Hermana Kelsey 10:3 -email-

Hey familia!

This week was pretty good. We had a lot of success, and met a lot of really cool people. Things are going pretty great here…which means I will probably not be here for very much longer. I am kind of feeling like I will get transfered this next tansfer. 🙁 I will be sad, but it will be for the best. I guess. But Sister A. will take really good care of this area for me when I leave.

Monday: We taught a family the Plan of Salvation, and it went really well. They are really cool, and they really want to get an answer that it is true, but they are expecting something big, like what happened with Joseph Smith. We explained to them that we usually don’t receive answers like that, and that Joseph Smith was a very special case. He still thinks that it should be something bigger than what we have told him he will be.

Tuesday: We had a really cool lesson with a family, and they were really accepting of the gospel. And then, like usual, we got interrupted by something right in the middle of the first vision lesson. 🙁 Satan always tries really hard at that part of the lesson to interrupt and get people distracted, and help the spirit leave. But we will keep working with them.

Wednseday: Nada paso (nothing happened)

Thursday: Nada paso (nothing happened)

Friday: We found out that Elder E. is getting transferred to another area, and we are going to get an elder that was serving in Peru, but he came home for medical reasons, and now he got reassigned to Texas. Also, we went to a wedding in the evening. I wish I could have taken pictures, but my camera SD card didn’t have any space, so I couldn’t. 🙁 But it was beautiful. She is a member of our ward, and she married a white guy that speaks spanish, so they had the ceremony in spanish, and all of the white people didn’t know what they were saying. Later on after that, we went to teach A__ and M__. We reviewed the plan of salvation with them, and A__ knew it so well! We were so surprised, but it was awesome, and we also found out that they are really married…which never happens! We are so excited, because they can get baptized without very many problems.

Saturday: Nada paso (nothing happened)

Sunday: Nada paso really (nothing happened)

Mami!

I’m glad you had a good week. Things are pretty great here. That is way cool you met Jenny Phillips! She is probably way cool to meet. ( I told Kelsey that when I met Jenny Phillips, that I told her ‘I wish we were best friends!’, Jenny laughed and said ‘I do too!'”) We were actually listening to her cd the other day. I’m glad you are still staying busy with church and stuff. That is also way cool you are speaking on Christmas Day. Then I will get to talk to you about it when I call later in the day. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway, thank you so much for the Christmas package! I got it on Thursday, and I was so excited. I especially liked the scriptures on them. They were super cute. Also, I didn’t open any of them, because I am saving them for Christmas. If you could possibly do this, (this is just a request) if you could have people that come to the family parties write me letters about what is going on and stuff. That is basically the only other things I want for Christmas. I just want some letters from family. No one ever writes me except you. 🙁 But if you could do that that would be fantastic. Also, I just want to thank you for everything you do for me, and the love and support that you give me. I really sometimes wish I could be home for Christmas, but then I just remind myself that next year I will be. 🙂 🙂 Tell everyone I say hi, and that I miss them all! ! ! ! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Papi,

Natasha is so sweet isn’t she?!?! I miss that little chickadee. I think y’all should send me pictures of her like at Christmas time and stuff. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I kind of feel like this isn’t really the holidays because I am not there will all of you and the rest of the family. But it’s all good. Things are great here, and to be honest, I would rather be here than there. Even though I miss everyone. Being a missionary is so rewarding, just in different ways. 🙂 🙂 Anyways, I gotta go now.

I love you all!!!!! Be good, and all that!

Love, Kelsey

Hermana Kelsey 10:2 -email- 

Hello family, How are y’all doing? I hope things are going great for you. I have a pretty great week. We had a baptism on Saturday! Her name is S___. She actually tried to cancel her baptism like an hour before, but we went and talked to her and she went through with it. It was seriously one of the most stressful situations I have ever been in. Every time we have a baptism, it is very stressful getting ready for it, but this one was even more so than others. I am going to attach a picture of her, her two daughters and Sister A. and I. 🙂

In other news, this week we had lots of stress! We were running low on miles, because it was the end of the month, and so we were trying to figure out how to get work done, and still not go over our miles. So we tried really hard not to, but we still did…and then we found out that we actually had 50 extra miles. So we didn’t go over anyway. So that was good.

Thursday: We got to hold some tiny puppies, and we wanted to keep them, but we aren’t allowed to have pets, so we had to leave them there. And it was even harder because they were FREE!!! But oh well.

Friday: I went to ZMCs where they train the zone leaders about how to be better leaders. And apparently they only invite sister missionaries if they are going to be training…so I might be training next transfer. :$ I’m not sure how I feel about it. I felt like I had prepared myself to do it last transfer, but it is really scary now. But the Lord knows best, so I’ll do what he wants me to do. I also got to see Sister V., who I met in the MTC, and she is super duper awesome! So that was really cool.

Okay, so to answer your questions…

1. My companion is from Lindon, Utah.

2. Things are going good. We get along well, and we can be very open with each other, so that is good.

3. She has been out for 6 months, but she speaks spanish very well.

4-How often do you feel the spirit in a day? 4. It depends on the day. Sometimes a lot, and other days not as much. It also depends on if we did all the things we are supposed to do in the morning. Sometimes if we aren’t obedient it is harder to fell the Spirit.

6. No we don’t have to talk to a certain number of people, but we are supposed to talk to everyone we see, and we have another goal to get 6 new investigators in each work.

