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!
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