Temple!

This has been a crazy, busy, awesome, spiritual week! 

We've been at the temple since Thursday. We spend half of our day introducing the temple video and showing it and the other half in the reception tent talking to people, answering questions, and helping people take pictures. It's been good but also exhausting, especially for an introvert like me! Its been good though! 

We had a really neat experience the other night. One of the ushers came up to us and told us that he had some friends coming on a special tour and he asked if we could help. He told us that his friends were a less active couple but trying to come back to church. We got to take them on a tour of the temple and it was such a spiritual experience! We got to bear our testimonies of the temple really being the house of the Lord. It was awesome! 

There have been a ton of non-members coming through on the tours so that has been awesome! I haven't gotten to talk to very many of them but the other sisters are having awesome experiences sharing the gospel. I continue to pray everyday for opportunities to be an instrument in the Lord's hand. 

It's also just been awesome to get to know the other sisters in the mission better. We are staying just down the street from Sister Tenney and Sister Jones so we get to see a lot of them. We had the day off on Sunday since the open house wasn't open and we got to hang out and play games with those sisters! I also took a Sunday nap! Which was weird! I haven't done that in 14 months!

I am missing our investigators a lot and I miss teaching and feeling like a regular missionary. But, I know that what we are doing here is so important though and that I am here for a reason.

I Know!

This week was so fast! I feel like it was P-day yesterday! 

This week was also just amazing. The word of the week was WOW!

Miracles, awesome experiences, tender mercies, and so many lessons learned. The first half of our week was pretty rough. We had a couple awesome lessons with our investigators Bonnie, Jenn, and Elaine, but besides that, it was a slow week with a lot of door knocking and uninterested people. I was getting pretty down on myself and starting doubting my testimony again. I always wonder why that happens. I have incredible spiritual experiences, feel God's hand in my life, appreciate the tender mercies, and then out of the blue, I start doubting things again.

This week I had spiritual renewal that will hopefully last me a lot longer. First of all, I finished the Book of Mormon for the third time and decided I would once again pray about the Book of Mormon. Moroni asks us to first consider how merciful the Lord has been to us since Adam was on the Earth. I decided to write down all of the times I could think of that the Lord showed mercy to mankind and to me personally. I thought about all the blessings that have come into my life as a result of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. As I prayed I was filled with this immense sense of gratitude and peace and love (the fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22). The Book of Mormon IS the word of God! 

Then, if that wasn't enough, we were able to take a tour of the Star Valley temple yesterday in preparation for helping out with the open house. Keep in mind that I haven't been inside a temple in about a year. I felt like I had been in a drought from temple worship! The minute I walked in the temple doors, I felt a unique peace that can only be found in those sacred buildings. As we moved through the temple and admired the artwork on the walls, I was filled with the Spirit and a joy that I cannot describe. Before entering the celestial room, our tour guide explained that he wasn't going to say anything once we entered the room. The moment I walked in, I felt different. I felt the Spirit throughout the entire tour but standing in the celestial room, there was an intense Heavenly presence that was overwhelming. I couldn't hold back my tears as I stood in that very holy place. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored. The Book of Mormon is true and of God. Temples are the Lord's houses on earth. I know these things. They are things that can only be known spiritually. No amount of logic or reason can explain how I know that these things are true (which is hard for me because I am a very logical person) but I know it!

I remember feeling uncomfortable with the word "know" when I talked about spiritual things, but I'm learning that that word simply means that I have a very very strong conviction of the things of God. I have had undeniable experiences that have led me to a "knowledge" of these things. 

I love all of you very much! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

Lose Yourself!

Another great week in the IPM! 

This week had its ups and downs for sure but overall, it was a pretty good one! 

I don't have time to share everything from this week (I never do) but I will share some of the highlights:

