Setting Records

It is transfer time again and I am... Staying in Liverpool! Yep. That's right. I will be in Liverpool for 4 transfers in a row. And my new companion is... Well, it is not a new companion at all-- Sister Loh and I are still together haha. I don't think this has ever happened in our mission: Same companionship in the same area for 4 transfers in a row. Setting records indeed. It is weird to think that I am a third through my mission and I have been with only one companion in the mission field. Perhaps we still have a work to do and we can only do it if we are still together. It will be great though because both Sister Loh and I will be able to spend Christmas in Liverpool which I have heard is the greatest thing ever. We already have members in the ward offering to feed us Christmas breakfast and meals-- they like to book in advance.

Funny moment:

We were running late for an appointment we had made while tracting and we had two members with us that we have become really good friends with. I was walking a little ahead of everyone because I don't like running late for things. Eventually, one of the members started jogging to catch up and a couple seconds later fell to the pavement. I tried so hard not to laugh and I think I did pretty well at just giggling to myself  (It sounds awful but I ensure you he was alright). The next day, Sister Loh and I were in the same neighborhood and a street near where the member the day before fell was called ''Fell'' street. The situation just got 10 times funnier. 

Our mission had multi-zone conference last week with Elder Teixeira and his wife as the visiting area authority. Elder Teixeira encouraged us all to raise our visions and to remember that baptism is the center of our purpose. Sister Teixeira basically called us all to repent because we haven't been the best at exercising in the morning. Guilty! We all tend to pass out on the floor in the morning but I have committed myself to be better at exercising in the morning. 

There was a double baptism in our district this past weekend and before the baptism the Elders put on the movie The Other Side of Heaven. Love that movie so much. My favorite line: ''learn the language; build the kingdom.'' Definitely a new motto for my mission.

One of our new investigators took us to a really good Chinese buffet for lunch. They had a sushi bar so you know I had to go check it out. The man working behind the sushi bar must have looked at our tags and asked ''Are you Mormons '' Yes! Yes we are. He then went on to explain that he is from the Philippines his mom is a member of the church currently living in Sweden. He asked us if he could meet with us because he had some questions about our doctrine. Whaaaat?! Of course we can! We will be seeing him next week. Never would have thought to meet a potential investigator at a buffet. 

Even though I am away from home for this Christmas I still got to wrap some presents. Sister Loh and I helped a lady in the ward wrap some presents. I am impressed that she has all of her Christmas shopping done for her 3 daughters  She will be keeping the presents in a hidden location and bring them down just before Christmas. While we were at her house I thought ''hmm.. I wonder where my mom hides Christmas presents.'' I don't think I have ever looked around for them although curious. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise of Christmas. 

I have had some of the best early morning studies ever recently. Although I have gained numerous witnesses from the Holy Ghost that this church is true, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that Christ is our Savior, I decided I would do as I invite my investigators to do and pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true. As I was studying for one of our investigators I flipped to 2 Nephi 33 ( I have been reading a lot from there lately. Such a good book in the Book of Mormon). I love the humility of Nephi and how he feels in writing he is weak but when he speaks he has power because he is able to speak with the power of the Holy Ghost. Although Nephi feels he is not able to write as well as he speaks, his words are so powerful. I got to verse 6 which reads: '' I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell.'' As soon as I read that verse the Spirit hit me. It bore testimony to me that the Book of Mormon is true and that Jesus Christ lives and that he is our Savior. It is hard for me to believe that the author of that powerful verse felt weak in writing because he wrote one of the most powerful verses of scripture. What we feel like is our weakness can truly become strong when we turn to the Lord. 

I love that fact that we can all know that this church is true whether we are a member or nonmember, old or young, with a testimony or without one yet. Because I continue to receive confirmation from the Spirit that Christ is our Savior I am able to withstand the challenges of being a missionary and I am excited everyday to testify that he lives. 

I love you all!

Sister Jordan 

Teach Ye All Nations

Hello friends and family!

I would like to first start out with a funny Liverpool moment:
I was on the bus and the lady I had been talking to got off. There was this older man ( I think he was a little drunk) that was across the aisle. I smiled and said hello and he was like ''WOW!!! You're teeth are white!!!!''  I replied ''Yes. I go to the dentist.'' Got to love the people of Liverpool.

