Week 30 - What?

Since it is light outside, we can exercise however we want now! So Sister Brock (my MTC companion) and her companion Sister Jensen, and I ran to the capitol. That is what the picture attached is. We look really gross but that is okay haha. My companion didn't want to run so she stayed behind with other sisters that day. It's actually really close to our apartments so it is not that far, it is just all straight uphill on the way there. It's so fun being able to do what we want for exercise!

This is my 30th P-day haha. Nuts! Can you believe it is almost week 5 of the transfer?

Well it has been a great week, but it flew by.

This week, we were able to take a motorcoach! They are so fun! Let me tell you what they are. So a motorcoach is usually a bus tour. It's usually a tour company that is coming with a large group of people. Multiple companionships get assigned to lead and contact the tour. Leaders take the tour, while contactors kind of herd everyone, and help teach. We grab a portable microphone, a flag, and some church materials (pamphlets, mormon.org cards, etc.) and we stand outside the west gate, and when the bus pulls up, everyone gets out of the car and stampedes over to you. Haha. So our tour bus had several groups! There were actually three large buses. There were 40 Mandarin, 30 Cantonese, 30 more Mandarin ,and 15 English which we took. So imagine all these people getting off the buses. All the Asians LOVE taking pictures, so they get off the bus and are just snapping pictures of the American sisters haha and recording us it was so funny. So we led everyone over to the Handcart Monument. They were all Filipinos from Australia. It wasn't that big of a group, so it was nice that it was more personal and we didn't need the microphone. But they recorded every word we said the whole tour! (even though that isn't allowed haha) We were so nervous! But it was so fun. They were an awesome tour group. We explained history but then we testified a lot at every location, and they were so sweet. Every time we would testify, they would nod their heads and go, oh yeah. It was so sweet. I am excited to take more motorcoaches this summer!

We have found a lot of new investigators this week, we are really grateful for that. It's always great to get new investigators to keep up our teaching pool. We are excited to be able to teach them. I am grateful for the chance that I have to serve here, because we get to teach a lot more than other missions! I think that will be hard when I go outbound. We are so blessed to serve here.

Tim got the Priesthood! How cool is that? He hasn't gotten a calling yet. Since he is still receiving treatment for his infection, he can only go to sacrament, so his bishop told him that he wants him to just focus on that right now and learning as a new member and getting comfortable in the ward and then he will get a calling. He is so funny. When we talked to him he said that for Easter he "hanged out with the grandkids" haha. He also told us that he keeps the Book of Mormon is his dialysis bag, how awesome! He says that he loves our phone calls, and that he counts on them especially after a bad week health wise. They energize him for Sunday and help him be recharged to read the scriptures. He also said that ever since he has been learning about this church and attending church and reading, he has seen how his health trial has been good for him. When he prayed at the end, he thanked God for the scriptures, and General Conference and for Heavenly Father understanding that he tries but can't do everything. It was sweet. This week we invited him to prepare to bear his testimony to us. We want him to really take the time this week to think about what he now knows, what the Holy Ghost has borne witness to him that is true. We are psyched to hear it! We tried to invite him to bear his testimony next fast Sunday but he isn't ready yet he said. He will be soon!

Sadly, what I thought would happen with Aaron, happened. We called him the next day and he said that he decided he doesn't want to be baptized, nor learn more about the church. Unfortunately we had to drop him. But God never drops his children, He has a huge area book .haha.

I got to take an investigator lesson with Sister Crotts! It was so great. She is only in her 3rd transfer, but is already training! She is an awesome missionary. It was so fun to not only see her, but to teach with her.

Sister Ann Clegg from the Relief Society General Board came to talk to us today, it was great! Sh talked all about the Priesthood. It's sad that that has to be the case, but I guess it's something we need to hear.

