Week 13: An Experiment Upon the Word

This week, we did the Book of Mormon experiment! Our mission has been doing it for a while but they took a little break, so this was my first time. Basically, we print out copies of the pages of the Book of Mormon and set up a cute display at the university, and then we ask people if they want to participate in a social experiment! We all wear normal street clothes and take off our tags and call each other by our first names, which feels a little weird but it kind of fun! We tell them we're giving them a page of a religious text to get unbiased opinions and ask them to highlight references to God and Jesus Christ and anything else that stands out to them, which is the easy part, because afterwards we tell them it's the Book of Mormon and basically try to gauge their interest in learning more by "asking inspired questions." A few people asked me what book the page was from before they read it and I said I couldn't tell them until after because we want the experiment to be unbiased and one guy was like, "oh, it's definitely the Old Testament" and then in his


comments wrote all about how it was about the pope's relationship with the church. Which it is clearly not. Another time, I gave a guy a page in Helaman that was mostly about Cezoram being murdered on his throne. It was pretty fun.

We were teaching a girl named Natasha a few months ago, but she was super busy and stopped responding to us until we asked her if she was still interested in learning more about our beliefs and she said yes! So we taught her the plan of salvation with this super cute recent convert who just moved into our ward named Katie, and they both sat with us at church on Sunday! She's so cute and loves Vocal Point and Provo's Most Eligible and BYU! Which is great because I also love all those things! YSA is so fun!

On Saturday morning, one of our STLs was sick so her companion and my companion went out to a primary activity and I chilled (studied) in her apartment while she slept! Good times!

One of the sisters in our zone left her driving login card in our car, so we went to the stake center to drop it off and there was a youth dance going on at the same time, and we were rushing out to get home by curfew at the same time the cool kids were rolling into the dance. That's life, I guess.

We were street contacting one day this week and ended up singing Amazing Grace with this lady who was playing guitar downtown! I think we had more fun than she did. We kind of threw off her mojo.

We played hungry hungry hippos at FHE this week and my comp ripped her pants so we had to staple them together in the church library. Church activities can be very intense.

I went running this week and on our way to the chapel we run past one of those little libraries in someone's front yard so I brought a Book of Mormon to donate to the collection. #thegrindneverstops

We met a man at the bus stop who told us he got baptized last week (not into our church, haha), and that he hasn't been drinking for a year but that he still smokes dope because it helps him feel close to Jesus. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

The first Book of Mormon video came out this week! It was GREAT I had a GREAT time watching it but here is my commentary:

- why are Lehi and Sariah so old? She's still childbearing age I don't know why they made them like 60

-where are Nephi's sisters?? we know he had them!

- Laman and Lemuel are Very Relatable to this point. If I were them I'd probably be murmuring too, haha

On that note, this week's scripture is 1 Nephi 1:20 "...But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance." My favorite tender mercy of the week was seeing the stars when we got home at night! I love the stars! Look for the tender mercies in your life this week!

If any of you have a really boring Friday night planned, you can watch the Come and See Fireside livestream on Facebook at 7pm mountain time! All of the missionaries in Calgary are putting on a musical family history fireside, so invite your friends for some top-notch entertainment and to see Sister Willis sing in Maori!

Have a great week! Love you lots!

Sister Willis

We did NOT take that many pictures this week so here are some of us and the other sisters at the combined ward luau taking some embarrassing pictures and one of a cute sunrise I saw while I was running one morning!! I will try to take more next week I promise :))

Week 12: We need to remember what is important in life...

This is us at the food drive! We love service!

"...Friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third."
                                                                                                        --Leslie Knope

Missionary work in the Calgary YSA stake is comprised like 80% of waffles, friends, and work! It's great! Every Tuesday at noon, we make free waffles for the institute kids, so this sister in my district made flyers and we passed them out at the University of Calgary to get people to come and some actually did show up! It was fun! I ate way too many waffles and put way too much ice cream on it, but this life is all about learning experiences.

This week was super busy, so it went super fast! It was good! On Monday, I gave a training in combined district council (which is basically zone council minus the APs because they are ALWAYS out of town) and nobody called me out for false doctrine! And people participated! It was good! I also talked to this girl at the bus stop and we picked her up! I was pumped! I said hi to every person we saw after that. Some of them didn't say hi back, but I did not care.

We spent hours and hours last week and most of Saturday working on the Calgary city-wide food drive! All of the stakes in Calgary work together to distribute flyers and bags to every house in the entire city, so we got some routes and passed out flyers last week. Then on Saturday, people drive the routes and pick up any bags that people have put out and bring them to their stake's drop-off location, where the missionaries (that's me!) pull the dozens of bags of canned and boxed goods out of the cars and put them in these giant cardboard containers. We filled 100 big cardboard boxes with bags of donated food! And my arms were SORE the next day! But it was so fun. It was awesome to see how willing people throughout the city were to donate to those who have less. Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Calgary has lots and lots of disciples.

On Saturday night, like half of our lights went off for some reason, so I went to the fuse box to trip the fuses, BUT the light wasn't working! So I couldn't see which ones were flipped! So I just felt around and flipped off all of the ones on the left side, because they were pointing the opposite way from the ones on the right! I thought I was so smart and fixed the problem, but our lights were still off and not 45 seconds later our neighbor came running downstairs with a flashlight, because for sOmE rEaSoN their power had mysteriously gone off! Even though all of the neighbors still had power! So I just ... flipped the switches back and bam! The power came back on! Our lights came back on, too, so I don't exactly know what was up with our power, but I DO know what happened to the neighbor's power 😬🙃

We had exchanges on Monday and Tuesday, which was super fun because I led the area and hung out with Sister Snyder, who is from Arizona and super cute and friendly, but also a little weird because we spent most of the day with our companions anyway making waffles and passing out flyers! It was fun, though. We watched President Nelson's BYU devotional because they broadcast it at the institute building for all the young adults to watch, and it was great! I was a liiiiittle bit jealous that President Nelson was at BYU and I wasn't at BYU, but I guess that Calgary is a good place to be, too. The devotional was good! Our prophet seems like a pretty smart guy.

We were tracting this week and this older man opened the door for us and started telling us all about how God doesn't exist and there is no reason why our God would be more real than any other God that humanity has invented, but the air wafting out of his house was so putrid that Sister Bangura had to sit down on the steps. He told us all about these documentaries we need to watch and books we need to read and about how 20% of people are sociopaths and we're only religious because we're emotional, but he did take our card and say that his friend Jolene who just had a knee replacement might need help with yard work. Fun!

When we were walking home on Sunday, we saw a man driving along the street in his motorized wheelchair in only a flannel shirt and an adult diaper! And he was staring at us like we were the ones walking around exposed! It was a very exciting time.

I was reading today in D&C 78:17-18, which says "Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours." I love this scripture and I love the Doctrine and Covenants because I think reading the Savior's words and hearing His voice help us learn more about who He is and who we want to be!

I hope you all have great weeks! Look for the hand of God in your life! 

Love you lots!

Sister Willis

Week 11: I Nearly Ruin a Sacred Ordinance

The same kid wanted to take MORE pictures of me and I don't have any other pictures this week, so enjoy my squinty eye and messy part!

On Sunday just before ward council, the new ward music director asked if I could be a backup pianist for sacrament meeting. This was my Worst Fear, but of course I said I could do it! After ward council, we tried calling and texting to see who was playing and if she'd picked hymns, but she didn't pick up! So the bishopric asked me just to do it. The sister who was conducting the music really wanted us to sing The Day Dawn Is Breaking, so I stumbled through that with a lot of wrong notes! She also wanted us to sing I Stand All Amazed but I had attempted to play that in zone council a few days earlier and I was Not Interested in taking the Spirit out of the sacrament, so we sang There Is A Green Hill Far Away instead. It was fine, but not perfect. I was literally shaking the whole time. But I made it! And the sacrament wasn't ruined (by some minor miracle).

We also taught institute last night! It was lots of fun because as many of you know teaching institute is secretly my dream job! And the elders (with whom we switched off) said we did a good job! Win! We talked about divine truth and receiving revelation. It was great! I love talking about truth!

Sister Bangura went to this all-you-can-eat sushi place on Thursday and our server asked us what church we were from and if he could come! He even gave us his number and actually responds to our texts! He was working on Sunday, so he couldn't make it, but we're gonna keep trying with him! He's so cool! I love Dan!

