I'm still alive......in Colorado

Sorry about the day delay. Transfers are on Wednesday so they moved P-day to Tuesday so people could use it for packing. Sister Downs is moving to a new area and another Sister is taking her place. My companion is still Sister Yancey which makes me happy. The longer we're together, the more we found out how alike we are. Luckily, she laughs at all my jocks.

Momma: I haven't got your letter yet because they were holding all the mail that goes to the mission office until transfers (which are on Wednesday). I also bought a coat the first day I got here because it was 40 degrees outside. It cost me 30 dollars. This friday it is suppose to snow. They have been giving us money to get food and supplies. The first day we got here it was 35 dollars and then we got 65 dollars yesterday. We will get some more money in two weeks.

This week has been alot better since I've gotten into the swing of things and becoming more comfortable in the Area. Sister Downs and Sister Ellison had a wonderful companion inventory, which concluded with dumping water all over Sis. Yancey and I. Sister Yancey wasn't to happy about that but we let it slide because they were bonding.
This week has been hard. Every appointment we made with potential investigators, investigators, members, recent converts and inactives, fell through! Every single one! So we spent alot of time tracting (which I don't like very much) and ITLing. I realized that no matter what you say, while tracting, people will give the same response. They seem to have an automatic response. I found this out when they give really different responses to what we said. Sometimes I'll say "Christ's church has been restored to the earth" and then they'll say "I'm Christian and I'm not interested". Okay...didn't you just hear me. CHRIST's church has been restored. Some people can be quite rude to us. When we contact people on the street, half the time they won't stop and talk to us so we have to follow them and talk to them at their break neck speed. Some won't even give us eye contact. The worst is when you can see a group of people about a block away. So you start walking to them and they see you coming! So then they scatter. Then your self-esteem is crushed because you think that you smell bad or look funny or something;) But then you get the really nice people who appreciate what we are doing, even though they don't believe in it. They stop and talk with us for a little bit. So I always thought that I had to say the right things to get people to let us in to teach them. But in reality, it's the Spirit that they feel and see when they talk to us which motivates them to want to know more.

Miracles stories: We were about to drop an investigator, named Bobby, after a week of trying to get a hold of him. He was the one we taught the first lesson to. We found him while we were tracting. We had called him earlier on Sunday but there was no answer. While we were ITLing in the park, we ran into Bobby. He seemed really excited to see us and apolgized that we couldn't get a hold of him. His phone had been shut off because he hadn't been paying the bill. He asked if we could try to set up an appointment for the next day. Sis. Yancey had felt prompted to go to that park. We wouldn't have ran into him if we hadn't gone to that park. But then we couldn't get a hold of him the next day. His phone was still off and he wasn't home. But it was still a miracle.

We did have a lesson yesterday with a single mother named Kelsie. She is 24 years old with two 3-year old boys. She has had a rough life but she has tremondous faith. She reads the Bible everyday to her boys and reads them the little kids bible stories. We taught her the first lesson a week ago. We stopped by her house a few days ago just to say hi which we ended up talking to her for 30 minutes. We then went to her house yesterday to teach her the second lesson. We asked her if she had read the portions of the Book of Mormon we left her. She said she had and she had prayed about them. She then told us that she feels that they are another Testament of Christ. She had always thought that it was Joseph Smith's words and writings. But now she believes that the BofM was saved and preserved. We taught her the plan of salvation and afterwards she told us that she feels that the plan fills in the holes that the Bible leaves. We were so excited when we left and we set up another appointment with her. Yeah!!


General Conference was wonderful and many of the talks were answers to my prayers. When Pres. Monson mentioned Mongolia, I knew that that was a reasurrance from God that He has not forgotten me in Colorado and that someday I will get to teach His children there. He is always answering my prayers and offering me comfort even though sometimes feel unworthy of His love. He will always be there for me, to lead and to guide me. He wants the best for me and gives me experiences to mold me into the person he knows that I can become.

Keep the faith! The church is true!
Love, Sister Sumsion