7. Sometimes we do tracting, but it’s not all that useful, so we try to get referrals from members and other missionaries of people that are actually interested. Also, we stop by people who used to be investigating to see if they are still interested.

8. I am serving in a ward right now.

9-Did you open your Christmas packages? (Alex) if not, don’t till Christmas!! 9. Did you send me a Christmas package? Or will you? I’ll probably get it today if you sent it already.

10. We will try to talk on Skype on Christmas, because we have a member that has Skype, but I think that we have to get permission to do it first. So probably I’ll just be calling with our phone here.

11-What can we do in our lives to feel ready for the second coming of our Savior?11. The typical answer we usually tell people is praying, reading the scriptures, and coming to church. If we are doing all of those things, well, and keeping the commandments, we will be spiritually prepared for whatever will be coming in the future.

That is so cool Chad is home. Does he seem different than before? It is true, our time will come. And you will get two of your kids back within a couple months of each other! 🙂 And it won’t be very long from now. It feels like a long time still, but it’ll go fast.

Dad:

I’m glad you enjoyed the creche. We had something kind of like that here, but I don’t think it was as great as the one back home. There were a lot of really cool nativities though. We went to talk to the people that came in that spoke Spanish, so it was fun.

Hmmmm…that’s weird you saw Fred. I was actually talking about gymnastics a lot lately, so that is kind of weird. Also, I’m glad Scott and Stacy’s house is okay. 🙂

Emmysaurus Rex:

Hey buddy…so I never wrote you a letter last p-day. Sorry!! And I probably won’t write you a letter this week either because p-day is almost over…but I will write you one and send it and tell you all kinds of fun things that are happening and crazy stories and stuff. So you can look forward to that. But I’m glad you are doing good. I’m just telling you right now that turning 18 and graduating from high school will not make your life any easier. Things will just continue to get harder. But with hard things comes good things too. So that is good news. 🙂 🙂 But yeah, I’m glad things are good for you. 🙂 I better go now.

I love you all!!!

Love, Kelsey

I’ll be home for Christmas, just you wait and see

I’ll be home for Christmas…if only in my dreams. 🙂

Hermana Kelsey and her new companion 10:1 -email-

Hey everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy halfway through the mission (for me)!!! :):):):):):)

So how’s life? Things are pretty good here. I got my new companion Sister A. She is great. She has a lot of fire, and truly loves being a missionary. She is awesome! I don’t know if you got the picture that we tried to send. There was that one lady (the one that does missionary moms stuff) at our transfer we had on Wednesday, and she took a picture of us together and tried to email it to you. So hopefully you got it. 🙂

We have had a semi challenging week. On Monday Sister Q. left. 🙁 It was a really hard day, but after she was gone I was okay. I was temporary companions with Sister H., who is a sister serving in the singles ward here. She is super cool. She is an older sister (she’s 28 years old), but she is very good at being a missionary. She actually was graduated twice from college, and was established in her career, before she decided to come on a mission. We had to work both of our areas the rest of Monday, and also Tuesday, so it was a little difficult, but we managed. We had a really great lesson with one of their investigators Tuesday night. He is from China, he understands a lot of english, but his sister was there to help translate and stuff. It was crazy, because we would teach him something, and then he would turn to his sister, and she would explain what we had just taught again, in Chinese, to make sure that he knew what we were talking about. It was pretty crazy.

Wednesday: Sister A. came in…and also our new district leader Elder T. He is really cool, but he is super super quiet, so I don’t really know him that well. We had a pretty good day, and got a lot of work done. We also set another baptismal date with S__…again. Hopefully this time she will actually go through it. We have had a lot of troubles with her following through on being baptized. She knows it is true, but something is holding her back. But we are going to continue to work with her.

Thursday: We had two Thanksgiving dinners! We were fed by our ward mission leader’s wife, and also another member family. It was a pretty good day. It was really hard to find people at home though, because everyone was visiting family out of town or whatever.

Friday: We went Black Friday shopping…jk jk!!! But we talked going about it a little. Elder R. is really rich, and he was joking around offering us a “budget”, so he told me if we went Black Friday shopping I could get anything that I wanted as long as it was cheaper than $2000. Ha ha, he is hilarious! It was pretty funny.

Saturday: It was really really cold! Well not that cold I guess (it was like high 40’s low 50’s), but the cold is different, and it just goes right through all your layers. It’s ridiculous. So I might be needing to get some other clothing (like tights/leggings, or long sleeved shirts) sometime, otherwise I may freeze to death!

Sunday: We had a interview with S__ with one of the counselors in our mission presidency, so she will hopefully be getting baptized this Saturday. She seems to be more sure about it now than she was before so that should be good. We are pretty excited. 🙂

Mommy!!!

I’m glad you had a great Thanksgiving. It kind of didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving though, because I wasn’t with family or anything. But mine was still pretty good. That is so cool you had Natasha. I miss that little stinker! Is she getting so big now? It’s crazy to think that she will be in kindergarten when I get home. Does she even remember me? I hope so. Anyway, that is also way cool that you went to Temple Square. I saw a picture of the Salt Lake temple the other day with all the lights surrounding it, and it made me a little sad. But I really am doing great. I love being a missionary! Anyway, I probably better go now.

