This is it!

Well family, this is it.  And I can't even believe it.

It is really hard to put into words how I feel about the last 18 months of my life.  But what I do know is that the decision I made to serve a mission is the best choice I have made thus far in my life.  Being a set-apart representative of Jesus Christ is the most incredible, fulfilling, and meaningful thing you could ever choose to do.  I feel so blessed that I have been able to feel that and see that this last year and a half.  The reason that missions are so special is because they are a front row ticket to watching the Atonement work.  You get to watch the Atonement work in the lives of everyone around you, but most importantly you get to watch the Atonement work in your own life.  Missions are really hard.  And they literally wouldn't even be possible without the Atonement to help enable us to accomplish the things our Heavenly Father has asked us to do. 

I have learned a lot.

I have come to know that Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ love us.  They love us so much!  They love us each individually and perfectly.  They show their love to us by the tender mercies that we see in our lives everyday, and often times through other people.  They love us so much that they want each and every one of us to return to live with our Father again and be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom.  God knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows what is best for us and he knows what we need to become better- even if those things are hard.  Jesus Christ understands us perfectly because he has felt and experienced everything that we have ever felt and experienced.  God loved us enough to send us His only Begotten Son, and Christ loved us enough to perform His infinite Atonement.  That is love.

I have also learned that the Book of Mormon is true.  I enjoyed reading from the Book of Mormon before my mission.  But not until now have I come to understand its role in the Restoration and its importance in helping us to learn more about Jesus Christ.  The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ EVERYWHERE.  I truly believe that the real reason that missions are so life changing is because we devote this time to not just reading but studying from the Book of Mormon every single day and helping others to learn about it as well.  The Book of Mormon is how I learned about the Atonement.  There is a special power that comes into our lives as we read the Book of Mormon every single day.  I can't even describe it.  You just have to do it yourself and find out the difference that reading the Book of Mormon makes.  The Book of Mormon is also how we can come to know the church is true and that the gospel really was restored through Joseph Smith.  If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith really was a prophet and this is his church on the earth!  The Book of Mormon is a book with a promise.  I have done as Moroni directs and asked God.  I will tell you this much- The Book of Mormon is true.

I have learned that Eternal life= Family life.  Living with God and our families forever!  The gospel blesses families so much!  I already knew that because I have seen what the gospel has done to my own family.  But on my mission I have seen families that don't know about these principles start to apply them, and they are forever changed.  They are happier and they are closer!  When your family starts to live the gospel, you can't even stop the blessings from coming!  Families can be together forever because of the binding and sealing power of the Priesthood.  The authority to act in God's name has been restored to the earth for us today through a prophet.  We can all feel the priesthood giving us power in our lives as we keep true to our covenants.  I am so grateful that I was able to serve a mission because I have been so blessed to have to knowledge that I can be with my family forever and everyone deserves to know that!

Even though missions are full of life lessons and hard times, they are also a lot of fun.  I have met people- investigators, ward members, less-active members, President and Sister Cutler, and especially companions- that have changed my life. Preaching the gospel is fun and it makes me happy.  That really is why I love this gospel.  It brings peace and happiness into our lives.  So while this year and a half has been hard and a huge struggle, I also don't think there has been a time when I have felt happier and more fulfilled.  Serving others, and most importantly, serving God is the best thing we can do. 

Having to leave all of this behind is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  But I have learned that God has a plan for each and everyone of us.  I know that God always has greater things in store for us than we will ever be leaving behind.  My mission will be a part of me forever.

I love God.  I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of me, you, and anyone you will ever meet.  Even though my full-time missionary service is coming to a close, I look forward to continuing to serve and love God through out the rest of my life and the rest of eternity.

I love you and will see you soon!

Love,

Sister King

40 days....

Hey Family!

WOW.  Another week come and gone!  We have still been very busy around here which is the biggest blessing.  Here are a couple of highlights from this week:

We have officially started teaching Eva's friend Bonnie.  She came to our ward activity a few weeks ago and said that she could feel the Spirit as soon as she walked in the door.  (Cool that she could still feel the Spirit there even though she was there for a spaghetti dinner and not church.  haha)  She has loved everything that we have taught her so far and has been sharing what she has been learning in the Book of Mormon with her children.  She does have a couple of Word of Wisdom issues, but there is nothing that the power of the Atonement can't handle!  So we are excited to keep working with her.

