Back on the Bus!

Hey Family!

My time is cut super short today for a couple of different reasons so I will just try and give you a mini update of the week before I have to run. 

Tea time with Nancy :)

I GOT TO RIDE THE BUS AGAIN!

For starters, last p-day after we were leaving the library from e-mailing we stopped to get gas and noticed that we had an oil leak.  So we took it in to get it checked.  They told us that it would only take a few minutes.  But then they came back out and told us that the problem was a lot worse than they thought.  We ended up having to take our BRAND NEW car back to the dealership to get a bunch of things fixed haha.  

So we have been without a car for the week and still don't have it back yet.  This is nothing new to me though!  Haha we got bus passes this week and have been doing a lot of walking.  Sister Weaver has not been used to it, but I am trying to help her to love it as much as I do.  It is a little harder though because our area is WAY spread out so it is a little more difficult to maneuver on foot.  I really think that because of this whole ordeal there is someone that Heavenly Father really needs us to meet!  There was this really cute old man named Norman that we started talking to at the dealership while we were waiting for the news on our car.  He wouldn't take a Book of Mormon but he liked talking to us and had a lot of questions about the church.  Or maybe the reason is because we needed to meet the guy that works at the dealership named Cable that has been helping us out.  He has been really nice about everything so I am going to give him a Book of Mormon whenever we get to go get our car back.

The cheese factory across the street from our house

But we pretty much just spent the week tracting the neighborhoods around our house since we couldn't go too far and I got to do my favorite thing in the whole entire world- contacting people on the bus!   We talked to some cool people and gave away a good number of copies of the Book of Mormon, but not a lot has come from that yet.  Sister Weaver and I decided that we pretty much need to start this area from scratch.  The sisters that were here before Sister Weaver and I had just had quite a few baptisms right before we both got here.  So we are definitely in finding mode.  We have been working hard at talking to people and trying to find them.  We hope that we will start to see some of those fruits here in the next couple of weeks.

Reunited with Sister Packer :)

This is Sister Askerlund.  She took my place in West Allis when I left.

West Allis represent

The biggest highlight of the week was my first Mission Leadership Conference!  Ok, my first MLC might actually be one of the biggest highlights of my mission too.  Seriously such an amazing experience.  For starters, got to see so many friends from the mission!  Sister Packer was there.  She is an STL down in Milwaukee.  And I got to see Sister Askerlund who took my place when I left West Allis and she is now an STL in Kenosha.  She got to tell me all about a lot of things that have been going on.  Do you remember that less-active named Fred that I worked with the entire 7 1/2 months that I was there?  We taught him every single week so I am sure that I talked about him a lot.  He is also the guy that I talked about when I wrote that letter to the relief society about how awesome the Book of Mormon is.  Anyways, Fred only came to church probably 1 or 2 times while I was there but only stayed for sacrament.  Sister Askerlund told me that he is completely active!!  He comes and stays for all 3 hours and participates and is paying his tithing and got the priesthood!  I just about collapsed when she told me that!  So cool to know that all of that hard work wasn't for nothing! 

Oh no I am running out of time so I won't be able to tell you everything about MLC that I wish I could.  But MLC was all about the priesthood.  The priesthood is something that I have never really understood a lot about. But I have learned a lot about it on my mission.  The cool thing about the priesthood is that even though only men can hold an office in the priesthood, priesthood power affects everyone!  We can have and feel the power of the priesthood in our lives everyday.  That power is God's power.  And it is real.  I know that is true.  One of the reasons that I have to leave so soon is because we have to plan a training on the stuff that we learned at MLC to train to zone on it this week at zone training.  So hopefully I can tell you all more about it then.

Love you guys!  Hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Sister King

Good Bye West Allis!

Yep!  It's official.  I am leaving West Allis.  My new area is going to be....

The Madison 1st Ward.

My companion's name is Sis. Brewster.  I don't know much about her but I hear she is super sweet and I am excited to be companions with her.  So as of Wednesday I will have a new area and a new companion.

Very first time my name was on the transfer text!

Ok get this.  There are only 3 sister areas in the whole entire mission that don't have a car.  West Allis is one of them.  Madison 1st ward is another one of them. hahahahahaha yeah just let that sink in for a second.  I'm still on the bus!  I really don't mind not having a car.  But that just means that I will probably be on the bus again for this coming winter which is the only thing that I am not too excited about.  It's gonna be cold!  But other than that, I feel so good about going to Madison.  I have heard so many good things about it and it is somewhere that I have always wanted to serve.  I feel so blessed and I do feel like this is where I am supposed to go for the next chapter of my mission/life.  It will be quite the adventure though!  I am excited to see what lies in store!

My district from this transfer

Anyways, back to West Allis for a second.  My last week here!

