A Wonderful Week

It has been a wonderful week in Hollywood Hills. Sister Keller and I have seen many miracles and have kept ourselves extremely busy. We have been preparing for the 5 baptisms tonight of Marcos, Carlos, Carolina, Eva, and Santos. Each of them have a neat story and we have been so blessed to have witnessed the miracles that have taken place in the lives of these people. Marcos was out of town working for awhile and we were still able to call him nightly to keep in touch with him. Carlos and Carolina spent most of their money to be married and have a wedding that was memorable. Carolina quit her job on Sundays so she could attend church. Eva was a wonderful missionary before excepting her own baptismal date. She changed her work schedule so that she could attend church on Sundays. Santos was baptized into another church the same week we met him. He didn’t want to be baptized again because he understood that baptism is a serious, eternal thing but now that he is understanding that his previous baptism wasn’t with the authority, he has agreed to be baptized tonight. It will be a great way to end my transfer with Hermana Keller and the time I’ve had to serve in Hollywood Hills. I have loved getting to know members, investigators, and other missionaries while serving here. I am grateful for all the things I learned from Hermana Keller and although I am really sad I am getting transferred I know it is the Lord’s will.

Getting Transferred

hey everyone i found out last night i'm getting transferred again so i will move tomorrow morning..we have a transfer meeting at 9. hermana keller is staying here and training. i have no idea where i will go or who i will be with. i'm really sad to leave this ward! i love the people a lot! i hope i dont keep getting transferred so much. its kind of annoying to pack and unpack. this week was hectic but very fun with all that we had going on. i got a cd with lots of pics made today so i'll send that home soon and you can check out some wedding pics and stuff.. i dont have time to attach any today sorry! we are in a hurry cause we need to go make the baptismal programs for our baptism tonight. we are having 5 investigators getting baptized :)!!!!! we are so happy and so excited. see info in letter to pres on who they all are. did you get the letter in the mail for my cleanest apt award? fun huh. the elders here have made our purpose into this..."our purpose is to help the sisters invite others to come unto Christ..." haha cause they havent had as much success in their area. but we are all working together and elder rose and oliphant have been a huge help us. last week was exciting when eva announced she was getting baptized. oh ya i think i told you about that in the tape. i am glad you got the tape. i was worried cause i didnt put insurance on it. marcos also gave us some shirts he bought us in orlando! mom thanks for the cute creative bump package- i never got the other one but hopefully they have it.how was laggooon? dad thanks for the letter you sent !!! i laughed a lot reading it :) the wedding was a huge success but also a huge amount of work as we all know, we spent the whole time the night before decorating and the night of the wedding was a fiasco-= the girl doing the bride;'s hair didnt get there til 15 min after it was supposed to start, so we started wayyy late and then we had to leave right after the ceremony cause we had to be in the house at 9:30 ya know. but we were late i'll admit.. .and then we were super tired the next day and we had an exchange with us. Sister Hale. ya. the elders thought AP exchanges were scary. well sister hale was just cute and fun as ever and i love her.. and the day was kinda lame but busy so ya it all worked out. the morning of the wedding was nuts sister keller had to go to mission conference and so i was companions with sister moore, an ASL sister. so i had to do all these last minute spanish phone calls by myself it was so scary. but i tried to mostly text people so i could have time to figure out their reply. the elders left right before the wedding and we didnt know where they went, they come back in their suits awhile later and it was so funny cause they wore ties to match our dresses (we got to borrow these little formal dresses from a 21 yr old in our ward) and the elders were wearing ties that matched our dresses... it was so awkward..we laughed so hard but to this day havent told them that we noticed. they totally did it on purpose through. carlos gomez recieved the Preisthood on Sunday and that was a neat special day! except.. nobody had told me the hymns last week so i thought i was out of playing. well i get there and they tell me they need to me play. only the 3 hymn was in my made easy book. i was trying to sightread the 1 and 2 hymn just the right hand..anyway the sacramnet hymn was so bad, the choister stopped the congregation and made me start over. it was so embarrassing. oh my.. the spirit was not able to enter that sacrament meeting haha. then in gospel principels the guy is up there to say we are going to start then he says..the missionaries will be teaching today...(cause the teacher didnt show up) and we had no idea so we had to go up and teach it was so bad. Luis cant baptize our 4 people he was going to which is sad but then we had to find other peopel to do it. well the ward is kind of mad at the missionaries cause of the wedding or something so they wouldnt sign up to feed us on sunday. then the RS pres stood up and gave a long speech on how it is their respoinsibility so they finally signed up or gave us money but that was embarriassing too. so all my good friends leave this week and i want you all to go to their homecomings for me if you can. tonight the Hales are bringing the 11 new kids that fly in today to the baptism which is scary!! this morning we went to the dania beach pier to watch the sunrise.. i think i was up before dad for the first time ever. we wrote in our journals and studied it was really fun. you'll see pics when i send the cd home. and we went to breakfast. its a busy day but really fun end of transfer- love you all!! thanks for the emails and letters and packages xoxoxoxoxoxo
hermana m call

