Sister Worthen Reporting June 21st

One last goodbye to companions

Sisters Mahaffey, Crandall and Dahlen 6/7/09

Sister Worthen

will be reporting on her

experiences in the

Massachusetts Boston Mission

on Sunday, June 21st

Hawes Ward--9:00 a.m.

The Hawes Ward is located on Hawes Street

South of Baseline

(between Baseline and Guadalupe).

A get together for family and friends

will be held at the Kennedy Home

in Queen Creek (South of Ocotillo)

at 4:00 p.m. the same day.

For detailed directions to the Kennedy's

home, please contact Judy at

judymom@cox.net

or Hilary at her e-mail or facebook.

The Worthen Family

hopes to see you there!

I AM COMING HOME JUNE 8TH

Sister Hilary Worthen

will be arriving

at Sky Harbor Airport

on United Airlines Flight 2119

9:20 p.m.

June 8, 2009

YAHOO!

She will be seeing her missionary

blog for the first time--so please

leave her a welcome home message!

Just in from Brighton, MA.

the craziest thing ever happened on sunday! so we were at church- stake conference, and it was a broadcast. we had been there for like 45 minutes and the fire alarm goes off. no one really knew what it was. some priesthood holders went to go check it out, then came back in and asked everyone to evacuate. then i started to smell smoke. i thought no big deal ya know.i thought maybe i should leave my backpack but i decided otherwise. i left my Book of Mormon in the shelf where the hymns are, to open and look up scriptures they quoted in the broadcast. when we walked outside, there was smoke coming out of the roof but i thought it would be out in like 15 minutes top. then a huge flame came out and not all of the people were out. people in our wards were yelling for people to hurry. it moved so fast. the fire department came and started sawing out holes in the roof. windows were breaking from the heat.. the fire started spreading a ton, and the firemen were asked to evacuate the building. the last 3 firemen walked out and the roof over our chapel caved in! it was so freaky! we could see through the windows our chapel in flames! it was crazy! i could feel the heat on my face.

(haven't confirmed with Hilary--but that

looks like Sister Mahaffey on the left--

with a worried look on her face!)

we were all standing around watching. by now 8 or 9 fire trucks showed up and were aiming the hose at our steeple. we were right across the street and if that would've fallen, there woulda been alot of injuries. the fire would just not stop. they asked us to go down further to a park a little ways away. the neighbors next door were afraid the fire would spread to their house, and another neighbor volunteered their house for storage of their valuables. they brought out all this art work worth thousands of dollars, and we helped them take it into their neighbors home. then the firemen brought out things that were on the lower half of our church that might be valuable to us. like books that were in the institute bldg on the opposite side of the chapel of course. we all formed an assembly line to the quaker church across the street that was kind enough to let us store our books and stuff. among all the books, they brought out some art work. one, was a picture of Christ that was above the couch on the outside of the chapel wall-just before you walked into the chapel. when they brought it out there were no damages done to it! everyone cheered and was so happy! it was amazing. the wall all around the pictures, the wall the picture was on is completely black except this rectangle where the picture was is completely white! amazing! another thing that was untouched was the baptismal font! all around it is black, but no damage to the font. so many little tender mercies. it was neat to share with all the people that were watching little things about our church one in which i wanted to save to the end for the spirit to continue to be here. and i'm now shaking because it was so cool!!!!

