This has been another whirlwind week! We thought the festivities were over after Pioneer Day, but it turns out Preston Idaho has a massive rodeo weekend. The weekend includes a parade every night, so Saturday night our entire zone got to march in the parade. It was huge! Unlike Trenton or Newton, where the entire parade took 20 minutes and more of the town was marching than watching, This parade took over an hour. We lined up a half hour early, and were kind of at the end of the line. Thirty minutes after the parade was supposed to start, we were still standing there, and we got kind of antsy. We were told that the parade always started on time, so we were confused as to why it was so late today. Finally, someone told us that the parade had started, we were just at the end, so thirty minutes in we still hadn't moved a step. Finally, we got moving. The senior missionaries were all up in a wagon throwing candy, and the mission president showed up in a horse-drawn carriage. Most of the Elders figured out a way to get on the wagon too, but the rest of us walked the whole time. It was more fun that way because we got to wave and give high fives. When I went to give one kid a high five, I saw his hand glistening as it came down. I braced myself for the squelchy impact, and spent the rest of the parade waving even more vigorously in hopes of drying the stickyness out. It didn't work. 

Parades are fun in Utah and Idaho, because everyone's Mormon and loves the missionaries. All along the street large groups of people started whooping and hollering 'yay missionaries!' as we walked past. It was weird to think that in a little bit I'll be in Taiwan where a large proportion of the people haven't even heard of Jesus, let alone the LDS church.

Sister Anderson and I are slowly getting a feel for the area more. Around here, everyone gives country directions: turn right at the white truck, continue on past the dip in the road, and it's the reddish barn-shaped house on the left. It's probably just as well, as half the road signs have fallen over, and one confused road has two road signs that say completely different things. I have tiny little maps drawn all over my notes. I've noticed that I've started to give directions this way too. It's so much easier to say 'the house across from Sister Benson's' than to try to count down how many roads from Main Street it is. The Utah grid system makes addresses very easy to find, and very hard to remember. I've also noticed that I'm picking up a bit of the accent. I've started dropping the Gs on words ending in 'ing, and dropping the Ts in words like 'mountain' and 'Newton' and 'Trenton'. It's getting to be very serious.

I love being a missionary in this area so, so much! Every day we get to walk around meeting kind people and sharing the best news in the world. I get to spend hours studying the gospel on my own, with a companion, and in Chinese. Every day, people ask us hard questions about life and God and religion, so I have a ton to study! I'm learning so much! When your every moment is taken up in meaningful work, it's quickly apparent where your weaknesses are. I'm learning more about myself every day, and hopefully I'm improving. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to devote my life to God, and to focus entirely on being the best missionary I can be, so that I can be ready for whatever He needs me to do.

Have an amazing week!

Hull Jiemei

Pics:

1. Today a nonmember our Sister Training Leaders are working with invited a bunch of us to breakfast and then out to a hike. It was gorgeous! In the picture are Sister Enkhbold, Sister Anderson, me, and Sister Bellu. Sister Enkhbold is my Sister Training Leader.

2. The hike followed a creek up a canyon, and ended at the spring where the creek came out of the mountain. The water was cold and clean enough to drink. It was delicious! Fresh and clear.

3. We had dinner at one of our 9 bishops' house this week. He has a lovely family, and these are two of his cute girls, Quincy and Ella. 

Cow Bingo

Ok so this email's actually going to be short because I don't have

much of a choice. Today is Pioneer Day, which in Utah is a Very Big
Deal. Seriously, most of the towns here don't celebrate the 4th of
July, and instead go all out for the 24th. Of course, since we are in
rural Utah, going all out is relative. We have marched in 2 parades so
far. One of them went the length of about 4 blocks. The other went
around one block twice. Each lasted around 20 minutes, which is the
perfect length for a parade. Despite the relatively minuscule size of
the parades, people really go all out. The floats look like they've
taken weeks to build! One particularly impressive one was Harry Potter
themed, and included about 20 people dressed as various characters
including Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, Ron, and various quiddich players.

The small town festivities also include carnival games, baking
competitions, and lots and lots of pancakes. We've been running
between 5 of our 6 tiny towns helping run booths, meeting lots of
people, looking for less active and nonmember people to visit, and
serving pancakes. It's been very busy, and very fun.

