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

Last week with Sister Newton

Love this girl!

Transfers are this Wednesday!!  It is exciting and sad all at the same time.  I will be so beyond sad to see Sis Newton go. :(  But I just found out like 5 seconds ago that my new companion's name is Sis. Silva.  I don't know much about her.  In fact, I don't know anything about her haha.  But I will meet her on Wednesday!  I am super excited.  I feel like a lot of good things are going to happen in West Allis this transfer.  So we will see how it goes.  But didn't this transfer go by so fast??  Like I seriously feel like Sis. Newton got here yesterday.  And can you believe May is already over too???  Weird.  Fun fact- for the month of May I counted how many sirens we heard everyday here in West Allis and the total was 119.  Haha I don't know if that is because it is a busy city or if it is dangerous or probably a mixture of the two.  But we hear sirens going off all the time!  Haha 119 in May.

As for the update of the week, not a lot happened because P-day was late last week.  But here you are:

Wednesday we got to play volleyball in the morning with the women of the stake.  It was way fun and Sis. Newton and I could definitely hold our own.  Then we had our last district meeting of the transfer. :( again, bittersweet.  We had a really good district.  We all got along and were friends, but most importantly we all worked really hard.  It really was a good transfer.  Then Kopp's (the famous frozen custard place in Wisconsin) had my favorite flavor that day.  It's called Never Enough Chocolate and it is just as good as it sounds.  So we went out to lunch together.  That night we swapped with the Sister Training Leaders for exchanges.  It was so fun to get to see Sis. Tanner again!  I didn't get to go on the exchange with Sis. Tanner, but hopefully next transfer.  I got to go with Sis. Peterson and I absolutely love her too!  I went with her on my very first exchange and I have definitely grown sooooooo much since then.  So it was really fun.  I got to go to Kenosha on the exchange so that was kind of exciting!  All I have ever known my whole entire mission is West Allis.  So I was excited to get to do something new.  Plus Kenosha is widely known as "the promised land" in this mission because they get a lot of baptisms.  So it was fun to get to go down there.

Last district meeting with these guys

And yes I win for funniest face!

Thursday- my day in Kenosha!  We ended up visiting a lot of less-actives and recent converts.  So that was cool.  The biggest difference for me though is that we had a car!  That was a luxury that I have yet to enjoy on my mission!  haha.  Nothing super exciting happened while we were there.  But we did meet this one guy on the street who told us that he had a vision that he needed to meet Taylor Swift.  So he walked allllll the way down to Chicago from here.  Taylor Swift was set to perform in 9 days.  So we waited 8 days, and then walked home.  hahahaha yeah I know.  It was interesting.  But it was a really good day and I learned a lot from Sis. Peterson.  I forgot to take a picture with her. Sorry!  But she is awesome.  it was so good to be back in good ole Stallis at the end of the day though.  And back with Sis. Newton. 

 

Friday was kinda lame.  We spent a good chunk of time waiting for appointments that never showed.  Oh and the most awkward thing happened hahahaha.  We were out street contacting and I walked up to this lady and asked if I could talk to her about the church and she says, "Um I'm in your ward." hahahahahahaha in my defense she had big sunglasses on and I had never met her before.  Oh well. 

Triple dog dare you to count all the double chins

Sunday was great!  We were fasting for some of our investigators to know what to teach them and I really feel like we got the answers at church.  So that was cool.  Tubree came to church too!  So that is always fun.  After church, we were on the bus on the way to an appointment with a less-active.  We were the only ones on the bus.  Just us and the bus driver.  And it is a bus that we don't normally take very often.  Lots of times if the busses are running ahead of schedule they will pull over and wait at a bus stop until it is time to leave again.  As soon as we got on the bus, this bus driver pulled over to wait.  He turned and looked at me and said, "Can I ask you a question?  How can two people grow up in the same home in the same circumstances, but take two completely different paths?  On path being good and the other being bad?"  Whoa!  What a loaded question!  I was so scared to answer.  I had no idea what to say, but then the Spirit completely took over.  I explained to him about how we are all given agency, but because of Christ's Atonement for us, he can make up for all the bad decisions that we make.  All the mistakes that we make can be made right through Him.  As we continued to talk to him, he completely opened up to us about how his brother had died just 2 weeks earlier.  His brother had made some bad choices that had taken him down a completely different path.  He then asked, "So does my brother still have a chance?"  How grateful I was to be able to explain to him that YES his brother does still have a chance.  He is in a better place now and he still have the opportunity to accept the gospel.  I could tell in the bus driver's countenance that he was feeling the Spirit.  Ya know, that is really cool that we have that knowledge.  I don't know what I would do if I had someone close to me like that make some not so good decision.  I would want them to have another chance.  And because of our Savior, we do!  How amazing is that?  We taught him some more about the Plan of Salvation until our bus stop came along.  I know without a doubt that we were supposed to be on that bus that day.

 

 

Overall, it was a great week.  A great last week with Sis. Newton.  Transfers should be interesting!  Can't wait to talk to you next week!  Love you!

 

Sister King