Christmas on Temple Square 2014

Mostafa is SO great!! Two days ago, he took the initiative to ride the bus to church just 

to take a look at it. He walked in, and no one was there. He found a Gospel Principles 

book and read it for 2 hours in the church building. For my DC North friends, this was 

at the Chevy Chase Chapel. Well we called him last night on Christmas, and we 

started teaching the Plan of Salvation. We asked him what he knew about the 

Pre-Earth life, and he told us all about it from what he had learned in the Gospel 

Principles book! Incredible!! He is loving the Book of Mormon as well. He is starting

his conversion process. He told us he knew it was a sin that he hadn't been to 

church the past 3 weeks, and he wants to repent and go this Sunday.

So Temple Square is a blessing for many reasons. But one reason is that sisters are 

in such a close proximity from one another. I taught an English class for 4 international 

sisters the other day, and it was so fun! We are going to have a combined language 

study from now on.

We had a white Christmas! Pictures attached!

So we saw this guy was walking his leashed cat around Temple Square 

showing him the Christmas lights. Get this: He was living across the street 

from Adam-Ondi-Ahman at the time, and one stormy night he was bringing 

groceries into his house when this stray cat ran in! He has kept him ever 

since.

A few nights ago, we walked by this guy that had a big art folder. For those of 

you who know me, you know I love art. We asked why he was here, and he told 

us to serve others! Don gave us 2 of his drawings of Joseph Smith and also of 

the Christus Statue. We are going to call his wife in a few weeks and teach her 

more about her divine nature. She has been in and out of the hospital for weeks, 

and her self-esteem is quite low because of her poor health and the way she 

looks because of her health.

We had a Christmas Devotional yesterday, and my favorite part was the recitation 

of the Living Christ at the end. Our mission president recited the first 2 paragraphs 

at the start, but then random sister missionaries in the audience would stand up 

one-by-one and each recite a paragraph. The Spirit in the room was tangible. If 

you haven't read the Living Christ document, here is a link to read it:

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/36035_000_25_livingchrist.pdf

We met a family that came to Salt Lake for Christmas to give service to a hospital 

instead of celebrating with presents. How beautiful!

I was able to call home! So fun that the family is almost all together again.

For Christmas, we were also able to attend Music and the Spoken Word this 

past Sunday! It was just beautiful listening to the Choir sing the traditional 

Christmas Hymns.

We met this bagpipe guy that plays LDS hymns right outside Temple Square. He is 

so cool! He is a member. He learned a few years ago that he has Scottish ancestry 

and decided to learn to play the pipes 5 years ago.

I want to end my weekly email with a few quotes that really touched me this week:

~"When we deny our ability to change, we are denying the atonement."

~"Learning is taking a step closer to Jesus Christ." (Repentance=A Change of 

thoughts, habits, and actions)

~"We are endowed to be healers."

Love you all! Merry Christmas!

Notes from December 19, 2014

Well I think every week on Temple Square has many eventful stories to tell...

We had soup night last week! This super nice ward made us soup and a bunch of desserts (yes,
mission full of sisters!). It was wonderful!

Last night, we also ate at a member's home, the McDougals! They are awesome. They are basically
how I want my family to be when I am older. The mom and dad were working together with
EVERYTHING- cooking, starting conversation at the dinner table, and even when we made nativities
out of clay! The dad was sitting at the table as well making a snow man with his kids. The family was
so unified and it was great to see. Something funny about the McDougals, I went to their house for
Christmas dinner last year! It was pretty funny because they remembered that Sister Park and I were
in charge of all the mission cars last time we came.

So one of our wonderful homeless friends, Evelyn, sang the Little Drummer Boy for us. She told us
that if we printed out the words for her, she would sing it! It is her favorite Christmas song. Evelyn
has a 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy. 

