Last quarter :)

 I feel like I say this every month...but I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FEBRUARY! Which means the SUPERBOWL is this Sunday! It's definitely the talk of the town around here!! 

Here's a little rundown!

- It is also transfer week this week and we've got some news! Sister Moli will be leaving () and headed to another zone to be a Sister Training Leader! I am so extremely excited for her!! She'll be amazing but I am SO SAD to have to say goodbye!!! I've only been in social media for a transfer and now I'm training someone! CRAZY.

- I am getting a new companion, her name is Hermana Harding!! We were in the SAME WARD when we were younger and so it'll be fun to be with my childhood best friend for the next little bit!! 

- This week starts my second to last transfer.. I go home next transfer.. I am not a fan. I am trying to make time slow down! I am loving every minute of my mission and never want it to end!

- WE MET A FRIEND. Okay so with Covid restrictions here we are not allowed to contact anyone.. but President Hollingsworth said that if we are talked to first or we don't try to go up and immediately tell them we're from a church (they have to ask) BUT we spent a lot of time on USF campus this week filming more advertisements! This girl walked by with a USF shirt on and I turned around and told her I liked it and sparked a conversation! 15 minutes later she was asking us all sorts of questions! We invited her to the bonfire activity the YSA was having! Her name is Taylor and she had been on campus only 2 weeks! She is super sweet! Please pray for her!

- We had some more Zone exchanges all about social media and those went well:)

- We also got a NEW CAR. We got a 2021 Chevy Equinox hahah when we got the call from the Vehicle Coordinators I just started laughing. Missionaries have it so nice. I feel so so SO blessed!!

This week was oh so good! I am so grateful for the sweetest companion and everything she's taught me this past transfer! I am grateful for all of the experiences God has given me since I have been here in Florida! 

OKAY. Church this was amazing and the one speaker spoke ALL about football! There are 2 quotes that I wanted to share with you all:)

"If you play scared, you're going to get hurt."

"We've been selected for God's special teams."

He made the connection between us as the special team and life as the game. What starts

the game off is the kickoff. Players line up and run at 100% to get to the other side. That's us right now. If we run scared we won't get anywhere and we're going to find ourselves hurt, tired and scared. When we take on life with everything we have and when we don't play scared, we can rely on our Heavenly coaches to tell us which play to run and where we need to go. 

I KNOW that this church is true. I know that we each have a special assignment from our Heavenly Father. When we put Him in the center of our lives we'll have a winning season;) we have the Bible and the Book of Mormon alongside our living Prophet as "playbooks" that God has given to us. I invite each of you to read from one of the playbooks and write down what you learn and SHARE with someone else:)

I LOVE YOU ALL. I hope this week is one to remember!

All my love:)

Hermana King

Pics:)

- last preparation day with Sister Thurgood!

- Tampa is BEAUTIFUL 

- The crew

- Got to see Hermana Riggs and it made my WHOLE DAY

- All of the sisters that work in the office

- saying bye to Sister Thurgood!

- ad filming crew

- sister moli's 9 months!!!

- the Cooks make us dinner every Sunday:)

- we got to get groceries with some of the funnest sisters! 

"When is the soonest we can implement this?" BLESSINGS.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! HAPPY 2021!! Holy cow that's crazy! I can't believe I was in Perú last year for New Years. Crazy what a year can do, right?

Well this week was a big one for social media of the Florida Tampa Mission! I won't take too much time for this but I'll share a few highlights:)

-we met with Tom Larsen (top dawg at the social media department) and we walked him through our new process that we were wanting to roll out in the mission and he LOVED IT. We got to pick his brain and it was so crazy to hear about how they receive revelation. Social media really is a tool that the Lord needs us to use to hasten His work.

-we got to meet with our area leader, Lee Donaldson! We asked him about how we can take best practices from other missions to put into our plan here in the FTM!

-we met with several missions from ALL over the country getting stats and picking their brains about using their personal profiles to find people!

-that brings us to last Saturday when we had our BIG presentation with President Hollingsworth to present to him our idea we had spent over a week working on. After the 45 minutes were over, he looked at us with the biggest smile and asked "when is the soonest we could implement this? All of  it." WE WERE SHOCKED. Last time there was a lot of questions and this time around there were absolutely none. 

