He Doesn't Expect Perfection, Just Progression

So we had a pretty crazy week.  As usual.

Chillin on the bus

Tuesday we had district meeting and we talked about preparing people for baptism.  It was super awesome and made me super excited for Rachel's baptism coming up on October 4th.  She is actually going to be baptized in between sessions of conference so that is going to be a very spiritually overwhelming day but also probably the best day ever.  After district meeting we went to contact a headquarter referral that we received.  It ended up taking us to a frat house and turns out it was just a bunch of guys pulling a prank on their roommate.  So that was interesting... haha.  Gotta love UW Madison.  We also got a really sweet phone call from President Cutler on Tuesday and he thanked us for all the hard work we have been doing in our area.  Last week we had 11 lessons taught to investigators with a member present, 20 other lessons, and 6 investigators at church.  Which are really good numbers if you don't know much about missionary work.  So that made us feel really good to know that our hard work is paying off!

Wednesday we had a lesson with a new investigator that we found on the bus named Zoey.  She is the biggest sweetheart!  We started teaching her the Restoration, but only got through the first point.  We started talking about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and that really touched Zoey.  She has never had a good relationship with her earthly father, so it really meant a lot to her that she could have the father and daughter relationship with God.  It was a super powerful lesson and she ended up coming to church yesterday!  Unfortunately, I think we are going to have to pass her off to the YSA Campus ward missionaries, but we still love her a lot! :)

We had another lesson with our investigator Danyella and we talked a lot about prophets and how it is necessary that we have modern prophets on the earth today.  She hasn't had good experiences with the "prophets" in her past churches, so we are helping her to warm up to the idea.  How perfect is it that conference is next week though?  She will fall in love with President Monson!  In the words of Elder Christiansen on The District, "You can always put your money on the prophet."

Thursday was a miracle day.  We have been preparing Rachel for her baptismal interview which is this coming Friday.  She has been pretty nervous and so we wanted to do something to help her feel better.  President Hassler of the mission presidency is going to be doing her interview, so we had dinner with Rachel in the Hassler's home.  It was an amazing experience.  The Hassler's are an incredible family.  President Hassler was called to serve as an area 70 when he was newly married and President Hinckley is the one who set him apart.  In that blessing, he was promised that if he made missionary work the center of his home, none of his children would go astray.  He took that promise VERY seriously, and they had over 30 non member friends baptized over the years!!!  You should listen to the CD "The Missionary Next Door" if you want to hear more about them.  They are a cool family.  Anyways, having dinner and getting to know the Hassler family really helped Rachel to feel better about her interview.  Please keep her in your prayers this week as her baptismal interview approaches.

Friday we were able to volunteer at St. Vincent's food pantry again.  I really like volunteering there.  Sometimes missionary work can be hard because we help people in more of a long term way and don't always see the fruits of our labors.  But at St. Vincent's, I see people come and get food for their hungry families right away.  So that is really rewarding.  And everyone there LOVES the Mormon missionaries.  We had a few lessons with some recent converts the rest of the day

Saturday we had our missionary correlation meeting, and a few other lessons with investigators that aren't really progressing.  But then we were able to have dinner at the Thurston's!  Our favorites!!  :)

Over all, this was a really good week!  We are continuing to see miracles.  Thank you so much for your prayers.  I could really feel them when I needed them this week.  I love you so much!!!  Have an awesome week!!

So pretty much how we spend our time is knitting while we listen to MoTab.  I think it is safe to say that we have turned into a couple of 90 year old ladies.

Sister King

Another crazy week in Madison!

Another crazy week in Madison.  It has been a lot colder this week.  :(  It reminds me that winter is around the corner...haha And also I've been a little sick.  But we have still been working hard!

Tuesday was awesome.  I had my first Zone Training Meeting in Madison.  It was kind of weird because I had always been in the same zone my whole mission, so it was different to be in a new zone.  But it turned about to be an amazing training meeting.  We talked about becoming more consecrated missionaries.  It was really good and really made me reflect on my mission and what I can do to become more consecrated.  I feel like consecrating yourself to the Lord is what really changes you.  We talked about some examples of consecrated missionaries and prophets in the Book of Mormon.  I think my favorite would probably be Mormon.  He literally devoted his whole life to abridging the records so that we could have the Book of Mormon today.  How grateful I am that Mormon was consecrated to the Lord!  Also- he was doing this while his entire nation was literally being demolished.  That sounds like it would have been easy to give up and wonder if all the work he was doing was even worth it.  I am grateful for that example.  I think that consecration is important because it is a Celestial Law.  Now is the time to learn to live it!

