This week has been a huge week of miracles to say the least!

First of starting with Thursday and the long awaited lesson with Zach. It was such a powerful experience, I never though I would have one of those better than gold investigators who are 100% and more ready for the gospel, but that is exactly what he is. Halfway though the lesson on the restoration he as "so can I be a Mormon?". We told him yes and finished up the lesson. He already has a strong testimony of God so all that's left to add is the book of Mormon and living prophets which I have no doubt will come quickly for him. He is moving to downtown Wichita so he will have the last few lessons taught to him by the Elders in his new ward which mean we don't get to count his baptism, but that's okay we got to be the ones who found him in a beyond miraculous way!

We weren't having much success finding people this week and Friday and Saturday amounted to almost nothing except hours upon hours of walking. When we got home we were talking about it and all of a sudden it came to us that we weren't supposed to focus just on finding people we needed to focus on our ward. Getting to know the active members better, and bringing them with us when we visit less actives. Our ward is about 60% less actives which is really hard. We wrote up a personal area mission statement. Prayed about it and put it in the Lords hands. We knew if this was his will things would work out, we expected it would take a few days for the miracles to really start to show. I'm here to tell you Heavenly Father works FAST when he wants to. The miracles started coming 12 hours or so later.

Cecila  had all of her girls at church including her 14 year old daughter Mary who we met for the first time as she walked in the door. Mary is like a spiritual/mental sponge. Sister McDermott went with her to Sunday school and YW and said she soaked it all up, gave feedback in class, and loved every moment of it. She was really sad when YW was over and she asked if there was another class after but found out church was over. I stayed with her mother and because her baby was being fussy we ended up in the hall during RS. Which was another miracle because it gave me the chance to answer all of her questions from church. Most importantly being who exactly the Holy Ghost is and what role he plays in our lives and specifically prayer. Wow that was a neat experience to be able to have that time to talk to her. During that time she told me that her daughters Valery and Mary wanted us to teach them the Plan of Salvation. So they are now our new investigators along with their sister Rosa who is 9. It was surreal to say the least. 

After church we went to see a friend of Brother and Sister Field, with Brother Field. He had sent the Elders over to see her over a year ago just after her husband passed away but she really wasn't interested then. But when we asked him Saturday, when we felt prompted to stop by and see him,  if he had any people he could give us as a referral he literally had her name pop into his head. So after church we went with him to see her and he personally introduced us. She is the cutest little woman I've ever met. She does have some pretty drastic physical walking disabilities but that has just made her humble. We have a meeting with her Tuesday and she is really looking forward to us coming to see her. She is gold, she is humble, lost her husband and is still struggling with not having him here with her (Thank you Heavenly Father for the plan of Salvation!), and has good neighbors and friends in the Fields which means she will always have a way to church. Brother Field has wanted her to be a member for a long time so he is so excited. He is in his early 70 and I wish you could have seen the way he was basically bouncing with joy as we left her home last night. Heavenly Father is amazing, and he really is our Father!

This is just a SMALL list of the blessings we experienced this week, and I am sure that we will see so many more as the week goes on. 

Lots of Love

Sister Blood

A ward member gave me a blood orange yesterday at church. I've never had so many comments on my last name in my life! 

 Katie and Companion went Tracting

Wet socks after  tracting 

Katie and Sister McDermott, her first companion in the Mission Field

Greetings from the Spring in February State of Kansas!

 

We had a HUGE Miracle last night. After church Sister Mc and I decided to go see one of our investigators at the rehabilitation/care center she is at for her sever depression. We were waiting for her to go and get her scriptures and another guy who was there asked if we were having a bible study session, we said yes and he asked us a few random questions about the bible and then wandered off. When our investigator came back he asked if we could join us. Sister McDermott had a book of Mormon is her bag we gave him to follow along in as we read together from Enos and talked about prayer. We have been trying to get Andrea, our investigator, to pray hence why we were reading from Enos. Every so often we would stop and ask her about what she read, what it meant to her, ect. We would bare our testimony, he even shared his about how he knows how God is real, and listens to his prayers, and has answered them in helping him get over his drug addictions. He is about to leave the care place as soon as he finds an apartment. The spirit was so strong! There were a couple of times the impressions of EXACTLY what I was supposed to tell him were so strong in my head and heart it felt as if the pressure in my head was going to start to effect my vision. WOW, can I say super cool experience! We set up a return appointment for this week and he is really excited about talking to us. He was really excited when we told him he could keep the BoM. As we were leaving he told us not to worry about him, he was just going to sit there and think for a few minutes. You could tell what we said had been taken straight to his heart by the spirit and I know it was what he was looking for as he is about to start over his life again. WOW is all I can say, I've never seen the spirit act so powerfully and strongly for someone like that before! I ended up singing Miracle of Miracles for the next two hours I was so excited!

