Helllloooo there everyone!! :D
Oh so wonderful! No matter how little the time I have to do laundry or go grocery shopping or write letters, I ALWAYS make sure to spend the whole two hours writing my e-mails! :)
I swear this is like my new found form of texting! haha!
So, you know how I'm basically in like a bubble right now as I'm on my mission? Completely cut off from the world (i.e. no news updates etc)-- I found out that the government shut down or whatever and I just about had a heart attack! I was like ahhhh!!! What happened?! Completely clueless! And none of the other sisters here really cared because the majority of all of them are from other countries. All of the tourists were upset and would complain because they went to Mount Rushmore or Yellowstone and everything was closed. Good thing Temple Square basically never closes! haha! :D
We've been extra busy recently because Conference is coming up! If you don't know what General Conference is.... it's when the leaders of our church speak to the world. It's actually broadcasted into 94 different languages world-wide and is transmitted by satellite/dish/radio/etc. So cool! People actually do come here from all parts of the world! Annnd, there is an estimation of over 100,000 people coming to watch it here in Salt Lake! Which is SOO many people. There are only about 200 sister missionaries here -- you can only imagine how we are literally going to be worked to the bone!
Some cool perks though are that they are feeding us breakfast, lunch, and dinner (given each only 20 min long) and we have to be ON Temple Square by 730am and will be outside talking to people until 10pm!!! To wake up and do the same thing on Sunday! Whew. Just writing it stresses me out a little bit... lol. Fun thing is that after Conference, our Mission President, President Gillette, lets us sleep in!! Haha! On Monday we get to sleep in until 9 and on Tuesday we get to sleep in until 12! Woooohooo!!! Beats 6:30am by far. So awesome! We get to go to one session out of all of the four. I find out tonight which one I'll be able to go to! Hopefully we get good seats!
Yay!! Miracle time! Okay... so to start off... Last Sunday we had suchhhh an amazing day! To start off, Sister Roman and I usually try to avoid English tours for various reasons... but one day we had Westgate (the sisters who text out tours) call us and ask to take one... so we did & Sister Roman was going to lead it to practice her English and we were actually semi-excited for it because the people looked nice. So we started talking to them... and it turned out to be HORRIBLE. They were SO mean (as usuallll) but actually it was worse than usual.. The woman would not look at us at all while we were talking and the husband was constantly looking away from us. We were so confused. And then you know, we asked the usual questions to get to know them or to know if they have ever heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before and the woman said in a suuuper snobby tone "Yes, we have. My niece used to be married to a Mormon and she's happy not to be anymore!" I was like whoaaa... haha.... wasn't expecting that one. And so we just kept talking about the monuments, sharing some fun pioneer stories but they were in a super big rush for us to simply tell them what the things were. Sorrrrry, but our tours don't work that way and we really can't share the history behind Temple Square without sharing some of the beliefs that the pioneers had. Anyways... long story short.. they told us that they would never join this faith and that we need to stop preaching to them and to stop talking about things we believe otherwise they were going to leave. Grrr... I just wanted to be like okayyy then go walk around and read the signs if youre not interested in hearing what we have to say! But i didn't. Cute Sister Roman didn't know what was happening but was getting a feel for how rude these people were. Then we found out the woman's niece's husband cheated on her and thats why they got a divorce. So she was super hostile to us because of that ONE person and that made me feel tons better. I mean, because then I could help her get to know a different side of our faith. I reminded them that none of us our perfect and everyone makes mistakes but we encourage all people to follow in the example of our Savior always -- we all have our agency and can choose for ourselves the kinds of decisions we make but that doesn't label any one religion worse than another because of a bad experience. So sad. Anyways. they left and nothing good really came from that tour....
BUT!! When we went to go chat with the sisters at Westgate to tell them how awful it went, we met this young man from Mexico who looked really confused at where he was at. There was a huge convention for Xango and we had so many hispanics come through last weekend. He saw my flag and started asking me questions about bus stops and stuff and then we got to talking about our purpose as missionaries and what we do here at Temple Square etc. and he turned out to be a SUPER nice guy. We told him we could take him around and he said he would come back later with some friends. So sister roman and I gave him the number he could call to set up a tour with us and then he came back later (alone at first) and we started talking about everything and he was just asking question after question after question and then asked what he needed to do to go on a mission like us!! Ahh!! But then we went to the Temple Model where we were able to talk about what goes on in Mormon Temple's and why they are so important and things like that -- then I turned around and there were his friends all 6 of them!!! Which is SO many! Sis. Roman and I were expecting like 2 or 3 and there were 6!!!! And all of them had such fantastic questions and were so interested in learning more and they acctually ALL left with copies of the Book of Mormon and promised to read it! This e-mail does not even do partial justice to the experience that I had. They just all were so in need of hearing about Jesus Christ and the love that He has for them. I was so happy to help them feel closer to Him!! Anyways. Every single one of them referred to us and one of them actually sent us an e-mail! It's in Spanish so if you can read it, wonderful, if not... I'm sorry! haha. I'll paste a part of it.
