Merry Christmas!

Thank you so much for all of the Christmas packages that I have received.  I feel so blessed.  I am excited to get to spend this Christmas as a missionary and servant of the Lord, but I sure do miss you guys.  Christmas is such a great time to be a missionary though!  People's hearts are softened at Christmas time and talking about the Savior comes so naturally.  I love it.

"Hanging our stockings"

This week was pretty crazy.

Tuesday was the last district meeting of the transfer!  Can you believe it?  That is so crazy!  I can't believe another transfer has already come and gone.  The transfer will be on December 31.  That reminds me- this week on Saturday we will find out if I am being transferred or not.  So I will be able to write you about that next week.  I am pretty sure I will stay here in Madison another transfer with Sister Kelley.  But you never know. 

This last district meeting was a really good one.  We talked a lot about the Atonement as outlined in the lessons in Preach My Gospel.  Did you know that the Atonement is a principle that is covered in all 3 of the first missionary lessons?  As I was studying it this week, I noticed that in each lesson the Atonement takes on a different role.  In the Restoration, the Atonement was part of the Savior's earthly ministry.  It was the most important thing that He did while He was on the earth.  In the Plan of Salvation, we learn that the Atonement is how we can overcome physical death.  Because of the resurrection, we can all be resurrected too!  

In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we learn that the Atonement helps us to overcome spiritual death and is how we can be cleansed from sin.  I thought it was so interesting that in all of the lessons, it all comes back to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Christ and His Atonement truly is central to all that we teach, all that we do, and all that we know.  I am so grateful for His Atonement in my life.  I truly feel that it empowers me.  I love being able to talk about it every single day as a missionary!  I am so grateful for the power of the Atonement in my life. 

White Elephant gift exchange with my district

Wednesday we had a lesson with Zoe.  She is still doing well.  She is progressing, but it has been extremely slow.  So we are going to have to figure out what we are going to do about that when she gets back from Christmas break.  We just focused on Jesus Christ and why we celebrate Christmas.  That night we got together with our district before our ward's sports night and had a white elephant gift exchange.  I sure have loved this district!

Thursday was a CRAZY DAY and my favorite day this week!  We had a lesson with Ishmeal in the morning.  I think that I have told you a little bit about him.  We met him on the bus a few weeks ago.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it!  It is always so fun to me to be able to teach people that they can be with their families forever, and that if we repent and take certain steps while we are here on earth then we will be able to live with God again.  He was so excited!  He was a little hesitant when we had talked to him about baptism before, but after this lesson we was a lot more confident.  We set a baptismal date with him for January 17!  We are so excited about it!  It is going to take a lot of work and a lot is going to have to happen before then.  But we are excited to hopefully help Ishmeal enter into the waters of baptism. 

We also had a lesson with our new investigator Sally.  We got a call from our Bishop at the beginning of the week saying that there was someone who had been visiting some of their friends out in Utah and wanted a visit from the missionaries when she got back.  So Sister Kelley and I trekked out there and met Sally.  She is the sweetest woman I have ever met!  She was so kind to us and I feel that we hit if off right away.  Before too long we learned that her sister is a member of the church and that is who she had been visiting out it Utah.  She said that her sister lived in Lehi and that while she was out there she was able to go to temple square and listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  While she was talking, I heard the word "Sivert" pop up.  I asked her if she knew Sivert's in Utah and she said that her sister is a Sivert.  Turns out, her sister is Bob Sivert's mom!  WHAT???  I was just blown away.  I remember back before I left on my mission Bob messaged me and said that his aunt lived in Beloit Wisconsin.  But Beloit is the one and only city in southern Wisconsin that is cut out of our mission.  So I didn't think anything of it.  Turns out, she moved here to Madison the same time that I got here to Madison!  Isn't that insane?  It has been absolutely amazing to see how many little connections I have been able to make here in Wisconsin.  I know that they aren't coincidences.  The Lord's hand has been in all of this.  Sally is the absolute sweetest and I feel so grateful to have even more "family" out here.  So we have started teaching my Uncle's Aunt!  :)

Friday was fun because we were able to celebrate Christmas with the Thurston's.  They are out in Utah now to spend Christmas with their families, but wanted to be able to celebrate Christmas with us, so we had an early Christmas with them.  It was a lot of fun!  We ate good food, sang Christmas songs in Spanish, and decorated sugar cookies.  I am so grateful to be serving in a ward with such amazing members!

