P-day on the Square

October 27, 2010 Temple Square

Kamusta Po!

Yep, still with my Filipino companion, Sister Belleza! Usually sisters will stay together only 2 transfers but we are in it for 3! We must either have a lot to learn from each other because we are so bad or we are a powerhouse! I will try to think of the latter. Anyway I was really excited. Before they announced who our companions were I got really nervous and realized that I didn't want to leave her and I was afraid of getting someone else! But then they said we were staying together so massive relief came. To be honest I just didn't want to split our area book, haha jk, but seriously she would have taken Clare and I wanted to keep her.

This last week has been really busy with transfers, moving and Sister Belleza's birthday! She said that if I told anyone she would kill me, so I only told half the mission. She turned 29; maybe that's why she didn't want anyone to know about it. To celebrate we ate at the Lion House - soup bread bowl with clam chowder and veggies, doesn't get much better than that! She missed having her birthday on P-day by 1 day, so we counted that as celebrating. We watched the movie UP! for our Zone activity and then went to Heritage Park for their Haunted Village. It was so much fun. For some reason I got stuck in the middle of three Sisters who were clinging to me because they were scared. I tried to convert all of the zombies and mass murderers that we passed but they weren't interested. (Oh man, I am sure they loved having Sister missionaries come by.) I settled with telling them that I would do their work for them, but it doesn't even feel like Halloween. It is freezing though. It snowed the other day for the first time so I knew that it was the beginning of the end. The Square is getting really slow; we are lucky if we talk to 1 "guest," aka non-member, and invite them for missionaries. We have miracles though! They are here for a reason right? We talked to one kid from Slovenia, showed him around, but he didn't seem interested at all. I think he even scoffed when I told him the story of the seagulls. Anyway, at the end we both bore our testimonies about the Book of Mormon and he said, "Sure, why not? You say you have answers, I'll listen" Ok! Great! Another lady we found taking pictures of the Assembly Hall. We took her inside and started telling her about the building. She immediately changed the subject and asked us deeper questions. She was a research biologist so I decided just to be straight up with her. She was searching for the truth but was hesitant. So I just said, "This book contains the fulness of the gospel about Jesus Christ. Everything we need to know is in this book. Why don't you want to read it?" She sighed and then said, "Fine, send your missionaries over." Bam! One thing I have learned is that you have to bear your testimony and then just be bold. We have the truth so why do we need to be afraid of it. Sister Belleza and I need to work on not agreeing when people say, "Every religion gets you to heaven so why does it matter?" We are always like, "Yeah, yeah. Oh, that is so good" NO! THAT IS BAD. So this last time when someone said that we just responded with, "Yes, every religion has basic truths but they don't have it all. That is why this Church is so unique. It's because we have it all!"

But transfers = crazy! We have a party though. It starts at 7:30 a.m. and we sing; the Sisters who are going outbound read their mission calls. They also have contests. The departing Sisters make a dance to any Disney song as their final hurrah. It is like Girls Camp -- only we are older and more spiritual, haha. But we are screaming and filming every moment of it. Then president talks to us about what he wants us to work on for this next transfer and we get our new assignments and moving times. We persuaded our zone leader to let us move first so we could get the best room in our new apartment (and we did by the way)! Anyway we are still in the teaching zones which makes me so happy! Honestly, this is the best zone ever! We get to see both sides of the fence and help people progress. There are so many people out there who are just waiting to change their lives and so little time! We better get calling people... Well first, we need to clean our apartment. It's really gross. Anyway love you all! Until next week! Send me clothes! *cough* What?

Girls from the Square

Oh, by the way... I am learning a lot from living with girls. We say, "I love you" every two-seconds and talk about girl stuff all the time. I am going to be so weird when I get back.

But... I rock when we play sports! Hurrah!

Hiking Ensign Peak

October 21, 2010 Temple Square

Hi Everybody!!!

