Mother's Day

Hola mi familia!!!

It was so amazing to get to talk to you all this Sunday!! It felt short for sure, but I am so grateful for every minute we had! Some missions only get 20-30 minutes, so I felt spoiled to have a whole hour.

Sadie was really excited to show off her Chia Willie during our Skype call!

This week was so crazy!  I have really been focusing lately on following promptings of the Spirit immediately, and really going with my first gut feeling.  As Tirado and I really worked hard for that, we definitely saw benefits.  Heavenly Father had this perfect plan laid out for us this past week.  On Saturday and Friday especially, we were able to see just how it worked.  Everything kind of organized itself, and we ended up teaching 8 lessons on Saturday!! It was a crazy day.

Saturday morning we had a finding activity in downtown Stamford where we focused on family history and familysearch.org.  We are super blessed here to have a senior couple, the Drapers, who are Family Search specialists (they are from Carmel, IN, but they don't know the infamous Dodson fam over in Danville).  We contacted people on the street and then would invite them inside the library where other missionaries and the Drapers would help them get started!  We were able to talk to a lot of people about their families, and were able to testify of the strength that comes from knowing your ancestors and their stories, especially if they are members of the Church (read this talk from conference: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/roots-and-branches?lang=eng&query=family+history).  It was a really fun activity.  Tons of people are interested in their families, which kind of surprised me.  But the Spirit of Elijah is real, and it touches everyone's hearts.

One of the biggest struggles this week has been the T family, since Wendi doesn't want to come to church (but hasn't told us that, and we haven't been able to meet with her), and Sandra got another job and she works basically all day.  It's been funny though, because these last two weeks it has been suuuuper rainy, and it is supposed to continue to be rainy this next week too.  Yesterday we went to go see Sandra, but she was headed to work so we couldn't come in.  She told us though that if it rains, she can't do her first job and she stays at home.  It hit me that as much as I don't like the rain, God is sending us the rain so that we can work with her!!  So sorry, to the rest of Norwalk/Stamford area, you are going to be getting a lot of rain these next few weeks!!! Haha.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, that is for sure.

"Tirado has this thing where she feels the need to pick up every cat in Norwalk….they may or may not like it!"

On a more funnier note, we are currently teaching Jorge, an 8-year-old member of our ward who is getting baptized at the end of the month. His parents are recently re-activated, and their family is AMAZING. Jorge is a typical 8-year-old: crazy, super smart, and hilarious.  I have learned so much about teaching kids through him... Haha.  Yesterday we taught him the Plan of Salvation using a picture diagram.  As part of the diagram, we use a little cut out picture of a boy.  We take the cut-out boy through the plan as part of the demonstration.  We asked Jorge to name the kid, and he decided on the name "Napkin".  Somehow, by the time Napkin made it through the plan, Jorge was convinced that we come down to the earth on jetpacks, his sister is going to go to the stars (if you know what that means...), and Jorge is going to go live on the sun.  But no worries, we cleared everything up--at least we hope so ; )  Also he has been reading every day at least one story from the Book of Mormon picture books and he loves it!  Even little kids can read and understand and feel joy that comes form learning about the Book of Mormon.  Parents shouldn't be nervous or afraid that they will not understand, because even if they don't understand, they will at least FEEL the power that comes from that book.

Love you tons!!

Sister Dodson

This Week

Hola mi familia!

This week has been an awesome, faith promoting, hard working week!  We are really putting our all into helping the Lord's work move along.

Saturday night our ward had a CRAZY Mother's Day party. It was so much fun. We have a couple of professional chefs in our ward so the food was amazing, and the entertainment was awesome. There is a member in our ward who sings better than Marc Anthony and Prince Royce combined, and he sang a few songs, plus the elders put together a pretty unique performance... They got permission to do the Hakka and it was HILARIOUS. They did an awesome job. Hope their mothers were proud! They wanted all us sisters to do it too, but it's not exactly the most feminine dance there is out there... Haha.  We respectfully declined. : )

At the ward Mother's Day party w/ some cute YW.

We have really been focusing on growing in faith and working on acting in our faith lately. We had the goal for a family baptism this month, and decided that meant three people. Yesterday we had an amazing interview with our awesome Sister Training Leaders (STLs) and they showed us Matt. 17:20. When we have faith even as a tiny mustard seed, we can move mountains.  Sister Tirado and I were so inspired after this we decided to double our goal and go for 6 baptisms. At this point our district has a goal of 20 baptisms altogether. It is so exciting and  also INSANE! We are working so hard. Hold your breath, people. This is going to be the most rockin' cycle yet.