so sister dahlin and i walked by the park to pick up our backpacks after we helped the neighbors, and sister dahlin whispers "thats jennifer". so let me take a step back- we had heard how ben is in town, and how he lives close to our church bldg-ben affleck that is. sister dahlin is litterally jennifer garners twin, and #1 fan, so we thought how fun it would be if we saw either one of them! so continuing on, we go and just stand by her, very casually- it was perfect. right place right time i tell you. we start talking about how crazy it is that our church is on fire and we introduce ourselves i say "hi. i'm sister worthen." she goes "hi. jennifer. this is my daughter violet." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! WE KNOW!!!! haha but we were really chill about the whole thing of course. then she asked us if we were in there when the fire happened, so we told her the whole story. to jennifer garner-i don't know if i mentioned that. haha jk. but just as i was about to ask her(sister dahlin was silent and kept mouthin to me"oh my gosh!" with a huge grin on her face) if she had heard of our church before, she said "excuse me". and walked away. when we turned away from her, we noticed everyone looking over and smiling. people started to see that it was her. sad. she came out later with violet and stood in the midst of a bunch of mormons and just kinda kept to herself while some ppl around her took some shots(including myself-just the back of her tho... i had to!). mitt romney came as well, but i didn't see him. too bad. so yeah thats my crazy story! the whole day was high intensity! it was definitely journal worthy. but we still don't know where we're going to meet this sunday. our stake president got a call from pres packer, and his son answered and said "he's watching a church burn down." i don't know how old the kid is.. so cute tho. but yeah eventful. this was the first lds chapel built in massachusetts. we're really blessed to have saved all that we did, and that no one was hurt. except my missionaray BOM is gone. once they release the scene to the church, i'm going to go try to look for it. i hope i can find it. all the construction people told me everything in the chapel is gone, but i have hope.ha and we still don't know if it was electrical or arson. it's under investigation. i sure just hope it was electrical-i think it was.

{Editor's note--we will let you know the state of Hilary's scriptures!}

LAST PICS FROM BOSTON !!!

Sister Worthen will be arriving home

June 8th at 9:20 p.m. at Sky Harbor Airport

and will be speaking in the Mesa Hawes Ward

on June 21st at 9:00 a.m.

President England

of the Massachusetts Boston Mission writes:

"Sister Worthen is a sweetheart; Sister England

and I love and appreciate her diligence.

Her obedience and hard work has paid off

in great personal growth. She teaches with

confidence and has no problem talking

to strangers; much different than when

she first arrived. We are very pleased

with the great service she has performed.

We pray that she will continue to share her

wonderful personality with those around her."

Hilary has consistently written about being a missionary:

"I know there is nothing more important for me at

this time to be doing, than what I am doing right now!

I Love it!"

Hilary's last companion in the mission field,

Sister Dahlen

Current companion: Sisters Dahlen

and (former companions of Sister Worthen)

Sisters Wendt and Bingham

Hilary got to visit the Buckley Family when
Bro. Buckley went to the Temple in late March.
Here are 3 of the 6 Buckley children.
Hilary loves this wonderful Family!

OOPS!!!!!

okay so i gotta funny story for you all that i keep forgettin to tell yous!! okay so this happened like 3 weeks ago or somethin.. but i was cookin lunch for us and all we had was refried beans and so i thought "hmm i'll make bean burritoes". well we only had 2 tortillas and this is when i was in the trio, so i went back into the fridge and found 2 small corn tortillas so i thought i'll make a tostada. so i pour the oil in the pan to cook the tostadas and turn the stove on high. meanwhile sister mahaffey is making dinner for a less active family who is havin it tough in the financial department.. and she says i need a pan to cook this is in the oven. so i'm like hey i'll go find ya one from the neighbors-well she ended up comin with me and our neighbors right down the hall weren't home, so we went upstairs to a different family(the wilsons). well while i'm up there talkin to them, i think "oh snap-the stove is on high and the oil is in the pan!" but then i think- bingham is a smart chica-she'll know to turn it off. well we came back down to the apt to find smoke like crazy! bingham's in the bathroom bc apparently we left the door open while she was standing there in her tights ironing her skirt! oops!!! so i go to grab the pan and all of a sudden our fire alarm goes off so i put it down to try to fan the alarm so it'll stop. (btw we couldn't open our windows- they frozen shut!!) didn't work so i thought-hmm it's cold outside i'll take it out there. when i walked back into the apartment complex the entire complex' alarm was going off-all the doors in our hallways were shutting and i just stood there and started shaking! i walked into our aprtment and looked at mahaff and said "i'm going to cry!" she starts laughing and is trying to calm me down.. but everyone was evacuating the bldg!! so i go out to tell them whats up and they all just laugh at me! well the firemen show up- 2 actually- sirens and all!! the looked at me and said "you look guilty" so i told them the story and well- they laughed! and brought a big fan in to get the smoke out. but hey- we gotta picture!! :) so here's mahaff and i with the firemen!haha love you all! just wanted to let you know God is looking out for us! :) hah