Also, this week was kind of our miracle week with less-actives.  We were able to get in with a few families that we haven't been able to get in with for a while and we were able to get in with one family that has never let missionaries in before!  So we are pretty excited about hopefully being able to work with them. 

And I don't know if you remember Sue that I told you about last week?  She is the one that is friends with that less-active family.  And she came to church last week even though they didn't.  Well, this week we were meeting with them again and we had a very powerful lesson from the Book of Mormon.  We told about the story of Abinadi and how he was so bold and courageous in standing up for his testimony of the Savior.  We read a chapter in Mosiah when Abinadi is bearing his testimony of the Savior.  Abinadi is one of my very favorite examples of obedience.  He went back to a city that had already rejected him and testified until his death.  He thought that his efforts had influence no one, when in reality Alma was converted!  Gives you a lot of hope as a missionary.  :)  But some of my favorite verses that we have thanks to Abinadi:

 7 And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection.

 8 But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.

 9 He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also

I have such a strong testimony of my Savior and that He really has won the fight!  He overcame both physical and spiritual death through His resurrection.  And I get to be a representative of him as his missionary.  I know that he really is the light and life of the world! 

Anyways, after that lesson, the grandma turned to us and asked if we could find her a ride to church.  She hadn't been to church in YEARS!  It has been so incredible to me to see how the Book of Mormon can change hearts!

I love being a missionary.  I love testifying of my Savior.  I love the work here!

Love,

Sister King

Sister Karlsson and me with the sisters in our zone!

Getting a parking ticket.... haha.

God hears our prayers no matter what language we are speaking in

Hey Fam!

What an incredible week we were able to have this week!  We saw so many miracles.  While the rest of the mission was being transferred all around the state, Sis. Karlsson and I took this opportunity of having so much extra time to work and try to jump start our area for this transfer.  I am really excited to have a new transfer ahead of us.  We have some great goals and exciting ideas to help us to have a lot of success.  So I am excited to see what happens.  I know that  Heavenly Father will bless us for our hard work.

Contacted into a lady who had met with missionaries multiple times in the past.  She had accumulated this many copies of the Book of Mormon from them.  haha it is super cute to me to see how missionaries are always so excited to share this book.

So a member in our ward served his mission in Sweden the same time that President Cutler was the AP there.  He had pictures of all the people he served with in that mission.  So this is President Cutler as Elder Cutler!  haha kind of fun.

We met a lot of cool new people this week.  We were out tracting one day and knocked on this door and a little boy answered.  He ran without saying anything to get his dad and they both came back.  We tried to start talking to the Father, but soon realized that he couldn't understand what we were saying.  The little boy told us, "My dad is deaf.  But I can sign to him for you if you want."  We were able to teach all about the Restoration of the gospel with the help of a 9 year old boy who knew some broken sign language.  This family was very Christian and already had a church that they attend, but they were very kind to us and accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon.  At the end, the Father said a prayer for us in sign language!  It was really such an incredible experience for me.  On my mission, I have worked closely with people who speak Spanish and Hmong.  And I have gained a testimony that God hears our prayers no matter what language we are speaking in.  And I KNOW that God "heard" his prayer in sign language that day.

We also met this cool new investigator named Ryan.  We were out and about and had had some of our plans fall through.  We were in the area of a less-active new move-in that the ward wanted us to track down, so we decided to stop by.  We knocked on the door looking for an Ashley, but Ryan answered.  It was very dark in the apartment and you could tell that it was a little dark in his eyes as well.  We could tell something was wrong.  We started talking to him a little bit and he told us that he did not believe in God.  He said that there were too many bad things that happened to good people.  He felt that God had given up on him, so he had given up on God.  We were able to testify of the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and of God's love for all of his children.  As we continued to talk with him, you could tell that he was facing some hard times in his life.  He told us, "don't worry about it.  It is not your burden to carry."  I know that what I told him next came directly from the Spirit.  Immediately the scripture in Matthew 11 popped into my head:

28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

We testified of Jesus Christ and how our burdens can be made light through Him.  And then testified how we were set apart representatives of Jesus Christ.  We were there to help him to feel the power of the Atonement in His life.  Tears were falling from his eyes as we told us that he had given up on God, but decided to say one more prayer asking for help.  And that is precisely when he heard a knock on the door and saw us standing there.  We are so excited to continue to meet with him and help him feel the power of the Atonement in his life.  I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can heal our hearts.