Tuesday was the last district meeting and that was sad because I have really enjoyed my district this transfer.  We have seen A LOT of miracles in our ward.  We were able to have a district testimony meeting and that was a cool experience.  I always leave district meeting spiritually uplifted and ready to take on the world.  We were able to meet with Sarah afterward and that was really good.  Her life has been kind of crazy these past couple of weeks so we hadn't seen her since like July!  It was good to get back in contact with her.  We talked about how we need to be doing to small and simple things- reading our scriptures, saying our prayers, and going to church.  They are so simple but they really do make a big difference!  So was a good lesson and I think a good reminder for her.  A good reminder for me too...  

My favorite lady

And my favorite family!

Wednesday Sis. Silva and I were out contacting and this guy pulled his car over and asked us who we were and what we were doing.  I was so excited!  In my head this was going to be an Ensign story where this guy sees Sister Missionaries on the side of the road and feels like he should stop and talk to them and then gets baptized.  But no...  he actually just wanted to try and recruit us for his church and then told us if we didn't leave our church then we would go to hell.  So that was nice.  Haha.  We were able to find this SUPER COOL new investigator named Don.  He is a 67 year old man and he has a giant train museum in his house!  Not like miniature models, but real trains and stuff!  He is a super nice guy and really talkative.  He loves how nice and kind the missionaries have always been and said that he could see a light in our eyes.  So he wants to start learning more about our church.  He is pretty staunch Catholic, but I have faith.  Miracles can happen!  He is such a good guy and I am excited to see what happens with him. 

Thursday we visited a less active member and we were able to help her to teach her kids some of the Book of Mormon and Bible stories.  That was pretty cool because it is like we are helping her and her children.  So that was pretty fun.  Then I have my very last West Allis weekly planning session :)

Friday was spent visiting some more less active members which was really good.  It was CRAZY hot and humid though.  I was sweating like a pig it was so bad haha.  But the show must go on!  To cool me off, Sis. Silva dumped a bucket of ice water on my head at the Dominguez's.  But it sounds like you all already knew that... :)  And then Sis. Stewart had us all over for dinner which was really fun.  I know you all know this too, but I love that asian lady!

Saturday the transfer text came while we were out playing soccer with the Mexicans.  So I found out that I was leaving West Allis.  So we went home and I started packing a little bit.  I sure have accumulated a lot of junk... Then our ward had a Corn Roast that afternoon!  It was so fun!  I had never had roasted corn before so that was pretty good.  Plus, Don came!  The train guy!  That was super awesome because we had only just met him a few days earlier.  But the ward was so awesome and took him right in and he made so many friends.  He wants to come to church now!  Tubree was also able to make it and she was able to fellowship with the ward a lot more too.  This is seriously the greatest ward EVER.  Which was kind of bittersweet for me because I knew that I was going to be leaving all of these people.  But it was the biggest tender mercy that my very last weekend here, I got to spend it with everyone that I love because they were all there!  At the Corn Roast, our Bishop even did the ice bucket challenge.  Haha it was a hoot!

Sunday- my last church in West Allis!  That was really hard.  Harder than I ever even thought.  It was the mission farewell of a kid in our ward that is going to Uruguay.  All of the missionaries have gotten really close to their family as they have prepared their son to leave.  And their whole family spoke in church!  So that was really awesome.  Later that night, they had a little get together at the church for everyone to come and say goodbye before he heads off to Uruguay this week.  That was fun that I got to say bye to a lot of people there too. 

And my favorite senior missionary couple!

So the West Allis era is coming to a close.  I am excited to go to Madison and start over there, but at the same time I can't imagine not being in West Allis anymore.  I have absolutely loved it here.  I have come to love people that have changed my life forever.  I know that the church is true and that Heavenly Father loves me because he placed me here in West Allis.  I KNOW that I was supposed to be here.  Now I just need to have faith that He needs my in Madison too!

I love you so much!  Please be praying for me this week as I go through a lot of changes.  I think it is going to be really tough, but I know that this is what Heavenly Father wants to happen. 

Have an awesome week!!!

Goodbye family and goodbye West Allis!

Love,
Sister King

Baptism!

So good to hear from all of you!  I am so grateful for your e-mails and letters and most importantly, your prayers.  Sounds like it was a pretty crazy week back in Utah.
Crazy week here in West Allis too!

Tuesday-  District Meeting.  This time we talked all about the Doctrine of Christ. To be put simply, the Doctrine of Christ is what we have to do in order to make it back to Heavenly Father.  4 steps: faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the holy ghost.  And then making sure that we continue to do those things as we endure to the end.  Our purpose as missionaries which can be found in Preach My Gospel is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  


So as we talked about the Doctrine of Christ, we talked about how as we come to understand it better, it can help us to fulfill our purpose as missionaries!  I seriously felt so pumped and motivated as I left district meeting to go out and baptize all of West Allis.  Haha.  But after district meeting, Tubree had her baptismal interview and.... she passed!  I was nervous.  Not because I didn't think Tubree was ready, but because I knew that Satan had been working pretty hard to make sure that she wouldn't be baptized.  So it was a huge relief when she passed!  We spent the rest of the day planning and preparing for her baptismal service the coming Saturday.

Me and my district with the Wisconsin State Fair's famous creme puffs.  They are huge!

Wednesday-  We went and did service for this woman that we met named Colleen.  It was actually pretty cool because clear back when Sis. Newton was here, our goal for our transfer together was to find new investigators and people to teach through service.  We offered to give service to everyone that we met.  Nothing ever really came of it, but we tried really hard anyways.  haha.  But then this lady Colleen called us up this week and asked us for our help to help her move.  Colleen was a lady that Sis. Newton and I had met on the street clear back in May.  So we were able to go over and help her move and got to talk with her a lot as we packed up some boxes.  We got to talk a lot about the church.  And then before we left, we shared a scripture with her from the book of mormon.  It really touched her and she agreed to meet with us later to learn more about the church.  We won't be able to meet for a while because she is still in the process of moving so her schedule is pretty crazy, but I thought that was so cool!  Sis. Newton and I were praying for finding opportunites back in May and it finally payed off!  That is a testimony to me that no effort is wasted.  We are planting seeds and you never know who is going to call back, even if it is months later.

Thursday we had to do a lot more planning for Tubree's baptism.  We were also able to get in with a less active family for the first time in forever.  They have 2 little girls that haven't been baptized yet, so hopefully we will be able to start working with them.

Me with my favorite person in the whole wide world- Sis. Stewart!  She got me this skirt from Hong Kong!!  Isn't she the cutest?

Friday-  So I have been reading through the New Testament trying to learn more about the life of Christ and on Friday morning, I finished John.  So I am now done with the 4 gospels.  I have loved reading about Christ's life and I have learned so much from the example that he set for us.  I feel like I have a really long way to go, but I really have come to know my Savior better than ever before.  I have always wanted to have a strong relationship with Him.  All it takes is a little effort on our part.  I will tell you this much, I know that my Redeemer lives!

We were also able to have our last lesson with Tubree on Friday.  We answered any last questions that she had about her baptism and then talked about enduring to the end.  Baptism is great and important and it is our first covenant that we make with our Heavenly Father.  But then we have got to keep doing it and keep living the gospel!  The enduring to the end is the hard part.  But it is the part that makes it all worth it too!  We were also able to bear our testimonies to hear about how much we had seen her grown since we have been working with her, and also how much we have grown as missionaries as we have learned from her example as well.  It was a very powerful lesson and the Spirit was so strong!

Saturday- Tubree's Baptism!!!  Saturday was nothing short of a miracle.  I think that Tubree had been having a pretty rough morning before her baptism.  That, my friends, is how Satan works.  Lots of the friends and family that she invited to her baptism didn't come.  So I think she was a little sad about that.  But here is the cool thing about becoming a member of this church- You gain a ward family!  There were so many wonderful ward members there to show their love and support for her.  It really meant a lot to her.  President and Sister Cutler even came, so that was pretty cool.  I thought that I was going to be able to hold it together pretty well at the baptism, but... I am my mother's daughter.  I lost it at the opening song.  For the opening song we sang Lord, I Would Follow Thee.  

1. Savior, may I learn to love thee,
Walk the path that thou hast shown,
Pause to help and lift another,
Finding strength beyond my own.
Savior, may I learn to love thee—

Lord, I would follow thee.

Aren't those lyrics absolutely beautiful?  "Savior, may I learn to love thee, walk the path that thou hast shown."  Here was Tubree getting ready to enter into the waters of baptism and follow the Savior's example.  The is beginning her walk down the path that He has shown.  "Pause to help and lift another, finding strength beyond my own."  Not gonna lie, this week had been pretty hard.  I felt a lot of opposition which I knew was Satan because of Tubree's baptism.  And I also was feeling kind of sad that I was missing Kenzie's wedding and Casey and Bryan moving and stuff.  But when I heard the words "pause to help and lift another"  I realized that I literally have put my life on pause to come here to Wisconsin to help others.  And at that moment as I was sitting by Tubree singing this song.  I knew that it was worth it.  Tubree was worth it.  And this journey wasn't easy.  I definitely could not have been able to do it by myself.  I was able to "find strength beyond my own" as I turned to my Savior to help me through the difficult times.  "Savior, may I learn to love thee- Lord, I would follow thee."  Ultimately, I am trying to become more like my Savior.  I know that helping Tubree become closer to Christ has helped me to come closer to Christ as well.  What a blessing.

I don't know if any of those thoughts even make sense.  But to sum it up, that hymn was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time.  And I felt to Spirit probably one of the strongest times ever on my mission. 