Thank you so much! I love you so much, and I am so glad you are my mami. Cuidese mucho! (Take care of yourself)

Dad:

I’m glad you had a good Thanksgiving as well. 🙂  When I get home, I am going to get a dog, so it can come visit you. 🙂 😉 Ha ha. Are you getting a little chunky, Dad? 🙂 Hee hee. That is funny. But it happens to the best of us. 🙂 Well, other than that, things are good here. I hope things are great there with y’all. Love you!

Emmysaurus:

Hey girl! I am writing you a letter today, so this will be short. I’m glad you got to go Black Friday shopping. I wanted to, but we couldn’t. Anyway, I will just talk to you more in the letter I will be sending later. 🙂 Love you!

Hermana Kelsey 9:5 -email-

Dear family,

I am sending Sister Q. home today. 🙁 It has been a pretty hard day. I found out this morning that I am getting Sister A. for my new companion. She seems pretty cool. I only met her once before, at the Sisters conference, but she seems alright. But she won’t be coming into my area until Wednesday, so I will have to be companions with a Sister H. (an english sister serving in the Arlington Singles Ward) until then, once Sister Q. leaves today. I’m not gonna lie…I kind of want to trade her places. I miss all of you. And I am having a lot of stress. 🙁 But I will be okay.

Mommy:

1- Yes, I have been getting your letters. 🙂 They are almost the only letters I get in the week.  3- My spanish is doing good. A lot better than it was. I can get by with what I know, but I still have a lot to learn.

Monday: We had a really cool lesson with this lady M__. Her husband is a member, but he is inactive right now. We were teaching her about the Plan of Salvation, and she really liked it, and liked how we had pictures for each of the parts. She also asked us some really good questions, which means she is thinking about what we are teaching, and is getting something from it. Also, I hurt my ankle when we were playing ultimate at the church, but it is okay.

Tuesday: We helped one of the members set up her Skype account so…that means that I might be able to skype you at Chirstmas time!!! We also got to see the new baby of one of our members! He was born last week, and he has a lot of hair. He was really cute.

Wednesday: Nothing really happened.

Thursday: Yesterday, I showed the Elders in my zone a picture of my bottle cap collection. (I’m not sure if I ever told you, but I have been collecting caps for a while here on the mission) When I showed them the first time yesterday, they were like, “Oh that’s cool, I guess.” Then one of the Elders (Elder J.) asked to see the picture again at dinner today. As he was looking at it, it was like, “This picture is a lot more impressive to me today than it was yesterday.” 🙂 Apparently he started collecting caps after he saw the picture of all mine, and it was really hard for him to find them. Also, as we were getting ready to leave from dinner today, a bird flew in the member’s house! We told him we would try to get it, but he said, “No, it’s okay. It’s probably just cold.” Ha ha! It was pretty crazy.

Friday: Sister Q. had her exit interview with President, so I stayed in Arlington with Sister H. for a few hours while they had their district meeting. It was a really funny district meeting too. Their elders are pretty funny. One of them was talking about how prayer works to get our investigators to church. Then he told us a story about how he prayed with a less active member once, so that she would be able to come to church. This is what he said happened: “We prayed to help the situation, and CPS came and took away her kids. And then she started coming to church.” The point of the story is that you need to be specific in your prayers, otherwise, they will just get answered in some way that is probably not the way you wanted. Also, we got fed by our investigator, M_., that we taught on Monday. She is a manager for a restaurant called M.’s, and it was delicious. 🙂 🙂

Saturday: We had a volleyball tournament in the morning. Our bishop told us if we could get investigators to come, we could go and play, so we called a bunch of people, and they said they would come. But then they didn’t. But we were there anyway, and they needed female players, so Sister Q. and I ended up playing. And our ward won the tournament. Although, most of our members didn’t really know the rules, so they were playing a little dirty, and I didn’t really feel good about the fact that we won. I feel like the people we were playing against should have.

Sunday: Everyone was telling Sister Q. goodbye. She cried a couple times, because she is sad she is leaving. It’s bittersweet for her. She is happy to go home and see her family, but she is sad to leave all the cool people we have met.

Dad: Hey, how are you doing? I hope things are great with you. Ha ha. Wow, that was a crazy story about Emily and her friend. Ha ha. I can’t believe it has already snowed there in Utah. Well, actually I can, because it is Utah, but it is still pretty okay here. Today it is a little colder, but we still haven’t had any snow. This whole week it was like in the 70s or 80s, which is basically perfect. But that is really all. I hope your week is great. Bye. 🙂

Riley: Hey dude! How’s life? I hope things are good. That’s cool you are starting to build another car. Whatever happened to you other car though? I’m glad you are staying busy though. Hey, did you ever find out what is going on in the singles ward? How many people are still single? Ha ha. Not that I’m thinking about that or anything. 😉 Ha ha. But that’s basically all. Tell Janet I say hi back, and that I will try to write her a letter at some point. 🙂 Bye.

Emmy: Ha ha, um…I think you already used that note to self. Ha ha ha! You’re hilarious though! I keep telling Sister Q. about how we used to be talking and you would say, “Okay, you’re right, you’re right” just so I would stop trying to convince you that I was right. Ha ha ha. That was pretty funny. Anyway, write me a letter soon. Love ya. Bye.

“So long farewell, aufweidersen au due. Au due au due to you and you and you.” (I don’t think that is how it is spelled, but oh well)

I love you all!

