The Time is Far Spent

Another wonderful week has come and gone! Time really is just an awful thing. :) Oh well, you have to live with what you've got. Lot's of different things happened this week and all of them were fun and exciting. I mean it's always fun to be a missionary and exciting things happen 24/7, but I only have photos documenting a few of those fun things....

​Our trip last week to the Provo City Temple for our Preparation Day :)

​My last Staff Meeting with the entire gang!

​My lovely African friend, Sister Sonku (South Africa). She said that we didn't have enough photos together. 

​Music and the Spoken Word yesterday. The last Sunday the entire departing class will goes together. 

​Oh and this is my home away from home :)

I love you all and hope that you will continue to have amazing miracles happen within your own lives. I truly know that this is the Lord's church and it's honor to serve on His team. 

2 Nephi 33:7

... and I guess I'll be seeing you in a few!

XOXOXOX

Sister Fluckiger

I Feel My Savior's Love

G'Day Family! 

Tomorrow is Australian Day and so in behalf of my lovely companion I hope you do something Aussie. (I don't know what that would entail but I'm sure you can figure something out :))

This week sure was filled with tender mercies from the Lord. Sister Rajah and I have been praying to be able to have the eyes to notice those little miracles or instances when God touches our lives.

I remember Sister Clayton, wife of Elder Clayton coming to our Sacrament and speaking to us and sharing that we must have the eyes to see and the hearts to remember those instances. When everything you do is focused on moving the Lord's work forward it really is amazing to see all that He does for you. 

This week He has led us to some wonderful people who have been able to strengthen us as we have taught and testified. The Lord really His mindful of His children :) What a glorious truth. 

Helping adjust President and Sister Risenmay to the mission has been fun. They are both great. Sister Risenmay is so lively and always comes into our office just to 'chat' haha. It catches us off guard most times because we always assume that she has something for us to do or wants us to know about something when in reality she just wanted to say hi :) It's cute, I think she's having a blast being in a mission with all girls. They are both going to wonderful things for the mission. 

Tomorrow we start transfer planning! Crazy that it's already here, President hasn't wanted to start until he finished interviewing every single sister which has pushed us back so we get to start and finish this week. Hopefully it works out that way! 

Tuesday we had the worldwide Missionary Broadcast in the Conference Center Theater and apparently it was the first one in about a decade. We were blessed to be able to attend and we recieved training from Elder Anderson, Elder Oaks, and then some from the Missionary Department and some of the Seventies. It was a wonderful experience and we have been trying to apply a lot of it into the mission. The work sure is hastening!

Sister Rajah helps keep me sane amidst all of the many different things that we have been doing. We sure do have a lot of fun together! Sometimes too much fun, it's that's possible.

​

I also cut her hair this week! And it actually looks good! I've been telling all the sisters that I'm secretly a professional :) All the things that you get to do while serving a mission. 

Hey I love you all! This Sunday my MTC class will be doing the special musical number during Sacrament Meeting. It's bit of a tradition. We will be singing the 3rd and 4th verse of "I Feel My Savior's Love" which I think mostly goes unnoticed. Sister Desjourdy and I found it when they said we should sing this song so we requested to sing those verses. :) It's simply my testimony of my mission. 

3. I feel my Savior's love

And know that he will bless me.

I offer him my heart;

My shepherd he will be.

He knows I will follow him,

Give all my life to him.

I feel my Savior's love,

The love he freely gives me.

4. I'll share my Savior's love

By serving others freely.

In serving I am blessed.

In giving I receive.

He knows I have followed him,

Given all my life to him.

I feel my Savior's love, 

By serving others freely.

Hope you have a wonderful week! Love you all!

XOXOX

Sister Fluckiger 

God is Real!

My dear family!! 

This week has been probably one of the craziest weeks of my mission (I'm sure that I say that every week, but this time I mean it!)

First off, I apologize for not emailing yesterday. We had meetings with the new Mission President until 5:30pm and at that point there just isn't a point at having a preparation day, so now we are having it today! Yay.

