Tuesday, March 25, 2014

3 exchanges in a week!

Hi all,
 
Having a Sister Training Leader as your companion means you need to go on a couple exchange every transfer which is pretty fun. My companion is in charge of 3 sets of sisters. At the beginning of the transfer, she scheduled to have 1 exchange every week. But 2 sets of sisters had to reschedule the date, so we ended up having 3 exchanges this past week, which means I wasn't with my companion for half of the week. Besides the packing and unpacking part, I really do like exchanges as I enjoy getting to know other sister missionaries and to learn from them.
 
The BEST exchange of the week was the one with Sister Prows! She was my Sister Training Leader for the first 6 months on my mission. On our very first exchange, she helped me overcome my fear of knocking on doors in less than two hours. She is amazing! I really look up to her a lot. I had been excited for this exchange since the first week of this transfer. We exchanged on Thursday night, and I went to downtown Seattle to stay with Sister Prows for a day. We started talking as soon as we got in the car. We were both very excited to have our 4th exchange together. During companion study, we discussed how to bring up baptism in the first minute of contact and what to say when people say that they have already been baptized. After study, we did service - picking up trash at a parking lot close to Chinatown. It was pretty fun. Traffic in downtown Seattle is always crazy, and it's really hard to find a parking spot, so we pretty much street contacted for the whole afternoon. We had lots of fun talking to people. In the past exchanges, I would always just stand next to Sister Prows when she was talking to people as I was so scared. But this time we finally could just talk to people on the street together! It made me feel really good. We talked with a guy who was holding a bottle of alcohol. We had set a goal that morning to bring up BAPTISM with everyone we came in contact with that day. So we talked with him about how he could improve his life through following Jesus Christ. He expressed a desire to change, so both of us told him that he first had to throw away his alcohol! We were really bold and persistent. I told him he could find much more strength from the Book of Mormon. He accepted the Book of Mormon but wouldn't throw away the alcohol. He said he wouldn't buy anymore after finished drinking this bottle. We told him again alcohol wouldn't be good to his health at anytime. He still wouldn't throw it away. Well, at least we did try. People still have their agency. That evening, we visited a potential investigator named Mark (name changed). Sister Prows told me beforehand that Mark sometimes would make some pretty offensive comments, and his wife was quite rude when they stopped by last week. She always prepares me before a visit. I can't even imagine Mark's wife was rude to them last time as she was so friendly this time. She actually sat on the lesson and said that she would want to read the Book of Mormon also! People change. Miracles always happen on exchanges! I can't ask for a better exchange than this one. I have learned a lot from Sister Prows ever since I came out. She could always teach me something no matter we were studying, teaching a lesson, street contacting, or knocking on doors. Most importantly, she could help me be MOTIVATED and BOLD. She is awesome.
 
Yesterday was a really really rough day for my companion and I. We tried really hard to invite everyone we could think of to the New Member Fireside, but nobody could come. We couldn't go unless we had an investigator to bring, so we went tracting. People were soooooo rude to us. I felt so defeated. My companion and I always took turn to start the conversation on doorstep. It was my turn to start the conversation at the last door we knocked on, but thank goodness she started it because that person was so rude! I thanked her for doing that door as I knew I would have said something that a disciple of Christ wouldn't say. I was just so frustrated. Both of us have been working hard and are obedient, but the number of lessons or baptisms we have doesn't reflect how hard we have tried. We had an interview with President Choi last week. He told me that he could see me baptize lots of people on my mission. I honestly can't see it happen yet as I have had only 1 baptism and am already halfway done of my mission. But I'll still be working hard because after all these trials I still know that the Church is true:)
 
Love,
Sister Leung

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