"Hola Hermana Román y Hermana Cuevas!!!
Todo lo que vivimos ayer mis amigos y yo con el recorrido que ustedes con tanta Fe, tan amable y cálidamente nos hicieron vivir fue increíble y les quiero dar infinitas gracias por eso, son unas hermanas que inspiran paz y eso es por que la viven dentro de ustedes.
Personalmente fue la cereza del pastel de mi estancia en Salt Lake City, si me permiten voy a resumirles esta semana:
A sido una semana de mucho aprendizaje, de incrementar contexto, de tomar certeza, de conocernos mas, de mensajes claros como el que somos afortunados y por la oportunidad que tenemos y el mundo nos necesita y debemos trabajar duro para compartir esa oportunidad y asi todos juntos poder construir un mundo mejor, mucha emoción, muchas sorpresas, alegría personal por una pareja, y muchas cosas mas que en este momento se me olvidan y asi había sido una semana excelente y después aparecen ustedes ¡¡Wow!! Con otro mensaje muy claro: ESCUCHA A TU CORAZON el siempre dice la verdad, el espíritu santo es es el medio por el cual Dios se comunica con tigo pero es el corazón en donde el espíritu santo deja el mensaje de Dios y atravez de nuestros sentimientos interpretamos el mensaje de Dios asi es que escuchar a tu corazón se convierte en ESCUCHAR A DIOS eso fue increíble de verdad muchas gracias por ese mensaje."
Isn't that incredible?!!? ahhh! Anyways. I'm so thankful for that experience. And I LOVE being a missionary.
Also, remember how last week I went off on my little tangent about not wasting time?? Alright -- get ready for it.... because NOW I'm going to testify of WHY that is SO darn important!!
Sooo, one night.. It was cold and just finished raining... but Sis. Roman and I went outside to look for people to talk to. We had 15 minutes left before we had to start heading home for the night, but we wanted to uplift someone so we went out to work. We found these three men outside of the Tabernacle and they were pointing at the Temple. We stopped to talk to them, answered some questions, had a really delightful conversation, gave them some pass along cards and then this one man said that he really enjoys simply learning about what other faiths believe because he wanted to be well-rounded yet accurate in his information. He told us he was super active in his faith, but just wanted to learn more. So, we took down his e-mail and told him we would love to give him that accurate information he was looking for. We ended up sending him and e-mail and then he wrote back thanking us and told us that he really is not very interested to learn any more but that he thinks that his younger brother may be and gave us all of his brothers information. We were super excited and gave his brother a call. When we first contact a referral, one of us usually talks to the person and so I called him. His name is Morris & he is waaay smart and really funny. He was like I have no idea why my brother gave you my number but I'm willing to hear what you have to say. So we kept getting to know each other and then I asked him if he knew any Mormons. He replied saying.. "Wait.. Mormon? I have a book with that name on it and I never knew who that was. Do you know about it??" I was just blown away! I asked him how he got the book and he told me that he has kept it since 2009 because one day he was in Philadelphia on a business trip and he found it outside of the place he was staying addressed to a girl named April. No one named April lived there so he just decided to take it. It said something like "April, Sorry we missed you. We wanted to leave you with this to start reading. We know that it is the word of God and is true. If you read it, we know you will be able to feel the Spirit of God. Recommended readings Alma 32 & 3 Nephi 11" Signed "The missionaries" He said he read those chapters and liked them so much that he never threw the book away and left it on his bookshelf. He forgot that he had it until I brought that up. Can you believe it?!! Ahh! I was just sitting there with my jaw dropped. The thing is, those missionaries will NEVER know the effect that they have had on this contact, but they did what we as missionaries are supposed to do! 3 Nephi 11 is one of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon because it is the crowning event of the entire book. Testifies completely of our Savior and how he loves each and every single one of us that He knew it was necessary to speak to other groups of people as well. I LOVE it. Anyways. so I know that if we wouldn't have been out that night, we would have never had found that man, and if we would have never have found that man, we would have never been able to meet his brother and we would have never been able to have him dust off that Book of Mormon and put it to some good use. Morris is now continuing to learn more from us and I am SO excited!!!
Well, I just want to testify that I KNOW that this Gospel is SO extremely powerful. I believe and know that the Book of Mormon is not complete without the Bible and the Bible is likewise incomplete without the Book of Mormon. It is so amazing to continue to read them both and watch the connections between them grow and grow. I LOVE touching people's lives on a daily basis and helping them develop their relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I know my Savior lives and that He is here helping me find those who need to hear this message.
Thanks again for your support!
So many prayers and love being sent your way! KEEEEP smiling!!
SMILE :D, BE HAPPY :), & REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE! <3
:D
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