Love, Kelsey XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Hermana Kesley 9:4 -email-

Dear family,

This week was pretty good. It flew by so fast! Sister Q. is going home next Tuesday. 🙁 I think I will probably cry. Yesterday, when we were in Relief Society, Sister Q. got up and bore her testimony. While she was up there, I started thinking about it, and realized that once her mission is over, she won’t get to do the things we do everyday anymore. Then I started thinking about when I am going to have to go home, and it will be really hard for me. And I started to have a little tear, but it went away really fast. I’m getting to the point where I want to be a missionary for the rest of my life, and I don’t ever want to stop doing this. 🙂 But I know there will be a point when I will have to go home, and live real life again.

Anyway, these are some things that happened this week.

Monday: We had two great family home evenings. One with some new investigators we have (there names are A. and M.), and the other with some investigators we were teaching for a while (M. and G.), but they weren’t progressing before, but then they randomly came to church (I think I wrote about that before). Anyway, they were super awesome! We are way excited for them. We are hoping that the Family Home Evenings helped them out, and that they learned something new.

Tuesday: We helped A. and M. move out of his sister’s house to an apartment. It was pretty cool, because we had a member with a truck come and help us, and him and the investigator hit it off pretty good, so now he has fellowship! We are so excited for that.

Wednesday: We dropped one of our investigators, J., because he is not progressing. We were sad, because we have taught him for a very long time, and have gotten really close to him. But we received an immediate blessing, because one of our other investigators that we had kind of dropped, but told her to call us when she wanted to learn more, called us literally two minutes later. It was amazing. Sometimes, we have to tough things, but just around the corner is something better. We also taught this kid, A. He is 17, and is super involved with his church, but when we taught him about the Book of Mormon, he was super excited about it. He told us was going to read it, and told us that if he knows that this is true then he will get baptized again (he was baptized when he was a baby in the Catholic church). He also said he will have to share this with everyone. We were way excited about that. 🙂 Hopefully, he will be a missionary in a couple years. 🙂

Thursday: Today, I was sick like Sister Q. was last Thursday (kind of). I never threw up anything, but my stomach was super upset. We aren’t really sure what was going on, but it has been passed around to like all the missionaries in our district. But I think we all over it now. We went to Young Mens in the evening, because we took A. to introduce him to the Young Men leaders and all the other guys. He seemed to like it, but he is super quiet, so it was hard to get him to talk to anyone. But one of the Young Women has a crush on him, so she will definitely fellowship him. Ha ha! 🙂 🙂 P.S. Mom: I’m glad you had a great birthday! 🙂 Sorry I couldn’t do anything really for you. 🙁 But it seems like you got pretty well taken care of. 😉

Friday: We met a really cool girl tracting, but because she is english and single we had to give her to the Singles Ward sisters. 🙁 But it’s okay, they’ll take good care of her. Later on, we drove the bike elders to dinner, and we were discussing how the other elder who drives the other car is kind of a crazy driver. I was like, “Aren’t you glad I don’t drive like Elder E.?” And they were like, “Yeah. In fact, you drive so good, that we are aren’t even wearing our seat belts right now.” And I was like, “What?! Put them on!” Those crazy elders. 🙂 They want me to get my driving privileges taken away.

Saturday: We set up an activity (kind of like a Family Home Evening), with some of our recent converts and investigators, and it turned out to be a bust, because only 1 recent convert came, and she only came out of pity for us. 🙁 It was sad, but we’ll probably try again another time to do it, but let more people know about it.

Sunday: So we had a baptism yesterday! It was the most stressful baptism I have ever had. It was for an overaged child (a kid who is above 8 years old and hasn’t been baptized yet), and he had to get baptized 3x! Two of the other elders that are serving in our ward were supposed to be the witnesses, and the step dad of the kid was baptizing him wrong, and they didn’t catch it. After the actual baptism, they pulled the plug for the font, and we grabbed the elders and were like, “We have to do it again. He didn’t do it right.” The elders stood in the hall talking to us for a while before they finally talked to the dad, and we got the font refilled, and did it again. It was so crazy. We just had to laugh, so we didn’t cry. It was so not fun. But it is over now, and he is baptized for real, so we’re good. 🙂

Mom: I really like the story of the ten virgins. I actually have like an insert that talks about that and how the ten wise virgins weren’t being selfish when they wouldn’t share their oil, they just couldn’t  because spiritual preparedness can only be gained over time through reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church. I’m not sure if it is the same one you had, but it’s really good. Sometimes, I wish I had it in Spanish though so I could use it as a spiritual thought at dinners and stuff. But yeah, that is a good story.

From Brett: Now for my side of the story, Joy went to dinner with her dad, the day before her B-day and during that time I called family and friends and made a plan for 7:00PM. I dropped off a key at Cederlofs. We both worked on the tenth. We drove to Bella’s (cause it is close and we didn’t have a lot of time) I could tell your Mom was expecting friends to meet us there. She looked a little dejected when she realized it was just going to be us. So we ate but didn’t talk too much. (my shrimp and crab chimichanga was delicious, and filling) Our waitress wasn’t the greatest but got the job done eventually. We finished eating at about 6:35 and needed to kill about a half hour so I ate more, very slowly. Then I said I needed to go potty which I took my time doing, then I slipped outside and called Chad and asked how many people were there, he said about 12 so I told him we would be there in about 10 minutes. As we drove home we were passing our house and Dustin H. was walking and your Mom said, “Is that Dustin? I said I don’t know and rounded the corner then your mom says, “That looks like my mom and dad’s car (parked by the mail box)” I said again, “I don’t know.” I opened the door and we walked into the kitchen and there on the hutch was a large pink cup of water (it turned out to be Wendy’s) and Joy said, “Who’s is that?” “Idk”.  We took a few more steps and Joy saw people and they yelled, “Surprise!!” Even after all the clues, she had no idea. It was really funny. As it turned out there were about 25 people (quite a few showed up while we were driving home) Guess what your Mom wanted for her birthday? give up? To be able to park the van in the garage (I wish she would have said a thousand dollars it would have been easier! just kidding) Riley and I got some stuff moved and got the van in. Not much other news this week. Oh I get to teach Priesthood next week, they must be desperate. Anyway I gotta go Love you both have a great week Love DAD.

