I am so sorry for not emailing you all yesterday!! On Saturday we found out that on Monday (yesterday) there might be an apostle coming to speak to the London mission and also the London South Mission but it all depended on whether or not he got his visa for his next destination. if he ended up getting his visa he wouldn't be speaking to us and if he didn't get his visa he would be speaking so i was secretly praying that he wouldn't. shh. (: well turns out my prayers were answered! He spoke to us! It was...drum roll please... Elder M. Russel Ballard! How cool is that?! So since he wanted to speak to both of the missions we got to go into London and go to the Hyde Park Chapel!! (not as good as our visitor center) but It was so awesome!! So to get there we hopped on a train to the London Victoria Station and then walked like two miles to get to the Chapel. I almost regret praying for Elder Ballard's visa not going through because man was it a long day but at the same time it was worth it! He talked to us about setting goals and how important it is to not let your expectations for yourself drop because then your desire will drop as well. That doesn't even just apply for missionaries. If we set goals in our daily lives to come closer to Christ everyday we will be blessed and i know that's so true! I've seen it just in this past Sunday. We didn't exactly get a Pday do we're trying to squeeze emailing, food shopping (weird way to put it), and cleaning in this week. it's been nonstop! i could barely wake up this morning! But that's not all the good news i have for you!
So as you all know i'm in the visitor's center and us vc girls (sisters) don't really get recognized by the work that we do which is a pain and kinda irritating because there are a ton of members that pass through but i have had faith that i'm going to turn find a non-member to teach. I now have two new investigators!! On Sundays we walk to church so that we can do a little street contacting using pass along cards with the Temple's picture on it and there was a man walking towards us and a lady right after him so sister cardona said i'll take the guy and you take the girl so i said okay! The guy turned sister cardona down right away, bummer, so she was with me when i contacted the girl. She saw how rude the guy was to us and just stuck out her hand waiting for us to give her a card! I told her about the visitor's center and she was so open to coming and she even gave us her name and number! ahhhhh i was SO excited. i prayed to find someone to teach that day and i ended up with two which leads me to my next investigator. That night we taught a mission prep class which we do once a month and after everyone left a man walked in to the visitor's center. we greeted him and everything and he was telling us how he didn't really know why he stopped here or anything because he was on his way to the airport but when he thought about it, it was 25 years ago to the day when he got baptized at 8 years old. how crazy is that? he then told us that he became less active during his teenage years and that being here was very random since he hadn't thought about the church in so long. So we had him listen to the narration of the Christus and talked to him for a good hour afterwards about prayer/trials. for some reason i felt prompted to bring up the plan of salvation and i wasn't sure when to bring it up but finally i brought it up and turns out he has a 5 year old son... woah. families can be together forever! i brought up how much my family means to me and started crying a bit, go figure, then i think it clicked for him that he was here for a reason. The christus statue is positioned like that for a reason, with Christ's arms open to us because He is always there no matter what. We just have to come unto Him. So he gave us his email to be taught over chat and i'm the one that is going to be doing that because i talked the most with him. yay! ah.
it feels so good to be teaching people about the gospel! member or not, we all need to be strengthened in some way or another. I love the visitor's center and am trying my best to teach everyone i can and to lift the lives of others around me. I love you all so so so so much and pray for you all everyday! Thank you so much for the emails. (: makes me feel so loved. Sorry this is kinda short! Not having a pday is difficult because i don't really have much time. that's the problem being on a mission, there is never enough time in the day but when that day is over you are definitely ready for it to be over. (: thank you all again i hope to hear from you soon!
Love,
Sister Stewart
P.S. I'm sorry i don't don't any pictures for you this week because i forgot my camera at home! Next week i will show you Hyde Park Chapel and the little bit of London that i saw! I saw the London eye but didn't get a chance to get a picture with it. ): next week though!
