Breakin' my back in TEXAS.

ZZZzzzZZzzzzZ

-Apparently I was laughing really hard in my sleep the other night and scared Sister I, haha. No idea what my dream was about.

-Sister I was going sit-ups early one morning and she was counting. I hear her say, "forty-eight---forty-nine----forty-ten------*pause* "what the heck am I doing!?" And then we just CRACKED UP. That is how tired we are. 

SERVICE UP THE WAZOOO

We did SO much service this week. I think that is why we are so tired. Wednesday we were doing service all day. We went to the Buddhist temple, then the Elders were like, "Hey this inactive couple move and there is no way that we can help them back just the two of us. Can you com help?" Since we were already in service clothes and covered in paint we decided to just join them.... Flashforward to opening the front door to the apartment---> In this moment I decided that maybe the Lord is trying to tell me that my ideal career path is to de-clutter. And help hoarders de-hoard. I would pass something to Elder Barney and mouth, "quick take that to the dumpster!!" haha. It was so funny.  We have to sneak things to the dumpster without them knowing. I am getting really good at it haha. It sounds rude but if you understand hoarders you will know what I am talking about. If the TV show Hoarders ever comes to SLC. I will totally volunteer. At least this time with Fred and his wife there weren't any cats.Remember when I cleaned the cat lady's house and I got like a hundred flea bites all over me? yeahhhh.... that was fun. 

 This member has such a cool conversion story though! He had a stroke and was outside learning how to walk again using a walker he had totally lost all his speech. As he was walking he saw the elders ride by on their bikes and he felt something tell him that he needed to call to them, he suddenly heard himself yell "HEY!" Fred was shocked that he had spoken! The Elders turned around and came to talk to Fred. Fred managed to say, "pray with me." They started to meet with Fred and read with Book of Mormon with him, and that is how Fred learned how to talk again. By reading the Book of Mormon out-loud. How neat is that!?

Then we helped another inactive clean their house and we have never really been able to have a very spiritual lesson in their home because it is always so messy. But after we cleaned their living room you could actually see their floor! It was amazing! The spirit was SO much stronger in their home and the house literally got like 5 times brighter. We talked to them about getting sealed in the temple. They were so excited. And because the spirit was there we were able to bring up the Elephant in the room, that they weren't coming to church. SO cool. Sister I and I were like on a cleaning spree we just wanted to keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning because it made the BIGGEST difference. That is one thing I have learned from being on a mission... because we go into so many homes, I am able to feel the difference in the spirit inside each one. Our homes really are temples! TAKE CARE OF THEM!

RANDOMS

Thursday we helped Donna and Nathan move. We have been teaching Donna since I first got here. Now she has a Boyfriend and he said that he is interested in taking the lessons! I hope that they continue to progress with the new sister missionaries we have! :)

A recently reactivated member is sharing the gospel like crazy! We are so proud of her. It is so cool to see someone who has so recently discovered it,  share it so passionately. Frank called the other day we talk pretty regularly and he gave out 2 Book of Mormons to his friends. His new calling is a ward missionary :) As a ward missionary their challenge by the ward mission leader is to invite at least 3 people a week to something. An activity, church, mormon.org etc. It is so cool. I loved Elder Bednars talk about sharing the gospel. If you haven't watched it or listened to it. DO IT! https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/come-and-see?lang=eng

CHURCH IS TRUE! LOVE YOU ALL!

xoxoxoxox

-Sister King

Lovin' the weather.

Nathan, Donna and her kids! :) I told the other sisters that they have to take good care of them since they are moving out of our area :)

Adious Elder Barney! :( So sad to see him leave.

Late night guacamole grilled cheese :) #GOUTES. (Members keep me posted on the score. GO UTES)

Elder Barney, Elder Harris worked their charm and got Amu to come to church to sing! So neat. There were hardly any dry eyes in the chapel. The Elders said that it was the spirit helping them. When they sang with the guitar in church, it was UNREAL. ANd Amu's whole family came too :) His Sister said that she was SO happy to see him in the chapel. It was beautiful. This is a recording from when we were over at Amu's house practicing :)

"Why do missionaries have such big bladders?....Because they only get one P day."

Hope you enjoyed my not so funny joke. It is only minimally amusing. But I heard it yesterday and it made me laugh. Although it hit a little too close to home since I have the smallest bladder ever. 

Today we have our pday and we get to email instead of Monday because we are going to the temple and had to switch our P-days around. 

It is hard for me to think right now because instead of writing down my thoughts for a week, I have to grab my thoughts out of my brain for 2 weeks.... 

I have to get myself oriented here... hang tight for a minute while I collect my thoughts. 

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OKAY. Got it.

DROPPED LIKE ITS HOT.

SO this week was really hard. But really good. Sister I and I worked really hard. We fasted, and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed some more. 

