BAPTISM!

Ok everyone-  Apologies in advance because I am pretty sure this e-mail is going to be kind of short and maybe a little lame.  It just hasn't been very long since I e-mailed last so not a lot to report on.  Except for.... ISHMAEL'S BAPTISM!!  It went so well this week! 

All of the missionaries in our ward with Ishmael.

In fact the couple of days that I have to write you about this week are pretty much all about Ishmael.  On Wednesday, the Spanish members of the ward get together to play soccer so we invited Ishmael to that and got to play with him and have a lesson about missionary work.  That was super fun because I got to destroy everyone at soccer, and also Ishmael made a lot of new friends in the ward.  :) 

Thursday we spent the whole day visiting less-actives in the ward.  We visited Deserae who is the less-active that teaches us how to knit.  (My scarf is coming along reallllll nice by the way)  And we shared with her Mosiah 18:21

21 And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.

So we talked about having our hearts "knit together in unity and in love" which I thought was pretty clever.  :)

We also got to see Rachel!  She is doing well.  I can't remember if I told you this or not but she just got a calling to teach Sunday School!  She teaches the 14-17 year olds.  So that is pretty cool.  She taught her first lesson this passed Sunday and that went well.  So it was fun to talk with her about that.

Friday we got to meet with Ishmael again!  We talked about enduring to the end.  Baptism is just the first step on the covenant path back to our Heavenly Father.  It is cool because teaching people about covenants and enduring to the end on my mission has given me such a greater appreciation for the covenants that I have made.  All of us are working on the "enduring to the end" part of the plan right now, and it is our covenants that help us with that.  Ishmael understands that this is just his first covenant that he needs to make.

And then.... Saturday was his baptism!!!  Ishmael was so incredibly prepared.  This was definitely the least stressful baptism that I have ever been a part of on my mission.  It was just so peaceful and nice.  It was great!  There was a great turn out from the ward.  The actual ordinance went very well!  One of the things that really drew Ishmael to the gospel was the opportunity to be born again and have all of his sins washed clean.  So it was great to be able to witness that.  He bore his testimony afterward about how much he just wanted to follow God's commandments and how following the commandments so far in his life has brought him so much happiness.  So now Ishmael is the newest member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! 

Frozen Lake Monona.  Check out all the ice fishers!

My BFF

I feel so incredibly blessed and grateful that I have been able to be a part of so many miracles on my mission.  Everyday I see the Lord's hand not only in this work, but also in my life.  I am grateful that the Lord placed Ishmael in our path on the bus that day.  I know that there are people out there that are prepared to hear this gospel, and as a missionary I get to be one of the people that help them to receive this good news.  It really is amazing and there is just nothing like it.  I am so grateful that I am here.

I love you all so much!  Sorry again for the shortness and lameness of this letter.  But know that I love you guys and am doing well!  Also- the Church is true!  So very true.

Love,

Sister King

The Book is always better :)

Hi family!!  


Thank you so much for your e-mails this week.  They were exactly what I needed.  Something that I have found is that the miracles on my mission are usually preceded by lots of opposition.  With Rachel's baptism coming up this week (which is nothing short of a miracle), I have really been feeling it.  But it is so worth it to get to see Rachel enter the waters of baptism this Saturday.  Please keep her in your prayers as I am sure this week might be a tough one for her too.

Check out what is playing in Downtown Madison!

Tuesday was pretty amazing.  So we haven't really been able to meet consistently with our investigator Danyella recently.  She is the one that had the dream and already knows that the church is true.  So that has been really frustrating.  I think that it has been the same with her- Satan really does NOT want her baptized, so he has been working really hard on keeping her from us.  While she says that she already believes the church is true, she has been having a hard time accepting the idea of modern prophets because she has had bad experiences in her past churches with their "prophets."  Because we hadn't really been able to get a hold of her, we stopped by her house to drop off a Spanish book of Mormon because she also speaks Spanish.  Literally 10 seconds before we knocked on her door, she had found out that her step father had gotten in a crazy car accident and was rushing out to the hospital.  We were able to give her the book and also a card that we had made for her with a bunch of scriptures in the B of M that talk about trusting in God.  We handed those to her and she ran out the door yelling, "Oh by the way, I prayed about it and I know that Thomas Monson is a prophet!"  And she was off!  We went to the members home that lives next door to her, and she showed us Danyella's facebook post that said, "I really love this whole Book of Mormon thing!"  So that was a pretty big miracle.  Even though Danyella is facing a lot of opposition and she hasn't really been able to meet with us a lot, she is still pushing through and turning to the Book of Mormon for answers, and she has been finding them!  We are going to be meeting with her this week.  So please keep Danyella in your prayers with everything that she has been going through too.

The book is always better :)

Wednesday we got to have interviews with President Cutler!  Towards the beginning of my mission, these interviews always made me really nervous.  But now I really look forward to them because they are a time when I receive so much revelation and also when I can really reflect back and see how far I have come and how much I have learned since the last interview.  I came with a couple of questions in mind that President Cutler answered without me even asking them.  He truly is inspired.  He made me feel a lot more confident in myself as a missionary.  Towards the end of my interview, we were starting to run out of time.  But President Cutler stopped and asked me if he could give me a blessing.  I was completely taken aback!  I have always wanted to ask President Cutler for a blessing, but have always been too scared.  But here he asked if he could and told me that he really wanted to and felt like he should.  It was such an amazing blessing with so many amazing promises and blessings.  Some of the things that really stuck out to me in the blessing was that I was promised that I will return home safely to you all.  So that's good to know. :)  He also talked about how I will face a lot of hard trials on my mission.  Some of them specifically will be hard companions, severe weather, and disappoinments.  But I was promised that the Lord will help me through them and they will help me to learn and to grow.  There were a ton of other really cool stuff that was talked about.  In fact, as soon as President finished he turned to me and said, "Whoa.  That was a really good blessing."  So it was pretty awesome to get to have interviews this week.  We were also able to have lunch with our new investigator Zoe.  Technically she is in the campus ward so she should be taught by the campus elders and we were meeting with her to turn her over to them.  But she told us that she feels a lot more comfortable being taught by sisters, so we get to keep teaching her.  :)  she is pretty solid so I am excited for that.

Playing with the Halloween package that Sis. Brewster's family sent to her.

Thursday we had a lesson with Rachel preparing her for her baptismal interview.  And we also volunteered at a blood drive for the American Red Cross.

Friday was Rachel's baptismal interview and she passed!!!!!  So everything is official for this coming Saturday!  She is going to be baptized in between sessions of general conference.  It is going to be an awesome day!

Saturday the Spanish missionaries in our ward had a baptism!  It was pretty cool.  It was for a boy named Jaziel and he is a stud.  It was cool because now on my mission I have attended a Spanish funeral and a Spanish baptism.  I LOVE it because even though I have no idea what is going on or what is being said, the Spirit is still the same.  And the Spirit was super strong at the baptism.  We were also able to watch the General Women's meeting that night at our church building.  I loved it so much and it is making me so stoked for conference this coming weekend.  There is a living prophet on the earth today and he is going to talk to us guys!!!!!!  I am so stoked!

Jaziel got baptized on Saturday!  He is one of the Spanish members.

 

Thanks so much again for everything that you do for me!  I love you all so much and I already can't wait to hear from you again next week.  LOVE YOU!!

Sister King