🎇Happy New Year 🎇

Happy (almost) New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great week and Christmas!

Christmas for us was good. We did a little breakfast with our district then had brunch with some members. The rest of the day we talked with family and made some gingerbread houses. For not being home it was pretty good.

I won't lie, the work after Christmas was pretty slow. All our lessons fell through and we weren't able to find many who were interested. But this next week is the last full week of the transfer and I'm sure some awesome miracles are going to happen!

Sunday we sadly did not have any friends come to church but we got to work The Festival of Lights one last time in the evening. There we got to teach this couple a lot about the temple and our beliefs as a church. It was really nice because even though at the end they weren't interested in learning from the missionaries they said they'd be more open and accepting of "Mormons" because they understand our beliefs now.

For pday today we are going to be playing volleyball with the sisters in our zone and then Sister Anderson and I are going to the Bible Museum in DC, which I hear is pretty cool so I'm excited.

Spiritual thought: we found out that President Holland passed away Saturday morning and I wanted to share a quote I liked that was shared in a news article about him, 

“If the Savior of the world can use little old Jeff Holland from little old St. George, Utah, to accomplish His work, He can and certainly will use you. …

“As you do serve, I promise you will find your own place in the family of God. The reality of your connection to Him and to others will sink deep into your heart and into your mind. That knowledge will change you, perhaps dramatically change you, as you become ever closer to Him and ever more like Him.”

As we serve God will all our heart we will discover why and how we are meant to help in his work, we will see how we fit into His family.

Love you all!

-Sis.Kapp

Christmas Eve Festival of Lights with Sister Anderson and Lee
(We've all been comps)

Christmas District Breakfast

Gingerbread houses

🎄Merry Christmas🎄

 Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are all doing well and are staying healthy!

This last week and a half has been good!

We had interviews which were really awesome! 

This week we had some really awesome lessons and met some cool people. We also got into the homes of so many inactives. So blessed! 

I loved Christmas Sunday! So much music and such good testimonies on Jesus Christ. 

We were able to make some banana bead and other treats for our members as a Christmas gift which was lots of fun.

We did a relay race with our district and we did not win but we also didn't loose. It was so funny though.

I have felt very blessed this Christmas season because of you at home who have done so much to make me feel loved, my ward for taking care of us, but mostly because of the added focus that being on a mission brings to Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Thought: I love Isaiah 9:6

"6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

I love the names of Christ and how they embody the blessing he is. Thinking about them makes this Christmas season that much more special.

Love you all! Merry Christmas

-Sis.Kapp

Christmas goodies

Making videos for our friends

Sister Lee

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