Although I didn't eat turkey, sometimes I feel like one!!!

HAPPY DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING! I don't know about you but I had a wonderful turkey day!

Well...ok so here is what happened: We spent our Thanksgiving at the Lemon home (a hilarious family living up in Bountiful, Utah)! They came to pick us up at around 12:30 and we were able to stay until 6pm. I know, so weird! But it was great. We ate food (of course), we played ping-pong (OF COURSE), and played some card games. It was really weird being around a family though.... The family consisted of mom and dad, their son who recently returned from his mission, their other son and his wife! And like 5 dogs. So it was great! haha(: It was just weird being in an actual home...it's the first time I've been in a house for almost a year! What? I know. But it was great. (:

This last week was crazy, let me just tell ya! Dad, you're probably freaking out wondering why I went to the doctor! Well let me tell ya... So when my alarm was going off in the mornings, I couldn't hear it if my left ear was laying on the pillow. But sometimes I would hear this faint peeping sound so I would sit up but as soon as my left ear arose from off the pillow all of the sudden it was like BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!! Yeah. Crazy stuff. So we went to the ear doctor to see if I was going deaf (which I'm not going to lie I was terrified because if I loose my hearing I loose my ability to sing....) Anyways! So we went in and he looked in my ear and said, "Ok now tilt your head this way and don't move!" So I did and he stuck this crazy weird looking thing in my ear and then the look on my companions face was really creepy and then he said, "Well, that's all!" And as he made the electric chair sit up again I started freaking out because I could hear every little sound the chair was making and I said, "Woah!" and then I said, "WOOOAAAHHH!" because when I spoke my voice was so incredibly loudly echoing in my right ear and it was nuts!!!! So yeah. Pretty much he pulled a mile of wax out of my ear. NASTY! Ok it wasn't a mile but it was a lot apparently! Maybe I should have put a censor alert on here before telling this story....all of you better not judge my ear.... But anyways I asked the doctor "How the heck can I keep this from happening again?" and he literally said, "You can't. You just need to go see your doctor every couple months and have him check your ears." So there you go. I have issues. I sound super attractive right now.

I have no shame.

So back to missionary work! Missionary work is fantastic! The day before thanksgiving we fasted for our investigator in England who was fasting with her local elders as well about making the decision of being baptized next month! Woot! They are seven hours ahead of us but we all wanted to fast at the same time so they were fasting from 4pm to 4pm and we were fasting 9am to 9am. (: It was good! And we also met with our investigator on the square whom we met last conference. She is doing SO good and she is SO amazing and pretty much she teaches us the gospel. (: haha! We are going to have her meet up with our investigator in England when she comes next month and they can go see Savior of The World together! We already told both of them they're going to be best friends because they would just get along so well! Haha so it's fun(:

We had a really awkward experience with an investigator who texted us on thanksgiving while he was high! Haha! We hadn't taught the word of wisdom yet but now we will definitely be bringing that up sometime very soon! Haha oh man(:

Oh by the way...the Christmas lights are turning on in like....2 hours! AH! WE ARE SO EXCITED! Our p-days are in the morning now (which is SO weird) so we're going to be headed back to the square pretty soon to see the PEOPLE and the LIGHTS and dang we're so excited! Woo!

I also wanted to just let you know about the new short video the church has put out for the Christmas season called He Is The Gift. You can watch it on mormon.org/christmas and if you haven't seen it yet, GO WATCH IT. Then when you watch it you should probably #sharethegift (; We had a big meeting from the missionary dept about it because of the new displays here on Temple Square and the many wide variety of means that they are spreading this abroad and it's pretty great! They have even given us new referral cards for it!!! Call me a missionary but I was stoked when I heard they were doing that!!!!

I'm going to apologize right now for this letter being so short and not very detailed, we are just very busy tonight and in a bit of a rush. Questions, comments, concerns, rebuttals, testimonies? Send me an email and I will respond to you...(probably next pday ha!).

Ok I really love you all lots and I really love being a missionary lots and I really hope that this week is exciting and that your weather is better than ours!

BYE!

Sister Davis

Here I go again, accusing dad of being jealous!!!

