26 February 2013

WOW 20 orders?!?!?!?! I talk to our district all the time about how good mommy's food is. its so weird thinking I am ACTUALLY going to be there in 7 weeks. you know what im going to eat first? ... chicken fried rice. I've been dreaming about it.

 

Yes, on our second day, we gave our lesson in Thai! and every lesson since then!  It's so wonderful here. I honestly thought I would be so stressed out here, but this is a place that brings you up. I gave the closing prayer in church this last sunday and our branch presidency stopped me and complimented me on my language and said they are so impressed with how I'm doing here. Like, I feel like I can actually do this! I'm in the mindset now, still having so much to learn, but I have a stronger testimony of God's plan for us. We are teaching people of ways they can be happy and recieve salvation. To be a missionary you have to realize that this is assisting in saving people's souls. All I have to do is understand how important that is and then share my heart on how necessary this Gospel truly is. When we extend a commitment, we extend an invitation to repent. I just can't wait to get there. 

 

Saw Jessica Fox today!!!! Hadn't seen her in so long! She is such a cute missionary and I am so excited for her! And she is companions with a sister that was in my LA ward. AH!!! amazing. We met a sister from Thailand! She is the cutest! Going to Australia Mandarin Speaking! She wants us to baptize her mom! AH I love her!

The food is getting old. but seriously so blessed.

 

We went to the temple today. I called it a snow storm, but it was just windy, the utah people told me. Anyways, had real food for breakfast at the cafeteria there and it was magnificent. Elder Cutler is playing piano for me in 2 weeks in sacrament meeting. realized I'd rather just sing for our zone not the ENTIRE MTC! haha. Oh my goodness. We are singing Consider the Lilies for choir tonight at Tuesday Devotional. LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Ok, that's all for now! Sorry if it's all over the place. Its so hard sometimes!!!

I was reading in JSH verse 20 " I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom" speaking of Satan.

It makes it sound way cool what I'm doing here. :)

 

Anyways,

Love, Sister Mullen

23 February 2013

In her latest letter - "Ah, I don't know why but my shoes stink already!!"

18 February 2013

Said goodbye to Elder Nielson on Sunday! I think I wrote that in a letter to you. But we got in a photo in front of the world map which was a miracle bc who knows when we'd have time... but we got to do it!!! 

 

Our service assignment is awesome. We do those every monday morning. Yesterday we didn't have much to do, so our supervisor took us to her lounge and we just watched Mormon Messages videos. It was awesome! She is going to be singing at conference! So happy for her! 

 

Pretty much we have 6 hours of classroom instruction. Two of those hours are set aside for teaching our investigators. Then about 3 hours each day of Study Time; so language study, personal, and additional/companion. They are putting off teaching us script bc they want to focus on the speaking and listening aspects. It's getting harder, which is good. Especially with our investigators. We have AMAZING teachers. The one we are closest to is Sister Hirschi. (hershey) and yeah. basically our teachers are our investigators. Our first investigator was happy and enthusiastic but our second (Sister Hirschi is playing her) is not so happy. Made a weird mistake of not really getting to know her well on our first time mtg her. So we need to do better. If you are able to send a picture of our family as soon as possible that would be amazing. I think she would like it, getting to know us!

 

 No my comp is not Thai! haha but yeah everyone here is great! I LOVE our district. like I can't even wait for a reunion! It's cool calling people Sister and Elder. Like, "Excuse me, Sister" and stuff like that. weird at first but it's fine. our 2nd day here we like had a funny studying time when we were just like... ok. Let's learn all of our FIRST NAMES! It was crazy how entertaining that was!!!  Yes our district is REALLY big. theres only 6 in the one before us! We call them Phii Thais. And then theres yeah, 29 of us. it's awesome. 

 

The food is alright. Like I said, it's all about the cheese bagels and croutons! Haven't drunken ANY soda, crazy right?! it's always available and I choose just water. But other than that, the food hasn't really been sitting well with us much lately. Preparation Day is better today. My second one! The first I did NOT like it at all. We just went from spiritual amazing, studying all the time in the classroom type of stuff then to just... hot laundry rooms and i don't even remember the rest. We get to go to the temple though and that's seriously awesome. To just go through with a TON of missionaries is the most amazing thing ever.  But yeah I just wished that I could do laundry whenever and then ALWAYS have class time and study hours. But today's p-day was better.

 

I love them so much! Seriously, there's a girl in my room that sings musical theatre with me, and she quotes movies. its AMAZING. 

 

Love you, glad to hear the "business" is going well!!! Crazy it's already been 2 weeks!!!
LOVE you so much! sorry if this is kind of all over the place. I don't know what to do with these letters/emails I'm writing. I'm repeating stuff to people and stories I don't know who I tell... It's SO complicated. But it's fine!

Love, Sister Mullen

15 February 2013

Dear Everyone,

So just an update I guess.

We taught our third lesson to our investigator.  The spirit was so strong!  She started to cry!  We were all tearing up! Ahh. It was the most wonderful experience.

 I've heard horror stories of companions, but let me just say how much I love mine.  Sister Sahagun and I are so compatible.  I just sit among our district of 7 companionships and see the Lord's hand.  Everyone is perfect for each other.  Truly inspired.  As a foreign mission, we are CONSTANTLY in the classroom studying the scriptures AND language.  Elder Hunt said the best line yet: "So what do English speaking missionaries DO all day?!" Haha.  He's hilarious.

The language is wonderful.  I feel so in between. My companion and I have heart to hearts constantly and yesterday she just wanted to make sure she doesn't hold me back.  I said the same thing to her in that I don't want to take away a learning opportunity for her.  It's so complicated trying to find the balance!!  I look at all our missionaries and I feel so blessed to know the language as much as I do.  I see people struggle and it's taking a toll on their spirits at times.  But we've got awesome pep talks.

And OH MY GOODNESS...SUNDAY was amazing!  With the devotional and church and everything.  Ok, well let me also just say, I love cheese bagels.  And I'm eating like a banana every meal.  Well, I'm so thankful to be here.  And I am going crazy thinking how much peace I feel.  Like I can really do this!

Love, Sister Mullen

16 February 2013

Sister Mullen and Elder Nielson

7 February 2013

We received this letter in the mail today, 12 Feb 2013

Dear Everyone,

I am so happy I got to start my missionary experience with Elder Nielson as my host!  I had the sweetest sister help me to my room once I got my nametag.  She was tiny and insisted on carrying my huge luggage up the stairs...4th floor.  I went straight to my language class where people were already learning "Hello, how are you?"...knowing that already brought me so much peace.

My companion is Sister Sahagun.  She is the sweetest, most loving sister ever.  So it's the first official full day.  Getting the hang of the food.  800 missionaries came yesterday.  One thing that made me uncomfortable was our first dive in to teaching investigators.  In English.  But still, we got there hours ago and then they just kept disagreeing or contradicting everything we would say.  But today it helped, knowing how people react to what our initial way of teaching or sharing the gospel would be.  So I was able to study and plan today based on the challenges of yesterday.

We are starting to learn to make our testimonies in Thai.  The first thing our teacher said was that we all have the gift of tongues!  I know this to be true.  This gospel is true because I have tried to learn Thai my whole life and then I haven't been here 24 hours and I know more than I ever have and I know that that is because of the Spirit.

Dear Family,
Thank you so much for bringing me.  So much peace about coming here.  My companion, Sister Sahagun, knows the Newbolds, d'Art!  Cool huh?

Sorry, running out of time!  So messy.  30 missionaries in our district!  P-Day is Tuesday, so I'll write then.

Love, Sister Mullen

12 February 2013

I was thinking about you on Sunday! You will be busy I'm sure. Just keep that love for the ward you always had and things shouldn't be TOO different! 

 

Hhahaha that's so funny about Regina Jones said! 

 

Grandma sent me a whole bunch of 2011 stamps so some of my mail has been sent back to me! 

 

I want to audition for a musical number. The spirit is so strong here that I am always on the verge of crying so we will see how that goes. I LOVE it here in the MTC SO SO Much. We went to the temple today. It was the coolest thing ever to go through and seeing it FILLED with missionaries of the church. Sunday we watched a devotional Elder Bednar gave in the MTC on a christmas morning. You should find it and watch it. It's SO amazing. I wrote in my letter to you about our investigator. But I will email you bc I don't think I will be able to send the letter till tomorrow, but Sister Sahagun and I taught our third lesson to Phii Nooy. Our first lesson, the spirit was there and wonderful. We walked out beaming. The second, not so much. I felt REALLY bad. But yesterday, the spirit was SO SO SO strong! She read Helaman 15:7-8 and began to cry as we bore our testimonies. It was so wonderful. I never want to go back to that second lesson.

 

Well, better go.

Love, Sister Mullen

Rachel getting dropped off at the MTC

Mullen family at the Provo Temple

So we decided to go to do a session at the Provo Temple before she goes into the MTC. We get up to the chapel, and Pencheli and I have to wait and wait and wait for Rachel and Jasmine. We have some of the matrons to go see if they could find them. No luck. So we decided to go ahead and do a session by ourselves.

Having dinner with friends

Hayley Shepherd, Hilary Hogge, Jenny Gordon joined us for dinner at Zupas.

Rachel at the Salt Lake Temple

We came to the Salt Lake Temple but it was closed because of maintenance. It's very cold, but we got some nice pictures.

Rachel gets set apart as a full time missionary.

On February 3, 2013, Rachel was set apart by President Williams.

Watch Rachel open her mission call

We couldn't have dreamed of a better place than Thailand!

Rachel's going to ประเทศไทย!

We had to wait a long time before we received her mission call.  All of the paperwork went rather quickly, but there was a glitch with the stake president and so the papers were delayed a bit.  She had her final interview on September 9, 2012.  She finally received her call on November 3, 2012.

As soon as we saw the envelope in the mail, we quickly got online and decided to fly her up to open it.  She had been waiting for so long.  Normally, they take about 2-4 weeks.  Hers took about 8 weeks!  So, she flew up and we opened it that evening with a bunch of family and friends around.

It all started with a casual phone call.

In February, 2012, Rachel gave us a call one evening.  We were sitting on the couch in the living room and were watching tv.  It was a rare evening when neither one of us had anything to do.  We had a casual conversation, asking how things were going, then Rachel said, "Okay, I am just going to say it...I want to serve a mission!, What do you guys think?"

There was a long pause, mainly because we are both big babies.  Rachel wasn't sure if we were still there or if we had lost the connection. "Hello?"

"That would be great!  You would make a great missionary!"