Sister Davis~Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission: 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!!!