Saturday, August 30, 2014

Miracle Desk is my Favorite!

Hope everything is going well. I feel a little bit bad, this week has been such a blur that I really couldn't tell you what happened. Except I'm sure you've heard that I ran into Uncle Mike and Aunt Judy! That was so fun, I love running into people that I know :)
Taught lots of lessons and took many tours. 
I kind of want to briefly explain just what my mission is like, since I'm realizing just how different we are from the missions around the world.
So we have 9 different zones, after this transfer we'll probably lose some because a lot of sisters are going outbound because the summer season is officially over. I'm really glad I came in the middle of summer. Helped me learn a lot faster, I got so used to things being crazy busy with people all around that I didn't realize that that wasn't the normal year round craziness. So this last week has been dead, a lot less visitors because school has started. We'll still run into a couple tourists who are traveling the states, just not as many as say the week before. 
Each sister has a different schedule and assignment. Assignments are split up by zones. So my zone is west gate and guest services. I only serve in west gate though, and usually you are with the same assignment for two transfers but because Sister Bomgren served in west gate last transfer she doesn't think we'll have it next transfer. I wouldn't complain if we did have it though, I'm starting to really like it. Then there are a few sisters who only have square as their assignment, which is what my schedule was before my zone got switched during week 2.
And then we have different desk assignments spread out through the day, but those are only for an hour. Desk assignments are fun, Map desk is my favorite. It's located in the North Visitor Center and Sister Bomgren likes to call it Miracle Desk because miracles happen there all the time, and I agree. Map desk is where we met the less active family that we are now teaching. They literally just walked up to us and told us that they hadn't gone to church for many years but wanted to go back and they were just unsure as to how. Beautiful right? So yes, Miracle Desk is my favorite!
Then while we have square we just contact (talk) to the different people on the square. And try to take tours. And really, tours are lessons. So I'll call them tours because that's what they're called, but each tour we teach a lesson. The restoration is probably what we teach most often, but we teach everything from prayer to eternal families. What we teach is all based on what we feel the individual(s) need to hear the most. It's fun, we do a lot of teaching here! So yes, we share history on the tours but very minimal. That's always the joke between all the sisters, how when we're introducing ourselves to our tour group we always explain our purpose as Temple Square missionaries, which is to share the basic history and belief.... anyways every once in a while we'll get an individual with a very strong personality who will say something along the lines of, "well I'm only here for the history." and we always just laugh to ourselves about it, because we're not tour guides so we never only share history. And we usually will only share like a sentence of history, like we'll share when a particular building was built and why, and then we dive right into the gospel. But really the history is the gospel. There's not really a defining line between which is which. Which is what makes it so easy to bridge from history or doctrine.
When we don't have an assignment or on the square we're usually in the Teaching Center (TC) which is where we call all of our investigators. It's hard because during the summer we have very little TC time but I've been told that after the summer months we're given a lot more TC time. So for this transfer TC time is very sacred and precious because we meet all these investigators on the square and then only have an hour to contact all of them by phone. So it's always a little crazy, but on the rare occasion that we do not have any appointments over the phone is when we take calls and chats. I love taking chats, it's so much fun. Haven't developed the love for inbound calls yet but I might get there eventually if we had more time to take them. When we take inbound calls we usually do it by ourselves so that way more calls can be taken at a time, we're only supposed to be on the phone with our companion if we are teaching a lesson. So believe it or not, but earlier this week was my first time taking an inbound call because it was our first time in the TC without any appointments. I talked with a sweet sweet older lady who was a member but wanted the DVD Finding Faith in Jesus Christ for her inactive children. She was so cute. Those phones calls are usually supposed to be short and sweet, especially if they are members because of how many people are usually calling in at a time. Well this sweet lady had a lot to say and basically talked my ear off. I was on exchanges at the time with my District Leader, Sister V (her real name is literally like 12 letters long and no one can pronounce it so really her name is just V), and she was just listening into the conversation and she was laughing so hard, it was hard for me not to laugh just watching her. But this lady just went on and on and told me her whole life story, she got talking about her son and well, she kind of starting selling him to us a little bit. Told us about how amazing he is and all the nice things he does, oh and did I mention he's still a bachelor? Haha it was so funny.
Sundays. I've gotten some questions about my sunday meetings and how they work, well it's very simple. Sunday mornings before the square opens we have sacrament meeting in the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building. We usually have 4 speakers and a special musical number. The speakers are usually sisters in either there 10 or 11th transfer, so it's like their farewell talk. Depending on how many sisters are in their class decided on how soon we start hearing their class speak. We refer to the sisters that are in the same transfer as in the same class. 
Just teaching you some of the Sister temple square lingo :)
So a quick little miracle before I say goodbye :)
The apartment right next door to us had a sweet old lady living there, we had never met her before but our roomies, Sister Tiritelli and Ranama have met them. Well they moved out yesterday, so wednesday night, we're home doing our studies and she knocks on our door. She has three giant bags of food and she asks us if we could use it. Of course I feel bad, like you don't have to give this to us. She then goes on to explain that they're moving out of the state and the refrigerator food would just go bad if they tried to take it. She was so sweet about it and really wanted us to take it all. It's a miracle because like an hour before that happened Sister Bomgren and I were taking about how we needed to go shopping but we were afraid that we would get paid after P-Day so we weren't really sure what we were going to do. And then, a miracle. Heavenly Father really looks after His missionaries. It gets even better, Thursday Night when we get home we find even more food by our door with a little cute box that had a note from her inside. I now know that there are really angels who live among us, and she was one of them.
I love you all and am so grateful for all of your love and support!
XOXOXOX
-Sister Fluckiger

