Hey there family!
This week has been great! My new companion is Sister Edwards!!!! Shes from Las Vegas Nevada, and she's awesome! She reminds me a lot of Eliza Riley. She is very athletic (a marathon runner) and she is also super bright. Previous to the mission she was at Utah State studying Chemistry and now shes here on a mission :) And my oh my do I love this girl! She is so so so hard working, obedient, and excited about the work. I feel like I am not even training her because she already does everything perfectly. So we are going to have a great couple of transfers. Our first day out in the area was a little tough because literally everything we had planned fell through. In fact that didn't happen just her first day, but it happened like 4 days in a row. But its was both a great teaching and a learning experience. We ended up trying tracting and contacting most of the day and it was awesome. We also tried contacting in the mall again because it was freeeezing outside and we needed to warm up. In just 20 minutes we ended up finding 4 solid potential investigators and we taught a lesson to a guy at a popcorn stand named Arvind. We are going to start meeting with him during his lunch breaks. Most of the people around here that will listen to our message are the Indian people. They are so kind! There is a a little pocket of them living here because they are all working for a large company in the area so I am convinced that we are going to end up having a small Indian branch hahaha :) Despite so many cancellations we were able to see some of our investigators. We had a decent lesson with Patty but she is having a really difficult time understanding what we are trying to teach. I think she is stuck on something but wont bring it up. We are going to try to start scheduling teaching appointments that both her and her husband can be at because I think he is the one who is really going to search out what we are teaching. We also saw Tina again this week and it was a pretty awesome lesson. She didn't read what we invited her to so we ended up reading it with her and she loved it. We read in 3rd Nephi about Christ coming to the Americas and his teachings and she loved it. At first she seemed super skeptical about everything but at the end of the lesson we had her pray and she expressed her gratitude to Heavenly Father for the things we had shared with her and she asked God to help her know the truth. It was a powerful prayer and also it was relieving because we better understood how she was feeling. We also were finally able to start teaching Sister Takacs kids! She is a less active we were recently able to get a hold of and her two youngest children haven't been baptized. We are just teaching the daughter though because Sister Takacs wants the Elders to teach her son. She wants him to have a desire to serve a mission and felt it would be good for him to see the Elders at work. And now they both have a baptismal date for February 27th so yay that exciting! I can't think of any more specifics right now and I forgot my old planner at home! Oops! But yeah that was pretty much the bulk of our week! So we are doing great! Loving the work and the glory :) I am so grateful to be here and I think I am just going to stay forever. Sorry family.You can always come visit me though ;) Just kiddinggggg.... But the mission is the greatest! I am beyond blessed!!!! LOVE Y'ALL and MISS Y'ALL!!!!!! Love, Sister Katie Call Hi there family! I dont have much time to email today because we have to get home so Sister Janairo can pack up. Oh my goodness I meet my new companion tomorrow morning! Woohoo! I am so excited!
The area has been going well! Most of this week we were at the visitor center but we had a few days in the area and had some great lessons. Shebash and Suneeta are doing great! We had a much better lesson with them that was much more focused. Shebash was so excited to read the Book of Mormon and he was also excited about the pamphlet we gave him because there is a page in it about praying and now he uses it every time he prays. His wife is interested but she is a little more skeptical about what we are teaching, but she is committed to pray about the things we were teaching and read from the Book of Mormon. They are awesome! Also they fed us delicious Indian food!!!! Oh man it was sooo good! We also met this man named Tarence when stopping by a referral and he was the coolest! We ended up meeting him somewhere for lunch and teaching him about the Restoration and he got so excited. Unfortunately though we just found out that he doesn't live in our area.... dang it! But thats okay, he still wants to meet with missionaries and that is what matters :) We also met a former investigator who had been talking to missionaries forever ago and it turns out he wants to start taking the lessons again. His name is Derek and he has been having a hard time with his faith. In fact it was a total miracle that we got into contact with him because he is rarely home. Turns out he got out of work early and the weather "just happened" to be perfect that day so he decided to sit in the garage and smoke some of his cigarettes. And all because he got let out early and the nice weather, we were able to see him and go talk to him. Well, I have to get going but my week was great and also our mission conference with Elder Gong was super inspiring! The work is moving along and I am more than happy to be serving here! The church is true!!!! I love you family!!!! Have a wonderful week! Love, Sister Call Hi family!
This week has been great! Also I didn't give y'all enough details in my last email, but I wont get my new companion until the 20th of this month. They called me as a trainer way early because a member of the Seventy is coming to have a conference with us this week and that pushed everything around. So I am still with Sister Janairo. But I do know that there are only three new visitor center sisters coming and my companion will either be from Utah, Arizona, or France. I've seen all their pictures and they are all pretty cute so I am excited :) Also super nervous. But Yes, training will be good for me. I think it will help keep me focused my last couple of weeks here. I cant believe how fast my mission has gone. Its insane. I really wish it didn't have to end so soon especially because we are finally seeing tons of miracles and changes in the area. Our new ward mission leader is great! We had a meeting the other day and he is ready to get to work. We also had a miracle week and found 5 new investigators and we also carried members with us around all week and had them come to the majority of our lessons. So now the members are more excited about missionary work and they are trying to get their other member friends involved too. We too have been inviting those members to bear their testimony next fast Sunday about going out with us missionaries, So hopefully that will help spread the excitement. Woohoo So I'll tell you a little more about the miracles we have seen.... Okay so we got a referral for this lady named Trixie. Her daughter is a member and referred her. I guess her daughter didnt tell her though because when we showed up she was freaked out. She was quizzing us about where we got her information. And since it was so cold outside she said we could come in for a second. That second turned into a half hour lesson. Actually, when we came her friend was over and they both were previously discussing all the challenges they were having in life and thinking about God. So when we showed up she started to cry because she knew that God had sent us her way at that very moment. Its funny because we almost didn't stop by her place that night because we only had 5 minutes until we had to head home. But the Spirit prompted and we did as directed. So we ended up teaching them about the restoration and they were very interested in learning more. We also saw Patty this week and we finally got a member to come with us to her place. We taught about the restoration and set a baptism date with her for Feb 13th. Its going to be a little difficult for her to reach that date because she works on Sunday so we are trying to figure that out. But Patty was really excited. I dont know if she actually understands whats going on half the time though because she is pretty spacey and all her grand babies are always running around everywhere. But despite that, we had a very powerful lesson. She also expressed a desire for one of her adopted kids who is like 15 to come to church so we are going to try to start teaching her as well. We also taught Tina who is this very kind lady from Ghana. We had met her a week ago and shared with her the Book of Mormon. She was busy but told us to come back and when we saw her this week she had already read a chunk of the Book of Mormon. She said she knew it was true and we invited her to be baptized but she was unsure. She says she wants to read and learn more before she commits to anything. We also had a really neat experience when we went to Mary Claire and her friend Rita came so that should could receive a blessing. We had bishop come and he was amazing! He basically taught the restoration again and bore testimony so firmly of the truth of the Gospel. It was powerful! Bishop also set up the opportunity to perfectly for her to start taking the lessons but she was hesitant because of her husband. But I know they are ready for the gospel and we are praying that they find that desire to learn more. This week we also finally were able to meet with Shelish's friend Shebash and his wife and they are so ready for the Gospel! They have lots of questions and there is quite a language barrier but they have a major desire to learn. So its been a pretty great week! We saw so many more miracles that I can't even wrap my brain around. But I know all these things are happening because Heavenly Father is ready for this area to really start growing and He has seen the efforts we are putting forth. Last week we were looking for things to do, and this week we dont even have enough time in our schedule to see everybody. So we have been tremendously blessed! The church is true! Missions are the best! I literally have been spoiled like crazy from my Heavenly Father! I miss y'all and love y'all to pieces!!!! Love, Sister Katie Call Hi family!
This week has been pretty great! First big news is that, I'M TRAINING!!! Ahhhhh!!! I have to do that all over again. I kinda felt inside that I was going to be training again, but now its real!!! I can't even remember what it was like to be a new missionary, let alone train! But it will be fun! I feel like I know so much more now and I kinda got a hang of everything so it shouldn't be too bad :) Most of my week was time at the visitor center.It was pretty hoppin' because everyone wanted to see the nativities before they were taken down. We gave 4 tours in one day which never ever happens during the winter. That's like a typical summer day. So it was pretty exciting! I haven't heard much though from my online investigators. I guess they are all just busy spending time with their families for the holidays! This week while we were in the area we were about to see a couple of people but we spent most of our time tracting. I tried to use some of dads tips and it got more people to talk to us so that was fun :) Thanks Dad! Our biggest miracle this week I would have to say is we were super tight on time and we were sharing a car with the other sisters. So we quickly chose a road to tract and said that we would knock on five doors and then head to our next appointment. So we knocked on some doors and that fifth door we knocked on was a lady named Gloria. We kinda just invited ourselves in and then we were able to teach her the restoration. She seemed very skeptical of what we were saying at first but then we were prompted to sing a song to her. After we sang, a big grin filled her face and she said we could come back to share more because she liked our message and could feel Gods love for her. We also found a couple more potentials and we will be seeing a bunch of them tomorrow. In fact a girl in our ward just got her mission call and is planning to spend most of tomorrow with us! So it will be great to have her teaching with us and we also have a bunch of male potentials that we can see with her help :) So we are praying for miracles that these people are ready to hear and discover the truth and Gods plan for them! Woohoo! I'm really excited! We didn't get to see Shelish this week because he was out of town, but he referred us to a family of Christians from India. So we got a hold of this family and they are so kind. WE told them that we were teaching Shelish about Christ and they were so excited. They also said we could come and teach them as well so we will be seeing them tomorrow. Tonight we have a bunch of referrals to stop by and we will be meeting with the ward mission leader as well so it will be good to get to know him and his family better. Oh, we also saw our investigator Patty this week and we have had a hard time helping her understand that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church with the fullness of the Gospel. (Just like mom and Kenny's teaching experience this last week). So we testified to her about the Book of Mormon and how it will help her come to know if what we teach is the truth. She says she has a hard time understanding the Book of Mormon so we will be going to read with her. And the last exciting news that we have is that Mary Claire's friend Rita is getting a blessing this week. I can't remember if we told y'all about this. But we a couple weeks back met this lady at Mary Claire's home and she has been going through some major health issues. So we told Mary Claire to ask her if she would be interested in receiving a blessing from Priesthood holders and she jumped on the opportunity. So that's our latest news! We are still working working working, and we have seen the Lord bless us tremendously. Oh boy am I grateful to be on a mission! The church is so true!!!!!! I love and miss y'all family!!!!!! and Happy New Year!!!!!! Love, Sister Katie Call |
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