We also had another miracle when we stopped by the visit a less-active family.  We have been meeting with them weekly now and haven't seen a lot of progress.  But this time when we got there, they had invited a friend (Sue) to the lesson and we were able to start teaching her!  (We ended up setting a baptismal date with her and she came to church yesterday!)  While we were talking, another friend/neighbor of theirs (Leann) walked up to us and asked us about who we were and what we were teaching.  So we sat there teaching these two new people about the Restoration and we saw a fire start in the eyes of this less-active family.  They started bearing their testimonies of the gospel and were able to testify to their friends about the Restoration.  I have such a testimony that sharing the gospel and doing missionary work is one of the best ways that we can strengthen our own testimonies.  And the coolest thing was, before Leann got up to leave, the mom of the family leaned over and gave her a temple pass-a-long card.  Leann looked at it and turned it over the read the back.  The back of those cards have questions on them like "Where will I go after I die?"  After she read the card she looked at us and said, "My husband asked me these exact 3 questions this morning."  So cool, right??  We are so excited to start teaching Leann and her husband!

With Father's day being this week, I have been able to reflect on the blessings in my life of both my earthly Father and my Heavenly Father.  I sure am blessed. 

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/earthly-father-heavenly-father

John 3:16

16 ¶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father loved us enough to give us His perfect Son.  So that we can all return home to live with him again and to be with our families forever.  I am so grateful for the knowledge of this gospel and how it blesses my life everyday.  There is nothing greater than being a full-time servant of the Lord and getting to share this beautiful and perfect message every single day.  I love it!

Love,

Sister King

Hey Fam!

Can't believe that another week has already come and gone!

We have been pretty busy and seeing so many miracles!  It is the best. 

The highlight lesson of my week this week was definitely with our investigator Rachel.  She is actually a lay minister in her Lutheran church.  She is a very good Christian person- probably one of the most Christian people I have ever met!  She was on her church's Facebook page the other day and someone posted something along the lines of "Please pray for the ____ family!  They have chosen to leave the Mormon church and we are so glad that they are finally able to escape.  We need to pray that they will be able to find the truth and to stay away."  Isn't that soooooo sad? Yeah.  Rachel thought so to.  She commented on the post and said, "Please remember that Mormons are God's children too."  Within 3 minutes the Lutheran pastor deleted her post and sent her a personal message about why what she said was wrong.  Well that just didn't sit right with her.  So she decided that she wanted to find out why everyone thought the Mormons were "so terrible"and she also wanted to understand the doctrine of the Mormon church so that she could correct any misconceptions next time she was in a conversation and Mormonism came up.  So she started meeting with us!  :)  We answered all of her questions and taught her about the Restoration of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith and the miracle of the Book of Mormon.  The first few times we met with her, she was very stand offish and made it very clear that she was only there to gather information- not to convert.  Well we invited her to be baptized anyway!  haha.  And we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it so that she could know for herself.  The first couple of weeks she hadn't been reading.  But when we met with her this week, something was different and you could tell right off the bat.  Her countenance was different. 

When we asked her how her Book of Mormon reading had been going, (expecting her to say that she hadn't and then to just move on) to our suprised she whipped out her Book of Mormon and a study journal where she had been taking notes!  All she had been doing was reading just one chapter every day and you could tell!  We spent our entire lesson just discussing the Book of Mormon and the amazing plain and precious truths that she had learned about just in the first few chapters.  Then, we asked her if she had been praying about it.  She told us that her and the Lord had been "chatting" about it a lot lately.  And that the whole time she has been reading from the Book of Mormon she has had a calm and peaceful feeling.  She knows that it is true! All this time she told us that she was not interested in converted, but now she has been considering and praying about the decision to be baptized.  She told us that she really wants to be, but she is just concerned about leaving her Lutheran church where she is a mentor for a couple of the girls.  So please be praying for Rachel that she will not only receive an answer, but that she will have the courage to act on it.  I feel so good about her!

Also- just wanted to point out that The Book of Mormon never ceases to amaze me.  It is the BEST tool to have as a missionary because if people don't really want to listen to us or if they have a lot of questions or concerns, we just give them a copy and let the book do the work! The Book of Mormon is a book with a promise.  Everyone can come to know that it is true for themselves.  So as a missionary it is so awesome to have a little book full of truth!  We have the ultimate trump card!  haha. 