Scavenger Hunt

On Saturday morning the Hollywood English ward did a scavenger hunt missionary activity and we were able to go help out at it. I went with the Rodriquez girls, who are 18 and 11. Their parents drove us to our area and for the first time I got to be the senior companion. It was so, so fun. I was able to gain a lot of confidence in myself as I helped these girls share the gospel with people. It was really neat that they both spoke Spanish so we were able to talk to a lot of Spanish people and get some referrals there. They helped me learn a few things in Spanish too! I gained a lot of confidence in myself as I was able to teach these girls and help them. I never realized how much knowledge I had until I was able to be the example. It was really neat to see them follow my example and hear them say the same things I had just said to the previous contact. I really enjoyed it!

Father's Day

hey guys how are you doing? i am glad to hear you had a fun fathers day and lots going on it sounds like your summer is busy. wish i could be at park city. i bet it was fun. do you have any pics to send me? this week we had PPI and a noche de hogar at the byrams at it was so so fun and we had a huge fathers day activitiy on wednesday and thursday a big briadal shower- the wedding on friday will be so tiring and on sat we did a missionary scavenger hunt with the englsih ward. we are so busy all the time and i'm sorry i cant write a long email this week, i dont know what i've been doing but somehow i'm out of time already-i sent pics and hope they will hold you through til i can send a fun long email next week. i promise. fyi: i'm goign to doc tomorrow because i somehow got allergic to something on my face and have this itchy acne but i'll pay with my missionary money. i love you and hope all is well- mom hermana keller wrote her mom a long email this week maybe she can forward it to you. things are good here i miss you all tons especailly yesterday but keeping busy- hopefully santos will be bapt later this week and the wedding will go well-pray for those 2 things please- love you so so much xoxoxoxo
hermana call

Speaking Spanish

mooomm.....where did you learn to speak spanish?? you used a word in there that even i didnt know....good thing i had my translator. love you. also-we met these girls from russia here learning english they were baptized 3 years ago i think and will be in FL til sept then going to utah. they are prob goign to stay at the keller's alot cause 3 of their kids know russian. but if they are in slc i might have them get in touch with you-is that ok? i dont have g-pa norr's address to send him his fathers day card so i'm sending it to you please make sure he gets it. thanks for your letters this week it is so fun to hear from you. its means a lot to me that you write so often.
xoxxoxo
'mana meryl

Not Enough Time

hola.. this week was so busy and crazy and i wish i had enough time to tell you everything or wish more that you could be here with me to meet all these people and know them. last mon we had an FHE at oscar's house. he is one of our best buds. more than 50 people came to this little thing and 7 were our investigators. it was so neat to have such a huge party we loved it. you know that song on soft sunday sounds about the little boy and it says i'll build you a rainbow..oscar has a music video to that and its in spanish so we watched it and so many people were crying. we finally got a bap date with eva. it was cool cause she has turned us down the other 2 times we invited her. she has come to church a lot and knows its true she even got work off on sundays and invites firiends to church but now we are finally going to baptize her it will be neat!! her date is for the 30, same as marcos, carlos and carolina. they are good friends we are excited!! piano at church yesterday was ok, i only had to play the first 2 cause this high council guy came up and did the last 2.. marcos is still in orlando so we call him every night at 9 and update him with carlos and carolina wedding plans and we sing him a song and pray and do a scripture so thats fun but he'll be back soon. soo carlos gomez got baptized on wednesday and confirmed yestrday. it was SO neat. however the story is an hour long so i will send it on a voice tape. it was a really neat absolute miracle he got baptized. santos is our next bap and was suppose to be on wed but he had some doubts and wanted to talk to the bishop so they talked yesterday and bishop told us santos got baptized a month ago in another church and likes our church more but is scared to get baptized again so soon in this church. he also told the bishop that he is in love with me and thats a whole nother story. together bishop, santos, hma keller and i are going to fast on sat/sun to decide if santos shoud get baptized again. the hales have this cute friend from bountiful she's 18 bridget and she wanted to know what a mission was like so she got to come out here and go out with all the misionaries. she came with us a few days last week and she is darling. we love her a lot! oh this one RC who just moved here from oklahoma took us to this daanngg good mexi restruant and then he bought us those strawberry shortcake ice creams me and mer love.. and we got to see this secret place a ton of iguanas and turtles live i will send pics one day! oh fishing last week we didnt catch anything but the guy next to us...caught a giant sea turtle. it was so sad. like it was so big and he couldnt' reel it up so we had to cut the line and now this poor turle is swimming around with a hook in its mouth. sad huh. i almost cried i felt so bad for it. something sad is so many people here like in their late 20 and 30 are here alone but they left their kids in their counties. like eva has 3 kids in guatamana and luis has kids in equador and another RC here adrian has 4 kids in honduras it is so sad and they come here and work their butts off to send money to thier families. lots of our investigators and members ask us to help teach them english so we are trying to help them learn that and they are cute helping me with my spanish. i am so glad we are all in the same country. the wedding plans are stressful and i never want to plan another one as long as i live. there is so much drama. and i'm surprised how much money they cost. but we have such great members donating time and talents and whatever they have to make this wedding cheap for carlos and carolina. us and the asl sisters are doing a brial shower for carolina on thurs it should be fun!! i got to talk to my good friend elder robinson this week and it made me so happy..i'm sad elders rob baggs and libbert are going home this transfer. it hasnt rained much this week, like 4 days with no rain. which is bad. pres hale sent an email reguarding hurricanes so read that mom if you want hurricane info. hma keller says her mom would love for you to email her. thanks for the package i got!did you send tay an art book? and thanks for the letters and emails, i love knowing whats up at home. i loove tres leche cake. we had a b-day party for an invest henry this week and i ate so much. i dont need anything new yet. thanks though- maybe in a few more months,. i bought a few jackets from tj maxx aand target clearance so i have money for that and thats good...i am returning that skirt to gap today but if they dont let me i'll send it home. we got a bap date with osman this week, he lives with carlos gomez and osman is 21. he's cool but i think he was intoxicated when he agreed to the bap date. but he's come to church twice so hopefully he relly does want it. eveyone here found out i love twilight and now all the young women and soo many moms come up to me and ask about it. it was recently published in spanish so now all the latins are reading it. they tell me all about the movie trailer and that there is a script online of that book she was writing from edwards point of veiw, but you can only read it online. yesterday we went to a bap at the church for our english/asl ward they had 3 baptisms it was really good! also 2 other members in our ward got married and we got to go to that wedding it was fun. i dont drive yet we decided not to maybe next trans. dad thanks for takign care of my car!! i'm reading in 2 Nephi 9 i think..,mom since you asked where i am in the BOM. i thought the cookies were delicious. i have so many of my treats in the freezer cauise i dont want them to go bad. pics from before: me and santiago. and member from our ward i love him he's prepping to go on a mish, but just moved back to columbia for the summer. us with this guy named...oh darn i forgot his name. i dont know why i sent taht. w e arent even teaching that guy. we used to but we dropped him. feeding a duck outsdie our house. they catch bread in the air. they always come and sit outside our apt cause they know we feed them. my pic with for owie. with priscinia, a deaf member who just moved to gainsville. we had a going away party for her. she gave me a sign name. after zone conf i think...hma keller loves hair and makeup and always does it to me when we have conferences and stuff. with carolina in her room when we were trying on the wedding dresses people gave us to borrow. this strange house with lots of pigeons and peacocks. on a street but they only stay in that one yard. we dont know why. its werid. with fransico and elba, RCs . they have that board and the barbies are glued onto it. its so weird. the fishers i think are mario and donaldo we only met them once and wanted to teach them but they were going fishing in a canal across the street and said we could come so we did...but havent seen them since. they didnt pay attention much during the lesson at the swap shop. this huge sweeeet shopping mall place. ok gotta go but love you lots hope all is good! i pray for you all everyday xoxoxoxoxoxo
hermana meryl call

In Hollywood

Owen!

Hey!

Hey cuties how are you all doing.. i usually make a little list in my planner thoughout the week of what i want to write home but this week was so busy i didnt make my list! we have so much going on and hollywood is booming- we are having so, so many baptisms and people to teach in our area! we had zone conf this week and what we focused on was giving baptismal commitments. we all said we will now give a soft bap date in the 1 lesson and hard set date by the end of our 2 lesson. we have seen a lot of success in the mission from doing this. thanks for all the emails and letters and pics sent this week :) i feel so loved and blessed to have such an amazing family. i really miss you all A LOT! i am serious and dont laugh but i am now the pianist in the hollywood hills ward so i was wondering if you can find out if there is a hymns made easy spanish or an intermidatre hymns spanish. if not will you send them in english? i know we have the made easy at home but not the intermediate. like that and the gospel art book i need soon. please! thank you!! also i have this cd in my room its a talk and its by elder holland will you burn it and send it to taylor. carlos' baptism got moved because brian was out of town and plus carlos wanted more time. brian is the guy baptizing him. he is the fiancee of marsha, the girl who brought my stuiff. i love that girl she lives in woodruff so go say hi on the way to bear lake- and she lives at tuscany at byui. haha. but carlos is getting baptized on wed FOR SURE he had his interview yesterday and passed! and hopefully santos duarte is getting baptized wed too, we'll see. pray for him! this is the prayer list:

carlos gomez, santos duarte, carlos, carloina, marcos, pablo, omar, and santos dias. thank you!! the weddding plans are going weelll just lots of drama in the relief socity and poeple wantign to helpe but carlos and carolina dont want the help, etc... i think i got 50 gray hairs this week from it. i have still written in my journal every day of my mish! my only accomplishment so far... i hope you all got the pictures i sent, they should go on my blog. i'll explain them when i have more time. sorry i'm always so rushed. oh so last night we sang at a funeral of a less active ward member, it was sad even though i didnt really understand it. like going up front all the poeple that were crying there was just really sad. things are good with hermana keller she kind of drives me nuts at times cause she is the youngest of 10 kids and she is really dependant on other people and she's kind of oblivious to the obvious at times.. she blames it on being the youngest but anyways we get along well and have fun. sorry this was a shortie but i gotta run, we have a billion errands to run today and a huge noche de hogar tonight. love you lots hope all is well at home!!!!!!!xxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

