STARVING WITH MUSIC & FAT WITH FAITH

CARSICK

Okay... so the area that we are in is HUGE. Like really huge. Like we drove 100 miles in one day this week. We are getting really sick of driving in the car. Especially since we have like NO music. I mean we have like a few CD's but I am so sick of them... the Assistants gave us two new CD's they are the Piano Guys, ya know John Schmidt and that Cello dude? Yeah. The first song that came on was their cover of Titanium. I literally started crying when it started playing. I attached a picture. Sister Loo was DYING. Also... Rhianna's Stay just came on in the office here where we are emailing and I grabbed Sister Loo's arm and like had a mini freak out. Oh man.. I miss music. Now shakira is playing and Sister Loo is jammin out in her seat while she is typing... oh man I am dying hahah. We need help. I mean I TOTALLY get why the rule is in place like obviously missionaries aren't supposed to be listening to "hips don't lie"... well frankly no one should be listening to "hips don't lie" haha. I don't know why I am suddenly craving music... I think its just a TON more noticeable when you have to be stuck in the car for hours each day. It takes us 30 minutes to get to most of our appointments. Some people drive an hour to get to the singles ward on Sundays.. pretty nuts. But the cool thing about this area is that it covers Magnolia, Cypress Creek, Spring and into downtown a little bit so its HUGE. But it is pretty neat that I can go and visit the Young Single Adults in the areas that I have served in before! Like we are going to start working with the Gieske's daughter and try to get her to come to the ward. It's kinda cool to see it come full circle. I met a kid at the food bank my last day serving in Magnolia and now he like wants to get baptized so we are working with him! It is really exciting.

GAME PLAN

We had a great week this week! We have a really cool girl that we are teaching. She had a lot of mormon friends and we just randomly found her On Sunday, while we were at the church looking for the ward mission leader and the Assistants and while there we noticed a girl who walked in with Jeans on.  Sister Loo was impressed to go and talk to her and we soon found out that she walked in to the church hoping to get a Book of Mormon.  She is 20 and her name is Julie.  She grew up Catholic but had a bunch of Mormon friends.  We shared with her that at 1pm the YSA ward would begin and to come back for that meeting which she did.  It was awesome because the speakers were fantastic! We taught her on Tuesday and she had SO many questions. It was really cool though. She told us that she had a bunch of mormon friends in High School and she was watching the Pope like being carried through the streets on a gold throne and people were like fainting and passing out and crying and Julie's mormon friend said, "why are they like worshiping him like he's Jesus Christ..like that is just wrong. He's just a man." And then Julie started thinking about it and thinking about the prophet of our church and like how we dont worship him like that, we worship Jesus Christ. She is super analytical and really smart. I guess she was watching the youtube videos of a family called the Shaytards? She like loves them haha They are mormon and they did a youtube video of their LDS faith and Julie LOVED it and wanted to know more! I will keep you posted on that!

HOMELESS IN HOUSTON

Well first of all let me just start off with a interesting phone call that we got on Tuesday... Rebecca our investigator who was kicked out of her house? Remember her? I mentioned her in my last email. But one of our ward missionaries drove her into downtown Houston and after waiting for 3 hours got her admitted into the Women's shelter. We weren't really sure what was going to happen.. but we told her to call us when she got situated at the shelter. So Tuesday night we got a phone call from Officer Kyles...

"Hello, this is Sister King and Sister Loo-"

-"Good evening ma'am... this is Officer Kyles from the Houston Police Department..*stomach drops* I have a young women here who would like to speak with you."

"Thank you officer, please put her on the phone."

Through her tears Rebecca begins to tell us that she doesn't want to stay at the shelter anymore and that she is scared. We asked her if she had been praying and she said that she had been praying ALL day but that she didn't know what to do. She told us that she didn't want to go back to live with her mom. She gave us the name of a family friend who lived in Houston and so we miraculously used a members iPhone to google the name and the first phone number turned out to be the right one! #miracle. The family friend came to pick up Rebecca BUT... apparently Rebecca can only stay there until tomorrow so... we are back to square one. No job, no phone, no car, no home but a desire to be baptized... it is a pretty difficult situation. Keep Rebecca in your prayers for sure!

FELONS AND FACE TATS

So Saturday we had like no plans at all. It was actually pretty funny. We were planning on Friday night before we went to bed and we were like well... "Our day is just JAM PACKED. Like I dunno if we are even gunna have time to eat lunch... " Good thing we had NOTHING for the whole day haha. People just don't really want to meet with us on the weekends... but hey I dont blame them. I am a Young Single Adult. I know how it is! Anyway... so Sister Loo and I made plans to walk to the park and try to contact some people, then walk around Target and contact some people and then drive to the Woodlands Mall to my favorite place to eat called Salada (I am going to buy this chain when i get home and bring it to utah. It's the next big thing. Like Cafe Rio. SO good.) Anyway.. that was our game plan. It worked out really well and we had a blast. We talked to a lot of people! It was cool we saw two other sets of missionaries yesterday and we had like 3 members come up to us and talk to us. It was really cool to think that there are 300 missionaries just in our mission here in Houston. There are so many missionaries and we are all here for the same purpose! It is SO cool.
 At the Woodlands Mall we can't approach people about the gospel. Like we can't actively proselyte. So we just walked around carrying Book of Mormons and hope that people come up to us and ask us questions. The elders said that people come up to them ALL the time. But as Sister missionaries, we aren't quite as recognizable unless you see our name tag or the epic book we are holding. But we did have this way cute 19 year old kid run up to us. He is leaving on his mission to Brazil in December and he was like, "GAH! Missionaries! Teach me! Get me pumped! Teach me a lesson!" We taught him a little lesson on the restoration and he was like, "Man! That is so cool. You are both just SO happy! I can't wait to be a missionary!" It was really cute. I love being a missionary.

 Man.. people are so funny here. We contacted this one guy on the side of a busy street and he told us that life is really hard right now and hes just lost. We told him that we would love to meet with him and try to get him back on his feet and get stronger faith in Jesus Christ. We told him about the LDS employment center He said, "What about felons?" Just totally non-chalantly, it was kinda funny looking back on it haha. It caught us both off guard. But we told him that we would look into it and see how they could help him. Sister Loo and I have met a lot of people this week that make you realize that the Gospel of jesus Christ is for EVERYONE. It doesn't matter if you have a criminal background or like the guy we just talked to at the Taco Cart with the face tattoo. Whoever they are, they need the Gospel and the atonement in their life.

RANDOMS

-Speaking of Taco Carts. Sister Loo and I have started to try a different Taco cart each p-day. Mannnn they are SO good!

- The other day I said, "HUZZAH!" to a member and Sister Loo looked at me like I was crazy"SINCE WHEN DO YOU SAY THAT?"... I just shrugged and said, "You've never see Arrested Development have you?" It was pretty funny.

-As a Sister Missionary you forget what your knees look like. I decided that the real reason why we have longer skirts out in the mission field is because our knees are so nasty and bruised from praying so much! haha. True story.

-Also... I need ya'll to send me IBuprophen. Sister Loo's mom sent us a Jillian Michaels workout and I am SO sore. #biggestloser

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Love this gospel! church is true.

Put your faith in Christ! He RUNS to us when we turn to him.

Even though we are tired, I wouldn't trade this for the world! At Zone Conference this week cute Sister Pingree said, "I just love looking out to see all your beautiful faces! You are all glowing! And yes, you look exhausted. But as disciples of Jesus Christ we may have bags under our eyes but we have a smile on our face!" True true.

xoxoxox

-Sister King

Hearing real(ish) music=real tears.

 

Taco Food Cart #2 We are making this a tradition every Pday and going to find a new food cart each week. 

Oh Texans! Do you think they could have a little less pride in the state? :)

Billboard on the side of the Road

 Interesting fact: There are no sidewalks where we live. So when we walked to the park on Saturday it was an adventure.

Leaving our testimony in a Book of Mormon

Halloween fun!

MIRACLES

okay... who says that p-days are relaxing... it is like the most stressful day of the week! We had SO much to do today and now we have literally 20 minutes to email. We had to like spread out our email time throughout the day today so this is going to be like SUPPER short and I apologize for that. This week has been amazing though! So cool. So Sister Loo has like a voice recorder thing that she like plugs into the computer and then she just like mails home little voice recordings so she doesn't have to type everything out... its like way nice. Perhaps I should get one? Who knows. There has seriously been SO much to do this week. Our investigator Rebecca is getting kicked out of her house so we have been kinda stressed with that trying to call women's shelters and everything. She doesn't have a car, job, phone or a high school diploma but she wants to get baptized. It is a catch-22 in multiple ways. We have seen some amazing miracles this week. Jorge was baptized on Saturday which was awesome! So cool.

Sister Loo and I have literally been going NONSTOP all week and man it has payed off. I am exhausted. All we wanted to do today was sleep ALL day. But that didn't happen haha. K really quickly I will tell you about my favorite miracle and then I will probably have to sign off.

We had J'leeta a member in our ward who felt impressed to mark all her favorite scriptures in the BoM  and she told us to give it to someone we were teaching. Someone that would appreciate it. The next day we are talking with Rebecca trying to comfort her and get her motivated to get a job and figure out what she was going to do. She got a really cool priesthood blessing and then we had to leave but she had 20 minutes before institute started so we told her that we would run out to the car to get a BoM for her. I grabbed one off the back seat and out of 20 BoM's sitting on the back seat... guess which one I grabbed? J'leetas! So cool. We took it as a sign that we needed to invite J'leeta to Rebeccas next lesson. So the next day... Sister Loo and I had been praying SO hard to find someone new to teach, to find someone that we could teach the restoration to. It was amazing because when we showed up at Rebeccas with J'leeta... Rebecca's friend Pablo was there and he was suposed to be at work but his car broke down... so he sat in on the lessons with us. Rebecca got her purse and took out the BoM that J'leeta had marked in. J'leetas eyes lit up like fire and she was SO excited. Rebecca told us that she had read all the scriptures that had been marked and that ALL of them hit her really strongly. Especially Enos 1:4-8. So we read that scripture with Pablo and Rebecca and it was PERFECT. It tied in SO well. And we taught a mini restoration. Here is the amazing series of events that led up to that moment....

-we drive 45 mintues to visit J'leeta

-J'leeta feels prompted to mark up a BoM

-we visit Rebecca and I coincidentally grab J's BoM

-Rebecca feels prompted to have us come visit her

-We feel prompted to have J'leeta come with us to the lesson...

-Pablo's car breaks down so he is home when we stop by to visit Rebecca...

-Rebecca reads Enos 1:4-8

-WE GET A NEW INVESTIGATOR.

We have had so many amazing experiences this week! That same night we had a huge dance party in the HUGE rainstorm. I thought I was going to die on the way home it was like Noah's ark style! So nuts! Sister Loo and I had a blast this week! We are SO tired but our obedience has payed off!

Me: "Dude we are doing SO well at being obedient this week!"

Sis Loo: "I know! In fact, I think we are working overtime..." #honestly #deadtired

Church is true.

xoxoxox

-Sister King

We got gelato to reward ourselves after Sister Loo had her first Baptist bashing in the middle of the Library.

Jorge's baptism!

The "Looking" Sisters are down to clown

*WOOT WOOT.*

I am alive! Man, everyone chilllllllll. Transfers is not the end of the
world. I mean... it can be but not if you have a legit companion like I do!
Sister Loo and I are serving in the Sam Houston 1st Young Single Adult
Ward! So fun! We cover Magnolia (my first area), Spring (where I just was)
and a huge chunk of Houston that almost hits downtown. It is three stakes,
and that is HUGE. We only have 400 miles a week for our car so I hope that
we will be able to balance it out... we are in the same ward as the AP's
and they have unlimited miles... so maybe I can convince President to let
us have more miles?... We will see!

It was really hard to leave Sister Montierth. Like it was a legit breakup.
It was so strange. We had to be in a trio for 2 days and it was like the
weirdest 2 days ever because Sister M was like moving on with this new
companion Sister Hayborne and I was just like a fly on the wall as I tried
to pass on the baton of senior companion and literally take the back seat.
It was really hard.... Plus I was way stressed out about training again,
opening a new area, being in the AP's ward and being Sister Training Leader
for our zone (which I didn't find out about until we went to get our new
companion... President forgot that little detail haha!) Anyway.. it was an
awkward breakup we had to like go through all our stuff and be like, "K do
you want this, or should I take it?" It was an awkward 2 days in a trio
because it was like we knew we were breaking up... but we had to be
together for 2 days and pretend to be companions... it was strange. I
didn't like being in a trio at all. So hopefully that will never happen
again! haha.

