A Week of Miracles!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week! This week was good and a lot less crazy than last week so we're happy, haha. (this is a little longer, sorry)

On Tuesday we had zone conference! It was pretty good. I got to see Sister Lee AND Sister Hendrix (this was Hendrix and I's first zone conference together! So fun!) Something I love that we talked about was charity. Charity is so much more than serving someone it is cleaving onto Christ!

This week we were able to do so much inactive work and it was SO good! God really prepared them for us to come and prompted us to visit during a time where they needed it most. It really shows that God loves all his children and all he wants is for them to feel his love and to come back to him.

An amazing miracle this week happened on Wednesday. We were going to go do a drop visit with one of our friends because he hadn't been responding to any of our texts and calls. We knock on his door and he answers! Miracle #1 Then we found out the his phone was sending our calls and texts to spam (because he didn't have our number saved) and he's still interested! Miracle #2 Turns out he's been reading The Book of Mormon and is really liking it and we set up a lesson! Miracle #3! God is good!!!

We had our ward Christmas party on Friday and it was lots of fun! Good food, great people, music, games, and Santa!

On Saturday we were able to do some service. We volunteered at this place where we helped those in need Christmas shop for their kids, choosing from some donated toys. It was fun trying to help them pick the perfect gifts for their kids.

Saturday we also had a church tour with our friends and went to do a drop visit with one of our other friends and barely caught him. He's super cool but sadly works every Sunday. He is coming to our FHE tonight which is super awesome! 

Funny random thing that happened is while on visits we found a dresser with a free sign on it. You see, our new apartment's dresser is smaller than our last one so we did indeed take it and it fits perfectly in our apartment lol.

Sunday we got like an inch of snow and church almost got canceled! Church did not get canceled but the snow did keep our friends from coming. But church was awesome! 

Sunday was freezing though! With the wind it felt like it was 2 degrees outside. Luckily our members gave us some hot chocolate for the road. 

Sunday night we had a good mission devotional where we looked at Luke 1 and learned a lot more about Mary and Joseph. You should all go read that chapter and see what you learn.

For pday today we are doing a scavenger hunt at the mall with our district which should be lots of fun!

Spiritual thought: 

Our mission has been focusing on "Walking in the Dust of the Rabbi" and to help me do this I have been working on having more sincere, specific prayers, and exercising faith to see them answered. This has been an awesome experience. Our days have been much more spirit led and my prayers have been answered. Something I've prayed for almost every time we go to street contact, knock doors, or visit someone is praying that the people we come in contact with are kind, soft hearted people, and it has worked! I have a hard time bouncing back when someone is mean to me and God has been aware of that and has answered my prayers because I have talked to so many kind people this week and it has helped me walk with God so much more!

Love you all! Have a great week!

*My next pday is Christmas Eve*

-Sis.Kapp

Zone Conference

Scrabble with Pauline

Dresser Adventures

Condemned

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well. This week was interesting to say the least.

We got our first snow! It didn't stick but it was pretty!

We had exchanges on Tuesday and they were so good. I learned a lot and we saw so many miracles. We got in contact with at least one person everywhere we went.

This is where things started to get interesting. We woke up Wednesday with no water. We thought it was temporary but our water and electricity would end up being out until Saturday night. (The grocery store we live on top of had a flood) 

When we got home Saturday we discovered flooded floors in our apartment. Luckily the church owns an empty room in the building that we are able to stay in until ours is fixed. 

But in the midst of all of this we were able to go to the baptism of a friend that Sister Anderson taught in her last area and work at The Festival of Lights (the temples light display).

Spiritual thought: 

Through the craziness of this week we still saw tender mercies and miracles from God. We had ward members help us, we were able to stay with our STL when our building was "condemned", and though we didn't hit our number goals we got in contact with SO many inactives and people were extra nice. 

In Elder Holland’s talk "Lifted Up upon the Cross" he talks about lifting your cross, following Christ, and letting the challenges strengthen you. This is so true! Never forget it!

Love you all! 

-Sis.Kapp

Condemned

Festival of Lights

Apartment Chaos

Thanksgiving! 🦃

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a fun holiday and ate some good food! This week was good:

On Wednesday we had transfers and I got my new companion Sister Anderson! She is awesome! She's been out 13 months and has been companions with 2 of my companions so we were meant to be put together.

On Thursday for Thanksgiving we played ultimate frisbee with our ward and had dinner at the Krikava's home. It was pretty good. I also got to talk to my family which is always a plus.

