Hermana King returns with honor!

Hermana King came home on Wed. April 28.  We were expecting her in the afternoon, but after some missed flights and connection issues, she finally made it to the SLC airport in the late evening!  

 

The Best 18 months!

 Friends! Family! 

Well there are a few highlights from this week:)

- Gregoire and Hilda! This last week we invited them to be baptized and they wanted to pray for a date as a couple!! Gregoire leaned over to Hilda and grabber her hand and said "we're going to pray different tonight, okay? We're going to do exactly what the Sisters are saying and we're going to kneel down" Hilda just looked at him and smiled, showed him her Book of Mormon and said "And we're going to do a lot more studying of the Book"! They are the sweetest and saying goodbye was definitely a rough one. They have made such an impact on my life and I just love them! I am so proud of them!

- CODY!! He called us saying he was ready to come to church because he had received oh so many blessings this week and everything we taught him last week about faith and prayer finally clicked! He was just so grateful and excited to progress more! 

- This week was full of bittersweet goodbyes but I've been blessed with some great people that make saying goodbye really rough!

I don't have too much time BUT this is my last weekly email and I wanted to leave you with a little thought:) 

My brain works so hard as a missionary. Something that has been taking up my brain squares is

being meek without being weak

How do we master (as the Savior) feeling peaceful as the whole world around us is in chaos? I think of the people of Ammon after they had buried their swords, kneeling in prayer and personal peace as the brethren around them were slain. How do we submit to Gods will and be happy about it? Not feeling contentious and dragging our feet. John 14:27 "Peace says, "I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” and the artist then gives his thoughts on the phrase MY PEACE I read a phenomenal talk this week by president nelson back in the day called "The Canker of Contention" where president Nelson talks about this same concept of the  S A V I O R S  peace. He says that the peace that comes from the savior is not political but that it is personal. And it is driven away easily through contention. He shares a few thoughts on the roots of contention and where it comes from and tells us how to overcome it. I think one of the things I took away most was leaving room for misunderstanding. If we were all perfect it would be easy to have wOrLD pEaCe but we are all very imperfect. We all are misunderstood. We all misunderstand. How easy is it to become angry at someone instantaneously because they dont completely understand what you are trying to say! Having the patience to communicate through the misunderstanding is where the peace of the savior comes in :))

I know that we are children of a loving Heavenly Father. I have never seen the love of God like I have since being on a mission. I can't explain the gratitude I have for the last 18 months and everything that happened. God knows us PERFECTLY and He loves us PERFECTLY. Each of you matter to Him. Never forget that you can do hard things because you've done hard things. Christ has done EVERY HARD THING for us. You are loved!

I love you all SO MUCH. I love my Savior so much. 

I will see you all in just a few days :))

Love,

Hermana King:) 

Such a good week:)

 Hi everyone!!

Today has just been the craziest but I want to make sure I got to send a weekly! Today we spent the day in the emergency room with an Hermana that had a seizure a few hours ago in the car while we were with her! She is doing a lot better now, but it has just been a nonstop miracle filled day!

There was one miracle from this week that I wanted to share and it happened yesterday. We had another lesson this past week with Hilda and Gregoire and it went so well! Gregoire reallllyyyy wanted to go to church but Hilda would be working so we called a few members and got him a ride! He is about 65 and walked in with a hat that said "Jesus is my BOSS". He walked in with the biggest smile and our members welcomed him so well! He told a few different members all about Joseph Smith and what he had learned. It was awesome:) Our bishop went up to him after the meeting and Gregoire told him that he would be back every week and that he really wanted Hilda to experience it too!

This week has been one to remember and I'm excited for what's to come. You guys, I know that the church is true. I know that the gospel I get to share everyday is the truest thing. I love everyday I get to be a missionary and I love each of you!!

Love you all oh so much:) 

Hermana King!

The Week of All Weeks!

 What. A. Week. 

I can't believe time goes this F A S T! Here's just a few things that happened!

- The whole mission got vaccinated! The whole mission came to the mission office within 24 hours. It was N U T S! My arm was so so sore the day after and Hermana Harding and I both had some crazy side effects! 

- We had the best meeting for social media with Brother Rodriguez from the mission department and I asked about some tips for the Spanish demographic side of things! He was so excited when we asked about it because he works with all of the Spanish and Portuguese countries! He invited us to join the AREA MEETINGS for all of the Spanish countries! He told me that he had met with my mission President, President Strong from Peru!!! Ahhh!! So cool and so many lil miracles!!!

- Hermana Harding and I spoke at church this week all about the ward mission plan! I think my favorite part was one of our returning members made friends with a recent convert and then they invited one of the friends of the Elders to sit with them haha! It was the best to see!! The gospel is a gospel of love and acceptance. It really is the coolest thing! 

- The Cooks (the best senior couple ever) finished their mission yesterday! They didn't say bye without having a "tailgate party" the night before! They have shown so much christlike love not only to us missionaries but to our friends and just everyone. They are the BEST.

- We have the greatest and sweetest members in our ward! The New Tampa ward is a ward that you pray for coming on your mission! Our ward mission leader found out we didn't have dinner on Saturday just because it was all so crazy and he zoomed over and got us and the Elders some food!

FrIeNd UpDaTe

- so we have some super awesome friends named Hilda and her husband's name is Greguire and they are SO GREAT. We read some of the Book of Mormon with them and Hilda was explaining everything to Greguire! They are grasping on to every part of the gospel and it's incredible! They are from Dominica! Not the Dominican Republic, but Dominica! I had never heard of it! The growing testimonies of friends that are just hearing of the gospel is one of the best testimony builders for me. Pray for Hilda and Greguire that they can find the documents they need to change jobs :) 

- Being in a new area, we are working on finding people to teach and finding people that are really ready for the gospel. We've seen so many miracles as we have been bolder and it's incredible to see how willing God is!

