Sicknesses, Psycho Border Collies, Swift trips to the Hospital at midnight, South Shields Exchange, Sleeping at the Crawford's...the list could go on...

So, our week started off pretty normal I would say. Monday, looking pretty promising, went to the Crawford's for P-day. It was SO fun :) We basically just had a SHREK MARATHON with the girls, ate loads of food, played some games etc etc. Love that family. The only thing was probably that Sis Z has this cold that just kept coming and going..and it was back.

Tuesday rolls around, we're proselyting near the chapel, having a gay old time. We walk up this moderately busy road, past all the houses of wonderful people, NEK MINUT, this border collie dog comes from left field. My first thought "Oh no it's going to run into the road and get hit by a car!" So I try to rally it back into its yard, next thing we know, she's running past me, goes up behind Sister Zurcher, runs through her legs, and BITES her on her upper inner thigh. OH MY GOODNESS. The very well to do lady comes out trying to settle her mega CRAY CRAY dog down. She ends up putting it in the boot of her car to get her out of the way. We find out the dog’s name is Nancy. Such a deceiving name. The lady felt so bad, bless her. She gave us a tour of her garden and her house and we had right old chat with her for a while. After we left, Sister Zurcher mentions that her leg is actually starting to hurt quite a bit. This is the one day we decide to WALK to the area where church is, so we have to walk all the way home before she can asses the damage. We get home, she checks her leg, there were 3 bite marks, one worse than the others, bit of blood, and you can tell it was going to bruise. Nevertheless, we went about our business as usual. That night, we follow up with our district leader Elder Flake. He freaks out, tells the Zone Leaders, who call us and say that Sister Zurcher needs to call Sister Pilkington. So she calls her, Sis Pilkington tells her to call 111 (it's like 000 but it's not an emergency line, it's like a helpline to assess if you should go into hospital or not). She calls it, They tell her to go to the hospital. By this time, it's like 10.30pm. We call Sis Pilkington, she says we can go, so we go. We wait an hour. A nurse sees to Sister Zurcher, she has a current tetanus shot so she was alright apparently, but she was put on antibiotics anyway, and off we went home. 

Meanwhile, her dog bite was looking more and more gnarly. Right now it looks like a bruised yellow, blue, green and dark purple Yin Yang. Looks pretty cool actually.

On Thursday we went on exchange to South Shields, nothing too crazy happened there thank goodness.

Saturday came flying…Saturday evening, we get locked out of our flat. The ONE time neither of us double-checked who had the keys. Neither of us did. They were sitting safe and sound on our desk inside the flat. We were also in our exercise clothes because we were about to do an Insanity workout at the chapel, which we do every one or 2 weeks with other people. We were also due to teach Primary AND Relief Society lessons on Sunday as well. All of which, were in the flat. So there we were. Sitting ducks. We called someone from the Primary presidency, told them of our predicament, said we couldn't teach the lesson. Then we called Sister C , RS Pres, to tell her what happened and tell her we can't teach the lesson either. Long story short, we end up staying at their house Saturday night and all of Sunday until about 3pm when we got the key back from our landlord. SUCCESS!

So that was our week :) Pretty standard. This week won't be as crazy hopefully. We hope to have more of a mellow, hard working, mid-crazy week :) A bit of crazy is always funner than no crazy init!

Still loving and appreciating all the emails and letters! Keep 'em coming! Understood if you don't have time. I feel like I have no time either so we're all in the same boat! :)

Much love

Sister Kuhn

‪PS I almost forgot to share this! Last night we went (to see) Trish. While we were there, I had a prompting to go and see a less-active sister L who we've seen before recently, and I was prompted to share a scripture I was thinking about at Trish's house. So I tell Sister Zurcher that we should go and drop by, so we do, and she's in. She is just the sweetest lady ever. She's married with 2 older teenage, very well-behaved boys. She joined the church a number of years ago. No-one else in her family is a member. We have a nice little chat and then I share Moroni 10:31-33 with her. I don't even know what I said really, but what she got from it was that she needed to do more to get her husband to soften his heart in letting her at least come to church without making herself feel bad or guilty. He's a really nice guy but only gets weekends off work so it's hard for them all to spend time with each other, and maybe to him church seems in the way of that. Fair enough. So there she is saying 'Yes, yes that is really a great scripture. I needed to hear that. Instead of me just sitting here waiting for something to happen, I need to be doing more to help him..' etc etc. I was like 'Woah.' All I said to explain the scripture was mostly based on verse 31 about strengthening and broadening Zion's stakes and how it will and does take effort and we can't just sit here and wait for it to happen etc. I said nothing about her husband…. but she got what she needed to get from it, so that was our job done. 

