Alright everybody, if you don't hear from me next week, just know that it's probably because I froze to death. It's gotten sooo cold just within the past few days, and the wind is ridiculous. Last night we were knocking and weren't properly prepared, I seriously thought my foot and face were just going to fall off. Luckily we don't have snow yet, but still, Sister Williams and I are both weenies when it comes to cold weather. So it doesn't help that we feed off of each other, hahah. But the good thing is that all the time we say to people we meet "Oh, we aren't used to this crazy weather, I'm from Arizona/Southern California!" then they're always like whaaat what are you doing here?! And it's a super easy way to talk about being missionaries. Using the weather small talk to our advantage!
Anyway, it's been a great week! President Hess wanted all of the missionaries to try something new in our door approaches, so we are showing people gospel artwork at the door and asking them to say what they see in the picture! It's been good to shake things up and get peoples attention. We've been doing it pretty much all of this week and have had some pretty cool conversations from it! We chose the classic "Jesus Christ visits the Americas" picture, and we got some really cool responses from people! Here are a few of our favorites:
1. Ronnie. She felt like she had seen the picture somewhere before, and thought it was so beautiful. She couldn't stop looking at it! We talked about Christ's visitation to the people and she loved the idea of God loving all His children, and having additional works of Christ to learn from. She had also seen the Book of Mormon before and wants to know more about the picture and the Book of Mormon. She set up her own return appointment! Super cool lady.
2. Ray. He drove up to the back of a convenient store further up the street, we had to run to catch him. We showed him the picture, and he was just mesmerized by it. He wondered what it would be like to be one of those people, and said that if he were, it would bring him "unspeakable joy". We asked if he would want to read the words of the people who were there to experience this and he asked, "yeah, where can I find that?". We shared a few verses in 3 Nephi 11, and he loved it. He also wanted a copy for his son, the owner of the liquor store that he had just pulled into haha. Also a cool guy!
3. Christine. It was our last door on this one street. The past few days we have been praying to specifically meet a girl who was YSA age, and that night we prayed for people to be astonished by the Book of Mormon. Christine was an answer to both of those prayers! When she first saw the picture she seemed a little confused and didn't really know what to say. But once we explained what the picture was, she literally exclaimed, "Oh wow!" and her excitement grew as we explained it's relation to the Book of Mormon. She had heard of the Book of Mormon before but had no idea that it talked more about Christ and His visitation to his "other sheep". We told her that we could bring her a free copy and she said she wanted to start reading it tonight. She's already read a few chapters, and has a bunch of questions it's cool!
I've been super surprised by how amazed people are by the picture and us telling them about how Christ visited his followers living in the ancient Americas. It's really helped people to open up and be more willing to listen to what we have to say, and I feel like our conversations have been more meaningful. Moral of the story, always listen to your mission president. He's know what's best.
At coordination this past week, our Ward Mission Leaders nieces boyfriend was over at the house and was eating dinner with us. He's 21, met the niece in college, has studied a lot about religion, he was a pretty cool guy. He was pretty amazed once he realized we all weren't from Jersey and were here voluntarily for 18-24 months. Anyways at the end of dinner Brother Castro was like so, you guys wanna share a message with him? We all kinda looked around at each other like uh yeah sure! So us and the Elders all taught the restoration together, honestly it was kinda difficult because none of us knew when the next person would speak or when to interject, it was quite the experience of building comp unity. But at the end the boyfriend asked us all to share our experiences with how we came to know that the Book of Mormon was true, and there was a very sweet spirit present. As each missionary testified, we all got to build off of each other in a unified but individualized message, and it was a really cool experience to be a part of. Even the boyfriend admitted that he can feel how genuine we were and said he "felt good" while we were talking. (spoiler: it was the spirit). It was a really cool experience, and he agreed to meet with the Elders again. Cool stuff! Member work is awesome!!
Also, quick update on Courtney and Erik and the kiddos, they all got sick this past week so they had to postpone our dinner :( but we did heart attack them and apparently the kids LOVED it, Courtney even texted us a picture of all of them standing by the door. Haha one of the perks of being Sister missionaries, I guess. But now we are trying to coordinate with the member friend to do family home evening activity, we are so excited! I'm gonna say it again, member work is awesome!!
On Friday we went into this Dunkin Donuts and I totally walked in on this girl in the bathroom ahaha. Luckily she had finished lol but I felt so bad and was so embarrassed. She just laughed about it and was super cool, and afterwards we all talked for a while. She's probably 19 or 20 and had a lot of questions about how we live our lives and what we do to maintain a close relationship with God. It was a super interesting conversation and she really opened up about experiences she's had and struggles she's going through. After probably a 40 minute conversation she said how glad she was to meet us and wants to get lunch some time and talk more, haha. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and she is excited to read it! The Lord works in such mysterious ways.
Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is why God allows suffering, and why life has to be so difficult. I was studying this for one person in particular, and found a pretty interesting talk. One of the quotes in the talk says, “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven"
I thought that was so cool. As we experience trial and hardships, it allows us to have experience and ultimately stretch and become who we were meant to be. This process is never fun, and is hardly ever easy. But I know that we must put our trust in God, knowing that despite our limited view, his purposes will not fail. I know that to be true!
Hope you all have a good and warm week! Love you all!
Sister Frozen Yocum
1. Flag of consecration, sister Williams put her name next to mine how cute
2. Follow up meeting for the new missionaries!
3. Sister Williams has been trying to find a cool street sign, this this the closest thing we've been able to find so far
4. They're getting rid of the Maplewood van and honestly I was emotional about it :( I love that van, so many good memories oh man
5. Funky outside of a diner
6. I was messing around on Google maps and GUESS WHAT GUYS this is Kenneth who I was talking about a few weeks ago who was a Bible referral whose wife was a member?? Anyone remember that? Anyways good ol Kenneth I was laughing so hard
7. We got all the back to Adam and Eve on family history it was wild
8. Something I found from one of my ancestors, I assume to be a journal entry? Anyways I thought it was so amazing, and it honestly brought a tear to my eye. So humbling to read and recognize that I am one of the beneficiaries of this amazing woman, leaving everything and sacrificing to live the restored gospel of Jesus Christ .
9. Also one of my ancestors lived in New Jersey?!? Seriously family history is so cool you guys get involved in it its so fun
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