Saying Goodbye to Sister Kekauoha!

Hello family and friends! 

     Well transfers are this week and I have a new companion.  Her name is Sister Noe.  I don't know anything about her.  I have never even seen her before but I am excited.  I am really going to miss Sister Kekauoha!  She was a great companion and we really did have way too much fun together.  She goes home in two days!  Crazy huh!

I am going to miss her!

     This week was a good week though.  We saw a lot of members because Sister Kekauoha was saying goodbye to everyone.  She has been in this ward for 10 months!  That is over half of her mission.  I can't believe that she has stayed in an area that long.  But it was really fun stopping by all the members.  This is a really fun ward.  I am excited that I get to be here one more transfer.  This is officially the longest that I have ever been in an area.

Sister Page

Brother Putney and Sister Bennett

Marilyn

     Anyways, even though we saw a lot of members this week we also were able to have a couple of investigator lessons.  We were able to have a lesson with Marilyn.  She is so great.  She is native american and she has been living with her cousin who is a less active member. She is really funny.  She has come to church the past 3 weeks and she has really loved it.  She loves how peaceful it is there and she loves how friendly the people are.  The only problem with her is that she isn't always able to make her appointments.  Hopefully we will be able to help her progress even more.  But we were really glad that she was able to come to church.

On our way to a fireside with Lamota in the back

Wonderful!  She is hilarious!

Erick she is going to Utah State and
is here for the summer with her husband

So this is Garty, that I am standing next to he is cousins with Wonderful.  He just got here from Michigan.  He lived in the same ward that Elder Elwood was serving in.  What a small world!!

     Then this week we were able to have a lesson with Donald Z.  Things are going pretty well for him.  We were able to have our Bishop come over with us.  We talked about repentance and how we are able to be healed through the atonement of Christ.  He has a lot of spiritual wounds, especially when he was in the Korean War.  But we have promised him that as he is baptized that those wounds will be healed, that is one of the blessings of the Atonement.  And as for now, he is praying about being baptized on September 11, because that was the same day that his wife was baptized.  He truly is ready to be baptized right now.  The only thing that is holding him back is some nit picky things and he doesn't feel like he has got an exact answer.  He does know that he will get baptized eventually.  We are hoping to help him recognize that he has already received his answer.  Hopefully he will be able to figure it out on his own.

Pernu Family

     We were also able to help Sophia get to Activity Days this week.  It sounded like she had a lot of fun. Then we were able to have a family home evening with Sophia and the Pernu family.  It was really good.  We talked about the importance of family prayer.  She is a really smart girl, but like all nine year olds, she has a lot of energy and likes to goof around.  We are able to have good lessons with her when we mix up the activities that we do and we give her something to take home or work on.  In our lesson we split up into two groups and we wrote down a list of things that we can be grateful for and a list of things that we can ask Heavenly Father for.  It went really well.  It was fun to see the different kids lists that they came up with. Then we gave each of the families a little prayer calendar.  Every time they say their prayers as a family then they are able to put a sticker on their calendar.  They seemed pretty excited about it.  We will have to see how many stickers they have on it.  But the biggest miracle of all was that Sophia came to church.  Her mom didn't come but she let Sophia which was huge!  She did really good.  In sacrament meeting we gave her a Book of Mormon stories book with the pictures on it and she loved it.  She read like 20 pages.  We were really surprised at how good she was.  Hopefully she will be able to come back.  We were so happy and excited for her!

Sister McKinne

Gavin Saying goodbye to Sister K.

Kyle

Destiny with her new temple picture

     We then were able to stop by and see Destiny, she is 12 years old and she hasn't been coming to church very much.  We were able to stop by and have a lesson with her about the For Strength of Youth.  We talked about how we all have this great potential and how Heavenly Father knows all that we are able to accomplish.  We were then able to write down some of the different goals and things that she wants to accomplish.  It was really neat.  She is an awesome girl in a really bad environment.  It’s girls like her that make me so sad.  She really does have so much potential and so much that she is capable of doing but she doesn’t have a good support system.  I pray that she will be able to break the cycle.  Get out of her comfort zone and make something of herself.  She is only 12 years old but that is such a crucial time.  Middle school will make or break you.  Hopefully we will be able to keep meeting with her and give her uplifting messages.  She is so sweet.  We were able to give her a picture of the temple. (we have quite a few in our apartment.) And we also gave her a skirt that she can wear to church.  She is excited to come.  I love going to visit her because by the end of our visit there is a whole new light in her eyes that wasn't there before.

The Kecks

Liam riding his bike

     Okay this is the funny story for the week.  We were able to go and see Kim this week.  Eva came with us.  Now let me just describe Kim for you.  She is your typical African American woman.  A sassy black lady.  She is so funny and the things she says are priceless.  First we went over there and we asked her what she thought of church last week.  She loved it.  She said that the people were so nice and that she loved the feeling she had there.  She said that it was different from any other church that she has been to and that she wants to come back.  We looked down at her table and she had both the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles book open.  She had been studying them.  We were so proud of her.  She also told us that she was talking to her sister who lives in Northern Minnesota and her sister was telling her about how she was really confused with religion.  That she didn't know what church was true and that she didn't know where to go.    

     Then Kim responded with, “Wow!  You sound just like Joseph Smith.  He didn't know which church was true so he prayed!”  hahaha!  She then started bearing her testimony about Joseph Smith and how he has to be a true prophet.  She is so funny.  We have hardly taught her anything but what we did teach her has really stood out to her.  She is coming to church next week! 

     Well that is all I have time for this week.  I hope that you all have fun week!  Happy Summer!  I know that many of you are out doing fun summer things but hey it doesn't top being here in Minnesota!  I love you! 

Choose the Right!

Love Sister Kendra Curtis

P day at Minnehaha Falls with the Sisters

Hermana Jones

Look who found a friend?
(I gave this little guy to Kendra -incase she was gnome sick)

Look at this funny car

How cute is this

Ah!  I miss Logan.