Dad! You are about to be jealous! (Possibly...I'm almost positive...pretty sure...) This morning for Relief Society we had a special guest come speak to us...NO it wasn't the prophet...NO it's wasn't one of the 12... I know what you're thinking...who could it possibly be? It was Clayton Christensen that's who! Only the man polled as the most influential business thinker in the world, a prolific author including the well known book, "The Power of Everyday Missionaries"! Yes! That is RIGHT! Everybody stay calm. It was an immense Relief Society. I took notes like a mad women. And you best believe I was on the front row right in front of him!!! I think the most incredible part about it was the very beginning as this incredibly influential man humbly explained to us that he had a stroke a few years ago so he is in the process of learning to speak English all over again and to let him know if he doesn't say the right wording. Wow. He talked of a few different thing. He spoke of freedom, democracy and capitalism and the religious foundation that is required to have those things. He connected those things to our role as missionaries, especially on Temple Square, stressing the importance of the messages we teach to visitors from all around the world. He spoke of prayer, the power of the Holy Ghost and experiences he has as a professor currently at Harvard. He told stories of missionary experiences he has had just as an everyday member of the church. At the end he shared with us his most powerful testimony of missionary work and I tried to keep it together while watching him cry as he told us he would give up his teaching career immediately if he could go back on another full-time mission. His wife describes him as a man who has never left the mission field. (: They are so amazing! Afterwards I went up and shook his hand to thank him. He was super funny and nice and he laughed when I told him my dad would be jealous when I wrote home about it! Haha(: And by the way, random side note, he is really tall! And his hands are bigger than my face! He's a giant!

So this week was busier than I could ever have anticipated EVER. It was really interesting...to say the least. We had a couple sisters in our zone who got sick so we were on exchanges a lot and we also has some interesting situations come up! I mean it's a mission full of sisters...what do ya do? But we survived! I just want to say, Mom and Dad, that I now understand so much why you raised me the way you did, and why you handled certain situations the way you did...because you're genius. Even though I was a punk sometimes, you just knew what you were doing that is for sure! That. Is. For. Sure. *cough awkward cough*

We went on our exchanges with the AP's! That was great! We called one of our faithful investigators in North Carolina and talked with him about baptism! We invited him to begin praying about a date to be baptized within the coming months and to talk about it with his local missionaries. He seems very excited and he has already confirmed to us that he believes the Book of Mormon to be the word of God and Joseph Smith to be a prophet! It's exciting and wonderful! Our investigator here in Utah ,whom we teach on Temple Square, has now moved into her knew apartment in Provo and LOVES her BYU ward. OH HAPPY DAY! She has also been able to make plans and set goals for baptism, of which we are immensely excited! We will be getting her a ticket for Saviour of the World AS WELL AS a ticket to Saviour of the World for our investigator in England who will be flying out to come visit next month! It's all just so exciting!

Speaking of Savior of the World! The sisters in our zone were able to go see it two nights ago, the very first pre-showing. And of course we cried SO...so...hard. It was a powerful experience and I had a lot of thoughts come to mind that have really been an influence on how I look at this coming Christmas season. It's a very interesting presentation as well because one can learn so much so quickly about Jewish culture back at the time of Christ's birth! I now have this burning desire to go to Jerusalem and visit the Temple there! Really though..I think it would be absolutely incredible! Those singing, dancing, and acting on stage were so full of the spirit! Ah! It's just a fantastic show!

Oh one more thing! We had our zone leader reports with president a couple of days ago and that went very well! I was SO nervous for some reason but about half way through it I was fine. I don't know why I was so intimidated haha! But it was cool! Oh and for next week my pday is going to be on Friday, not Thanksgiving day because on Thanksgiving Day sister Stephen and I get to go to a member families home in Bountiful for thanksgiving dinner! YAY! A real live member family! (Those things are rare on the square!) Each companionship in the mission gets to go to a members home for dinner, so we are incredibly excited! Then our p-day will be on black friday...you best believe we are going shopping! The car we're taking is already full of sisters headed with us so we are stoked! Oh and also by the way, starting next week, our p-days will not longer be from 1pm to the end of the night...they'll be like a normal missionary pday...10AM to 6PM :( Boo. But that's just because the lights will be on a week from today! AH! Can you believe it!? The Christmas season on Temple Square is back! I feel like it was just Christmas two months ago! AH!

Ok well...I think that's all. Later we're headed to the store to get the things for our zone activity which will be tonight. Yay! Woo! Pictures for next week! Happy day!

Ok love yous!

Sister Davis

Us at Savior of The World! It was a tearful night though so don't judge our faces!

All the sisters on Temple Square are really excited about this picture (which we've been putting on every computer)! Especially the sisters from Italy..(:

West Gate is getting slow these cold wintry nights...so we made this...we think it's funny...but we think maybe it's one of those things you have to be there to understand...

You know, in the busy life we live we don't have a lot of time to just sit and talk...but when we do get the chance to talk...for some reason anything I say always goes all over the place and ends in the most random of circumstances! My companion wanted to record the process of a conversation we had this last week...

We've been on so many exchanges I almost died...

...and we still have two more exchanges with the sisters that are training this week and then on Sunday we have exchanges with the a.p.'s. BAH! We feel a little bit like we never see each other anymore but at least we have our pday together to fill each other in on everything that's been happening in our lives! Haha! It's crazy talk.

We had our Zone Training Meeting on Saturday and we thought things would slow down afterwards but HA funny joke! ZTM went sooo good though we felt as though our time was very effective an informatively used. (Does that make sense?) The sisters in the zone seemed to walk away from the meeting with some excitement for the hastening and for the mission goals/changes. We finished our exchanges with all the District Leaders in the Zone and we're planning on exchanging with the trainers this week. We have this desire to exchange with all of the sisters in our zone (which sounds crazy but it's really not...at least we don't think it is.) (:

This morning for Relief Society we had mission-wide training for the upcoming Christmas season on Temple Square! We receive completely new schedules each Christmas season because we have so many new assignments that don't exist throughout the rest of the year (really because we don't need them). They've also added a new assignment that involves SINGING and I am pretty stoked about that. (: Not only that but the director of Savior of The World (the musical production that goes on every year in the conference center theatre) came to speak this morning as well! All the sisters will be going to see it next week. ALSO they've created NEW referral cards that will be just for those attendees of Savior of The World AND they've created a new assignment where sisters will be able to contact guests of the show in the conference center! So in a nutshell we are STOKED for this Christmas season! AH! By the way, if anyone is interested in seeing Savior of The World, tickets are already 80% gone so go online like...right now if you want to get tickets. How about I even give you a link to it, eh? Because you do not want to miss this:

https://www.lds.org/church/events/temple-square-events/2014-savior-of-the-world?lang=eng

Anyways! Fun little missionary story for ya: One of the sisters I went on exchanges with was Sister Lee from Hong Kong. They had an investigator who wanted to be baptized but was really unsure about it so was setting his date for next February I believe? Well we planned on calling and teaching him while on exchanges together and we were hoping to talk with him a little more about the importance of baptism and hoping to help him have that desire to not postpone that. As we were saying our prayer right before calling him on the phone a thought just popped into my mind! It was the reminder of someone telling me once about how we need to think of a gift that we can give to the Savior this Christmas (maybe it was from a general authority talk or something?). I told Sister Lee this idea of helping him see that this could be his best gift to His savoir this Christmas and we thought it was a great idea. So as we called and were speaking to him we brought up this idea with him. We don't know what it was but his entire attitude changed and he suddenly just got SO excited about baptism! So after talking with him he agreed to prepare to be baptized December 6th, right at the beginning of the month as his gift to the Savior this Christmas! We were so happy, and he was so happy and I'm pretty sure this gospel makes too many people just so happy. (; So that was our little exchange miracle that day.

Awkward missionary story for ya: One of our assignments this transfer is opening and closing the Joseph Smith Movie playing in the Legacy Theatre of the JSMB. Well last time we went to open it there was a huge group of people and we told they were YSA so we didn't think too much of it. We introduced the film, started it and such and such. But at the end of the film when we came back to open the doors and do some contacting, we noticed that the group walking out of the theatre was most certainly not YSA...more like a mid-singles ward, which is fine, but let me continue... So I began talking with some people but then I turned around and my companion was gone and then I suddenly realized that I was completely surrounded by guys and my companion was on the other side of the barrier completely surrounded by a bunch of other men! BAH! So I walked over to her and was feeling really weird but a lot better now that I was standing next to my companion. We were talking with these three men and it was a great conversation...but then when they started talking about their missions it got really awkward because there were 3 men in particular who just started saying things like "Well in my mission I did this..." blah blah blah and we started to feel awkward and one of the guys was all feeling like his mission was cooler and then another guy goes, "Oh wait so when did you serve your mission?" And the guy says what years he served and the man responds, "Well that's like 5 years before I even served my mission!" And then there was this really awkward silence while you could tell everyone was doing the math in their head about how old these guys were and my companion and I just looked at each other and said, "Well we gotta go!" AND WE RAN OUT OF THERE LIKE A CAT RUNNING FROM A DOG!

It was so awkward. And I haven't felt  that uncomfortable since the time I went to that student ward while living in Boise. (You know, the one I vowed never to go back to.) Yeah. It was that awkward.

Anyhow, #missionarylife. I think that is all I will include today. Next pday is zone activity which we have almost completely planned! Yay! And we see Savior of the World so I will be most certainly writing about that wonderful evening next week!

Well....I love you all more than Sister Stephen loves feta cheese! (Which is a whole lot let me tell ya...)

Love yous,

Sister Davis

P.S. It officially started snowing today...send help.

This week was incredible...

I don't feel like it has been a week since last pday...I feel like it's been 5 years! Not because of time moving slowly but because a lot has happened inside me and I feel like I've grown so much.

For Halloween President Poulsen arranged for our ENTIRE MISSION to attend the temple together. That's right...200 sister missionaries at the same time. It. was. incredible. I don't think I've cried so much at the temple than I did this last week. Those people who were volunteering as workers in the Temple has some incredible testimonies that you could see and feel just as they spoke. Anytime our Savoir, Jesus Christ was mentioned, they would always tear up which in turn would cause everyone else to tear up. I saw things in such a different light than I ever had before. I suddenly understood so many things better than before with the MANY times I had already been to the Temple. Seeing my mission president and his wife in the Temple together was one of the most powerful things. I learned so much just from watching them together... I learned a lot about love and what Heavenly Father wants us to have in this life. And I learned a little more about what I can achieve in my life. It's incredible, I just learned SO much. I learned about spiritual things, things to apply to my missionary work, things to apply to my future schooling, things to apply to my LIFE! Haha(: I cried so much though I'm pretty sure I wiped off all my makeup by the time we left. In other words: It was the best Halloween of my life. (:

Of course, right after wonderful miraculous events comes trials! As far as missionary work goes, this week was great! The trials manifested themselves in other ways, more of inner battles I guess. So it's been a crazy and very emotional week. We've spent a lot more time inside this week because of meetings, trainings, and planning our zone training meeting this week (which we are still in the process of bringing all together). I, being someone who needs fresh air and sunshine, have had struggles with being inside so much, but hopefully after zone training meeting we'll be able to spend more time out on the square.

Speaking of meetings! Missionary Leadership Counsel (MLC) was this last Tuesday and may I say that it was one of the most intense meetings I've been to thus far on my mission. MLC consists of the mission president, the assistants to the president, and the zone leaders. It's amazing to see how much this mission has changed since beginning. It's almost as if everyone is on a higher level recently. Our area authorities challenged our mission president to do some very challenging things with the mission...to which we discussed A LOT in MLC. But it was incredible and I just love sitting back and watching all these incredible women from all over the world counseling together about how we can have affective missionary work that will change the world (literally). It's an incredible experience. Many of the principles we discussed we will be sharing with our sisters in zone training meeting.

Miracle missionary story time!!!! Two nights ago as we called to talk with one of our less-active friends we've been helping, he answered the phone in a much better mood than we expected. He told us he had a non-member friend asking him LOTS of questions about the church and that he was doing his best to explain things but was feeling a little inadequate about it. We told him we would be more than happy to call his friend, to which he replied, "Well, he's actually here right now. Can I put you two on speaker phone?" We got so excited as we began talking with his friend. He is SO prepared for the gospel and for some reason he really wants to be a missionary even though he doesn't know a ton about the church! Haha! Another amazing factor was that when we began to talk about baptism, the less-active member started to share with his friend about his experience of getting baptized and bearing his testimony!!! It was so tender! We were so happy!!!! We invited his friend to prepare to be baptized to which he responded, "Well you betcha'!" (They're from the country...haha) It was such a miracle!!! The two of them will be going to church this Sunday together so we're praying that they run into the missionaries there!!!

Last night we had another missionary miracle! We met a young man on chat about a month ago who was SO prepared for the gospel and was already reading from the Book of Mormon. We were getting a little bit sad though because every time we would try to call him he wouldn't pick up and then he would try to call us back when we were away from the phones and we were playing phone tag for about two weeks. Well we called last night and he picked up!!!! As it turns out he has been meeting with the local missionaries and attending church since he chatted online with us!!! We were so happy! We asked him if he had thought about being baptized yet and he said it was something that was on his mind. We talked about how when we're baptized we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, explained what that meant and bore testimony/shared personal experiences of our baptisms. By the end of the call he was really perked up and he said he was really looking forward to church on Sunday. What a tender mercy!!!

Our sweet investigator whom we met at general conference is doing really well. (: We bought her a small copy of Preach My Gospel to begin studying from. She mentioned to us a couple of things she was really wanting to work on and we felt really strongly that chapter 6 from preach my gospel (Christlike attributes) would really help her with the struggles she's going through. She's starting to study that and it's fun because we can study along with her as well!

This week as a zone we are focusing on developing and studying Humility and it has been very...humbling... Haha(: I had a sister in our zone come up to me to apologize to me for something that I didn't even know about! She apologized for judging me because I never went outbound. Even though she was saying sorry, I felt humbled. I don't really know why...but it just really had a strong impact on me. And it made me have a stronger desire to apologize to others about little things like that. The sisters in our zone are simply amazing, that's the only way to put it. They're all so funny and hard-working and I really look up to them a lot. A lot of them have traits that I really want to have.

So pretty much almost all the Christmas lights are up...at least that's what I think...but mostly likely I'm completely wrong and they're going to put up twice as many between now and Thanksgiving. Of course. (: Go big or go home, right? I believe those are all the things I planned on sharing this week...it's been so good. (:

SO crazy and stressful...but in a fantastic way.

#missionarylife

I love yous!!!

Sister Davis

Our Zone at our halloween dinner before going to the temple!!!

 

My companion Sister Stephen and I! If you look closely at the name tags...we were each other for Halloween ;)

Our first day in Guest Services! So many people call for the most random things...haha(: