May 9, 2016

First off it was just so great to see everyone yesterday(: I was so happy to get to see Jon and the cute Loveless family as well! I just love you all tons! So thanks for that! And thanks to mom and Emma and Melodie for doing the cute acts of service in our names, that just made me smile. What a sweet idea. (: 

This was a great week and we saw a lot of miracles!! So a few weeks ago a random old potential, H, texted us and gave us her new home phone number, and we were like uhh.. don't know who you are.. but we asked if we could set up an appt with her and she said she missed meeting with us! Then she texted us a few days later and said her daughter was very excited to meet with us as well! YES! So we saw her and her 11 year old daughter A this week and it was a great lesson!! We asked if they had read anything from the BOM since they last met with sisters over 2 years ago and A went and got her BOM and said she reads it almost every night before going to bed and she is in Alma 52! Seriously wow! She even talked about how she loved the story of Alma the Younger. It was so cool. We taught the restoration and invited them to be baptized and H said she had been thinking about baptism a lot and that was something she wanted to pray about. It was so cool.

Also last Monday we ran into T, a potential at Walmart and she wanted us to stop by this week so we did and we had a great lesson with her! She expressed her desire to become closer to God and she is super excited to keep meeting with us. (:

Also so we volunteer at St. Vincent's and this guy M works there, and he was meeting with the Elders that cover where he lives and he was going to church for a while and even had a baptism date! But he was trying to help a friend in a bad situation out and she moved in with him so he obviously couldn't be baptized, so he is really upset with the Elders. But it has just been making me think about how important it is to keep the commandments, even if it doesn't make sense to you. God gives us commandments so that he can bless us and when we choose not to keep them, we miss out on those blessings, like baptism in M's case. It's so sad! But he still likes us and it's so good that we get to work with him so that we can keep talking with him about the church and trying to help him as best as we can. He still reads the BOM every night, so hopefully he will realize why he needs to keep the commandments! 

Sister Baird told us on Sunday that S has talked a lot about wanting to serve a mission! How cool is that!!! That seriously made me so happy. She has come SO far. When I first started teaching her she was totally agnostic and didn't even really know if there was a God, but now she is so strong in the gospel and wants that for others as well!! This gospel can truly change people and it's so amazing to see. I love this gospel and I love the Atonement so much! It can truly do amazing things.(: 

On Saturday we were driving and saw hundreds of people walking on the side of the road carrying huge shrines of the virgin Mary, and they all had shirts that said Walk to Mary and they walked like 15 miles. I don't even know why but it was seriously the weirdest site to see.

M hasn't texted us back since our super great lesson last week :( We are super sad but we are glad that we gave her the opportunity to accept or not accept baptism once more. Hopefully she will realize how much this gospel will help her and she will get back in contact with us soon.. 

Also so here's a funny story of missionary life. We call Sister Bartell (the member that we will with) Mama B, and Elder McDermott has just started calling her Mom, and it's so weird. Bahah, so like they will call her and be like hey Mom! Or just they always call her mom. So yesterday we were eating breakfast and Mama B goes- I wonder if my son is going to call me for mothers day.. and we were like yeah, what are your kids doing for mothers day? And she goes- No, Elder McDermott! bahahah. We almost died laughing. It's the funniest thing ever. I love Mama B! 

So yeah, it's been a really great week(: I am just so thankful to be out here teaching the gospel. It's crazy that it's already been almost 6 months... I have learned and grown so much, it's crazy. But it's so wonderful and I couldn't be happier. It was so great to skype everyone yesterday, but there is seriously nothing I would rather be doing than serving the people in Wisconsin. I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week!(:

Love, Sister Killian 

May 2, 2016

So we are just really struggling to find new investigators lately!! We tract a whole lot and no one wants to let us come back. (we still follow up a lot, don't worry) But no one is ever interested and it's kind of a bummer, but we are still working hard! I am definitely learning a lot though. So we meet mostly catholics, and maybe I have talked about this before, but they are just so stuck in their ways and they don't even do anything about it. Like so sometimes we do a survey to get to know people's beliefs and start up a conversation. So we ask people if they believe in God and Jesus Christ and we ask if they believe the Bible to be the word of God or just a history book and catholics will be like yes it's the word of God completely! And so we will ask them if they read from it, and they will be like well, no, I hear readings at church and that's good enough. So then we will ask them if they would read another book that was written by prophets that testified of Jesus Christ and they always say no, and we ask why and they will usually say well because all we need is a Bible. (which funny, bc the BOM literally says that people will say all they need is the bible, so they are literally proving the BOM true right there, hahah) so yeah. We usually ask them also how their faith has blessed their life and all they say is well I go to church every week and I pray! Which.. what? That doesn't help me see how that blesses your life... I don't know. It just makes me sad that they have all these beliefs, yet they don't act on them whatsoever. If we have faith then we need to act on that faith! We need to constantly be feasting on the words of the Lord and learning more and praying and studying the scriptures and doing all that we can to come closer to Christ and grow and change and be better. Sorry for my little rant, but I am just seeing how important it is to act on our faith, or else we won't grow at all, and that won't get us anywhere. 

Anyways! We had a lesson with M on... Tuesday and it went SO well. Malia came (the girl that got home from her mission in December) and it was a great lesson. We taught the restoration and the spirit was SO strong. It really helped her a lot and we invited her to be baptized and she said she didn't want to set a specific date, but that she would pray about a date. She also said she would pray to know if the church is true and pray for the strength to act on her answer. She is worried about quitting drinking coffee, so we helped her understand the the Lord will help her and give her the strength to do that and the getting baptized will help her even more with that. It was just a really great lesson. 

We also had a lesson with C who was out of town for like 2 months and then was busy so we haven't seen her for like 3 or more months, and we finally got to meet with her! We met at the church bc she likes to feel the spirit here, and we talked about faith and repentance. It was so good. We watch Brad Wilcox's talk- His Grace Is Sufficient, which first off is the best talk ever and if you haven't ever watched it then go watch it bc it's amazing. So yeah, and that helped her a lot. She always tells us she feels unworthy but won't open up more than that, and she opened up a lot more and expressed her desire to strengthen her faith so that was really good and she said that talk helped her a lot. So hopefully we can help her progress even more! 

Also we had to take our car to the shop on thursday to get a dent fixed so we didn't have the car on thursday so we had to walk to the church for our lesson with Carolyn, which it was a long walk, but hey. There are a ton of missionaries that never have a car, so I won't even complain. hahah, I definitely give them props for walking all the time. That would be hard. I am so blessed to have a car in this mission! 

But really this church is so true. You notice the biggest difference in the lives of those that live the gospel and in the lives of those that don't. And you can see the most amazing change when people start living the gospel either for the first time, or again when they are reactivated! It's wonderful. I know this church is true with all of my heart, and I am so thankful to be a missionary and to have the opportunity to help others find this happiness. I love this gospel. 

But anyways! I think that's all for this week. I love you all, and I cannot wait to skype next week!! Have a great week. (:
Love, Sister Killian 

Ok wait I forgot the funniest part of my week! We were tracting and we met this guy named Al. He was super willing to talk to us which was awesome but he was crazy! He told us that he was 'the big man's favorite' and that we would see him in heaven bc he would be God's chauffeur. bahah. He commended us for the work that we do. Oh and also, yeah he was creepy. He said something about having one girl and a bunch of boys in his family and I was like Hey, I'm the oldest of 3 boys! and he was like I bet you're the best looking of the bunch and I was like uhhh.... (what the heck do I say??) So I just laughed and was like I don't know! and he was like Oh, you are! And me and Sis Giff looked at eachother and were like uhh... EW! Yeah creep. So we shared some stuff about the gospel with him and gave him a pass a long card with our number and said to call if he wanted to learn more and then like an hour later he left us a message and he was like hey this is Al Hale! I just met the sister missionaries for the LDS church and I wanted to tell you how good they did so give me a call back! Well, we didn't want to call him back so we had the Elders call him for us. Bahahah, he told them we needed to get paid better and what a great job we did, which whatever, but it was funny. The Elders got a good laugh from it. hahah. Life as a missionary is the strangest. 

Also we had an appt yesterday with this super cool lady we met last week, I can't remember if I talked about her but her husband had just died like a year ago and they got married when he was in jail and all that crazy.  So anyways, we went to the appt with her and there was a bag on the door with a cute card in a cute envelope that said Mormon Ladies, we were like ughhhhh. The BOM was in the bag and she basically dropped us with a cute card. We left the BOM and a note that said she could keep it and we would try again another time.

