I'm Melting

Sister Dias and Sister Bascom with their WHOLE mission behind them.

Dear ___________ (fill in name here)

It is so hot here! 104 F today that's like in 40's in C (I'm not going to spell that). So ya I'm kinda dying. I mean I can't complain really when I'm in AC buildings most of the day..... so I'll just stop now.

Wow everyday I learn so much. I got to give my zone leaders a tour the other day and they gave me so many tips it was amazing. They teach me so much. I am really having to learn balance between me and my companion. I mean its okay when I don't know the answer and so I just let her take over but when I know the answers I want to answer every question. As I can be a bit of a control freak that can happen a lot..... Like I said I am learning so much everyday. Another thing I have been trying to do is keeping things as simple as possible as deep doctrine stuff is really hard to explain.

I got the opportunity to go to the history museum here a few days ago, and my favourite part was looking at and reading all the things about the past prophets. They truly are men of God. They are all so good and have done some much good. Not only in the church but in the world. I love this gospel I feel so blessed to be on my mission right now.

I try to not let it get me down that we don't have many progressing investigators and that we don't get to contact every tour we take. Sister Dias and I just focus on the fact that we are planing so many seeds. I think of Abinadi a lot and how he never saw the fruits of his labor and how I may not get to see mind. But I know that I am still planting and I try to follow the spirit all the time.

Well thats all for now, I mean I could say more but I'm sure you have other things to do :P

Hope you are all having a great summer God bless.

Sister Bascom :D

MTC Bursting at Seams

Last year there were approx. 2,000 missionaries in the MTC now there is over 3,000 Check out this article:
 http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581535/MTC-overflows-with-LDS-missionaries-moves-devotionals-to-Marriott-Center.html

Off and Running

Week 2:

I started off and running. We may have almost 200 sisters serving here but that does not mean there is enough.

Zone conference was today and yesterday and we are definitely feeling the lose. With half the sisters gone for most of the day. I almost felt guilty for leaving at 1pm to start my pday, almost.... :P

Sister Dias and I are getting closer everyday. We are finding out more about each other and learning to live together. I am getting to know the other sisters I serve with too. They are all supper awesome out going people. They are ALL very strong in the faith. I mean you have to be when you have people questioning your beliefs all the time.

Sister Diaz and Sister Bascom

I got to sign for the first time, for a deaf boy at one of the conferences a few days ago which was great. I did that with Sister Muller (the senior signer) so no I am now passed off and can be asked to do ASL tours. Every language has to be passed off here. It use to be that you have to pass it off before you could use it. But with the limited amount of sisters and the high demand for every language. You now just need to pass it off when you get the chance and take and do what you can until then. So I have to pass off English in the next few days too :P If we can find the time. 

So here are some of the things I do at Temple Square:

Most of the time we are either on the square or in one of the teaching centres (TC).  When we are on the square  we wander around and talk to people and ask if they would like a tour.  We also get texts about groups in  different areas on the square who would like a tour. Who ever texts back first gets the tour.  When we are in the TC  we call, email or text our investigators. Sister Dias has a lot of Brazilian investigators so I can't do much with them sadly, but I have a good group of people I call and talk to. Quite a few young people which is awesome. I have one investigator who tried to Google me! Trying to figure out what I look like :P

So these are the two places I am usually at. I also have some desk jobs sometimes at

EF eternal families

TC temple construction

MAP map of Jerusalem

GP god's plan

WG west gate etc

I really love it here. Zone conference was so much fun. Our mission presidency is awesome. We have such fun with them. President and Sister Gillette have the CUTEST family ever. We went to their house for breakfast and then to ''This Place" a pioneer village. Sounds like we will be going there a lot for service projects and other activities.

The Sisters and Pioneers Eating Lunch

Honestly I am not finding the work itself that hard, there is just so MUCH of it. I wish I had more personal study time to prepare. But you work with what you got, and right now I will have to live with that. I love doing youth conferences. We have at least 2 or 3 a day. One right after the other. We had the EFY youth running around the other day asking us where we were from and what languages we spoke it we really fun.

I had two youth conferences today we focused a lot on the sacrifice of the pioneers. I love talking about this with the youth. I want them to really think about some of the things they are willing to give up to become closer to our Saviour. I bore my testimony about what I had given up and what  missionaries give us to serve our father in heaven. ServingI brings me closer to him. I love this work I get the privilege of doing. I try not to miss home too much as it will take up my time when I should be focusing on why I am here. I know it will go faster than I think. Then it will be gone and I will never get have this experience again.

Thats all for today folks.

Love you all lots.

Love mail so send me your addresses and I will write you.

Sister Bascom

Hot off the Prez.