Friday, August 22, 2014

Missionary Models...What?


Family Family!
It's P-day! Yay!
It's funny in the MTC I felt like P-Day was a waste of a day. We could've been in the classroom being taught things but instead we were in our rooms usually eating food. Wow has my perception on P-Day changed since coming to the mission field. A preparation day is extremely needed in our mission. I am always so busy that by the time Thursday night comes around I'm surprised I'm still walking. This mission really drains you, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I had no idea that smiling, greeting, and bearing testimony all day every day was so tiring. So no I wouldn't say I'm completely used to the new schedule. I do okay waking up in the morning and the afternoons are good. Its usually by dinner time that I'm just dead tired, but I always made it all day. There was one day when I went to bed at 9:15, immediately after we finished planning and Sister Bomgren just laughed at me the next day because I was out like a rock. So I love P-Days :)

Sister Bomgren and I are getting a long very well. I swear she's like my long lost big sister. I keep telling her that she would fit in perfectly to our family :) She's got that same silly sarcastic humor that we all have, it still surprises me haha just this morning we walked out of our apartment and she turns around right as I close the door and says "Oh no Sister I left the keys in the room!" and of course because our door automatically locks when shut I freak out thinking we were going to be locked out all day until around 7 when our roomies get home from the Humanitarian center...Yep she laughed and laughed and laughed. She's from a family 8, apparently a very large family from Sweden, even large for a LDS family in Sweden. People on the square who know about Sweden love to comment about that if it comes up in the conversation, she always laughs it off and will tell some joke about it. She's got three brothers and two sisters and she's the fourth child, so there is still a little sister and a little brother back home. The most frequent comment I have gotten since arriving here as been "Oh my goodness Sister Bomgren she looks like your little sister" haha it reminds me every time of how often people told me that I look like mom :) miss that. It's also super cute and funny because her english isn't perfect (you wouldn't know talking to her though) so sometimes when we're reading a conferenece talk together or the scriptures she'll stop every once in a while and ask what a word means. I keep telling her that she's asking the wrong Sister, I mean I'm pretty sure her english is better than mine. Also some times when we're texting or emailing one of our investigators she'll time one or two words in Swedish, so when I read it over before sending it I just laugh and tell her that I only speak english. At first she was confused by the comment but now she always laughs and gets a little embarrassed. She's trying to teach my Swedish, ya not really working, my mouth was only made to speak english, barely.
It's also super fun because all the Scandinavia Sisters all knew each other before their missions because of how small the church is in their countries so the sisters I hang out most are them. We were just talking today about how the majority of them will be going on their outbound next transfer which is so not okay. I told them all that they weren't allowed to go since their the only sisters I know. It's all good though, Sister Eldenberg (Sweden) can't find her passport so I told her she's stuck here with me. But all the sisters here are amazing, it's literally like a giant family. Even one of our security men says how he thinks of all the sisters here as his own daughters. There's a lot of love in this mission :) I really am blessed.
It's been hard this week, haven't been able to get a hold of a lot of our investigators. Some people just never answer their phones. It's like I'm already back home ;) It was still a good week though. We were able to get a new investigator through chat! He is so golden, and we always laugh when we talk about the whole situation. Chatting with someone online really produces a lot of anxietry waiting for them to respond. Our companionship goal for that day was to be simple but bold, and we were, very. So just waiting for his replies was horrible. It also didn't helped that I really needed to go to the bathroom, like really bad. Sister Bomgren suggested going on exchanges so she could stay and chat while I ran to the bathroom but the conversation was at the high point with us trying to get him to refer himself. It was a very tense 5 minutes waiting haha. I finally ended up going on exchanges and when I came back he still hadn't referred himself but he made a comment about being surprised that we asked for his number and that he wasn't really expecting it. Of course the way he worded it was weird ( he is pretty much this genius scholar who likes to use big words) So Sister Bomgren was so confused and she didn't know what he meant and she was worried that I wouldn't be back in time so she went onto google translate and translated it to Swedish. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. We finally did get his number which resulted with a lot of laughter and screaming and high fives. (That happens a lot in the Teaching Center...or TC) We'll call him next week and follow up on his Book of Mormon reading.
Yay for missionary work!