Dad: Ha ha! Wow I can’t believe you did that. And that Mom didn’t suspect anything. 🙂 You must have done pretty good. 🙂 But yeah, that is way cool. I’m glad there was a good turn out. Ha ha. I also like that she wanted to be able to park her car in the garage for her birthday present. Oh, by the way, when I get home, the present I want is a massage for my last two birthdays. 🙂 That’s it. 🙂 But yeah that’s awesome.

Riley: Did you get my letter I sent? If you did, I am expecting a reply in the next week or so. Otherwise, I am going to be a little upset.

From Emily: Hey my cute missionaries!! Life is good and all it’s been a crazy week but I’ve had so much fun and I just wanted to say thanks for working really hard and doing such a great job I know the Lord appreciates you guys and all you do. It takes a lot to spend a whole two years or year and a half out of your life to just focus on other people in the Lord but really what else would be more productive?! I think it’s amazing and know you guys are making the most of it. I hope you guys are happy and doing so good cause I wouldn’t want anything else for you two! Anyway today we had a meeting after church about family history and how we as youth need to get more involved I think it’s very cool. But yeah I’m so sorry this was short, but I better stop cause it’s getting real late and I gotta wake up for school tomorrow like good girls do! 🙂 Anyway I love you guys though and hope you have such a great week! 🙂 Keep your head up cause there’s not a better place for it!! Aww… I’m so happy! K well I love you guys so much! Peace! <3 Love Emily, Em

Emmysaurus Rex: It’s true what you said about about spending a year and half on a mission is the most productive use of your time. I don’t think anything will ever seem as worthwhile to do in my time after the mission, since I have done this for a while. But seriously, I would never take back my decision to go on a mission, if I had the chance to do it again. I am so thankful for this opportunity I have. But anyway, how is school? And work? I hope things are great for you. Are you dating anyone right now? Man, I really think you are going to get married before I do. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just think that is what is going to happen. 🙂 Anyway, I gotta go now. Later!

I love you all! Be good. Love, Kelsey  XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Hermana Kelsey 9:3 -email-

Feliz cumpleanos a ti

Feliz cumpleanos a ti

Feliz cumpleanos a mi mami

Feliz cumpleanos a ti!

Happy birthday MOM!

Dear family,

This week was pretty good. The weather is cooling off a little, but

not like in Utah. We still don’t have snow, but we will at some point.

I’m not really excited, but I am glad I have some of my winter

clothes, at least, thanks to you mom. 🙂

So we still didn’t have our baptism, and it is now not going to

happen. The lady is having a lot of trials in her life right now, and

she is trying to figure them out still, I guess. But we told her the

gospel will only help her. We’re still not really sure what to think

about her, because when she first met with us and was learning, she

loved everything we taught, and was willing to do all of it. But now

something is different and is holding her back from taking the next

step. But we will try to work with her still.

On Thursday, we found out that one of our recent converts, Becky, is

finally making it official with this guy that she has been friends

with for a long time, who was actually the one who introduced her to

the church. If they end up getting married, they will make such a cute

little Mormon family. 🙂 🙂 We are way excited for her. Also, on

Thursday, Sister Q. got sick with like 24 hour stomach flu or

something, because she was throwing up, and we didn’t really get any

work done that day. I felt really bad for her. I didn’t really end up

getting it, but on Friday one of our Elders got it too. So there was a

lot of sickness going on here. But I’m still good so far. 🙂

On Saturday, we were doing service for one of our kind of

investigators, and she was mowing the lawn, while we raked and swept.

The lawn mower picked up a rock or something, and shot it out at me,

and it hit me in the leg. It was going like 80 miles an hour, and when

it first hit, I didn’t know what had happened. Then my leg just

started hurting really really bad. I just rubbed it a little bit, and

continued on. Then later that night I was looking at it, and it gave

me a pretty gnarly bruise. It was crazy. It got me pretty good. But

it’s okay. Also, on Saturday night, I think there was an earthquake.

Sister Q. and I were laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep,

and my bed started shaking a little. I thought it was Sister Q.

messing with me or something. Then all of the sudden she says, “Dude,

where are you?” And I said, “I’m right here.” She’s like, “Oh I

thought you were over here moving my bed. I was like, “I thought you

were shaking my bed. We both thought it was each other shaking the

other one’s bed, but it was actually just everything shaking. We

didn’t really know what happened with it, but the next day we saw all

of these semi sonic crews working around the area, so we don’t really

know what is going on. But whatever.

Yesterday, we had stake conference. It was awesome. President S.