Small little farming towns have their own kind of fun when it comes to
games. One town, Amalga, had an event called 'farm factor' that had a
bunch of farm themed fear factor games. For the couples game, they set
up one of those obstacle courses that trained dogs have to run through
at dog shows. One member of the couple-ship was blindfolded, and the
other member had to guide them through the course: weaving through
poles, stepping over poles, and crawling through a tunnel. The couple
with fastest time won. Some of the people on charge tried to get us to
sign up for the frisbee competition, but we regretfully declined
because we were unsure of our schedule. When we went to watch, we were
very glad we declined, because in place of frisbees the contestants
were given cow pies. Yes that's right, real, actual cow pies. We had a
good time watching them gingerly pick the pies up and try to huck them
as far as possible.

One last game we learned about is called 'cow bingo'. In it, a corral
is divided into squares, and people up for the different squares. A
cow is then released into the corral. Whenever it takes a dump, the
people whose square it lands in get a prize. I love small towns.

I'm pretty much out of time, but there's something I've been thinking
about a lot lately that I wanted to share. One of the biggest reasons
people stop coming to church out here is that someone at church
offended them (which is weird to me, because all they're doing is
denying themselves blessings). It's really shown me how each
individual's actions count. We've been working with a wonderful
nonmember family the last week or two. They're super amazing, a big
part of the community, and they share a lot of our beliefs. However,
the first time we met them, the dad, Dick, went on this long spiel
about how he could never join our church because all of his neighbors
are members, and none of them were friendly and welcoming, and some of
them said some mean things when they first moved in, and what kind of
a church could be so inhospitable?  We were rather taken aback,
because everyone we'd met in that Ward was super friendly. A couple of
days later, we asked someone from the area about it. She said that
around 8 years ago when Dick and his family first moved in, something
had happened with one of his neighbors that had created tension in the
neighborhood for quite a while. That single incident with that one
person is what Dick had been talking about with his long rant. This
week, at the town celebration, Dick and his family showed up. They
were immediately welcomed and pulled into the conversation. There were
many people wanting to chat with them. Their adorable 4 year old son
ran around talking to everyone, young and old. Still, because of that
one bad experience, Dick won't even entertain the idea of joining the
church.
Now obviously, we can't control what offends others. Dick is the one
who made the decision to hold that grudge for all those years. Still,
this experience really showed me how much people pay attention to our
actions. It's easy to rationalize not reaching out to someone new,
saying that someone else will take care of it. We don't want to crowd
people or make them feel like a project. However, people notice when
it's always the one single family trying to welcome them while the
rest of the ward goes about their business. We are more tuned in to
notice unkind words and actions than we are compliments and service.
Because of this, the actions of an individual can undo all the good a
whole group of people is doing. Please, please don't accidentally be
that individual! We represent Christ and His church, and people are
watching. Pay attention to what you do and say, because it really,
really matters.

Anyway, hopefully everyone has a wonderful week this week. I love you all!

Sister Hull
何姐妹

Hello so I apologize again for last week's email. It was abominably long. I promise that this one will be significantly shorter and more manageable. 

Since last week's email was 100% about miracles, I realized that I haven't told you much yet about my area. My companion and I cover 2 stakes. Yes, you read that right. Not two wards, two stakes. Each stake has close to 2000 people in it. One of the stakes is a normal family stake, and the other is a YSA stake. We share this assignment with an adorable senior couple, so they mainly take the YSA stake, and we mainly take the family one. 

Our family stake, the Benson stake, covers 6 tiny towns: Benson, Amalga, Newton, Trenton, Cornish, and Clarkston. I think the largest one may reach a population of 800 on a really busy day if there are several family reunions going on. The population of dogs and cats, on the other hand, is probably double that. Every house we stop at has at least 2 dogs and 3 cats. The dogs help us out a lot by barking like crazy every time we knock on a door. I wish the people we contact would be as excited to see us as their dogs are. It would make our jobs a lot easier.

Since our area is so large, we get a car! It's a 2016 Chevy Malibu, and I'm pretty sure it's smarter than me and Sister Anderson combined. Our first day driving, we spent a good five minutes trying to figure out why the car refused to move forwards, because we couldn't locate the parking break. During another one of our proud moments, we spent 20 minutes sitting at a gas station because we couldn't get the gas valve open. Turns out you push on the little panel, and it springs open. Because that makes sense. While sitting at the gas station, we finally managed to locate the owners' manual, which had been buried under a massive stack of fliers for a Book of Mormon class that the Elders had left behind. Seriously, I think there were more fliers than there are people in our stake. Now that we have instructions, we have discovered that the car auto corrects when we go out of the lane a bit. It also has a fancy type of cruise control that allows you to set a following distance so that it automatically slows down if you come up behind another car. Basically, the car drives itself while we panic inside trying to figure out what the heck is going on. It's like all those sci-fi dystopia movies where someone hacks the self driving cars, except no one's hacking anything, we just don't know what we're doing.

I'm getting a lot better at recognizing the promptings of the Holy Ghost. The other night I woke up in the middle of the night with the sudden thought that I should check to see if the door was locked. I'm not a huge fan of the dark, so it took me a bit to build up the courage to leave the safety of the bedroom. When I got into the living room, I found that the door was very unlocked. I quickly locked it, then retreated to our bedroom and locked that too for good measure. I spent the rest of the night praying that if there was a specific reason the door needed to be locked that night, other than general safety, that I would never find out why. I think I'm honestly happier not knowing.

I got to use my Chinese the other day! One of Sister Anderson's investigators from the Mandarin Branch in Logan got baptized on Saturday, so we surprised her by singing 'How Great Thou Art' in Chinese. The baptism was wonderful. The woman, Michelle, was baptized by her husband, and we got to have the service in the Logan Tabernacle, which is incredibly beautiful. It was so exciting to see this woman make the first big step in changing her life while surrounded by family and friends who were there to support and love her.

The town of Newton is honestly one of my favorite places I've ever been. Everyone's kind, honest, and hardworking. People work together and help each other out. Everyone knows everyone, so the town gossip is alive and thriving, which helps us out a lot with finding people. Coming out, I was worried about meeting unfriendly people who would yell and slam doors in our faces. Instead, we have the opposite problem. Even when we meet people who have no interest in the church, they invite us in and sit and talk to us for an hour and a half about their lives and families and stuff while we try to sneak in gospel tidbits. We've met some really cool people this way, but it's seriously interfering with our productivity. Out here, kids just ride around on their bikes together, and if one of them strays too far from home, someone in the town will bring them back. 

Every day, I am constantly amazed by the beauty of my surroundings. There are a couple of rivers, lakes, and marshes in the area, so things are decently green. Since most of the land is fields, there's nothing obstructing the view of the whole valley and the mountains. I never realized how beautiful glossy green corn and golden wheat could be. My favorite time is when we go out tracting in the evenings. The sun goes down so it's not as hot, and the sunset turns everything golden, and there's a perfect cool breeze, and I could just be out there forever. Between the beautiful surroundings and the wonderful people, it's going to be really hard to leave this place.

I may have kinda broken my promise of a short email, but I think this one's at least shorter than the last one. I hope everyone has a wonderful week full of miracles!

Love you!

Hull Jiemei

Pics: 

1. A very kind woman took a picture of me and Sister Anderson after Sunday dinner and sent it to our parents. 

2. I try not to send random landscape pictures, but the sunset the other night was too amazing not to share. This is the valley I get to live in!

3. In our ongoing series of selfies with farm animals, we met a couple of donkeys the other day. One was shy and skittish, but the other came right up to say hi and pose for a photo.

4. This is the cottage we get to live in. It's the guest home of a couple who are serving in Brazil at the moment. It's the nicest missionary apartment in the mission, so the other missionaries have dubbed it the 'Taj Mahal'. We are very comfortable. Sometimes we're too comfortable-- I've fallen asleep on the couch during language study more times than I care to admit.

Miracles for Brother Dodge

Dajia hao! 

I am officially in the Utah, Logan mission! I've been in the field for a grand total of 6 days, and I absolutely love it. I have a ton to tell about, HOWEVER, one of my MTC teachers, Brother Dodge, challenged me to email him about all the miracles I see in my first week, and since I don't want to write two emails, that's what everyone gets to read about this week! (yaayy!!) This email's going to be really long, so if you don't have much time, just look at the pictures at the bottom. If you want more info about what Newton, Utah's like, and our random adventures, you'll have to wait until next week. Anyway, on to the miracles!

1. My very first miracle happened the day we got to Logan. Our first day was mainly meeting the mission president and doing some training about how to not crash your car or trash your apartment. I guess they wanted to get us out doing missionary work right away though, so they set aside about an hour where they paired us up with a missionary in the area and sent us out to knock on doors. I was rather nervous, because I hadn't expected to get started that early and I was still getting used to the idea of saying prayers and teaching in English. I was paired with Sister Rex, and by the time we got to the street where we were going to be contacting, we only had about a half hour. We knocked on a couple of doors and met some very nice members of our church. Then, when we only had ten minutes left, Sister Rex suggested that we pray and ask which house we should visit. We did, and both felt like we should knock on a door a little ways up the street. We marched up to the door, and knocked... and there was no answer. We knocked again, still nothing. There was a large window next to the door, and we could see that the entire house seemed empty, and it looked like someone was renovating the floor. I was confused as to why we would both get a prompting to go to an empty house, but Sister Rex said that sometimes we don't learn the reason for getting a prompting. As we turned to walk away, we saw a woman pull up and get out of her car. We went over to talk to her, and we found out that she is from Taiwan! She wasn't super interested in our church, but we talked about God, and I was able to say a prayer with her in Mandarin. I guess God just needed us to stay nearby for a little longer so she could arrive, so He sent us to an empty house.

2. My second miracle is my companion. Her name is Sister Anderson, and she is amazing. She was called here English speaking, but 4 months in her assignment was switched to Mandarin so she could be a companion to a sister from Temple Square and serve in Logan's little Mandarin branch. She's only had the one Chinese companion, so all the other Mandarin study she's done has been on her own. Her Mandarin is seriously impressive for 5 months of independent study. Our mission president usually waits until he's met the new missionaries before he assigns them to a trainer, but the minute he heard I spoke Chinese, he decided that we'd be together. His wife, Sister Allred, told me the second I stepped off the bus. I'm really glad because this means I have a purpose in being here in the Logan mission. I already knew it wasn't just a random assignment, but this experience confirmed that for me. 

      Mandarin isn't the only reason Sister Anderson is a miracle. I feel like I was able to learn a ton from my companion in the MTC, Sister Fisher, because we were incredibly different people, so we learned a lot from the other person's approach to life (love you Sister Fisher!). That was perfect for the MTC, because we were all brand new there, and seeing the way others interacted with Heavenly Father and the gospel helped me grow and stretch. On the other hand, Sister Anderson and I are remarkably the same. We're both on the quiet side, and we're both studying English. Incidentally, our first names are both Sarah. We also have similar temperaments, and ways of building our testimony. I'm really grateful for this, because it means she knows how to push me and help me become a better missionary. She's incredibly thoughtful about looking for ways for me to stretch myself and get out of my comfort zone without feeling completely panicked. With her for a companion, I've barely been scared at all my first week in the field. 

3. When all of us new missionaries were introduced to our trainers, I heard a name that I recognized. It turns out that Kennedy Schultz, a girl from my stake that I've grown up going to girls camp with, is in this mission! She's training another one of the girls I came out with.

4. The people in Newton are incredible. There's a term in the mission called whitewashing, which is when both missionaries are moved out of an area and two new missionaries are moved in. It's always a little crazy, because the new missionaries are basically starting from scratch with not much more than an area book to go on. Sister Anderson and I are 'pinkwashing', which is whitewashing plus switching from Elders to Sisters. It's a lot of fun, but also hectic. The area we cover has 9 wards, so we have a lot to learn. Thankfully, the bishops, ward mission leaders, relief society presidents, etc. have been absolutely wonderful about meeting with us and helping us get our bearings. They're all super friendly and welcoming.

5. In particular, the Newton 2nd ward Relief Society president, Sister Phelps, is a miracle in and of herself. We met her briefly at the church when we stopped in to see if we could help at a funeral, and she gave us a whole list of people who needed to be visited. A couple of days later, she accompanied us on a visit to a nonmember named Scott who the previous elders were teaching. Scott is an artist, and talking to him is a fun experience because his brain goes about a mile a minute and you never know where it will go next. Our visit ended up lasting a couple of hours, and included a field trip to a neighbor's house to harvest california poppy seeds for Scott to plant in his garden. At first I felt bad about taking up so much of Sister Phelps' time, but she was really cheerful about it, and was even the one to volunteer us for the poppy harvest. She's an incredible woman. When we met her, she had her hair in a ponytail, and was in old work clothes. She was driving an old car that rattled if the AC was on and she drove too slow. Listening to her stories, we learned that she's not fancy or elegant, but she works hard and does what needs to be done. She's incredible at reaching out and lifting up the lonely, sick, and lost. She's no nonsense, and always ready to serve. I hope that one day I can be as hard working and kind as she is.