Then, Tubree was baptized!  It was amazing and the Spirit was definitely there.  I know that Tubree felt the Spirit.  After she was baptized and had changed, she came back out and sat by me.  I leaned over to her and whispered, "How do you feel?"  She paused for a second and looked at me and with a big smile on her face she said, "New."  Wow.  What an amazing daughter of God she is. 

I feel so blessed and humbled to have been able to teach Tubree and help her on her journey back to our Heavenly Father.  After Saturday, I really do know without a doubt that this is right where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.  I am so grateful for my testimony of my Savior and how that has helped me through the ups and the downs in my life. 

The Church is so true!  I love you all so much!  Thank you for your love and prayers!!!

Love,
Sister King

Can You Believe It Is August??

So the sidewalks in West Allis always have these stamps on them that say the year they were constructed and the entire time I have been here I have been looking for one that said 1994 since that is the year I was born and I FINALLY found one this week!  It only took me 7 months... haha

Eli's baptism

HHello family!  

Another week has come and gone in West Allis.  And can you believe it is August??  Me neither.

Tuesday we had a really good district meeting.  My district leader asked me to give a training on a conference talk that I had been studying lately.  So I chose to talk about The Tender Mercies of the Lord by Elder Bednar.  It's something that I have been thinking a lot about lately.  I feel like the Lord blesses us with His tender mercies so much, that sometimes it can be hard to recognize them.  But when we are making a conscious effort to recognize the Lord's hand in our lives, we find it there more abundantly then we ever even thought.  I think especially as a missionary, there are so many miracles in my life everyday that sometimes it just becomes routine to have the Lord sending us so many blessings.  If that makes sense... haha.  We really need to take a step back and see how the Lord is blessing us and then thank Him for it.  If we recognize those blessings and thank Him for them, I feel like He is probably more likely to keep blessing us.  Also, the Lord's tender mercies are also how he can answer our prayers.  So that is pretty cool too.  This was totally one of those things that even though I was teaching our district about this, it was me that really needed to learn about it and study it.  So I was grateful for that.  That evening we had dinner with one of my very favorite families in the ward.  They were actually inactive for about 20 years and just recently started coming back to church at the beginning of this year.  It was seriously a miracle!  I have felt so blessed to be a part of their journey.  And they told us at dinner that he now has a calling in the Elders quorum presidency in our ward.  He is so humble about it, it is amazing.  It is so cool to see them so involved in the ward.  The gospel truly has blessed their lives so much!  Then on Tuesday evening, it was time for our exchange for the transfer.  Guess who got to go on another exchange with Sis. Tanner!!  I was beyond excited.  But this time, we got to go down to Kenosha together. 

Wednesday morning we woke up and got right to work in Kenosha.  There is so much going on down there!  We were able to visit many less active families and also some recent converts.  (It was amazing how much work we could get done when we had a car... haha)  We were also able to have a lesson with their investigator that just got baptized this past Saturday.  We taught her about enduring to the end.  It is so important that people understand that before they get baptized.  Because they get baptized and that's great everything, but then you have to keep going!  And that is the part that we are all at in life right now-- the keep going part.  haha So it was really cool to be able to bear my testimony to her about that.  It was also really fun to be able to just catch up with Sister Tanner.  It was cool to see how far we had both come the last time we went on an exchange together, but it really amazed me to see how we had both learned and grown so much just since the last exchange that we went on.  She is a great example to me.  I got back to West Allis that evening just in time to be able to make it to our Relief Society's ice cream social!  That was way fun.  I just love all of the women in this ward so much!  Tubree came to the activity and really got to know a lot of the sisters in the ward which was AWESOME.  They did this fun game where you bring 3 items in a paper bag that describe who you are and then everyone else has to guess who it is.  With my limited supplies as a missionary, I put in a mini basketball, a candy bar, and a picture of Jesus.  The whole ward could guess who I was right off the bat.  Haha so that was really fun. 

Thursday was an intense weekly planning session because we had a lot to plan for with Tubree's baptism coming up this week.  But with the time that we did have, we spent it contacting people at the state fair!  The state fair is HUGE in Wisconsin and is about a half a mile from our house.  I love it because it brings out all of the normal people onto the streets... haha.  So we have been able to teach a lot of people about the gospel as we walk and talk!  We were able to meet this really cool lady named Jennifer that was working at a parking lot.  We told her a little bit about our church and how the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families.  She really opened up to us about how her dad is an alcoholic and it is tearing their family apart.  She asked how on earth Jesus Christ could help her family in this situation.  

I whipped out a Book of Mormon and read to her these verses from Alma chapter 7:

  11  And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

 12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

In a nutshell, I explained to her that Christ has experienced all of the hard things that we have experienced and he gets it.  And like it said in the end of verse 12, he did this so that he could know HOW to help us.  He knows how because he has felt it.  Because Jesus Christ overcame these things, with His help we can overcome them too.  She was so touched that she asked if she could have a copy of the book I was reading from.  Of course I told her yes!  :)  We then prayed with her and prayed for a special blessing on her father and her family.  It moved her to tears.  I know that the Spirit was there and I was glad that it was helping us teach.

