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