Also- this week was...... my last zone conference.  Yeah I know, it is super weird.  At a missionary's last zone conference President Cutler invites the departing missionaries to bear their testimony.  i remember at my very first zone conference seeing all the missionaries that were about to go home giving their testimonies and thinking to myself 2 things.  First, they must know everything!  And second, that day is never going to happen to me.  well that day came, and I don't know everything.  Not even close.  But I have learned a lot though.  I bore my testimony of the Atonement.  You know, the Atonement is a pretty incredible thing.  I NEVER would have been able to get this far on my mission without it.  It has changed me and enable me to do things that I never could have done on my own.  I am so grateful for the Atonement. 

This Zone conference was focused on something very interesting.  It is a very important commandment that I think we don't take as seriously as we should.  Keeping the Sabbath Day holy!  I love this commandment!  I thought that I understood it, but President and Sister Cutler really opened my eyes. 

 In Ezekial 20:12 it says,

12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.

That is kind of an interesting phrase.  That the sabbath is a sign between us and God.  But what is it a sign of?  It is a sign to God of how much we really appreciate the Atonement.  The most important thing we do on the Sabbath day is to partake of the sacrament as a reminder of his sacrifice for us.  With the sacrament, we renew our covenants.  People tend to think that the sacrament is only a renewal of our baptismal covenant.  But that is not true.  Modern day prophets have taught us that the sacrament renews ALL of our covenants!  So that is pretty neat.  President Cutler also taught us that all or the ordinances that we do in the church we only do for ourselves once, and then we do them for other people.  For example, we are only baptized once and then when we do baptisms for other people in the temple.  Except for the sacrament!  The sacrament is the only ordinance that we repeat purely for ourselves over and over and over!  That is how important it is. We need the power of the Atonement in our individual lives so badly.  We can not make it back to live with God again and with our families forever without it!  I love this quote from Elder Petersen:

Our observance or nonobservance of the Sabbath is an unerring measure of our attitude toward the Lord personally and toward his suffering in Gethsemane, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead.

So think about the Sunday that you had yesterday.  Were you showing God just how grateful you are for the Atonement of His perfect Son?

Definitely an area that I need to improve!  haha.

I am so grateful for how much I am learning.  I have learned so much!  And grown so much too.  But I know that I still have a long ways to go.  That is why I am so grateful for the Atonement.

I love you all so much!!!  HAve a great week!

Love,

Sister King

-36 degrees!

I hope that you all had a great week this week!  It was so good to hear from all of you.

Things have been going pretty well back here in Madison.  It was CRAZY cold this week though.  At one point it got down to -36 degrees.  So that is a little frigid.  But we are making it work. :)

So this picture sums up what the weather was like this week!

Tuesday was a great day.  We had another zone training meeting.  We talked a lot about what we have learned about The Atonement this past year.  That was interesting to reflect on. I truly have learned a lot.  I think that is probably the thing that I have learned to most about on my mission- The Atonement of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel is centered on this!  It is so important.  The way that I have learned so much about it is from reading the Book of Mormon.  That Book tells us so much about Christ.  So that was cool to get to talk with the missionaries in our zone about. 

We were also able to meet with Ishmael!  We talked to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He loved it!  He is excited to be baptized!  We had to move his date back one week to January 24th just to make sure that he is ready and prepared for baptism.  But January 24 is looking pretty solid!  So we are way excited about that!

We also got to meet with Rachel and talk about the Plan of Salvation.  She is doing so well.  She actually got a calling this past Sunday!!  She is going to be teaching the 14-17 year old Sunday School class!  She will be SO GOOD for that.  She is really excited and I am way excited for her too. 

Wednesday we had a lesson with our new investigator Jeanne.  She is the one that read the Book of Mormon in 3 days.  We taught her the Restoration and she loved it!  She said that it makes sense for the priesthood authority to be restored back to the earth.  She is still reading from the Book of Mormon, but is hesitant the come to church.  So hopefully when we see her this week we will be able to help her to make that next big step.

Thursday was kind of slow.  Just saw a couple of less active members and volunteered at the American Red Cross for a blood drive.  Pretty much we were just trying to do our best to be doing good and productive things inside and out of the cold.  So it was a littler slower.  But we were able to talk to some people on the bus.  Nothing super crazy or special to make note of though.

