Paramedics, Plague and Locksmith Problems

Week 4, Transfer 5

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great time with or without your families. It was great for us missionaries! After skyping my wonderful and amazing family, we went back to the flat and had a huge breakfast that Sister Zurcher cooked for us. Pancakes, bacon, eggs...all sorts! We also had Tracey come with us. I Skyped at her house that morning. She brought chocolate crossiants and things that are called Yum-Yums (no idea how to explain them but they're made with pastry). Then we all went to a member’s house and had a massive feed...and we went back to Tracey's and had one of Sister Wynder and Zurcher's recent converts, Rachel and one of their Chinese investigators called Alice come over and we all ate and watched movies and things. The other sisters also Skyped their families. It was a lovely day.

(NB. It was lovely to see and talk with our 'baby girl' on Skype on Christmas Day. Here she is :)

Robyn)

We had a bit of a crazy week actually. Other than Christmas. Sister Edgington had what she thought was an asthma attack, but the paramedics (and their ambulance) came to the flat and checked her over thoroughly and said it wasn't asthma, it was all symptoms of a panic/anxiety attack. She had no clue what triggered it or anything but it would have been incredibly frightening. She felt like she couldn't breathe. The paramedic lady was so supportive and calm and helpful. She had had an anxiety attack before and knew what it felt like so she could offer some comforting words to Sister Edgington. She eventually settled down. And then the plague hit….the whole zone, except like a handful of us.

Sister Edgington, Sister Zurcher, Elder Jaeger, Elder Thompson, Elder Shwartzkopv, Elder Rogers, and 2 sisters from Leeds B Zone were super sick as well. Those are the only ones I know about but there could have been more. They all got hit with a cold and even some sisters had worse than that. Poor things. So we had a few hours here and there spent in the flat. That was voluntary. We also had to stay in the flat IN-voluntarily, because of the lock on our door. It was already getting stuck when I first got here 7 months ago, but it is just ridiculous now. It took us 10-20 minutes EVERY TIME we needed to unlock the door. When we got a parcel, we just told the guy the leave it by the door before we even tried to unlock it. If there was a fire or something and we needed to get out quickly, we'd either be dead or we'd have to jump out of the window. We had to stay in a few hours at night as well because of that. We finally got a locksmith on Saturday and we got a new lock. Yay!

Oh and because Sister Edgington and Zurcher was sick, Sister Wynder and I went on splits and went out together for a few hours. We worked both our areas. It was way fun. We taught her investigator Alice at the Institute and a recent convert Owen was there too. It was such a great lesson. I'd never taught with Sister Wynder let alone been in a Chinese area, but I LOVED it. We walked her home afterwards and it started raining but Sister Wynder and I didn't care. It was such a good lesson. Totally by the spirit. Success!

It's been a short but exciting week. We've also had some great and crazy weather. One month into winter everyone and I'm STILL ALIVE! Ye boi !!! 2 more months left :) I'm just going to embrace it.

So, I've been praying a lot for charity and love lately. IT WORKS! It's a gift we can pray and ask Heavenly Father for. I feel more of a genuine love for everyone I come in contact with, ESPECIALLY the people who are rude or disrespectful. It's always been SO difficult for me to love people when they're small minded or rude, but I've been praying a lot for charity and love for those people, and I truly believe that it helps and that I do feel more of a genuine love for them. It's great! It's such a burden when you let yourself feel weighed down with hate or dislike towards people. It doesn't hurt anyone else but you. I've learnt that WE control our attitude. No matter what trials or things come our way, no matter how other people act, they CHOOSE to act that way, and we CHOOSE to react in a certain way. I choose to be positive, I choose to love people who are rude. It makes my life SO much easier as well. It's wonderful! :)

New Years Eve, we get to stay up until 12pm! Wooooo! All night party in the party flat!!!!  Haha. Man I love the sisters we live with. We have THE FUNNIEST moments in our flat, especially around 10pm just before we're about to go to bed. Ah I love those sisters :) Life is good! Even though we have hardly any investigators, we do a lot of finding in the rain with not much success, we plant seeds of the gospel with people but nothing comes of it while we're here, life is still good. We expect ups and downs. It can't always be good and fine and dandy. I've found that all the really good stories are from unfortunate situations or 'bad' things that happen! I've got loads of good stories haha

Love you all, have a great New Years, make realistic and achievable goals that make you stretch! You can do anything!

Sister Kuhn x

  

Tracey and me at her house on Christmas night.

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THIS. IS...THE BURGER WE HAD LAST P-DAY FOR LUNCH! Oh my goodness. FOUR BEEF PATTIES. It was INSANE y'ALLLLLLLL. Sister Zurcher's Dad aka Papa Bill bought it for us with his card that Sis Zurcher has. It was massive. After the first 2 or 3 bites, we were all feeling super sick. But we ate basically all of it..which we were well chuffed about! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Week 3, Transfer 5

Ok. Half way through the transfer already. … How can time be going so fast?! In less than 2 weeks I will have been out 7 months. That's crazy talk.

It's almost Christmas!!!!!!!! Last week went by so fast. I can't even..I don't know where it's gone. This week will go by fast as well because it's Christmas and Boxing day etc. We can sleep in Christmas day until 8am, Christmas Eve DAY proselyting finishes at 4pm, and Boxing day is like a P-day basically. Today our P-day finishes at 3pm because we have so much time this week and around New Years Eve where we have non-proselyting days. It's exciting but I'm trying not to feel like a rubbish missionary because we won't be street contacting or knocking on doors etc.! We also get to stay up until 12pm New Years Eve!!! Party in the 4-sister Leeds 1 FLAT!!!! Yeahh buddyyyy! It'll be so so so much fun :)

We've seen Shazanna a bit in the last week. We've started reading Book of Mormon Stories children's book with her and she loves it, so we gave her one for Christmas. She was well chuffed! We love Shazanna :)

We won't be seeing a lot of our investigators because most of them are going away from Christmas or are busy with family. The sisters I'm in the flat with all go out caroling every night for an hour or 2. We wrapped up Book's of Mormon and put chocolate with them and a mormon.org card and we give them to people after we sing to them. Everyone here in England tries to give you money though! Apparently caroling = a charity looking for donations. It's annoying :) especially because a lot of people don't come to the door because they don't want to give us money...They are so surprised when we say we don't want their money and then we give them something :)

So I made the mistake of saying to Sister Edgington a few nights ago about how nice and mild the weather has been (since it's meant to be winter) as we were walking down the road.Literally the second I finished speaking it started pouring down with rain. Freezing.cold.rain. And wind. Can't forget that wind. And since then it's been freezing and cold and it even snowed little balls of slush last night! God is real. Haha. Really though, be careful what you say!

Last night we went with the Zone Leaders and the Leeds 1 elders and us four sisters to a senior couples home, Elder and Sister Wilson and we went out caroling with them. It was so fun! It started snowing balls of wet slush and it was windy and crazy but we had so much fun. The Wilsons are so great. We love them! They work in the mission office :) We had hot chocolate and snacks at their house afterwards as well. It was swell!

Sister Edgington has diligently been opening her 12 days of Christmas presents as well Edgington family! She has 80% of the presents under the Christmas tree :) haha…well, Sister Zurcher, Sister Wynder and I are slowly catching up to her!

 Well, that's all from me. Heaps happened but I either can't remember or…yeah nah I can't remember. Oops :)

Love you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Sister Kuhn

Oh and the Christmas party!!  We had the Christmas party for 3 or 4 zones last week too! They had to do 3 seperate parties because the mission is getting so big! It was great though. Ours was on Wednesday. It was fantastic. We had a talent show and we watched It's A Wonderful Life which is one of my favourite movies! I'll send some pics of the talent show! :)

Elder Mosely (one of the AP's) and Elder McGuiness - Matching! 

I did triceps push-ups in front of half the mission

Week 2, Transfer 5

EVERYONE IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!! No idea where the year has gone, let alone the last 6 months! Soon it will be 7 months. The main thing this week we realized is that all our investigators are from Africa. Haha. We love them. There are so many more African people in Leeds. We have 2 families from Congo and 1 from Malawi and then we still are sort of teaching Kaaron and Shazannah, who are also African. Mireille was a member referral from a Congolese family in the ward, the Dindamba's. She is married with two kids, Kimberly and Seff. They are so cute! She is great as well. We also have Coco who we found knocking, who is married with 3 BEAUTIFUL young daughters. They are also from Congo and the Dindamba family knows them as well. Then Jeff, from Malawi, was a former investigator from the sisters before but they stopped teaching him. 

We have plans to do a lot of finding this week so we can get more and more pure investigators. We're so pumped!!

This kid doesn't look THAT tall..but he's only FOURTEEN YEARS OLD!! HE IS SOSOSOSOSO TALL. and probably the funniest person you will ever meet. 

Carlos Dindamba

In order of appearance, on Wednesday we had a mission tour. So half the mission was at the meeting on Wednesday and the other half was on Tuesday. We had Elder Kearon, the first councilor in the Europe Area Presidency come and speak to us. It was in York chapel, and the York Stake President was there as well. Sister and President Pilkington also spoke. It was a fantastic meeting. We did a survery a while back for all the missionaries in Europe and the meeting was tailored to what we wanted help with etc. It focused on finding a lot. It was great. Elder Kearon is English but lives in Germany with his family. Half way through the day (the meeting went until about 4pm) Elder Kearon talked about our schedule. We all went through our morning etc. and it got to exercise and he was like 'Who likes exercise? Who can do push-ups?' I put my hand up thinking that all the Elders have their hands up already anyway. I was sitting front row in the middle (all the sisters sit up the front at every meeting). Little did I know that the assistants and about half the sister missionaries were pointing at me when he asked everyone. They know I like my gym! So, I got up, in my skirt and my boots, and started pumping out tricep push-ups, in front of 145 missionaries which is half the mission. Not your ordinary push-ups and definitely NOT girl push-ups. I don't know how many I did, but I didn't get tired and I did them for awhile and then Elder Kearon wrapped it up and congratulated me and I sat back down. Sister Pilkington came up to me afterwards and said how proud she was of me because an elder did them the day before. So there you go everyone, representing the sisters in our mission!!!!

One of the main streets, Leeds City Centre

We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday night :) It was a really good turn out! Mireille and her 2 kids came, and so did Jeff, and Kaaron came too! It was so good to see them there. Jeff made a friend or 2 and Mireille's kids were super happy being there. They love us haha

Jeff was invited to church Sunday but said he couldn't come. Then he shows up at church and Sister Edgington and I were so excited to see him! He stayed for Sacrament and Sunday school. The last time he came to church when we weren't here he only stayed for Sacrament meeting apparently. So it was great he stayed for 2 of the hours. What a legend! It's been a lovely week of finding and member visits and serving and teaching.

I'm waiting for the snow though! It hasn't come yet. Disappointed! I'll keep my fingers crossed!

That's all from me. Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!!! :)

Love y'all! xxxxxxx

Sister Kuhn  

We braided our hair together - Sister Zurcher, Sister Edgington and I ..we all have really similar colour hair. #missionarylife 

                    In our flat, mind the mess!

Getting into the Christmas spirit!

Week 1, Transfer 5

Hiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! It's the end of week 1 and the start of week 2 of the transfer! THE CHRISTMAS TRANSFER!!!!!!!! Well, since we were transferred to my old area in Leeds at the last minute, we are now all settled in with Sister Wynder and Sister Zurcher, who we love very much. I don't think President knows how much fun our flat is with all of us four sisters. We laugh ALL THE TIME. We all get along so so super well it's crazy. So it's good. We have a lot of fun together. We're also planning on going knocking together and singing at the doorsteps of people's homes, accapella and alto and soprano parts and everything! It will be FAB! Getting into the Christmas spirit! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Kaaron on the right, his cousin Dominique, Shazannah, me, and Victor Mputu (a member). Love these kids! They dougied for us haha (look up 'teach me how to dougie' if you don't know what it is) 

This is Phillipa's littlest Maya. She is too cute! Phillipa has been a member for about 3 years. She is amazing! We went to tea with her last week :) 

Last night was an Institute Christmas choir concert. It was really great. They did such a good job. So many people there! Leeds 1 chapel was choc-a-block! (For all the non-Australians aka Sister Edgington's wonderful amazing family, choc-a-block means 'full') :) It was fantastic!

I bought a beanie. Don't get scared now.

It's BRIGHT PINK! lol. Something to brighten up a dreary winter! And I think I'm following up with our district leader as well. Multi-tasking :)

On Saturday night we met Martin and Magda. Married 2 years. Magda is actually from Poland funnily enough! She sounded pretty English though. We talked with them on the doorstep and then after a while out of nowhere Martin invited us in for a drink. We taught them the restoration basically and they were super interested, especially Martin. He was smiling and nodding most of the time. They are both Catholics but don't really go to church ever. They are so ready for the gospel! The lesson was completely lead by the spirit. Sister Edgington was so great, she spoke with so much power and authority. She has such a strong testimony. I love her! So that was really great meeting them.

The rest of the week was alright. It went fast but quick...if that makes any sense. Missionary life!

Well everyone, it's all down hill from here for me now. I will never have another Christmas on my mission…man, I won't ever have another 9th of December on my mission! :( I love it here so much. I love being a missionary. It is THE BEST decision I have ever ever ever made. Everyone should go. The amount you change and your testimony grows is insane. I can't wait for the next year to come. I'm working on so many things all at once, but I know that time is precious and we will be the same people we are now when we die (and are) in the spirit world. A lot of people think we'll just change and become automatically like Heavenly Father. The truth is, we won't. We are constantly having to work on ourselves to become better. If all it took was to live our 70, 80, 90 years on earth and then we die and become automatically perfect in the spirit world, God could have just snapped his fingers and made this life fast-forward where we live and die and that's it. He is bound by laws, just like we are. We all need to be working on ourselves, striving to be better, to be more like Christ, to follow Him. That is where we will find perfection, that is where we will be truly happy in this life and in the next. Our personality, our habits, our thoughts, our desires, they don't change after we die. That's something I've come to understand so much more on my mission. That is why I want to strive to be that person NOW. To be more like my Savior NOW…not wait until I die. What a waste that would be of this life, this precious time we have to experience mortality.

Anyway, that's my rant. Moral of the story, I love this gospel. It is THE BEST. I love you all. Merry Christmas for the Christmas season! Serve somebody this Christmas!

Love from Sister Kuhn xx

PS Lds.org has some great Christmas videos. You should all check them out! They're so good!

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Transfer back to Leeds 1

Week 6, Transfer 4

Well, the big news is that Sister Edgington and I got transferred to Leeds on Friday. We thought we were staying in Skipton, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles I'm afraid. It's ok though, I'm back in my old area. Good old Leeds 1!  Love Leeds. It's weird but good to be back, but getting used to it. My address here for Christmas packages is:

12B Ashleigh Road

West Park

Leeds LS16 5AX

If you've already sent it to Skipton, that's ok, they'll just get it to me somehow. Remember to write 'items NOT FOR RESALE' on the customs thing.

So yeah, back in Leeds 1. Happy. Still with my daughter Sister Edgington who is amazing and I love her so so much. We have SO much fun together. All the time. We're like a walking comedy show basically.

Gorgeous sunset in Hyde Park, 4.30pm in winter!! My favourite place in Leeds

We picked up Kaaron and Shazanna again (I need to find out how to actually spell her name properly). We got transferred to Leeds on Friday, and before that I can't really remember what we did. Everything kind of got pushed to one side in my memory after we got transferred because it was pretty major. All is well now though. Safe and sound in my first area. Yeahh buddyy! We still have our car too which is FANTASTIC. Not sure when we're getting it taken off us but it's very handy.

Back in the PARTY FLAT!!!!! 4 sister flats are THE best time of anyone's life. They are WELL fun. We had a huge clean out this morning which was great. We're all just sharing each other's food and it's so cute and sharing and caring. We also laugh..all.the.time. It's so fun.

On Saturday night we went by a lady the other sisters were inspired to talk to who actually live really close to Kaaron and Shazanna and the Mputu family (they're members). Her name is Linda and she has been investigating on and off for like 10 years! She believes it all, loves the church, but wants her family's support if she gets baptized. We got her concern out of her the first time we met her and committed her to pray for the courage to be bold and for her family to soften their hearts so she can tell them the desire of her heart and how she wants to be baptized. She said she wants to be baptized. So we are going to continue visiting and praying for her and setting goals. Also, Kaaron and Shazanna are back! I LOVE THEM!!!!! They're so fun. We saw them Saturday and then we went by again last night. We did the cup song (if you have seen Pitch Perfect the film it's the song the main girl does when she auditions to be in a singing group and she uses a cup and sings a song). Well we did that for like half an hour. We need to take a fun approach to them I think. Kaaron has a (limited) attention span and needs constant entertainment. He likes moves and interactive things. Shazanna just loves everything we do really. She gets involved with everything. She's always prayed about the Book of Mormon and knows it's true as well. She did that after we first met her. She's a star. We also met and had a good but brief chat with their Mum Sharon. I love that family. I'm so excited to pick them up again.

We also saw Ben on Saturday too. The one who works in a phone shop. Nothing has changed with him. The sisters stopped seeing him a month or more ago. He didn't even know why. We are going to work with him more as well. He has such great potential but complicates everything in his head too much.

So yes, we are getting back into everything quickly and head-on. I love Leeds 1 :) We miss Skipton a lot...but we won't be going back there any time soon. Love the branch there. Always always always :)

That's all from me. Love you all! Thank you for your emails and everything. I appreciate it!! Apparently..APPARENTLY..we aren't meant to write letters on any other day but P-day...so if you send me a letter or an email, I usually reply by writing a letter, but if I don't reply for AGES it's because P-day is busy enough as it is and letter writing all in one day is a bit crazy. So I appologize..but I'm going to talk to my mission President because I want to know if that's actually a rule or not. If it's not, I'll write y'all replies in letter form when I have the time!

A mission really is just your life in 18 months. Ups and downs (major ups and MAJOR downs), change change change like all the time, learning to rely on the Spirit, learning to rely on Heavenly Father, learning to rely on your own abilities, changing yourself, becoming more like Christ, being surrounded by wordly things when you're out and about but having to shove them out of your lifestyle and your way of thinking. It's just like life but the intenstity is like x238193129. I love it though. Wouldn't have it any other way. I love the challenges. It just strengthens my faith in my Heavenly Father because it ALWAYS ALWAYS works out in the end.

LOTS OF LOVE

Sister Kuhn

xxxxx