• The guy we met last week, Nathan, turned out to be not interested. At all. In fact he spewed anti-Mormon stuff at us for like 2 hours. But that's okay! It taught me a lot and actually strengthened my faith. I don't think that's what he was going for :). 
• We found two new investigators this week! The first is a guy named Andrew who recently moved here from California. He was super nice and let us share the first lesson with him and he said he would read from the Book of Mormon and pray. He did also tell us that he has a drinking problem and Sister M and I are really bad at telling when people are drunk or high, so that could be why he was so nice... I guess we will see! 
• Our other new investigator is super solid. Her name is Elaine and she has been attending church for years but no one ever asked her if she would like to meet with missionaries until a couple weeks ago! Crazy right? She said she'd love to meet with us and we are having our first lesson tonight. 
• We had a great lesson with Bonnie last night and talked about having the intent to act once she receives and answer to prayer. We were super bold with her and talked about how important it is for her to keep baptism in the back of her mind. She does not like being "pushed" into anything but we felt very strongly that we needed to mention baptism and she was fine with it! Pretty crazy! That lesson was one of the few times where I really felt the Spirit taking over and guiding my words. I certainly did not intend to bring up baptism but I guess the Lord really wanted me to! 
• I got pulled over! I have never been pulled over in my life and the one time I do, its on my mission. Haha luckily we are in Idaho and most people love missionaries! And it just so happens that we used to teach this cop's brother so he said he would have given me a ticket but because we helped his brother he was going to let me off the hook. Talk about tender mercies! 

One more thing I wanted to share: I had an epiphany this week that changed my week and will hopefully continue to change things for the rest of my mission. I realized recently that my selfish nature began to creep in over the past couple months. I think it might be that my companion is really close to going home. Maybe its that my time in the mission field is growing shorter and shorter as well. But I have been thinking more and more about myself. What MY plans are for the future. Blessings coming to ME as a result of MY service. MY gospel questions. MY interests. ME ME ME. I thought I was past all that. I thought I was finally good at being selfless. Buuuut nope! I think I might always have to do an occasional inventory of my self to make sure things aren't becoming all about me. 

So after I had this realization, I decided to change it. The next day I spent all my efforts focused on the people we were teaching. I thought about ways to improve the area. My studies were focused on the people we were teaching instead of my own questions. And guess what? I was the happiest I had been in a long time! I had a great day and felt the spirit in much greater abundance. In fact, I think having such a great day prepared me to be able to teach by the spirit in Bonnie's lesson. 

I plan to keep selfish thoughts out of my mind for the rest of my mission (and of course, the rest of my life). We are so much happier that way. 

I love you all so much and appreciate your encouragement and love.

Until next time,

Sister Park

Good Things Ahead!

Dear family and friends,

It has been another amazing week in Idaho! Our area was officially split this week so now we just cover Georgetown and Bennington, two VERY small towns outside of Montpelier. And let me just say, I LOVE IT HERE!! So we covered these areas before but didn't make it out here a whole lot because it takes about 15-20 minutes to get here from Montpelier. So needless to say, most of our work was in Montpelier and the Georgetown and Bennington wards were getting a little neglected. 

So, now that we just cover 3 wards, we will really be able to help build these wards again. The members are so awesome and so down to earth. They just have charity for their neighbors, members of the church or not. It makes it a lot easier on us when the non-members and members in an area are friends! In a lot of my previous areas, both parties sort of stuck to themselves and didn't get along, but here, everyone just loves each other! 

We had a good lesson with Bonnie yesterday. She wants to know so bad which church she should join! She reminds me so much of Joseph Smith. She just wants to do what's right and find out the truth but she doesn't quite know how. So our lesson last night was all about how to receive answers to prayers. Hopefully our teaching helped her a little bit, but the best part of last night was after the lesson, when she got a priesthood blessing. Brother Day, the man giving the blessing, said some things that apparently were very specific to Bonnie that she didn't tell him. Also, afterwards, she talked about how much peace she felt as the blessing was being given. She is great and we are finally starting to establish a closer relationship with her! 

We also had Kim's baptism this week and it was awesome! Her husband, who has been less active for years was able to baptize her and it was such a great experience for both of them. Kim has come such a long way and she is on track to keep going! She started and finished the Book of Mormon since I've been in this area and now is already a quarter of the way through the Doctrine and Covenants. She has such a strong testimony and is an amazing example to me. 

We also met a new investigator this week named Nathan. He was outside watering his plants and we just walked up to him and started talking about the gospel. He told us that he grew up in a Mormon-dense community and actually took seminary but he doesn't think any of it is true. So we figured this guy would just be another "not interested" person, but as we continued to talk to him he opened up about a lot of doubts and questions that he has had. He shared with us that he feels like God doesn't care about him because he doesn't feel like He has ever answered his prayers. So we bore our testimonies about how we know that God did care and we talked to him about how he might be able to recognize answers. And guess what? He invited us back!! We are having a lesson with him tonight so keep him in your prayers today! 

I love being a missionary so much and I am excited for the weeks and months ahead! I hope I can stay in this area for the rest of my mission! 

I love you all so much! Have an awesome week! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

*Kim and Victor at the baptism

*Us and Dave, a man who has been less active for like 40 years and just came back to church!