Kamusta-po! This is the last week of my second transfer and so I am probably going to be getting a new companion. So a new language might appear (hopefully Spanish? Maybe Mandarin?) Who knows! Anyway life is good for me. The amount of guests coming to the Square is dropping quickly so it's getting harder and harder to find people but we have had a few miracles this week. One thing that I have noticed is how there are such opposites in the mission. Meaning, if we have a really, really good day on Monday, then Tuesday will either be slow or just average. Or if we have an awesome day on the Square, when we go to the teaching part of our day it will be slow. I know I know I need to work on faith but that is really how it happens! So Friday of this last week we had an amazing day in teaching. We found out that two of our investigators made it to church - despite the odds. Take that Satan! And they were meeting with missionaries! Such an amazing feeling. We were helping people change their lives and make decisions that will impact their whole families for the better.

Group #1: We go onto the Square and talk to these two guys who are about our age. We say hello and they practically run over to us (warning sign #1). I was thinking, "Wow, they are really enthusiastic about talking to us, maybe they haven't talked to any Sisters yet!!" Yeah, if only that was the case. They split us and the younger one starts talking to me. He holds out his triple (warning sign #2) and says, "You know, I was flipping through a few pages and I am just not sold on the Book of Mormon. How did you know that it was true?" Total Anti. Love it. I was like, "Oh, well, let me show you a scripture that really helped me come to know that this book is true." I grab the triple out of his hands - just to accidentally flip to the wrong scripture to see what notes he had written. Wow, he had posts like crazy in there and it was all cross-referencing scriptures to the Bible, and "proving" how it is a book of the Devil rather than of God. I was like, "Oh sorry, wrong page. Let me just get there. Oh, here it is. Oh, sorry, you put your post-it notes all over it so I can't see what it says." So I read him Moroni 10:3-5. We get into a discussion on how we know that we are not being deceived by the Devil. I asked him how he found out the Bible was true and he said, "There is archeological evidence that proves it." I responded, "Oh, so you base your salvation on archeology?" He started shaking and changed the subject to grace versus works. This poor kid. He was obviously new. He sounded like a robot and my heart went out for him. He was trying his best to save my soul. How cute. My final statement after that was, "If we don't NEED to do anything why is the Bible so big?" And I said I had to leave and grabbed Sister Belleza who was getting in a heated debate. Mostly I just smiled and listened to him talk. They tell us not even to waste our time so I didn't cast my pearls before swine... I mean friends of another faith.

Group #2 There were about 6 of them. They circled Sister Belleza and me and started asking about grace and works. The ring leader was their pastor and I knew that we had nothing on this guy. We bore our testimony and said we had a meeting to run too. Gosh, do we go to your churches in California (they were from Riverside) to bug them? I felt bad for all of the teenagers that he was training. They have no idea.

Anyway good happy stories - We met this couple from New York; spiritual tour from the beginning. I almost wanted to invite them for missionaries after 2 minutes of talking by the Temple. I told them the Joseph Smith story in the Assembly Hall and the man started shaking his head. When I asked what he thought about it he said, "Absolutely astounding!" I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad reaction but he continued and said, "To think that God would still appear to people today. If only it was true!" I said, "That's the best part! It is true and he was only 14-years-old when it happened." I felt something stir inside me when I said he was only 14. I repeated it again but it was such a confirmation moment for me of how truly amazing Joseph's prayer was. I could feel the spirit there so strongly and we took them to the statues of the priesthood being given to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. The man was shaking his head again. I invited them for missionaries but they said NO! I nearly choked. Why not?! But they had gone to the St. George Visitors Center and already had been referred. Dang. Oh well, numbers don't matter, they were awesome anyway. We met a man by the north gate alone by himself so we showed him around. He was so open and whenever we asked him a question he would say, "I have never thought about that but yeah it makes sense!" He referred but didn't want us to call until the missionaries showed up at his door. That's ok.

Now that I am teaching people I can see how the Adversary works on them. From the moment they leave Temple Square till the missionaries come they are being surrounded on all sides. I have never prayed harder in my life for Heavenly Father to protect them. I always thought it sounded silly but when two of our investigators ended up in the hospital the day before missionaries and church, and then our other investigators' cars break down, homes get broken into, etc. I want to rip my hair out because I can't be there to help them!

