Sister Denton's Marvelous Mission: June 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

6/27/11- Letter to the World

Hello World!

Wow...so what's been going on here in PA?

Sariah
She was out of town most of this week, but she is home and doing well!  We've been reading from the Book of Mormon with her a lot. She's preparing for the 31st of July, so she just needs to get an answer by then!  She is more active then some of our members!

Joey
He came to the barbecue that the branch put on.  He's kind of put out by all of the rules that we as missionaries have to follow.  He doesn't think Heavenly Father would be so restrictive.  We talked about choices and blessings that come from obedience. The Word of Wisdom came up and he wasn't a huge fan of the idea.  He's going out of town, but we'll see if he'll continue to meet with us after.  I hope so.  The guidelines given by prophets truly are from the Lord.

Caden
He's doing pretty well.  He's made a lot of friends, and has come to some social events.  He's out of town for the 4th as well, so we'll see what happens when he gets back.

Tyson
Tyson is from China, but came to NY for the last two years of high school at a Catholic school.  He notices the lack of the Spirit now that he's in college and not making God a priority.  He really does want this, which is awesome.  In fact, we'd met with one of his friends, Kyle, and he told us that Kyle just wasn't ready to hear it.  Tyson is awesome :D  He reminds me a lot of YeYang.

Jordan
He's from down South and has a very strong faith in Christ.  He's willing to check out the Book of Mormon and learn, though!

Richie
He is one of my favorite people ever!  He's from India and has an awesome accent and a quick wit.  He's made really good friends with Vaughn, our Branch Mission Leader.  We've taught him once, but ran into him on campus a few other times.  He came to the BBQ too, and actually brought friends!  One of which we may continue teaching :D

Now for the ward

Rachel
She's pretty much the only one we're working with in the ward.  She's from China.  I don't remember if I talked before about reading from the Book of Mormon with her.  She hadn't been doing it, so we read with her for a lesson, and she LOVED it!  She had no idea the Book of Mormon was so exciting!  I hope she makes time to continue progressing!  That's the biggest thing with her, she's busy.  She's also moving to CA soon, so if she doesn't get baptized on her date (July 26), I hope she can hook up with missionaries there.

And finally our curve ball!

There are currently no Elders in the area next to us (which is why Sis Wilson is our District Leader).  We received a referral from their area and we went last Monday.  It's an hour drive one way!  It was SO worth it though!  Bro. Randall is an amazing investigator who's had lots of LDS friends in the past.  He loves the lifestyle and has observed that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints just seem happier!  It was a great lesson with a former Branch President from the area.  We're meeting with him again tonight and he's scheduled in church for next week (he was out of town this week).

So ya...it's been a great week!  State College is a great area, and I've been so blessed to get to know Sis. Wilson and Sis. Kost better before they leave next week.  This is Christ's church!  Remember that and live it :D  I love this quote by Elder Holland, "It's hard for an egg to become a bird, but it's impossible for an egg to learn to fly."  We have to go through hard times to reach our potential!  Sometimes, living the standards of the church are hard, but it's impossible for us to do what God asks of us if we won't try!  Like Elder Denton (the one and only) said a couple of weeks ago, obedience yields blessings.

Love ya!

Sister Denton

PS--P-Day plans for the day include Penn State pics around campus, rockin' on the piano (as much as you can rock with EFY songs), and making a music video doing the Hakka to Alex Boye's version of "Israel, Israel, God is Calling."  Look it up...it's a great version :D

Monday, June 20, 2011

6/20/11- Letter to the World


So the first half of this week was with Sister Wilson, but Thursday, Sister Kost from Ephrata met up with us and we split back into two companionships.  We've been working like crazy, and it is so wonderful. 


I don't have a ton of time, so I just want to bear my testimony.


I know that this church is Christ's church here on the earth.  I know that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and that through him, the Priesthood power was restored.  I know that that Priesthood power is held by worthy men all over the world who are members of this church.  I know that Heavenly Father loves us each personally and because of that, He sent His son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins and feel everything we would ever go through.  I know that our families can be together forever.


I love you all!


Sister Denton

Monday, June 13, 2011

6/13/11- Letter to the World

Hello World!

It's been a crazy week here in State College.  A sister went home early, so Sister Johnson and I are in a tripanionship with Sister Wilson--a temple square sister.  We are going crazy trying to teach all of our investigators, which is actually a fabulous problem to have!!  Add to that, I love Sister Wilson to pieces!  We have a ton in common and it has been a fabulous few days!  We may be getting a mini-missionary until Thursday, so things will go back to normal until Sister Wilson leaves a week before transfers to return to Temple Square.