(our mission president) was supposed to speak, but something came up

so one of his counselors spoke instead. But he did a great job. It was

cool too because we had some investigators there. We are pretty

excited about them, because we are thinking that they will go places.:)

That was basically our week. We did find this awesome family last

week. We are supposed to have a family home evening with them tonight

with some members. So we are excited about that too. 🙂

Dad: Oh man. I love that movie “The Other Side of Heaven”. Although,

the missionary work I do here in Texas is not really the same type, it

is still pretty cool. Sister Q told me that she saw that movie before

she was a member, and she didn’t even know it was about a missionary

from our church. She just thought he was a missionary in general. That

is great that you are staying busy too. That is also cool that

Grandmother bought that toy for mom. She really is great. 🙂

Emerny: Hey seester! I’m sorry about you being tired all the time. I

still have that a little. Not like I did before though. It’s a lot

better if you have medicine, especially if you have hypothyroidism.

But that is good that you are getting it checked. It will help a lot

if you need medicine. I’m really glad that you already realize how the

gospel blesses our lives. It took me a little while to realize that

myself, but now I know it more than ever. 🙂 If you aren’t married

before you are 21, you should definitely consider serving a mission.

It is awesome!

Well, I gotta go now. I love you all so much. Have a great week. 🙂

Love, Kelsey

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Hermana Kelsey 9:2 -email-

Dear familia!

What?!?! You got a new dog?! Wow that is crazy. Hey Mom, remember how you said you weren’t going to get another dog for a really long time, if ever? I guess that didn’t work out like you thought it would. 🙂 Ha ha ha. That’s awesome though. She is very cute. I really like the name Esther for her too. I just read that story very recently in the Bible and I really love it. It is definitely one of my favorites. 🙂

Wow! So this week flew by. The weeks lately have been going way too fast. In about 3 weeks Sister Q. will be going home. I will be letting you all know about my new companion the Monday before, because that is when we get transfer calls. I have a feeling that President might have me train this next transfer. I’m super nervous. I don’t feel like I’m ready for that kind of responsibility yet. But soon I am going to be one of the oldest sisters out. At the end of this transfer, there will be 3 spanish sisters going home (Sister S., [my companion before Sister Q.] Sister O., and Sister Q.). There are only 3 other sisters that have been out longer than me (Sister W., Sister S., and Sister V.). Sister V. has already trained once, and Sister S. is really sick (she is allergic to basically every kind of food. She can only eat fruit, some vegetables and fish.), so she might even go home. So basically it is between me and Sister W. But who knows. Everything will happen the way it is supposed to.

So we didn’t have a baptism this week. 🙁 We decided to move it to this coming Friday, because she felt  more comfortable with a little more time to prepare. But now she is missing in action! She was supposed to be at church yesterday to have her interview, but she never showed up. We stopped by her apartment twice to see her, but she wasn’t there, and we called her phone probably 15 times. We’re not really sure where she went. So hopefully we can find her and get everything figured out. But we did have some really cool things happen yesterday at church. So Sister Q and I were sitting the in the chapel as church was about to start, and lo, and behold, guess who walks in?! 3…that’s right, not 1, not 2, but 3! of our investigators that we had dropped a little while ago, come walking into the chapel! It was amazing!!. We didn’t even ask them to come or anything, but their relative who is a member has been working really hard on them and somehow got them to come to church! And they want us to start teaching them again! Hallelujah!! It’s a miracle! 🙂 Ha ha ha. But yeah we were super excited.

One other person that came was Carrie. I don’t remember if I told you about her. She is 14 (well she just had her birthday, so now she is 15), and we were teaching her for quite a while. She had a baptismal date, but when it started getting close, and she told her mom (who is a member), her mom told her she shouldn’t even get baptized, because she swears. So then after that she decided she didn’t want to get baptized anymore. After that she got really cold towards us, and didn’t really pay attention when we taught her. And then she stopped praying, coming to church, and reading her scriptures. So we couldn’t go see her anymore. We were still teaching her dad, and so we would go to her house still, and every time she saw us she was just really cold and borderline rude to us. But we were still nice to her. Anyway, so on Saturday, her mom fed us. So it was all the missionaries in our district (the elders and us), the Hermana, and also Carrie. When we came in the door, like most Hispanic households, the women always kiss each other on the cheek. When we walked in Carrie kissed us, because that is what you are supposed to do, but there wasn’t any feeling behind it. While we were eating dinner, Carrie just came in the room, and started hanging out with us. She didn’t really say much, but she listened a lot to what we were saying. By the end of the evening, she had warmed back up to us and even hugged us both at the end. And then she was at church again! It was awesome. We can tell now that she missed us when we weren’t coming to see her, and now she can tell the difference between the good spirit that we bring into the house, and the bad spirit that her siblings, who are not making good choices, bring into the house. We’re still not sure what is going to happen with her, but now there is at least a little hope for her future. 🙂 🙂 🙂

On Monday, we got our car switched to a different one. I am now driving a brand new 2012 Chevy Malibu! That thing is nice, I’m not gonna lie. When we got it, it only had 50 miles on it. That is how new it is! It is a really smooth ride. 🙂 I kind of think I am going to want to buy a new car when I get home, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Well, I mean I know that is not going to happen. But anyway, I can still dream right? 🙂

Anyway, I better go now. I’ll be safe tonight. 🙂 I love you!!

