Miracles At The Mall

I was going to call this email "eight below" because I woke up and it was -8 one morning, but then some crazier stuff happened! I'm going to number the bullet points and paragraphs again (I keep forgetting to do that, haha). 

Before I begin, though... my older brother Paden is also serving a mission, for those of you who don't know. He's currently serving in Londrina Brazil. I heard last week that he got really sick and likely has Dengue fever. Please keep him, his companion, and the doctors caring for him in your prayers. Paden is a huge role model for me and I love him more than words can express. He's the most dedicated missionary I know, and nothing can keep him off his feet for long. Please pray that he will recover quickly so he can get back to doing what he loves. :)

1- CrAzY P-Day

2- Another Zone Conference 

3- Friends dropping like flies (lots of lessons fell through)

4- Beef stew at the Mustard Seed

5- Even more people flaking on us :)

6- Tim Hortons 

6- Sriracha sauce  :0

7- The Lord's timeline is incredible! 

8- Stuck in a bomb lesson for an hour and fifteen minutes. XD 

9- Remembrance Day

10- Lots of planning, finally did it the smart way. XD 

11- Finished the Book of Mormon! :D  (before my 12 week deadline)

12- Met some guy on the street who is interested

13- Insane phone call that was definitely inspired

14- Whiteboarding at the mall! (We wrote a question on a whiteboard, then stood at the mall and talked to people. Some of them gave hilarious answers to our question! XD)

15- Fast Sunday

16- Transfer news! :0   (I'm staying here, Sister Christmas is going home, and Sister Marsmaker will be my new comp!)

1- Okay, last P-Day was probably the busiest one I've ever had! We got up a bit early, hastily cleaned, then went to a friend of Sister Christmas's to get haircuts! (Yep, I got one too!) We were there for quite a while; Sister Christmas also redid her highlights. I got to work on emails and stuff, so I wasn't bored. :)

1- After that, we went shopping and also printed out pictures for each other's transfer journals. (Journals that other missionaries sign and fill to become souvenirs.) The pictures took over an hour. XD

1- We caught up with the district for some sports. We played an interesting version of dodgeball. Everyone gathered in a cluster, and we all had numbers. One person would throw the ball up and yell a number, then everyone would scatter. Whoever's number was called had to catch the ball and throw it at the others. If someone got hit, they were out. I never hit anyone, but I got hit plenty. XD

1- We did a lot of running around so Sister Christmas could ferry her transfer journal to and from other missionary companionships. When we got back to the apartment, P-Day was almost over. I did get to call my parents for a bit, though, and see some of my siblings. It was nice. :D

2- Okay, we had yet another Zone Conference on Tuesday. It was three hours. Luckily, it was on Zoom, so Sister Christmas and I could watch from the comfort of our apartment. We picked up some great tips for contacting and finding people on Facebook. I hope to implement those strategies to have more success on social media! 

3- A few people flaked on us on Monday and Tuesday. Some of them got sick, some had family stuff, and others just straight-up ghosted us. We did have a few member lessons, though, so that was good. 

4- The thing I remember most about Tuesday was the beef stew at the Mustard Seed. Also, Tireless Tuesday is officially no more! We get to drive our car on Tuesday because it's getting colder. XD  But we helped make some really delicious stew, and when we went home, there was a lot left over, so we got to take some. :D  We loved it!

5- Wednesday was the day of canceling. So many people ditched us. We had agreed to meet one lady and her fiancée at a Tim Hortons (hot chocolate and donut place). We got there, then she texted us and was like, "Sorry, today won't work for me." And all of a sudden, she blocked Sister Christmas on Facebook with no warning or explanation!  *Confused missionary sounds* :l  

6- Since we were at Tim Hortons, we decided to get something to eat. I got a tasty-looking bacon wrap with eggs, bacon, and cheese inside. I also got some hot chocolate! I bit into the bacon wrap, then my tongue exploded. It was SO STINKING SPICY! I didn't know at first, but it was loaded with Sriracha sauce! I cannot handle spice of any kind, and it spontaneously combusted my tastebuds. XD  I was just quietly dying while I ate it because I didn't want to cause a scene at the restaurant.  

6- Sister Christmas asked me what was wrong when she saw me chugging water. My eyes were watering and my nose was streaming. That wrap was probably the single speciest thing I've ever eaten! I'm proud that I was able to force it down, but literally all I could taste was fire. XD  I was kinda sad that the spice just overwhelmed the bacon and cheese flavors. If I get it again, I'll try to ask for no Sriracha sauce. XD

5- (just explaining about more canceled appointments) So, after the Tim Hortons incident, the rest of our day kinda fell apart. One guy that we were super excited to meet with again left the province. XD  We were like, "Hey, are we still good to meet tonight?" and he texted back, "Oh, I'm on my way to Toronto for a job!" So... we don't know if he's moving there permanently or if we'll ever see him again. *shrug*

5- Another friend we were looking forward to meeting with told us shortly before her lesson that she was on the other side of town and had no bus fare. We asked if she'd like to do a video call instead, but she ghosted us.

5- Then, we were going to go back to the sweet lady who stuffed us full of hot chocolate and bread, but she canceled as well. Her friend had someone close to her pass away, so she wanted to comfort her friend. That one was understandable, but it also meant that we had over two hours of free time without all the service and lessons.

7- That's not good for a missionary, haha. We're not supposed to have 'down time' in our days. We tried calling more people, but nothing was working. So, we decided to do some stop-bys: randomly dropping by people's houses to see if they were home.

7.5 (?)- Oh, we also met with the trailer dude again and helped him some more. We were outside for a while and it was SO COLD! I couldn't feel my toes or fingers after that... This is probably the last time we'll help him because the side of his trailer is pretty much done; he just needs to rearrange the inside. Right now, doing inside service is a bit tricky, and two Sisters can't be alone indoors with one man, so... yeah. That was most likely the last time we'll help him. I'm glad we were able to assist him, though. He was a bit crazy, but really nice. XD 

7- But anyway, stop-bys. I put in an address on Google Maps and it was sending us to the wrong part of town. Sister Christmas was like, "That's not where this person lives!"  And we drove around in circles for a while. She remembered roughly the right neighborhood, but not the exact street or house number. When we finally found the right house, we hopped out and went up. There was a darling Sister named Sister Lwensisi (Loo-when-see-see) that said she had just gotten home. We would have missed her if Google Maps had led us right to the correct address! So it was frustrating to circle around in the dark and have Google Maps lead us wrong, but I now have a testimony of the Lord's timeline! He knew Sister Lwensisi was getting home late, so He made sure we stayed a bit longer to meet her. :D

8- That night, we had a single, scheduled member lesson that hadn't fallen through. We were just praying that it would still happen because practically everyone else had canceled on us. We video-called Sister Richardson, then she was like, "Oh, I'm at my neighbors right now! He's interested in learning more about Jesus!" 

8- Sister Christmas and I were like  :O   "Okay! Would he like to join the call?"   So, Sister Richardson and her neighbor sat together and we had a nice, long lesson. For an HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES! *maniacal laughter* I was pretty burnt-out at the end. Especially because I'd anticipated a twenty-minute-max member lesson in which we shared a simple scripture or two and invited her to share something with a friend. XD

8- Nope! Not what Heavenly Father had in mind that night! Sister Richardson's friend was originally Muslim, so he had a bunch of questions. We compared and contrasted beliefs, explained about the Book of Mormon, and lots of other stuff. It didn't get contentious, though. We weren't arguing, we were just talking and having a kind-hearted discussion.

8- Sister Richardson might have firehosed him a bit... Don't get me wrong, I love when members help teach! But she kept going into deep stuff and jumping from topic to topic before we could explain everything. XD  She was bringing up temples, baptism, the endowment... the whole nine yards. And we were just like, "Um... restoration?"  Then she kept just leapfrogging all over the place. But her friend does want to meet again, so that's good! We'll meet him again on Saturday, if everything works out! (By the way, I write these emails throughout the week instead of during one sitting, so the second lesson with this guy hasn't happened yet. If/when it does, I'll write about it.)

9- November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada. Everyone wears poppies (we got little felt poppies at the mall) to remember fallen soldiers and other people who have passed on. It was really encouraging and neat to see a lot of people with poppies over their hearts. People rarely come together for anything nowadays because of all the contention in the world, and it was very cool. :)

10- Weekly planning on Thursday is usually pretty draggy... However, we decided to use a computer this week! We went to the church, then pulled up the Google Sheet we've been using to keep track of everyone. Sister Christmas dictated while I typed up info. (How I miss writing my stories...)  We were able to finish that aspect of weekly planning earlier than expected, which was really nice!

11- I finished the Book of Mormon! This is the 2nd time I've read it cover to cover. :)  (Jacob 5 always killed me when I was younger, haha)  I was able to gain SO much out of it this time! I wasn't trying to speed-read it, I actually took the time to study and absorb things. I marked a bunch of scriptures, made my own cross-references, and other stuff. This time when I read through it, I'll be categorizing all the scriptures I marked. Faith scriptures, promises, warnings, excellent missionary teaching examples, etc.  I also want to read the Bible too, so I'll likely start that soon. I've never read it cover to cover, and there are some amazing records about Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament.

11- I have to say, Ammon is my favorite Book of Mormon Prophet. He chose to serve King Lamoni instead of just leaping into teaching (which is something that every missionary should do). Then, he protected King Lamoni's sheep by chopping off the arms of the bad Lamanites (love that part, haha). He didn't brag or anything; he continued to do servant work for the King. 

11- (Ammon continued) When the King's servants told Lamoni what Ammon had done, Lamoni summoned Ammon and asked if he was the Great Spirit. Ammon explained that he was a man called of God to teach. He also built upon Lamoni's beliefs and explained that God was the Great Spirit that the Lamanites were taught about. I just love Ammon's faith, diligence, and patience when he taught Lamoni. Also, their eventual friendship was amazing. :) 

12- So, on Firday, we walked out of a member lesson and headed back to our car. Sister Christmas called out a greeting to someone, then another guy a dozen feet ahead of us stopped and whipped around. He was like, "Are you Elders?" 

