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

4 Months!!

Can you believe it was a just a week ago that we were talking to each other???  It seems like a lifetime ago!  Mom- you asked me if I was homesick or if talking to you guys affected the work this past week.  It was actually something that I was really worried about.  I prayed so hard to Heavenly Father to help me continue to be focused and motivated after I got to talk to you.  It was seriously the biggest tender mercy because we ended up having a really good and successful day that day!  So many miracles had happened that day.  I KNOW that if we had had a bad day, then talking to you would have made me feel super homesick and not motivated to do anything.  But because it had been such a successful day, I was excited to get back to work after talking to you.  I know that was a direct answer to my prayer and a blessing from Heavenly Father.  Talking to you actually really gave me the push and the motivation that I needed.  Knowing that you guys are proud of me and that I have so much support from the people that I love most has made a world of a difference.  I know that getting to talk to your family is an experience that is different for every missionary, but I was so grateful for it!

Monday-  Ok so last Monday there were CRAZY rainstorms.  Like seriously some of the craziest weather I have ever seen.  There were 3 flash flood warnings.  Sister Newton and I were lucky enough to be caught outside right in the middle of one, so that was interesting.  But we are alive and here to tell the tale.

Tuesday was Zone Conference and it was absolutely amazing.  I really just can't speak highly enough of the Cutler's and how inspired they are.  They gave us trainings on how important the family is.  That is one thing that I noticed in my setting apart blessing as I was reading it the other day.  It counsels me to preach the importance of families and how we can be together forever as much as I can.  I was grateful for this training because I do want to make families a focus for me personally here on my mission.  It really is the biggest blessing that we get to be together forever.  We also talked about finding "the one" that we were sent here on our missions to find.  I really think that there is at least one person in every area that I serve in that needs me, Sister Courtney King, to find them and share my testimony with them.  I am determined to work hard to make sure that Heavenly Father will always be able to bless me with those specific opportunities.  Zone Conference was awesome because I got to see Sister Tanner again!  Boy, have I missed her.  It was really funny, Sis. Tanner volunteered me and Sister Newton to do a musical number at the zone conference so we decided that we were going to get her back.  Earlier in the week we had sent her this fake letter from an ex-boyfriend pretty much proclaiming his love for her and asking for her hand in marriage.  It was legit!  When we got to zone conference she started telling us all about this letter that she had gotten.  Sis Newton and I started CRACKING UP.  She totally fell for it!  Haha one of my prouder moments... :)

Wednesday was a MIRACLE day!  We found this brand new part member family and they are THE BOMB!  It is this couple that is engaged and they have the cutest little 1 year old daughter and another baby on the way.  The mom, Melissa, is a member and joined the church back when she was a teenager.  She hasn't been coming for the past couple of years because her fiance, Hunter, isn't very religious.  But we got in there and established a really good relationship with them.  We are so excited to start teaching them.  We were super nervous because we knew that a lot was riding on this first lesson.  But then a few minutes after we left we got a text from Melissa that said,

"Thank you so much for coming today.  You guys were so perfect, and Hunter is already excited to see you next week.  I know now for sure that he will join the church, maybe sooner than I thought.  Never thought this day would come."

I can not even begin to tell you how much that text meant to me.  After getting the training the day before about finding "the one" I really think this family could be the one for me!

Later that day we had another lesson with our investigator Tubree.  I think I told you a little about her last week.  The lesson went so amazingly well!  We taught her the Plan of Salvation.  She loved the idea of the Spirit World and how everyone will have a equal opportunity to accept the gospel there.  I have never really thought about that a lot before.  I think I have taken that for granted sometimes.  It really is amazing that our Heavenly Father loves us so much and he is so merciful that He wants to give us every opportunity to make the right choice so that we can make it back to live with Him again.  How grateful I am for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation!

 

Thursday was my 4 month mark!  That is a good chunk of time!  It doesn't seem like very much when you think about how I still have 14 more months ahead of me, but hey!  My mission is almost a third of the way over!  There is so much that I have to learn and so much that I want to accomplish still!  Time is going by fast and slow all at the same time.  To celebrate we went to Organ Piper's Pizza for dinner with the sisters from Muskego Lakes because Sister Pope came out with me so it was her 4 month mark too.  It is the coolest restaurant ever!  Glad we got to go.

 Friday we met with Fred.  Last week's lesson didn't go so hot.  He hadn't been reading in the Book of Mormon.  But this week was so much better- he had been reading this week!  I don't think that is a coincidence.  Later that night we had dinner at Sarah's house.  When we got there, we decided to invite Tubree over to join us last minute and she ended up coming!  It was so fun!  Tubree and Sarah get along great and their daughters are the same age so they love to play together.  Sarah is so excited to help others learn about this gospel now that she has seen how much it has blessed her life.  We had an awesome discussion about how the Book of Mormon has changed our lives and the Spirit was so strong.  Tubree has started reading the Book of Mormon and has already seen a difference in her life.  It was such a wonderful night!

 

Saturday we had another lesson with Tubree.  She is seriously my new favorite person.  We taught her to Gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved that as well.  She is so golden.  So grateful that Heavenly Father is letting us teach her.  Later that night we went to visit a less-active lady in our ward.  She has MS and lives in an assisted living center.  She can hardly move and can't talk very well.  So trying to talk with her didn't work very well.  Instead, we decided that we would sing hymns to her.  The Spirit was so strong in that room as we sang and it brought tears to her eyes.  There were even some of the workers there that stopped in to listen to us singing.  Such a cool experience. 

 

Sunday Tubree came to church and this time she brought her 16 year old son, Josiah too!  He is way cool and has a lot of potential.  Tubree is seriously the biggest miracle. 

 

That is pretty much it for this week.  So many good things are happening here in West Allis!  Thank you so much for your letters and e-mails!  You are the best!

 

Love,

Sister King