Our area is booming with potential!

Week 6, Transfer 9

This morning there was a car alarm that was SO loud and obnoxious and just plain rude outside for like an hour..it just kept on and on and on. IT DID NOT STOP. So, during our prayer on the way out to catch the bus to email, we prayed that the car alarm would stop, because it was hard to even think. As soon as we prayed for it to stop, it stopped, so we were like 'oh thank you!' and continued with the prayer.

That's how our week has been.

I've felt the need to visit less-actives I've never met before, so whatever area we're in for an investigator or tea with a member, we always have at least 1 or 2 LA's we can go by and visit. After a tea appointment on Friday Sister Staheli and I went to visit a less-active. She wasn't there. But on our way there we met a retired Chinese couple. Hai Yun (the wife) smiled at us across the road, so we went and said hello. She was SO happy and excited to talk to us. Like, we were almost in tears laughing at how funny she is. She is just hilarious. She wanted to take a picture with us as well. She told us that Elders met her years ago and gave her a Chinese Book of Mormon and she reads it every day. She LOVED talking to us...if only everyone was that excited to talk to us haha we met her the next day and brought Jane, a Chinese recent convert with us. She was a huge help. Hai Yun believes in God and first went to a church with her friend when she moved her 15 years ago or so. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she believes it to be true. We also gave her another Chinese Book of Mormon because the one she has is quite old and actually a bit different (and thinner) than the ones we have now. We got her a ride to church for Sunday yesterday. She came. She loved it. There was a munch n mingle afterwards and she stayed for like 2 hours talking to everyone and laughing and joking around. She just really enjoyed herself. It was so good to see the members embrace her and love her. We asked her on Saturday if she came to know this was true if she would be baptized and she said 'maybe'. She is very 'with it' and intellectually sound. She's pretty sharp! She has been visited by the Jehovah Witnesses but I don't know if they come anymore. She loved church, loves meeting with us, loves reading The Book of Mormon. Miracle!

The next day we go for another tea appointment in a fairly dodgy area. We're in the area an hour early and we knock a street close to the member's home. We knock, and knock, and knock. Some people answer, have a few short conversations, no immediate success. We walk down the steps from yet another door and head up the street again. We ask a lady across the road what the name of the street we were on is called and she tells us, so we say thank you and smile at her. She then asks if we're Jehovah Witness. We walk across the street to her and explain who we are and what we do. She smiles and says 'please, please,.. come to my home' and points up the street. She tells us she's from Ethiopia, she was brought up in the Pentecostal church, she wants to learn English and read the Bible with us. We talk with her and we say a prayer as well. She was crying. I'm not sure if it was the spirit or she just likes to pray. I don't feel like I said anything exceptional in the prayer (and we all held hands because that's how she prays apparently), but she really loved us visiting. We're seeing her tonight and we're going to introduce the Book of Mormon to her. She lives with about 4 other people so there's potentials everywhere!!

THEN, as we were walking up to the member's door for our tea appointment, I had to make a phone call, so we waited outside while I was on the phone. These 3 young lads from next door come outside and one of them asks 'Are you Mormon?'. We were thinking it was yet another cheeky young guy on the street trying to be funny and we were ready for whatever immature comment they usually make..I got off the phone and we talked to them for a while. The lad who asked us if we were Mormon is the son of a member from Leeds 1. He said he's been a few times. He's not baptized and he seemed keen to learn more and come to church more. One of his friends lives next door to the member we were visiting, he's from Ethiopia, very intelligent as well. We asked the member Susan about them and she says his Mum is a really nice woman..so we might go by their house as well. All this took place in Chapeltown. which can a pretty sketchy area at night, so we won't go when it's dark, but it's booming with potential at the moment. While we were waiting at the bus stop afterwards, a lady crossed the street, she's from Chile, she was very interested in the church, we gave her a Book of Mormon and we may meet with her again.

Lee and Alice are still doing well. We scheduled them for the 12 of July. Lee just has to stop smoking and it'll be good to go. They love the church and they really want to be baptized together. 

