;D


Thursday, September 30, 2010

A Visit From The Gorilla... Devin!

September 30, 2010 Temple Square

Hey Everyone!!!!

So this week has been a super busy week. It's already P-day! We run from one appointment to another and the days just fly by. So regarding our investigators: We have a couple progressing and we are just waiting for the missionaries in their areas to do their job and get in touch with them, but until then we teach them! We have one man in Africa, Liberia specifically, named Henry who works for the Liberian Police Force. He drives an hour and a half to get to church on Sunday and he is so excited every time we call him. He is amazing. One of the coolest moments so far on my mission was when we called a member who goes to his ward and conference- called Henry in. It was so cool to hear two men thousands of miles away speaking in this thick accent that I can hardly understand! But I did understand when the member bore his testimony about this church and how important it is to go to church so we can feel God's love for us. Henry was silent on the other end and we were too. We were just staring at the phone and all I could think about was how wonderful this church is. Technology is making missionary work move forward in such a way that people never could have imagined. If only I could tell you the depth of what we can do. Funny thing is Henry was found on mormon.org! We "Chat" with people for about 10 hours a week per companionship. Most of our investigators are found this way. I think what I have finally realized this week though is how strong the adversary is. I completely understand now why missionaries get so excited when people actually make it to church. It's not that they don't want to go; it's that they can't! We had 4 people we were hoping would go to church this week and out of 4 - 1 went. The other 3: One just wasn't interested anyway so we won't count him; one other's children all got lice randomly Saturday night; and the last one had so much to do that day she couldn't make it. So we realized we really need to pray for them because Satan will make sure they don't go to church. I never realized how important church is until now. We talk up church and say it will be wonderful and that the members will be so nice. We hang up the phone and pray that everything we said - especially the members being nice and welcoming - is true. Most of the time everyone has a good experience at church and they feel the spirit. It makes me realize how much I took for granted being able to go every Sunday and sometimes I would wonder if I learned anything. Now that I don't go to church anymore I realize that I miss it a lot. (We only have sacrament meeting at 7:30 a.m. and then it's back to work!) But anyway we have lots of potential investigators that seem promising - now they just need to answer their phones.

But some miracles - just tender mercies like we find people to show around and they refer. So many prepared people! They all wonder how come there are no prophets today or many of them don't go to church anymore because they feel that church is all about showing off, which church is the richest, people don't act Christian anymore, society's values, etc. It is amazing to me how God doesn't change - man does! We point that out to people and then say "Look, this church was restored by God. If you don't believe us just pray and ask him yourself. Oh and have missionaries too while you are at it? Great and we can call and teach you till they come!"

Had my first mission president's interview! We only have them once every 3 months and it's only about 10 minutes. We see him everyday but we are busy and he is busy so there isn't much getting-to-know-you going on. But I felt like he was looking into my soul when we were talking and I was hoping that only good things were being told to him by the spirit (I hope he doesn't know about that one time we were 10 minutes late getting back to our apartments after eating out - that was so not our fault anyway but that is another story.) but I think I passed so *phew*. Our transfer is halfway over already! Crazy!!!! Time is really starting to move faster, my first transfer here it was moving slower than a snail and I was worried that I had issues. But everyone said it picks up and wow they were right. We wake up in the morning, work out, go to the Square, teach people, and then it's bed time again!

General Conference is this week and we are getting mentally ready for it. We are on the Square from 7 a.m. - 9 p.m. We get 15 minute breaks for lunch and dinner. We get to go to one session of general conference so that is nice. President let us all go to the Relief Society broadcast. We sat so close to them too! It was a really good broadcast too and afterwords we talked to over 20 members in one hour. That is how it will be at conference; we count those we invite to give us names of friends to call. So if you see me - have them ready! I am so glad my P-day is today. I am going to cook like crazy so I won't have to worry about food during conference. I am so excited to talk to everyone though! Anyway that has been my week: Busy, lots of miracles, and lots of learning (We are getting asked all of these doctrine questions and I am so excited I am getting to learn it all with scriptures to back me up!) Jehovah's Witnesses are not fun and neither are Baptists but I love them anyway... and smile a lot when they want to bash; life is good. Ok, gotta go bye! Oh I heard a quote: "To be a good leader, you need to be a good follower" gotta go! Karly

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Three Referrals from DREW and ERIKA!

It was really good to see Drew and Erika, they gave me awesome potentials too, I called one guy and we are going to continue our conversation later. I am trying my best to convert him. We can now call the referrals that are given to us. I'm also working on the "Chat with a Mormon" program.


My Companion
Erika and Drew in Salt Lake City for a wedding.

