I Can't Believe That My Brother is an Elder!!

December 17, 2012

Well, almost. :) TOMORROW! SO NUTS! We have transfers tomorrow and I just keep thinking of the Elders coming in and thinking holy crap! That will be my brother super soon! HOW CRAZY! But I am so excited for him! Seriously! (P.S. I decided to call Dave today so I won't take time out of working time. So Davie, TALK TO YOU SOON!)

That is so cool to hear all went well with the farewell. If I remember correctly, we overplanned food as well. Gotta love planning for an unknown number.

I would include sentimental things here for Dave, but I will just tell him today. HAHAHA! THAT IS SO COOL!

Speaking of transfers, I will be beginning another fun journey tomorrow as I begin yet another transfer in Resaca Pointe. :) You thought I was getting transferred there for a sec didn't ya? :) Nope, I get to stay!!!!! Which is really fun! So this will be my 4th transfer here. I have been here for almost 4 months now so after this transfer it will be around 6. I think I am just destined to stay in my areas for a very long time. But it works. Now I can't even imagine how people get things done in one transfer in an area. But it's cool.

We are teaching some really fun people! I love the people here! We have the biker, I don't remember what nickname I gave him but it's probably something along those lines. He was supposed to get baptized yesterday but had some minor hiccups so I think he will be getting baptized on the 30th. This year for sure! He knows this is what he wants, he just has to get up the will power to give up some stuff. Which he can. (P.S. I took his rubiks cube and Elder Cullen is going to teach me today how to do it.)

We also have a few families that we are trying to help commit to be baptized. They are all WONDERFUL people and I can already picture them as awesome members.

The Christmas Conference was awesome. The song went AWESOME and Elder Browning recorded it so I will have to show it to you in 4 months. :) He is going home with me. I had my recorder but didn't think about it until after because I was just making sure I didn't sing the wrong words. :) But everyone liked it so that is good. There were some awesome harmony parts and because Sister Dudding and I are both altos, there were parts where the Elders had to sing the higher part which made it SUPER COOL! And we all wore black and white and gray so we looked just classy! After that little Christmas program, we had a fun pinata and gift exchange. I seriously love the Trayners and all that they do. They are just the most amazing people ever! Then we watched this year’s DVD and it was great! This year was cool because I actually knew the people. I will be sending that home shortly with my Christmas card from the Trayners. On the card is the picture of the whole mission. We're all pretty small, but it is cool to have!

Other than those highlights, this week was probably the hardest week of my mission so far but I am so grateful for the opportunities that I had to learn and grow. I am so grateful that I learned how to truly lean on the Savior for support because there are times on your mission when He is all you have. I think so often that I can do it by myself but there are times where I just can't. I can't do it on my own and I need to lean on Him and he will succor me in my afflictions. I think that is probably the greatest lesson I was able to learn this week that will help me throughout the rest of my life.

Well, today Sister Ramirez and I are going to go to Cavenders to smell the cowboy boots. I thought I would make up a story about something crazy fun that we were going to do today but I realized that smelling the amazing genuine leather of a cowboy boot is probably as fun as it gets. :) Oh man, I am such a Texan....

O yes, Sister Ramirez is staying too. :)

I love you all so much and I hope that next week I will have more awesome things to tell you. I think that as time goes on, my letters just get shorter and shorter because I get so use to all these things that happen. I promise that I will be better though! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K    

Harlingen is not Brownsville

December 10, 2012

Harlingen is not Brownsville. Through the theory of deductive reasoning you can put two and two together that I am not currently in Brownsville but am in Harlingen. No, I didn't get transferred. :) I opened my larger-than-life mouth and volunteered to do a musical number at the Christmas Conference. But I volunteered some other missionaries too, all of who are in the Harlingen zone so President let us come up here today to practice. The four of us (me, Sister Dudding, and Elders Browning and Davis) will be singing this crazy version of “Mary Did You Know”. It is BEAUTIFUL! When we first tried to sing it, it did NOT go well. hahaha. But after awhile it was AWESOME! We still have a lot of bumps to iron out, but it should be really good. I am really excited to sing it and I hope someone records it. But you will want to see it. AND because we are all going to match. Classy black, white, and gray. It will be good. Sister Dudding and I are going to go find black jewelry now to match the Elders’ black ties. Ya....we're cool. I'll let you know about it.

As far as investigators go, we have an AWESOME new friend named “The Biker”. He used to ride professionally in Mexico and is CRAZY! He is doing great and knows this is the right path for him but is starting to really feel the weight of all the changes he is making in his life. He has literally had to give up EVERYTHING. Being in a biking kind of a lifestyle is completely different so it will be hard for him to change. BUT HE CAN DO IT! He knows everything and actually gave me a ninja throwing star the other day because I told him that my secret desire is to be a ninja. He also promised us one of his bikes if he doesn't get baptized. So...ya. :)

Christmas will be fun! No, we don't have plans for Christmas yet because it is still too far away to think about. :) Plus we have transfers on the 18th so everyone is kind of holding off on planning until after that. Should be fun though! I am SUPER excited for Christmas Conference though! I remember how fun it was last year and really I am just excited to see all the pictures and fun people! I am excited that we will be having it with the whole valley. It should be LEGIT! 

