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
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