Friday we had a really good lesson with Tubree in the home of a family in our ward.  They are an AWESOME family.  Their son is leaving to go on his mission to Uruguay at the end of this month and he is going to be great.  So we invited Tubree over to their home for the lesson.  It was cool because the mom and two of the kids stayed for the lesson and they were all able to bear their testimonies of the message that we shared.  It was awesome and it really helped to make the lesson more powerful.  So Tubree is getting ready for her baptism on Saturday!  A lot can happen in a week and we have a lot that we need to do to make sure that she is 100% ready and to make sure that everything is ready for that day.  So if you could plllllease keep Tubree in your prayers.  And also Sis. Silva and I.  We can use all the help that we can get too. :)  Later that night, a huge rainstorm rolled in while Sis. Silva and I were out and about.  We had forgotten our umbrellas and our apartment was 2 busses away to run back to grab them.  We felt that we really needed to contact one of our investigators anyway.  So we endured through the crazy rain waiting at bus stops and such.  We were praying so hard that Heavenly Father would bless us with a miracle for our diligence.  However, the investigator that we went to see wasn't home.  And we didn't meet anybody else either.  I was really sad about that and I had so much faith that Heavenly Father was going to bless us.  All I can think of is that those blessings are going to come later. :)  So we got home SOPPING wet that night haha.

Saturday was a miracle day in the West Allis ward!  There was one primary baptism and 4 investigator baptisms!  One of the sets of elders in our ward has been working really hard and they were able to help 4 of their investigator enter the waters of baptism that day.  It was amazing to be able to witness that.  The missionary spirit sure is alive in this ward!  I am so excited to watch Tubree be baptized this Saturday!

I love you all so much!  Please keep us in your prayers!

Love,

Sister King

"I'm so grateful that I get to be a missionary!!"

Hello Family!

Can you believe it is already P-day again?  July sure flew by I will tell you that much!

Tuesday was miserably hot and humid.  But that was the first day it has been like that the whole entire summer.  People say that the summers here can be just as bad as the winters, but for some reason this has been a super mild summer.  It's been about 75 everyday and not too humid!  It's great!  The only problem is, I am worried that means that we are going to have another record breaking cold winter.  But we will see... :)  We had district meeting and guess who I got to see there.... Sis Packer!  She is officially down here in our zone so I will get to see her a lot more now.  #tendermercy  After district meeting we were able to have a lesson with Tubree.  She is progressing nicely.  I think that there might still be a few bumps in the road, but hopefully they will be resolved by August 9 and she will be able to be baptized.  We just had to teach her a few of the commandments that were left so it was a pretty laid back lesson.  Afterward, she was able to come to the Relief Society's recipe group with us.  It was so awesome!  All of the Relief Society sisters bring a sample of some of their favorite recipes so pretty much we just get to go and eat a bunch of yummy food.  But Tubree came this time and was able to make a lot of friends!  That was so awesome because it is so important for investigators and recent converts to have friends in the ward.  We have gotten really close to Tubree, but we aren't going to be here forever!  So now she has friends in the ward that will take good care of her.

Wednesday we did a lot of finding and we were able to talk to a lot of people.  One thing that was cool though is we went to contact this potential investigator because we really felt like we needed to see her that day.  But when we went to her house, she wasn't there.  :(  Later that day we were walking to a bus stop, and right when we passed a store she came walking out of it at the exact moment we were walking by!  Coincidence, I think NOT!  (Name that movie)  We were able to follow up with her on her Book of Mormon reading and she is not progressing very fast, but she is progressing nonetheless.  So we were grateful that we got to see her.  Also, on Wednesday Sarah was officially adopted by the Feezor's in our ward!  It is legally official!  Sarah truly sacrificed so much to become a member of this church and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, and she is already being blessed so much for it.  She gained a new family-- and a new ward family too!

Thursday was pioneer day!  And also Sis. Silva's one year mark!  But we didn't really do anything to celebrate because we were so busy.  We were able to meet with Tubree again though which is always fun.  We went over the baptismal interview questions and it actually went pretty well.  As we were talking about her upcoming baptism I told her to be strong because I am sure that there has got to be some opposition coming her way.  I told her "Satan doesn't want you to get baptized" and she replied, "Who cares about Satan??"  haha if was also funny because our church starts at 9:00 a.m. and getting to church on time that early in the morning has always been a struggle with her.  She always gets there just after the sacrament and that is the reason that we go in the first place!  haha  So we were pretty bold with her and told her that she really needed to come to church on time especially leading up to her baptism.  She told us that on Saturday night she was going to sleep with her clothes on and just wake up and come.  haha she is sassy just like me so we get along really well.  There was a Spanish missionary meeting while we were there at the church having our lesson with Tubree.  We got done around the same time, so we introduced Tubree to President and Sister Cutler and she absolutely loved them!  She invited them to her baptism and everything haha.  So that was pretty cool too.