Sue and Judith dropped us. I was on exchanges when Sue called but she told Sister I that she had prayed about the church and was pretty sure that the church was not right for her right now. Sister I was so shocked that she didn't really know what to say. I wish I could have been there to help her and talk more with Sue because I don't really know what happened. We prayed about it a lot and felt that it was right for us to just give her space for a week or so. We had a member stop by with some cupcakes and just say hi. Hopefully we are able to serve them and when they are ready they will know where to come to accept it. We were really sad about that.

Then the next day we had a lesson with Jose our other progressing investigator. We walked up to his house and he was smoking a cigarette. We asked how he had been doing and he told us that he couldn't meet with us anymore. I closed my eyes, prayed silently and asking him why he felt that way. And he told us that he had some demons that he had to conquer first. I sat down on the chair beside him and I said, "Who is that can help you overcome those demons?"... he paused and said, "Jesus Christ." The spirit was so strong and I said, "Exactly Jose, and when we meet with you, who are we helping you get closer to?"...pause. "Jesus Christ." "Yes, exactly. So you think that not meeting with us anymore would help you conquer those demons?"

Pause. "I don't know I just can't."

We talked for a few more minutes, bore testimony and then left. It was a really sad conversation, watching him turn away from the one thing that he is looking for. It was very disheartening. 

So since we had everyone and their dog decide not to meet with us/answer their phones or doors, we decided to put our heads, hearts and spirits back to the drawing board. We picked a section on the map and decided that we would pray as a companionship and then independently write out 5 street names that stuck out to us and then come together and whichever one matched we would tract it. And guess what? The first street name we had written down was the same. It was very cool. So  the next day, just as we had planned, we loaded up our bags with pass-along cards, family history information and book of mormons. 

We got to the street and there were 3 miracles that happened all on the SAME STREET-

HAYSTREAM DRIVE= MIRACLE LANE

1.) Randy- We always have bug spray in the car. Always but we could not find it anywhere we check every pocket, the trunk, under every seat. It was nowhere to be found. It was so bizarre. So we saw this guy in his garage. We went up to him and he ignored us at first (thinking we were going to drag him to a come to jesus meeting or something) but when we asked him "Hi sir, this is a really random question but do you have any bugspray?" He smiled, grabbed some out of this garage and walked back to us with a HUGE bottle. He said, "Put out your arms." I was so confused, but did as he said, then he sprayed both of us down and had us turn. He even made sure the backs of our necks were sprayed. he said, "I am the handy-man every kid on the block comes to me for bug spray on nights like this, I fix all their bikes while their dads are drinkin' beer on the couch. I am the neighborhood dad, I guess." He smiled and the corners of his huge handlebar mustache  turned out. We talked for a bit, and as we have progressively tracted the rest of his street this past week we have seen him on multiple occasions and we always yell, "Hey Randy!" We planted a little seed and we left him a little note on his door with a plan of salvation pamphlet, thanking him for being our Texas dad. You know what the weird part was. When we got back in the car the bugspray was sitting RIGHT THERE IN OUR CAR. We needed to talk to Randy apparently! :)

2.) Mike- Randy's neighbor right across the street. After getting sprayed down with deet by Randy we knocked on Mikes door and he opened up with the common "Yeah, what do you want...." type of response to two missionaries standing on his door. But the words just came to me, "Hi! We are going around talking to people about Family History. Have you ever done any of your Genealogy?" He cocked his head to the side and said, "Yes, actually I have. I have a bug binder inside!" After talking for a minute and introducing himself, He stepped outside into the mosquitoes and we motioned over to Randy and said, "Well Mike, you better go get bug sprayed by Randy over there before you come outside! :)" He laughed and began to tell us all about his interest and passion with family history. He is going to come to the Family History Fair that the stake is having on the 25th and we are going to start reading the Book of Mormon with him! MIRACLE.

3.) Trudy-  We rang this persons door bell and it just kept ringing..ding dong, ding dong, and it never stopped, and we look at each other and were like, "That's an annoying ring, hope they don't get mad at us for ringing the door bell!" So were standing their for a while, listening to it ring and ring and ring.... I thought maybe it was an alarm or something... we were wondering if we should just walk away... and then the door opens. It's an older lady and she was sooooo sweet to us, she tells us that she had just been sleeping cause she works nights, and the ringing had woke her up. We told her how sorry we were and then she just smiled and said its okay.then she reaches her hand out the door and tries to unstick the door bell button, and that's when it clicked and we were like, OH!! The doorbell is stuck! So we helped her unstick it and she told us that she would love to have us come back. She is an adorable little lady from Switzerland. How crazy... I am fully convinced that the Lord knew that she needed to hear our message so he made the doorbell stick so she would wake up and come to the door. It was so neat. He was answering our prayers!

We had some other really neat things happen this week with Less-Actives and members. I have a ton of pictures. We got some really cool t-shirts to do service in and all the Nuns thought they were so cool! And we say the most gorgeous sunset ever so we stopped and took some pictures :)

Can you believe that I only have 6 weeks left?

