Nerf Gun Wars...and Building Testimonies

Week 2 

NERF GUN ATTACK

Today..was P-day or 'Preparation Day'. We get 1 day a week until 6pm to email, clean the flat, go food shopping, go real shopping, sight see etc. Today was Zone P-day, where all the missionaries in our Zone (about 20 of us) did something all together at one of the chapels. I give credit to my Zone Leaders...who are THE BEST Zone Leaders in the world, Elder Short and Elder Esteves. Today for zone p-day...we had..

A NERF GUN WAR.

You know those guns that shoot out foam bullets? Well we got 20 or more of those - most of the flats that have had Elders in them had them already (we had 2 huge ones from previous missionaries) and we played capture the flag with nerf guns. It was CRAY CRAY. The elders made like an obstacle course almost with chairs and tables and whiteboards all throughout the chapel - like Call of Duty..but with nerf guns. It was way fun. And then we ate and watched Tarzan. It was a lovely P-day! It finished at 3pm which is why I'm emailing later than usual.

Most people would think..that a sister missionary's car would be full of flowers and sunshine and rainbows and cupcakes. Our car..is full of of NERF GUNS!

 Last week was fantastic! Sooooooo many miracles. One of the best things about being a missionary is being able to see so many miracles not only in our lives but in the lives of the people we teach. It's a big testimony builder!

In the Church carpark on Sunday

First, WE HAVE A BAPTISM THIS SATURDAY!!! Magdalena is getting baptized! She quit smoking and drinking coffee and she passed her baptismal interview and she is just AMAZING! We are so excited for her! Sister Edgington and I just love her so much.

Then, Dave. Dave B. He's 70 odd years old, a former investigator, Jehovah Witness for the last 5 years. We've taught him twice since we met him last Wednesday. He's reading the Book of Mormon and agrees with most of what we teach...so naturally we scheduled him for baptism on the 23 November. We love Dave! Fingers crossed all goes well with him!

And Stuart...Stuart our lovely wonderful athiest friend who drives taxis 26 hours a day. We taught a great Plan of Salvation lesson with him using the picture cards my sister Emily gave me before I left on my mission (thanks Em! they help so much). He didn't dispute any of it. Although he's still refusing to pray, he reads the Book of Mormon, is kind and lets us say prayers in the lessons even though he won't. Progress sometimes takes time. And we have all the time in the world for Stuart! Pray for him please everyone :)

Next up is Sue. Ohhhh Sue...so last Sunday a week ago we were walking to an investigator's house and saying hi to everyone like we usually do. We said hi to this lady who was rushing out to her car. She said 'I'm sorry loves I can't talk, my cat just got put down I'm very upset I'm sorry I just can't talk right now'. We were appreciative that she was so nice...that's not the usual reaction haha and then she rushed off. So the next day being P-day we were at the shops getting our food...and a lady comes up to us and what do ya know, it's Sue! She came to apologize for being rude (even though she wasn't) and we had a right old chat. Then we tried by her house a few times during last week but she was either on her way out or not home. Then on Friday we went to visit her...and she was home! She's Christian, kept saying she wasn't going to join 'the Mormons', but we always brush that one off :) We had a really lovely visit with her. She told us she was living near the London temple when it was being built when she was a little girl just after the war or something. We talked a lot about missionary work and how we were away from our families for 18 months. She was so impressed at what we had sacrificed to be here, she thought of our mothers and how proud they must be...she talked us up for about 10 minutes…and she hardly knew us! Haha…but we love Sue! She said 'I'm just drawn to you girls for some reason..I've seen other missionaries from your church and other churches, but something just clicks with you two!' and then she proceeded to invite us over for tea one night and said that we feel like her daughters (if she had any). She cried when the closing prayer was being said and she just hugged us and really loved us coming to visit her. She's a darling. Great progress can be made there! I'll keep you updated!

