Sister Fisher on Temple Square!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Transfer 6, week 4: Emails emails emails!!!, Tennessean, dinosaurs and SPRING!

Hello Friends and Family!

Before the awesome pieces of news, just wanted to send an invite to everyone if you're in the Salt Lake area, to come to the Missionary Department's production featuring my mission: Temple Square Missionaries Cultural Event. It's awesome. The whole Sister Missionary Choir is there, +7 violinists will play, +ukulele and all the Poly Sister's doing a few dances which are exceptional, some Scottish songs, +a Russian number, +Latin number, +all over all different cultures. It's gonna be terrific!  It's this FRIDAY, March 15th, 7:30PM, in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square (the big church that's not the Tabernacle or the Temple). Should be awesome.

So awesome piece of news #1:

The First Presidency  just declared in a newsletter to all mission presidents that we’re now allowed to email BOTH family AND FRIENDS!!! And that we have been given more time allotted to do so each week! J Yay!!! 

So what that means is President Gillette has given us two hours to email each week (instead of just 1)…. So basically I’d LOVE to hear from you!!!!  My email is jessica.fisher@myldsmail.net

So I can totally respond now to you!

Awesome piece of news #2:  S  IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!! Yay!!! J The other cool thing is that in our phone call with him on Sunday he actually taught US the Restoration. So neat.  He’s been reading the Book of Mormon during school assemblies and some of the other teachers have been noticing and saying some things (because well, he’s in Tennessee… the Bible belt) so we practiced with him by role playing over the phone what he could say and how he could say it. It was really neat.  We role played questions like:

·         Well why do I need another book of scripture?
·         So didn’t Joseph Smith write it? (Answer- no) So how did he get it then? How do we have it today?
·         Why is it called Mormon?
·         Well how do you know that it’s the word of God?
·         How do you know God will answer my prayers?
·         Well I’ve always wondered why I’m here on earth but I don’t know the answer.
·         What happens after we die?
·         Why did God force us to be here where there’s so much suffering?
·         Why does God allow so much suffering in the world?
·         Why is family so important?
·         How do I find lasting happiness?

(PS some great answers to these questions are found on Preach My Gospel page 107, or here: http://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/what-is-the-role-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng)

Questions like that. These are great questions that we can all role play in our families to prepare for the questions that we will receive.  And really, as you role play them, you will feel more prepared for experiences that you will have, and you’ll get all of the awkward out, or the things that weren’t explained simply enough.  Then a family member can help give feedback, like how they would feel if they heard you answer the question that way, or if they understood what you said if they had no gospel background and knew nothing.

I promise you that Heavenly Father sends His prepared people to His prepared messengers. As you practice these things, Heavenly Father will put people who need these questions answered in your path, and you will have the greatest joy by helping them understand Heavenly Father’s great love for them and how Jesus Christ can help them through the challenges we all face in life. And… you will better understand these things for yourself, too, and the Spirit will testify to you again that these things are true!

Next challenge #2:

Here’s a clip from Preach My Gospel as spoken by President Hinckley how a new member feels:
“I challenge you, my brothers and sisters, that if you do not know what it is like, you try to imagine what it is like. It can be terribly lonely. It can be disappointing. It can be frightening. We of this Church are far more different from the world than we are prone to think we are. This woman goes on: “When we as investigators become members of the Church, we are surprised to discover that we have entered into a completely foreign world, a world that has its own traditions, culture, and language. We discover that there is no one person or no one place of reference that we can turn to for guidance in our trip into this new world. At first the trip is exciting, our mistakes even amusing, then it becomes frustrating and eventually, the frustration turns into anger. And it’s at these stages of frustration and anger that we leave. We go back to the world from which we came, where we knew who we were, where we contributed, and where we could speak the language” [Ensign, May 1999, 108].

Please, resolve to be a better member, a better friend, a better child of God, by being a better sister or brother to these children of God who are recent converts of the Church. I have seen it over and over again in the mission field that if they don’t feel the love, personal interest, helping hand, and smile that they felt the first week or two after they joined, they will fall by the wayside.

BE the kind of member that every missionary prays for at night, sometimes with tears on their face, begging Heavenly Father for, to welcome and love, help and lift their recent-convert or not-yet-a-convert. It is VITAL.

Think about it this week of what you can do to help one person in your wards feel more loved and accepted and wanted.

Welp! I love you all. Seriously. Thank you for your letters of encouragement and support. They mean the world.  Each letter (or email) is one of the most valuable things we have each week (besides investigators or friends we are teaching, etc).

 Love,

Sister Fisher