Another exciting story and will probably make you laugh, it still makes us laugh whenever we talk about it. Well we were in the middle of an apointment with out less-active family over at the Relief Society Building when the AP's called us and told us that they needed to see us right away. So either we are so fantastic at being missionaries or we are the opposite for once again getting called last minute to meet with President and the AP's :) No need to worry though, they just asked us to participate in a special, top-secret project for the Church. The Church wants more people to know about Temple Square, which is hard to believe for me because of how busy we have been, so they are coming up with new ways to advertize the square. But they want to add a portion of the Square that they have never really advertized before, and that's the Sister Missionaries. Weird right? We weren't given a lot of information but they think that they are going to redo some Temple Square website that they have and then add some things to the Temple Square Facebook page (that means everyone has to like this page now) Anyways so they asked us to be models for some shoots that they will be taking. They want pictures of the sisters taking different groups of people around the square on tours. Originally they were going to use all actors, even for the missionaries, but the church decided they wanted real missionaries because of the light that they have. So President was asked to pick 5 companionships to participate, and after a lot of prayer he said, Sister Bomgren and I were chosen as one of the compaionships. I'm not going to lie, neither one of us really believed them when they told us. I mean a photoshoot? we're missionaires. This was definitely something I was not planning on when I was preparing for my mission. All the sisters got assigned a different time, we actually did our shoot yesterday. It was fun. They dressed us up, did our hair and our makeup and made us look all pretty. I did feel bad though, they put like 4 different outfits on me, they were trying to get me to match Sister Bomgren but none of the clothes they put me in fit. They ended up having to pin my skirt with some very heavy duty clothes pins haha. So I guess I haven't gained the missionary 25 yet. :) Even though it felt really awkward it was fun. They actually really only took like 3 or 4 poses with us in the photo. The rest was just of the family we were teaching. But ya, we have no idea when these photos will be launched or even if they will be used. Tina did say that all the photos go into to the church's libary on file so anytime in the future they can use the photos if they want. She did make a comment about new missionary manuals... what are the odds that in 20-30 years they make a new manual for missionaries that you get in the MTC and my kid decides to go on a mission and he sees my face in the manual....weird!
Anyways that was probably the most exciting thing that happened this week. I do have a story for Grandpa though :) we had our security training last night and we went over a lot of different things, e.g. bomb threats, shootings, fires, blah blah blah. But one of the things we went over was extreme weather. President Harmon was giving the presentation, and he apparently is known as the funny guy in the presidency. When the slide went up about extreme weather all the older sisters started hooting and hollering. President Harmon has a story that he LOVES telling about extreme weather and it's very similar to a story that Grandpa likes to tell :). Apparently President Harmon was right across the street from the Square when the SLC tornado came through in 2004. You know the same tornado that we were in. He is very animated in his story telling and it was hilarious. He did ask if any of us were in Salt Lake when the tornado came and of course I told him that I was there, but when he asked if I was on the Square and I told him no he got even more excited and went on to told us that he was! Haha the whole thing was hilarious. I don't even know how to describe his personality or the way he tells stories. I loved it though. So I'm sure, from talking with the other Sisters that that is a story that I will hear over and over again.
I'm glad to hear that everything back home is going well and that everyone is surviving the start of school. As a missionary I've decided I don't like the school season because it makes it very difficult to get a hold of our investigators who are still in school. Darn those good school attending children, don't they know that we're trying to teach them the gospel. oh well as we like to quote our pioneer ansectors "All is well!"
Love you all!
XOXOXOXOX
-Sister Fluckiger

P.S. I know how everyone loves Christmas in August, but I literally get to celebrate Christmas in August :) They've already starting putting up lights and its beautiful, It's finally starting to get dark at night so when we walk home we pass many trees all lit up for Christmas.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Howdy!

Howdy!

Can you believe this week is already almost over? Like what? Things are so busy I always forget what day it is and then bam, it's a new week. I hope everyone back home is staying righteously busy ;) I've learned that being busy is good but only if you're busy doing the things of the Lord. Which is the life of a missionary.

This was the first week in my new schedule being at West Gate. I love it, but still adjusting. It can be very stressful and sometimes I'm pretty sure me and Sister Bomgren forget to breathe but we're alive and well. So I'm scheduled in West Gate right now and just a brief explanation at what we do, whenever individuals on the square want a tour the sisters call west gate and then we email out a mass text to all the sisters currently on the square at that hour to see who can take it. What's stressful about it is during Summer (of course the busiest time of the year) everyone in the world wants a tour and well sometimes sisters aren't available. So ya it gets stressful sometimes but it is also really fun. It's an easy and fast way for me to learn all of the sisters names and to really see just how hard working we need to be as temple square missionaries. What's hard about it and what I'm still adjusting too is before we switched zones and schedules we were on the square almost all day and I loved it. We got to talk to so many people, teach tons of different lessons and take lots of tours. Now because of our west gate assignment square time is sacred and privileged because we never have it. But what Sister Bomgren keeps telling me is that we are helping the other sisters have miracles and find investigators. All is well!