President Gillette also announced this week that we have been given permission to get a total of 220 sister missionaries serving on Temple Square! That's a huge number! Especially since when they first changed the age, they had originally said that our mission numbers would stay the same and not increase. Guess they realized how much we are dying on the square and spread thin with all the millions of guests that visit so they let us increase our numbers. We are now having new sisters come in the middle of transfers because we need to build up our numbers quickly. And we even have two new Mandarin speakers that were serving in Missouri and Idaho who were asked to serve here for 3 months, helping us with all the Chinese people, before they go back and finish at their original mission. Crazy! We are going to have so many new sisters! And within the next 5 weeks we will get 30 from the MTC. Pretty much our whole mission will have to be training and there will probably be trio's training as well.

They are presently operating at about 200 so a 10% increase should lighten the load on TSQ. 

Best of the BEST

Greetings ALL <3

Well here I am at temple square. The weather is hot. The square is busy and I'm LOVING it!

My new companion is Sister Dias. She is from Brazil. Sister Dias speaks Portuguese and Spanish I believe. She isn't very confident with her English. Which makes her appear shy and quite. But I can see she is really fun and loves the gospel.  She just got back from her out bound in Georgia. (The sisters that serve on Temple Square get to go to another mission in the USA about a year out. This is usually an English placement in a traditional mission for about three months.)  I didnt actually get to meet her till late Wednesday evening as her flight was cancelled. 

Transfer days are always confusing I hear. Sisters coming and going, new companionships, moving buildings... Its awesome cause we are all in such close proximity of each other that you get to know the sisters you work with really well. You really dont get this kind of opportunity in other missions. 

Wednesday: I stayed with my Zion leaders for the afternoon. We walked around and talked to people until about 3. Then all the new sisters went to Wal-Mart and got our shopping done. I got back to my apartment and unpacked, made the beds and dinner and then Sister Dias arrived extremely tired. We didn't talk much we just wanted to get to bed (The beds are so nice here or I am just really tired by the end of the day and don't care.)

Thursday was kinda crazy too as Sister Dias and I both didn't know what we were doing, I guess when you get back from outbound it takes you awhile to get back into the swing of things. Oh and we didn't have our schedule.... We got that today :) We are in South 1 Zone. So we are on the square or in the TC (teaching center) most of the time. But we do have a few desk jobs a week too.

There are about 200 sisters in the temple square mission and we need each and everyone of them. Its crazy on the square, large tours every hour, youth conferences everyday keeping on top of it can be really hard sometimes. I see Sister John lots on the square. It isn't that big so you get to know all the sisters pretty fast. They are a tight knit group. 

The Sisters that are called here are the best of the BEST. We have to be! We have to be at the top of our game everyday.  We have to be looking good. We go from one lesson to the next with no breaks. Trying to discern the needs of every person without knowing them. Then sending them away without maybe ever seeing them again. Wondering if we helped them at all? We are under the eye of the media, antis, prophets and the public. I have come to respect the sisters in this mission so much. They are all so hard working and cheerful. When we first got here one of the things that our President said was "That we don't complain. We are not a complaining mission. We "Suck it up." I feel so humbled to serve here. This is truly a special place. Some people think the sisters that are called here are the pretty ones. That we just give tours. Wrong! We are missionaries just like all the others wonderful missionaries in the world. But each and everyone of us are called here because God knows we can take the heat. I love this mission. I love serving my God. 

I have already seen so many people lives be blessed from coming to the square. Everyone leaves with the spirit. It is such a blessing to be working in a dedicated place. The spirit is so strong and people can tell that there is something here. I love being able to talk about the temple and have it right there to show people

This is one of my favorite scriptures from The Book of Mormon :)

Alma 26:11-12

 11 But Ammon said unto him: I do not ^aboast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my ^bjoy is full, yea, my heart is brim with ^cjoy, and I will rejoice in my God.
 12 Yea, I know that I am ^anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will ^bnot boast of myself, but I will ^cboast of my God, for in his ^dstrength I can do all ^ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Miss you all, 

Stay strong in the faith
Sister Bascom

1st Day on TSQ

The new sisters from the MTC  June 2013 Transfer
23 Sisters representing 12 nations.

Sister Bascom with her zone leader Sister Sister Drunker
Her zone leader is from the Ukraine.

 

President and Sister Gillette with Sister Bascom

                       

The UNIQUE Temple Square Mission

This Elder adds a link to his Jan 29th post about the Unique Temple Square Mission that KSL did a feature on last year. For all of you wondering what Lani will be doing it is a great insight.

http://elderelliotadair.blogspot.ca/2012/01/mormon-times-unique-temple-square.html

Tour Training Week

Hello Family :D

Ahhh last week at the MTC. I leave on Wednesday the 12 at 6am I'm so excited!!

So with the departure of our ASL sisters we got 4 new roommates. I haven't really gotten to know them very well. They are going to California English speaking. They are in a different zone then us so other then the room we don't see them much. Oh hahaha so the first night Sister John and I pretended to be deaf :P It was really hard not to react to sound and not talk to the girls. They all bought it until we told them the next morning.

They are all very quite right now as its only their second day. Hopefully we will all warm up to each other before we leave. 

