with love, sister hileman: Springtime Report

I. LOVE. Boston. The people the streets the buildings the birds the houses the kiosks the weather the subway the food the politicians the hobos the students the diversity the air the stores and the people the people and the people. Even the things that I don't like about Boston make me like it even more!

PERMANENT

This week was a hectic one. We had Transfer Meeting and so I was temporarily back in Roslindale for a few days before returning to my temporarily assigned house in Arlington. Temporarily switched back to Sister Brown and then switched again to Sister Van Wagenen. I think I'm more stoked than I've ever been for the next few weeks. The past 2 were constant change and... well... chaos. I think things have settled down in all respects and I'm really excited to hop back into the grind! Temporarily. Until the next temporary change temporarily replacing something else. Haha, you thought this had something to do with Permanence. Haha. Yeah right.

Here's a story for you. We'll call it

DANDELION

On Friday we were walking through a neighborhood when I saw the street sign HORAN RD. I have a friend with that last name so the name stood out to me when I was looking through the ward directory. I couldn't remember who, and I knew that I hadn't met them before. I was pretty positive they hadn't been to church in a long time. Either way I put my stuff down on some steps and dug through my backpack looking for the address. Found it! Whew! We went up to the apartment and nobody was home. Bummer. We walked back to our next area and got on a bus next to some Latino girls. Just as we reached our destination I realized that I was missing something big and important, but what? What.. what was gone. My coat. Ohhh dang it was gonna drop a couple bunches of degrees and I left my coat on Horan Rd! Feeling like a total chump we got off the bus and crossed the street to catch another bus back. I told my companion how something I've come to learn is that things always happen for a reason. Always. That is, if you look for the reasons, you will find them. With that we made our journey back to Horan Rd. and talked to everyone we could. We met a very nice 21 year old Super Senior who was pregnant with twins. I saw her doing Algebra not so... uh... she was struggling. I started talking to her and another person on the bus joined in, too. When we got to the station they were still talking and she was much happier than she had been. Huh! Glad we met her! We made our way back exactly the same way we cut through the neighborhood before just in case I left the jacket somewhere along the way, but I was positive it was still on Horan Rd. Out of nowhere this lady jumps next to us and says "ARE YA GOIN' TAH CHURCH?" and then "do you have any papers for me read? I'd like some of those papers!" Upon further investigation we concluded that she was baptized long ago and hadn't been to church in awhile. She had a teenager boy and two adorable little babies who were running around picking dandelions and giving them to us. She said that she really wanted to start going to church again and so we gave her our number and the address of the chapel. It was a miracle that we passed her house, that she was standing outside right when we passed by, and that she recognized us as missionaries and stopped us. As we walked away we saw my jacket sitting on a pole right at the front of Horan Rd. "Shut up..." said my companion, shaking her head. "Shut up. I can't believe that just happened."

Well, that's all for now folks! Love adore and all those wonderful things,

Hermana Hileman