Christmas in the City

Hola mi familia!

Once again, we have had one of the craziest weeks I've ever seen in my whole mission.  We had miracles, big laughs, and Saturday kind of felt like the twilight zone. 

Last Wednesday we had a few lessons planned, but on our way out from the church at 7:30 to a lesson, we got a text from our zone leaders saying we needed to be in casa right away because of some riots going on downtown.  Boo for riots and protestors.  So we cancelled our lesson and headed directly for the train.  With Trader Joe's bags in tow, Sister Hall stepped onto the A train.  Right as her back foot stepped onto the train, the doors slid shut.  Sister Smart and I just looked at each other in shock.  Sister Hall was on the train, and we were still on the platform! We pressed our foreheads against the glass of the windows to see Sister Hall casually walking to a bench and taking a seat.  She turned around, saw us knocking and waving at her, and her jaw dropped.  The train started to move and Sister Hall's expression of anxiety turned into laughter. Did we really just get separated on the subway the same day that we were told it was dangerous to be walking around outside? At least we were underground.  As the train drove away, Sister Smart says, "Bye Buddy! Hope you find your dad!"  We just started busting up laughing and laughed about the situation for a straight 5 minutes.  We were convinced we were going to meet Sister Hall with a wet pair of pants and boots, because we were all laughing so hard. Hahhaaaa. We hopped on the next train and found our long last “dad", and headed home.

Friday was my first Mission Leadership Council meeting! We had some really incredible special guests join us, including Elder Perkins from the 70, and the head honcho of the mission department, Elder Allen, who brought along with him the creative design team for "He is the Gift". We had an incredible discussion about how the work is moving along. "He is the Gift" is all about action, and so Elder Allen talked to us about following through. We set a goal with the South Mission to have 100,000 views of the video through December. It's a HUGE feat, but I know we can accomplish it with the help of God.  It will really help us find the people who are elect.  Elder Perkins shared other exciting news about the “Meet the Mormons” movie.  The Church has been blessed in being able to acquire contracts with stores such as Walmart, Best Buy and Costco to sell the movie beginning in May.  Also, Netflix and Red Box are going to make the movie available to viewers!

In the City, you see some ironic signage….

Saturday, since we have the most talented stake in the whole world, we went to the Stake CHRISTmas concert in the temple. There I ran into tons of missionary friends, cousin Ashley, a friend from home-Shawnie Peterson, who is serving in the South mission, Nani and Papa, and Bishop Crawley and James. It was the weirdest day.  The music was incredible!!

Yesterday was a day of TONS of miracles. We started out the morning headed to go see Juarina. The rain was pouring, and we were soaked! When we were about halfway to the train station, Sister Hall realized she forgot her metro card at home... Ha. So we ran to grab it, then headed back. As we waited at the platform, a man walked up to us said, "Oh my goodness! You look like a couple of DIVAS!  Who did your makeovers this morning?" We laughed and said thank you, and then he looked down at our tags. "You are from the Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!?! I want to be baptized!"  Cue jaw drop... Wayde then explained to us how he had received all the lessons in Connecticut and was going to get baptized, but had to emergency move here a few days ago.  We exchanged information, and hopefully we will see Wayde baptized by the english elders soon!! It was definitely a miracle of perfect timing. 

Later, we got Juked by Juarina and so decided we would go tract a building. We went upstairs to floor 2, and Sister Smart started joking about "2B, or not 2B?" So we decided to knock. A young man named Junior, about our age, opened the door and invited us in. We showed him the "He is the Gift" video, and he loved it. He was so grateful that we stopped by and asked us a lot of questions about how to choose the right in a world where there is so much bad. We set up a return appointment, and are excited to see him progress! We will probably have the elders teach him, but how exciting is that?!  We had two huge miracles before 1:00 pm! 

I know this is the work of the Lord, and I am so grateful to be a part of it. 

Love you all,

Sister Dodson

The NYC lights and decorations this time of year are magical!  On the other hand, our missionary Christmas Tree is humble, yet beautiful!