August 31, 2015 Sister Krummenacher and the Spooky, Scary, Baptism

Yet again, another AWESOME week. I think it may have been one of my favorites out here so far. Wanna know why? Well, I'll tell you why!

Sunflower lady (Joanne) gave us some of her loot! We ran into her while we were tracting around her house and she was just handing out her sunflowers to her neighbors and people on the street. Sweetest woman ever.

I don't know if you knew this, but I think I'm hilarious. Every time we pass this sign that says "CHICKEN FRIES ARE HERE!" I turn to Sister Johnson and say " THERE THEY ARE SISTER JOHNSON!! THE CHICKEN FRIES ARE THERE!!" Every day since then I say "Oh good, the chicken fries are still there, phew!". This has been going on since I got here.

We got the chicken fries.

I can't tell you how happy I am that the alpaca house people are taking lessons from us. There are two main reasons for that:
1. Its an alpaca farm
and
2. Sister Brill (the woman who lives there) gives us scarves almost every time we go there. Its the best thing ever.
This was this week's scarf. A mix of pinks and white. High quality. High fashion. Model: Sister K

Something super exciting happened this week. I GOT MY FIRST BAPTISM! or I guess I should say baptismS😎. We planned the baptism for Saturday and we woke up to a crazy storm outside. We got a text from a man in our ward that said that his power was off. He lived near the church building so we were all a little nervous as to whether the church would be out of power or not. We pulled out of our apartment complex and found a tree that had blown over right in front of our mailboxes. I call this picture: "Mail Model part 2".

It was super windy and the trees here aren't very strong because of the lack of rain lately so there were trees falling right and left. People were freaking out about their power going off (luckily ours never did #blessed).
Here's a picture of downtown Arlington at the end of the storm:

We drove to the church and said a prayer that the power would stay on for the baptism. We went inside and the lights were flickering on and off but we still had power! Power of prayer, that is. The baptism went on without a hitch! The lights flickered a little so it was a spooky situation. You could even say it was the HOLY GHOST!!!ooOoooOOoooOoO!!!
anyway, It was awesome and the spirit really was strong in the room.
You may be wondering, "who the hay got baptized??" Well let me tell you!

​This is Grace and Ella! They are the cutest little girls ever. They have been taking the discussions forever but they finally decided on a baptism date! We were so excited. They were so excited. The whole ward was so excited. This day was long awaited by many. We call them our twins because Ella is a brunette and Grace is blonde. We thought that was pretty cute.
What was super fun, was that I got to write the baptism symbol on their teaching record!! YAY!! 2 down, all the rest of Arlington to go!

Another tree in the church parking lot

Biggest miracle of my mission so far also happened yesterday. On Friday we got a call from our sister training leader and she challenged us to "hit standards" this week. Hitting standards means that you need to get a certain amount of lessons, investigators, people attending sacrament, etc. every week. We have only hit standards once. Sister Johnson has only hit standards once and she has been here for almost 6 months! Pretty sad, I know, but ITS HARD!
 It was already Friday and we had only 3 more days to hit our goals. We still needed 2 people at sacrament meeting, 3 lessons with a member present, and 2 new investigators. haha we had pretty low expectations considering how busy the next three days were already going to be. BUT, we still prayed for help to hit standards every day.
 It got to Sunday and we hadn't made any progress except for 2 investigators that made it to church. It was 6pm and we had 2 and a half hours to get three lessons with members and 2 new investigators. Sounds ridiculous, I know. We went forward with faith regardless of the seemingly impossible task ahead of us.
 At 6 we asked a member who fed us dinner if they would come to a lesson with us. She said yes and we started driving to teach Peggy. Peggy texted us literally on our way over and told us she was feeling sick and not to show up. We quickly thought of another young girl that we could possibly get a lesson with. We drove there and there was nobody home. As we walked back to the car to take the member home, we saw a former investigator outside his trailer. We ran over there quicker than you can say "Sweet, spicy chicken fries!". We talked to him for a little bit and found out that he was moving. We shared a quick message and prayed with him that he would be safe in his travels and then we ran back to the car! One member present lesson down, 2 to go, and 2 more new investigators.
We dropped our member off and we started bookin it over to a part-member family. We realized halfway there that we wouldn't have any time to teach them because of how far away they lived. We decided this right as we realized we were right in front of another part-member family's home. We knocked on the door, they let us in, we taught a lesson, set up another lesson, and went on our way. Because we had an appointment to meet with them next, and because there was a member there, that made one new investigator and one member present lesson!
 We now only needed one more member present lesson and one new investigator! We ran to the car, drove to another part-member family's home, taught them a lesson, and set up a future lesson. THAT WAS ANOTHER INVESTIGATOR AND ANOTHER MEMBER PRESENT LESSON!!  WE HIT STANDARDS!! We literally hit standards for the week in 2 and a half hours. amazing. We realized that if we have the faith to hit standards in 2 and a half hours, then we can definitely have the faith to hit standards in a whole week of teaching. This was a lesson that we needed to learn greatly. We now have 8 investigators when a week ago we had only 2. We realized that the Lord's will is greater than anything that seems completely impossible to us. This is the Lord's work, and if we trust in him, we can accomplish amazing things and work miracles. I love being a missionary. I can feel the my Heavenly Father guiding me in every step I take.
I love you all! Be good and do good!

Love, Sister K

P.S. As it is Labor Day next Monday, the library will be closed so I will not be emailing. I will probably email Tuesday but I only have one hour instead of the normal 2 so don't be offended if I don't write you back! :)