Week 7 Austin, Minnesota

Us on Christmas eve

Our tree

My Christmas presents!

It’s so freaking cold in MINNESOTA!

Friends and Family!!

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas!! I sure did!!! This Christmas was so awesome!! I feel so truly blessed to have been able to be in Austin for Christmas!! I love the spirit of missionary work during the holidays and I’m really sad it is over! To re-cap the events of the week(well, the most important ones anyway....):

On Christmas eve, we had one BUSY day!! I’m not even joking, I think that  it was one of the busiest days I have had while serving a mission.  We spent the evening with our recent convert Brother B and his family..who are so AWESOME!! we had a great time....they had us over for dinner and then we played games and they had even gotten us some presents!! they were too sweet to us!! i feel so blessed to know them! On Christmas we woke up and opened our presents and that was a lot of fun!! I would have to say that my favorite gift was wrapping homemade paper that had pictures of all the animals my little brother has killed..Stu sent me a notebook that he had written in each day since i have been gone..it made me cry!!!!!!! it was so sweet! I am so grateful him and MISS him!!!!! i LOVE you STU HU!! After presents we got ready and went over to a member’s house to eat breakfast and play games....we played some card games and then played some "hall hockey" it was really fun and i will for sure have to teach you all when i get home :) Then it was time for the BIG PHONE CALL to the family! We went over to a members home to Skype! it was so awesome to see my family..in my living room that still looks the same.  I'm not going to lie, but i thought that talking with my family would be hard and make me really homesick but i didn't! I totally think this is a HUGE blessing from Heavenly Father!

After talking to my family, we played games and just relaxed at the members home..we played Yahtzee and lets just say that i think i have met my match, if possible, when it comes to how competitive i get when playing any type of game..But no worries, i still won!!! But i though Bro C was going to flip his lid!! it was really funny to watch him get mad! it made me laugh both inside and out!!  Christmas night we had a lesson with our investigators Bro. N and Bro. P..it was a lot of fun..we went over to there home and watched a Christmas movie, and yes it was church-approved! then we had treats and just laughed and talked! I'm so glad we were able to spend part of our Christmas with them!!

On a more spiritual note, we are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission, and every time i read it, i get something new out of it!! it’s so crazy how different versus will stick out to you at different times in your life...I know that the Book of Mormon is true and is the guide for us in our day..I’m so grateful to be sharing it with the people her in MN!!

Thanks for all the Love and Support!! i love all yall and hope you all have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! 

LOVE!

Sister Randi Hulet

xoxo

Week 6 Austin, Minnesota

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

 

Friends and Family!

I hope that everyone is having a great week! I know that I am! I cannot begin to tell you all about all the miracles that have been happening in Austin! Heavenly Father has blessed me and Sister Amis soooooo much! Speaking of Sister Amis, she is my new companion.  She is from Washington state and is a visa waiter, meaning that she wasn't called to Minnesota to serve, but is here until her visa to go to Brazil.  She is really awesome and I kinda hope her vista doesn't come! hahahahahahahah! Is that mean??? I don’t want her to leave me! But I know she is ready to leave the cold snow of Minnesota and get to warmer weather!

So, this week has been good, we have been so busy and the time flies by, it’s crazy! Saturday was awesome! we had a great lesson with our investigator Brother N. (He is the one that I had my little embarrassing moment with a couple of weeks ago) We taught the plan of salvation and at the end of the lesson he said that he had a question for us..then he asked how he could become a member of the church!!! I’m sure my smile was so big my eyes went ASIAN! It was really out of the blue, he has NEVER expressed much desire about wanted to join the church before! It was awesome!!! We are going back on Wednesday to meet with him and his new roommate and share a Christmas message so that should be good! 
We have been teaching more and more Africans, which is so awesome because they are so spiritual and humble people, the only issue I have with them is that I cannot fully understand them, which could be a problem! But they are such great people! On Sunday we taught a group of them and it was one of the best lessons ever! It seemed to flow perfect! The spirit was totally there and it was just great!
I need a refund on my brown hair because I had a serious blonde moment this week! We were in a lesson this week and we had a member, sister R with us. At the beginning of the lesson she lend over to me and asked if our investigator was Sudanese...I said back to her that he was not danseuses, he was African.  She smiled and closed her eyes and said that Sudan was in Africa! I felt really smart!  I guess no matter what color I change my hair to I will always be kinda blonde!

On Monday I got to walk on water! One of the lakes in town was frozen enough to walk on it and our member friend brother B (who was baptized my first week in Austin) took us out to walk on the lake! It was really cool! and there was even an ice fishing hut out there!!! I totally wish I could go ice fishing! Monday night we also had an early Christmas because sister Wiggins and I didn't think we would get transferred, so we got Christmas presents for each other..we both got each other harry potter t-shirts!!

well, I hope that everyone has a merry Christmas!! thanks for all your love and support!!  

