Hi Everyone!
Life is going well here at Temple Square! Even though there are fewer people to talk to I think the people who come are more prepared to listen to what we have to say. I have been thinking a lot about how we are lead by the spirit to be in certain places. It amazes me when I look back at the people we've found to take on tours the chain of events that led us to meet them. For one such instance we were going to put our stuff away in the North Visitors Center and as we walked through the doors a host ran up to us and said, "Sisters! I have a man you need to teach. He just came from Arizona and he wants to be a Mormon!" I am sure the host was waiting for the first set of Sisters to walk through the door. We had a meeting right before this but happened to make it out ahead of the other Sisters. I am so thankful we got there because this man was amazing. You could tell he had had a super hard life. You could smell cigarettes on him, and it was obvious that he had done some pretty hard drugs earlier in his life. He was homeless but I couldn't help but think how much our Heavenly Father loved him and wanted him to have this. His story was really amazing. He had noticed Mormon missionaries his whole life and he made mental notes on how they treated people and the service they gave. He was searching for a religion but he tried everything else first. He even tried Islam! But he said that one day he had the thought to "go to Salt Lake City and find the Mormons because they have the true Jesus". Obviously we have a LOT to teach him. He referred for missionaries and we have been teaching him. Most people we teach we try to call every other day or every 3 days but with him we call every day. He doesn't understand anything so really it is one principle at a time. We focused on prophets one day and I asked him, "What do you think a prophet is for?" He began answering and it started off with they preach of destruction but then he paused. I HATE silence but I am working on it. I refrained from breaking the silence but let him think. He started talking again and the more he talked the more he started to realize. It was an amazing moment to listen to the spirit teach him EVERYTHING we were going to teach him. He went from "Prophets help our" to "they are here to provide us that constant guidance from God so that we can know for ourselves how we can return to him." BAM! We didn't teach him anything! I learned a valuable lesson right there. He is continuing to progress and he is so good. He is giving up smoking and he even called the bishop here in Salt Lake City about 5 times yesterday to demand that the missionaries come sooner.
Another instance that made me think of how the spirit guides us to be places was when we happened to make a detour to check something out at our teaching room; then we talked to some Sisters passing by; and then we spotted this guy standing all alone. We started talking and offered to show him around. He was here for a Chemical Engineering Conference, and said, "Sure! Let me get my friends" We went from a tour of 1 to a tour of 12 college kids. Let me just say I love showing people around who are my age. 1) They are so open whether they have a religion or not and 2) You can be as blunt as you want and they don't care! It's the old people that are bitter and angry against the world and say that they will die Catholic or Lutheran or whatever. But it was a really, really good tour. At the end only 1 girl referred for missionaries. I was watching her the entire time and when we talked about temples a light came into her face. That tour was for her.
Those are just some of the cool experiences we have had this week. When it comes to teaching we have this girl from the UK who doesn't believe in God. We called her after we told her to pray and ask if God was there. She said it sounded silly but she thought she would try it out. She told us that she felt so happy afterwards that she fell asleep with a grin on her face! For her it is also one principle at a time because she literally knows nothing about God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible. It is like teaching a little child. We send her links to Mormon Messages and she doesn't understand them. But we called her this morning and she actually searched out the Book of Mormon on-line and read a lot of it! She saves all of the links we give her so she can go back and try to understand them. I can't figure out why she keeps talking to us. She is getting made fun of by her friends. It has been less than a week and they call her "Mormon girl". But we emphasized today to keep praying because when she knows things for herself it doesn't matter what other people say because she already knows. Anyway I talk too much, but these are my miracles for the week. I love this gospel so much and I understand Alma 29 so much more - especially because I have the opportunity that Alma only wished for: To peach the gospel to every people! The only limit we have on potential investigators is ourselves. Better start thinking outside the box then! Or the square... hahaha, Ok terrible joke. Bye!!
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