaking elders. I'm not sure if we'll be having an american style thanksgiving or mexican....but either way I'm sure it'll be good. I love you all and have a good week!

 

Love, Sister Billings

November 25, 2013 - Redwood City

So remember how I said I would be emailing on Mondays now? I must have jinxed it because here I am on a Tuesday, emailing once again.

 

 The reason why we didn't have time to email yesterday is because we got asked to give a special presentation for a Theology class at a private school. They called the mission office and asked for two sisters and two elders to come and present about our beliefs and some church history. On Sunday, sister Bair and I set aside about an hour to put together a power point presentation with video clips and pictures that we would be using. After working on it for about an hour at the library, it somehow got deleted. It was like finals week of college all over again! Working on a project last minute just to have it be deleted. But this time it wasn't a grade in school that I was worried about. I called the elders to tell them what had happened (they were at the temple with an investigator so they weren't able to help us) and I said, "this is like finals week only worse because people's salvation is hanging on the line!" They thought that was pretty funny but at the time I was pretty stressed. We ended up using a member's computer (with president's permission) and everything worked out fine. Even though we had to take an extra hour to re-do the presentation.

 

So on Monday morning we went to the school to present. It's a small (275 students) private catholic school. We presented for 2 classes of seniors. They had already studied the history of the church in class so we focused mainly on the atonment. The teacher said that it was "good strategy" on our part so as to distract from the controversial church history topics. But we didn't do it to be strategic. We all prayed about what we should present and decided that focusing on the atonement was the best idea. Afterall, it is Christ's church and His atonment is central to the plan of salvation. I wish I could go into more detail about how the presentation went but I don't have time. After our presentation the students had about 20 minutes to ask questions. The usual questions came up but everyone (minus one) was very respectful and accepting of the answers we gave. One lady came to visit for the first class and was looking for a debate about prop 8. She was getting frustrated that we weren't debating with her but we just told her that as missionaries we can't represent the church in political issues but we can say that we believe marriage is between a man and a woman. She found us at lunch and had printed off an article about mormons involvment in prop 8 and handed it to each one of us. We smiled and took the article so hopefully she can feel at peace now. The teacher, who is openly gay, had invited her to come. But he wasn't looking for contention I don't think.

 

Anyway, it was an amazing experience. The students were very well educated and very open. I was nervous about teaching in front of so many people but I know the words that we should say were given to us. I hope that at least one student will remember the spirit that we brought and have the desire to learn more.

 

Okay, so about Jose Luis. His baptism was so amazing! I still can't believe how quickly he decided to be baptized. His brother-in-law who has been baptized for about a year was able to baptize him. It was his first time using his priesthood to baptize someone and he was so touched to be given such an opportunity. When Jose Luis came out of the water he had THE biggest smile on his face. Bigger than any I've seen after a baptism on my mission. He was also really brave and got up to bear his testimony after he changed his clothes. He was nervous but he did a good job. His non member wife, daughter, and granddaughters all came to the service so we're hoping to be able to start teaching them soon. As part of his testmiony he said that it's never too late to change (he's 65). he even got a little emotional during his testimony. It seriously was a miracle! I'll send pictures if I have time.

 

Speaking of miracles. We had a zone conference this last week and our mission president put up a whole bunch of numbers and charts of what we've accomplished so far this year. With the new flood of missionaries and missionaries just working harder we've really seen so many miracles. It was so interesting though because he pointed out that we're doing about double the work but seeing four times the results. You'd think it'd be double the work and double the results right? But when we're working extra hard the Lord blesses us. And it was easy to see that He really has been blessing this mission. We're all working extra hard to finish off 2013 strong..

 

Last story for the week....we went to a christian church that is putting on a live nativity program this december to volunteer. Similar to what I did in Livermore when I first got into the field if anyone remembers. Anyway, a few of us missionaries showed up at the same time and we asked the guy in charge how we could help. He explained our responsibilites for the day and then asked us if we could remove our name tags. He said it was a "non denominational" group and he didn't want anyone asking us questions. We told him that we wouldn't be able to remove our tags and then he said, quite angrily, "Well how are you going to help in people's salvation if you can't remove your tags?" I don't know what he meant by that but I was pretty defensive. I told him that we were just there to help and if he didn't want our help then we could leave. For how defensive I felt, i was pretty surprised how calm the words came out. His entire demeanor changed and he started telling us how grateful he was for our desire to help and let us stay.

 

I know that the tags we wear might just look like tags to someone else but I've learned that the tag I get to wear every single day shows that I don't represent myself but that I represent Christ. I've become very attached to my little black name tag with Christ's name on it. It really is such an honor to represent Him and His church.

