It is great to be back in Manchester. My entire mission has been in and
around here, so it is nice to be back in the area that seems to have
become a second home. I am remembering quite a lot from when I lived in
Didsbury last time around, but I am learning new things as well. As I
told you last week, I am working with the Young Single Adult (YSA) ward,
which is composed of mostly students age 18-30. I love the energy and
excitement each of them have about life and the gospel. It makes
missionary work that much more exciting. Plus, it is good for me to be
able to recognize more how the work I am doing now will play out in my
life as a "real" person as well. It is great to be here, and I am loving
it all.
We are starting off from nothing basically. They simply added another companionship to the ward, so we didn't have a lot to build off of. However, it has made for some great finding. Plus, it seems the fruit of the labors that we reap is just that much more delicious. Let me tell you a few of the miracles we have seen already. This is what I wrote in my letter to President:
We are starting off from nothing basically. They simply added another companionship to the ward, so we didn't have a lot to build off of. However, it has made for some great finding. Plus, it seems the fruit of the labors that we reap is just that much more delicious. Let me tell you a few of the miracles we have seen already. This is what I wrote in my letter to President:
"At first,
we started with nothing. It was refreshing in a way to have a clean
slate and
do some pure finding. That is what we did for the first few days, but I
loved
it! Then the lessons came and our finding paid off. Saturday morning we
went to
teach Rob, a Christian we met street contacting. Rob recently graduated
from university with a computer science and mathematics (just up my
alley) degree. It was our first lesson and we
even had a member come out teaching with us. We did some great How to
Begin
Teaching (our introduction to teaching) and started into the Restoration
lesson. Just after we got through the
gospel blesses families, Rob nicely spoke up and summarized the rest of
the
lesson. Him and his friend, Tim, who later joined us, studied the night
before
in preparation for our coming. Luckily, they had studied accurate
material, so they were quite knowledgeable. We reviewed the apostasy in
some more detail,
which they do not understand in its fullness, but overall it was a
wonderful
discussion. I love how the turning point in the lesson was when we bore a
simple, yet powerful, testimony of The Book of Mormon. They had concerns, but
the testimonies born were undeniable. It was clear that they were touched by
the Spirit and are very willing to read to find out the truth for themselves. I’ll
admit that partway through the lesson I was wishing the assistants (they also serve in the YSA ward) were the
ones teaching them because they are much more knowledgeable about the
scriptures (in particular the Bible); however, I realized simplicity and the Spirit
are key. After all, it was a man without eloquence that converted Brigham
Young.
"We also
taught a wonderful young lady named Cecilia from China. We met her
street
contacting on Saturday and were able to teach her the next evening
(Sunday).
Her grandmother is Christian, so she has some awareness of our beliefs.
She
even has prayed in her life before, but she does not have a lot of
understanding
about who she is praying to. We shared about the godhead, and she was
very
accepting. Cecilia even told us that she thinks it is better for people
to have
a religion than not to have one. She has already become a great friend,
and I would say she is equally enthusiastic about life as I am. There
are miracles taking store here,
especially in relation to finding new investigators!"
I
am sure you are all wondering about my companion as well. Sister Loh is
from Singapore. Her mother is from Hong Kong and her dad is from
Singapore. She was born in Hawaii, while her parents were attending BYU
there, but she grew up in Singapore. She is a year younger than me, and
also went to BYU. She was studying geography, but thinks she may want to
switch majors now so she can do translation in the future. Sister Loh
is willing to try new things and speaks to everyone.
That is about all I have to report for now. I hope you all have a wonderful week.
Love, Becca
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