Sam

Early Christmas with the Thurston's before they go to Utah

Saturday was super cool!  The Madison Campus Elders (Elder Wyatt Baird!) were having a baptism at our church building.  So we wanted to bring Ishmeal to it so that he could see what a baptism was like.  The baptism was all in Chinese, but the Spirit was very strong.  And Ishmeal could feel it.  He is so excited to be working toward his own baptism in January.

Ok- I am running out of time so remind me to tell you about Kendall and her trip out to Utah when we talk on Thursday! :)

Pretty miraculous week this week!  I love you guys so much!  Can't wait to talk to you on Thursday.  I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and remember why it is that we have such a fun holiday at this time of year.  I am so grateful that my Savior was born into this world to make it possible for me to make it back to live with my Father in Heaven again. 

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Sister King

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Family! 

We've got a good couple inches of snow!

It was so good to get to hear all about your Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year.  I sure did miss all of you.  But it brought a lot of comfort to know that I will be able to share next year's Thanksgiving with you.  Thank you so much for sending updates and pictures of your week!  It always means a lot to get them.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving week back here in Madison too!

Having a little fun on p-day

Tuesday we had district meeting and we talked about the Holy Ghost's role in conversion.  It is amazing how vital that really is. As a missionary, it is so important to always have the Spirit with me so that others can feel it.  That is something that I have been trying to work on lately, always having the Spirit with me.  We also had a really cool lesson with Sarah that night.  We have been sharing stories with her from the Book of Mormon to help her have the courage to tell her family that she wants to be baptized.  We shared the story of Ammon and how when he went to the Lamanites, all he did was serve and love the people there.  Eventually their hearts were softened and an entire nation was converted!  That is what we challenged Sarah to do.  Continue to love and serve her family and let them know that she loves them.  As she does, I know that their hearts will soften.  We haven't been able to talk to her yet so I will have to let you know next week how telling her family went!

Wednesday was a really good day!  It is so weird, nothing super crazy or special happened.  It was just a good day to be a missionary.  We were working really hard and managed to find some really cool people along the way.  A goal that Sister Kelley and I have for this transfer is to pass out more Book of Mormons.  We are kind of doing like a "25 days of Christmas" thing by trying to give away 25 Book of Mormons!  We found 2 really cool people that we were able to give a copy to that day.  So we are off to a great start!  So many people were placed in our path that day.  It was just amazing.  I KNOW that the Lord's hand is in this work.  We also had a really cool lesson with our returning less active named Emily.  We taught the Plan of Salvation and talked about how none of it is possible without Jesus Christ.  He is the center of the plan.  It has been really cool to learn and grow with Emily as she starts coming back to church.

Thanksgiving with the Thurston's

Thanksgiving with the Durtschi's

hursday was THANKSGIVING!!!  What an amazing Thanksgiving day we had!  Obviously I was feeling a little homesick, but I didn't let that take away from the day that we got to have here.  We got to go over to the Thurston's for a Thanksgiving lunch.  That was really fun because I guess technically the Thurston's are family.  4th cousins totally counts, right?  The thought of spending Thanksgiving with "family" brought me a lot of comfort anyway.  Also, I have grown so close to them and they mean so much to me that they are as family as it gets for me out here in Wisconsin.  So it was super cool to be able to spend Thanksgiving with them.  Plus the food was absolutely delicious.  And GUESS WHAT.  As we were about to eat Hayley was telling us what all of the food was and she gets to this one dish and says, "and this just some raspberry stuff."  So I was like, "Wait, what is in the raspberry stuff?"  She said, "Just eat it.  You will like it."  So then I said, "Oh, because my Mom always makes this really yummy pretzel raspberry jello stuff every year for Thanksgiving."  YEP, THAT'S RIGHT.  Hayley made the raspberry pretzel stuff for Thanksgiving!  She didn't even know!  So I still got to have our family's Thanksgiving classic out here.  Such a huge tender mercy.  But seriously though, how could that NOT be a tender mercy from the Lord? 

Afterward, we got to go to the Durtschi's for another Thanksgiving dinner!  It was so fun and absolutely delicious.  It was cool because the less active lady that teaches us to knit came and I have gotten really close with her.  So we got to spend Thanksgiving with her as well!  So that was really fun.  After the Durtschi's, we headed back to the Thurston's again for dessert.  :)

Even though spending Thanksgiving on a mission is REALLY hard, it was an amazing experience.  It is so amazing to be able to have a time of year that we can reflect on the things that we are grateful for.  Back at home when we have Thanksgiving and we all go around the table and say something that we are grateful for, my answers have always been the gospel, my parents, my sisters, my extended family, my home, Sadie, school, etc.  But this year, I was pulled away from all of those things (except the gospel of course).  But being away from those things has given me a greater appreciation for them.  It has also helped me to focus on the one thing that I still do have that I am oh so grateful for.  And that is the gospel.  The gospel has always been a constant in my life.  I am so grateful for it.  But this year, there is one more major thing that I can add to the list of things that I am grateful for- MY MISSION.  I am so beyond grateful for my mission.  I haven't loved every minute of my mission, but I have been grateful for every minute of it.  My mission has taught me and given me so many things that have changed me so much.  My mission has given me a greater appreciation for family.  It has strengthened my testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ.  My personal relationship with Him has grown exponentially on my mission.  My mission has given me lasting friendships that I will cherish forever with companions, other missionaries, ward members, investigators, recent converts, and so many others.  My mission has given me a greater knowledge and love for the scriptures.  My mission has taught me how to be a better wife and mother which is one of my greatest desires.  I owe so much to my mission.  Making the decision to come on a mission was one of, if not THE, hardest decision I have ever made.  And it continues to be very difficult.  But I am so grateful that I , with the help of my Father in Heaven, made the decision to come.  I am so grateful for my mission.

Friday was a pretty good day as well.  We met some more cool people on the bus on our way to a few different places which was super fun.  We met this guy on the bus named Ishmael who ended up coming to church yesterday.  So that was a HUGE miracle!  More to come on him next week.  When we got home that night, we made ourselves some yummy dinner and then we decided to keep up with our family's tradition of watching a Christmas movie.  We weren't able to watch That Santa Clause... :)  But we were able to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas.  So I was able to keep that Thanksgiving tradition alive out here as well.  :)

Saturday we were able to meet with Shay.  She is still doing so well!  And guess what!  She have her very first talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday!  She is so amazing and is continuing to grow in the gospel.  Gosh, I love her so much.

So that was pretty much my week!!

Ok family, before I sign off I have a very special challenge for you.  This is something that has been on my mind a lot that I have prayed about and that I really feel is a good idea.  Here is the challenge:

Starting on December 3, read one chapter of the Book of Mormon every single day.  If I have done my calculations correctly, then you will finish reading the Book of Mormon on the day that I get home!  The Book of Mormon is so important.  Being able to read from the Book of Mormon so much on my mission is what has truly helped my testimony to grow.  Even though it might be easy to let a day or two slip, make it a priority RIGHT NOW to read one chapter every single day.  It should only take about 5 minutes out of your day.  Elder Scott told us this last conference that reading from the scriptures is even more important than sleep sometimes.  So if it means that you need to get up a few minutes earlier or go to bed a few minutes later, I promise you that it will be worth it.  This is something that I feel is really important, so take this challenge seriously!  Doing it as a family would be cool, but I think that you should do it individually.  That way you can all share with me some of your thoughts in your weekly e-mails.  And you can share thoughts in family home evening and at dinner and stuff because we will all be in the same place in the Book of Mormon.  It would really mean so much to me if you would do this.  I love the Book of Mormon so much and I really want to be able to share this cool experience with you.

I love you so much!  Thank you for all that you do for me!

Can't wait to hear how your Book of Mormon reading is going!