 

Well on that note, I hope everyone is having a good week and I can't wait to hear from all of you soon. Cuidense y Dios les bendiga

Con amor,

Hermana BillingsThis week I received the BEST news of my entire mission. Amber (from Gilroy) called me last night to invite me to her baptism this Saturday at 6!! It's all I've been able to think about since she told me. I still can't believe that it's even happening. If the rest of my mission is horrible, her getting baptized will all make up for it. She decided that she doesn't want to marry her boyfriend afterall and decided to move out to an apartment in San Jose. She'll be getting baptized in the Gilroy ward right before she moves. And I just PRAY that her new ward in San Jose will take her under their wings. So this Saturday I will be going back to Gilroy!!!! I still feel like Gilroy is my home so it will be really good to see everyone. Amber asked me to speak at her baptism and I feel very honored. She really is the greatest inspiration to me that righteousness really is more powerful than wickedness. I would have bet that she wouldn't have been baptized until after I returned home from my mission but I was wrong. And I'm glad that I was wrong!

 

Anyway, besides that fantastic news we had a really good week. Normally we set companionship goals for lessons taught etc. but this week our district leader decided to hold us accountable as a district. On Sunday, we were 16 lessons behind for the month as a district (3 companionships). He told us that we all needed to get at least 6 lessons that day to meet our monthly lesson goal. On a typical day we usually teach 3-4 lessons so we knew that getting 6 would be a stretch. And Sister Bair and I had already met our companionship goal for lessons and we didn't have a single lesson appointment but we pushed ourselves to find more people to teach to help out the district. We ended up teaching 5 lessons and sure enough, our district met our goal and we ended up getting 17 lessons as a district that day! It was interesting taking a team approach though because I know it pushed us to do more than we would have done without that perspective. But missionary work really should be a combined effort and it taught me a really important lesson about working together to bring to pass miralces. I would never have thought getting 17 lessons between 3 companionships (on a Sunday nonethelss) would ever be possible. But the Lord always provides a way :)

 

I had a meeting with the other STL's this week and we had the opportunity to talk to President Watkins daughter who just got back from her mission on Tuesday. She was serving in Arizona and her mission used ipads. She told us of all the amazing things the missionaries were able to do with ipads including scheduling appointments, using it as an area book, google maps with investigators and members pin-pointed, showing mormong messages and communicating with all of the missionaries in the area. It sounds like a dream!! By January there are supposed to be 30 missions in the U.S that use ipads and hers was #8....so I'd be lying if I said I'm not praying that the San Jose mission gets picked to use ipads soon!

 

We had a really neat experience this week. We had just spent about an hour contacting. In other words, we had just spent an hour being rejected by people on the street. We were heading back to our apartment, walking down a hill, and I was thinking how sad it is that so many people just casually reject such a good thing. Then we saw an old lady in a wheelchair with bags of groceries on her lap, pushing herself up the hill with her legs. Clearly she was struggling so I ran down to her and asked if I could help. She said no because she didn't want us to waste our time. I assured her that it wasn't at all a waste of our time and started pushing her up the hill. We took her about a block or so to her destination and had a nice conversation along the way. She was very grateful and let us share a pass along card with her. We said goodbye and started towards our apartment again. As we were walking down the hill, a construction worker on the overpass above us yelled something down to us. We got closer and asked him to repeat what he said. He thanked us for helping the lady up the hill. His simple thank-you made me realize that there are still good people out there. It really touched me that he would thank us. I thought about that experience later that night and just imagined that construction worker watching the old lady in the wheelchair struggle, but not being able to help her. I'm so glad that we were able to help her and that there was someone else watching out for her. The sad part is, several people walked right by her without even hesitating to stop. But there are still good kindhearted people out there! Sometimes you just have to look closely :)

 

By the way, I got hit by a car on my bike this week. But don't worry I'm fine. I was kind of shaken up from it for a few hours afterwards though. It was a rainy day, but the sun was still out and I was about to go through an intersection when a car decided to turn right at the last second. Luckily they had been at a stop so they weren't going very fast. I didn't even see the car until the last second and I slammed on my brakes but the ground was wet so my tires slipped on the ground. I wouldn't have even looked up to see the car at all but a car behind me saw that I was about to get hit and started honking. Thank you car behind me! By the time I got back on my bike, the light had turned red and my companion was already on the other side. She kept going and going for a few blocks before she even realized that I wasn't behind her. She said she was pretty shocked when she turned around and didn't see me. But we reunited just fine! The zone leaders found out and of course were really dramatic about it and gave us someone else's car from the zone. So now we're in full car :( At least for now. And seriously....I'm okay. I didn't even get a scratch or a bruise on me.

 

But anyway, I hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving! We've been invited over to a members house for thanksgiving with the spanish speaking elders. I'm not sure if we'll be having an american style thanksgiving or mexican....but either way I'm sure it'll be good. I love you all and have a good week!

 

Love, Sister Billings

November 19, 2013 - Redwood City

So remember how I said I would be emailing on Mondays now? I must have jinxed it because here I am on a Tuesday, emailing once again.

 

 The reason why we didn't have time to email yesterday is because we got asked to give a special presentation for a Theology class at a private school. They called the mission office and asked for two sisters and two elders to come and present about our beliefs and some church history. On Sunday, sister Bair and I set aside about an hour to put together a power point presentation with video clips and pictures that we would be using. After working on it for about an hour at the library, it somehow got deleted. It was like finals week of college all over again! Working on a project last minute just to have it be deleted. But this time it wasn't a grade in school that I was worried about. I called the elders to tell them what had happened (they were at the temple with an investigator so they weren't able to help us) and I said, "this is like finals week only worse because people's salvation is hanging on the line!" They thought that was pretty funny but at the time I was pretty stressed. We ended up using a member's computer (with president's permission) and everything worked out fine. Even though we had to take an extra hour to re-do the presentation.

 

So on Monday morning we went to the school to present. It's a small (275 students) private catholic school. We presented for 2 classes of seniors. They had already studied the history of the church in class so we focused mainly on the atonment. The teacher said that it was "good strategy" on our part so as to distract from the controversial church history topics. But we didn't do it to be strategic. We all prayed about what we should present and decided that focusing on the atonement was the best idea. Afterall, it is Christ's church and His atonment is central to the plan of salvation. I wish I could go into more detail about how the presentation went but I don't have time. After our presentation the students had about 20 minutes to ask questions. The usual questions came up but everyone (minus one) was very respectful and accepting of the answers we gave. One lady came to visit for the first class and was looking for a debate about prop 8. She was getting frustrated that we weren't debating with her but we just told her that as missionaries we can't represent the church in political issues but we can say that we believe marriage is between a man and a woman. She found us at lunch and had printed off an article about mormons involvment in prop 8 and handed it to each one of us. We smiled and took the article so hopefully she can feel at peace now. The teacher, who is openly gay, had invited her to come. But he wasn't looking for contention I don't think.

 

Anyway, it was an amazing experience. The students were very well educated and very open. I was nervous about teaching in front of so many people but I know the words that we should say were given to us. I hope that at least one student will remember the spirit that we brought and have the desire to learn more.

 

Okay, so about Jose Luis. His baptism was so amazing! I still can't believe how quickly he decided to be baptized. His brother-in-law who has been baptized for about a year was able to baptize him. It was his first time using his priesthood to baptize someone and he was so touched to be given such an opportunity. When Jose Luis came out of the water he had THE biggest smile on his face. Bigger than any I've seen after a baptism on my mission. He was also really brave and got up to bear his testimony after he changed his clothes. He was nervous but he did a good job. His non member wife, daughter, and granddaughters all came to the service so we're hoping to be able to start teaching them soon. As part of his testmiony he said that it's never too late to change (he's 65). he even got a little emotional during his testimony. It seriously was a miracle! I'll send pictures if I have time.

 

Speaking of miracles. We had a zone conference this last week and our mission president put up a whole bunch of numbers and charts of what we've accomplished so far this year. With the new flood of missionaries and missionaries just working harder we've really seen so many miracles. It was so interesting though because he pointed out that we're doing about double the work but seeing four times the results. You'd think it'd be double the work and double the results right? But when we're working extra hard the Lord blesses us. And it was easy to see that He really has been blessing this mission. We're all working extra hard to finish off 2013 strong..

 

Last story for the week....we went to a christian church that is putting on a live nativity program this december to volunteer. Similar to what I did in Livermore when I first got into the field if anyone remembers. Anyway, a few of us missionaries showed up at the same time and we asked the guy in charge how we could help. He explained our responsibilites for the day and then asked us if we could remove our name tags. He said it was a "non denominational" group and he didn't want anyone asking us questions. We told him that we wouldn't be able to remove our tags and then he said, quite angrily, "Well how are you going to help in people's salvation if you can't remove your tags?" I don't know what he meant by that but I was pretty defensive. I told him that we were just there to help and if he didn't want our help then we could leave. For how defensive I felt, i was pretty surprised how calm the words came out. His entire demeanor changed and he started telling us how grateful he was for our desire to help and let us stay.

 

I know that the tags we wear might just look like tags to someone else but I've learned that the tag I get to wear every single day shows that I don't represent myself but that I represent Christ. I've become very attached to my little black name tag with Christ's name on it. It really is such an honor to represent Him and His church.

 

Well on that note, I hope everyone is having a good week and I can't wait to hear from all of you soon. Cuidense y Dios les bendiga

Con amor,

Hermana Billings