Baptism!

So good to hear from all of you!  I am so grateful for your e-mails and letters and most importantly, your prayers.  Sounds like it was a pretty crazy week back in Utah.
Crazy week here in West Allis too!

Tuesday-  District Meeting.  This time we talked all about the Doctrine of Christ. To be put simply, the Doctrine of Christ is what we have to do in order to make it back to Heavenly Father.  4 steps: faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the holy ghost.  And then making sure that we continue to do those things as we endure to the end.  Our purpose as missionaries which can be found in Preach My Gospel is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  


So as we talked about the Doctrine of Christ, we talked about how as we come to understand it better, it can help us to fulfill our purpose as missionaries!  I seriously felt so pumped and motivated as I left district meeting to go out and baptize all of West Allis.  Haha.  But after district meeting, Tubree had her baptismal interview and.... she passed!  I was nervous.  Not because I didn't think Tubree was ready, but because I knew that Satan had been working pretty hard to make sure that she wouldn't be baptized.  So it was a huge relief when she passed!  We spent the rest of the day planning and preparing for her baptismal service the coming Saturday.

Me and my district with the Wisconsin State Fair's famous creme puffs.  They are huge!

Wednesday-  We went and did service for this woman that we met named Colleen.  It was actually pretty cool because clear back when Sis. Newton was here, our goal for our transfer together was to find new investigators and people to teach through service.  We offered to give service to everyone that we met.  Nothing ever really came of it, but we tried really hard anyways.  haha.  But then this lady Colleen called us up this week and asked us for our help to help her move.  Colleen was a lady that Sis. Newton and I had met on the street clear back in May.  So we were able to go over and help her move and got to talk with her a lot as we packed up some boxes.  We got to talk a lot about the church.  And then before we left, we shared a scripture with her from the book of mormon.  It really touched her and she agreed to meet with us later to learn more about the church.  We won't be able to meet for a while because she is still in the process of moving so her schedule is pretty crazy, but I thought that was so cool!  Sis. Newton and I were praying for finding opportunites back in May and it finally payed off!  That is a testimony to me that no effort is wasted.  We are planting seeds and you never know who is going to call back, even if it is months later.

Thursday we had to do a lot more planning for Tubree's baptism.  We were also able to get in with a less active family for the first time in forever.  They have 2 little girls that haven't been baptized yet, so hopefully we will be able to start working with them.

Me with my favorite person in the whole wide world- Sis. Stewart!  She got me this skirt from Hong Kong!!  Isn't she the cutest?

Friday-  So I have been reading through the New Testament trying to learn more about the life of Christ and on Friday morning, I finished John.  So I am now done with the 4 gospels.  I have loved reading about Christ's life and I have learned so much from the example that he set for us.  I feel like I have a really long way to go, but I really have come to know my Savior better than ever before.  I have always wanted to have a strong relationship with Him.  All it takes is a little effort on our part.  I will tell you this much, I know that my Redeemer lives!

We were also able to have our last lesson with Tubree on Friday.  We answered any last questions that she had about her baptism and then talked about enduring to the end.  Baptism is great and important and it is our first covenant that we make with our Heavenly Father.  But then we have got to keep doing it and keep living the gospel!  The enduring to the end is the hard part.  But it is the part that makes it all worth it too!  We were also able to bear our testimonies to hear about how much we had seen her grown since we have been working with her, and also how much we have grown as missionaries as we have learned from her example as well.  It was a very powerful lesson and the Spirit was so strong!

Saturday- Tubree's Baptism!!!  Saturday was nothing short of a miracle.  I think that Tubree had been having a pretty rough morning before her baptism.  That, my friends, is how Satan works.  Lots of the friends and family that she invited to her baptism didn't come.  So I think she was a little sad about that.  But here is the cool thing about becoming a member of this church- You gain a ward family!  There were so many wonderful ward members there to show their love and support for her.  It really meant a lot to her.  President and Sister Cutler even came, so that was pretty cool.  I thought that I was going to be able to hold it together pretty well at the baptism, but... I am my mother's daughter.  I lost it at the opening song.  For the opening song we sang Lord, I Would Follow Thee.  

1. Savior, may I learn to love thee,
Walk the path that thou hast shown,
Pause to help and lift another,
Finding strength beyond my own.
Savior, may I learn to love thee—

Lord, I would follow thee.

Aren't those lyrics absolutely beautiful?  "Savior, may I learn to love thee, walk the path that thou hast shown."  Here was Tubree getting ready to enter into the waters of baptism and follow the Savior's example.  The is beginning her walk down the path that He has shown.  "Pause to help and lift another, finding strength beyond my own."  Not gonna lie, this week had been pretty hard.  I felt a lot of opposition which I knew was Satan because of Tubree's baptism.  And I also was feeling kind of sad that I was missing Kenzie's wedding and Casey and Bryan moving and stuff.  But when I heard the words "pause to help and lift another"  I realized that I literally have put my life on pause to come here to Wisconsin to help others.  And at that moment as I was sitting by Tubree singing this song.  I knew that it was worth it.  Tubree was worth it.  And this journey wasn't easy.  I definitely could not have been able to do it by myself.  I was able to "find strength beyond my own" as I turned to my Savior to help me through the difficult times.  "Savior, may I learn to love thee- Lord, I would follow thee."  Ultimately, I am trying to become more like my Savior.  I know that helping Tubree become closer to Christ has helped me to come closer to Christ as well.  What a blessing.

I don't know if any of those thoughts even make sense.  But to sum it up, that hymn was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time.  And I felt to Spirit probably one of the strongest times ever on my mission. 

Then, Tubree was baptized!  It was amazing and the Spirit was definitely there.  I know that Tubree felt the Spirit.  After she was baptized and had changed, she came back out and sat by me.  I leaned over to her and whispered, "How do you feel?"  She paused for a second and looked at me and with a big smile on her face she said, "New."  Wow.  What an amazing daughter of God she is. 

I feel so blessed and humbled to have been able to teach Tubree and help her on her journey back to our Heavenly Father.  After Saturday, I really do know without a doubt that this is right where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.  I am so grateful for my testimony of my Savior and how that has helped me through the ups and the downs in my life. 

The Church is so true!  I love you all so much!  Thank you for your love and prayers!!!

Love,
Sister King

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

"I'm so grateful that I get to be a missionary!!"

Hello Family!

Can you believe it is already P-day again?  July sure flew by I will tell you that much!

Tuesday was miserably hot and humid.  But that was the first day it has been like that the whole entire summer.  People say that the summers here can be just as bad as the winters, but for some reason this has been a super mild summer.  It's been about 75 everyday and not too humid!  It's great!  The only problem is, I am worried that means that we are going to have another record breaking cold winter.  But we will see... :)  We had district meeting and guess who I got to see there.... Sis Packer!  She is officially down here in our zone so I will get to see her a lot more now.  #tendermercy  After district meeting we were able to have a lesson with Tubree.  She is progressing nicely.  I think that there might still be a few bumps in the road, but hopefully they will be resolved by August 9 and she will be able to be baptized.  We just had to teach her a few of the commandments that were left so it was a pretty laid back lesson.  Afterward, she was able to come to the Relief Society's recipe group with us.  It was so awesome!  All of the Relief Society sisters bring a sample of some of their favorite recipes so pretty much we just get to go and eat a bunch of yummy food.  But Tubree came this time and was able to make a lot of friends!  That was so awesome because it is so important for investigators and recent converts to have friends in the ward.  We have gotten really close to Tubree, but we aren't going to be here forever!  So now she has friends in the ward that will take good care of her.