We went to a members baptism on Saturday and we were able to have a friend come and he had lots of good questions. 

We had 1 of our friends come to church which was so awesome! Sunday is her only day off and she chose to spend it going to church.

This transfer our area expanded to our elders area so we have been doing lots ward visits and exploring over there. 

For pday today we went to the spy museum. It was lots of fun but I don't think I'd be a very good spy though...

Spiritual thought: here's a quote I liked from General Conference: 

"Know Who You Really Are"

By Elder Brik V. Eyre

"“When you know and understand how completely you are loved as a child of God, it changes everything. It changes the way you feel about yourself when you make mistakes. It changes how you feel when difficult things happen. It changes your view of God’s commandments. It changes your view of others and of your capacity to make a difference.”"

Being a child of God is the most sacred truth. So remember it!

Love you all!

-Sis.Kapp

Bye Sis Lee :'(

Thanksgiving

Spy Museum

Surprise!

Hello everyone some crazy and amazing things happened this week so let's get into it.

On Tuesday a family in our ward had a special dinner to celebrate my 9 months as a missionary and Sister Lee's 6 months as a missionary. It was so fun and they made us shakes! 

On Friday Elder Rasband came and spoke to our mission and the Washington DC South mission and it was so amazing! I can't describe the spirit in that room. He really is called of God! So many prayers were answered in that meeting. Plus I saw Sister Hendrix and Sister Esplin!

These 2 ladies in our ward invited us to dinner with this inactive women in our ward and it was awesome. This women and her husband are really struggling and we were able to share a clip from President Eyring's talk "O Remember, Remember" (go listen to it!) And we talked about looking for God's hand in everyday and giving thanks. She shared such a powerful testimony of how this has helped her through her trials. 

Sunday was full of miracles. We had an unexpected friend come to church and set up a lesson with him this week. Later while planning our week at the library this random guy came up to us and asked for a scripture and we have a lesson set up with him this week. Then we visited a former and he was interested and we had an awesome lesson with him yesterday and he was super accepting of what we taught him. God is good!

Yesterday we got our transfer news and I'm...staying! This will be my 4th transfer in White Oak which is crazy! I'll spend almost a third of my mission here. Clearly God needs me here for a reason and I'm excited to find that out. Sister Lee is leaving though 😢. They are also blue washing the hermanas in our district so we'll be the only sisters. Lots of unexpected things but it will be good.

We then had a fun "last supper" for those leaving in our district last night which was lots of fun.

For pday today Sister Lee is mostly packing and the I get my new companion tomorrow! 

Spiritual thought: Elder Rasband shared so many good things at his devotional but this one I think will apply to you all as well. He said, "May we go, may we say, may we be who he wants us to be." 

All we need to do every day is try to be who God wants us to be. All it takes is a little extra thought in our words and actions.

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving!

Sister Lee 🫶

Aspen Hill District

White Oak Missionaries + The Mays

Sister Mays ❤️

9 MONTHS!!!

Happy Monday everyone! Today I hit my 9 months as a missionary! So crazy!

On Tuesday we did an activity with the young women all about missionary work. We made a video of the "day in the life as a missionary" to show them, so we watched that. We then answered any questions they had and had them write their testimonies in Book of Mormons. So much fun! These young women will be awesome missionaries someday.

We did set up Christmas this week lol. There was a full sized tree in our apartment closet begging to be put up so we did. 

We had another lesson with our friend Frankie and he opened up a lot more and even prayed! Everyone please keep him in your prayers we have hope of putting him on date soon.

Food Highlight! We went to this restaurant called Fryers and I got a smoked pulled pork sandwich and man it was yummy! The shake was alright though. I miss thick shakes from back home.

I went to my first adult session of stake conference on Saturday and it was sooo good. It's cool being in a stake that consists of 3 different languages. The spirit was so strong during the meeting. 

Crazy miracle! During the adult session of stake conference Saturday we get a call from someone not in our area book but decide to call them after the meeting. They end up not answering our call but text us. After a few questions we found it that it was the random mailman we quickly gave a card to while he was working. I have never had someone that I have given a card to call me. This was an insane miracle! He's busy this week so hopefully something can get set up next week.