September 23, 2010 Temple Square

Hey Everyone!!!
THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME! I know, I know. I probably sound like a broken record but seriously every day I am like, "Nothing can get better than this" and then it does! I can honestly say that I have never been happier in my life. I go to bed each night and I can't sleep because I am so excited to get up the next day and go find people to teach. So this new zone I am in is so awesome. We can find people on the Square, invite for missionaries and if they say yes we can teach them. Story: So we were actually having a bad day. Like, people were really rude to us. We took a couple "tours" and the people were ignoring us and when they would talk it was bashing with us. Sister Belleza and I were frustrated but trying to stay positive. I think she just didn't want to deal with being senior companion anymore so she said, "You decide where we go and who we talk to now." To be honest I grumbled inside because I didn't want to make any decisions. When you have a challenging day it's really hard to put any energy into anything- even though it doesn't make sense because you would think you would want to keep putting forth a lot of effort to end the day on a good note. But instead you just want to walk around, call it working, and then at the end of the day say you did your best but, too bad, we didn't talk to anyone. It is a constant battle on those days. So great, now she puts me in charge. I decide to go to the south visitors center but I take the long way to get there. The whole time I am wondering why I went this way when the other way was a lot faster. We approach the map and see a group of people looking confused. I say, "Let's talk to them" and we are all happy and say we would love to show them around. It was a group of 5 people with this "Jus" (juice) company. Anyway we proceed to take them on a tour and as we begin explainging the temple construction the spirit was there. They asked lots of questions; we paused to allow the spirit to teach them, and they understood everything! It was the best tour I have ever taken. ALL of the people were so prepared. One man had a dream where he saw his brother who died and he said he felt so much peace being with him. Another lady was with her Dad when he passed away and she said as she was praying she saw Jesus Christ come and take her Dad with him. When she opened her eyes he had died! The other ladies while filling out the guest cards were saying, "I have always felt like the Catholic Church left so much out. I want a Book of Mormon" My jaw dropped! We asked if we could call them and teach them and they said yes! We will teach them all the lessons till the missionaries come! A few have already met with the missionaries and so we pass them off. But when the missionaries come to our investigators they are already talking about going to church and they already know that Joseph Smith is a prophet because they prayed to know! Those people though when we finished our tour sat there and one lady said, "Notice none of us are getting up to leave. It feels so good here!" I went to bed so happy that night.

But in this teaching zone we find people by calling old call lists where they requested a DVD or something a few years ago. After about 3 hours of straight calling yesterday I feel like a pro on the phones. My first week I would say, "Hi!... uh... my name is Karly and I uh... am calling on behalf of ... uh your friend.. uh.... Bob...." Yeah bad. So now I say, "Hello! My name is Karly and I am calling with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! How is your day going? Bad, oh I am sorry to hear that, you know what can help you? The teachings of Jesus Christ! And let me tell you about this Book of Mormon..." It amazes me that people don't hang up the phone but we have gotten a few people to teach that way. Next finding source: mormon.org-Chat. People can come online and chat with us and ask us the basics of our beliefs. Most people that come on have issues and we disconnect them within 30 seconds. Church leadership was really worried about us on the internet because of pornography that people can send to us as well as the bad language and topics. But if anyone can handle it - Sister missionaries can! We have had many hours of training where President Holmes has said over and over again to be very aware when we are on the internet and if anything negative happens to disconnect and move on, don't linger, and don't keep talking to them because they are not worth our time. But there are many people that come on who have genuine interest and we invite them to talk to us on the phone or in a chat room so we can teach them more. Our focus is getting them to church. Even if the missionaries never contact them we have had people go to church and ask for the bishop or missionaries. It's awesome. Our most golden investigator is a lady who we met on the Square. We ask her to read and to pray and she does! Haha funny story - our second time calling her we asked if she prayed about Joseph Smith. She said, "I prayed last night to know that Joseph Smith was absolutely a prophet of God." Sister Belleza and I looked at each other and we were really confused. Was that a statement of what she did or was that her saying she knows? So I asked her again and she said, "I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God!" We pushed the mute button on the phones and started screaming - totally typical girl and only in this form of teaching can you push the mute button and ask your companion what we should focus on next. But needless to say we screamed, composed our selves, and said, "That is wonderful!! We are so happy that you received an answer!" She is really hesitant about going to church because she feels it is a place where people go to show off and not worship the Lord. Hopefully she goes this Sunday; I will keep everyone posted.

