I can't even believe next transfer is real...

Okay last week I forgot to say that President pulled me into his office to tell me that I don't have a lot of time left and to ask me what I would like to do with that time. I told him that I wanted to serve with Sister Asay, but that I would do whatever the Lord wanted me to do. Well today we had Transfer Conference and next transfer I will be with Sister Asay! We are the Temple Square Coordinators. It's so crazy haha it will be so much fun.

This week has been really good. We learned how to quilt at the Humanitarian Center so we have been giving service on our downtime there. It's actually really relaxing (Shoutout to Grandma Baczuk-let's quilt together!). I am so grateful for the time that I have had to serve there at the Humanitarian Center. It has really opened my eyes not only to what the church does in it's humanitarian efforts, but to what I can do more in my life to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ. I have seen the Gospel of Jesus Christ in action, and like it says in the video, I want and pray that Heavenly Father will use me as an answer to other people's prayers.

Oh man it has slowed down a huge amount on Temple Square this week...it's made for a lot of turn-over in the mission. They are sending 25 sisters outbound, 24 are going home, 18 new sisters are coming, and 20 sisters are coming back from outbound....I'm just glad I am not in charge of airport runs because that transfer day is going to be crazy! We are all really excited to see what this transfer has to bring. With so much change we are excited to see all the miracles and experiences that will happen.

We found an awesome New Investigator yesterday named Richard. He is Native American and came on chat asking questions because missionaries had come and given him a pass-along card with the address of the church, but he is bedridden at the moment, waiting for some type of surgery. He is looking for something that he can be a part of that will give him hope. We had such a great conversation with him and were able to share why the Book of Mormon is so special to us, and how we think it would be interesting and special to him too. I mean it's literally a record of his ancestry haha. He really wants to read it. I so look forward to him gaining a testimony of it and seeing how it will change his life.

Do you remember Cameron? I taught him before I went outbound and he is in my old single's ward up in Ogden. Well he hasn't received approval to be baptized but has been going to church, except for the last couple weeks. He said that he doesn't have an excuse, but that he has just been busy and lazy. We talked about the importance of church with him and compared it to a job. You know, after a week of work, you physically need a day to recuperate and prepare for the next week. For us spiritually, it is similar. We need that time with Heavenly Father to prepare for our next week and to spiritually recuperate. Our spirits get tired too! He recognized that and was going to go yesterday, but someone stole his gas tank from his jeep so he had to go to the police station to file a police report :( Satan sucks. Haha. But we are looking forward to him going next week. I hope that he will get approval to get baptized so he can get the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

Tim is doing really good. We read with him in the scriptures (he is in 2 Nephi....I need help reading that too haha) and talked about the importance of the little things; going to church, reading scriptures, and praying. Then we invited him to do something that I have been trying out lately. It's been such a neat experience for me, and I invite you to try it out too! :) The night before or the morning of Sunday before church, I pray and ask Heavenly Father that one of the hymns we will sing in Sacrament will be something from Him that i need to hear. I have had the coolest experiences doing that and those hymns are now some of my favorite. Try it out on Sunday, it's like you are getting a blessing.