-starting this week, we are able to train missionaries on using their personal profiles to find, teach and baptize! They will be able to join groups, use zip codes to find people in their areas and more. This has taken 9 months to get approved by our mission president and we are so grateful for this next chance to use a new tool to hasten the Lords work!!

-another super great thing happened this week was that we started running a different type of ad that basically replicates a media referral from the church and so as a social media council, we got to act as the referral center for our mission! So many referrals were coming in and we got to input all the information and pass these people on!!

It's been different not teaching people or finding people for my own companionship to teach but there's something that is so special about finding people and sending them to specific companionships that we know will be the best for these people.

Each calling that we are given in life brings different responsibilities BUT it also brings so many different kinds of blessings. Coming on my mission I thought I was going to be finding people, teaching people and helping them enter in to the waters of baptism. Right now, my calling is to really help others bring people unto Christ. It has been the most humbling experience I have had on my mission so far. 

I wanted to share a quote with you all from Sister Wixom.

"Because you are His child, He knows who you can become. He knows your fears and your dreams. He relishes your potential. He waits for you to come to Him in prayer. Because you are His child, you not only need Him, but He also needs you."

Sometimes I lose sight of my identity, of who I am or even who I am becoming. Those times happen and I am sure we all feel like it sometimes, but then because of those times we are able to feel and see a change in ourselves when we kneel and ask for help from our Heavenly Father. Our Heavenly Father loves us. He really does. We are His children. As the new year starts it is the PERFECT time to start this year with the knowledge of WHO we are. And that is loved children of a loving Heavenly Father.

I pray for you each day! I love you all so much!

Hermana King:) 

-filming for an advertisement with the funnest sisters!

-we ran into our district leader and his companion TWICE this week haha!

-our car got heart attacked by the sweetest sisters 

-we celebrated Seour Moulton's 2 months today!

-we danced to the new youth album this morning when we realized it came out haha!! 

-what we do all day haha

6, 5, 4, 3, 2......1! PERU!

Hi guys!! This pday marks the LAST pday in Mexico! I head to Peru early early in the morning on Monday the 16th! We leave the CCM at 4am! 

This week was one of the best weeks yet! 

Here's the rundown:

December 4th: 

Pday woot! We went to the temple and it was the absolute best! Everything is in Spanish and it was crazy how much I could understand! We got back after 5 so we went straight to our meeting for the new missionaries!

December 5th:

MONTH MARK!! I cannot believe I'm been living mission life for a month. I have loved it so much! Hermana Miles and I spent all of our comp study time (we have it everyday) helping another district who was having problems with some sisters. We taught Karla and our new interested person Alejondra! We talked about families and challenged them to watch the new Nativity video and we talked about Christ's earthly family! It was good to tie those in together! At dinner we played the Chubby bunny challenge with grapes. Guys. The grapes are HUGE here so that was so funny haha! 

December 6th:

We taught Oswaldo about eternal families! I told you I loved talking about families...haha! I am getting to the point where I really don't have a problem understanding my teachers anymore which is a miracle! We had a workshop after lunch and it was actually the best one we've ever had! We talked about working through members! We play hacky sack during class which was a BLAST! Haha! It hit me today that I'm leaving soon and I am just so grateful for the people I've met. We all come from different places, families, stories,  but we are all representatives of Christ and so we all have the most important thing in common. 

December 7th: 

We practiced teaching the Plan of Salvation in 3 minutes! It was tough!! Spanish is hard enough but FAST SPANISH is another level of hard haha! We used our study time again to talk with some hermanas that were having problems with each other. We taught Karla for the LAST TIME! (our teacher is leaving. Yes, another one. haha) We taught her the Plan of Salvation. It was a really good learning situation hahaha if you get what I'm putting down..haha! All of my friends here are into Anime so they've been teaching me stuff! We played sand volleyball which is always a highlight! My teacher, Hermana Meza ate dinner with us tonight because it was her last day and she dropped her PHONE in my mashed potatoes haha! That was a mess to clean up but a good laugh nonetheless! Ha! 

December 8th: 

Yay for SUNDAYS!!!! We had our zone meeting with the STL's  and district leaders and that went well! We get to pick the hymns we sing and who plays the piano and leads.Thank goodness there are good people like Elder Hamblin and Homestead that were fine with me volunteering them haha! I gave the closing prayer so WOOT! Next Sunday is our last Sunday and I'm so sad! District council went great. We made an announcement about Light the World and focusing on service! We did Come Follow Me which was so fun. We had 30 extra minutes so we all went around and shared our "James 1:5" scripture! So cool to hear scriptures that have helped people! We had nap time woot! Then we had a video devo about personal revelation! We went and practiced our song that we are singing next week in Sacrament meeting! We're singing a mix of Getsemani and Peace in Christ. Elder Hamblin and Homestead mashed it up and it was amazing! We're singing with both districts! It sounds so good! I'm excited! We watched the Christmas devo! Wasn't it so good?! I saw Hermana (Louise) Wall! It was so fun to see people I know!! 

December 9th:

We taught a lesson to some other missionaries in district 1B about the La Ley De Castidad which is the law of chastity! It was nerve racking and we were given fake stories of people. We were taught the Word of Wisdom and we acted as a guy with a bad drinking problem that wanted to stop but couldn't. After that we had the best lesson about the BOM! We practiced the song for Sunday again! I'm excited for it! We got our immunizations checked one last time before we LEAVE! We did a service project this day and we cleaned up the garden by the trees but Hermana Miles is afraid of spiders so she held the bag and I went to town. My arms got wrecked with spider bites and scratches! BUT #service haha! I saw our old teacher Hermano Castillo today and it was the best!! We had a BOM share today about stories that represent the best missionary example. We had the best night class tonight. We got to teach with other people and we taught about forever families. We watched a Mormon Message about this mom who lost her little boy when he was really young. Then our teacher paused the video and said we had 5 minutes to prepare a 20 minute lesson! It was so cool. The spirit is THE COOLEST!! 

December 10th:

Okay this day was amazing. We found out our flight plans! It was hard because it means we're LEAVING! I'm so sad but so excited! We've built a little family in this home away home and so saying goodbye will be SO TOUGH!! We got to help the new missionaries come in saying bye to their families and we got to help bring their stuff in and take them to their houses! It was the coolest experience to see that. Families and missions are so good!! We played basketball for gym time which was fun! We got Hermana Miles a flute and so we went in and practiced for awhile today! It was fun to see her so happy! We taught my favorite lesson we have ever taught to our new interested person Alejondra!! We taught her about Christ which is a lesson we have taught so many times, the spirit just spoke differently today! AH! It was amazing!! At dinner tonight one of our elders wanted to break the pizza eating record...15 pieces of pizza...our Elder got to 13 and called it a day! Ha! We had choir practice and then we watched a SURPRISE broadcast from Provo! President Ballard and President Oaks spoke! It was so good!!! After the devo we got home and decided to have a sleepover hahaha! Living this last week up! We moved our mattresses in one room and had a party! We actually went to bed earlier than usual haha! 

December 11:

TODAY! Today is a grand day. We got up and ate and now we are emailing!! See. Best. Day. Ever.

alright guys! This week's challenge is to find your "James 1:5" scripture and share it! This week is all about service and our testimonies is one of the best gifts or acts of service we can give!! 

I love you all so much!! Next time I email will be in PERU with some fun updates!! I love you all! I feel your prayers and thoughts. I LOVE YOU!!

Love,

Hermana King:)

Hermana Louise Wall

Wait. How many more?!

GUYS hello!! Happy happy Wednesday and HAPPY DECEMBER!! This pday marks only ONE more until PERU!! We are in our final stretch here in Mexico and wow I don't know how to feel! They call the last two weeks "sprinting"! I can't believe the next chapter of my mission will be starting in just a few short weeks! ALSO! Happy (late) Thanksgiving to you all! I hope it was the best and that there was snow!! 

So much happened this week! Here's a rundown:

Wednesday the 27th:

We played frisbee! Who know frisbee could be so fun haha! The things only the MTC would teach you! This night me and my comp as well as the zone leaders went and observed a white dot meeting which is the new missionary meeting! It lasts 3 hours..so we went and observed an all Spanish meeting to learn how to make things more fun haha! We had an STL meeting as well and we learned that our branch was going to be the FIRST group of carolers so that was nerve racking haha! We started a new game in class called "guess the latino" haha! We pick a person in class at the beginning of class and then we all talk Spanish to try to fool our teacher! Our teacher guesses who we picked at the end and we do it everyday and keep a tally for the week!

Thursday the 28th:

THANKSGIVING! I loved having Thanksgiving in Mexico. It was actually so great! Everyone will tell you something different about how they feel about holidays in the MTC but I loved it! We had the best devo broadcast from Provo and it was ahhh just the best! They made us a Thanksgiving lunch and it was yummy! I was grateful that they celebrated with all of us! We legit went on a WILD goose chase trying to find a computer that would work to finally say hi to my family! We were supposed to have 30 minutes and by the time we finally went through 6 Tall Labs(the computer labs) and no computers would work! Or they didn't have cameras! An elder let me borrow his camera so that was a MIRACLE and I finally found a computer and talked to my family for not even 10 minutes haha! But hey, we focus on the good not the bad! My companion got me a gift so that was so sweet!!

Friday the 29th:

Our teacher Hermano Castillo told us today HE IS LEAVING THE NEXT DAY! Guys I was so sad. It's okay I'll be fine. Haha! I think the reason our district was so sad is because it made us realize how hard it will be to say bye to each other haha! Last few weeks here we come! We all played piano as a district which was so fun! I saw my pre-MTC language teacher Hermano Lopez which is always so fun! I was studying in my scriptures today about Lehi and Sariah in 1st Nephi. I feel like a lot of times I react like Sariah and I am quick to judge. What I love about Lehi is how patient he is with her! I love it! 

Saturday the 30th:

TODAY WAS GREAT! We had our first TRC which is where volunteers come in and we teach them! It went so well. It gave me confidence which my Spanish and teaching which is what I needed! We got locked out of our room this day and we both didn't have our keys..oops..so we had to go to reception haha! We had our last day with Hermano Castillo and it was so sad! We put together a gift for him and the picture of a picture I sent (at the bottom of this). He loved it and it was great! After that we taught Manuel and because it was our last day we sent it and asked him to be baptized HAHA! He accepted so we were pumped! Um guys I won for the first time so you could say it was a big success haha! We also contacted our new interested person! Oswaldo! 

Sunday the 1st:

WOOT WOOT WE LOVE DECEMBER! Today was great it was also fast Sunday so that was awesome! What was so fun is hearing the testimonies of people. It is crazy to think that a language barrier doesn't change the spirit. It was awesome! Okay so last night I got a challenge from an elder in our district to find an attribute of Christ to focus on and so I took the challenge Sunday morning and I focused on Shepherd and Lamb of God. Isn't it amazing that our Shepherd is also one of us as a Lamb? Christ really is with us every step of the way. We taught relief society today and it went great! I had everyone share their "James 1:5" scripture which was so cool! We talked about which scriptures help them! It was great! We love Sundays because there's so much english! Haha! Then we had district meeting! We started Come Follow Me and it was SO FUN!!! I hope you are all doing it! Our district LOVED IT! Okay AND because of the new Sunday schedule WE GOT TO NAP!!! YAY!! Best. Time. Ever. THEN we headed in to our first devo of the night from Elder Gong. AND GUESS WHAT! He talked about Christ as our Shepherd and the Lamb of God!! I just studied that THE SAME DAY! So that was such a cool tender mercy!! We decorated for Christmas after our second devo and it was so fun!! I sent pics!! Woot!! We watched the new Nativity video for Light The World and WOW it is amazing!!

Monday the 2nd:

We had "sprinting" so basically we got motivated for the last 2 weeks! I memorized 2 whole lessons which was awesome and I feel like I'm starting to really understand Spanish. Miracles can happen!! We had service today and we cleaned our own building haha! Best time haha! Then we went caroling! I was so nervous because I was in charge of the whole branch but everyone loved it so yay!! Little miracles are real. I got TWO letters from my two best friends, Mama and Papa King and man I cannot even tell you how much I needed them!!!

Tuesday the 3rd: 

Yesterday was great! We taught our new person Oswaldo and we made a lot of progress which makes me excited! I had a meeting with my teacher today and it made my whole day. I want to tell you all that God is in the details and that He is very much aware of all of us! Trust me on that! We had the best devo last night about Christ and it was amazing. We did an english fast which was awesome! It was hard and we all made it half the day but God cares about effort right? haha! 

Wednesday the 4th:

TODAY WOOT! I am headed to the temple in literally 20 minutes and so I will try to email individually when I get back if I have time but just know that I love you all and I'm so grateful! An elder in my district, Elder Moss gave me a blessing this morning and I just feel ready to take on the last few weeks here at the CCM!

Challenge for this week!!! 

Find an attribute of Christ and study it!! Find talks, scriptures, etc on it and go for it! It is December and this month is dedicated to Christ! 

I love this gospel and I love all of you!! Thank you for your prayers and love! I feel all of it!! God is good and His gospel is true!! 

Love you all!!

Hermana King :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE WOOT WOOT!

Wow wow! Hi everyone! I cannot believe this week marks HALFWAY! Wow. It is so crazy to think that at this point I know about half of what they say I'll need to know before Peru..yeah YIKES! Haha! Well, I am excited to tell you all about this past week! This week Ihave seen SO many miracles and little tender mercies! I hope you are all so good!

Funny story before the daily rundown..last night we were going to put all of our mattresses in one room and celebrate the last night before pday (!!!!) and guys, we LOVE pday around here haha! Anyways, we got home from our Tuesday night devotional and we all changed into pajamas and got ready for bed. I went in to ask the other Hermanas who had our house devotional and when I came back into my room not even FIVE minutes later, Hermana Miles was DEAD ASLEEP on her bed. Sooooo long story short we didn't have our sleepover BUT we told scary stories instead. So there's that for a funny story...haha!

Wednesday the 20th:

Okay so this was pday but at the end of the night we had STL training! It was so fun! We had meetings until 9:00 but we loved it! OH so I didn't know in the Latina culture the Hermanas all kiss cheeks. Trying to be the best STL I could, I asked some new Hermanas if they needed help finding a classroom and so when we found it they all started to line up and hug and kiss me haha! So that was a good time not knowing about that till the moment of. We made friends with all of our new Hermanas in our branch and they are so amazing!

Thursday the 21st:

Today was great! We played volleyball against district 1B and they are our best friends! We love them! If anyone asks we KILLED them but if they ask it might be different. It was good! And fun! Hermana Miles got sick so we had to wash all the sheets and wash our apartment to start fresh! So we stayed up late! BUT we have a community snack pile that we all contribute to everyday so it's a good time! So many Mexican treats! It's the best! We stayed up late but had a party doing it!

Friday the 22nd:

We taught Manuel the importance of families! It was so fun because I love talking about my family and I can do it in Spanish now! Woot! Family is so important! I can't wait to teach the people in PERU about mine! Our whole district is SICK and so there was a lot of throwing cough drops around during our grammar lessons the past few days...haha! Okay! We translated "Father I Adore Thee" in Spanish and it is my favorite song to sing here!! So for all the young women it is now being sung in Mexico with a LOT of the Hermanas! We played kickball with our favorite other district and we had so much fun!! Read 2 Nephi 4:20! It is amazing!! 

Saturday the 23rd:

We taught Karla today!! She has been really hard to teach for the other companionships but we had a really, really good lesson! Gift of Tongues is real!! So a few weeks ago I explained that we have to write talks in Spanish every week and I didn't finish mine until about 11 on Saturday night..! Our elders had a hot dog eating contest for dinner and uhhhh hahah bad idea haha! Class for 3 hours after that made for a REALLL good time. Haha! Okay we had a mercy moment today! Hermana Miles had lost her Spanish hymnbook a few weeks ago and she was having a hard day without it. I stopped studying and ran to the district leader and asked to go on a split! Hermana Wahl and I ran all around with Elder Barrowes and Rundquist to try and find it. It was NO WHERE! AND the tienda was closed so we couldn't go buy one SO being the great people they are...The elders gave up one of theirs and we superglued the front pages so she couldn't see the name on it haha! And then I wrote a letter on it so she really couldn't tell haha! Giving it to her was the best! She loved it and it made me happy to do something so small for her to make such a big difference in her CCM experience!

Sunday the 24th:

Today was GREAT! If you've caught on, you know how much I just LOVE Sundays!! We got sustained today as the new STL's!! So that was fun! We had meetings with the branch president after and it was good to talk to him. His english was good so that's a blessing! We had the best lessons today and learned so much! We learned about Sacrifice and the Book of Mormon! It was amazing. Every class, everyday it just shows me and proves to me that I am supposed to be here! We said goodbye to the old STL's and that was so hard. We have become so close and it is crazy that they're in the mission field now! They will be absolutely amazing. We had choir practice and a devotional! We sang Getsemani! It is the prettiest song, especially in Spanish! The Spirit is so strong! We took pictures so that was fun! We are only allowed to take pictures outside on Sunday for about an hourish and then on Pday! 

Monday the 25th:

Hermana Miles was still not feeling good so we spent about 6 hours at home so I did a lot of studying from home! We talked about being more converted (in the class we actually were in today haha) and it was so powerful. Our first convert is ourselves!! It is so important to focus on our own testimony before we go and share it with people! We left class again in the afternoon and so that was hard not being in class! BUT I am so happy my comp is slowly getting better! Little miracles, right? We stayed up late again this night and talked about life! It was fun to hear more about the life of the hermanas outside of mission life! They are amazing. 

Tuesday the 26th:

We taught Manuel again. I was so nervous to teach because we hadn't been to class in a few days and so I was worried...BUT the word my teacher used to describe it was perfect. I KNOW!  I can't believe it either. It was crazy. When I say there are miracles throughout the day I really mean it. I was able to jump right back into class and I started to understand more than I usually do in those lessons!! We taught Karla too! We originally were planning on talking about the Godhead but we ended up talking about the Book of Mormon! It is so scary going off of our plan because we memorize questions and stuff in SPANISH about what we are planning to talk about BUT it went great!! I was so shocked haha! It was awesome! We had a really fun workshop but ended up leaving early again but we were able to make it back in time for the end! So that was awesome! Tuesdays are PIZZA TUESDAYS woot woot! And it's Costco pizza so you could say we are eating pretty over here in Mexico! Haha! We had STL training with a presidency member and it went so well! It made me so excited to get to work!! We have our first meeting with new missionaries TONIGHT! (Wednesday) so that's exciting!! Wish us luck! We had the best devo from my favorite counselor in the presidency. It was amazing!! We learned how to be better missionaries, go figure right? haha! BUT it was so uplifting and just what I needed! MIRACLES! We sang in the devo tonight and it was so cool! There's about 400 people in the choir and it is just amazing! 

TODAY!! 

Oh how we LOVE WEDNESDAYS!! Today has been so good. Video chatting my family is the best thing in the world. I love them. Today we played volleyball, ate ice cream and just had the best day! 

Okay. Here is my testimony for this week. 

I am so grateful for my Father in Heaven. This week has been the hardest, but everyday there is something to be grateful for. I am so grateful for the ability to see Gods hand. I know that this is the true gospel and I know that God loves each and every one of us. God is aware of us! He knows us and is wanting to bless us with so much, which He does. 

My challenge for you all this week is to write down little miracles throughout your day. There may be bad moments, but everyday can be a great one if we change our mindset! I love you all so much and I love mission life. I hope you all have the best Thanksgiving! You are all amazing! And I love you!!

Always remember that Dios es nuestra amoroso Padre Celestial y somos Sus hijos!

LOVE YOU ALL! REMEMBER TO SMILE!! 

Love,

Hermana King :):)