Calvin wants to be baptized!! We met Calvin at a desk, and he is originally from China, but he lives
in LA and is doing some acting.  Pressure loves the Book of Mormon!! Pressure is this woman from
Liberia. Sister Park transferred Pressure to me before she left. It is pretty difficult to understand her,
but we can tell that she has such strong faith. When we asked if she had her Book of Mormon near
her, she told us she didn't and asked if we could call in 20 minutes. We couldn't and so she said,
"Call tomorrow? Please Please Please Please...!"  She really wanted to read with us. The cutest! Our
mission sent letters to the missions in Sierra Leon and Liberia stating that we would be able to teach
the investigators there that currently cannot be taught because of the Ebola outbreak and
missionaries not being there. We will probably be getting many African investigators in the next few
weeks to call! Exciting!

Okay. Now for the old man and his dinosaur. I was standing at a desk one night during the Christmas
rush when I turned to my left, and this man holding a tattered foot-long toy dinosaur was right next to
me! I asked him about his dinosaur, and he said his name is Dino, and it is his companion. Dino has
been traveling everywhere with him since 1993. I asked him if Dino had ever gotten a bath and he
 said, "Are you kidding me? That would ruin him!" My companion asked him if Dino was Mormon and
I asked if he had been baptized and confirmed. He didn't like our jokes too much.

We got chased twice by odd people in one day only a few days ago!
We are glad we have security.

We had a beautiful testimony meeting during Zone Conference yesterday. The theme was, in 2 minutes
tell about an experience when you felt the Spirit undeniably on your mission. It was so powerful and
the Spirit was tangible in the room. Never deny that you have felt the Spirit.

Love you all!

Sister Steenhoek

Notes from December 12th

Transfers happened just a few days ago, and my fate is.... everything is exactly the same! I am still training Sister Chiu (as expected) and we live in the same apartment and are still on the Square for our assignment. This is my last transfer! Woah has time flown by. Yet, SO much has happened. I am very grateful for all the experiences I have been able to have thus far.

Sister Steenhoek and 10 other Sister Missionaries from around the world start tours from the Conference Center

I announced last Sunday! For those of you who aren't familiar with announcing, it is where 12 sisters who speak various languages will tell a large crowd of people that they can take a tour from us in their native language. Pictures attached!

Two of our investigators have baptismal dates! Mostafa and Patricia. We are super excited. Patricia makes us particularly excited because we actually met her on mormon.org chat last week. She had mentioned that she is an older woman who doesn't have family left and is lonely. She wanted senior couple missionaries to visit her and pray with her. We ended up teaching her and sending missionaries over, and we called and she is already being integrated into her local congregation in Pennsylvania. The church is true!! (:

We are just SO lucky. Sister Chiu and I met President Eyring!! So how it happened. On transfer day, the sisters sign up for different assignments and create their own schedules for that day. It actually works out well. Well we signed up for a certain desk assignment at 3pm. When we arrive there, we find out that the building is closed and security is standing by the doors. They inform us that a member of the first presidency of the Church will be meeting with our mission president to talk about something in the visitor's center. We were able to shake his hand when he passed by us and asked us where we are from. It was the coolest experience! 

The Christmas Devotional was so good! If you haven't watched it, I highly suggest doing so. Even though the talks had the usual theme of the birth of our savior, they all were so unique and made me think quite a bit.

We met a man named Brandon who is preparing to serve a mission. When thinking of mission advice to give him, I was going to share my usual, "Read the Book of Mormon," or "Study good scripture references that you could refer to during lessons," but instead I said something that I'd never said before. I told him to think about the experiences he is having or has had so that he can share them with people on his mission. I told him that people he will teach are not hoping that missionaries are perfect, but they are actually hoping that missionaries are similar to them: not perfect! He ended up sharing an experience he recently had where he had applied the redeeming power of the atonement. I love that Heavenly Father allows us to use the gift of the Holy Ghost to discern others' needs. 

