YOLO!

Dearest Family and Friends!

     First off!  I can't believe my brother is officially in the mission field!  I just read his email and it is crazy to see the difference between the mission work in Minnesota and Jamaica!  He is experiencing things that I probably never will.  It is really cool to see that even though everything is so different we have been called to do the same thing.  Bring others unto Christ!  It is such a blessing that we get to experience this together!  I am so excited to keep hearing about his awesome experiences.  What an amazing missionary!  I love Elder Curtis!

Hello Summer!

     This week has been a wonderful week!  The weather is finally starting to warm up!  Yesterday it was 60 degrees!  60!!  I didn't even wear tights!  Rebel! :)  I am really excited for spring and summer!  Whoa actually that is way to weird.  Time is going by so fast.  I have almost been on my mission for 8 months now! WHOA!  It’s crazy to think that in 10 months this will all be in the past.  Just a memory.  It makes me want to do the absolute best I can and use every second of it!

I heart my companion!

     To start off we were able to meet with Eva a couple times this week.  She is doing great she is back on track and she is hoping to get baptized on April 19.  We were able to have some really good lessons with her and she has been sharing a lot more with us.  We were able to find out that one of her biggest concerns is that she won't have that support from her friends.  She expressed to us that she knows that her friends aren't doing things that God would be pleased with but she doesn't want to completely shut them out in the process.  She wants to be able to be that example to them and be able to stand up for her beliefs.  I have said this before but we have such a great ward here. We were able to get a bunch of awesome members to her lessons and that is the best thing for her.  She just needs a better group of friends that have the same standards as her and will bring her up instead of keeping her where she is.  I have a funny comment that Eva said this week.  She is super funny because she is super sassy but only if she is comfortable around you.  We have finally reached that point and I absolutely love it.  She is cracking me up.  So we were asking her something along the lines of returning and living with God again.  She then said, "You know I used to say YOLO (you only live once) all the time.  It used to be at the end of all my text messages and I would always say that to everyone, but I now know that is not true because I know that there is life after death."  HAHA I thought this was the funniest thing.  I wish I could just say all of her one liners but there are way to many!

     Last week I mentioned how we lost contact with Chloe.  Well we still weren't able to get a hold of her.  But Tuesday night we were talking to one of our awesome members Brittany and we were telling her about the situation.  She then asked us, "Well have you stopped by her house yet?" 

     Right then Sister Callister and I looked at each other with big smiles on our faces.  We have not tired that yet!  What a wonderful idea.  We even had her address because she wrote it down on her baptismal record.  It was perfect.  So we grabbed a plate of cookies and we were on our way.  Brittany even came with us.  We came to the point where we were stalking our investigator but we brought cookies.  Cookies always make it less weird!  Am I right? :) We went to her house and she wasn't to happy to see us.  But she quickly threw on that "Minnesota Nice" and invited us in.  We asked her how she was doing and if she was excited for her vacation.  She said she was.  She then told us that her phone hasn't been working and that she was texting us back but we must have just not got them.  I am not sure how accurate this is because it wasn't just us who wasn't getting responses it was everyone, members and all.  We are almost wondering if there is a bigger issue that we just aren't aware of yet.  But she told us that she is still planning on being baptized on April 12th so hopefully everything is okay.

     We have another investigator that we are teaching, her name is Deborah.  She is 20 and she is from Kenya.  She is studying Biology at the University of Minnesota but she is living at home with her family.  She is a Seventh Day Adventist but she has most of the same believes that we do.  The main differences are that she goes to church on Saturday and that we have the Book of Mormon.  But everything else is very similar.  She has an amazing faith in God and desire to follow him.  We have only had a 2 lessons with her.  She doesn't want to get baptized because she feels like her baptism is enough and that she is already following God, she doesn't need another baptism.  We need to help her understand the authority and the power to work in Gods name, but other then that she is amazing and still wants to meet with us.

     Another girl that we are meeting with is Sam.  Sam is the roommate of a recent convert who was baptized last month.  She works at the Como Zoo and she use to be Catholic.  We were able to go over to their house last week and talk to them about the plan of salvation.  Sam is amazing.  She has so many awesome questions and she really just wants to know truth.  We have only met with her once but we are excited to see her this week and answer some more of her questions.

