I honestly have no idea how long it has been since I have sent one of these, sorry about that! Good news: I'm alive. Also, I'm still in Ohio!! I was supposed to go back to Temple Square a few days ago but because of the virus, I get to stay in Ohio for another six weeks. Lucky me!
I figured that I would stay in the same area and finish training Sister Mahan. Wow was I wrong. We actually both got taken out of Gahanna and transferred up three hours north to the Youngstown Zone. My new area is Warren, Ohio!! I am so sad to leave Gahanna because of the wonderful people I got to meet there. I love all the people we are teaching! We had one lady named Nancy who was going to be baptized in a few weeks so leaving her was really hard because we came to be really good friends, but I know that I need to be in Warren for a reason.
My new companion is Sister Johnston, she is from St. George, Utah! So fun! She is seriously amazing. I miss Sister Mahan but we are in the same zone so I get to see her every once in a while when we go on exchanges so I look forward to when we can do exchanges with her and her companion.
Just like the rest of the world, we are in isolation but surprisingly I'm not going too crazy yet. We are doing all of our work online. It is a huge tender mercy that I have been teaching online for my whole mission at Temple Square because it made it so easy to just start doing lessons over the phone and facetime again.
Basically, life is great even though isolation can be hard sometimes. I love being a missionary and the work moves on. We can see the miracles every day coming from the effort that we are putting in online. We are teaching some awesome people here in Warren and we have faith that we will see people enter the waters of baptism despite the virus. Stay safe out there!
Sister Moran
p.s. I would talk about General Conference but then this email would be 12 pages long so just know that I loved every single second of it!
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Hey Parents! Are you ready for a fat update of my week? Be prepared! It is a little heftier than the past couple of weeks.
I got an email this week from President Fisher back on Temple Square square. Probably you got the same email (we did not get the same email so this was all news to us). He was talking about how there was lots of work to do there, especially with food production at Welfare Square and the online teaching program that we use over there. He talked about how we would all be coming back on May 13th unless something really crazy happened. But we can also choose to go home on May 13th if we feel like we need to be with our families. I have to let President Fisher now my decision by Wednesday of this week. I won't lie, when I got that email I was really not feeling too good about going back. I didn't really and still don't want to spend the rest of my mission making food at Welfare Square. I really want to teach. I have taught my whole mission and thinking that I would go back to a mission that is so different scares me. As for online teaching, I passed off all of the people I was teaching three transfers ago when I left the square and that would leave me six weeks to build up a new teaching pool just to go home and have to give them all to other people again. Plus, I feel needed here in the Ohio Columbus Mission. There are just so many sisters at Temple Square that I sometimes feel lost in the crowd. I have felt so welcomed and so loved when I have been here and I am so grateful for that. Anyways, long story short I was not very excited about going back to a Temple Square that was so different from the one that I left. The good news is that I was praying for Heavenly Father to soften my heart and to help me and General Conference did it. President Eyring was talking about how we all have roles to play in the ongoing restoration and they are all going to be different. I realized that my role this next transfer is quite possibly going to be making bread at Welfare Square, and why not? I am not above that. Thinking that I was entitled to something else was really prideful of me. I think that I am becoming sufficiently humble to just do what the Lord wants me to do, even if it isn't what I want to do. Oh how the Lord can soften even the hardest of hearts;) On the real though, I seriously love Temple Square. Watching General Conference and all of the talk of the Salt Lake Temple and all of the videos and pics of Temple Square before, during, and after the sessions made me miss it so bad. It got to the point where I was actually kind of bummed that I wasn't there for it. But, then they talked about Kirtland and Ohio too and I was like wow. How dope is it that I have gotten to serve in two seriously restoration filled locations! Did you hear how many times they talked about Kirtland?! For crying out loud the first temple of our dispensation was here!! How blessed am I to get to serve in two missions that are just so special:)
First of all, General Conference was seriously legendary. I don't know about you guys, but I was receiving revelation right and left and up and down and I probably have to read and listen to them all again just for the other half of information that I didn't comprehend enough for it to sink in. Here are some of the answers that I got!
One of my big questions was about what I should study when I go to BYU this fall. I kept looking for God to just speak the major that I needed but absolutely nothing was coming. So, when I was listening I realized that all of the speakers were telling us how to receive personal revelation and how we could Hear Him better. Now with these tools on how to better receive revelation, I am ready to really study it out in my mind and go and really work for that revelation. That was a cool answer to my prayer. My mission ends in 81 days. Time has flown. I have been thinking a lot about if I am the person that God wants me to be, if I have done everything I needed to or if I wasted my time. I was actually super kinda panicky about it. Elder Holland's talk comforted me when he said: "I didn't come this far just to come this far". Life goes on after the mission! I think that is something that I forget a lot. I didn't serve 18 months and give myself to the Lord just to stop there, I keep on going after. There were more answers but those were just two big ones that I thought I would share.