Besides West Gate this week has been great. One of our investigators, Paul, has a baptismal date set in October, we have been trying to get a hold of him since I have arrived and each time we called him he was always walking out the door. So finally on Wednesday he had time to sit down for a lesson, he's a really sweet old man and while we were talking with him we were trying to figure out what the local missionaries have been teaching him. Our goal was to teach him about baptism and then Sister Bomgren really wanted me to invite him to be baptized. So when we asked him if the LM had discussed baptism he said in his really cute southern accent 'of course we've talked about baptism, I'm getting baptized!' Sister Bomgren and I were speechless, we were so happy and surprised we just looked at each other and silently laughed. It's a good thing we teach over the phone, so our investigators never have to see our reactions because neither one of us are very good at keeping straight faces :)

We had tons of other awesome lessons too, we're teaching a less-active family who are super sweet and has a sincere desire to change their lives around, they've been progressing fantastically. We met them at Map Desk, which we like to call Miracle Desk because so many miracles always start there. We're also teaching a woman from Russia who's visiting the states for a few weeks along with some other people we are still trying to get a hold of.
Earlier this week we got to spend some time on the square before going home, and I don't know if I've shared this with you before but we run into elders quite a lot from the surrounding missions. They bring their investigators and do a lesson with sisters here. We have been trying to get an investigator lesson (that's what we call it) scheduled with us but so far no luck. Hopefully soon though because if the investigator you teach gets baptized and they invite you President allows us to go to the baptism! Speaking of investigator lessons one night we were getting ready to head home but we realized we still had like 5 minutes so we decided to walk the square to see if we could talk with anyone. We walked up to the Christus and saw some elders and sisters teaching an investigator lesson, and I knew one of the elders! It was Elder Shayne Simmons! It was so good to see him. We hung around for a few minutes because they were finishing up the lesson, so we got to talk to him for a few. I can't believe he's almost been out a year, that sure went by fast, doesn't seem like that long at all. It was really fun to see and talk with him even if it was brief. That's the life of a missionary, always someplace to be and someone to teach. But on temple square the world is very small, it's been fun to find all the different connections we have with different people.

Oh I also got to have an amazing meeting this morning with the AP's and President. They call it the Living Christ meeting. They do it every transfer with the new sisters. Talk about powerful! There is definitely an amazing spirit with us always, I think it's the combination of 200 missionaries all serving within the same 35 acres and then add to that the 35 acres are dedicated grounds. But before the meeting we were invited to read the Living Christ and pick out our favorite part and then write our testimony on the back of it. I read it like three times before the meeting and each time I had a new favorite part, I'm sure that is something that will continue throughout my mission and my life. It is such a powerful and beautifully written testimony on the divinity of Christ. If you haven't read it recently, you should.( I love it and I know that you will too. In the meeting President shared a few words and then we just went around and we all shared our favorite part and then shared our testimony on Christ. Of course it's a meeting full of girls so we all cried. But they were all happy tears. One sister made a comment about the atonement that I absolutely love, she was saying how the atonement, even though it involved an unmeasurable amount of pain for the Savior, should be a rejoicing subject, a happy thing. In the words of Sister Fluckiger, a happy dance :) I love Jesus Christ and I am so honored to represent Him.

