The Best Presents is your Presence!

Hello My Dearest Family and Friends!

    Merry Christmas for the last time this year.  I can't believe it is almost Christmas!  Time really does go by so fast!  I have almost been on my mission for 5 months!  5 MONTHS!  That is too weird.  Enough small talk and on to the good stuff :)

L. Children

     This week we were able to have another fun Family Home Evening with the L family. They are so dang cute.  I love whenever we get to go over there.  This time we talked about being a child of God and then we talked about the nativity story.  We started off with the Mormon Message, I am a Child of God.  They loved it and the 6 year old, Skyler told us that he already knew this song and that he wanted to sing it by himself.  So we also got an unplanned Solo!  It was the cutest.  Then we talked about the Nativity Story and all the important parts of the story.  We also sang my favorite Christmas song, Picture Christmas!  It is so simple and so true.  The best kind.  Then we did another little craft and we made a paper tree out of their hands that we cut out then on the hands we wrote the important words that we learned.  The lesson turned out really good and they remembered a lot of it!

Thankful Christmas Tree made by little hands!

Sharleen S. at Ward Christmas Party!

     We were also able to have a couple lessons with Sharleen S this week and we also were able to get her to the ward Christmas party.  We were able to finish up the Plan of Salvation with her this week.  We brought a member to one of our lesson with her and they were perfect.  They had so many things to relate to.  They both like crafts (Scrapbooking) Yes I told her about Mom and Me.  She said she is going to look it up and tell all her friends!  HA!  They also both have abusive backgrounds and they both LOVE family history work.  One of the first things Sharleen told us about when we met her was her love for family history work.  That was actually the thing that got us a second lesson with her 3 weeks ago.  We said that we would come back and give her the church web sites so she could try using some other resources.  She also came to church yesterday and she loved it.  There were a lot of complications in the morning.  Her ride to church got sick and all kinds of things but then long story short she actually drove us to church so it worked out perfectly.  At church she felt the spirit so strong and she loved each of the different hours.  She really enjoyed gospel principles.  She even pointed out the section in the manual where it was talking about doing temple work for those who have passed on.  She truly is prepared for this gospel and we are so excited for her and for what the future holds.

     This week we were able to do quite a bit of tracting.  We were out knocking doors at some apartments and not a single person was answering the door.  We were starting to wonder if this was where we were supposed to be and the cold wasn't helping us out either.  Then we started to walk back to our car.  But in my head I thought to myself lets try one more door.  So we went to the next door and someone finally answered.  It was a mom with lots of kids running around the house.  The first thought that came to my mind is that we would have to keep it quick because she probably had to go back to watching her kids.  But we asked a couple questions about her and we found out that she was going to school.  We then asked her what she wanted to do and she told us about how she wants to be a nurse and how she wants to make a difference.  We then related that to the gospel and started teaching the restoration lesson.  She was very interested and she truly had the light of Christ.  I mentioned that to her as we were talking and she said that she has heard that before from other people.  She then mentioned how she has been going to church but hasn't felt like it was true.  Then we talked about Joseph Smith and his experience.  She was able to feel the spirit and relate to what Joseph Smith was going through.  It was such an amazing experience and she was prepared and waiting!  We then invited her to baptism and she said yes! We are so excited to meet with her this week and to be able to help her learn more. What a miracle!  I am so grateful that we continued knocking and able to meet Tasia. You never know who is going to be behind that next door!

     We had two great lessons with Phillip I. this week and we were so excited for him to come to church with us today.  He even pinky promised that he would come so we knew that this time it was going to be different. But guess what he didn't come.  We were so sad.  We went over to his house last night to see if everything was okay.  He then told us that he was ready to go but that he needed some kind of oil for his car and that he couldn't find his shoes and by the time he did he would have been too late.... Oh my Goodness!  He couldn't find his shoes.  Sometimes you can't help but laugh.  He pinky promised this Sunday that he FOR SURE will come to church.  We are going to make this happen! Next Saturday we will help him get everything layed out and then Sunday morning we will go wake him up. No more excuses! But other then Sunday mornings the lessons are going great and his testimony is growing so much.This week is the week!