12- I had to bite back a laugh. We explained that we were Sisters, and that Elders are boy missionaries. XD  The guy then told us that he used to go to church, but he moved and didn't know where another church was. He said he'd be interested in learning more. We got his number so we could call him again. He was super friendly!

13- While we were taking down this dude's number, someone tried to call us. We hit the automated text, "I'll call you back."  After we said goodbye to the man on the street, we called the number back. The guy was really confused and was like, "Who's calling?"

13- We told him who we were and that we'd missed a call from him. He was baffled and said he hadn't made a call in two days. We told him we'd gotten a call from his number and sent a text. He checked the text and thought it was odd, then asked if we could call again later. We totally will! (We tried later that evening but missed him, so we'll attempt a second time soon.)

14- To finish up that absolutely crazy Friday, we went whiteboarding at the mall! We wrote, "What brings you joy?" on a little whiteboard, then found a busy spot at the mall to ask people. We got the most interesting results! XD 

14- Most of the people that answered us were kids or young couples with families. And often, they said that their families brought them joy! It was super inspiring and sweet. Some people would tell us friends, nature, religion, and other things, but the overwhelming answer was always family. :)  

14- Then we had some people that would say things like, "Money!" and laugh. A few would say selfish things, but I'm pretty sure that was just to spite us. *shrug*    One guy yelled, "Weed!"  :l  I was torn between the urge to laugh and offer condolences. The saddest was when people would hear our question, pause, and think for a minute before saying, "I don't know. Nothing brings me joy." :(   Some people are just lost in life... It makes me glad that I have so many things to be grateful for. 

14- Some people would say, "No thanks!" as if we were selling something. One guy flatly stated, "I'm not interested."  XD  We were literally just asking what makes people happy! We were SO tempted to yell back at them, "You don't want to be happy?! Why aren't you interested in happiness?" 

14- Chirping crickets, the funniest by far was two people who thought we were JWs (Jehova's Witnesses). They came up the escalator and we asked, "What brings you joy?"  

(Going to break this up because lots of dialogue and it almost makes me feel like I'm writing a story :')

The guy gave us a suspicious squint and asked, "Is this a trick?"

"No," we told him. "We just want to know what makes you happy!"

They were silent for a minute. The two of them looked at each other, then at us, and then at our whiteboard. Then they looked around at all the other people in the mall.

"Why?" the girl asked. She was all tense and twitchy. She kept glancing around with a worried look. 

"We're just curious," Sister Christmas said.

I thought the lady was going to ask if we were on a hidden camera show because of how much she was looking around. XD  But then she was like, "OH! Are you J-dubs?" (Short for JWs, meaning Jehova's Witnesses.)

"No," we replied. "We're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!"

The pair was speechless. They just kept stuttering and glancing around. We asked them once more what brought them joy. The guy took off and the girl made a weird shrug-like gesture and was like, "Eh," then left too. XD  

14- Sister Christmas and I were dying. We tried to keep our laughs quiet. It was hard when I asked some teens if they were religious and one said, "We're Muslamic!"  Oh really? Are you Muslim or Islamic? Because last I checked, those are two separate religions. XDDD 

14- Sometimes people would just ignore us. They'd deliberately look at the floor, turn into a store to avoid us, or speed-walk behind us when we turned to talk to other people. Occasionally, someone would past past us two or three times--because we were there for an hour--and they'd be just as awkward and evasive as the first time. XD

14- We eventually got kicked out by a security guard. He did it kind of nicely, but made it clear that he didn't like us proselyting in the mall. He didn't know the word 'proselyte', so he was saying, "If you come back to do your... preaching mission thing... and, uh... 'spread joy', then make sure you tell mall security first."

14- Anyway, the two big miracles that happened from that night were two new people we met! One of them was super awesome; we explained the whole restoration to her in the mall and gave her a Book of Mormon! We got her number too, so hopefully we can contact her again. :)

14- The other dude was just outside the mall. We found him shortly after we got kicked out. He was interested as well, so we talked and got his number. I hope to contact him again this week! :D 

15- Sunday was good! Fast Sunday got moved because of Stake Conference, so it was this week. I got up and bore my testimony about feeling the Spirit. Sister Christmas bore her testimony too, but I honestly forgot what she shared, haha. I was fasting for quite a few things and I was able to see some immediate blessings from it! God loves effort and he appreciates everything we do to help others. :)

16- Okay, I slept pretty bad last night. This morning we got transfer news. I'm staying here, which I'm glad about. There are so many people that I want to keep meeting with! Sister Christmas is going home of course; she's done with her mission. :')  I'm going to miss her so much! My new comp is named Sister Marsmaker. I know next to nothing about her, so I'm nervous but excited to meet her. I'll get to meet her this Wednesday!

Hope everyone is doing well! Stay warm, if you're in a cold place! XD  Remember to always pray and read your scriptures. :)

Love, 

Sister Howard

Pics: Sis. Christmas getting happy about Peppermint herbal tea, snow, and us with sweet Brother Lawrence who crocheted (Is that a word?) us hats and scarves! :D