Overview

This week has been one where the spiritual experiences and preparation of our friends has been made manifest. Our friend Prateek shared with us that he had an experience where he was extremely close to being hit by a car, but in that experience he gained a perfect knowledge that God is real and cares for him. He’s currently very busy with school and locating a job, but he’ll have more time at the beginning of August. We plan to have his baptism sometime then, if he can continue to keep commitments.

Final MLC with the Gills

This Mission Leadership Council was blessed and filled with an overwhelming outpouring of the Spirit. That whole day, I felt as if I were bathing in the Spirit, it was quite special and remarkable. Over the course of this meeting, the Gills shared the teaching and direction given by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles found in the 2025 Seminar for new mission leaders. President Gill would often go back to his notes as missionaries shared their thoughts and conclusions; he was amazed at how much they aligned with the council given by the prophets in this meeting. They shared a simple but profound statement given by President Jeffrey R. Holland, “you promised to always remember Him.”

President shared what he called a strange thought of his that he had taught to him by the Spirit at that moment in the beginning of the council. His mind was brought back to the COVID pandemic. He added that from a medical perspective, this virus was astonishing; it was able to penetrate and fill the earth so quickly. He paused and explained, if a virus can penetrate the earth so quickly, how much more confidence does it give us knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ’s gospel will penetrate and fill the earth.

In tears, President and Sister Gill stood up for the final time at a mission leadership council meeting. “We are sure going to miss this,” they then expressed their heartfelt gratitude and confidence in each of us who the Lord has called. President then added his final remarks with a simple and brief testimony. He concluded by saying, “I’m going to do something I haven’t done in over forty years. Not all of you may be able to recognize what I say, but the whisperings of the Holy Ghost will guide you, let them with ears hear and understand.” He proceeded to bear his testimony with greater tears in his eyes, in Japanese. This tender moment sealed their very last meeting with us.

A Dream

I received an email from a close and dear friend from home. As I read the email, I was filled with so much joy. My friend expressed that he’s looking forward to when I return home and shared briefly that a lot has been happening on his side of things. He wrote, “I’ve been having some pretty unexpected experiences lately that honestly changed how I see God.” I don’t know what these experiences have been, but the Spirit hit me when I read it. I’ve received a witness that he’s been having experiences with the Holy Ghost leading him to Christ.

I haven’t told him this yet, but 6 months ago I had a vivid dream about him. In this dream, I remember witnessing him enter the waters of baptism. That’s all I can recall from it, but the days following this experience, I had my mind going back to him time and time again. I was unsure what the meaning of the dream was, whether or not it was revelatory, meant to be taken literally, etc. But what I did know is that it probably was a sign to reach out. So that’s what I did.

There wasn’t much that immediately followed that, but my mind has caught hold upon this experience once again. After hearing that he’s been having experiences with God, I firmly believe that this dream was a divine manifestation from God. I cannot begin to describe the feelings I received upon reading that simple sentence in his email. It could mean a lot of things, but this exceedingly great joy and the outpouring of the Spirit are outstanding evidence of what my friend has been going through. I eagerly anticipate hearing of his experiences and sharing my own witnesses and experiences as well.

Performing the Final Backups on the Gill’s Data

On Monday we sat in the mission office with two Macbooks and two iPhones. We had to meticulously one by one airdrop each Apple Note to President Gill’s laptop from his iPhone. Apple doesn’t like to make it easy for those who either don’t pay for iCloud storage or whose storage is full. Owning your data only goes as far as iCloud storage goes, which isn’t very far. You probably won’t catch me using Apple Notes for this very reason. So after an hour of ministering one by one to each note, we had them all eventually backed up to the laptop. After which we would back up the Apple Notes database to the external hard drive along with the rest of each Macbook and iPhone’s respective data. Fighting against the clock, we eventually got everything backed up; and not only that but I attempted to recreate the home directory structure so the Gills can just drag and drop the files onto their new Macbooks and have everything function the same.

During the slow process of moving files, President and Sister Gill, probably for the first time in a long time, sat without much to do at all. This was one of the few times I’ve seen President without a suit jacket. He swiveled back and forth in his chair, looking out the window. After a few seconds of doing so, he paused, and shared that, he doesn’t know why but for a great deal of his life he separated his spiritual and professional life. He said over time, he’s come to realize that they are all one, they go hand and hand. He added that he’s had great manifestations of the Spirit directing him in his professional life.

Just as we completed the backups, the Gills shared that they owe us for backing up all their data. They suggested having us over for steak dinner or something, then President paused and said that we must bring dates in order to attend haha.

Baptisms for the Dead

We had a wonderful experience attending the House of the Lord. This marks the first time that I’ve done baptisms for the dead on my mission. Typically we do proxy endowments, but for this trip, we decided to change it up. The stillness and peace of the Spirit was with us as our small group performed baptisms in the font. The group doing this consisted of mostly missionaries, there was one other woman that came in, but for the most part it was just us. As I sat and recorded the baptisms, I watched the beautiful reflections of the warm morning sunlight shine through the glass windows onto the water in the font. I’m grateful for this experience connecting with heaven just minutes before the Vincent’s flight landed.

Arrival of the Vincent’s

The Gill’s were the new mission leader’s personal Uber driver for a short period of time. The original plan was to meet them at the mission office and at four o’clock and wipe the Gill’s devices. It sounded like there was a dinner with them, the APs, and the senior missionaries in the office planned. Soon after the Gill’s picked up the Vincent’s, everyone in the office received a text that they had a change of plans. President Vincent wanted to drive up and see the temple. So our plans to meet at the office inevitably got pushed back to six.

When everyone arrived, the Gills frantically told us that the new mission leaders didn’t receive new phones, they were going to need to use their old iPhones. We quickly began the factory reset process. Once completed, that was it. Everything was done. President Gill gave me one final big hug before departing. With tears in his eyes, he looked at me in the eyes, and said tenderly, “you’re going to do so many great things.” I felt an incredible amount of love come over me, and I am filled with gratitude. And then they left. I’m gonna miss both of them so much.

We had the blessed opportunity to meet the new mission leaders, the Vincent’s. They are super awesome, it’s definitely a new era for the mission. There’s going to be a lot that changes with their style of leadership. I hope and pray that this transition for them may be smooth and that the Spirit may sustain them.

Apparently, we were invited to this dinner with them, which we didn’t know about until today. We had the blessing of having dinner with them all at the mission home. All of this worked out really nicely in the end, because we were setting up their devices just after dinner.

Vincent’s Meet & Greet

President & Sister Vincent’s week has been packed full of traveling. They had meet and greets with eight zones spanning over the whole mission. This involved a jam packed couple of days of pure travel reaching everyone and going around the mission. When they both came to our meet and greet they were full of energy and enthusiasm for the work. They had each of us stand and share something that we’ve learned recently. The meeting was filled with the Spirit as each of us testified of Jesus Christ and His hand in the work. This was a time of revelation for President Vincent; it was remarkable how the Spirit worked in this meeting to assist him in receiving guidance from God for each individual missionary.

Assisting the Vincent’s

So about those church provided phones that the Vincent’s were supposed to have coming in…. They came! The very next day after they arrived, there was a package with both of their new phones. Now we had to do what we did yesterday again to get these new phones ready. This involved us meeting them at the mission home and performing the setup process again. President Vincent was having a transfer meeting with the Assistants, so it was just us and Sister Vincent. They both definitely work differently than our previous mission leaders, divide and conquer I guess!

Justin’s on Baptismal Date

Justin is very genuine and really sweet. In this lesson, he was able to come to know what the Spirit feels like, and reflect upon experiences in his life where he felt the Spirit. He recognized God’s hand in his life as he shared with us an experience when he first met the missionaries walking around in Vancouver. We’ve had two lessons with him prior to this one, and he’s pretty shy but super open and willing to keep commitments. He talked more in this lesson than any other we’ve had with him, it’s awesome! He’s been reading the Book of Mormon and he shared that he’s at page 80 right now! He’s been super prepared, and I pray that he can keep following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Benjamin’s Faith

We had an excellent lesson with our friend Benjamin as well! If he had permanent residency in a safe country he would totally be baptized by now. He’s consistently been meeting with the missionaries and has been taught for a while because of this. As we were preparing for our lesson, Elder Chandler and I had a distinct impression that we needed to show him a video. As to which video, we weren’t completely sure, but it was clear that’s what needed to happen.

Benjamin isn’t really much of a talker, however, just like Justin in a strikingly similar light, this is the lesson he’s talked the most in. I wasn’t sure how aware he was about his current situation preventing him from being baptized, but it was made manifest that he’s very aware of this just in this lesson. He expressed that before finding Jesus Christ and His Church, he wasn’t sure if he believed in God. But after many Spiritual experiences, he knew that God was real and couldn’t deny it. He shared that he hopes to receive a PR soon to allow him to be baptized. He mentioned the blessings of attending the temple after being baptized and how he longs for it. I’m so grateful that he is beginning with the end in mind. I hope and pray that he may follow the whisperings of the Holy Ghost and walk with steadfast faith in Christ without losing hope working towards the goal of eternal life.