#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!