"Announcing!"

This week has been pretty great!  I have gotten to know my companion better and she is fun and sweet.  She is such a good missionary with a strong testimony!  We also have been working out a ton and trying to eat healthy!  (I cooked and ate fish the other day! Look how much I'm changing on my mission ;)  We run up this huge hill every morning to go to the other building where Zumba is held.  We do Zumba for a while, and then run home.  I love exercising and it's an awesome start to our day!  We both also have a goal to be able to do the splits by the end of the transfer.....ha. We will see if that ever happens. 

Here are a few funny things that have happened this week with companion:

The other night we were walking across the Square and she starts telling me this story. She says, "So my family would travel a lot around Europe when growing up.  We would drive for days, and during those car rides, I would just spend long hours staring at the moon".  What? Haha.  It was not where I thought that story was going, so I just began to laugh. She is such a hoot. 

This girl is one of my faves.  Sister Liao from Taiwan!

The other morning during Companionship Study, we were role playing how to teach the Word of Wisdom (abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, coffee, and tea, and other addictive substances) and she was being the missionary first while I was the investigator and then we switched. I began teaching the Word of Wisdom to her as someone who hadn't heard of it and then all of a sudden she interrupts with the question, "Are you good at math?" I was thrown off by the question and just said , "What?" And she repeated, "Are you good at math?  Your reasoning for not partaking of those substances...is just so logical!  So I thought she HAS to be good at math!"  Haha. I love her so much already. We are seriously laughing alllll of the time. It's great!

Being a trainer is a very interesting assignment.  I have been able to see myself have increased love for my trainee and also more patience.  I really do feel like a mother figure because I have to explain things and go back to the basics to help her improve her teachings skills.  We had a great talk the other day after a tour about the importance of double testifying.  Double testifying is when one missionary will explain something and share their testimony and then the other missionary will "second it" and add on with their own testimony or thoughts.  Like in 2 Corinthians 13:1 it says that "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." For example, the Bible is a witness that Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Book of Mormon is another witness that Jesus Christ is our Savior.  So, similar to this, missionaries are put into pairs so that people can hear the words of the Gospel from more than one person.  My companion mentioned a worry that she didn't want to repeat what I said during tours, but I explained that testifying of what one of us shares, even if it's somewhat repeating, is the point.  The Gospels in the New Testament repeat each other all of the time.  I told her that if she double-testified about what I say that the Holy Ghost will guide her as to what she needs to say next.  When we testify of truth, the Spirit will be there to lead and guide us to know what to say to each person we come in contact with.  Anyone can have the blessing of having the Spirit with them! That's why baptism is so important and wonderful.  When we are baptized, we are given the gift of the Holy Ghost which means we are promised to have the Holy Ghost with us always- as long as we are obedient.  How wonderful right??

Speaking of baptism, Dana met with us again on the Square last night and she will be getting baptized on Feb. 15th!!  Ah, I'm overjoyed for her!  *Lisa is so ready and this step will bless her life in so many wonderful ways :)  Also, last night with Lisa, we taught about the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith and we showed her the movie "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration".  We didn't initially watch it with her, but we found out a bit after we started it that we were allowed to watch the movie with our investigators, so halfway through we joined her in the theater :)  It made me cry!  I Iove that film because of how strong the Spirit is when watching it.  I have the faith and knowledge that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and I have found that out for myself by reading and studying the Book of Mormon and then praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ if the Book of Mormon is true, and I then received the confirmation from the Holy Ghost that it was indeed true scripture!  What's amazing, and what is promised, is that when we know the Book of Mormon is true, we know that Jesus is the Christ, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.  I love how this church invites everyone to know for themselves if it's true or not :)

Cheesin'

The Temple!!! I'm the one crouching down in the back

Every Sunday after Music and the Spoken Word, the Sister Missionaries do something called "Announcing".  It's where about 10 sisters who speak different languages stand outside the Tabernacle for when people come out from the program.  We then announce that we are giving tours and we do this in our native language :)  So cool right?!  Well, I was able to do this on Sunday and it was so much fun!!  A big group of people came up to me afterwards wanting a tour.  One guy said he wanted it from me (we have two English that announce) because I was from Texas, haha. Yeahhh Texas!  That tour was 2 different groups and it was probably one of my favorite tours ever.  The Spirit was there, they were interested and asking questions, and they each had member friends who were on the tour with them answering their questions as well.  I love having members on tours with their non-members friends because I can ask them questions like "How has marriage in the temple blessed your life?" when we are at the temple model and people really get to see an example of people living the Gospel and the blessings that come from it!  So great!  But anyway, pretty much all of the pictures I'm attaching are from that Sunday where I announced.

Saying what I know best....English! Haha.

Love you all! The Gospel is true! :)

Sister Asay