I got to see Saige this week! She had been one the square for a little bit but because we had some things going on, by the time I was able to respond to her text, I thought she had left. But it turns out she was still here! So we were able to do a lesson with her and then go to Nauvoo Cafe for dinner. The lesson was amazing...she is such an awesome girl. She is so dilligent in praying and reading and going to church, but she was telling me how she has been really struggling spiritually lately because no matter what she has done or how often she has tried, she hasn't felt the spirit. She was starting to get upset because she doesn't like feeling the spirit. She hadn't done anything wrong. We were talking about why she would need to go through something like this when something popped into my head. I thought of my senior year of High School when I was on the seminary council and we decided our theme of Climb the Mountain (Shout out to Bishop Somerville!). The scripture for that was DC 123:17 "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." We compared her trial right now to climbing a mountain. She is going through switchbacks, steep climbs, faint paths, etc., but when she gets to the top of mountain and she can see all that she conquered, it will be worth it because without the bitter, we wouldn't know the sweet (2 Ne. 2:11-"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility."). She just has to cheerfully do everything in her power, and then she can stand still to see God's hand in her life. A Conference Talk popped into my mind to have her read. It's one of my favorites: 'Where is the Pavilion' by Elder Eyring. We gave her that and a few other things to do, and then went to dinner. The next day, she texted us and told us that she was up at 2 AM and decided to watch the talk. She said that it felt so good to hear, and that just like the woman in the talk, she decided to really really pray and she felt such peace. She said that that peace allowed her to know that Heavenly Father hears her. She might not have gotten to the top of the mountain and finished her trial, but she is heard and that meant so much to her. This experience meant to much to me! I was so grateful that she was able to feel how much she is loved. It taught me so much about why we must pass through hard times, and the kind of attitude we should have as we do so. She is such an example to me and I am so grateful that months ago, someone came on chat and pretended to be her haha.

Well anyway I think I have word vomitted enough for today haha. I am so SO grateful for my calling to be a missionary. It amazes me that Heavenly Father lets me. It amazes me that not only that, but He allows me to teach other the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ! I am just a 21 year old girl and I don't feel qualified to do that...But I'm amazed to see that He does qualify me to do His work, and that it is nothing that I can do, but it is Jesus Christ next to me, making this all possible. Just like it says in DC 84: 88, "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." I have felt that. It is such a miracle!

I love you! Have a wonderful week,

Love,

P.s. I attached a cliche picture of Asians on Temple Square (this is a real picture a sister took, it's not staged!!), and a picture of me and Saige, a picture of the transfer board this transfer, and a picture of me being silly yesterday.

It's really been a whole week? And it's week 6?

Man, I can't believe this is the end of another transfer....time has never gone so fast in my entire life. But time flies when you are having fun, right??

Well this week has been so great! We've seen a lot of neat things. Hopefully I will have time to tell them all :)

My favorite thing that happened this week was when we found Lauren. I was on exchanges and we had just gotten back from the Humanitarian Center. We were on the Square and we went down into the basement of the NVC and starting talking to this man and woman. Turns out, her name is Lauren and his name is Anthony. They are truck drivers and she is training him. We asked if they had any questions and he said she had a lot of questions and then walked away. So she was a little embarrassed but started asking her questions. She had really good ones. She also has a pretty peculiar concern I had never heard of before. But I guess we all have our own interests. Anyway, she is super nice and super sincere. She was in the Army and her battle mate was LDS so she went to church a few times with her and always had questions answered by her. We were able to give her a book of Mormon and we have been teaching her this week. She's reading the Book of Mormon. She is awesome! The last question she asked was something along the lines of, 'my husband is Atheist. He will allow me to go to whatever church I want to but I can't take the kids. if I were to convert, would I be allowed to do so or would I be looked down on? Would I be kept from anything if he and my kids didn't go but I did?' We were like no! haha of course you will be able to enjoy all the same blessings every other member of the church does. She is so great!

Last Monday before Preparation day started (I forgot to mention this one I think), we were chatting with a Less Active member named Janice. She told us how she had been a member all her life (over 40 years) and received her endowments and went on a mission, but that God had told her through the Holy Ghost that she needs to be ordained to the Priesthood. She went on to tell me that she wants to baptize her children and give blessings and I thought I was going to be sick. It just made me beyond sad to hear all the things that she thinks are coming from God. In reality, the lack of the little things like reading scriptures and praying daily and attending church and the Temple had moved her far off the path. Nothing we said by the Spirit could do anything. We have been trying to teach her this week but she is literally so convinced that she sees no other possible way of her staying in the church than her being ordained to the Priesthood. Oh man. As a missionary or member in general that is so hard to watch. We will pray for her though. The Lord works miracles on hardened hearts! The little things that Heavenly Father asks us to do may seem so trivial but they are so important! We can't miss days of doing them, it is how we put on the armor of God.