- We have another friend named Cody and we are working with him right now to trust himself and his knowledge that he has about the gospel. He has been meeting with missionaries for YEARS. He is incredible and just needs to trust in himself a little more! He has so much faith and God loved him so so much, he just needs to trust that too:) 

I wanted to share a quick quote for my thought today from Elder Holland :)

"the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength."

You guys. God loves us. Each of us. Please trust Him. He is a God of oh so many opportunities and we never have to quit or be done because we can always start again. We are all too hard on ourselves but just like Elder Holland says, never forget what what first great truth of all time is:) God is 100% ALL IN to loving us. We deserve to accept ourselves as well!

I want to invite each of you to write down 3 of your biggest strengths this week. You can write more if you want ;) But focus on the good this week, especially the good about/in yourself! 

YOU ARE AMAZING.

All my love:)

Hermana King!! 

Pics!

- update on our house!

- the best Martinez kiddos!

- seeing some of my favorite hermanas

- vaccinated! 

- our tail gate party with the Cooks! 

- the vaccine got us pretty hard...

- us in the rain! It got up to 50 mph vertical rain! AH! 

- yummiest food from the Cooks on Sunday! 

- teaching Sister Hollingsworth how to take selfies hahaha! 

HOPPIN WEEK

 Happy post conference everyone! Wasn't conference this past week just the best? The Sunday morning session was oh so cool with all of the international speakers! So. Awesome. Skip down to the end to read my (tried to sum up everything about conference) thought for the week!! I've officially been out on the mission for 17 months and everyday just keeps getting better and better!! 

Highlights:

- well I'll start this highlight reel off on a HIGH note! We got an email allowing us to GO INTO HOUSES!! We had a member meal 15 minutes after we got the email and so we texted the member and told them and we are inside!! It was so weird walking into a HOME. I haven't done the 10 months I've been here in Florida! I felt so bad the first few houses we walked into...we were SO AWKWARD bevause we didn't have the "sorry!! We wish we could come in!" talk haha!! All is well, the gospel is still true! 

- we made a lot for goals this week and we have completely flipped our areabook! When we first got to the area there were friends in there that hadn't been taught in MONTHS. It has taken 3 weeks to start clearing it out! And now all of the friends that are in our teaching pool are friends that we've found that we feel like now is there time for the gospel! We found 5 new friends this week and they are all so sweet and come from some hard backgrounds! It always surprised me how strong God's children are. No, we can't always choose our circumstances BUT we CAN always choose God. 

- My favorite two days of the year happen TWICE every year. How lucky are we that general conference is a semi annual thing!! So cool!! We got to watch general conference with members! Saturday, we watched it by ourselves in our apartment! Sunday morning we watched with rhe CUTEST returning member and Sunday afternoon we watched with the sweetest family, the Laylands! We are so loved by the members here. The ward that we are serving in is one of the strongest wards I've ever been a part of! I think a miracle that I want to share is a continued miracle from last week. Little recap! We met a returning member and she walked into the church building after a prompting to come back after 10+ years and we had a feeling to go by the doors and she came walking in right after. We gave her a church tour and everything! She was crying the whole time. We invited her to watch conference and she invited us over! We watched conference and in the middle of the morning session it started buffering. She looked at us and just started crying. She looked at us and said, "Thank you Sisters. I know you didn't baptize me but you sure brought me back." She said every conference talk was just for her and she hadn't watched it in YEARS. She said it's the home she's been missing for so long. It definitely was a "this is what it's all about" moment! 

- for all of you that remember when our apartment got ran into...well it's getting fixed!!! Haha! Only 4 months later haha! They started working on it this week and it's crazy cool! They had do go in from the outside in and tear it all up and rebuild everything! We've been able to meet the workers and they are awesome!!!!

This week was oh so good!! I have 3 more weeks on my mission - it's been the most eye opening, miracle filled 17 months and I am so grateful for every opportunity I have to share the gospel!!

This week was so full of miracles! There's nothing like the prophets voice! We were so blessed this week in the strangest ways! 

Some things that I learned: 

- everything is all in the Lords timing 

- Elder Vern P. Stanfill of the seventy came to our mission for a mission tour and spoke in our zone conferences. He talked with the leaders of the mission about living up to our privilege. Sometimes the things we do in life seem daunting. The challenges we take on, the mountains we have to climb, and sometimes the unforeseeable future of current situations. But God has placed each of us exactly where we are for a reason. We are there to make some kind of impact and provide some kind of guidance. Whether it be to ourselves or someone else! Elder Stanfill encouraged us to remember the assignment to which we are called and remember our privilege to be there! We can lift people from where we stand. In conference Elder Teixeira talked about remembering our divine heritage, that we are CHILDREN OF GOD. There is so much strength, opportunity and growth behind that phrase. President Nelson gave the most beautiful words about faith. What better way to grow in faith than to remember from where our strength and progress stems! "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me". He strengthens us, he yearns to help us. "Remember that every good gift cometh of Christ.. and remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever". He has come to his children before, he has lead his children before. He will lead you, he will come to you :) 

I want to challenge each of you to finish this sentence, "Because of Him..." and put that paper you write it on somewhere where you see it D A I L Y. You are all loved and you matter and because of Him we can find our potential!! 

LOVE YOU ALL 

Hermana King :) 

Funnest fact - Florida driving tests are taken in a parking lot haha!