At a member's house for lunch.

With that goal, we have been focusing on Sandra and family, who are progressing pretty well.  They are ready, but not quite aware of it. She knows she needs to repent and be completely willing to make the sacred covenants (yeah, she's so ready), and she feels like it's going to take a long time to get there. But I know The Lord will work with her and we will be having a baptism this month (plus 5 more!!)

Love you all! Can't wait to talk to all of y'all!

Love,

Sister Dodson

4/30/2014

Sorry, the blog posters were on vacation last week.

April 30, 2014

Hola mi familia!!

This week has been a CRAZY one!! We have had a lot of miracles happen, and the work is really catching fire.  I guess President's talk about faith last week really boosted us, and now as we've been relying more on the Lord's abilities, He is really making amazing things happen.

Anyway, here is my top 7 from the week!

7. We FINALLY were able to meet with Janet again!  Turns out she hasn't been avoiding us specifically, but she has been really stressed and depressed and hasn't wanted to talk to anybody.  We found her in the park and were able to teach her and her three sisters an awesome lesson about prayer and fasting.  Hopefully she can find the strength to let us in, because we share the only message that can truly heal and strengthen her!

6. We met with a less active who hasn't been visited in years!  We had an amazing lesson that the Spirit definitely led.  We taught the Restoration, and in the end she told us she felt just like Joseph Smith--she has no idea what the truth is and is completely confused about which church to go to. We felt so blessed that Heavenly Father helped us find and understand her needs!

5. Today is transfers!! Tirado and I are staying!! And thank goodness, because our area is blowing up, and we just have tons of fun all the time.

4. One of the sisters in our district, Sister Hansen, is leaving :( BUT GUESS WHO IS COMING IN??!  Sister Livingston!!!!!! (Sadie's MTC companion)  I am so excited!!

3. Monday was Hermana Tirado's birthday! I made her a waffle cake for breakfast, then we went to lunch and dinner at members' houses, who are both Mexican. It was delicious and felt like home for her. We basically only celebrated with food... Haha. We were also able to teach Wendi, Sandra's 17-year-old daughter, who is AMAZING.

2. WE MET A DOMINICAN FAMILY!!!! Oh man, I miss Dominicans. The mom is a less active, (referred to us by the ward) who hasn't been to church in probably 20+ years.  The 3 kids are between the ages of 8-14, and are not members.  The mom has decided that she wants to take her kids to different churches and let them learn and then choose for themselves what is right.  We are so excited to be able to teach this family! I know that if they put their hearts into it, they will feel the Spirit testify of the truth of our message.

1.  On Sunday we had the amazing opportunity to go with about 6 priesthood holders from our ward to go bless and dedicate the home of our investigator, Sandra.  The Spirit was so strong as our Elder's quorum president testified of the protection and peace that comes from a home built upon the Savior.  I felt so overwhelmed with love and gratitude to have grown up in a home where faith is a key factor, and where the Savior and His teachings are also taught and lived.  I LOVE this family!! They have been so prepared to receive the Restored Gospel.

I am so excited for this next cycle. By the grace of a God, He has helped us to know the specific needs of almost everybody we are teaching. I know this is The Lord's work. It softens hearts and changes lives for the better.

Love you all,

Sister Dodson

Protected by Angels

Hola mi familia!!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter week because I definitely did. It was a crazy one, but was great.

Last week in Relief Society the missionary dinner calendar was passed around but only a couple people signed up.  One of the members of the presidency got up and said really sweet things about not wanting us missionary to starve, and next thing you know, we were fed every single day last week!  We even got fed twice one day!! It was such a blessing and I am truly grateful that people are willing to share a little something with us.  We have definitely been working out a little harder this week too... Haha.

Found a Boston Market! Yumm.

On Monday we had an AMAZING conference with President Morgan.  We are so spoiled to have such an inspired leader like him.  He talked to us about focused faith generates power.  It was so inspiring.  We talked about how power in God changes destiny and as we put faith in God's capabilities and not our own, our work becomes His work, and together we find success.  I have seen that I have had a loss of faith in being bold and and that I look at the small picture not the big one. Instead of seeing an investigator with the goal of baptism and with the goal of the temple marriage and the Celestial Kingdom, I find myself focusing on going in and having a good lesson.  Having faith that they will be home or something.  For the rest of the day Monday and Tuesday I really tried to focus on that and I could really see more fruits of my faith.  We had a really good day yesterday where we were really able to teach with power.  Sometimes I chicken out on boldly calling people to repentance or boldly inviting to baptism and stuff like that.  Yesterday I really prayed to be bold and put all my faith in God's capabilities.  As I trust that His words will come out, I felt comfortable being bold.  We were able to teach some really powerful lessons.  People are really going to start progressing here. I can feel it.  BOOYA.