--

LOVE!

Sister Randi Hulet

xoxo

Week 5 Austin, Minnesota

 

Friends and Family!

I hope everyone is feeling the Christmas spirit, I know that I am! for me the icing on the cake is the snow that just keeps on coming! I love looking out of the window each morning before personal study time and seeing the snow falling, it’s really awesome! I’m sure I feel this way because I didn't have much snow in St George, ps I totally love how it snowed pretty good after I left :) but it is really pretty to watch and puts me in the mode to study my scriptures! 

Well, I guess I should get the bad news out first, my awesome comp is getting transferred this week and I’m not happy about it...and I’m super nervous about taking over the area! At the moment, I don't really know how I’m going to do it..

 

 This past week has been great! Monday was district pday and it was quite the day.  Our plan was for our district to all come to Austin to go to the SPAM museum and so the elders all drove down here and when they got here, we found out that the museum was closed for a Private party...we were all super sad, but this didn't stop us from doing our Christmas shopping! Ready or not family because Santa is coming from AUSTIN!! ahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH 

Monday evening our district leader was able to come teaching with us and we had some serious miracles! at like 5pm all our appointments canceled on us and we didn't know what we were going to do, so we told the elders that we would just do some stop bys and then they could go back to Rochester.  We stopped by one of our investigators, Brother N and had a great lesson! Having the Elders there was perfect! they were able to answer his questions and relate to him in a way that none us as sister can't! it was  great to listen to him tell the Elders about all the great things that have been happening in his life because of the changes he is slowly starting to make! it was a testimony builder to me that progress at any speed is PROGRESS and to not get down because things are not moving at the speed we want it to.

Tuesday was a good day, we had our Christmas training and guess what!?! we watched a movie!! yup, and it was not a church movie! we watch the movie Miracle about the USA hockey team! it was AWESOME! we also had our normal spiritual meeting, so don't worry!

On Wednesday we had another great lesson with our Spanish friend Brother J.  Again, I couldn't understand a word that was being said, but I felt the spirit! I was even able to say something in Spanish during the lesson! it was pretty neat! Again, it amazes me that even when you don't understand or even speak the language, you are able to feel the spirit testify to you about the truthfulness of what is being said.  

The challenge of the week was that sister Wiggins was under the weather for 2 days and we couldn't leave our apartment! let’s just say that the gift of studying all day was not given to me! I thought I was going to go CRAZY!! I can only read so much of the Scriptures and preach my gospel before I start to go CRAZY, but I survived and sister Wiggins is on her upswing! so that is a Positive!

I feel like I notice more and more each day how much the Lord has blesses us and sends us miracles all the time! it’s crazy how many times a day he will put someone in our path, even when we don't get a return appointment I know that there was a reason we needed to talk to them! All week I have seen the Lord send us a miracle in the form of people we have met and conversations we had..I know that he cares about even the small details of our lives and that he answers all our prayers!

Thanks for all the support and love!

--
LOVE!

Sister Randi Hulet

xoxo

 

Week 4 Austin, Minnesota

bowling with the Rochester sisters!

so my grandma Shakespeare sent us a build-your own Santa
and I thought that I looked pretty sexy with the mustache!

getting ready to face the cold!

Friends and family!

How much I miss all of you! so, I’ve heard that southern Utah is experiencing some snow and let me tell ya: you will not be finding sympathy in me because I truly feel like yall got snow to understand what is happening here in the MMM.  Let me tell you that this morning when me and sister Wiggins went outside to shovel snow it was all of -2* outside and that is nothing compared to what we have experienced the past couple of days..they told us that with the wind-chill it was -20*! but it’s all good because we dress warm! and I wasn't all that cold :)
This past week we have been really busy and I think that it’s crazy the amount of time we haven't been in Austin as of late...Since sister Wiggins is a sister training leader, she has meetings to go to and we visit the other sisters in our zone! This week we were gone a lot!  On Sunday we had an awesome "missionary-style" road trip! We drove to Rochester on Sunday night to surprise the sister serving there! It was funny the look on their face when they opened their door and found us standing outside! We spent our Pday with them and had a party! We went bowling, but of course it was not normal bowling.  We had a beg of M&M and each turn we would pick a M&M and would bowl according to what color we picked...for some reason I would pick orange like every time..and orange was: we would have to spin around a bunch of times then bowl with our left hand! it was crazy..there were a couple of times where I almost bowled in the wrong lane, but my awesome companion helped me find our lane before I damaged someone else's score! 