We mainly taught people from the branch this week, so I'll just talk about them!

Sandy
She has a baptismal date!!  She's been studying with missionaries for awhile.  We taught her twice this week--both reading from the Book of Mormon.  The second time we read with her, she read it in Japanese and we'd translate in English...she's trying to learn Japanese.  Anyway....I tried to commit her to baptism the first time, but it kind of failed.  She doesn't want to commit because she'd feel obligated to tell her parents and they are very against it.  She wants to be prepared enough to answer their questions.  So Sis. Wilson came in and was able to pretend she didn't know we'd tried committing her in the past and had the idea to do it for July 31.  So she's set with the 31st!!  Woot!

So my time is totally almost gone!!

Love ya!
Sister Denton


Monday, June 6, 2011

6/6/11- Letter to the World

Hello all!

So State College is AWESOME!!!  I started trying to write by day, but I left my planner in the car and it all kind of melds together, so I'll talk about the area and people!

A lot of the finding we do here is street contacting.  There are always people walking around near the campus, so we just walk around and try to engage them in gospel conversations!  We also tract a lot of apartments, which is my favorite mode of tracting.  It's way faster and the people there are less likely to have seen missionaries lately, even if they tracted there a few months ago, because it's so transient.  We've found a LOT of potentials this week, which is super exciting!

There are SO many cultures here; people from all over the world!  It's awesome.  I love hearing all of the different accents and learning about some Middle Eastern faiths.  This week we've talked to people from Egypt, Kazakhstan, India, China, Korea, Italy, etc.  It's so cool!

We work with the State College 2nd Ward and then we share the University Branch with the other sisters.  It's quite fun!  Sundays are crazy because we have to do a crazy split thing to get someone from each companionship to certain places.  It all seems to work out, though!  This week I went to the Branch and RS of the 2nd ward, so next week I'll go to the last two hours of the 1st ward and all three hours of the 2nd ward.  Hopefully that makes some sense...

Branch
Nate
He's been studying with the missionaries for a little while.  He is a VERY deep thinker and is really taking his time to find out about our message.  We had an AMAZING team up from the Branch....the branch is really incredible with missionary work.  We're meeting with him again this week :D  He wasn't able to make it to church, though.

Joey
We had our first meeting with him this week and he is a new investigator!  He wasn't able to make it to church, but hopefully we'll be able to get him out to FHE.  They're going to the Dollar Theater to watch Rango.  I don't know what he expected with meeting with us, but he said he'll read the Book of Mormon and we got a return appointment!  He wasn't able to make it to church this week.

Kyle
We tracted into Kyle Friday and met with him Saturday.  He's from China and has never believed in God..he's a scientist.  I challenged him to consider it an experiment--his life is the product and God is the chemical.  If he adds God into his life and his life improves, it means God is real :D  He's going to try it!  He wasn't able to make it to church (this is a common theme, but at least a lot of them text us and let us know they won't be able to make it!)

Sandy
Sandy's been taught for a long while.  She's awesome :D  She loves Harry Potter and hates Twilight, so we had a great connection from the get-go :D  We're working on setting a baptismal date with her.  She comes to church, FHE, Institute, and just about every other church activity!

Caden
Caden is SO cool!  We tracted into him and he opened the door and said "Hey Sisters!"  I totally thought he was a member, but he's from Cali and like 1/2 of his friends there are LDS, so he's super familiar with it.  He's really excited to get some LDS friends out here and we have an appointment with him this week!

2nd Ward
Rachel

She is from China and reminds me SO much of Yeyang.  She's been studying with missionaries for awhile and is just trying to figure out if she really believes it.  She comes to church and feels a peace there, but she thinks it's because of the atmosphere or the people rather than the Spirit.  She came again this week and we set a baptismal date for July 26.  We'll see how it goes!

Sis L
So, this wonderful YSA called us one night and excitedly told us about this amazing woman she'd met at work!  We called her and she was very excited to meet with us and we set up an appointment!  The meeting went very well and she was all set to go to church.  She's 75 by the way :D  The same age as Bro McDonald who was baptized last Friday in this ward!  She called us Sunday morning with a slue of concerns.  Her children are pretty against her meeting with us, so she said she needed some time.  Hopefully our awesome YSA can continue to friendship her and at least keep contact with the church.  Keep her in your prayers :D

Well, I think that's about it for the week!  The work is awesome!  I very much look forward to seeing the work progress here in State College!

Love ya!

Sister Denton