19 October 2012

Yay for P-Days!!!

But what is this! No baby yet??? My nerves are shot and I had a little anxiety attack before opening my emails. This little boy is taking his time alright. Wants to make a grand entrance because the other two were impatient and early. Oh well I am glad that all is well and that your midwife is back in town Hina. So happy and excited for you and your family.

I have had such a good week this past week and seen many miracles. Thank you so much to Aunty Mona and family for driving in to SLC and hunting me down to drop off my coats.  They have definitely saved my life this past week as its been really cold. Thank you, thank you!

Well, as I told you last week our companionship assignment is the announcing co-ordinators and so far its been really good. Sunday was our first time organizing everyone and really getting a feel for it and observing how we can improve on things.  So exciting!  This Sunday we are making small changes to see if it works more effectively or not. Our zone leaders also asked for our help to make a art display to help get our zone focused and excited to contact all the referrals from General Conference and to really focus on baptisms through quality contacting (via the phone).  It is a little tricky over the phone but miracles always happen and we get lots of people that call in and have great questions and want to learn more so we refer them to the local missionaries. We get to, "plant ALOT of seeds" in this mission and the other missionaries can harvest but we are all working together and its great.

We also had our first investigator lesson as a companionship (this is when I saw Aunty Mona and family.  The missionaries that serve in Salt Lake can bring their investigators to the Square for a lesson and a Temple Square missionary companionship gets to accompany them and pretty much teach them the whole lesson.  The other SLC missionaries help out too. They are seriously the best experiences ever and I love it when investigator's come to the Square. We have had 2 this past week and one was a mother with her two children and they are getting baptized on the 27th of October and the other is a man in his 50's who is also getting baptized on the same day. We are not sure what time the baptism's are so its going to be hard if they are both around the same time because then we have to choose which one to attend, but I'm just excited to be going to a real baptism after getting to know these people.  It's hard not to love them instantly. The man who is getting baptized lives in Utah  and he told us that he had this amazing experience where someone appeared to him and told him that he knows what he needs to do. He went to his neighbour who happens to be the High Priest Group Leader who then told the man what it meant and that he needed to meet with missionaries. The missionaries went over to his place and committed him to baptism and he said yes. That was about a week and a half ago and he was so golden throughout the lesson we had with him and he really recognized that he will be the pioneer of his family because the rest of his family are all non members.  I'm so happy for him.

This week we were able to help with Garden service. They asked for 13 companionships to volunteer to help with the gardening so on Saturday we gathered in front of the Church Office Building (COB) with about 1000 youth from the local Stakes and we took out all the summer plants.  It was from 8:00 a.m. -12:00 noon and it was heaps of fun to help with the gardening.  After we finished, President Seppi who is in our Mission Presidency, shouted all of us Sisters to a breakfast/lunch at, "Kneaders" where they have, "All you can eat french toast and pancakes for $6:00!"  It is a missionaries dream breakfast (if you're not gluten intolerant) so I had something else but it was so nice of President Seppi (he is the one who designed the high tech roof at the new City Creek Mall and the roof of the Tabernacle - seriously the MAN!)

Monday my companion had Temple service for 3 hours because she is in her 7th transfer so is one of the longest serving sisters.  I got to go on exchanges with Sister Vaivai and her companion Sister Rakotovao for a few hours.  They are in a trio and their other companion - Sister Suhkbataar - was helping with Temple Service too. It was so much fun because we were all in the same MTC class and now we felt like the big girls because our trainers were in theTemple - haha.  And, I got to send Sister Chadderton's package, so hopefully you get it soon sister.

Tuesday was a great day and again we were lucky enough to volunteer to help with gardening service on Temple Square, but this time we helped plant Winter/Fall flowers instead of ripping the other ones out.  It was so much fun and it started raining and it was great to get muddy in pants and not in a skirt!  One of my friends, Sister Anderson from Indiana, Indiannopolis is trying her hardest to convince me to move to Indiana to be her roommate after the mission.  We were in the same MTC district together and this transfer we are in the same district again and I love her. Not to sure about moving to Indiana yet but she still has 16 months to convince me otherwise.  But after garden service we went home, cleaned up and I made homemade meat patties and my companion made a salad and it was the bomb then we had hot milo and Tim Tams.  Perfect way to end the day.  So delicious!

Last night we took a tour with this lady from Tennessee.  She was here for a work conference and decided to come down. Her husband took her to see the Book of Mormon Play and she said it was rubbish and that the language was foul and it was really offensive. I was amazed at this lady the whole time she was here because I feel she is the epitome of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.  She is of a different faith but has really dedicated her life to following Christ.  We asked her what she thought about God calling another prophet today (after sharing Joseph Smith's First Vision) and she was like, "Yeah it would be what the world needs, another leader is something that I think many people are searching for!"  We then testified of President Monson as a living prophet today and to top it off, we have this neat little resource movie collection all about the prophet.  She chose a movie called, "Teaching with Love" and watched it and she loved it and agreed with everything he said.  We were going to take her to the Christus and as we were walking past the display, "Special Witnesses of Christ"  Elder Christofferson's video was playing and he was talking about the Sacred Grove, the Restoration, the Priesthood, the Prophets and the Book of Mormon.  She stopped and watched it and my companion and I were like, "DON"T MOVE!"  She watched the whole thing and then we went to the table with all the Books of Mormon and the globe and I invited her to have a copy of the Book of Mormon and told her that it was a lot better than the, "Play" and it has no foul language.  She said she'd love to have a copy. WOOHOO! Then we went upstairs and showed her the Christus. Honestly, so powerful she stopped in front of the Christus and the Spirit filled up the whole room.  She is incredible and really loves the Lord. We asked if she would mind if missionaries delivered the Book of Mormon to her and she said that was fine!  I am so excited to call her in a few days to find out how she's doing and if she received the Book of Mormon. Honestly, miracles never cease, especially as you pray, have faith and are obedient.

When any Sister missionary goes home or goes on their outbound assignment they have to transfer their contacts to the ones staying behind.  We were given a contact that has been taught for over a year now.  My companion emailed him last night to see how he was doing and we got a response today from him and he said, "Oh, I don't know if you know but I got baptized on Saturday." Cool huh? Our mouths dropped because it seriously is a miracle.  He lives in Nigeria and the missionaries live hours from where he is but he still kept the commitments the Sisters here set with him over the phone and through emails and because of their teachings he got baptized. So awesome!  So, technically that was OUR first baptism as a companionship because he is OUR contact now.  YAY!

Such a good week right??? Well, today is my companion's birthday and she turns 22!!!  We woke up early and went and played basketball with over 20 other sisters and it was so much fun! Then we went to this place called, "Blue Lemon" for breakfast.  Seriously mum, when we come for Conference after my mission we are definitely going to have to save up to just eat there everyday!  It was so delicious!  After we are done with emailing we are going to the zoo.  She decided that that is what she wanted to do for her birthday so we are doing that and I have organized my friends in my District to go and buy a cake and get pizza and they are going to be at our apartment with the food when we get home from zoo!  So exciting!

I love you all and hope you are all doing great missionary work. If there is someone that you know that needs the gospel, I can help you with that.  Just send me their phone numbers with a little background information and what you would like me to share with them.  I am more then willing and happy to call them.  Honestly, people's these are the last days and if you haven't realized it, then I encourage you to read the Book of Mormon, watch the news and you will see the signs, let alone listen to conference and pay attention to the reason the missionary age has been lowered. Don't freak out though its exciting. I know the Saviour lives and he will come again, sooner then we think and the earth will be cleansed and renewed.  Whose on the Lord's side, who?

Be safe, be happy, live long and be prosperous.

Love Seester Chadderton no.2

Picture 1:  Beautiful Sister missionaries announcing.  Check out the languages. YAY!

Picture 2:  Sister Calderwood and I pictured with our Zone Leaders and the art display board that we made.  Our zone leaders are Sister Ito from Japan and Sister Brickley from Indiana.  Just to explain the display board a little, you will see a man dressed in white (representing a missionary) standing in what is suppose to represent a baptismal font.  He has his hands raised like he's confused while standing in the font because the font has no water and he's saying, "Got Water?"  In order for the font to be filled with water, the sisters have to be found doing several of the items surrounding the font (shown in picture on both sides of the font) in order to earn a drop or drops of water to fill the font.  Once it's full the missionary can baptize his investigator.   We will then put a picture representing the investigator into the font for baptism when the font is full!  Some of the items that we want to encourage the sisters to do when they are talking to investigator's on the phone are:  Pray, testify, use sriptures, teach from Preach My Gospel, invite the investigator  to do something, refer the investigator to local missionaries, build a relationship of trust, plan what they are going to say but most importantly, to "Bee" themselves on the phone.   Our focus is that if they do all these things whenever they make a phone call then we will have baptisms.  Key: Quality Contacts = Baptisms.  My companion is really arty crafty and its great.  We came up with the idea with our zone leaders and then we put it all together. So cool!