On Tuesday we went to Bloomington because sister Wiggins had a leadership meeting, so I got to work with the Bloomington sister and a sister who is serving in St Paul.  We had a good time together.  the sister who is serving in Bloomington is new and had only been out 3ish weeks, I kinda felt bad because everything she had planned for us to do fell through! she had a lesson and a service project planned but it didn't happen! so we spent most of the day knocking doors! we were able to teach a couple of people and we got a couple return appointments for her and her companion! so that was totally awesome! 

This weekend sister Wiggins and I went to Rochester with some of our investigators for an activity the stake put on..each year they get 100s of different nativity sets from around the world and put them up for people to come and see. they also had a live nativity and musical numbers..it was pretty neat! we were able to go Friday and Saturday evenings, which was great! our investigators seemed to like it and the nativity sets cool..they had them from all different countries and it was neat to see how each countries looked! I love how they were all different, but had the same meaning and brought the same spirit..it was really cool!

Sunday we watched the Christmas devotional and it was great! I loved the music, maybe not what the choir was wearing, but the music was great!! I really liked Elder Nelsons talk and when the children sang the song: I’m trying to be like Jesus..it was cool beans! 

Well, today is district pday and the elders are ready to party so I hope that everyone has a good week and I love you all!!!

Week 3 Austin, Minnesota

The sweet turkey I helped wrap in BACON!

Thanksgiving with a member and her
non-member family and friends

My sweet Christmas sweater that I totally
wore the day after thanksgiving!

Shower Before

Shower After

Friends and Family!!

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving..mine was great! It was our pday so we were able to hang out with ward members and spend the day relaxing-if that were even possible!! But this week has been great! I've seen so many Miracles and don't know where to start! On Wednesday I had a testimony builder. We were knocking doors and knocking into a Spanish man...for those who don't know, I’m serving in a zebra area-which means that my companion is Spanish speaking and I’m English speaking, so she starting talking to him in Spanish.  Then all of the sudden I felt this overwhelming peace and clam feeling that the spirit brings and I know she was teaching him about the Restoration.  The spirit was so strong and although I had no idea what she was saying I knew it was true..I love that the spirit can testify of truth even when we don't understand what is being said! It was awesome!

Like I said, thanksgiving was our pday for the week and we went to 3 different members’ homes for thanksgiving dinner..the food was great, but nothing like home! At one members home I got to help prepare the turkey and YES I got to wrap it in bacon(see picture)! It was good..inside the turkey was a chicken and stuffing! it was good, but kinda dry.  We also cleaned our apartment and it pretty much made my day because it honestly looked like it had not had a good cleaning in months!!

Another spiritual experience was when we got home from a hard day of working and Sister Wiggins couldn't find her planner anywhere..we looked all over our apartment and in the car and it was nowhere to be found..so we said a prayer then walked back out to the car to see if maybe we had missed it..and it wasn't there.  So I told her not to worry and that we would find it, but in the mean time lets sit down and plan for the next day.  we sat down at the bar and I went to move her gloves and under her gloves was her planner!! It was so not there when we looked the first time! It was crazy! It made me think how much Heavenly Father is really in the details of our lives and cares about the small things! Pray is great!! so don't forget to pray!

This week I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time while on my mission and it was the fastest I’ve ever read it! It was so happy!! So, each time I read it cover to cover I pray and ask if it’s true and I got an answer! We were teaching a lesson and I was testifying to our investigator about how the Book of Mormon is true and the spirit came over me and I know that it was telling me that it was really true! It was awesome that while I was testifying to her, the spirit was also testifying to me! the Book of Mormon is TRUE and don't let anyone tell you different!

Again this week, we have been doing more finding to build our teaching pool and we have met A LOT of Africans..they are so hard to understand, but have such a strong testimony of God already..they are so humble and I feel like they are here to teach me, not for me to teach them! We met two new investigators, who both come to church! it was great!! 

So, my embarrassing can't hold a candlestick to last week, but lets be for real..what can! hahaha!! but I had yet another one this week! so we were getting out of the car to go into an appointment and I was getting in the backseat to get me scriptures when I pushed the panic button on the car and the horn started going off..and people were looking out there window to see what was going on..it was really embarrassing! my companion was laughing! 

Sister Wiggins and I have become great friends! it’s awesome! We have so much fun together and it just makes me so happy! she is such a great example to me and has such a strong testimony of the gospel! I’m so grateful to be able to learn from her each day and work with her! 

I love you all and thanks for all the LOVE and SUPPORT!! 

-- 

LOVE!

Sister Randi Hulet

xoxo