Hello! - November 5, 2012

Well folks haha it's been another interesting week. I think missionary work brings the greatest joy only because it brings the greatest hardships too.
Mom what in the world is "fat wood"? It was written all over the shoe box that had one of my presents in it (p.s. as a side note, I totally thought for a moment that you'd sent me tacos from H-E-B for my birthday and I was super confused until I saw the box was already open and there was a shirt inside hahaha) and all you wrote to explain it was, "Not you Hil!"
Dad: Yes, when it's transfer week, my Pday is Tuesday, not Monday. Sorry for forgetting to warn you! The next round of transfers isn't until December. Pavel didn't show up for our appointment :( and he didn't come to church. Why do people lie to us?! I don't get it. We'll try and see him again this week because the gospel in his life would be AMAZING. Ugh no I never got my voting ballot. I am so sad. We got mail from the office twice this week but it still wasn't there. My favorite meal this past week... Sister Pilcher made this awesome chicken/broccoli/potato stew/chowder thing in our crock pot. It was awesome. Normally we're in members' homes for dinner like 6 days a week (I know - it's awesome) but this week we had one! Crazy. That is super odd. With our two wards though we have a plethora of people signing up to feed us. This week was just really weird for some reason.
So now for the week's report!
TUESDAY: Pday is the greatest thing ever. Not really but it's pretty awesome. I took a nap. I love naps. Then that night we had dinner with our ward mission leader and then the weekly missionary coordination meeting which went well. Lots of involvement and we just got a new assistant ward mission leader. Then we had an appointment with Quiah. We had some members with us, and we kind of forgot that Quiah's apartment complex has a lot of cockroaches. A lot of cockroaches. They were like on the couches with us. Our members were really distracted hahahaha. But it was a good lesson! Quiah is very prepared and has so many good questions and intentions. His lesson on Thursday was at the church hahaha.
WEDNESDAY: Tuesday and Wednesday were both bike days because we're totally out of miles. Thankfully we're going to the chiropractor today. Yay for state-side missions!!!! Anyway but being on bike is awesome. It's super tiring, but it gets you pumped for the work in a great way. And thankfully I have bike shorts because I cannot keep my skirts down. Wow. I've seriously tried every method I can think of and every skirt I have. Impossible. Sister Pilcher has been encouraging me to take the lead in biking (like I go in front of her haha and she expects me to know where I'm going - it generally works!) but it's also good because I've had a couple almost wipe outs haha. The first one I did some maneuvering around a palm tree and garbage can and almost lost my balance on the grass and the second time I tried to press the crosswalk button, but I didn't slow down enough. So I safely dismounted and watched my bike fall over a foot away from me. Then, classic Hilary, I raised my fists high in the air like I did it on purpose just for all the cars driving past us at the intersection. Riding bikes is so fun though! Oh and then we stayed inside for Halloween and were super bored. I think I watched every church video we own. And we went to bed like an hour early. But I'm glad we had to go in at 6 because around 4 there were some really sketchy people riding their bikes around town like us except they had creepy masks on haha. Can you see why I'm not a huge fan of big cities? Smaller places you can escape the craze a bit more.
THURSDAY: We did some tracting (door-to-door) in a really pretty neighborhood. We didn't have much success at all, but people were very cordial and a little more honest about how uninterested they were in hearing our message. Oh well. But hey in Phoenix they have this crazy concept of "winter grass". I think it's rye grass, and they replace their nasty summer grass around this time of the year and let me tell you winter grass is gorgeous. Kind of creepily gorgeous because it's super green and super thick. I always want to touch it. It looks fake but it so soft! Anyway. Creepy moments from Sister Parks done. Later that night we had two appointments with Quiah and Barbara that both went really well. Fun!
FRIDAY: District meeting and district lunch! I love our district. Our zone leaders were a little moody but that's okay. Our new Spanish elder, Elder Scott, seems pretty cool. We might all be lying to him currently though because we're pretending that Elder Laititi is the district leader, not Elder Colovich... yeah we're missionaries and have no entertainment. It's okay. We're going to see how long we can keep it going. So Elder Laititi conducted district meeting. Oh and Mom you'll be happy to know that with our Spanish elder, Elder Wheelwright, transferred, I'm now the only person in our zone (so like the 12 missionaries in the Phoenix North Stake) that plays the piano. So I'll always be playing at meetings now haha. Oh and I learned a hymn the night before (87 - God is Love) for Josh's baptism Saturday morning because we forgot to find a pianist. Fun! Anyway. Then Friday night our appointment with Pavel fell through, so we went with our ward mission leader over to an investigator that we've had a really hard time getting in contact with. Well they were home and his wife was really sick, so our ward mission leader was able to give a blessing and we got to talk to him and overall it was just great. He was really touched that we've always been there for him and said he'd be at church on Sunday. Which he was!
SATURDAY: Crazy day. We were running all over the place but nothing was really working. Also, a couple homeless people came in while we were eating lunch at this Mexican place. One of them was apparently Mormon and they asked us for money. I don't know. It was a really weird situation. We felt really weird about it. I don't know. Maybe I'll tell you about it another time. I just have a hard time of being able to balance that concept of that we're all beggars and that we need to help people according to their wants, not their needs (isn't that what it says in King Benjamin's speech in Mosiah?). We took Barbara to a baptism in our district leader's ward which was really great. She was happy to see how her own baptism will be on the 17th and is excited.
SUNDAY: was crazy church as always. Lots of meetings. Lots of people we still don't know but we're working on it! :)
Elder Paul Kolikker (I'm probably butchering that spelling) is coming to visit our mission in a couple weeks. He's from the 70. Apparently they'll be meeting with us as multiple zones and they might come visit our apartments. Weird right? A member of the Quorum of the 70 could be inspecting my apartment for cleanliness. Random. But it'll be very good. All of us are supposed to prepare a talk on a Preach My Gospel subject because he's going to call on some of us to give it. Wow! We're having lots of great opportunities in our mission right now!
Today will be good. We're happy to have miles again. And this email is ridiculously long so I'm going to go. Boy.
The gospel is true!
I love y'all so much. And Mom and Dad - thank you for writing me every week. Apparently that is a rarity in my district at least, and your emails really help me for the rest of my week. It really does mean a lot.
LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sister Parks