Love,

Sister King

First week training!

Hi Family!

So I made it through my first week of training and taking over the area!  Yay!  :)

Though this past week has been one of the most overwhelming and stressful of not just my mission but my entire life, I could definitely feel the power of your prayers helping me through.  I could also see the hand of the Lord in helping me.  It was a great week.

My birthday package from the Smart's!

To finish out my birthday on Monday we were able to go out to lunch with the elders in the district and then go to dinner at one of my favorite member's houses.  They made me the most delicious chocolate almond birthday cake.  And then for FHE we went over to a Spanish part-member family's house and tie dyed t-shirts!  It was definitely a fun day.

My birthday lunch with my district at Nitty Gritty

The Allred's made me a birthday cake :)

The Thurston's got me a birthday present!

Tuesday was pretty crazy because we were running around doing so many last minute things before transfers.  We were able to say goodbye to a lot of investigators and less active members and they all seem excited that I am still going to be here.  So that's good.  We had a super powerful last lesson with Rachel.  The experiences that we had with one another of her journey to baptism were amazing and we grew really close.  So that was a tough goodbye.  Later that night we went and stayed at the Madison 2nd sisters apartment to make things easier for transfers the next day. 

Wednesday was TRANSFERS!!!  It was pretty crazy and hectic but everything ended up working out fine.  Instead of waiting at the church, 4 sisters that were waiting for their new companions all came and we worked in the Mad 2 area.  we visited some recent converts and then went out to lunch together.  Then we headed to the church to pick up my new companion.

Some last pictures with Sister Brewster.

Sister Sierra Hammatt is an amazing person.  She is 19 and she is from Appleton Wisconsin.  She is a trial missionary because when she was 16 her lung collapsed in an accident and they just want to make sure that she can handle a mission before they send her out for good.  But President told me that there is no doubt in his mind that she will serve the rest of her mission.  So one cool thing is that she will be receiving her actual mission call within the next few weeks and we will get to open it together!  So that will be cool.  Sister Hammatt went to BYU for a year before and she is studying English and Editing and plans to go to law school after her undergrad.  She is so awesome and we have a lot in common and we click really well.  She came out on her mission so prepared and already pretty much knows what she is doing!  Also- she speaks Spanish!!!  So she has been able to communicate with a lot of the Spanish members and she can talk to the Hispanics that me meet on the bus and stuff.  So that has been pretty much the coolest thing. We are going to have an amazing transfer together.

My greenie Sister Hammatt!

When we got back to our apartment she unpacked a little and then we headed out to work!  I was able to navigate the buses and get us to our appointments that night which was a huge tender mercy.  AND we ended up meeting 2 new investigators along the way.  So that was pretty amazing

Day 2 into the transfer and we are already matching.  It's going to be a great transfer!  :)

Thursday we were able to meet with Myrtle again but she had some pretty sad news.  She ended up moving to Indiana this weekend!  :( that was really sad because she was our most progressing investigator.  But I have faith that the Lord is going to bless us and send us some other investigators to help keep us busy.  It is also cool because Sister Hammatt has a family friend here in Madison that actually doesn't live too far from us.  So we went to and gave her a Book of Mormon and will hopefully be able to start teaching her this week.

Friday we spent most of our day volunteering at a Blood Drive at EPIC.  If you haven't heard of EPIC then you should look it up because it is a really cool company with the most amazing facility I have ever seen.  And they like to hire people from BYU, so that is pretty cool.  Many of our ward members work there.  We met a lot of cool people at the blood drive and planted many seeds.  But I think the coolest part was when we were driving back in the shuttle with another one of the Red Cross volunteers.  She told us that she thought that it was amazing that not only do we come on missions to spread the gospel, but we also come to give service and to help people.  She was super sweet and her heart is softening too!

