Mission Conference with Elder Christensen

Hello Family!

Another week come and gone.  I can hardly believe it. 

So for starters- we found out about transfers this Wednesday.  Sister Weaver and I are going to be staying here together another transfer in Wausau!  YAY!  That is what we thought was probably going to happen.  But you can never be sure.  So it is nice to know!  :)  But there was a sister training leader area that did close down so we are going to be picking up a couple of new sets of sisters that we go on exchanges with and stuff so that should be interesting.  Gonna get to travel around the state a little more so that should be fun!  Exhausting, but fun. :)  The next transfer I believe is going to be on May 6.

This week was pretty cool.

Tuesday we got to meet with True.  Do you remember her?  She is the one that I talked about last week that we pulled over to help her with her car.  Well, we set a baptismal date with her this week!  We went over and taught her the Restoration and she loved it!  There is still a lot that we have to teach her and a long way to go, but she has a day that she is working toward.  She is a cute little Hmong lady and she is so kind to us!  So hope that all goes well with her as we continue to teach her this week.

Wednesday we met a new investigator named Andrea.  The Elders in our ward had been teaching her Dad, but he wasn't that interested.  We decided to try stopping by his daughter's (Andrea's) house to see if we might have more luck with her.  She let us right in and we were able to teach her the Restoration.  Her boyfriend has decided to sit in on the lessons too!  They loved the Restoration so much, that they wanted us to come back the very next day on Thursday to teach them the next lesson!  So we set a baptismal date with her has well.  Her boyfriend, Andres, is a little more hard-hearted and not as willing to work toward baptism.  But we know that the Spirit will soften his heart.  :) 

It was cool though because our zone (like I talked about last week) set the goal for every area in our zone to set a new baptismal date before L. Tom Perry was going to come.  OUR ZONE WAS ON FIRE THIS WEEK!  We doubled our goal for baptismal dates.  It was absolutely incredible.  We were all working so hard to prepare to hear from an apostle.  And then on Thursday, the day before we were going to be leaving for the conference, we got a call from our zone leaders to tell us that Elder Perry wasn't going to be coming anymore...  Yeah... needless to say I was pretty disappointed.  Still am a little bit... haha.  But holy cow look at all the miracles that came from just the thought of an apostle coming to our mission!  The conference still ended up being such a cool experience.

Some pictures from our mission conference

Got to see Sister Osmond!

Celebrating Gabby's year mark!

It was about a 4 hour drive down to Milwaukee because we had to pick up another set of sisters in Gresham on the way.  We didn't get to stay with anyone from West Allis.  :(  But we did get to stay with a family from Sister Weaver's old area in Waukesha!  So that was pretty cool.  We stayed the night there and then headed to the Milwaukee South Stake center in the morning.  This is the church building where the West Allis ward meets!  So many memories flooded through my mind as we walked into the building.  Such a tender mercy to be able to be in Milwaukee again.  I sure do miss that place.  And I got to see so many of my missionary friends there.  Biggest highlight though- seeing Sister Kelley!  Made my whole life.  Sure do miss that girl.  She told me all about what has been going on back in Madison too so that was pretty cool.  Praying that she gets transferred up here to Wausau next transfer... :) 

So Elder Perry didn't end up coming....  Yeah that was a bummer.  But Craig C. Christensen of the seventy still came.  And he is pretty awesome!  This is kind of sad though- he told us that the reason that Elder Perry wasn't able to come at the last minute is because President Monson and President Packer are both not doing well.  Their health just been declining so much.  And he needed to stay last minute to do some things to get ready for general conference coming up because he is the next in seniority. 

Even though Elder Perry wasn't able to be there, it was still a very special meeting!  Elder Christensen is also a very inspired man.  He talked to us a lot about the Atonement and how we can learn about it has we read from the Book of Mormon.  I thought that was interesting because that is something that President Cutler has been talking to us about that a lot lately.  So I guess they both received the same revelation that that is what we needed to hear!  Elder Christensen also talked a lot about humility.  I thought that was interesting because the question that I took to this meeting was, "How can I be more humble."  I thought this was interesting- he said, "Humility is knowing who you are and at the same time knowing who God is."  Kind of makes you think doesn't it.  I think sometimes we think that if we are humble that we need to think very low of ourselves.  That isn't true!  Humility should make us confident!  But we just need to make sure that we are equally confident in the Lord as we are in ourselves.  It is really hard to find that balance.  But then I think about how we have a perfect example to look to- The Savior.  Boy was he humble.  He did exactly what the Father asked him to do, but he was also confident in his testimony and in the things that he knew.

So this week was a pretty special one!  I think that Sister Cutler said she was going to be posting a picture of the whole mission that we took together on the mission blog soon.  (There should also be some pictures there from the last zone conference here in Wausau and from my first MLC!)

