Oh wow. Where to begin?
I'm here. In Cambridge. Bean-town. We live in the city. We ride public transportation. The subway smells ... smelly.
And we preach the Gospel online. Like, all. the. time. And let me tell ya, it actually works!
So
the six of us digis (digital missionaries) spend pretty much all day at
Digital Mission headquarters, the "Fishbowl" in the Longfellow Park
Chapel. It's called the Fishbowl because it's a room with a window wall
so everyone can look in at the cute little missionaries and tap the
glass and stuff. #don'tscarethefishes. Our proselyting process basically
goes like this:
Step 1: Find someone online willing to chat about the gospel.
Step 2: Teach them over Skype (we try and 3-way video call a member as often as we can.)
Step 3: Continue teaching them over Skype until they are ready to meet with the local missionaries.
Step 4: Contact local missionaries, investigator takes lessons there, investigator gets baptized.
Step 5: Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
At
first I was like, "This is going to take FOREVER." And then I had 2
Skype appointments in the first 45 minutes I tried it. And then I was
like, "Whoa. This is sweet." It's been really really neat to realize
that the same love I've had for my investigators my whole mission still
applies to our online investigators! For example, we've been teaching
this boy named Radu in Russia. He's a university student and we've had 3
lessons with him so far. After we taught the Restoration he told us, "I
knew that Christ set up a church when He was here on the earth, but I
didn't know the Heavens were opened again!" Like, who has that much
faith?! And who says that?! Only people prepared by the Lord to receive
the Gospel, that's who.
It's been kind of a
crazy adjustment. It's a lot less scheduled than regular missionary work
because we don't have to go from appointment to appointment. Because of
this it's easy for me and Sister Zickella to just be chattin' away with
people and all the sudden we realize it's been 5 hours and we haven't
drank any water and all we've eaten is candy corn. We emerge at the end
of the day and we're like, "Wait ... it's dark outside? Where did the
day go?!" It's a work in progress. Hopefully this week we'll be able to
pace ourselves a little better. But besides feeling like a fish out of
water at the end of everyday, I am loving it! I feel super blessed to
have this unique opportunity and I'm already sad that I will only be
here six weeks. It's so much fun!
Sister
Zickella is awesome. I think out of all my companions, she's the most
like me and we've been having a blast. The Elders in the Fishbowl have
been taking great care of us (especially when I break my computer. They
are very patient with my computer-illiterateness.) We live with 2
Chinese angels. Seriously Sister Hung and Sister Ng are probably the two
most adorable and hilarious Sisters I've ever met. Everyone in the
wards we serve in is a successful genius #whatevs.
Love you all and hope all is well!
xoxo,
Sister Gledhill
(The Fishbowl.This one really captures the "caged animal" effect.)
(Me and Sister Zickella, Fishbowlin'.)
