Sister Bat-ulzii and I met Amy yesterday! She came to Temple Square with her family and her missionaries for an investigator lesson. We talked a lot about vision and how things will probably be difficult at times, but if you keep your goal in mind you'll be able to reach it with Heavenly Father's help. She is excited to be baptized and she knows that it's true. We got a text from Lorena this week too:
"Hello Sisters! Thanks to God all my family went to church yesterday. The missionaries are teaching me all I need to know for the interview [for baptism]"
Yay! I love that she keeps us updated with what is going on in her progress. Last week I told you that we were going to be having mission FHE. It was really fun. We had dinner at a park and a fireside at the nearby church building. The fireside was given by the Christiansens. They are the parents of four children with a very rare form of muscular dystrophy. It sounded like they spent about half of their time in the hospital. It was incredible to hear their story of faith and hope. They had a sure knowledge the God loves their family even despite ALL of the challenges they went through. Yesterday we took a tour with a group of ten people from New Jersey. They came out west for their college geology class and each year this professor brings her students to Temple Square to hear about "the Mormons". While we were in the Tabernacle we asked if they had any questions...they had a TON of questions. It seemed like most of them were very skeptical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After the deluge of questions we tried to turn the walking lesson to a lighter level by sharing more about the pioneers so we took them to the handcart monument. On our way there Mike started talking with me and asking questions. He told me that his great grandmother was a member of the church and his mother told him that we pray for the salvation of our ancestors. So I told him about the temple and how we do baptisms on behalf of our ancestors...so we don't really pray for their salvation, but we try to help them with their salvation. It made sense to him. We ended up not talking about the pioneers very much because they had so many questions. They wanted to know if we have our own "Mormon Bible". Then answer is no, we read the King James Version of the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon. One of the women on the tour wanted to look at Sister Bat-ulzii's Book of Mormon so Sister Bat-ulzii handed it to her and she started flipping through it. She looked in the index for a long time and I'm not quite sure what she was looking for, but she held on to it for about 15 minutes. We went into the Assembly Hall and talked about how we worship on Sundays...it's not as surprising as people might think. Then we took them to the Christus. On the way to the Christus I found out that Mike was a philosophy/world religions major and he studied all sorts of religions but not specifically The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so he was really curious about it. He told me that while he had been on Temple Square that he just felt lighter. I told him that is what we call the Spirit and I compared it to how we feel in nature out amongst God's creations. He completely agreed and I taught him that the Spirit teaches us truth. He was just really, really interested so at the top of the ramp to the Christus we invited him to meet with missionaries. He was really excited about that idea so we got his information and we're going to try to call him on Friday and teach him more. It's incredible how the Spirit has so much power to teach us what is true. What a privilege it is to be a missionary and to help people feel closer to their Heavenly Father.
Hi Everyone! Well, Sister Bat-ulzii and I had another week on the square. It was a good one. This past week we have had four referrals from Temple Square. I don't know when the last time was that I've had so many in one week. Heavenly Father really is blessing us. We haven't really taught any of them over the phone yet, so we'll see how those go...sometimes we never hear from those people again and you just hope that the missionaries there have gotten in touch with them. We had leadership training this week. It was in President Gillette's son's mother-in-law's home (hopefully that relationship makes sense). It was a huge and beautiful home where just about everything in it has a story behind it. This home was up on a hill so you could see all of the Salt Lake Valley from the backyard. The leadership training was mostly focused on following the Spirit and teaching to people's needs, not just teaching for the sake of teaching. I read a really good article in the July Ensign about teaching the gospel...something to look forward to when that Ensign comes. The best part of my week happened at 11:39pm on Sunday night...here is some background information: A few weeks ago we taught Lizbeth how to fast because she was going through some difficulties in her marriage. Her husband wasn't on the same page as her when it came to learning about the gospel as well as some other things. We invited her to fast for her family that Sunday and she sent us a text that next Monday telling us that she did. So this Sunday at 11:39pm (Lizbeth doesn't need to be in bed at 10:30pm) we got this text from her:
"Sisters My husband went to church with us today!!! I believe that he was touched by the Holy Spirit because he cried a lot. God is doing an extra ordinary job with our family. Thank you very much for your prayers. God bless you both!!!"