     This week Sister Callister and I found a lost sheep!  We went inside of one of the buildings on campus to ask the front desk a question.  We were waiting in line then all the sudden the man in front of us turned around and said, "Hello Sisters." Whoa!  We asked if he knew missionaries and he said yes.  We then were able to find out that he is from Nigeria and he is actually a member but he doesn't go to church.  He told us that he doesn't obey the word of wisdom and there are a couple of other things that he doesn't agree with.  But we were able to invite him to church yesterday and he came!  It was so great to have him there and he really enjoyed it hopefully he will come next week as well.  But he actually is older then 31 so he shouldn't be going to this ward but hey its better then no church at all! :)  Isn't it awesome to see how the Lord places us in other peoples paths for a reason!

The Googley Eyed Gopher!

     So I have mentioned this before but we have been trying a new contacting technique where we are doing a survey out on campus.  It consists of 10 yes or no questions about their personal believes.  The purpose of the survey is to see what similarities we both have.  This has been working very well for us and we have been able to teach many restoration lessons right afterwards.  We are able to use the questions that they just answered to bring their input and their beliefs into the lesson.  We have seen much success and it has helped us get better quality of lessons.         

     Yesterday we had an awesome lesson with a guy from Russia.  He was out on a run and we stopped him and asked him if he had time to do a quick survey.  He said sure.  We explained to him what it was about and then we started asking the questions.  Like I said before all the questions are yes and no so they have to choose a side.  We started off by asking, do you believe in God?  He said yes.  Next question, do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Savior?  He said yes.  Later we then asked him do you think that Christ will come again?  He look at us and said, "Well didn't  He say He would come?"  We nodded our head.  "Then of course He will."  We checked the box.  Next question, do you believe that baptism in essential for salvation?  He then said, "Well isn't that what Christ taught?  Then yes."  I loved listening to his Russian accent and his answers, because it was so logical to him.  Of course Christ is real and everything he said and taught was true.  This just showed me how great his faith in Christ is.  It is really sad because we talk to people on campus all day and so many people don't have time for God and they are forgetting Him completely.  It just makes me happy to see that there are still people who are striving to live good lives and to follow the example of Christ.  We were able to teach him the first lesson right there and we are planning on meeting with him later this week.

     Truly the gospel is very logical.  This is something I have been noticing a lot this week.  It really does just make sense.  We could easily go on campus and bash with others about how logically our church makes sense but that is not what Christ would have us do.  The most important thing about the lessons that we teach is inviting the spirit to be there because I am not the teacher, the spirit is.  The spirit is going to touch their heart and help them remember the truths that they once knew.  We are just imperfect tools in the masters hands.  We are blessed because he lets us be apart of it!

I love you all!  More then you will ever know!  Thanks for everything that you do.  Your support means so much to me!  Have a great week!  Look for the miracles!

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

P.S. I loved the Women's Meeting! 

I can't wait for General Conference!

I love being a missionary!

Look!  South Jordan

A member took us for manicures on our P-Day!  So sweet!

Take a leap of faith and "JUMP"

Hello my most favorite family and friends!

     This week has not been my most favorite week.  First of all, Minnesota weather is so weird!  Secondly, it is Spring Break at the University of Minnesota.  That means that no one is on campus.  Everyone is out of town so we have to do a lot of walking to find people who are actually here.  On the plus side.  We were able to get a lot of steps in.  One day we hit 16,500 steps!  That is a lot of walking!  And last the worst!  I was sick this week!  I had a really bad cold!  Let me tell you, being sick on your mission is the worst feeling.  You aren't sure if you should rest or work.  It got to the point where I decided that I needed to rest.  But then the whole time I felt guilty because Sister Callister wasn't able to do anything and I also felt like I was wasting time.  It was horrible.  I am finally starting to feel better.  It’s funny because I was reflecting on the whole situation and I was questioning why I got sick.  I then started thinking back to what I have been praying for. ....Are you ready to hear what I have been praying for? 

     "Heavenly Father please help me so that I can have more of a desire to go out and work harder." 

     Clearly I have done this to myself.  Oh my goodness!  Heavenly Father knew that by keeping me cooped up, I would realize just how much I wanted to get out and work.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, that's for sure.

Minnesotta skyline!

     This week we were able to try out an awesome new finding tool... SURVEYS!  Sister Callister and I go out with clipboards in hand with surveys titled "How Mormon Are You?" There are 10 questions on it asking if they believe similar things that we do.  It has been a really great thing.  You would be surprised how many people are actually willing to stop and answer a couple of questions and then it is able to lead into teaching them the restoration and telling them more about us.  We have had a lot of fun with this and we are excited to continue using them.