C Minor is doing great. We taught him the Word of Wisdom the other day and found out that he will have to give up some things if he is to be ready for baptism. It makes sense now that he didn't feel ready for baptism if he was praying to know if he was ready. Hopefully he will be able to overcome this road block.

This week during personal study I was studying about enduring to the end. I decided to read 2 Nephi 31:16-21 as suggested in Preach My Gospel. Verse 16 reads: ''And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.'' After reading this verse it stood out to me that a part of enduring to the end is developing Christlike attributes. I then thought of how great it would be if the following verses included all of the Christlike attributes. They do! I encourage you all to read this passage of scripture and find faith, hope, charity, humility, obedience, diligence, patience, knowledge, and virtue. I promise you they are all there. There is so many hidden treasures we can find in the scriptures when we take the time to really ''feast upon the words of Christ.'' :)

Sister Loh and I were street contacting on our way to an appointment one day and we saw this Chinese man so we stopped to talk to him. I understood the conversation and then about a minute later I had no clue what they were saying. They had switched to Cantonese! Yeah.. Ting bu dong (I don't understand). It was not beneficial to just stand there not knowing what was going on so I went to talk to this African man that was a couple feet away. I don't know if I had said this before, but I LOVE talking to black people here in England. I always think ''my people!'' haha. Anyway, I start talking to this man, he tells me he is from Nigeria and I tell him I am from America here on a mission. I gave him a Book of Mormon which he was hesitant to receive because he believes the Bible is all he needs. I bore testimony that I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and I also told him that I was a representative of Jesus Christ here to spread his restored gospel. It is amazing how much power you can feel when you bear witness that you are a representative of Jesus Christ. I think the Holy Ghost witnessed to him the truth of what I was saying because he finally accepted the copy of the Book of Mormon and said he would read it and if it says the same thing as the Bible, he would accept its teachings. I told him that there are plenty of chapters in the Book of Mormon that quote Isiah . I left him with a prayer and rejoined my companion who was still talking in Cantonese with the Chinese man. After I walked away I saw the man I had talked to reading the Book of Mormon!

A thought I had this week is how much I love being a Chinese speaking missionary. The language is hard, yes, but it is so worth being a Chinese Missionary because the Chinese work here is incredible. I know that the Chinese here in England are very special sons and daughters of God. Many of them are just so golden and have a sincere desire to learn about Jesus Christ.

I have a really great miracle to share! Last week, Sister Loh and I were on our way to an appointment and we had some extra time to street contact on our way there. We were walking past this house when all of the sudden I felt the need to stop. I was like ''how about we knock on this door?'' It was a crazy idea but we went with it. As we got to the door step we were trying to figure out what to say if someone came to the door. Another crazy thought I had was to sing a Christmas hymn to who ever answered the door. We ring the bell, a man comes out. We tell him we were missionaries and that we wanted to sing him a Christmas song. The first thing he said to us was ''I am Christian!'' We sang Silent Night for him, and during the song, a woman came to the door as well. Turns out to be the man's sister who is also Christian. They are from Iran and speak Persian but we were able to set up a time to see them in the following days. The day we went over as planned, no one answered the door. Bummer. We waited 10 to 15 minutes and finally started walking away. Just as we reached the bottom of the drive-way, a lady that I hadn't seen before came out. We stopped her and asked for the people we had met a couple of days before. She eventually invited us in, disappeared down stairs, and brought back the woman we had talked to. She was home! Long story short, we taught her the restoration in very broken English. We had cups that we use as a visual and it helped her understand. At the end of the lesson I asked her ''when you feel gospel good, will you be baptized?'' She nodded and said yes! The fellow shipper we were with may have been surprised and asked her ''you understand?'' and she nodded her head again and said ''yes.'' We will see her again this week. I love England because I get to teach people from so many nations.

Transfers are coming up soon! In fact, today President Preston and his Assistants will be doing transfer planning. I may or may not be training this next transfer.. oh boy.

The Liverpool stake had stake conference this past weekend. The sessions had an emphasis on hastening the work of salvation. It is amazing to see the increased enthusiasm to share the gospel after this past General Conference.

Remember that Christ invites ALL men to come unto him. Of course not just ''men'' but women and children as well. Something I thought of as I pondered this week was that sometimes we may hold back sharing the gospel with certain people because we feel that they would reject it or that they would not want to change their life to live the gospel. Remember that Christ denies no one. I can hear the Savior's invitation '' Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me'' (3 Nephi 9:14).