April 25, 2016

Not a whole lot happened this week sadly! But it was still a good week(: 

We did have an FHE with Mackenzie last week in a members home and it went really well! The mom of the family is a convert and she was able to share her story and how the gospel has helped her life so much and Mackenzie told us that she really likes conversion stories so we really want to continue to get her in more members homes so that they can share their stories with her bc it helped her see how the gospel is applicable to her life. She's a very active catholic so it's hard to help her see why she needs this in her life but she's coming along and she is reading the BOM so much. On monday she was finishing Enos so that's way good! She's awesome.

We also had a lesson with Carolina who we haven't been able to see for a while. She is really hard to teach bc she has SO many questions but they aren't like.. important questions... they are just random. Like she wanted to know what Lehi did for a living, like what? That doesn't even matter... but anyways! This lesson with her went so well. We decided to teach the restoration again to help her just get back to the basics. She was really listening and she didn't ask any non important questions! She did ask what our church was like after expressing disappointment in other churches she has been to, how they aren't family oriented or how the pastor is the only one who talks and she doesn't like that so we got to tell her about our services bc literally it's everything she is looking for! She said she couldn't come this week but she would really like to come soon. We also committed her to pray about the BOM and the restoration and then she said the closing prayer and wow it was so powerful. She asked right then about the BOM and Joseph Smith and asked to know the truth in her life and to be able to apply the truth in her life. It was such a sweet and genuine prayer. The spirit was so strong. Hopefully we can get in to see her again soon, she likes to schedule really far out so we might just stop by. Bahah. 

Also so a few weeks ago we drove up to Oconto Falls to visit some less actives and we stopped by one lady who has never been home in the past but we just felt we should try her and she was home and said they were moving the next weekend. We told her to let us know if we could help with anything and gave her our number. She didn't really seem like she wanted us back hahah. But then this week she texted us and asked if we could come help with some of the last minute cleaning! Of course we could! So we had Malia (a recently returned RM who is just the cutest and sweetest person ever) drive us up there and we got to help her out. She was even able to call their new bishop in wherever they are moving and have the ward come help them unload the trailer. She wants to become more active down there and help her husband (who is not a member) learn more about the church. Service is such a wonderful opportunity! it really helped her and her husband to see how much the church cares and is willing to help them out even when she isn't active and her husband isn't a member. So that was cool.

Also we have done a lot of tracting lately which is well,, it's tracting(; hahah. It's really not bad, I like talking to lots of people. But we just weren't finding anyone willing to keep meeting with us so that has been a bummer.. but yesterday we were tracting and this cute old lady opened the door and we could tell she just was not going to talk to us for very long. We asked about her family and she talked about her kids and where they live and one is living in Colorado which is where Sis Gifford is from! So she told this old lady that and the lady was like well what are you doing out here? So we told her we were on missions and she was like well do you want to come in? So yes! We got to talking and wow she has had an interesting life! She was married and then left her husband for some guy in prison... whatever. hahah. And they were married for like 41 years and he just passed away a year ago. She was catholic growing up but they kicked her out bc of her divorce. She has been thinking of trying to rejoin and she has been researching a lot of stuff and just really trying to find her faith. We got to share with her the restoration and she was like yeah, why couldn't that happen?? She was really cool. We set up a return appt with her next sunday so I am glad for that! 

Also the weather has been.. better.. It's back to spring and rain and it's pretty cold but whatever. Not as cold as it has been so I don't even care! I just hope it gets warmer soon..

Oh the BEST PART OF THE WEEK. So the Elders in our ward and the Zone Leaders and they go down to Milwaukee a lot for meetings and what not. Well there is a chick fil a on their way back up here and me and sis Giff love chick fil a, who doesn't? So we told them if they got us chick fil a that we would pay them back and we didn't really think that they would do it and they called us on thursday and said hey what are you doing at 5? And we were like well probably eating dinner and they were like perfect! Meet us at bro Hensel's, we have some supplies and... stuff.. for you. We were like ok cool. GUESS WHAT THEY BROUGHT US CHICK FIL A. 4 boxe of chicken nuggets and tons of chick fil a sauce oh my heavens we were the happiest 2 people in the universe. You never know how great something is until it's gone and then you get it again. bahahah. So yeah that's what we get excited about... 

So yeah it's been a good week(: I am SO excited for Mother's day calls!! It's just in 2 weeks! I love you all tons and I hope you all have a wonderful week(: