The Work is Progressing

A month has past Since I left home. So crazy! It feels like years ago but then again, I can't even believe that it is P-day again. Feels like yesterday. Emailing is crazy as always! Dad- I printed off your letter from last week and read it. ahhh! I loved it. The way you write your mission president is soooo english major!!! It is beautiful. My comp and I had fun reading it. You sounded like a superb missionary from the get go. I forgot to bring it with me to the library. But I love your comment about how as a missionary you feel SO many emotions in ONE day.  I met a old guy yesterday on the bus. I asked him how his day was . He reported that he had just returned from dancing.  He is 84! He is from Holland so I said..."Goede Dag, Meneer!"  I don't know how to spell it but or if I said the right thing (i.e. if I called him a girl or guy) but he nodded and said, "Jah, Meneer" or something like that and then I had to get off the bus! It's the worst when it's actually a great contact and you have to get off the bus.  

Sam, Sister Mendenahll, and Sister Bodine (friend from Orem)

Sisters Reeves and Mendenhall

So a couple of days ago I had the hardest time street contacting. I'd open my mouth and NO words would come. They'd ask a question, and it was as if I got hit by a train. I would have no idea what to say! For instance, someone said, "Well, I read the Book of Mormon, and I prayed and learned that my church is still true.

In my mind, I'm thinking, "Welp! Great. Have a great day! Bye."  It was like I couldn't speak English, as if I am totally confounded, but I tried to respond. Nothing intelligent.  It was tough and I wanted to cry. I was opening my mouth and the spirit wasn't filling it. "What am I doing that is making it so the spirit isn't with me? What am I doing wrong?"

The next day I told my companion during companion study/training about my experience in street contacting.  She said on the mission you will learn so many things. You will learn to be humble and learn how to be better at street contacting. The spirit cannot call it to your memory if you do not know. So in essence, I need to start learning on street contacting. Learn what things to say and to testify of! It'll be a hard thing to work on 'cause it's pretty vague but I'm going to Ponder it this week.

Our first baptismal commit, George, has disappeared from the face of the earth! So that is a bummer. But we have Mike and Eileen committed to baptism last weekend! So that was great. We met Mike at a Tim Hortons (grocery store) and taught him, we are going to drop off a Book of Mormon hopefully this week. Eileen I met on the subway and she came to church! Our first investigator to come to church! She enjoyed it and sure talked a lot. She sort of drove me crazy because she was always wandering off and we needed to stay with her but because sister Mendenhall had to talk to people in the ward, and as companions we need to be in sight of each other, it was sort of tough. But she is a really sweet lady with a sincere desire to know the truth. :) 

I made bread today! 

We met with one of the coolest 20 year olds I've ever meet. We street contacted her and she told us that she was Christian and coming closer to Jesus Christ but she hadn't found a church that she felt she could call her own. Her name is Ebony.

So we met with her Sunday night and at first the whole family left the house the moment we walked in the door, and then slowly they trickled in, one every 5 minutes. (Which made it kind of hard to teach the lesson because we kept having to rewind, explain and go forward.  But she had so many questions it was great. As for the questions she had, everything can be answered with the Gospel of Jesus Christ; it will just take TIME. So hopefully she holds on and lets us keep meeting with her. Her and her Dad said that they would read the intro to the BOM and pray. Her whole family seems really great. When we were explaining the first vision it was totally silent so that was cool. We should have stopped and told them that that was the spirit....but we only had 20 minutes and with everyone coming in at different periods we were quite flustered so we felt stressed. The lesson ended well (except for the argument that the dad wanted the daughter to pray and the daughter wanted him to).  We can't meet with them till next week. But hopefully they hold on!!

There has been a christian vocals/rock/pop concert here in Toronto! JUST like in the movie God's not Dead. Ebony went to it. That is on my list of things to do in life! 

The Church is true! I love the atonement of Jesus Christ and the fact that we can be cleansed from the effects of sin everyday. 

Okay, remember how I was telling y'all the scripture in Mosiah about understanding with your heart and then challenged you? Well I gave the wrong reference! The correct one is: Mosiah 12:27. Take one principal from the gospel  and learn the principal with your heart. Take the time to meditate on it. Take the time to let the spirit teach you. Tell people what you are learning.  Will you do this?

Man I wish I brought my journal! That is all I can remember from the last week. Oh yeah! WE had An EXCELLENT zone conference. Some highlights:

• "Will you give a portion of your potential to the Work? Or will you give your all?"
• After the trial of their faith and the Savior left, the Disciples of  Jesus Christ became converted. They became fearless leaders.
• Everyday of your mission you'll be faced with choices like peter's ---What witness will you be?
• "Be Thou humble in thy calling and the Lord thy God shall teach thee. To Serve his children gladly with pure and gentle love" What a great song!!!

We talked about how we must have the spirit in our planning sessions and how we need to have more member present lessons. I Cant summarize it well....it was really good though, exactly what we need.

The Book of Mormon musical is coming out! It will be a great way to increase lessons! We are going to be contacting downtown by it! So more about that next week! We will be using the line "The book is always better" cute eh?:)

WE went on exchanged monday night to tuesday... IT WAS FANTASTIC!!! I loved it. I sent you a picture of the Sister Hsiung who was my companion. I learned so much and enjoyed her talkative personality. Sister Bodine went with my companion and they had fun! We helped someone saw down a tree..so that was interesting! Also, later we had the oddest lesson ever.

Sister Hsiung, companion for a day on exchanges.

Sam, and I'm not sure who . . .  

So this Lucy tells us she wants to meet with us, so we go to her house for the lesson. We knock on the door and her brother tells us she isn't home. (Which was odd because we texted and confirmed the appointment like 30 minutes before). So we call her and she says 'Oh! I am running late! Teach my sister." So we go to knock on the door again and the brother invites us in. But her sister is in the shower....So we start talking to the brother and after 5 minutes he knocks on the door to see how long she will be in the shower. 5-10 minutes. So we decide to teach the restoration to him and then again when she goes out (Sister Hsiung has been working on teaching short, powerful lessons with the pamphlets.) So we teach him.  He is very receptive, and we ask him to pray right then to ask if Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His son, and then after the prayer we have a moment of silence, which he will break when he feels like it. So we pray and the silence starts. And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on. Meanwhile the sister has come down stairs, looks at us, and goes to the kitchen (she is probably wondering what on earth we are doing). Sister Hsiung breaks the silence. "Are you..good?" oh yes yes. We asked him if he got an answer and he said he knew the church was true!  We set a baptismal date.

Then we invite the sister in, teach the lesson, pray that same way except the silence is much shorter, and she answers all the questions well. We extend the invitation to get baptized, to which she responds, "I've already been baptized." 

So we explain proper authority again and then ask again, to which she gives the same answer: "I've already been baptized." Silence. "In the latter day saint church," she says.

"Wait, what? Come again?" What is happening?! She was baptized when she was 12 in Taiwan.

Anyway, Lucy, the person who invited us to come in the first place never even came! But we had 1 commit and one lesson with a LA...it was so odd. I can't accurately explain it, especially because I am racing against the clock!

 I LOVE YOU!!!!! 

Toronto Skyline

Downtown Toronto