Miracle of Miracles has become my Mission Theme song and whenever anything amazing happens I start singing it out loud or in my head usually without even realizing I've started singing. Yes it's from a musical about Jewish people, but hey, when it works it works! And the Spirit really works!!!

 

Love from Kansas

Sister Blood

Katelyn's Zone in the MTC
Elders Dickson,
Sisters Hafen, Hannah, Blood, Schow, Housholder,Katich

Leaving the MTC and on to Kansas

Greetings from Wichita Kansas!

 

Well I don't even know where to start. Well I guess with leaving the MTC, wow that seems like forever ago! Because of the storm in Kansas last week we were stuck in the Denver airport with 21 missionaries for 11 hours. It was quite the adventure. When we landed in the itty bitty airport of Wichita (12 gates total) we were met my the Bell's. We got to wait an extra hour to leave the airport however because the Assistants to the Presidents got the wrong trailer, to instead of an empty trailer they got the one that was full of furniture. They had to go back to the mission home and switch it out before we could leave. The sisters stayed at the home of member that night and we arrived at her home just after midnight. We touched down in Wichita at around 11:10. That first day here was soooo cold! I have started wearing two pairs of tights every day to stay warm.

My companion's name is Sister McDermott. She is from San Diego California and she is awesome! She has been out 10 months, and is about 10 inches shorter than I am. I love her a ton! This week was crazy busy, and in so many ways forever long. We are blessed with a full time car, which is amazing but we are only allotted 600 miles a month and we are almost to 300 already... We spent most of the time this week visiting with ward members and less actives. One that we have been spending a lot of time with is named Cristy Baker. She has a heart as big as the Kansas Sky! She wants to be more active but she is felling pretty low right now and trapped in her horrible situation. She is trying to get over her addiction to smoking as well. I love spending time visiting her but it is hard to come home smelling like cigarette smoke for the rest of the day. Some of my skirts are better than others and letting go of the smell sooner. One day we did some service for her and went and swept and cleaned her floor. Her smile was the biggest sweetest thing you have ever seen! It was so cute to see the way she was dancing across the floor so happy that it was clean and smooth. She said that tile floor looked cleaner than when she moved in. The entire time we were cleaning I had the line "as much as you have done it to the least of these you have done it unto me my brethren" going through my head. I realized that if Christ had been there he too the greatest of them all would have got down and on hand and knee cleaned that floor with me until it shown. It was a really humbling experience and I felt very blessed to get to do what the savior would have done for her. I LOVE being an angle on earth!

Last night after church we were able to go to a members home for dinner. Mom they even had a Quinoa (ya know the grain/seed stuff you use with rice?) dish that was really good! It reminded me of home in a good way. After we were driving around trying to find some less actives to visit but neither of us felt right about it so we went home. I felt really strongly that we should call Cristy and give her a lesson over the phone. Wow that was the strongest I have ever felt the spirit while on my mission. We read out of Alma with her (the chapter about when Alma and his people are in bondage to the Lamanites and the lord helps them escape to Zarahemla.) and I felt so strongly to tell her that if she finished the Book of Mormon and followed the covenants she made when she was baptized the Lord would lift her out of the horrible place she has been living. It was amazing to feel so strongly exactly what to say and to know that the promise that came out of my mouth wasn't from me... I was just being the mouth piece!

We had a new investigator join us at church along with her 5 girls age 8 months to 11. She has already agreed to be baptized but we still have some work to do. She is Hispanic and we are pretty sure she has never been married. They live in poverty so we need to make sure she is actually going to be baptized or is baptized before we tell her that the church can help her financially. She has gone to other church before just for their support so we have to make sure that is not the case again. She does seem very interested and her girls LOVE church so much.

Also one of the investigators that Sister McDermott and her previous comp Sister Call (who was just called to be the mission secretary until the new senior missionaries arrive) worked with told us she wants to be baptized! This is really excited especially in Kansas. One of the first things they told us is that this mission is extremely hard because most people are religious and happy with their religion. We are expected to get at least 1 baptism every other transfer... that's every 3 months! That is a really low number, so the fact we have possibly 4 in the next few months is truly a miracle!

 

Well my time is up, I love you all and Can't wait to hear from you!

 

Sister Blood