General Conference

Sisters Smiley & Guanzon and Samantha's friends from BYU

So I survived General Conference and it was AMAZING! I have never seen so many people on the Square. The Friday before Conference we had a big mission meeting, they called it conference pump-up. In that meeting they told us our goal for the number of potential referrals we should collect from members over the next three days. The goal was to get 6,000 potentials. That's a TON! I guess the goal for last October conference was 5,000 potentials and the conference before that was 3,000 potentials, so in just one year we doubled our goal (and by the way, they exceeded their goal for the last two conferences). We spent all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on the Square. On Friday and Saturday we were there an extra hour until 10pm and we had two twenty minute breaks for the day. President and Sister Holmes provided food (which was really nice of them because then we didn't have to cook). We talked to SO many people. On a normal day it's a good day if we can maybe get 3 potentials, but for Saturday and Sunday we needed to collect 37 potentials per day. I didn't think it was possible, but miracles do happen. On the first day Sister Guanzon and I collected 38 potentials, and then on Sunday we collected 48 potentials. So we exceeded our goal for our companionship. On Sunday night we had a mission meeting in the Tabernacle and we invited the members we contacted to come. We tried to show our gratitude for them and then they also announced the number of potentials we collected...6,455! And it even snowed and was really cold on Sunday! Imagine what we could have done if the weather was nice. So for each potential we collected we put a sticker on a butcher-paper model of Temple Square that was in the basement of the South Visitor's Center. That should explain the picture. There were a lot of stickers! Now we just have to call all of these people. It's going to take ages, but I know that miracles will happen.

All nations shall flow unto it

More than just stickers!

As a celebration for meeting our goal for conference weekend, on Monday night we had a mission celebration. President and Sister Holmes are so great (they actually just had their 45th grandchild born yesterday, that's a TON of grandchildren). We had a catered dinner (tacos stuff) and we watched Secretariat. I felt so worldly because I'd heard of it before. It was a really inspiring movie. It made me think about my own "race" here as a missionary. I know that I can work harder and be less selfish in my work. It's easy to get scared of approaching people and being a little persistent in asking for potentials or referrals, but I realize that if I really want to provide people their agency I need to get over that fear. I'm grateful that I have Sister Guanzon to help. She's such a great example of hard work. I'm getting better at it, though. I'm going to try this week to be more focused on the work and really finding people to teach. The ultimate goal is to find people on the square or over the phones so that they can go to the temple with their families too. I just need to be better at keeping that in mind. I'm coming to love my mission more and more every day. I love being able to talk with so many people. Yesterday we talked to a girl from Ireland, she sounds like she's quite the pioneer in her country.

I got to go to the Saturday morning session of General Conference. It was really a wonderful meeting. We sat next to a family from Utah that came to Conference to celebrate the birthday of their oldest son. This was something special for them because their oldest son had passed away five years ago. They shared with us that the greatest blessing in their life was being able to be sealed as a family and being able to know that they would be able to see each other in the life after this. I can't even imagine the emotions that were running through them, but it just made me even more grateful for temples.

Miracle of the week: Sister Guanzon and I had an Investigator Confirmed Referral (IRC)! We usually just call them IRC's which means that the missionaries met with the person that referred and shared a lesson with them.  I had to ask what IRC stood for so that I could explain it in this email. After five weeks of work, we finally got one IRC. Such a blessing.His name is Marlon and he is from Texas. We met him on the Square and he was interested in the Book of Mormon, so he referred for missionaries. We got to call him and talk with him about the Book of Mormon before the missionaries came and he said that he was really excited to receive his Book of Mormon. I got a voicemail on Monday from him saying that he had met with the missionaries and "they had fun" and that the missionaries would be coming back next week to share more. He even left us a verse from the Book of Mormon: 3 Nephi 14:8. YAY!

So many miracles on Temple Square. I love my mission. 

Service project at the Utah Food Bank