I am not sure if you remember me talking about Pam before I went outbound. Well I finally got her contact transferred back to me and I called her yesterday. Man I always feel the love Heavenly Father has for her so strongly when I talk to her! To refresh your memory, she is probably in her 60's. She had been going through all sorts of treatment for brain cancer last time we talked to her (this is after previous treatment and remission). I found out yesterday that she just had another brain surgery 2 weeks ago and she just fractured her hip...obviously she's not doing too well! She is so sweet. I just shared a scripture with her and offered to have Elders come give her a blessing. Hopefully we will be able to help her!

Okay we had the best tour on Saturday! There was a huge Girl scouts of America convention this past week, so we had thousands of people from that here on the Square. Well we took 2 ladies (they weer from Ohio so they weer automatically cool to me haha) around on a tour and they were so prepared! They said that they came to have a tour because they had heard a lot about the church and they wanted to come find out what was true and what wasn't about what they heard. They said they wanted to educate themselves so they could tell others. They were so nice and had wonderful questions and comments and definitely felt the Spirit as we took them to the Assembly Hall, the Temple Model, and Scriptures and Revelation where we taught the Restoration. One of them took a Book of Mormon and the other already had one, she said missionaries stop by often. They didn't want to learn more from us, but that was okay! It was a seed planted. We tried to harvest but they weren't ready :) One day they will be!

On Thursday at the Humanitarian Center, we took a ton of tours. On one of the tours, there were little kids that were so well behaved! At the end of the tour, we show a movie. It's way good and the spirit is always really strong. Usually when we ask kids questions after the movie, they will give us blank stares or just avoid eye contact haha but these kids said, I felt the Spirit! And another said, I felt the spirit, too. It was way cool! I actually am going to see if I can attach the URL so you can watch it...

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/visitor-center-films?lang=eng

Hopefully that works! Now you can see the things that we show people at the Humanitarian Center. It is really cool to serve there to see where the Humanitarian Funds of the church end up. I hope you like it!

Yesterday we were able to take a family around on a lesson with some SLC sisters. Ironically, they were actually from Tucson but live here now. It's a blended family and they aren't married because they had really bad previous marriages so they are afraid to get married. But they are so sweet I don't know how anyone could treat them poorly. They are perfect for each other and I want them to get married already so the Dad can get baptized and they can be sealed! They all want that. I hope that I will get to see them again.

Our investigators are doing really well. Joelle has been getting the help that she needs. She said that she wishes she could return to others the help that she has receives. She's been going to church and sharing the Gospel with her daughter and is so looking forward to getting baptized on the 1st!
We have some other great New Investigators I don't have time to tell you about sorry!

I hope you all have a great week this week, every week is great when you have the Restored Gospel :) May we all remember the counsel given by President Monson at the Ogden Temple Dedication: "Love the Temple, appreciate the temple, attend the Temple."

Love you,

Surprise Fireside...

We had a Surprise Fireside from David Archuleta last night! I felt so bad for him....200 dramatic sisters...haha. He did a great job though. I never really liked his music, but he is so much better in person! He has an amazing talent. He sung some songs and did a Q&A about his mission. It was neat!

This week was so good. It went by so fast though! I just want to share some of the experiences we had and then update on our investigators...

My favorite experience we had was on Tuesday. We were coming back to the Square after serving at the Humanitarian Center all day, and my companion complimented this girl's dress. She was sitting on a bench outside the Temple with her Temple bag, and upon getting closer, we saw she was crying. We asked what was wrong, and she began to tell us that she just moved up here because she felt prompted to but that she had just had a job interview and didn't think it went very well. She asked us if we ever had experiences where things were falling apart but we knew they were 'falling together'? We shared experiences and testified and she began to feel such peace, she said. She thanked us for coming to talk with her and said that she had just gotten off the phone with her dad, and he had basically given her a blessing over the phone, and he had said that Christ's love would be manifested to her and that's when we walked up. She thanked us for being disciples of Christ. It was so neat! Then as a joke, she said, wow now all I need is chocolate! And for some reason, I had felt to put in my dinner bag some of the cookies mom made me. And so I gave them to her and she cried again. It was the coolest thing ever!

