Members Ministering, Living Library, Draining Training and John's Baptism!!

Week 3, Transfer 7

DRAINED.

I am so so so drained. Riding bikes every day doesn't really help. A quick run down of the week…which, let's be real, probably won't be quick at all..

Monday - P-day! It was fab. We had a boring day, emailed, shopping, wrote letters. It was great! We wish we had time to sleep but P-days go by so quickly it's ridiculous. Especially because we have to cycle (ha! now we can cycle. BLESSINGS!) everywhere. Walking was taking WAY too long. Monday night, our member visit got cancelled so we went by the potentials we have in our area. We went by Adam, he wasn't home but as we were knocking these 2 guys walked by. Now, it's a dead end street, and we were towards the end at Adam's door (remember that small detail). As the guys walked past us, one of them muttered 'Bible bashers'.. and so I turned around and told him 'It's Book of Mormon bashers actually mate', Sister Scott then says 'Yeah if you're going to insult us, at least get it right'. They thought that was quite funny (they looked pretty young), they had a bit of a laugh. They were walking past Adam's by now and after we made our funny little comments they stopped and were like 'Is he not in?' and I said 'Who? Adam? If you're waiting for someone here, why'd you walk straight past the door? Coz we're here init?' They thought we were proper funny, so they came to chat with us. The one who made the failed attempt to make fun of us went inside, but his mate was interested in talking to us, so we chatted for about 15 minutes. Then Adam got home, we got a return appointment with him for the Sunday after, and his mate James said he would come to church. Lol. It was a funny situation. p.s James didn't end up coming to church. He doesn't even have a mobile. He works on a farm and doesn't see the use for technology like phones or computers lol the simple life. I think he would've been very cheeky when he was a little lad. But we'll no doubt see him again :) Anyway, we tried by a few other potentials and had some good chats :)

Tuesday - Did some service, saw a recent convert named Julie, had tea at a members house, knocked doors, talked to people..standard day. Always fun though :)

Wednesday - District meeting in Hull and then went to Bishop Burton College (for kids 16 and up basically who want to learn a trade or something either to work or go to uni…sort of like TAFE in South Australia). We were invited to do something called Living Library where students will ask you questions and you can chat to them etc. Wednesday was a bit slow because some of the classes couldn't go when they were scheduled to, but we got free lunch and stuff so it was good :) There were some people from other religions too. It was well interesting. We had a good time. Then we had a member visit, painted our nails haha so great.

Thursday/Friday - Had the living library thing on again in the morning on Thursday. It was SO busy that day. Hectic. We were like chatting away to groups of up to 10 every 5-10 minutes. We made a positive impact :) A lot of them took mormon.org cards and pamphlets and they looked at The Book of Mormon and things. It was faaaantastic! Good fun. I've always wanted to go into a school and do something like that so it was a dream come true for me haha Then we went and saw Tracy, one of our investigators who is amazing. Had a good lesson with her. Then we went to Harrogate for exchange. Now. Due to the delicateness (is that even a word?) of the situation, I can't say a whole lot. But Sister Edgington has hit struggle town with the sister she is training at the moment. She's only been out 3 weeks and is (having) some dramas..so Sister Scott and I went to give some support and assess the situation especially for President as well because he is well aware of the situation. It was DRAINING in every day possible. Emotional, physical, mental...just..bleghhhh. :) So we had that. Sister Edgington is handling like a PRO though, she is amazing. She is doing (everything right) and is just being 100% solid and amazing and I just love her and am so proud of how she is coping with the situation. It is grinding her down a little bit, but luckily she lives with 2 other sisters as well. They have been a huge strength. We call her or she calls us about every day. Hopefully it will all be alright :)

Saturday - We do our weekly planning on Saturdays because we are on exchange on the Friday and we sit in on other sisters’ weekly plannings. Then we went to Hornsea to see a recent convert called Andrew with Brother Drane who is lovely and takes us places :) Hornsea is by the sea, which we were able to drive by on the way home. It was nice :) We then did some service for Elly Taylor who is the most amazing and strongest woman ever. She is such a great example. She's had a lot happen in her life but she is still always smiling and she is just gorgeous and amazing. Then we had tea at the Roberts and their 2 crazy girls. Haha it was good. Theeeeeeen we went and saw Andy with Brother McConnel again like the week before. Andy was super tired because he works a lot but it was a solid lesson.