The next ASL district doesn't get here for another 2 weeks so we don't get to practise our signing with anyone besides ourselves. Though we have met a very nice Elder who's brother is deaf and loves to come and sign with us. night as we were walking to devotional with Elder McGill he stopped us and asked if he could sit with us so that he could practise his interpreting. It was a good thing. One of the interpreters didn't show up so I took a turn at it and it was great. Afterwards the interpreter (Who's name escapes me now.) gave me some feed back. Another elder came up to me and said his sister loves ASL. He wanted to know if he could buy any of my books off me that I didn't want anymore to send to her as a birthday present. I was happy to oblige him :)

So let me tell you about my first few days of temple training. So there are 34 sisters in our training class and 24 of them are coming to Temple Square the others are going to Winter Quarters in Nebraska, Washington DC and one sister is headed to Hawaii. It is very different from my ASL district no elders and 34 girls all speaking English. Though I still like to sign to Sister John quit a bit :) I'm going to miss her, only 5 days left as companions..... :( The teachers are all Visitor Center RMs and are so excited for us. They all loved their missions and love sharing their experiences with us.

The first day we got to go to Temple Square for about an hour and get a tour by the sisters just get a feel for things there. It was supper amazing even though we only saw a very small part of the square. I didn't want to leave and I am so excited to go back....! Ya that's right we get to go on splits with the sisters there for 4 hrs. I'm so so so excited! I have so many questions about life at Temple Square, cant come soon enough!

Sister J answering calls from Mormon.org

Probably the best part of temple training so far is the on line chatting we get to do with investigators. The system has been pretty glitchy these first few days so Sister John and I haven't been able to actually talk to anyone for more then a few minutes. Some other sisters have had some very interesting conversations. I know its hard to believe that someone can be converted over the computer. Just hearing the other sisters talk about their experiences I know God is using these latter day technologies to spread the word. People from all walks of life come to mormon.org looking for answers to their questions.  The Lord has prepared them and so many people have been brought to Christ thought this website. I love that we can make a connection with someone on the other side of the world and get to stay in contact with them throughout their conversion process and for long after too. Some of the teachers we have are still in contact with the people they met over mormon.org, I cant wait to have some of these opportunities to share the gospel. Ive learnt so much in these last few days and I can feel my testimony growing in leaps and bounds. 

Somethings that I learnt yesterday:

We had an excellent lesson on planning, something that my teacher said that I will never forget (I'm sorry cant remember names as I have had 10 new teachers.) Planning is spiritually creating your day. I love that, it makes me look at planning differently. We have been focusing on vision a lot. What do we see for our investigators and what do we see for ourselves. Trying to see others as Christ sees them. If Christ was giving the tour how would he greet these people? How would he treat them? Ive been really trying to focus on that lately.

Miss you all remember to send my mail to Temple Square now :)

Love you all your

Sister Bascom

District 5A

The ASL district Lani was in departed Wed morning and she began temple square training that morning. This is what she had to say:

Well first off I want you to know how much I miss and love my ASL district how hard it was to see them all leave and still be here with out them. Sister John and I often go back to our old classroom to do our planning, talk with our Romanian elders next door, talk in private and think back on our time here at the MTC.

The Snail Brought More News

Dear Family,

It is freezing here. We haven't figured out how turn off the AC in our classroom nor the heat in the dorms. :p It is really quiet frustrating.

Yesterday we had TRD ( That is when volunteers come in and we teach them.) Last week was terrible. I was SUPPER tired and I barely understood what was being signed. It was good to see where I am at with my signing skills now.  Some deaf people sign so FAST. (Just wait until she tries to understand a child ;))

This week Sis J and I taught a girl named M and her bf N. Both were very nice. M talked and signed at the same time. So it was pretty easy to understand her. She shared her life story with us. She is the only member of her family that is deaf except for a distant cousin. When her mother learned she was deaf she learned and taught her as much sign language as she could. Her parents are divorced but she has a good relationship with both them. She loves to travels to see her family all over the world. She was living in DC but felt inspired to move to Utah. So she broke up with her bf, quit her job said good bye to her friends and moved to Utah.  M has a new bf N whom was with her. He is really sweet and a recently returned missionary. They met when he was serving his mission in DC. They started dating after she moved to Utah. N let me know that he is planning on asking M to marry him but it's a secret shh! They like to go to temple square so I hope to see them again.

Sis Bascom went on to say that she sang in a meeting. She said she shook the whole time which confused and frustrated her but she felt it went well. She proceeded to tell us: That before RS they get to listen to Music and the Spoken Word. She really enjoys this. She also said that the music in RS meetings are exemplary she enjoyed a trio of O Redeemer of my Soul that was accompanied by a violin and piano.

She commented that to date she hadn't seen E. Leavitt but added a post script that she ran into him. They were so excited to see each other that they forgot they can't hug and almost hugged but caught themselves.