Delores and Bryon L.
at the Christmas Party

     Last week we had many awesome lesson with the Larson's.  I really do love them so much!  For one of the lessons we were able to bring an awesome member to the lesson and it turned into a great discussion about the gospel.  We were talking about repentance and the ability to forgive yourself and how that is so hard for some people to do.  As we were talking about this an experience popped into my head that we just had the week before.  We knocked into this lady named Kimberly and we were going to have a lesson with her about the Restoration.  But then she got on this tangent about how she has done so many bad things in her life.  She said she knows that God has forgiven her but she will never be able to forgive herself.  Not for all the bad that she has done.  This experience was really strange when we were in the moment of it.  She didn't want to talk about it and got really stressed about it and then told us to leave.  All we were able to leave her with was our testimony about how God loves her and would never want her to feel this way.  It was very strange.  I wasn't quite sure why that story came to mind and why I should share it.  But as I started talking I started testifying of the wonderful blessing that we have as members to know the truth.  To know that we will all make mistakes in life and that God knows that.  He made it possible so we can overcome that.  He wants us to repent and forgive ourselves and the only way that we are able to do that is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  It reminded me of Alma 36.  It talks about how Alma had made all these mistakes in life and how he felt horrible about them.  But he then remembered the love of his Savior and how he could be relieved of that guilt and shame.  He then was overcome with joy that was even greater then the pains he had experienced.  The first thing he wanted to do after that was share that joy with others so they could feel that same way.  As I testified of that I felt the spirit so strong and I realized in that moment, the crazy lesson that we had with Kimberly was able to strengthen my testimony and I didn't even realize it.  God truly does have a plan and a purpose for everything that we do and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to recognize that.

     One last Christmas Message for everyone.  We watched this in Relief Society and I loved it.

 What Shall We Give?

Merry Christmas!  I love you all so much. Thanks for all the prayers and support!  Have fun with your families and remember the true meaning of Christmas. 

 The best presents is your PRESENCE!

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

Coloring pictures of Jesus

To My Dearest Family and Friends!

     Hello!  Yep it’s still pretty cold here but I am doing great!  I am super excited for Christmas!  Only 9 more days!  Sister Pead's mom mailed her a little Christmas tree so we are ready to go!  We even put our presents under the tree! (well around it) We decided that we are going to wait until Christmas to open all of our presents and I am so excited!  We are going to have the cutest little Christmas together.  We are really glad that we didn't get transferred.  Yes, transfers were today!  This transfer was only 5 weeks instead of 6 because it would have been on Christmas.  So they pushed it back and this next transfer is going to be 7 weeks long.  But Sister Pead and I are still together so we are super happy.

     This week was full of so many wonderful things! So I better get started.

  Monday was District P-day.  We wore ugly sweaters, played games, and frosted sugar cookies.  It was super fun to get together as a district and not be so "missionary" but to just have fun and play games together.  Sister Pead and I made Aunt Carson's potato soup and everyone loved it.  We doubled the recipe and told them to bring their own Tupperware and then we would give them leftovers.  Every Elders dream.

Sister Gessel and Sister Curtis 

     Then we went to the Delores and Byron L's house for dinner.  They are absolutely wonderful.  They invited us over and they invited some other people from our ward.  We ate dinner and it was wonderful. Then we went in the other room and we had a lesson about temples.  The members that were there were perfect because one couple works in the St. Paul temple and the other is getting ready to get sealed in the temple.  It was great to have both members there.  The lesson went great and it was so exciting to think about them getting sealed together for eternity.  Then later on in the week we were able to have a lesson with them about the Word of Wisdom.  I was on exchange with Sister Gessel, who is wonderful by the way.  She is an amazing missionary and she has only been out for 12 weeks.  Sister Gessel is a wonderful teacher and she is really in tune with the spirit.  The day before we had a Zone Conference and President Clements talked about teaching the lessons with confidence and with power and that is exactly what we did.  We taught the Word of Wisdom with such confidence, testifying that this commandment, the Word of Wisdom, will not only bless his life but it will also bless his family.  He agreed with everything that we were teaching except he doesn't want to give up coffee.  He doesn't see why coffee is so bad.  He then told us that he will pray about it.  That is definitely a good thing to do.  We hope that soon he will be able to see the importance of giving up coffee because it is more then just a cup of coffee but it is his eternal salvation.  This one last thing is the thing that will bring him and his wife together forever.  We are keeping him in our prayers and hopefully he will be able to join her soon.  She is still getting baptized on January 4th and they came to church yesterday.:) Yay!

