Week 8: :)

I guess I am doing something right to be an STL (Sister Training Leader) and a Trainer. We picked our new companion up on Tuesday and are now in a three pack. So the Lake Stevens Ward now has three Sisters! Lucky them! Our new companion is Sister Moody and she is from Kaysville, Utah. She came out to the Mission so ready! Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he put her with me and Sister Mahoni. I felt really bad because she came out sick, and we still had appointments we had to go to that night. She had an awesome attitude and did amazing! 

 There is a member in our ward who lived in Austria during WW2 and is a little crazy. So when she called and asked us to come over and see her we were a little worried. We hadn't met her, we just heard some interesting stories. None of that mattered so we went over and were visiting with her. We were given some advice, 1. Don't try and give her advice. 2. Just listen and 3. She doesn't like anything to do with Germany so don't bring it up. We did good with the first two but Sister Moody and Mahoni brought up some Germany stuff at the end. Things just got uncomfortable and we were asked to leave. We were all worried and didn't know what to do with that. Thirty minutes later we got a call from one of our members and she told us about how she loved talking to us and having us over. She is going to call us this following week to come back over! So I am interested to see what happens!

 Heavenly Father is working MIRACLES!!! So yesterday Sunday was the Come See For Yourself (CSFY) fireside. This is a fireside for investigators and members to meet each other. There are musical numbers and  Bible videos are played. Resent converts tell their story about how they joined the church. It is pretty amazing! We were able to get three investigators there!!! Say what!!!! It made me so happy. First there is Joseph and Jeffrey they are brothers. I love them so much, Joseph reminds me of Meatball. They are so cute and they want to know about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. We have been meeting with them and their grandma because she has custody over them. When we were teaching them this week they were so interested, had so much fun, and learned so much. They loved the priesthood and kept saying, "WE NEED MORE PRIESTHOOD!!" It made me laugh so much. The other investigator we had at CSFY is Jamie. She is a single parent and has two boys who are 3 and 1. They are so cute and we have so much fun with them, it is so hard to get a hold of her because she is working two jobs and going to school. She is so amazing because she knows that it is important to have religion in her life and so she is doing all she needs to in order to juggle all of it.  So all together (At CSFY) we had four boys sitting with us ages ranging from 1-12. It was so crazy and hard to pay attention, but they all had such an amazing time and I couldn't have wanted anything different. They even asked when the next one was going to be so that they could go again.

 On top of this difficult, amazing week we had the General Women's Broadcast! It was so amazing and answered so many of my questions! If you haven't listened or watched it I would highly recommend it, President Uchtdof's talk was amazing! It only made me more excited for General Conference! 

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week! 

Week 7: NOT on Game Days!

If you ever decide to go to Washington and want to knock on some door’s, because that is what normal people do. Don't be knocking during a Sea Hawks game. They do not appreciate it at all.  They get mad and just tell you to leave. Also if you don't know why everyone has the number 12 everywhere don't ask anyone except another missionary. People look at you as though you are from a different planet. Because everyone knows that the number 12 stands for the fans...being the 12th man on the field. 

Sister Krummenacher and Elle

This week has been crazy! We have had the chance to teach so many people, but have also have had a lot of people telling us they have decided they weren't interested anymore. This okay because it means there is someone else who is ready to hear the message! We had the chance to go on a couple of exchanges this week and they are a ton of fun but also a lot of work. All of our appointments fell through, but we were able to get a lot of work done and have a ton of fun. Oh that reminds me! Heavenly Fathers likes a good laugh sometimes, because.....I will no longer be finishing my training, but have been called as a Sister Training Leader (STL) and a Trainer. Heavenly Father must know what he is doing because only a crazy person would ask me to do this. We will be in a three pack, so I get to still be with my Trainer and also be Training. I got a call on Thursday that I was going to have to go to a training, I was so confused. It’s okay because I love the training's because I learn so much and am able to learn things I never would have thought of. Now I have to learn and work even harder then I was before. This is a really good way to make someone have to think outside of the box.  

Anyways, Diggy is one of the people that we are teaching. He is 8 years old and is very hard to keep still so we can get our message across. He has ADHD and so we do a lot of hands of lessons but that doesn't even work most of the time. He is wanting to touch everything we put up or that we use. This time I got smart (well the spirit prompted me to) and I was trying to think of what I could do to help him have fun and to also learn. Well I remembered that I had put a small pack of M&M's in my bag! Oh happy day everything happens for a reason, but I pulled it out and told him that every time he gets an answer right we would give him an M&M. After that everything worked out amazingly!! Now he is excited to participate and get things done. Plus his grandma has a Chines hat that I got to wear!! 

