July 29, 2013

Oi everyone!

Thanks for writing.  I am so happy to hear everyone is doing so well.  Can you believe it is August this week?  Time has really been flying and it's so crazy!  The semester is going to start up soon and we are really excited.  Bruce and Yifan and countless other Chinese members have been sharing the gospel with their friends back in China who will be coming back for the fall so we are just anxiously awaiting their arrival.

This week was a little slow.  Bruce and Yifan have been our investigators since I arrived so it was weird not having either of them as investigators this week.  I think that's the best way to lose an investigator, though :)  We have been working this week to try to build up our investigator pools.  We saw so many amazing things happen through the week and I have faith we will find more of the elect very soon!

Here were some highlights of the week:

On Monday we went to Bishop Solomon's house for a steak dinner.  It was so delicious!  He is an amazing man and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with him here.  But holy cow it was a trial to be in a house with children!  His wife just had a baby a couple of months ago and I really wanted to hold her.  With us being in a singles ward, we haven't really had to think about the whole children rule but I was very much reminded on Monday.  His kids were so fun to be around, though, and I am just grateful for his family and their influence on the singles ward.

We were blessed with so many appointments this week and some new investigators who we think will really progress.  I love being on a campus because we meet up with people in the library and such and get to teach them there.  It's weird at times because I feel like I haven't really left BYU (There is a bell tower here!  And no, it doesn't play “Come, Come Ye Saints.”  Oh, and HBLL is way nicer than the MSU library.) but I love the diversity it brings to missionary work. Missionary work really can be done in so many ways and I love being on a campus.  People at this pivotal time in their lives are trying to figure out who they are and what they really want in life and we love being able to bring them the gospel message.

We got a referral from Salt Lake this week which rarely ever happens!  It turned out there was a Chinese lady who went to visit (or wisit as she said) the SLC temple.  She felt the spirit there and requested for us to come bring her the Book of Mormon in Chinese.  We got her address and went to visit with her and it was so fun!  It was like geocaching or a scavenger hunt or something.  I really got the biggest adrenaline rush before knocking on her door and we were able to teach her an awesome lesson when we went.  Hopefully she will continue to be interested, but that was really awesome!

Things are definitely changing here and we can feel it start to progress towards fall.  The weather is really cooling down and raining a ton--I got to break out my raincoat and my umbrella that I thought I wouldn't need until Brazil!  My umbrella even turned inside out one day as we were walking because it was so windy.  We looked like idiots, but we were having a great time in the rainstorm!  The ward is changing too.  We are having so many people coming and going. It's pretty sad actually because some of the members who I have gotten really close to are leaving soon so they can go to school other places.  I love them tons and I will miss them!  But that's kind of how missions are.  We are getting sooo excited for fall semester to start though!  There were many people who were awesome investigators way back in April who had to leave for summer break so we are excited to be able to meet with them again.  

I really do love it here and I am excited to see what this week brings!  Things are awesome with Sister Christensen and Sister Probert as well.  They are my best friends and I love being able to do something I love so much with people whom I have grown to love so much,  Life couldn't be better!

Have a great week everyone!

Sister Dixon