So grateful for the experiences that I have been having out here.  I miss you all everyday.  But I cherish every moment that I get to spend here. 

Love you all so much!  Have an awesome 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

I may or may not be an icicle, but I am alive!

Got to meet Elder Shaum!  I remember Grandma saying that we are related or something!  :)

Sister Weaver and me.  With a classy fire hydrant in the background.

So since I am in a car area now it is my responsibility to stand behind Sister Weaver and back her up.  (It's a rule in the white handbook.)  But usually I just make faces at her in the rear view camera instead.

Hey Family!

Yes I am still alive!  I may or may not be an icicle, but I am alive!  This week was pretty crazy cold, but we managed to survive.   Wausau has been treating me pretty nicely so far.  I definitely feel a little more settled in.  Still trying to adjust- it is completely different from the other 2 areas I have served in.  But I love it her!  There is so much potential in this area and I think our success will depend on what we choose to do with it.  Sister Weaver and I are pretty excited!

Tuesday we spent some time finding and planning our training for zone conference later in the week.  We also had a lesson with our investigator family.  Their names are Kathy, Spencer, and Stephanie.  We taught them the Law of Chastity.  (We ended up teaching the LOC a ton this week... haha)  Stephanie actually had studied to be a sex therapist so that was by far the most interesting Law of Chastity lesson I have ever taught on my mission and my life as well.  But they are progressing.  Slowly, but progression nonetheless.  They have been investigating since last summer so hopefully we will be able to get a move on things with them.

Wednesday we had a pretty neat experience.  We had a few different appointments that morning that all had fallen through.  It was the worst...  We went to our investigators Jimmy and Vicki's house for an appointment with them and, you guessed it!  They weren't there.  But their roommate Nate answered the door.  He invited us in to wait for Jimmy and Vicki to get home.  As we were waiting, we started talking to him and getting to know him a little bit.  He told us that he has 3 beautiful children, but had been having some marriage problems which is why he had been crashing with Jimmy and Vicki for the last little while.  Sister Weaver and I started bearing our testimonies of the Atonement and I pulled out a Book of Mormon and told him how I learned more about the Savior and the Atonement as I read from it.  He took it in his hands, looked at it for a moment, and looked up at me and said, "This book is going to help my family.  Isn't it?"  Why yes, Nate.  Yes it is!  The Spirit was so powerful in that moment.  I remember thinking as we were leaving that house how incredible our Heavenly Father is.  To me, it appeared to just be yet another appointment that had fallen through.  But the Lord used us as instruments in His hands to help Nate and his family to draw closer to each other and closer to Jesus Christ.  It also made me stop and think about how having our family founded on Jesus Christ really is what has been the biggest strength to us.  And I am so grateful for that!

Thursday was Zone Conference!!  My first zone meeting in Wausau so that was pretty fun.  Sister Weaver and I gave a training on the importance of working with the members.  We talked about some examples in the Book of Mormon of member missionary work.  There is Abish who invited everyone to come and see King Lamoni and listen to Ammon.  There are the members that fasted and prayed in behalf of Alma the Younger to help him to see the light again.  And there is my personal favorite, Amulek, who testified with Alma to the people of Ammonihah.  We got a pretty good discussion going and I don't think it was too bad for my very first training.  But we can only improve from here I guess!  :)  President Cutler trained us on the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation and how the Atonement of Jesus Christ is what makes the plan possible.  I love 2 Nephi 2:6-8 that talks about that.  One of my new favorite scriptures!

 Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.

 7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.

 8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.

Also, President Cutler gave us this packet of deep doctrine questions concerning the P.O.S. and the answers that he has found to them in the scriptures.  Pretty much the coolest thing ever.  President Cutler should be the next prophet.  He also told us that if our investigators ask us questions about the plan that we don't know, to read Alma 37:11 with them.

11 Now these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear.

Haha needless to say he used that verse for a couple of the deep doctrine questions that we asked him as well.

And when we got back to our area, we got to go play volleyball with all of the hmong members!  Volleyball is to these hmong members as soccer was to the Spanish members in Madison.  haha

Friday we met with our investigator Kelly.  She REALLY wants to get baptized but is having a hard time giving up smoking.  We had a powerful lesson on the power of the priesthood and then brought a member with us to give her a blessing.  So we are praying that all will go well with that so that she can get baptized in the coming weeks!

Running out of time, but I sure do love you guys!  We are seeing miracles everyday.  I am so grateful for you guys and all that you do for me!  Till next week!

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

Goodbye Madison!

Hello Family!