We also saw Sam (Susan M, a recent convert's son's friend). We're teaching him this Thursday which is SO good. We think he'll progress really fast if he stops hanging around the people who influence him to do silly things. Fingers' crossed.

So everything's pretty good. So tired. Exhausted. Can't remember what else happened. But it was all good. I finished the Book of Mormon for the 2nd time on my mish and I've started Jesus The Christ again for the second time on my mission. I'm also half way through studying The Doctrines of the Gospel manual (I think that's what it's called?? I dunno, but it's GREAT.)

LOVE.

Sister Kuhn

THE MAN Elder Saolatoga  (I hope I got his name right). He's from Brisbane. His Mum sent him 2 Aussie flags so he asked if I wanted one, I was like heck yes son I want one! AUSSIE PRIDE 

These were all taken on transfer day last Wednesday.

2 last pictures with THE ZURCH. Soooooo cute 

Kera's Baptism

Too much has happened this week. I think I'll just make it quick and short...like a band aid.

Kera got baptised! It was a very successful evening :) We had a good turnout as well. 60 or so people which is really great for baptismal services. We had 4 people scheduled to be baptised on that night but only 2 made it. There's missionary work for you!

Short story about the baptism:
It was Thursday 12th June. The baptism was at 7pm. We were having tea at Sarah Boycott's who lives super close to the chapel and we get a call at 5.45pm from our ward mission leader asking if we're filling up the font, "Ummmmmmm nope?". He then proceeds to tell us that it takes 2 hours to fill up the font. The clock was already against us. We call the Elders, they drive as quick as they can to the chapel. We then rush to the chapel. We get there and all four elders are frantically filling up buckets and bowls and anything they can find to fill the font up with. You need a key to open the font tap to turn it on and none of us had one. Our ward mission leader was on his way. We didn't have time to lose. We ran to the kitchen, I found a massive punch bowl, started filling. Sister Zurcher picked up a bin, I knew what she was thinking, we took the bin bag out of it, washed it out thoroughly, and started filling it with warm water. It was like being on the crew deck of The Black Pearl or something. We were running around like crazy people. Elder Olsen, one of the Zone Leader's, was almost dying of stress. He is the funniest person when he's stressed or tired. We could put him on a stage when he's either or both of those 2 things and charge people to come and be entertained. So anyway, after a WHILE, Yanos, our ward mission leader came, opening the font tap, turned on the boiler and it started filling. It was a miracle that it was full in time for the baptism. The whole time I just kept saying 'Well, it'll make for a good story!'. That's basically been my motto my whole mission.

That's that story...

 We went with Lee and Alice and their kids for Kera's birthday picnic. Her birthday was on Friday and they had a picnic on Saturday. It was really lovely :) Love that family!

 

 So, transfers: Sister Zurcher is being transferred up north to Darlington. Geordie land here she comes! I've really really REALLY loved serving with her. We've worked out that my missionary sister Sister Wynder (she had the same trainer/mother as me and also served with Sister Zurcher) is Sister Zurcher's twin sister, and I'm sister Zurcher's younger sister. Considering we're both the youngest in our families I thought she would love to have a younger sisters. We are like peas in a pod. If we add Sister Wynder to the mix it's just one happy little family! I'm really going to miss her. Lucky I get to see her at mission leadership council :) I will be getting Sister Staheli as a companion. I was able to go on exchange with her while I was serving over down in Hull as an STL. Sister Edgington was in the MTC with her and they got along super well. No doubt she will be excited! :) Sister Staheli is becoming a new Sister Trainer Leader :) she is a FANTASTIC missionary. I'll tell you more about her next week :)We had Laurence Mputu come on a mini mission with us this last weekend. I made her a badge from my badge. It was the most ghetto form of identification you will ever find, but she loved it. She came to District Meeting with us as well. Her testimony, WOW, so powerful. She will be SUCH a great missionary :) She will come on a few more mini missions with us as well. We're recruiting all the young ysa girls in the ward for mini missions and getting them all on missions! Haha

It's a short one today everyone. I'm so tired. Exhausted.