Transfers are next week so pday will be Tuesday. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Spiritual thought: One of the talks during stake conference was about the Book of Mormon. It was so good! The speaker talked about the logistics of the Book of Mormon being true and then the personal spiritual witness we can receive of it being true. This book is SO true! I have learned so much about my Savior as I have ready it. I have loved learning to love the Book of Mormon on my mission as I've been able to study it every day.

Love you all!

-Sis.Kapp

Brookside Garden

Fryers

Frankie

Christmas

Jump Scare

Hello everyone! Another week down in White Oak.

This Tuesday we are doing an activity with the young women on missionary work so we made a video of "a day in the life as missionaries" and it was lots of fun. Hopefully it will make them excited to serve missions.

We had another lesson with our friend Frankie and we were able to get the area 70 in our ward to be a member presence and his comments were exactly what we needed! 

We had a lesson with our friend Sandeep and we invited him to set a date for baptism. He said that he felt like he needed more stability in his life before he can make that decision (he's trying to start a business) so we invited him to pray about it. So everyone please pray for Sandeep! 

One of the sweet old ladies that we visit had a birthday this week (Pauline) and we brought her flowers and the smile on her face was so sweet! Remember that little things go a long way!

We had a 30 minute "zone conference" over zoom all about using the Book of Mormon to answer questions. It was SO good and I learned SO much!

We went to a relief society activity Saturday morning which was a good time. That evening I accidentally scared a lady while knocking...she had 2 front doors and I chose the wrong one. I tried to get to the right one before her but my timing made me give her a little jump scare...Oops. It was pretty funny though. 

On Sunday I got to sing, "Savior Redeemer of My Soul" in church. I forgot how much I love learning new music to sing.

Today for pday we went to Annapolis so an elder in our district could do this food challenge of drinking a 6 lb shake and 1 1/2 lb burger in either an hour or hour and a half and he did it! Annapolis is SO pretty! 

That's pretty much it!

Spiritual thought: 

Our mission has been focusing on the importance of the sacrament lately our President had us read the talk "Sacrament Meeting and the Sacrament" By Elder Dallin H. Oaks and I really liked this quote from it, "This is a commandment with a promise. By participating weekly and appropriately in the ordinance of the sacrament, we qualify for the promise that we will “always have his Spirit to be with [us]” (D&C 20:77). That Spirit is the foundation of our testimony. It testifies of the Father and the Son, brings all things to our remembrance, and leads us into truth. It is the compass to guide us on our path. This gift of the Holy Ghost, President Wilford Woodruff taught, “is the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon man” (Deseret Weekly, Apr. 6, 1889, 451)" 

The Sacrament is a sacred ordinance where we are making covenants (promises) with God. The blessing of the spirit always being with us us id so precious, we should never forget it. 

Love you all!

-Sis.Kapp

Finding

Annapolis

Pauline

911

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week and a Happy Halloween!

This week started out with zone conference. It was pretty good. We talked a lot about the importance of the Book of Mormon and getting our members involved in the work.

We actually had people show up to basketball!!!! This was a BIG success this week. 

Now for the title of the email. I had to call 911! We were at McDonald's doing our companionship study when all of a sudden this guy next to us collapses and starts seizing! I ended up calling 911 and luckily he was okay. It was a wild way to start our day.

Halloween! We started the day with a lesson with our new friend Frankie, it went pretty good. We were then on the hunt for some pumpkins to carve but we were unsuccessful, so we got a pumpkin pie to carve instead. Then we had a lesson with our friend Sandeep. We had to be home by 5:30 so we finished up calls and messages, and then played some games, carved our pie, and called our fams. Different from my usual Halloweens but still good.

Frankie came to church on Sunday! We haven't had any friends at church in a while so this was SO good! We went with some members to visit this guy in our ward who has been suffering from some pretty bad health issues. It was good to check in and make sure he feels loved.

For pday this morning we played kickball with our zone and mission president and his wife. It was actually pretty fun. 

Spiritual thought: 

I want to share a quote from the conference talk, "Smiling Faces and Grateful Hearts", By Elder Carlos A. Godoy. He says, “Trust in Jesus and always look unto Him, because through Him you’ll find peace, and He will help you in the healing process.” This quote is from a young girl who survived a tragic accident. She like many of the other people whose tragic stories he shared had a "smiling face and grateful heart". How? Because she relied on Christ and remembered His Atoning Sacrifice. Through Christ we can find peace and light through anything!

Love you all!

-Sis.Kapp

Zone Conference

Papusas

Carved Pumpkin Pie