Monday, October 22

Ben and Kara...If I knew how to straighten it up, I would!

It has been another good week! A very long week, but those do happen.

Ben got baptized! I am so glad I was able to go! We drove up to Liverpool on Saturday for the baptism and stayed the night in Liverpool before driving down Sunday morning for stake conference (saves on miles). It was so good to see Ben again and his mom, Wendy! They are probably some of the most wonderful people you could imagine. I also am sending a picture of little Ben and myself. He is a pretty cute kid. Such a big heart as well. His mom, Wendy, at the baptism, said they had something to give me. So little Ben came up after the service and gave me a little grocery bag. In the grocery bag was: Nutella, an apple, and blue raspberry bon bons. When he handed it to me and I looked in it, my first thought was, He's been reading my blog! Wendy told me later that they gave me those things because in my last letter to Ben I think I mentioned my blog and he had found it and got all excited and had been reading it. I just love that kid! I don't know if I've ever told you about the blue raspberry bon bons. Wendy had them out for us one time when we went to teach Ben. There were several sweets and she said I had to try one because I would like them. I did. They are bright blue. So I remember going from teaching Ben to ward coordination with a very blue tongue because they were too good I couldn't just have one!! So it was very sweet of them to remember that! I just cannot express the gratitude for wonderful people like Ben and Wendy allowing me to be a part of their lives! I feel so blessed to have met these wonderfully caring people!

At stake conference (keep in mind, I've been in the same stake here since I left Liverpool. Birkenhead and Gaerwen are in the same stake.), I saw Bill, our friend who got baptized while I was in Birkenhead. I was so happy to see him as well! I'm rather horrible at keeping in touch with people! Bill told me he enjoys reading my blog as well... who knew so many people knew about my blog? Everyone tells me it's not too complicated to find.  I'm glad to know people care!

After stake conference we went on an exchange... with the zone leaders... They called us the other day and asked if we could stay after conference to do a finding exchange with them. We don't usually go on exchanges with elders... like ever. They said that they have been asked to go on as many exchanges with as many companionships as they can and that this was the only way they could really do so with sisters. So we split up in Wrexham (where stake conference was) I was with Elder Francis and Sister Smith was with Elder Corbin. We were always with in sight and sound of our companions as to make sure we were still obedient. It is very different going finding with elders than with sisters. They are bold... and slightly terrifying. Elder Francis, though, is a very great missionary. He's new as zone leader in this zone this transfer so I haven't ever served around him before. He knows his purpose in being here and he is determined in all that he does. I learned a lot from our little exchange and I am not an elder so in many ways I can't be like him, but many good principles can be applied. Sister Smith had a good experience as well, they were able to teach a lesson on the spot with some people. So it was very good.

So it's been a great weekend of fond memories and wonderful feelings! I honestly almost started crying at Ben's baptism, I was just so happy and the Spirit was just so strong! The musical number was two families singing, "I am a child of God" and it was just so precious! It was just very touching.

I don't have a whole lot else to say. We're off to see another castle today with the district (once again, in our area). Then, President and Sister Preston are coming down to see us this evening... That's why we were late getting to email, we were making sure our flat was very nice and clean.

So a rather short letter this week. Hailey emailed. She said Dusty was making fun of her novel of an email. I think it was shorter than this. If her emails are novels, my emails are a set of encyclopedias.

I have to tell you, I use Tucker a lot when I am finding people. People often tell us, I'm already happy. I tell them something to the effect:

"I have a nephew. He likes chocolate; as do I. If I bring him a chocolate bar and don't show him the whole chocolate bar, but give him a piece of chocolate, he is pretty happy, and he is happy because that they may be all there is, but it is still chocolate. But how much happier do you think he is when I give him the rest of the chocolate bar? Well, that is what we are sharing. You do know happiness because you don't know all that we can share with you, yet. We share things such as the Book of Mormon..."

That's my thing lately. I think it is a good illustration to use when faced with "I'm already happy."

Well, I am happy. Happier than ever! Hope this email finds you happy as well!

