Ok bear with me, because I have two weeks’ worth of stuff to share with you today!
My last week at the MTC was amazing. It was hard, but so rewarding! The teachers were all so nice and taught with the Spirit and I love them all dearly. I wanted more class time, 6 hours a day just wasn't cutting it for me! I learned so much from them and from the Spirit. My relationship with Christ and Heavenly Father also grew so much stronger each day! I rely on them so much to get through everything. My favorite scripture right now is Moroni 7:33 - "And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." This scripture is so true! I know that I am supposed to be on a mission, and because of that knowledge, I know that I will be able to serve a good mission and be successful if I have faith in Christ. He will make it possible for me to serve better than I ever could on my own. That's a pretty huge promise/blessing.
Probably the coolest thing about the MTC was Easter. That morning we met as a zone with our Branch Presidency, and had a little sacrament meeting together. That's only like 15 people, and my whole district of 6 people gave talks on faith. We didn't take the sacrament though because we did that later AS A WHOLE MTC. That's like a couple thousand people! We all met in the huge gym and all the bleachers were out and the chairs were set up. My District was in the Choir so we sat in a specific area for that. And President Uchtdorf was the speaker!!!! It was amazing. He is so awesome! He walked in the room and you could feel the Spirit so strongly. And he gave a wonderful talk about the Savior and the Atonement and Resurrection (which you can read about here: Pres-Uchtdorf-visits-Provo-MTC-delivers-an-Easter-message). It was perfect. Then afterward he went around shaking people's hand (unfortunately he did not shake my hand. I'm kinda bummed about it) and as he was doing it everyone was crying and soooo happy and for a second it was as if the Savior was there shaking people's hands. It was so cool. I don't know if I said this in the last email but Elder Neil L. Anderson also spoke to us a few days earlier. So two general authorities in one week! It was great.
Sunday night we packed and got ready because we flew out of Salt Lake Monday morning. We had to be at the bus at 4:30 am! That was unpleasant. Our flight took off at 8:30 and we got to Denver at 10. My Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Murdock, were there waiting for us. They are soooo nice! I love them. We got all of our bags and headed to the mission office which is just a Stake Center that has a basement where all the mission people work (like the housing coordinators and the Mission President and whoever else manages things in the mission). We had an orientation and did some activities and kinda chilled there for the day. At night we went back to the Murdock's home which was lovely, and we ate dinner and had a Devotional. I had to play the piano...I have to play the piano sooo much! I can't even play! I played for church at the MTC, and for the Devotional, and during our District Meeting this week...it's ridiculous haha. I definitely didn't expect to be doing that. After the Devotional we got ready for bed and for the next day. We had been up since 3:45 so we were pretty tired, but we still stayed up until like 10:30 haha. We're dumb. It was my last night with my companions, though! And I miss them soooo much.
The next morning we got up early again, like 5 am, to go to the Transfer Meeting. My MTC companions and I all got split up and put with trainers! Sister Smith and Sister Mullins went way out to the Western Slope, and I stayed in the Metro Area. I am in Lakewood, and my trainer is Sister O! She has only been out for 3 months but she's great! She is from Australia so she has an accent, which has started rubbing off on me a little bit haha. I always want her to speak when we go tracting because I think people are more receptive to her since she has an accent :P It's pretty funny.
Me with my trainer Sister O!
After we left the Transfer meeting, we went back to my new home! We live with members, which is kinda strange! But it's all good. And then we planned our day and went out and taught! The first lesson I had was with K, who is less-active. We are trying to get him to the temple. He's hilarious! The lesson went well though. He's really nice. We taught a couple other less-active members that day, and went to dinner at a member's home that night. It was with Sister D, and she is this cute, sweet old lady, and she is HILARIOUS. She always says "Okayyyyy" and "Whatevah!" hahah I love her. She's also a great cook. The members feed us every night and they are so good to us! But it's definitely an older ward, and the average age is like 65 or something! Haha
Each morning Sister O drags me out of bed at 6 so that we can work out. We got to go to a gym for the first couple days until the Elders who are also serving in the Lakewood ward with us stole our key card. Now we run around a gorgeous lake that is across the street from where we live. The sun rises as we run, and it's beautiful, but I am kinda cranky in the mornings haha. Also I can't breathe because we are a mile up here and my body isn't used to that yet!