You would be amazing at all that has happened within this week. It felt like a months worth of events were all crammed into a single week. it was also an up and down thing. This week we said goodbye to the wonderful Poulsens. I'm still in a little bit of denial that they are gone. I truly know that they were exactly what I needed for my mission. I also know that President and Sister Risenmay are exactly what the mission needs now and it's been a blessing to work with them the past few days. 

:) I don't know how President Poulsen put up with us for so long, but I sure appreciate it. 

Last week Sister Rajah and I drove down to the MTC for the day. I came full circle, started my mission at the MTC and now I had the opportunity to be sent back! It did feel weird going their again, that MTC smell...it's a real thing haha. The other funny thing was all the missionaries giving us these weird looks because we were walking around with these strange and different name tags :) For the most part we just pretended to be new missionaries again, we fit right in with everyone! 

The group tour that we gave went really well! Talk about stressful though. There's nothing like giving a tour to a bunch of mission presidents and visitor center directors AND all of the staff from the Visitor Center department of the Missionary Department. Thankfully it was the first time and the last time ever doing something like that. 

The blessing of being down in Provo for the day was getting to walk around the Provo Temple 

After surviving that task, the next one was to transition Mission Presidents. We said goodbye to President and Sister Poulsen Thursday night and Friday morning President and Sister Risenmay arrived bright and early. They are wonderful and are exactly what the mission needs at this time. It's kind of fun to be able to work so closely with two different Mission Presidents, a little bit crazy too. Our mission is so unique and there are just so many variables and it's been fun to try and help them all figure it out.  

Yesterday we were able to take them around to see all of the different centers and sites and show them all that we do here. They previously served in the Salt Lake City South Mission and they have shared with us how our mission is one of a kind :) 

Then we also welcomed three new wonderful sisters from the MTC this week! They were supposed to come on Transfer Day but have been living in the MTC for many many weeks, so we said we could just take them early. It's great to see new missionaries and to feel the fire that they have within them. Every time we are with President I always find myself volunteering to train again :) I say, a year and a half is just not long enough! 

Amidst all of this Sister Rajah and I have been able to see our Father taking care of our investigators. Sadly we weren't blessed with as much proselyting time but the time that we do have miracles just pop out at us left and right. One investigator finally got a hold of the locals, one was able to have the blessing of baptism, one was able to make it to church, and we were able to find many more. You get so much done as you serve on Temple Square, it blows my mind every time a week ends and we review all that has happened. The Lord sure does take care of us and His many other children. Last night after finishing our last meeting with President Risenmay we hit the square running! We were able to take a few texted out tours and place a few copies of the Book of Mormon. One sweet couple that we took around was from Texas and you could tell that their hearts were in the right place. As we were in the Tabernacle we were teaching the restoration and explaining to them the blessing of having a Prophet of the earth again today. I don't think I will ever get over how cool it is that we have a living, breathing, Prophet of God on the earth...today! As we were sharing this with this couple you could see the light of understanding come into their eyes. For a split second they got it! We brought up the Book of Mormon and explained that it was the 'fruit' that would allow them to know if the Prophet was true. They told us that they would read it on their plane home. That's another blessing of serving in a place where everyone is visiting because almost everyone has to get home somehow and it usually takes some time - the perfect time to read! 

I love being a missionary and I love being on Temple Square.  It's been warmer recently, all the snow is gone and the sun has come out. The next few weeks are going to be a lot of fun as we continue to teach repentance and baptize converts! 

Oh and here is a picture of my companion in a box:

​Sometimes when we are bored we hide in boxes and jump out at people. President Hinckley always said that "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured" 

Love you all!!

XOXOXO

-Sister Fluckiger

Work Work Work!!!

Hi Everyone!!

The sun is shining here in Utah and the sky is a beautiful blue! Now that is just a plus to the wonderful work that has been happening on the square! 

President has been taking the time to do a lot of interviews for the sisters that are going home and then he also started cleaning out his office, which means more proselyting time for us! 