Sister Pead, Sister Gessel, and Sister Breedlove (they are in the Mowers ward)

     Like I said we had a Zone Conference and it was really good.  I love going to meetings like that because I feel like I am teaching so much.  Sometimes it is nice to just sit back and learn new things and learn how to become a better missionary.  After the meeting we were able to watch a movie together, for our Christmas gift.  We watched "Miracle" the hockey movie.  It was so good.  But also it was kind of weird to watch it as a missionary.  It was funny to watch it with 100 Minnesota Missionaries because a lot of that movie actually took place in Minnesota.  We know people serving in the different cities that it is talking about.  It was really fun and also sports movies are always so inspiring.  Now we are all going to work extra hard.  There was one quote that I really liked.  It was talking about how on a jersey the name on the front is always more important then the name on your back.  I started to think of this as a missionary point of view using our name tags.  The name underneath is way more important than the name on top.  Am I doing the best I can to represent Jesus Christ?

     So this week I received a wonderful Christmas package from my mom.  In it was a Nativity with a note that said, “give this to a family, you will know which one.”  That day we were stopping by the L family, she was less active for a while and her husband just got baptized a year ago.  Right now they are going through some hard times so we were going to stop by and share a message with the mom.  As we started talking with her she started telling us how she really thinks that she should start doing Family Home Evening with her kids.  She then told us how things have been really hard the last couple of weeks and she really thought that a Family Home Evening would help bring peace into her home.  Then we suggested that she could do a lesson on the true meaning of Christmas.  She loved it.  Then instead of sharing a message with her we started planning a Family Home Evening for her kids.  We started talking about how she could ask what Christmas is all about, watch some videos then talk about Christ's birth and maybe color some pictures.  I then asked her if she had any nativities or any pictures of baby Jesus.  She very sadly said no.  Right then it clicked I knew who the family was.  I told her how I received a package with a Nativity scene in it and that my mom told me to give it to a family that needed it.  Her eyes started to water then she hugged me and said thank you so much.  This is exactly what I need.  I want something that I can put out so my kids can look at it everyday.  Thank you so much.  

Remember Him as you picture Christmas this Year!

 I am so grateful that my mom followed the prompting to put a Nativity in my package.  What a blessing to this cute family.  We were then able to come back and have the lesson with them.  The lesson went great and the kids loved it!

The L. Children having a Christmas Family Home Evening!

     Sharleen S is a new investigator that we have been meeting with for a couple weeks.  We were able to find her tracting.  She is very interesting.  She has had a lot of crazy things happen to her in life but she has a great understanding of the Savior and the love that he has for her and everyone.  We have been meeting with her lot and she has a great understanding.  We even helped her rip out the carpet in her house. (Shout out to my dad!  Thanks so much for making me a hard worker and showing me how to do so many things like ripping out carpet. :)  This last week we were also able to have a Word of Wisdom lesson with her.  She was able to recognize the importance of this commandment.  Then at the end of our lesson we asked her if she would live the Word of Wisdom and she said yes.  Right then and there she even gave us the rest of her coffee.  It was amazing to see her exercise her faith like that.

     Last of all we were able to go to a Christmas Concert last night in Crystal.  Crystal is where the Shingle Creek Stake Center is.  We were able to take Delores and Bryon L with us and we were able to enjoy beautiful Christmas music.  Then the best part.  Since it was really close to Shingle Creek I got to see so many people from Shingle Creek.  It was like a little reunion.  I got to see Sister Ballif and her new companion.  I got to see Greg and Kristi B!  The one who got baptized!  And all the other wonderful families that I love!  One of my favorites is the Kirkhams!  They have the cutest kids and when they saw me they all ran up and hugged me.  It was so wonderful to see everyone.