Saturday was pretty crazy.  We met with some more recent converts and then we were also able to have a lesson with Rachel.  We talked to her all about the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  We talked about the different roles that the Holy Ghost plays in our lives, especially when we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and have it as a constant companion.  Something that I have realized since I have been on my mission is that recognizing how the Spirit is really hard for me.  I was blessed enough to grow up in a home where the Spirit was constantly and consistently there.  So because I am so used to feeling it, sometimes the only times I can notice the Spirit is when it is gone.  If that makes sense.  But I love the Holy Ghost and my goal is to do everything I possibly can in my life to always be living worthy to have it has a constant companion.  And how cool is it that Heavenly Father loves us to much that he has given us the Holy Ghost??  Like we get to have a member of the GODHEAD with us constantly to help us!  What an amazing blessing.

Then Sunday morning, Rachel was confirmed!  It was a beautiful experience and I for sure felt the Spirit there. 

Overall, it was a great week.  I really could FEEL your prayers this week.  It was the coolest thing.  Thank you so much for all that you do for me.  I love you so much!!  Have an amazing week!

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

Greetings from MADTOWN!

Hi family!  

So I am officially in Madison, Wisconsin and I have absolutely LOVED every second of it so far!  Let me start off by telling you a little bit about this area.  It is very similar to West Allis in some ways, and very different in other ways.

First of all, there is a TON going on here.  We have been crazy busy and I absolutely love it.  We have a lot of pretty neat investigators that we are working with.  The ward is so super awesome.  So many of them are missionary minded and drop what they are doing to help us out so it is the biggest blessing.  Sounds like you know that the Durtshi's are in this ward!  They are so awesome!  He is in the bishopric and she is the Relief Society president.  I am super excited to get to work with them some more.  

There is also a Thurston family in this ward!  It is one of Norm Thurston's sons that just moved out here with his wife to go to graduate school at UW.  So I've got family here which is pretty cool.  Plus Sis. Thurston is the coolest.  She is a return missionary and she drives us around pretty much everyday and comes to lessons and stuff.  So that has been AWESOME.  The ward here is actually half Spanish.  So at church on Sunday they say one of the sacrament prayers in English and the other in Spanish.  And there are four sets of missionaries in the ward.  FOUR!  2 sets of Spanish missionaries and a set of English elders and then us.  So that is pretty crazy.  But the ward takes very good care of us.

Sis. Brewster and me with the Thurston's!

We are pretty much in the heart of Madison.  So we are on the University of Wisconsin campus a lot.  Like right now I am e-mailing from a library on campus.  Everyone here is super duper liberal.  Even more so than West Allis.  So that has been a little different too.  The buses here are WAY better than Milwaukee.  They get us pretty much every where you need to go and they have these transfer points where lots of buses meet at so that you can switch buses there if you need to.  So the buses here really aren't that bad. 

My new companion's name is Sister McKenzie Brewster and she is the bomb.com.  She is seriously the cutest.  She is 20 years old, from Phoenix, Arizona and has been on her mission for about 15 months so she is winding down.  In fact we think that I might even be her last companion.  She goes home in December.  I just asked her what else I should tell you guys about her and she said to tell you that she is smoking hot.  So yeah, we get along pretty well.  :)

 

As for the week- it has been crazy!

Tuesday was full of a lot of goodbyes and it was really hard.  In the morning I got to see Sarah and we ate lunch together and watched the Testaments.  It was hard to say bye to her because I am going to miss her, but I do feel so confident that she is going to stay active in the gospel.  So that made it a little easier.  I spent the rest of the day finishing packing up and saying goodbye to some of my favorite families.  At the end of the night, Sis. Stewart drove us home and saying bye to her was pretty rough too.

I am really going to miss being so close to the senior office missionaries.

