Gresham, Wisconsin and Hmong food this week!

Hey fam!

Another week has come and gone.  I feel like this week went by especially fast because p-day was on Tuesday instead of Monday.  So it feels like not a ton has happened since I last talked to you. 

But a couple of highlights from this week:

We spent a lot of time with the Hmong people this week so I thought I would include a few pictures of what they feed us.  It is heaven on earth!  We met quite a few Hmong people this week.  It can be kind of hard to start teaching them because they don't really have a Christian background.  It is so cool to be able to teach people about Jesus Christ when they don't know much about Him.  Sometimes it is so hard for me to understand that there are so many people that don't know who He is because my entire life has been based on and founded in the teachings and example of the Savior.  It has been cool to teach people that don't know about Him because it has helped me to realize just how much He really does mean to me.  Grateful that I do have to opportunity to tell people about Him that don't even know.  Everyone deserves to know that they have a Savior who loves them!

This week I was also able to go on exchanges with Sister Dunlap to the good old town of Gresham, Wisconsin.  This area is a legend in our mission.  Gresham is a town with a population reaching a grand total of 586.  But they have a ward there because about 85% of the people who live there are members.  Most people in Wisconsin have never even heard of Gresham unless they are a Mormon.  haha.  Years ago there were two sisters that joined the church in Milwaukee and then moved the Gresham and that is pretty much how Gresham started.  So basically everyone in this town is related to each other in one way or another.  The sisters that serve in Gresham live with Grandma Rekow.  They help her do chores around the farm and house.  When I was there we got to go out and pick the asparagus in her garden and feed her baby chicks.  It was pretty much like camping for the weekend!  Haha.  Grandma is known for catching rabbits in her backyard and then having the missionaries gut them and cooking a rabbit stew.  So it was quite the adventure to get to go there for a little while.  A lot of fun!  We were able to teach a family that the sisters there are working with and help them to read the Book of Mormon together.  So the work is coming along slowly but surely there.

This is me with Grandma Rekow!

So sad to hear this week about Elder L. Tom Perry.  He was such an incredible man and a great example for all of us.  We are so blessed to be able to have living prophets and apostles on the earth today and it is so sad to have to see one of them go.  Weird to think that he almost came out to visit our mission just a few months ago.  I loved his last conference address that talked about how families are the basic unit for the structure of heaven and here on earth as well.  This transfer I have actually been studying the Christlike attribute of obedience and I LOVE this quote from Elder Perry. 

"Those who rely solely on themselves and follow only their own desires and self-inclinations are so limited when compared to those who follow God and tap into His insight, power, and gifts. It has been said that someone who is all wrapped up in himself or herself makes a very small package. Strong, proactive obedience is anything but weak or passive. It is the means by which we declare our faith in God and qualify ourselves to receive the powers of heaven. Obedience is a choice. It is a choice between our own limited knowledge and power and God’s unlimited wisdom and omnipotence."

Elder Perry was an incredible example of obedience himself.  He has faithfully served and basically devoted his entire life to serving the Lord and I hope I can do that very same thing. 

I am grateful for your examples of obedience as well.  I love you guys!  Keep up the good work!

Love,

Sister King

5.26.15

Hey Fam!

As usual, don't have a whole lot of time to write.  :( but this week was pretty crazy busy!  I was really sad to be missing all of Ashley's graduation festivities, but I knew that the Lord would bless us extra for our sacrifices and boy was that true!  We had such a miracle week!

Yes, the people here love their Packers THAT much!

A few highlights:

We FINALLY got back in contact with our investigator Linda.  She is the one that was a HQ referral.  She was all excited to work toward baptism, and then we fell out of contact.  Then she randomly showed up at church a few weeks later, and then we fell out of contact.  But this week we were finally able to teach her again!  She has had a lot of opposition which I think is the reason that it has been so crazy.  But she has been reading from the BofM every day and she told us that she received an answer that it is true!  So we are super excited to continue working with her.