But this zone lets me know if I really am doing any good in this world. I found out that a guy I called weeks ago is meeting with missionaries, along with a lot of other people, and we can ask them to e-mail us and let us know how everything is going for them. It's really a morale booster. I can see the whole spectrum of missionary work and let me tell you my heart is full. Teaching people is so different but I know now for a surety that missionaries don't do anything. It's the spirit. All we do is provide the atmosphere and if they are ready then it's all down hill from there. We are getting really busy as well. We only have about 6 hours a day to teach people but each day is full! We don't even have time to eat. If we can't get a hold of them we call the next person on our list. When we have gone through that then we dial the phone or chat with people to get more investigators and we don't even have to get up. I feel really lazy to be honest - 6 hours takes its toll but we can talk to people all over the world. We are also teaching 2 people from Africa. Anyway I am writing too much so I will end it here but miracles happen everyday and if it's night time and I felt we haven't seen anyone good I know a big one is coming, especially if it has been a hard day. The harder the day the better the reward so I always get excited when it's a bad day because I know that it is only up from here! Anyway gotta go, bye!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Pictures of my first transfer meeting!




These pictures are of my first transfer conference which was seriously crazy. I just took random pics to try to capture it. All of the Sisters standing in a line are going "Outbound." It's like getting a second mission call because they are being sent somewhere in the United States for 4 months. We thought they would only send out 15 but they sent out 26! It was like winning the lottery. Really awesome to watch. Just imagine 160 squealing girls!


Thursday, September 16, 2010

September 16, 2010 Temple Square

Hey, it's Thursday!
So you might notice that I am writing Thursday and not Friday, which is due to having a new P-day because transfers happened on Wednesday. I am no longer in the "Cover Zone" but we are now in a brand new zone called "Teach and Find 2". September 15 needs to go down in history as a new step forward in missionary work because that was the day the pilot program of Sisters on Temple Square talking to people via chat on Mormon.org and teaching people on the phone became a set program.

So here is how my zone works:
We are on the Square for half the day, doing normal show around and meeting guests. If they refer to meet with missionaries we can now say, "Until the missionaries come we would love to teach you more, can we set up an appointment time to call you?" AHHHHHH!!!! This is so cool, really because now when the missionaries (finally) get to their home hopefully they are already reading the Book of Mormon, going to church and praying. Many Sisters who were in the pilot program have said that many times the missionaries will knock on their door and the person will answer with, "Great, when can I be baptized?" because we are teaching them the lessons already! There was always the problem with the people not wanting missionaries anymore by the time their local Elders/Sisters finally came so now we have the opportunity to keep that excitement to learn and the spirit there. Our goal that we focus on is to get them to church and hopefully the missionaries in their local area will then pick them up. Not only that but we also do the "Chat" program on mormon.org where we chat with people, answer their questions and ask if they would like us to telephone so we can teach them more. We have only been at it one day and we have 3 appointments set up to teach them. We are like normal missionaries now! We have an area book and now we will be planning what to teach them in the 30-minute-lesson over the phone. Our roommates' last transfer did this pilot program and they were teaching people mostly in Africa. We are not limited by time or geography! We can get into anyone's home and teach them. Oh and it's constant finding. If they are not interested we accept the next person who wants to talk to us on Chat. In three hours we probably talked to 15 different people and invited them to listen to our message. Our last roommates were so busy with lessons that they ate dinner at 9 p.m. every night because they didn't have time during the day. My companion is still Sister Belleza and we decided that we are going to be just as busy. Oh and they taught one minister in Africa over the phone and this past Sunday he took his whole congregation to church - it's just like those pioneer stories! Sorry, I am obviously very excited :D

So transfer day: INSANITY! Our transfer conference started at 7:30 Monday morning and was filled with singing, laughing, screaming, and minute to win-it games. They announced all of the Sisters leaving for outbound and they all read their calls. Afterwards they announced our new assignments and our zones. My comp and I are still together but we moved apartments (across the hall) and moving was a piece of cake since I only have 1 bag. Some sisters had boxes after boxes and I was wondering where they got them all. Our new apartment won the "cleanest apartment" last transfer so we plan on keeping it that way because whoever wins that gets to eat at the Rooftop Restaurant (Joseph Smith Memorial Building) for free. The day we were moving out the toilet flooded. Thank you Dad for teaching me how a toilet works because I was able to stop the water and save us from drowning, except the garage has a nice puddle since the roof is cracked and I am pretty sure they have to fix the floor/ceiling now. Oh well, we moved out. But the best part about a new transfer is that I am not a greenie!!!!!!! Yay!! I hated being a first transfer but now there are girls who look lost and confused and I am not one of them and I "know what I am doing" so life is good. Well, gotta run but this transfer is going to be amazing. We had a couple days of awesomeness where most people we talked to were so prepared to hear what we had to say. It's weird to think that I am helping these people make huge changes in their lives... no pressure right? But I hope that I am making a difference. Hopefully now I will get to see the impact of what I do. Can't wait! Until next week! Sister Nelson