Saying goodbye to Sarah and Elizabeth :(

Oh and this is a mammoth tooth... haha

Wednesday was transfer day!  We got up in the morning and headed over to the church around 9.  We met with a bunch of other missionaries there who were either being transferred or waiting for their new companions to come.  What they do is have everyone meet together in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, and they disperse back out to the different zones that they need to go to.  It was fun because on the ride of up Oshkosh, I got to sit with Sister Osmond!  #tendermercy  I got to Madison probably around 2 and met Sister Brewster!  We hit it off pretty fast.  I absolutely love that girl.  It's been a pretty smooth companion-wise transitioning so I am very grateful for that.  Especially because it was so hard to leave West Allis.  So I am grateful for Sister Brewster.  When I got here, I didn't even have time to unpack!  We got right to work!  It was great!  We had some appointments with less active members.  But I was grateful for that because immediately I got to get to know some of the people that we are working with.  Then on Wednesday nights we help the Spanish elders teach an English class so that was pretty fun.  And then a bunch of the Spanish members and less actives stay afterward to play indoor soccer.  I really wish I had paid a little more attention in Spanish class in high school.  If you know me, you know that the only thing that I remember is "Yo tengo queso en mi pantelones" and that doesn't get me very far.  But hopefully I will be able to learn some more Spanish while I am here! 

 

Thursday we had a really long weekly planning so that Sis. Brewster could tell me all about all the people that we are working with.  Like I said before, we are working with a lot of people!  So I was glad to get to know them a little bit better.  Then we got to go over to the Durtshi's house and take one of our investigators to a card-making class that Sis. Durtshi teaches.  It was really awesome and you will probably be getting some really cute cards in the mail sometime soon. 

 

On Friday's here in Madison, we go to a food pantry called St. Vincent's to volunteer in the morning.  It is super fun!  I am excited to get to start doing that some more.  Later we had a lesson with an investigator named Charles.  We got to teach him the Restoration and it was mine and Sis. Brewster's first time teaching the Restoration together.  I thought it went pretty well!  I will let you know more about how Charles is doing next week.  We also got to go and visit a recent convert that lives in an assisted living center.  She was having a really bad day so we took her down to the activity room and I played the piano for her and we sang some songs.  She loved it and lots of the other residents there came and joined in!  It was awesome and the Spirit was really strong.  Hopefully we will be able to start teaching some of those people soon. 

 

Saturday morning we had our missionary correlation meeting with our brand new ward mission leader.  His name is Brother Delorey and he is so awesome!  I can tell that is going to do a lot for us so I am excited for that.  Then we had a ward soccer tournament!  It was awesome.  Because the ward is half Spanish, there are a lot of people that like to play soccer.  I actually played really well at the tournament and scored 2 goals- one off of a header.  So now all the little Spanish children think I am pretty cool.  haha.  We had a few other appointments that day and on the way home at the end of the night we were walking through this park and met this guy whose name is Sam.  He has a really cute little family that he loves so much so we taught him a little bit about the plan of salvation and he got really excited!  So we will be meeting with him and his family this week.

Sister Osmond

Sister Packer

Sunday was awesome.  I got to meet a lot more of the members in the ward!  This ward is pretty much a young married couples ward.  Lots of the members are recently married and going to school at UW.  So that has been fun.  They are all really cool.  After church, we got to have a lesson with our investigator Stefanie.  She is from Germany and has a daughter who is a member of the church.  Her husband died a little over a year ago and that has been really hard for her.  So we were able to teach her about how she can be sealed to him and be with him forever.  She loved it!  I am excited to get to start working with her more. 

 

Monday we had a crazy cool lesson with our investigator Rachel.  She is going to school at UW right now getting her PHD in English.  So she is super smart and super intellectual.  She found the church because lately she has been studying mothers and is writing a paper on it for a class.  She came across the Mormon mommy bloggers or something like that and absolutely loved it so she wanted to know more!  We had a really awesome lesson with her about Alma 32 and how faith leads to action.  And then we commited her to be baptized on October 4!  It was one of the coolest lessons that I have had on my mission so far! The night before we were planning on teaching her the Plan of Salvation, but when we were praying about it in the morning we really felt like we needed to just talk to her about baptism.  That lesson was totally 100% by the Spirit.  And now she has a baptismal date that she is working towards.  It is so awesome!

 

So basically we have been crazy busy!  We are usually frantically running around from appointment to appointment and trying to catch buses.  I have been completely and utterly exhausted everyday since I have been here and I LOVE IT.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  I miss West Allis everyday, but I am so grateful to be in Madison and I know that this is where the Lord needs me right now.  I love this gospel and I love being a missionary.  Hope you all have a great week!!  Love you!

 

Love,

Sister King