During Personal Study yesterday, I was studying Lesson 3: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hit a paragraph that I read all the time, but it was so profound this time. It is:

"The Savior satisfied the demands of justice for those who repent of their sins and endeavor to keep all of His commandments when He stood in our place and suffered the penalty for our sins. This act is called the Atonement. Because of this selfless act, Christ can plead with the Father on our behalf. Heavenly Father can apply mercy, withhold punishment from us, and welcome us into His presence. Our Heavenly Father shows mercy when He forgives us of our sins and helps us return to dwell in His presence."

It is so true, Christ is always there as our Mediator, praying for us. When we repent, Christ pleads with the Father. I guess I don't know how to explain what I learned, but remember this week that Christ is pleading for you and He knows how you feel.

We have some lessons that we are really excited for. We love teaching! We have a lot of things to do with the cars, but we love when we can be regular missionaries and teach people. We will keep you updated with the new investigators and how they are progressing.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, what a special day.

Have a wonderful week!

11/15..................

This was us in the Teaching Center this week, excited to call Tim!

I am sure you are all wondering what that fraction is for...It is one of the best fractions that could ever exist! What is means is...Today, we had to go to the COB, and we happened to go at the PERFECT time because the Brethren were literally just coming out of the Temple! WHAT! So we stood off to the side while everyone passed. President Monson, President Uchtdorf, President Eyring, Elders Holland, Oaks, Scott, Ballard, Cook, Bednar, Christofferson, and Andersen all passed us, and Elders Andersen and Christofferson shook our hands! We didn't get to see Elders Hales, Packer, Perry, or Nelson. That is my goal now for this transfer, haha. It was so sweet I don't even know what to say!

Hey thank you all for your sweet Birthday wishes! I had a fantastic Birthday, the best one yet. I think it was the best because it wasn't about me. I was in the best place, doing the best thing on my birthday. And we found a new investigator, Kira! We are excited to call her.

I had a funny experience this week on chat. We took a chat from a girl named Saige. She was asking all these great questions, and she knew a lot about the church. She asked if TMSQ missionaries take the chats and we said yes, some of them. She said that her friend knows a Sister serving there, and when we asked who it was, she said Sister Gretchen Brock. I was like hey, I was her companion! So she is from Salem and knows the Brock family.Well, we talked a little more, and asked her if she wanted to learn more so she could know these things for herself and she said yes, and gave us her phone number. Well I called her yesterday and when she answered, I said, is this Saige? She said yes, hesitantly. I said, hey this is Holly from mormon.org chat ,the one that knows Sister Brock! And she goes, well yes I know a Sister Brock....And I said yeah, remember, we chatted on Tuesday? And she said no, I have never been to mormon.org, but I am mormon! I was baptized in December. Well, we realized that someone was pretending to be her and even gave out her information. What an awful joke! Now we have to go back and change our numbers for this week. haha. BUT, when I talked to her, I said, well hey, do you know anyone we could teach? And she said yes but that she was at Dairy Queen, and she would call me back. And she called me back today. Someone thought they were being funny when they pretended to be her, but actually, they were doing missionary work! haha.

A miracle happened this week.

Remember Aaron? The one who I thought was a woman for a couple transfers, but recently realized is a man? Well, lately he has not been progressing, and every time we talk about baptism or coming to church, he gets upset and hangs up on us. Then when we call him the next time, we apologize for offending him and he says oh no no no you didn't offend me, you can call me anytime! So this week we decided that if he didn't start progressing, we were going to drop him. So honestly, when we called him yesterday, I had intentions to drop him. We decided to read out of the B.O.M. We have to talk really slow and simply, because he's about 70. We read from Mosiah 5 and applied it to him. The spirit was really strong and despite the rocky start, it was a wonderful lesson. He saw how everything applied to him, and we moved from faith into baptism, and he again brought up how he had been baptized before. We again talked about priesthood and authority and shared a classic missionary-analogy how if a guy driving an ice cream truck tried to pull you over and write you a ticket, what would you say? Then if a policeman pulled you over and tried to write yo a ticket, what wold you say? We showed him how it has to be by the right authority. So he said, so the people that baptized me didn't have that authority? And we said no and he said okay. We invited him to be baptized and he said he wasn't ready. Well we explained how no one is perfect and how this Gospel can never be fully learned, our whole lifetime is a learning process. We told him that we won't let him be baptized if he isn't ready, and told him that that is what we are here for, to prepare him. That we will be his guides in sharing this Gospel with him, but it will be his responsibility to come to know for himself. We invited him to be baptized on May 10th and he said he would try his best to be ready on that day! HUGE miracle. I ate my words about dropping him haha. It's amazing how the Spirit can soften hearts. It was nothing that we did or said, but it was the Spirit present that he felt that made all the difference.

