Reality Check

I come home in 9 days... Things are starting to seem a little bit more real and I am freaking out. But I am trying to make this last week count! This will be a short email since I am really only reporting about half a week since I emailedon Wednesday.

I just wanted to share a little piece of my testimony. The mission really is like a mini life. You have ups and downs. Like honestly, I have never been so sad and I have never been so happy all in a matter of days. It is exhausting, stressful, mind-numbing and lonely. BUT I have never been so happy in my entire life. I was talking to Sister Flannery about this the other day and I told her how scared I was to go home and to start this new chapter of my life. I said, I feel like I am just starting to understand how to do things and then I have to go home!  She said something that I really needed to hear. She said, " The mission is training wheels for life. We aren't expected to be perfect, but we learn the tools that can help us when we have to get on the actual bike."

I love that! These tools help us to grow and progress and remain close to the Savior. And even when our Father in Heaven takes off our training wheels and gives us a push in the right direction we aren't expected to be perfect. That is why the Atonement is there. 

To some extent I don't think that I will ever be ready to end my mission and to have this mantle lifted because spiritually speaking, this is the strongest that I have ever been. But I don't want it to be the strongest that I ever will be. This is just the beginning. Now I just have the tools to deal with everything and anything that life can throw at me. I just have to keep them sharp and ready to use. That is the key.

The church is true. I am so happy that I have been able to have this amazing knowledge of my divine potential, not only the potential that our Heavenly Father has for me, but the divine potential that he has for all of his children.

Church is true. 

xoxoxox

See you in nine days :)

-Sister King

Because He First Loved Me

VERTIGO

So I have been really sick and going crazy lately. I have learned a lot this transfer and had to rely on the Lord in everything. I was not going to go to the doctor because I kept saying, "I have 3 weeks left, I will just go to the doctor when I get home." But then on Wednesday morning I was so excited to go see Bankah at the Buddhist temple, but I felt terrible. Sister I tried to convince me not to go but I was set on going! Then the Elders called and Elder Tanner tried to convince me that I needed to go get checked out because I might have a brain tumor or something. Long story short... I ended up at Instacare and for this last week I have been on a gazillion pills and have been really out of it. It is hard to push hard and finish strong when my body is saying, "Nope, you're done." But my mind isn't so it is frustrating. I have been having some serious mind games going. But the scriptures, prayer and a loving and understanding companion have really helped me to turn to the Savior.

HE LOVES US

I gave my last testimony at Zone Conference yesterday and that was so strange. I felt sick to my stomach. It was the same pit in my stomach feeling I had as I was driving to the MTC! But one thing that I have been thinking about is that EVERYTHING that happens to us is for a reason. It is for our benefit and often times it is so we can be brought low enough to ask for his help. 

Here is a question that I have been thinking about a ton, "If God loves us why did he make a plan to have us leave his presence?"

President Mortensen's response when teaching a lesson:

"You have children, you love them and as parents you care about them. But would you want to have your children depend on and live with you in your house for the rest of your life?"

"No."

"Why not? You love them don't you?"

"Yes, but they need to be out on their own and experience things, learn responsibility and make choices."

"Exactly. That is how our heavenly father feels about us. And when your children leave the nest do you want to hear from, help them and watch them in turn have their own families and progress."

"The family is truly ordained of God."

We got to go to the temple today and that is all that I could think about through the entire thing. How he is our Father. He loves us and I am his daughter. 

Church is true. 

xoxoxoxox

-Sister King

HALLOWEEN LEFTOVERS

Sister I has been SO cold ALLLL week. I bought her boots at Target. Mom, I knew that if you were here you would have bought them for her. Like mother like daughter.

Cat pants and cold weather.

Ruth's little Sister wanted her own copy of the BoM. SO cute. We left her our passalong card and it had our number on it. We hadn't even been driving for 5 minutes when our phone rang. It was Jester and Maureen all we heard was breathing and giggles. I expect more prank calls in the near future. SO cute.

 Westlake homies.

Horseloverzzzz

District at the Temple! 

Poor Nymeyer broke his collarbone 2 weeks before we go home! :(

Tree-climbing.

Cold weather! I can't wait to bundle up again! I have missed my tights and scarves!!

I LOVE AFRICAN FOOD.