"Shun Don Qui Luh!!" I tell Chinese people that when I see them. It means Merry Christmas! I also know how to say, "My name is Sister Steenhoek" and "I am from Texas." (:

We had pizza day!!! Our entire mission was able to get pizza because we had the highest number of baptisms that the mission has ever seen in this past transfer! Woah! 159 souls had entered into the waters of baptism by learning from a sister on Temple Square. Very cool.

Well, love you all! Send me an email, I'd love to hear from you!(:

Sister Steenhoek

Sister Atchu from India, Angelique & Sister Chiu

Sing and Smile - Notes From 5 December, 2014

I met Sister Taggart's parents this past week! Sister Taggart was my companion outbound from 

the DC North Mission. She's great. And her parents were so nice!

Miracle time. This man named Dawn brought his granddaughter Kristen and Kristen's husband 

Alvaro and their 2 little ones to Temple Square. Back story: Dawn is not even a member! He is 

pentecostal. But he testified to Kristen that this church is true and asked Kristen to refer herself 

to the missionaries. We are going to teach Kristen and Alvaro this Sunday! We are so excited to 

teach a family.

Sing n Smile is the most fun thing we get to do around Christmas time! We get to sing Christmas 

hymns and Christmas carols while people are walking by on the Square. If you're ever there for 

the lights and see sisters singing, don't be afraid to join in! There was this one night that an old 

man with a walker named Merlin and his grand daughters were watching us sing. He was getting 

pretty into the songs, so we invited him to sing with us. He sat on his walker chair in the middle 

of the sisters and led us in "O Holy Night." It was so fun!

A statue of President Monson

Okay. The ultimate Relief Society. You will never guess what happened. So we went to the Relief 

Society Building for Relief Society, and guess who was there to speak to us?? All 3 members of 

the General Relief Society, President Linda K. Burton, Sister Stephens, and Sister Reeves, as well 

as the entire General Relief Society Board. They gave each us the Sisters a beautiful card with 

each of their signatures on it. WOW! We even got a picture with Sister Burton! They told us how 

important it is to read the book, "Daughters of my Kingdom." Challenge accepted.

Statue of Heavenly Father and His Son

We ate at the Lion House this past week, and it was 

yummy as always. We then opened packages 

courtesy of my mom. YIPPEE!

We are getting so busy with setting appointments with

investigators! How exciting! I had mentioned 

last week about the total MIRACLE that had happened. 

As we were inviting Mostafa to go to church in one of our 

lessons last week, he told us he was actually going to be 

in SLC that weekend instead of his home city of Washington 

DC! He ended up coming to our sacrament meeting when I 

was going to be speaking. Mostafa came with his son, 

Thomas, and they both really enjoyed sacrament! 

We will call and hopefully start teaching both Mostafa and 

his son very soon.

Something so funny. The missionary department has gotten 

every sister on Temple Square matching white scarves that 

we HAVE to wear every night that the lights are one so everyone 

can distinguish us from the guests. Pretty funny. So if you know 

of any fun ways to tie a scarf, please let me know!

We had a dessert night last night, put on by a Relief Society from a ward in Brigham City. So nice of 

them! We really appreciated it.

I love you all! But more importantly, know how much Heavenly Father loves you. Trials are meant to 

make us stronger and give us more experience in this life to one day prepare to meet God.

Sister Steenhoek

Notes from Friday, 29 November, 2014 - Lights, Camera and Lots of Action

Thanksgiving was a BLAST yesterday! We went over to the Stake President's house of a stake up in 

Bountiful. The stake president and his wife picked four of us up at Temple Square and took us to 

their lovely home. It is always so nice to be in a home. But before they came, we talked with one of 

our favorite homeless guys, Jack and his teenage son Joey. We actually set up an appointment to 

teach them on Temple Square tomorrow! Jack is in a wheelchair, and he has been reading 2 

chapters in the Book of Mormon since we gave it to him a few weeks ago. 

Well we of course had turkey and pumpkin pie during our Thanksgiving meal. We also watched 

Ephraim's Rescue. I had seen it once before on my mission, but I think I liked it a lot more this 

time! When they were driving us back to Temple Square, they drove us past the Bountiful Temple!! 

