Slow as a slug

Hileman here

HOW ARE YOU!? 

I hope you're doing great. I really do! If I were there I'd come hang out with  you tonight. We'd go all crazy on mormon.org and watch church movies! We could even eat popcorn!!! Maybe get really risky and go swimming fully clothed. 

Don't worry, I'm not going to be that weird when I get home. Only half of that is true. I'd never make you go swimming fully clothed! You can totally take off your socks. How about it? Wanna hang out!?

LIFE IS SOO GOOD

My beautiful little baby trainee, Hermana Shannon, got her VISA and as we speak she is flying to Peru! I went off island yesterday to pick up my new companion Sister F350, as I like to call her. Or Sister Fusion. Sister Cobra, on really hot and humid days. Her name-tag says Sister Ford, though. She's from Provo, UTAH and grew up on the tree streets. Now that might mean nothing to you. Let me explain. My grandpa designed and built an award winning house on Cedar St. in the 50's and it was always a dream of mine to duplicate this house when I grow up (like 2 more inches). She grew up right next to this house!! This might still mean nothing to you. What if I told you that last month her family bought that house and is renovating it!!! Well that part is not true. But it would make the story cooler, wouldn't it. Still cool to me!

PRIMARY

kids are crazy. At church we have separate classes for the chillun's and this Sunday we got to teach them! Those little rascals crack me up. One little 5 year old boy, Colton, was full of good questions. The best thing he said was in the middle of a story about repentance when he cut in and said. "Well I'm not gonna die. I'm not gonna die all DAY!"  He gave the closing prayer and it consisted of "Welove" and then an item. He prayed that "welove God and welove Jesus 'nd welove iPad 'nd welovedelovelove food". We talked about forgiveness and we asked if anybody every had to say sorry to someone. Colton raises his hand and says, "Well I hurt people A LOT". I recorded this whole conversation so let me tell you how it went:

ME: "So you apologized to them?"

C: "Sure. Yeah."

ME: "And what did that feel like?"

C: "Um, like, like ok or not ok or like sad or happy."

ME: "Yeah? All of them? When you said sorry did you feel good after?"

C: "Weeell Julia kinda always gets hurt all by herself. But, and Cole, Cole always runs into the wall all by himself."

I recorded all of this on my voice recorder, don't you worry.

I am really grateful to have taught this class yesterday. These kids make me remember how simple and wonderful life is! We brought them Jello and they all said thank you a million times. They totally didn't judge us for accidentally going all Christmas and making green and red Jello. One girl said she'd rather have had chocolate pudding "but this is also really good!!" We all need to be like little kids. The scriptures even say this. I'd start following their lead if I were you! 

TANLINES

are no joke. It looks like I'm wearing an extra small white-T all the time. If I had red hair I'd be Neapolitan ice cream. It looks like somebody was staining a wood floor and I was sprawled out taking a nap. Nice brown and then a SOLID change to bright white. And it's not even. Random parts of my arms and legs apparently repel sunlight naturally, so that's cool. Brown shins white calves. Business in the back party in the front. My watch-line, my ring-line, my neck-line.. hilarious! And my shoe line is completely hilarious! When I take off my shoes at the end of the day it just looks like my ankles are really dirty but they're not. Well, sometimes they are. 

S*L*O*W*D*O*W*N

way way down. Slow as a slug.

I realized how much I appreciate slow living. I loved Boston when I was there but now that I'm back on an island I am constantly aware of how important the little things are. Today we got to our bus stop a few minutes early so I went down to the beach to take a photo of my nametag in the sand. (Sister Shannon had wanted to do this but we never got the chance! So I took it for her today with a name-tag that just arrived in the mail) I probably looked like a total goober out there bending over and sticking these little plaques in the ground. As I came back to the street these two guys were standing there and one of them said "are you mormon?" to which I obviously said "YES!" He recognized the name-tags and said his dad used to have missionaries over. We talked to them for a little before our bus started rolling away and we had to run and flag it down again. These two set up tables in front of stores and teach people, specifically teenagers, about Christ! They asked how we came to know God and what brought us to come on a mission. It was so fun talking to them and to hear someone else talk so easily about Jesus Christ! Sometimes people think we are insane for mentioning him. Well, he did create us after all. It's the least random thing you could talk about, really! There are so many things we can study and debate and talk about. But really, the most important things are below the surface. They are in our foundations. The basics. Love. Family. Laughter. Joy. Sharing. Listening. Gospel. Music. Beauty. If I had rushed from one bus to another, if I had been jabbering to my companion, if I had been on the phone, I would have never stopped to talk to these two gentleman. 

So here's a suggestion. I dare you to think about something different today. I think you should try to study the breeze by feeling it. Or a leaf by picking it. If history has taught us anything it's not that truth turns to nonsense or that nonsense turns to truth, it's that we habitually over-complicate our lives. We lose sense of what is right and wrong because we pick and chose and mix and match everything to fit us individually. As soon as life gets good we get excited and we add more and more and more and then we explode. It'll take a long vacation once a year to keep a walstreet fortune 500 man only just bearably focused for the rest of the year. You can lose 20 years in a assisted living center for pushing too darn hard for too darn long. And then there's some of us that have to be reminded over and over again to stop. To breath.... 

...to relax. To realize that life, with all of it's complexities and chaos and confusion and misconception and misunderstanding, is meant to be enjoyable. It's meant to be meaningful. It's meant to be simple. 

SERVICE

is what we do! Here's some photos

Just bikin' to the hospital.... when we get there we play with the most fun senior citizens! I just love them! This week we watched some good ol' Harry Connick Jr. Sometimes we go fishing. Ok, ok just kidding. I didn't catch that shark! But we really do build houses.

LIFE IS A MISSION

enjoy every second. 

Hermana Hileman