Stake Conference was this weekend and the main thing that we talked about was keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I know this has been a big push in the church but Heavenly Father knows what he is doing. I know that as we do everything that we can to keep the Sabbath Day holy we will be so blessed and will be able to see the miracles in our lives. It is kind of like the Hokey Pokey, you put your whole body in you put your whole body out, you put your whole body in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it’s all about. We have go to put our whole self's in and work harder at keeping the Sabbath holy than we ever have before.

Not a lot of time to write today but I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Week 6: Just Wait!

This week has been so interesting...I thought today was going to be a little better but I thought too soon. As we were walking out of the store we thought we saw one of the volunteers from the food bank. So we drove up beside her and whistled, when she turned around it wasn't who we thought it was.  She acted really offended then confused and she had a blank look. Being so uncomfortable we hurry and tried to cover it up and tell her how pretty she was and to have a good day. She laughed and said you too girls. So the lesson learned here was you should always make sure you know the person before you do something...well...out there. 

Good news, I only had to go on two exchanges this week instead of three! That is only because I got sick. My body was very tired, we had to stay in all day on Friday. Saturday I was feeling so much better! Just goes to show how important rest is, and eating a good diet. But lucky for me I have a good companion that makes me stop when I need to slow down.

This week has been a good week! We have built up our teaching pool and are teaching so many people! We went from teaching no one and not knowing anything to having two people on date to get baptized the weekend after conference (Morgan and Diggy).  We also found a family this week and are teaching so many people. We are getting all of our referrals from our ward members. We haven't asked for any yet and I have also not been tracking once the whole time I have been out. Everyone I have talked to (my companion and my bishop) this is how it is supposed to be. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I cannot say that he isn't looking out for me.

We taught one of our contacts on Saturday. She has actually ran into the missionaries before and she said she needs religion in her life. Well guess what! We have something for that! So we set up a time to meet with her on Saturday. We took one of our awesome members with us and we were so excited because we have been looking forward to teaching her all week. When we got there we went in, sat down, and started to do the how to begin teaching points. I felt not cold but I had no idea what to say. I couldn't feel the spirit and it was so weird! We kept teaching her and right at the beginning she got so sick. She was fine when we started, all of a sudden she asked us to leave because she physically couldn't listen to us anymore. I know for a fact that there weren't good spirits in that house because I couldn't feel the spirit and I didn't know what to say and how to say what I wanted to. Heavenly Father was getting us out of there to help keep us safe, because something wasn't right. I know that there were angels around us while we were there and of course all of the time. I was so sad we had to leave and that we couldn't help her. I know this is only the beginning for her and that when the time is right she will make the changes she needs to be able to come closer the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

I have seen so many miracles and I know that we are never alone, when we need help we can pray to our Heavenly Father and he will give us the strength to accomplish all that we need to, even though it may be hard.

Conference is so soon and I am so excited! It is going to be such a spiritually uplifting weekend! Happy Day!  I hope everyone has a good week! I love you all!  

Week 5: Where is the Rain?

When I opened my mission call and read Washington, I immediately thought of rain; and oh how happy I was that it was going to be cold and rain all of the time. Which made me really happy because I do not like the sun that much. However the entire time I have been in Washington it has rained three times. Not at all what I thought, now I am probably wrong about that number three but you know... But most importantly I need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my mama! She is so amazing and loving and will sacrifice anything she needs to make others happy! Plus 21 has never looked so great!

This week has been awesome! We have been working so hard with our members. They are so amazing to help us with whatever we need! This week was a little crazy. Lucky for me I didn't have to go on any exchanges! But this next week I get to go on three....I guess that is what you get when your trainer is also the Sister Training Leader. I had the opportunity to attend MLC (Mission Leaders Conference) and to be the one that takes all of the notes. Which was fun because I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes and hear how a lot of things worked. I learned a lot! But the only bad thing was we were in the meeting for six hours and I had to take notes the whole time...therefore I felt like I was back at school. I might be in trouble when I get off of the mission, lucky for me I am only at the beginning! 

The Pet rock Elle and Sister Mahoni were given.

There is a bug going around and so just our luck Sister Mahoni got whatever the bug was. She dropped dead to the world just a few days ago and was gone. The only problem with this is that we had a few important lessons that day and the next that we couldn't miss! One of them was with our investigator Morgan who has a baptism date and her family aren’t members. The other two were with a new investigator. They were so amazing and so I wasn't passing that up! So Friday when she first got sick was when we were going to meet with Morgan. Morgan is 13 years old and she has been doing the church thing without her family. I was not missing that even if I haven't taught the lesson before. So I called a few members to see if they could go on splits with me and no one answered except for a young woman. So Sister Mahoni and I went and picked her up, doped Sister Mahoni off at the Bissells and then Erin and I were off to Morgan’s. All I could do was pray to Heavenly Father to help me teach with the spirit because I don't know what I am doing. But the thing is Heavenly Father works in the best ways and I think that it was one of the best lessons I have had the chance to teach yet!

Saturday was when we were meeting with our two New Investigators, so I went to meet with Katie and she is so awesome! She has met with the missionaries before but never felt like anything was going to happen. She said she has since then changed her mind and wants to learn more and maybe get baptized!! What!! She is so cool. Again our members did all they could to help us because Sister Mahoni was sick and so we dropped her off to the Bissells again and Sister Dinsmore went and taught the lesson with me. She served a mission in Alaska and after the lesson she said, "It has been to long! Call me whenever you need help! I love this work!" How lucky are we to have such an amazing ward. Then Sister DuPape called and wanted to see how we were doing and I told her how Sister Mahoni was sick and she said, "I'll be right over." She brought over some doTERRA to help her and all this medicine. 

The lord has truly looked out for me. I am so thankful for the amazing ward members he has blessed me with. I can't deny that he is looking out for all of us even when we least expect it. 

Word of advice - When a cute old lady asks you and your companion if  you just woke up...its time to start caring about your hair and how you look. Because what your are trying to do isn't working. 

Love you all!

Week 4: WOWZA

The elusive baby goat!

So this week started off with me chasing a goat.....for thirty minutes.....Why was I chasing a goat? Well I was on exchanges and we went to visit one of the Lundeen Park Sisters potentials. Walking up the driveway on the left was a mamma goat and a baby goat in their cage. If you didn't know I speak goat naturally, and so I thought if I am going to share the Gospel with people I might as well share the message with the goats. So when we were walking up the driveway I was talking to them. As soon as I couldn't see them anymore I quit talking. The mamma goat started to go crazy so we turned around and the baby was out walking around (I am sure that he was so moved by the spirit that he jumped out with joy). This led to us playing tag for thirty minutes. We got really smart and put the baby back in the cage, but the baby goat was smarter. He waited until we walked away and he got out again and that is when it got a little harder.

Elle and Kristey, owner of the pet rock.

After that I thought that was how my whole week was going to go. But I was completely wrong and have learned so many things. There is such an amazing family in our ward, they are the Bissell's. This family is so amazing! She is a single mother with three daughters. When we first met her we didn't know that she had only been a member of the church since March of this year. She is always helping us and giving us so many people to teach. Her daughters are so nice! Kristey let me hold her pet rock. I was so honored that she was going to let me hold her pet rock! But about half way though holding the rock she reminded me that he likes to be pet. Which was great! But then she wanted me to clean it with hand sanitizer. I told her that she could bathe the rock later. Another minute went by and she quit talking, looked my square in the eye and said, "He doesn't want to be pet anymore." I was trying so hard not to laugh because of how serious she was.

Because of Sister Bissell we were able to meet Sister Willhouse. She is so amazing! If anyone has been dealt a bad hand of cards she has, but she knows that with hard work she will be able to come out of any bad situation. But this time it is a lot more then she can handle. She has been inactive for almost her entire life. She knew that we could help her so we are. She is now letting her daughter take the lessons and be able to learn more. The lord has tender mercies for everyone.

What Have I Done for Someone Today? Thomas S. Monson President of the Church

 We then had the opportunity to hand wash a homeless mans clothes. We were weekly planning at Taco Bell and started to talk to this kid named Ryan. He is homeless and loves God, church, and everything to do with it. So we invited him to come to church with us and to start to taking the lessons. He said that would be awesome and so to make a long story longer we told him that we would wash his clothes for him and get them back before church. So the next day we met him to get his clothes. The power was out all day on Saturday. So when we went to throw his clothes in the washer we couldn't. So we washed all of his clothes by hand.  It was so nasty but we knew it was the right thing to do and that he was going to come to church. Well he never showed up to church, I was so heart broken.

We started to teach an 8 year old named Diggy. His family is less active and so we found it as a perfect opportunity to be able to teach them all. And WE ARE! They came to church and had a good experience. I know that this is just the beginning for them. I can't wait to be able to keep teaching them and see the miracles that will come for this family. 

I had a lot of prayer answered this Sunday and questions that have been on my mind. Prayers with Faith will move mountains and I know that as we trust, everything will work out and we will be able to have peace. 

I love you all thank you so much for the letters and packages! 

We received this letter and pictures from the mission home yesterday and wanted to share them with everyone.