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