Sunday - Church. It was great, I love Sundays!!! Visited an elderly sister in the ward. She's so sweet :) Sister Fewster - Bishop's Mum :) Then we saw Adam (the guy from the Monday story lol). We took Brother Kenny Richardson with us. It was inspired because he was able to connect with Adam on a level that he could really understand and he worded things so well. It was a great lesson. Adam has had missionaries in the past come to him and talk with him for ages but now I think he has the desire to want to know if it's true or not. He said he'll read the Book of Mormon and might come to church. He has a lot of potential. He's young and intelligent and just a good bloke I think. He'd be a fantastic member of the church! In the evening we went and saw the Blakestons - 2 of the older people in the ward, husband and wife, they are so lovely :) They are having some hard times but they are so strong and sweet.

So that was my week in a nutshell! Thanks for coming. Until next week! PS. Today for P-day it's zone p-day and we're having an international p-day..I'm taking the TimTams you sent me Mum and vegemite and we're going to do TimTam slams !

Love you all! I wish I had more time to get into detail about my testimony and spiritual experiences and things, but I just have no time ever! But my testimony has grown SO much and my relationship with my Heavenly Father is growing every day, along with my sensitivity to the Holy Ghost. The Godhead are good friends of mine :)

Oh and pps JOHN EVANS GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He's receiving the priesthood next week. Highlight of my mission :) So happy for him!!!!!! (He's grown a manly beard as well haha)

Love you byyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeee xoxxoxo

‪Sister Kuhn‬

We have bikes!

We finally got our bikes! We have sore bums :) but we will get fit and probably die but it's all good!  

Sister Pacis took this photo. She put it really high because she is really short.. Sister Tafangatoto and I at the flat during exchanges :)

This is what I have to deal with here..beautiful sunsets...even though it's freezing cold :) took this in a town called Market Weighton near Beverley.

Week 2, Transfer 7

This will be a quick blog, nothing CRAY CRAY to report, just bits and bobs :)

Highlight of the week was probably getting 1 new investigator called Andy. He is a funny lad. Shy and intelligent..but funny in his own little way (I laugh anyway lol). We had a member called Gordon come with us. They got along really well despite the age difference (not that that means anything lol)

We had an exchange with my old comp Sister Pacis and Sister Tafangatoto my girl from Tongaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I was with Sister T and we cruised around Beverley being bomb missionaries talking to errbody and whatnot. The weather is lovely as well. I am just so happy about it! Spring is coming! Winter wasn't even that bad! The exchange went fantastical. Sister T said it was the best exchange she's had on her mission (she's been out abooout 12 months now). She said Sister Scott and I are relaxed but hard working and we are ourselves all the time. So that was really nice. It made us feel good :) and like we were actually fulfilling our calling and helping the sisters. We have such amazing sisters in this mission! They are the best examples to me. I learn more on exchanges that they do I think!

We had mission leadership council this week as well. We drove with the Zone Leaders. It's like an hour and a half to the chapel where we have the council every month, but it's nice to sit down and it's also nice to become more unified with our leaders. We have great zone leaders. One from Utah Elder Hillyard (I forgot how to spell his name) and one from Spain Elder Trassiera (can't spell his name either). They are fantasssstic! The counsel was so good - it's with all the zone leaders, sister trainer leaders, AP's, and President and Sister Pilkington. We have an agenda and we discuss things and concerns and questions and issues etc. The spirit of the meeting was so lovely. Different from last time. I hope all our meetings can have the humble and loving spirit (as) in that meeting. It really felt like we were gathered together to HELP and to inspire and uplift and encourage everyone.

Anywayyyyy, I must be off! I have emails to reply to! I thought everyone would have forgotten about me by now but I keep getting emails so I guess that's not the case haha Thanks for all the support and prayers and love and emails and letters and EVERYTHING. You are all so amazing. I just love you all!

