March 28, 2011

Dear Family,

 

This week was wonderful!  Do and Bang are members of the church now!  The day of the baptism everything went wrong, but it was clear by the end of the day that it was because Satan knew something amazing was about to happen.  After the baptism, Do and Bang shared their testimonies, and just like Tyler's last week, they were perfect.  Bang talked about how he didn't know anything about God a few months ago, and he knows the Holy Ghost led him to the church. Do talked about how when he was 8 he saw a movie about Jesus Christ and knew he was "more than a great man."  He wanted to follow Him and talked to his mom about it, but she said that he would have to follow Him by himself.  He always wanted to, but never knew how until the missionaries knocked on his door.  He talked about how he learned about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and prophets and he knows it's all true.  He promised in his testimony to keep the commandments.  We sang Silent Night for the closing song because it was the first song he ever heard about Christ.  (Bang picked the opening song by saying "Dear Heavenly Father" and then opening the hymn book - the song was "Come Unto Jesus," so it was perfect).

 

We found out this week that there are no meetinghouses in Vietnam.  It's pretty much the same situation as China.  Just last month, though (while Do and Bang were being taught!), Elder Cook met with Vietnamese officials and a church leader from Bang's home town and they talked about relations.  Vietnam is grateful for the humanitarian aid we've given them.  Slowly but surely, Heavenly Father is opening up ways for all of His children to learn about the church.  Someday Do and Bang will be able to go to church in their own country.

 

This week we were riding to the institute building when Sister St. Clair stopped and said something was weird with her bike pedal.  We kept riding and it fell off!  We'd only had the bikes for 4 days.  Our bishop, who is a lot like Dad and can fix anything, tried a bunch of different things to put it back on and when nothing worked, he welded the pedal to the bike. We won't be having trouble with that anymore! 

 

My first transfer is officially over!  The time is flying by.  I hope everything is well with you! I love you dearly.

 

Love,

Sister Monson

March 14, 2011

Hello, Family!

 

This week was good and my birthday was wonderful!!!  Thank you so much for the presents and the cards.  I loved all of the presents and I'm so excited to have a camera now!  I'll take a lot of pictures so you can see the people I talk about. 

 

Sister St. Clair went above and beyond on my birthday in a lot of ways.  One of them was to ask Bang to make me a Vietnamese treat.  He replied "Hi. Sure. I will make a small party for her."  We got to their apartment for a lesson and they had a table set up with ingredients to make spring rolls.  They were delicious.  Every time I would get half way through one, Do would make me another one. They were very filling. We had a great lesson with them and they shared how they feel the Spirit when they read The Book of Mormon.  Bang said he feels happy and Do feels "vibrations." They don't know a lot of English words, but they know enough to explain the Spirit beautifully.  Their baptism date is next week. 

 

We had a wonderful but heartbreaking lesson with Jeffrey.  He took us out to dinner at an expensive Chinese restaurant and then we had the lesson at his apartment.  We asked him if he would be baptized and he said he can't.  He is an important man in China, dealing with 2 billion dollars every month. Everything he does is watched.  He is here with people from his company and has to tell them that he is just learning English when he meets with us. He said he believes us and he believes God,but if he was baptized China would know and his life would be ruined.  He said another beautiful prayer and included that he will follow God with his heart even though he can't with his behavior, and he knows God will understand.  He kept saying that China needs time but he will bring The Book of Mormon there.  It reminded me very much of the people in the Book of Mormon who had to pray silently because of the persecution they were under.  He is an incredible man.

 

So...WE ARE GOING TO BRANSON TODAY TO WATCH A SHOW!!  We're watching the Hugh's brothers who I've heard aren't very good, but still.  We're excited.  We're going for our Zone Outing.  I'll be sure and tell you how that goes.  I definitely didn't think that would be something I could do on my mission.

 

I love you all dearly.  Thank you so much for making my birthday so special even though you are all far away.  I got so many wonderful letters and the presents I got were perfect.  I love you all so much.

 

Love,

Sister Monson

March 7, 2011

Dear Family,

This week has been good! 

 

There are ROUS's (Rodents of Unusual Size) in Missouri.  We were teaching Tyler Jones outside because we couldn't find a girl to come with us, and up walks this huge rodent.  Like the size of a cat.  It was a possum, which I've never seen in real life before so I thought I was in The Princess Bride.  That was fun.