We were walking on the square when two guys walked up to us and asked is we were busy. One guy whose name is Apollo said that he had recently returned from a mission, and that he wanted to bring this guy Alex he just met to Tempe Square and wanted us to give them a tour. So naturally we said yes haha. So we took them around and taught the Restoration and Alex took a Book of Mormon and became a New Investigator. It was way cool because having a Member Present Lesson on the Square is pretty rare...but Heavenly Father blessed us with one.

We were able to find a lot of New Investigators last week that have great potential. We have been so blessed to meet all these people that have been prepared. As they progress, I will share more information about them.

Today we met the new Temple President for the Freiberg, Germany Temple. They are about to get set apart by President Uchtdorf. They were so nice!

Our other investigators and Recent Converts are doing so good! I wanted to share the text that Chenwei sent me yesterday after I said hi and asked how he was doing:

"Hi! I just get back from library! Met many new friends on church and they are super nice person. Besides I get my priesthood this morning! Next time you get back to Ohio you might see I serve the water and the bread! Such a new incredible experience for me! Share my joy with you my dear superwoman Ferguson!"

Oh my heck it was the cutest thing I have ever read. It just warmed my heart! It's so neat. He then went onto say about how we are angels because we brought him the gospel, and how his real experience shows him God does exist since he sends messengers to his life. Man I feel so blessed that I was able to teach him when I was in Ohio. What a precious time of my life!

I've gotten well adjusted here to Temple Square though. I feel so blessed to be here and have found many people I know I needed to meet.

We were able to go to Music and the Spoken Word yesterday, it was way good. I really liked what was said in the Spoken Word, so I actually wanted to type it up...

It's called "This is our time":"Have you ever wanted to trade places with someone? Maybe you know someone whose life appears to be so happy, so free from heartache, pain, and difficulty-especially when compared to yours. Perhaps he or she has better health, a more exciting job, or more possessions or prestige. Or maybe you've wished you could live in a different age of history, when times seemed simpler and stresses seemed more manageable. But if you were able to spend a day in another person's life, you may discover that you didn't know the whole story or hadn't looked very deeply. Every life, in every era, is touched by some degree of trouble and tribulation, shaded by some measure of sorrow and stress. That's the nature of life. The truth is, you are the sum total of your accumulated years, experiences, and relationships. Your background has helped to shape you into the person you've become. You live and breathe today with all the hard-won wisdom and life lessons embedded into your soul. You wouldn't be you without all that is in your heart and head. All of this makes you uniquely qualified to conquer the challenges you now face. To quote a classic piece of homespun wisdom, 'if all of our troubles were hung on a line, you'd take yours and I'd take mine.' Perhaps on a birthday we might wish we were a few years younger, and perhaps on stressful days we might wish we could live in another time. But each of us is here at this time and in this place for a purpose, and one thing that can keep us from fulfilling that purpose is wishing we were somewhere else. This is our time, our season. We can't really go back to another time or trade places with someone else, but we can enjoy the present and meet the future with faith. The wisdom of the Psalmist echoes through the ages: 'This is the day which the Lord hath made; [let us ] rejoice and be glad in it' (Psalm 118:24)."

I really liked that, it reminded me of President Uchtdorf's talk about being grateful in our circumstances. We go through everything for a reason :)

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

The best weekend of my life!

This weekend was the greatest. I LOVED being a missionary on Temple Square. It was exhausting though...I'm currently so tired that I don't think I can type much of an email today. I've just been sitting here staring at the screen for the past 30 minutes because I don't have the energy to type haha but that is so good! I love feeling spent from doing the Lord's work. I can't believe that was the last time I will be a missionary during General Conference. It was such a bittersweet (mostly bitter) moment on the square after the last session when the Square became quiet again. The sadness of an ending became real, but the sweetness of being able to be an instrument in the Lord's hand that weekend and knowing I did all I could do hung with me as well. I just felt so blessed to be able to be there one more time.

