Hello one and all!
LA LOVE:
It has been ridiculously hot for a few days here, especially being trapped in an apartment without air conditioning. On the hottest day of the week, I found myself really wanting hot chocolate. But I didn't want to make myself hotter than I already was. So I decided to try something I had only ever heard of before and that I previously found ridiculous: I made myself a frozen hot chocolate. It was absolutely incredible. I have been converted; I am now a believer. Catch me buying more hot chocolate mix in the summer than I ever would in the winter now.
I'm lucky in a selfish way that due to the virus my amazing trainer, Sister Sanerive, will not be going home this week like she was expected to. The good news is she is happy about it too. I love her and I know the mission and the Lord still need her here. I'm lucky not only that I had such a great trainer, but also that she was so young on her mission that I have gotten to keep her with me for the majority of my mission!
EVENTS OF THE WEEK:
Another p-day of not really doing anything. Except for of course talking to the family, which is the best part anyway.
We had zone conference this week! This was a really fun zone conference because it was all about how to work from our homes. I also had a first, in that I gave a training at zone conference! A lot of missionaries are usually asked by President and the assistants to share some experiences and pro tips they've had about what we are talking about at zone conference. Last week Elder Chew called us and said that we were assigned to talk about online teaching this zone conference! It was super fun. President hyped us up so much, putting up our numbers (in the PowerPoint presentation that he always makes) for how much we've been teaching before we gave our training haha! Apparently our numbers have doubled over the transfer. That's pretty cool! It was great to share what we've learned with our other missionary friends, and to get to see them, even if just online. We sure miss each other. I love them all. We learned a lot at this zone conference, and luckily we will have another in a few weeks because while we are meeting over technology we will have zone conference twice a transfer.
We had a lovely district council where we practiced extending bold invitation.
We had the grand privilege of going to the temple just so we could walk around there. It was awesome to just get to spend time around the House of the Lord with my amazing comp, and we both got to practice our photography skills, so there's that too haha. It was a nice break to go into my dearly beloved city.
We watched the first English virtual fireside on the Church of Jesus Christ Los Angeles Mission Virtual Firesides Facebook page! It was so amazing. A lot of my missionary buddies participated, and the main speaker was Dr. John Welch, who shared how the Book of Mormon centers on Jesus Christ in many ways. It was incredible to see the many testaments there are that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ really is true. Learning how the chiasmus works was absolutely amazing as someone who loves poetry and the Lord. It made me realize that I had read and recognized the chiasmi for what they were multiple times but never registered that that was what I was reading, or that they were used to point to the central point of the scripture. I invite you all to give the fireside a watch. It is on the Facebook page mentioned above and seriously so good. Definitely a spiritual and intellectual experience.
It's the end of another transfer, but instead of getting a transfer call from our zone leaders, we got our own transfer packet! (The email that tells us the details for the upcoming transfer.) We got it before 9:00 PM (when a missionary's proselyting day ends) so that was even more wild. Sister John and I are staying together in Palos Verdes/Redondo 1st covering our three wards. The whole zone is staying (as far as I understand) except for two of us, who are not being replaced, so our zone has decreased to the miniscule size of eight missionaries, four companionships, the size of a single district in LA zone. I am happy to be staying here with some of my best buds! We are lucky to be around so many great missionaries.
Even spicier than that is what happened after we got our transfer packets. President said we were going to keep the transfer small so it wasn't a big shock to anybody that not much happened. Along with a stirring game of animal-themed Pictionary, earlier in the week the zone played a not-so-exciting game of Church history trivia. Sister John, our queen from Nauvoo and official zone church historian (no, like seriously), was not at all impressed by this and made one of her own. It was super fun and we played it together, the last game of the transfer! She did a great job. The zone leaders also led us in a Congratulations Call, where we look at our numbers for the week (new friends, Sabbath worship experiences, etc.) and celebrate how good we did! After the call, the zone leaders, in their traditional dramatic and goofy fashion (I hope you all understand that this was all complete with a slideshow presentation), presented some new guidelines for the mission. We are now allowed to have pizza delivered to our apartments! We're also allowed to meet up in a team of clusters, made up of three companionships! Within these clusters we are allowed to play sports, eat together, do companion exchanges, and hug! (If you know me you know I was really excited for that last part.) We also are now allowed to go shopping again! When you combine all that great news with the fact that we found eggs at the grocery store, it seems that things are starting to look up.
FRIENDS:
Did a nice scripture study with John this week!
Mary had a really cool spiritual experience with prayer this week that opened a great conversation about faith, how when we believe something and act on what we believe great things can happen! We also taught her about the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, and how He comforts us and teaches us truth. She is really interested in learning more about Him!