 

We've had more miracles.  We were walking down the road after trying to contact someone, and Sister St. Clair saw some Chinese people she's taught before. We went up to talk to them and one of them, Jeffrey, said he wanted us to come back and teach him again!  We had a really hard time finding someone to come with us and the days leading up to it had been hard, but his lesson was the most amazing spiritual experience I've ever had.  We walked in and he had his Chinese and English Book of Mormons out, questions written down in Chinese, and his laptop open so he could look up words, because his English isn't very good.  He said he thought there might be a God but wasn't sure.  He envied Americans because he feels that this is a better place than China because we have a belief in God and China doesn't.  He asked why Americans have God but China doesn't.  That was a hard questions to answer, especially without offending him, because God loves all of His children and doesn't turn His back on us, we turn our backs on Him. It was made even more difficult because of the language barrier. But, Sister St. Clair opened up to Alma 26:37 which says that God is mindful of all His people and we explained that everyone someday will have the chance to know about God and accept him. Jeffrey said, "Oh, I won't worry about it anymore."  He said the closing prayer and it was the most beautiful, simple, faithful prayer I have ever heard.  He said, "My Dear God" and then gave thanks that we had come and answered questions he had had for a long time.  He also said, "you are my God."  I felt like I was sitting in on King Lamoni's father's prayer, where he prays for the first time with faith in God.  It was a wonderful experience and I am so grateful for it. 

 

We also met a girl named Theresa.  She requested a Book of Mormon because she's doing a school project on Mormonism. She already knew a lot about the church when we went over, and she has a great respect for us. Her parents were able to attend the open house for a temple and they told her about how beautiful it is. While we were teaching her, her friend Aubrey came over.  She is searching for a religion and liked what we taught. There are no coincidences in missionary work!  Aubrey came up at the perfect time for a reason.  They are both coming to church after Spring Break. 

 

The church is true and Heavenly Father's work is progressing!  I love my Savior and I love The Book of Mormon.  I'm so grateful I was raised in the church, because so many people are lost and don't know what will bring them real happiness and what won't.  I hope all is well with you!

 

Love,

Sister Monson :)

February 28, 2011

Hello family!

 

There have been lots of miracles this week!  We went by the apartment of someone Sister St. Clair has been working with and she gave us back her Book of Mormon and told us she wasn't interested anymore. That was a bummer, but from there we went tracting and found an apartment of people who were so nice and really interested in the message.  If the uninterested woman hadn't given us back her Book of Mormon we wouldn't have had enough for the people who were interested! They all promised to read and pray about it.

 

We have an investigator named Austin who is wonderful.  He was referred to us by the girl who got baptized the first day I got here.  After the first lesson we asked him if he would get baptized and he said yes!  We've taught him three lessons now and the Spirit is always so strong. We haven't even taught him about the Word of Wisdom yet but he's stopped drinking because he heard about it. 

 

One more amazing person is Bang Phan.  We taught him about the Word of Wisdom and it was a huge bummer for him because he drinks coffee every morning and has the best, most expensive kind from Vietnam.  We called him the next day to see how he was doing with the coffee and in his broken English he said, "I throw it away."  Everything we teach him, no matter how hard it is, he accepts so quickly even though when Sister St. Clair started teaching him he didn't even know anything about God or Jesus Christ.  He's felt the Spirit and it's changing his life.

 

An adventure this week had to do with finding a brown recluse in our apartment!  It was in the flower vase right next to where I was writing in my planner, and when I noticed it I just about died. Sister St. Clair was on the phone so I had to wait for her to get off.  We took the vase next door and the big black guy who lives there said it was a brown recluse because of its fangs and its predatory nature., which didn't make me feel much better :).  It was especially bad because just that morning we'd tracted into someone who had gone to the hospital that morning for a brown recluse bite!  These spiders like crawling into bunched up stuff on the floor, and I've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor, so I panicked.  Sister St. Clair had the wonderful idea to put my mattress on our kitchen table (which used to be the clerks' desk), and it actually was pretty comfortable and definitely far enough off the ground.  We told the elders about it at Zone Conference because it's funny, but one of the elders who is way too nice decided to donate his box spring to the cause, so I have a real bed now.  I'll feel really bad if he gets bitten by a brown recluse since he's sleeping on the floor now!

 

Missionary work is amazing and I'm learning so much.  Miracles happen everyday.  I hope everyone is doing well! I love you so much!

 

Love,

Sister Monson

February 14, 2011

February 14, 2011

Well, I'm in the mission field!  As you probably know already from Sister Fatheringham, I'm in Springfield, MO with Sister St. Clair.  I love her!  She's a sweetheart and very supportive and a very good missionary. She's from Utah/Arizona and she went to BYU 3 1/2 years before her mission, just like me.  She's so much like Jenny's/my old roommate Sammie!  She looks and talks and laughs like her, so I feel like we've been friends for awhile already. 

As soon as I got to my apartment after the 5 hour drive from the mission home (which went surprisingly fast), we left to teach two investigators named Do and Bang.  They're Vietnamese students at the university here.  We teach a lot of students because we're the university sisters and our ward in the singles ward, which is fun.  I love Do and Bang!  Their baptismal date is March 12th (a great birthday present for me!).  We taught them about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy that day and about baptism on Sunday.

