Transfer 13 Week 5

Another gone by way too quickly week of miracles. 

We have been meeting some amazing people, it's just incredible the people who meet here that are so ready to receive the restored gospel. 

This week we [Zone and District Leaders] had a training from the Missionary Department, I love them all so much! I wish I could be one of them some day, they seriously have the coolest job ever. We get these training's a few times a year and this time round we were really focusing on how to can increase in our effectiveness as Visitor Center Sisters. Really focusing on how we can help our investigators progress beyond the Visitor Center and doing something so simple which is to invite them to meet with Local Missionaries before inviting them to learn more with us (online). It's so simple and yet a lot of Sisters are scared to do it because of fear that we will damage the relationship we have with them or whatever it may be, but we have really learned that there is so damage done, and by not inviting we are taking away their agency which is the last thing we want to do. 

Invitations are not just "Will you...?" it goes far beyond that, invitations are empty unless we help them. That is our purpose, to "Invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the Restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end".

I have mentioned before that on my mission I have learned that our purpose continues forever, it never ends, everything we do in the church, everything we do along our path of discipleship, is centered on the missionary purpose and there is so much more to missionary work than teaching the lessons, getting/contacting referrals, going out with the missionaries, etc.Missionary work is anything that helps anyone come closer to Christ. 

Which goes into the next days training when we learned how to work with members, and really helping members do their own missionary work, teaching them how they can do it and opening their eyes to see the greater picture of the work of salvation. I think as missionaries we are too quick to just get the name of the person and do it on our own, but we need the members, it is always so much more successful when the members are involved in the work, especially when they are "not ready to meet with the missionaries". It is our job then to say, "Okay, what is the next step for that person, how can we help you, help the person you love and hold dear to your heart? What are they searching for and how can we help you, help them?"

I don't know if any of this make sense... But for me it all means that Missionary work never ends. My time as a full-time missionary is the MTC for the rest of my life and when I heard that I always thought about going into the real world, school, family, career, being a disciple but it hit me this week that it prepared me to be a missionary for the rest of my life. THAT'S EXCITING! 

I am so grateful for the training's, I was sad because I felt like "I wish I had this training early in my mission, that would have been so amazing, I won't be able to apply these things for long" until I realized that was the biggest lie to ever tell myself because I get to apply these things forever. 

Now that we received 5 hours of training over three days about all of this, it's time to hit the square and apply it all! Yesterday we got called to take 3 English at EF desk, so we got there as fast as we could to take them, it was a Chinese couple and a girl that is staying with them and at first I was really confused because we had met them earlier and they had definite Chinese accents, I for sure thought they were from Mainland China, but they started speaking almost perfect English (with an accent) and wanted to learn everything about what we believed in. We prefaced and introduced the local missionaries in their area and they agreed right there and then to meet with them before we even really got the tour started! We went to the Temple Model, Assembly Hall and ended at the Statue of Christ, we hardly shared any history at all, it was purely doctrine, because that is what they wanted to know! We talked about the temple, church, fasting, Christ, the Book of Mormon and they just loved everything. When we talked about fasting, Simon was very intrigued, we talked about how we sacrifice 2 meals and God gives us blessings for our sacrifice, that we are able to feel the spirit in greater abundance as we show control over our physical bodies and he just loved the concept so much! We then both shared stories and testimonies of it and he just admired the practice of it so much. The spirit was so strong throughout the whole tour, they were just so ready to receive the gospel and I know that the Lord has been preparing them for a long time, they had so many questions and are so excited to read the Book of Mormon, to check out church and to meet with the missionaries when they get home. It was a complete miracle and I know its because we began applying the things we have learned and the Lord was testifying to us that it works! 

I know that the Lord helps us be at the right place at the right time, that as we sacrifice everything we have and give it to the Lord that's when amazing things happen, we had cut our lunch early to go and take a tour that had been waiting for 15 minutes and no one was responding, everyone was just ignoring the fact that it was there not even saying they were unavailable to take it which really saddened our hearts so we packed our things away and ran up. It wasn't a great tour, they weren't very interested in what we had to say, we planned on taking them to see Gods Plan for His Family but we had the prompting to cut the tour short and so we did, after the tour we were asked to cover Assembly Hall quickly and then I got a call saying there was someone from my ward looking for me and so I asked them to send them to the Assembly Hall, I had been expecting a visit and was so sad that I might not meet them but they came and it was so amazing, we then got to take them on a tour and it was just marvelous. They are a recent convert family from my ward that was baptized while I have been on my mission and I got to meet them! Apparently when they were asking for me the Sister before calling me talked to someone for about 10 minutes and then called, if she hadn't of talked to that person we would have missed the call and I might not have met them! The Lord truly has his hand in all the little details we don't even think about and I am so grateful for it!