I'll admit, over the last two transfers I've found myself sometimes getting caught up in the list of things we must do everyday that it clouds the real reason that I am here. Being able to be out and about, contacting, finding, and teaching our investigators was a real treat. It's definitely the best part about missionary work. Sister Rajah and I have probably even had too much fun with all of it :) (if there is such a thing as "too much fun"). 

The Lord provided us with a lot of miracles which was wonderful. One of our investigators in California is planning on being baptized soon but the last two weeks we hadn't been able to get a hold of her. Which usually doesn't worry us too much since they have the locals but we were a tiny bit worried because the last time we had talked with her she was able to share with us a few of her concerns and we realized that she hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon in a while because the locals were having her focus on the lesson pamphlets. It's never a good sign when investigators aren't reading the Book of Mormon... the miracle was, after many many days of pray and fasting, Saturday night during our Weekly Planning session we received a text from her explaining why she hadn't been in touch. She had some hard things happen within her family, but the last sentence in her text was: "I am reading the Book of Mormon, it's helped me. I still have a lot to learn but I'm going to do it" 

I sure do love that book :) 

It's funny, we also took a tour of a family from Atlanta (I love taking people around from the south!) and it ended up being a really nice experience. They weren't too interested in finding out if our church could benefit them in anyway, they were more interested in trying to figure out what makes us tick and why we would do something as crazy as serve a full time mission and not get paid for it. I made a comment to the mom in the middle of it that no missionary in the world would give up so much time and money to leave their home and go knock on strangers' doors all day long everyday. By the end of the tour she took my arm and looked me straight in the eye and asked me: "and you really believe this?" I don't know if this is accurate or not, but I think in most cases it's human nature to automatically doubt when you are questioned like that. For me, I feel like it just strengthens me because I always have the spirit witness to me in that moment that I am right. That this really is His church. I wish everyone could know that now. Eventually everyone will of course, I guess I'm still waiting on the patience thing :) 

 

​

Something fun that we did this week was following Relief Society my MTC class went and took photos with President and Sister Poulsen. Elder Moore even let me use his fancy, expensive (I even asked him...it's more expensive than me!), and very heavy camera. After taking only 3 photos my arms were tired. And I thought I was in pretty good shape again. I don't know how photographers do it. 

​The old MTC gang is back together! (we are missing a few...but they ditched out early)

​Two of my favorite people! President and Sister Poulsen spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday. Both shared wonderful testimonies. They are sure going to be missed! The work will continue to move forward though! I am excited for the opportunity to learn from President and Sister Risenmay, all that we have heard has been wonderful things!

Oh and the funny thing of the week, we have an investigator who is in Nigeria, he is a favorite of mine. We met him online so he knows us by our first names, but Sister Rajah has decided that I need to officially change my name. Every time we call he always raps to us, and then asks "where is Alizzzaaa??!" Somehow that also led to all of our other African investigators calling me that. It's hard not to laugh during every lesson. Teaching all nations is such a blast! It's neat to be able to see the gospel go into so many parts of the world. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's a one size fits all!

Love you all lots!!

XOXOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

It's 2016 Already?

My oh my! Where does time fly!?

This was one of those awful weeks where not one of our investigators answered the phone. So sad, luckily we were able to use the time to find new people to teach. We met a wonderful Italian exchange student who came to visit Temple Square and wanted to learn more and meet with missionaries.  We also met a great family whose neighbors are members of the church and then decided to come to Temple Square to see what makes that family tick haha. The dad is now going to read the Book of Mormon and they are going to meet the missionaries when they return home. So despite us worrying about all of our other investigators, the Lord provided for us to see miracles and we talked with and taught those who came to Temple Square. 

This past week was also the very last week of the Christmas lights! I love Christmas time, it's a magical time of the year where so many hearts have been softened. Sister Rajah and I have been able to cover a lot of the Christmas assignments which was lots of fun! 

