Nourished by Faith

Last Tuesday I went to something called ''Train the Trainers'' where newly called trainers go to the Mission Home for the evening and are ''trained'' on what to do as we train a new missionary. On a board was all of the 12 incoming missionaries, 5 being Sisters. One of them was Chinese and it became pretty obvious to everyone who I was going to train.. haha.

The next day at transfers, the trainers all lined up in front of the chapel as the new missionaries walked into the chapel and we shook all of their hands and hugged each Sister. The Chinese Sister who I saw on the board the night before came to give me a hug, had a quick glance at my double tag and said ''oh! we are probably going to be companions!'' The cat was out of the bag and there were no surprises when President Preston announced who was training who:
My trainee is Sister Chu. She was born in Taiwan but has lived near Toronto, Canada for the past 10 years.

This transfer meeting was President Preston's last one as our mission president and  for 20 missionaries that were departing. By tradition, the closing hymn was Hymn 152 ''God Be with You Till We Meet Again'' and there wasn't a dry eye in the chapel. I felt bad for the new missionaries that were surrounded by so many emotional people for their first day in the field. I I said goodbye to Sister Merrill and about 5 or 6 other missionaries I have been privilege to serve around. It was sad know they were all leaving but the work must go on.

On a happier note, Sister Chu and I have been working really hard this past week and taught 21 lessons from Wednesday to Sunday alone. Sister Chu has so much energy! She is really bubbly and sweet which reminds me of Sister Loh a bit.

Training a new missionary is not as scary as I thought it would be. I know the Lord trusts me to do a good job and I know with His help Sister Chu will be an amazing missionary in 12 weeks time, even more so than she is now. I love being able to go through the first 12 weeks booklet again and relearn the basics.I was worried about training and having to instil missionary attributes in my new companion but Sister Chu is already super diligent and has so much faith. She shows her diligence by calling PIs that we have met, filling out the area book, and talking to everyone on the street. The amazing part about all of this is she does it with out being asked. I am a proud ''mom'' :)I feel like a parasite feeding off of Sister Chu's faith because I love being able to see missionary work from her eyes where all of these experiences are new and exciting. With the diligence and faith of a new missionary, our area is definitely being blessed and we have seen countless miracles each day.

Some of the biggest miracles we saw this week include having FOUR investigators at church! A high since I have been here in the past month and a half. We also found a new investigator because we stayed out contacting all the way until 9pm one night. Her name is Camilla and she is from China! She went to a Christian school growing up and considers herself Christian. While talking to her she asked us first about where our church was. She came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. She goes back to China at the end of this week for summer holiday and we are going to prepare her before she goes back home so that when she comes back she will be super solid.

Teaching our investigators laws and ordinances before baptism is definitely inspired. I was fasting for Lukman last week and felt impressed to give him my mother's conversion story. At the end of the story my mom writes about our family being sealed in the temple a year after she finally joined the church. Lukman read the story in one of our lessons this past week and asked what being sealed in the temple meant. It was the perfect opportunity to teach to his needs and share about Eternal Marriage. I think this lesson really softened his heart even more. Family is really important to him and what we have been teaching about eternal families now make a little more sense to him. We were also able to testify about the Priesthood being restored through Joseph Smith making temple sealings possible.

Another great teaching experience we had this week was when we met with our investigator Zak. Sister Lee and I were not able to meet with him all that often because he had been super busy. As Sister Chu and I were planning our lesson for him I remembered Zak sharing with us his desire to learn more about Christ. We turned to PMG for some inspiration and decided to read one of the chapters suggested we could read to help others come to a knowledge of the Savior.  We read1 Nephi 19 together in the lesson and it was incredible getting to feel the power of the Spirit enter the lesson as we taught and testified about the Savior directly from the Book of Mormon. Zak seemed to learn a lot about Christ and he offered the closing prayer. He gave such a sweet and sincere prayer. He apologized in prayer for not reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day as he was invited to do by missionaries. It was just such a sacred moment as we listened to an investigator repent because the influence of the Spirit that was invited during the lesson.

I had a really great personal study this morning as I read Alma 32. I have probably read this chapter a bazillion times but I got so much out of it today as I read with an investigator in mind. The Spirit taught me a lot from this chapter this morning  but I would like to share this short and powerful insight I had: Alma 32 is all about how to plant a seed, growing, and strengthen our faith. As I read verse 37:
''And behold, as the tree beginneth to grow, ye will say: Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, that it may grow up, and bring forth fruit unto us. And now behold, if ye nourish it with much care it will get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit''
my mind then went quickly to the end of the chapter and verse 42:
''And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.''
The connection to these verses 37 and 42 is that as we nourish our faith, our faith will nourish us. As we nurture our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it will bring us the peace and happiness and so many other blessings from Heaven that we can then partake of. This Gospel is filled with so much goodness and I love sharing it with others that they can have this great blessing in their lives.

I hope this long letter didn't bore you! haha.

Love you all!
Sister Jordan