Dad: Ha ha. Don’t you hate when people just do things even though you said no? 🙂 But hopefully you will get to enjoy the dog, at least a little bit. I still can’t believe mom even went for it. Ha ha ha. I know how you feel about finding new pounds (weight). Ha ha. I really actually haven’t gained too much weight, I’m just really soft, and little bit squishy. But it’s okay. I don’t need to be worrying about that right now. I’ll just work out when I get home and have time. 🙂 Anyway, that’s really all. I hope your week is great! Love you.

Emmysaurus: “I smell cookies.”

Ha ha ha! I was just telling Sister Q. about that movie (Nacho Libre) the other day. It was sad though because I couldn’t remember some of the funny things he says. We will have to watch that movie when I get home, so I can remember the hilariousness of that movie. 🙂 🙂 Anyway, I’m glad you are enjoying your new dog. Once I get home, and get married, and all of that fun stuff, I am definitely going to be getting a dog for sure. Although, being on the mission makes you a little scared of dogs. The little ones always run at you and try to bite you. But you get used to it. After a couple times, you start to take off your backpack, so if they come at you, you can just whack them. 🙂 Ha ha ha. Anyway, I think that’s all. I love you. Bye. Peace and blessings!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Hermana Kelsey  9:1 -email-

Dear family,

Hola! Como estan? I hope everything is good with you. I am doing okay.

We had a cool thing happen this week. On Tuesday, we had Elder Baxter

from the seventy come to visit our mission, so we had a conference

with him. He was born in Scotland, but he grew up in Britian (Glasgow,

I think). He told us a lot of stuff about how we can improve ourselves

and be better missionaries. He talked really cool with his accent and

all that, and said some really funny phrases, one of them being,

“Well, that is a statement of the blatantly obvious” (like, “Thank you

for telling me something I don’t already know”). Ha ha. British people

are so funny. 🙂 It was also cool, because I saw some of the

missionaries that I worked with in Temple/Waco area. It was really

fun.

Anyway, so this week we have had quite a few little miracles. We have

found some really, really cool investigators. The only problem

is…they don’t live in our area/mission. One of them lives in Hurst,

so we’ll probably give her to the sisters that work in that area. And

the other two really cool people we met live in Dallas, but the sister

of the lady is in our ward, so we can probably still teach them when

they come to visit her. But they are all pretty cool, so we are

excited about that.

So it has been raining a lot lately, and sometimes in the middle of

the night, it wakes me up. Last week there was a night when it woke me

up at like 4 in the morning, and on Sunday, it woke me up at 2:40. It

is just really really loud, and once I’m awake, I see the lightning

even if my eyes are closed. It’s crazy here when it rains, which is

quite a bit lately.

So yesterday at church, we also had another miracle. So one of our

investigators, S., was planning on coming to church. We were

sitting in the chapel waiting for her to walk in and she texts us

saying that she can’t find the keys to the car. We texted her back,

and told her to pray to find them. She said she would do it. A few

minutes later she texted us again, and said that she had found them!

We were so excited. She was a little late, but she still got there in

time for the sacrament and all that, so that was really good. I know

that prayer truly does work, even for the little things in life. 🙂

And when she got there she was wearing a skirt!! She used to always

come in her pants, so that is a big step. You can always tell when

people are starting to change, because for the women it’s when they

start wearing skirts, and for men it’s when they start wearing button

up shirts, especially white ones. It’s a sign of conversion. She is

was cool, and she is getting baptized this Sunday!! 🙂 🙂 I’ll be

sending a picture of that probably next p-day. 🙂

Mom: Thank you so much for sending those clothes. It is starting to

cool off quite a bit (on and off) lately, so those clothes will be

really helpful.

Speaking of mission scriptures…I really wish I could change my

mission scripture. I mean the one I have is pretty good, but I have

found so many great scriptures about missionaries lately, and they are

all way better than the one I have. But it’s okay. Now I know. 🙂

Ha ha. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you something about Elder Baxter. He

was telling us about how we need to not go back to our old ways once

we get home from the mission. Then he was telling us about how if

President Sagers finds out that we aren’t active in the church or we

aren’t doing what we are supposed to, he is going to “find us and

spank us really hard.” President Sagers just laughed really, really

hard. It was hilarious. It reminded me of it when you said you were

going to spank Flexy. 🙂 (I told Flexy that I was going to spank him if he didn’t answer the questions I asked in my email)

Dad: I’m so glad you had a great weekend in St. George. That’s crazy

Kad-O is a deacon now.  I really miss going to the temple. We have a new rule that we can go to the temple once a month if we get a ride with members, and if we give up a p-day. But it’s really hard to do that, so I’m not

sure if I will. I think I will just wait until I get home, and then I

can go every week. 🙂 Well I think that’s all for now.

Well, I have to go now. I love you all. Tell Emily “hi” for me. I’ll

probably write her and Riley letters, but maybe not today. We still

have some stuff to do, so I might not have time. But Tell them I love

them too. Bye!

Love, Kelsey

Hermana Kelsey 8:4 -email-

Dear family,

This week was pretty average. It went by really slow for me. Sometimes

it feels like days go really fast, but the week goes slow, and other

days I feel like the week goes slow and the days go fast. It’s weird.

Anyway, not much happened this week. One of the elders in our district

got a greenie on Wednesday, so now I’m not the youngest missionary in

our zone anymore. The new missionary’s name is Elder J. He is

pretty cool. He was super quiet his first couple days. It reminded me

of when I was a greenie. I was scared to death, and wondered a lot

about what I had gotten myself into.

