A Zone leader on Temple Square

Mubuhay everyone! (that means hello in Tagalog)

Audrey asked a good question about what my responsibilities as a Zone Leader will be verses what my responsibilities were as a District Leader.  So a zone leader is responsible for an entire zone or group of sisters.  In my zones I have about 9 companionships to watch out for (and one of them is a trio).  With my companion, we will report directly to president how well the sisters are teaching and achieving their goals, how they are progressing spiritually, how we can help them progress more, and if there are any problems.  We also take care of any sisters who get sick and help to make sure they get the proper attention and care.  We represent President Poulsen in our zone and help the sisters to be obedient.  We are a big part of the leadership chain because we report directly to President. So if a sister needs to get something approved, it goes through their district leader and then to us.  Often times, we can just approve it, but if it needs to go higher, we will take it to the APs or President.  We also tell president who we believe is ready to be a district leader or to train.  We also have the authority to call local bishops to check up on sister's investigators when they have not been contacted for a long time or when something is going wrong.  We receive training from the APs and President Poulsen and then we train the district leaders so they can train the sisters in their district, or we train the whole zone in 1 meeting.  
As a West zone leader, I am also in charge (with 3 other sisters thankfully) for setting up the trainings for sisters serving in Welfare Square and the Humanitarian Center.  I also have to find sisters to serve or cover there where there are big tours or tours not in the normal hours we serve there.  That also means that I get to go to the trainings and that I can serve or cover there if needed! yay!  (We actually scheduled the trainings today and got everything all set up. and the transfer has not even started!  I honestly didn't do much in setting them up.)  The big difference between the responsibilities of a ZL and a DL is how many sisters you are in charge of, dealing with medical issues, calling bishops, and reporting to President Poulsen directly.  I hope that made sense... I honestly don't know everything that we will do, but that is what I do know! :)  I know that we are really busy taking care of our sister's needs and making sure that they are all taken care of.  I am really excited to serve so many sisters and hope that I can make a difference for them.

I really enjoyed seeing Mom, Audrey, Hyrum, Eve, Elora, and Joseph yesterday!! Along with the Hakalas and Debbie and kids and Mima and Papa!  It was so much fun!  I really felt the spirit taking you all through God's Plan and to the Christus.  I hope you all know how much I love you.  Sister Torino really enjoyed herself as well.  She love you all.  We did get soaked last night!  Sister Torino and I think it was the Lord saying that we needed to end our visit. haha!  We ran across the street and inside the North Visitor Center.  We got inside a little room where sisters put their belongings and tried to dry off a little bit.  We had been their for about 10 minutes when something crazy happened... the power went out!!!  The power in the North Visitor Center went out because the Church Office Building was struck by lightning!!  Can you believe it??  We had some emergency lights on but that was about it.  Sister Torino and I went to go contact people in the dark-ish basement. :)  It was lots of fun and we talked to a really cute family.  Oh and by the way, the present is really heavy!  I can't wait to open it even though I have to wait like a week and a half!  

I wish that I could email more, but I have to go pack and move!  craziness!!  I will have lots more craziness to report in a week! I am really excited for this new transfer and how I will stretch and grow.  I am really sad to say goodbye to Sister Torino because I love her so so much, but I know that it is time for both of us to get new companions and to learn new things.

I love you all so so SO much!!  I hope with all my heart that you know that.

Love Always,
Sister Stephen

Letter from July 22nd :) We all need a conversion story!!!!!

Hello Sweet family!

The Gospel is true and it just brings so much joy to everyone!  I love helping people to see the joy that the gospel brings and to help them to have that joy in their life as well.  I just love it!  

I ran into some family yesterday. ;)  Everyone looked so much bigger. It was so wonderful to take them on a short tour that turned out to be pretty long because we had to wait for about 20 minutes to go into a certain presentation.  But the spirit was really strong.  I hope they all felt it.  I invited my cousins to pray last night to know if the Book of Mormon is true.  I hope that they followed trough on their commitment and did pray.  I am so glad that I prayed at an early age to know that the church was true.  I am so so grateful for my personal conversion story.  We all need to have a conversion story even if we were born into the church, that does not matter.  

I am learning a few words in Tagalog!  It is about time because I claim to be 1/2 philipina because I have had 4 transfers with filipinas.  This is how you say I love you: Mahal kita. I am working on memorizing the church's name is Tagalog.  Every transfer each language has a meeting were the sisters get to talk in their native tongue and talk about how to help their investigators who speak that language.  Then after teh meeting, they usually eat food from their country.  This past filipino meeting, I made pineapple pie (it is a Philippines thing) for the feast and it was really yummy!  I ate a lot of yummy filipino food. yum!