Anyway I have to run but I want to let you all know that this Church is true! Satan wouldn't try so hard to block us at every turn if it wasn't. Well, until next week! Pray for my investigators!!! Miss you all!

Becky Deighan and her daughter, Veronica, on Temple Square

October 14, 2010 Service Project Day

The following pictures are of our service projects at Heritage Park and in the south visitors center. After we cleaned the chapel at Heritage Park we started walking around. We ran into a group of people and they were like, "Thank you Sisters for your service!" Sister Saunders then said, "You're welcome! We are just looking for more to do!" Come to find out these people ran the place and promptly called the janitor to have them find us another job. Sister Saunders said, "You all can hit me now!"

October 14, 2010 Temple Square

Hi Everyone!!!

Another week gone! It goes by so fast already and I heard it only gets faster! We had a really good week, too. Because things are getting slower on the Square they do things to occupy us such as service (and LOTS of it) and training meetings. We do service at Heritage Park. They had us clean the buildings and even wash one of the trains. We also clean the kitchen in the basement, or clean the temple. Not bad huh? We used to have study time until 9 a.m. and then we had to be on the Square but now we don't have to be on the Square till 10 a.m. and they let us take an hour lunch and dinner break. I am so glad to be in the teaching zone though because I don't know what I would do ALL day on the Square with nobody to talk to. Well, there are people but so few that by the time we talk to them they have already talked to 6 sets of Sisters and want us to go away. We have to get creative with our questions. But I learned a very important lesson about talking to everyone! We ran into this couple who had encountered at least 5 sets of Sisters before talking to us. They were reading the Testimony of the 3 Witnesses Statue and we told them all about the Book of Mormon and they ended up wanting missionaries! After every referral we get we look at each other and say, "Tender Mercies from the Lord" because that is really what they are. If we go on the Square expecting to find someone that the Lord wants us to find - we will find them. If we go on the Square with the attitude that there is nobody here and we can't talk to anyone - you won't. The Lord wants to bless us but if our attitude isn't right then He will give us what we have our mind set on. He will direct other Sisters to those people who do have the right attitude. So we should always have the mentality of "Here am I; Send me".

We met a group by the Christus Statue, a mom with 2 kids and her friend who was visiting from Texas. The mom lives here in Utah, not a member, but had a calling and so did her husband - weird huh? The lady had never heard of Mormons before so we told her all about the Book of Mormon and she said, "I want to learn more and I want that book!" Ok fine, twist our arms. Here is a card we would like you to fill out with your address. We will be teaching her until the missionaries come. Another good story we had was our zone goal to have about 35 potentials when we were on the Square. President Holmes is worried that we are more concerned with teaching people than dedicating our minds to finding on the Square as well. So we set a goal and headed out. We had straight zeros all day. We couldn't talk to any guests or members. We ate dinner a little discouraged. As we were on our way up to Temple Square I saw my Zone Leader and I asked if she had experienced any miracles today. She enthusiastically said "Yes! What about you?" ".... Uh.... nothing yet, but we still have an hour to go!" We headed up there and nobody was outside because it was about 50 degrees. We walked by this lady and we decided to talk to her even though it was freezing. We began by telling her how bad the world is today. She told us that she is worried for her children growing up in this world. I read to her Helaman 5:12 and had her look at the temple which provided a nice backdrop to our conversation. I said, "See this building? This is the temple. We make sacred promises with God there like being able for families to last for time and all eternity." She looked at me and made me say "time and all eternity" again. So I did. We shared with her more about eternal families and then asked if she wanted to learn more. She said, "Yes!" We will be teaching her as well till the missionaries come!

