Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming! On temple Square.  Seriously, they're putting up Christmas lights already.  Awes.

My new frienemy is Bag Pipes Ryan.  He plays the bag pipes outside the square all day.  Maybe he's not the only one who plays because I ALWAYS hear bag pipes.  So that's fun.  Every time we see Bag Pipes Ryan (even if we're clearly in a hurry) he stops us and stares at us and asks us if we're going to talk to him.  Let's just say he's on security's radar now.  

This week was rough.  I was très frustré especially with visitors from France.  Belgium=good, France= less than good.  We had a tour with two awesome Belgians and a hoboish young man from Switzerland who joined on later.  They were so nice and willing to learn.  The rest of my week consisted of angry French people who wanted a tour guide.  Right away when I meet these grumpy French people, they tell me that they're only interested in the history and they are not religious or sometimes they're "Catholic."  I've decided that's basically the equivalent of a door slammed in my face but then I get to spend 30 minutes with them.  These people are so closed and untalkative therefore unteachable.  I did everything I could do bring the happy out of them.  Talk about their families? Nothing.  Tell a pioneer story? Nothing.  Find common interests? A whole lot of nothing.  This pressure makes me not be able to speak the language and then the Frenchies start finishing my sentences because they want to move faster.  Why did you request a tour?  My companion can only do so much to help me since she can't understand.  This is my current frustration.  I have faith to find some prepared people from France so I continue to take these French tours but it is DIFFICILE!  I often just keep the tour really short when I can tell it's going nowhere but there are so many things that I consider with these people.  When Elder Holland was speaking to us missionaries, one sister asked him what we do with people who are not interested in learning about the religion and who are only here for the architecture.  He told us not to let other people determine our mission.  I also hear that Elder Holland told our old mission President that Temple Square will be the place for people to come to learn about Jesus Christ.  But then I think about our hospitality bus tours and remember that we just need to love the people and leave a good impression of the Church on them.  I don't want to spend so much time with the unfriendly French people if there are prepared people on the Square.  So that's my current dilemma.  Our Saturday was hard and then our Sunday was harder.  By Monday, I was ready for a tender mercy and you know, prayer works!  Yesterday, a nice woman from Pennsylvania came to the desk where I was standing and asked if we answered questions.  YES!  She was so confused with the little model of Jerusalem that we had because it seemed to match her understanding of Christ.  Right.  She asked what the difference was so I was able to teach her about the Restoration.  She was soooooo awesome and wants to read the Book of Mormon so we have the Pennsylvania missionaries on their way.  

Adding to our hard week, we had a few little heart-breaks in lessons over the phone.  We've been teaching Emmanuel from Nigeria for many weeks now.  The last time we had taught him, he committed to be baptized.  This time, he told us that we haven't taught him anything.  Ruuude.  He says he doesn't care if there is a prophet or not; it doesn't effect him.  He is only concerned about his own happiness and well-being.  We tried as best we could to teach past the language barrier and teach him that the Bible and the Book of Mormon testify of the reality of prophets, prophets lead to truth, truth leads to a commitment (baptism), committing leads to blessings, blessings lead to happiness and well-being.  He didn't get the link.  We went in circles for a little while and we all got frustrated.  I don't know if he still wants to be taught even though he wants to go to Church but either way, we're going to teach him over the chat system now to make things clearer.    We were also excited about our new investigator, Jennifer.  Jennifer really wants to go to Church but our phone conversation with her on Sunday just made us mad.  She was raised by a Christian preacher who forced her to go to Church every Sunday and to go to a Bible college.  She was not respectful to us at all.  She kept putting down the Prophet Joseph Smith and and made fun of our ability to fell the Spirit witness truth.  We didn't try to teach her anything about our religion, we just tried to get to know her and tried to teach her about faith.  She told us that her faith has never been tested, it is something that she just got since her dad was a priest.  She talked over and over again about how the Book of Mormon doesn't make sense because there are no evidences for it.  There are many historical evidences of the Bible so that's why she believes it.  We asked her if all those historical evidences were taken away, would she still believe it to be the word of God.  She couldn't even answer the question.  So, I probably aged about 5 years while talking to Jennifer but that is A Okay.  I still can't believe that someone can be so involved in Church and believe that he/she has brought so many people to Christ but she doesn't even know what faith is. Aiyayay.  

This week in our hospitality bus tour, I got to correct someone and explain that no, we do not believe Joseph Smith is the reincarnated Jesus.  I also got to explain to a nice Canadian woman that no, we don't sew all our clothes (except I was wearing my "Vegas Mom" leather-looking skirt that mom sewed me... shoot).

All is well.  Love you all!!!

-SISTER KATIEEEEEEE