I got an email this week from President Fisher back on Temple Square square. Probably you got the same email (we did not get the same email so this was all news to us). He was talking about how there was lots of work to do there, especially with food production at Welfare Square and the online teaching program that we use over there. He talked about how we would all be coming back on May 13th unless something really crazy happened. But we can also choose to go home on May 13th if we feel like we need to be with our families. I have to let President Fisher now my decision by Wednesday of this week. I won't lie, when I got that email I was really not feeling too good about going back. I didn't really and still don't want to spend the rest of my mission making food at Welfare Square. I really want to teach. I have taught my whole mission and thinking that I would go back to a mission that is so different scares me. As for online teaching, I passed off all of the people I was teaching three transfers ago when I left the square and that would leave me six weeks to build up a new teaching pool just to go home and have to give them all to other people again. Plus, I feel needed here in the Ohio Columbus Mission. There are just so many sisters at Temple Square that I sometimes feel lost in the crowd. I have felt so welcomed and so loved when I have been here and I am so grateful for that. Anyways, long story short I was not very excited about going back to a Temple Square that was so different from the one that I left. The good news is that I was praying for Heavenly Father to soften my heart and to help me and General Conference did it. President Eyring was talking about how we all have roles to play in the ongoing restoration and they are all going to be different. I realized that my role this next transfer is quite possibly going to be making bread at Welfare Square, and why not? I am not above that. Thinking that I was entitled to something else was really prideful of me. I think that I am becoming sufficiently humble to just do what the Lord wants me to do, even if it isn't what I want to do. Oh how the Lord can soften even the hardest of hearts;) On the real though, I seriously love Temple Square. Watching General Conference and all of the talk of the Salt Lake Temple and all of the videos and pics of Temple Square before, during, and after the sessions made me miss it so bad. It got to the point where I was actually kind of bummed that I wasn't there for it. But, then they talked about Kirtland and Ohio too and I was like wow. How dope is it that I have gotten to serve in two seriously restoration filled locations! Did you hear how many times they talked about Kirtland?! For crying out loud the first temple of our dispensation was here!! How blessed am I to get to serve in two missions that are just so special:)
Now to update you on the people that we are teaching.
We have this lady named Asia who is on date to be baptized but she hasn't responded to us the entire week that I have been here. Not to our texts and calls and we even went by her house (within six feet of course) because we were getting pretty desperate to get in contact with her but nothing. We texted her I think three or four times about General Conference and we texted her one more time before the Sunday afternoon session. Then she FINALLY texted back and said thank you for not giving up on her and that General Conference had really helped her. It was the hugest miracle!!! I am grateful that she finally reached out so we can help her be baptized this transfer, all she needs to do is get her marriage license done! Easy peasy, right?
We are teaching this SUPER Catholic dude named Adam. Seriously, it is unreal how Catholic he is. He shows us his rosary and he loves the Trinity and all of that good stuff. We have been working on getting him to baptism. We had two lessons with him this week. The first one was 1.5 hours long and seriously, Sister Johnston and I were on fire with the spirit. When we finished the call we were literally exhausted because we had been laboring in the spirit so hard and so long. We started by teaching the plan of salvation and we only got to our life on earth because we talked about what we need to do in this life, namely, baptism. We explained the entire restoration to him again, we explained priesthood authority four times, we explained the apostasy like none other, but Adam was just not getting it. He feels like the Priest that baptized him when he was a baby had authority and that it is what God wanted for him. The whole time it was just really cool to see how God was putting scriptures and passages into our hearts and mind that we needed to share with him. Because here is what is cool and confusing about Adam: he believes that the Book of Mormon is true and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Kingdom of God here on the earth, just like it says in the intro to the Book of Mormon, and he believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet. But homie just won't leave the Catholic faith! It seems to me as if he is stuck in his ways a little bit. Anyways, after an hour and a half of a super intense and bold lesson, we invited him to be dunked on April 25th and he said no but that he would pray about it and we promised he would get an answer that he needed to be. Well, the next day he texted (or two days later maybe?) and said that he got his answer and that he didn't need to be baptized again because his first one was good and we were like, uh no. So, we had another lesson and we pulled out the big guns. We read Moroni 8. We knew that this chapter was pretty fiery because it talked about people being thrust down to hell if they thought that you need to baptize children and so we were really nervous to share that, but we skipped the really roasty toasty verses and read the ones where is explicitly said that little children need no baptism. You should have seen his face when we read that. He knew that it was true but again didn't want to deny what he was raised with and had stood by for so long. We asked lots of inspired questions to no avail. He watched almost all of General Conference this past weekend and he keeps all of his commitments and LOVES meeting with us. He remembers all of the Sisters that he has ever met with which is super cool. But he just won't change in a way that will change him in an eternally. Any suggestions?