I love seeing how the gospel is really blessings Lizbeth's family. This Sunday we had the Finish Strong meeting. The Finish Strong meeting is for all of the departing Sisters and their companions. I can hardly believe that I'm already at this point in my mission. Basically the purpose of the meeting is to encourage us to keep working hard until the very end. That is something that Sister Bat-ulzii and I are working on in our companionship too. Our goal by the end of this transfer is to be equal teachers. I read chapter 7 in Preach My Gospel today about learning a language to find some ideas that we could implement in our companionship to really help Sister Bat-ulzii feel more comfortable with English and to help her feel more successful as a missionary. She has SO much potential and such a beautiful testimony and I want her to feel that way too. Today we are having a mission FHE. I don't know what prompted the idea, but it sounds like it is going to be lots of fun. We're going to President Seppi's house (President Seppi is in the mission presidency) and having dinner and some kind of fun activities. I think it will be a good way to spend a p-day. OK, just literally one minute ago our investigator, Amy who lives in Utah that I told you about a few weeks ago, called our cell phone and told me that she is GETTING BAPTIZED onJULY 12!!! SHE'S GETTING BAPTIZED!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!? I'm glad she called just in time for me to include that in this email...Being a missionary is great.
Let me tell you why Sister Bat-ulzii and I are starting p-day 30 minutes late today. It starts with yesterday when we spent six or seven hours on the square and we talked with SO many people. We invited 18 people to meet with missionaries...that is a LOT for just one day and they were all wonderful people. With each person that we talked to that day I could feel that none of them were quite interested to learn more. You would think that after inviting 18 people our odds would be pretty good of having at least one of them want to learn more. Well, odds has nothing to do with how Heavenly Father works. We were just wonderfully tired by the end of the day. Last night I wrote in my journal that it is really hard to find the needle in the hay sometimes, but I know that there is a needle there.
Today we were on the square and we stopped in front of the doors on the west side of the South Visitors' Center for just a moment. During that moment three people walked in the door--two women and a man who were in their later years. One of the women introduced herself as Brandy and told us that she had been here about 20 times and just knows everything but she wanted us to take her and her aunt and uncle around on a tour. Her aunt and uncle, Kristen and Mark, were visiting from Mississippi for a few days. We took them outside to the handcart monument and explained a little about the sacrifice of the pioneers in coming to the Salt Lake Valley. I told the William Palmer story about how he didn't think he could make it to Salt Lake, but each time he got to the point where he thought he was going to have to give up the cart would start to push him. He would turn around each time to see who was there, and there was no one. William knew that it was the angels of God that were helping him on his way to where he needed to go. I asked them if they had ever had experiences like that in their lives and each of them nodded their heads, "yes". Brandy told us that Kristen and Mark had been through many, many trials in their lives. I asked them what helped them through it and they said, "just lot of faith". They were certainly some humble people. As we were leaving the tabernacle I felt like we should go to the basement of the North Visitors' Center and show them President Monson's testimony of the Savior and the Book of Mormon. There is a part in his video where he poses the question from Job, "If a man die, shall he live again?" and I felt like that was something that they needed to hear--that if a man dies, he shall live again. As we were walking to see the video, Brandy told me about how her father had died and how Kristen and Mark had lost many people in their lives. You can always count on the Prophet to bear powerful testimony of the Savior and the Plan of Salvation. It brought Brandy to tears and I could feel the Spirit there. We went up to the Christus and the Spirit followed us there. Sister Bat-ulzii and I bore our testimonies of the Savior and Sister Bat-ulzii asked an inspired question, "would it be important to you to know if God had called a prophet again?" Mark and Kristen slowly and thoughtfully nodded "yes". I've come to recognize the slow and thoughtful nod and I knew that they would want to learn more. They do. As for Lizbeth, things are coming along for her. We received a text from her yesterday:
"Hello Sisters Smiley and Bat-ulzii!!! Everything is going ok. Thank you very much for your prayers! I went to church yesterday. Today I am going to the family night with other members. The missionaries are teaching me the steps prior to baptism. Greetings!!! God bless you both!!!"