Yesterday, I had my first real-person zone conference, because last transfer we did service for zone conference. We sat down for daily planning at 8:31 and checked to see how long it would take us to get to the chapel. It was 8:33 when we read the email that said that zone conference had been moved from 10:00 to 8:30. After hurriedly calling and texting our district and getting no responses, we rushed out the door and made it there at 9:10. Not exactly right on time. But, what are you gonna do? Read the zone conference schedule when it gets sent at the beginning of the transfer? Couldn't be me.

It was a good meeting, though. Lots of sitting. Lots of training. 

On Monday, it POURED. All day. This was very exciting because I don't have rubber rainboots, and so I was soaked. All day. I think my hair got wet and dried about a dozen times throughout the course of the day. We went downtown to talk to people, but people weren't outside. Because it was pouring. Missionary work is Difficult when there aren't people to talk to. That night for FHE we went out to hang food drive flyers on people's doors, and it was pouring and dark and cold! I thought I was going to get pneumonia, but I didn't. I just drank too much hot chocolate and put on my warmest jammies.

Last night, Sister Bangura gave me a rice bag for the start of the winter (which is terrifying because it's September) and I put it on my neck like a heating pad and it HURT! Because I am constantly tense! I knew that I was a stress case but I didn't know that it was bad enough that forcing my muscles to relax would be painful! I should probably work on that. Do some yoga.

This Sunday was Institute Sunday (which is a lot like Seminary Sunday) so one of the institute teachers spoke about how the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. It was good, but he kept getting very distracted and asked us if we wanted to hear about the first baseball game, and it was sacrament meeting, so no one said anything, and then he told us that "In the Big Inning, Eve took first, Adam told second, and Cain struck out Abel." Nobody laughed, but. It was sacrament meeting. He also told us that in high school he played Joseph Smith in a play about the restoration and that his brother had to be his stunt double for when he got "tarred and feathered" (covered in molasses). He was grateful that his brother took one for the team but thought it was very amusing that the high school reenactment of the restoration required a Joseph Smith stunt double. 

A recent convert moved into our ward last week and she is SO cute and fun! Her name is Tess and she's living with her cousin who wanted to know all about our thoughts on the political climates in England and the states and about our families. He was very intrigued that we're basically his age and gave up a year and a half just to ... teach people about Jesus? A lot of people are very intrigued by it. Anyway, Tess has been living in a little town her whole life and was so cute and kind of afraid of moving from her small family ward of old people to a big YSA, but she made friends with some great kids in the ward super fast and I'm so excited for her! I feel like a mom!

Some of the family ward sisters also introduced us to a girl named Linh who babysits for and lives with a family of members. She's very sweet and has a lot of good questions, but she's Buddhist and says she's just interested in learning about Jesus Christ, not following Him. We're gonna try to change that 😉

On Sunday night, we went to visit a less-active member whose name kept coming up, and she wasn't home but her brand-new roommate had just moved into our ward and invited us in. She said she was from Cardston and living away from home for the first time and fed us all sorts of yummy baked and canned food that her mom had sent with her. It was great. We had a great time.

On Saturday I was "doing family history" (I had listened to a general conference talk that mentioned Charles C. Rich and I was like wow! I'm related to him! so I looked him up on FamilySearch) and it turns out that he had FIFTY-ONE CHILDREN. That's SO MANY. No wonder I have so many cousins.

John 6:66-69 says "From that time many of his [Jesus's] disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." I love this scripture because I love Peter's question! I also believe and am sure that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of the living God. And I recognize that there is nowhere else to go! He is the way! I also just find Peter to be very human and very relatable. But he was still the senior apostle! I love it!

On that note, I want to wish a very happy belated birthday to my #1 fave President Nelson! We watched his birthday bash and my companion made fun of me for being too invested. What can I say? I think he's great! And I am so so grateful for a prophet!

Sorry for a long email that I didn't proofread! I love you all so much! Have the best week!

Love, 

Sister Willis

P.S. I watched the Book of Mormon videos trailer and the music was GREAT I am PUMPED! I LOVE the Book of Mormon!!!!

Week 10: I have my first breakup :((

One of our members wanted to take our pictures because
he does photography and for some reason I look like
I am gonna cry. We'll go with that's the Spirit!?