WONDERFUL BAPTISM ON JANUARY 11, 2009

hi everyone! we had a baptism yesterday and i just wanted to share the miracle with everyone! so bill fohy-i think i've mentioned him to everyone before. but he's 72 and was catholic all his life. he's the one who worked for john huntsman and met pres hinckley. he had met with missionaries before for a couple of years, but couldn't quite get the tesimony. well when sister wendt and i got the challenge from our zone leaders to see who could find the most investigators we were so stoked! but come sunday-the last day of our challenge, we only had 3.. weak!! oh and i forgot to mention it was pouring rain after church so we were like how are we going to find these investigators?!? well i was pretty determined to find as many as possible.. so i prayed asking how we're gonna do this and the thought came to my mind to call old investigators that were in the area book. so we did and that night we found 9 new investigators! one of which is bill fohy... stubborn old guy! love him to death tho.. anyways after teaching him a couple of times, we knew he was ready. so we committed him to baptism a few times and everytime he denied and said he isn't ready well we set one with him for dec 14th. as most of you know-that was the ice storm weekend! so we went to his house afterwards to bump it to the next week, and he said he wanted to wait till after the holidays. we were pretty upset. but had to respect that. so we rescheduled for the 11th of january and what a blessed day was that!! so on saturday, we went to bill's with the most amazing family-the stokes. and bro stokes said to bill no matter what the weather is like we are having this baptism! bc there was news of a storm soming this weekend. so sunday morning we wake up and whatdo ya know- it snowed! alot! but we had the faith that everything would work out bc God wanted bill to be baptized so bad!! so church was cancelled, but bills baptism was set for 2 bc the storm was supposed to end at 1ish. so we went and filled the font and everything was ready and at 145 it was still snowing- but bill showed up 15 min early to get dressed in his white and he was just glowing! then we had about 10 other people show up. 4 of which were our investigators who commited to come to church for the first time but since it was cancelled they came to the baptism. and at 2 the storm stopped and the sun came out shining bright as ever! the roads were all plowed and it was beautiful! his baptism was amazing! the spirit was so strong, and afterwards he comes to us and says "i'll never forget you girls!" sweetest thing in the world! it was such a testimony to me of "opposition in all things". i know that if we just endure the "storms" in our lives, the Lord can pour His blessings out upon all of us! i love all of you! keep truckin through them hard times! so with the story of how we found bill, we also found a lady named tanya hansen. she came to bills baptism and said afterwards "i feel lighter". she is getting baptized next sunday if all goes well! oh and a family we are teaching are the other ones who came to his baptism. the jafferians. they are very christian at the boston church of Christ but each time we go over to teach them, they are softening their hearts.they came to the baptism and afterwards we had a long talk with our ward mission leader and his wife,the jafferians, and the elders in our ward about the church, and we can feel they are really coming around! i love this church so much! it truly changes lives! i miss you all so much and love you like crazy! continue to be good and share the gospel! nothing will bring greater happiness.. just use the sentence "i love my church because.." with non members.. and let the spirit do the rest. take care!! love, shw

ICE STORM!!!

At the end of Hils last hand-written letter

she wrote

"just wanted to end w/a joke--I'm driving

in snowy/icy weather." I love you Mom!

The very next night Kyle (Hils brother) says: "Did

you hear about the big Ice Storm in the Northeast?