Sister Kuhn

Making friends in Beverley.

Week 1, Transfer 7

Not sure where February has gone but it's gone. This last week was AMAZING. Not for any huge particular reason, but miracles are just happening all over the joint!

First, the people we met last week:

Gary Morrison - we were coming back from an exchange with the Sisters in Louth and it was Friday night. We saw this guy fixing his side mirror (it was obvious someone side swiped him). We said hi and then ended up chatting for about 20 mins. He had so many crazy stories. He moved to Vietnam and travelled to places near there for a solid few months, He trained in martial arts with this group of people who train in the forest. He just went around Asia training in all sorts of martial arts and then he studied to be a Buddhist monk and he loved it…and he met his wife in Vietnam as well. He has tattoos all down his arm, shaved head, but you wouldn't find a nicer guy. Probs in his 40s or 50s. The most impressive thing he said though was mid-conversation. He stopped and said 'Salt Lake City. That..that is my favourite place in the whole world. I would move there tomorrow if I could… anywhere else and I'd have to think about it.' We were like WOW! He loved his time he spent there with his wife. Everyone was so lovely and he saw the Tabernacle Choir and LOVED it. He is just sold on Salt Lake City haha he also offered to fix one of our bikes because that's what he does as a hobby sort of thing and he's really good at it. So we made a new friend, his favourite place is Salt Lake City, he's the nicest guy and he's always offering to help. Amazing! So we'll see him a bit more I hope :) He's not interested YET about the church and things but we just want to be a friend at the moment. It's all in the Lord's time :)

Zoe Laing - she is amazing! We met her over a week ago. Saw her on Saturday. She says she's athiest. She's about 17, such a lovely person, seriously, so nice. We got a member, Tanya, to come with us to the lesson. She's a young Mum with kids and they got along really well. They connected perfectly and I know that's exactly what Zoe needed. We taught the first lesson which was sort of all over the place because she had a lot of questions but we love questions so it was great :) She also said her first prayer at the end!!!! It was so powerful! We invited her to be baptized and she said if God tells her this is right then she would. She will need a bit of time I think but the seed has been planted and she has a desire to figure it all out :) We love Zoe!!!!

Ruthy - oh Ruthy...she is just an amazing human being. She is a friend of a member Ellie Taylor. She's never let missionaries in before but at an activity that Ellie invited her to Sister Scott and Sister Shmidt talked to her and she said to come around. She's not interested AT ALL in the church for now, but we just fellowship her and bake with her and make things (because she is SUPER talented at everything). She's like mid-30's I think. We love spending time with her. We're going to her house next P-day to make things and bake.

Update on the bike situation: we have 1 bike! Gary is fixing the tyre FOR FREE and then we're trading it with one of the elder's bikes because the one we got is a man's mountain bike. Skirt…man's mountain bike..yeeeaahh..not gunna happen. So yup! We're picking up the other bike from another set of members on Friday and we are buying helmets and locks and stuff today and BADABOOM we will have bikes! Yeewwww!!

We're working with 2 less active families at the moment. I don't like calling less-activies "less-actives". Anyway, the Ashmore family, Ann (the Mum) and Millie and Sam are her 2 kids. They are an amazing family!!!!! After the lesson we shared with them last week, Ann said 'I really enjoyed this lesson!' She's so kind and genuine and a really good Mum. She just doesn't think that of herself. I just love the Ashmore family! They all have such great qualities and although they may lack a bit of confidence at the moment, Sister Scott and I can see it growing the more we see them and set them challenges.

The other family we're working with is Lisa George and her 2 kids Rhys and Amelia..and boy do I love that family as well! Lisa is like SO talented at re-doing furniture and selling it, she has an eye for bargains as well. Her house is decked out with amazing things from garage sales and all sorts. Love it. Apparently Sister Scott and Sister Shmidt were never were invited in when they went to see her a bunch of times last transfer. I called her when I first got here, she said she'd call us when she was free. Then we saw them outside doing the garden and spoke to her briefly. Then one night just randomly, like a week ago, we went by and she opened the door and we said hi and things and she was like 'Are you going to come in?' We like were YEAHH BUDDYYY!!!! I love Lisa..she's super genuine and always ALWAYS is offering to help even though she has a lot of things to deal with herself. She is a great example to me. She shared personal things about why she stopped coming and things but we don't push her on anything. We're merely there to get to know and to love and uplift her and her family. She then invited us around again for yesterday night. She fed us curry and everything! We ate, laughed, played charades, talked..and half way through she says 'you know, I was just thinking..Paul (her partner who lives in London) is coming up in 2 weeks..and he thinks all you do is come here to preach and things. I'd love for him to meet you and get him to see you're just normal, fun, people..who are thousands of miles (well, I am lol) away from their families..." We were like haha ohhhh man..we would LOVE to come over when Paul is here! We just love that family and we look forward to knowing Paul better. He believes in God but doesn't know anything about the church so automatically he's not interested. But just being a friend and getting to know each other is great too!

We had Zone conference as well this week. I think I'll copy and paste what I wrote to President..well, bits of what I wrote. Last week on Monday I had a very powerful spiritual experience concerning prayer, and then at zone conference, everything I learnt and heard just supported and testified of my experience. I LOVED zone conference. It was fantastic! President (made) a comment that I loved. He said 'I'm not going back to Egypt!' He related it to the children of Israel and how the Lord delivered them SO many times..but when times got tough, they wanted to go back to being enslaved and things..they forgot about the miracles and everything the Lord had done for them. He also talked about how this church doesn't go backwards. It only knows how to move forwards, because it is Christ's church. I wrote down these notes in my letter to him last week:
What stuck out to me
• There is opposition in all things, we need to expect (and be ready for) the dark to come where there is light

• Keep refining our finding approaches

• We need to continue to march north (President always says that lol)

• It was great how (he) spoke about Moses in relation to light and dark (opposition/Satan), and the children of Israel (forgetting the miracles and lacking faith), and Elijah and his experiences and then related it to us as missionaries, missionary work and even individually

• We can achieve great things if we have faith and work hard

• We need to be exactly obedient

• Remember the miracles we've witnessed, especially on a day to day basis, because they happen, and we need to be mindful of them. Remember the help we receive from our Heavenly Father.

• Don't limit ourselves- we can reach the goal of 501 baptisms

• I'm not going back to Egypt either!

.

On the beach at Mablethorpe 

We went on exchange to Louth as well with the sisters there, Sister Staheli and Sister Scott (not my companion, a different Sister Scott..from Arizona lol) We loved the exchange. We went to a town by the beach! I took some photos briefly of the coast of England! Lots of miracles, spoke to loads of people. The sisters there are doing so well. They're the only sisters in their zone and the only ones in their area as well. They're guns!

We went to a place called Market Weighton in our area..saw these footpritnts everywhere..apparently the tallest man in the world lived there..and this is how big his foot was.  Big fella!






Ummm..yeah that's about all I can remember at the moment. My study at the moment has also been supporting my experience last Monday. It's been amazing! We shouldn't wait to call on the Lord. He is ALWAYS there and waiting with his arm outstretched to help us. I made the mistake of not calling upon him when I needed him and I just kept feeling (the way) I did…and then when I finally did heed to the promptings of the spirit and prayed for help, I got it, in a very powerful way. Prayer is POWERFUL. Never forget that!

Love you all, have a great week! Summer is coming here in England! Wooooo!!!!!!

Sister Kuhn xxxx

‪

Heavenly Father is constantly trying to teach me to TRUST HIM.

Week 6, Transfer 6

Where has February gone? I forgot like an idiot that there were only 28 days in Feb…so now I need to white-out half my planner for this next transfer.... Nice one Sister Kuhn.

So, I'm in Beverley now. Firstly, it's lovely and 99% of the people are incredibly friendly which is a good change because only about 70% or so were like that in Hull. No complaints though. Hull was a great area.

