Week #8

ALLOOOHHAA!!!!

Life is wonderful!! I love being a missionary. Truly, there is not a single day that I don't thank my father in heaven for the great blessing I have been given to be a missionary. It's the best. I learned alot of things this week and I'm so glad. Class was always boring when the teacher just droned and never taught, and that's the way life is too!!!

I am working on making a mormon.org profile for myself, it's a little bit of a challenge with the mission computers and time because I have to hook up my camera for a picture and we only get to do that on P-day which is already crammed. I have finished the camera card, I held off sending it last week because I tried for 40 minutes to print off a measily picture, but the machine hates me. The employees and I have been on a first name basis these last few weeks. :)

First off, I got to go to the Salt Lake City Temple for the very first time today!!! It was incredible to a measure that words can never describe. The beauty of that temple is so immaculate, it's incredible to think that the pioneers built it in their poverty. Each time I went to a different room my jaw just dropped, and when I went into the Celestial Room I was dumbstruck. I just stood there trying to take in all the details and the indescribable beauty. I hope everyone has a chance to appreciate that someday.

Everyone ready for a miracle?!?! And it just happened a few hours ago!! I was on Motors (that's the lingo for being on the computer to call outbound and receive in bound calls) and a man named Henry called in. He asked for a Book of Mormon, and said that he had already requested one. Turns out he has called several times and requested the missionaries to come and so he can receive a Book of Mormon, but no one has come!! That is something that is SO frustrating and irritating as a Temple Square missionary, you have to rely and depend on other missionaries, some of which are not always doing their job, to follow up on the precious souls you find. He has been waiting for months!! And he said he is giving this church one last shot because he would really like to hear but he's fed up with if we really have the truth then we would be doing a better job of coming by. (He said the Jehovah's Witnesses' missionaries are there all the time.) I promised him that I would personally attend to the matter, and as the conversation went on he believed me. He is 64 and homebound for medical reasons and for that reason has not gone out to the church. He has been trying to call the local leaders but no one answers or returns his calls. ARGH!!!

As the conversation went on, I got his information and I asked him how he had come to this point. He proceeded to tell me about all of the religions he had looked at, he named some of the ones we hear everyday and ones I have never even heard of! He said that he is on a spiritual journey to find the true church. I told him at that point that it was no accident that he called us and I got to talk to him, because he just found it. I testified as I do to you, that I know that this church is THE Church of Jesus Christ in these Latter-Days. I taught him about the Priesthood, the power of God given to man here on Earth to do acts in His name with authority. I taught him about the Apostasy, how that priesthood power was lost and so was the Church and all of the teachings that were originally in the Church when Christ was here on the Earth were altered or lost. And then I told him about a 14 year old boy named Joseph Smith that had the same questions he had, and that he read James 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." I told him that that boy decided that if anyone needed wisdom, he did, and that he resolved to ask God. And that we went into a grove of trees and prayed to his Father in Heaven. I then read to him the excerpt from Preach My Gospel,

"I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me...When the light rested upon me I saw two Persoage, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing abolve me in the air. One of them spake unto me by name and said, pointing to the other--This is my Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

After I read that I asked him how he felt. He said he had goosebumps! And I still do everytime I read that. I have prayed about that event as a child, and I know now as I knew then, that it happened. And that it changed the course of history for mankind. We talked more about the church and I asked him if he would act on an answer he received, that when God told him it was true, would he act on it. When he said he would, (he has alot of problems with the other faiths that he sees as faults, like they're not family oriented, they don't practice what they preach, etc. ) and one of them was that some churches preach that you only need faith to be saved, but then they work in a "just kidding default" I think was the way he put it. I had him turn the page to James 2:17-18 Which in summary says that faith without works is dead.(beforehand I told him my baptismal story, how at a young age I wanted to be baptized to follow Christ, and how that has lead to me being a missionary today.) I told him that one of the ways that members of our church show their faith, is to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to be baptized, and I asked him, if when, not if, he received an answer as I had, that this church was true, if he would act on it and be baptized by someone holding the proper Priesthood authority of God....and he said YES!" He is such a funny character, when I invited him to meet with missionaries he said "Eden, (on the phone to those not of our faith we use first names) that's why I called!" So please please please please please lplease PLEASE pray for us! PLEASE pray that 1. The missionaries will get the information through chain of command to find him, that they will incentive to go find him and will understand the urgency of it (he gave us a time frame, he said he's only giving us two more months, that the local missionaries and Sister Daniilakis and I will be guided to know how to teach him, 3. That his heart will be prepared and ready for what we will teach, and 4. Pray that somehow he will be able to go to church so he can be baptized. (He is homebound and I'm not sure what they'll do for that.) Please pray for miracles!!!!

Another cool experience was when we got to talk to two gentlemen, Richard and David. They are both Catholic and from Mexico. Richard is working here for the government and they were both "learning more about your church" as they put it. We asked what they had learned and some of the things that they said that they loved was that we had a living prophet, and that he was ordained of God, not by man and then "supposedly"(their words, not mine) God talks to him. WOW!! And then they liked how the Book of Mormon shows that God loves more people than just the people of Israel, oh it went on and on. EEKK!! At the end, they said they were not interested in meeting with missionaries in person or over phone because they were nervous. But they promised that they would pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I testified about how I had gotten my answer, and that I knew that if they asked sincerely and with the intent to act on their answer that they would receive the same answer that I had. So please pray that they will also remember their promise and have the courage to act on it.

Soooo...guess what?! I'm taking polynesian dance classes! The sisters all meet together and we dance in the garage. There are some polynesian sisters that teach. And we do Taitian style. Google it if you don't know, it's amazing! It's hard. And SO fun! And apparently I'm good at it! The poly sisters came up after and told me I danced like a poly, which is the best compliment I could get from them. :) And then Sister Lui (she's from Italy so you have to read it with a heavy Italian accent) said, "Seester Lake! You arrddee an amazing dancerrdd. Normally skinny white girls cannot shake it or dance, but you can do it!" Oh I laughed so hard. Thank goodness for my latin dancing background, the way you move your hips is simliar except you shake your hips much faster and it's like your legs are a pendulum and the upper body a base. And you don't raise your heels unless walking or going in a circle, you sure feel it in your shins and abs! Woot woot! I'm still running some, hopefully someday I'll see the light of day.

How are the kids? I'm excited to get your dearelder, I look forward to it with the utmost anticipation! :) I wrote Hillary, Karis and Daddy a response to their letters last week, but I still haven't sent it off. How are the horses? How are Mitzyn and Delilah? Grandma and Grandpa, hows your Tagalog?

Oh, and I'm still working on my ASL, French, and English. :) We're scheduled to get passed off soon. Oh! We had the craziest tour the other day, we had a man that spoke german and spanish, a woman that spoke English and Spanish, my comp speaks English and German and I speak English and....English. We were translating in a frenzy! It was fun. I actually understood a little of the German, (thank goodness for the gift of tongues, and me learning, apparently I pronounce it well, must be all the phlem in my throat. :D) so that was good too.

Something that is really good for you to hear I'm sure is that we are very well protected. Church Security is topnotch, and takes care of us. In the Beehive house we have panic pagers that if we press it, an alarm goes off. We're supposed to do it if anything security or medical related serious happens, or merely if a guest is just making us uncomfortable. We did have one tour that we should have pulled on before I learned that, but no one got hurt. And they respond very fast, and everyone responds. They have timed it as short as 15 seconds and as late as one minute. Security comes sprinting and they're out of breath when they arrive and then we tell them which tours to go on. Yesterday we had an accident and we had 6 show up, and before I've seen 9 come to help. It's nice to know that we're taken care of, our safety is very high on priority list. We also have procedures to help us if we're out on the square, same story, we have procedure to protect us.

The tours are so great, I love it. I actually recorded one on my camera and will be sending it to Hillary, could you put it on the blog? And something that I love is that no tour is ever the same. President says that no two tours in our entire mission should be the same, becuase we're not tour guides we are missionaries. You would be surprised how many people get that confused and think that our mission "isn't a real mission." (The reason why we get sent outbound is because it gets slow with the seasons, not to "give us a real experience.") I feel sorry for other missionaries, because although every missionary says it, truly, MINE is the best in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!

I wish I had time to tell you about our other investigators, we have someone in Ecudor, a family in Germany (Grossleganmann family, PLEASE pray for them and us, we need it!), and other places with no time to write.

I love you all, don't forget that the church is true. No matter the cost of saying so, it's worth it. I scream it from the rooftops, I know that Christ lives. I know that He loves us, and I know that this is His church.

Love forever and Always,

Sister Lake

Can someone please tell Gerry Graves that I won't be able to see him on the square on sundays from 9-11? When we went to the spoken Word I tried to catch him before he went off stage but I was too late and passed a note that should have ended up in the choir office. He keeps trying to see me and I'm so sad I miss him, but for this transfer he won't find me. I wish I could tell him where I am! I want to see him so badly! Please send my love.