There's one thing that went right this week :) 

Photo time!

Week 1, Transfer 11

If a snail and a sloth had a baby, that's what our week would be like. 

This last week was slooooowwww..like a snail..but slower. More like a dead snail. Yeah. A dead snail. 

But hey, that's missionary work sometimes init! Lovin it! No progression, slow progression, hard times, rejection, bad weather...it all makes you more resilient dunnit! Makes ya stronger! Well, if this keeps up, I'll be the strongest person on the planet! Haha

I'll flood you with pictures now to make up for the LACK OF in the last few weeks :)

Martin's baptism...us with other missionaries...and probably some other photos that I know you've probably all been DYING to see............

LOVE

Sister Kuhn

 Martin's Baptism

With Trish and Martin

             With the Zone Leaders  (r.i.p Elder Mulgrew - he's going home at the end of this transfer)

 

Little Lu wanted to show us all her toys during a spiritual thought of watching a conference talk at the E's house haha and then she was shy about getting a photo! hahaha love her! 

Little missionaries! Lottie and Harriett C aka Sister Kuhn and Sister Zurcher..we're actually going to their house for p-day today! Such a cute family!!  

 
                                                                         

We went to the beach last p-day! To Whitby!!!!! So so sososo good to be at the seaside!

 

Darlo is in good shape!

Week 6, Transfer 10

WHY AYE MAN

That's a northern expression. It basically means YES in the most northern English way possible. Sister Zurcher and I say it with an almost Scrooge/ crippled elderly person accent. It seems to make it all the more legitimate for some reason. 

MARTIN WAS BAPTISED Y'ALL !

MIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACLE. 

He was so happy. Although he doesn't show his emotions very much, we know him well enough now to know that he was very VERY happy. He texted us Friday night and said 'Hey it's Martin thank you both for everything you do for me'. We almost cried! It was really sweet of him. His girlfriend Trish was there too - we got her and 2 recent converts to bear their testimonies too. It brought the spirit so strongly and it was really powerful. Sister Zurcher and I also threw together a pretty mint musical item if I do say so myself! It was a few hours before the baptism and we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We had a coordination meeting with the Zone Leaders and our ward mission leader and at 3:30pm, I had to do the programs for the baptisms, because the library near our house was shut and has really weird hours, so I was doing that. It was then suggested that we start filling the font then instead of waiting, just in case....and lucky we did, because we soon discovered that we didn't even have the key to the font pump to fill it up! We were like WHAT DUHHHHHH?!?!? The same thing happened to us in Leeds. We were almost recruited onto the crew deck of the Black Pearl again as we were thinking about having to fill up the font with buckets like at Kera's baptism…but luckily, I was locked into doing the program and Sister Zurcher was calling people trying to locate the key we needed, while the Elders started filling it with buckets. We have a new Zone Leader by the way. Elder Baker - word on the street is that he's training to be a Navy Seal, so he's pretty nifty at problem solving. So off he and Elder Leavitt went. Our trusty ZLs! Bless them. A while later we located the key, it was dropped at the chapel. By that time, our ward mission leader’s wife and one of his sons rocked up with a hose, (which) they attached to a sink tap and started filling the font that way. Both sets of us missionaries had tea appointments at 5pm so we all rushed off to them. We had tea at bishop's. It was great. Love that family! Such a good spiritual lot. Then we rushed back to the chapel to see that the font was almost overflowing after they turned the pump on…and we got there just in time for our ward mission leader to arrive from doing something else, to turn it off. 

PHEW.

Relief!

Why did we even expect a normal, smooth baptism anyway? It's not our track record…why start now?? 