hermana meryl call

Investigators, Fishing, Hermana Keller

8 Baptismal Dates, 8 at church, and 1 Wedding

this has been SUCH a busy . i cant even begin to say how much we have going on. i want to tell you about each of my investigators but i dont have enough time i'm sorry, if you go in my sent mail on my gmail you can read my letter to president i dont mind. i told him about all of them. in it. thanks for sending the package with marsha. i havent seen them yet we've bene too busy and they went to an english ward yesterday so i wasn't able to see them at church. we have a baptism on saturday and the rest are all set for wednesdays and the wedding is on june 20 at the church. i want to tell you all about everything but i cant! here goes real quick... we found out we have a bunch of mormons who live in our complex. they give us rides places and bring us food sometimes. last week a couple dropped us off at the grocery store but a HUGGGEE rainstorm came when we were shopping and we had to call some poeple to pick us up. we taught this fam for awhile they had a dog like dash and it always lays on my feet when we went there haha i thought it was so funny but they called us on sat and asked us not to come over anymore which is fine because we are so busy and they were out of the way kind of. this week is zone conf and sis keller and i have to speak at it on our baptismal invites.. i'm neverous and excited. we talk to people from india sometimes but they cant touch anything holy until they have their bath that day. isnt that weird. not even our pass along card. there are ZERO stars here in florida. that makes me kind of sad. an asl sister that lives with us Sister Magnussen got a sickness this week called hand foot and mouth. i cant descibe it now but its contagious but luckily she's getting better and none of us got it. sorry the pics didn't work, maybe i'll develop some this week and send them home. we have this recent convert (RC) francisco and he just taught his dog to use binkys to make them be quiet.. haha its the funnies thing in the world. maybe we should get another puppy and teach them? i'm sure owen wouldn;t mind sharing. i am so in love with orchata now its the yummiest thing ever. i will buy some and mail it to you. i got a million new mosquito bites we are stocking up on bug spray today cause its the 1 of the month we have more money!! the other day we were teaching an invest Pablo with an RC Adrian we have to teach outside cause we cant go in the houses unless a woman is there. and i kept getting bit and Adrian thought it was funny cause he never got bit and then he smashed a mosquito and it was full of blood and he keeps telling me that it is my blood-but it probably was ew it was gross. we taught these 2 people that speak english and spanish the other day they are 21 and 32 so we decided to teach in english and anyways long story short they were SOO rude and said the meanest things to us we both cried that night it was so hard. that was when i decided i'm glad we teach latinos cause they are nicer. i have a respect for the english program. i went tanning..we have a free tanning bed at our complex..and parts of me that never see the sun got soo burned serves me right i guess. you think florida sounds nice and hot, well its not all it does is rain here. it hasnt been hot at all. we keep having to teach the law of chastity and it is so awkward and people always laugh. i wish we could teach it normal without getting laughed at! during a lesson the other day i didn't know what to say so hermana keller was whispering in my ear then i would repeat it it was so funny it was like giving a primary talk or something. on friday we did exchanges cause h keller had to go to a meeting and i was with sister green...who is now in hialeah with h fiala and she told me that the sunday after i left they had a baptism and 2 of the invest i was teaching when i left got baptized! i was so happy but sad i missed it. we have been eating at mcdonalds every day cause a member forgot to make us dinner so she bought us a $25 Mc D card. on friday night we didnt get home til like 11:45 cause we were with the cops... ohh myy gosh.. longest night of my life. a guy backed into our car with his truck-on purpose- and left it parked like that. he did it cause we parked in front of his house which he didn't like. we got out of the lesson at 9:15 and found it so we called the zone leaders, AP's, Elder Dalling who does car stuff, and President. we had to end up calling the police and they were wayy cool and in our free time while we were waiting for a translator to come (the cops only spke EN and the guy only spke SP) we taught them and it was really coool!! i am kind of getting fat cause h keller is on a no sugar diet so i agreed to eat hers secretly when we go to peoples houses and they give us stuff. i am starting to drive this week cause h keller is kind of a crazy driver and gets us lost all the time even when i tell her to turn she forgets to and anwyyas... that should be fun. my friend in the mtc wrote me a letter and said this "a true sincere heart and some broken spanish is more than enough to get to the heart of the people and to get them to know how true the message we are preaching is true" so that is helping me hang in there with SP.
hope all is well at home, i love you and am so happy to hear from you. you are in my prayers-sending lots of loves
xoxoxoxoxo
hermana meryl call