We also had our P-Day miracle this morning. Some Sisters always think that nothing exciting happens on P-day because there's not much time to be on the Square or in the TC but so far we have had a P-Day miracle each P-Day (of course this is only our second one together but I have faith it will continue). Today's miracle was we were in the TC looking through our area book. We had already taught all of our scheduled appointments and we still had about 10 minutes left scheduled. So we scanned our area book looking for someone to call. And of course we called someone, her name is Whitney, she's 17 years old and a friend of hers went online and referred her to the Temple Square missionaries. Her info got transferred to us because the sister who was going to call her got called outbound. So we called her, talked with her, found out that she was absolutely golden. I invited her to be baptized and she said yes! No joke! We were so surprised, the two of us just stared at each other holding each other by our arms and just prayed that we wouldn't scream. I'm sure it was a little awkward on Whitney's side of the phone because after she said yes we were just silent... no response no nothing. We did not know what to say we were so shocked. But we composed ourselves enough to finish the lesson, but I'm sure you all can imagine what I did the second we hit end call. Yep we both jumped out of our seats screaming. Such a wonderful experience. It was such a short powerful lesson. Nothing was prepared, everything was directly by the Spirit. It's remarkable how unified Sister Bomgren and I are already. Both of us received the same promptings about what we needed to ask her and what we needed to invite her to do. Beautiful experience. Life is so much better and full of so much more happiness when it is led by the Spirit.
After that our P-Day just got better, we celebrated by going to lunch at Bocata :) an amazing sandwich shop. Thank you Sister Fryer! And then we met up with our district and zone leaders and went on a sight-seeing bus. So much fun! The bus didn't have a roof so we actually stood the majority of the time and we just drove around Salt Lake City. It was fun to see other parts of the city, I've only been out a few weeks and I already understand when Sisters who have been out over a year talk about how foreign they still feel because visitors will ask us where something is or where a good tourist spot is besides the square and none of us ever know. Our mission and life literally only exists on 35 acres. That's it, yay for having the smallest yet largest mission in the world! So we got to see the capital, some really cool old looking chapels, drove through Utah Sate and then when to Heritage Park along with some other places. It was a lot of fun, Sister V our district leader was just waving to everyone. It became very comical because there was only two other people on the bus with us, so driving around everyone was just staring at this group of sister missionaries standing up on this sight seeing tour bus.
After the tour we all went and got frozen yogurt. It's like I'm already back home, the frozen yogurt place it right across the street from the Square. But they do this awesome thing, you get a small bowl and for about 2 dollars you can have as much frozen yogurt as you can pile on. I swear Sister Lytle, another Sister in our district got hers almost a mile high. It was ridiculous but absolutely delicious. Definitely a place we will be going again.
I love you all and am so happy when I get to hear from you, thank you all for the lovely letters and packages. It's like Christmas all year round. You're all the bestest!
                           XOXOXOX
                        -Sister Fluckiger

Monday, August 11, 2014

Miracle Mission

I am a Temple Square Missionary!!! How crazy is that?!
Oh my goodness, so many things to tell you, so many things have happened. I can't believe it's only been like 5 days, doesn't feel like that at all. I love being a missionary, I'm pretty sure I have testified about the gospel more in the last 5 days than I have in my entire life. It's wonderful! So I'm just going to try to share everything that's happened so that you get a feel for what my mission is like since it is so different and unique compared to other missions. 
Day 1 was just a wonderful, emotional, blur. We arrived at the square around seven in the morning. The first few hours were long and pretty uneventful, we got our nametags, flags, mission card, and mission rules and all that fun stuff. They basically shared with us just how our mission works. Oh speaking of nametags, did you all hear that I am now Sister Fluckinger? :) I laughed when I saw it, the AP's felt so bad, but they said the new tags are on the way so until then I've just told everyone that the 'N' is silent. We then met President Poulsen, I love him. We were unable to meet Sister Poulsen because she fell and broke her wrist last week and has been on some pretty high medications for pain. She's supposed to get surgery next week so please pray for her. I'm so excited to meet her, all the sisters call her the Mission Mom :) It's pretty cool because we see President pretty often because his office is on the Square and usually Sister Poulsen is also in everyday. We actually see everyone, such a blessing, no one had to say goodbye because you are always able to run into everyone occasionally. So I still get to see all my MTC sisters which is fantastic. So after President spoke to us as a whole we then met with him individually and then with the AP's. Sister Briggs and Sister McQueen are the AP's and they are wonderful, well every sister here is wonderful but I love them. After all the meetings, the 11 of us just relaxed and hung out in the theater watching Mormon Messages. What we didn't know was that they had our trainers picked out but they waited until meeting with us to pair us together. Then while we were in the theater President and the AP's prayed and discussed who should be paired with who. That was the longest process every! But patience is a virtue. So Sister Bomgren is my trainer, I love her! She is perfect, and she's perfect for me. The Lord really knows what he's doing. Cool story though, Sister Briggs shared with us that the second she met me she knew I needed to be with Sister Bomgren, then after praying with President, President immediately paired the two of us together, without Sister Briggs needing to say anything. And then as the other companionship's bounced around, we always stayed the same. It was definitely meant to be. We have had so much fun already and I have learned so much from her! She's from Sweden, and has been out under a year. She went to BYU Hawaii before her mission (Apparently like half the sisters in the mission went there so they already all knew each other). We are basically the same person, have gone through similar trials before our mission, same family relationships, same hobbies. It's pretty cool as we learn more about each other. 
We live in the second nice apartment in the whole mission, which is pretty awesome. Except knowing that eventually I'll have to move to a not as nice apartment, so I'm going to enjoy it while I can. We live with two other sisters, one is from the states and the other is from Fiji. We have our own washer and dryer which is so cool and then around the block we have our own track where we go running every morning and sometimes play soccer on the field. We have early schedule so our schedule is 15 minutes ahead, for example we get up at 6:15 instead of 6:30 and go to bed at 10:15. This is Sister Bomgren's first time having early schedule so she's still getting used to it, but I love it.

Okay enough about all the boring details, time to share all the miracles that have happened. Temple Square is literally the Miracle Mission. The Sisters here all refer to their mission calls as the Golden Ticket and I now understand why. I think the one thing I have learned the most during these past few days is that everything happens for a reason, everything. Especially on Temple Square, if Heavenly Father wants you to run into someone, you do. He places His prepared children in the path of His prepared servants. Just in the past 5 days we already have 7 new investigators, to add to the many people we are already teaching, it's mind blowing. The field is white ready to harvest. I've never read a more true sentence. I am so grateful for the decision that I made to serve a mission, I already feel like it is the best decision I have ever made. I love it. Every sister has a different schedule according to what zone they are in. We have Square, so we are on the square the majority of the day. Contacting people and taking tours, it's been so much fun. I did get my first anti on day one. That was a fun experience, thank goodness for my wonderful companion. We just testified our hearts out and then left. I think that's my favorite part of my mission, bearing testimony. We do it all the time, left and right. Our goal is to have everything that we share with people be laced with our testimony. It's so much fun. What's even better is when you can see in our guests eyes when they have felt the spirit because of our testimony. What a wonderful feeling. 

So I want to share two quick examples of us being at the perfect spot at the perfect time. On Wednesday, day 1, we were on the square and supposed to stay only on the square but a sister who was serving in the Beehive House had forgotten her Bible so we ran and got it and dropped it off at the Beehive House. On our way back to the square we met Nikki. A recent convert who has just moved to Salt Lake and didn't know where to go to church, how to contact new missionaries for the new member lessons, and really didn't know what to do. So what did Elder Nelson counsel us all the do? "Ask the missionaries, they can help!" So Nikki didn't actually stop to talk to us but she and her friends had just finished a tour of the beehive house and were on their way back to the square and Sister Bomgren being the awesome missionary that she is said hello to them as we were walking and that led to a conversation which led us to find out that she was a RC and her situation. She was super excited to meet us and when we told her that we could stay in contact and teach her the lessons she was even more excited! She actually reminds me a lot of Emily :) it's been so wonderful teaching her, she has such a strong testimony and her family was all baptized because of her example and now she's sharing the gospel to all her friends. Perfect example of a wonderful member missionary. Funny how you don't realize how important and influential member missionaries are until you become a missionary. Member missionary work, it works! So we got her to her ward for Sunday and we'll follow up with her this week.

Example number 2. On Sunday after church we were scheduled to work in the Assembly Hall, but last minute Sister Lee wanted us to come with her and her companion to Music and the Spoken Word over at the conference center. We didn't have a cover for the Assembly Hall but she wanted us to come so bad that she ran and found a cover for us. So we got to go, it was so amazing. And guess who showed up? President Thomas S Monson! How crazy is that? He was literally five rows in front of us. So on day 5 of my mission I got to see the Prophet, no big deal :) 
But no that wasn't the miracle, that was just a bonus. Afterwards we were walking out of the Conference Center about to head back to the Square when three guys from Sweden come up to us because they recognized Sister Bomgren's flag and start speaking Swedish to her. Totally cool! Apparently it's very rare for people to come from Sweden. She'll usually get to give a Swedish tour once every two months, maybe. Even better though was that they were very strong Christians, also very rare for Sweden. So after chatting a bit and telling them who we were and what we did they asked us for a tour. So of course we said yes! Their English was very good so the majority of the tour was in English thankfully. So we taught them the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation and some other key parts, they were very interested with lots and lots of questions. Such a lesson that it's really the Spirit that teaches because some of the questions they had I somehow answered, but thinking back I know that it was not me. They all asked for a Book of Mormon and one even said how excited he was to read it after hearing our testimonies of it. How wonderful that was to hear! We got all their information and now I have 3 Swedish investigators :)
There were many many more instances like that that really showed me just how many people are prepared for this message. We just have to open our mouths to share it.

So I'm sure you've all heard that I ran into the Fryers and the McGraths. :) They both made my day and week. And just so you know it is no small miracle that they found me. Our schedule is so crazy, we are never in the same spot for longer than a couple of minutes. So the fact that they found me is miraculous. The day Brother Anderson found us, we were down in the basements praying about our baptism goals for this transfer, afterwards we were actually going to head home to do our studies, but last minute Sister Bomgren wanted to head over to the Joseph Smith Memorial building to use the ATM, which meant we had to go out a different door than we normally would have. And who did I see after walking up the stairs? Sweet Brother Anderson :) and of course that meant we had to take the time to go find the rest of the family. I love them all. The same thing happened with Sister McGrath, we had just finished lunch and were just about to start planning for one of our investigators when I had a prompting to check our phone (we are horrible about checking it, and always miss phone calls and messages) and we had a text message from another sister telling us that she was looking for me. The message though was sent 25 min earlier so I knew that it was unlikely that she was still at the North Visitors Center, were she was when the message was sent. But Sister Bomgren said that we could go check. So we walked around the center for a few minutes, contacted a few people and then as we were talking with a cute couple I see them across the room. So much fun talking with them, I forgot how much I missed them living near us :) So yes miracles happen every day at Temple Square. 
I have been called to the Miracle Mission.