Love you all!
Sister Jordan

Invitations

This week I went on exchange with our Sister Training Leader in South Ribble. Our last stop of the day was to call by a former investigator couple. They let us in and offered us hot chocolate. Sometimes I am surprised by how friendly perfect strangers can be. They had a lovely home and I felt that I was at home. Anyways, we ended up talking about the Plan of Salvation and how the knowledge that we are sons and daughters of God effects the way we view the world and ourselves. I felt the prompting that we needed to invite them to do something. I thought about inviting them to be baptized but in the end I invited them to read the Book of Mormon instead. They didn't really accept my invitation but I know that the seed has been planted. I can't see the end result of our visit now but I do know that it is so important to invite people to come unto Christ through leaving commitments. After all, this is part of our purpose as missionaries.

One day I sat next to this girl, Louise, on the bus. When we started talking about religion, she told me that he dad was religious but it was hard for her to know what is true because she has never had an experience to help her know. i told her that we all have the opportunity to have spiritual experiences for ourselves. I gave her a Book of Mormon and promised her that she would come closer to God and would have that experience she is seeking for.  She was very grateful for the Book of Mormon and the promise I shared with her and gave me a hug before she got off at her stop.

Another miracle I had while bus contacting this week was when I talked to this young man named David. When I sat next to him he was listening to music and I was thinking ''oh boy.. when am I going to be able to talk to him?'' I said a little prayer in my heart that I would be able to have a conversation with him. Not too long after that, he took his head phones out-- YES! I was able to talk to him and found out that he comes from a religious Christian family. During the bus ride I was able to share the message of the restoration and even got to share with him Joseph Smith's first vision. David was impressed by Joseph Smith's story. I related it to him and how he can go to God and know truth too. I gave him a Book of Mormon and then had to hop off before I could get his info or give him ours. He has great potential though and I am sure the Lord will take care of him.

Ok.. now for the news I am sure you are all waiting for, Kirk's baptism! I mentioned in my last email that I knew that the road to his baptism would not be easy and I was right. He was hit pretty hard with opposition but we were able to help him through it. The actual day of the baptism was interesting because we realized we didn't have keys to the church but we needed to start up the boiler so that the water would be warm and then fill up the font. Every thing did work out, thank goodness. We had a really great turn out to his baptism. There are a lot of members who have come to know and love Kirk and they came to support him. President and Sister Preston also came. Surprise!  Wasn't expecting them to come at all. It was great having them there though. President has talked to Kirk before and knew him well enough to come to his baptism I guess. Kirk was dunked a few times but was finally able to be full immersed after a couple of tries haha. Kirk bore his testimony at his baptism and did wonderful. His little son, Owen, wanted to give a speech but was in the gym when it was time for him to talk. We ended with prayer and saw that he was upset that he wasn't able to say anything. A member of the bishopric told him that he could maybe speak on Sunday and he did. It was so cute! He told the congregation how proud he was of his dad for being baptized and also said that his dad has always been his example, in good times and bad times, and that he wants to be just like him. Yes, those were the words out of the mouth of a seven and a half year old. He wants to be baptized when he is 8. Don't know where I will be in April when that happens but I am definitely coming back for his baptism.

We actually missed our bus by a minute this past Sunday.. Oops! We decided to walk to church since the next bus didn't come until 10 minutes before church would start. Of course we would miss our bus the week Kirk was being confirmed. So we walked, then we jogged, then we ran, and we finally made it to the church. Fortunately we were only 5 to 7 minutes late and arrived during the opening hymn.

We invited C Minor to be baptized next month but he does not think he is ready. We told him how prepared he was and that if he prayed about the specific date that we gave him, it would be easier for him to feel like he has received and answer. Sometimes in our prayers we need to ask the right questions and be more specific and then the Lord will more readily give us an answer. Needless to say, he is still on the fence but the last time we meet with him we invited him to pray to be more sensitive to the Spirit. Until then, Sister Loh will definitely be learning patience.

Just like I invite investigators, I invite you too to come unto Christ. He is the way through this life and he is the way back to our Father in Heaven. Keep praying. Keep reading the scriptures. Keep being great. Love you all!

Sister Jordan