Transfer 6: Week 3; South 2

Aloha!

This week has gone by crazy fast and I adore young men's groups. One of my best friends in the mission (Sister Terry from Oxford England) is in charge of the youth programs and she got my help this week for a couple of programs. My favorite was a group of young men from Utah. It was wet and rainy, but they were so well behaved. We started with the Temple in the south visitor's center where we talked about how excited they were to all go on missions (one of them turns in his papers the exact same time as Dagan) Then, of course we told my favorite missionary story about the Tabernacle (did you know that the missionary calls were given in that building for ages... imagine going to general conference and listening to the prophet calling your name in the middle of his address so that you can pack up, leave your family, and serve in a strange land for 2-5 years at a time... crazy) We ended up with about 50 youth in the Christus for a short testimony then escaped with our young men before the other random youth groups got their wits and followed us for the rest of the night. My favorite bit was that all of our young men thought of one way to help others come closer to Jesus Christ, even though I lead them in Ye Elders of Israel to the tune of Redeemer of Israel... it's only been 2 years since I've heard that song, and they were all following me, so I had no idea that it was the wrong tune until Sister Terry mentioned it in the end. The moral of this story is that the Atonement and the Spirit can work wonders with well meaning missionaries.

Our investigators are now with the missionaries... which is a happy and sad thing-happy that they are learning more and sad that we are not there teaching them every day. Oh well, God will trust us with more souls to teach and invite. My favorite is still our North Carolina boy who met the missionaries faster than anyone else I know and loves learning about the church, even though he doesn't like Mormons for the most part... but he feels the spirit give him peace when he reads the Book of Mormon, so he knows that something has to be right. All of them are so much fun, even when things get hard they try their hardest to learn more about Jesus Christ. (One of our new investigators is from Honduras and he's an engineer, he's a really busy guy this week though. )

Hope that this finds all of you well. Remember that God loves everyone, and that the Atonement covers everything, especially little mistakes like the ones that I am prone to making.

Love you.

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 6: week 2: South 2

Hello friends and family!

"Welcome to Temple Square. As missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we'd love to share more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with you or anyone that you know that might appreciate this message. Please see a missionary after this presentation to find out how we can help you with your missionary work."

I know it needs a bit of tweaking, but we're changing a lot of things for this General Conference and missionary work. Being an announcing coordinator is exciting and interesting, we get to figure out how best to talk to the many member missionaries that come to see us during General Conference time. Hopefully the changes don't make everything worse, but the AP's are really helpful with that. When the changes are approved I'll let you know more about it, but it is a blessing to serve the mission in a non-leadership capacity. Leadership still scares me a bit, but my companion keeps reassuring me that I have not, in fact, completely ruined her as my first junior companion guinea pig.

Teaching the gospel is awesome. Too bad you only have 18 months to do it as a missionary, where the tag on your chest means that you're there to teach them more about the gospel. Helping others find out more is really amazing, we have two investigators that I am really excited for... one who is trying to figure out how to go to church this Sunday and another who is in Texas and texted her best friend's mother to ask how she could meet with the missionaries after she failed to chase them down yesterday. It was so exciting. Another has had a really bad week, so hopefully we can help her feel God's love for her while things get really tough.

I'm having fun with youth conferences; yup, that's right youth conferences. I can't wait for the summer when there are going to be loads of them every weekend. We get to take them around Temple Square and they then get to have a tour of the Conference Center and get cooking classes from the chefs in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. (I wish that we could sit in on that sometime, but maybe another time) It's fun to see how much the youth look up to missionaries, how much they all want to be missionaries and bring others closer to Jesus Christ. We talked to one boy who's thinking about going to church because his best friend is Mormon and invited him a lot.

Best wishes to everyone.

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 6; Week 1; South 2

Transfer day!

Notice anything different? I certainly don't. Everything from my assignment to my roommates is exactly the same and I am more than a little shell shocked, but now I'll figure things will go pretty smoothly. Especially since I get to work with logistics for General Conference, which I was hoping to be able to do before the end of my mission... but now I see it as a gift for my half way mark of my mission.

This last week had some amazing people that we got to talk to... a really awesome young neuroscientist who didn't believe in organized religion, but said that if he did he'd join this one because he can still believe in Alien life forms. (He did actually say that, it was a lengthy and odd, yet awesome conversation) I seem to attract the atheists on Temple Square, because we've talked to many flavors this week, from the jaded Jew to the secure scientist. Conversations with them make me glad that I found out about God, because if I didn't believe in him the world would be a very confusing and downright dreary place. But it's interesting to remember that God loves every single one of them even though they don't really believe in Him. It's actually nice to think that even when things are difficult, that God loves everyone no matter what. It strengthened my testimony because sometimes I get to give them a glimpse into the eternities, rather than their typical life is only the here-and-now attitude.

Funny story, so apparently there are now two sister missionaries here on Temple Square from my hometown. One, naturally, is me, the other I met just yesterday at the Joseph Smith Movie. In order for you to understand the incredulity of this story, may I mention that transfers are usually crazy and Sister Farmer and I are assigned to start the Joseph Smith movie every Wednesday from 10-3. Sister Farmer and I go to close one of the films and we run into Sister Andersen and her trainee who were racing to close the movie we just closed. We start talking and laughing and start asking the new Sister how she likes her first day, things like that. So of course I ask where are you from?, she answers "Florida." Excited I exclaim "Me too, where are you from?" She then says my hometown and then we just looked at each other (It seemed like an eternity, but we know that it wasn't that long really). We're from the same ward and do not know who the other is. So we play the name game and realize that we were in fact from the same place, we were even friends with some of the same people. Finally she says "I am Jonathan's girlfriend" and I look at her cockeyed and make a complete idiot of myself by making the obvious observation "You joined the Church?!" So Sister Wright is now here on Temple Square being trained by our favorite Swedish Sister( aka the only Swede here after Sister Victorstam left), and Sister Pielstick succeeds in being the most oblivious missionary at Temple Square. God does have a sense of humor and apparently it's not enough for it to be just once.

Hope that this letter finds the family and everyone well.

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 5: week 6!!!!: Zone South 2

Hello family and friends!

The mission sure moves faster than I bargained for. I'm not so sure I'm happy to be so ancient here. Oh well, you're only as old as you feel, right?

Sister Farmer and I have been having loads of fun with people from all corners of the US and the world. One of our new friends is from Taiwan... she's pretty much amazing and moved away from a job and promising career to take care of her aging parents. She is so sweet and the promise of being with her family forever made her want to learn even more about the church. It's amazing how something that I've lived and learned all my life is something so new and interesting to the people we meet on Temple Square. Simple things like a living prophet or knowing what'll happen after we die are things that we take for granted sometimes. I'll try my best not to when I get back.

I also got to meet a few members that I want to be like when I go home from my mission. Honestly, I’ve heard the best excuse ever for not knowing anyone to share the gospel with... with an upgrade… all his non member friends were learning more at his house when they got back to Missouri. Man, I want to be that kind of member for the missionaries when I get back. I know that sometimes it may be hard to trust the Elders in an area; they are only 19-21... but they are representatives of Jesus Christ when they have on the name badge and if you trust them as such then God can only bless you. You never know what you'll learn from the experiences on your mission.

Everything is going super fast as we prepare for General Conference... I cannot wait. The tulips are blooming (and they kind-of look like upside down ballet tutus before they fully form the tulip shape) and everything is deceptively warm as March rolls around the corner. Be aware that I may have a new p-day next week as well as a new companion... but life is an adventure... and now I have three countries to visit after my mission (Columbia, Philippines, and Brazil (with Esther)) more likely than not I'll add a couple of more before the time my mission ends.

Best of luck to everyone!

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 5: Week 5: South 2

Hello!

Life has been pretty crazy and interesting. There have been a bunch of fun members on temple square recently... Oh and God really does love everyone, even our friends of other faiths who are so concerned for the welfare of our souls they come to visit us on Temple Square. I love being a part of the only church that I know of that doesn't send people immediately to eternal suffering for eternity if they are not a member of our faith. It's a nice feeling.

But there have been amazing people around here lately, my personal favorite was a cheeky bloke from Wales/ Spain who loved learning more and throwing his quips at us as a 'non-believer', the temple touched his heart and he said that he was so happy that his granddaughter decided to get married to her bloke forever even if it meant her favorite grandfather couldn't be there. (This was said in front of her other grandfather, mind) He was a blast and even though he feels good with where he is with his life right now, he felt the spirit of the temple here and that's one step closer to understanding why his granddaughter wanted to get married there.

We also got to talk to a couple of members who were pretty awesome. I guess Valentine’s Day just attracts people who have the love of Eternal families. One couple who was going to be sealed in September, but decided to come up and see the temple model before they did so, showed me a little more of how much the light of the Gospel can lighten the darkest days.

There are plenty more people to talk about and experiences to share, but I’ll just leave you with one more... we get to talk to people from all over the world and we met one member from the Philippines and she let us call her friends and family in the Philippines... Sister Farmer and I got the time zone mixed up with another island and we ended up calling some of her family members at 2AM... but when we called them later in the morning we were able to talk to some of them and one of them wanted to learn more... even though we woke him up at 2AM and made his wife unhappy. Heavenly Father is amazing and that is one prepared person. I want to go the Philippines after my mission, they are such nice people and Sister Asendente and Dela Gracia have already invited me over to their houses...

Best regards to everyone, and remember God loved us so he sent his son!

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 5: week 4: South 2

Hello!

I love Californians and people from the Netherlands. For some reason they make me feel like myself and a missionary... They were basically the highlight of my week. Oh that and a person who started off hostile and then softened to the church... but didn't want to learn more from the missionaries or from us. We had been hoping for a miracle, and I guess turning someone who was anti to someone who thought about learning more about our church is a good start at least... Heavenly Father is amazing that way. Temple Square is fun when there are not many people around, you get to talk to some of the amazing people who have been going to the temple for 50 years and people who are missionaries for the church history library and learn of their amazing experiences they have had whilst they are here from places like Australia and Japan... Then the security guards are awesome as well, one I met the other day is an ex-marine who helped protect people for foreign affairs. We're blessed here really...

We had an appreciation breakfast for the people who help make Temple Square work... I have to admit that it was a little intimidating to talk to all of those people (including the head of History for the Church, yikes!) but I guess it's practice for everything. I'm glad that I just have to be a missionary and I don't have to network and find a job as of yet... things here are fascinating, you learn people skills and how to act at formal gatherings... Much more than I was figuring when I said OK to being a missionary here.

This week was a little sad (and way exciting) because so many of our investigators met with the missionaries... because it means that we don't get to teach them as much anymore (we only contact them once a week after they meet with the missionaries). But it is good because they need to be with the missionaries in their area so they can be helped as much as possible to learn and join the church. It's just a little sad to see them move on with their progression in the gospel. We're finding more people that we can teach though... there are a lot of ways for us to find. If you know anyone who might be interested in learning more let me know! I'd love to call them and introduce them to the gospel.

Missionary life is hard but good.

Sister Pielstick

Transfer 5: week 3: South 2

Hello.

Another week has flown by. we have been teaching a lot of fun people over the phones, but it is really hard to be able to reach people sometimes. I think that if Satan knows that he can't phase someone he just makes them really really busy so that they have to make time to meet with the missionaries and learn more. Life is good though. Everyone seems to be preparing/ waiting for General Conference... and fun visitors are coming from all over to snow ski. Hopefuly it snows again so more people come.

As a missionary there are a lot of things you have to learn how to do that are incredibly out of your comfort zone. For me that is talking to other people and getting to know them, most of my life I was content to only talk to those people who came up to me and started a conversation... but now I must learn how to be that person. Fun? not really. Worth it? I certainly hope so. I've noticed that i've begun to loose my fears of talking to important people. Before I notice that there was a lot of things to be scared of, now if I have a good reason to talk to them I can talk to them. Official meetings to help get better sound equipment for the language coordination for the tours on Sundays are now second nature... I suppose if I was interested in going corporate I would be fine now. I am also learning how you find out who you talk to to get things done. You just ask and people typically tell you. Mystery of mysteries solved.

We also realized that we are a little apprehensive for the missionaries to meet some of the people we are teaching. One of them described himself to us and we realized that we were telling the missionaries to meet with some pretty scary looking people. But God wants us to help those who need the help, not the ones who are already well. And since Sister Farmer seems to attract those who are just out of prison or reformed drug addicts, means that we get to teach a lot of amazingly humble people about how much God loves them and really does have a plan for their lives. What is funny is that no one has figured out what kind of people I attract on Temple Square. I just get all sorts of people, not any one group in particular. (Sister Seube said that she can't classify me anymore)

Remember that everyone is a child of God and that God loves all his children so much that he prepared a way that we could grow and develop into the best person we can be.

Best regards and best of luck!

Sister Pielstick