     Well I'm out of time but I have another Mormon Message that I want you to watch.  If you ever have time to kill I highly suggest that you get on lds.org and watch the mormon messages they are all wonderful I promise.  Maybe I'll do a couple videos :)

Mens Hearts Shall Fail Them

A Secure Anchor

Okay I love you all so much! 

Have a Merry Christmas!

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

#Mormon Mondays

Dearest family and friends!

     Merry Christmas!  Can you believe it is Christmas in 16 days!  I am super excited but I also feel like the month of December is going by too fast.  I love the Christmas season.  But on the other hand, December needs to go by faster! AND January AND February AND maybe even March!  The winters here are brutal! I can't believe people actually live like this haha.  Someone told me that last year it was snowing in May....... MAY!  Oh boy.  This week was pretty crazy!

I sent home a picture last time of how the snow was starting to stick, well right when we walked out of the Library from sending our emails it was a blizzard and it didn't stop!  

I love my snowies!

     Our car was "grounded" last week because it was snowing so hard.  Then the temperatures dropped and it dropped FAST!  It was down in the negatives with a high of about....3!  Where am I??  Ha But the worst part is the wind chill, we had a wind chill of -30.  OH MY GOODNESS!  We keep getting these texts from our mission president telling us to stay inside as much as we can, don't drive long distances, and to not be outside for too long.  What are we supposed to do then??  We have been very blessed though because we have had a lot of appointments so we have been able to stay inside.  But man, I am already terrified of this Minnesota cold and everyone says it hasn't even started yet... Yikes.  We also had to buy these things calls Snow Trax.  They are like these Spikes that you put on the bottom of your shoes so that you won't slip.  It's pretty smart and it has already saved us so many times.  They are definitely pretty dorky but I'm at the point where I say to myself.... Who cares!?  ha

     As always mission work is wonderful.  First off I would like to do a little shout out to my awesome companion Sister Pead!  We have way too much fun together.  I am so grateful that I have been blessed with the opportunity to serve with her.  We get along great and we are really funny together.  Let me tell you a little something funny about Sister Pead.  So she was in the other room of the house that we are living in and then all the sudden I hear this way loud opera man voice.  I was like what in the world?  Where did Sister Pead find an opera CD??  Then I go in the room and it is her!!!!!  SHE IS THE OPERA MAN!  It is hilarious and the best part is I wanted to get it on film and I did!  She likes to do it as we drive in the car and I totally sneaked a video!  Yeah Buddy!  If I ever figure out how to email videos that will be one of the first that you will get!

     Okay so one of my favorite investigators is Phillip I. (Okay everyone is my favorite)  I already talked about him a little last week.  He is a car mechanic and is always working hard to provide for his family.  This past week we were blessed to meet with him 4 times they even fed us African food!  All of the lessons have been going great and the spirit has been there.  He basically is already living everything that we have taught him, the biggest thing is that he just has a couple topics that are holding him back.  He also brought up a lot of questions that he has because of some anti-mormon sites that he has been on.  Yesterday we were able to bring a member who is a convert himself and had a lot of the same questions that Phillip has.  It was wonderful to see the member testify of this gospel and how even though things don't always make sense the Lord will give us the knowledge and understanding that we need in His own time.  We also read the talk by President Uchtdorf, Come Join with Us.  It was perfect and answered a lot of his questions it also brought the spirit.  Last night was such a powerful lesson and I really think that it could have been the turning point in his conversion.  We are excited to see what is in store for him as we meet with him this Wednesday.

     One thing that I have really been working on is listening to the spirit in lessons.  I want to make sure that I am saying exactly what the spirit is guiding me to say instead of just saying what I understand.  This week I have been praying more during lessons and I have felt the spirit more as I have been doing that.  I was able to have an awesome experience when our district leader Elder Smith was able to come teaching with us.  We were teaching Phillip I. and sometimes in Phillips lessons he tells these crazy stories and it is really hard to understand what to do with those stories or how to turn them into something spiritual and uplifting.  As Phillip was telling this story I wasn't quite sure what do say next.  Then all the sudden Elder Smith was able to get this amazing analogy from it and was able to relate it to us and the Savior.  It really strengthened my testimony and gave me that desire to listen more and let the spirit teach me so I can teach others.