I love this gospel, I love my mission and my Savior, Jesus Christ! Have a lovely week! 

Transfer 13 Week 4

I really feel like these weeks are just getting faster and faster and all I want to do is say "SLOW DOWN". P-day has rolled around again and this week has been crazier than usual, I thought by week 4 it would start slowing down and I was sorely mistaken, haha. 

However little Square time we have had looking after other things, I have truly seen how the Lord provides. Which gives me great comfort in knowing it won't be any different when I get home. As long as I remain faithful and live the path that has been lighted by the Lord, His prophets, the scriptures and just keep the commandments, everything is going to work out. The Lord has placed people in our path that have just been constant answers to my prayers. We met a guy who went through a similar thing to what I am going through at the end of his mission and he just testified how everything just worked out so much more perfectly than he ever could have imagined. He said "take some advice from your own country, 'don't worry mate, she'll be right!". Hahaha. 

Sometimes with all the extra little things we have been doing it sometimes appears to be taking away from the work. But now I know that we were exactly where we needed to be, and that is why the Lord has provided so many wonderful miracles! 

On Wednesday we got taken away from our studies to help a Sister who had a lot going on, we went down to the Square, my companion was with her companion and then I was with my companions trainee and it was all just rather confusing! But we made the most of it and just contacted everyone we could at the desk assignment we had in the North Visitor Center. Then I met Lucie and January 2 of the 27,000 people here for the DoTERRA convention. January is a member and she brought Lucie who really has come to know Christ just this past year. We were at the Jerusalem Map and talking about Jesus Christ and everything that he went through while performing the Atonement. I can't even remember how but we started to then talk about the Book of Mormon and I shared with her 3 Nephi 11 (my favourite to share with guest on the Square). By the end of the conversation we were all in tears... she was so overcome with the Spirit and power of the Book of Mormon and was truly touched as she read the verses along with me. I asked her what she would do if she had an experience like the Nephites did and she just said she would just fall to her knees and cry at His feet asking for forgiveness. I told her that through the Book of Mormon she could spiritually do exactly that, to touch the prints of the nails in His hands and feet. I then asked her if she would let me give her a copy of this most powerful and precious book and she felt so privileged saying "I can have one of those?". She asked me to sign it for her and wrote my testimony on how she can know it too be true. I grabbed some pamphlets and shared more about the apostasy and restoration and it just made sense to her. It's amazing the connections you feel with people when you share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is truly just amazing! Those moments when you really feel the immense love that God has for His children and His desire for them to know that the truthfulness of the gospel has been restored on the earth again today. 

We had a hectic day with talking to Sisters and delivering ice-cream (I felt like a visiting teacher, it was so awesome). Meeting with the Assistants to the President, guest services, more talking with Sisters, not having dinner, taking a Flag Pole tour and then we met another miracle at the Statue of Christ! They were listening the whole time we were talking with our tour, the tour we had wasn't too great but we then approached these other people when we were finished up.

Again, thank-you DoTERRA! We met a couple and they had a member friend with them. Her husband wasn't there for the whole thing so we mainly talked to the wife and friend (the friend had Hawaiian connections with Sister Bulaoat). We talked about the gospel casually with them, just conversation about religion and what she believes, her personal experiences, clearing up some things that we believe about the Temple etc. She is more than willing to learn (Gina), she was very open and just really appreciated our kindness and love. It was just amazing to see how at the end of the day, the only time we had on the square together, the Lord provided a way that we could truly fulfill our purpose! 

Those are just two experiences of the many we have had. We had a lady in a group of 6 who came up to me and just said "My daughter passed away over a year ago and I have never been able to cry about it, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't, but now I finally can." as a tear streamed down her cheek, she said "I see God in your eyes" and she just wanted to desperately to learn more about the Temple and how she could be sealed to her family. It was so precious, there are no words to describe how you feel in those moments and how you know that the Spirit is just taking over because Sister Ryan by herself would not know what exactly to say to comfort her heart. 

