#100

Hello everyone!!!! I hope you all have had an amazing week!!! Today is my 100th day in the mission field!! That's crazy! I feel like it's gone so fast, but also like I've been doing this forever. It's a really weird feeling about the time, those 100 days flew past!!

1. We went to Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday! It was so good, it was also the last performance in the Tabernacle until the beginning of January. With all the people that come to Temple Square and with how busy the Christmas season is, Music and the Spoken Word gets moved to the Conference Center for December. It was so amazing, they sang two of my favorites - I Feel My Saviors Love, and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And I saw a friend from my study abroad there! So that was fun too!

2. Christmas Assignments - wow they're crazy. It's been a little weird though, the Square has been pretty busy, but no where near as packed as it was the first day or the second. We think it's because it's still November and people don't have their full time "Christmas" on yet, we think it will start to get busier pretty soon. My favorite assignment is definitely GP, it's a video presentation called God's Plan for His Family that you see after you go the Christus, and it's all about the Family Proclamation to the World and about how our Heavenly Father expects us to work together in families to come back to live with Him again. My other favorite assignment is just being at the Christus statue itself, or pulling people into one of the Theaters to watch one of the videos. Christmas assignments are so fun!

3. Our investigators are all doing really well, we have a lot of "Dry Mormons" or people that really should be baptized members because they're more active than most of the ward. We're really hopeful that they all get baptized this month. We really think it could happen, we'll just be praying a lot haha. Mo is one of my favorite people, he's super sweet and is currently making the Muslim to Mormon jump. He loves to talk to us about how amazing it is to now know that Jesus Christ is His Savior, and that there is someone who loves Him so much. He keeps all of his commitments and he's seriously the golden of the goldens. He's also really funny, because we met him through mormon.org chat, he knows our first names. With time he's realized that we go by Sister, and has started calling us Sister Courtney and Sister Dominik. It's really funny, we love him. 

4. Christmas Scarves! We have scarves that all the Sisters wear to help us and security find each other. It's fun, we get quite a few comments and questions about why we're all matching though. Sadly, there is no religious significance to all of us wearing the same scarf. But people ask. 

5. I really want to just bear my testimony to all of you about the reality of the love of our Savior and of our Heavenly Father. They know us perfectly. There are so many times in my life when now looking back I can really see how I was guided to be where I am today. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord on this mission, it's such a special privilege to get to represent our Savior for this short time in my life. It's already been 100 days! A couple hundred more and they'll make me take my name tag off - but I don't have to think about that yet. I still have a couple hundred more days ;) In all seriousness though, it's really a short time that I'm here on this mission and a short time for all of us to be here on this Earth. We are so lucky to get to be able to represent our Savior and help those around us come to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of the divine love our God has for us. I love my Savior, and I love being one of His missionaries.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!!! Also! If you aren't familiar with the Light the World campaign, go watch the video on my Facebook (English or Spanish) and then click on the calendar link! Light the World is great way for us to give service to others in preparation for the Christmas season!

--Sister Black

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hello Everyone!!

It's been a while since our last Pday! We were definitely excited for today - but we had a really amazing week. 

1. Zone Conference! Zone Conference lasts 8 hours and we have a couple different training's by our Senior Couples, the Mission President, and the AP's. A couple of the Sisters did a musical number and they had me accompany them, it was fun! Zone Conference was a lot about the Restoration, and finding "the one" in the midst of all the people that we'll soon find at Christmas with the lights. It was fun, President during one of our role plays turned to me and said Sister Black - will you teach me the Restoration? Only a little intimidating. President Risenmay is seriously the kindest human being ever though.

2. Changes - we now have Christmas schedule, and flexible schedule. Where our schedule used to be pretty strict and rigid with regard to our teaching center times and assignment times, we have now as a mission switched to flexible schedules where we will create our own times to be on square, have teaching center, make appointments, fulfill assignments - it will be really nice. We're excited! It makes it a lot better for teaching our investigators living in hard time zones. Christmas schedule is crazy - there are a ton of new assignments and it's nuts. It's seriously more packed here than Disney World. It's great! We can talk to so many people!!

3. From Muslim to Mormon. One of our investigators is so amazing, we seriously love him so much. He grew up Muslim, and this last week messaged us and told us that he prayed to Heavenly Father and acknowledged Jesus Christ as more than just a prophet, but as His Savior. He said it felt so good! We're so excited - we really love him so much. He's worried about how he will tell his family how he feels, he loves the Book of Mormon and has a strong testimony of its truthfulness and of Jesus Christ as the Savior. He's worried his family will disown him - we're worried about that too. We love him so much though, he's super sweet. Since we met him through mormon.org, he knows our first names rather than our last names, so he would just call us Courtney and Dominik. He recently did some research on Mormon missions, and has now started calling us Sister Courtney and Sister Dominik. It's super cute, we love him so much.

