Dear Loved Ones,
I'm going to start with a crazy story! This dirty looking young boy came into the VC. He was dressed all in black and had the sides of his head shaved. He came in at the annexe and asked for a Book of Mormon! The Sisters there were like OF COURSE and gave him one. He asked for a pencil and they gave him one and he started writing something in the front of the book. They thought it was odd but continued on their way. Then he faced his back to the door (so he was facing them) exited the building and did this weird creepy little dance thing and RAN. They thought he was strange. Then he came back in and showed them what he'd drawn, the Satanic symbol. Then he ran out again and shouted "I LOVE THE DEVIL!!!!!" on the Temple grounds. He then ran into the main building, and walked up to the Christus and went “That's creepy." And I was sitting on the seat by the front door, that is pressed up against the window. He walked past me, holding something suspect in his jacket, threw a pencil on the floor with a smirk on his face and exited. I thought nothing of it other than “That was strange." and then one second later there was this massive BANG on the window right behind me and I jumped about ten foot off my chair and looked and he was pressed up against the window with his Book of Mormon open to the page that he had drawn on. I couldn’t see what he had drawn because he RAN AWAY! We called Security to let them know some weird boy was roaming around and while we were on the phone he came back in again. We stood by the front doors and he walked right up to me and went "…..Sorry I made you jump." and I was like “Oh you're fine!" and then Sister Rizzo asked him his name and he said Jacob, and she asked him how old he was and he said 13, and she said do you live around here and he said he would prefer not to answer that question, haha, and from then on everything we asked he prefered not to answer. We were blocking his way in hope Security would make it but then he asked if he could leave so we said “Of course." and moved out of the way and he opened the door and then pulled out the Book of Mormon as soon as he was out of the building. He opened it to the Satanic page and started shouting all about Satan and the other Sisters were scared so I just opened the door and smiled sweetly and said "Thank you so much for visiting us Jacob! Please come back whenever you would like. Bring your family too!" and he said "WE'RE NOT MORMONS" and I smiled and said "Even better! Bring them with you! Thank you for coming Jacob" and he ran up the street shouting about “The mark of the beast” hahaha, some 13 year old gothic boy. It was quite the adventure. I jumped SO HIGH when he smacked himself against the glass behind me!!! I couldn’t stop laughing about it, he is just a poor confused little boy.
On a better note! We had representatives from the missionary department in SLC come to the VC for two days this week and train us. We had to give them tours the first day and then the next two days we had training meetings from 6:45am-9pm. I will never again complain about working in the Dean's Office at 8am when I was at BYU! But it felt absolutely great to be up and out by 6.40am! Mornings are my favourite. Especially in St George it's only like 95f in the morning so it's perfect! Haha last night we were driving home at 9:20pm and it had cooled down to a cool 103f thank goodness! Haha IT’S SO HOT. Anyway the trainings were fantastic! I wish I could've recorded it all! President and Sister Center were there, and President spoke first on the first day. It was a much needed training about how we are each beloved daughters of Heavenly Father. It sounds so simple, but if you could hear President speak it feels like you are in the presence of Heavenly Father. He just feeds my soul! He said how Heavenly Father has always known us perfectly, and that when we are reunited with Him we will understand how present He was in our life and how well we do know Him. I wish every single Sister in the VC could internalize that simple truth that they are divine. Then Brother Billings and Brother Rasmussen trained us on how to teach the doctrine in a Visitors’ Centre, and how to greet in order to establish a relationship at the very beginning, and how to extend invitations here. It was incredibly done. I was fired up! It showed me a ton of things to work on, including asking different questions when people enter the VC! It's so easy to get into a routine with our resources because they're always the same resources we use! But I'm working on it :) I put it to the test and had an incredible experience. This man walked in to the VC alone, looking like a hiker. He looked about 40 something. I approached him with Sister Schafer and we talked for a few minutes. I just felt as though I recognized him. Not physically, I knew I'd never met him. But I recognized a search for truth in his eyes. I could see within him humility and a hole that he wanted to be filled. We showed him God's Plan and the Book of Mormon table and he was just so SINCERE. He wanted to know the truth so badly and we told him how to! We bore testimony and the strongest feeling came over us. I love seeing that spark of change in someone's eye. The VC is my favourite thing, because we have authority to teach the people in our area in Little Valley, but when you serve in the VC you have the authority to teach whoever comes in those doors. They have been prepared by Heavenly Father for a LONG time before we meet them. It's our job to remind them of those truths in a way that will be familiar to them. Sometimes it's exhausting trying to teach every person that comes in to discern their need and meet it, but it's the most joyous feeling to see that light in someones eyes. His only concern was “What if my family don't want to learn too?" because he requested local missionaries go there today, and I am calling him tomorrow to continue teaching him. His name is B and he was from Oregon, he was two teenagers. He asked if there was a missionary family who could teach him that might have kids his age so that they will want to learn and we explained that missionaries are young boys or girls but they can bring member families with them. He was so happy! It's my favourite thing ever to testify of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith. Online teaching is my FAVOURITE thing, because we take the role of fellowshipper more than missionary, so we become the fellowshipper every missionary wishes their investigator would have, we just read the scriptures with them and answer questions etc. Also yesterday the front desk phone rang and I was right there so I picked it up and it was this man saying "Hi, I am at an LDS Church service for the first time and I want to learn more, how can I learn more?" hahahahahaha BEST PHONE CALL EVER!! I told him about mormon.org and took his phone number and have a return appointment to teach him online tomorrow!! All these people to call and teach!! I love it! The SLC trainers talked about their missions and how they would've keeled over and died if bus loads of non members came to them when they were out tracting and asked to learn more! But we get that every day!!! IT’S THE BEST! Haha these three roughty toughty looking 20something year olds from the hoods in LA came in and wanted to learn. They asked really tough questions about predestination and foreordination and the Bible’s original clause's back in the early AD years and it took three of us Sisters to answer all the questions. We kept like tag teaming haha. They were Protestant but they appreciated what we taught and I have one of their email addresses! They were interesting haha.
In our area things are going well. We have four with a baptismal date right now: G, K, S and L. Each are doing so well and I love them so much!! S is giving up smoking right now and is going strong so should be baptized in a few weeks! We spoke in G's ward yesterday and she was announcing to people that she is being baptized so that was solid. She has a goal to read the whole Book of Mormon between now and her baptism so she is going strong! And we are now bffs with L's family and they give us food every time we visit! We had rice there and her Mum was like “Yeah it’s similar to the soup I gave you last week!" and we both looked at each other in horror and endured the rice version of the soup from last week haha!! We sat with the whole family and read the Book of Mormon and it made me miss my amazing family. I have such fond memories of reading the scriptures together every day :) I love you and miss you so much!!!
Sorry it's kinda short this week, I got carried away with other things!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Transfer calls this week, I'll find out from the APs on Thursday probz and then I'll be released as Visitor Centre Trainer on Saturday! It's sad because I'll miss working with the Watkins' so closely as I love them like parents now. But I'm happy to move on and give the responsibility to someone else!
I LOVE YOU
Sister Nicholls
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