After Zone training meeting we got to go to the Thurston's the celebrate Sam's birthday :)

Wednesday was pretty busy.  We were able to have lunch with a less-active woman in the ward.  We have really starting building a strong relationship with her and I hope that she will begin to trust us as we share the gospel with her.  She is also really good at knitting and has been teaching me how to knit, so I am working on knitting myself a scarf for the crazy winter that lies ahead.  We were also able to have a lesson with our investigator Sara.  She goes to UW.  Her boyfriend is a member and is a starter for the Badger football team!  So it has been fun to teach her.  She is progressing, but wants to make sure that she is doing this for the right reasons.  So we have just been focusing on helping her to recognize her answers.

Thursday we had exchanges with my new sister training leaders.  I was beyond nervous because I was going to be staying in my area and having my STL, Sister Bennett, come here.  I have only been in the area for 2 weeks and still don't really know my way around or anything.  But I did manage not to get us lost. :)  We had a lesson with Danyella.  She had actually been in the hospital this past week so we haven't really been able to start teaching her very many of the lessons, but we were able to read from the Book of Mormon with her.  So that was awesome.  We also had our Relief Society activity that night which was really fun!  We had an investigator and a less active member come!  That was awesome and I was glad that my STL was there to see that.

Friday we were able to go to service at the St. Vincent's food pantry.  Even though it is a Lutheran organization, they LOVE the Mormon missionaries there.  It is always such a humbling experience to go there and help people to pick out food for themselves and their families.  Then we had a lesson with our investigator Charles.  He is a good friend of a recent convert.  We read 3 Nephi 18 and talked about the importance of the Sacrament and coming to church.  it was a super powerful lesson.  he didn't end up coming to church this week.... but it was still a good lesson :)  then we exchanged back and I was beyond glad to have sister Brewster back!  we really have grown to love each other and we work really well together.

Saturday morning we had a lesson with Rachel.  Her baptismal date is still looking pretty solid for October 4 so I am beyond excited for that!  We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the different steps that we have to take to make it back to him.  But we got hung up on baptism for a while because she is just so excited about it!  :)  We also had another lesson with Danyella and we got to meet some of her family members.  They are not interested in learning more, but I think after meeting us they will be a lot more supportive about her decision to be baptized so I was grateful for that. 

Sunday was great.  We had 6 investigators at church!  It was awesome!  After church, our apartment complex had a little party for everyone that lives there to get to know each other better.  Sis Brewster and I decided to go to get to know our neighbors a little bit better and so that they would all know that we are missionaries for our church so that they can ask us if they have any questions.  When we got there, we were to only white people there.  EVERYONE that lives in our apartment complex is either Chinese or Indian.  Haha it was kinda fun though because we were totally the life of the party.  I ended up talking to the neighbors that live right about of.  Her name is Tianqi Sun and she just moved here from China.  I told her that I was a missionary for my church and then she read the name "Jesus Christ" on my tag and got really excited.  She said that there was a little group of friends that she had at school right before she moved here and they would get together and try to study the Bible together to learn more about who Jesus Christ is.  She said that she has always felt drawn to Christ and that even though she doesn't know much about him, she has faith that he lives!  Wow that was so amazing to me!  She barely knows anything about Christ besides his name, yet she was willing to have the faith the believe in him.  I told her that what we do as missionaries is teach people more about Jesus Christ and she just couldn't give me her phone number and information fast enough.  She told me that she was super nervous to come to church and learn more because her English is not very well and she has a really hard time understanding it.  I promised her right then and there that we would work together and we would pray to our Heavenly Father for help and that she would be able to understand.

She the stopped me and said, "I think that God led us to each other to meet each other.  I had been praying that once I moved to America I would be given the opportunity to learn more about Jesus Christ." 

It was seriously an amazing experience.  I LOVE being a missionary.  I love serving here in Madison.  I am so grateful for the blessings that I have seen in my life from this gospel.  I love you all and hope that you have a great week!!!

Love,

Sister King