     I don't know if I have mentioned this before but Sister Callister and I are able to go to different college campuses, University of St. Thomas, St. Catherine University, Macalester College, Hamline University, MSU, and St. Paul.  It was nice because even though the University of Minnesota was on spring break the other schools weren't.  We spent a lot of time at the University of St. Thomas.  It’s very interesting being on that campus because it is a Catholic school.  Not everyone is Catholic but a big majority are.  We were able to meet a lot of awesome people and again people from all over the world. Minnesota is such a great place. :)

     This week with Chloe things started off really well.  She was able to meet with a member of the Mission Presidency, President Kerr for her second interview.  He told her that she is definitely prepared to be baptized on March 22nd but then he suggested that maybe she should push it back so that her mom would be able to attend her baptism.  He talked about how in this gospel families are so important and he said that if her mom was able to attend her baptism it might soften her heart and help her be more open to her baptism.  Her mom hasn't been very supportive of Chloe's decision to be baptized.  We also felt like this would be a great idea and really could strengthen their relationship.  We were able to confirm with her on Wednesday that she wanted to push her date back to April 12th, but ever since Wednesday we haven't been able to talk to her very much.  I am really concerned for her.  We weren't able to meet with her once this week and she didn't come to church.  She is also going to Florida for a week on the 26th.  At this point we feel like she might just be really overwhelmed with everything.  Sister Callister and I are going to try and back off for a while and continue to let the members get in contact with her.  We feel like at this point she just needs to feel that love and support because she isn't getting that from her family.  Hopefully we will be able to get a hold of her this week and we will be able to continue to help her prepare for baptism.

     We weren't able to meet with Eva this week either.  We had some appointments set up but she was never there.  We were finally able to get a hold of Eva on Saturday.  She told us that she started a second job so her schedule has been all over the place.  We were so grateful that was all.  But then she told us that she talked to her dad again and that he is mad at her.  She then said, I don't want to be a member of the church.  I don't want to lose my dad.  Aggh.  How frustrating.  I feel so bad for both Eva and Chloe.  I can't imagine having to go through what they are going through right now.  Knowing what it is they need to do and having no support from their families.  That is hard.  This ward is so great because they are always doing everything they can to help others feel welcome.  Keep them both in your prayers.  They have some hard decisions to make.

     Yesterday in church we had a really good sacrament meeting.  They talked about the talk given by President Eyring called, "Where Is the Pavilion?" This is a really good talk that talks a lot about trusting in God and making sure that we are always close to God.  In this talk President Eyring says, "Our feelings of separation from God will diminish as we become more childlike before Him.  That is not easy in a world where the opinions of other human beings can have such an effect on our motives.  But it will help us recognize this truth: “God is close to us and aware of us and never hides from His faithful children."  There is the concept again of becoming like little children.  This is a topic that has always fascinated me.  I personally love children, I always have and hopefully when I am older I will be able to work with them, either as a mother or for my career.  I love everything about them.  I think it is so interesting that we are counseled to become more childlike.  In this work I feel like everyone is trying to grow up too fast and are loosing all the wonderful childlike attributes that we all had at one point.  Like it says in Mosiah 3:19 "becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." 

     As I read both of these it makes me think of trust and how important trust is in this life.  You need trust in everything that you do and it is something that we are all starting to lack.  It made me think back to a time when I was playing with my little cousin.  I would place him on the ledge of our kitchen hutch and I would tell him to jump.  At first he was really nervous.  I then looked him in the eyes and said "Jump.  I won't let you fall."  Then he did it.  Without hesitation, he jumped.  He trusted me.  Just like my little cousin I want to be better at trusting my Heavenly Father.  

He is there for us always.  He will never leave us.  All we need to do is take that leap of faith and "jump" He won't let us fall.

     Guess what?  Last year around this time, is when I opened my mission call and I found out that I was going to be serving in Minnesota, Minneapolis.  I opened my call on March 17, 2013.  Now here I am, actually serving in Minneapolis.  It is crazy to look back and see how much I have grown in the past year.  I am not the same girl who opened that white envelope a year ago.

I love you all so much!

Love Sister Kendra Curtis

Teaching people from all over the World!

Hello famliy and friends,

     Guess what?  Transfers are today.  I was super happy because I am not getting transferred!  I am really glad.  I was starting to get a little nervous.  You never know what the Lord has in store.  I truly have been praying so hard that I can just stay in Dinkytown.  I love it here!  I really hope I never leave.  The work here is so exciting and.. youthful! :)  I love the opportunity that I have to work with people around my same age.  I didn't feel this way at first but I really do now!

This week was a really fun week.

     To start off guess what we did on P-day?  We went to the zoo.  Our whole district went together and there is a lot of us in our district, 16 people!  That is a lot of missionaries at the zoo!  It was so much fun.  I think I have said this before but I love the Chinese Sisters so much!  We also just have a really fun group of people here.  I don't know if you all know this but I am not really a big fan of the zoo.  Especially if there aren't any kids with me but it was so much fun for all of us to go watch these animals do funny things.  The animals were crazy!  It might be because it is finally starting to warm up and they just couldn't contain themselves.

Looks like someone had lots of fun at the ZOO!

     Last week I mentioned how we were going to be meeting with Eva's father who is a pastor, Pastor Roberts if you will.  Just a quick little refresher: Eva was supposed to get baptized on the March 8th but she didn't end up doing it because her dad didn't approve.  We then were able to find out that her father was actually a pastor in North Minneapolis.  She asked Sister Callister and I if we would go talk to him, answer some of the question that he had and just help him understand.  I personally, was really scared.  I knew how important this could be and how this could change everything for Eva.  I was really nervous for all that we were going to do and say but at the same time I knew that Heavenly Father trusted us and all we had to do is show our faith and do everything that we could to make it be a good experience for everyone.     

     North Minneapolis is in actually in Shingle Creek, my first area.  So I knew just the people that we could call to have come teaching with us.  I mentioned before that we were going to have Arnel Johnson come with us but guess what?  That morning he had to cancel on us because something came up.  I was starting to freak out.  I knew that Sister Callister and I would not be able to talk to Pastor Roberts by ourselves.  I instantly started praying, I knew that we would need some serious help if we were going to get someone from Liberia to come along with us because they are always so busy.  We were finally able get a hold of some people.  
     We were able to bring a returned sister missionary from the YSA ward and then James Lombell from the Shingle Creek ward.  That right there was a complete miracle!  I turned to Sister Callister after I got of the phone with them in complete shock.  I knew right then that those were the exact people who needed to be there and because of our hard work and our faith God was able to provide.  Words can not describe that lesson.  We all met at Pastor Roberts church in North Minneapolis and then we all went down to his office.  It was such a spiritual experience.  James Lombell is amazing!  He was able to share his conversion story and bare testimony of why he joined the church.  Everyone who was able to come with us was perfect.  Brother Lombell was great because he is from Liberia as well and was really able to relate with Pastor Roberts and Emily was wonderful because she knows Eva and is one of the peers that she will be around.  
     We were able to give him a For Strength of Youth pamphlet.  We read the section about families.  The whole time he was smiling.  That was probably the most spiritual moment I have experienced on my mission so far and I know that it was all possible through our Heavenly Father.  This could have easily been a really bad experience it could have gotten really contentious and bashy but the spirit was there the whole time.  I could truly use the rest of my time sharing with you every second about this amazing experience but to sum it up, Eva's father ended up saying that as long as she is doing it not for the "church" but for the gospel then he would support her.  He is just a loving father who is concerned for his daughters spirituality.  As we fasted, prayed and studied, I know that we were able to bring the Holy Ghost into that church office and help him feel something different.  I am so grateful to be part of this work and to bring this peace to others.

     Last time I said I would talk more about Chloe.  She is amazing.  She is the most prepared person I have ever met.  She wants to be baptized so bad and she is doing absolutely everything she can to accomplish this.  Her friends were able to introduce her to the gospel and the missionaries and she loved it.  She loves the clarity and the understanding that she feels as she meets with the missionaries and reads from the Book of Mormon.  Her baptism was going to be on April 12th but she is so prepared and ready we were able to push her baptism up to the 22nd, this Saturday.  She is so excited she can hardly wait!  We told her that if she wanted to move the baptism up that we would have to see her almost everyday so that she would know everything that she needed to know.  She didn't even hesitate.  I am so grateful to know that there are people like her.  This week she has been getting a lot of hard things thrown her way but it hasn't stopped her.  Her mom isn’t very supportive, there is some drama going on with her ex boyfriend and yesterday she was sick throwing up but she was still able to make it to her baptismal interview and the Presidents Fireside.  I love her dedication and her strong desire to change and become a better person.  She is going to make an amazing member.

Our Steppers!

     This week we had a really awesome Zone Training.  Guess what we got?  A pedometer, or as I like to call them, steppers.  Our mission is a pilot mission.  Our whole mission has these steppers.  It has been said that if you exercise before a test you are able to preform better.  They are trying the same thing with missionaries, they want to see if we get more exercise if it will effect our work.  I am stoked about this.  We are supposed to reach 10,000 steps a day.  That is something that is really hard for other missionaries but here is this area, I was able to hit 14,000 the first day!  We walk so much on a college campus!  Heck ya!  Getting fit and saving souls!  This work is so much fun! :)

Zone Conference!

My USU Sisters!

Stake Conference!  It is so much fun to get to see everyone!

Sisters in the Gospel

Sister Simpson

 I  just wanted to leave you all with one last thought.  

     This week I just started thinking to myself how awesome it is that I am able to teach people from all over the world.  I thought to myself, hey I wonder if I could make a list.  And I did!  Are you ready to hear all the different people I have been able to meet from all over the world on my mission in the last 7 months!  Here we go...

     Liberia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, China, Germany, Colombia, Norway, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, Canada, Philippines, Vietnam, Italy, Samoa, Zambia, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Virgin Islands and even Jamaica!  And that's just off the top of my head. :)

I LOVE MINNESOTA! 

Who would have thought :)

I love you all so much! 

Thanks for all the support! :)

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

The whole District at the Zoo!

The Lord does His own work!

Hello Family and Friends!

     I just want to start off by saying... Good Luck Jake!  I am so excited for my baby brother and for this amazing journey that he is about to start!  I wish I could have seen his farewell talk yesterday.  I know he did a wonderful job.  At least I will get to hear his homecoming talk :)  Jamaica!  I can't believe he will be there two weeks from Wednesday!  I don't know if I have said this before, but time goes by so fast!  I am so excited to be serving the same time as Jake.  It is going to be really fun hearing his mission stories and hearing about all the amazing Jamaicans that he will be teaching.  Yaaaahhh Maaaaannn! :)

First run of the year!

     Weather update: when we got out of the car to come email guess what the temperature was?  49 degrees!  Oh my goodness!  I could hardly believe it I had to hit the dash board to make sure that everything was working okay!  And yes it was accurate.  We were cruising with the windows down and that 49 degrees wind blowing through our hair!  When moments like this happen you have to soak them in because you never know what is going to happen next!

      As for this wonderful mission life and this amazing work that I get to be part of... I better get started! Aggh time goes by to fast!  (Literally this is always the fastest 2 hours of my life!)  Can you believe that I hit my 7th month mark this past week?  This time next year I will be home in Utah!  Reminiscing on what once was.  (And probably reading the most recent letter from Jamaica!)

      I will start off by talking about Eva as you know we weren't able to get a hold of her last Sunday.  After our P-Day Sister Callister and I felt like maybe we should go stop by Eva's house.  It is pretty far away but we both had such a strong feeling.  We then got in the car and headed over to Eva's house.  Once we got there we knocked on her door.  Nothing.  We knocked again, rang the doorbell, but nothing.   Long story short, Sister Callister and I were very "patient" we waited outside her door for almost 30 minutes, then we texted her and we told her that we were going to leave in 5 minutes and if she wanted to talk to us she should come out.  Right as we were about to throw in the towel she opened the door.  We were then able to talk to her.  We sat on the stairs outside of her apartment and she expressed her concerns.  She told us that she talked to her dad and that he doesn't support her in this decision.  He has heard all kinds of rumors about the Mormons and now she has a lot of questions herself and she is starting to doubt her faith.  She also expressed that she can't go behind his back and get baptized because in the Liberian culture if you disobey your family or dishonor them then you are cut off for good.  She doesn't want to risk that.  I completely understand because I served around the Liberians for 3 months and I know how important this is.  I also know that he just loves his daughter and he wants to keep her safe.  The saddest part is how this has affected Eva.  She used to be so happy.  She had this wonderful light about her and you could see the difference that the gospel had made in her life and now she is just very confused and she doesn't know where to turn.  We then were able to ask her what she thought when she came to church and how she felt inside.  She told us that she always feels good and she loves the feelings that she gets when she comes to church.  We then read Moroni 7:13:    

"But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God." 