Well, another transfer has come and gone.  Crazy how time flies.  As it sounds like most of you already know, I found out that I am going to be transferred this week.  I have been really sad about it, but I trust that the Lord has good things in store for me.  So I just found out that I am going to be transferred to Wausau.  And I have been called to be a Sister Training Leader.  My new companion is going to be Sister Weaver.  She came out with me so if you look back at some of my MTC pictures then you can see who she is.  She is the absolute cutest so I am way excited to get to be companions with her.  I have heard so many amazing things about the Wausau area.  Sister Kelley just came from that zone and she raves about it.  Sister Newton also served there and that is all she would talk about when we were together.  

Bowling with the district last p-day!

One of my favorite recent converts here in Madison.  He is going to the temple for the first time later this month!

Also, guess what!  The Wausau sisters area has a car!  I am still learning about Wisconsin geography, but I do know that Wausau is North of here.  Which means more snow and more cold!  Yay!  I hear that the work has really been taking off there, so I am really excited to start meeting people and getting going!  So I will leave Wednesday morning to head to Wausau. 

But back to this week...  It was a little sad because I knew that a lot of the people that I was seeing was probably going to be my last time seeing them.  But it has made me realize what an amazing blessing all of these people have been in my life. 

Tuesday we had some more crazy snow storms.  I didn't think that there was even anymore snow in the atmosphere because all of it must have fallen on Sunday when church was cancelled.  But nope, we had even more on Tuesday.  We had district meeting and then when we went to catch the bus afterward, we ended up getting stuck at the bus station for an hour because all of the buses were running way behind because of the crazy amounts of snow.  And then once we got on our bus we were stuck on that bus for another hour because everything was moving so slowly and there were so many car accidents.  It was an adventure to say the least. 

But while we were stuck on the bus for so long, we were able to meet this kid named Darnell.  He is studying to become a pastor for his Unitarian church.  We were able to talk about the differences between our churches and he was very impressed with us for giving up a year and a half of our lives to teach people about Christ.  He wasn't extremely interested, but I know that we were supposed to run into him on the bus that day.

Wednesday we had a couple of appointments fall through.  It was kind of a bummer because they were people that we met on the bus that we thought were super solid.  But that is ok.  What is meant to happen will happen.  We got to have a lesson with Sarah though and we invited her boyfriend Vince to come so that we could teach both of them together!  So that was a fun.

Thursday we had a lesson with a recent convert named Shaun.  He is going to be going to the temple at the end of this month so we had a little temple prep lesson with him.  We also had a huge miracle on the bus!  So last week we ran into this woman named Marlene on the bus.  She had investigated the church back in 1999 and was going to be baptized, but then moved here to Madison and lost contact with the church.  So when we saw her we were able to get a little bit of her contact information.  But I think that maybe she hadn't paid the phone bill or something like that so we were not able to get in contact with her and we were so sad about it.  But on Thursday, we ran into her AGAIN but on a different bus!  It was seriously the biggest miracle.  She recognized us and told us that she was so sad that we hadn't been able to get ahold of her.  She also had been reading from the Book of Mormon that we gave her and she had lots of questions.  It was so incredible to see how the timing worked out perfectly to be able to get back in contact with her.  So now we will be able to start teaching her!

Friday we finally got to see Kendall again.  Her life has been kind of crazy lately and we haven't been able to see her for a long time.  Luckily things are going a lot better with her family.  Things have mellowed out a little bit and Kendall said that she has really been able to feel the companionship of the Holy Ghost is her life.  Also- Kendall got a calling this past Sunday to teach the 10 year old primary class!  So we are super excited about that,

Saturday the transfer text came and my name was on it...  I was super sad.  But it was also nice to know for sure so that I could start saying goodbye to people.  And I am running out of time sorrrrryyy...........

Sunday I actually spoke in church!  Brother Durtschi texted me on Friday night to ask if I would.  It was pretty stressful to be able to find time to put a couple of thoughts together, but we made it work.  I was actually grateful for the opportunity because I was able to tell everyone in the ward just how much I love and appreciate them.  I really have learned so much from this ward.  They are absolutely incredible. 

And pretty much have spent the rest of the time starting to pack and saying goodbye to people!

I love Madison with all my heart and it kills me to have to go.  But I think the thing that I am going to miss the very most is Sister Kelley.  She is one of the most Christlike people I have every met and she is an incredible missionary.  I prayed so hard to be able to have a good companion for the Christmas transfer, and boy was my prayer answered.  I learned a lot from Sister Kelley, but I think the biggest thing I learned from her was selflessness.  She is just so selfless!  She just has a way of making you feel loved and important and I hope that I can be more like her in that way. 

Geez.  I think one of the reasons that missions are so hard is because they are just one huge goodbye.  First to your family, then to all the people you know and love here.  It is so hard.  But it is absolutely incredible.

I miss Madison already!

Sister King