Friday we had a number of appointments that fell through... but we were able to meet a less active family in the ward that hopefully we can start working with!  They are AWESOME!  They both work for the FBI!  Yeah, i know right?  And we really hit it off and I think they like us.  So I am excited to start working with them. 

Saturday morning we were able to take Tubree to a baptism in the City Branch.  It was an amazing experience.  The Spirit was so strong and I think Tubree really enjoyed it.  During the ordinance, she leaned over to her 6 year old daughter and said, "Look, Mom is going to be doing that soon!"  It just warmed my heart.  We spent the entire rest of the day with Sis. Stewart running around and visiting about a million less active sisters in the ward.  Needless to say, we were exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday- church is always AWESOME.  Tubree barely made it in time for the sacrament...  She took it out in the hall.  So we are getting there!  haha  Then for Sunday School we had the best Gospel Principles class of my whole entire mission-- and that is saying something.  The lesson was on service.  Somehow we got on the topic of how missionaries give service for 2 years of their life, and then all of a sudden all of the investigators in the room pretty much took over the lesson.  They all bore their testimonies about how the missionaries had changed their lives and how grateful they all were for everything that we had been doing.  The Spirit was so strong.  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  I often forget that even though we don't see the fruits of our labors, we are making a difference.  I had no idea that we had actually touched all of these peoples lives so much.  It was great.  Also- a member of the bishopric announced in Sacrament meeting that the whole ward is having a fast for us (the missionaries in their ward) this coming Sunday.  It has really motivated me so much to work hard this week so that we are doing everything that we possibly can to have miracles in the next coming weeks.  The missionaries in our ward have been working really hard.  Sarah was the first baptism that this ward has seen in a couple of years.  But now, one set of Elders in our ward is having 4 baptisms this coming Saturday and Tubree is getting baptized that Saturday after that.  Is is amazing to see how the missionary mentality of the ward has changed as the missionaries have been working hard and bringing people to church.  Miracles really are happening! 

Heavenly Father is so aware of us and is grateful for our efforts to move the work forward.  I am so grateful that I get to be a missionary!!

I love you guys so much!!!

Sister King 

We made the cupcakes with the mix you sent!

(Amy's note- I took this picture off of the Milwaukee Mission blog.)

Sometimes Sister Silva lets me go to the Disney store on P-days!

6 months!

Another week come and gone in West Allis.  And it sure was a busy one.

 

Tuesday we were able to take Sarah to the family history center and help her get started.  It was super cool!  She was actually able to find a lot of information on her family.  Our goal is to help her find a few family names that she can take to the temple for the first time.  Wouldn't that be so cool?  It was really awesome because Sarah has had a hard family life, but you could totally see the Spirit of Elijah come alive in her as she searched for her family members!  Super cool.  Also, we were able to have a lesson with Tubree.  We covered the 10 commandments and the Law of Chastity which can be a little hard sometimes, but it went over so smoothly!  The Spirit was definitely there and Sarah came and you would not believe the power that her testimony added to the lesson.  It was great!  So Tuesday was pretty solid.  Tuesday was also my 6 month mark!  We weren't able to do anything too special because we were pretty busy, but we did pop those poppers that you sent me and that was super exciting.  Haha 6 months down and only 12 to go.

 

Wednesday was transfers but that didn't really affect us too much since we are both staying here together another transfer.  Just another day of hard work!  We were able to meet with Toya which is Tubree's friend that she brought to church last week.  We had invited her to read from the Book of Mormon everyday for 10 minutes and we met with her to follow up on that to see how she was doing.  She told us that she had been reading everyday which made me really excited!  But then she said that it wasn't really speaking to her and that she didn't understand and that it was confusing.  Ugh...  that always makes me so frustrated because I know that the Book of Mormon is so powerful so I hate it when that happens.  But we were able to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with her and go over it and kind of explain some of the events.  She said that it helped her a lot.  I think Toya is just going through a lot with her family right now.  She has been super closed off to us which makes me sad because if she would just open up then we could know how to help her!  haha.  But I know that the Spirit will stir inside of her as she reads from the Book of Mormon and reading that book is going to help her more than anything else.  We also got to have dinner at Sarah's house which is always nice.  We are continuing to help her work on personal progress and she is really coming along!

 

Thursday was weekly planning and a long day of finding.  We were able to meet this ssssssssuper cool lady named Sherri at the bus stop.  She recently converted to the Muslim faith which I thought was super interesting.  We told her what we do as missionaries and started teaching her about the Book of Mormon and she was super interested!  She even asked us if we could come to her house to teach her more!  haha.  So we got her information and then asked if we could pray with her before we left.  Right in the middle of the prayer........... the bus that she had been waiting for the whole time zoomed past.  I have never felt more horrible in my whole life!  haha we made her miss her bus just because we wanted to pray with her!  Luckily, she wasn't upset and is still excited to meet with us this coming week.  haha so pray for Sherri!