In the teaching zone we are working on making sure we have enough time to call all of the potential referrals we received from members at General Conference. It is really scary to call people but the same thing goes with telephoning as meeting people on the Square - it's all about attitude. I talked to a kid named Dean. Right when I called he told me that I was wasting my time because he isnt' going to join our church. We are only supposed to spend 10 minutes on the phone but I talked to him for 30. I just felt like I needed to keep talking to him. He had so many questions and they all had answers - if he wanted to take the time to learn. I was really bold with him. He said that he was waiting for a sign from God to tell him that He was real and what he should do. I said "Well, what if God is giving you a sign by me calling you? What if he has given you many such opportunities but you are so busy looking for a great manifestation you miss it? I want this for you so badly you don't even know. Your questions have answers if you are willing to take the time to listen to them". He replied, "Here is my address; send me those missionaries." BAM! I mean, thank you Heavenly Father!! That totally made my day. Even after that when we had 3 hours of Chat on mormon.org and people were sending us rude and vulgar messages and telling us that we were going to Hell, I was still happy. Chat is interesting. You get the worst of the worst and the best of the best. Opposition in all things right? We have found many people to teach there. Funniest question I have ever been asked, "Do you believe that black people come from werewolves?" I started laughing. Many people tell us to "pray to the right God to see the error of our ways and to stop following Satan." Love them. We also teach people regular half hour lessons. We open with a prayer and have a discussion with them. We are teaching this hilarious lady in Ireland - can't understand a word she says but she is really good. Of course, she got sick the day before she was supposed to go to church and meet with missionaries. She has an issue with baptism though - she doesn't see why it matters. We are teaching this kid named Bryce who is in the Colorado Springs mission - GOLDEN! He even told us he'd give up alcohol this week. Hurry up missionaries! Henry in Africa is finally meeting with the missionaries!!!! Hopefully he gets baptized soon. Not much time to tell you all about our other investigators but I can tell you the work is progressing! We were told the odds of someone meeeting with the missionaries and getting baptized is 20:1, from the teaching zones we average 3:1. President Holmes called it the new "investigator retention plan" for the church and we are pioneering it! I feel very blessed to be one of the first 50 missionaries in the world to be doing this. Anyway gotta go! Ensign Peak awaits!

What Sister Missionaries Do Before The Visitor Centers Open!

October 7, 2010 Temple Square

Hey All!

Let me tell you all about the adventures from Conference! "WOW" is all I have to say. I have never worked harder in my whole life! Seriously. We would wake up at 5:30 a.m., grab something to eat, have a prayer meeting and then hit the Square to talk to all of the people who were already in the standby line at 7:30 a.m. We had a mission goal to get 5,000 member referrals. The last conference they had a goal of 4,000 and they reached it so we are raising the bar. We were all pretty confident that we would reach it because hey, we are Temple Square and we ALWAYS reach our goals. So our first plan was to talk to all the people in the standby line. It was quick contacts too because they knew why we were there so all we had to do was say, "Hi! We have a program that lets us call any of your nonmember family and friends to share the gospel with them. Do any names come to mind that we could call? All we need is their phone number!" Bam, phones were whipped out and we were getting names and numbers like crazy. I was looking at the cards after that and I am going to need a Urim and Thummim to read what we wrote because it was so fast. We did that for the first 3 hours and then we had a 20 minute lunch break. After that our plan was to talk to anyone who didn't seem to be listening to the conference being played on the loud speakers, or to go inside the buildings. A couple of times we were scheduled to be at the Conference Center so we went there and contacted people. I saw lots of friends from school too! It was nice to see them but I could only really say "hi" and then move on because we had so many people to talk to! I have to say though. I LOVE people from Africa!!! One guy when we asked for referrals said, "Here is my business card. Call me in a week and I will give you my whole phone book!" YAY! To be honest I hate calling people on the phones but after I call the first person I am pretty relaxed and it all goes well from there. I just feel badly for that first person, but I have to warm up! Anyway, we would be at the Conference Center until it was dinner time and then have another 20 minute break. So many Sisters were in the kitchen but it would be silent since everyone was eating. I cooked a lot of food for us to survive on for 2 days so that is what we ate (thanks for the cookbook mom!).

On a chart we put little stick figures on "the path" that led to the temple. For every referral we got we could place a person on it. By the end of Day 1 we had less than half of the path covered with people. We started to get worried that we wouldn't have enough referrals to meet our goal. At the end of the day we had 35 referrals which was higher than the number they set for us to shoot for so we were happy. We went to bed at 9:30 p.m. and I hurt everywhere. My feet hurt, my head hurt, and my legs hurt but it was ok because we felt so happy at the same time. Waking up the next morning at 5:30 a.m. was only by a miracle from God. But we made it to the prayer meeting. Some Sisters announced that they had 104 referrals the day before (You don't ever tell people by the way what you got, but they did!) and that made me realize that we needed to work harder. So I ran out the door with my companion and we were determined to at least double our numbers from the day before. We followed the exact same route and schedule as the day before, but people were more than willing to give us many names at once. By 10 a.m. we had exceeded our numbers from the day before! We just worked hard and it was one contact to the next. We even would split up and talk to people if we saw that it was going no where or that there were too many people. We got to go to the Sunday Afternoon Session of conference. I was so grateful for a chance to sit down. Saturday I didn't know how I was going to make it. By about 3 p.m. it was almost 90 degrees and I was so tired. I don't know if any of you have ever fallen asleep standing up while talking to someone.... but it's kind of embarrassing. So I was happy to sit and rest for 2 hours listening to some awesome talks! We even contacted people while we were waiting for the session to start. Afterwards everyone left. Like seriously the Square was EMPTY. We didn't know what to do. We had a goal to meet and all of the stick figures on the path were not to the temple yet! I started freaking out (on the inside, of course) and we were talking to anyone that would pass us by.

We got to go to the 20th annual Filipino Conference because my companion is from the Philippines. We went with the 6 other Sisters from the Philippines, though we attended to get more referrals. They had food too! Good food... I need to visit the Philippines after my mission... uhh, anyway we tried to talk to people there but they were speaking Tagalog and I stood there looking for any English-speakers. Yeah for teenagers. But we came back to the Square and we had our mission meeting in the tabernacle. They announced that we had accumulated a total of..... 5,683 referrals!!!!!!! Everyone was screaming and cheering. Afterwards President spoke and said how proud he was of us. I was trying to pay attention but I kept falling asleep and so was everyone else so I didn't feel too badly. The best part of conference I would say is the feeling of satisfaction, knowing that we worked our absolute hardest. That and we got to sleep in 2 days in a row! As long as we were on the Square at 10 a.m. they didn't care what we did. I slept in till 8:30 a.m. on Monday but Tuesday I got up at 7:30 a.m. so I could go running. They also had pizza for us at lunch time on both of those days. I love my mission.

After that life has slowed down. It's amazing the contrast in the number of people after conference. Now we are lucky if we talk to 5 guests and members a day! No one is here! Winter is coming.... I am scared. They will keep us busy with service projects though. I am really happy to be in the teaching zone because half the day I am in the "Batcave" doing the CHAT on Mormon.org or calling our investigators and teaching them. Currently we have 4 new investigators from: Norway, UK, Ireland and Colorado. The lady from Ireland is GOLDEN; she knows it's true and then said that American chocolate is horrible - which I agree with. So I said I should come visit her after my mission and she can give me good chocolate! So where am I supposed to visit when my mission is done? My investigators are all over the world! I guess I will just have to go visit them all. Another one of our investigators is debating between us and the Jehovah Witnesses - hello?! Is that even an option? She says that she feels something in our church that isn't with the JWs but they are so logical and have scriptures to back up everything. We will get her, don't you worry. We just sent missionaries to her home in Phoenix. We have our bad investigators too, but I try not to think about them. If they are not ready, they are not ready so I should move on.

CHAT is fun though sometimes draining but I talked to "Batman" last night. He kept asking questions like, "So why does God not help me when I am fighting like 9 bad guys with guns?" I responded to all of his questions using gospel principles like, "Well, God put us here to learn and gain experiences. Trials help us grow. He has also sent us prophets today to help us through hard times." By the end of the conversation he was asking about who prophets are and who it is now (of course, still as Batman). When I said I had to go he was like, "Don't worry, the Joker won't get you tonight since I have spoken with you. You have my protection" Wow, best converstation in CHAT of my life. Hopefully he is interested in learning more. Anyway I have to run. There is a Gay protest and they are closing the Square down so we can go home. Seriously I have to coolest mission ever - what missionary ever gets sent back to their apartment because of demonstrations because of Elder Boyd K. Packer's talk? Ok, so it's probably a bad thing but we are excited. Ok, gotta run until next time!