"Go to Work and Build''

Hello friends and family!
It feels unreal that my birthday is in a week. I know all holidays on a mission are very unique and special. I believe it will be no different for a birthday on a mission. There is no where else I would rather spend my 21st birthday!

Well this week there has been a turn of events. Things can change so quickly week to week. Our Chinese investigators are very dedicated to their studies and its that time again for exams. As a result, they all are unwilling to meet with us and have put us on hold for the next couple of weeks. (Nooooo!). I got back from exchanges this week on Friday and we were only at 8 lessons. Our goal for this transfer was to get at least 20 lessons each week. With only 3 days left to get 12 more lessons we definitely went to work. The ironic thing is my personal study the morning we exchanged back I read in Ether 2:16 which reads: ''And the Lord said: Go to work and build.'' These words were recalled to my memory in my moment of despair and it helped me get through the rest of this week. We did end up accomplishing our goal and made it to 20 lessons. I am not sure how much we able to ''build'' this week since the majority of our lessons were on the spot and those on the spot lessons haven't yet produced new investigators. Hopefully this week will be better.

Our recent converts are definitely being tested by Heavenly Father. He is testing their trust in Him and His promises. Sister Merrill and I are planning to help them build their trust in Heavenly Father and their faith in Jesus Christ so in the future they will  have the courage and determination to put God first in their lives.

I went on exchange with Sister Finke in Swinton this week. I can relate to their situation and I know how it is to whitewash into an area and have no investigators and to have days filled with basically just finding. I went on this exchange with the determination to help them build their teaching pool. My exchange with Sister Finke was definitely one of my favourite exchanges thus far on my mission. We saw so many miracles and meet and taught so many people! In one day, we found 3 new investigators! It was incredible. The majority of the people we taught on the spot were YSA aged which means I might see these people at the building hopefully sometime soon. One of the biggest miracles is when we were heading back to the flat for the night and Sister Finke had an impression that we needed to get off a couple of stops earlier. We got off and started walking back towards the flat. We ran into this young man named Rob who is a student at Salford Uni. He told us he has a friend from Wales that is a member and that he has been to church a couple of times with him when he was younger. We shared about the Book of Mormon and gave him his own copy. After we prayed with him, out of the corner of my eye I saw a young boy that was maybe 11 or 12, walking towards us. I glanced over at him to find him staring with his jaw dropped as he looked at the Book of Mormon we gave Rob. I didn't understand why he was so surprised but when we said hello he asked if it was a Bible. We told him it was a Book of Mormon and he told us he has been to ''that church'' a couple of times. Sister Finke and I then asked if he wanted his own copy and he told us he already as 2 Book of Mormons at home. Woah, now! We asked if we could come teach his family about the Book of Mormon. He nodded his head and gave us his house address and his mom's name.

Sister Merrill and I have created a creative way to street contact. We call it ''The Look Back Principle.'' It is what it sounds like-- We walk past some one that is usually not YSA aged or not Chinese (since our focus is Chinese YSA) and when we look behind us and see them double take and look back at us, we know we need to run after them to talk to them. This week we tried it and it worked! We walked past this young man who looked back at us. Twice. We ran to catch up to him. When we finally got to him I was out of breath. He looked at us and said ''are you following me?'' haha. I told him with the breath I had that we just had a feeling we needed to talk to him. I asked him if he ever wondered what why he was here on earth. He told us he does everyday. He told us we were wasting our time thought and he wasn't interested in our message. We gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with our contact info on it anyway. He will be baptized in the near future. I can feel it.

Lately, I have been pleading in my prayer before my personal study for the Lord to teach me by His Spirit. I have been surprised at the timing of when these lessons come, but He has always answered my prayer. Something that clicked in my head this week is what it means to have an eye single to the glory of God. It is hard to duplicate outside of my head but I will try my best. I came to the realization that everyone we meet as missionaries will eventually accept the gospel. It really isn't our accomplishment when we find and teach and baptize investigators ourselves. I understand how insignificant my work is in the grand scheme of it all. Not trying to sound like I feel inferior. It is however humbling. I understand that the success and baptisms I have on my mission are all credited back to the Lord. This is His work. I am just an instrument in His hands. The greatest reward I get out of the work is that I am converting myself each day and that He is able to mold me into the person He knows I can become.

It is time for another transfer planning already? Crazy. I am grateful to have been here in the Man YSA for 3 transfers so far with Sister Merrill too. I am feeling like our work together may not be complete but I know we are both willing to go and do what and where the Lord needs us. I know President will be inspired to put everyone where they are needed this next transfer.

Go see miracles this week :) Love you all!
Sister Jordan

Accountability: Our Access to the Atonement

Buckle your seat belts because this is a long email haha. Oops! I just couldn't water things down.

First things first, if you haven't watched the ''Because of Him'' video, do it now. It is so inspiring. I love my Savior, Jesus Christ!:

http://easter.mormon.org/

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday so we were able to go to the temple. I feel so much peace there. The temple and the temple grounds have quickly become my favorite place to be in the world. While I was in the temple I really felt how pleased Heavenly Father is with me and I could feel His love.

Our Ward Mission Leader holds us accountable for the number of people we invited to church, the number of referrals we ask for/ names received, and how many people we invited to be baptised each week. We report on our progress records each week and he will read each companionships numbers out loud at the end of coordination. He keeps track of these because he feels they are the things that impact how many people eventually join the church. It's definitely not a competition but Sister Merrill and I had the lowest numbers in all categories and so we hit the streets after last Thursday's coordination and invited everyone we could to church and asked them all for referrals. It was a great week to invite people to church because of the Easter Sunday coming up. We continued to step up our game for the rest of the week. We were blessed for being diligent in these matters because on Sunday, we had SIX non-members at church! In total from all 3 companionships we had 15 non-members at church. Also remaining diligent in asking members for referrals has been fruitful too because one of the YSA members has 5 friends he is going to invite to learn about the gospel and we should be meeting with one this week. A great example of ask and ye shall receive.

Our most progressing investigator, Tian, was doing so great. We dated him for the 8th of May and he has a calendar and everything. He always gives the most sincere prayers, he is working really hard on giving up smoking, and we committed him to come to church each Sunday and he accepted. Opposition hit on Saturday and Tian told us he won't be able to come to church until September.. We haven't been able to get  in contact with him since but we are hoping to find out more about his situation and make necessary adjustments. I still have hope that he can make his May 8th date.

Our next progressing investigator is Sherry. Sherry is from China came to church 2 Sundays ago with her friend whom we met on the street and invited to church. We love Sherry so much! She is just so funny. At the last lesson we had with her, she gave the closing prayer and said to Heavenly Father ''we know that You love us and we love You.'' I think that is such a beautiful thing an investigator, let alone our Chinese investigator, express their love for Heavenly Father and acknowledge that she knows He love us.

Miracle moment:
Our investigator, Winnie, left for the states a couple of weeks ago and told us she would be back on the 15th. We rang her like crazy only to get no response each time. We were worried that she was avoiding us. I started praying so hard that Heavenly Father would help us get in touch with her again. This weekend, we got a text from her phone. It was her friend texting from her phone saying that Winnie had left her phone in London and her friend said she would get it back to her some time this week. Such a sigh of relief! Hopefully we will see her soon.

The specialized training we had last week was perfect. I learned a lot about agency, accountability, and the Atonement. I left with the question in mind: why do I personally want to be held accountable? I couldn't come up with an sufficient answer on my own so  I prayed about it that night and pondered the next morning. And then it hit me-- with accountability we have greater power to change. An Assistant mentioned in the meeting ''the more we are held accountable, the greater access we have to the power of the Atonement.'' In retrospect, I have noticed that the more I hold myself accountable for my actions and my mistakes, the more likely I was to do something to change and apply the Atonement to my life. When I take full responsibility for my actions, I have felt the godly sorrow that leads to repentance and growth. When we blame others and our unfair circumstances for our short comings, we feel like things our out of our control and we are helpless. This is exactly what the adversary would want. The message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is opposite to that helplessness; we all have can exercise our agency to choose to change ourselves even when we can't do anything about other peoples actions or other things out of our control. We can choose to let godly sorrow humble us and repent when we fall short. We can choose to let the Atonement transform us into who we need to be.

 I am so grateful to be here in Manchester at a time such as this. Our Zone is setting records! I can't recall the exact numbers right now but this past we had around 70 member present lessons as a Zone. That is like the highest it has ever been in EMM history! I am feel so blessed and honoured to be surrounded by some of the best missionaries in the mission, and even in the world.

Love you all!
Sister Jordan

                                                       The countryside of England

                                             Sister Merrill and I in front of the Preston Temple

                                                     Another temple pic

                                                  Forget-me-nots I saw this morning :)

The Choice is Ours

At our zone meeting last Tuesday, 2 Elders in my district gave us a training on how to ask questions and use the Book  of Mormon in our finding which was perfect because I have always wondered what I could do to improve my street contacting. Sister Merrill and I applied the training that day and we saw many miracles and teaching opportunities-- we had 4 lessons on the spot that day! That was one of the highest numbers of on the spot lessons we have had in a while. Now we know how to be more effecting in our finding but now we need to find a way to turn these on the spot lessons into return appointments. That is something that is a bit more difficult here in the Man YSA.

We finally received Stephanie's friend as an official referral this week! After a lesson with Stephanie one night, she walked us to her friend's house. Now that we have the address, we have called by the friend's home a couple of times but she hasn't been home yet. We will keep praying that we can contact her soon.

On Thursday we saw huge miracles with Heavenly Father placing our investigators or people we have previously met in our path again. About a month ago, Sister Merrill and I met this Chinese girl named Wu on the street. She was going through a rough time and asked us how Jesus Christ could help her. We taught her how to pray and gave her a pamphlet. She did not give us her number or address and so we have had to way to get in contact with her but she has always been on our minds and we have always hoped to run into her again. Thursday evening while street contacting Sister Merrill had a feeling we would run into Wu and about 2 minutes later we did. Woah! She told us she has prayed and felt peace :) She still didn't give us her number but if Heavenly Father can place her in our path a second time why not a third? We also ran into our investigator Santhi that night and she set up a time to see us which is a big deal because she hasn't answered any of our calls or messages.

That appointment with Santhi ended up being her dropping us.. Santhi is currently catholic and it is hard for her to accept the Godhead and not the trinity. On the bright side, I am grateful she actually did it in person. Most people just stop answering our calls and text messages. I am also grateful we had one last lesson with her because we were able to bear testimony and invite her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and what we have already shared. I know she will come to know the truth for herself in the near future.

We had a great lesson with our investigator, Tian, this week. We taught him the restoration and he surprised us with how much he knows about the Bible. He thought Joseph Smith's experience was magical because God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and answered his prayer. Tian is so great! He accepted to be baptised next month.

This week I said goodbye to my recent convert from Liverpool, Yan Ling. She had moved up to Manchester to work in the hopes of getting a VISA but it hasn't worked out and she will be leaving to go back to China this coming up weekend. Yan Ling is the epitome of a kingdom builder. She made food packages for the 21 missionaries in the Manchester area and printed her testimony and conversion story in English and Chinese for each companionship. She is brilliant. I will miss her. I know she will do a great work in China when it is open to the gospel one day.

We had 3 nonmembers at church yesterday, all the fruits of the consecrated finding efforts on Saturday. We are meeting with two of them today.

I love serving here in the Manchester YSA. The missionaries here are seeing great success with inviting those we teach to be baptized and many of them have accepted the invitation. We will all hopefully see 6 baptisms by the end of this transfer. They want the YSA membership to double by December and we are going to help make it happen!

This week I learned, or rather had an experience when I was able to understand how much Heavenly Father respects our individual agency. I know He has great things in store for me but He will never force these things on me but rather would have it be a choice for me. An instance of this is how He allowed serving a mission be my choice and not something I felt obligated to do because He told me straight out in my patriarchal blessing. This may work for others but He knows me and knew I would come to the decision myself. I am grateful for the ability to make my own choices and I am grateful that Heavenly Father treasures and respects our agency.

 Agency is a gift given to us and it is a gift we can give back to Heavenly Father as we strive to be humble and do His will rather than ours. Friends and family, the choice is yours! I hope all of you will choose your Savior and God's plan. This is where true happiness lies.

Love you all!
Sister Jordan

A Marvelous Work and a Wonder

I would like to just start off by commenting on General Conference. What an inspiring and uplifting weekend it has been for me. I received answers too many of my questions, if not all of them. I am grateful I took this special opportunity to think of questions, write them down, and listen intently from the servants of the Lord for personal revelation. I wish General Conference would happen more often! 

Among the many questions I had in my heart that I brought to General Conference was ''what more can I do to help more of our investigators stay on the gospel learning path?'' As I have said in weeks previous, many of our investigators, new and those starting to progress, have been dropping us and discontinuing meeting with us. The saddest part about it is that many of the people we have meet with are honest seekers of the truth and I believe the seed that has been planted has already started to grow within them and they have started to witness the truth of our message. This problem we have been experiencing was in the forefront of my mind and as we watched the Saturday evening session of General Conference, Heavenly Father answered my question through Elder Richard G. Scott. The main take away I received from this talk is that I need to have greater confidence and trust in my investigators that they will chose Jesus Christ and his true gospel. A line that sticks out in my mind (I paraphrase), was that ''everyone here on this earth has chosen Jesus Christ already. Have the confidence that they will choose Him again.'' I am excited to apply all of the things that I learned from General Conference to my mission and to my life. 

During our website Wednesday hour, Sister Merrill and I stumbled upon this wonderful article about the church in Asia. Elder Holland and some other General Authorities and their wives visited parts of Asia where the church is and they observed the great growth and maturity of the church there. Here is a quote from that article:
''Concluding, Elder Holland reported that there is a hastening of the work in Asia.'We will live to see miracles there—as we see them now. Our children and our children’s children will be as comfortable talking about the Church in Asia as they have historically been talking about it in Utah and Idaho and Arizona.' ''
Miracles are already happening preparing the way for places like China to be ready to receive the gospel; Heavenly Father knows where His Chinese children are and He has sent missionaries to diverse places(i.e. England, Australia, Canada, Tonga, etc) to share the gospel with them. The one child policy has been lifted. Mormon.org is now legal in China and available for that population to view. I am sure the list goes on. Heavenly Father is very aware of all of His children. He will make sure everyone has the chance to learn and accept the gospel and make it back to His Kingdom. To read more about the article visit:
https://www.lds.org/church/news/the-church-is-wonderfully-well-in-asia-elder-holland-reports?lang=eng

Sister Merrill and I have been witnessing many miracles ourselves in our area. For instance, we were walking back home for lunch one day this girl came running after us to hand us back a pass along card that unknowingly fell out of one of our pockets. We had a nice conversation with her and invited her to come to the church building that was on the card. She accepted the invitation and we will be giving a tour later this week. This miracle is seemingly small but I know ''by small things are great things brought to past.'' 

With many of our scheduled lessons or tours falling through Heavenly Father has blessed us with others. He is putting the more prepared in our path. We recently meet this Chinese girl named Winnie. She is so golden! We met her on the street one night and she came for a tour that very moment. We asked her if she believes in God and she said she always has but just never had the opportunity to understand religion. A belief in God is the biggest hurdle that our Chinese investigators have to jump, and she has already jumped beyond it. She came to General Conference this weekend and she loved it. She will be in the states for the Easter holiday but she will be back in a week. She now has a copy of the Book of Mormon and she committed to read it while she was away. There is no doubt in my mind that she will be baptised soon :)

I feel like I say it all the time but I cannot say it enough-- Stephanie, our recent convert, is so brilliant and blessed! This week we witnessed again the great influence she continues to have on her family and friends and their learning of the gospel. Her mom is now in the process of meeting with the missionaries. Her best friend has asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon and asked for our number. Another one of her friends from primary school has been meeting with the Elders and is now dated for baptism. He said that he saw the great change this gospel has brought to Stephanie and he has seen how much more happy she is. He is ready to change his life and experience that same change :)

Wow. This work truly is a marvelous work and a wonder. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve my Savior and my Heavenly Father here in the England Manchester Mission. I feel more anxious to build the Lord's kingdom here on earth as the weeks go by. His work is hastening. It is beginning to fill the whole earth. I look forward the day where I get to live with my family in the Celestial Kingdom, where we will live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again. 

The success the Elders have seen here in the YSA is inspiring. I think each companionship has recently dated 2  people for baptism. One of those that are dated was a young man Sister Merrill and I taught and referred to the Elders when they whitewashed in.  Once again, I feel blessed to be able to take part in the conversion of another child of God. We may not be teaching him ourselves, but we are excited for this young man's progress in the gospel. 
I am grateful for my wonderful companion and her great example of faith, hope, charity and love. She cares so much about the people we teach and she knows from whom these people have been entrusted. I love seeing how excited she gets over the little tender mercies and miracles we see everyday. 

Hope you all enjoyed General Conference weekend as much as I did. We are so blessed to have a living prophets and apostles on the earth. May we all heed their counsel. 

Love,

Sister Jordan.

                                              Spring Photos :)

Blessings From the Windows of Heaven: ''There shall not be room enough to receive it.''

Transfer update:

I am staying in the Man YSA with Sister Merrill! I love it here. 

I am so grateful to be staying here in the Manchester YSA for at least one more transfer. Better yet, I am grateful I still get to serve with Sister Merrill by my side. What a blessing! There are so many great things waiting to happen here in the YSA. They want the membership of the ward to double by December so it looks like we got our work cut out but we are ready to meet the challenge as we continue to work besides the members. 

One of our most progressing investigators, Wilbur, is making great progress. We saw him twice this past week and the first lesson of the week kind of ended on a sour note. We followed up on his reading of the Book of Mormon and he had read all the way up to 1 Nephi 4. He had some questions, mostly factual, about the Book of Mormon. He made a comment during the lesson saying that ''if only there was more evidence then he could believe''.  We quickly turned our scriptures to Alma 32:21 and simply explained that what he was saying was not the true definition of faith. From this lesson it also seemed like Wilbur wasn't reading the Book of Mormon with the right intent either but was rather seeking to disprove it was wrong. At the end of the lesson I boldly invited him to free up his schedule on Sunday so he could attend church with us. His response was that if God wanted him at church God would make it happen. In other words, he still won't commit to coming to church yet. Patience.. We left that lesson and I was just so frustrated with him. We were trying to show him the way to finding the truth for himself and he just wasn't putting in enough of his own effort. I was ready to rebuke him in the following lesson of the week.

The day of our next appointment with him though, I was praying really hard during personal study that Heavenly Father would lead me to a scripture we could share with Wilbur that would help him the most. Well, the windows of Heaven opened up and poured out so much spiritual inspiration that I definitely did not have room enough to receive (I think I finally have experienced what that scripture in Malachi means). The scripture I was lead to was Alma 32. I was hesitant to accept this as an answer at first because it is such a cliché and typical scripture. But honestly, this scripture is just so applicable to so many people and so many situations. My eyes went straight to verse 17 and 18:

''Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe. Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.''

From reading those verses onward, there was no doubt in my mind that this scripture was meant for Wilbur. If need be, we would start at those verses so that he would be set straight. We read with him in Alma 32 that day and it was perfect. At the beginning of the lesson we followed up with him to see if he read Moroni  10: 3-5 like we had asked him the day before. He told us he had so we discerned that there actually was no need to rebuke him through verse 17 and 18 and we began at verse 21. We asked what ''fruits'' he was hoping learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would bear and he answered that he hopes it will bear the fruit that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Now we are getting some where! 

Sadly, Wilbur just sent us a text saying he doesn't want to meet with us and waste our time (noooo!) :( We will try to resolve what ever his concern is and hopefully get him to meet with us again. I still have hope he will attend at least one session of General Conference. We are actually facing a lot of difficulty keeping our investigators because they all seem to be dropping us. Sigh.. I guess we need to find the more prepared. 

So great news about Stephanie! She is already becoming a great missionary. She got some of the invitations to the Chinese Easter activity and she told us before the weekend that she has some Chinese students that just recently moved into her neighbourhood (woah..what?!) and that she had invited them to the activity. Her Chinese neighbours unfortunately weren't able to come since they all happened to get called into work the day of the activity (nothing but the adversary getting in the way) but we are planning to call by them some time this week with Stephanie :) 

Stephanie has also updated us on her mom. Her mom is currently further along in the Book of Mormon than Stephanie herself is. Stephanie's mom also went with to church on Sunday to her grandmother's ward. I have great faith that she will be baptised soon :)

The Chinese Activity was a great success even though the coach ran extremely behind schedule. It was great seeing the members of the YSA bonding with the Chinese investigators and recent converts. The testimony meeting at the end was powerful but I think all of the missionaries agree that next time a short and sweet one will be even more powerful. 

 Last night as we watched the Women's broadcast I received some words of comfort as Elder Eyring shared that when he was a little boy, his mom saw his potential but not even she could have seen the potential his Heavenly Father saw in him. I have come to know this is true for all of us. Only our Heavenly Father and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, know who we truly are and who we can become. They know us better than even those closest to us or even ourselves may think we know of ourselves. They see the whole iceberg when everyone else can only see what is on the surface.

That being said, I hope I can live up the potential Heavenly Father sees in me. Through my Patriarchal blessing and my setting apart blessing, I know He has plans for me. I hope the rest of you will seek to know the potential Heavenly Father knows you have and that you will strive to become who He knows you can be and who you need to be. 

I am excited for General Conference and I am looking forward to receiving personal revelation. I invite you all to prepare a list of questions you have and take them to General Conference. Most importantly, write them down. You will be amazed that there will be talks that seem like they were written specifically for you.

Love you all!

Sister Jordan

Honest Seeker of Truth

Time keeps picking up its pace the further along I get in my mission. What has happened to March? What has happened to this transfer? Both seemed to fly by at the speed of lightning. Now it is the dawn of another transfer and another month.

Great things are happening in our area as we have been more diligent and asked our Heavenly Father in prayer to place the prepared in our path. One day in particular, we faced a TON of rejection but it is when we have days like that that we know there is someone extra special that we need to find. That day of great rejection we found our new investigator, Tian. We stopped to talk to him and he told us he did not have any beliefs but he was interested in learning. Right there on the spot we set up a time to see him. Tian has a lot of great potential. 

This past week we hit a higher number of lessons than we have for awhile. It always feels so good to she the fruits of your labors. The investigator turn over is so quick here and our teaching pool doesn't include many that are progressing yet but Heavenly Father has always blessed us with at least one investigator per month that is ready to be baptized. What a blessing! 

Stephanie was baptized this past week and I've never seen her so happy or heard her comment about how happy she is so much. Directly after her baptism she made the comment that she felt like she will ''never have to worry again.'' Stephanie's grandma who has been a member for over 10 years bore her testimony at the baptism and shared how she has had the faith that her family would one day be baptized. Stephanie is the beginning of that coming true. Her non-member mother came to the baptism. When she first got there, she didn't seem to happy to be there and we have heard Stephanie mention to us before that her mom felt like her coming to our church was taking her away from her. After the baptism though, her mom was so happy! She read the note we wrote to Stephanie in the set of scriptures we gave her and she started crying because she could tell how much we cared for her daughter. She also mentioned that she has interest in taking the missionary lessons now.. Woah. Even better, Stephanie has told us that she caught her mom reading her Book of Mormon one day and her mom found it interesting. We so need to hop on this one fast! Her mom's heart has been softened so much since Stephanie started taking the lessons again and was baptized. She has been prepared to receive the gospel :)

Stephanie was confirmed on Sunday and in her blessing it mentioned that she would be a great missionary and example and that her family and friends will be baptized. Woah. I don't think I can yet comprehend the magnitude of the great impact Stephanie will have on the church. What a prophetic blessing!

Wilbur, our investigator we first started teaching back in January, finally returned from his trip to the states. It has been 6 weeks since we last taught him and in the last lesson we had with him, he had a concern about the priesthood. Since returning, he has overcome his concern about the necessity of the priesthood but now he has a concern about prophets and why we would need them in our day if we have the Holy Ghost.. oh boy. Any answer or explanation we have tried giving him to help him understand hasn't been satisfactory. We have a feeling that he will need to resolve his own concern by reading the Book of Mormon on his own. Wilbur also has super packed Sundays and consequently hasn't accepted the invitation to attend church yet. We are going to commit him this week to get this Sunday off so he can come to church. He has a sincere desire to know the truth and he will find it if he reads the Book of Mormon and comes to church. 

I met a boy on the bus this week and he is another seeker of truth, he just may not realize it yet. I started talking to him and he instantly knew I was a Mormon missionary. No one else would be ''so friendly''. He then told me that he isn't ''a man of God'' and wasn't interested in religion. He is only in high school but he had some profound questions and insights. It was the perfect opportunity for me to teach simple truths and bear testimony. I pray that missionaries will find him when the time is right for him. 

I spoke to our recent convert, Yi Zhen, about the YSA building dedication and he told me he felt the Holy Ghost. I am grateful he is able to recognize and appreciate the feelings of the Holy Ghost.

I love the Manchester YSA and I am grateful for these past two transfers that I have had to serve with Sister Merrill. 

This gospel is true and I am grateful for how it has blessed my life and my family and I know we will continue to see its blessings as we strive to keep living the gospel. Jesus Christ is our Savior. The power of His Atonement is real. Let Christ's Atonement change you and work within your daily life. 

Love, 

Sister Jordan 

pictures!

Stephanie's baptism! Sister Merrill and I both wore pink because it is Stephanie's favorite color :)