Love you

Sister Kuhn    xxxxxx

District Meeting

Elder Berrio and us - he always does the 'Awkward Book of Mormon Distance'. 

That's what I've called it and that's what it's going to be known as forever.

​I know this says 'HIT MAN' but I always read it as 'HIT NAN' and it just makes it 100000 times more funny.

This is a graffiti wall on a short cut we go through that goes past Carnegie Stadium which is the rugby homegrounds for Leeds Rhinos that a member of the ward plays for. How's that for an explanation! 

God Will ALWAYS Make A Way

Week 4, Transfer 9

God Will ALWAYS Make A Way

The heading of this blog is really special to me and I have a strong testimony of it. I'll explain it a little bit later. So this last week, the only words I can think to describe it would be HECTIC. Absolutely hectic. That start of last week seems so long ago. We had 1 exchange with Sister Schmidt and Sister Morris. Sister Schmidt came here with me. We had loads of fun together. We taught Lee and Alice, visited less-actives, had correlation on Tuesday night, visited with members. We did a lot. Then on Wednesday we swapped back over before both of our District meetings. On Thursday we went on another exchange to Huddersfield. (One of) the sisters who usually go on exchange there is having health problems, so they asked us if we could go on exchange with Sister Hedstrom and Sister Wiborny. It was all good fun :) Sister Wiborny is from Germany. She is like a German Buddha. So patient, kind, powerful, sweet, and loving. She is quite shy and so is Sister Hedstrom,  so they're pretty much the most gentle and cute companionship ever. While we were on that exchange we got a call from a sister missionary needing help, so we had to take about 20 minutes to talk to both her and her companion and tried to give them support and help. 

Exhausting.

On Saturday we saw Rachel (recent convert) and helped her with her talk for Stake Conference that weekend. We had Stake Conference (Sat session) on Saturday night. It was so so good. The First Presidency asked if the theme for the Sat eve session to be on Hastening The Work of Salvation through prayer, faith and the help of individuals, families, and friends. Last stake conference was also on Hastening The Work of Salvation. It was so powerful. Sister Decker spoke (future General Relief Society President. Seriously) and Elder Amundsen, one of the APs spoke too. They represented all the full-time missionaries fantastically! 

Sunday session of stake conference was also powerful. They had a variety of speakers and topics. Although I LOVED Sunday session and it was great and I felt the spirit strongly and took loads of notes, my highlight was probably this:

The SIMCOCK'S!!!!!!!!!!!! I also saw President and Sister Slater (Branch President of Skipton branch). President Slater hugged me haha bless him. Also, Naomi Simcock is getting married!!!! I am just SO excited. I may or may not have cried when she told me...

Before or even on your mission, you don't realize fully the connection and the love that you will have for people. I was lucky and able to be reunited with one of my most favourite mission families and I realised how much I love them! And then I realised how much Heavenly Father loves them and loves all his children. It's powerful to experience a love like that for people that a year ago you could pass on the street and not even notice them. So I love this family. That's official. And I'm SO happy for Naomi!!!! It was a GREAT day for me :) I do miss Skipton on days like that!

I also was able to see Patsy and her sister Maggie who both came to Stake Conference. They're adorable :) Patsy is still Patsy and Maggie is still Maggie and I love them both!

So yep! Then Sunday evening we went and saw Aaron. Aaron is a champion. We LOVE teaching him. He is the happiest person you will ever meet. The lesson was so so powerful. We just let the spirit guide it and it went so smoothly and great.

I've been able to REALLY give the reins to the Lord at this point in my mission. I can speak clearly and simply and I say things that are inspired, but it's not me. It's 100% not me. It's the Holy Ghost. I know that. And I am SO grateful to be able to be an instrument in the Lord's hands in that way. Seriously. The gratitude for the spirit and for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ I've felt this week has been immense. It's crazy. I just love it!

I have grown a lot it feels like in the last week. It's kind of weird actually. But this week I can actually mark my progress. First time my whole mission. Alma 26:12 though, always. 

So, before I go I want to explain the title of this blog. Sister Zurcher shared this section of a talk by President Hinckley and it's stuck with me and I love it.

"What marvelous things happen when men walk with faith in obedience to that which is required of them! I recently read the interesting story of Commander William Robert Anderson, the naval officer who took the submarine Nautilis beneath the polar ice from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, a daring and dangerous feat. It recounted a number of other exploits of similar danger. It concluded with a statement that he carried in his wallet a tattered card that had on it these words, which I commend to you:

I believe I am always divinely guided.

I believe I will always take the right road.

I believe God will always make a way where there is no way.

I too believe that God will always make a way where there is no way. I believe that if we will walk in obedience to the commandments of God, if we will follow the counsel of the priesthood, he will open a way even where there appears to be no way."

I thirdly believe that God will ALWAYS always always make a way where this is none. I've seen it with this whole mega baptism event on Thursday. Sister Zurcher and I, 3 or 4 weeks ago, were doing weekly planning, and we had Tango and Aaron as investigators, we decided to go ahead a few weeks until this week and put in goals for 2 people baptized and confirmed. Tango ended up not meeting with us anymore, and Aaron has a pretty major concern and who knows how long it will be until or if he ever gets baptized. BUT, we got that referral for Lee and Alice and their 5 kids. We scheduled Alice and Kera for baptism for this week. Lee still is trying to quit smoking. We will reach the goals we set weeks ago. We didn't know what was going to happen, we just set them in faith, and a miracle happened.

That's what happens when you set goals in faith and do your best. Heavenly Father won't hold back his help, ever. He loves us. Why would he? That's my thought for the day :) He will always make a way where there is no way. I testify to you all of that you guyyysssss.

Keep it real! Thank you to everyone who reads this blog as well. Appreciate the prayers and love and support! All of us missionaries out here definitely need it!

Love you all. 

Sister Kuhn xxxxxx

 

I HIT MY YEAR MARK ON THE 6TH OF JUNE!!!! We were on exchange and the sisters surprised me as I got out of the bathroom with balloons and sticky notes. It was sosososossosososo cute. 

Happy year mark to me!

"This week was...a blessing."

Week 3, Transfer 9

Everyone, let me just start this off by saying how no matter what we do or don't do, the Lord's work WILL go on, so you may as well get on board, enjoy the ride (and the blessings) of being obedient and faithful :) 

This week was...a blessing. A tender, tender mercy of the Lord. Honestly. I don't have a whole lot of time, but in short:

We saw Kate (the Chinese girl we met when we did the POWER HOUR of finding last Monday) with Maria (Maria is, for lack of a better explanation, a dry Mormon..she hasn't been baptised yet but she was introduced to the church ironically while she was doing study abroad in China by some friends from uni over there who were members of the church. She came back to Leeds where she's studying at uni and comes to church every Sunday, she knows it's true, her testimony is so powerful, she knows more than a lot of recent converts do! She's from Essex and she is absolutely amazing. Family is extremely important to her so she wants to make sure her family understand and are accepting of her being baptised before she goes ahead with it. She will hopefully be getting baptised end of June or start of July. Her parents are from China and she knows Mandarin so she comes with us to see all the Chinese investigators we have. She's seriously...ahhh...so so so great. The heavens will be rejoicing the day she's baptised!) Aaaaand that's the Maria Ma Biography haha so she and Jane (a recent Chinese convert from the end of last year).....(and I said this was going to be short..haha what a joke) we talked to Kate about God and about prayer and Maria shared her story with her about how she found the church and her experience and her testimony and it was just such a great lesson. She also came to church on Sunday and she seemed to really enjoy it. 

Lee + Alice plus their five kids Kera, Natalie, Logan, Bella and Mercy all came as well. The ward just enveloped them with love and support. This is what it's about, helping others with love and kindness along their way in their progression back to Heavenly Father. We got them rides to and from church. The members in Leeds 1 are FAB! Such a blessing. I can't thank them enough for their support with this family. Kera and Alice will be getting baptised on the 12th of June at the huge baptismal fireside. Lee will follow them in a few weeks :) such a miracle. This family are wonderful. We love them a lot.