Friday, September 10, 2010

September 10, 2010 Temple Square

Hello!
So I have thought of many opening one-liners for this letter and can't choose from them all: "I am tired all the time!" or "IT'S FREEZING HERE" or "I NEED to learn Spanish." So take your pick because all are very true. The amount of people coming to the Square is dropping everyday, plus with the weather getting colder all of a sudden. The temperatures dropped pretty fast. But other than that we still find people to show around and teach. It's interesting the kinds of people we find. We have themes every day. One day we had one Indian family (not American Indian) after another; the next day we had families from Israel one after the other. Indian people are hard because they have no concept of Jesus Christ or the Bible or anything! So we focus on the Book of Mormon and eternal families which is hard too because they believe that they are reborn anyway into their same families. All we can do is let the spirit be there as we teach and hopefully they will want more. Families from Israel are easy though because we can't invite missionaries to teach them anything unless they ask questions. We relate our heritage of our good old pioneers who were persecuted for their beliefs and when Israelis ask why then we can tell them all about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. Afterwards we tell them to walk across the street to Deseret Book or the Distribution Center and buy a copy for themselves. We don't tell anyone who comes in that the book is really that close because we want missionaries to come to their home. Random yet kinda related story: We had to call security today on a man who was passing out Book of Mormons to the guests; seems harmless right? No! Not if the books have anti-Mormon literature inside of them. Then the guy tried to get into the baptistery; security was on top of that. I still felt bad for him though because he has nothing better to do with his life than to try to break down our church.

Oh my gosh! Best service project of my life and you all should feel jealous. I got to clean the Temple!!!!! At first I was like this is lame. We are cleaning the dressing rooms in the basement!?! But at the end they took us to the elevators and hit a button to the 5th floor. All of us were like, "Where does this go? Where are we going?" (just say it 5 times fast at high pitched squeals that girls make) and the doors open.... we went into the Solemn Assembly Room. My mouth dropped as it was so beautiful inside and I am not one to mention the beauty of anything. They asked me to go dust all of the seats and hand rails. I sat in the nice cushy seats on the Aaronic priesthood side where Bishop Burton would sit. It was so cool I just can't talk enough about it. Afterwards we left and went back to the Square and it was like going to another world. The Temple was just so peaceful and on the Square we saw people walking around and taking pictures of the Temple and I just wanted them to understand so badly what they were missing out on. Can't wait to get picked to clean it again; sign me right up! Some Sisters went up to the tower and the room where James E. Talmage wrote Jesus the Christ.

So transfers are coming up on Wednesday. I have been here one whole transfer already! I passed my two-month mark a couple days ago. I am really excited about not being "new" anymore so the other Sisters can be lost and I can act like I know what I am doing. To be honest there is so much that I need to work on. I have a problem with talking too much (go figure, right?) and wanting to answer all their questions. So maybe one day I will be as good as the Sisters who are leaving on Wednesday. If you ever mention that they are leaving they ignore you. No one wants to leave. So we actually have a shorter mission than everyone else. I can't remember if I mentioned this last time but we are only here for 17 1/2 months and we can't ask for extensions. But anyway new transfer so I might get a new companion, I might move down the hall or maybe to a new apartment building and my P-day might change too so maybe you will get a letter from me in a week and a half from now. I will find out Monday. At this time some Sisters are packing because they are convinced they're going outbound so they are getting ready, and everyone is speculating on where they are going. I am excited to see how crazy it gets here on Monday.

So I officially can drive now! They pushed for all the Sisters who are American to drive so I took the written test and today they had me drive around SLC. If it was a normal driving test I would have failed, pretty certain, but they were just making sure that I wasn't a crazy driver. We drive mini-vans and when we back up everyone has to get out of the vehicle and help, which is kinda nice, not gonna lie.