We all know that I love to tell Long and Dramatic stories, so buckle down! It all begins last month when the bishopric was taking an awful long time getting to ward council, so I was messing around on the piano, and when they FINALLY came out of their meeting they heard and were SO excited. "Sister Willis, can you play the piano? We LOVE having sister missionaries who can play the piano! It's a lifesaver!" They were honestly thrilled. The first counsellor gave me a side hug and asked if I could play in sacrament meeting in an emergency, and I said I could, because, well, technically I can. This was a Mistake. On Friday the ward music coordinator texted us and asked if I could play the piano on Sunday in sacrament meeting! And I said I could, because we love that service life! So I spent a couple hours over the weekend choosing and practicing hymns, which was actually a great time. Playing the piano is good for my soul. 

On Saturday night, an investigator from my companion's former area texted us saying that he wanted to stop meeting with missionaries until he got a bunch of questions resolved (the usual ones, about the priesthood and about Joseph Smith and the like). The thing is, his name is Adam, and so I thought it was the Adam we're teaching! I nearly had a heart attack! I was very distressed! He was progressing so well! But we got it all cleared up and were fine until Sunday morning, when I was playing prelude music for sacrament meeting and Sister Bangura came up to me at the piano and showed me a text from .... Adam! Our Adam! Saying that he wouldn't be at church today and that he didn't think we should meet anymore! This was my Worst Nightmare! People have dropped us before, but usually after, like, one lesson. We thought it was serious! He said he was thinking about being baptized! I was heartbroken! And the prelude music was much more somber from that point on. 

But at least I didn't make too too many piano mistakes! Which was my second-worst fear!

Comps after church! In the cold!

We went running yesterday morning, which was GREAT because we love endorphins, but there was frost on the cars. It felt very foreboding. We also started listening to Christmas music this week! It's that time of year!

Speaking of foreboding, one of the guys at the botanical gardens was asking us if members of the church vote and I was telling him that "the church encourages its members to be civically engaged" and he was like wow! Did you do good in English? And all of the other sisters were like "yeah she just talks like that, we have no idea what she's saying half the time". But they never told me that! I looked kind of stupid just standing there!

Two different men have now told me that I have a very firm handshake and must be a very hardworking girl. It made my day. 

On Sunday night, I heard the biggest crack of thunder in my life! It shook the house and made my ears ring, and a couple of minutes later I heard sirens. It turns out that lightning struck a house a couple of miles away and went straight through the roof! We went to visit one of our members and he lives four houses up the street from where the lightning hit, so we went to see it and there was a hole in the roof! The lightning blew out the windows and tore up the grass. The craziest thing is that the kid who lives in that room was sleeping at his friend's house that night, so no one was hurt. It was crazy!

Last night, we planned to teach our friend Milad about reading the scriptures, praying, and keeping the Sabbath day holy, but he had read the law of chastity pamphlet so we talked about the law of chastity instead! Good times!

We had a lesson with the family ward sisters and one of the people we're teaching and one of them told him that Abby would talk about the Book of Mormon! It was so funny because she's never even known me as Abby, just as Sister Willis. The guy we were teaching didn't understand what we were all laughing about.

Gardening!

A couple of times each week, we weed this lady named Debbie's garden, and every time we come back, baby weeds are already growing where we weeded! It's very frustrating! Mitosis is very upsetting sometimes, but I guess that's the price you pay for a body that heals itself.

In 1 Corinthians 15:19 (look who's doing her Come, Follow Me!) it says "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." I love this scripture! While our hope in Christ certainly includes finding joy and peace in this life, it also extends to the reality that we will live and be with our families again! Which is such a joyful truth!

I hope you all are having a great week! And a great back-to-school season! Color code some notebooks for me!

Love,
Sister Willis

Week 9: I receive an inheritance

District Council/Death Day Party

My mission dad died today! (This simply means that my district leader went home, but "died" is so much more dramatic! On my second day here, my trainer told me that both of her previous companions died in this area. She did NOT tell me that that means they went home. I was ... afraid). We had a happy death-day party for him at district council and ate snacks and sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again. And he read us his last will and testament! He bequeathed me his Christlike attribute poster and told me that he, like most absent fathers, was sorry that he didn't spend more time with me, his youngest daughter. He also told Sister Bangura to "raise our daughter right". It was lots of fun. We had cupcakes.

