December 14, 2015

What a great week, ruined by the worst news ever. I'm getting transferred. Its the end of the world. I'm outta here. There's nothing that can calm my troubled heart right now. Just kidding. We kind of knew it would happen but we still had our hopes high. I am leaving tomorrow and will be in my new area with new people, a new house, new town, and new companion. AH. All right before Christmas. This is missionary abuse I swear. OKAY, enough being sad about it, I will be in a new area and I will learn a lot and meet some great people! Wish me luck and pray for me and also for Sister Thompson. We just broke down in the car a second ago when we found out. I am really really going to miss Arlington. I LOVE THIS PLACE.

So, as for what happened this week. On Monday all of us sisters went thrift shopping! WOO! I love thrift stores out here. There are like five billion of them. I met this really cute guy with a beanie. He didn't have much to say, but his eyes said it all.

Sorry about that first pic. After a few hours of shopping, we went to the Bluebird Cafe. It was quite nostalgic because the last time I went there, I was with one of my first investigators, Steven. This whole week has been pretty nostalgic though so here we go.

By the way, I splurged on a porcelain peanut at the thrift store for 25 cents. Worth it.

This week was fun because the Arlington stake puts on a huge Nativity Festival. We have been inviting people to come for weeks now and a bunch of our less active members and investigators came! It was great. The whole thing was so pretty.

Last night, as we were greeting people at the door to the Nativity, a woman came inside and asked us if we could help her with gas. She had just ran out and she needed to get home so she saw our building all lit up and thought she would try it. We brought her to our ward mission leader who took her to fill up her tank and he invited her back to see the nativities. She came inside and we talked to her for a while about things that were going on in her life. She began to cry as she expressed to us how she wanted to change her life around and make God a bigger part of her life. We told her how she could do it and asked if she would like to talk to the missionaries. She accepted the invitation. The spirit was super strong and I know that the Lord's hand was in that completely. I love being a missionary because I get to experience these amazing miracles first hand. I cant put into words how happy it makes me.

Speaking of things that make me so so happy, this is the Pontius family! This family is the sweetest thing that ever happened to me. These kids just soak up the gospel and they love us. We pull up the the house and they are right there at the door ready to welcome us in every time. I love it. AHHH I DONT WANT TO LEAVE THEM!!! AHHHH

This is Deedee. She is so so funny and she is such a great example to me of kindness and complete willingness to do whatever the Lord asks of her. Love her.

Here are the Lyons!! We have been teaching them the recent convert lessons since I got here! They are the sweetest little duo and I never want to leave them. Caleb, the boy, recently started to pass the sacrament for the first time. It was quite an amazing day. I love that I have been able to teach them. Caleb said to us a few nights ago, "the church has changed my life". His mom and I started to get a little emotional at that point. Did I mention how great this is??

Here is my favorite little lady, Sister Konek! She is the one who fed us a bunch of pie and cool whip! I LOVE HER!! She is a woman full of faith and love. I will really miss her.

This week was Zone conference. Here's my goofy zone. Love these fruits.

I got a kiss under the mistletoe with bishop's bunny! Merry Christmas to me!!

Funny story: the other night we went to invite a Hispanic family we know to the nativity. They invited us inside and they fed us the most delicious real Mexican food. Ahh I died. Every time I ate a taco he would say, "another?" I would say "oh no thank you!" and then he would proceed to get me another one. This happened like 5 times. haha.. This other man was there and was telling us that he was divorced and told me how I had a pretty face. haha he asked what time church was in his broken English. I decided we should probably get outta there so we were leaving and we turned around and this older man was there and told us how we were angels and he grabbed sister Thompson's face and gave her a huge fat smooch on her chin. hahahahahaha We left the house real quick and just broke out laughing so hard. good times.

I wanted to end my email with an ode to my beautiful, old woman, companion Sister Thompson. I cant believe that just a few short moths ago I didn't even know she existed. I think that one of the main reasons why this transfer will be so hard is because I won't be seeing her pretty face every morning. She is a powerful teacher, a hilarious weirdo, and one of my greatest friends. I love her so so much. We have grown a lot together and have had the most spiritual experiences with each other that I will never forget. She has made me better and I know she will change many many lives out here.

Wish me luck in my new area. I know the church is true and I love you all! Have a wonderful Christmas!

Love,

Sister K

​This picture was sent to Brent on his phone.  This is Rebecca with Jared Buckley.  Jared was our neighbor and he was one of our first employees at Krazy Sub.  He lives in Washington now.  It's so fun to get random photos of Rebecca!

December 7, 2015 365=1 Year!

Do you want to know something crazy? I have completed 1/3rd of my mission! ahhh!! 1 year left!! Time is flyin by! I'm not sure if I like it. 

Get ready for a picture OVERLOAD. 

This week is has been kind of sad because I will most likely be leaving Arlington next week so I am taking pictures with as many people as I can! I am actually really sad about it but maybe President will have some sympathy for me and let me stay for Christmas!

We started helping out at the Arlington Genealogy library and we feel like old timey WWII girls in this pic. We go through olf film of newspaper articles from the early 1900's which is really cool. I have become super excited to do family history work when I get home now. I love this stuff! Sister Moody, Thomson, and I think we are funny with the magnifying glass too. We are funny though so jokes on you.

This is the Payne family! They live two doors down from us and Sister Payne gives us delicious treats even though our Dinner calendar says "NO DESSERTS PLEASE!" She says she does it just because it says that. haha I love them.

This is the Larson family! They are the sweetest family ever. They train horses and win a lot of medals for it. yeehaw! They also have these monster dogs that I am in love with. They straight up sit on the couch like humans.

HERE IS SISTER BRILL!! this is the saint who gives us scarves and stuff all the time! I love her so much. This week she gave us Christmas cards, boots, her watch off of her own wrist, and a bracelet. I know it sounds like I am stealing from her but I swear I'm not! She loves us so much and wont let us leave without them!

I summoned my inner Miley Cyrus this week (when she was also Hannah Montana and she like horses and stuff) and I got up close and personal with the alpacas! The woman who owns the alpacas is Sister Brill's daughter who is not a member but we asked if we could help her around the farm and she said sure! I got to brush Rivers and get him all nice and handsome for his baptism!

Roxy gave me a goodbye kiss!

I had the job of putting Roxy in a choke hold to clip her toenails. I was covered in poop. It was awesome.

This is Sister Jones!!! I LOVE HERRR!!!! there is nothing more to be said.

This is the Moss family!! I got to teach the two kids the law of Chastity for one of my first times. It was awesome. They are super musical and we bond over it. I seriously am going to miss these people so much!!

Our ward Christmas party was on Saturday so we had to get a picture with Santa Clause! Notice how we did not sit on his lap. You could get sent home for that kind of mischief.

Brother Schilaty is my fav. He is always helping us with lessons and stuff. The theme of the party was Polar Express so he was the conductor and we all laughed at his outfit. He's one of the funniest guy's I've ever met.

​I seriously love it so much here and I never want to leave Arlington. Pray for me to stay please!!! I love you all so much! Write me! I love letters and I need them okay BYE!!!! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

Love, Sister K baby

November 30, 2015 THANX

Hey babes! So, this week started when we went to "Sistrict" meeting and we tried to take a picture together and I laughed so hard because the picture ended up having everyone in it but me. hahaha it still makes me laugh.

We obviously took another one because no picture is complete without Sister K baby. Favorite part of this picture is Elder Daum's hip pop. Lookin good.

Elder Thompson brought a selfie stick so I set my timer on my camera to capture our lameness.

I'm the worst missionary ever and didn't get any pictures of actual Thanksgiving so please forgive me of my shortcomings. But hey, It was a good Thanksgiving! We had half a Pday on Monday and then the rest of it was on Thanksgiving so we had some shopping and stuff to do but it was fun because we went and got ourselves a Christmas tree! We ate dinner with the Wells family who made the biggest Thanksgiving feast I had ever seen. I found out that I love cheese and crackers. They had this fancy goat cheese and cranberry stuff and I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since. ANYWAY, after dinner Sister Moody and Ludvigson came over and we made little baby stockings and went NUTS. The sisters brought the Martinellis and we turned up to some Josh Groban Christmas album. Thanksgiving 2k15 yall. Never forget.

Here's our house now!! Mom hooked us up with the cutest stockings ever, a bunch of lights, a nativity, and a cute banner. We are so happy every morning when we walk into our living room. yay. I love Christmas.

Next part of my email is about how big of a baby I am. IM FREEZING. I try everything to be warm but I fail every time. I don't think my Arizona body will ever adjust. It got into the 20s this week and that's not okay. I think the coldest it got was 23 degrees. Pray for me.

Luckily alpaca house lady saves the day once again with some warm winter hats! She literally doesn't let us leave without taking something. I love her.

Favorite drink right now: PERO. AHHHHHH We are obsessed. Get it or regret it.

Although I'm freezing, this cold stuff is actually really pretty. We are running low on our miles for the month so the other day we walked all day in the cold but let me tell you, that night we walked to all of our appointments and we sang Christmas songs all the way! It made the fact that I was freezing cold bearable. I love Sister Thompson and I am so glad that she likes to sing with me.

Speaking of Sister Thompson singing with me, we sang "The First Noel" in church yesterday! AND, A family we have been teaching for a while finally came to church!!!! AHHHH!!!! I was smiling all day. Man I love it here.

Funny story: The day after Thanksgiving Sister Thompson and I went to go visit a lady in our ward She is a short, cute little Asian woman. she is hilarious. almost too hilarious. We shared our message with her and then she asked us if we wanted some pie before we left. we said sure and she then started cutting three fat pieces of pie for each of us and Sister Thompson and I were already about to start to laugh and then she goes to the fridge and pulls out a big tub of cool whip. She then puts a HUGE pile of it on top of the pies and then GOES BACK FOR ANOTHER HUGE GLOB. hahahaha I lost it and Sister Thompson was nudging me top calm down before she saw. I couldn't handle it. haha I finally got my act together and she luckily didn't see my outburst but man we were full after that. If you ever wonder why missionaries get fat, look no further than this story.

okay I gotta go but I love you all and I hope you Thanksgiving was awesome!!! BYEEEE!!!!

love, SISTER K

November 23, 2015 Farmer in the Dell

Hola amigos! This is your good friend Hermana Krummenacher who is now fluent in Espanol!

This week we went on exchanges with Hermanas Jensen and Pirir. I went with Hermana Pirir to the Spanish area in Burlington which was pretty weird to be honest. I just kinda sat in lessons and had no clue what was going on but whatevs. I felt the spirit I guess. Hermana Pirir also had me say a prayer in Spanish at one of the lessons. It was a lot of fun! Lets hope it made sense.. I don't know if I would want to be a Spanish missionary here though because they never get dinners and they don't have like any members to help out with things. Hispanic people are a lot more friendly though so that's a plus.

During exchanges it was a crazy stormy day and I wondered how Arlington was taking it because the last time it was super windy and stormy, all the trees were in the streets and it was nuts. We got back to Arlington that night and, sure enough, the whole place looked like a straight apocalypse was happening. Sister Thompson told me that while they were trying to get to one of our lessons, a huge tree had fallen across the only road in and out of where the house was. She said that trees were on fire and when we got home, the power was out. We put our refrigerated food outside our door to keep it cold and the next morning we woke up to snow. haha It wasn't really snow though.. I guess it was just hail or something but still. it looked like snow to me. What do I know about snow though?

This week we tried to see the Alpaca farm people again. Still not home but.....

LOOK AT ALL THOTHSE CHICKENTHS!

Remember Roxy? She was so excited to see us again and can't wait for her baptism! She even gave us a referral!

Rivers is Roxy's "neigh"bor. She referred us to him and he was quite surprised to see us at his door that morning.

We shared a message with him and he too accepted the invitation for baptism. Very exciting.

We taught Brother Carter again this week who is my favorite because we read the Book of Mormon with him and he makes us and himself laugh so hard over the dumbest things. He doesn't like how there are weird words in there and we came across the word "methought". He paused after reading it and just looked up and said "Methought I thaw a puddy cat!" haha Good ole Brother Carter. He is learning to love the Book of Mormon though and we are excited about that.

We also have been teaching an older woman named Renee. She is so so sweet and is really soaking in the gospel like crazy! When we started teaching her, she was a little stand-offish and now after she has been reading her scriptures and praying and following through on the commitments we leave her, she has grown so much. We invited her to baptism and she said yes! Sadly, she will be out of town next week but she promised to read her scriptures and pray every night while she is gone. We are excited about her.

As of right now we have about 10 investigators. 4 of them are on date for baptism but I just really wish people could understand that they cannot receive the blessings and answers of the gospel without working for them. I hope you all understand the importance of reading your scriptures, saying your prayers, and being a disciple of Jesus Christ at all times. Those things that you hear people to tell you to do are so so essential to your faith and testimony. Yesterday at church the lesson in relief society was about the talk that President Uchtdorf (not sure if that's spelled correctly) gave about simplicity in the gospel. The woman giving the lesson said that often times we have these big trials and burdens that we expect a big solution to. the solution in whatever problem we have is always to pray and study. I love how simple our gospel really is. It has given me the greatest road map in my life and I love giving this map to others. It will help them navigate through every bump in the road. Maybe even help them know how to get around a tree in the middle of the street :)

I hope you are all feeling very grateful this time of year. I sure am! I love the gospel, I love my Father in Heaven, and I love you! Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Love, Sister K