Last Thursday we got to watch Savior of the World, which is a musical production that happens every Christmas season. They wanted all the Temple Square missionaries to see it so that we could direct our
guests to go and learn more about the Savior.
Then on Saturday Rachel came and delivered me cupcakes for my birthday.
On Sunday I got to announce in Japanese after Music and the Spoken Word (テンプルスクエアへようこそ！)
and my lovely companion and district leader threw me a surprise birthday party. I had cake and ice cream and pie for dinner.
On Monday we talked to all the families who were in town for thanksgiving. We talked to one boy and asked him what he's most grateful for, and he said "Doritos" and rubbed his belly. Also I was on exchanges with the Mandarin coordinator and we met a famous Chinese actor (if we said who it was his bodyguards would get us)! On Tuesday we had a meeting with all the Japanese speaking sisters and I ate some ようかん.
We have been so blessed this week. Last week was the worst week of my mission; no one wanted to refer despite the amazing tours we took and deep conversations we had. Every phone call we took was a man angry that the missionaries had come to his house, and every chat we took was with someone who wanted to teach us about how satanic our beliefs are. But it has been so so good this week! Sister Burgoyne and
I felt defeated and decided to stop worrying so much about reaching our goals, but really making an effort to make everyone's experience at Temple Square a positive one, no matter what they thought about
Mormons. Once we really started focusing on the people, Heavenly Father really started blessing us in unexpected ways; those that we had given up on because they hadn't gotten back to us in a month suddenly started e-mailing back and picking up the phone. A call that I accidentally picked up while we were in the call center turned into a new investigator because a young man in Florida just really wants to know what he can do to have God more in his life. We talked to him again today and he said he wants to get baptized. We've gotten 4 new investigators in 3 days, after a week of not finding any at all!
Heavenly Father is so strange in he ways he blesses us. I'm not complaining.
We have a goal as a mission to get 100 more baptisms by the end of this year as our Christmas present to Christ. Every time someone had a baptism, the office sends out a text that says "so-and-so from some-country got baptized! #ourgift" it's funny because there really is no reason for us to be using hashtags (are hashtags even a thing anymore?) BUT IT REALLY HAS CHANGED THE ATTITUDE OF THE ENTIRE MISSION. We're all working hard to reach our gift-goal and every single companionship has seen miracles galore. We're all more united and a little more giddy about Christmas coming along.
Picture #1: Announcing for the first time! I was really nervous and tripped over all my words.
No Japanese tours came.
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