This week started off with an alarm, literally. On Sunday morning (at about 2:00am) someone was pounding at our door and ringing the doorbell rather impatiently. So I went down stairs and tried to look out the peep hole to see who it was, but I'm too short so I couldn't see out. I opened the door and Sister Hoyos was there and she told me that an apartment complex next to the building that a lot of the sisters live in is on fire and that we needed to get outside to be counted. My building wasn't on fire, so I wasn't in too much of a rush and I went back upstairs and told Sister Imazeki what was happening and we put on our tennis shoes and sweatshirts. Everyone was outside and there actually was a pretty big fire in the adjacent apartment complex. We stood outside for about an hour until the fire was out and the fire department made sure everything was okay. There wasn't any damage to any of the apartments that the Sisters live, don't worry. President Holmes drove up to Salt Lake from his home in Sandy and met us all outside. he was wearing his PJs and dress shoes. They were probably the closest shoes when he was going out the door. He is such a great mission president. He told us that we didn't have to be on the square until 10am so that we could make up the sleep that we lost. That meant that we didn't have sacrament meeting that morning. We're probably the most inactive missionaries you'll ever meet.
We had Zone Conference yesterday in a conference room in the Conference Center by the Book of Mormon gallery, and it was pretty great. We were trained on how to better teach people how to receive revelation (prayer, reading the Book of Mormon, and going to church) so that they can come to know for themselves that this is Christ's restored church. The new emphasis in the mission is baptism, which means that when we teach people over the phones we commit them to baptism in the first or second call and we teach them to prepare them for baptism. I've found that it has really helped to focus my teaching and give it more purpose. Right now we're teaching a woman named Faith, and she is amazing. Faith has had a pretty rough life, but I can tell that the restored gospel is making a big difference in her life and when she gets baptized she will have the gift of the Holy Ghost to comfort her and guide her decisions. We've asked her if she believes that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and she answered that she "knows" it is true. It is because she feels the Spirit when she reads the Book of Mormon. We committed her to baptism and she said that she said yes. I'm so happy for her.
Yesterday we met a great couple here at Temple Square. They're from Colorado and they're here for their daughter's dance workshop. We took them all around Temple Square and showed them the Conference Center. I love bringing people to the Conference Center. The best part, as always, was going to the Book of Mormon gallery. When people are prepared they are absolutely fascinated by the paintings and they feel the Spirit of the stories. Well, this couple were reading the explanations of the paintings and asking questions. When people feel the Spirit you can see a change in their faces; it's a reflection of their hearts softening. The wife's eyes grew wider as we told her the stories from the Book of Mormon and when we showed her the card that she could fill out to see missionaries she looked at it almost as if it were a chocolate bar. We could tell that she really wanted to have this in her life. We also got to take them to the hall of the prophets and the roof of the Conference Center.
Being a missionary is great. I love being able to see people feel the Spirit and know that what we are telling them is true.
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