Aug. 6,2012

Lisa at the Diag at the University of Michigan July 2012

The cube!!  Supposedly the biggest spinning cube in the U. S. Who knows  Pretty awesome though right??

Hello Family!!!! :)
I can't believe all of the exciting news in your letters this week!!!
Ha ha, its so crazy to think that there really is a "normal life"
going on outside of what we do as missionaries! I'm SUPER DUPER
excited to find out where Ben goes!! His call came SO fast!!! AHHHH!
That's so crazy!! :) And Mom and Dad going to New York- i can't
believe how close you will be! You'll fly right over me!! And upstate
NY is only like a 5 hour drive! HA HA! We were actually discussing
this with one of the people we were teaching this week and talking
about how CLOSE everything is here in the eastern US. Pittsburgh,
where Riss is at is only a 5 hour drive, NY is super close, the ward
was talking about organizing a trip to Nauvoo to do baptisms one
Saturday, Chicago is only like 3 hours away. . . . I guess what all of
this means is that I'm going to HAVE to come back and visit!! :) With
all of these places so close, it would be silly not to come back and
visit! Oh yeah, and Canada is like 2 hours away! So crazy- but lots of
fun!!!

This week has been a good one! It was interesting. . . we are heading
into YET ANOTHER of those lovely transitional stages that we have come
to love so much! Summer semester is wrapping up in the next week or
two and then at the beginning of September, school will start again. I
am SO excited for school to start again!! There are going to be so
many people!!! It's gonna be great!! But, even with all of the
craziness, we still had some pretty sweet tender mercies! On Thursday
all of our appointments fell through so we got to spend the entire day
contacting. The thing is, S Decker is super intimidated by
"contacting" so we have affectionately renamed it "Happy Time!" We got
A LOT of happy time that day! Ha ha, it was one of those days that
even though we were doing our very best, smiling, being happy, talking
to everyone, waving to people as they walked by and EVERYTHING. . . .
nobody wanted to talk to us! We were feeling a bit down, so we took a
minute, said a quick little prayer and had the impression to walk a
way we had never gone before. We had prayed for direction, so we took
the prompting and acted! As we walked we kept trying but still no one
wanted to listen. . . we ran into a member and that was fun (it
doesn't happen very often) but by this time we were almost to the
hospital on the far side of campus. We felt like it was time to head
back to our more populated area so as we headed back, we crossed the
street and this cute little older lady walked around the corner. She
had a map in her hands, but you could tell she was completely lost! We
talked to her for a few minutes and said we would walk with her and
try to help her find the way to where she was going. As we walked of
course we just started talking. . . . it was the greatest!!! She
totally opened up and even though we didn't find the place she was
looking for, she found so much more!!! She found hope in the message
of the gospel we shared, she found love from 2 complete strangers and
felt comfortable enough with us before she left to give us both a hug,
and she found love from her Heavenly Father in the simple act of
service that we did as we walked with her! Before we left she gave us
her name, address and phone number and told us that, "You should all
come by sometime and teach me more about all these things! And I want
to come to church too!" It was so amazing for us to see how Heavenly
Father can use us to do his work! We were able to listen to promptings
of the spirit, go where we needed to go, at just the right time and
talk to all of the right people! Such a blessing to remind Me and help
S Decker see how God will guide us as we exercise our faith and go to
work! :)

At church yesterday, Hunaid was confirmed and received the gift of the
Holy Ghost! It was so great!!!! The smile on his face was the BEST! He
was a little nervous, but the Bishop just put his arm around him and
everything went super smooth. It was really neat because at the
baptism last week we had everyone write their testimonies on a little
note card and we made a little book for Hunaid with all of the note
cards. We decorated the front with his baptism picture and made it
look all nice, then we also wrote down his confirmation blessing and
put that with all of it. When we met with him last night and gave it
to him he was so floored! He just kept flipping through the book,
reading the cards, looking at the picture and reading his blessing! He
looked at us and said, "WOW!!! Thanks so much man! This is REALLY
something, it means a lot! I'm SO touched!" We were super excited that
he loved it so much! We even asked him how he felt last week and put
that on a note card too, so now he can keep it forever and always look
back and remember his special day! :) It was perfect! :)

So, the other great news we got this week is that: ANNY IS GETTING
BAPTIZED!!! Anny is someone we met on campus couple of months ago.
When we met her, she barely spoke any English, but we invited her to
church and she said she really wanted to come. Then we ran into her
again, and again she told us she wanted to come to church! This time
though, we were able to get her number and help her understand where
to meet for a ride and what time. Well, she came to church and LOVED
it!! She told us she would be there EVERY week. Well, to make a long
story short, she did come. . . every week she was there! Then we found
out she was married and gave her as a referral to the Saline sisters
who have been teaching her for about 3 weeks. Well, they called us
last night and told us she is on date to be baptized on August 25, and
asked if we could be there to support her! We were SO excited!!! It
was so neat!! Heavenly Father really knows what he is doing! :) Ha ha,
S Thompson and I were just out contacting and invited her to church
and now look what he has in store for her!! Miracles never cease!! :)

We have specialized training this week, so we are pumped for that and
already this week is looking busy and happy! :) (That's the way we
like it!) ;) S Decker is doing great. She is a great teacher!! It's so
nice to have her cause she just jumps right in and shares what she is
feeling. We make a great team! :) Yesterday we were teaching this cute
little Chinese man. He was having trouble understanding what we were
talking about, so S Decker jumped up to the white board and started
using some Chemistry analogy! (Ha ha, it was great!! He is studying
Chemistry here so it all totally made sense!!!) After that it all came
together beautifully! She was totally inspired! :) Then he was able to
relate and you could just see all the puzzle pieces fitting together
in his mind. It was great too cause we had just barely studied
"Teaching People, Not Lessons." I think that she totally nailed that
one! :) It's so fun to have someone who is just so stinking cute! I
love her, the ward loves her and all of our investigators love her!
She's FANTASTIC!!!

Well, family!! my time is about up!! I've gotta get going, we promised
the Saline sisters that we would make them lunch today and we still
have to go shopping so we have food to make!!! ha h! Oops!! :) But I
hope you are all doing great! Thanks for your awesome examples, your
prayers, and all that you do! I have the very best family in the whole
wide world!!!

Love you ALL THE BESTEST!!!

Love,
Sister Bishop