I love you all very very much!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Best story ever! Thursday night we had quite a busy day and it was around 7 PM when we got back near home from our tea appointment. We had an hour before language study, but we both had to use the bathroom so we dashed upstairs to our flat. We then decided to head out finding on the streets near our flat. Well, we got back to our flat at 8 PM for study and I looked to Sister Smith for the flat keys as she usually has them as I usually have the car keys. Hmmm, well, when we had dashed in earlier she had put them down and had forgotten to grab them again and our flat automatically latches and locks when you leave it. So getting into our flat complex itself wasn't too difficult; we just followed someone in. Getting into our flat though... haha! So I called President and told him the situation and he said we could drive up to the mission office and get the spare key... one problem....the car keys were also in the flat. Then he said that the office Elders (Up in Knutsford) could drive down the spare key, but we'd have to ring the office couple to coordinate that. So we called the office couple and let them know our situation. I kind of figured they wouldn't be able to drive down that night because it's a 2 hour drive... So I started trying to think of a way to get into our flat.  I looked at my umbrella, at the door, umbrella, door... I started to bust my umbrella away from the main pole of it. Sister Smith looked at me funny but I explained that we could get into our flat. So we both started working on this make shift pole and string to push through the letter box and latch onto the little handle thing. Our neighbors across the hall came out and we contemplated a bit. Our neighbor then returned with some wire that we could attach on to the end of our pole to make our latching mechanism a bit more solid to grasp onto things. (In the meanwhile, the office couple had phoned back and told us the elders could drive down the key in the morning, but we should try to find a member to lodge with for the night.) I had faith we could break in. Sister Smith and I took turns putting our hands through our letter box trying to latch the handle. We felt the wires around the handle many times, but it just kept sliding off. We had our neighbors' door as reference to look at to know angles and everything, they were nice and offered help as they could. After an hour and a quarter, I finally remembered that you might be able to open the door by (some details omitted!). We checked our neighbors' door and sure enough! I shoved the pole into the letter box, stuck my arm in, felt the wire latch the handle, and (details omitted again!). Wah-lah! The door opened. I was kind of in shock that it actually worked. But we got in!!! We didn't have to sleep at a member's home! I have a massive bruise on my arm from the ordeal, but it was good! Sister Smith called President to let him know we got in. He answered the phone and Sister Smith asked how he was and he chuckled and said that he was good because he had a bed to sleep in. Sister Smith said, "We do too! OUR own!" He laughed and asked how. He told her that "these sort of things aren't what we're supposed to be learning how to do on our missions." and laughed again. He also said we'd have to give trainings at the next conference A) how to not forget your keys and B) how to break into your flat. Haha! So that was an eventful night. Sister Smith felt really bad. I just reminded her that we were smiling while we were in the situation when we could have been mad and angry, so it was perfectly fine. Things happen.

The other exciting thing happened this morning! On a more spiritual note... Do you remember little Ben from Liverpool? The one that started crying when we had to leave? I got a phone call from the Liverpool zone leaders this morning to tell me he is being baptized this Saturday! He requested that they call me and tell me I needed to be there! I was so happy! I called President's phone twice to get permission to go, but he wasn't able to answer. He called me back and said, "I missed TWO calls?" I said, "President! I just called becasue I am just so excited!... Little Ben is being baptized this Saturday!.... Can I go?!" He said of course I could go. I just have to reimburse the cost of thr petrol from my personal funds. I am so happy he is getting baptized!

More miracles, our investigator Laura brought her three boys to church with her this Sunday. We had had FHE with them last Monday with them along with the Young Men's president. They were invited to mutual and they went last Wednesday. Now they're coming to church and we have a lesson with them on Tuesday! Hopefully we will see them baptized!

We also had a Chinese investigator named Kevin come to church yesterday as well, meaning that we had 5 investigators at church! It was a great day! It was stressful trying to find lifts and whatnot, but they all got there! We almost walked with Kevin the 7 miles to church because the lift for him had fallen through, but we were able to find a lift last second before we started walking!

Another Miracle, we had received information about a recent convert who had moved into the area from Ireland. The information we were given was her phone number and her dorm address. We tried to ring her and it was an Irish number so it didn't work for us to call. The dorms are keycode security locked so we didn't know how we were going to find her. A few days later we were on the street talking to someone and out of nowhere this girl comes up and says, "Oh my goodness, where's the nearest ward?!" Here she was, the recent convert from Ireland. She had been trying to find the nearest church, but to no avail. She was so happy to see us! Her name is Aiofe. Pronounced Ee-fuh. We met with her, and apparently the friends she was with when she saw us on the street were very curoius as to why she was so excited to see us and they've been asking her questions about the church and want to come on a Sunday with her. So wonderful!

So it's been a good few days since I last wrote!

Next transfer is the day before Thanksgiving. I hope they don't transfer me out, there's a few Americans in this ward and they're already talking about having us over... it would be the pits to get moved to a ward that had like no Americans or didn't know me well enough to make it an enjoyable Thanksgiving! oh well, we'll see. We have interviews with President on Wednesday for our zone conference, I'll mention it...

The picture is of my broken umbrella!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Still in Wales (Gaerwen); still with Sister Smith! We've decided President was probably just afraid of what I might do if he tried to separate us. We had plotted to run away to Scotland.

Today marks the end of my 6th transfer! Meaning I have like 6 transfers left! It was kind of a weird realization the other night when I discovered that. Sister Smith and I talked about it for a bit because we couldn't quite comprehend that. She's having a hard time comprehending she's already been in the UK now for 2 months! I've been here 9 Months (plus a little if going by weeks, minus a little if going by months-February 18, March 18, April 18, etc.-).

It's been a good week and a half. We were both pretty stressed about transfers, but sigh of relief now.

I loved conference. We don't get to watch Sunday Evening session because it's on too late and they don't rebroadcast it the next day like Saturday evening's. Sister Smith was hoping Elder Bednar would talk earlier than Sunday evening and I was hoping Elder Holland would speak earlier than Sunday evening. I got my wish! So I really enjoyed his talk! Wrote page after page of his talk! I really enjoyed it. I also Loved Elder Oak's talk. He was choosing to be very bold!

This weekend was just a weekend full of meetings! Saturday we headed out early to go to a District Leader's Council meeting in Chester, we go as the only sister's in the zone! After that meeting (10AM-12:30), the stake rebroadcast of the general relief society meeting was in Chester and they did a luncheon and workshop (12:30-3). Drove back home in time to have a half-hour tea and then drove to our Chapel here in Gaerwen for Sunday morning session at 5. So that was a busy day. Sunday morning we had our study until 11 (because Sister Smith is still being trained for 3 more weeks), had two appointments (11 and 12), were 15 minutes late to the rebroadcast of the Saturday evening session (1-3), had a lesson at 3:30 near home, dropped by home to grab a QUICK bite to eat, drove back to church for the Sunday Morning session (5-7), locked up the chapel, and went and did a bit of finding. That was our weekend! Busy! But Sunday morning we did have a lesson with someone new and she is so excited to learn more about the gospel. We invited her to be baptized in early November and she accepted. We just have to keep meeting with her and help her progress!

At the stake rebroadcast of the general relief society meeting, a lot of sisters from Birkenhead were present. I have never felt more loved in my life. They all came up to me, hugged me, asked how I was doing, etc! That was nice. One of the sisters came and talked to me and I told her I was training a new missionary. She said, "I know. I read your blog." I was completely taken aback! I wondered how she found my blog and learned that she googled it. I guess I'm pretty easy to find!

It's been good though. Last P-Day we wanted to have an adventure just in case we weren't together or in this area again. So we texted Tracey, our recent convert, and asked where some neat lighthouses were. So we went and explored near one of those and we went for a bit of a hike and nature walk in the process. It was a super windy day, but oh so much fun! I'm so glad that Sister Smith is so easy to get along with!

I hope you are all doing well, having fun in your various capacities, and reread President Uchtdorf's talk on how to live your life so you have no regrets! I am so grateful for the experiences I am having! I love it here and am so grateful for the wonderful blessings that come into my life! I am continuing to learn Chinese and it is coming along well. I am not proficient, but getting there slowly.

Wo ai Nimen! Wo ganxie nimen rong wo zhege jihui. Wo zhidao zhege Jiaohui shi zhen shi de. Wo ai Tianfu he Ta ai wo. Wo zhidao Tianfu ai women. Tianfu cigei women xuanzhi yin wei Ta ai women. Wo zhidao Yuese Simi shi yi ge xianzhi. Yuese Simi tonguo Shen de li liang fan yi Mo'ermonjing. Wo zhidao Mo'ermonjing shi Shen de hua. Mo'ermonjing jiaodao Yesu Jidu de fu yin. Yesu Jidu de fu yin ke yi bangzhu women xianxi Shen shi shei. Wo ai zhege fu yin.

Translated:
I love you. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity. I know this church is true. I love Heavenly Father and He loves me. I know that Heavenly Father loves us. Heavenly Father gave us prophets because he loves us. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. Joseph Smith through the power of God translated the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon is God's word. The Book of Mormon teaches Christ's gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ can help us learn who God is. I love this gospel.

It's a little rough, but hey....     

Monday, October 1, 2012

Sorry I'm late getting this out today. The P-Day before transfers we have to spend an hour deep cleaning the flat rather than the usual half hour. It's hard to believe transfers are next week. President's hinting that we might not be in this area anymore, but I don't really know how to read him sometimes. So you may hear from me next Wednesday if we stay or later if something changes.

It's hard to believe it's October already. I told Sister Smith that I feel like it was just yesterday I was sending Tucker a birthday card. Now it's October.

We had a good week. stressful, but good. Wales (and parts of England) has been flooding a lot lately with all the rain. We were supposed to go on Exchange with sisters down in Newtown (a 2 1/2 hour drive for us) on Tuesday, but they called as we were an hour into the drive to say that the trains had been rerouted and delayed because of the flooding and they wouldn't get in until late evening. So I called the zone leaders and asked if they could arrange another exchange for us. They called back Wednesday to tell us we were doing an exchange with Liverpool on Thursday. so Thursday we met the Liverpool sisters in Chester and exchanged so Sister Hull came with me and Sister Smith went with Sister Embley (another Chinese speaking missionary who came out with Sister Smith). The zone leaders thought it would be good to have the Chinese speaking work together over exchange and I think it helped Sister Smith quite a bit to have someone who spoke a bit more Chinese than I do. :) So we worked hard on our exchanges and exchanged back on Saturday. Sister Smith said that she was very grateful to have me as a companion after seeing and hearing about other missionaries. So that was nice.

Last week in my weekly letter to President I wrote about how stubborn Sister Smith is, but I love her. Apparently in her letter she wrote how stubborn I am, but she loves me. Basically in many things that we wrote, we wrote basically the same letter. President called me Saturday and said he had read our letters and said it seems he's got another Sister Orr in the mission. I laughed. He said it's not good. I'm still confused as to what he meant by that. Oh well! I told Sister Smith and she was like, "I am my own person!" So she called President that night just to clarify that. :)

We've been teaching a lot of new people lately, it's just a mattter of finding who is prepared. Some we are able to teach once or twice and then they just disappear. It's slightly obnoxious.

We didn't have any investigators at church yesterday so we went and sat in on the YSA class. It was a lesson on the Beattitudes and it was really great. So many wonderful things in the scriptures!

I don't have a lot of new news to tell you this week. I did get some new boots. Nothing as good as my hushpuppies though... We spent last P-day cooking chicken noodle soup and cookies. It was great! Thanks mom for the recipes! They turned out great and really hit the spot! The soup lasted us quite a few days!

Today we plan to go explore a lighthouse and some caves. It will be great!

Dad, Congratulations on your new calling. Are you ever just going to be able to sit in the congregation like everyone else? Seems like ages since you were able to. Still haven't been able to write a letter to the ward yet.

  

General Conference is next week and we are very excited! Here, no one really has a whole lot of access so they broadcast it at every chapel. So we'll be watching it in the chapel at Gaerwen! 5-7 PM is Saturday morning session! oh time differences!

Well I love you all very much, find someone to hug and imagine that I'm hugging you! I miss you all and I love to hear from you! I hope you have a great week and I will write again later next week!

With LOTS of love,

Kara

Monday, September 24, 2012

 It's raining again. We have time today since we don't have much planned so we are going boot shopping. Still wearing my hush puppies that fill with water and Sister Smith doesn't even have boots yet. That's our goal today. Go find some Wellies.

I came down with a bit of a head cold this week and then subsequently Sister Smith got it. So we both sit here sniffling writing our letters. :)

It's been a good week. We had Multi-zone training last week and so that was nice. They divided us at one point so that all the senior companions were together and all the junior companions were together. I still haven't really grasped that whole concept. It's good though that it's not so evident. I am glad that Sister Smith and I see each other as equal and we are just really good friends. Sister Smith really is great. We are so much alike. She wasn't feeling very well the other day and I asked her if we needed to rest. She was being really stubborn. I said,"You need to take care of yourself!" As I said it I cringed. She said, "You're one to talk! President tells you that all the time!" I cringed because I knew she was being just like me so it gave me no room to talk. So we both decided that we would be good and take a rest to "Take care of ourselves." I called President last night and apologized because I came to realize just how stubborn and a pain I can be at times. He laughed and said it was true. Honest, Sister Smith and I are so much alike. President says we're a good combination though because we are accomplishing great things! And we are.

Everyone in the ward here has become like family. They saw me last Tuesday night just as my head cold was settling in. Bishop asked if I was ill. I said yes. He then asked me if I was eating properly and taking care of myself. I said, "Define eating properly." He asked what I had for breakfast. I said a pop tart; which I was pretty proud that I had eaten that! He said, "Hold out your hand." Sister Smith and I both thought he wanted to see if I was shaking. So I confidently held my hand out palm down... he slapped it and said, "Pop tarts are rubbish and aren't a proper breakfast." Then Bishop's mom came over and got the update and said, "Love, Don't you know that in the 2009th section of the Doctrine and Covenants it says that pop tarts are against the Word of Wisdom? I'll print it for you." We had a laugh and they sent me home with cold medicine. So I am being well looked after.

We are meeting a lot of Chinese people. The University starts up again this week so a lot of new people just came in. Once things settle a bit more, I am sure we will see much more success.

  

Well, I hope you are all doing well. I am doing great! I am enjoying life so much! I'm experiencing a bit of homesickness as the holidays approach, but it's okay. I've got good memories to think back over of Holidays in the past. I think as the weather gets colder with the holidays it makes me more homesick than when I lived in Hawaii because I didn't see a proper winter. The last proper winter I had was at home with family and when I was still in High school. I know it's still only September, but it's getting mighty chilly over here already. You're probably still baking in the heat!