Friday was also a day full of finding.  We were able to find this other cool lady named Marie that invited us to come back this week too.  So that should be fun.  But in my studies on Friday, I flipped open to a verse in the Book of Mormon that wasn't even close to where I was reading but it really stood out to me.  Alma is talking to his son Helaman about some of the lessons that we can learn from the Liahona and this is what he says.  It is Alma 37:41

 41 Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small‍ means it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey;

 

Sometimes I feel like because I have been stuck in West Allis for so long, I have kind of just been going through the motions and maybe getting a little slothful and not so diligent.  But according to this verse, hard work, diligence, and faith is what we need to see miracles!  So that was a really cool experience and a wake up call for me.  There is still so much work to be done here!

Saturday was pretty crazy.  Our ward had a pioneer picnic to celebrate pioneer day next week.  It was so fun!  But the best part is, we got Tubree to come!  The ward has been so good to fellowship her and help her to feel more comfortable.  Her baptism date has been moved to August 9 and we are doing our best to make sure that it will happen on that day.  So please be praying for that!  After the picnic, we taught Tubree tithing.  Teaching this lesson always makes me nervous because I don't want people to think that we just want their money haha.  But it went sooooo incredibly well!  We told her about all the blessing that come from tithing and read Malachi 3:10 that talks about how the Lord will pour out blessing that we won't have room enough to receive them.  She was so excited and anxious to receive these blessings, that she wants to pay tithing before she even gets baptized!  Haha she is seriously so awesome.  After the ward picnic, there was a funeral at our building for a family in the Spanish Branch.  Sis. Stewart, the Relief Society president in our ward said that they needed a pianist last minute so she asked if I could play for it.  And of course I will always drop whatever I am doing to help Sis. Stewart because she is just so awesome and I love her so much and want to help her in anyway that I can.  So I was able to play the piano for this Spanish Funeral.  It actually turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  The entire funeral was in spanish so I had absolutely no idea what was going on the whole time.  But I will tell you this much, the Spirit there was absolutely undeniable.  It was a testimony to me that even though we spoke different languages, we can all understand the Spirit and how it works with us.  I know without a doubt that that is an eternal family right there.  The Plan of Salvation is so real and we will get to be with our families for eternity.  How amazing is that?  What a blessing.  I was so humbled and I just feel so beyond grateful that we have that knowledge and also that our family has been sealed.  We are stuck together guys!

Sunday was awesome.  GUESS WHAT!!!!  Sarah got her first calling!  She is going to be the wolf den leader for the cub scouts!  She is so excited about it.  I was freaking out.  Raising my right arm to sustain her into her calling is a moment I will never forget!  Also, we had a cool experience at dinner.  So apparently there is this program in Great Britain where if you are a good soccer player then you can come over here to America and run soccer camps all around the country and stay with host families along the way.  Well they are in Milwaukee this week and a family in our ward was going to be the host family for 3 of these 19 year old British soccer coaches and they invited us to come over to have dinner with them!  It was so awesome.  It was so fun for me to be able to talk soccer with all of them.  And yeah, their accents were way cool.  We started talking to them about the church and if they had ever seen mormon missionaries before.  One of them had actually been stopped by some missionaries back in England and given a pamphlet and another had stayed with a different mormon host family while he was in Arizona running a camp.  Isn't that crazy?  We taught them a little bit about the Book of Mormon and read a scripture about prayer.  So that was way cool

 

 

Over all things are going pretty well here.  We are staying busy which is just how I like it.

Keep up the good work family!  I love you guys!!

 

Sister King :)

5 Transfer Club!

Water Balloon fight with some elders in our zone.  And Sarah & Elizabeth of course!

Soooo....  I will be staying in West Allis with Sis. Silva for another transfer!  That means it is at least 7 1/2 months in West Allis for me.  It's funny, the missionaries here have a "5 transfer club" and it is for the select few missionaries that stay in their areas for 7 1/2 months.  Apparently this doesn't happen very often.  So I have had 2 transfers here with Sis. Tanner, 1 with Sis. Newton, and starting my 2 with Sis. Silva.  Looks like my work here isn't done yet!  I for sure thought that I would be leaving.  I was super excited about the idea of a fresh start and getting to know a new area and a new ward and new investigators and stuff.  And not gonna lie, I was excited to hopefully be going to an area that has a car!  haha but this is the Lord's will and I am beyond happy to still be here.

This was a pretty good week!