Saturday we had a baptism!  I feel really bad for Sister Toorea, the sister whose spot I took, because she had to miss it, but it was wonderful to go to a baptism on my first full day.  The girl, Rachelle, gave a beautiful testimony about how she came to know the gospel is true.  A lot of her family there were Baptist and very upset that she was getting baptized.  I gave a talk on the restoration while she was changing and that was intimidating with all of those upset people, but I testified that I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and I felt the Spirit very strongly as I did.

Since being here, we've found two sets of people to teach.  The first one was Matt.  He is...well...very excited about our church and wants to get baptized already, but he didn't really seem to understand what we were saying and also might be going to prison and wouldn't tell us why because he doesn't want to scare us.  That was an interesting lesson.  Then we found a couple expecting a baby.  We went to their house last night to teach them the first lesson and it was CRAZY!!!  The husband's little boy was visiting them and he was clearly starved for attention and wouldn't stop yelling and showing us things.  Poor little guy.  We couldn't teach at all. Then the husband's father came out and he listened and we might teach him again, but he was kinda creepy. So far in my mission, I'm just feeling so blessed for how I was raised and that I've always had the gospel.  These people are so, so lost.  I'm looking forward to seeing families be mended and lives changed through accepting the restored gospel.

The members here are SO helpful!  We have dinner appointments every single night and there is always someone willing to come teach a lesson with us and give us a ride.  The weather has been beautiful.  This is definitely different from anything else I've done before and it's gonna take a lot of time before I feel like I'm contributing much, but I love the Gospel and I know it's true!

Love,

Sarah

February 22, 2011

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Hello Family!

 

I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday.  It was a holiday, so we changed P-day to today.  Holidays are good for proselyting because everyone is home.

 

I've had a lot of adventures this week!  Where to start...I guess with a funny story.  Sister St. Clair and I tracted into some frat boys.  There are fraternity houses everywhere here, which is different.  Anyway, they were really nice and one of them, Robbie, seemed interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him about the Restoration a little.  We went back to see them and his roommate, Josh, said to come back in an hour and they would all be there and we could talk.  We came back in about two, and we saw Josh walking out to his car.  I guess this made Sister St. Clair feel really awkward, because she started booking it across the street, away from him, in sheer terror.  It was hilarious.  We got a little ways away and she regained her senses and started laughing at herself.  Josh  probably saw us running away from him.  We laugh about that all the time now.

 

There have been a lot of miracles this week.  One of our investigators with a baptism date is named Tyler Jones. He's a black 19 year old kid so Ally would probably like him :)  We've been worried about his readiness so we were planning on moving his date back, but we had an amazing lesson with him.  He opened up (he's been too chill to do that before), and told us about how the gospel is changing him and making him into a better person, and everyone around him is noticing it.  The next day was Sunday and he needed to come to church, but he wasn't there, so I said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to wake him up, because he was probably asleep.  He made it to church later in the meeting and told us he had woken up at 9:30, which was just when I prayed that he would.  It was a miracle.

 

We've also tracted into some of the most amazing people.  A lot of the students here are from China, and they are so humble and kind.  We knocked on one door and someone looked through the peephole and yelled "OH."  He opened the door and it was the cutest Chinese man.  He said he got to America that day and asked if we were Mormons.  We said we were and he was so surprised!  I didn't understand why until he said that Communist newspapers write that if people go to America, Mormons will knock on their door. They aren't to let us in, because we're evil. He wanted to know for himself about us when he read that, and he couldn't believe that we got to his door so fast! He could tell we're good people and he wants to learn more.  I'm so excited to go back. We couldn't teach him right then because we need another girl with us when we teach men (all of our investigators with dates - there are 5 - are college boys so this gets hard). He and so many other Chinese people we've talked to have been prepared to learn about the gospel.  They'll learn and go back to China and live it, and soon all of China will be able to learn the truth!  Heavenly Father is mindful of all of His people.

 

One of the members here who helps us a lot is named Codie Keyser.  I found out I know her brother!  He was roommates with Aaron Worthen, that guy I dated a couple years ago, and she hung out with them all the time around the time we dated, and even lived in my old apartment. It's a small world!

 

Our walking area is turning into a bike area!  The Senior missionary in charge of transportation called us and let us know we could either get California bikes or women's three-wheelers.  That's right.  Sister St. Clair and I could be biking around Springfield on TRIKES with our helmets and our skirts!!!  We almost decided to get them, but we're going with the cruisers.  We laughed about that all day, though.

 

Sister St. Clair and I are pretty much the same person.  She almost became an English teaching major, she loves Regina Spektor and all of the other weird music I love, and we're constantly saying and thinking the same thing at the same time.  I feel really blessed to be her companion.

 

I love missionary work!  And I love the gospel.  I know this church is true, and that by following what we know from the scriptures and from modern-day prophets, we can know just how to live the happiest life we can. 

 

Love,

Sister Monson :)