6 months!

Another week come and gone in West Allis.  And it sure was a busy one.

 

Tuesday we were able to take Sarah to the family history center and help her get started.  It was super cool!  She was actually able to find a lot of information on her family.  Our goal is to help her find a few family names that she can take to the temple for the first time.  Wouldn't that be so cool?  It was really awesome because Sarah has had a hard family life, but you could totally see the Spirit of Elijah come alive in her as she searched for her family members!  Super cool.  Also, we were able to have a lesson with Tubree.  We covered the 10 commandments and the Law of Chastity which can be a little hard sometimes, but it went over so smoothly!  The Spirit was definitely there and Sarah came and you would not believe the power that her testimony added to the lesson.  It was great!  So Tuesday was pretty solid.  Tuesday was also my 6 month mark!  We weren't able to do anything too special because we were pretty busy, but we did pop those poppers that you sent me and that was super exciting.  Haha 6 months down and only 12 to go.

 

Wednesday was transfers but that didn't really affect us too much since we are both staying here together another transfer.  Just another day of hard work!  We were able to meet with Toya which is Tubree's friend that she brought to church last week.  We had invited her to read from the Book of Mormon everyday for 10 minutes and we met with her to follow up on that to see how she was doing.  She told us that she had been reading everyday which made me really excited!  But then she said that it wasn't really speaking to her and that she didn't understand and that it was confusing.  Ugh...  that always makes me so frustrated because I know that the Book of Mormon is so powerful so I hate it when that happens.  But we were able to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with her and go over it and kind of explain some of the events.  She said that it helped her a lot.  I think Toya is just going through a lot with her family right now.  She has been super closed off to us which makes me sad because if she would just open up then we could know how to help her!  haha.  But I know that the Spirit will stir inside of her as she reads from the Book of Mormon and reading that book is going to help her more than anything else.  We also got to have dinner at Sarah's house which is always nice.  We are continuing to help her work on personal progress and she is really coming along!

 

Thursday was weekly planning and a long day of finding.  We were able to meet this ssssssssuper cool lady named Sherri at the bus stop.  She recently converted to the Muslim faith which I thought was super interesting.  We told her what we do as missionaries and started teaching her about the Book of Mormon and she was super interested!  She even asked us if we could come to her house to teach her more!  haha.  So we got her information and then asked if we could pray with her before we left.  Right in the middle of the prayer........... the bus that she had been waiting for the whole time zoomed past.  I have never felt more horrible in my whole life!  haha we made her miss her bus just because we wanted to pray with her!  Luckily, she wasn't upset and is still excited to meet with us this coming week.  haha so pray for Sherri!

Friday was also a day full of finding.  We were able to find this other cool lady named Marie that invited us to come back this week too.  So that should be fun.  But in my studies on Friday, I flipped open to a verse in the Book of Mormon that wasn't even close to where I was reading but it really stood out to me.  Alma is talking to his son Helaman about some of the lessons that we can learn from the Liahona and this is what he says.  It is Alma 37:41

 41 Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small‍ means it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey;

 

Sometimes I feel like because I have been stuck in West Allis for so long, I have kind of just been going through the motions and maybe getting a little slothful and not so diligent.  But according to this verse, hard work, diligence, and faith is what we need to see miracles!  So that was a really cool experience and a wake up call for me.  There is still so much work to be done here!

Saturday was pretty crazy.  Our ward had a pioneer picnic to celebrate pioneer day next week.  It was so fun!  But the best part is, we got Tubree to come!  The ward has been so good to fellowship her and help her to feel more comfortable.  Her baptism date has been moved to August 9 and we are doing our best to make sure that it will happen on that day.  So please be praying for that!  After the picnic, we taught Tubree tithing.  Teaching this lesson always makes me nervous because I don't want people to think that we just want their money haha.  But it went sooooo incredibly well!  We told her about all the blessing that come from tithing and read Malachi 3:10 that talks about how the Lord will pour out blessing that we won't have room enough to receive them.  She was so excited and anxious to receive these blessings, that she wants to pay tithing before she even gets baptized!  Haha she is seriously so awesome.  After the ward picnic, there was a funeral at our building for a family in the Spanish Branch.  Sis. Stewart, the Relief Society president in our ward said that they needed a pianist last minute so she asked if I could play for it.  And of course I will always drop whatever I am doing to help Sis. Stewart because she is just so awesome and I love her so much and want to help her in anyway that I can.  So I was able to play the piano for this Spanish Funeral.  It actually turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  The entire funeral was in spanish so I had absolutely no idea what was going on the whole time.  But I will tell you this much, the Spirit there was absolutely undeniable.  It was a testimony to me that even though we spoke different languages, we can all understand the Spirit and how it works with us.  I know without a doubt that that is an eternal family right there.  The Plan of Salvation is so real and we will get to be with our families for eternity.  How amazing is that?  What a blessing.  I was so humbled and I just feel so beyond grateful that we have that knowledge and also that our family has been sealed.  We are stuck together guys!

Sunday was awesome.  GUESS WHAT!!!!  Sarah got her first calling!  She is going to be the wolf den leader for the cub scouts!  She is so excited about it.  I was freaking out.  Raising my right arm to sustain her into her calling is a moment I will never forget!  Also, we had a cool experience at dinner.  So apparently there is this program in Great Britain where if you are a good soccer player then you can come over here to America and run soccer camps all around the country and stay with host families along the way.  Well they are in Milwaukee this week and a family in our ward was going to be the host family for 3 of these 19 year old British soccer coaches and they invited us to come over to have dinner with them!  It was so awesome.  It was so fun for me to be able to talk soccer with all of them.  And yeah, their accents were way cool.  We started talking to them about the church and if they had ever seen mormon missionaries before.  One of them had actually been stopped by some missionaries back in England and given a pamphlet and another had stayed with a different mormon host family while he was in Arizona running a camp.  Isn't that crazy?  We taught them a little bit about the Book of Mormon and read a scripture about prayer.  So that was way cool

 

 

Over all things are going pretty well here.  We are staying busy which is just how I like it.

Keep up the good work family!  I love you guys!!

 

Sister King :)

Busy, Stressful, Fun, Amazing!

Out for ice cream with Sarah and Elizabeth!

#missionarymeal

Tuesday- We had our Zone Training Meeting so that pretty much took most the day.  I also got a super bad migraine which was weird.  I had never really had one before.  I was just super sensitive to light and sound.  So I didn't really get much out of the training meeting because I just couldn't focus which I was super bummed about because I usually learn a lot.  Oh well, there is always next month. Haha.  That night we went to a family's home for dinner that I had never been to before!  Weird, I thought that I pretty much knew the whole ward.  But this family was totally awesome and is one of my new favorite families.  As we were about to leave one of the boys said, "Can the missionaries come back real soon, Mom??"  Oh my heart just melted.  I love getting to know the amazing members in this ward.  It is really interesting because the majority of people in this ward are converts to the church which is pretty much opposite of my ward back home.  I love it because all of them are so strong and have such amazing stories.  I learn so much from them and I really have come to love West Allis so much!  So it was a good day.

At McCarty Park with some members in our ward

Reppin my Alaska shirt from you Mom and Dad!

Wednesday we had really weird weather.  It was like misty/foggy/rainy.  Like there was just liquid all over in the air.  It was weird and it made contacting people hard.  So that was kind of a bummer.  But we did get to meet with Sarah and teach her a lesson.  We have decided to go through the Book of Mormon stories with her starting from the beginning.  So this week we talked about Nephi and how much faith he had and how he would do whatever it took to be obedient to the Lord's commandments and how much he was blessed for it.  It was awesome.  The Spirit is always so strong when we discuss what we learn from the Book of Mormon.  It was so fun because now instead of teaching Sarah lessons, it is pretty much a discussion.  In fact, she teaches me a lot now too!  It was amazing to see the changes in her from when we first started teaching her to her baptism.  But it has been even more amazing to see the change in her from he baptism to now!  Her testimony grows so much everyday!  She truly has embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful for her.

Thursday we met with a former investigator named Diana.  She just really likes missionaries but has never been interesting in learning about the church at all.  Last time we met with her we invited her to read from the Book of Mormon.  I know this is probably bad, but when we went back to follow up on her reading I had pretty much already decided in my head that she hadn't read.  But when we got there, I was shocked to find that she had been reading!  And she asked us for a spanish copy to make it easier for her.  What??  It was so cool.  Don't worry, I repented for not having faith.  I am excited to continue to work with her.  We also had another lesson with Matt (the Lutheran).  We brought the Lenhard's with us this time which was really awesome.  They told him about their own conversion stories and why they decided to join the church.  It was really cool.  Matt is progressing slowly but surely.

Working at the booth at the Polish Fest with Sis. Silva

The booth at Polish Fest

Chillin at the Polish Fest!

Our Friday morning appointments fell through... :(  But then Sarah called us and asked if we could have another lesson!  haha Isn't she just the cutest.  She wanted another lesson... haha.  So we went to the park so that Elizabeth could run around and play and we continued to teach her about Nephi.  This time we talked more about the Tree of Life.  This is a story that has really touched Sarah in her life so it was cool to get to talk to her about it again and why it had had such a big impact on her.  Then, for the rest of the afternoon, we got to go to the Polish Fest in Downtown Milwaukee!  There are a lot of Polish people here in Wisconsin so basically it is just this HUGE festival where all of the polish people get together to celebrate being polish I guess.  They have these huge festival grounds in Milwaukee.  It's actually really cool.  The Church decided to set up a family history booth there to teach people about familysearch.org and tell them about the family history centers that we have.  The Polish people were all over that!  haha.  So Sister Silva and I got to go over and work at the booth teaching people how to use the website and stuff.  It was way cool!  People got to see our nametags and stuff so that was good.  We technically weren't allowed to "proselyte" and teach people about the gospel.  But, if people asked us questions then we were allowed to answer!  Plus, I would say about 1 in every 3 people that I talked to asked me why family history is so important to our church, so I got to bear my testimony about eternal families and the Plan of Salvation.  It was way cool and we did get a decent amount of referrals of people that want to learn more!  Also- they gave the volunteers that worked there tokens to go and try some of the polish food there.  That was way yummy!  So we worked the Polish Fest all afternoon and evening.  Towards the evening, everyone was just really drunk though haha.  Every single person was walking around with a beer in their hand.  And the beer there cost $6 a cup!  It was ridiculous!  But also kind of funny... haha.  But Polish Fest was way cool.

 

Saturday-  When I woke up in the morning Sis. Silva told me that I had been talking in my sleep and had taught her all about how familysearch.org is the world's largets collection of family history and geneology resources available for free online.  Haha I literally taught her about family history in my sleep.  I am definitely a missionary.  We spent a good chunk of the afternoon visiting less actives.  But then on Saturday night we had to take Sis. Silva to the Urgent Care because she had a really bad double ear infection.  When we got to the doctor he stuck the thing in her ear and was like, "it looks like you are in a lot of pain"  and Sis. Silva was like, "well I know that!"  hahahahaha But according to the doctor she got a double ear infection from the wind or something.  Who would have thought?    But she got some prescription ear drops and is doing better now.

We worked at Polish Fest all day on Sunday.  That was way fun!  I loved getting to be at Polish Fest and just talk to everybody and we kind of got to explore the Polish Fest too.  It really was a neat experience.  The Spirit of Elijah is now alive in the Polish people of Wisconsin! 

Also- Sunday was my 5 month mark.  FIVE MONTHS!!  Weird.  It seems like my 4 month mark was 5 seconds ago.  That month went by way fast.  And can you believe that June is half way over already too?  I am grateful that the time is going by fast because that means that we are busy and having fun. 

Sunday was also Father's Day.  I thought about you a lot Dad.  I really am so grateful for the amazing Father that I have.  I couldn't do it without you!

 

 

Overall, it was a great week!  I am literally exhausted all the time, but I wouldn't have it any other way!  That's pretty much it.  Thanks for being the best family ever!  LOVE YOU!!

 

Sister King

On the way home from the Polish Fest, The Lenhard's drove us through downtown and we got to see the building where the City Branch meets.  Isn't it beautiful??  It was one of the only buildings that the church built during the depression.  I think it was for the German members of the church here in Wisconsin or something like that.