 

Tuesday we had a zone training meeting!  We had it down at the Spanish Branch building which was super cool.  There is a pretty good size Spanish branch that meets here in Milwaukee.  We talked a lot about being a covenant keeping mission.  I thought that was so interesting!  We had lots of different trainings from our leaders on keeping our covenants.  They talked about how as missionaries, we need all the divine power we can get.  I am so grateful for the covenants that I have made and how they have blessed my life and also how they have blessed me as a missionary.  So that was a really good meeting.  Later that night we had dinner with a family in our ward and their son brought his non-member girlfriend!  So that was fun.  We got to know her a little bit and we ended up teaching her about the Restoration at dinner.  I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed my life.  The Spirit was so strong.  Afterward, she told us that she thought our faith was absolutely beautiful.  I thought that was such an amazing compliment.  Because of that, I know that she felt the Spirit that night.  I am excited to get to follow up with her later tis week.  Also- one of the members that had us over for dinner told us that he likes having us over better than the Elders.... hahaha that made me feel really good too. 

Eclairs at the Farmer's market

One of my very favorite ward members took us out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory!

So the next couple of pictures are from a tour that we took in Downtown Milwaukee today!  The Lenhard's took us!  :)

This is the Wisconsin River that runs right through the middle of Downtown Milwaukee

Sis. Silva and I at the Milwaukee art museum! 

And my favorite people in the whole wide world- The Lenhard's!

Wednesday we had an awesome lesson with Tubree.  We taught her about following and sustaining the prophet.  I was kind of nervous and didn't know how she would take this lesson either, but the Spirit was strong so it was a great lesson!  you can always put your money on the Spirit ;)  Tubree was like, "I always knew there should be a prophet on the earth, now I just know his name!"  haha so that was great.  We also had a lesson with Sarah.  We got her started on personal progress!  She is so excited to start it and earn her medallion.  We did faith #1 with her and talked about how her faith has grown since she has been baptized.  Seriously, every time I meet with her it is a big reminder to me of how big of a miracle she was.  It's amazing.  Also- on Wednesday I got a package from the best family in the whole wide world!  Can you believe I have been out 6 months????  That is so crazy!  Thank you so much!  It totally made my day and came right when I needed it.  You guys are so great.

Sis. Silva cut out the note that you wrote her and put it in her journal :)

soooo... I couldn't wait until the 15th haha

Thursday... you guessed it.  Weekly planning day.  But we were able to meet some cool people out contacting.  I met this one lady on the bus named Sharon.  We were down in a part of town where the Elders hang out a lot.  So when I started talking to her, she asked if I was from the same church as those guys with white shirts and ties.  I said yes!  Then she said, "They are always trying to give me some book, but I'm not interested and I don't want to read it."  That made me kind of sad.  But I continued talking to her and got to know her a little bit better.  We were really able to connect on some things and I was able to bear her my testimony of how this gospel has helped me in my life with some similar things that she is going through.  After I really got to know her and explained why this gospel would bless her life specifically, she asked me for a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet!  WHAT!  I know!  And she gave us her information and wants us to come teach her more.  It was seriously the coolest thing ever.  It was a really good reminder to me that the people that we meet everyday are real people, not robots.  They are just walking baptismal statistics.  We teach people, not lessons.  So I was really grateful that I was able to really get through to her when other missionaries hadn't been able to.  That is one thing that I really wanted to do when I came on my mission.  Get to know the people and then show them how this gospel can really help them!  So that was a cool experience.

Sister Cope and I celebrating our 6 month mark!

Friday we went out to lunch with Sis. Pope and her companion Sis. Vance to celebrate mine and Sis. Pope's 6 month mark!  So that was fun.  Later that day we were finally able to get back in contact with a former investigator named Consetta.  She is the one whose family are refugees from Liberia.  She is super faithful and we gave her a Book of Mormon and we are super excited to start working with her again.

futbol with the Mexicans

Saturday was way fun!  The Spanish Elders in our zone had seen my sweeeeeeet soccer skills on p-day, and they invited us to come play soccer with all of their Hispanic non member friends!  It was so fun!  And I could totally hold my own against them.  So that was way fun.  And there were a ton of non members there!  It was a great missionary opportunity.  Then Sis. Stewart came out with us for a while and went to some lessons with us.  And then she took us and all of the other missionaries in our ward out to Sushi!  I had never had Sushi before and I was super scared but I tried it anyway!  And it wasn't bad.  Not my favorite but still pretty good.  We also had a lesson with our investigator Anne.  Her aunt has been in the hospital with cancer, so we really bore testimony of the plan of salvation and eternal families and I think that really helped her. 

 I tried sushi for the first time!

Sunday was really good because there were lots of members that came up to me and said that they were so happy that I would be staying another transfer.  That made me feel really good.  I know that this is where the Lord still wants me, even after all this time.

 

 

Over all, it was a great week!  And I will have at least 6 more weeks here in West Allis.  And as of tomorrow, I am a third of the way through my mission!  can you believe it?  me neither.  thanks for being the best family ever.  I love you guys!!

 

Sister King