What a week. It's always hard to go a week and a day without a day off. But we made the most of our pday today for sure! We got up and worked out as usual! We are doing our own series of runs that we call "Touch St George" and each morning we decide what we want to touch in St George. We've touched the Tabernacle, Deseret Book, Harmons etc. They are all a few miles run so it's nice to be permanently sore ;) It feels good and gets me moving in the morning. So anyway we got up and ran and did laundry and usual studies until 10am and as soon as study time was over we got our nice warm-from-the-tumble-dryer pjs on and curled into bed for two more hours. It was divine. But I couldn't sleep for a little while because it's been SO LONG since I've slept in the day (not being sick). My body feels a lot happier! We got up and we met the Elders at this florist shop as they decided to steal, I mean, share our idea of sending flowers to all of our Bishops. We talked with the woman and she said it would be $35 per bouquet, plus delivery. We said we would think about it and left. I remembered the day before a girl who took us out on splits showed us the florist she worked in, so we drove there and the cute old lady worker has a granddaughter on a mission so worked out a deal for us all! We bought 16 bouquets of flowers with each bouquet being $7 each and free delivery!!!!!!! We were soooo blessed. The Elders forgot to bring the addresses of all their Bishops, lol ;), so they will have to go back and do it all haha but it was great!! This evening we are eating dinner with one of the Bishops and are bringing some investigators with us and the Ward Mission Leader so it should be a party! These are all things Elder Clark encouraged us to do at Zone Conference a few weeks ago. #puttingitintopractise
My first week of Mission Leadership Council and Zone Meetings and Exchanges was good!! We were very blessed. MLC is at President's house but because it has cooled off a lot we sat outside (still in the shade!) and we were given ice-cream cake as a treat for making our mission goals last week. President talked a lot about the vision we have for our mission. As a council we decided our vision is to double baptisms. We usually get just over 100 a month, and years ago President Hinckley said missionaries need to double their baptisms and it hasn't happened yet. We want President Hinckley to be able to stand before the Lord with happiness about that promise so as a mission we are working to double baptisms. We talked about how to get there and it all comes down to personal conversion and faith, obedience and diligence. We are setting higher and higher goals for each month. We have made the baptism goal for November 120 and it will increase each month. We got together with the Zone Leaders and decided that for our Zone we want 33 baptisms in November! That is 3 baptisms per companionship! We got higher than all the Zones this month in finding new investigaors and baptisms so we had cheesecake at ZTM haha! Anyway so our whole trainings at ZTM were all based on vision and faith and getting 3 baptisms each in November to set the example and set the mission on fire! The slogan for the month is "Who's your three?" and each exchange we go on is centred around finding those three and we all pray for each others three etc. We have great Zone Leaders. It was great to see Elder Nolan! He is in our Zone now and he cracks me up! It's nice to have a fellow Brit there.
We had two beautiful baptisms this week!!! A and K are going to be some of my bestest friends forever. A's was so beautiful because his whole family from Vegas came, none of them are members except his older brother who joined last year and has since married in the Temple and was able to baptize him on Saturday! A came out of the water crying, he was so happy. We taught The Restoration during the awkward changing time so his family could get a basis for what he has learned. He also got the sweetest confirmation ever! It was so perfect to see the people you love enter the waters of baptism so prepared. Then K's baptism was straight afterwards and the Koeven's from Washington brought our Chinese investigator J. I love getting to see the Koeven's a few times a week as President Koeven uses his Cantonese with them. They are the best fellowshippers EVER. Everyone loves them, including me! So they came and it was great because in the changing time, we did a last second musical item. Sister Koeven played piano while Sister West and I, and the Elders all sung Nearer My God To Thee. It was nice :) K's baptism was beautiful too and she was just radiant!
We have had some hard times this week being dropped by two of our most solid investigators by text. I felt it was coming with one of them because she stood us up twice and seemed distant. Satan runs fast, so we try to run even faster. But we take hope in the fact that one day they will remember what we taught them. It hurts each time because you love them SO much and see the potential that they don't yet see within themselves. But we are staying faithful and trying our best. I'm still soooooooo in love with our Chinese investigators. I want to teach them every day they are so perfect! We taught chastity to H and asked him to tell us what he had learned and in his broken English he said "To not have the sess before marriage." and I said "And what else?" and he said "And not have the sess after the marriage." and we had an awkward silence for a second thinking "Great, lets start from the beginning" and then he said "Only to the wife" hahahhaha and it was SO ADORABLE that I couldn't help but laugh.
We rode our bikes past a YSA looking boy (now I'm programmed to stop and talk to everyone who looks YSA age!) and naturally as only awkward missionaries can do we turned our bikes around and made him stop skateboarding to talk to us. It turned out he is from SLC and is less active and just moved here. We talked about what he likes about Church and he said "You know...I haven't been to Church because I've been waiting for someone to come and invite me. Thank you." and it was one of those little miracles. Then it's been FREEZING in the mornings and in the evenings so I wanted to call the Davis's in Pineview to deliver my winter suitcase that I gave them in May and I lost their number! So I went to the VC after rifling through my apartment for their number and BOOM THERE THEY WERE!!! They are so in tune with the Spirit! So they dropped off my winter stuff today so I can have jogging bottoms to work out in and hoodies and cardigans now its COLD! Heavenly Father looks after his missionaries!
Sorry it is shorter this week, my keyboard was a rough one to type with! I'll write more next week. Just know I'm happy and healthy and loving being a missionary. I love my companion, my investigators and my area. I'm learning so much and love who the Lord is making me into. I love my companion and we lean on each other and help each other and it's great to serve the other Sisters!I love you!
Sister Nicholls
PS Wednesday pday next week!
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