Friday was pretty cool.  We had to opportunity to teach one of the Elders' investigators!  Her name is Debra and she has a 12 year old daughter named Jayda.  They met them a few weeks ago and Debra was looking for a place that she could take her children to help their family to come closer to Christ, and then she met the Elders.  She was so excited and wants to get baptized this coming Saturday!  But the Elders were having a hard time being able to teach her everything before then, so we got to go over to teach them a lesson.  We talked about tithing and fasting and they absolutely loved it!  It has always been amazing for me to see people that are so excited to start contributing to the building up of the kingdom of God.  And it was so cool, we were talking about how we fast once a month on the first Sunday of every month.  And Jayda chimes in and says, "can we fast at other times if we want help with something too?"  It was just the sweetest.  So cool to see how the gospel has already started to change this family.

Saturday I got to go on exchanges in the Madison 2 ward area with Sis. Ostler.  She is from Ephraim, Utah and is absolutely amazing.  Such a great example for me!  We got to meet with a couple of recent converts in their ward and also a few less-active families.  We went to go stop by a potential investigator that they had, but she wasn't home.  So we started talking to her roommate.  We told her that we were teaching her roommate how she could come closer to Jesus Christ.  That sparked her interest and she was curious as to how.  So we were able to give her a Book of Mormon.  She said that she would read it and is a new investigator for those sisters now!  So that was a pretty cool miracle.  At the end of the exchange though, I was so happy to be back in the Madison 1st ward with Sister Kelley.

Sister Kelley and me in the Capitol building

On exchanges with Sister Ostler.  She is so great!

We made Snoopy waffles :)

Got to see Sister Christiansen for the first time in a year!  We came out together but have always served in different zones.

Things are going pretty well out here!  We are doing our best to stay busy and out of the cold.  The Lord is blessing us so much!  Please keep us in your prayers! 

Love you!!!

Sister King

UNBELIEVABLE miracles this week!

Hello!!!

Ok you guys- UNBELIEVABLE miracles this week!

So on Tuesday our investigator Kendall sent us a text in the morning that said something along the lines of "How long until I can get baptized?"  I KNOW, RIGHT???  Sister Kelley and I were freaking out.  A week or two before Thanksgiving Sister Hammatt and I were teaching her and we invited her to be baptized on January 10.  A date that soon absolutely scared her half to death.  And then we weren't really able to meet with her because of all of the craziness with Thanksgiving.  We thought that we had screwed everything up and that she didn't want to be meeting with us anymore.  So when we got this text, we were super excited but also super confused. So she went on to tell us that she was really thinking and praying about it a lot.  

She was thinking a lot about a lesson that we had had with her on Faith and how faith is the opposite of fear.  She ultimately decided that her faith was being overshadowed by fear.  Putting all fear aside, she sincerely prayed to know if this is what she should do.  And she received an answer to her prayer!  She has decided that she wants to get baptized this Saturday!!  So basically this week was spent frantically running around and trying to get everything ready and make sure that we have taught her everything before then.  You guys, this is seriously the biggest miracle.  Our mission has been working so hard and praying so hard to meet our goal of 300 baptisms this year.  This is literally a miracle that the Lord has blessed us with.  Saturday is going to be such a great experience.  We are so excited!  Kendall is so amazing and her testimony is so strong.  

After we got this text, it was time to head to district meeting.  We talked about our experiences with finding and what has been working and what hasn't been.  We talked about having the faith to find.  Sister Kelley and I have been doing a lot of finding lately so it was nice to have a district meeting to help us with that.  Later that night, we were at the bus station and we had about 10 minutes until our bus came.  So Sister Kelley and I said a prayer and then walked up and down the bus station trying to find the one person that we felt that we should talk to before our bus came.  We both felt distinctly impressed to talk to this one woman sitting alone on a bench.  So we approached her and when we got there and tried to start talking to her, discovered that she didn't speak any English.  At first I was a little disappointed because we had both felt impressed that we should talk to her.  So we did our best with the limited Spanish that we both knew to try to talk to her.  It ended up going very well actually!  We testified of Jesus Christ and invited her to our Ward Christmas party and ended up getting her information.  I have no idea how on earth that happened since I don't know any Spanish.  But we gave her information to the Spanish Elders in our ward and she is now a new investigator for them!  We were totally supposed to talk to her that night.  Even though we weren't able to talk to her very much, the Lord allowed us to talk to her enough.  So that was a pretty cool miracle that happened.