After spending 27 hours on the Square for conference, we ended the weekend as a mission by sharing cool experiences we had and watching Meet the Mormons again. I've seen it 3 times now, and it gets better every time! It comes out in theaters on Friday so you all HAVE to go watch it! I am commanding you. Haha. If you do go watch it, put yourselves in the shoes of a non-member as you do so. It's pretty incredible to have such a resource to show people who Mormons really are. Whether you know it or not, people are constantly watching you as a member of the church. We are different, and people see that. So I love that there is a film to show what it's like to be a member of the church.

I hope you all enjoyed Conference! We are anticipating it will be slow at the Humanitarian Center this week, and for once, we are hoping it is so we can catch up on Conference talks haha. I heard the Priesthood session was so good!

Our investigators are doing really well. We received a lot of new people to teach this weekend and we are so happy about that. Saturdays and Sundays are our prime teaching days, so we didn't get to talk with our investigators as much as we would have hoped to, but Conference was a good trade-off.

Megan (RC) has been going through a hard time lately, but I think it is helping her become closer to the Savior.

Tim is doing well, he loved attending the Temple! Because of his dialysis, he couldn't do baptisms but he was able to do Confirmations and he really enjoyed it.

Joelle is doing well too. She was planning on bringing a question to Conference so we are looking forward to how she enjoyed watching it.

Well I hope that you were able to receive the messages from Conference that were meant for you. Sorry this email is so lame! I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for your support.

Love,

A Temple session with an Apostle?!

 

Here's a picture from when we got caught in the rain, and then the rest are from this morning after the temple!

Wow today was such a good day! Let me tell you why...

We got to go to the Temple today! Oh man I missed that so much. I haven't been in 4 months. That's the longest I've gone without going to the Temple in a long time. So needless to say, I was super excited. So we get situated and are sitting in the chapel waiting for it to start, when I get this feeling that there is someone important there in the session. I look up and Elder Oaks and his wife are sitting in front of me! No big deal or anything. Haha so I got to do a session with an Apostle! That is probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. Then to add to that....we were walking out of the Temple and I look up and David Archuleta walks past us into the Temple with his mom! what! Haha today has been so strange but in a good way. Oh man, serving on Temple Square is wild.

It's been raining so much everyday here! We have been caught in a bunch of storms, I'm surprised we didn't get struck by lightening haha. But it's always good to get rain though. We just look like wet stray dogs a lot!

Well this week has been so great! I have just loved serving in the Humanitarian Center. I hope I never get transferred. Funny story of the week: The HC feeds us lunch for free, so on Tuesday, I got all my food on my tray and turns out I got way too much, but I felt bad for taking it so I decided to eat it all. I ate a big enchilada, rice, beans, the other sides with the enchilada, bread, 2 things of fruit, a 16 oz. parfait, cake, and 3 glasses of chocolate milk....bad idea. I have never been that full in my entire life! Not even at Thanksgiving...I was so full it hurt. So I contemplated making myself throw up. Okay this is getting embarrassing. haha. Oh well. So I tried, but I have never done it before so it didn't work and we had a tour waiting so I just had to take the tour all hunched over haha. I made a commitment to myself that I will never eat that much again!

Also at the Humanitarian Center, we took this tour of two older couples. It was so neat! One of the ladies said to me, "this woman was my missionary years ago and now my husband and I are receiving our endowments and getting sealed together in the Salt Lake Temple today!" She then told me that they would also be sealed for her parents and other family members. Oh man it was so neat to see that. It made me think of the joy the other couple must have! Here they are, 60 years later, reaping what they sowed. Seed planting works miracles. I hope I get to have experiences like that too.

