Transfer 2 Week 3

Hey Hey!

This week was crazy but at the same time I don't have a million things to write about like normal but some pretty awesome stuff happened!

Surprise Visitor: This is a bit of a confusing story, so bare with me... We we're on exchanges, so I was with my District Leader Sister Perez, but we had a lesson with our new investigator Richard planned, and so we swapped back to our normal companions until we would all be at the Beehive House later on. We just came out of the South Visitor Center and Sister Magidson and I are walking along and we hear "Sister Magidson?" and we turn around (me thinking it's some weirdo filming us) and it was Sister Magidson's sister Jackie! It was crazy and completely unexpected, Sister Magidson didn't even know her sister was going to be in Salt Lake City, yet alone Temple Square! And so we talked and took photos and all that jazz and then we we're like "Hey, do you want to be our member present for our lesson?" and she was so excited! (she served her mission in the Ukraine) and so we went to the lesson and it was so incredible! It was my first member present lesson and I loved it! It was so crazy great! We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! and we set him on date for the 21st June and he is so excited about it! After the lesson we went to a pizza place at the City Creek food court for dinner and then we took her on a tour around the Beehive House, it was so crazy awesome! It made our day and gosh you can tell they are sisters, seriously! It was a great surprise.

Exchanges:  We went on exchanges this past week, first off (Thursday) I was with Sister Baba! who is from Sapporo, Japan and we even got to take a Japanese tour, which was the best part of the whole day! We had a great day testifying and teaching on the Square, we encouraged a lot of members to do missionary work and it was an all round great day! On Saturday I was on exhanges with Sister Perez from Argentina, she's great! She is our District Leader and we all love her so much! It was awesome because she has been in the Beehive house for about half of her mission and so she knows her stuff, so it was a great learning tool for me, being my first transfer in the Beehive House. I learned a lot of ways to bridge history to doctrine and bare testimony and still keep the tour for 20 minutes the way it's supposed to be, especially with Summer coming up! Exchanges are so fun and so weird here on Temple Square, every where else you go on exchanges and you don't see your companion, with us, I saw Sister Magidson all the time! especially when we were all in Beehive together and it's natural instinct to be with her but I wasn't I was with someone else, so weird... Will take some getting used to..

Faith in Finding and Using Time Wisely: I have really gained a testimony of how faith really matters when it comes to finding new investigators and how important it is to use time wisely. This week we had an awesome experience, we were in the Beehive House and when you don't have a tour you can go online and chat with people that come on mormon.org (we call it TC, teaching center) and so we were online in the Beehive House and we have a pretty small teaching pool at the moment so we have been putting all our faith into finding. This guy, Jeremy, comes online and says "I'm thinking about becoming Mormon" and we just about fell out of our seats and we talked some more with him and then we make an appointment to call him, we called him the next day. We taught him the Restoration and got to know him a little more and then we said "Jeremy, when you come to know for yourself that these things are true, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the power and authority of God?" and he says "Yes, absolutely!" Sister Magidson and I are just about freaking out and then we invite him to church and he said he was excited to go and is reading the Book of Mormon and it was just wow! Miracles happen when we have faith. And if we hadn't been using our time wisely, we might not have ever met him.

Faith is so important, nothing happens until we have faith, faith to receive an answer to a prayer, faith to find those who Heavenly Father has prepared to hear the gospel, faith to know what to say on the Square, faith to know where to go as we plan for the next days activities, faith to know our families are okay, faith to promise someone blessings, everything comes down to faith. When we have faith that's when miracles happen. Miracles don't increase faith, they are the result of our faith. I love knowing as we have faith in Jesus Christ all is possible. 
"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me" - Moroni 7:33
And I truly believe that, because I have seen it in the missionary work I do, we must not fear, because fear closes the door to our faith. Fear stops faith and we must never let that happen, be strong and courageous! Have faith that no matter what happens, everything will be alright, and we will see miracles! Because there is a plan for everything and the Lord knows what He is doing, we must not doubt or be afraid, but rely on our savior Jesus Christ and all will work out, even if at times it doesn't seem that way.

I know that the gospel is true, I know Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father live, I know that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and is so aware of us, even if it times it seems silly or irrelevant to Him. Miracles can happen as long as you have enough faith to let them happen and take a step back to see the beautiful tender mercies in our lives, because there are so many. There is so much to be grateful for, we have been given all that we have from a loving Heavenly Father. The Book of Mormon truly is the word of God, I feel the spirit deep in my heart as I read it each day. I know that Joseph Smith truly did see God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. Being in the Beehive House I have learned so much history, but as amazing as all that is, I think the greatest thing that I've realized is that if it weren't for Joseph Smith's faith and humility to seek guidance from a loving Heavenly Father, if it weren't for the pioneers faith in the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and so much more... Salt Lake City would not be what it is today. It might still be a bunch of desert surrounded my mountains, or it could have been built up in a completely different way. The world has been changed because of a young mans desire to know the truth about God and Jesus Christ. It's a very humbling thought.

I love my mission so much and I love being so close to the temple every day, I love seeing peoples lives change in a matter of minutes and there countenances shine brighter each time we meet. The gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives! It has changed mine and millions of others around the world and it can change yours only if you let it.

I love you all, thank you for all that you do. 

Love, Sister Ryan. xx

P.S

I forgot to add, it's so funny right now because everyone is complaining how hot it is and it's absolutely gorgeous weather! It's reaching the 30's but it doesn't feel like it. Feels like it's still mid 20's.

I keep telling them they don't know what hot is until they've been to Australia during our beautiful heatwaves in the summer, with the humidity and everything, haha. 

Here if you're in the shade (which is most places because there are so many trees on Temple Square) it's wonderful! In the sun its warmer, but I've only just started taking my cardigan off during the middle of the day.

Back home I just burn red and go white again, here I'm instantly tanning and I don't like it. I haven't come up read once from being in the sun, it's weird, I'm not used to it! This summer is going to be awesome, I look forward to it!

(sorry, just a random side note I forgot to add into the massive email)

Love you all!

Sister Ryan xx