...I love the fruits of missionary work. This morning Sister Bat-ulzii and I went to the temple. They are going to close the temple for cleaning soon so we needed to go before we missed our chance. It was a wonderful way to start our day. This past Sunday I gaveanother talk in a sacrament meeting. Sometimes Sisters from the Temple Square mission go and give talks in other congregations in the area. Sister Bat-ulzii, Sister Nakajima, Sister Albanes, and I went to the East Mill Creek 7th Ward and we each gave a talk. It was Sister Bat-ulzii's first time giving a talk in English and she did an absolutely stunning job. The simplicity and purity of her testimony about prayer touched many hearts. Sister Nakajima talked about scripture study and then we had to do a "special" musical number. This musical number was very special because it was the first time that Sister Nakajima, Sister Albanes, and I had ever sung at the podium in a sacrament meeting before. Sister Bat-ulzii was at the piano and we sang "I know that My Redeemer Lives". I put my best smile on and hoped for the best. It turned out well. Sister Albanes spoke about church attendance and I was the final speaker and my topic was missionary work...imagine that! The inspiration for my talk was the words of the Savior to his Apostle Peter in Luke 22:32--"[...]when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Missionary work is about strengthening people by bringing them closer to Christ. We can bring people closer to Christ by inviting them to come see the joy of living the gospel and the path back to our Father in Heaven. Before I started my talk I had about 10 minutes to speak and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough to say to fill the time. I guess one of the blessings of being a missionary for over a year is that you can talk about the gospel for much more than ten minutes worth of time. I had prepared more than I had time to talk, so I finished up my talk at ten minutes and it turned out alright. It was really fun to be back in a family ward and outside of Temple Square for just a few hours.
So many blessings this week and I don't think I can come close to writing all of them down! Yesterday morning Elder Holland came and spoke to our mission. I think he was really tired so it was very nice of him to come. He talked about missions, about how they should be eternally consequential. He posed the question, "if this is all true then why aren't people lining up to be baptized? Why is a mission so hard?" His answer was that salvation is not a cheap experience. Why should it be easy for you if it was NEVER easy for the living Son of God? The road to salvation always goes through Gethsemane. After he spoke he shook all of our hands as we walked out of the theater. What a privileged it was to be in the same room as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. It certainly doesn't happen everyday. Oh, next transfer (starting tomorrow) Sister Bat-ulzii and I will still be companions and I will be a district leader. We had a Visitors' Center training this week by people from the mission department and it was truly eye opening. The biggest message that I got from the training is that love trumps all. Love is more important than what you say or where you take people on a tour. One of the people giving the training told that when we meet someone we should ask ourselves, "do I love this person enough to begin teaching?" That certainly changed my ideas about when and what I should teach. Here I've felt a lot of pressure to produce referrals and to have excellent teaching skills so that I can be a more persuasive teacher. Those things are important, but that is not what this is about. This is about helping people come closer to Christ and receiving a remission of their sins, not about referrals. These were all things that I knew, but it was so nice to hear it from an authoritative source to back up the way that I was feeling. So since then Sister Bat-ulzii and I have had much more fun on the square really getting to know people and love them. This past Sunday morning we walked into the North Visitors' Center and Sister Nakajima asked us if we were available for a tour, and of course we were, so we took around a wonderful couple from Houston, TX. May and Tee were passing through Temple Square on vacation and they were flying home that day. We walked around Temple Square with them and I was really trying to focus on getting to know them and what is important to them rather than thinking about what story I should share. As a consequence we didn't teach much at all. We found out that they are expecting their first child and they're really happy about that. So we showed them the Temple model and we focused our tour on how important family is and how the gospel can bless our families. We finished the tour at a kiosk that has clips from President Monson's past talks about the family. The Spirit was really strong and we invited them to find out for themselves how the gospel can bless their family. I could see the change in their eyes and they wanted to have missionaries come and share more with them. I'm so excited to follow-up with them and help them to progress. We also took Jose from Brasil on a "walking lesson" on Temple Square. We tried the same approach again: don't teach too much but find out what is really important to him and then teach to his needs. He was on a long 6-week trip across America and we found out that he was divorced but absolutely loves his two daughters. Family is the most important thing to him (I'm sensing a general theme here on Temple Square) so we tried to focus our teaching on that. I was surprised at how little we actually shared about facts, history, and doctrine. We didn't go into depth about how Joseph Smith was called as a prophet or where the Book of Mormon came from or how the temple was built. I think that all of the worth-while teaching was done by the Spirit. We finished our tour in God's Plan and we could tell that it touched him deeply. At the end Sister Bat-ulzii's testimony is really what he needed to hear. She talked about her father and how he is just like Jose--so kind and loving and cares very much about his family--but she said that he is just missing one thing, a knowledge of how his family can be together forever. After Sister Bat-ulzii had shared all that she could I told Jose that how to have an eternal family is not one of God's mysteries, it has be revealed again through a living prophet and he can have that too. I invited him to meet with missionaries to learn how he could have that and that is what he wanted. I just love being here on Temple Square and having teaching moments like these. They don't happen everyday, but I know that they are part of God's plan for these people that we meet here. What a blessing it is to play this role in people's lives. I hope that I don't ever forget how sweet the gospel really is.
