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