Sister Tiffany Knab: Street Contacting in Manchester

Tuesday, August 21, 2012.

My Family,

What a week for you!! I first want to say a big WELCOME to baby E.! She is such a cutie! Congrats. Thank you for sending pics. I am kind of dying to hold her right now. Bah! She is adorable! Give her my love :) Also, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Miss N. and S. Boy last week! I hope they had fun birthdays and had great days. I sent them birthday notes in the beginning of last week, so I hope they got them okay. Let those two cuties know that I was thinking of them on their birthdays and wish I could've been there to celebrate with everyone!

Well this week was great. I love the MTC programs they do here. Like they have each of the teachers (who have just recently got off their missions) pretend to be investiagors and we have been teaching these investigators and progressing each of them while we have been here. The cool part is though, that the teachers are acting as investigators that they had on their missions. So they ask questions that their investigators would ask, act like they would be, respond as their investiagors would respond to them. So it really gives us a real experience. I think it's the greatest idea ever. I had heard people say that in the Provo MTC they could feel the spirit when teaching 'investigators' and I have really found that to be true. Even though they are acting, the spirit is just so strong when you are testifying to them of the truths. I've really noticed a difference in my lessons when I am telling about what we believe verses when I testify of what I believe. Testifying always brings an added spirit.

Okay, well, one cool thing we got to do last week was go street contacting in Manchester! Last Friday, they loaded us onto a bus and took us to a train station and sent us on our way to the city of Manchester and let us loose. So we all dispersed for two hours to contact people on the street. The night before and morning of, I was freaking out. I was so nervous for some reason. I had never done that before! But, once we started, I was just fine. It was so neat to get out on the streets and start talking with people. We did get quite a few funny reasons for why people couldn't talk to us, some of them being, 'Sorry, I can't talk right now. My coffee will get cold' or a woman rubbing her preganant belly, 'Sorry, I'm pregnant. I'm in too much pain to listen'. ?? Haha we were laughing at some of the things people would say. BUT, we did get 3 people interested to receive missionary lessons!! They were:

Fitwe. We saw Fitwe standing by the road with a stroller and approached him. We quickly learned that he knew just a bit of english. He told us he just recently moved from South Africa. We bore a simple testimony to him and tried to use simple words. We bore our testimony to him and then asked if he would like a Book of Mormon. He accepted it (which we learned doesn't happen all the time) and then told him that we could get him in touch with other missionaries to learn more. He wanted to!!! So we got his contact information and told him how we would tell the missionaries to get the Book of Mormon in his native language and he was happy to hear that. Although I don't know if he understood everything we said, Sister H. and I were talking later how we felt the spirit while we were talking to him so we hope he felt that as well.
Laurence. We saw Laurence sitting by the bus stop by himself, staring at the ground. He looked really lonely, we went and talked to him and he was so receptive. He's originally a Scot, and moved to Manchester a while ago but has been living alone for some time. We bore testimony that we know Heavenly Father loves him and has a plan for him and talked to him for about 30 minutes. I think he was so happy to have some people giving him the time of day. I sense he is a really lonely man. He accepted the Book of Mormon and is interested in receiving lessons from the Manchester missioaries as well!!! Gosh, it makes me sooo happy to hear those words. When we were done talking to him, we got up and turned to leave, then he grasped my arm (which scared me to death at first to be honest), but I turned around and saw that his eyes were very soft and he said 'I just want you to know that I will never forget this day... What day is it? OH! August 17th. I want you to know that I will never forget this 17th of August that I met you two girls. I look forward to having your visitors come by my home.' I can't even tell you how that made me feel! It meant so much to me to see the sincerity in his eyes and that he would express that. I will never forget that.
Zhang. We ran into Zhang as we were headed back to the train to go back to the MTC. His english was REALLY broken up; he is chinese. Sister H. started talking to him in Chinese and his face just lit up when he realized she knew his language. So for about 15 minutes, they conversed with each other while I just stood there smiling like a goon. No idea what they were talking about. But then Sister H. goes Sister Knab! Quick! Get th address book! So I frantically looked through my bag to get our address book because he was interested in having the missionaies over. It was so great! Sister H. handled that one all on her own. It was so cool.