RUTH

Okay... I had Zambian food this week and I was SO excited it was amazing. The rule was that we couldn't use any utensils. We were just covered in food by the end of the meal it was so good. Ruth is amazing. She has been through so much and she is so ready to make changes. We committed her to read 3 Nephi 11 and when we came back the next day she was reading it and she said that she was trying to understand all the words and had looked them all up in the dictionary. It was so sweet. She came to church and offered to say the closing prayer in gospel principles. It was SUCH a refreshing prayer. Sometimes we get so caught up in the routine of prayer at church that we think that we can't break outside the box of "vain repetitions" her prayer was beautiful. I always ask her to pray because its like she is singing. Her voice gets loud and then soft and she never says the same thing twice. As she stood in front of the class over 6 ft tall in her heels and her beautiful dress. I was just in awe of how gorgeous she looked, and gorgeous the gospel is as it floods to every corner of the earth. 

One of the Sisters in Relief Society had twins and then a major surgery due to a complication, when the sign up sheet came around to ask for volunteers to bring her dinner. Ruth didn't skip a beat and wrote her name down to take dinner to the family. So sweet. We had a pie crust making enrichment activity last week and Ruth wasn't able to come so we made her a pie crust and she has never had pie! We are going to make a pecan pie with her this week and I am so excited :)

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT JOSEPH SMITH WAS A PROPHET?

We have been trying to make contact with a less active for a quite a while. Her home teacher told us that if you leave something on her porch she feels inclined to call you and thank you for it... so since she wasn't returning our calls was never home or anything we decided to just stop by with some treats and leave them on her porch. We pulled up and I was just going to have Sister I run them up to the door but then we noticed that the car in the driveway had its light left on. Even though Sister M's roommates hardly speak English we decided that maybe this was a sign that we were supposed to knock on the door. So we knocked on the door to tell them their lights were on and she said, "oh thank you so much! I will go get Maria so you can give it to her!" She was HOME! We got in and had a really powerful conversation about the gospel. Sister M has some doubts and is looking for a different church. It all stems from little things in the gospel that she disagrees with like coffee and a glass of wine a day and a few other things like that. Sister I was trying to resolve the concerns but we were just going around and around in circles. 

Then this quote from Preach my Gospel came to my mind, "Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church. But in like manner, if the Book of Mormon be true—and millions have now testified that they have the witness of the Spirit that it is indeed true—then one must accept the claims of the Restoration and all that accompanies it.”

The spirit helped me to know what to say and the only thing that was coming to my mind was that EVERYTHING depends on the Book of Mormon.  I had remembered that the first time I had ever met Sister M about 5 months ago she had told me that she didn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith when she was first baptized. She decided that she was going to plan a trip to go to the Sacred Grove so she could know for herself. She did just that and the Lord answered her prayer. She knew that he was a Prophet. That experience that she had was all I could think about... so when there was a pause in the conversation I scooted forward on the edge of my seat and said, "Sister M, do you believe that Joseph Smith was a Prophet?" 

There was silence and I could see her replaying the moments in the Sacred Grove when the spirit had told her that he was. I felt it. She fumbled over her words trying to talk her way out of it. But I know that she felt it. I reminded her of her experiences that she had shared with us. And then testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I told her that I know that book is true largely because I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. Sister I then tearfully and humbly shared her testimony she has such a sweet and loving testimony, she is truly a humble servant of the Lord. I am so blessed to be her companion! Sister M felt something, I don't know if she will come back to church but she did tell us that we could come back and read the Book of Mormon with her, and that is a start. 

I love this gospel so much.

Church is true. 

xoxoxoxoxo.

-Sister King

Sister Mattson's gift. So excited she is taking temple prep! We had to take a picture by the fireplace because Sister I had never seen one before! :)

Me, Ruth, Maureen her adorable daughter and EPIC African food.

WARD COUNCIL REVELATION

EBOLA?!

This week I was pretty much knocked unconscious. I was sick for 3 days and could hardly move. I had super bad vertigo. I texted the Elders and said, "What are the symptoms for Ebola?"  That is how bad it was. I got a blessing and then a member asked me what my symptoms were and said, "OH! You just have allergies! Just take some allergy medication and a nasal decongestant and you will be good to go!" Wish I had known that BEFORE we wasted 3 days of my mission thinking I had the flu! (Mom, don't get mad but I haven't gotten my flu shot yet.... 'aint nobody got time fo' dat!)