4. We met Elder Oaks this week! He was just chillin with his wife walking through Temple Square in his normal clothes talking to the Sisters! We walked up to him, and I was like "Hi Elder Oaks!" and he turned around and looked at me and smiled and said "Sister Black! Do I have a picture with you yet? No? Come here." and he put his arm around me and we took a picture!!! He shook my hand and asked me where I was from and all that. It was so legit. Highlight of Thanksgiving right there. He's so nice!! He seems so serious in general conference, but he's so sweet!! And when he laughs his shoulders kind of bounce up and down. He's adorable, it was so cool to meet him!!!! I figured that since he probably helped write the White Handbook it was fine that he had his arm around me. I wasn't about to tell the Apostle not to do that ahaha. It was legit. Sister Aguilar and I realized yesterday that once the Prophet passes, we'll have met both the new Prophet and President of the Quorum of the 12! So that's kind of cool in a non morbid way. 

5. Thanksgiving! We got to go to a members home for Thanksgiving! It was super fun, the members were so sweet and they were so kind to invite us over to eat with them - they were having a family reunion of 60 people and they were so kind to invite 6 more Sisters to join them. We got so lucky, they were so nice. It was such a fun Thanksgiving.

I hope you all have an amazing week!! My Pday will be going back to Thursday now. With Chrsitmas schedule, rather than having pday start at 12 and go for the rest of the day, we have pday from the morning until 6:45 so that we can be on square helping with the lights. Yay Christmas!!

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Savior of the World

Hello everyone! 

This week was really great :)

1. We got a golden investigator from a chat on mormon.org. We've already taught her twice and we have another appointment with her scheduled for Monday. She's super sweet and is a senior in college, she had talked to missionaries before years ago but wasn't ready - well, she's ready now!! We're really excited about her.

2. Gabriel is getting baptized! It was originally scheduled for this weekend, but we're moving it to next because his brother is coming into town for a visit that he just found out about. We're so excited for him!! We're going to try and Skype into his baptism. We're pumped :)

3. Carole is getting baptized *hopefully* this December! She's really progressing, but she really wants to study out the Book of Mormon. She loves the Bible and is learning to love the Book of Mormon. She loves Releif Society and is really sweet.

4. Celia and her husband are getting married! And then baptized in December with her family too! (Hopefully)

5. Mario is on date for December 15! He is loving church so far, and his son loves primary. 

A lot of exciting things happening around here! We try our best to remain optimistic about all of our investigtors and really help them as best we can. It's fun being here on Temple Square because we find ourselves in all phases of missionary work - the sower, the nurturer, and the harvester. You never know who you'll meet that day on Square, but everyone could come a little closer to Christ. We recently got to see the new Light the World video, and we're so excited for Christmas season. The lights and the nativites are almost all up and they'll be lit the day after Thanksgiving! We got to go to a performance of "Savior of the World" in the Conference Center yesterday, it's a musical about the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was phenomenal, and it really made me think about how grateful I am for my Savior. He's called the Savior of the World, but He's also my personal Savior. He really knows me and each of my investigators, as well as each of you, by name. He knows our struggles and our trials, our gifts and our strengths. I love that Ican turn to Him and to my Heavenly Father whenever I am weak, and be lifted and made stronger.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Sister Black

Heavenly Father Prepares His Missionaries

Hello Everyone!

This week was so full of cool experiences. We got so many new investigators and I could really feel the Spirit guiding us the week.

1. We had a lesson with an investigator from Mexico named Gabriel. He's been going through some difficult challenges and he really hasn't felt comfortable opening up about them. This week he really opened up to us and was able to make some super important decisions that are going to really bless his life. We're super excited about his progression in the gospel, we love him so much. It's amazing how much you can really love these people that you teach.

2. We are getting a new Mission President! He starts on January 12th. That part is kind of sad because I've really grown to love the Risenmays. But I know that Jesus Christ is at the head of this work and that this new Mission President will be amazing. His name/photo will be released in the LDS news this week, so you can see it there!! We're excited about him, he'll slowly start coming to different things like Sacrament Meeting so that we can get used to him and meet him. It'll be an interesting transition, especially for the Sisters going home on January 24th that will be taking their pictures and having their going home day with this new President. But I'm excited to get to meet him.

3. While in the North Visitors Center,  I saw a man sitting on a bench and thought I should talk to him. We walked away because he looked busy reading, but I really just felt like we should go talk to him. So we turned around and started talking to this man. He told us about some different trials he's dealing with right now, and I knew exactly what quote to share with him from Elder Bednar. He said that that was exactly what he needed to hear. It was cool that even though it was a small thing to just talk to this person and share a quote, how it really is true what the scriptures say about how it will be given us what to say in the moment that we need it. 

4. It's almost time for Christmas! The lights are almost all up and now the nativities are going up - I'm so excited for Christmas.

5. I love our purpose as missionaries. Regardless of the mission we serve in or where we are in the world, our purpose is the same. And that's helping people come closer to Jesus Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. Our purpose is so simple, but so profound. People come to Temple Square often with the intent of "teaching me a lesson". But I'm not here to be taught of them, but to be taught from on high and then to teach. I love sharing about modern prophets, about the Book of Mormon, and most of all about Jesus Christ. This gospel truly is a gospel of peace and joy. It's a gospel of second chances and of love. I love my Savior, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to represent Him for this short season of my life.

I love you all!!