#LDSConf

WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK!!!

Wasn't general conference the most amazing thing?  It is seriously so cool that God still speaks to man in our day through a modern day prophet and that we get to hear from him as well as all of the Lord's apostles twice a year!  I think we forget how amazing that is sometimes.  But let me start back at the beginning of the week:

My zone after our Zone Training Meeting

Sister Stuart goes home this transfer.  She is a great missionary and has been an amazing example for me!

Tuesday-  We had a zone training meeting.  It was really good!  We have some amazing zone leaders that taught us all about how the Spirit is vital for conversion.  So it is so important that we, as missionaries, always have the Spirit with us--especially when we are teaching people.  We also talked about doing what is good, better, and best.  I love that talk from I don't even remember who.  Lots of times we are doing good things or even better thing, but we need to always be thinking of what the best things are.  During the meeting our zone leaders told us that President wanted us to start using family history in our finding activities.  I had no idea how we were going to do that... but stay tuned to see what happened when we tried it.  [Addition from Mom- I read on her companion's blog that since this was April Fool's day, when Courtney played the closing hymn for the Zone conference.  The hymn was announced as "If You Could Hie to Kolob" but Courtney played  "Joy to the World".  Courtney- you are so funny!]

Wednesday-  HARD DAY.  Like really hard.  Every single appointment we had fell through.  And then all of our back up plans ended up falling through too!  We felt so discouraged and had no idea where Heavenly Father wanted us to be or what he wanted us to be doing.  And then on top of everything, we ended up meeting some of the craziest people throughout the day too.  There were these 3 guys pestering us at the bus stop and saying inappropriate things.  And then when we got on the bus there was this crazy lady that wouldn't let me get off of the bus and I thought she was going to beat me up.  Just a lot of little things happened that all added up together to make me feel so frustrated and discouraged.  I know that Heavenly Father was still looking out for us that day and keeping us safe, but I just was not feeling too happy about everything.

Thursday- A MUCH better day.  We had a lot of weekly planning to do and then dinner and a lesson with Sarah!  My favorite!  We went over the logistics of her baptism and it is all starting to feel so real now!  I can hardly believe it.  After Sarah's lesson, the Bishop of our ward wanted to come out and visit people with us.  I LOVE the Bishop of our ward.  He is a great man.  He is a convert of only 7 or 8 years and he is already the Bishop!  He is a good guy.  But I was so nervous to go out with him and his wife that night.  But it really ended up being such a blessing.  We went to visit a less active that we have been working with for a LONG time.  His name is Fred and he is awesome.  He came to church last week for the first time!  I think he felt special that we brought the Bishop of the ward with us to have a lesson.  We talked about conference and what we could do to prepare for us.  And then Fred shared with us a cool story!  Our last lesson with him we talked about the Book of Mormon and how reading it everyday will change our lives.  He accepted the challenge to read it everyday.  Then this past week he was at work.  He bends neon and glass or something like that.  He had recruited his friend to come help him carry some supplies and things and his friend accidentally dropped some glass that he had already been working so hard on.  This accident was going to cost Fred a lot of money.  He said that normally he would have completely lost his temper and been very upset and frustrated about everything.  But he had read his Book of Mormon that morning.  He said that he felt calm and at peace with everything and that he handled the situation a lot better then he ever thought he could have.  And then he told us that he KNEW it was because he had been reading the Book of Mormon.  It is so cool to see the Book of Mormon making changes in people's lives.  I love that book.

 

Friday-  Speaking of the book of Mormon, I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time on my mission.  Turns out- IT'S TRUE!  I enjoyed every single second of reading the Book of Mormon.  And I can hardly wait to start it again!  That book changes lives, I'm tellin ya!  As we were out talking to people we decided to try to use family history like President and our zone leaders had asked us to do.  At first nothing really came of it and it was hard to connect things back to the church and stuff.  So we reverted back to our original methods that we usually use.  But then we came to a bus stop and started talking to the lady named Nel.  At first she was very stand offish and didn't want to talk to us at all.  She was a little rude even.  But then I said, "We just want to talk to you about family history!"  After that she completely opened up!  She told us all about her family and her ancestors and how important her family was to her.  We told her that in our church we know that families can be together forever and she absolutely loved that!  We said a prayer with her before we left and the spirit was so strong.  Before we left she told us that Tanner and King would make a good name for a beer company... haha.  She was a cool lady.

 

Saturday- CONFERENCE WAS FINALLY HERE!!!!!!!!!!  I was so completely stoked for conference you have no idea.  The Saturday morning session was my favorite session I think.  It is hard to pick favorites because they were all phenonmenal, but I especially loved that one.  We watched the sessions at our stake center.  And then Sarah came to the Saturday afternoon session with us.  She LOVED conference!  Her loving conference made me love conference even more!  She said that she felt like the talks were meant for her.  We had another investigator, Lenier, come to conference too.  That was a miracle.  We will see how things go with him this week.

 

Sunday-  We went to the Sunday morning conference at the stake center again.  And Sarah came too!  :)  this time we told her to write down 2-3 questions and they would be answered during the session.  It was so fun because during the session she would lean over to me every couple of minutes and excitedly say, "That answered my question!!"  Haha conference is amazing and so completely inspired.  After the first session Sarah had her baptismal interview!  We were nervous but she came out of it with a huge smile on her face and the first thing she said was, "My cheeks hurt from smiling so much!"  Haha she's golden.  Elder Harmon is the district leader so he did the interview.  Afterwards he called us and told us that Sarah was so amazing that that we did a good job preparing her.  That made me feel really good to know that we are doing good things and being good missionaries!  Except that Sarah really has been being prepared by the Lord for a long time and we really haven't done much because she is just so ready.  But still felt good nonetheless.  And because Sarah passed her interview- it means that it is official!  We are having a baptism on Friday!  It is seriously such a miracle.  I can hardly believe it.  I feel so blessed.  Blessed that Heavenly Father has trusted me with his precious daughter Sarah. 

 

Overall, I LOVED general conference!  If I had to pick one favorite talk it would probably be President Uchtdorf's Sunday morning.  I loved what he said about not just being grateful for things but having an overall attitude of gratitude.  I don't remember the exact quote, but he said something like, "Gratitude is a catalyst to all Christ-like attributes."  I love that!!!!!  So if we want to become more like Christ, then we need to be grateful.  There is so much more that I loved about conference but I thought I would just share one more thought.  I also loved Elder Ballard's talk.  He talked about missionary work.  And he spoke specifically to you guys!  He said that you should study preach my gospel to better understand what your sons and daughters are doing in the mission field.  You guys need to do that!  Preach my Gospel is an amazing book!  I think it would be so cool to share insights and thoughts from studies in preach my gospel.  I know it will bless all of you because I have seen it bless me.

 

Playing marshmallow wars last p-day with some other missionaries from our zone.

Reppin' my Duck Dynasty socks!

Anyways, I love you all so much and hope that you have had an amazing week!  Be praying for our investigator this week as her baptismal day is approaching!  The church is so true!  Love you!

Love,

Sister King

PS I would love some letters :)