Then last night Sister I was like, "uh oh... I feel dizzzzy..." And I was like, "ohhhh noooo! VertiGgGooOOOO!" My crazy driving probably didn't help much :) And then we called the Elders this morning and they were like, "HELP! We are dizzzzzyy!" Ragweed is just making its rounds. It is so bizarre so we dropped off out allergy pills this morning.

ANCHORS

Had a lesson with a family and shared Ether 12:4-

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hopecometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

We drew a little picture of an anchor and had a good lesson about how we need to strengthen our anchors of faith in the gospel so we don't drift away. I then posed the question to the whole family, "what can each of you do this week to make your anchors of faith stronger?"

The 5 year old looked up at me, and then said in her adorable little voice " umm.... I am going to make metal. WEALLY stwongmetal."

I was so confused at first but then realized that this adorable, humble little child had taken my question literally. It was such an adorable moment. :) The cooler part was that the dad who doesn't come to church said that his goal would be to take the sacrament this week. So cool.

KROGER MAGIC

 SO on Saturday Elder Mortimer told me that if you scan the barcode on the last page of the book of mormon it recognizes it as a Kroger's Value Card and you can get discounts. We tried it this morning and it scanned saying, "welcome valued customer!" I about died. I laughed the entire way home. Cute, innocent, Sister I said. "Wait, isn't this stealing??" haha. Oh bless her heart.

ANYONE SPEAK CHINESE...PLEASE?!

We FINALLY got in with an investigator that had been off the radar forever! She is so cute. She is from China and she speaks really good English but it is really hard to read the BoM with her because she doesn't understand any of the words so we have our copy in English and her copy in Chinese and its so hard to help her understand it. But she is so sweet. She LOVES the church and is trying to hard to be a good mom. We are going over there for Chinese lunch tomorrow I am so excited. YUM!

WARD COUNCIL NIGHTMARE

Yesterday in ward council we had a really good spiritual thought from our Elder Quorum President. This was the jist. It was really good. He said, "The goal us to be Christlike. If we are striving for that and trying to exemplify his many attributes we should be trying hard to include one of his most intimate titles. FRIEND. Yes, he is a peacemaker. Yes, he is the Shepard. But one that we often forget is FRIEND. Be a friend. See someone sitting by themselves? Don't just say hi and leave. Sit with them, be genuine.  Be close enough to people to know their struggles and their battles so we can help them. It is not a chore for the Savior to listen to us when we complain and have struggles, so should we make it a chore for ourselves?"

After this spiritual thought that seemed to be out of nowhere, the meting continued to move forward and comments were thrown out there about how we are a great ward when it comes to fellowshipping and we are warm and friendly. We were all stunned when near the end of the meeting the Elders Quorum President told us that the reason he had chosen his spiritual thought today had to do with the fact that he had just found out the day before that there are 3 or 4 people right now that used to be fully active that are now on the brink of being inactive. The reason? They don't have a friend. There was an awkward conversation that followed and different auxiliaries defended things and made excuses. But The Elders Quorum President looked at the ground, closed his eyes, sighed and said, "It is not up to us to decided if they have a friend or if they shouldn't be offended. We love them anyway."

It was a very humbling meeting. I learned a lot and I hope that the ward council took something from that meeting. I know that we have all been talking about it non-stop and have since made a whole new game plan for our ward. HELP THE MEMBERS FORGET THEMSELVES AND LOVE THOSE  THAT ARE STRUGGLING. 

 There is so much work to be done but it can't only be us as missionaries. It needs to be through the members. But everyone is so focused on themselves that it is not happening. We try our best to pull up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees but it is really difficult when you don't have relationships with these people and they don't want to be viewed as a project. It is hard to know what to do. And we need to rely on the Lord. We spent a few hours this week chalking those people that are in need of a little love. My challenge? Look and see who is sitting alone. Look and see who needs a friend. The church just came out with this really goodmormon message. Watch it. http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3851853843001&cid=HPTU102114502

It was a great week. And I learned a lot. A lot about ragweed and a lot about the gospel. I love this work. I love it oh so much.

Church is true.

xoxoxoxoxo

-Sister King

I kept checking my temperature to see if I had a fever and if I did we would have to go home haha.

Us and Stephanie!

Samantha! Stephanies daughter :)

Thanks for the Halloween treats! We are carving pumpkins with the Elders today! So excited! :)

Cats.

Chalking :)

we love halloween :)

Cutest door knocker everrrr :)