Temple trip!

So today was a Wonderful experience!!

I just wrote most of my email and realized I should make a comment about my Visa status, well it says its on the 4th stage but nothing has happened so I will probably be here for a little while longer, which I'm glad about because there are a couple people recently that I really hope to be able to help teach a couple more times at least.

So Today!

So we woke up at 4:30 to go to the Snow Flake temple, and I really felt the spirit really strong I really am grateful for the opportunity that I had to go to the temple I really loved it. I don't know if you both have gone recently but I would highly advise it because its just so wonderful to be able to go :) So we have recently taught a wonderful lady who is a recent convert. We went over to her house because she has been gone for a couple weeks (and my companions and I love her, she is very strong in the church and very sweet) and so we came in and we sat down and she went and grabbed a bag for us (the size of a brown paper lunch bag) Full of snacks!! (which we ate on our temple trip the next day with the older missionaries in the car and our wonderful ward member who drived us) but anyways she gives us this Bag of treats- cookies, goldfish snack and reeces and then she is like "Oh wait you need to eat cookies" and grabbed 3 different trays of cookies and then she was like "and of course you need milk with that"!! and then because my companion said how much she loved the smell of her candles she went and grabbed 3 different candles that she had and gave them to us. So just so beyond sweet and giving, and really we all felt really loved and taking care of. And so after/during eating the wonderful cookies she made us. We had a lesson about missionary work, kind of mainly about how it was for her as an investigator, what helped her the most, what was hard for her, what she would have preferred the missionaries did differently and what things made joining the church harder/ easier. And really it was very beneficial to be able to hear from her perspective and basically learn how we can do differently and better to make sure we are helping people be able to understand the Gospel more and teach it better. And a reoccurring thing I hear from people is that their missionaries really Cared about them, were loving and VERY encouraging but not pushy. Like persistent in their encouraging but not pushy. And so I think that is something that will help me is to make sure that I am sharing my testimony and helping them receive answers without feeling like I am not being effective if they need to take a little extra time.

So that was really good.

Another wonderful experience was that we met this lady named Clare (like claire) and she is just Beyond positive and saying that she is grateful for her trials that they make her stronger and that she knows that there is a purpose that she is going through them. and that everything she has is thanks to Heavenly Father and Really she sounds like she is already a member it has been such an amazing experience (and we hope that sister bernatchi will become her fellow shipper because really they both are Very sweet) and something that was wonderful is that she said

"I think that you were all sent to me for a reason" (all* because there is 3 of us)
and that God places people in her path to help 

and then she said

"I really believe that God sent you three to me, because you are all glowing, you seem to have a light about you, and you are all so happy, and so different but all beautiful"

So that was really great- THEN she asked for a Book of Mormon and we were like OF course!!!

And we invited her to church (she didn't end up coming BUT she called us to tell us she appreciated the invited but wasn't able to come, and THEN called the next day and basically apologized for not being able to come but was really excited for us to come back)

So that was pretty amazing and so I am very hopeful and excited to see her. And after we email we are calling her back :)!

So the other day sister isaacson was gone because she was doing sister training with another sister training leader, and so sister Haueter and I were without a car.

So sister Haueter and I were able to have a real full on Tracting all day experience.

Overall I think it was really a good experience we were able to:

-Practice Portuguese while we walked all day :)

-Have more people see us as we walked and a couple people commented that they hadn't really seen sister missionaries before, so it was really good to be walking, I mean we do tract but we drive a lot to contact referrals or try new areas or try to see people we haven't in a while.

- We talked with about 20 people in the course of 6 hours of walking around, 16 of which we actually were able to say who we were and what we did and ask to be able to share a message.

7 people said that we could come back and teach them about the Gospel so that was awesome and they are mainly in the same area which is always a nice thing.

-And one lady let us right in and turns out not only has she been taught by missionaries before, she has gone to church before, and at one point had a baptismal date (a member later told us that) and she knows like EVERYone in our ward and so we have Quite a few options for fellowshipers.

So I am excited about that! Her name was Mary Booker.

So we shall see how that goes!!

Well I love you all and really things are going wonderfully here, and I am just absolutely loving my companionship, sometimes too much because its hard to go to sleep because we get to laughing over nothing basically haha :) Bed on time is definitely not a problem but the Asleep part we are working on. Its actually better then before haha.

Well I love you all very much!

Ciao :)!

I am SO grateful to be a missionary

Well hello my wonderful beautiful family :)

How are you all doing? I am going to start working on making sure your letters are with me when I am responding so that I can actually point out all the things I Loved hearing about in your letters!

Well this week has been really good, I have Loved the new people we have started teaching. I think I am going to focus on a family I am especially grateful to know, their name is the Cody family :)

So basically our ward mission leader (in 1st ward/ we are in charge of 1st and 2nd ward, but there are a set of elders in both ward) well so our ward mission leader told us saturday night that we would be teaching the Gospel Principles class, but luckily it would be all 3 of us instead of just one of us. Which honestly is probably an amazing easy thing because we are so used to teaching with each other and teach lessons every day together which honestly always feel SUPER short (shortest thing ever is trying to have a 20 minute lesson) it is tough! But anyways so we got our assignment and on the way home looked in the book at 9:00 at night to see what we would be teaching the next morning. It was on Eternal Families. :)!! Basically my favorite topic of all time! I was so happy! I was really grateful to be able to teach about it with my companions. So anyways we prepared for it the next morning and everything and taught the lesson. It was so great! We all were sitting around a long wooden table (high counselors room?) and so it really was very discussion based and I felt the spirit really strong and it went really well. Then after class, one of the ward members (LA) came up to us with his wife (who we assumed was a member, we assumed they were both fully active) and told us that they had been being taught by the Elders but were wondering if we could teach them because a lot of the time he wasn't home which made it difficult for the Elders to go in (and The Elders were there and they said that they had been thinking the same thing).

And so anyways we went to go teach them a lesson the following wednesday? Or some week day like that, and she was outside weeding (Keri Cody) and we asked if we could help and she was like No its okay I'm almost done.

So we begged her.

And she relented :)

Because honestly I Love weeding. Its my favorite form of service.

So we weeded and talked with her and it was really great (and went super fast, plus then her 2 sons- Fred (12) and Jeff (6) came and helped as well. She later said that she started thinking about all the weeds at the side of her house haha so we said we could help with that as well on another day.

Anyways so we go in and they talked about how important their family was to them and how they really want to strengthen their family because it is the most important thing. And she said she wants to be together forever and things like that. So it was SO amazing and she said every thing she learns about the church feels SO good to her and she just wants to learn more.

WOW. Really THIS family is wonderful. Exactly what every missionary dreams of I am sure. So we are going to do our best to get them fellowshippers and support :)

Also when she came to church she said that in relief society she was Floored because they were talking about things that she Had been struggling with and that she felt everyone was talking just to her.

Also I saw her reading the back of the program which was talking all about families. SO amazing.

Well I know that wasn't very much information but I wanted to send pictures because I made pancakes and corn bread and a potato mix thing on my own!! All box mixes but still!

Also I can't believe I will be 20 soon!! I feel SO blessed to be on a mission right now.

Also I met someone that I truly knew needed the Gospel and It just really touched my heart knowing what a blessing the Gospel is.

Well I love you all! Ciao :) 

Com Amor Sister Kimball