Temple Trip

     This week we were also able to go to the temple.  We were nervous that we weren't going to be able to go because of the snow but with many prayers we were still able to go and what a great experience.  I love the opportunity that we get to go to the temple once a transfer and it is such a peaceful and comforting experience and I always look forward to going.

     Here is another funny story.  So we had a dinner at a members house and they have a daughter who is a senior.  She was telling us how she is the only mormon in her school and this one group of boys do this thing #mormonmonday.  They will go around and take pictures with her and post it on Facebook or Instagram and do #mormonmonday.  We couldn't help but laugh we thought that this was so funny.  We told her to embrace it and to carry a Book of Mormon around all day and wear funny shirts so she would be promoting it.  Also, I think that this would be a funny Utah thing.  So all my Utah friends out there do #MormonMonday. Make it a real thing whenever you see something "Mormony" on monday post it!  Hahaha I just can picture that being something that Jake would do. (TweetTweet)

     Sister and Brother L are still doing great!  She told Sister Pead and I that we are basically her granddaughters that she never had.  She said that we will have to write our real grandmas and ask if they are willing to share. ha.  We were able to go over again this week and have another amazing lesson.  They aren't even lessons though they are more of discussions.  I love going over there and just talking about the gospel and bearing my testimony to them.  We were able to set a new date for her to be baptized, January 4th.  I know that this isn't what we were planning for but like I have already said I know that the Lord has a plan and I am so excited to see what is going to happen with Brother L. :)

     Chris W has been really complicated this week.  We haven't been able to see him at all and we have kind of lost track of him.  Now his date has to get pushed back.  But we are just praying that everything is okay and that we can meet with him soon.

     Okay I want to end with the lesson that we had in Relief Society yesterday.  One of the teachers got up and said that we were going to watch a movie.  I instantly assumed that we would be watching some kind of Christmas movie.  Instead we watched a movie about the Restoration.  I LOVE this movie.  They challenged all the women to go home and to watch this with there families.  I love this because it shows the life of Joseph Smith and all of the pain and the suffering that he went through.  After watching this video, I was really able to bring what it is that we are teaching others to life.  This is a real story, a man gave his life so that the world would be able to have the restored gospel.  I know that this is true and it is such a powerful message we have been told that when we knock doors to start off with a Christmas message but then to bring it back to the Restoration.  I am so grateful for all that Joseph Smith scarified for us.   I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  

"No wicked man could write such a book as this; 

and no good man would write it, unless it were 

true and he were commanded of God to do so.”

Restoration Movie

     I love you all so much and I hope you have a Merry Christmas! Thanks again for all the support!

Love Sister Kendra Curtis

District lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings!

Remember the Season, and Echo the Reason!

Hello Family and Friends!

Yea!  It's Sticking!

     I'd just like to start out by saying..... Merry Christmas!  I am so happy to finally be able to say that to everyone.  It is truly the best line ever.  It a great way to start small talking with people and I know its going to be the best last words as someone is slamming the door in our faces.  What a wonderful time of year!

     This week was a great week.  Thanksgiving was pretty good but it was nothing like the Stott Thanksgiving I am used to.  I didn't even get a slice of pumpkin pie...but the apple I had could be a close second.  The Holidays here are so strange because they just seem like another day of mission work.  I have really been able to realize how important my family is to me and I can't wait until I get to spend the holidays with them again.

Thanksgiving with Sister Pead!

Thanksgiving with the Schwab Family

    But now back to the mission work.  I love it here!  Stillwater is beautiful.  I wrote a letter home about all the Stillwater details so hopefully my mom can just type that up for everyone.  The people we are teaching here are wonderful.

