January 9, 2018

HIIIII

this week was i think my favourite of the mission so far! a lot happened!! first, on Wednesday we had Zone Conference which is seriously the most amazing day ever! My mission president and his wife are seriously the most amazing people ever!!! He taught us how we need to be "rock solid, true blue, through and through" disciples of Christ. And seriously I felt like a whole new missionary walking out of the meeting!! President taught us how to really help people see how life changing the Book of Mormon can be, if they let it. I LOVE the Book of Mormon so much. I LOVE teaching people it, I love handing it out to people that I meet on the square in their languages (SO MANY!) and I love hearing how people learn from it differently. Its the best

so after zone conf my companion and I were walking back to the square from our home and we saw this guy who looked pretty scary and we followed him.... (maybe not a good idea but it seemed safe in the moment lol) and we followed him into the North Visitors Center up to the statue of Christ and then we go and sit next to him and talk to him and turns out he did go through something extremely hard that day and as we started talking to him we learned that he used to be a drug addict and dealer and his life was not going in a good direction and then one day missionaries came to his door and he knew from the moment he shook their hands that the church was true! He then started telling us how the church has changed his life and THEN we realized he is literally the smartest human ever... he started explaining the Book of Mormon and the Bible and how to intertwine and I was so amazed Seriously I learned so much from him. And at the end he kept saying " you missionaries are truly super-heroes.... who else literally saves lives like you guys do?" aw man he was the BEST. and his name was steve..... meant to be am i right dad??? steves are the BESTok BUT exactly after we had the best morning with president and the best chat with Steve.... we go to our next assignment and start talking to this anti who was very Christian and he talked to us for an hour and a half.... it was the hardest talk ive ever had with a person and man he had some harrrrd questions... and he stayed until temple square closed. and then at the end he asked if he could come back and ask us more questions and we were like ya sure!!!! (not actually thinking that he would literally come back) WELL he did. yesterday we heard that there was a guy looking for us and wanted to talk to us and so we came upstairs and saw that it was him and we were like ahhhhhhhhh hey what’s up!!??? we were pretty scared but also confident so it was okay but lets just say we talked with him again for an hour and a half and the convo ended with me and my comp crying ahahha BUT i have never been so grateful for a person, because he strengthened my testimony SO MUCH. i have never had to defend the Book of Mormon and testify what it has done for me personally so much in my whole life. So although he may not have accepted it now, I know one day he will and I am so excited for him!!!! hidden blessings!!!! also im grateful for my companion because she is the most amazing missionary ah 

 

I am SO grateful for this church. I am sososo grateful for the Book of Mormon and the power it truly does have to change our lives!!! This week I learned that more than I ever have in my whole life. a sister in my zone said"I stand with Jesus Christ, I stand with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, because they stand by me" -Sister Merling I love that she said that so much. And I could not agree more! I feel the strengthening power it has in my life everyday when I study it. Everyday I learn more about the Savior and His loving grace for us and I grow a deeper desire to help others feel that as well because I know that no matter what you are going through, that feeling can change everything! I have seen it in myself and my companion and my investigators! 

then the next day I saw uncle Bart and Aunt Alonna and it just made me so happy!!!! it was honestly just what I needed!!! So fun seeing fam :) 

also today we went to china town and yes I spent WAY too much on rice crackers but how can you not. it was a whole new world in there and my companion was just going to town finding thai things and teaching what things to use to make pad thai and i felt like a whole new person walking out of there ah i kinda had a glimpse of what amy is going to be living in for the next year and a half ahahha ugh shes awesome but ya while we were there we took some pics with some pandas...... also the other pic is me and sister Pazos :) she’s my bff and she’s from Puebla Mexico and yes we have already arranged my trip to visit her...... so far after my mission i am going to Thailand, Mexico, 

 

ok luv ya!!!!!!!!!!