      Just like this scripture says if it invites you to do good it is of God.  We then told Eva to continue to read the scriptures and to say her prayers.  That as she does this she will be able to continue to progress and continue to strengthen her faith.  That is what we mostly focused on this week with her, strengthening her faith.

     Eva gave us her father’s number so Sister Callister and I could go talk to him and answer any questions that he may have and help him understand why this church is so important to Eva and how this will make her happy.  That next day I went to go call her father to set up a time for us to meet with him and.... wait for it.... He is a PASTOR!  What the heck?  Why weren't we told this before?  For some reason Eva didn't feel like this was an important detail to mention.  So on Tuesday (tomorrow) Sister Callister and I are going to be visiting with a pastor to talk to him about how his daughter wants to be baptized into the true church.  Pray for us!  One thing that is really neat about this, is the church that he is over is located in North Minneapolis, which is in the Shingle Creek area.

     This last week I was able to call some of the Liberians in that ward to come teaching with us.  I was able to get a hold of a man named Arnell Johnson.  He was one of mine and Sister Ballif's favorite people to go teaching with.  He is absolutely amazing!  He was baptized in Liberia and he was able to serve a mission in Africa.  He is the most humble man, Sister Ballif and I swear that one day he is going to be a General Authority.  He is going to be coming with us tomorrow and hopefully another Liberian as well, it depends if he works or not.  I think it is very interesting that Sister Callister and I happen to be in this situation and I know the exact people to come along with us. 

     My zone leader said to me as we were telling him our plans, "Sister Curtis, if you don't know why you are here yet, this could very well be it."  

     Whoa.  I never thought of it like that.  I truly have been sent to this area, at this time, for a reason.  I hope that I will be able to do all that I can, this is a really scary situation but I know that with the help of the Lord, we can do anything.  One of my favorite mission scriptures is Alma 26:12 

      "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."

     I know this scripture is true!  I have seen it many times on my mission and this is the scripture that keeps me going when times get hard.  The Lord can do His own work!

     Ashley has been doing good.  We were able to meet with her twice this week.  We talked about the Plan of Salvation and a different time we talked about the temple she said one thing which I loved so much.  Her face lit up and she shared how she loves that the temple is in her reach.  It is something that she can go to someday! :)  I loved that.  Everything we are asked to do, we can with the help of God!

     

    This week has been great!  Our most progressing investigator is Chloe.  She was a pass off from the Blaine Elders.  She is completely ready to be baptized. She has a date set for April 12th and she is counting down the days.  She was able to come to a baptism with one of her friends who is a member and she loved it.  She said that as she was there everything just made sense.  Now she is reading the Book of Mormon everyday and she loves it because it just makes sense!  She was able to come to church yesterday and she loved it.  She has already been invited to some of the ward activities and she has already made some great connections with others.  We are excited to help her learn more this week and we know that the Lord prepares his children and he has trusted us with these amazing people.  Now we just have to do our part.  I will talk more about her next week!

Yan's baptism!

     This week the Chinese Sisters had a baptism for a girl named Yan.  Honestly this was one of the best baptisms that I have been to.  The spirit was so strong throughout the whole service.  There was a great talk about baptism and the Holy Ghost.  Then Yan was baptized.  She was so excited and she looked so happy.  After her baptism Sister Pao and Sister Huang taught the restoration.  I can honestly say that I don't think I have every cried or teared up from hearing the restoration but hearing both of them I did.  The spirit was so strong!  As I listened to Sister Pao and Sister Huang I knew in that very moment that what I am sharing with people each and everyday is true!  I realized just how amazing this message is and how exciting it is that I get to share it. 

     

     Then they bore their testimonies in Chinese and WOW!  Words can not describe the feeling in that room.  After they finished Yan came out and was able to bear her testimony.  What a sweet and powerful moment.  She told us how she has been investigating the church for 5 months and now she is no longer a visitor surrounded by friendly faces but now she is a member of a family surrounded by her brothers and sisters.  That is one thing that I love so much about this church, we really are just a big family!  No matter where in the world you go it is all the same.  This is a family of 15 million people! (And more to come!)  The other thing I love about this work is the Chinese people.  It is just so neat to see how both Sister Pao and Sister Huang were called to Minnesota Minneapolis, English speaking and now here they are in Dinkytown, where they are able to meet all these amazing college students from CHINA!  Sister Pao and Huang are able to use their Chinese and they are able to help these amazing children of God recognize the truth that they have never had the opportunity to hear in China!  The Lord does His own work!  It doesn't stop anything even though we aren't able to go into China yet.  Because they are being brought to us!  MINNESOTA!  Where we truly are able to teach people from all over the world!  I truly am so spoiled to be here.  I don't know why I have been so blessed but I know that I am going to use every second of it!  I have been called here for a reason and I am going to make sure that I fulfill my purpose as a representative of Jesus Christ.

