Transfer 6 week 3

This week has been a big roller-coaster! But not like the fun ones at Disneyland. A lot of great moments and miracles this week, but also a lot of humbling experiences. My companion, Sister Rangel, and I have found a lot of success in just these 2 short weeks, but with success comes easier chance to be prideful, and that is something we are battling this transfer. One of the ultimate quests in life: finding humble success. Glad I get to learn now! Bring it on.

We have found some absolutely golden new investigators this week! We have really been trying to focus lately on teaching people who are truly prepared to receive the Gospel, and not spend our time teaching people who aren't progressing. I have noticed that in my mission, I sometimes get discouraged when I didn't have many people to teach, so I spent my time teaching the people that I do have, but instead I should have been using that time to find people who are prepared for the Gospel! Such as Thyago. He is one of our new investigators from Brasil. He is actually a referral from a Sister who is serving here as well. He has a bit of a past, but he is so sincere about learning. He accepts every invitation we extend, and he is soaring in the Book of Mormon. He is working towards getting baptized at the end of this transfer! We also have 2 other Brasilian families on baptismal date for this transfer. This is my first time really teaching a family, and I don't know why I never taught families before! Because the Gospel of Jesus Christ truly is all about families. And it's great to see how they all are coming so much closer because they are reading the scriptures together, and having family prayer, and going to church! I know that my family would not be the same without the Gospel, and I am so blessed to be able to share that with other families.

This last Sunday was a day of miracles! We started out by having an amazing sacrament meeting and then going to Music and the Spoken word. And we, being missionaries, do not remember holidays. So we were shocked when we walked in at 9:00 and the whole Tabernacle was PACKED full. Apparently it was memorial day weekend... so there was a special program. And there is a big basketball camp every year at BYU with fathers and sons, so they all attended as well. Well we tried to find a seat, but every time we tried to sit down everyone said "no room in the inn"... or something like that. And so we were wandering hopelessly around, until we ran into Sister Poulsen, our mission President's wife. She told us to come sit with her, because she had reserved seats. So we got the best seats in the house! And as you'll read from my pictures email, you'll find out that we sat with Coach Rose and Senator Hatch. So that was pretty cool! Very blessed to have such a sweet mission president/wife. I truly love them both so much!

We had one of our best miracles this week just after that. We had been searching for new investigators like crazy for a couple hours, and no luck. So then we decided to go to the front of the Temple by the reflection pool (our favorite finding place), and we start getting waved over by a member of the church. And he is talking to 3 guys from none other than AFRICA! They have lived in the states now for 2 years, so they did learn some English. Because they are from the Congo and speak french. So the member said "These guys were wondering what makes our church different from other Christian churches." BINGO. Golden question, golden investigators. So we took them around Temple Square. We asked them about their beliefs, and they told us that they belong to a Christian church that believes that the second coming has already happened. To be honest, I had never heard of a Christian church like that. But we first took them to the Temple Model, we explained how it is built after the Temple of Solomon from the Bible, and they said "Seriously?! It actually exists?!" So then they started taking a million pictures. They loved it! Next we took them to our downstairs exhibit called Scriptures and Revelations. It's all about the prophets in the Bible, Book of Mormon and in these modern days. Before we could even offer it, they all asked to have a copy of the Book of Mormon! We gave them a new pass along card that they are trying just at our visitors center that has the app download of the Book of Mormon. It seems to be very successful so far! We took them next to the Christus, and there we simply bore our testimonies about the Gospel. And before we knew it, all 5 of us were in tears. They were joining in sharing their testimonies about Jesus Christ! We got their information and fulfilled my life long dream of having investigators from Africa!! Today while at walmart, we even found a family from Africa, and they are going to come to Temple Square next Friday for a tour! So we're excited to take them around.

Sister Rangel and I have been focusing the week on using our calling center time to just simply teach, and our square time to: find+teach=new investigators. So we have been talking to everyone that we see! And just the other day we saw two girls sitting on the flowerbeds, and Sister Rangel immediately was drawn to them. Now, Sister Rangel and I are very similar in some things. But VERY different in others. I like color and country music. And she likes black and rock metal bands. These were her kind of girls, with tattoos, piercings galore and vegan makeup products. But these girls completely opened up to us! They were some of the sweetest people I have ever met. We sat with them for what must have been 45 minutes and taught them about the atonement. Again, we cried. This mission is full of sisters, so there is a lot of crying done here. But the spirit is also so strong, and I can't control my tears when I feel the spirit so strongly! So we then gave them the Book of Mormon; and miraculously we saw them the next day back on Temple Square READING their Book of Mormon's!!!! Prepared people, I'm telling ya.

Okay last story about my investigators (I just love them so much!), yesterday we got a call from a member who referred his limousine driver named Thomas King. Fancy that! So we called him directly after and  boy did we automatically love him. He said something along the lines of "Oh honey, am I glad you called. I am just so curious about this Mormon Bible! But I am driving my limo for a little kid's birthday party, and you know how wild they are, so please honey call me back tomorrow. Oh and please call me T-King!" Well we called T-King this morning and he was so excited and enthusiastic, I wish I could have recorded his reaction when we told him that on the Book of Mormon app you can have it read to you! So he was going to start it right after we got off the phone.

Well those are the miracles I got to witness this week. I am very blessed to be in this mission, where we truly get to preach the Gospel to ALL nations! This work is amazing, and I'm grateful to be a small part in it.

Much love,
Sister Brock