We have a Laotian investigator named Thim that has been working with the missionaries for a long time.  She had to cancel one of our appointments this week and felt kind of bad about it so she ended up inviting us to a family birthday party that they were having.  We got to eat SO MUCH delicious hmong food and then most of her extended family members asked for copies of the Book of Mormon.  Us and the Hmong elders in our ward have now started teaching much of Thim's extended family! 

My favorite miracle of the week was that we met this really cool girl named Jamaylah the other day and gave her a BofM and she invited us back to teach her more.  Well, went we went back yesterday to teach her, she was in the middle of a little emergency and had to leave right when we got there.  So we started talking to her older sister.  We ended up teaching her an entire Restoration lesson and it moved her to tears.  She accepted a baptismal invitation and a date to be working toward!  And invited us back to teach her husband and 3 children (who are all above the age of 8 might I add :) )  later this week! 

There were definitely a lot of ups and downs this week, but the ups always outweigh the downs and the downs make the ups taste that much sweeter.  

 

 

Don't have a ton of time- but here is a quote for President Uchtdorf's last conference talk that I LOVE:

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior’s Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly. I cannot even begin to estimate “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height … [of] the love of Christ.”

I know that the Savior really does love us!  I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to share that love with others and feel it more abundantly myself as a full-time servant of Jesus Christ.

Love you all so much!  Until next week!

Love,

Sister King

"Mormons are some of the most Christian people that I know!"

Hello Family!

So good to hear from you this week! 

Here is an extra shout out to Ash who has now joined the ranks as a fellow cougar.  #gocougs

Things are going well out here in good old Wausau, Wisconsin!  Things are warming up a little bit.  And by warming up, I mean it was 10 degrees when we got out of the car.  So that is good news!

haha

the Elders put this huge ice boulder on the top of our car

As for the week this week...

Tuesday we met with our investigator Nancy.  She is super cool.  She is probably one of my very favorites of the people that we are teaching right now.  She was found through a Family History Booth that the sisters set up over the summer and they have been teaching her every since.  She is older, probably in her late 60's.  and she is coming along slowly but surely!  She really loves all of the things that she has learned and she told us on Tuesday that she believes the Book of Mormon is true!  The hard thing for her is leaving the Lutheran heritage of her family... :(  She really wants to, she just needs to get up the courage to do it.  She told us that she had a cool experience with her family this week though.  They were having a big family dinner and one of her grandsons brought up the subject of Mormons and said something along the lines of "Mormons aren't Christians."  I was gearing myself up for some bad news... but then Nancy told us that 2 of her sons actually stood up for the church!  One of them, the most Lutheran of them all said, "Mormons are some of the most Christian people that I know!"  Nancy said that the room just lit up and that she could feel the Spirit.  She doesn't know if her kids know that she has been seriously investigating the church, but she said that this was a huge tender mercy for her.  We are planning on trying to set a baptismal date with her either this week or next week, so keep Nancy in your prayers!

Wednesday we had a really good lesson with our investigator Kelly.  She is the one that is trying to quite smoking.  She actually has made a lot of progress this week!  She said that she can feel the priesthood blessing helping her.  So that was a huge miracle!

Thursday we had a service project at the local food pantry, so that was a lot of fun!  and Thursday night was my first experience with Hmong food!  I LOVE IT!!!!!!! I love all of the Hmong members of the ward already.  haha

I decided to take a couple of pictures of the inside of our house.  Don't worry, today is p-day so that clutter will be cleaned when we get home.

We also have a big entry way and a basement with our own washer and dryer which is going to save me a FORTUNE because in my last 2 areas I always had to get quarters for laundry.  There is also another little study room with a few couches and stuff in it.  And the bathroom.  so this is BY FAR the nicest place I have lived on my mission.

