Week 30: My Area: Liberty

It appears I am still in the process of perfecting the art of weekly emails home. This week I will attempt to share funny moments, spiritual upliftment, stories of each person we visited, and the meetings we had. Enjoy!

First off, any of the youth (or really anyone reading this) should go check out the Youth Hastening the Work website. Such fantastic ideas and study helps for being involved in sharing the gospel!

Mom has asked for a few questions to be resolved.

Differences between Bountiful and Liberty

Bountiful is tucked away up in the mountains. Liberty is in the south downtown side of Salt Lake. Bountiful is very prosperous. Liberty is not. Bountiful is well-educated, with lots of opportunities for education, youth activities, etc. Liberty has a lot fewer of those opportunities. Bountiful and Liberty both have people who have been here forever. Liberty has a lot more movement with apartment complexes and young college families.

But the cool thing: both of these areas are full of people of incredibly strong faith. I am just astounded by the role faith plays in our conversion as I have met so many people these past several months. I love both of these areas, and I'm grateful the Lord put me in both of them.

The role of senior couple service missionaries in the stake

We have lots of church service missionaries in our stake. They are older couples from southern Salt Lake valley (West Jordan, Riverton) to Bountiful and Kaysville. They are assigned to a ward or stake in south Salt Lake to help with welfare, visits, and reaching out to various families per the Bishop's needs. They are also there to help us with reaching out to our investigators in more temporal needs, but they also come to lessons with us and contact referrals. They are basically my grandparents here in the stake, and I just adore them.

Funny quotes and stories

"How can we show Jesus that we love Him?"-me  "Go to Church and get married in the temple."-Jaden "That's too fast Jaden."-his mom

"You don't understand." Sister Bill

"We need to pray before we go to bed. I know it's hard, but try." -Sis. P

"Are you wrestling?" "Yes." "Watch out for sharp corners." -Sis. S

"When I look out, I only see beautiful people. There are no freaks here." -sweetest boy who bore his testimony yesterday

We keep seeing cars with bright pink mustaches - fuzzy, bright pink mustaches - on the front of their cars. Who knows why. #welcometoliberty

I saw an old friend from BYU who lives in my area.... weird.

Oh yeah! I went on exchanges with Sister Taylor this week!!! LOVE that sister. We had a blast in YSA (young single adult). It was incredibly different from working in the family wards, but I loved it. We had some adventures, went and walked probably 3 miles to contact people, ate fantastic Dominican food, and texted every person in the entire area. Super fun.

Now for my own little bits from this week: Firesides and Meetings

Clayton Christensen "Everyday Missionaries" fireside over in Rose Park was incredible. Since I'm running out of time, let me just share the five main points he talked about in order to be a more effective member missionary: 

1. We can't predict. Meaning, we can't judge if a person would or would not receive the gospel just because of an outward perspective.

2. We succeed when we open our mouths! or when we invite! see Preach My Gospel chapter 11

3. Ask if they have questions! This is a restoration of the gospel and a restoration of asking questions.

4. Teach them how to pray, to read the scriptures, to come to church, etc.

5. They will feel the Spirit when they serve. Provide service opportunities for them! We need them.

Meeting with Bishop C about the needs of his ward ended up being an awesome experience of us learning about the importance of covenants. When people come to ask for something temporal, what they really need to to make and keep covenants and to enjoy the blessings that come from living the gospel. It's so true - when we do what the Lord has asked us to do, He pours out blessings upon us, and that makes everything work out.

Mini zone meeting with President Hansen about reaching our goals and internalizing our purpose. Everything we do must be working towards our purpose. And we must become converted before we can really help others become converted as well. I love Preach My Gospel chapter 1 so much. We talked about teaching with the pamphlets and how the purpose of that is to help us keep our lessons short, concise, and focused on the basic principles of the gospel.

We were invited to attend a baptism for a sweet eight-year-old girl who's father had recently been reactivated. He is the only member of the church in his family, and so when the time for the confirmation came, he bore his testimony and asked if any other Priesthood holders in the room would come join to help him confirm His daughter. I love seeing the Priesthood in action. It truly is the power of God to act in His name. 

Biggest accomplishment of the week was on Sunday. We visited every single ward in the stake. And that's how we do it here in Liberty. We felt so accomplished. 

I love you all! I love this work! The gospel is true! Miracles happen! Heavenly Father loves you! 

Love,

Sister Holbrook

Hymn #30 is my favorite. And my mission theme song,

Jacob 5 is amazing. Great personal study reading the book of Jacob the past few days.

Companionship matching. So sweet

Our Sunday snack... at like 7 at night after we broke our fast. Such a busy day