Hello everyone! It has been another week of miracles and
answered prayers. Lately I've really been trying to recognize the Spirit more,
and this past week I really really did. It was fantastic. Heavenly Father truly
is there and He cares about me and about each of you!! Yesterday was Father's
Day, as you all probably know, and it just hit me so hard that our Heavenly
Father is there, and He loves us, and He is our FATHER! Isn't that amazing?
Everyone should watch the Mormon Message "Earthly Father, Heavenly
Father." It's a good one. I'll even include it because I am nice. Here you
go: Earthly Father, Heavenly Father
So totally changing the subject, apparently I say the word
"both" incorrectly. Say it out loud, right now. Did you say it with
an "l?" Because I do. Like "bolth." I never realized that I
did this, and then my lovely companion brought it to my attention and now I am
self-conscious. Haha ok not really, but it has definitely become a running joke
and anytime ANYONE says that word now, we crack up. It's kind of a problem
sometimes....whoops. Bolth of us laugh ;P See what I did there? Yeah we're
weird. This is what happens when you have no electronics or any form of
"normalcy" in your life. Just in case you were wondering.
Despite all the laughing and ridiculousness, we actually do
get some work done! And boy did we work hard this week. We are supposed to do
an hour of "finding" every day, and we have definitely exceeded that.
We don't have that many people to teach at the moment because everyone that we
teach for a while then stops wanting to see us....it's really sad. That's why
finding new investigators is so important, because if we didn't do that, we'd
probably have like 5 people to teach haha. But this week alone we found 8 new
investigators! And most of them we found through knocking on doors and just
talking to everyone we see. It's the best.
We actually had a really awesome experience yesterday. In
church, in our Sunday School class, the teacher told us an experience he had on
his mission. One time he and his companion wanted to know where they should
tract the next day, so they decided they would each pray about it and come up
with 5 street names, and then compare their lists and then pray again and pick
one. So they did that, and they both came up with this one name. So they pulled
out their map of the area and looked for the name, but it wasn't on the map! They
were really confused because they knew that they both received the same answer,
and then they remember that they had another map that showed just a tiny bit
more of the area. They pulled that one out, and sure enough the street was
there, about an inch off of the page of the first map! They went the next day
and tracted that street and had so much success.
Sister O and I decided to do that yesterday. We pulled the
car over and we each prayed about where we should go. I was desperate for an
answer, because I really did want to go where the Lord wanted me to go, but I
don't know the street names very well here. I had just been reading the night
before in the Book of Mormon, in Mormon chapter 9, and it talks all about God
and how He does still perform miracles. Verse 20 says "And the reason why
he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they
dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in
whom they should trust." but verse 21 says "Behold, I say unto you that
whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father
in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all,
even unto the ends of the earth." and the end of verse 15 says "God
has not ceased to be a God of miracles." Those verses really hit me as I
was saying this prayer to ask where we should tract, and I really KNEW that God
is a God of miracles. I said to Him "I don't know who needs to see us, and
I don't know and street names, but you do. And I know that you can tell me
where to go." As I was saying that, a street name flashed in
my mind. At first I was a little hesitant, but I did know that that was a
street name in our area that I had seen before, and I kind of asked God if that
was where I should suggest and again I saw the name flash in my mind. I
finished my prayer and looked up, and Sister O was done praying. She said,
"So where do you think we should go?" and I got all nervous for some
reason but then I said "Umm....." and then I told her the name of the street and she FLIPPED OUT. She was
like "Oh my GOSH that is SO WEIRD OH MY GOSH." hahaha it was great. I
was like "Soooo is that what you thought????" and she said "When
I was praying, S and J (a less-active man and his recently baptized daughter)
kept coming back to my mind and I couldn't shake it. And they live on that street. Oh
my GOSH. This is soooo weird!!!!!!" haha we had a moment of freaking out a
little bit because it was just so cool and it really strengthened my testimony
that God does hear and answer prayers! So we went there and we saw them and
taught a great lesson and it was just really good. We are definitely going to
try that again.
This week we also started seeing this family from the ward.
The mom is a member, but her husband is not, and she has a 7 year old daughter
preparing to be baptized and a 3 year old son. THEY ARE THE CUTEST. The mom
wanted us to start coming by to teach the 7 year old and get her excited about
being baptized. So we went and we taught about prayer, and they are seriously
the cutest kids ever! The little girl is so beautiful and so smart and so sweet
and I just love her. And the little boy is such a riot. He is so funny. I'm so
excited to see them again this week :) I LOVE teaching families with kids, it's
the best! But there just are not very many young families in this area, and
hardly any in our ward. The Primary kids sang for Father's Day yesterday, and
there were MAYBE 10 kids. And there are like 3 youth..it's sad! Sister O and I
are desperately praying to find a family who is ready to hear our message. God
has prepared people, and now we just have to find them. It's exciting!
One last cool experience and then I'll finish up, because
this is getting long...sorry :P
On Friday evening we were going to go tracting (of course
haha). Sister O told me to pick which street to tract. As we were driving down
the street, I was looking at street names and trying to pick one. We passed one
that had a bunch of cars and that usually means people are home. I was going to
say that one, but then I didn't, and we drove a few more blocks and I picked a
street. Sister O said "Hmm, there's not very many cars, I don't
know." Then I said "There were a bunch of cars on that other street,
we could try there instead." So we had to backtrack and go there. We
parked, and there really were quite a lot of cars - too many. We realized at
that moment that it was Friday night, and probably a bunch of people were
having parties. That's not the best time to go knocking on people's doors....so
we decided to see one of our investigators instead. We went to our house, and
she said she wasn't interested anymore. Sad day. Then we crossed the street and
decided to try a less-active family who I have never met before. We knocked and
waited a minute, buuuuuuut nobody was home. We were feeling kind of crummy at
this point and didn't have a plan for what to do next as we were walking back
to our car. Then, this guy in a wheelchair scooter thing came up to us and said
hi, and told us he used to be Mormon! So we talked to him for a minute and
found out that he was moving to Florida in just a few days. We asked if he
needed help, and he said "Let me ask my wife" and he wheeled away and
we followed him. He lived just a couple houses down, and his wife was there in
the front yard sorting boxes. We helped her and talked with her and she was SO
NICE!!!! She told us that her dad had been a minister in their church for years
and years and years. Then the dad came out, and he was this cute, sweet old
84-year-old man. Oh my gosh he was adorable. He kept talking about Jesus and
how much he loved him, and kept quoting all these great scriptures, and it was
so great. They have soooo much faith! It's incredible. We helped them as long
as we could but we eventually had an appointment we needed to go to. We asked
if we could help them the next day and they said they would be up working
around 6 am. So the next morning we got up at 6:30 and went over there! We got
to sort through all sorts of stuff and help pack and load up the moving van and
talk with them more. The woman's dad kept singing us all these songs and hymns
he had written over the years. One of them said "You're good-looking when
you're looking to the Lord!" haha it was cute. At one point he said
"I'm good for nothing..." and looked all sad and we were like
"oh my gosh you are not!!!!" and then he perked up and said
"Nobody pays me to be good! Haha!!!" it was SO CUTE ahhhh I can't
handle it. We helped them for like 3 hours and it was the best. It's those
kinds of things that make missionary work THE BEST.
I love you all, and I love being a missionary and doing
God's work!! There is nothing else I would rather be doing with my life. And I
am so grateful to have a wonderful Father in Heaven who leads me and guides me
every step of the way in His work.
Love,
Sister Koenig
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