In our first lesson with Craig T. this week, he was having a really hard day mourning over the loss of his son Kenny, who died a few years ago. It was our pleasure to teach Craig about temples, how we make promises with God there and we can help others do the same! Craig loved it, and with every passing day he grew to understand the beauty of it more. He also learned about the Word of Wisdom, which was a little trickier but he has started obeying that commandment slowly but surely! We are so proud of him! We celebrated his birthday with him over phone call and he even joined the Anvaripour family for a Sabbath worship experience over video call and he loved it! He is doing great and we love him.
Because Corey had a lot of questions about why bad things happen to innocent people, we talked about premortality, the Creation, and agency and the Fall of Adam and Eve with him to help him understand the purpose of life. He voiced confusion and disbelief multiple times, but the questions he asked in doubt led perfectly to us further expounding on the principles. Corey is very smart, and we can tell he still has faith somewhere--surely that's why he's meeting with us. But he has been through a lot and he is hurt. We are excited for him to learn more.
We outlined the doctrine of Christ with Monica. Monica is so smart and faithful and amazing and understands everything so well. her brother John is a member of our Church, but was baptized when he was a child in another faith. We asked if she had ever asked him why he felt he needed to be baptized again, and she said no. We committed her to find out!
Ariana is so amazing. We read from her favorite Book of Mormon chapter (Alma 32, check it out) and talked about faith! She also had really cool insights from her first institute class about how we know the scriptures are true because we can still apply them to our lives!
We met with the C. family and they are so cool! Judi is trying to return to activity in the Church, and she has three kids, Joshua, Ethan, and Sophia! We shared a scripture message about service with them and played a game with them, and they are so sweet and excited to meet with us again this week!
Diana really opened up to us and it led us to an opportunity to teach about the ultimate Friend, the Holy Ghost, and how He is always with us after we are baptized and we can feel His influence even before then. We also taught her about faith and taking action based on our strong belief that something good will happen. She watched the virtual fireside and we called her again after to answer some of her questions!
We met with Sophia and to our joy ad astonishment her best friend Khiara was there too! We sure love those girls. We read "Sisters' Participation in the Gathering of Israel" by President Nelson. It contained some good discussions about living the gospel, unifying God's children, and girl power (or, more accurately, daughter of God power). We invited Khiara to start taking the lessons with Sophia and she accepted! We are excited for her. We knew Sophia would end up using her recent convert lessons to convert someone else, we just didn't know who haha!
We had a great scripture read with Craig about service. We talked about having to work ahrd to prove our faith to the Lord during this time and getting creative in our service. Craig is so cool! He has a lot of awesome insights about the gospel.
I met Carlos on a Christian Facebook group. This is the most online teaching thing I've ever done; I felt like a visitors' center sister because they do this all the time in normal life haha! He said he felt like he was letting God down and he was tired of dealing with it alone. He asked for advice. I sent him a message and told him I was a missionary and would love to talk more with him. He said he wanted to understand grace more. I shared Ether 12:27 from the Book of Mormon and he said he wanted to hear more about it because he had never heard of the Book of Mormon before! We messaged using voice notes for a lesson the next day. I taught him how to pray and he prayed at the beginning of our lesson and he said it was really hard for him but he did great! His mother and sister introduced him to God and now he reads the Bible every day. He loves learning about the character of God and becoming a better person. Carlos is so sweet and I can't wait to teach him more!
As you can see, we had a pretty good week. It didn't come easy, though. We have been pretty successful and, as frequently follows, pride started creeping into our hearts. Suddenly, people started cancelling appointments on us left and right! We could barely hold on to any appointments at all. We were wondering what we were doing wrong when we realized that heavenly Father was trying to remind us that we can't do our work without Him, because it is truly His. We humbled ourselves and remembered the real reason behind our success-it wasn't our talent and skill, but our sacred calling as servants of the Most High, set apart with His power. The next day I thought of a hymn, seemingly randomly but upon looking back I realize it was the Holy Ghost singing it to me. The song is "Be Thou Humble" by Grietje Terburg Rowley. I looked it up and the second verse perfectly described my situation:
"Be thou humble in thy calling, and the Lord thy God shall teach thee
To serve his children gladly with a pure and gentle love.
Be thou humble in thy longing, and the Lord thy God shall take thee,
Shall take thee home at last to ever dwell with him above."
Remember where all success and joy comes from, my dear friends. I am grateful for an amazing and wonderful God!
Thanks and much love!
--Sister Day
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