It has been raining some this week. On Wednesday, the lightning woke

me up at 4:30 in the morning because it was so loud. It was pretty

cool. I think I am going to miss thunderstorms when I get back to

Utah. We don’t have thunderstorms in Utah like they do here.

Mom: I get what you are saying about hearing a talk and thinking about

how someone needs to hear it. There are a lot of times when I am

sitting in church, and one of our investigators isn’t there, and I

hear something that was like specifically for that person. And I

think, “Man I wish so and so was here so they could hear this. They

really need it.” But it is true, because most of the time we can get a

lot more out of it for ourselves than other people.

Wow, Crystal is engaged?!? Whoa. Man, everyone is going to get married

by the time I come home. That’ll be weird.

Anyway, yesterday, we had some changes in our bishopric. We thought

for sure our bishop was going to get released because he has been the

bishop for almost 8 years. But they just replaced his two counselors.

The new guys will be really good though. One of them is a white guy

who is a cop, and the other one is a returned missionary, which is

pretty rare in spanish wards because most of the members are converts

after the age to go on a mission. Anyway, I better go. I love you.

Bye.

Dad: I’m sorry you haven’t been able to get very much exercise. Me

either. Half an hour in the morning isn’t very long to get any kind of

work out in. But we try…sometimes. 🙂 Man, I miss navajo tacos. We

have a lot of really good Mexican food, but I miss some kinds of food

we don’t get to eat very much, or at all. How is your other job going?

I hope things are good there. I think that’s all. Love you.

Emmysaurus Rex: That is way cool. I miss young women a little bit.

Sometimes we go in and hang out with the young women, and get

referrals and stuff from them. It’s pretty fun. The young women here

are really close, because there are only a few, so they are all

friends with each other. Mom told me about your car, and how you

painted the hood with chalkboard paint. You are a crazy girl!!! I

laughed pretty hard when I read that. Oh so are you going to go to the

Halloween dance? I heard you were having trouble getting a date for

it. That’s too bad. But it’ll be good.

Anyway, I gotta go now. Bye y’all. I love you all so much.

Love, Kelsey

Hermana Kelsey 8:3 -email-

Dear awesome family,

This week was REALLY long. It is now almost the end of another transfer. We got our transfer calls this morning. I am staying in A. with Sister Q. I am not sure how I feel about it. I am happy that I am not training, or getting someone less experienced than me, but this transfer is going to be a little rough. This is Sister Q’s last transfer, and it is really hard to be around someone who is going home, because you know they are going home, and you don’t get to. But hopefully I won’t get too trunky. She told me she is going to help me not get trunky. So that is good. I’m also glad I am staying in A. because we now have a lot of really great things happening. The elders in our district baptized 7 people this transfer! We only baptized 2, but that is still really good for our district. So things are going pretty well here. We also found some really promising people this week. 🙂

We’ve had a lot of rain the last few days. On Saturday, we got back to our house at the end of the day, and we went upstairs, and they was water all over my bed! We left the window open, because the people we live with are trying to save money, so they turned off their AC, and it is HOT in our room. So that was fun. Then yesterday it rained really hard for most of the day. Whenever it is a rainy day, Sister Q says, “It looks like a Harry Potter day”. Ha ha. It’s because before the mission, when it rained she would watch Harry Potter. But now that we can’t, when it rains, we just listen to movie soundtracks. But I love the rain here in Texas. When it rains, it really rains!

Mom: That is so cool you fed the missionaries! Were any of them spanish? Did they sing “Because I Have Been Given Much”? We always sing that to the people that feed us at zone conferences. Except we change the words to “every sister that I meet”, because it’s always the women that feed us. But anyway, that is way awesome.

Anyway, I miss my Tashers. I see that picture of her running special, and I just want to squish her so much. It’s funny that she reminds you of Stuart. Sometimes when we are tracting Sister Q. will ask me to the Stuart dance thing, when he says, “Look what I can do!” She thinks it is hilarious. 🙂 Sometimes I do it, and sometimes I don’t. One time she almost got it on video, but I realized what she was doing and I wouldn’t do it. 🙂

So, I wrote Caitlin a letter while I was in the MTC (like a really good one too), and she never wrote back to me. I’m not really sure what that means. Either she forgot to write back, or she doesn’t want to. I will definitely write her again though. And I will try to write a letter today to that girl that Riley is dating.

Dad: Yay!!! I’m so glad you passed your test. I prayed really hard for you throughout this week. Do you do like door to door sales? Or how does that work? If you are doing door to door that is kind of what we do. Except the thing we are giving is free…and sometimes people still don’t want it. 🙁 But anyway, that is great. I’m glad things are going well for you.

P.S. Ha ha ha! I really liked your Tim Conway steps. 🙂

Riley: I’m glad to hear you are doing good. I thought that you had fallen off of the face of the earth, but I guess everything is okay. 🙂 How is work? Are you going to school? Are you still doing drill for the army? Anyway, write me a letter or something sometime. 🙂

Emmysaurus: It’s crazy how fast time flies, huh? I don’t feel like I have been a missionary as long as I have, but I’ve been out on the mission for almost 8 months now!!! It is so crazy!! I still have a little while left, but my time is running out. :% Anyway, I guess it is just like everything in life, we jsut have to enjoy it while we are in it. 🙂 Anyway, you should also write me a real letter, because I wrote you one the other day. 🙂 🙂 Okay, well I gotta go now.

I love all of you!!

Love, Kelsey

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox