Hello again my beautiful friends and family! Another awesome week, full of exciting things, has come and gone. Directly after emailing last week, we were walking back to our apartment and a lady stopped us and asked "You guys are missionaries right? Do you have a minute to answer a question?" Of course! We only talk for about 15 seconds before she whips out her iphone with scriptures previously highlighted, the typical scriptures that Anti's use. And poor sister Jensen has no clue when she's talking to someone sincere, or someone that is completely bashing our church and beliefs. Well I kindly interrupted her, stated my testimony, told her she can find out for herself and got out of the situation. As we were walking away Sister Jensen asked, "Why'd you do that? She had questions!" But then her question was answered when this lady started following us and screaming "You are going to be cursed! Beware! I was sent to warn you!" and so on... hahaha. I thought it was kinda funny, but Sister Jensen was in awe that she ran into her first anti! The whole rest of the P-day she kept saying, "I can't believe that I ran into my first anti today! It's so cool!" But I am very blessed to have a testimony that is unshaken. I know I am here on Temple Square for a reason, especially when we meet the many people who protest or bash our beliefs, because in my patriarchal blessing it says that 'many people will try to persuade me against my faith, but because of my strong faith, it will have no impact upon my mission here on the Earth.' If anything, anti's help strengthen my testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel! Because I know that the adversary is going to be working hard against the true church, especially in these latter days.
Saturday, Juanita and her husband got baptized!!! I have been teaching her for awhile, and she has been one of my favorite investigators from the beginning. She is so open and willing to change in order to aline her life with God's will. She is so faithful and a great example to me. I'm excited to see how the Gospel spreads throughout her family, she is a great-grandma!
We got to go to the Walker's (the one with 18 kids) again this past Sunday. We taught Scott, who's adopted from China and speaks more Mandarin than English, more about the Priesthood. And previously when he had been taught it, he had no interest in having the Aaronic priesthood. But we explained it a lot simpler and more straightforward this time, and we asked him if he wanted it, and he looked at his mom with a big grin on his face and nodded. Well as you can imagine, water works started coming between his mom and I! We were so excited that Scott has a greater understanding and really wants to follow Jesus Christ ans serve others. He has made a big amount of progress since I started teaching him with Sister Yeung. Scott is so near and dear to my heart; I can't express how much I admire and love the Walker family. They continue to amaze me.
We were very blessed this week with FOOD. Which as a missionary, is the second best thing on your mission. First of course is the Gospel, but second is definitely food. Especially when you're in a mission where you have to cook all your own food. But because we work so closely with the mission presidency, Elder Skancy (in charge of finance for mission) took us out to dinner at the Garden resturant on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building, and then on Tuesday President Harman (we really don't know what he does, he's crazy) took the AP's, Temple Square Coordinators and us out to dinner at Nauvoo cafe for a 'meeting'. It's us 6 that are within the 'circle of trust' with the mission presidency, so we are very blessed to work so closely with them.
To go along with that, we ALSO got dinner on Wednesday night at none other than AMIR AND MARYAM! We got approved from President Poulsen to be able to go to their house, because normally we're not allowed to in our mission. But president loves Amir, he had to interview him to make sure that we are able to teach him since he is from Iran. Mayam cooked us some traditional Iranian food, and it was SO good! Especially the Persian cookies. We were able to teach them more about the Temple, which is Amir's goal for them. We just have to help make it Maryam's goal too. She doesn't understand English as much as Amir does, but she likes the church because she feels good and enjoys going to church because everyone has the same purpose of "praying to The God." haha they both crack me up! But Amir absolutely is 100% dedicated to the Gospel, he reads the book of Mormon all the time and loves learning more from reading on LDS.org and Mormon.org. And he is now set to be baptized on
May 17th! If I don't go outbound then I'll be able to attend my first baptism for my investigator. This is something we miss out on at Temple Square, because our investigators are all over the world. But I have been working with Amir since October, and I know this is going to be one of the best days of my mission to see Amir enter the waters of baptism. He is so special to me! Maryam is so excited for him as well, and is working towards baptism in the future.
Yesterday morning for Relief Society we got to watch Meet the Mormons, the new movie coming out that I ushered for the apostles! Wow. This movie is going to do amazing things for the church, both for the members of the church and people who are not members of the church! The movie follows a few, what they call 'average' (I say pretty amazing), members of our church. It is to help people see what we believe, by how we live our lives. And that is how it should be, we SHOULD stand out! We are very different than the world, and the way we live our beliefs will show that. This movie helped me to realize the impact that a family built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ can have on the world. There is nothing more powerful! These, somewhat normal, families were doing extraordinary things! Because they had faith in and acted upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The final story they follow is a mother and son, who grew up in very humble circumstances. The boy's father had left them abused and alone. She ran into some missionaries and allowed them to teach her, and at first she didn't accept the message. She stopped meeting with them. She ran into some more trouble with the boy's father, and went to find shelter within a gas station convenience store. The worker noticed her distraught, and walked over. Well this worker is a member of the church, and asked if she wanted her to call the missionaries to give her a blessing. Well, needless to say, this young mom and her son joined the church, and it absolutely changed their life. And now her son is on a mission in South Africa! She leaves with her testimony of how much the gospel will change our lives, if we just let it. And she pleads with us, to listen to the message her son has to offer, because she is a witness of the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. And this is the message that we as missionaries get to share with people. I am excited to see how this video will impact the work here at Temple Square.
This week, Sister Jensen and I have really been trying to improve our teaching numbers. In the past, I've always had A TON of people to teach because I've had Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin/Cantonese/German speaking companions. And all of those people are so prepared to hear the Gospel! But Danish people are hard to come by, so we've had to rely on the English people we have right now. So we have been praying really hard this week to find some new investigators and reach our goals for teaching that we set each day. Well yesterday afternoon we were doing really well, all of our appointments turned out and we still had 4 more planned for the evening! Well after those 4 appointments fell through, we called just about everyone in our area book. No luck. So we got on our knees and prayed, Heavenly Father please help us to get another lesson tonight. We really want to accomplish our goals for today, and we know that thou canst help us. Seconds later, a bunch of chats started coming up. We took about 4 and still were not having any luck! No one who is really interested in learning more about the church. We were getting very frustrated when another chat came, normally we don't take chats after
8:30, but we felt prompted to. And boy am I glad we did! Because Samuel is who we prayed for. He is one of those investigators who asked golden questions which lead straight into the lessons. And although we didn't have much time to teach him, we got his information and now will be teaching him over the phone and email! He was a miracle, despite our disbelief through those frustrating first few chats. We had another miracle this morning! Last night when we were planning for our day today, we were setting our goals for teaching. And I said to Sister Jensen, "I have the faith that we'll get a member present, do you?" Well, we only had about an hour for teaching today. And we had quite a bit of stuff we needed to get done in the office today. But as soon as we got back from the Temple session this morning, we received a text for a tour of 3 Danish. Well there are only 2 sisters here from Denmark, so we decided to take it. Turns out to be 1 Danish and 2 English! An exchange student from Denmark and her host family, from Wyoming! They are members of the church and wanted her to see Temple Square. Her host sister, Josie, also mentioned that she has read my blog! Small world. But Anna, from Denmark, was our member present lesson that we prayed for. She was an answer to our prayers! We are now going to be calling her and teaching her more over the phone in both Danish and English! Excited to see what happens with her.
Well that's about it for this week! Today Sister Jensen and I are going to watch Ephraims rescue; we're borrowing the AP's projector and watching it on our wall back at the apartment. We are very excited for that! Hope you all have a great week, and know that I love you.
Love,Sister Brock
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