Notice the Miracles in Your Life

Hello my dearest family and friends!

Smores and tin foil dinners with Bro and Sis Larsen

     Guess what 2 days ago, September 7, was my month mark!! Can you believe it?? I have been out on a mission for a whole month!  I only have 17 months left!  Time is going by way too fast.  I don't feel like 18 months is enough!  Those boys are so lucky that they get to be out for 2 years!  This transfer ends the first week in October.  I don't like that because that means that I might leave my area, Shingle Creek.  I don't want to leave this area because then I'll have to leave everyone behind.  I want to stay here because I am so close with the people and I am starting to get to know the ward better.  I just think that it’s so sad to think that I might have to leave Shingle Creek behind and move on to something new.  My family can understand this because I hate change.  Once I am comfortable with something and I am happy, I just want things to stay that way (giving up my room to Megan).  For example, I hate having to get a new phone because you already know how the old one works. Then when you have a new phone you have to spend all that time getting familiar with the new phone and how it works.  Thats exactly how I feel about a new area.  I just hate the time it takes to adjust because I don't want to waste time getting to know something new when I am already comfortable with something else. Yet, just like when I get a phone, I know after I spend that time getting to know the new area and how everything works, I will love it just as much if not more!

Kema and Samel ant Church "the cutest girls"

      

Driving to our appointments

This week I am going on my first exchange.  On Wednesday I am going to be on an exchange with the Sister Mansfield the Training Leader.  I am excited to be with her but at the same time I am super nervous.  Its going to be weird teaching with someone else because whenever I teach it is always Sister Ballif and I.  We teach really well together and we are really good at bouncing off of each other. Now I have to try and do it with someone else.  But at the same time, I am excited to learn new things from her and get more feedback about how I can be a more affective missionary. 

     This last week was awesome Sister Ballif and I  work so well together and I really can tell that I am becoming a better missionary.  We have met so many awesome people and I love getting to know them and helping them understand what we believe.  This week we had 14 new investigators at church! We were so happy. It wasn't just Sister Ballif and I, it was also Elder Clark and Elder Wilson (the Elders in our ward) and Elder and Sister Kindred the awesome senior couple in our ward.  We are all working so hard and its so great to see the people we teach keeping their commitments and being able to come to church. Especially in our area, because the Africans are so busy and have to work all the time. So when they come to church you can really see their dedication because they are making it possible by getting work off so they can come and most of them would rather be sleeping because there is no other time.  I know that when they go to church that they will receive so many blessings for making that effort.

Back to School African BBQ

     Brother Brueshaber is progressing so much.  I loving going to their house and being able to teach them.  He has such an amazing testimony.  I love when he shares it.  He has really been reading the scriptures because he really wants to know if this church is true.  He wants to make sure that when he is baptized it is for him and not for anyone else.  He doesn't want to get pressured into it.  He is awesome.  He applies the scriptures to his life in the best ways and he is able to help out his wife by relating things to her from the scriptures.  For example, she is going through a really hard time right now because she keeps trying to fix her family relationships with her step mom and sisters when all it is really doing is hurting her and making her feel horrible.  So what does he do?  He flips to the story about how Nephi had to leave his brothers because they were only bringing him down.  How great is that!  He went to church yesterday by his self because Sister Brueshaber was feeling sick and he still managed to come on his own.  We then met with them yesterday and we asked him again about being baptized when we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We asked him to pray about September 28th and find out for himself if that is the date that he should be baptized.  As we asked him that it looked like something clicked so I can't wait to meet with him again.  Great things are in his future!

There are squirrels everywhere!

     Then there is the Joloka Family. They are progressing so much.  They went to church yesterday and she loved it.  She says that she loves the feeling that she feels at church.  She says that it is the same feeling that she feels whenever we come over and the kids love it also. They are all feeling the spirit and I can't wait for them to get the Holy Ghost so they can feel it all the time.  They still haven't been able to find a new apartment but she says that for some reason she isn't stressed about it anymore that ever since she has started praying more and reading more that she is more calm and at peace.  She knows that soon everything is going to work out.  I love her kids too.  They love this gospel so much and they are able to see the change that it is making in their family.
     Robert Conway.  I talked a little bit about him last week and about how he  basically dropped us.  Sister Ballif and I  were so sad because we could see how much he needed the gospel in his life.  This week a miracle happened.  Robert called us!  We kept trying to call him because we were genuinely  worried about him, after going straight to voice mail time after time, it was starting to seem hopeless.  Then he called!  When I answered the phone he said that he was so sorry for how he stormed off the other day.  He said that he just needed some time to think and that he didn't mean to be so rude.  Then he said that he hoped that we would forgive him and that the Lord kept telling him that "he needed to call the Sisters."  I was so grateful for that moment and that they Lord is still working on him.  He has so much potential but it is going to take a lot of hard work for him to get there. Hopefully we will get to see him this week!

Flexing with Degari (I don't know how to spell these African names)

     Now I have a challenge for all of you!  I want you to notice all the miracles in your lives.  I promise you that they are all around you. Some times you miss them because you are so caught up in the bad things happening around you. But if you take the time to realize all that the Lord does for you it really will change your outlook on life. My companion and I have been trying to do this and you wouldn't believe all the miracles that we see everyday. The most important thing to remember is that it doesn't matter how big the miracle is, it matters if you are able to recognize it.
     I know that this church is true. My testimony grows everyday. I am so blessed to be on a mission. I have already learned so much.  I can't imagine going through life without it.  This experience helps me realize how blessed I am that I have a loving family, that I have grown up with the church my whole life, that I have the power of the atonement and it can help me through hard times and most of all that I have a loving Heavenly Father who loves me!  I love my mission.  I can't imagine doing anything else!

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

   

African BBQ with the Johnson Family