Last Thursday, we had retrainers, which is a big meeting at the mission home for all of the new missionaries and their trainers, and the highlights of the event were 1) President Keung telling this elder that he could sit in his chair because we were out of seats and then being like "you look so good up there with the APs! Doesn't he look so good up there with the APs? He doesn't know this yet, but he's actually our new AP! I'm being serious!" The poor kid looked like he was going to cry. But he really is the new AP. He's in our zone now. Highlight #2 was that we moved upstairs and all the elders were sitting on the couches and the sisters were setting up chairs and the mission president came up and was like "no, no, no, this is unacceptable." And then he was like, "Elders, if the Savior was in your position, what would He do?" They looked so confused! It was so embarrassing! He made them give us all the soft chairs and then he made us read Proverbs 31 and told all the boys that girls like pink roses better than red roses. It was very enlightening and not at all awkward!

We found 3 people last weekend who were willing to meet with us and learn more about Jesus Christ, and so we taught the restoration at 11:00, 1:00, and 2:30 on Saturday. We teach the restoration a LOT. The other lessons? ... not so much. We almost always teach the same points, so when I was saying that "Jesus Christ organized His church and called apostles and gave them authority to act in His name" for the third time, I felt like I was gonna fall asleep. Being emotionally invested is exhausting! But I didn't! The guy dropped us the next day anyway, so I'm not sure if it would have mattered if I had.

We also taught this guy named Emanuel who is literally my father's age and does not belong in YSA and he somehow found out that he knows Sister Bangura's stepdad, and the whole lesson he kept saying "who would have known that I'm sitting right next to my sister! I'm talking to my sister!" He is ... a chatter. We showed him the picture of Christ holding the lamb and were like "what do you see here?" And he talked for 10 minutes about how he doesn't believe in pictures and he knows who Jesus Christ is but the picture is not really of Christ! Which means he clearly recognized that it was meant to portray Christ, which is the whole point! He also gave us a GIANT bag of food out of his cupboard and we kept telling him that it was okay and that we don't need a canned vegetable medley, and he was like "You're broke! Am I wrong? Am I wrong? You girls are broke and you need to eat!" So we walked home with cans, plantains, a whole loaf of bread, and ice cream. This made street contacting Difficult.

The excuse of the week was "sorry I can't talk to you my kids are sleeping" (the door was open approximately 1 centimeter and was promptly shut in our faces). Which, I don't know much about raising kids, but that seems like the time you COULD talk to some strangers at the door. Oh well. I hope the kids got a good nap.

On Sunday night, we trekked downtown in the pouring rain to meet our friend Daniel, who gave us his number like 4 weeks ago and always says he's going to call us and then never does and then texts us the next day to say he's so sorry and that his phone broke or he was sick or he was sleeping and he feels so bad that he missed our call! We finally set up a return appointment with him and he gave us his address and we showed up and he hadn't told us which apartment number was his! And he didn't pick up his phone! So we rang every apartment and one lady came down and we asked if she knew Daniel and she said she did not. So we went back home. It was very cold and wet, and I do not own a raincoat or rain boots. I am currently trying to remedy that.

A cute sunset I got off my bike to take a picture of.

On Monday we played chair soccer! I'd never played chair soccer before! It was so fun! I definitely hit several ward members because my aim is Bad. Adrenaline is great for power, less so for accuracy. And there is a LOT of adrenaline involved in YSA chair soccer.

Last night, we met with one of the people we've been teaching for a long time and talked more about faith. He talked about how people in the church are the nicest people he knows and about how we're so lucky to have the gospel because it makes us so happy! I love him! He's so right! 

Forbidden Fruit!

This week's scripture is John 16:33 -- "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." This is my favorite scripture to share when we talk about how the gospel blesses us because Christ promises that as we draw near to Him, we will have peace and joy despite the trials and tribulations of the world. I know this is true! All good things come from God!

I'm staying in Brentwood for 6 more weeks, so hopefully I start learning people's names, haha. My p-day activity is buying a coat! It's cold in Canada! But I hope you all are safe and warm.

Love,
Sister Willis

 P.S. I have survived TWO MONTHS as a missionary! I'm practically a senior citizen!