I Love Being a Missionary

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 gave another 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.