I've been doing really great personal study every day these last few weeks as well. I finished Doctrine & Covenants and up to Ether in the Book of Mormon. I started the Old Testament, I'm in Exodus 7 or something at the moment, I'm almost done reading Moses, and I'm more than half way through Jesus The Christ. I study a bit each day. It's very stimulating for my mind and my spirit :) I hope to have the Book of Mormon and Jesus the Christ done by Christmas...and then I can start all over again, woohoo! I just love the scriptures. Also, Jesus the Christ is a great book. I have a dictionary close by but I've definitely learnt a lot. They say knowledge is power...but I say knowledge + The Holy Ghost is Power!

Our District Leader Elder Berrio, and his HUGE gentle giant of a companion Elder Meldrom
(can't remember how to spell his name. oopsiess ) :)

Anyway, I gotta roll, but I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. No matter how many people I help convert through my efforts as a missionary, I know that I, myself, have been influenced the most. Through serving, you really do forget yourself, and as a result of that, you change, you become better, your weaknesses and doubts become strengths and confidence. I love the gospel. It's true and it makes me happy. If you don't believe me, try and live it .

"Doubt you doubts, before you doubt your faith" - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf 

Aaaaamen!

Love y'all  xxx

Sister Kuhn

We were taken out to lunch with our bestie Naomi from the Simcock family to the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream Farm. They had a Halloween set-up outside :)

Coldest Winter in 100 Years Approaching!

TRANSFER 4

Week 1

Ola! So, just going to start with a fun fact we were blessed to hear from a member yesterday during tea. This winter...has been forecast...to be the worst winter they've had...

 IN 100 YEARS.

 What the actual heck. Why? Who would do that? Worst in 100 years. Worse than The Big Freeze in the 50s or 60s or whenever it was, and worse than the horrendous winter they had in 2010 with snow drifts higher than like 6ft. It's starting in November and won't stop until March.

 So...hmm…yeah. If I don't come home because I've got frost bite and DIED, tell my dog Rommel I love him. I think I might just be cryogenically frozen kind of like Walt Disney and they can unfreeze me in the summer time next June.  Wowwww. Worst in 100 years. Well, it'll make for a good story! 

 The members who told us are probably the funniest couple there will ever be and ever have been on the earth. Craig and  Blanche Oseland. Oh my goodness. They are just too funny. They're also fantastic cooks! We always love going to their house, eating their food, and then laughing so hard that we usually work it off right then and there. It's a win/win.

 This last week has been lovely. Ups and downs as any week in missionary life goes, but the good always outweighs the bad, every time.

 This morning we got a ring-a-ding-ding in our apartment from someone pressing our buzzer thing downstairs outside. Sister Edgington answered it. She hung up after a while and said 'Jehovah's Witnesses are downstairs, let's go and talk to them!' we were like yeahh buddyyyy! So we skipped downstairs and had a lovely conversation with a man and a lady for about 10 to 15 minutes. She said they might come back. She read some of the Bible they use and we talked about how heaven will be on earth etc etc. It was all very interesting. They were both very nice. We also talked a lot about missionary work…we liked them :) Hopefully they will come back and we can actually sit down at the chapel or in their Kingdom Hall and have a chat! It was all very civil and kind of rejoicing in our beliefs and things. So that was nice :)

Magdalena was at church, which was great! She's preparing for her baptism on the 2nd of November :) We taught her about keeping the Sabbath day holy last week and when we went over last night to teach her she showed us how her tv was off and she even grabbed my hand and placed it on the top of it to prove it wasn't hot and that nobody had been watching it. She is ADORABLE! She's making the changes and exercising her faith in Jesus Christ. She knows it's true. She loves coming to church even though she doesn't understand a word of it because she's Polish and doesn't speak much English. She loves us teaching her and she loves the fact that after she is baptized she will feel clean and pure and will be doing what God would want. She is the best. Sister Edgington and I just love her to bits. Her boys are funny as well. Lukas and Simon. 14 and 12 years old. They aren't super interested in being baptized but we did take them to one a week or 2 ago and they love coming to Young Mens on Tuesday evenings...we're working on them! They're like younger brothers to Sister Edgington and me. We just love that family. We've taught her all the lessons via Google Translator. It's been a blessing. If we didn't have it, we wouldn't have been able to teach. The first few times we tried to teach but it just wasn't working. Then our District Leader Elder Berrio (the genius) told us we can use Google Translator, so that's what we have been doing. Success!

Our next investigator we've been working with a lot this last week is Richard. Lol. Richard...

He thinks Sister Edgington and I bring sunshine wherever we go. He loves how enthusiastic we are ALL the time and how hilarious we are. He's funny. We had a great lesson about The Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith and the pioneers. He was fascinated. We're seeing him again tomorrow to teach him Plan of Salvation and probably Law of Chastity. Bless him. He's 55 and loves caving and being outdoors doing things. He's also quite spiritual and has a firm belief in God. We're just working on him coming to a knowledge of the truth for himself so he can prepare to be baptized. We scheduled him for baptism but he wasn't ready because he hadn't been putting in enough time and effort to find out if it's true for himself. We can be very frank and straight up with him though. I asked him if he thinks he's put 100% effort into finding out for himself and he said he hadn't, so we went from there. He's a laugh and a half though he is. Love teaching him.

On Saturday the weather was amazing. Blue skies, short sleeve shirt weather! We were busy all day with appointments and things, and we set aside about an hour for finding at 5:30pm. After we went to a potential investigators house and they weren't home, we started our adventure knocking on doors...and it started to rain. Not only rain, but wind, strong wind, umbrella inside out 99% of the time, bag soaked, shoes soaked...may as well have been walking bare foot. Not only that but just before we started knocking, we had the time to go home and have a proper dinner (because we had a super quick dinner that took about 10 minutes when we get an hour for it so we could go by a potential when they said to come back) But we both had the feeling we should go knocking still, so we did. Then the heavens opened and I'm pretty sure I saw Noah's ark sailing down the street at one point while we were talking to people on their door steps in torrential rain. It was great. We got a few solid rejections, most of which we just cracked up laughing at afterwards. Some lovely man opened his door to stick his head out, I asked if he had any beliefs, he said he believes what we believe, I asked if he goes to church and he looked at me as if I just said his mother was stupid or something, me totally disregarding the reaction he gave us, I then asked if he believed in God, to which his reply was 'What? Why would I believe in God? I believe in Darwinism' So then I said 'oh so you believe in evolution?' He said 'Evolution? What's that got to do with it?' Needless to say the guy was just trying to be cunning and witty. He needed a better audience who appreciated what he was trying to do. We didn't. At all. Nevertheless, we love that man, and he will get another opportunity to hear the truth later on. We had many rejections like that. They were all very funny. We love knocking on doors in the rain! Haha

My mother (trainer) Sister McReynolds. She goes home at the end of this transfer. Sad :(

Yes I'm getting fat I know - bear with me! When I get home I'm going straight back to the gym! You can be fat 2 times in your life: on your mission, and when you're pregnant. And yes you may put this all on the blog under the photo or something. People must know these things!

Ok so Christmas is coming up everyone. Now, missionaries get few luxuries (I'm not complaining) but I am in desperate need of some new perfume. If anyone feels like they want to send me anything, you may send me the following perfumes:

 Paco Rabanne Lady Million

Gucci Guilty

Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb

Any sort of perfume from Juicy Couture

This is not a drill. If you feel the need to be Santa Claus this Christmas and also MAKE MY DAY, you may send me perfume. I love perfume. Much appreciated!

Happy birthday to everyone's birthday in October by the way! Especially Chantelle Kuhn on the 4th, Aunty Jill Kuhn on the 15th, my brother Sam for the 20th and Joe for the 30th! Hope you had GREAT and FANTASTIC days!

 The work is hastening! Thank you again for all the emails and support and prayers and love. You're all my favourite!

Love you!!!!!!!!

Sister Kuhn

Another transfer almost over...

Week 6

Well, where to begin! First of all, I'm writing this on an iPad so forgive me for spelling mistakes and if this update is short. It's transfer week so we have preparation day Tuesday (today). The library in Skipton was shut so we got permission to go to a members house..and who else's house would we be at but THE SIMCOCK'S! Love that family. 

Carole's 78th birthday. We brought her carrot cake and had a mini party for her. We love Carole!

 Well it was a good week! Met Patsy, the sister of a former investigator of a year or 2 ago. We helped her move house on Friday and taught her a lesson. It was the most powerful lesson I've taught on my mission so far. We were teaching 100% by the spirit...it was amazing! Sister Edgington and I walked out looking at each other like 'What did we just say??' I love that feeling. But that lesson was especially powerful for some reason. We then taught Patsy again the day after on Saturday and on Sunday. She says she felt like a weight off her shoulders just talking to us, and that she can talk to us and connect better than she could do with the elders. It was all just too cute to handle basically. She has a smoking problem but we know she can overcome it. She has a great desire and is scheduled for baptism! Our Polish investigator Magdalena didn't come to church because she had problems with her ex-husband but we went and saw her after and had a lesson with her. Last week she also fed us for dinner  which was lovely. Things are going slow with her, but that's ok. There are many aspects to consider when it comes to Magdalena. We need to be patient, keep teaching and being supportive and leave it to the Lord. Her 2 boys came to a baptism with us on Friday night  which was great. They're young but at least they could have that experience. A member in the branch called Jim took them :) The whole week is sort of a blur to be honest. Many miracles. We taught a great lesson in Relief Society on Sunday on missionary work and made fantastic handouts as well. It was a success! 

My lion friend Keavy and me :)

Oh haha funny story…missionary work is the best...so Sister Edgington and I went by some former investigators on Tuesday last week in a little village about 10mins from Skipton called Embsay. We visited an old lady called Joan. She was OLD. like, took 15 minutes to talk 7metres to the door old. Anyway, once she finally made it to the door and opened it, we went inside and sat down. In the middle of the introduction of who we were the phone rang. She answered it, it was a telemarketer. Biggest LOL of the century. First thing she says is "Could you please not be so stupid as to call me Jo-ann and call me Joan" and then she listens to whatever the poor soul on the other end of the phone is saying and says "Yes come on hurry up then I've got company". The whole time she winks and smiles at us thinking she's the mother of all comedies...and then you could tell she was bored of listening so she says "Oh I'm having trouble hearing you!" and proceeds to hang up the phone on the telemarketer. She then chats to us for a bit...and then, out of nowhere, she says "Look I've just got home and I'm tired and would like to rest! How can I do that when you're here? I need to rest so please get out!" She goes from being funny and nice and having her own comedy show in her house to being crazy psycho and tells us to get out. We just look at each other, I'm trying not to bust out laughing. We tell her it's been lovely meeting her and if she needs anything to give us a call and then we left. As soon as we get out of her house we crack up laughing at whatever just happened in there. We were there for max 10 minutes, which is hardly worth the 15 minute wait we endured at the door, but it was worth the laugh. Love Joan. She was a babe.

The transfer is almost over. I'll be going on 5 months come November. It's crazy how the time flies. 6 weeks has gone so quickly! Our Zone Leaders and District Leader are all staying!!!! Yay! Elder Esteves is due to leave, he's been zone leader here for ages, and our District Leader Elder Berrio is staying too! So good! I have the best leaders! Best best best! A few sisters I came out with are going to be white wash and training. Crazy! I love being a missionary! Man I wish I could write sooooo much more! I need to go though! Every week on my mission gets better and better. Seeing all these people progress and to see their happiness switch from temporary things to eternal joy with their families. 

Love you all ! 

Sister Kuhn xx

Conference Time Live!

We had TWENTY ONE baptized not last week but the week before! YAYYY!!!  So good! Our goal is 10 a week..and there were 21! Yeahh buddyyy!!! The Church is true in England Leeds Mission! 



Hello everyone. :) Sister Kuhn here! Sister Edgington is right next to me. We're both having secret typing wars as we type as fast as we can to get in as many emails as we can.

We watched conference this weekend. We watched the Saturday Morn session LIVE at 5pm our time on Saturday, and then the Saturday afternoon session on Sunday at 1pm and then the Sunday morning session LIVE at 5pm our time Sunday evening. It was SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was such a privilege to watch it. So many good talks! I took so many notes! Magdalena and her two boys, Lucas and Simon, came. Even though she couldn't understand anything that was being said, she wanted to be there and she loved it. We'll watch a few sessions with her in Polish this week when they come up on the website. We're going to try new ways to communicate with her. I'm going to buy an English to Polish dictionary as well so we can at least have SOME communication she can understand. Other than Magdalena coming to conference, our highlight was probably meeting Simone. 

Tuesday. 1 October. Sister Edgington and I drove to a village called Settle, it's about a 30 minute drive. We had tea at a member’s house called the Bentleys that evening so we thought we'd go do some finding in the area for a few hours beforehand. We went to Victoria Street. We said a prayer at the start of it (it went up a slight hill) and we prayed we would find someone. Well, nobody was home. Number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10..then we got to number 11. A girl opened the door. Her name's Simone. She has THE CUTEST (not including my nephews..) little boy called Tyler. He's 2 and a half and he was adorable!!!! Simone is 20 yrs old, married, and has Tyler. She doesn't have a religious background but we taught her for over an hour! We scheduled her for baptism and she was so grateful we knocked on her door. She said at the end 'I feel like Heavenly Father has sent you here to tell me this'. WOW. We taught her a very thorough Restoration and basically all the third lesson (Gospel of Jesus Christ). She's wonderful! She prayed at the end as well which was FANTASTIC! Seeing someone feel the spirit and exercise faith by praying to Heavenly Father is such a testimony builder that I'm in the right place, I'm meant to be here, the Church is true and God loves us all SO much. She couldn't come to church because she was going away but she wanted to come. She'll be there this weekend. The member family who live in Settle can drive her as well which is great :) Instant fellowshippers! That's the highlight :) that and conference!

The rest of the week was good, a lot of finding, knocking on doors, doors opening, doors closing, miles and miles of walking up and down hills, we talk to hundreds of people a week. It was a standard week.

AND WE GOT OUR ZONE LEADERS BACK !!!!!!!!! The prank they pulled on us…well, here is the story of PAYBACK. Moral of the story: Don't mess with Sister Edgington and Sister Kuhn...or just sisters in general :)

So, Sister Edgington rolled (her ankle) like 3 weeks ago and it's been acting up ever since. She's a tough cookie but ankles are important! 

We were in nightly planning with the Zone Leaders on Monday and Elder Esteves ..got all serious out of nowhere and ... he CRANKED her. (cranked means 'told off' - mission lingo.) He stressed that she needed to call Sister Pilkington (mission president's wife) and then go and see a Doctor. She was annoyed that she let it slip because she knows her ankle and the drama that it's caused her...But, because they are our Zone Leaders and we love and respect them, the next day, she called Sis Pilkington, who told Sis Edg. to see a doctor, who said to just get an ankle brace and see how you go. (The ankle brace she has doesn't fit her shoes so she hasn't been wearing it.) So we went and bought one that did fit her shoes. … I had a marvelous and great idea.... So at nightly follow-ups, after brainstorming, practicing and refining this glorious Hollywood quality acting for this prank…we called (the Zone Leaders) ..I put on a good show and asked to be put on loud speaker ... and then I handed the phone to Sis Edg who did an AMAZING job at telling them all that she did what they asked, went to the doctor, … and she'll need surgery on it again, that she talked to Sister and Pres Pilkington and they said she'll need to go home to have the surgery because recovery time is 4 months, but she can come back out after that.  After about 15 minutes of dragging it out, making them feel soooo bad, Sis Edgington gave me the phone ..and I was like 'Yeah...so we just wanted to call you and tell you that...IT WAS A PRANK!' Then you hear this huge roar ..of 'WHAT!!! EIRJAWFIJAW:' ...We recorded it on the tape recorder Miss Madison Heal gave me before I left on my mission :) It was the BEST prank ever! 

 The next day was District meeting…It took Elder Esteves awhile to.. swallow some of his own medicine and now he's back to normal :) It was so worth it. He's pranked ME twice. And each time was HORRIBLE! ...I now feel happy and satisfied with life and can die a happy missionary.

I can't believe it's the 7th of October! Where has the time gone?

Again, THANK YOU for everyone's emails. The address for letters and all the huge massive packages you're all going to send me is:

Sister Lucy Kuhn

England Leeds Mission

Lister House, Lister Hill

Horsforth, Leeds

UK LS18 5AZ

Lots of love  

‪Sister Kuhn‬ xxxx