What else...honestly not that much. We had a great week. Busy, but great. We see Lee and Alice every night at 8pm so we can teach them with Kera while the others are in bed. The kids have so much energy man it's crazy. At church on Sunday I felt like a mother! I was sitting next to Natalie and then Kate was next to me on the other side, she was sitting next to little Logan and then Kera and then Sister Zurcher and then Alice with Bella and Mercy and Lee sat 2 rows behind because there was no more room! Natalie is the most hyper kid out of all of them,. but she was SO good at church. We bought them colouring books and crayons and after sacrament they just coloured the whole time. Natalie also wanted her own Book of Mormon, so I gave her mine to have and wrote her name in it. She was well chuffed! They all loved their primary classes as well. That's how it's meant to be. Families, coming into the gospel, partaking of those saving ordinances, making covenants with Heavenly Father and then going onto the temple together, as a family. That's our goal for them. I would do anything for this family. 

Other than that, it's hectic, it's busy, it's crazy, but I'm happy, Sister Zurcher's happy, the weather can do whatever it wants, rain, hail or shine, we're happy. We're blessed. 

This week, well, starting today, we have an exchange with Sister Schmidt and Sister Morris. I'm staying in Leeds with Sister Schmidt and Sister Zurcher is heading to Keighley. We'll meet back up at district meeting on Wednesday. Then on Thursday we have Mission Leadership Council, and then after that we're dropping the ZL's back to Leeds, taking the car and going up to Huddersfield for ANOTHER exchange until Friday. One of the STL's who usually go on exchange with Huddersfield are having health problems so they can't go. And Stake Conference this Saturday night and Sunday. We need to find rides for 342809812903812 people. All the Chinese people, investigators, and Lee and Alice's family. Joy! And then the week after on the Thursday is the Baptismal Fireside. So we need to make sure everyone who's getting baptised is ready and prepared and everything's sorted. 

Juggling act! 

Love you all. Keep up the great work! Don't forget to take time to chill!

xxxxx Sister Kuhn

Out with Tracy once again! Off to see Lee and Alice last night :)  

​On a scale of 1-100 my frumpy scale in this picture is 4000..and it's the day everyone decides to take a District picture + Elder Olaussen (one of the Zone Leaders).  

The POWER HOUR and Zone Conference..

Week 2, Transfer 9

Hiya all, alright? I'm going to try type this as quick as I can so I can reply to some of you other wonderful people who write to me! 

THE POWER HOUR (you have to say it slowly and in a really intense deep voice for it to mean anything)
It all started at zone training last transfer..we were all discussing another missionaries idea of what's called a 'power hour' which is basically everyone in the zone street contacting or knocking for 1 hour at the same time (but different areas). So at Mission Leadership Council (MLC) which is every month, Sister Zurcher brought up the fantastic possibility of a mission wide power hour. Everyone really liked that idea. So we scheduled it just under a month ago for yesterday. So yesterday (which is actually the start of week 3 of the transfer), THE WHOLE MISSION, 230+ missionaries, the senior couples, even (and especially) President and Sister Pilkington! (Haha..classic.) It was from 6pm-7pm. Sister Zurcher and I went to Hyde Park with Jess (a ysa who is planning on serving a mission next year). It was so so good. We brainstormed a few different approaches and things we could say..one of them was 'guess where I'm from'. People here think I'm from America all the time?!?!!!?!? Or Canada..or South Africa..or New Zealand..but hardly ever Australia. So we played that game with some people and had a few good eventful conversations. It was also raining a bit for the whole hour (and magically stopped when we stopped) so we went up to girls with umbrella's and either asked where they got their umbrella from or just said anything to come under the umbrella with them and had a chat. That is when we found Kate. We were walking from meeting Jess to Hyde Park, and we see this Chinese girl with a cute umbrella walking towards us on the other side of the road about 100m up, so we crossed the road and proceeded to walk towards her to talk to her, then she crossed the road to the side we were just on, so we crossed BACK to the other side..then as we were almost in talking distance there was a road off the main road we were walking on between her and us. I said 'I bet you she'll turn that corner'..nek minut..she turns the corner to go down a different street. Sister Zurcher then started chasing her. I'm not talking like a brisk walk, I'm talking like running after her. She was about 10 or 20 meters away from this Chinese girl and yelled 'hi!', she didn't turn around..so I yell 'Hi!.........Hiya!............Ni hao!!' ('hello' in Chinese) and she turns around with Sister Zurcher standing almost behind her haha she then asks Kate about the good Chinese restaurants around, and we get talking to her for a while..in the rain....her name is Kate (which is Sister Zurcher's first name..so it's already meant to be) and then she says she's lived here for a year and is doing her masters and then on to her PhD in Chemistry. She held her umbrella over all of us. So there is 4 of us, under 1 small-ish umbrella, sharing the gospel message, talking to Kate. Kate is a small, funny, cute, young Chinese girl with a bright bubbly sweet personality. We just love her already :) She said she's wanted to try going to a church ever since she came to England. We exchanged numbers and thanked her for keeping us dry. And off we went...to Hyde Park! We talked to some characters indeed. This one guy with a hat that said Shakespeare on it..we mentioned we liked his hat. He said he did as well, and he bought it with the intention that he liked Shakespeare, but he told us that someone told him it's actually a fishing brand..and that he's never even gone fishing in his life, but he still wears it anyway. Then we met these 2 young people from Indonesia!!!!!!!! I USED MY INDONESIAN ON THEM!!!!! It was the best day of my life. They were well impressed. FINALLY. After years of studying it when I was young in Darwin at school..and I've finally used it on actual Indonesian people. I've come all this way to England to find people from Indo to practice my Indonesian on. We also talked to this lovely girl called Amy. She had such sparkly great shoes..and a great umbrella. Turns out Jess and Amy have a mutual friend. Small world!

So that's the POWER HOUR. So many miracles mission-wide! Super fun..even in the rain :) 

Update on Kaaron: we sort of dropped him - meaning we aren't going to teach him anymore we don't think. We're passing him on to the Zone Leaders. They're great, I have full faith that they can make a difference and have an impact on that family. We also passed on Kaaron's friend Ethan who comes to church as well and lives down the street. The elders probably should have got involved with Kaaron a year ago, I don't know why it's only been sisters teaching him, but I think they'll be good for him. I love that family, but Kaaron needs more male role models to look up to, and the elders are exactly that. We have such good zone leaders! 

We have a massive Waters of Mormon baptism fireside bash THING happening in a few weeks. We have a few people scheduled for baptism on the 14th of June, so Sister Zurcher had the brilliant idea of making it like a huge thing, inviting the whole stake, getting President Pilkington involved, the stake presidency, getting a harp for Sister Zurcher to play and put her masters in harp performance to good use on her mission! We hit a bit of a speed bump with the date as there are other things on that night involving three stakes apparently so we're trying our best to sort that out. With hard work, faith, and diligence, we can pull this off! We're excited :) It's also Month of Invitation in June for a lot of Stakes over here so we're having a lot of activities to invite people to, this one will be SUPER good to invite people too. The spirit is going to be so strong and people will be entering the waters of baptism and it will just be amazing.

Other than that, we're just still doing our thing. Teaching, finding, scheduling, trying to align our will with Heavenly Father, trusting in Him, going with the flow etc. so many miracles happen all the time. I wish I could bottle them up and show them to everyone who doesn't believe in miracles. It's such a privilege to be serving here in this mission as a missionary for the Lord. Such a blessing!

Sister Zurcher and I have decided to study The New Testament together with the institute manual in companion study. Instead of reading it book by book, we're going to read the gospels (or 'testimonies') chronologically so we get an even better understand of Christ and His ministry. I heard from a member (I THINK it was in Skipton and I THINK it was Brother Simcock but I'm not sure) that he studied the gospels chronologically and by the time you get to the end of Christ's mortal ministry and the garden of Gethsemane, His death and resurrection etc, you can't help but get emotional. We can't wait to start studying it. 