On Wednesday we had to rearrange most of our plans to make sure that we had time for Kendall.  We need to be meeting with her just about everyday to make sure that she is taught everything by Saturday.  So we were able to show her the baptismal font and teach her about baptism and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Kendall really likes the concept of repentance.  Except she hates the word "repentance."  That word does kind of have a negative connotation to it.  So instead of using the word repentance, we use the word "change."  Ultimately, that is what repentance is.  It is changing to become more like our Savior.  So that was a pretty cool lesson that we had. 

Thursday we had a really cool lesson with our new investigator named Ishmael.  He is the one that we met on the bus that showed up to church last week!  We taught him the Restoration and when we invited him to be baptized, he said that he really wants to be able to get to that point.  So that was really exciting.  We are excited to get to start working with him some more.  We also had another lesson with...  You guessed it!  Kendall!  We taught her about both the Word of Wisdom and Tithing.  She has already been living these commandments and she said that she has been able to tell a difference.  It is really cool to see people when they just start living the commandments and they start to see differences in their lives because of it.  Just another testament to me that the Lord will bless us to "prosper in the land" when we keep the commandments.  We also were able to have a lesson with Rachel about the Book of Mormon.  Rachel is still doing so well and her testimony is growing every day :)

Friday was pretty simple.  Volunteered at the local food pantry and then had a lesson with Kendall.  We taught her pretty much the rest of the commandments.

Saturday was St. Nick's Day!  I had never heard of it before, but people celebrate it here in Wisconsin.  Apparently December 6 is St. NIck's Day.  I don't know the reasoning or meaning behind it, but pretty much it means that you get a present from Santa on December 6.  Sister Hammatt sent me a St. Nick's Day package to open.  So that was really sweet of her.  
By the way, she e-mailed me today and all is going well back at the MTC!  :)  Saturday was also our Ward Christmas party  It ended up being a huge success!  We had a couple of different people that we met on the bus show up which was super cool.  And Ishmeal came.

Sunday was Kendall's baptismal interview and she passed with flying colors!  We got to have dinner at the Senior's house with all 8 of the missionaries in the ward and then stayed after to watch the Christmas devotional.  I LOVED the devotional.  How cool that we get to start off the Christmas season with that.  I loved that Sister Oscarson talked about how Christmas spirit is really just Christlike love.  That is why everyone is so happy at this time of year.

Us and the Allred's with their brand new baby.

I hope that you have all enjoyed starting to read the Book of Mormon.  Man, that's a good book.  I think my favorite thing from the reading this week was in 1 Nephi chapter 6.  I think it is verse 6 where Nephi talks about how there isn't anything on the plates that isn't of great worth.  That means that every little thing that we read in the Book of Mormon was put there for a reason and it is of great worth to us.  Book of Mormon reading should not be taken lightly! 

So overall, pretty crazy but awesome week.  We are going to be having a baptism this Saturday!!!  Please keep our investigators in your prayers.  Anyways, running out of time but I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Sister King

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Family! 

We've got a good couple inches of snow!

It was so good to get to hear all about your Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year.  I sure did miss all of you.  But it brought a lot of comfort to know that I will be able to share next year's Thanksgiving with you.  Thank you so much for sending updates and pictures of your week!  It always means a lot to get them.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving week back here in Madison too!

Having a little fun on p-day

Tuesday we had district meeting and we talked about the Holy Ghost's role in conversion.  It is amazing how vital that really is. As a missionary, it is so important to always have the Spirit with me so that others can feel it.  That is something that I have been trying to work on lately, always having the Spirit with me.  We also had a really cool lesson with Sarah that night.  We have been sharing stories with her from the Book of Mormon to help her have the courage to tell her family that she wants to be baptized.  We shared the story of Ammon and how when he went to the Lamanites, all he did was serve and love the people there.  Eventually their hearts were softened and an entire nation was converted!  That is what we challenged Sarah to do.  Continue to love and serve her family and let them know that she loves them.  As she does, I know that their hearts will soften.  We haven't been able to talk to her yet so I will have to let you know next week how telling her family went!

Wednesday was a really good day!  It is so weird, nothing super crazy or special happened.  It was just a good day to be a missionary.  We were working really hard and managed to find some really cool people along the way.  A goal that Sister Kelley and I have for this transfer is to pass out more Book of Mormons.  We are kind of doing like a "25 days of Christmas" thing by trying to give away 25 Book of Mormons!  We found 2 really cool people that we were able to give a copy to that day.  So we are off to a great start!  So many people were placed in our path that day.  It was just amazing.  I KNOW that the Lord's hand is in this work.  We also had a really cool lesson with our returning less active named Emily.  We taught the Plan of Salvation and talked about how none of it is possible without Jesus Christ.  He is the center of the plan.  It has been really cool to learn and grow with Emily as she starts coming back to church.

