Transfer 10: Week 2: Extended Zone--OA

畫貓!

Sister Au-Yeung and I have been having a lot of fun trying to resolve concerns that we had about doing missionary work... we're trying to make our time more productive because we are helping the mission a lot of the time so we want to be the best missionaries in the world when we get out on Temple Square. We discovered that asking people merely if they know anyone to share the gospel with is a rather ineffective method of sharing the gospel and uplifting people's testimonies. However asking them about themselves and their testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ somehow always brings the friend or the concern God wants us to help them with come to the surface. It was amazing to see the difference in how we could actually help people come closer to Christ just by changing the way we asked questions. I should have figured that out ages ago.

We also have been talking to a lot of people from Canada and Hong Kong recently (apparently there are a lot more people than I thought living in Canada who don't speak French, but Cantonese) It's fun to get to know people from all over the world and see how much the gospel can help anyone from anywhere with any concern that they might have. We talked to one family about three days ago who were not even remotely interested in the church or the history or much of anything that we as missionaries knew anything about... but as we were reading the Book of Mormon yesterday we found a chapter that completely answered the questions that were bothering them at that time. Perfect how that works out, no?

We've also been having fun scheduling interviews with President Holmes, because in a mission you have interviews with the mission president every 3 transfers or so. It's fun because we get to know the sisters so well as we work out schedules and help them meet with President Holmes... which is wonderful. I'm looking forward to mine, but we keep on moving it so that other sisters can meet with president... fortunately Sister Au-Yeung is very good at not letting me forget to add ourselves to lists and places that we need to be so that will be excellent.

One of our investigators from last week got to meet with the missionaries and she is almost done reading the Book of Mormon! We're so excited to see how she finding more peace and joy in her life, and we were so happy that she didn't have time to talk to us this week because she was meeting with one of her church friends to do a service project. Go member friends! They are the best.

Have a wonderful day!
Sister Pielstick

Transfer 10: Week 1; Extended Zone; OA assignment

Hello Family and Friends.

Hope you're all doing well. I've been doing pretty good. I've talked to some interesting people and taught some amazing people, but since you all seem to be so busy I won't bother you with any of the details. Just suffice it to say that I am still with Sister Au-Yeung in the office at Temple Square mission, the Tabernacle is a lot bigger on the inside, and rooming with a francophile is pretty hilarious sometimes.

Best of luck with school starting soon!
Sister Pielstick

transfer 9: week 6; Extended Zone -- OA

Hello!

I went to my first baptism today... for President Holmes' granddaughter, Haylee. All she wanted at her baptism was to have missionaries there (because she wants to be a sister Missionary when she grows up) so, he had us go to the baptism. It was interesting because here in Utah they baptize all of the children at once. While I thought that it would be cute little Haylee, it turned out to be cute little Haylee and 20 other 8 year-olds. Needless to say I was slightly in culture shock, in Florida we have only one person per baptism, and I was half expecting the little kid to re-enact the early English converts and have a foot race to the font (I'm pretty sure that this one little girl with curly hair would have won... she bolted for the font as soon as her name was called and was in before her father even had time to get though the door, but she was so cute.)

Missionary work is going strongly, albeit for some reason the entire square has exploded with people... it reminds me of Disney World on Labor Day weekend. It's hard to get anywhere because there are people everywhere. Sister Au-Yeung and I have taken to talking people to the conference center because that is the only place you can be in without seeing millions of people everywhere. (it is really hard to get people to feel the spirit when there are loads of people everywhere) But we've had some fun miracles with old couples and Chinese students... so many more people who can feel the spirit that is here, and the love that God has for each and every one of us.

Have a great day!
Sister Pielstick

Transfer 9: week 5; Extended zone--OA

Hello and good morning!

Everything is going well here at Temple Square. Plenty of people are coming to learn more about the gospel... well they don't always know that's what they are doing, but sometimes people surprise you. Like we had one couple today who referred for missionaries and we talked to them for only about ten minutes. They were pretty amazing, considering that they wanted us to help them get to the Christus and the most significant thing that I could say was you could meet with missionaries to learn more. The spirit had to be involved with that couple referring, otherwise I think that they might have just walked away and not talked to us.

Our investigators have been hard to get a hold of, but we have one wonderful woman who is from Utah that Sister Au-Yeung and I are teaching because a member who met her a week ago took her to Temple Square so that she could learn about the gospel in her native language of Cantonese. She's golden and is already reading from the Book of Mormon that magically appeared (she got it from Temple Square, but we have not had Chinese Book of Mormons for weeks in traditional Chinese, which is the Chinese read by Cantonese speakers ... Mandarin speakers typically prefer simplified. I think that God knew that she needed it and found a way to get her one) She's also praying every day, which helps her feel God's love for her. I love prepared people.

Because of an interesting P-day activity (we watched a musical based on the Martin and Willie Handcart companies put on by a stake in south Jordan) we've lost a bit of the time we typically use for e-mailing, but I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Sister Pielstick