Later Monday night we really had a trial of our faith! You would think that the sketchy stuff would take a break upstate, but I am kind of in the ghetto still... Haha.  At about 8:30 we headed to the super ghetto part of Norwalk to do some less-active lookups, but we had no luck. Anyways, so we head back to the car.  This white mid-size SUV comes and pulls up behind our car, which we thought was a little strange, but also parking is hard to find there, so we weren't that weirded out.  We get in the car and immediately after we pull out, this white car follows right behind.  We started to take a different road to make a weird u-turn, and he follows.  We definitely thought it was strange, but we were headed towards a big road so figured maybe this guy was just heading to the same road.  But he kept following us.  We got on the main road, then had to switch lanes super quick to be able to turn where we needed to turn.  Immediately he followed right behind.  And what was even stranger was that he wasn't sneakily following a few yards or so behind us, but he was tailgating us like crazy.  We started to take back roads and at one point lost him, so we figured maybe he wasn't following.  We turned up a street and he had gone straight.  I look back about five seconds later and see that he had already flipped a u-y and was halfway through the interesection.  He stopped, backed up, and then turned up our street and next thing we know was right behind us again.  After about 10 minutes of this, we decided to take a few more strange roads and if he still followed, we would call the elders or maybe the cops.  We turned into a one-way neighborhood and he continued to go straight.  But at this point we called the elders and told them what was going down.  As we came out of the neighborhood, he had turned and must have been waiting for us at the exit because once again he was right on our tail.  The elders told us to just keep taking windy roads and we would meet up at their apartment.  We took a long time getting to the elder's apartment, but the whole time he was still right there.  We decided at this point to say a prayer.  I definitely wasn't freaking out, but my heart was definitely pounding.  Luckily we had filled up on gas that morning, so I knew we could go miles, but even still it's not a good feeling having somebody who saw you walking try to follow you home.  The moment I bowed my head and said "Nuestro Padre Celestial", my heart calmed down.  I felt at peace and was able to pray for the help of our God and that He would send angels to protect us. After the prayer we felt more at ease.  After about 10 more minutes we passed through an intersection by the elder's house and then approached another one. The car stopped about 30 or so feet behind us.  We then turned, and he continued on straight.  It was the most random thing.  We didn't lose him, he just left.  At this point he had followed us for a good 25 minutes.  We took crazy roads for about 5 more minutes with no sign of him and then arrived at the elder's pad.  We probably should have called the cops, but we definitely had more faith in the power of God than the power of man... Hahaha.  We said a prayer together, then took some things off our car that made it a bit more conspicuous, and headed on home.  Definitely The Lord protects us as we do His work. And as we really put faith in Him and His plan for us, we see Him guiding us. I  know angels are here on the earth and they protect us.

I love this gospel and know it's true!! I feel the power of it everyday.  I know as we pray for guidance and peace, The Lord will send it.

Love you all,

Sister Dodson

Spring has Sprung!

Hola mi familia!!

Just another week in Stamford, CT! Spring has FINALLY began to sprung! Instead of looking outside and seeing dead trees, we are starting to see blossoms and flowers.  I love it!  (My allergies don't, but I'm just so happy it's starting to warm up, I don't even care. Haha.)

The work is still continuing here! This week we were blessed with a miracle and 2 less actives we have been trying to track down, randomly showed up at church! We are feeling so blessed and excited to be able to get to know them better and help them to continue to come unto Christ.  In addition, we have been able to teach a lot of kids this week.  It has been a real learning experience for me, but I am loving it.  Kids are CRAZY and their attention span is not very long, but they are definitely closer to the premortal world than I am, and with that they are capable of feeling and understanding so much more about Jesus Christ and are able to feel the presence of God more in their lives.  But seriously, thank you to my primary teachers, because kids go about a million miles a minute... Haha.

Beach day!

 Last Tuesday we went looking for a less active who lives in an apartment building.  We have been working on going through our ward list and contacting all unknowns. This person didn't live there anymore, but we had time, so we decided to tract the building.  We only knocked a couple doors, but in one of the first apartments we knocked lived a young man (probably like 20 yrs old) named Dean.  We started to talk to him a little, he told us he believed in Christ but didn't know a lot about Him, we gave him a pamphlet and our information, got his information, talked some more, he was interested in learning a little more, and we ended up leaving him a Book of Mormon. Yesterday we took the English elders over to his apartment to meet him.  After their lesson with Dean we received a text from the Elders: "Had a legit lesson and set a bap date with Dean!!!!!!" Sister Tirado and I kind of started freaking out!! Oh man, we were soooo excited for Dean! Even though he is not our investigator and we will not be teaching him, it is a testimony builder to see that God truly is leading us to the people who are ready to hear the gospel.

If you haven't had the chance to see the "Because of Him" video produced by the Church, please check out easter.mormon.org.  This video is AMAZING.  We have been able to show it to tons of people this week, and every time we watch it the Spirit is so strong.  Jesus Christ truly broke the bands of death, and because He did, we can too.  Death is not the end, it is just a step to the next phase.  If it weren't for death, we wouldn't be able to end this life on earth and reach our Heavenly Father.  And if it weren't for the Savior, we would not be able to be like our Father with perfect bodies, or even be able to live in His presence.  I know our Savior lived, died, and lives again! I will also be posting this video on my Facebook page and daily posts this week about the Savior's last days of mortality, so check it out!

Love you all!! No super awkward stories this week... Except Sister Tirado keeps running over me with the car... Haha.  As a missionary rule, one of the missionaries has to be outside the car and directing the other missionary as they back up.  Some times Sister T. doesn't stop and backs up right into me.  Hahaha.  But better me than another car!

Love,

Sister Dodson

General Conference!

Hola mi familia!!

I am still loving how Heavenly Father is guiding us, as well as guiding the people here in the area.  One day this week we were tracting around a street doing less-active lookups.  We found this building that had a lot of apartments and so we decided it was a good place to knock!  In this building we ended up finding a member who was baptized 15 years ago in Honduras, but was convinced that when she moved here 12 years ago she was no longer a member.  Crazy!!  While talking to this inactive, a lady kept passing and going into the door behind us.  I looked back, and she looked suuuuper familiar to me, and she smiled at me as she passed.  And then it hit me that she is the non-member sister of one of our recent converts! She had come to church last Sunday with her daughters, but we weren't able to get any information.  God blessed us with a miracle to find her!  We are now teaching her and her two daughters : )

Sister Tirado looooovveeees Peeps marshmallows!

After this, we decided to knock one more door.  We found a 30-year-old woman named Yanet, and we began to talk to her.  Dude. Yanet is super super super duper prepared to hear the gospel. Yanet told us a story about how her 15-year-old daughter lives in Utah because of immigration issues.  Apparently when her daughter came from Hondruas, her daughter was adopted by a Mormon family in St. George Utah! The Mormon family has let Yanet have contact with her, and they communicate a little through Facebook.  Her daughter was baptized and is thinking about going on  a mission.  This was a great conversation starter for us because Yanet had really no idea what a mission was.  We were able to explain to her what we do as missionaries and how the sacrifices we make are worth every effort.  Yanet also told us that Her mother and her nephews are also members in Honduras. She then began to tell us that Her father died a few years ago, and she was mad that he died and she didn't believe in a God. But then God prompted her and she was able to reconcile her feelings and realize that it was her father's time to leave this earth.

She tried to get the member's cat to knock the door... 

She said she prayed and asked for forgiveness that she didn't believe in God. She said she felt happiness in that moment. The Spirit was so powerful in our less!!.  It was probably one of the most spiritual I have had on my mission.  We felt so prompted to ask her if she believed that she would see her father again.  She said "Tal vez?" (that means maybe).  We then testified that she would indeed see her dad again.  The Spirit was so powerful testifying of the truth.   Three days later we returned and taught Yanet and her husband Eduardo!!  That was the most exciting thing.  Once again, the Spirit was incredibly strong and I felt so much love for them.  We finished with an invitation to be baptized, and they said they would think about it. The greatest thing happened at the very very end of the lesson though.  We invited Eduardo to pray, and he was completely hesitant. He didn't know how to pray, and it made it him suuper nervous.  He is a shy man, so even coming out to talk to us was a little stretch for him.  We taught him how to pray, and then re-invited him to do it.  He was still hesitant.  Sister Tirado had the awesome idea that I would pray as an example, and then he could pray after me.  We did that, and Eduardo gave such a sincere beautiful prayer.  As we knelt there in their tiny apartment, the Spirit really bore witness of the power of prayer and I could feel hope for this amazing family.  I know they will come to accept the message of the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ : )

"That's my comp!! We had kind of a crazy night last night.  Hahaha.  Oh man we laugh too much.  Hahahahahahahaha."

Awkward story of the week!! So in between conference sessions on Sunday, Sister Tirado and I brought a little bit of food to eat. Sister Tirado brought a bag of popcorn to make while we waited.  We work about 30 minutes from the church, so it wasn't really worth it to head back to Norwalk, so we decided to stay and work there.  Anyways, so Sister Tirado puts the popcorn in the microwave at the church, but forgets that it's one of those smaller bags that only takes 2 minutes to pop instead of 3... Next thing we know the kitchen is smoking up and we've got burnt popcorn!! The whole entire chapel reeked like nasty burnt popcorn for the rest of the night... Oops!! Sorry!   We have a meeting there tonight (Wednesday), so we're hoping the smell has finally aired out. Haha.

Parking is crazy!!

Anyways, General Conference was AMAZING.  My spirits were lifted, and I feel so inspired as to how I can improve.  My testimony of the prophet, of Thomas S. Monson as prophet, seer, and revelator in these days was fortified.  I know he is called by God to lead us in these times where we must be strong and stand up for what we believe in!!

Love you all,

Sister Dodson

Connecticut Adventures

Hola mi familia!!

Just another week up here in Norwalk, CT!  It's crazy to believe that it's April already!  I am coming up on my 8 month mark pretty soon.

That is so crazy.  I couldn't be more grateful for the time I have already had, and for all the time I still have left!  It's going by so fast... haha.

Hermana Tirado & Hermana Dodson found some "SWAG"

This week we had kind of a funny experience as we were teaching one of our new investigators, Juana.  We found her tracting a couple weeks ago, and she is AWESOME.  She has the cutest little family, and we are so excited to bring the gospel to them.  Anyway, in our second lesson with her, we were teaching the Plan of Salvation, and had the intentions of inviting her to be baptized.  Just as we were about to finish the lesson and give her the invitation, her doorbell rang.  She got up to answer to the door, only to find a group of about 6 or so people standing there with Bibles.  We were super confused, since we knew Juana had a Catholic background, but we weren't sure if she had a Bible group she had invited over or something.  She seemed a little thrown off too though that they were there, so even though she invited them in, she still was cordial to us and sat down next to us, and let us finish part of the lesson while the other people chatted amongst themselves.  The prompting to invite her to be baptized had vanished (obviously not quite the right place or time...).  We decided to offer a prayer with these people, and then leave, avoiding a possible Bible Bash.  I stood up to say the prayer, and right when I started, immediately the Spirit left the room.  I was talking to my Father, but I couldn't concentrate, and it was not a successful prayer at all. Other religions have habits of praying along with you as you pray.  So when I started to pray, all 6 of Juana's visitors started to praise The Lord outloud.  I commend them for wanting to pray, but a room once peaceful and filled with the Spirit, turned into what sounded like a crazy Relief Society activity.  Come to find out, the visitors were member's from Juana's congregation.  Juana is inactive, and so the pastor sent them to go check up on her.  We felt so blessed that they had showed up after we had already taught Juana about prayer.  She had the opportunity to feel the difference between our prayers, since we pray in the way Christ commanded us to pray, and other forms of prayer.  They also showed up at the perfect time, preventing us from giving her a baptism invite, but also protecting her from their possible ridicule had she accepted and told them. SO now we've got a little bit of a competition with this other congregation for dear old Juana... Hahaha.  They've got cookies and juice for the kids, but we've got truth!! Bring it!!

Sadie loved riding the subway when she was in the Bronx.  She misses it…including the odd people and weird creatures. ;)

On Monday, to celebrate Elder Stephen's birthday, we went to a member's house and had a BARBECUE!! BOOYA.  The weather has been solo nice here.  Anyway, the elders rode their bikes to the BBQ, and since it is my dream to ride a bike on the mission, one of them was nice enough to let me steal it!! Woo hoo!  President is very anti-bike for sisters (modesty reasons or something like that... don't know.  I just want to ride a bike!!), so I was feeling pretty special to ride the bike around the street.  Upon hopping off the bike though, my skirt got completely wrapped about the seat and was stuck there for a while... The good news is I was wearing thick tights..Hahaha!! The bad news is that afterwards all the elders started laughing at me telling me that now I know why President doesn't let sisters ride bikes. Hahaha.  Whatevs.  I still want one.   Hahaha.

Sadie and her buddy Alexson, who was recently baptized.

I am so excited for conference this weekend!! I was able to watch the Sisters Conference and it was amazing.  I know that this is our chance to hear from the prophet of God!! It is so exciting that just like in Bible times, we can sit and listen to someone directly called of God, with His power and authority, tell us exactly what we need to know to succeed and endure to the end!! This church is true, and Jesus leads and guides it! D&C 1:38

Love you tons!!!!!

Sister Dodson