Teaching People!

Another week on Temple Square...it was another good one. Yesterday right after District Meeting we got a text from West Gate asking if anyone could take a tour with two English. We were going on the square so I responded right away to get the tour (it's so nice when tours are given to you) and we got it. So we went out and found them by the Assembly Hall. They were a younger couple from California and they were driving through on work/vacation. We walked around with them and found out that they are Christian, but don't associate with any denomination. They really just want to follow God and Jesus Christ and not just according to one man's opinion. I smiled inside because I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not founded on one man's opinion in the slightest. We showed them the Temple model and explained the Joseph Smith story and made an effort to emphasize the doctrine of a apostasy and restoration to help them see the significance of what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims to be..."the Lord's kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah" (Introduction to the Book of Mormon). I think that they got it. As we were in the basement of the North Visitors' Center, which talks about apostasy and restoration, they both looked to be very deep in thought and I'm not quite sure how much they heard of what we were saying, but we took them to one of the kiosks and showed them a video clip of one of President Monson's talks. Afterward we invited them for missionaries by asking them if it would be important for them to know if God had really called a prophet again. They both slowly nodded their heads, "yes" and agreed that they would like to have missionaries. It was definitely a tender mercy for Sister Bat-ulzii and I to be able to share something so valuable to people that are genuinely searching for truth. We're calling them tomorrow to teach them!

We talked with Amy (a former investigator in the Salt Lake mission), Debora, and Lizbeth (the mother from Las Vegas) this week. Amy and Lizbeth both went to church! They liked it, but Amy told us that it was very long . The missionaries are teaching all three: Amy, Debora, and Lizbeth, which is great because we can only take them so far over the phone. We mostly try to teach them the tools that they need to be able to receive a knowledge that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's church. Those things include how to pray and receive answers, the role of reading the Book of Mormon, and the importance of going to church. We gave Amy an assignment to read Mosiah 2-5, which is King Benjamin's address to his people. We invited her to read and to pray specifically to know if the things that she is reading is true. We weren't expecting her to finish all of that by the time we called back, but she did! AND she really enjoyed it! She is still working on her testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, but she will get there. Teaching people is the absolute best part of missionary work.

This past Friday Sister Bat-ulzii and I were walking across the square early in the morning and a woman stopped us to take a picture of her by the temple (This is a common occurrence on Temple Square). She was dressed up in a white and green dress and looked like she was here for a sealing. She pulled out from her purse a little bear from Hard Rock Cafe that had a purple mow-hawk to be in the picture with her. As she was taking out this bear tears started to come to her eyes and I figured that this bear had some kind of sentimental meaning to her. I took her picture and as I was returning the camera to her she started to explain her situation. She told us that her daughter was getting sealed in the temple right then. That daughter has a twin sister that was driving up from Texas for the wedding and got in a car crash on the way up and passed away this past Tuesday. I didn't quite know what to say to her, but the first thing that came to my mind was to take her to God's Plan. I was a little hesitant to offer her that because I knew that it would be very emotional for her and sometimes that is really difficult for her. She wanted to see it, though, so we went. It touched her heart in so many ways and afterwards we went and sat on some of the couches by the Old Testament paintings. I knew that she just needed to talk so we let her. She bore her testimony of the power of the Plan of Salvation and how much of a difference it made especially this week. She wasn't worried, she knew that she would see her daughter again and that her daughter that had passed away was at her twin sister's wedding. She told us stories about her daughter that had just passed. Her name was Christina and she served in the National Guard and had spent time in Afghanistan. Christina stood up for her beliefs and lived them. Her mother was very proud of her. We gave this woman a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World and told her to find somewhere quite and to read it and on the back write down what she was feeling that day. She liked that idea. I sure hope that she recorded her own testimony of the Plan of Salvation because that will have a great impact on her and her future generations.