Ups and Downs

( Our ESL Class)

Dear Family,
I love you.
This week had a few ups and downs. Both Andy & Fei told us separately that both of their families do not support their decision to be baptized, and because of that, they feel that they must put it off. In China, receiving the blessing of one's parents is a prerequisite and a very large determining factor. Most will not do something that their parents do not approve of. Despite this, I believe that time will fix it. Both have said that they are praying for their families to support them.
We did have many good and wonderful things happen as well, those little miracles that are often too numerous to mention.
I'm not sure what to write today.
I love the Lord. I know that Heavenly Father cares about me and hears my prayers. I have come to understand the enabling power of the atonement more in the last months than ever in my life. This is part of my "Divine Cirriculum". Every experience we have is not happenstance. It was devised by Him to help us come unto Him. This is truth.

I love you all,

Sister Colvin

Hi Everybody It's ME!

Dear Family,
This week was wonderful!
Little Andy is going to be baptized in October!!!! I also found out the eternal investigator in Theodore got baptized this week! This is one of the biggest miracles I have seen thus far! Also this week, we the zone set goals for new investigators this week.....well, Troy missionaries didn't find any!! I felt bummed, but President said that the zone still exceeded its' goals even without the two best areas in the zone (our are and the elders here). The cool thing is that I think it was meant to happen that way. At the end of that night, Fei said she wanted to be baptized in October too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's what I wrote to President: I have been thinking about why we (and the Elders) didn't find any new investigators on Saturday. I have to admit, it was somewhat disheartening. It is easy for the adversary to put thoughts in one's head such as: " Maybe you just didn't have enough faith" etc. I feel I have found the answer. I evaluated the Elders' and our experience that day. I know that all of us had enough faith, yet we did not see the results we desired. My thoughts were directed to the army of Israel when the Lord decided that only a part of the army should go to battle so that He could show both the enemy and His people that He had power to enough to accomplish things with small numbers. The zone still exceeded its goals!
I believe that we learned last time that we could see miracles with faith. This time, I believe we learned the next lesson, that being that miracles are also dependent upon His timing and will. ( Work + Faith + His Will = Miracles)
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ANyways, Heavenly Father knows best. I am glad to know that. Also Brother Qi got the Melchizidek priesthood yesterday!!!!! And President Summerhays, during his talk (STake conference) asked Brother Qi to get up there. He asked him a few questions and had hin bear his testimony. It was so wonderful! Brother Qi's girlfriend (who he taught the gospel to over the internet) has accepted the gospel and wants to get baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love life!
-Sister Colvin

LONG LETTER for a crazy/good week

Hi Family,
Thank you for that package!! IT was great!! THANK YOU!
Wow this week WAS COOL.
We had SO many appointments. So here's how it goes: We meet everyone in what is called the Trojan Center. We basically stay there all the time while our different students/investigators come and go. One day we had to sit for 5 straight hours!! That was painful but good. We had an amazing lesson w/ Fei Wang and little Andy(t'would take too long to tell you all the details).
We had our ESL class on Saturday, and we had 13 students show up. A bunch of them came up to us afterwards practically begging to come to church. One girl said, " Oh I'm so happy to see you both!" We were like, "Uh..thanks...good to see you too." Then she said, " I went to your church in Korea." We said" What?!" She said," Yes, and I'm a member. I've been here a month and didn't know there was a church here." WOW.
Later we had to meet w/ Bro. Enslen ( guy from northern Alabama who sat by Sasha on the plane and is the one who referred him to us), Sasha, and his friend Tony who is from Kiev, Ukraine. Well Sasha, in my opinion is pretty lame. We think he's taking advantage of Bro. Enslen because he spends money taking him out & etc. Anyways, the plan was that we would accompany them to the Troy VS: Alcorn State football game. Oh my, it was the most boring, torturous time of my life. I do NOT like watching football! Plus, i thought that games were just an hour! I was bored before the end of the 1st quarter. Plus, the other team's Dance team...was so dirty...then to add to that their marching band (the entire band) was totally dirty too!! It was the worst any of us have ever seen. I was waiting for lightning bolts to be sent down! ANyways, Alcorn State was the worst team in existence. The score was something like 65-0. Sasha was being a punk to me the whole time. He kept ignoring me. The redeeming factor of it all was that we met Tony, who is super nice and interested in the gospel!


Anyways, we had 3 chinese and 1 japanese people/person at church yesterday. It was so cool! They are all wonderful!!
THe japanese guy's name is Shin and says his favorite thing to do on weekends is to drink... It was funny, earlier in the week, we got invited to one of the students parties. We ended up having to leave early because people were drinking but not before we see Shin walk in with a huge bottle of liquor...oh man!
Oh yeah, also funny this week: I was talking to a girl who informed me that she was Buddhist. Well, we've been sharing an inspirational story called "The Golden Buddha" it's about seeing your inner-potential ....blah, blah....... SO I just started telling her this story and well, she started crying!!! Apparently it was a " spiritual" story for her since she's buddhist. Then I got to thinking, " My purpose is to bring souls to Christ.....not to Buddha!" What kind of missionary am I? haha
WEll anyways enough of my crazy week.
love y'all,
Sister Colvin

Amazingness

Dear Everyone, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABRIELLE!!!!!!!!!!
This week was amazing!!!
We taught so much. We taught two people how to pray, and one received his answer in our closing prayer(that God exists). I love this! We have a new investigator we call Bro. Liu(from China...same town as Brother Qi) He is great! He had tears in his eyes throughout church and was able to witness Tianchi receive the Priesthood! We also got a new member in our branch named Terrance. He is actually from Taiwan, was baptized a year ago, and speaks Mandarin. Well, Family, he is the one who ordained Tianchi to the office of a Priest! Also, he gave the blessing in Mandarin which must have been so special to Tianchi, Brother Qi, Brother Liu, and himself (it being his first time to ever do that).
Everything is going amazing!!! We feel that Andy will be baptized soon. All of the classes we are teaching are very successful. In all of our classes combined, we are teaching over 40 people. Things are happening here! Anyways this week was just great! We taught people from China, Nepal, Korea, Japan, Morroco. There was a creep from Nepal who was trying to seduce me in the library...yuck! Today, we met with a guy from Belarus (a small country between Russia and Poland). His name is Sasha and he speaks Russian... I met a sister missionary in the MTC who was from Russia. She wrote a bunch of Russian phrases on a piece of paper and gave it to me...Luckily I was able to find it and practice some Russian on him !! Anyways, he was nice and said I would survive in Russia. We also gave him a Book of Mormon in Russian. We'll see what happens.....
Something funny:
We are grading a paper for one of our chinese students....in it he said that the U.S. should make Iraq the 51st state. Also, another student (also from China) gave me some advice for when I look for a husband...haha Here it is,
" He needs to be like a Father so he'll take care of you, a Husband so he'll spoil you, and a Gentleman so He will respect you."
I don't know, I thought that was pretty funny.
Well, I love y'all.

EVACUATION!!! j/k

Dear Family,
No, we were not affected that much by the hurricane...just some rain. JAKE are you evacuated? what's going on???? I asked people to pray for you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Yours is the day before President Summerhays. Did you have a good birthday? Well, Troy is so wonderful! We had double the amount of students at our English class and have been able to set up appointments with all of them to provided a one-on-one study which has been very fruitful in the past. We finally get to start teaching a japanese student!!
Also, we got a new investigator this week through abnormal means. We were talking to a man named John who, after a while, we realized just wanted to bash with us. Well, a student named H. that I met very briefly only minutes before, came over and joined the conversation. I was really wishing that he had not because it wasn't the most ideal conversation. ANyways, I just had a prayer in my heart and tried to follow the spirit. Well, this H. began defending us even though he'd never talked to us before. It was amazing! Afterwards he talked with us and became our new investigator. WOW!
PS: Jake & Ammon: since you are teaching Chinese people....I would suggest getting a Mandarin Preach My Gospel. You will not be able to read it, but they will. I have been informed it is actually a better translation than even the Book of Mormon and has proved very helpful. I am going to try and get Brother Qi & Tianchi to write their testimonies in Mandarin, and I'll send it to you both incase that would help. As far as getting them a BOM in Mandarin you will need to determine whether they read Simplified or Traditional Characters. Also a good thing to keep in mind is that many of them will just SAY that they understand what you're telling them to avoid feeling stupid. You will need to teach mainly by using questions. We have found it useful to give copies of Preach my gospel Ch3 and have them actually study that in preparation for the next meeting. Also, have them watch Finding Faith.. and the restoration in Mandarin has proven to be very helpful also. Another thing, it is custom in China (especially in business deals etc) to offer a drink(usually alcohol or tea). It is also considered highly insulting to refuse an offered drink. SO, you're going to have to help them understand that even if someone else offers them a drink that is not in line with the word of wisdom that they still need to decline. Umm.....what else.... just remember they have most likely had no background of any kind of christianity so don't take anything for granted. One student was having difficulty because we did not explain what chapters and verses were...etc..
ANyways, much of this may be quite obvious or something you already knew, but hopefully, something will help. If you want, either of you, I can give you the email addresses of our chinese bretheren here and your investigators can corespond with them that way. It would be great because one of them is set apart as a branch missionary.
Well, Love y'all have a great week!
Love SIster Colvin