The scriptures have come alive on my mission. If anything, if nothing happened on my mission (but loads has happened so everyone's winning really) but if all that happened was I got a love of the scriptures like I have now, then this experience was well worth it. I've loved every minute of studying the scriptures. I don't know why I didn't love them like this before?! I'm just glad I love and appreciate and have a testimony of them now :)   

Love y'all! 
Sister Kuhn

p.s Oh and ZONE CONFERENCE..that's a whole other story. It was AMAZING. So much was covered. If I bring my notebook one of these days I'll write up some of it for you! Oh..man..so good. Love zone conference

Before zone conference, we got there like an hour early (oops) so we walked to the York Minster since all four of us sisters haven't been there before and we took some photos and went inside and had a look. First of all, it's MASSIVE. SO so so huge, and it was beautiful, and inside was intense. It was half spooky and half peaceful..I couldn't quite make up my mind, but it was so worth waking up at 5:30am for accidentally. 

Then at zone conference I got a photo with ONE of (I can't have favourites so I have to say 'one of') my favourite zone leaders Elder Esteves, and I can say this...my favourite district leader Elder Berrio. Both are going home end of the transfer. Bless 'em..oh and also at zone conference they announce the birthdays in the last month and the next 2 months, and we all get a chocolate bar and on it will say what we've won. I got a cereal box of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cereal (they import stuff from America). I'm being healthy and Elder Esteves the cheeky kid came up and asked if he could have it so I gave it to him so I didn't have to get fat(er) eating it :)  tactics! 

Elder Berrio and Sister Jodicke and I..BOOK OF MORMON DISTANCE

So that's a description of the photos and a bit of what happened at zone conference. I'll have to write up my notes I took and post them on here at a later date. xx 

                                                         The temptations we're faced with as missionaries.... 

Sunshine in Leeds!

Week 1, Transfer 9

It's SUCH a glorious day here in Leeds! The sun is out (and it's actually hot!), the sky is blue, and people in England are usually more happy when the weather's nice..so it's a bonus for everyone really!

President has called us twice in the past 2 weeks to congratulate us on how hard we've been working. It's always really refreshing and lovely to get a call with encouraging words from him. 

We currently have 3 people scheduled for baptism, 2 on the way, and we received a referral from elders in Manchester Mission a few days ago. We called them straight away. They've been taught almost everything - Alice and Lee, and they have FIVE children ranging from 8 years old down to 1 years old. We're calling them today and setting up an appointment for this week and they might be at church on Sunday :)

Tango and Aaron are still scheduled. We're seeing Tango tonight and we had a great lesson directed by the spirit about prophets and apostles and receiving inspiration/revelation from God. Chinese people are very interested in prophets and apostles I've found..and the Plan of Salvation.

KAARON IS BACK ON THE RADAR! Boy oh boy has that been stressful. So we went a whole 5 week transfer without ever going to see him. No reason why, we just never seemed to get around there to see him, but we saw him at church because he comes every week and he comes to mutual on Tuesday. The best part about it is he brings all his friends haha he's the best. SO..we see him last week with Victor (his best mate) and Lawrence (VIctor's 19 year old sister who we know really well) and we touched base with him. This is round three for me with Kaaron. I really hope this is the last round we'll have. He's been almost baptized once, passed his interview and all..and he's been so close to baptism so many times..but this time feels different. He says he's ready to be baptized, but he wants his family to support him and I don't think they know anything about the church so it's a bit foreign for them. They're less inclined to support Kaaron because of that, So we've been praying SO much that Heavenly Father will just enable us to speak to his Mum Sharon for longer than a minute about Kaaron's baptism and about the church just so she understands a little bit. She has no interest in the church but she professes to be Christian. She always seems like she's in a rush and never wants to speak to us, but she's not rude or anything. I've known her for ages now. Kaaron was interviewed for baptism on Sunday (deja vu) and he passed. Now we're just waiting for him to talk to his Mum and we're going to as well. The first miracle of today was we went around to see Kaaron's Mum this morning quickly before we emailed, she was in but she was cleaning and she was just about to take Kaaron to an appointment. We had a really brief conversation with her while she stuck her head out of her bedroom window upstairs (I seem to have a habit of teaching and talking to people while they poke their head out the window) and she basically said she needs to talk to Kaaron about being Mormon because her family are Christians, not Mormons etc etc. Then it clicked..she doesn't even know we're Christian! We told her straight away that we're Christian and Jesus Christ is the center of everything we teach and believe. She actually warmed up a little bit and said we can come back later and sit down and have a chat. As we left I whispered to Sister Zurcher 'PROGRESS!'. Man..so happy. So we're cutting out P-day short but we don't even care because Kaaron has been going to church for a year and all that's stopping him is support from his family, but they don't know anything about the church anyway and we have a golden opportunity FINALLY to talk to his Mum. We're really hoping it goes well. If it does, Kaaron will be baptized either tomorrow night or next Tuesday because it's mutual and all his friends will be there anyway.

We also have the Manuel family. I love that family. Joseph Manuel lives up in Scotland and Carmelita and him are not together anymore but they have 3 kids and they live with her here in Leeds. The two boys, Igor and Denilson really want to get baptized. They've been members for 14 years or something but Carm doesn't come anymore. We got Joseph's number and called him a few days ago and got his side of the story of why the boys aren't baptized yet. Moral is, he's going to Portugal for a few months in 2 weeks, so we're hoping the boys can be baptized before he goes because Carm really wants him to baptize the boys and of course Joseph and the boys want that as well. So we're really busy and under the gun at the moment because so many baptisms in such a short space of time and we need to coordinate so many things! It's pretty uncertain at the moment but it's hopeful. We're just going one day at a time with this. We're seeing them on Thursday. Carm's home teacher is Elder Dryden in our ward, he got called as a Seventy over a year ago now I believe. The Dryden's are the best. They are SUCH good missionaries and fellow-shippers. We're having tea at their house and then going to the Maneul's afterwards.

The work is going at a pretty fast pace at the moment. Keeping us on our toes and busy!

Heavenly Father's hand is in everything. I see it in everything and I know He's guiding us.

Oh one more thing! (well, there are hundreds but I need to get going soon!). We went to Susan Magg's (recent convert's) house for Sunday dinner yesterday She did a lovely roast with all the trimmings and things. Traditional English Sunday dinner! She had her son Ashley and daughter Chloe there, and Ash's friend Sam was there again. Sam has such a kind and loving believing spirit, he got caught up with the wrong people when he was younger and was influenced a lot which left him in jail for a few years. He just seems like he needs love and he needs a relationship with his Father in heaven. He has believes and he always sticks around for our message at the end of our visits. We taught the Plan of Salvation using the puzzle/diagram thing that my sister Emily gave to me to use for my mission (it's helped LOADS by the way Em!). We taught him and Chloe (Chloe isn't too interested in the church atm, she just turned 18 and is trying all the things of the world but she's got a good heart) and of course Susan was there too. Ashley left and went outside to see to some of his mates but Sam stayed. We thought that was really significant. He asked us questions and he wanted to know how to get to the celestial kingdom. We told him that what we've done in our past doesn't define who we are. It's through the saving grace of the Atonement where we can feel whole and clean. He looked like he was about to cry at some points. He's a really good lad...you can just tell when you talk to him or you're around him. He also said he might come to church on Sunday. He has so much potential. There's a reason we met him again and keep running into him at Sue's house. Again, I can see Heavenly Father's hand in this great work. I love it! No matter how great or small the miracle, it's still a miracle, and Heavenly Father is manifesting his love for us in EVERYTHING he does. 

Well, that's me done. There's heaps I could talk about, but I'm off to enjoy the sunshine and smile at everyone! 

Love you all lots and lots

Sister Kuhn