Tim is doing great. He will be receiving the Priesthood soon. His health isn't doing as great, though. He has had to be receiving some sort of treatment every day. But he knows that God will help him out. He says that when he has hard days, he will go back and read the scriptures that we text him, and that he feels comforted through those scriptures. We shared with him about Patriarchal Blessings, and invited him to receive one. He is really excited for that.

Also, I got to talk with Cesar this week, I am not sure if you remember him. The one who we took his family on a tour back in October, and he already had a baptismal date? And we went to his baptism in November. Well I called him to see how he is doing, and he is doing so good! I kid you not he will be a General Authority one day. So back in November, I was trying to convince him to serve a mission but he said that he is too old (24) and needs to get married. I told him to pray about it haha. Well, he did and received an answer. He is going to be putting in his mission papers in in July! He is so excited to serve. He will make a fantastic missionary! His family members are still not ready to meet with missionaries, but they will, I know that. Probably while he is on a mission, that will bless them so much. I ended up having to go because it was time to go home and he goes, do you have to go right right now? Could we just end with a prayer? I was like wow....he is already such a missionary! haha

Unfortunately, we had to drop Robert. His phone number no longer works. I knew that gut feeling was true!

We had some training for our Zone yesterday that replaced our District meeting. It was so good! One of the District Leaders in our Zone was talking about invitations. She said somethings that really clicked. Well each time we invite someone to do something, we are inviting them to repent, or change, and when we do that we always promise blessings. We say, "we promise you that when you do that..." But she said, it's not our promise, it's the Savior's. It's His Atonement that makes it possible to repent and change, and how we should be saying, "The Savior has promised you that as you do that..." I am going to do that with all commitments now! Also, she had us think about the invitation Heavenly Father gave Jesus Christ. He probably hugged Him and said, "Will you go? Will you be the Savior and Redeemer of all Mankind?" And then she had us think of the promised blessings He gave Him. She told us that we were His promised blessings, how He probably said, "If you go, I promise that I will send missionaries all around the world who will tell people about you and help them come to know you." Then she had us think of how He would have kept that in His mind when times got hard, in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Cross, etc and how He kept going. It was way good. The Spirit was so strong.

Today we got to watch 'Meet the Mormons,' the new video in the Legacy Theatre as a mission for Relief Society. So I think it is okay to talk about it now! Hopefully...haha. So it's a documentary, kind of like the 'I'm a Mormon' videos, but extended. I won't ruin it for you, but it has about 5 members from all around the world who share their story. I can't wait for you to see it it is so good! And David Archuleta just covered a song called "Glorious" by Russ Dixon that plays at the end, and I really want it, it is so good! So whoever can find it and put it on a CD and send it to me will.....get something special!

We have been trying to catch up with Conference, and this week I watched a couple of them. I think my favorite quote so far was from Elder Uchtdorf's talk on Gratitude when he said, "There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings. Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity." I love that!

As far as a favorite, I don't have a clear favorite yet, they were just all so good!

I am excited for Easter. There is a great video on mormon.org right now called 'Because of Him.' I invite you all to go watch it this week in honor of Easter! Look past the eggs and candy for a couple minutes to remember the true meaning :) 

here is the link: http://easter.mormon.org/

I love Easter so much. It is such a special holiday. Because He was resurrected, we will be too, into a state of joy we cannot comprehend. I am so grateful for Him!

Well I think that is about it. It's been a pretty busy week. I am so grateful for miracles. I invite you all to also pray for miracles this week. I know that you will see them if you will ask for them!

Love you, FOLLOW UP!

Here is my Easter Planner that I made!

Which Apostles did I MEET this week? I'll give you a hint, there were THREE!

I had probably the coolest night of my entire life on Monday! And I have had some pretty cool nights in my life haha.

So we got to usher a private screening of a new movie that they were testing in the Legacy Theatre! Three companionships got to do it.

The private screenings are to show it to important people to see if they approve it before it gets shown to the public. I hope that makes sense. I am not really allowed to talk about the movie. All I can say is that it is REALLY good, and I can't wait for you to see it. It's a documentary.

The coolest part is that I got to meet Elder Bednar, Elder Ballard, and Elder Christofferson! I shook each one of their hands, and talked with them a little bit. Elder Ballard shook my hand and then held my other hand with his left hand while he shook the other few sisters' hands It was so sweet, he is the cutest little old man! Plus, Sister Wixom, Sister Oscarson, and Sister Reeves all shook my hand and a ton of other Seventies. Elder Ballard told us to "follow up!" So that's my motto, haha.

So General Conference weekend was great! Our goal as a mission was not to drag referrals out of members, but to uplift everyone, and help them be excited about missionary work. It was funny though, as I tried to uplift people on the square, I myself was way more uplifted. All I can think of is, man Heavenly Father, I am trying to repay you but I am getting further and further into debt haha. It's so sweet how much He loves and blesses His children.

Also, we are excited to call the referrals that we did receive. We are hoping that we will see miracles from it.

I loved talking to all the people, and hearing their experiences and learning from them.

After the last session, when the square died down, we all gathered in a theater and talked about the weekend. Then, Kenneth Cope, an LDS/Christian songwriter/performer gave us our own conference! It was way good.

There was a pretty cool experience that happened Saturday afternoon. I am sure everyone has heard about the protesting that went on for Ordain Women, I have heard it has been a nationally discussed topic. Well, it was really sad to be outside the Tabernacle, to see that the line was populated mostly by women, many of which are Returned Missionaries. It made me really sad. Essentially, they just don't understand. They don't understand God's love for them, and they don't understand the Priesthood. I won't say much more, but I just can't comprehend their viewpoint, because it doesn't make sense. If they really understood the Priesthood, I think they would be satisfied. Anyway, right before the Priesthood session, they closed the East Gate because a couple hundred protesters for Ordain Women were trying to march in. So they turned around and were going to try to go in through the South Gate when out of nowhere, it begins to hail. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it got rid of a lot of them! Heavenly Father literally reached out his hand and basically slapped them in the face but with hail hahaha. It was sweet!

Today for P-day we went to this diner/cafe that has really good food. The best part is that they feed missionaries for free! So I got a huge buffalo chicken sandwich with onion rings and a slice of chocolate peanut-butter pie for free! It was great, and I am still so full haha.

We were on the square this week, when we walked past this guy carrying a motorcycle helmet. It was just one of those instances that I knew that we needed to talk to him. He is a way awesome guy! His name is Dennis. He came from Bosnia to Utah 18 years ago, but you could never tell, he has no accent and was a kid at that time. Members received their family and helped them learn the language and taught them the Gospel, and they were all baptized. Well, since then his family has become inactive and aren't doing the things they should. He felt like Heavenly Father needed him to come to Temple Square. He has been going to church every now and then, but says it's really hard for him to read the scriptures. He really wants to feel the spirit. He remembers what it was like when they first joined the church, he said that that exciting feeling eventually wore off, and he wants to feel it again. He wants to be married in the temple. We talked about a lot of things and I had a weird thought pop into my head.I asked if he liked music and he said yeah, he really likes it. I asked him if he would sing hymns by himself before he prays each time, and when he is riding his motorcycle. He said yeah, he could definitely do that, and that he likes singing when he rides. I know that that will help him feel the spirit. We are way excited to call him and see how he is doing tomorrow. We want to help him get to the temple! Also, we have a new mission rule. If we are teaching someone in the general area of Salt Lake, or anywhere in the Valley or up in Bountiful, we can attend the Temple with them! Whether it be baptisms, endowments, and even sealings I believe. So we are excited to see Dennis progress as he grows closer to the Lord, and hopefully we will be able to attend the Temple with him!

This week with Tim, we shared Joseph Smith History and read from it with him. He loved it! The Elders brought him his own copy. He says that he relates to Joseph Smith, and so he said that he is really excited to read more in JSH this week. He is doing great, and is going to have an interview to get the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday!!

So Robert's phone is no longer a working number...my gut feeling is basically confirmed that he is insincere! Super sad. But we are looking for more Tim's who are ready to receive the Gospel. I know there are so many out there prepared for us, we just have to find them!

Well I am running out of time and we didn't have time to teach this week because of Conference and FLEET duties, but we will find opportunities this week. We will see miracles!

Thank you everyone for all the Birthday wishes this week, I love you all! Thanks for your examples!

Love you,

Did you see me on TV?

Did you?? We were there! Here is a picture to prove it haha

Also, is it just me, or is the chorister in 17 Miracles? The mother who leaves her husband and pioneers to Utah? Ponder that haha.

Well, it's been a great week. My new companion is Sister Richardson from North Carolina! We are going to have way too much fun together. I am excited!

We haven't had the chance to teach much this week with our new assignment & transfers, so this email will be a little short.

I was asked to explain Tim's proxy baptism a little more, I would love to do that. So, they had the proxy person go down into the font. Tim, dressed in baptismal clothes. stepped into the font to his ankles. Then, the proxy person was baptized with a special proxy baptismal prayer (similar to the Temple-for and in behalf of Timothy Finley) and dunked and brought out. Then he was able to change and come back out in church clothes. Everything else about the service was normal. The next day he was able to be confirmed normally, on the stand with tons of Stake Presidents and bishops present. I hope I explained that well enough!

So I received an inbound call from Roxanne a few weeks ago for a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. I decided to call her on Monday to see if she received it. She said that she had, and we got to talking. She is a really sweet lady. She says that she loves anything that will help her be closer to Jesus. When I mailed the DVD, I also mailed the missionary pamphlets. She said that she had read them and she liked them. She also said that I could call her anytime, and that she would love to learn more. That was pretty sweet! Most of the time it doesn't work out that way, usually they say that they just wanted to watch the movie and they are not interested in learning more, but she actually is.

Tim's lesson went great, we taught him about the Pearl of Great price and the Doctrine and Covenants. He is really excited to read them. He has an awesome Home teacher too. His bishop called him in and told him that he wants him to prepare to receive the Priesthood in two weeks, so exciting!

So we have been told that we are not allowed to proselyte in India anymore...I don't really know why. I think email is okay, so we are still emailing Vas, but it is a little sad because there are no problems, and there are missionaries there, I am not sure why we cannot online proselyte, probably something that is unbeknownst to me. Hopefully Vas was able to go to church, he said that he would.

We called Robert, and tried to ask questions that would help us know if he is sincere or not. He got very panicky and was hesitant about his answers, and cut the phone call short. We are pretty sure he is not sincere! But we are trying to call the bishop to get some more information.

That is about it for this week, hopefully we will have a lot more teaching opportunities this week.

I am stoked for General Conference! I get to go to one session, the Saturday morning session. I am way excited! For the rest of the time during those two days, we are on the Square all day contacting people. It is going to be great! I hope that members will feel the excitement of hastening the Lord's work, and helping people come closer to Christ. We want to help them feel that, that is why we are here on the Square during General Conference! We don't just want random referrals, we want them to be excited about doing missionary work, and we want to be able to help them invite their friends, without the pressure of saying, well do you have any referrals? I am so glad this is the attitude of General Conference this year, because in previous years, it was different. It is going to be great :)

Here is a picture of Temple Square for you to enjoy if you won't be here at Conference!

Remember to bring questions to Conference, I know that Heavenly Father will answer you through the speakers he has called and qualified. 

Love you!