So, how it works, is we give these referrals we found to the missionaries in Manchester. (Lucky dogs- that means every 3 weeks they are given a batch of referrals like candy from the England MTC!!) To bo honest, it was hard for me to pass along these people to them. I'm sad I won't get to teach these people we found and we won't ever see them again! But we put our contact info next to their names so they will keep us updated on their progress. I really hope they receive the missionary discussions well. It's crazy how I feel like I love these people, but I really don't even know them! So we will see how everything goes with them.

On Sunday, we spent the day doing a church tour through Lancashire, England. Neatest thing ever! We got to see where missionaries first started off in England and where the first baptism in England occured and so forth. It was so much fun. There was one instance though that really hit home to me. Sister Walker (who is our MTC Presiden's wife is President Hinckley's daughter) so she took us through the streets where her dad (Pres. Hinckely) served and shared stories that he had told her. She took us to the apartment where Pres. Hinckley lived on his mission. She talked about the story of 'Forget yourselft and go to work'. I have heard this story/quote 102 times in my life, but it was never had that kind of meaning to me before. I was standing there and it hit me so strongly all of the sudden and I just thought 'Wow. I am standing here, in England, on a tiny cobblestone street called Wadham, in front of the apartment where Pres Hinckley lived, listening to his daughter talk about how her grandpa had written her dad to foget himeself and go to work.' It really just overwhelmed me and that quote has a whole new meaning to m.

After the tour, we were able to watch the braodcast of President Monson's Birthday celebration. How cute was that? Were any of you able to attend/watch? I thought it was amazing. Watching an overview of our prophet's life of devotion to the Lord added to the experience I had at President Hinckley's apatment and hearing his mission stories. I sat there listening and watching how President Monson has devoted his life to the Lord by devoting his time to people. Taking care of the sick, seeing to the people who are unrecognized and making them feel important, travelling the world to help others and influence lives. Wow. I decided right then and there that I will devote my life to the Lord. The examples of President Hinckly and President Monson overwhelmed me that day and I resolved that night to be about the Lord's business for the rest of my life by giving my time to His people. So, what does this mean to you guys? It means as my family, you have the privelage of slapping me if you see me at a point in my life where I am being selfish of my time and energy. You can say 'Tiff, remember that Sunday on your MTC when you had the experience of having the biggest desire to devote yourself to the Lord?' And then I will snap out of it because I will remember the feelings I had that day. It was a pivotal moment for me. I've never felt that before. I want to devote all of my time and energy the rest of my life to the Lord and watching out for His people.

Well I'm excited because we get to go to the temple again today! (It's basically in our parking lot). We went last P-day too. President Walker and Sister Walker were temple patrons in the Salt Lake Temple for a few years so they prepare us on how to teach before we actually go in. It's amazing and I have learned so much and have had a great experience with the temple here.

Oh, and yes, I am in a trio. I have two companions but things have been great! We get along well and I recognize that that isn't the case all of the time, so I feel grateful. We went to an LDS bookstore today ( or the mormon shop as sister graf calls it) and they just LOVED it. The've been dying to go our whole MTC stay. (And it was the tiniest thing I have ever seen. Probably half of the size of my Condo Row apartment. I told them about our Distribution Centers back home and they couldn't believe it. They love hearing me talk about how many temples are around me and what it's like to go to General Conference and what temple square is like. It has been both of their dreams since they were little to go to Utah. I'm realizing how blessed we really are back home. I've really taken for granted what we have. They're already planning a trip to come and visit me after the mission. Haha.

I need to go, our time is up, but I am happy and doing well. I love just learning about the gospel everyday and being fed every meal. But don't worry, I'm not oblivious to the fact that it won't be this way out in the field. I'm really going to be sad when we leave NEXT WEEK. I've become attached to England. I really like it here. Haha I'm sure I will feel the same about Scotland/Ireland though. I'm exicted to get out to the field and get going!

I love you all so much. Thank you for the emails. We only have 30 minutes for emails a day so know that I love hearing from you, even if I don't get the chance to reply. You're the best.

Take care!

Sister Knab

P.S. I play the piano for our meetings/devotionals/church here ect. and there's a button for the organ. I LOVE it. We should have such a button on our pianos in Utah then I don't have to learn the organ. Haha. It's so nice!!