6. This email's incredibly long, but I just want to tell about one more miracle. Last night we were in Trenton, one of the six tiny towns in our area. We had met with the bishop earlier in the day, so we had a long list of names to try and contact. We decided to park our car on main street and try to visit all of the people whose addresses were in reasonable walking distance. We picked three houses, and started walking. It was an incredible experience. The people we wanted to talk to were already outside enjoying the Sunday night at two of the three houses. At the other house, while we were talking to one man, his two inactive sons just happened to show up at separate times, so we were able to teach all three of them, and are planning on going back. Our final house was the coolest experience. A single dad lived there with his three kids and his roommate. He was raised in the church, but hasn't come in years. His young son was taking the lessons for a while, but bishop said his mom made him stop. When we walked up, the dad was on the porch, so we started talking to him. He's been through a rough couple of years including getting free of drugs, working crazy long hours, and custody battles over his kids, so he wasn't super interested in coming back to church now, but he said we could gladly teach his son, if that's what his son wanted. And, he now has full custody of his son, so we're pretty sure he can get baptized now.  While we were talking to the dad, his roommate and another friend drove up. We had a really cool conversation about the gospel with the three of them. Sister Peterson gave me the 'look', so I pulled out my Book of Mormon so we could share a spiritual message with them. When I went to turn to the scripture I had already prepared, I suddenly couldn't remember where it was, even though I'd just shared it twice in the last hour. Instead, I flipped through the scriptures I have marked, and shared one about how if we look to Christ and endure to the end, we will be saved. The spirit was really strong, and they really listened as I shared that scripture along with my testimony. The crowning moment of the night was when the little boy came out and he asked us if we would teach him about baptism. They're a really special family, and I'm so excited to go back and teach them more about the gospel and the wonderful blessings that they can receive.

That's all the miracles I have time for. It's been a pretty great week. 

Lots of love!

Sister Hull

Pics (i'm not sure what order)

All of the new sisters in the Utah Logan mission with our trainers

Sister Schultz and I (we're both wearing pink)

My lovely companion, Sister Anderson, and I in front of the sign next to the Newton Post Office

We found some goats while trying to contact an old lady in Newton

 

WE SAW 10 APOSTLES!! plus I'm going to Logan

Last Tuesday was the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, and rumors were flying that this devotional was going to be particularly special. Even though we tried to arrive early, we ended up sitting like 3/4 the way up the bleachers in the very back. All the floor seating was reserved for the new mission presidents and their wives (remember last week was the big mission president conference). As we were sitting and waiting for the speaker to be announced, a sudden rush of excited murmuring swept through the bleachers. Squinting at the door next to the stage, I could just make out Elder Holland standing there talking to someone. He walked up onto the stage, along with several other older men and their wives. At first I didn't recognize them, but squinting closer I saw Elder Bednar. Then Elder Renlund. Then Elder Rasband. Then, in quick succession I realized that Elders Stevenson, Oaks, Ballard, Christofferson, Anderson, and Cook were also on the stand. It was a crazy feeling, suddenly being so close to so many of the leaders of our church. Looking down at them, I felt such a rush of love towards them, it knocked me off my feet. I may have cried more seeing them than I did when I left my family. The speaker turned out to be Elder Bednar, and he gave an incredible devotional about receiving the Word and letting it grow within us. He pointed out that the Word can mean the scriptures or the gospel, but it also represents Christ. We need to open our hearts and give room for Christ and the gospel to take root within us and grow. As we do this, we will reach our full potential.

Okay so now that that's out of the way, my most important news for this week is that I've finally been assigned a temp mission! I'm going to the Logan, Utah mission to visa wait. I'll probably only be there for one transfer, or six weeks. That's all they've told me. I don't know if I'll be speaking Chinese or not, but since it's Utah, my guess is probably not. I'm super excited to get out into the field and start sharing the gospel and my love with the people of Logan. I feel like at the MTC, I've learned so much more about the love of Christ. There have been numerous times when I'm just swept through with a love so big and powerful, I know there's no way it could possibly have come from me. It's such an incredible feeling, knowing that I am Christ's representative, and that I get to share this love and good news with the world. Our gospel is truly a gospel of abundance.

