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Hello again family!!!
Transfers again this week! First things first, we got notified that Sister Stone is being "out-staked" so that means I am losing my companion :( I only had her for one transfer!!! AHHH and I barely know my area!!!! I am praying that my next companion is a good one so she can help pick up my slack. There is still so much to learn about this area. Most Kirtland Sister areas are small because we have so little time in our areas compared to most, but our area is HUGE! But then we are super limited on miles so there is no possible way of trying to go through our whole area. In fact this week we borrowed the Elders bikes and went about 30 miles in two days. I don't think I had been on a bike since middle school so it killed me legs! Plus the bikes seats are for boys and not girls so its killing our cabooses! Man I can barely sit down with out wanting to cry hahaha... ok that is being a little dramatic. But still. ouchy. Ok sooo this week... Oh first off, THANKS FOR THE PIZZA!!!! Oh man that had been a rough day and the pizza made it all better. My mom is the best. Fact. Alrighty, back to my train of thought. First we saw our newer investigators ... Erin, Ambe,r Lon, and Carol. Mostly its just Amber and Erin who are interested and then the other two are their grandparents who listen in. Their dad Michael just got baptized (but in another ward) and wants them to get baptized as well. We taught them the restoration and they responded pretty well! The girls are 10 and 13 but they are very smart and capable. When we had our second visit with them this week, we committed them to a baptism date of July 18th! Start praying for them that they will be ready :) Oh I also went on exchanges this week in the Alliance area and it was so fun! I went with Sister Mejia who is the bom. ! She is way fun and we met some pretty neat people. but the coolest part of the day was when we met with her Bishop. He actually went to school at the University of Texas and he had a little UT shrine that he showed off to me. So that was fun :) This week we also did some service for a former investigator. Her name is Ikel and she was moving all her stuff from one apartment to another. She was hoping we would have our car that day to help her transport things but we didn't so she was kinda upset at the beginning. We told her that we could just walk her stuff over but she wasn't too fond of the idea. But we found a baby stroller and someone got the clever idea to just wheel everything over in the baby stroller. Most of the things she needed moving was clothing and smaller things so it worked out. We also looked way crazy pushing this baby stroller around the apartments. It was kind of hilarious. So after pushing this baby stroller back and forth for 3 hours in the yucky drizzly rain, Ikel decided she would order us pizza and then we started talking to her about the church. She opened up so much! In the first place, she couldn't believe that we were willing to walk back and forth in the bad weather to get all her crap to the other apartment. She was amazed that someone would actually help her with no cost at all. She said, "your church must be good if you are willing to serve random strangers!" So we taught her the restoration and she was super curious so that's good! We should be seeing her again this week for more service and a lesson so keep her in your prayers as well. We also saw Cara this week again! She is awesome! One of her doctors tried to scare her away from talking to us but she said it made her even more interested in our beliefs. Cool how those things sometimes work out. So we taught her a little bit more about the restoration. Its hard to have a good peaceful lesson with her because she has three jumpy kids. They are so cute but can be very naughty. So she responded very well and we are planning to see her again next week! I hope that she really listens because this is what she needs in her life! I don't know how she does it with all the crazy things in her life. She looks like she is 18 and she has 3 kids to take care of all by herself. She is another one to keep in your prayers. Dang y'all are going to have to start a list of all these people to pray for! Oh we had a pretty rough day earlier this week. Two of our investigators basically dropped us. First Lynn, an older women who is a heavy smoker and is kinda nuts, she basically told us that she was too busy. Plus the Jehovah Witnesses have been teaching her as well so that has been complete chaos! She said we should come back every once in a while though. We gave her a general conference CD and told her to listen to it on her long drives she has ll the time because of work. She got super excited about it so maybe that will hit the spot and she will be more interested in learning more in the future. Welllllll then after we saw Lynn we went to see our investigator Jessica. She has been so busy as well (supposedly) so we haven't seen her that often. But she basically she half dropped us. She said she feels that God is taking her in a different path and thinks Mormonism is so totally different from everything else. She says she loves the values but doesn't believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. AHHHH!!! So sad! I just want people to see the truth!!! She did say that she hasn't put enough effort into everything though, so she is going to give it another chance to see. So hopefully she actually keeps her word. The next lesson will basically determine everything though. Ahhh! She is another one for the prayer list. We also saw Julia this week and it looks like she still is going to have to wait a while until she can get re baptized. Its so hard because she gets really down after these meetings with the council, that she just wants to give up! She regrets so much her past sins so she sometimes seems to dig herself in whole :( We have been helping her keep her hopes up though. She has been attending church every week for years now and has had a huge life change so it wont be too long until she can get baptized. I just hope that her faith can old her to that point and from their forward. She is a dang strong women though. I have never heard of a crazier life story then Julia's. Last exciting thing that happened his week. I got to give a talk in church this Sunday about my earthly dad and my Heavenly dad and that was so cool! It was really hard because it made me a tad bit homesick, but it also made me grateful for the goodly parents I have been given. Heck, I have been spoiled to death! I love my Papas!!!! Happy Father's Day dad!!!!!! Well I will talk to y'all next week. This next week is going to be crazy because we are getting a new mission president! Oh man am I nervous! Especially because I am now an STL so I will be one of the first missionaries he meets and works with. Plus I wont have Sister Stone anymore so its going to be crazy!!!!! BUTTTTTT the church is true and Heavenly Father loves is so huge and He is going to help me with all of it! So all is well!!!! I love y'all so much!!!!!!! Its so good to hear from y'all each week and man oh man do I miss the Fam bam! Don't have too much fun with out my okay?!?! I LOVE Y'ALL!!!!!! k bye! Love, Sister Katie Call FAMILY!!!!
Hi! This has been one of the most crazy weeks of my life. And now I can't even remember what I was going to tell y'all. Seriously my memory disappears the second I sit down at the computer. Its rough. Alright alright alright... lets see... Okay I think I wrote everything down in my planner so I will take a look in there.... Okay... here we go... Well this week was full of walking and let me tell you, I am sore and very much out of shape. Which is weird because I definitely thought I was in good shape. But now I am in better shape because we walked for three days straight. Wow, I am a wimp. Also my ADHD is very much showing through this email. My bad. Alright so we saw some of our less actives this week. One of them is Rosita and she is the only member in her family. I guess she joined awhile back but didn't really understand what she was getting herself into. She acts like she gets everything but she thinks our church is just like all the other ones. We are helping her get through that though. Well here is a little miracle. She has a 13 year old daughter, I believe, and I guess she has been taking interested in doing personal progress. She had taken the lessons before but I guess they lost her focus and she stopped having interest. Butttttt now she wants to do personal progress so we will be meeting with her soon to help her with that. So there are some good prospects with that, and also I think it would help her mom have a stronger testimony if she heard the lessons over again. Especially if we are teaching a kid. I think sometimes missionaries expect adults to understand super deep doctrine when they only have such a shallow understanding of everything. So there shall be some progress with that family. What else, okay Sister Spork got in with the Stake High Council but it seems like they are going to wait another month until her and the council meet again to officially decide. I honestly don't really know whats going on with that, but we still get to teach her and help her continue to progress in her testimony. Oh this week we have two more potential investigators who we are going to go teach tonight. I can't remember if I already told y'all about this but there is a man in another ward who just got baptized and he lives basically in two different areas. So his daughters live in our area and he wants us to start teaching them. They are 10 and 13 and I guess they are really ready for baptism. We will be meeting them for the first time and committing them to baptism today so pray that it goes well. Also we saw Michelle again this week and we hit sorta a rock wall. She really loves everything we are teaching and loves our values and she would be more than happy to be baptized. Plus she last week committed to stop drinking tea and coffee which she successfully did! But then as we taught her this week she was telling us about on of her life-long dreams. She wants to study the art of wine, and wine tasting. I guess she already has schooling and everything set up for her to go to Italy next year and get some type of profession in it. Wow I did not see that one coming. So basically she said she would be a Mormon but she would disregard the word of wisdom. AHHH!!!! She knows its true she just doesn't want to change that drastically!!! Any suggestions? Also this week I took the coolest tours at the visitors center. One group seemed like they would be the most difficult group because it was a mixture of a bunch of different people of different backgrounds. One of the people in the group kept messing with me because they thought I have an accent and then there was a typical Utah fam bam with the most beautiful daughters and then there was this extremely weird lovey-dovey couple and then this super frail looking old lady and a family of hicks. Quite the tour. They all ended up getting along super well and the spirit was sooo strong! Plus the old lady was the fastest one in the group. She is from the Netherlands and was the cutest thing on the planet!!!! I also got to take a bunch of youth tours which was sooo fun! They taught me one of the new dance steps called "the whip"??? I guess. It looked ridiculous. What are those famous people doing these days!?!? Well the church is true family! I have yet to have a day pass by that I didn't see a miracle! One think I am especially grateful for is my parents. This Sunday is Fathers Day so shout out to the greatest father on the planet!!!!! He has taught me to look at the world in a different perspective and to recognize the good in life. Every night I continue to do Dad's tradition of "gratefuls" as I write in my journal!!!!! I LOVE YOU FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!! Love, Sister Katie Call First off, is everyone in Texas alive?!? Man oh man have I heard a million rumors about the weather in Texas. Every time I take a tour, the visitors ask where I am from, so this week when I told them everyone started telling me terrible stories about the weather and what not. Dang, they started to freak me out! Well from the looks of y'all's email it seems to me y'all are all okay so I am at peace.
So this week has gone by crazy fast! It feels like I just barely had p-day. Time passes fast when your having fun and working hard :) Well, I feel like I am getting to know my area a lot better than before which is comforting. It had been a bit difficult for me trying to remember who is who and navigating the area so I am a lot less stressed now. Okay so lets see... Oh this week I met another one of our investigators. She had been cancelling each week because she had finals but now school is over with so it will be easier to see her. Anyway, her name is Jessica and she is way cool! I guess she was a headquarters referral and has been looking into a bunch of faiths. One of her friends from back home is LDS, hence she decided to to check out mormon.org <http://mormon.org> and now we are teaching her. She loves everything we teach and this week we had a lesson on the word of wisdom. She agreed to live it which is exciting! We also had some service at a woman's home, one of our former investigators. She is this crazzzzzy lady who is friends with one of the members, so we were asked to help come clean part of her home. Shes another hoarder. But not a gross hoarder, a clean hoarder. Some how. If that makes any sense. She was crazy though! At first she didn't like either of us but then I started asking about her life and she started to tell me her whole story. She had been married several times and own several large companies and what not. So I guess now she is always grumpy now because she doesn't have the life she used to and it makes her sad. But after she told me her life story she started to cool down and ended up being a real sweet lady. Just kinda tough, ya know? I liked her, but then again when we shared a message with them at the end, she went back to how she started off. After all the service, the member offered to take us all out to lunch and while we were at lunch, the woman started to ask more questions about our faith and our baptism. I think one day she will find the truth, but shes not quite ready. We will probably continue to do some service for her every once in a while but I don't think we will be teaching her again any time soon. My lesson of the week/miracle-- We had been looking for some our former investigators in an area with a cluster of apartment buildings. As we were walking around, we made sure to talk to all who were in our path. There was one lady who was far away that we considered talking to but then we chickened out. Both Sister Stone and I felt super bad about not talking to her but Heavenly Father gave us another chance. As we were finishing up looking for some of our formers in the area, we had about 15 minutes left to spare, so we decided we would go knock on some doors. All the apartments were the type where you had to be buzzed in so we decided we would see if anyone would let us in. Right as we walked into one of the many apartment buildings, there was someone heading out and let us in. So getting into the building was a miracle in and of itself. So then I was about to knock on one door when then I heard a bunch of kids in another room, so I knocked on that door instead. It ended up being the same lady we had passed by earlier. She let us right in and she was very interested in hearing more. (Her name is Kara and she is a single mom of 3 kids. She looked like she was 18 or even younger.) Anyway, this was such a huge lesson to me that Heavenly Father will place His prepared people in our path and that His children are so precious to Him! Also, I am sooooo grateful that our Heavenly Father gives us second chances! I hope to never again ignore the promptings sent my way. I am grateful for the gift of the Spirit who leads me to where I need to be when my Heavenly Father needs me there! And following the spirit has been, and continues to be, something I have been working on a lot over the course of my mission. Well a lot more happened this week but I seem to be drawing a blank. Any who, I know the church is true and I love my mission! Shout out to all those who are thinking about going on a mission. It has been the greatest decision I have ever made thus far in my life. Oh man is it difficult at times but it is also 100% worth every minute! I have learned life skills that I wouldn't have learned elsewhere and it has also helped me understand and gain a stronger testimony of the gospel and the love Heavenly Father has for each of His children. The church is true!!! I love you family!!!!!!! xoxoxxoxo love, Sister Katie Call |
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