For Strength of Youth

Hello Everybody!

     Happy Mother's Day!  I just want to start of with a little shout out to my family!  I love you guys so much! Yesterday was so wonderful!  I am so grateful that I was able to talk to you!  You all look great!  I can't believe I only get to Skype you one more time before I come home.  Holy Cow!  Time goes by way too fast!  It seems like just yesterday I was saying goodbye to you in Provo.  Look at me know!  And even weirder!  I hit my halfway mark!  I reached 9 months!  Whoa! 

Talking to the Family - minus Jake

All 3 of us it our 9 month mark! Elder Cole and Sister Chapman

     This week has been great!  I love my new area and even more I love Sister Kekauoha!  She is my other half!  We have way to much fun together and the best part is that we have been able to see a lot of success.  We have been able to have a lot of awesome lessons with a lot of awesome people.

     We were able to have a lesson with a woman named Jenny.  She has been meeting with missionaries off and on for over 30 years.  She was preparing to get baptized next week.  We had an awesome lesson with her.  We talked a lot about trusting in God and turning to him in the hard times.  Her problem is that she has a lot of family opposition and a lot of family drama going on.  When things get hard she tends to put church at the bottom of her priorities when clearly it should be at the top.  We were able to go over all of the baptismal interview questions and she was ready.  We were ready to have her interview but, then an hour before the interview she called us and told us that she doesn't want to do this anymore.  That she is to busy and is too overwhelmed at the moment.  It was sad but it is what she needed.  Sister Kekauoha has been teaching her for the last 5 months and she really does just need some time to think about it.  It is really sad to watch people who are so close to being happy but then they literally just let it slip through their fingers. 

     We were able to have a lesson with a girl names Jalisa.  She is 21 years old and she has been struggling a lot emotionally she told her sister to call the missionaries so we could go visit her in the hospital and say a prayer with her.  We went to her hospital room and we were able to have a great lesson with her.  We started off with telling her about how she is a daughter of God and how He loves her so very much and how He is always there for us.  We then were able to teach her the restoration.  The spirit was so strong and especially as Sister Kekauoha shared the First Vision.  I then asked Jalisa how she felt.  She was quiet as she looked at the picture then she looked up at us smiling and said I have seen them before.  She then told us about a dream that she had and how she saw God and Jesus Christ.  They looked exactly how it showed them in the pamphlet.  They told her that they loved her and that they had great things planned for her.  It was amazing to watch the light come into her eyes.  We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she was able to read from it the whole time she was in the hospital.  She came back home later that week and told us how happy she feels as she reads.  Our next step it to get her to come to church.  I think she should go to the YSA ward but we will see what will be best for her. 

     We were able to meet with Eva again.  As I mentioned before we have been working with the YSA Elders to help with getting a joint teacher to come out and teach with us.  We had an awesome lesson with a member named Kyle.  He was less active when I first got to the YSA ward and now he is coming to church every chance he can and he is always willing to come out with the missionaries.  We focused our lesson on what sets our church apart from all other churches, the priesthood and the Book of Mormon.  We watched an awesome Mormon Message called Testimony of the Book of Mormon. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-03-08-testimony-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=en g  It was such a powerful lesson, the spirit was so strong and Kyle's testimony was so powerful.  We are now having her pray about 3 different days to know when she should get baptized.  We are excited to see her this week and see which day she decides on.

     Senait is an awesome woman from Ethiopia.  She invited us in and fed us some African food.  I don't know if I have told you this yet but I do not like African food.  It is too spicy and sour.  But mom, you would be so proud.  I am not as picky now and I am good at eating stuff I don't like.  We were able to teach her the restoration.  We then went back a different day and we told her more about the Book of Mormon.  It was fun because her 3 kids were there and they loved us.  We gave them all their own Book of Mormons and we gave then all some little pass along cards with pictures of Jesus on them.  They are planning on coming to church this week.  They kids are really excited and the mom is happy to see her kids so happy about it. 

Letisha's cute girls!

     Letishia is this awesome women from South Africa. We were able to stop by her house a couple times and share some short messages with her.  Every time we have stopped by she has been on her way out but she is always willing to make a little time for God.  I wish more people would do that.  Her little girls are adorable.  Hopefully she will be able to come to church with us this week.  She reminds me a lot of all of the people from Shingle Creek.  Very spiritual and faithful but don’t have the time to meet.  It will take her a while to progress but she is totally willing. 

Our Apartment!

     Last week we met a guy named Rylee, he is African American.  We weren't able to teach him a restoration because he didn't have a lot of time but he was able to share with us a little about his family and his kids.  We then were able to introduce him briefly to the For Strength of Youth pamphlet.  He loved it and he invited us back over to share more with his family.  This week we were able to do that.  We meet his wife Michelle and his son Josh.  We had a lesson all about the For Strength of Youth pamphlet and how it has personally blessed our lives.  We then invited the son to pick a section from the pamphlet to read together.  He chose Entertainment and Media.  It went very well and the mom loved what we were sharing with her family.  It was powerful when we were able to bear our testimonies about how this book helped us in our "youth" and how it gave us those good guide lines that we could follow to keep us safe and protected from all of the different temptations of the world.  We gave them 3 more copies so they can give it to their other 3 children.  We have an appointment set up for tomorrow and we are excited to share more with them and their family.  They should be coming to church next week! We are excited to see what happens with this great family!

     One thing I have really enjoyed about this area is that we have been able to work with a lot of less active people.  We didn't do any of this in my last area because the Husted's were the ones who did all of the less active work.  There is one less active lady that I wanted to mention today.  She is awesome her name is Jody.  She hasn't been active for many years.  She has been angry with God for a really long time.  She has a really sad story.  Every time she tries to get back up something knocks her down and she was sick of it.  She cut off everything.  She was a very angry and bitter person.  But then her nephew went on a mission to Provo, Utah.  Before he left he made her promise him that while he was gone that she would help his little brother read the scriptures and that she would go to church once a month.  She has been doing it but in the process has still been very mad.  Then one day she was in fast and testimony meeting and a senior missionary got up and bore his last testimony before he was going to return home and during his testimony all of the hate that was in her heart left.  It was gone.  She knew that she was a child of God and that He loved her no matter what she felt about Him.  Now we get to meet with her and teach her the lessons over again.  She is amazing and so willing to change.  I love this gospel and I love how no matter what we have done of what we have felt we can always have a clean slate and a fresh start.  I know that this church is true and I am so grateful to share that with people each and everyday!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

Sharing the gospel together!

A place a member took us to eat.

A good time at Taco Bell!