Wednesday we did a lot of finding and we were able to talk to a lot of people.  One thing that was cool though is we went to contact this potential investigator because we really felt like we needed to see her that day.  But when we went to her house, she wasn't there.  :(  Later that day we were walking to a bus stop, and right when we passed a store she came walking out of it at the exact moment we were walking by!  Coincidence, I think NOT!  (Name that movie)  We were able to follow up with her on her Book of Mormon reading and she is not progressing very fast, but she is progressing nonetheless.  So we were grateful that we got to see her.  Also, on Wednesday Sarah was officially adopted by the Feezor's in our ward!  It is legally official!  Sarah truly sacrificed so much to become a member of this church and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, and she is already being blessed so much for it.  She gained a new family-- and a new ward family too!

Thursday was pioneer day!  And also Sis. Silva's one year mark!  But we didn't really do anything to celebrate because we were so busy.  We were able to meet with Tubree again though which is always fun.  We went over the baptismal interview questions and it actually went pretty well.  As we were talking about her upcoming baptism I told her to be strong because I am sure that there has got to be some opposition coming her way.  I told her "Satan doesn't want you to get baptized" and she replied, "Who cares about Satan??"  haha if was also funny because our church starts at 9:00 a.m. and getting to church on time that early in the morning has always been a struggle with her.  She always gets there just after the sacrament and that is the reason that we go in the first place!  haha  So we were pretty bold with her and told her that she really needed to come to church on time especially leading up to her baptism.  She told us that on Saturday night she was going to sleep with her clothes on and just wake up and come.  haha she is sassy just like me so we get along really well.  There was a Spanish missionary meeting while we were there at the church having our lesson with Tubree.  We got done around the same time, so we introduced Tubree to President and Sister Cutler and she absolutely loved them!  She invited them to her baptism and everything haha.  So that was pretty cool too.

Friday we had a number of appointments that fell through... but we were able to meet a less active family in the ward that hopefully we can start working with!  They are AWESOME!  They both work for the FBI!  Yeah, i know right?  And we really hit it off and I think they like us.  So I am excited to start working with them. 

Saturday morning we were able to take Tubree to a baptism in the City Branch.  It was an amazing experience.  The Spirit was so strong and I think Tubree really enjoyed it.  During the ordinance, she leaned over to her 6 year old daughter and said, "Look, Mom is going to be doing that soon!"  It just warmed my heart.  We spent the entire rest of the day with Sis. Stewart running around and visiting about a million less active sisters in the ward.  Needless to say, we were exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday- church is always AWESOME.  Tubree barely made it in time for the sacrament...  She took it out in the hall.  So we are getting there!  haha  Then for Sunday School we had the best Gospel Principles class of my whole entire mission-- and that is saying something.  The lesson was on service.  Somehow we got on the topic of how missionaries give service for 2 years of their life, and then all of a sudden all of the investigators in the room pretty much took over the lesson.  They all bore their testimonies about how the missionaries had changed their lives and how grateful they all were for everything that we had been doing.  The Spirit was so strong.  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  I often forget that even though we don't see the fruits of our labors, we are making a difference.  I had no idea that we had actually touched all of these peoples lives so much.  It was great.  Also- a member of the bishopric announced in Sacrament meeting that the whole ward is having a fast for us (the missionaries in their ward) this coming Sunday.  It has really motivated me so much to work hard this week so that we are doing everything that we possibly can to have miracles in the next coming weeks.  The missionaries in our ward have been working really hard.  Sarah was the first baptism that this ward has seen in a couple of years.  But now, one set of Elders in our ward is having 4 baptisms this coming Saturday and Tubree is getting baptized that Saturday after that.  Is is amazing to see how the missionary mentality of the ward has changed as the missionaries have been working hard and bringing people to church.  Miracles really are happening! 

Heavenly Father is so aware of us and is grateful for our efforts to move the work forward.  I am so grateful that I get to be a missionary!!

I love you guys so much!!!

Sister King 

We made the cupcakes with the mix you sent!

(Amy's note- I took this picture off of the Milwaukee Mission blog.)

Sometimes Sister Silva lets me go to the Disney store on P-days!