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!
No comments:
Post a Comment