Friday was my very first exchange as a sister training leader.  I got to go to Stevens Point, Wisconsin with Sis. Kunz.  (I forgot to take a picture... Sorry!)  She is from Spokane, Washington and came out in July with Sister Kelley!  So it was fun to get to be with her for the day.  It was cool because there is a college here, UW-Stevens Point.  So we got to go campus contacting!  I WAS IN THE ZONE.  It was just like being back in good old Madison.  So that was a huge tender mercy for me.  And in the process we found some new investigators there for the Stevens Point sisters to start working with.  I think it helped Sister Kunz to get re-excited about the work.  So I was grateful for that.  As we were driving down the road, Sister Kunz felt prompted to stop at this one apartment complex and tract it out.  So we did and ended up giving away 7 copies of the Book of Mormon!  So I was so grateful that I was able to go there and help the Stevens Point Sisters get some work done.  I was super nervous at first, but I would call my first exchange a success!

Sorry- I am always running out of time!  haha.  But I thought that I would just leave you with this quote from Dieter F. Uchtdorf:

"Success may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him."

Sometimes missions are hard because you don't see large amounts of success every day.  But I know that the Lord is grateful for all of our efforts.  He sees the little successes and little victories that we have.  Even ones that we don't  see.  And He will bless us for our hard work.  I know that is true!  I know that Heavenly Father loves us and that more than anything he wants us to be able to make it back to live with him again.  I sure do love you guys!  Can't wait to hear from you again next week!

Love,

Sister King

Hello from Wausau everybody!

This is our house!

Man what a crazy week.  Transfers are always pretty crazy and EXHAUSTING.  But we made it through. 

So to start out, here is a little update on my life.

My new companion is Sister Ashley Weaver and we came out from the MTC together.  So we have both been out just over a year.  (Actually, yesterday we both celebrated our 13 month mark.  So that was fun!)  She is from Salem, Oregon and is 24 years old.  She graduated from BYU Idaho in 2012 in Creative Writing.  She has served in Waukesha which is in Milwaukee (not too far from West Allis) and Sun Prairie (which is not too far from Madison). 

And a little more about Wausau.  So first of all, it is significantly colder here than in Madison.  And a lot more snow.  So that has taken some getting used to.  But- we do have a car!  We drive a brand new 2015 Subaru Legacy.  (I know, right??)  Wausau is ssssssuper hilly.  Like there are just hills everywhere.  And it is the funniest thing- there is one hill here that is a little taller than the others and they call it "Rib Mountain."  hahahahahahahahaha to them thinking that it is a mountain.  It was so refreshing that you guys sent me so many pictures of Timp this week.  I will have to send you a picture of what I call Rib Hill one of these days.  We don't have an apartment, we live in this cute little house.  And we live right across the street from.... you guessed it- a Cheese Factory.  Wausau is pretty much what you would imagine a town/city in Wisconsin to be like.  There is a large population of Hmong people here.  There is a set of Hmong speaking elders in our ward. And then the Zone Leaders are in our ward too.  

Sister Weaver and I doing Valentine's Day right!

Obviously I can't be 100% sure, but I would be willing to bet that this will be my last area.  So everyone can send everything to this address and don't send anything to the mission office.

So this week was pretty much just saying goodbye to everyone in Madison and then meeting a bunch of new people here in Wausau.  So not a ton to report on the week.  Sister Weaver is still pretty new to the area so we are both learning a lot together as we go along.  We have been trying to meet more of the members in the ward.  It has been cool because a few times we have gotten the wrong address and end up finding someone at that address that let's us in to teach them the first lesson.  We are working on building up the teaching pool and trying to find more people to teach.

One last picture with the T-birds in Madison before transfers

My favorite person

Dinner at the Durtschi's

Goodbyes with Rachel

Brunch with Kendall

Janet

Sarah

The Thurston's

Shay

Emily

And goodbye to my best friend!

I am sorry that this letter is so short!  But I am outta time!  I love you guys so much!  Until next week!

Sister King