This work is so amazing and I'm grateful that it never ends, even if my tag comes off, the work is never finished! My testimony is constantly increasing of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel, there is no logical way that any of this could be false, it 100% all comes from on High. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that the fullness of His teachings are on the earth today because God is the same yesterday, today and forever and God calls prophets. That prophet of this last dispensation was Joseph Smith and I know that he saw God and Jesus Christ, that he translated the Book of Mormon and that it contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel, it is the tool of the Gathering of Isreal, it is the greatest tool we have in the work the Lord has called us to do! 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Ryan. 

photos

we hung out at the cemetery last week, it was cool.

Happy Birthday President Poulsen

Transfer 13 Week 3

Hi Everyone!

This week has been so jammed  packed with miracles, last Friday there was a lady from Australia looking for me to give me a referral, apparently she gave it to another Sister, but I never received it. She knew there was a Sister from Ballarat and wanted to give it to me because the referral she has lives in my ward boundaries.

It was my P-day when she came and so I didn't meet her. However, on Sunday we were getting something for another Sister and was in a bit of a hurry but I saw a lady sitting on the planters and I had the strongest feeling I needed to talk with her. I asked her where she was from and she said "Victoria" in her very think and strong Australian accent. Immediately I knew it must have been her, and I asked if she was Heather and she was! We got talking and she gave us the referral, I was so excited she told us that he is expecting our call and is excited to learn more. She said that she sat down because her knee was hurting and after we had finished talking the pain in her knee went away. Heavenly Father creates the BEST miracles so that we can meet those we need to meet.
We called Brian the next day and he was just about to shoot out for an errand and asked us to call back tomorrow and that we did! We had a great conversation, talking about the Restoration and prophets and before we even got to the Book of Mormon, we invited him to be baptized and he said yes! We invited him to go to church and he is willing to drive an hour to church for sacrament meeting, drive back home to drive another hour to go to work the same day! He is committed, he really wants this and he wants to read the Book of Mormon, he has seen what the church has done for people and how it has changed them and he just wants to be a good faithful person and is ready to make that covenant of baptism. The craziest thing about all of this, he will get baptized either just before or after I get home.
I only just realized this past week that not only has my family been so blessed by me coming on a mission, but so has my ward! My little ward hasn't seen any success with convert baptisms in years and all of a sudden there have been so many that have happened in this past 18 months while I have been on my mission and I hope that it continues to be this way! It's so exciting to see the hastening of the Lords work and it strikes a special string in my heart when I see it happening in Australia.

We have been seeing a lot of miracles over chat recently as well which we are excited to see how all of that goes, so be ready for the continuations of stories when we have our return appointment with them!

The Spirit is so amazing, so much is possible when you just follow the promptings you receive, I can't imagine what would happen if I didn't listen to some of the promptings we have from the Spirit. I'm not perfect, but I do my best and I have really been praying to be more spiritually sensitive to those around me, and we are seeing so many miracles because of it. Meeting people that are looking for us, meeting people who are going through similar things and need to know how we overcame it, just knowing when to talk to another Sister Missionary, knowing what questions to ask, what to testify of, to know if someone is from China or Korea!... whatever it might be. The Spirit is key! and I know it's not just on my mission that this applies. In our LDSBC class we have (as departing sisters), it's amazing to see how the Spirit is so important in everything we do and how it will help us in work, school, parenting, everything that comes after the mission.
They say that the mission is the preparation for the rest of your life and I believe it. It's where we learn to become more like the Saviour, to listen to the promptings of the spirit, to study, to know how important a Christ centered home is, to know about the sacredness of the Temple, in loving others that are unkind to us, in just being all around better people, to be successful in anything that we do!

It has been so crucial to me as I feel like my whole life has changed even in just a matter of weeks, I'm just happy to know that the Saviour is on my side and that the gospel is truly in every part of our lives and I love it that way!
We're not always going to be perfectly happy, and even with the gospel we have hard days, but we can have peace knowing that all is well and that the Lord will never lead us astray, that as we follow the Spirit, keep the commandments that we will always be on the right path, we never have to fear. Just always work on constant improvement and learning.

I love my mission so much and I am grateful for everything it has taught me, for the relationship I have developed with my Savior and the application of the Atonement that I would have never had, if I had not come on my mission. I'm grateful for my companions, for my investigators and every Chinese person I meet on Temple Square! I'm grateful for the hymns that I sing in my heart each day and to make the most of this last transfer and truly finish strong!

I love you all, hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Ryan xx