*LOOKING*

Sister Loo is awesome. She is from Beverton, Oregon and she is Hawaiian,
Samoan, Chinese and White. Quite the combo. She's awesome! She is waiting
for her Visa to go to Brazil to Sao Paulo Interlagos mission! Who knows
maybe I will learn a little Portugese while I am here with her haha. She is
so funny. We have a good time together. And she loves food just as much as
I do! We have recently discovered the beauty of Tilapia. Because we are in
a singles ward, we don't really get fed much... because everyone is just as
poor as we are haha. But we have a fun time cooking and budgeting. We are
trying to brainstorm ideas how to find new people to teach! Put our names
together and we are the LOO-KING sisters.... get it? We are LOOKING for
people to teach! #punny

*THE WARD*

The ward is amazing though! The past year there have been 12 baptisms!
People this age are just yearning for something more and that is what the
church offers! ALL of these recent converts are SO strong. We have another
baptism on Saturday and we are in the process of working out the details
for another! Sister Loo and I are going to try and get an LDSSA started on
the Lonestar College campus, its kinda like SLCC. But we are going to get
that set up and work with people in the ward to try and teach their
friends. The thing that is interesting about this work, is that is SO
different from the other aspects of missionary work that I have done in my
other ward, the teaching style is so different, it almost feels like you're
just hanging out with friends! I think that a huge part of what we are
going to be doing is organizing activities for the ward and trying to get
people to leave their homeward and make the jump to the YSA. So... if
anyone has ideas hit me up! Once we get the LDSSA set up we are going to be
able to go on campus and set up a booth and hand out fliers and things. We
are thinking about doing a "Why I Believe" fireside and having all the
recent converts share their stories, have some epic musical numbers and
really get people punched by the spirit! We are excited! It will be slow
for a while but once things start picking up, we are going to have so much
to do!



*"CLUB" OF THE WOODLANDS*
So Sister Loo and I talked to a few people who say, "Oh no thank you I am
not interested in the church anymore, I am now a member of Fellowship of
the Woodlands..." I have heard about this church SO much there are a bunch
of people that attend this church and I was like, "Okay... what is the hype
about this place anyway...." So we put it in our GPS and decided to drive
by it... WOW. It was like so awkward, I felt like (brace yourself for a
really geeky and weird analogy) Frodo when he puts on the ring and the eye
of Sauran like turns to him and then evil can sense where he is and attack
him.. that is how we felt! It was so funny! Like we turn to each other and
we were like, "gah, I feel so weird right now, everyone was looking at us,
we slouched in our seats as we drove by and laughed, Sister Loo said, "Dude, the holy
ghost is sayin to us, 'Get outaaa here!' Lets book it!" It was so strange.
It was sad because its man's teachings mingled with scripture that is what
all these churches are. The people were confused! #greatandspaciousbuilding
I mean its a GORGEOUS church. Google it, but man, it was just sad to feel
the spirit zap out of us when we pulled into the huge property. It was more
like a ranch than a church property.

*JESUS PROTECTS*

Well our first morning in the apartment, we head outside to go to district
meeting and we go out to the car and there is like a huge adhesive mark
RIGHT in front of where the driver needs to look out of the windshield. It
looked like someone had glued a flier or a sign on our car and then someone
else had like ripped it off. It was strange. We also had a huge chip in our
windshield. Some nice man had a razor blade and helped us scrap the adhesive off the
car. We get in the car and head to District Meeting but we are not even
like a mile away from the apartment when someone signals to us that we have
a flat tire.... AWESOME. Find out someone slashed out tire. The world loves
missionaries! But what can I say, like a flat tire is going to stop the
lords work? Pish posh. haha.  The elders in our zone said that theirs is
the only car that never gets broken into and their secret is to put up
pictures of jesus in all the windows haha. So now we just have pictures of
jesus all over our car to protect it haha.

This church is true, oh so true. I am so excited to be a part of it! I
can't even explain to you how neat it is to open this area. It is cool to
start over with a new companion and then you can like rededicate yourself
to the work and start all over and be a better missionary than you were
before. Changing companions is like repentance in a way... Preach My Gospel
defines repentance as having a fresh view of god, yourself and the world.
That is kinda how I feel this week! Sister Loo is awesome and she is SO
organized which is awesome. She majored in Hospitality Management from SUU.
Shes da bomb. We are gunna rock this! Thanks for your prayers you're all
the best!

So excited to be in the area! It is so much fun and I love it already! My
FHE Co-chair days are coming in handy! But I now know why the missionaries
who are serving in the College Station area on A&M campus call it
"TEMPTATION STATION." It is sometimes difficult to stay focused. But I just
turn to Sister Loo and say, "I'm a missionary, I'm a missionary, I'm a
missionary."



Love you!

Church is true.


xoxoxox

-Sister King

****NEW ADDRESS****
16222 Stuebner Airline Rd. #700
Spring, Texas 77379

I love this kid! #polybabies

BEST GOING AWAY GIFT EVER! The Oljenizecks took in YOSH! They renamed her Angel since we "Sister Missionaries" found her :)

EXCLAMATION POINTS!

Okay.... So Conference was amazing. I just can't get over how much we take it for granted that we know that there is a prophet on the earth today! And 12 apostles! What? So cool. My favorite things that I got from conference were...  I dont have much time because this week is crazy so sorry for the lame email. Hopefully it inspires someone! Scan through this and see if you can see anything that pops out to you!

-"The lord will tell you what HE wants to do with your life."-Hales

-"The past is to be learned from but not lived in."- Holland

-(PREFACE: So I LOVE Peter. Since I have been reading the New Testament I have decided that I am going to name my son Peter. Yup. Its for sure.) As I watched conference I wrote this down during Bednars talk, "SO neat to think that Bednar is just like Peter. Same power, same divine guidance, same gospel, same Priesthood. He travels, blesses, counsels and loves just as Peter, just has any of the original 12 apostles, just as Jesus Christ himself."

-Sometime we think that the church requires SO much. So many guidelines, so many rules so many expectations... But its not the churches expectations, its the lords. "The church does not require anything, but the LORD requires us to consecrate everything... church is designed to help the imperfect."- Uchtdorf

-"EXCLAMATION POINT!" (if you know what I am referencing, I commend you for making it thorough the talk without muting it.)

-:If the bitter cup doesn't pass, drink from it and be strong... fix what we can and then be patient- be still and wait...while god is at work, making repairs on his children, we need to be strong, kind and understanding to all those around us."- Holland (EPIC)

-"Everyone of us on this earth, has a plan that Heavenly Father has implemented to save us".- Eyring

-Converted= acting upon what we believe. It is not enough to just have a testimony. 

"'When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.'- Said the lord to Peter." - Oscarson

"RUN WITH PATIENCE THE PATH THAT IS SET BEFORE US."- Maynes

- "With the atonement 'from the bed of pain and the pillow wet with tears, we are lifted...' We are more than conquerors through him that loved US." - Monson

-Why does the lord ward us of danger when he could just remove the trial?

    -We become closer to him and must have faith in him, enough faith to make a difference in our relationship with the lord. He is ALWAYS near especially in sacred places. "He taps me on the shoulder to let me know that he loves me..."- Vinson

I will leave you with a funny story... Sister M and I were tracting and we were came across this porch... I attached a picture! It was SO creepy. I thought it was so weird... we texted the Elders and said, "Hey we have a referral for you, "There are two lost souls in dire need of the gospel. Here is the address________." We are funny. I hope they get the joke! SO great. I love Halloween. I got Halloween lights! Sis M made fun of me but they are cute. I love them.

Pray that my new companion is normal! #fingerscrossed!

Church is true! 

xoxoxoxox

-Sister King

Dos Bicicletas

Well.... This week was very long but also very fast at the same time its very hard to explain.

I was an Hermana in the Spanish area for our exchange this week and goodness. I am so happy that I am not learning a language. Like honestly. I think I would die. God knew that my brain doesn't work like that. 

TOP 5 REASONS WHY BEING AN HERMANA FOR A DAY IS HARD. (BUT WORTH IT.)

1. Before my exchange I could say 3 things in spanish. I could say is "no bueno" and "buenos noches" and "cool frijoles" (cool beans)- These are three phrases that were rarely used during my 24 hour stay in MEX-TEX. I learned how to pray and bear my testimony in spanish (which was actually really cool). After an hour of reciting it over and over again and praying that I would be able to do it, I still had to use my cheat sheet. I have MAJOR respect for those missionaries learning crazy languages.

2. Since they are so focused on learning the language, the hermanas have entirely lost their sense of humor. VERY true. God knew that I needed my puns and sarcasm in english. I tried to make a joke in Spanish and no one laughed. No one. Cool. I guess my humor doesn't translate into spanish? Either way... I missed my inside jokes with Sister M. Better get used to change because transfers are coming up!

3. Not knowing the language means that all I could do was have a conversation with my plate- so I just ate and ate and ate. But then I realized that in my panic of being asked if I wanted seconds, I didn't know how to say "No thank you, I am stuffed!" I coudn't just say, "no" and I was pretty sure that "no gracias" wasn't right... So all I could do was squeak out a "si hermana" and my plate was reloaded. I had to just focus on each individual swallow and pray that I would be able to finish it.  I thought I was about to explode. It was bad news bears. We had a lunch appointment at 2 and a dinner appointment at 4:30. Good food BUT bad timing. 

4. Banos? Being stuffed full and feeling like you're about to explode can also be detrimental when you failed to realize that you dont know how to ask where the bathroom is... 

5. Desert. Carrot Flan with jello pieces in it. It was very bizarre. It had the consistency of jello but it was like carrot puree. At this point I had understood a total of 6% of what had been said. I like had legitimate culture shock it was bizarre. It was like the first day of the mission all over again. So strange. 

6. Oui Hermana. Umm... the weirdest thing happened to me... I was so frustrated with not being able to communicate with the people that my brain like went into panic mode and I started pulling random french words from the very back of my brain. It was so bizarre. Like my brain was trying to use any outlet that it could to communicate, and since english wasn't working my brain decided to send french words to my mouth to see if that would do the trick. Unfortunately it didn't. Who would have thought! I didn't realize I had used french terms until we left. It was pretty funny. I came home and told Sister M and she told me that the exact same thing happened to her except it was all her Sign Language classes that came flooding back to her. It was so strange. Language is such a weird thing! So cool. 

SICK AS A DOG

Sick again this week. On Friday I slept most of the day. Poor Sister Montierth was bored out of her mind. I woke up and she'd made the cutest little sign and pumpkin patch since its almost October! And she had started to make me a count down calendar until Halloween. She is the greatest. I just love her. She is so creative. She is going to be such a good school teacher one day. Anyway, the Klein Oak Elders heard that I was sick and that we had to cancel our dinner so they ordered a pizza to be delivered. They are the sweetest. We rescued them and brought them medicine and groceries a few weeks ago when they were sick so they thought that they would return the favor. We have to take care of one another out here because our moms aren't here to do it!  haha! 

RANDOMS

-We found out last week that we have free pest control in our apartment... just one more thing that the Elders failed to tell us. Haha, anyway, they knocked on the door the other day during studies and we about jumped out of our skin! Sister M lept up and said, "eeek! I am not wearing any pants!" Sister M ran into the room to wrap herself in a blanket, we let them in and I am pretty sure that the one guy jumped a few inches when he saw the cardboard cut out of Jesus. Pretty funny. 

-I witnessed one of my favorite prayers the other night. We are teaching this lady named Kathy and she is a riot. Oh man.... What a hoot. She has a very animated voice, like a radio personality. She started her prayer by saying, "Good Evening Lord!"  I about laughed outloud it was so adorable. It is so fun to hear how people pray and address God. It's awesome.

-I almost ran over a Possum last night. All I could think of was Goofy Movie. 

COUGH SEIZURE

Okay... awkward moment story time.... 

So we had just finished this really good lesson teaching the plan of salvation with an investigator and I had just bore my testimony about the power of eternal families and the temple and everything. Then I ask Braydon who he would like to say the prayer, he picks me. I started praying and gave this really powerful prayer about the atonement and about eternal families and about Angie and Braydon getting answers to their prayers... and RIGHT as I am about to close the prayer I get the WORST tickle in my throat that I have ever gotten in my life. Like it wasn't a cough attack, it was like a cough seizure.

 I had tears streaming down my face and I look at Sister M and shes like staring back at me with this look like, "DUDE FINISH THE PRAYER!" But I couldn't! It was SO awkward, I kept wacking Sister M's knee motioning for her to finish the prayer, I look over at Angie and Braydon and they are both just waiting with their heads bowed and eyes closed for me to finish. I SWEAR like at least 40 seconds go by, but it must have only been a few... Finally Sister M gets the hint that this cough seizure isn't subsiding so she rattles off, "in the name of jesus christ amen!"

 We all open our eyes and start to stand up but I am still like on the verge of death and I can't speak. I have tears streaming down my face, and I can't speak or else I would have another cough seizure. Sister M trys to break the awkward silence by saying, "Ha, Sister King must just be so moved by the prayer she just can't speak haha!" She shoots me a look, a desperate effort to get me to laugh or explain the abrupt ending to the awkward prayer, but I couldn't speak. If there was ever a time when I had a literal frog in my throat this was it. Sister M fumbled around her awkward joke and we left. I didn't say a word. The second the front door shuts, ushering us out, I start coughing uncontrollably. Sister M is like, "DUDE! Why didn't you say anything!?" "Could you have made that more awkward!?" haha she starts laughing and and making fun of me and all I can do is hand her the keys and croak, "Hermana! I need to get some cough drops!" It was BAD news bears. 

LAMB OF GOD CONVERT

Hermana Rowe gave Sister M her copy of the Lamb of God production. And OH MAN... HOW have I never heard/seen that before???! I remember hearing about it being performed but how have I never seen it!? I kept saying to Sister M. "I am SO mad that I didn't know about this before now! My life is so different since I have listened to it." Sister M laughed and said, "Now you know what its like for people who find the gospel and have been wondering where it has been up until now!" SO true. On a much smaller scale obviously but still. Man it is amazing. If sister m and I get separated I might need you to send me another copy, Mom. 

LAYING ON OF HANDS

Last night we had a really strong impression that we needed to stop by Angelica's house. We cleaned her house a while back, remember that? Anyway, she has kinda been off the grid for a while and we have had a hard time contacting her but we felt like we needed to stop by. So we pull up and Angelica is sitting on the hood of her car talking with a few friends. We go up and start talking and meet her friends, her friends go inside and its just us and Angelica talking with the cicadas chirping. We told her that she needs to start making God a priority in her life. Then she tells us that since this spring high stabbing all she can think about is the evil in the world and how scared she is for her and her family. It was really sad.

She told us that her youngest son, Moses, had a dream a few nights ago that was really scary and he was surrounded by evil, but at the end of the dream, Angelica told us that Moses said, "But its okay mommy because God helped me win in the end and I beat all the bad guys." She teared up and said that she wanted to just go run and hide away because the world is getting to be so evil. We hugged her and Sister Montierth said, "Angelica, would it help if we prayed?" Angelica nodded, we gathered closer and bowed our heads. Sister M said a beautiful prayer and at the end, Angelica, exhaled looked at me and said, "Were you touching me?"... I looked at Sister M and she looked back at me, we shook our heads and said, "No, Angelica. We didn't touch you. I promise." She laughed and said, "no really!" I said, "Angelica, we didn't touch you." She told us that she felt hand on her head like static running through her body. We testified that was the spirit. We told her. "Angelica, we are true disciples of Jesus Christ and that peace that you feel, that is the spirit testifying of truth." She was stunned. We gave her a hug and as we walked away she was still totally dumbfounded. I stepped into the car and fist-bumped Sister Montierth saying, "DUDE. That was amazing. Church is true." 

This church is true. I know it is. Share it!

xoxoxox

-sister king

           Elder Gutierrez' first snowcone! He LOVED it.

Sister M's Birthday with the Cypress Creek Missionaries! We love Elder and Sister Saap! 

 

The SUNSET at night, Is big and bright *clap clap clap* Deep in the heart of TEXAS!

Sister M's masterpiece

district meeting pic!