I am going to sprint to the finish line like crazy.

Keep me in your prayers that I can keep my head and my heart in this work. I love it so much! Miss it already. 

XOXOXOXOX

CHURCH IS TRUE.

-Sister King

Elder Robins last P-day came and sat down in the computer room with this meal he had prepared in the kitchen. It was SO funny. I had to take a picture. 

We bought this to help a member track how many cigarettes she has each day so she can quit and get to the temple. We left this cute little note inside :)

Sister Tomsick bought us some workout DVD's and some candy. (Moderation in all things haha) She is so sweet :)

SUNSET!

I LOVE TEXAS!

Waffle cones with a member :) #candid

cutest puppy everrrr. Yorki Chihuahua 

Sister I asked me to cut her hair. I was SO nervous. But I did a stellar job! haha

Me and Petey on exchanges. I love her to pieces.

Us in our matching service outfits.

"This work is about LOVE, not statistics" - Jeffery R. Holland

This quote has a lot of meaning to it. Especially in weeks like this one.

Looking back on the week, we didn't really have a whole lot of lessons. We didn't have any baptismal invitations, and despite our best efforts we weren't able to find any new people to teach. Looking at the numbers, I would say that we didn't have a very statistically successful week. And as a trainer I had to talk to Sister I about the fact that just because we didn't have very good numbers this week, doesn't mean that we didn't fulfill our purpose. I am fully aware that the Lord recognizes every effort that we put in. Every heartfelt text we send that doesn't get a response, every doorbell we ring that is blatantly ignored? He is standing by our side, hoping they will open to us. Because if they open to us, they open to Him. He sees our love for these people, as they don't heed to the message we have to share. Our steps off the unanswered door are ushered out with loud music and the flickering of an obscene movie. He sees our effort. He knows the work we do is HIS work. And he knows that as disciples of the the Lord, we are IN the world and not OF the world. 

FUNNY THINGS

-We were with a bunch of missionaries watching the 3rd session at the stake center and all the talks seemed to be all about the Prophet and the importance of listening to, and sustaining him NO MATTER WHAT.  After about the 3rd talk on the subject I turned to the Elders and whispered, "I have a feeling that the Prophet is going to announce something BIG. Fasten your seatbelts kiddos....I am scared!"

Elder Harris quickly replied saying, "Oh yeah dude... I think Monson is going to get up there and he is gunna tell is it's about time to pack up and hear to Missouri. It's fine.... we've got the mini van." I laughed SO hard. 

-Belfry was a big hit at conference. I attached some pictures of the snuggling that went on haha.

-Also wedding in the zen garden at the Buddhist temple we were SOAKED in sweat. Bahnka (our favorite nun) went and got us Lemonade. It is SO good. We named it "Buddah's Tears". Don't worry I don't think Bahnka heard us haha. But it is amazing. It is like Hot Dog on a Stick Lemonade on steroids. SO good. 

-I saw a cat laying in the gutter and pulled over, fearing that it had been hit by a car, it was SO cute. His name was Tipsy! :) We got some pictures with him. #catwhisperer

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

I was struck with the amount of love and compassion that was emphasized during Elder Hollands talk. My favorite part was when he admitted that He as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He stated "I don't know the answers to everything, but I know that God knows. Ask Him."

That was one theme of the meeting that I saw through out the entire conference. Uchtdorf said it best- "If you have spiritual questions, seek spiritual answers."

-Need Hope? ACT in faith towards the Savior. I tell this to my investigators and Less-Actives ALL the time. "Faith is stepping into the darkness, knowing you will be given solid ground, or wings to fly." 

-EVERYONE needs a testimony of Joseph Smith and if you don't have one,  get one.

- Marriage/ dating advice?- Elder Gavarret said (about his wife), "I always knew it would be easier to follow the Savior with her by my side." 

I loved the colorful choir. They were beautiful. But I remember being a little disappointed and wishing that they could be as powerful and put together as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But as they sang the closing hymn "Abide With Me; 'Tis Eventide" the spirit whispered to me, "To Heavenly Father, this awkward funny looking choir is JUST as beautiful, and just as special as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." I couldn't hold back the tears. 

It was the same spirit I feel when I tell people that God hears every single prayer they offer, no matter how awkward or how short. He hears every word. It was a powerful lesson. 

-We got to watch conference with Sister Hail she is totally inactive. She was baptized in 1969 and she had never watched conference. She didn't even know what it was! It was so cool that we got to watch it with her. She loved it and the spirit was so strong in her little apartment. She was crocheting while we listened to it. I am pretty sure I saw a few tears well up in her eyes :) 

Church is true! :)

xoxoxoxo

-Sister King

Belfry and I ready to hear words from heaven.

Elder Barney got some snuggles.

Tipsy :)