On Wednesday, we were in the Tabernacle. I greeted this guy named Leonard, and we got to talking. We ended up getting his phone number and setting up another appointment on the square while he is in town. We got to meet up with him on Friday, and he is way nice! He is a non-denominational Christian from West Virginia, here on vacation. He became religious about 15 years ago when he got in a motorcycle accident. He loves reading the Bible but only reads the NIV version. He told us that he tried to read the Book of Mormon once but that he couldn't understand the language. We had a great lesson with him and taught him about the restoration and plan of salvation, and he thought it was pretty cool and agreed but isn't willing to accept it. He is so stuck on not wanting to be a denomination that he won't even give truth a chance! We are hoping that we can read the Book of Mormon with him and help him learn how to understand it so he can receive revelation from it and then he will be able to see that the communication with God isn't closed, but that He still speaks today! And we can learn from His servants and be servants ourselves.

Jenna got baptized! Oh man she is such a rockstar! It was a bittersweet moment though because as we were setting skype up, apparently Persident Daines denied it....so I wasn't able to skype her baptism. I was kinda ticked! Especially since he was my Mission President...but I need to respect both Mission Presidents I guess! But she is just so awesome. I am excited for her to send me her testimony, she wrote it out since I couldn't be there.

Joelle is doing really good! She went to church yesterday and is hopefully receiving the help she needs from the Bishop. She is so ready to be baptized on November 1st. She knows without a doubt that this is the church with the fullness of truth and that she needs to be a part of it so she can receive the blessings Heavenly Father has in store for her.

I met the coolest girl/lady/woman (I couldn't decide which one to say ha) on chat the other day! Her name is Raniyah and she lives in Chicago. She had a friend that is LDS and she's been interested in the church. We had a great discussion and we were able to mail her a copy of the Book of Mormon and she really wanted to go to church on Sunday. We'll have to see if she made it. She was way open and willing to accept our invitations because she feels like there could be more out there. I am constantly reminded of how cool this mission is, and why I need to be serving here. It's more for selfish reasons I think. Haha Heavenly Father keeps giving me the coolest experiences! It's like He's trying to tell me that I needed to come back from Ohio.

I LOVED the General Women's Conference. I got to go! I got really lucky. They didn't have many tickets but I was able to go. It was amazing. I loved all the speakers, and I had prayers answered. It was so neat because right before it started, I had a prayer in my heart to learn something. Then the first thing out of the speaker's mouth was exactly what I needed to hear. Funny how that works!

Well we are gearing up for Conference this week...it's about to be nuts here! I can't believe that this is my last Conference. I am so psyched to just go and give it everything I've got and just be totally spent after this weekend. It's going to be so awesome, I can feel it! I just encourage you all to watch as much as Conference as you can, and just like we invite our investigators to do, I invite you to go to Conference with a question, and as you watch as much of it as you can, I know that you will receive an answer. I know that because the Savior of the World has promised you that if you will 'ask, seek, and knock,' that 'it will be opened unto you'. Something that I have been learning a lot about or just that has been standing out to me is miracles. I was reading today in Mormon chapter 9, which has some of my favorite verses about miracles. Every time I read it I love it more. The promise given is so powerful: "Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth." Remember that this week. As you ask in faith, it will be granted. Look for those miracles!

Love,

Endings and beginnings

Oh gosh I don't even know where to start.....I can't believe I am no longer in the Ohio Columbus Mission. It feels like a dream now. It went by so fast that sometimes it feels like it never happened! But I know it did. I will forever treasure the time that I was able to spend there, and the miracles that I was able to see. It's been pretty strange to be back here on Temple Square...It seems like all the other returning outbound Sisters have adjusted well but it's been a little bit of a strug for me! Which is fine, I think it will just take some time until I feel adjusted. I just don't want to feel like I have one foot in Ohio and one foot in Utah. But, I've only been back for a few days, I am sure by the end of this week I will be back to normal!

