What is Dry??

June 25, 2012

You keep speaking of it being dry? What is dry? I am unsure of what that word means...

This week has been a great week! We had a Zone Meeting on Tuesday where I made cupcakes with the Baptism sign on them. (Too hard to explain what that looks like) But I am getting pretty domestic. In all reality though, I just wanted one so I decided to just make some for everyone. We learned a lot more about the basics of helping someone learn how to pray. Then on Wednesday we had new comp training which is ALWAYS fun! And mom, yes, training goes for 12 weeks so THEORETICALLY I will be training Sister VanDyke until the end of August, BUT I am calling it now that I leave at the end of this transfer, (July 10th) I could be wrong though but I think I will be switching places with another trainer just because I have been here for quite some time. But I love this area so I won't mind staying longer.

The gym floor got varnished this week...that was something cool I guess... :) Really it was funny because we had a coordination meeting while the fumes were still there and it turned into one of the funniest meetings ever. They opened the partition during church but the fumes were still bad so they closed it. FUNNY!

So funny story, someone in the ward recently cut his leg pretty bad getting ready for the cycling season and yesterday he showed us the cut. Last week he was limping so that is how we found out. Anywho, we had to leave halfway through the conversation but as we were walking away he said remember to shave properly! Funny part is that he was in the middle of talking to another missionary and that missionary's face was HYSTERICAL!

So Heather is home now! Someone tell that girl to write me a letter. Actually, all three Trottier girls! I don't have their address so I have been ever so patiently waiting for a letter FOREVER NOW! (I refuse to actually figure out how long)

I hope Dave likes those books I sent home for him! They helped me a ton so if he has questions, just ask away! P.S. I talked to President and he said that he doesn't do Skype calls for the opening of the call, but if siblings are going to overlap, before the other goes into the MTC, he will set up a Skype call so we can chat for a second. So, not with the call but before he leaves! If my calculations are correct, he puts them in on July 18th? Am I right? I'm dying with excitement! I keep having dreams that he comes here. HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE!

Also, thanks again for the birthday package! I love the Lex CD! We call him Lex and every P-day we ask if Lex is ready to go too. Yup, we’re cool. But funny part is that when I asked for that song, I had it on my iTunes so I thought you would just give me that song, but I am happy for the whole CD because it is BEAUTIFUL!

Well, I can't really think of much else to update you on this week. We are having some interesting struggles with our investigators right now because they are all interconnected and it gets complicated, but that is for another place and time. :)

I love you all so much and I look forward to hearing from you again! (Award goes to Mom because she was the only one I heard from this week!)

Hermana Giles 

Lots of Love

Kate and Sister Ramos with the 3 Assistants,

Elders Woodman, Maldonado, and Duncan

Transfer Day - Sister Ramos was transferred to the Island.

Kate's new companion, Sister VanDyke

Kate with the Sanchez kids, Aiden and Natalie on Kate's Birthday.

She loves these kids and this family!!

Kate and Sister VanDyke wishing their Dad's a Happy Father's Day.

"We Love our Dads"

Super Awesome Shirts Kate and Sister VanDyke made.

These are how their names sound phonetically in Spanish.

Coming on a Mission is the BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE so far

June 18, 2012

Holy cow! Your week sounds NUTS! Trek one week and high adventure/girls camp the next! WOW! I bet it will be nice to get everything over with though. But Dave will probably go through a withdrawal if you don't go camping for the rest of the summer. I can only imagine. And yay for Old Blue's birthday. I have NO idea how he keeps running but good for him! He is such a trooper! (Old Blue is our 40 year old boat, held together with lots of love and memories).

The Clark's house seems cool! Is it just me or do houses just keep getting bigger and bigger? I think they do for sure!

So yesterday at church was amazing because we were sitting in Relief Society in the Spanish ward (usually we are in the English sacrament meeting at this time but C____, Mo____s' wife, was teaching the lesson) and I was just listening to her stories and the awesome lesson about missionary work and it hit me that I was sitting in Relief Society and listening to Spanish and understanding. It was so cool!!! And I do all my studies in the mornings in Spanish and it literally blows my mind! A year ago from right now my mission was just an after thought and now I am here, in McAllen, TX understanding Spanish. This life is so cool!