The baptism was class. Musical item went well, talks went well, testimonies were great, spirit was strong, Martin was a happy lad..and overall, the spirit in the ward has lifted a bit and everyone seems to be a lot more unified.

That's what baptisms do I guess! I really love this ward. The members are great. Still getting to know them all, but from the way it's looking, THE ZURCH and I will be here until we finish our missions. So we have a sweet 4 months to help this ward to transform into a beautiful butterfly! 

The baptism was the highlight. Not much we can do to top that in the way of NEWS.

After church yesterday we went to Catterick Garrison, the big army barracks. We went by Virginia and her family but they weren't in, so we did some knocking. First door we knocked on, this HUGE, tanned, bald guy comes out...friendly as anything! We had a good chat. He ran a regiment I think. He was in charge of the soldiers who basically go into Afghan and other places and were the first to go into big operations/missions etc. Moral of the story: this guy was crazy. Not mentally, but because he was in CHARGE of all the soldiers in a thingy...  I'll do some more finding in Catterick and get up to scratch with my army terminology!  Anyway, we shared the restoration with him. Don't think he was interested in the way of finding 'the truth' but he knew A LOT about a lot of religions. We gave him an Articles of Faith card and he was very happy about that. We're making friends in high places here!

Darlo is in good shape, we're visiting all the outlying areas and things, having a right good old time!

Love you all

PS I was sick TWO days last week, vomited me guts up for 2 days as well. Feeling good now though. Makes you appreciate feeling HEALTHY when you're dying of the plague. Sorry I haven't sent photos in a while too. I completely forgot my SD card thingy to put into the computer .but next week, I'll have it!

Sister Zurcher and I are off to the beach today with a member from Leeds! Sarah Boycott and Hamilton (baby hammy!!!!) are coming up and we're going to Whitby. It's a famous beach…apparently Dracula was born there?? How true that is, I'm not really sure...but I'll bring some garlic just in case.

Love youuuuu!!!! KEEP SHARING THE GOSPEL! IT'S THE BEST THING WE HAVE IN THIS WORLD!!!!!!

Sister Kuhn xoxoxoo

Some great experiences here in Darlo!

Week 4, Transfer 10

Well well well, we meet again. I don't want this blog to get mundane, even though sometimes it does feel that way. So I'll keep it quick and short this time because I am just EXHAUSTED. 

The weather is nice. Summer time. Lovely. 

What I've learnt this past week: 

English people like to complain no matter what the weather is haha We were talking to someone the other day and they made a comment at how unbearably HOT it was that day, like it was completely out of the ordinary, so we asked if it ever gets that hot in the summer and they were like 'Umm yes it does quite a bit'. So I was thinking 'What are you complaining about then?!' I had a good old laugh. Haha I love these people. They're all just a barrel of jollies and giggles, even when they aren't trying to be haha To be fair, it does get quite hot here sometimes (strange, I know because it's 'England') but then after a scorcher of a day, it can pour down the next day. Never gets old!

So we started INSANITY at church every Thursday for investigators and members. We did it on Wednesday last week but Thursday from now on. Danny and Jeneill (both investigators) came. Danielle has had contact with the church for years. She loves it. She brought her mate Jen to Insanity and a YSA called Leona came too. It was so fun. Hard, but fun :) We talked for about 45 minutes and showed them the chapel and things. They organized to go to church this last Sunday and they came, and they LOVED it! Sunday school was about Eternal Marriage - Jen said to Danny that she wants to be baptized and sealed in the temple. We were like YEAH!!! They both have a bit of a crazy childhood etc but they've been mates since they were toddlers. We're making finding FUN and we're also getting in some extra exercise. I call that 'smart finding' :) 

So yep, they are just wonderful and great and crazy and we love them LOADS. 

We saw our Fijian family last week too. Virginia, the Mum, she is so humble and amazing. She's a Seventh Day Adventist as a lot of Fijians are. She is so honest and faithful. She told us that she listened to the Elders when they first knocked on her door, even though she had a religion, she thought 'these are men of God, maybe they have a message for me that I need to hear...maybe there's something I'm not doing', so she let them in. And that's what happened with us too. She's open to learning and knowing more. We see her once a week or so. 

What else...

Everything just mushes into one big BLOB. 