I love you all and miss you lots! But families can be together for eternity so I know that we have lots of time to spend together! There is a beautiful video presentation at the Visitor Center called God's Plan, it's all about God's plan for families. Everyone needs to see it!!!! Everyone! It's only 11 minutes long but it's our favorite thing on the square, 2nd to the Christus Statue. My testimony on the importance of eternal families has grown leaps and bounds. It's funny how much you grow as a missionary. But really, I want you all the see it :) so I guess you have to find a reason toe visit a visitor center. I love taking families to see it and being able to bear testimony of how grateful I am and how blessed my life has been because of the knowledge of eternal families. 
I love you all, and hope things are going fantastic back home.
Don't forget to laugh today!

XOXOXOXOXO
-Sister Fluckiger

Wednesday, August 6, 2014


Hey Momma and Daddy!
Just quick and short, they gave us a few minutes to email home to let you know that we're alive, and well :) 
We leave tomorrow morning at 6:00am, (August6th) we go to the airport first to drop off the missionaries leaving and then we head over to the square!! AAAHHH I am so excited to meet my trainer and my Mission President. So we don't know when our next P-Day is. It can be anyday from Monday to Friday. So just watch for me I guess. 
As far as I know, we get there and go to City Creek first to get all the things we supposedly need, and then after that go back to the square for like hours long orientation about the square and we get our name tags and flags and all that jazz. 
I of course will let you know how it all goes.
I love you and really appreciate all the letters, emails, and prayers for me. 

Friday, August 1, 2014

Super Sisters

Hey Fam Bam!

Surprise! I get two P-days in one week, totally exciting right? It's because on Wednesday our schedule completely switched so that all the sisters in visitor center training had the same schedule including the same p-day. But because we will be arriving at Temple Square on Wednesday who knows when my next preparation day will be. 