The day after P-day was transfer day. And even though I'm only going 20 mins up the road to Beverley I still had to go to the transfer meeting... SO MANY MISSIONARIES. Always.…so many missionaries at transfers. I see Elder Hobby for the 2nd or 3rd time, I see Elder Saolatonga from QLD for the 4812390th time. He's the man. Didn't know him before my mission but we're definitely going to be mates when we get home. A fellow Aussie - well, Poly Aussie. But an Aussie nonetheless! Oh and Elder Hynds as well. I was on the bus with him TO Hull last transfer. He's always popping up everywhere. We have some good chats. So we're sitting in the chapel, waiting for the new missionaries to walk in and (their names)  are on the seats at the front facing us.I see one called 'Elder Ormsby' and next minute Sister Pilkington is saying to me that he's from Sydney Australia. I'm thinking 'NO.WAY. Jess Ormsby's (now Jess Paton) brother??! Anyway, in they walk, I see a boy version of Jess and I know he's related straight away. I talk to him afterwards. He IS Jess's brother! Small world! He's being trained by an Elder who came out with Sister Edgington. Also, a new Elder..Elder Lag....ahhh I can't remember his full name now. Anyway, his first name is Joe I think. I say Hi to him and turns out we were in SWEDEN together at Soulnite?! Haha the smallest world!!! I remember him too! We were all on a train together and everything. He's a champ. Happy he's in my mission. No doubt he'll be an AP before he finishes! .........................So that was transfers :)

Our old Keighley District at Transfers, and Elder Goodwin, one of the AP's.

In Beverley, we have a HOUSE. It's not detached but it is indeed a house, or as I like to call it, a HOME <3 sooosososos cute. It's proper nice like...we have 3 bedrooms, 1 for us and a dressing room for both of us and for storage and stuff. It's great. And we have a garden aka backyard and apparently fish but we don't feed them. The church is renting it from the members who own it. It's mint!

I was struggling a bit these last few weeks. The area (in Hull) just wasn't doing very well. I think I let Satan get to me a little bit. I felt down and out a lot of the time. I'm glad that I was moved, however, I was so sure that I'd be staying in Hull. It was a huge shock. All my mission I kept thinking 'Man, is it going to get really really hard soon?' Of course, it's hard, really hard. But no matter how hard it was, I always managed to keep my head up and keep soldiering on. It's exhausting after a while, so naturally, being imperfect and human, I let myself down a little bit. I'm great now. But for those few weeks, it was tough. I never thought about home though…My 3rd District Leader Elder Berrio, who I would count as a friend, made me and Sister Edgington promise him that we would stay on our missions no matter what. That's never honestly crossed my mind anyway. I came on a mission to finish, not to come out and go home early, so that's what I'm doing. Anyway, it was hard. 

I was nervous to come to Beverley. Sister Scott and I went on exchanges before, but that's different when you are companions 24/7. I was nervous about how we would get along etc. First time I've ever been nervous about something like that, but there you go. Turns out it's been way better than I thought. Heavenly Father is constantly trying to teach me to TRUST HIM. I thought I did. But I always keep being put in situations where I learn to trust him over and over and over.  Sister Scott and I get along like a house on fire. It's only been a few days but I know we'll be good friends by the end of the transfer or however long we spend serving with each other.

I've learnt a lot in the past month or so. BUT...it's happy days ahead!

I like Beverley :) However the buses are rubbish. They only come every blue moon so we walk everywhere :) Sore feet. Woooo!! Love it. I can lose fat and get fit before I leave Beverley, go to a car area and get fat again :) We have a few outlying areas including Hornsea, which is by the beach! We also have Walkington, I think, Bridlington aaaaand Driffield and some other little towns in between. We are campaigning to get bikes from members so we can ride which will be super dooper.

Sister Scott and I have been working super hard since I got here as well. We're exhausted all the time. We walk a lot, talk to everyone, and have wonderful conversations with people. We've got quite a few solid potentials in the past week. We're working with the less-actives and part member families as well. We are going to do some damage here in Bev! I'm calling it Bev from now on because we're on nickname basis now.

We went to Driffield on…oh man, I can't even remember what day I did what. Well, we went to Driffield last week. It's a smallish town. We (went) by train. We had a member visit and then knocked and did some street contacting. Just before we were heading back to Bev we said hi to this lady walking into a Chinese take-away and we asked if it was good. She gave us a half hearted smile and didn't answer. This guy stopped, saw what happened and then said 'Are you not from around here?' We talked to him for 20 minutes walking up the road. Being from Australia has come incredibly handy as a missionary. Everyone has a story to tell about Australia - someone they know moved there or went on holiday, or they went on holiday there or lived there or their mum's uncle's wife's brother's daughter's husband's son went there for uni or SOMETHING. Turns out this guy (whose name is conveniently Michael) lived there for a year and he LOVED it etc etc. His wife owns the Bell Hotel in Driffield. We stopped out the front and he (told us) how much history was inside. Then he invited us in the hotel lobby... and showed us around. It was amazing! Proper historical hotel. So nice! Mum, you would have loved it! The original water well was there, original floor, windows etc. Google it if you want :)  So that was nice. Oh and on the way to Driffield we met Amy on the train, who we asked for directions and she actually walked us all the way to where we wanted to go. She is now a potential and is coming to church next week :)

We  are doing well so far! We have a goal of 3 baptisms this transfer and we are going to do all that we can to reach that. This year the mission goal is 501 baptisms. Last year was 450 I think. Anyway, pray for us!

I love being a servant of the Lord. It is hard sometimes, but I need to always remember that I'm on the winning side. You need to work hard but have fun as well. Always having that balance. I got lost a little bit and stopped having a balance for a while and it have a great effect on me. Now I'm happy and the sky is blue and it's all good! :)

I LOVE THE GOSPEL! It makes complete sense to me. It's just the best!!!!!!! Where would I be without it? Nowhere NEAR as truly happy as I am now with nowhere NEAR the eternal perspective I have. The gospel is just amazaingignignign and fantastic. CAN I GET AN AMEN?!

Have an UNREAL week errbody! Keep it real!

Love you all and stuff

Sister Kuhn x

Goodbye Hull...Hello Beverley!

Sister Pacis and I

How has your week been? 

My week was pretty standard. It's hard whitewashing (when  you and your companion go to a new area neither of you have been to before)..but..it's TRANSFER WEEK THIS WEEK!!! AND...ANDDDDDD...I'm moving!!!!!!...to a place called Beverley! It's literally only 20mins train ride out of Hull..so I'm still in the same zone and everything. 

Our Hull District

I'm also in a district with Sister Huang and Sister Arrive who I've been living in the flat with for the past 6 weeks. Not much will change. I'll be serving with Sister Scott who is my Sister Trainer Leader companion for exchanges. President is putting the STL's together now. They originally served with other sisters but now he's changing it (thank goodness). It was hard trying to stay united with Sis Scott and stay organised when we weren't even serving anywhere near each other. So this will be good. Although I'm sad about leaving Sister Pacis. She's so great, I love her loads. She's always happy and smiley and singing and laughing. She is a lot of fun. We all have a lot of fun in the flat :) 

When we were walking home last week...hahaha I love Baptist church signs

How are your meals? Do you need any recipes? I am a pro at cooking. I can do quick things and easy things and delicious things and it's all good. I'm just eating too much chocolate so that's why I'm getting fat. But never fear, I'm going to Beverley where we walk 30 mins to appointments and to church and everywhere because the buses are useless. It's meant to be a very posh area, similar to Harrogate or York..but smaller I think. Yay for getting skinny again!  Wish me luck :) 

I got home from exchanges (with Sister Edgington by the way!!!) It was a great exchange and I got all this Valentine's Day stuff. So cute!!!
                                                         

      

       My companion is the best!

To the Edgington family, 

THANK YOU so much for your Valentine's Day package. It was so sweet of you to think of me. I LOVED it! The sisters I live with LOVED the vanilla almonds you sent me. I had to fight them off all the time! Haha thank you so much. And I will definitely take you up on that offer to come and stay when I'm in Utah next! I saw Sister Edgington last week. She is doing well. Sister Rawle and I took her to the doctor and she will be feeling better soon hopefully. It was SO good to see her again. She will always be a good friend for the rest of my life. Also, when I was with her Zone Leaders at a meeting, I mentioned her name and they said 'Oh she is such a good missionary, so focused...'.They just praised her! I couldn't hold it for long though..I was like SHE IS MY DAUGHTER!!!!!!! (whoever you train on your mission is your daughter. The missionary family tree..haha) I was so happy to hear she is doing well and being the amazing missionary I knew she was the day she got here! I thought you might like to know that :) She is doing the Edgington family proud. I also saw her lamb winter hat (we call them beanies in Australia). I LOVED it! She may or may not ask you to send me one haha I'd wear it all the time! Represent the Edgington's all the way in Australia as well when I go back!

Love you all! xx 

Sister Kuhn

Thanks for the love and support and emails and letters and prayers and just everything!

Week 4, Transfer 6

Well, I'm all better now. Back to just being tired all the time :) That's when you know you're back to yourself as a missionary haha 

One more week until transfer calls. Another transfer over almost. Can't believe where the time has gone! Almost 8 and a half months for me. There needs to be a slow motion button and somebody needs to press it because this is just getting crazy with how fast time is going. Sister Pacis and I have found our feet in Hull now anyway. We know our way around and the bus routes and members homes etc. 

This last week hasn't reeeally been anything of amazement. I don't have much to report on really. It's one of those weeks in missionary work where you don't really know where the week has gone, you had great plans every day and a lot of it didn't go according to plan, and your teaching pool is minimal..so it doesn't FEEL successful (especially numbers wise with key indicators - but they aren't the most important anyway. They are just a means to an end really), but we did a lot of walking and talking to people. We have those weeks every now and then. It's good for us. Ups and downs. Ahh..life :) 

I do feel, however, more involved in the ward now. We're trying to do more less-active visits (which we did this week and they were all lovely) and more member visits. It's all at a turtle's pace at the moment progress-wise but that's ok :) we are happy and cheery and will continue working hard! Yesterday at church a lot of the members were making sure I was all better now and everything. It was really nice :) I also spoke to the Polynesian family in the ward. I just feel so at home and at ease when I have Polynesians close by haha I don't know why..I just love them. The Samoan family from NZ have lived in Hull for 8 or something years. They still have their accent and we were joking around that they were going to give their kids a hiding when they get home for being naughty in sacrament meeting haha I love them. They're going to have us over sometime soon as well. Excited for that!

On Thursday I had my first Mission Leadership Council as a Sister Trainer Leader (STL) with Sister Scott. We had to sleep over at the York Uni sisters’ the night before and go with the York Zone Leaders because our ZL's car is being repaired at the moment. So we had about an hour drive there and back with the York ZLs. We got onto the topic of music and it came out eventually about my letter from Lil Wayne and the few famous music artist encounters that I've had (one of the ZLs loves hip hop and rap and we bonded over that haha). Now I think half the zone leaders in the mission know about it because they asked me about it after the meeting. Lol. Bless them.

Anyway, the meeting was great. We discussed a lot of things. I was really just trying to get a feel for it all so I only put my opinion forward once or twice. But next time..haha..they better get ready for it. I'm GOIN IN. Nah but it was good. 

My highlight of the week was actually today (so it's my highlight for this week and last week). I got an email today from John Evans, who Sister Edgington and I met and taught in Skipton quite a few months ago. Man was it good to hear from him! Under unfortunate circumstances, he moved back to the UK with his Mum from Portugal where his Mum was living and where he moved to, which is why he wasn't baptized. He was far away from church in Portugal and the missionaries didn't contact him. He emailed and said that he went to church for the first time and he loved it. I'm writing this in an internet cafe and I wanted to cry I was so happy to hear he'd been in contact with missionaries again and now he's scheduled for baptism again in Chester where he's living now! BEST NEWS I'VE EVER HEARD!!!!!! I am just so excited for him. It just shows how powerful Heavenly Father is. He moved and we sent referral after referral to Portugal missionaries and nobody contacted him…and then he (by what I believe to be divine intervention) moved back to the UK where the Skipton Elders contacted him and got the Chester missionaries to contact him. What a blessing! Made my day, my week, my month, my mission…everything! I'm over the moon :)  So there's a great story for you all today. He reads my blogs too - you're the man John!!!!!!! Keep it up! 

Today for P-day we're having lunch at a fancy Chinese place and then going to a park where there are WALLABIES! I'm ready to feel at home! haha

Love you all, thanks for the love and support and emails and letters and prayers and just EVERYTHING!

Sister Kuhn xx

'The gospel is for people who want to be the best version of themselves.'

Week 3, Transfer 6 (I can hardly keep up trying to remember what week I'm in!)

How is already February 2014? I just got used to writing '2013'!  All jokes aside (and I use that one all the time…haha) 

This is the joy of when we go finding :)
We find puddles in the shape of love hearts.

So for the past FOUR days I've been sick (English people translation: I've been 'poorly'). I've had a viral infection. Don't ask what that means,I have no idea. I just know that I felt like I was hit by a big MAC truck full of concrete + I had a slight fever + I had all the symptoms of what seemed to be a flu bug. Went to the doctor, he said (because) it was not bacteria, I couldn't even get antibiotics for it because it wouldn't have done anything. I just had to wait it out. SO, my poor companion Sister Pacis has been inside with me for the past 4 days. It's been brutal. I hardly ever get sick and haven't been sick on my mission so far, but this will about cover the whole 18 months I think.

In other news, the days between Monday and Wednesday last week were brilliant! We have a new investigator called Mark. He's mid-30's, very sincere and has a desire to know if what we teach is true. We had a powerful lesson with him last Wednesday. The member who was meant to come with us cancelled, so we had about 30 mins to find a new one. It was obviously meant to be because Toni (a relatively new member (who) joined 2 or 3 years ago and is amazing!!) came and was our member present. She taught a lot of the Restoration and the spirit was so strong. I love those lessons. I feel like I can go on auto-pilot now and let the spirit guide the lesson and I'll just say whatever I'm prompted to. When you're sensitive to the spirit, teaching is easy. You study every morning, and then they are THE easiest lessons to teach. We as missionaries just have to be worthy...to be vessels of the Spirit so we can be lead by the Spirit.

That will probably be one of my aims when I finish my mission, to remain as sensitive to the spirit as I am blessed to be now. Anyway, it was a great lesson. We scheduled him for baptism and he will be at church next Sunday. Since I was sick for the past 4 days and have been in the flat dying, we had to drop basically everything. We didn't even go to church. Yep, I was pretty poorly. I'm getting there though. Not 100% but definitely feeling better than yesterday and the day before. 

We have a lot of work to do this week. Especially to make up for the last 4 days! We have an appointment at 5pm (we're cutting our P day short by an hour) with a family from Bangladesh. They have 3 or 4 kids I think. We met the wife knocking. She doesn't speak much English, but we ordered her a Bengal Book of Mormon and went back to give it to her and she said to come back on Monday and we can speak to her husband. We were so surprised because she didn't seem super SUPER interested (probably because of the language barrier) but we were so happy she invited us back to actually go inside her home and talk with her family. 

There are miracles happening everywhere, every day. Not only as a missionary, but for everyone. The gospel is what makes us the best version of ourselves. The HAPPIEST and strongest and BEST version of us. I love that about this church and its perfect doctrine. 

I've been reading The Articles of Faith by James E. Talmage, which is an approved book for us here in this mission. I'm learning a lot about Joseph Smith and the Articles of Faith and the doctrine. Elder Talmage puts it all so simply (well, simple for me anyway). It's such a good book! I'm so excited to read all the books written by prophets and apostles when I get home. That's something to look forward to! 

Love you all, keep being great examples, let your light shine. The gospel is for people who want to be the best version of themselves. Share it with everyone so they can reach their full potential through our brother and Saviour Jesus Christ, his love for us and his great sacrifice :) 

Keep it real in the gospel!

Sister Kuhn xxx