Thanksgiving with the Thurston's

Thanksgiving with the Durtschi's

hursday was THANKSGIVING!!!  What an amazing Thanksgiving day we had!  Obviously I was feeling a little homesick, but I didn't let that take away from the day that we got to have here.  We got to go over to the Thurston's for a Thanksgiving lunch.  That was really fun because I guess technically the Thurston's are family.  4th cousins totally counts, right?  The thought of spending Thanksgiving with "family" brought me a lot of comfort anyway.  Also, I have grown so close to them and they mean so much to me that they are as family as it gets for me out here in Wisconsin.  So it was super cool to be able to spend Thanksgiving with them.  Plus the food was absolutely delicious.  And GUESS WHAT.  As we were about to eat Hayley was telling us what all of the food was and she gets to this one dish and says, "and this just some raspberry stuff."  So I was like, "Wait, what is in the raspberry stuff?"  She said, "Just eat it.  You will like it."  So then I said, "Oh, because my Mom always makes this really yummy pretzel raspberry jello stuff every year for Thanksgiving."  YEP, THAT'S RIGHT.  Hayley made the raspberry pretzel stuff for Thanksgiving!  She didn't even know!  So I still got to have our family's Thanksgiving classic out here.  Such a huge tender mercy.  But seriously though, how could that NOT be a tender mercy from the Lord? 

Afterward, we got to go to the Durtschi's for another Thanksgiving dinner!  It was so fun and absolutely delicious.  It was cool because the less active lady that teaches us to knit came and I have gotten really close with her.  So we got to spend Thanksgiving with her as well!  So that was really fun.  After the Durtschi's, we headed back to the Thurston's again for dessert.  :)

Even though spending Thanksgiving on a mission is REALLY hard, it was an amazing experience.  It is so amazing to be able to have a time of year that we can reflect on the things that we are grateful for.  Back at home when we have Thanksgiving and we all go around the table and say something that we are grateful for, my answers have always been the gospel, my parents, my sisters, my extended family, my home, Sadie, school, etc.  But this year, I was pulled away from all of those things (except the gospel of course).  But being away from those things has given me a greater appreciation for them.  It has also helped me to focus on the one thing that I still do have that I am oh so grateful for.  And that is the gospel.  The gospel has always been a constant in my life.  I am so grateful for it.  But this year, there is one more major thing that I can add to the list of things that I am grateful for- MY MISSION.  I am so beyond grateful for my mission.  I haven't loved every minute of my mission, but I have been grateful for every minute of it.  My mission has taught me and given me so many things that have changed me so much.  My mission has given me a greater appreciation for family.  It has strengthened my testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ.  My personal relationship with Him has grown exponentially on my mission.  My mission has given me lasting friendships that I will cherish forever with companions, other missionaries, ward members, investigators, recent converts, and so many others.  My mission has given me a greater knowledge and love for the scriptures.  My mission has taught me how to be a better wife and mother which is one of my greatest desires.  I owe so much to my mission.  Making the decision to come on a mission was one of, if not THE, hardest decision I have ever made.  And it continues to be very difficult.  But I am so grateful that I , with the help of my Father in Heaven, made the decision to come.  I am so grateful for my mission.

Friday was a pretty good day as well.  We met some more cool people on the bus on our way to a few different places which was super fun.  We met this guy on the bus named Ishmael who ended up coming to church yesterday.  So that was a HUGE miracle!  More to come on him next week.  When we got home that night, we made ourselves some yummy dinner and then we decided to keep up with our family's tradition of watching a Christmas movie.  We weren't able to watch That Santa Clause... :)  But we were able to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas.  So I was able to keep that Thanksgiving tradition alive out here as well.  :)

Saturday we were able to meet with Shay.  She is still doing so well!  And guess what!  She have her very first talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday!  She is so amazing and is continuing to grow in the gospel.  Gosh, I love her so much.

So that was pretty much my week!!

