This week was a little different because our Zone Leaders told us not to count people as new investigators until after we have had a sit-down appointment. Which is great because this way we are weeding out those people who are not really committed to learning about the gospel, which gives us more time to find those that are. It just doesn't make our numbers look as good. Which is fine. But then we do a lot of setting up appointments and not having people show up... but! We now have three people that have committed to being baptized and about ten people that are really solid that we are teaching. It's been great. Dominique and Qiuyuan are doing great and both came to church. They have dates set along with Rachel who really wants to get baptized but her mom has heard false things about our church and isn't really happy about it all. We are praying for her mom to have her heart softened so she can learn what we really believe and accept her daughters decision.

We've done a lot, a LOT of contacting this week and found a girl named Shannon who came the same day and let us teach her the first lesson. She had somewhere to be and so we went very fast, praying she would understand it all. At the end I asked her, "When you come to know that these things are true for yourself, would you be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority?" She responded like I had asked her a silly question, "Yeah, of course!" :) I really really liked that answer. The Lord is preparing his children to receive this restored gospel! And I just love that it really does make sense! Jesus Christ's original church is back on the earth today and we can pray and ask God if this is His church and know for ourselves! It's so simple! And beautiful! I love it.

For Regan it's not that simple or beautiful. She just doesn't want to be Mormon. Which makes us sad because we know all the joy and blessings that come from this gospel and we love her so much and want to to have them! But the cool part is how the spirit has been guiding our lessons and she hears exactly what she needs to hear and by the end her heart is softened. She likes meeting with us and loves to feel the spirit. Hopefully we can help her to see that she can have that spirit with her all the time if she wants to. Oh Regan. :)

So Sister Huppi and I work hard. But we also have a lot of fun together... we just get along really well. Has anyone ever seen Balto? We quote that together- hence my title. She also grew up enjoying pickles and even drank the pickle juice like me!! She's so full of energy all the time and is just a joy to be around. She converted me to eating peanut butter out of a jar and eats all my leftovers and things that are way too old to eat. Haha- it's great. She also feeds me carrots when my hands are busy. We are currently laughing as we share what we are writing together. She's also super buff and motivates me to get in better shape. We have a lot of fun together and I'm sure that our friendship will continue through the years. Hopefully we can serve together again!

Oh and we may or may not be planning on pulling our mattresses onto our balcony tonight to have the closest thing to camping as a missionary can get.

On campus we met this young man named Uriane who showed interest and came to the appointment we set up with him. He has had an extremely rough past and is definitely searching for truth. He has a strong belief in God and is going into aero-space engineering. We had a really spiritual lesson with him and are excited to teach him more. He also expressed a desire to be baptized in the first lesson. His fiance will hopefully be able to learn as well so that they can one day have an eternal marriage. :) Yay for families!

We taught Dominique and went to a baptism with her so she could see what they are like. It was a good experience and I'm glad she was able and willing to be there. She's such a rock star. We taught Matt again, Josh couldn't be there because he was too busy.... Matt read from the Book of Mormon and really liked learning about the plan of salvation. This kid is solid and is really wanting to know if this is true and also has said he will get baptized when he knows that it is. MAN I LOVE THIS WORK! Mm :) So great.

We were walking down campus and I saw a sign that said, "Talk to a Muslim" and there was a guy sitting by it reading. I asked him if we could talk to him and he told us all about what they believe. So interesting! I loved learning about it and comparing it to what we believe. He was such a cool person and we set up a time to meet again and have another discussion so we could share what we believe as well. It's interesting how similar our beliefs are but how the minor differences effect everything. I love learning about other religions and cultures. I have so much respect for that guy, aaand kind of wanted to take his idea of putting up a sign. Haha, but I won't.

I was asked to speak in church last minute to fill in for someone who couldn't do it and wrote the talk in the morning before it started. I talked about faith and hoped it would help our investigators that were there. Not as many came as we were planning on but it was good to see Dominique and Qiuyuan there. Love those girls.

This morning we went and played Frisbee golf, which was really fun. Then Sister Huppi and I had a picnic and wrote letters. Well, hope you all are happy and reading your scriptures! Jesus loves you!!!!

Sister Collett