Marissa - Week 9 Transfers

Hi everyone!

This week has been kind of crazy and fast. The days are so long, but the Weeks here go by so fast. I cannot believe I've already been out on my mission for a whole transfer and for 2 months already. We got transfer info today and now sister brunt and I only cover the 3rd YSA Stake, we used to cover 5 stakes. We are soooooooooo sad because we just lost more than half of our investigators. Our zone is all elders now and then us. We had 27 new missionaries (3 will be sisters, the rest are elders) come in so a lot of elders are training now. Here are some things that happened this week:

- On Wednesday the Hermana's who live with us got a call saying that they need to pack up all of their stuff and move out before 12. The new Chinese Sister Zheng and the Korean Sister Lee are now living with us in our flat. They are super nice, a bit more quite than the Hermana's, but I think that's just because they are new. They are from the Salt Lake City temple square mission and will only be here for two transfers. They've been out for a year, so I think we will learn a lot from them.

- We have to give our golden couple, Min and Phi, to the Chinese sister's. So we are sad:(, but happy the new sisters will get there very first baptism in their mission.

- The elders found this guy Amir (who is Muslim) for us, and gave him a restoration pamphlet. He read the whole pamphlet 8 times and wrote down 37 questions. The elders then handed him all the other pamphlets we give people and then said "we have to leave but the sister missionaries will answer your questions." We were so mad. Usually when you start a lesson you explain what the purpose of missionaries are and we begin to teach the lesson, we usually give the pamphlet at the end of the lesson. Also Amir is probably going to write like 100 questions from all the other pamphlets!! Amir just went right into his questions. Some of them were pretty hard to answer but we did our best and let the spirit guide. He asked us why do we need prophets or Jesus if God can do it all himself. 

We didn't think it went that well when we got this text from Amir saying word for word:

"Dear Sisters, 

I have studied and thought a lot about your religion. Also I had compared Utah with other states to understand the application of your beliefs.  At last I concluded that the most suited religion who could help modern populations to be happy, healthy & also unity is your religion. So would you please let me know if I could join your Sunday sacrament?”

We were so shocked! He went to all 3 hours of church and then stayed for food afterwards. We then had a lesson with him afterwards. He then explained to us why we need prophets, why we need Jesus, and why our church is the true church. It was crazy! He liked to share examples of his understanding like: "all other churches including Muslim are not plugged in, but your church is plugged in because you still receive revelation from God." Or "prophets are like guard rails that keep you on the path, without guard rails you could fall off the road, they also keep you safe." We asked him if he wanted to be baptized on August 27th and he said yes!!!

- For Sunday we had 7 investigators come to church and they were all in different wards and at different times. So my companion and I went on splits with a member. I went to the 2nd stake sacraments and she went to the 3rd stake sacraments. It was crazy, but we almost got to see all of our investigators at church. We still missed 1st YSA stake and 1st married stake, but we can't be in two places at once, haha.

- We taught combine priesthood and relief society in the 4th stake with 6 different wards together. It was so scary because we spoke in front of like 300 young single adults. We taught in the chapel about member missionary work. Looking back now I wish I went out with the missionaries more and shared the gospel more with people. I hope that we inspired people to share the gospel with their friends. Well a lot more happened this week, but I'm excited to see what is to come in the next week. Sorry this email is so long! Okay well I hope everyone had a good week!

Sister Lowe

Hi mom,

I'm glad your summer is going well. The mission is awesome so far but I'm so sad about transfers and that we will only covering one stake:(

here are some pics from the week:

Here is a video: