7/18/11- Letter to the World

Hello world!  It's been a crazy week!

Monday
After P-Day, Marie took Sis. Johnson and I out to the Olive Garden.  I love her so much!  I'm sad to see her go back to Kuwait!  Then we drove out to Pittsburgh and arrived around 10:00pm.  We stayed the night in the HUGE Pittsburgh sister's apartment. 

Tuesday
The next morning, Sister Quijano (who I came out with) and I left Sister GIbson and Sister Johnson to get to work!  Sister Quijano and I went off to meetings.  I had a training meeting and then lunch with the new missionaries.  Sister Mortensen is my new comp.  She's great!  She's from a ranch in Colorado and is super excited about missionary work.  She's had two sisters and a brother serve so far.  Then we went to a training meeting together and then the transfer meeting.  Around 4, we headed back for State College.  We arrived around 7:30 and then waited for the Lancaster Sisters to bring Sister Juliano and an extra car up.  It was fun to see all the sisters within two days!  That pretty much never happens!  So now Sister Quijano (key-hawn-o) and Sister Juliano are serving in the other State College area and I am the pseudo-District Leader.  It's not technically a calling, but I do what the elders would do if they were here.

Since we were gone, James (our branch mission leader) and Heidi (a branch missionary) met with Zack and read with him.  He kept asking questions that led right into the remainder of the Restoration.  He said, "If Jesus set up a church when he was on the earth, I think the right church would be the one that's most like it."  He asked, "If there were prophets then, shouldn't there be prophets now?"  He's so awesome!  We have another appointment with him tomorrow.

Wednesday
Off to work!  We now have 2 hours of companionship study almost every day, so we did that and then all came together for District Meeting.  We taught Caden and set him with a date, although he didn't come to church, so it's changed now.  Jordan dropped us.  We met with Shaun, our recent convert and Stephanie stood us up. 

Thursday
We got to do a forum!  It was Sister Mortensen's first street contacting experience and she did really well!  I'd have been terrified if State College was my first area, I think.  We did service at the food bank and then went tracting.  We met an awesome couple who isn't interested in learning just yet, but will let us help them record their personal history.  He, Bro Memmott, is 91!!

Friday
We taught Caden again, and he had read!  We also got to teach Deb again.  I think I said she was from Lybia, but it's Liberia.  She is SO cool!  We read the introduction with her since she hadn't read, and she's just picking it right up! 

Saturday
We went up to Bellefonte to follow up with a potential--Bro Rich.  He is 84!  We had to teach him on the porch, since there wasn't a woman home, but it was good.  We taught the Plan of Salvation and he was able to see how similar it was to some personal beliefs he'd always had, but that aren't taught outside of the Restored Gospel.  We got to teach Deb the Plan of Salvation, and it was AMAZING!  She absolutely loved it and was so excited to learn about the whole plan.  It just confirmed to me the truthfulness of the Gospel.  It really has been restored!  We also got to teach Rachel, one of our Chinese investigators.  She rescheduled her baptism date for Aug 20 and committed to be better at church, reading, and prayer. 

Sunday
After church, we went with the Elder's Quorum President to give Bro. Rich a blessing for his health.  I really hope he felt the Spirit.  Then we had dinner with an awesome couple in the branch.  While walking, we met Ben who moved here from China 5 days ago!  We have an appointment with him tonight.  We had an appointment fall through that night, but James was with us, so we went over to teach Sariah.  She's moving to Western PA soon.  Sad day!  She cancelled her baptism for now, but I know it will happen eventually.  It's got to be so hard to have your family against it!  She is awesome, though!

Well, there's the week! I hope all of yours was great, too!  This truly is Jesus Christ's church and I'm excited to be a part of it!

Love ya!

Sister Denton