C____'s lesson was great though! She was super nervous about it but she did great! We have been helping her out all week with resources. It was about having excitement to share the gospel and she talked about how the members have helped with her husband's conversion and how one day, his family asked him if he wanted coffee and he said nope. I'm a Mormon now. And she was scared that they were going to get mad then realized that she needs to be proud to be Mormon, not try to hide it. VERY cool! I loved that lesson. But the even cooler part, and I don't know if I told you this, you know how we have talked about plans for picking me up or coming back or what not? Well, it has been decided. We are coming back at the beginning of June, just after Annie gets done with school. Why this time of heat in Texas? Because that is when Mo____ and C____ are getting sealed! AND WE GET TO GO!!!!! I am so happy for them! And wow. Just so cool!

We are working a lot with getting everyone current temple recommends. Getting a temple down here is HUGE, so current temple recommends mean a lot!

We had another fun experience this morning. So we clean our car at 6:30 every Monday morning and today, as we were cleaning, we saw Ph______. (Background: Ph______ is the man that goes through our garbage in the mornings.) Sister VanDyke is a soda addict so we have cans EVERYWHERE so we decided that we would go put all the cans in a bag to give to him, along with a wonderful pass a long card. So just imagine this: two missionaries in their pajamas, (me in blue shorts and a pink shirt that is practically a dress with my hair on top of my head, and Sister VanDyke in a similar such outfit) contacting a man digging for cans in our garbage. I wish we would have gotten a picture. Anyway, he is a Jehovah's Witness and super not interested, but it made for a good story.

In other news...We have 9 baptismal dates right now. I would love to explain them all to you but they are all so interconnected and dramatic that I would need a flow chart, so I will stick to one. (We actually are going to create a flow chart for coordination tomorrow. I'll take pictures.) Our one special story is Pr_____! If you remember from my emails in January, she is the girlfriend of a member and is just super cute. She just got scared right before her baptism. Well, she has been coming to church since then and has recently decided to get baptized! Her boyfriend is in California until July 2nd so she is going to get baptized on July 8th! We are super excited.

O and this week our Zone Leaders told us that every time we set a B.D. to tell them so they could tell the zone so everyone has been texting them but we write funny things like so and so wants to get a new name by taking upon them the name of Christ on July whatever. Anywho, it has turned into an animal so I bet they stop it soon. O well. We also had to text them "Mr. Clean" once our apartments were clean this morning. O well, what can ya do with 19-21 year old boys. :)

I love you all and I will talk to you soon! I hope you get my package soon!

Kate

Smiles All Around

Happiness is... Great Sisters to Serve With

What a dessert is this? Thanks for Senior Missionary Couples

A couple of the Bradshaw kids. Children of the new Bishop.
Kate loves to play with them!!

May Leadership Training. Kate is in the black - 5 in from the left on the 2nd row.

A New Bishop, Homemade Bread, and HEAT

June 11, 2012


Little Nicole WOULD get called to Korea! I LOVE THAT! Tell her to write me and I will give her all sorts of tips and tricks for the mission and especially the MTC!

This week has been AMAZING! We had zone conference on Tuesday and it was SO GREAT! President gave THE best presentation on the life of Jesus Christ along with like 3 pages of scriptures for the life of Christ. All of us just watched him and couldn't speak because of how AWESOME it was! WOW! Then we talked a lot about goals and what we need to do to accomplish our goals and the vision we need to have. We can get so many people to do member missionary work down here by helping them see that the goal isn't just baptisms, it is getting a temple in McAllen. I think that until you come to the valley, you don't understand the importance of a temple down here. These people literally can't go anywhere else. O man, I could go on and on about that but I should just stop here. :) Moral of the story, the members are going to get their vision readjusted to achieving a temple in this area. I am so excited for that day! Then the assistants gave probably one of the best trainings the mission has ever had about fear and faith and how fear is something that we have to confront because it is completely from Satan. O man. AMAZING! 

O this week, we also got our evacuation plans. :) I AM SO EXCITED! I have been studying it and looking at it and stuff and it totally freaks Sister VanDyke out because she does NOT want to be evacuated. O man though, if we got evacuated, I would be in heaven. SO HAPPY! What an awesome opportunity to serve! We would get evacuated to Laredo, just so you know. O man. I LOVE HURRICANE SEASON! (I'm weird huh?)

This week we also have started seeing more of the fruits of our labor! Our area has been picking up and on Saturday we committed 6 people to be baptized! Two of them were neighbor boys though so this is just an opportunity to teach their families too!!!! I LOVE OPPORTUNITIES! 