It is so beautiful. To make it even better, all of the houses surrounding the temple had big posters 

with scriptures telling the story of Jesus' life. I guess you'll all have to see it one year around 

Christmas time!

We got new pots and pans in every single missionary apartment on Temple Square! Let me just 

say, pots and pans make ALL the difference in cooking.

Sister Chiu and I also watched Mr. Kreuger's Christmas AND Meet the Mormons this week as well! Mr.KC=awesome.

We called up a guy named Mostafa that I met about 6 weeks ago. I had originally set up an 

appointment when I met him, but I didn't call him because I felt that I shouldn't. Well I called and 

taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He asked where he could go to church. When we explained 

that we'd be happy to look up the closest church building to him, he said, "But I actually just 

booked a plane flight to Salt Lake right before you called. Where could I go to church in Salt Lake?" 

What?? Oh my goodness!! He is coming out here to visit his son. He is going to come to our church 

on Sunday and bring his son as well! What he said was, "I don't believe this is a coincidence," and 

I don't think so either. Heavenly Father knows what the right timing is for each of his children.

I am giving my farewell talk on Sunday! Wish me luck!

We went to Scott's baptism this past Saturday!!! Scott was so ready to be baptized. It is neat to be 

a part of one's conversion. I know that Sister Stigsson and I were only agents in the Lord's hands, 

but it is still a pleasure to be such!

Sister Steenhoek

PS the church just came out with a "He is the Gift" campaign, so if you are reading this, go to christmas.mormon.org and watch the 5-minute video. Then share it with all of your friends on 

social media. We want all to be aware of the love their Savior has for them! It is being highly 

advertised here on Temple Square as well(:

"This is not a gratitude of the lips, but of the soul." ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Notes from 21 November, 2014

Rosalee is a wonderful lady that was on a layover. She is a stewardess for an airline, and had had 
many previous layovers in SLC, but never stopped to see Temple Square. It was one of the best 
encounters with contacting someone. She didn't refer, but she asked many questions and truly 
got to know our religion. She is definitely searching.

We met a woman from Eritrea on chat! If you didn't know where that is located, I didn't know 

either until I checked out a map. It is located by Ethiopia in Africa.

We were privileged to view Savior of the World last night, a musical production that is all voluntary 

that is put on by the church to encourage everyone to gain a stronger testimony in Jesus Christ. 

We went to the Relief Society building for more explorer days this past week. Did know we had a Relief Society Building did you!?!? Well we do. I found out while I was on my mission, so no worries! But I truly recommend checking it out. It talks about the importance of women's roles in the church and goes into detail about the Primary, Young Women's, and Relief Society. Attached to the email, I've sent a picture with me next to a back-in-the-day Beehive uniform that the young women would wear!

We had a district dinner this past week, and we have a sister missionary from Pakistan in our district. I tried this Pakistani drink that she had made from her country!

We met Zach on chat. Zach is a 15-year old who is currently meeting with local missionaries. He wanted to express to someone his excitement to be baptized, but for some reason was too nervous to talk with his Elders about baptism. He had been meeting with them for a few lessons, and they asked him if he wanted to be baptized. He was pretty confused when they asked him that because he thought that when he agreed to meet with the missionaries, he already agreed to be baptized! He was like, "Well ya, that's what I'm here for." Hahah super cool kid. We will be calling him in a few days to continue helping him along. 

It is pretty entertaining watching people guess foreigners flags, but it is even funnier when it is Asians that get Asian flags pretty wrong. There was a group of Koreans  that thought sister Chiu was from Thailand! I was tryign sooo hard to be serious. 

