Jan 17, 2017 ther 12:27"

In the Temple Square mission, we are not assigned to any wards/congregations. So for church on Sundays, we gather at 7:30 in the morning just with the missionaries, and the missionaries who are going home in the near future are assigned to give the talks. 

My companion, Sister Goncalves is going home in 5 weeks, so she was assigned to speak. She does not like public speaking, and she highly dislikes large groups of people. She was very nervous the night before, and we went through her talk together revising it and practicing it over and over. 

The next morning, she was pretty confident. She was ready to blow those missionaries' minds with the talk that she was about the give. "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (D&C 38:30). We did what we were supposed to, and there was nothing that could get in Sister Goncalves's way. 

We walked in to our chapel, and I took a seat in the pews, while she headed over to take a seat on the stands. And then I look up and see this on the stand:

It was Elder Quentin L Cook, a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles.

brain: "SISTER GONCALVES IS GOING TO DIE"

NO ANNOUNCEMENT AT ALL, AN APOSTLE OF THE LORD showed up at our church because he couldn't make it to his regular church because of scheduling conflicts. 😰😬😆😮

Sister didn't die while she gave her talk, but she did forget how to pronounce the word "wings", which was pretty funny. She actually shared a beautiful message about having gratitude, and how grateful we need to be to have the Gospel of Christ in our lives. 

Elder Cook was the concluding speaker, and he talked about how when he was a young missionary, he trained a companion who was from a tiny town in Utah. This companion had never been in a big city, and talking to people frightened him. Elder Cook said, "I did 95% of the teaching, and he recited the first vision and shared his testimony." 

They had a baptism later on, and when asked how they decided to be baptised, they answered, "Elder Cook, you are a good missionary, but when your companion shared his testimony, we felt the Spirit of God confirm in our hearts that this message is true." 

I thought it was pretty cool, because that's exactly what I've been able to learn from Sister Goncalves. You can be humble and powerful at the same time. 

That's the end of my story. 

Here are some other pictures:

Book of Mormon + Teachings of Presidents in braille 

(Temple Square secret: for a good time, take a tour of the LDS printing division warehouse) 

The directors of the Kirtland OH visitors' center! We got to do some missionary work with them on Temple Square for their training. Sister Jennings kept telling people "I love you". I want to be like her when  I grow up. 

Twin