The MTC just built two new buildings, and we are among the lucky ones who get to have class in them. On our floor we have two of the fancy drinking fountains that have the water bottle filling station with a little display telling you how many plastic water bottles we've saved. The oldest district made a goal to get the counters on both fountains up to 2000 before they left. The last week, there was a mad dash to the finish line. Multiple other districts in our zone got caught up in the fever. In our district, we mainly just tried to drink from water bottles instead of the fountain, and didn't put in any extra effort, but on Saturday we joined in trying to drink as much as possible. The amount of bathroom breaks taken on our hall that day was incredible. I think we had to go every half hour. Every time we walked out of the classroom, we would see at least one companionship come rushing out in a desperate race to the bathroom. If we stayed outside a little longer, we'd see them come walking back, stopping to refill one, two, or even three water bottles. Unfortunately, they forgot to factor in Fast Sunday, and flew off this morning only about 100 bottles short of the goal. 

We learned a super cool fact in class today. Have you ever wondered whether the Brother of Jared was Jared's older or younger brother? Well, in Chinese, you never just say 'brother'. You either say 'gege'-- older brother, or 'didi'-- younger brother. When they were translating the Book of Mormon into Chinese, the translators didn't know what to do, so they went to the Brethren and asked them if they should put gege, didi, or use some awkward general term for 'brother'. The Brethren said they'd pray about it, then came back and told the translators to write 'gege'. That's right, because of Chinese, we now know that Mahonri Moriancumer was Jared's older brother. I don't know how useful that is in our daily lives, but it's so cool to see how revelation is still very much a part of the church today. 

On Saturday, BYU had its Stadium of Fire show, and the MTC gave us all special permission to stay up and watch it. The new buildings face the stadium and have floor to ceiling windows, so everyone was assigned a room in the building to watch from. We had a really nice devotional on religious freedom, then trooped off at around 10 to watch the fireworks. They were.... rather disappointing. We couldn't turn the lights off, so there was a crazy amount of reflection on the windows. Also, the show was rather poorly designed. After years of going to Matt Vranes' firework show, I was expecting more. They set off maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of fireworks he does over twice the amount of time. The finale lasted maaaybe 15 seconds. Also, we couldn't really hear it, because we were in a building. It was underwhelming to say the least. Still, it was fun to stay up late, and several elders regaled us with crazy stories from their pre-MTC lives, so it wasn't too bad. 

The last couple of days have been weird because we've been saying goodbye to everyone. Out of the 10 people from our zone leaving this week, only Sister Fisher and I didn't leave today. She leaves tomorrow, and I don't leave until Wednesday morning, so I get to be companionless for a day. I hate being left behind. Most of the people who left are going to Taichung though, so I know I'll be seeing them soon. From our district though, Elder Rich is going to New York, and Elder Bean is going to Australia, so idk if I'll ever see them again. It was a bittersweet couple of days. 

Best of luck this week! I love you all!

Hull Jiemei

Pics:

1: One final district picture with the temple. We tried to put the temple in the middle so it wouldn't look so awkward that we can't touch each other, but it still looks awkward. 

2: All of the sisters who are leaving this week. With Sister Fisher and I are our lovely sister training leaders. We're all glad to be leaving, because on Wednesday our zone's getting 20 new elders and no sisters!

3: All the missionaries leaving this week. From the left: Elder Rich, Elder Bennet, Elder Marsh, Sister Anderson, Sister Taylor, me, Sister Fisher, Elder Hansen, Elder Tang, and Elder Bean. We love them all.

4: As part of our training, we get to teach a volunteer who comes and pretends to be an investigator. This is Chen Wan-yu. We got to teach her for 2 weeks, and we are so sad to leave her. Before we left we found out that she actually only got baptized in April, so who knows? Maybe we helped her understand more things and come closer to Christ. 

5: We said goodbye to our absolutely amazing teachers on Saturday. On the left of our district is Brother Zhao, and on the right side is Brother Dodge. Both have helped me grow and build my testimony so much. I've considered moving into their ward when I get back just so they could be my Sunday School teachers or something. 

6: Xie Jiemei and I dressed patriotic for the fireworks on Saturday and we looked freaking awesome.

7: This is what our view of the fireworks looked like. We spent a long time staring at our faces.

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