November 25, 2013

Oh, hello :)

 

So! People SERIOUSLY exaggerated Phoenix winters.  I was thinking it would be in the 70s or 60s at the worst, but last week was FREEZING! I guess we had the worst storm Arizona has ever had? It just rained for 3 days, more like a constant drizzle, but it was sooo cold...It was probably just that cold because I wasn't expecting it, and I left my boots and coat in Flagstaff for the Sisters that are there to be nice.. So I've been layering and wearing lots of cardigan sweaters on top of each other! On Saturday it was so cold that Sister Clark and I went to the Starbucks in Target and got hot chocolate and bought knit hats to wear under our helmets to stay warm! It was very cold on Saturday. But it's pretty nice today! The sun is out! And people say it shouldn't be that cold that often...but I don't know how much I trust what people say about the weather anymore. They say that the summers "aren't that bad" when they're deathly hot and that the winters "are really nice" when they are actually like a typical winter.  But I'm not complaining! It's not snowing at least and probably won't at all :)

 

So I still haven't bought any garments.  I will probably do that right now while I wait for your email.  I think I'm going to go with the DriLux :)

 

Did you send that letter to Kelly? She didn't give me her Korean address so I was hoping you could send it for me :) You could probably just scan it and email it to her instead if you want, I don't care :)

 

So I often spend some time in the mornings pondering as I run on the treadmill in our apartment's gym. Today I was thinking about the relation between Spiritual Strength and Physical Strength.  When you diet and eat healthy, it does you a lot of good.  It also does you a lot more good when you exercise every day.  When you exercise and don't eat very healthy, exercising can be more painful than necessary.  I like to think that's the same way Spiritually!  When we study and learn and grow in the Spirit, it does us a lot more good when we exercise our faith.  The inward action is justified by the outward action.  Then I was thinking about when people eat too much and exercise to little.  Maybe they are eating really healthy foods! But when they aren't exercising, the food they eat isn't doing much good for them anymore.  When we grow our testimony, it doesn't do us very much good to hold it inside.  There can be really spiritual people who don't exercise their bodies or diet well, and there are people who exercise and diet regularly but aren't very spiritual.  I think the best balance is of people who exercise their bodies and their faith equally, and who are on a physical and spiritual diet :) I know this is getting weird, but I was also thinking about "spiritual diets," like, "oh no, I can't [watch that movie, listen to that music, go to that place], I'm on a diet." :) haha! From all this I have decided that I need to eat better and take exercise more seriously...and to bear my testimony more :)

 

Anyway! We had a baptism this weekend :) It was for our friends Maribel and Angel :) mother and son :) They're amazing! It's such a beautiful thing to see family getting baptized together. I was used to just baptizing individuals and not expecting to even meet their parents.  2 out of 4 baptisms in Flagstaff their families didn't even come at all.  I really am loving Glendale a lot :) The bike is NOT getting better.  I don't like Brittany, she is not my friend.  But those sleeves that Dad sent me are amazing! What a great idea!

 

Well, I love you a lot and I hope everything is well for you at home! Thanks for the email :) Sorry I made you rush! I love you sooo much and hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!  Sorry these are always so short.

 

Love and miss you!

 

-Kady

November 18, 2013

Hey Mom.

 

I guess I will start with the story of the week.  So I've been borrowing another sister's bike for the past couple of weeks.  On Saturday they brought MY bike over from the mission office, finally ready to ride.  I decided to use the borrowed bike one more time, pretty much out of laziness because when I was done with it I would just hand it to the zone leaders and wouldn't have to take any bike up the stairs that night :) But here's what happened.  So we were on the wrong side of a busy street and had to go down a block to use the crosswalk. I pulled out the phone to see if there was a quicker way (while riding) and saw only one way to go.  I was putting the phone back in my bag when I saw that the curb didn't come down to allow people up onto the sidewalk.  I had about 1 and a half seconds to decide what to do and saw that a little ways up the sidewalk was a driveway I could go up.  I also saw that there were cars coming in front of me and that there was no shoulder except for the 8 inch gutter.  So I went for it quickly.  I didn't realize until I got there that the driveway still had an edge that was an inch high.  My tire got stuck on it sideways and I fell into the sidewalk.  Somehow I turned and saved the phone! But I scraped up my knees and the tops of my feet and hurt my other wrist that wasn't holding the phone and my elbow.  And I bruised my hip, but that might have been because of a different time.  We continued on and as we were going home after a few visits I looked down to notice that the reason it had suddenly gotten harder to pedal was because the front tire was flat. Good thing that was my last day using that bike! So we began walking our bikes the 12 blocks home. Sister Clark looked at her watch and said, "we're going to be late." So I said, "then let's pick up the pace!" and we started walking faster.  Sister Clark is 4'11" so she has short legs.  So we had a new idea; I would walk fast and she would ride behind me!  It worked out pretty great, we got home with 10 minutes to spare!  But on the walk home, my shoes and socks fell off...so I walked about 4 blocks barefoot.... This bike thing is causing me a lot of problems.  On Friday I was coming off the curb and my shoe fell off again and the pedal smacked my shin!  I also walk around with black marks from the chain every day and the helmet causes breakage to my hair in the middle of my head :( I really dislike riding the bike.  It's sad, too, because I was finally starting to have a good attitude about it and then all this happened. I really hope that I get transferred to a car area some day.  More and more sisters are on bikes though....but maybe I could be the one who ends bikes for everyone!

 

We have two investigators who had their baptism interview last week.  They're mother and son :) They will be baptized this Saturday at 12:30! I'm so excited :) They are really sweet and I love them already! Coming into a new area with a companion who is also new to the area isn't as hard as I thought it would be.  Not because we have some baptisms coming up, but because we have adjusted so well already!  We don't know the members very well, yet, but we've been focusing on the nonmembers and less-active members which I think is almost better because they're the ones we NEED to focus on anyway! Life is good, except for the bike...

 

Our Zone Leaders are over the YSA ward in our stake so we don't work with the YSA at all which makes me sad :( Working in a family ward I thought would be SO DIFFERENT! But it's not really.  I think because I gained so much confidence talking with and approaching people my own age prepared me to be in a family ward where it could be a little more intimidating.  But it's not :) I thought it would be! I was thinking about how it would be hard to teach someone who is way above me in experience or the pressure of trying to teach simply to children, but it came so easy!  I think it's because the gospel is the same for everyone...or something like that.  The transition was actually kind of weird.  I feel like from day to day I don't remember my yesterdays and it doesn't occur to me that there will be a tomorrow.  Maybe that's a blessing.  I feel like I can't even remember what it's like to be home with all of you, and I actually can't remember what it's like in Flagstaff...I have no memories! It's really weird.  Everything goes into storage and I can only remember vague, translucent fragments of my life before today.  I kind of like it, though.  I'm not going to try to break it.  I'm sorry if that was weird.

 

We had a Mission Tour this week where Elder Teh of the Seventy came to give us some training! It was great! I learned so much! I wrote to Dad a little bit of what I've been thinking about, about being a Member Missionary. Maybe if he's nice he'll let you read it :) But one thing I have been trying to focus on is learning to use my online resources more efficiently.  I have some ideas but they're pretty vague. I want to be better at using the tools that I have been given, especially because the Lord is testing some of these things out with us. I want to figure it out so that other missionaries after me will have all the blessings of online proselyting! So far, my best idea has been Liken, but if everyone at home can help us to get their friends on board "chatting" with the missionaries over Facebook, that would really help move the Work of Salvation along. I think :)

 

I must say, I really do enjoy the Glendale weather.  Spending the Summer in the most Northern part of the mission and the Winter in the most Southern part of the mission is pretty nice :) I'm sorry that my letters aren't very spiritual.  I will work on it.  I need to start taking my journal to the computers with me again!  I'm sorry, I'll do better next week.

 

Love you! Miss you! I think it's weird that you foster puppies!

 

-Kady

November 11, 2013

Hey Mom! Sorry I'm emailing you so late. We had a crazy time today with riding our bikes around and Sister Clark is playing the piano for a musical number for our mission tour this week, and we pretty much just wasted a lot of time. I hate wasting time! But next week we'll be more organized. Anyway, so the garment thing, I just want to decide if I want to buy the caranessa kind because it's the kind I like, or if I want to buy a whatever kind is best for Phoenix heat. I don't really know. I guess I will let you know next week? Is that okay? Sorry about that. It's just hard to only have 7 and a half pairs!!!! (Sister Harrah stole one piece....rude!) So I love love LOVE Glendale! It's so nice here! OHHH! And, you should tell Patriarch Williams that I'm serving in his old ward :) Lots of people know him! And his family lives in the ward that shares our building! Crazy huh? :) But yes, the weather is perfect this time of year in the valley. I am SSOOOOOOO happy to be out of Flagstaff :) I loved it there so much! But it was getting pretty cold, and now it's perfect weather :) I just hope next summer I go somewhere up North again! hahaha I guess we'll see. I just hope that some day I will be back in a car again. The only thing I dislike about this area is the bike. I am training myself to be positive about it, but right now it ticks me off pretty bad. Sister Clark is from West Jordan, Utah! And I like her a lot. My first 3 companions were all alike and pretty much the opposite of me, but Sister Clark and I have a lot of similarities. But I am so grateful for the time I had with my other companions! We had our struggles, but because of them, a lot of situations where I know I would have butted heads with Sister Clark are avoided because I have a more patient and temperate attitude toward disagreement. She knows what she wants and I know what I want, and when there is slight variation, I am pleased to say that I have learned to take a step back and only worry about the things that really matter to me, not just always getting my way about everything. I'm Sister Clark's second companion, this is her first transfer not in training, and I know that if we were both at that point in our missions, we would not get along, just because I know how I was and I know how I would react to her, and I can guess pretty well how she would react to me, well, by the way she DOES react to me, haha. Well anyway, I'm just pleased to see that we have a lot of similarities, but also to see that I am changing and that I can get along with probably anyone now, when before it was a lot harder :) Sister Clark and I will have a great transfer :) So about school. I tell everyone who asks me that I plan on going to Dixie with Kelly and Victoria :) I still really want to!!! But this is my thought. I either want to work for the year until school starts, or I want to take a few classes at Salt Lake Community College for the credits that don't transfer from a Wyoming school to Utah schools. So I don't know what you can do about that, but I wouldn't mind taking some of those general education classes that aren't credited. Does that make sense? I feel like it doesn't but I don't know how to reword it. And I have no idea what you can do about that! Well, life is good. I will pray for Grandma. I will also pray that I can go over to the Mares's for Thanksgiving. I guess we'll see what happens! Love you so so so much! Sorry this is a short letter. -Kady

November 5, 2013

Hey hey! Sooooo....guess what. Sister Connell and I are both getting transferred!!! What!?! Right!!?? Anyway. That's pretty crazy. (We get the text on Tuesday morning whether we're being transferred or not, spend the day doing P-Day things, and then leave on Wednesday morning.) So that's exciting! We're just sad because we have a baptism this weekend and we don't even get to be here for it! And next weekend, and the weekend after. I must say, we worked really hard to get this area up and rolling again. And we don't even get to enjoy the fruits! At least we know how to set up an awesome schedule for other missionaries. Maybe that's what I'll get to do...go to a struggling area and make it fruitful and then get transferred before it all starts coming into place. Well, I'm not complaining, I learned a lot from my time in Flagstaff. And I am grateful for the chance to serve somewhere else. No matter when I get transferred, I will always be leaving work behind. That's my new philosophy I guess. We don't know where we're going or who we're with until the transfer meeting which is tomorrow. And I won't be training. And I got your package this morning:) So my week! We got our iPads:) I have to say, I've had it for almost a week, and I don't know how I'll ever live without it. I LOVE iPad minis!!!! I'm not joking when I tell you I'm going to buy one for myself when I go home. It's fantastic! I'm in the process of transferring all my marked verses in my scriptures to my gospel library so I can downsize to where I only carry the iPad around:) I'm so excited! I'm a little obsessed. Sister Connell said that last night I was talking in my sleep about the iPad. I named it Paddy :) hahaaha obsessed!!! It's so handy. There's an Area Book app made by the Church for missionaries. We're in the process of switching everything over. And our daily planners are in that app, too! I wish I could show you, describing it won't paint the picture. It's very intelligent, though. It keeps us updated and accountable for what we do every day. It's amazing!!! Just know, I love it very much:) Well, Sister Connell and I have a lot left to do in preparation for transfers. Sorry this is a short, lame letter! I really am sorry. I'll do better next week! Love you!!!! Good luck with soccer and house renovations and school and Victoria and all the other stuff on your plate:) -Kady [Then in an email dated Nov. 6th, we received this update from Kady:} Hey Mom :) So I was transferred....I'm serving in the Glendale South Zone in an area called Glen Lakes. So I'm in the hot! Well, it's pretty nice right now :) And my companion's name is Sister Clark and she's from West Jordan :) I've met her before, she's really nice :) She just finished her training a few days ago so I'm only her second companion! I feel pretty bad for her..haha :) Talk to you on Monday! Love you!!!