     First I will start out with Deloris and Byron L.  We were able to see the L family twice this week.  They both went really well.  We have been able to bring a couple different members to the lessons and they all get along great!  The ward really loves the Larsen’s and is doing a wonderful job at fellowshipping them.  Sister L is wonderful.  She is 100% ready to be baptized, the only thing holding her back is coming to church that third time because she has to work on Sundays.  But she has been requesting to get a Sunday off and she has also fasted.  She is completely putting it in the Lord's hands and recognizes that if she doesn't get this Sunday off that God has a different day planned for her baptism.  Brothe L is awesome but very stubborn.  He is at every lesson, does all the readings, asks lots of questions and is very supportive of Sister L but won't agree to baptism for himself. Personally I am starting to think that maybe the Lord is not letting Sister L get baptized yet because he wants both Sister and Brother L to get baptized on the same day!  How wonderful would that be!  He has a couple things that are holding him back but mostly he is just really stubborn.  At this point we are just praying that his heart will be softened at that we will be able to have them baptized together.  We are excited to see them this week and see what the Lord has in store for them.

     We have also been able to meet with Chris W.  He is a 20 years old and is from St. Louis.  He has a crazy past and was involved in a lot of bad things.  But he moved here to Minnesota so that he could get away from all that and turn his life around.  He is planning on getting baptized this month.  He really wants to make these changes but we are having a hard time helping him understand everything.  We just started making our lessons more visual so that he can "see" what it is that he is learning and not just listen to us talk.  We had a lesson with him this week about the 10 commandments and we did the hand signs with them.  I wish I could show you all the signs, but I can't... So when I get home ask me to show you them.  But the lesson went great!  It was one of our better lessons.  He understood all of it and was able to tell us all the commandments and what they meant by the time we were done. This week we are going to do the Word of Wisdom and do that Family Home Evening that we drew in my last area.  We are so excited for him and the progress that he is making.

     Phillip I. is another investigator that I love.  He is African and is from Liberia so whenever we are at his house I feel like I'm back in Shingle Creek. (I Pray that I will get sent back there someday!:))  His family is all members except him.  I think he is on his way as well.  He is so Christlike and would do anything for anyone no matter what time it is.  He has a great understanding and is able to recognize how God has helped him throughout his life.  The main thing that is holding him back is that he is so dang busy!  He works so hard and does everything that he can to provide for his family.  It’s the same problem that I would run into in my last area, everyone works so much and is so tired. We asked him to be baptized and he smiled at us and said "Give me time to think about it."  I am so stoked for him.  I know that the day is near!

Tracting!  I love all of these fun mansions!

     One thing that has been really great in this area is all of the work with the less active that we have been able to do.  We have been able to get in touch with lots of people and they have been very nice to us and some have even invited us in.  We were talking to the Relief Society President and we wanted to know if there was anyone that she wanted us to stop by and see.  One of the ladies was Audrey M.  We went and knocked on her door and she was very nice.  She was surprised to see Sister Missionaries and invited us in.  We talked with her a little and got to know her and her two little girls.  Then we asked if we could share a message with her and her family.  We read Alma 32 with her where it talks about faith and how it is compared to a seed. We even drew a picture to go along with it.  Then when we were done we gave the picture to the little girls and then we asked them if they would continue to do the little things: to pray, read their scriptures and go to church.  Then they kind of looked at us funny.  We didn't know anything about them, just that our Relief Society President wanted us to stop by.  She then told us how she goes to a different church because of her husband, we felt kind of strange about our challenge for them but we stuck to it and closed with a prayer, then we left the house.  We didn't really know what to think of that visit.  Then one of the women in our ward who is her visiting teacher came up to us yesterday at church and told us that Audrey loved having us over and that she thought it was really good for her girls and that she wants us to come back!  We were so excited when we heard that.  Apparently she wouldn't meet with the missionaries in the past but the fact that we are sisters, doesn’t seem as intimidating.  We are excited to go back this week and share another message with her and her girls.

     

     Well I started with Christmas and I am going to end with Christmas!  Like I said before what a wonderful time of the year!  I love the Christmas trees, the  Christmas lights, and the christmas songs, I love it all.  But this world that we live in is a crazy place, Satan is doing everything he can to tear us down.  Don't get caught up in the little details of this busy time of year but focus on the important part.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2874125...
 (watch this!)

Remember the Season, 

and Echo the Reason!

     I love you all so much!  Again thanks for all that you do and the examples that you have been in my life.  I love this work and I can't imagine being anywhere else! :)

Merry Christmas!

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

Wilkins is Jonathan and Jake's middle name!  ( I love her happy smile)

We had to ride bikes because we ran out of miles. It was dang cold!