Well I guess I could tell you about my companion! Her name is Sister Skaggs and she is from Temecula, CA. We haven't had time to take a picture yet but we will have one next time! Our assignment this transfer is the Humanitarian Center! Oh man I was pretty psyched about that because the night before I came back to Utah, my District Leader was asking what I would pick if I was choosing my next transfer. I had said Humanitarian Center as my #1 choice so definitely a tender mercy from Heavenly Father when I came back and found that I would be serving there. So basically we take people on tours through the Humanitarian Center. We are there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We don't get to do anything with the Humanitarian efforts of the church really, but we do get to take people on tours and they feed us lunch for free :). We had training thereon Friday and literally I had so much food and chocolate milk (you know how good that chocolate milk is that the church makes...) I thought I was going to bust open! Looks like this transfer I'm gaining back the weight I lost haha. Oh well, it's worth it!

So our teaching pool is really empty since I am coming back from Outbound...but we have found some pretty neat New Investigators and we are really stretching to find find find so we can fill our teaching pool. My first day back, I received an inbound call from a woman named Joelle. She lives in Mesa, AZ. She told me she referred herself on the website and asked how long it takes for missionaries to come. We talked a little more and I asked how she came in contact with the church and she said she was introduced by a friend, and at first, she just brushed it off because she had been going through some hard things (lost a job, her rent is due but she doesn't have money to pay for it, her car is unusable because she didn't pay the bill and she hasn't had any luck being hired, etc.) and so she just told herself that she could handle it herself and that she doesn't need God. Well now some time later, she has been doing a lot of reading and reasearch and she knows that she can't choose to do it herself anymore, but that she feels Heavenly Father is trying to lead her by bringing her into the church. It was so crazy, because from the one phone call, she now has a baptismal date for October 18th! The Lord definitely works in mysterious ways. Now if the Local Missionaries would just move their butts over to her house.....

We got to watch the Ogden Temple Dedication from the Conference Center yesterday! That was another tender mercy for me because I knew that the Temple would be completed during the mission, and I was sad that I wouldn't be able to be a part of it or see it. Right when I left, they had just put the angel Moroni on top but the exterior wasn't even done! I can't believe they finished it so fast. Or maybe I've just been on the mission a long time haha. But I was so happy to hear that we would be able to watch it broadcasted live. And oh man, the dedication was beautiful. The Temple is gorgeous! Holy cow. I got to go to the first session, where Elder Clayton, Sister Wixom, Elder Bednar, President Eyring, and President Monson spoke. It was really good. I loved what President Monson said. Well first of all, he got up last after everyone, and they were all serious and spiritual so naturally he gets up and cracks a joke. Haha it was great. But I loved what he spoke about. He asked us to do 3 things: love the Temple, appreciate the Temple, and attend the Temple. It will help us grow so much if we will just do it. Heavenly Father is just waiting for us to go so He can communicate with us and bless us.

Well anyway...it was a great week so far. There are more exciting things coming up too...The General Women's meeting, then Conference, then Halloween, and into the Holidays. I can't believe how fast time flies.

Here is a quote I found this week that I really liked:"As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth, we fully flower in Heaven."

I really liked that. I am so thankful for the Spirit World, and for the grace, mercy, and justice we receive from our Savior and from our Heavenly Father. I am so excited for the chance we all have for eternal progression. It's so neat that we get to see a fraction of that progression here on earth, too. It amazes me every day that Heavenly Father trust me, an imperfect 21 year old, with such an important calling of teaching others the perfect Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know why He trusts me with that....haha but I am grateful he lets me be a part of His work. I love this mission. I love being a missionary. It has changed me so much. I have seen that as I have come back from Ohio, I have changed a lot and I am so grateful because that means the Savior has been in my life.

Thank you for all the support and prayers! I pray for you. May you all blossom this week as you grow closer to the Savior.

Love,

Just a quick note

Hey just wanted to get on real quick to let you know I'm alive! I'll fly out tomorrow at 11:30, have a layover in Chicago and land in SLC at 4:10.

Thanks for the emails, they were great! Wish I had time to respond to them and to talk about Chenwei's baptism...it was amazing! One of the most powerful moments of my life. 

Thanks for all the prayers! I'll write on my next Preparation day, whenever that is...Love you!

Love,