2 1/2 million people are without power."

I thought "nah--she's probably alright! The storm

most likely affected people closer to the coast."

On Sunday the 14th I e-mailed the mission home and

received this reply Monday: "Yes we did have an ice

storm and your Daughter and her companion are staying

with a member family because they don't have power in

their apartment until Thursday or Friday this week.

They came to my ward yesterday and they look great."

On Tuesday 12/16 we received this e-mail from Hilary:

"what an eventful week i tell ya! one i will never ever forget? i don't know if it's been on the news in the u.s. but last thurs/fri we had an icredible ice storm! It was so crazy! so on thursday night we heard that the weekend was supposed to be really bad and that we would have 'freezing rain'. that night after our dinner appointment we walked outside and we were sliding all over the place bc there was ice covering the streets. so the next morning we woke up to snow plow lights blinkin and beeping like crazy and no electricity! we looked outside (from our 2 layers of blankets covering the windows to block the wind draft) and everything was just COVERED in ice! I mean literally! so we tried messin around with the circuit breaker and uh--no luck. then we went outside bc cmon no heat/electricity, lets at least take pics! so we walk outside and there are trees half broken or completely up-rooted everywhere. and you could still hear like a crack and then a huge tree would fall or one of it's limbs or something which was scary bc we are out in the boonies and there are trees surrounding us everywhere! but don't worry mom we were careful...so we ate icicles alot that morning bc I thought it was just the coolest thing! then we walked over to the park across the street and saw the major damage. power lines were down bc the tree pole they were on had fallen over bc other trees hit them. so we realized why the electricity was not working. then a lady in our ward called and invited us over to her house bc she has a wood stove so it would be warmer than our house and she was able to cook. so we cleaned our apt while the sun was out and then headed over around 4 to eat and every candle was lit in ther house so we could have a little light, and we walked around with flashlights and stuff. oh and by the way there were 2 other families there besides us and the johnsons. one of them was dillon and danielle whose baby i told you all about ...ended up passing away on wednesday. so we had 14 people in a little home with a wood stove as the heat source and 2 new babies and 4 toddlers running around. we managed to get through the night with bout 4 hours of sleep. so we woke up that morning with no shower once again and we didn't know what to do bc people were leaving to go to motels and there just wasn't anything we could do as far as missionary work went...so we called pres england and what does he say? 'go to one of the members homes and take a shower, charge your cell phone, etc.' we're like'pres-no one in our area or ward boundaries has electricity.' no one really knew how bad it was or anything. so after we told him that, he started to understand what was really happening and the fact that we weren't supposed to have electricity back until the middle of next week. so he told us to drive down to the mission home with our clothes and stuff packed for a few days staying out here closer to the mission home. so we went home and packed and expected to be back by monday for the baby's funeral. president found us a beautiful home to stay in with some members in his ward. so we drove to the englands passing through our town with trees fallen down on top of cars and houses to about 20-30 minutes from our town were there was no snow or any sign of a ice storm...no wonder people had no clue what was going on. when we got to the mission home, pres took one look and he says do you want to take a shower here and get cleaned up? we about cried we were so happy! haha then we stayed at their home for a couple of hours and ate lunch and talked with sis england. then the lund's (the cute family pres arranged to let us stay at) called and so we went over and their home was so warm and comfy!! it was so nice of them to just let us stay and feed us. but we have recently found out that our power is back on and so we're leaving to go back home soon... the reason I am writing today is that there is supposed to be another ice storm tomorrow as well!! oh boy--pray for us! i'm so lucky to have been with such an amazing companion! i love her to death! so we have had a WILD week! pics are soon to come and you'll all feel my joy of the beauty of 'freezing rain' but also think and imagine the pain of the literal'freezing' part. I hope you're all okay out in az with your 'cold' 60 degree weather! oh man...don't catch a cold! everyone take care! i will talk to you all soon!! woop woop! love you! love, shw