Well, saw miracles this week, especially on fast Sunday because I didn't die. We went a full 24 hours which I don't think I have ever done before but by the end I wasn't hungry anymore and when we could eat I couldn't. But we got to talk to some really cool people who were so prepared to hear the gospel. One girl was only 20 but when we asked questions like, "Why would you need a prophet?" or "What do you want out of life?" She had some deep answers and she wanted to learn more! Another lady we talked to was from the Philippines so I didn't really understand what they were saying but she was a member of "The Church of Christ" which was started by a member of our church who wanted to be an apostle but they didn't let him so he started his own church. They study about the Apostasy and Restoration, priesthood, eternal families and temples! So talk about hard. Sister Belleza focused on the Book of Mormon and where their religion's founder's authority came from - she didn't know. She wants to learn more too! Lots of European people as well. One day we called it our "Shut Down Day" because we were shut down in the harshest ways. For example, I ran up to a group standing in a circle and said, "Hey, is this a group discussion? Can I join?" You know all happy and perky like and one guy turns around and says, "Only if you are a member of the COE (Church of England)" I smiled and said, "Dang, I'm not" so he turned his back to me and they continued on with their conversation about us Mormons. Ouch, ha ha, it was really funny though especially because 5 minutes before Sister Belleza got "the hand". She went up to a lady and asked, "How is your day?" and the lady put her hand up and kept walking. All of these just make up for great stories in the kitchen at lunch/dinner time. Anyway, gotta run. I'll write again sometime soon! Miss you all!!!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pictures of me and other Sisters on Temple Square



September 3, 2010 Temple Square

Ok, Mandarin phrase of the week: "Ne Yao It Ban Mormon Ging Ma?" (Do you want one copy of the Book of Mormon?) Tagalog word of the week: "Makapag bagbag damdamin" (yes, that is one word meaning touching like "the movie was touching.") So as you all can tell my vast knowledge of languages is expanding... very very slowly, but we learn what we need to. I learned the Mandarin phrase because we were helping with a Mandarin motorcoach (a really, really big group tour) and my companion and I were assisting them. We help with re-inviting them for missionaries and the Book of Mormon. The cool/sad part of teaching people from China is that they can get a Book of Mormon right away since they don't have missionaries in their country. At the end of the tour 15 of the 32 people said they wanted a copy and missionaries to come!! It was amazing watching as we gave them Books of Mormon and they looked through the pages. Throughout the entire tour people were looking at Sister Yao with their mouths open and listening so attentively. I leaned over to my companion and said, "If only people would look at us that way when we give tours". The referral cards they fill out are scanned and filed so when China does open the missionaries will know right who to go teach. The Church has been working with China to allow for more opportunities for the members there. This past week China came out and said that they are allowing members to meet in regular meetinghouses rather than in homes. So now the church is public BUT no missionaries yet. It's rumored to open in 1-3 years but I think it will be a little longer than that and when it does open they won't be able to proselyte. It will probably be like India and just a humanitarian mission but that's just me so don't think its legit.

Anyway I also can give Motorcoaches now so yesterday we gave an English tour with 52 "old people". No Sisters want those because if they are old they are not interested in learning about our basic beliefs. They just want to take pictures, like Asians. So I put on the charm and went out to greet them. Within 20 seconds they were laughing and eating out of the palm of my hand. So I leaned over to my comp (I lean a lot because my companion is only 5 feet tall) and said "They are all warmed up; let's go for it!" It was a really good tour. They listened to us and I could feel the spirit. Unfortunately none of them was interested. On top of that we had met with people all day who were... difficult... so I was kinda sad to say the least, especially when we taught this one lady while showing her the conference center. She was gasping at everything we told her and said, "Yes, yes, I believe all of this. This is amazing!" We offered missionaries but then she looked so afraid and said, "No, my husband wouldn't like it. They can't come." Talk about depressing!! But after all of that this old couple came up after them and at that moment I was thinking, "What are we doing wrong?! Is it me? Can we please have a miracle today?" and this old couple said, "Everything is so wonderful here we want to learn more!" My companion and I started talking to them and asked, "So where did the Sisters take you?"
"No where?"
"Wait, so you haven't talked to any Sister missionaries?"
"No, but we want to read the Book of Mormon." So my comp and I looked at each other and then I busted out the guest card and said, "Here, fill this out and we will send missionaries to your home to meet with you."
Miracles do happen!!! And prayers of desperation work. I will take what I can get.

But I am learning so much and I still have so far to go. Sometimes I look at the older Sisters and wonder if I will ever be as good as them, meaning they just know how to listen to the spirit to teach. They know how to ask really good thought provoking questions, and much more. I guess it will all come with being here so until then I am working my hardest.

The amount of people is slowing down here. School started and summer is ending so a lot of times we don't get to talk to people. When I am at the south visitor center entrance no one came in for a solid 20 minutes. I almost jumped on the poor, indigent individuals when they walked in. Words of caution: If you visit Temple Square in the dead of winter get a referral card from the Sisters and just hold it in a visible spot and Sisters will leave you alone. Those who don't will be asked/invited by Sisters about a million times. Well, gotta go but until next week!!!
Sister Nelson