After we work out we get ready for the day. And then we do an hour of personal study, and an hour of companion study/planning. Then we do an hour of training, and then take an hour for lunch. So we're usually out of the house by noon, and then we are working so hard until we go to bed. We teach investigators and less-active members, and we do a lot of tracting. I love tracting! We've had so much success this week and it seemed like almost everyone we talked to was interested in our message. We always try to teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel really quickly, and we ask them if they would like to hear more and meet with us again (A lot of people say yes! I didn't expect that at all! Haha) and then we ask if we can close with a prayer. We have said so many prayers on people's doorsteps now haha. It's weird. But awesome. We found like 8 new investigators this week and taught over 30 lessons! So we're definitely busy. But the busier we are, and the harder we work, the more rewarding it is and the faster it goes. So we definitely want to work as hard as we can each day. And Sister O really does work us hard. She is so obedient and stalwart and she is a great missionary. I really look up to her. She is new and just finished her own training, and now she's training me! She says that I came pre-trained, but if I didn't have her I would not know how to do ANYTHING!
We never miss an opportunity to talk to anyone, so even if we are late to an appointment, if we see someone we talk to them haha. We were almost late to dinner on Tuesday when we saw these two boys playing basketball and we went up and talked to them. They're 19 and they were definitely high haha. But they had a lot of interesting theories on things, and they really liked our message! So we set up another appointment with them. When we went to the second appt a few days later, only one could make it. We taught him about the Gospel and about Jesus Christ and he was very open about his thoughts and beliefs. He has maybe possibly used too many illegal substances....and they've given him some very strange experiences haha. He was telling us about some of them. He was so nice though! I want him to get baptized lol. We handed him off to the Elders though because we think they might be better for him.
We also met a man named W. He's awesome. And he reeeeally likes to talk. He told us all about his beliefs and we told him about ours and we had a great discussion. He also told us about serving in Vietnam and almost being killed by a giant cobra. His stories were awesome, but we were there for way too long haha. We'll go back sometime this week and teach him more.
On Friday I got to see my cousin Lisa!!! She lives about 10 minutes outside of my area and I got permission from my Mission President to see her. She and her family are so awesome and it was so nice to spend a little time with them :) Hopefully I get to see her again soon!
Me with Cousin Lisa!
We have 4 people on date for baptism. 3 of them are a family. The mom and dad and their 8 year old daughter. They also have a 7 year old and a 5 year old. I love them dearly!!!! The mom really wants to be baptized, but she doesn't understand why she has to be baptized into our church. She goes to her friend's church where they sing and dance and shout praises to Jesus, and she was thinking about being baptized there. So we are trying really hard to help her realize that our church is the only true church, and that we have the proper Priesthood authority to baptize. We are teaching them tonight about that again and also about eternal families. I love them so much and I just want them to be happy and realize the truth :) The fourth person has been on vacation for a long time so I haven't actually met her yet, but she comes back this week!! Hopefully she is still ready to be baptized. I'm excited to meet her.
Saturday morning there was a Stake Relief Society Conference. The talks were wonderful! There were two speakers and they both did an amazing job. They talked about opening your eyes and not being blinded by the adversary, and about following the light, and about serving others. I don't have any of my notes right now, but it was great. And it was a nice 3 hour "break" and we got to be so spiritually uplifted so that was awesome.
On Sunday all of the wards in the mission did a special "Come and See" service. It was such a good idea! We were able to invite people all week and there was a little invitation that we could hand to people we found on the street or our investigators. We also got a lot of members to commit to inviting their friends. It wasn't anything crazy, it was just a special really good sacrament meeting and there was a "linger longer" afterward (people brought food and ate and talked). Only a few nonmembers showed up in our ward, but it was still a really good service and a great idea. It's hard sometimes for people to invite their friends to church, but with something like that it is easier. Sister O and I ended up being at the church for 6 hours because we had meetings before and then church and then the linger longer!! It was great.
I'm trying to think of other things that happened and I'm sure there are lots of things but I can't really remember haha. Sorry this email was kind of disjointed and random!!! That's just how my brain is working these days.
I love you all and I hope you're doing well!!! I miss home a ton but Colorado is wonderful! It is so beautiful and hot here and there are so many pretty lakes where I live. And the people are awesome. And being a missionary is awesome. I love it.
Feel free to email me, and if you want to write me a letter you can ask me or Alannah Mitchell for my address :)
Lots of love,
Sister Koenig