Visitor Center training is amazing! and super hard. Me and Sister Bulaoat have decided that the easiest way to describe VC training is to call is Superhero Training. That is exactly what it is, they are training us to be Super Sisters! The classroom hours have doubled and the number of investigators we teach each day has tripled. They are seriously whipping us into shape. I mean our classroom is on the fifth floor. We have to walk up and down five flights of stairs at least four times a day, at a minimum. To start us off, all 18 sisters who are in VC training with me, got to take a field trip to Temple Square, talk about the best experience thus far! We got the 'guest experience'. Two sisters took us on a short little tour and told us a little of the history of the assembly hall and then showed us the Prophets exhibit. Then our teacher, Sister Welch, took us to Heaven.
We got to go up to the Christus and just sit there and ponder the call each of us received. Talk about such a powerful spirit. Then Brother Billings came and spoke to us. According to Sister Welch our call is so important that the Supervisor of all the visitor centers in the missionary department likes to come talk to all the new VC Sisters. So that is who Brother Billings is, he oversees all the visitor centers all over the world, pretty cool right? He first off told us how important it was for us not to listen or believe anything the members say. For some reason members of the church have this assumption that VC missions are not real missions, but they are. We are the pioneer missions for all the technology use that all the proselyting missions are now starting to use. And as Brother Billings said, instead of a single area that we are allowed to teach in, we have the entire world. The visitor centers alone had over 200 baptism last month. Awesome right? We're one of the highest baptizing missions, and it's all because of the VC Sisters. It's hard to believe that I'll be one of those sisters in less than a week. I am super excited but I feel so far from being ready. I was so grateful for everything Brother Billings said to us, it really just confirmed the call I had received and made me even more excited. He just kept repeating to us over and over, we do everything that other missionaries do, we just do it online. We still have the same relationships with our investigators but our relationships last longer because they don't disappear when we get transferred. We will be able to stay in contact with our converts long past their baptisms, and I am super excited for that. 
After leaving the Square Sister Welch shared with us just exactly how VC sister missionaries are chosen, and I don't think I will ever forget. In the missionary department they have a room with a giant map of all the missions where they assign the calls. A larger than life photo of you pops up on the wall with all your information next to it. The instant a VC sister's picture pops up they know she has to be assigned to a visitor center. Instantly. They don't know which one right away but they always know that it has to be a visitor center, and it's not because of what she looks like, like members of the church always like to assume. They look for only two things, to be able to see the light of Christ and a testimony of the atonement in their eyes. Those are the two most important things to them. They want to have visitors come from all over the world and talk with these sister missionaries and be able to see these things in their eyes. How beautiful is that? I was so grateful that she shared that with us, it was exactly what I needed to hear after my week. I just love how inspired the teachers at the MTC are, I have had so many experiences where they have shared something and I swear it was just for me, even if the other sisters say the same thing. 
In our class of 18 sisters, 11 of them are going with me to temple square next week, 2 are going to the Mormon Battalion in San Diego and the rest are going to Winter Quarters in Nebraska. Apparently it is really rare to have this many sisters going to a VC at the same time. The most they usually have is 6 and the normal is like 2-3. Brother Billings said that we all must have done something pretty freaking amazing in the Pre-Life to get sent to a visitor center today, and I totally believe him, the sisters in my class are absolutely fantastic! We have learned so much from each other, what a blessing it was to have been put together with them. 
So half of my mission at Temple Square will be done in the referral center, which is just Mormon.org chat, and we started that on Wednesday. It was the coolest experience ever! We got to chat with real live people. Sister Anderson, the teacher over the referral center was laughing so hard at us on Wednesday night when we started, our reactions were pretty funny. I'll try to describe just went on, 18 girls all in front of their own laptop staring at a screen waiting for a name to pop up. Now here's the thing, when a name did pop up you had to be the first sister to double click on the name in order to have the chat. It instantly turned into a game. And being the girls that we are, we're all screaming during this whole event. Sister Desjourdy described us as 'Fishers of Men', screaming 'I got one, I got one!' Whenever we got someone to chat with, it was so much fun, Sister Brooks and I chatted with a girl name Tiara who joined the church back in 2012 but has become inactive. We got her information so hopefully we'll be able to stay in touch with her and get her going to church again. We also chatted with a young man who needed help preparing for his mission. We also learned that basically everyone thinks the missionaries on Mormon.org know everything and can fix everything. We got people who were looking for marriage advice, dating advice, and people who wanted to know about transgender operations, and that wasn't even the worse of it. We also got a lot of 'trolls' people who go online just to waste our time and be rude. Talk about an interesting experience. 
I'm loving it though, even if it feels like the first three days of the MTC all over again, long class hours, not enough time to eat, struggling to stay awake. Basically the life of a MTC missionary. The devotionals have also been fantastic, we have one every Sunday and Tuesday night so we still have two more to go and we're all praying that it will be an apostle. Last Tuesday John H. Groberg came and spoke to us. That name sound familiar? Think of the movie 'The Other Side of Heaven' He's Elder Groberg who the entire movie is about. So we basically got to hear from a celebrity. It was awesome, he talked about the importance of bearing testimony. it was a beautiful talk, especially because I'm going to a visitor center. I've been told that if we don't bear testimony then we're not missionaries. Bear your testimony at all times, and in all places. We're called to represent Christ, so we have to be his voice which means speaking of the things we know to be true. It was a very powerful talk. I love meeting with the thousands of missionaries in that one room, talk about a wonderful spirit. 
We also have been able to go to the temple each p-day. We went this morning and it was wonderful. The first few days of being here I think I was going through withdrawals. I was so used to going so often before my mission that all of a sudden I could only go when they told me I could. The first day back at the temple was perfect, talk about a stress reliever. I love the peace found in the temple, it's sad, I think so many people forget of the beauty that is in the temple because they don't go often enough, going once a week since arriving has been perfect and I wish i could continue that schedule throughout all my mission. I am so blessed though to be serving on temple grounds the majority of my mission!
Oh some cool news, so we were able to talk to some sister missionaries when we went to the square. We found out that President Poulsen is now having sisters stay for 17 transfers instead of 16. So my estimated release date is February 3rd. Also outbound is now only two transfers, it used to be more but President has cut it back because he wants the Sisters on the square as much as possible. That's really all I've learned about my President so far, but one of our teachers is actually from the missionary department and works with President all the time and says he is fantastic. I'm so excited to finally meet him next week. August 6th is the day we arrive on the square. We bus over at 6:00am. we do go to the airport first to drop off leaving missionaries but we are not allowed to call home like other missionaries unfortunately. So no more letters from dearelder.com after August 5th
Oh and side note, everyone is so fantastic! I have received so much mail it is perfect! I love you all, those back home and those farther from home. I am so blessed to have you all in my life and want you to know that all the letters have just meant the world to me. Mail time is the best time!
I love you all!
Oh and if you could pray for Sister Desjourdy please, she hurt her back pretty back and we're all praying it heals in time so she doesn't get delayed. 

XOXOXOXO
-Sister Fluckiger


Shoutouts
-Grandma I hope it's okay that I stole your signature XOXOX, it just makes me think of you everything I use it so I couldn't help :)
-mom can you tell Elaine McGrath that I arrive at temple square on the 6th and I've been told that for the first two transfers I will only be on the square and no where else. I don't know yet what my schedule will be and if I even allowed to tell her.
-I Love you