I've been having some great experiences here in Darlo though. This area has loads of potential. We just need to try harder to unlock it. It'll take time, but time is what we have, so we're going to get stuck in! 

We have a mission tour tomorrow. Elder Dykes of the Area Presidency is coming to speak to us. President calls us last week and asks us to coordinate a musical item with 2 elders/2 sisters. So Sister Zurcher and I and 2 other elders are singing in front of half the mission tomorrow. 

Yay.

It's gon be GREAT!...Because the spirit will be there and hopefully that's all they'll hear AND feel haha nah it'll be alright. It's only in front of half the mission...

What else, oh and then we have MLC (another meeting) and Elder Dykes will be present at that as well. It's a meeting we have once a month with all the STL's, President and Sis Pilkington and the ZL's. It should be goooood. Then next week is transfers. Boom! Transfer 10 - see ya later!

I'm LOVING hearing about all the people in Adelaide going on missions. LOVING IT! I won't mind having 0.01 friends when I get back if they're all on missions haha what a great example they are! 

Peace and love everybody. SHARE THE GOSPEL, invite people to activities and church! JUST DO ITTTTTT.

xoxoxoxxoxo Sister Kuhn

It's a small world!

My first half a week in Darlington aka Darlo (which sounds so much more bogan than its actual name) has been lovely. I've had some crazy tender mercies from the Lord. I'll start with Sunday and go backwards because I can't hold it in any long!

The chapel is a two-story gig, a bit like the chapel in Hull. It's smaller though but the members are full of life and we have some characters in this ward indeed. You may hear about them later or see a piccy of one of them. So we had a tea appointment with the Bundy family yesterday arvo. They are a fairly young married couple. Brother Bundy aka Clyde is a Captain in the army so they live on the army base. Turns out he served his mission in Adelaide ...he knows Dad (he remembers him as the District President)...he reckons he went to our house in Nightcliff and he remembers seeing me (I would have been about 11). He knows and had a lot of lovely things to say about Aunty Jill and Uncle Chris. He knows loads of people in Darwin because he served up there and he served in Adelaide. He knows the Grangers and the Rochows and the Smiths etc etc. He then proceeded to bust out his 2 didgeridoos and boomerang and his mission photos. It was SO good to talk to him about Darwin. It was hilarious. We had a good old chat. I got a picture with him and his wife as well. Such a small world! 

Bundy family

Also, a guy called Jared Lambe just got back from serving in Melbourne about 4 months ago. Turns out he knew everyone I knew who was serving there at the moment...AND he was also companions with Tom Bennallack at the start AND at the end of his mission. My world got so insignificantly small in a matter of minutes talking to him. CRAZY. We're going to his house to visit him and his family this week too. Shoutout to Tom B man!!!

AND THEN, I found out that my current Zone Leader Elder Mulgrew knows my mate James from Ireland because he's Irish. AND THEN, when I told him Madison (aka Sister Heal) and I stayed at James' house with his family in Ireland when we went to convention, he then said 'I literally live 2 minutes away from his house!' So my world is now the size of a grain of sand ladies and gents. See ya later!

Just kidding - so Darlington is a huge area (the town isn't that big but the area we have as missionaries covers a lot of other smaller towns and villages). One of them is Catterick, a big army base/hub. A lot of Fijians are here for the army. There's a family who come every now and then to church from Fiji, who are in the army. We went to visit them yesterday as well, and then we went by a potential investigator,  who was a referral from elders in Scotland, also from Fiji. We're going to convert them all and start a Fijian branch in Darlington!

The ward is great. Supportive. They just had a recent change in Bishop and bishopric. The new bishop just asked us to teach primary from here on until who knows when. The previous bishop is moving to Preston and he has a big family. So we're stepping in to help :)

Ok, so I could go on for days about this place. The main event: THE INSANTIY WORKOUT.

Whoever hasn’t done it, don't ever. Ever. Try. Don't. It KILLS you. Sister Zurcher and I have a very strict exercise/eating regime going. We got the insanity work out from a member who does it in Leeds before we left. So we go to the chapel every 2nd morning and do it.  Every other morning it's either yoga or running.I miss that sore feeling I used to get from the gym every day after I trained...but IT'S BACK. AND IT HURTS. I love it!

Alright...I didn't mean what I said about don't ever try it. I was just thinking about how I wanted to throw up this morning during it. Moment of weakness. We're going to be fitter than the army blokes around here soon! Haha…so that's our morning exercise for you all. The insanity work out. It is, indeed, insane. But SO good…even if you want to throw up afterwards…no worries.

Alright y'all, I'm outies. Thank you for the emails, the letters, the prayers, the EVERYTHING. I just love you!

‪Sister Kuhn‬

I just LOVE THIS EXPERIENCE.

Ello everywun! 

Busy busy busy week. We had zone training meeting Friday, mission leadership council Thursday, le tour de France depart Saturday, roads closed, bus routes cancelled or diverted, appointments, meetings, church. sleepovers with the other sisters because their church meeting was cancelled because of tour de france etc etc etc. HECTIC

Hai Yun is doing fine :) Her husband still isn't keen on her being baptised. He'll come around eventually no doubt.

Sam's Mum is also interested in the church! She is such a sweet and kind lady. She would just absorb the gospel and be such a great, faithful member. Last time we were teaching Sam she left us a note which basically said she would love to arrange a time to meet if we wanted to. We were like HECK YES OF COURSE WE WANT TO! She is wonderful! Sam is going through the challenges of opposition at the moment. He knows he will have to make some hard life-changing decisions regarding his friends and who he associates with, but he will get there. We know he will. He needs the gospel. He prayed for the first time out loud with us on Saturday. It was so sincere and honest. I LOVE hearing people who have never prayed out loud before. They are the most simple yet powerful prayers. It would be nice to always have prayers like that and to always understand the power that comes from it. 

Lee and Alice are still going strong :) Kera says to us all the time that she wants to be a sister like us when she's 19. She has about 10 years to prepare haha I love that girl. Lee just needs to quit smoking and he'll be good for baptism. They want to be sealed in the temple as a family :) that would be the best thing in the world when that happens. I would love to see them go through the temple :) 

The three /four Ethiopian girls we're teaching are doing great. Rhel, Fiori, Selam and Marty. Marty is very busy and is sometimes not there when we teach. Fiori is moving to Headingley, which is where I'm emailing right now actually! It's a student/modern/chill suburb on the outskirts on city center. So she will be SO much closer than Chapeltown where she is currently living. She really wants to come to church as well. Rhel LOVES us haha she is so funny and cheeky, but very invested in her church. She did love the chapel though when we took her inside at the ward bbq. So yep, they all have Amharic Book of Mormon's so they can read away even if they don't want to commit to anything yet. That's still progress! :)

Everything is going swell :) I can see at different points on my mission how far I've come and how much and in what ways I've changed and developed as a person. I can see at the moment the growth I've made since being here. It's HUGE haha not just in my knowledge in the gospel and my testimony, but in who I am as well, my take on life, the way I think, the way I treat people and different situations. I've just grown a lot and I can see that now more than ever..and it's pretty cool :) don't get me wrong, there are still so many things that have stayed the same, or even come out more haha but I know that the changes I've made and will continue to make are positive and I've been so blessed to be able to improve and progress. 

I'm just so grateful for this gospel. I'm grateful for the missionaries and friends who influenced and taught my parents the gospel. What a blessing! I owe those people the biggest thank you in the world. I'm just realizing so many more things that I've grateful for as a result of serving a mission. I was super grateful for a lot of stuff before coming to England, but I'm able to recognize and be grateful for so much more. That, in itself is a blessing!

I just LOVE THIS EXPERIENCE. I don't love the doors being slammed in your face, the abuse, the long days, the freezing days in the rain, the sweltering hot days in the sun, the hours and hours of street contacting or knocking, the cancelled appointments, the let-downs, the transfers etc etc the list could go on for days. But you LEARN so much from those experiences. Hard times and sorrows expand your soul, so when you've gone through them and you feel joy and happiness, it fills you up the brim, and the hard times that you have experienced don't seem to matter other than what you've learnt from them. The happiness feels MORE than the negative or sad feelings you before experienced. It's amazing! I don't know how it works, I don't know, but that's the Atonement for you! I'm telling you, our lives are win-win situations. We sin - we truly repent, we feel better and we feel the unconditional love of our Saviour PLUS we take away a world of experience and knowledge about how great the gospel is (winning). We go through a hard time, no matter what it is - we learn so much about ourselves, about this life, about the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and we become better and stronger from what we experienced and what we learned (winning). We get rejected - we become more resilient, stronger, and we care less about rejection because we've gained so much strength (winning). Someone close to us dies - we get stronger and our testimony gets stronger of the Plan of Salvation knowing we WILL see them again (winning). It just MAKES SENSE. The gospel makes sense. We win, no matter what. If win, we win, if we lose, we still win..even if it is in the end. The Plan of WINNING I'm going to start calling it. 

Those are my thoughts for you all now :) 

If any of you would like further explanation about how your trials and hardships in life are a win, feel free to email me, write to me, or just talk to me in a few months when I'm home. I'll be happy to chat! 

WINNNNNNINNNNGGGGGGGGG

Love you bye!

Sister Kuhn

Oh and a MASSIVE P.S  - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR ALL THE BIRTHDAY WISHES AND CARDS AND EMAILS AND PACKAGES AND JUST EVERYTHING. If I didn't hear from you and you consider me a (good) friend of yours, it's OK, because life gets crazy and I know how it is. So don't even worry..because I probably missed 75% of all you people's birthdays anyway haha I'll just get you back when I get home! Just kidding..but really..but just kidding.

Love and peace !

Time is going by SO fast....

Week 1, Transfer 10

What duh?!! Where did the last week go???

You guys…time is going by SO fast. So I went through a bit of a hard patch in the last few weeks…well, months. It's something that Heavenly Father had to help me with I think. It wasn't the missionary work, the work is booming here and Sister Staheli and I have a lot of fun together. I honestly think it was a little bit me and a lot of the adversary. I'm through that though (for now). I can testify to you all, that I know, I KNOW, that God answers prayers. He does. He does he does he does. A thousand times over HE DOES. He has helped me and guided me and taken me by the hand through the past few months when I was feeling overwhelmed or stressed or just simply down and out. The sun is shining (metaphorically - but sometimes it shines here in England literally) and I am over the mountain! I don't know when the next one will come, I don't know when I'll have to climb up and feel like I'm holding on by my fingertips, but when it comes, I know to call upon the Lord. JUST DO IT like Nike. 

Ok, back to this last week. It's almost impossible to have enough time to write down all the miracles and experiences and crazy things that happen in a week.

Sam: We got Jamie, a recent convert from Harrogate, to come to Leeds and help teach Sam with us. Sam's getting help with certain addictions and he's truly wanting to change. He is a truly special soul. I feel Heavenly Father's love for him when we teach him. I wrote this in my letter to President just before that I received a blessing from Elder Olaussen a few weeks before he left and he said that there are people here who I knew in the spirit world waiting for me to teach them the gospel. Every time we teach Sam, I feel the spirit so strongly and I think he might be one of those spirits I knew before. I can just see him embracing the gospel and becoming the man that Heavenly Father wants him to be. It's just a pleasure to be able to teach the gospel to people. It is an absolute pleasure. No amount of sacrifice or money could make this grand opportunity not worth it. It will be a slow process for Sam I think, but he will get there. We're not giving up on him :)

Hai Yan is just the sweetest lady the ever walked the earth. She is SO cute and hilarious. We really just love her so much. Her husband isn't too keen on her being baptized and there is some family opposition there but hopefully we can work through that and Michael (her husband) will soften his heart. We prayed with her that he would. She has great faith and she LOVES church haha LOVES IT. 

We had a ward BBQ on Saturday. It was epic. They had volleyball and a jumping castle and all sorts. We had like 10 or more non members come and a few other people we invited as well. It was a great success. We gave like 3 chapel tours and ran around trying to make sure everyone was comfortable and having a good time. Sister Staheli and I went home to have tea and we just crashed and slept the whole tea hour that we get and then we went back out.

Also, shout out to ERRBODY who sent me emails and cards for my birthday. I SO 1000000% appreciate it every single one of them…yes, that means yours! 

Love you all. Time is going super super fast at the moment. Don't you all change too much!

Sister Kuhn xxxxx