Natalie and Rachel

Sister Haung and Sister Pao

Dang I am out of time!

I'm serious time goes 

by to fast!

I love you!

Sister Curtis 

Mexican Village for Lunch!

"I asked God for an Angel, He sent me two!"

To my Dearest Family and Friends,

     This week was another great week! Too much happened!  I never have time to share it all.

Quick short random things:

     So Sister Callister and I went to Chipotle this week.... It is okay.  It is no Cafe Rio but hey, it’s the closest I can get to that here in the land of Minnesota.

The Crazy Bus!

     This week late at night when we were walking on the "main" street, this guy stopped us and asked Sister Callister and I if we wanted to get in this "Free Bus" and then he would take us to where ever we wanted... Ummm no thank you!  Haha we later found this bus parked near one of the members houses and we thought it was pretty funny.

U of M Gear!

     Sister Callister and I finally got University of Minnesota shirts and they were on sale! Only $8.50!  Heck yeah!  I miss campus sales.  Also I still bleed BLUE! (Go Aggies!)

I LOVE DINKYTOWN!

Okay now serious mission stuff:

     We were able to go to the temple this week and I was so happy.  I haven't been to the temple at all this year.  Like always it was a wonderful experience.  It was really neat because while I was at the temple I was able to see three different people from my previous ward.  It is really fun to look back on all the amazing people that I have met in the last 7 months and how it has truly changed my life.  I was also able to see the Relief Society President from the Hudson ward.  I asked her how everything was going and how Sister Pead was doing.  She said that everything was going really well.  Then she told me that last week Delores L. went to the temple for the first time and she got her Patriarchal Blessing!  How exciting!  I couldn't believe it.  It is truly the best feeling to know that these recent converts are continuing to change their lives and continuing to progress.  I love the amazing people that I am able to serve here in Minnesota!  After hearing that, my day was completely made.  The temple was the icing on the cake.  I am so blessed to be so close to a temple that I am able to go to.  Especially on my mission. :)

Temple Day! Finally!

Karem and Sister Curtis

     Earlier this week we were able to have a lesson with Eva.  She is so wonderful.  She is such a sweetheart and she is truly so ready to be baptized.  We wanted to watch the long version of the restoration with her so she could better understand the story of Joseph Smith.  We also brought Karem with us.  She is so awesome she was baptized almost 3 months ago and she is amazing!  She has such a great testimony and it means so much hearing it from someone other then the missionaries.  We watched half of it with her then we told her to watch the rest on her own.  She is so wonderful. 
     A couple days later Eva was supposed to come to the institute building so she could have her baptismal interview.  We were excited for her to come and to meet with our district leader.  We were trying to get her a ride but then all the sudden we got a text from her that said, "I don't think I am ready for the interview or to be baptized.  I got a lot going on right now.  Sorry about that." 

     What?  We were in complete shock.  We did not see that coming and we asked her what was wrong and we tried calling her but she didn't answer.  Sister Callister and I both felt like maybe we should go stop by her house and see if everything was okay.

      Her house is about 30 minutes away and it ended taking us even longer because of traffic but for some reason we felt like we should go there.  When we got to her apartment we noticed that all of the lights were off but we still went and tried.  We knocked on the door but no one answered.  We then decided that we would at least leave her a note.  We went and sat down on the stairs next to her door and I started writing while Sister Callister pulled out her scriptures to find a scripture verse.  

     All of the sudden a lady started walking up the other flight of stairs, she looked at us and said, "Is that the bible you are reading?" Sister Callister and I looked at each other and said yes.  Then she ran over and squeezed right in between us and said, "Can I read with you?" 

     We said sure.  We read her a couple verses then we told her who we were and what it is that we do.  We then taught her the restoration and it was so powerful.  Rita is absolutely amazing.  She then looked at us and said, "This morning I woke up and I asked God for an angel and He sent me two!" 

     I love this work that we do.  What a blessing to share these sweet and simple truths with others.  It really does change their lives!  We were able to get Rita's information and now the Sisters in that area have an appointment set up next week so they can go share more with her.  It truly is amazing to see how the Lord does his work.  If Sister Callister and I didn't follow that prompting to drive and see Eva, we would have never met this amazing woman who is clearly prepared for the restored gospel.  But still... No sign of Eva.

Sister Callister, Rose,
Sister Curtis and Ashley

     The next day we were able to go to a baptism in West St. Paul for a girl named Jenna.  She has been meeting with the missionaries in that area for a couple months and she is now getting ready to come to the YSA ward.  We were able to go with a couple people from our ward and also Rose and Ashley.  They both really enjoyed the baptism and they both mentioned how happy she looked as she came out of the water.  It is always such a great experience when you are able to take an investigator to a baptismal service.  After the baptism we were able to have a lesson with both Rose and Ashely.  They had a lot of great questions about the baptism and then Ashley had some questions about the For Strength of Youth pamphlet that we had left with her last time.  We then ended up going over that.  We let them pick some of the topics and then we helped then understand the different standards and why we are given these standards.  It turned into a really good lesson.  We talked about many different things.  One of those things was keeping the Sabbath Day holy. 

Ward Mission Leader, Karem, Sister Curtis,
Talisse (RS Pres)  and Sister Callister

     Now this is a selfish Sister Curtis moment.  So later that night we were planning on going to the Mormon Chorale with both Rose and Ashley.  The Mormon Chorale is a really good singing group that both Sister Callister and I were really excited to see but the only way that we could go is if we had an investigator to bring.  So we were excited because we were going to have two and we knew that they would both love it.  But then we got a call from both Rose and Ashley telling us that they weren't going to be able to come to the concert with us because they had a lot of homework to do in order to keep the Sabbath Day Holy...... What?  How funny is that.  Sister Callister and I were speechless.  It wasn't like we could tell them that just this once it would be okay.  So we just had to act like we were proud (which we were) and let them do their homework.  That meant no concert for us.  We were secretly pretty bummed.

     But because we had extra time we decided that we would try and stop by Eva’s one last time.  We drove all the way there again and when we got there this time we noticed that her lights were on.  We knocked on her door and she opened the door, looked at us and then buried her face in her hands.  She kept saying I am so sorry about yesterday.  I am so sorry.  She then invited us in and we went and sat on her couch.  We just asked her if everything was okay.  She then told us that she talked to her dad and he told her that he didn't want her to get baptized and if she did that he wouldn't talk to her anymore.  She then explained even more, it was so sad to watch how overwhelmed she was because of it.  She knows that this is true and she is frustrated because her dad doesn't see it and he won't listen to her and what she thinks.  He also asked her a lot of hard questions and she is now starting to doubt her faith.  It was truly heartbreaking to watch.  We asked her if we could kneel down right then and say a prayer with her.  She said the prayer and it was one of the sweetest most sincere prayers I have ever heard.  She expressed her confusion and she shared with her Heavenly Father that she wants to know for herself, for sure if this is that path that He wants for her.  It breaks my heart because I know that she is being tested right now.  Just like in any big moment in our life, Satan tries to stop us.  When we start to progress forward, he does everything that he can to drag us back down.  All we can really do is pray for her.  That's exactly what we decided to do.  We asked Eva if she remembered what fasting was.  She said yes.  Then we told her that we would fast with her on Sunday.  We then asked her what exactly she would like us to fast for.  She said she wants understanding and clarity.  We left with a prayer and a bunch of hugs.  I love that girl so much and I know that this is going to be one of the hardest and most important decisions that she is going to make in her life.

     We were sad yesterday because we weren't able to hear back from Eva. We are nervous that she talked to her dad again.  All we can really do at this point is keep her in our prayers.

     This experience made me realize how grateful I am for my family.  I am so blessed to have such a supportive family who loves me and supports me so much in everything that I do.  Especially after meeting so many amazing people on my mission and seeing the opposition that they get from their families it makes we look back and wonder why I have been so blessed and it makes me want to not take them for granted.  So thank you!  Not only my immediate family, but also my extended family.  You have all played such a huge role in my life and I will forever be grateful for each of you and the wonderful examples that you have been to me.

     I love you all!  
Challenge for this week. 

Don't under use that phrase. 
"I LOVE YOU!"

Love, Sister Kendra Curtis

Check out the new bike vest we have to wear!  Are you jealous?  

 I don't know about you but safety green is my color!  It makes my eyes POP!