I have been learning a lot lately and I know that I have a lot of change in my life. But all good things! I love you a lot family and I will talk to David next week! LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Kate 

A Testimony of Christ

December 7, 2012

(This is Kate's mom. I just found this testimony that Kate posted on easter.imamormon.org last April 6th. I thought you all would enjoy it, especially during this holiday season).

It is difficult to explain how much Jesus Christ has done for each one of us. He performed the greatest act of love that anyone could perform. I can't even comprehend the love he feels for all of us. Serving as a missionary for The Church o

f Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Texas has helped me to see, even minutely, the love God has for His children every time someone decides to change their life to follow Him. I know how much the Atonement has been applied in my life, so to help others apply it in their life as well is truly the reason why I am serving as a missionary. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve Him, even though it is no where near enough to repay Him for the things He has done. I know that as we build our lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ, nothing can make us fall. (Helaman 5:12)

Jesus Christ - He is Risen!
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Why is Jesus Christ important to you? Join the conversation. www.mormon.org/easter

What a Great Mission Conference!!

December 3, 2012

Come on family! I still have tons of time left! I have NO idea what y'all are talking about! But to answer your question about the call, I can call and talk to Dave the day before he goes to the MTC, which is December 18th ya? That will be fun because it is transfer day! So I might just be in route for the call or something. Or I could still be in good old Resaca Pointe. I would be cool with either one. After the first change, changes just become part of life. :) But as far as a time goes, I have NO idea what time yet because that is too far for my brain to think about. But I got y'all a day, so we're making progress.

So this week was great! Elder Schwitzer did a devotional on Thursday night in McAllen before the Conference on Friday that we could go to if we had someone going so we scrambled all week because I knew that I needed to go. I didn't know why, but I just knew that I needed to be there. Maybe McAllen was just calling to me. Who knows. Anywho, we got someone to take us and we were totally late but made it just in time for Elder Schwitzer’s talk about using your home to teach your family. It was AWESOME! I was looking around and got to see a lot of people from my old area which was GREAT! I saw Bishop B____ but he left early so I didn't get to talk to him but even cooler than that is that as I was looking around, I saw D____. Now D____ is a member of "the crew" that I used to talk about. The group that we were just trying super hard to get to come back to church and when I left, they had been coming for about 2 weeks. ANYWHO, after the devotional I went up to say hi so I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and was SHOCKED! He was like "SISTER GILES!!! What are you doing here!" Then we chatted for a few minutes and I said C____, I have been hearing rumors about you through the missionary grape vine, do you have something to tell me? He got all bashful and said umm, I'm going on a mission. :) I FLIPPED OUT! I had heard that he wanted to but I had to hear it straight from him. I was beaming for the rest of the night! How great right! I think I needed to go to the devotional so I could see for myself that their family is doing great! He got ordained to be a Priest on Sunday, or was supposed to, then he'll become an Elder in March and start his papers. I am SO PROUD of him! If everything turns out right, he should have his farewell after I get released so I would be able to go! In case you haven't noticed, I think I have A LOT of things that are going to bring me back down here. :) Anywho, I was super happy to see him and he is doing great! He told me that he wanted me and Sister V to come back though. Apparently we’re pretty cool. :)

The conference the next day was really cool. It was a bit weird though because ALL the missionaries were there so we had a full house. We took a huge picture with everyone so hopefully you get to see that on the blog. We also took a picture of the MTC district! It totally didn't turn out on my camera because my camera is having difficulties, but you'll see it one day on Facebook. But the big picture was cool because I had Sister H____ behind me, then my two daughters in front, then my step daughter in front of them. If Sister R____ had been by us too, it would have been a cute little family tree!  

We learned some AWESOME things at the conference. Elder Schwitzer talked to us about what Lehi was willing to do for the plates and how we need to do anything for the Book of Mormon. Very neat. I love these conferences, and I learn so much, but explaining it after is just something I am not the best at. I will try harder.

O in other news, all of the missionaries got new phones after the conference. They are touch screen phones. I want to throw it at the wall. Actually, it isn't that bad anymore. I am getting more used to it now but you know how it is hard to get used to new phones. Now imagine 174 frustrated missionaries trying to figure out their new phones. It was actually SUPER funny. But it just shows how sheltered we are because we just can't figure it out. O well. Life is still great!

I love you all and Dave-your present is still coming. I'm really working on finishing it! LOVE YOU ALL!

Kate