Ok family, before I sign off I have a very special challenge for you.  This is something that has been on my mind a lot that I have prayed about and that I really feel is a good idea.  Here is the challenge:

Starting on December 3, read one chapter of the Book of Mormon every single day.  If I have done my calculations correctly, then you will finish reading the Book of Mormon on the day that I get home!  The Book of Mormon is so important.  Being able to read from the Book of Mormon so much on my mission is what has truly helped my testimony to grow.  Even though it might be easy to let a day or two slip, make it a priority RIGHT NOW to read one chapter every single day.  It should only take about 5 minutes out of your day.  Elder Scott told us this last conference that reading from the scriptures is even more important than sleep sometimes.  So if it means that you need to get up a few minutes earlier or go to bed a few minutes later, I promise you that it will be worth it.  This is something that I feel is really important, so take this challenge seriously!  Doing it as a family would be cool, but I think that you should do it individually.  That way you can all share with me some of your thoughts in your weekly e-mails.  And you can share thoughts in family home evening and at dinner and stuff because we will all be in the same place in the Book of Mormon.  It would really mean so much to me if you would do this.  I love the Book of Mormon so much and I really want to be able to share this cool experience with you.

I love you so much!  Thank you for all that you do for me!

Can't wait to hear how your Book of Mormon reading is going!

Love,

Sister King

Another week in Madison

Hi Family!

This week was a pretty good.  Busy, which is always good!

Sister Hammatt and Sister King

Tuesday we had a really good district meeting.  The topic was the law of chastity so we were all super excited about it..... haha.  But it actually ended up being one of the most inspiring district meetings of my mission.  It really hit me just of important the law of chastity is!  It is so important that we are living virtuous and chaste lives.  I think for me, I always think of the law of chastity as just not doing the bad things.  It's not just not doing to bad things, we need to be doing good things too.  Chastity starts with having good and virtuous thoughts, words, deeds, and actions.  We can ALWAYS be living a more chaste life.  


D&C 121 tells us to let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly.  Virtue should be able to "garnish" or "go along with" all of the thoughts that we have in our minds.  And I will never forget what Susan W. Tanner said!  "Virtuous young men are attracted to virtuous young women!"  Later that night, we were able to have dinner with our investigator Stefanie.  Her daughter is a member of the church and she was in town.  They had us over for dinner and then afterward had a very powerful lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  Stefanie recently lost her husband and a few years ago lost her other daughter to cancer.  We testified that families can be together forever!  What an amazing blessing that is.  It really touched Stefanie and she wants to do what it takes to be with her family forever. 

Flowers from the best family in the world

I gave Janet one of the flowers that you sent me.

In front of the Madison Capitol!

Wednesday we also taught the Plan of Salvation to two of our other investigators.  It was cool because one of Sarah's concerns is telling her very catholic family about her joining the church.  She was also worried about where her family would end up in God's plan.  We taught her about the different degrees of glory.  And we also taught her that throughout the plan, God gives us every possible chance that he can to accept the gospel.  He wants all of us to make it back to live with him!  So that was also a very powerful lesson.

Thursday was interesting because we received a headquarter referral for someone that wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon.  So we went to go deliver it to him.  Turns out, he had seen The Book of Mormon musical and it sparked his interest!  So now he is reading the Book of Mormon. The Lord works in mysterious ways!  But whatever if takes for him to learn about the restored gospel!  :)  We also had another lesson with our investigator Shay.  She is the one that we met at the bus stop.  She had been reading the Book of Mormon all week and she told us that she talked to her very Baptist mom and that she would be supportive of her joining the church.  So we set a baptismal date with her for November 15!  We are so excited about it.  I feel very blessed.  I was kind of struggling for a while because I have been on the bus my entire mission, and nothing has ever come from our finding efforts on the bus.  I am sure that we have planted many seeds, but I really wanted to find someone that I could not only find, but teach and bring into the gospel!  Shay truly is a miracle and such a blessing.  A direct answer to my prayers.  But please keep Shay in your prayers because we still have a long way to go! 

Friday we visited with a few less active members and recent converts.  And we also had a lesson with a brand new investigator named Kendall.  She is awesome!  She has been dating this guy in the Milwaukee YSA ward and so we were able to meet with her and answer her questions.  We are so excited to start working with her more this week.

Saturday was our ward's fall festival!  It was super fun.  It made me realize that I really have come to love the members of this ward!  I feel so blessed to be here in Madison.  I absolutely love it.

Sister Hammatt and me at the ward Halloween party.  We did the best we could for not being allowed to dress up :)

All of the missionaries in our ward.

This is Elsa and she is a wolf for Halloween :)

So right now we are just running around and teaching as many people as we can!  Things are going great.  Thank you so much for your love and prayers.  I love you so much!  Till next week!

Sister King