I met this HILARIOUS drunk guy named Kent, and him and I talked for about an hour one evening while I had a desk assignment. He was telling me that his sister is now working for the FBI, and he said, "She is tall and blonde. Hey. She looks like you. You could be in the FBI!" He showed me the background picture on his flip phone, and it was of turtles that get stuck in plastic from tin cans and such. He was quite passionate about the sea turtles. He told me, "I will beat anyone us that has a bad recycle bin!" He said he was just kidding afterwards but uh.. just to make sure, I need to repent and be a better recycler!

Right after that hilarious conversation, a dad and his little boy walk in the visitor's center. The little boy looks at me and says, "Mommy!!" Me:"Ohhhh no!" We walked out pretty quickly before the little boy got any other ideas haha.

During our companion study one morning, Sister Chiu and I looked at 3 Nephi 27. There was something cool that I noticed about verse 21, and then verse 13. In v. 21, Jesus Christ invites us to do what he does as his Gospel. But in v. 13, he says that his Gospel is to do the will of the Father. So what he is saying is the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to follow Jesus Christ and do the will of the Father. The scriptures are the coolest!

"21 Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel; and ye know the things that ye must do in my church; for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do;

13 Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me."

Love you all!

<3 Sister Steenhoek

PS. I'd love to hear from each one of you! You're welcome to send me an email: angelique.steenhoek@myldsmail.net

My mailing address is:

50 NW Temple Street

RM BSVC
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150

Konichiwa - Notes from 14 November 2014

So we were in the Assembly Hall greeting people as they came in for a lecture by Sheri Dew, when

this older man (probably in his 80s) turns to my Taiwanese companion and says, "Konichiwa!" With

all the fervor of his being. He was very confident that she was from Japan... I could not help but 

burst out laughing! Hahah so funny. 

Well, while we were helping the hosts and hostesses greet people, in walks Sheri Dew! 

She came over and gave the both of us a big group hug. We told her we wish we could stay, 

but are going to go find the elect outside in the cold. She wisely told us, "It takes the elect to 

find the elect." I love that! We need to strive to become what we see others becoming.

As we were talking to a young mom, we heard another wonderful phrase,  

"Snow makes the cold beautiful." What a great outlook that is! I need to keep that in mind this winter.

We had part of our explorer day this past week. If you are not familiar with explorer day, it means that 

new missionaries and their trainers get 12 hours to "explore" what temple square is all about and get 

familiar with it so we can tell others about it! We went to the Humanitarian Center and Welfare Square 

with Sister Cuevas and Sister Quidiman. 

It was so neat to be able to review the information, but also to think about how prepared our church really is! 

We have so many resources to improve the quality of human life. One just has to look for it. Something that 

we have a LOT of is opportunities for people to serve. One can have a calling, one can serve a mission, one 

can do service for another, one can help out with humanitarian/welfare efforts. One can serve his/her family 

members, etc etc.

We gave Jack a Book of Mormon!! Jack is a homeless man that sits outside of the City Creek mall. No one 

was stopping to talk to him, and so we talked with him. He isn't a member, but he really likes Temple Square! 

I gave him a picture of the temple. When we asked if he had read the Book of Mormon, he said he had a while 

ago, but he has lost it. We went back to Temple Square and got him his very own new copy of the Book of 

Mormon and underlined some powerful scriptures that he can look at.

We met Lesi at the mall just a few days ago. Lesi is an awesome Polynesian woman. She is currently working 

on becoming a BYU religion professor. I have written about her in previous emails, but she loves going around 

to the sisters and giving us pages and pages of quotes she has printed out from past prophets and apostles. 

She testifies to us that God is the ultimate God. That no one will come above him. She testifies with a lot of 

gusto! I told her I wish she could follow us around on tours and we could cue her in when we want her to testify.

Dee has her temple recommend!!! She got baptized just a week ago, and now she is all ready to enter into the 

House of the Lord. What a powerhouse of the Spirit!

I am currently studying in the Teaching Skills section of Preach My Gospel for personal studies, and I am 

studying how to teach the Restoration to those without a Christian background. Something that stuck out 

to me was that it doesn't matter our cultural or religious circumstances, ALL of God's children have to 

experience faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost in order to be truly 

converted and enter into the presence of God. As simple as it is, we should not be afraid of testifying of 

the very points that Christ teaches.

Love you all!

Sister Steenhoek

P.S. for Zone Activity today, we actually went to the Salt Lake City Cemetary and found graves of many 

past prophets, and even Joseph Smith's body guard, Orrin Porter Rockwell. Pretty eerie and cool!

Notes from November 7, 2014

We went to the temple as a mission this past week on Halloween, and it was an incredibly 

spiritual experience. All (around) 200 of us sisters and senior couples gathered to make 

covenants (or promises) to our Heavenly Father.

Sunday was a special day as well. It was my sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Aubrey! 

But it was also Dee's baptism day. Dee was baptized 7pm Washington DC time. 

Sister Chiu and I were able to skype into her baptism. It was so beautiful and I am so 

excited for Dee for having taken this important step in her eternal conversion.

So we will be going to the Asian market today. I think sister Chiu is SO excited to be 

eating food that is not so foreign to her. I think I am becoming half Asian!

We took 2 women on a tour today from Chicago-a Buddhist and a Jew. Quite an 

interesting mix to teach for understanding and conversion. But what is so cool 

about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that it is for everyone. They both identified 

with sealings (marriages for eternity in the temple) and with service and humanitarian 

work for others.

We met a super cool returned missionary girl that had just come out of the temple. 

Her quote of the day was, "Life is full of transfers." They don't stop when our mission ends. 

We will always have beginnings and endings to different things. But that is the only way that 

we will grow. Friends, events, and opportunities will come and go, but if our heart and mind 

are in the right place, we will be progressing towards eternal life with our Heavenly Father, no 

matter what is thrown at us.

I taught sister Chiu how to leave voicemails on peoples' phones. Now she's a pro. 

My companion is so awesome! She is such a fast learner, and she LOVES roleplays!! 

Woah. I am soo glad. (:

We went to Music and the Spoken Word this past Sunday, and Billy Casper, the golfer, was also there. 

Also, Natasha Hunt from Katy Texas was there with her grandma as well!

Last night, Sister Torres (our district leader) and I were walking to exchange back with our companions when

we saw this group of about 80 people being led by a random man around temple square. If you are not familiar

with the tour guidelines of Temple Square, tours can only be led by sister missionaries. So we jumped in at the 

front of the tour group and started taking this 80-person group around. Usual spontaneous events during the 

daily life of a Temple Square missionary. But there really is not a more powerful feeling when 80 pairs of eyes 

are on you and your companion, and you are able to stand right in front of the temple and boldly testify of the 

power of God that has flooded our lives because of the temple.

I'd like to end my email this week with a man named Paul. Paul came up to the desk in the North Visitor's 

Center wanting to watch a movie. We went downstairs to play the movie for him, and he just broke down. 

He is the father of 3 kids and is divorced. He completely strayed away from the church, has no job and is 

lost in life. His self-esteem is almost non-existent. Because of various life events, he has minimal 

possessions. He begged us to get him a copy of the Book of Mormon so that he could read it again. We 

asked if we could teach him on Temple Square and he hesitantly accepted our invitation.

We taught Paul again yesterday on the steps of the temple. He felt so nervous to walk on Temple grounds. 

We testified of God's love for him and that he is NEVER lost. We focused on the atonement of Jesus Christ 

and how because of Christ's suffering, we will ALL be able to find a way back, no matter our circumstances. 

At the end of the lesson, we saw a glimmer of hope in his eye. He knows that he may be able to progress. 

We will help him regain his testimony of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. I am just in awe that Heavenly Father 

and Jesus Christ would allow us to feel Christlike love for other children of God here on Earth. I know that God 

is real and that he is aware of EACH one of us. Pray(:

I love you all! And I would love to hear from each one of you as well. 

Don't hesitate to send me an email: angelique.steenhoek@myldsmail.net

Sister Steenhoek