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!!!
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