Sister Koenig's Mission Blog!: The 4th of July and other fun!

Hello everyone! Things have been crazy busy here. It's weird how fast time flies! Next week is transfers and I am nervous! I don't want to leave Lakewood - In the past 3 months it has become my home. I think I'm going to stay, but I won't find out until Sunday :(

This past week was a lot of fun but we didn't get to accomplish a ton of missionary work. Between the FIFA game on Tuesday (I think?) and the 4th of July, no one wanted to see us! Everyone was either out of town or busy. We did have a couple cool things though.

Last week we went to the house of one of our new investigators that we tracted into a few weeks ago. Her name is S, and she is so nice! It was actually kind of funny when we tracted into her because we thought no one was home and Sister O had already started walking away but I stayed at the door adjusting my bag or something when she answered. I had to awkwardly call back to Sister O but then she didn't hear me, and then finally she realized and turned around and ran back. We had a great conversation with her at her door and she has a close Mormon friend and we talked about the church and her family and it was just really good. Anyway, we went back to see her last week and she said her husband was busy inside watching tv or something, but that we could talk on her porch. She made Sister O and me sit on the chairs and she sat on the cement. It was soooo hot that day, probably in the high 90s, and she was completely in the sun, but she didn't complain at all. We taught her the first lesson really fast, in like 15 minutes, and it was probably one of the best lessons that Sister O and I have taught together! And she received it so well! She was interested in learning more, and when we were talking about the Book of Mormon she said that she had one that her friend gave to her and she was going to look for it. Then at the end we invited her to pray about the things we taught to know if they were true, and she said "I already know I'm supposed to listen to you!" and we were like "What?" and she said "When you knocked on my door last week, I wasn't going to answer it. I was just going to ignore it, but then as I was walking away from the door I heard something tell me to answer it and talk to you, so I did!" IT WAS THE COOLEST THING. I was so excited. And then she was asking us if our church accepts donations of baby formula and clothes and stuff and we said yes and she was just so excited about everything. I love that woman. We haven't been able to see her since, but we will definitely try to see her this week! Keep her in your prayers, please!

Yesterday at church we found out that we are going to sing a duet next week at church...we've sung for a few families in the ward, and I guess someone ratted us out to the musical number director person and they are making us sing! Ah! Anyway, we told this family that we love and visit all the time, and invited them to come, and they said they would! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!! This is the best thing that has happened on my mission, by far. They haven't been to church in years and I'm just sooooo happy that they're coming. I don't even care that I have to sing - it's worth it.

We had a fun 4th of July on Friday. I taught Sister O the National Anthem over the past week or two and we sang it A LOT haha. It was fun. We also went to two barbecues and hung out with members and just had a great day. That night we drove around watching all the fireworks that people were setting off in front of their houses :P Sadly there was no Ward breakfast, and no parade, and no big fireworks show....I definitely missed home a little bit :( But it was still fun, in a very different way.

4th of July!

The day before was the 95th birthday of the lady we live with! We got to go to her little party during our lunch hour one day. There were all these cute older ladies from our ward there, eating cupcakes and talking about how many great-grandchildren they had hahaha it was adorable.

Oh and something really cool that happened this week - Sister O and I got bikes! We still have our car, but we just borrowed a couple bikes from members because we wanted to try out some trails for our morning exercise, and we thought we might ride them to some nearby appointments sometimes. We went riding for the first time on Saturday morning and it was nice, but we had pigged out so much the day before that I got sooo nauseous! Sad. Then we went riding again this morning, and we were headed to this awesome trail, and going down a giant hill, when I crashed.....WHOOPS! I totally biffed it and got SO scraped us and I have some massive bruises! Thankfully I was wearing a helmet because it smacked really hard into the sidewalk! ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET if you're going to ride a bike! Seriously! But the bike is fine haha. And I'm fine too...just a little tattered :P Fun times. I'm at the library and everyone keeps staring at me because I have a wrap on my arm and am covered in scratches and bruises and it just looks really nice...

This is the "after" picture - I'll spare you the ones before I got cleaned up!

I can't think of much else that has happened lately. I love all of you! Thank you for the prayers and the letters and support! You're all the best! Remember how much I love and miss you and remember how much God loves you!

Have a fantastic week!!!

xx Sister Koenig