This week my personal study has not been as good as it has been in the past.  I don't really know why, but I am working on making it better.  But I still learned from my studies.  Today actually, I learned a lot about repentance.  In the first chapter of PMG, it talks about our purpose as a missionary.  I read on page 8 about helping people to keep commitments and how that leads to increased faith and repentance.  I learned that true repentance requires, a change of heart, a desire to forsake sin and serve God, humbly yielding to the spirit and submitting to Gods will.  It also requires an sincere and really lasting change of not just our actions, but also our thoughts desires and habits.  I thought that this was so interesting because it made me think about how repenting changes every part of us, not just a single part but our entire selves.  I thought about my experiences with repentance have changed so much of who I am and who I desire to become.  It is an amazing thought to think about who the atonement allows us to become if we are willing to give up what we have for something better.  I hope that I can always be willing to give things that are keeping me from God up for a better relationship with my Father in heaven.

I am also starting a challenge to read 1 section from the Doctrine and Covenants everyday for the rest of my mission so that I will complete it by the end of my mission. 

Love Always,

Sister Stephen

Cute Sister Missionary pictures!

These are a bunch of pictures that the Sisters took where they announce tours in different languages :)

Bert

This is Bert. The pigeon that lives outside of Sis. Stephen's apartment on the light.

Adventures at Girls Camp!!!

My district!!!

Sis. Torino blindfolded for the life line!!

The package

The Stephen family sent Sis. Stephen a package with the theme of 'Neon'

Sis. Torino is pretty funny!

Dear wonderful family!

First off, I want to tell you a funny story...  Sister Torino and I were coming home late from the square and in the complex where we live, there are lots of senior missionaries that live there as well.  The senior missionaries were have a little potluck/get together in the lounge area of the building and they saw us and a few other sisters and told us to come and eat.  they made us take some food/ goodies home with us too.  I made sure Sister Torino had gotten some Doritos because she loves them so much.  So when we finally got back to our apartment, we were snacking and planning for the next day.  Sister Torino loves Doritos and she loves Nutella...  She decided to combine the two and luckily I got it recorded on Camera. haha!!!  She dipped her chip in the nutella and ate it.  Then she chewed in silence for a few moments looked at me and in a surprised voice said, "It's not good!"  "Don't try it, trust me."  HAHAHA!!  I died laughing!
Ledix received the Holy Ghost this last Sunday!!  I am so so happy!  It has been amazing to see the joy of the true gospel so evident in his life!  As members, sometimes we forget all of the blessings that we have and the joy that we should feel everyday with the true gospel in our lives.  We should be the very happiest people on earth!!  I forgot to get his baptism picture on my flash drive but I have a funny selfie that he sent us.

We had an amazing miracle. Lately, I have been praying for a baptism miracle.  Sister Torino and I made a goal of 2 baptisms for this transfer.  Ledix was our first baptism and I have been praying that the Lord would send us a miracle so we could fulfill our goal. In response to my prayers, the Lord has sent us lots of miracles, not another baptism yet, but lots of miracles. Yesterday morning, we were contacting people out by the relief society building, Joseph Smith Building, and Reflection pool. We talked to lots of people, but they were all very rude to us and the saddest part about it was that they were all members! I was really having a tough time because they were... well rude members! They should have been kinder. However, we kept trying and talking to people. 

We were heading back to the square when Sister Torino offered to take a picture of a couple and the temple. Their names were Shelbee and Tuks (said like "tooks"). We got to talking and found out that Tuks was from Fiji and that he wanted to learn more about the church! Shelbee's parents had served a mission in Fiji and she had gone to visit him and that is were she met Tuks. The family had paid for Tuks to come and visit their family in the United States down in Saint George. Shelbee was really hesitant when we first started teaching the restoration, and told us that the missionaries in Fiji had his information. But soon she jumped in and shared her testimony as well. (It was not my finest teaching of the restoration, but the spirit was there when we spoke about the Book of Mormon and Moroni's promise.) We all went to the south visitor center and got Tuks a copy of the Book of Mormon in English and Fijian and exchanged contact information. He has read the introduction and a few other parts of the Book of Mormon. He went to church and has prayed about the Book of Mormon. He is amazing! The only thing I feel bad about is that Sister Torino are teaching a Fijian when the Fijian sisters don't have lots of Fijian investigators. I am so very excited to see Tuks's progression and how he comes to know that all of this is true! :)

This week in PMG, I focused a lot about improving my teaching skills.  I feel like I have gotten into a routine with my teaching and I am trying to make sure that I am teaching people and not lessons.  I am working on using more questions and scriptures in my teaching.

I hope that you all know how very much that I love you.  I have been thinking about how much I love you all lately and how grateful that I am to be in this family with all of you.  I have also been thinking about the changes I have seen in each one of you as I have gone on my mission and how grateful that I trusted the Lord to take care of my family while I have been away serving Him to the best of my ability.  I love you all and I know that this gospel is so incredibly true!!

Love Always, 
Sister Stephen