We are teaching this other guy named Anthony. He is a single dad and he loves the gospel. He has said that after he prayed that he would be baptized if he knew that this was true. So cool right!! So we called him the other day to see what his answer was and to teach him about temples because he really loves his daughter and we knew that he would love everything that we do inside the temple. So, we call, during the call, he starts driving but it's no biggie because he is still paying attention. He parks somewhere and talks about how much he loves the idea of temples and families being together and right as we are going to get to the climax of our lesson #getbaptized because you already know that you know all of this good stuff is true and from God, he was like "I am so sorry sisters, but I have to get going, I just drove myself to urgent care because I am really not feeling well" and we were like oh no and it turns out that he has had a fever for a hot second and been pretty sick and we are pretty sure he has corona. Side note: we were calling some members in our ward and they have a friend that just died from corona and there have been a bunch of cases all around, it seems bigger in this part of Ohio which is a little more country than where I was before in Columbus so that is interesting to me. Back to Anthony though, we had to let him go and we said a prayer and everything. That was Friday and we haven't heard from him since and we are worried about him and that he actually has corona. He would probably be okay because he is young, but still, it's scary. It was really cool though because even though he was super sick he made time to call us, even as he was driving to urgent care. He could have said no and that would have been totally understandable, but he is just such a solid dude that he made the gospel a priority. Isn't that awesome??
We have been just working hard and helping the people that we already have progress. We had some miraculous experiences with people that haven't answered in a while picking up and being able to get in contact with them and set up teaching appointments. Plus, there were Elders in this area last transfer but they got doubled out and they weren't replaced, so we were able to call a bunch of the people that they were teaching. One of which was an online Bible study request. The Elders had been doing studies with him every day over the phone and we get to continue that now! Online referrals do work! And on the same note, some sisters in our zone got a Book of Mormon referral from some sisters at Temple Square and this guy is like super elect and prepared and seriously they put him on date already. Isn't that crazy!!! Online teaching for the win! We have also been working on calling inactive members in our ward. There are so many. Almost triple the amount of the active members. We have seen some cool miracles in reaching out to them in being able to set up return appointments. And some of these are for people that haven't been in contact with the church for years. I love getting to see the work progress!
A lot of missionaries are really struggling with this whole we can't leave our apartment thing, I haven't had too much of a problem with it yet. I know that God is doing this for a reason and I know that He has huge miracles in store, all we have to do is try. Sister Mahan who is in our zone is having a really hard time though. We got permission to go watch General Conference with them and we were talking and she was very open about how she is thinking about going home. Then again, she has anxiety and she is in a bad spell so she knows that she shouldn't be making big decisions right now, but still. That was really eye-opening to me. To see my past sweet companion that loves the work and loves being a missionary seriously contemplating going home because she can't do the self-isolation. She got a counselor though and that seems to be helping. Plus her comp this transfer is super awesome so she is going to be just fine. That didn't stop her from crying when I had to go back to my area though. To be fair, I was about to cry too, I love that woman. Her counselor told her to draw pictures to remind her about why she loves the work, and she drew a picture of me and hung it up on the living room wall and parents, it was so tender to see that. Just send some extra prayers her way.
This past week we have actually been able to be with almost all of the sisters in the zone because we went and spent General Conference with them (don't worry, it was totally allowed). We are starting training visits literally tomorrow and I am super nervous because I don't know why anyone thinks that I am qualified to train someone else on how to do missionary work. Pray that these sisters will be patient and that I'll just be able to follow the Spirit on what they need and how I can help. And that our schedules will just be super full and that we can find lots of people to talk to and help online.
Okay. I think that is all. There is more that happened but I am just going to leave it at this. Sister Johnston is awesome and I am learning a lot from her about powerful teaching. We both can get pretty bold with people. I have learned a lot from her good example of being a Preach My Gospel missionary. Plus, she is a super good listener and will just let me talk out all of my thoughts which is so nice of her. She kinda reminds me of you mom! Anyways, love you guys so so much!!!
Love
Sister Moran
p.s. I only have 11 more pdays after this... only 11 more FAT emails from yours truly;) Time goes by way too fast.
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