Jump!

Ni hao!

Happy Easter week everyone! What a wonderful time of the year, to once again focus our thoughts on the Savior. Time continues to fly by and every day is absolutely wonderful.

This week we decided to drop William. In the comments we put: “His faith in the power of prophecy is a little too strong.” We agreed that our time would be better spent with the 30 (no joke) other people that we need to take care of. It’s amazing what the Lord blesses you with when you have the faith! We literally don’t have time for how many people we’re attempting to teach. We had three hours of motor time & planned to call 16 people…yes we ran out of time. We’re doing our best & making the most of the time we’ve been given. This week definitely strengthened by testimony on the power of the 10 Minute Lesson. We don’t have time for any longer! I still can’t believe how absurdly busy we are – but I LOVE IT!!!

We had unplanned motor training at 8:00 am Monday morning, which was a great reminder of the importance of our work. They asked for a volunteer for their object lesson & before I knew it, my hand was in the air? Pretty sure it was the Holy Ghost lifting my hand for me because I am so glad I got to be a part of the lesson. Sis Crandell asked me to jump, so I jumped 1 in off the ground. “Jump higher!” 2 inches. She stood up on a chair, “Sister Despain – touch my hand” so I jumped & touched her hand. Two more times & she lifted her hand higher & higher each time. At one point I let the group know “I have white girl ups – don’t judge” but I still touched her hand, every time! The point was that without goals that make us push ourselves we’re not reaching our full potential. One thing that we have realized is that we as a mission don’t even KNOW what our true potential is! If we have the faith, we can accomplish ALL things.

One thing we re-learned this week was just how fast people can shut you out! We were half way through a very pleasant tour with an older couple from Minnesota, when the woman asked, “What do you do with the rest of your day, other than this?” We explained that we were missionaries & we are here to share the history & beliefs of the Pioneers – this IS what we do! After that point, ANY time we mentioned a speck of doctrine – they wouldn’t look at us, or they would comment on how big the planks were for the oxen cart :) Yes, America: Be proud of the amazingly honed ‘I will now proceed to ignore you’ skills that your people have cultivated.
A woman gave Sister Nelson 51 potentials on Thursday! AMAZING!!! We’ll have to give them away, we don’t have enough time to take care of them all. Sad.

We had quite the experience on Wednesday. Johnathon lives here in town & came to Temple Square, he wasn’t “really sure why” but we knew why :) LONG story short: He was living a horrible life style, “found Jesus” in 2008 and has been searching for the perfect church since then. The three of us had a wonderful conversation around the Square as we ended in the NVC basement. At one point we were sitting, discussing doctrine & I thought, “This is just like being in an investigator’s house! This is awesome!” Half way through our conversation he said he would “have to decline” our offer for missionaries – but then as we continued to address his concerns – in the end we told him that we had come to a point where “learning had stopped & now you need to ponder what we’ve told you”. So he referred for missionaries! It was one of my favorite experiences on my mission, so far. He will make a great Sunday School teacher, he was a very visual “explainer” – which lead to me do a little “step-by-step” [Faith, Repentance, Baptism etc.] demonstration for him. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Elder Porter of the Seventy came to do a day of training with us. We started the training with a role play where the “investigator” only ever said “no”. In the end, we realized that if you can do the hard ones…you can do the easy ones :) Somehow I ended up sitting in the FRONT row, first seat on the left from the middle aisle aka DEAD CENTER. Wearing my hot pink suit coat nonetheless! Yes, I was asked to share some thoughts. “Teach when you find, find when you teach.” Sister Inoue(AP) asked me to share my thoughts. There are times that come up in the mission that you can tell the Spirit is helping you SO much, that was one of them :) I mentioned that as we ask those we teach to share with others the power of the atonement, they will willingly give us people to contact – because they have seen it work in their own life. The work we are doing is the Lord’s and He has prepared people for us!
Yesterday, I was talking with President Holmes and he mentioned how impressed he was with my comments in the training. So much so that he had even leaned over to Sister Holmes & mentioned it. I thanked him & made it clear that the Spirit has been guiding me A LOT lately. He has been a fantastic Mission President, I am grateful to be serving with him.

Everything is straight up going by TOO fast! It’s beyond ridiculous. This week I was able to see that as you do what you can & pray your hardest, the Lord will bless you with the words you need, the strength to continue & way too many investigators :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

Sister Ainsley Marie