O MY GOSH I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU! We got a new Bishop in the English ward. Guess who it is! BISHOP BRADSHAW! (Aka, Brother Bradshaw, former ward mission leader) O man! I walked into sacrament meeting and saw the Stake Presidency on the stand so I knew we were getting a new Bishop because he has been in for awhile so I went over to Brother Bradshaw and told him that if he is the new Bishop, he owes me cookies. So after he got called I sent him a text that said, my favorite kind is chocolate chip. :) it was funny. Anywho, it will be really good because he is so excited about the work and he will call another awesome Ward Mission Leader and so we will have the Bishop super involved AND the WML. O man! That ward is going to BLOW UP! 

I solved my homemade bread problem. I wanted to make it but it was WAY too hard with our current kitchen equipment. Lucky for us, God blessed us with the tender mercy of the knowledge that Bishop Wilson's son has a small business making homemade bread. Hmmm. Interesante. So we just buy our bread from him now. IT IS AMAZING! They even grind their own wheat. So yummy! Great business though! And a great skill for a little 9-year-old to have!

Yes you will get your recorder this week! I have to send home a package anyway! We aren't done recording though. Sister VanDyke is in the middle of a newscast for you. O man, that girl. She is a nut! Be prepared for like 5 different voice changes, and we have only been going for 5 minutes. I can only imagine what is next. 

But in other AWESOME news, we think our A/C broke... :( Yup, we went to bed and it was 80 and woke up and it was 83, now it's 85. Not cool. But we talked to the office and they are sending someone to fix it today. Hopefully super soon because I don't like discomfort. O well right? And Dad, about your comment about the heat. Yes, it is hot here. I think it has been over 100 for the past week. Not sure though. It is funny because in the day it is hot but at night when we don't feel it, we forget what hot feels like. So it is pretty interesting. But we don't complain. We get use to the fact that we are constantly soaked with sweat and we just go. It's SUPER fun! ;) It really is all in the attitude. 

O one last thing. We made shirts last p-day. We will send you pictures. ASAP. 

Anyway, I have to go now. I am going to make a form to better organize my lesson plans. (Yup, there is the weirdo Sister Giles you all know and love) Love you all and Dad, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

Hermana Giles

Developing Focus

June 4, 2012

I have never had a thought about being trunky on the mission but when I heard Brother and Sister Staheli are the mission prep teachers, I kind of wanted to come home for a second to go to mission prep! HA! How fun for Dave! And I can't believe that he will be starting his papers soon! I am going to the office after this and so I will ask el Presidente about mission calls! 

I loved the pictures of graduation! Mom! Looking thin! GO BUY NEW CLOTHES! You deserve it! And everyone looks so happy! How fantastic! Okay, I will try and send the recorder today WITH Sister VanDyke on it. (P.S. We are going to go make shirts today that say Heelays and BanDeeque on them because we are cool and do things like that.) And super funny to hear the bishop gave Dad a drink and popcorn to watch the digger. I wish he could have brought him a towel too though for all that drool! :)

Seriously though, how cool is it that Dave is going to be starting his papers! And now you will know exactly how to do them because you had me! (You’re welcome!) Dave-If you have any questions, please tell me! I hope you speak Spanish, then we can talk to each other! (Because English doesn't count, we can already do that.) How was the party though? I am happy to hear that you went! Look at you being all social! How do you feel now that school is over? Super weird to think about! And is it just me or did they change the robes? Didn't they used to be blue and white? I feel super old because I don't remember. 

I ALSO can't believe Annie is starting high school this year. Umm. Odd. 

As far as things on the mission, things are looking up! Always! Sister VanDyke is literally MORE crazy than I am. She has TONS of energy. We get a lot done because of all the spunk that little girl has! The thing we are working on now is to get all our energy and knowledge and focus it into a beam. I likened it unto a magnifying glass. We are trying to burn the ants (aka, baptise people) so we need to focus all that energy to do that. We are doing a lot better, so this week we will see miracles. I just know it. 

So about that thing called Mo____'s baptism. We went over the day of his baptism and his wife was in tears because he called and was stressed and said that they should just move it to a different day........BUT then we talked to her about solely being positive and that he would do it and told her to laugh in the hard times, then we made her laugh. (Like we literally MADE her laugh) So...HE GOT BAPTIZED! (I scared ya there for a second didn't I?) It was so beautiful. It was probably one of the most special baptisms because it has been such a long time coming. I am so happy. He got confirmed yesterday at church and it is amazing the visible difference between him and his wife and their family. O man. It is beautiful! 

Well, my time is almost up but Dave, I sent you a card for graduation. Tell me when you get it. I love you all so much! Talk to you soon!!!

Kate