​

One of my favorites is to be up by the Statue of Christ, we had large groups of families come and visit which was so fun to be able to witness them teaching each other and learning about how they kept Christ in the center of their holiday season. I secretly snatched this photo as they were listening to the lovely narration of the Savior's words found in the scriptures. I sure am grateful for my Savior and His loving atonement that allows us to grow and become more like Him. 

Along with the Christmas fun we've had a few meetings with the missionary department, they have basically been fine tuning our teaching skills because next week we are going to be driving down to the MTC to give a group of brand new Visitor Directors, Mission Presidents, and wives a group tour to demonstrate to them how we can still fulfill our missionary purpose even if we are assigned to a visitor center. So that's been fun and exciting. We will be able to meet President and Sister Risenmay though, they will be arriving to the mission on January 15th. We've only heard wonderful things about them and I know that I'll be able to learn a lot from them during the few weeks we'll be able to serve together. 

With the new mission president arriving it also means that we have been getting everything ready for President and Sister Poulsen to leave. Really sad to think about but we are enjoying all the time that we have to be with them. This Thursday for Relief Society we are actually going to be surprising them with a special program to thank them. The zones have come together and written different songs and poems that they are going to present to them along with some gifts and a slideshow. Sisters here sure are creative! One of President's favorite things is music and listening to us sing so that will be the majority of it. 

​Here's one song that the sisters wrote, it's to the tune of "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet"

​

And then, here's a poem that a zone wrote together. 

We are super excited, we know that they are going to love it! The trick is keeping it a secret as long as possible. :) 

I hope you all had a wonderful Sabbath yesterday! It's still my favorite day of the week!

We had our fast and testimony meeting in Sacrament and I loved being able to see and hear sisters from all over the world share about their love for Christ and His church. Sometimes I think of the movie Grinch and how at the end He went through this painful experience where His heart suddenly grew three sizes bigger. I feel like I can relate to him, haha, I mean my experience hasn't been as drastic of course. But with the atonement of Christ, that really can happen to us! He can help us grow our own hearts and the love we have for others can and will grow. It's been a neat experience. It's fun to serve in a place like Temple Square with so many wonderful sisters from all over the place. 

So all the amazing sisters is a plus but then when you think of all the cool people who come to Temple Square, that's another plus. Last night as we were up on the square we ran into one of my zone leaders from when I was in Atlanta. He asked us how it was serving on Temple Square compared to when we were in our Outbound missions. I told him that when I was in Atlanta I felt like everyone I taught was the same person, same story, same background, same needs - or almost at least. He agreed. On Temple Square though within 5 minutes you'll meet two groups of people from separate sides of the world with completely different needs and backgrounds.  I mean yesterday alone I met someone from Texas who knew everything there was to know about the Mormon church and had no interest in it at all but because of how changing her life was, had a hard time believing that God really did know her. Then I met a family from Brazil who were hard core Catholics but knew nothing about the Mormon Church. Using the same scripture for everyone doesn't really work that way here, you always have to make sure you are in-tune with the Spirit so He can tell you what they need. It's fun and exciting! 

Serving a mission is the best thing anyone could ever do. For the year of 2015 we were able to reach our goal as a mission of 900 baptisms...we actually exceeded it! This morning we set another mission wide baptismal goal for the year of 1,016 for the year of 2016! I always like to picture Heavenly Father's dining room table - He has a lot of chairs and we are all trying to fill them! Lots and lots of work to be done :)

I love you all and hope you are having a wonderful week!

​

XOXOXOX

Sister Fluckiger 

Christmas Excitement

Words cannot express the amount of things/work that we accomplished this week. 

So here are some pictures instead:

A lost sheep who is no longer lost :)-  I found him a year ago when I was companions with Sister Fingerle

We took the Organ tour Christmas morning!

Following the tour we gathered together as a mission and had a Christmas Devotional and then went and opened presents together!

​

YAY...Santa came and visited us :D

We had to buy 30 pizzas the day after Christmas....luckily the Lord provides a way...

He provided Costco...

That's all the fun things that happened this week, I won't bore you with all the meetings and office work. 

However, the Lord really did provide for us this week with our investigators! They are all doing wonderful and all made it to church yesterday and some of them are preparing for baptism now! Yesterday was our day that we prayed to be able to get a hold of every single one of them and they actually ALL answered the phone! (that never happens!) God sure is good!

We also had time this week to go on some exchanges with the Zone Leaders, it was fun, I served with Sister Sonku (South Africa) and Sister O'Dell (Maryland) for the day. Sure learned a lot from them and probably laughed a little bit too much. Then this morning we had a special training with Brother Billings who works in the Missionary Department and is over all the Visitor Centers - we will be going down to the MTC for a special training with the new Visitor Center Directors and Mission Presidents - and he was able to give us a wonderful compliment of telling us that we don't have the 'missionary voice'! This might sound weird, but it's a real thing and we don't like it because, to me at least, everyone who has the voice sounds like a robot. So to anyone who is preparing to serve a mission, don't fall into it! It's not cool.

Okay, well it's short and sweet but we have to run, we are spending most of our preparation day today in meetings. I love you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas filled with the Spirit of our Savior.

Love you lots!!

XOXOXOXOX

Sister Fluckiger 

​

Merry Christmas!

My oh my, this week is Christmas! 

I have loved being a missionary this Christmas season, it's a good thing that the Lord blessed me with two Christmas' because this time around I've had my own testimony deepen of how special this season is. 

The closer it gets to Christmas the busier the square gets and the more fun we have :)

I'll admit though, this week was probably one of the busiest and craziest weeks of my mission. So many things happen that I can't even remember any of them... just kidding haha.

 

Tuesday we spent the majority of the day with the departing sisters. We were able to attend the temple with them and then lunch at Olive Garden. 

Then on Wednesday I was able to pick up my new companion, Sister Rajah from Perth, Australia. And yes she does have a pretty cool accent. 

​We spent most of Wednesday in the mission office with the new sisters. We had 13 wonderful and powerful sisters arrive from the MTC. We met all of them, interviewed them all and then met with President and paired them up with their companions. . Sadly, after getting through Wednesday both President and Sister Poulsen came down with a pretty bad cold, so they have been out of the office for the past few days. So that's been a bit tricky as we needed to plan for our big Mission Leadership Training and Council which happened this morning. This week we also had a stake that volunteered to feed some of our sisters missionaries which is such a blessing for us. We will be going to dinner this week right before Christmas, so it will be really special. 

We also had the blessing of being able to hear from some wonderful people. Brother Michael Wilcox came to our Thursday Relief Society and shared a wonderful message about the first Christmas that happened in the Americas so long ago. Then on Friday, Elder Lynn Robbins came and spoke to us about the difference between doing and becoming. He taught us how we can use our missionary planner as a tool to help us become better disciples of Jesus Christ. it was wonderful! Then on Sunday we were blessed to have Elder Ronald Rasband come to our Sacrament Meeting. It has been such an uplifting week. And I promise with all of these fun perks we still had the time to do lots of missionary work. One lady who Sister Nogueira and I had been teaching, we actually found her one evening wandering the square with her brother who was a member, she shared with us that she has been able to recognize this as truth. She attended church yesterday and has decided that she wants to be baptized. The gospel is true! I'm grateful to be a missionary and to be able to serve the Lord in this way.

I told Sister Rajah and we weren't allowed to get tired over the next few weeks because we just have too many things that we need to do between helping President and our investigators. This week we are going to be having the Christmas Devotional this week and we somehow have to figure out how to hook the sound system up in one of our bigger theaters. So if you want something to pray for, there you go :) me and techy things haven't been the best of friends the last few weeks. We also want to be able to find a lot of time to teach our investigators. Using time wisely is a skill the Lord is trying to teach us right now. I know He will succeed :)

The work continues to move forward, I'm grateful for this Christmas season and for all that I have learned this year. I love you all lots and hope you have a merry merry Christmas! 

XOXOXOX

Sister Fluckiger