2016 Is Almost Here

Hello Everyone, I hope ya'll had a very Merry Christmas, because I did. I really think that Christmas this year has been the best Christmas I have ever had. There is something about brightening someone's day that really just brightens your own (I hope that makes sense). This week was not the most productive week with Christmas and my companion being sick, but I was able to get a little more organized, so that was nice.

Tristan is doing so good, she came to church again and I think she is really enjoying it and getting used to it. And adjusting to leaving her boys in primary and not worrying so much about them. She has such a strong testimony of prayer and scripture study it is the coolest thing, because I feel like if you have those things down, then everything else about the gospel and the church naturally falls into place. 

We spent a good chunk of our Christmas day at Bennett's (the nice pastor who is reading the Book of Mormon) parent's house. So I got to know his parents and his siblings really well, so that was quite nice, their family kinda reminds me or my family, except mine is way bigger and way more loud, no offence to anyone, I love my family, A LOT. Also Holly came to all three hours of church on Sunday so that was pretty cool to see her there. 

We didn't do much tracting this week, but one of the houses that we did tract, we met this sweet girl named Kelsey, at first she was super skeptical, she said that the only book of scripture was the bible and if it isn't in there then it isn't scripture, she said that she had learned about "the Mormons" in a class at Lutheran High and that we had some pretty weird ideas, but then we told her the truth about us, and we recited the first vision, which ALWAYS brings the spirit and we had her read the famous Moroni 10: 3-5 and she started to get a little bit emotional as she read it. After she read it she handed the Book of Mormon back and we kept talking to her about the church and Joseph Smith but I could tell that she wanted the Book of Mormon, she kept looking at it, so before we left I asked her if we left it with her if she would read it and she said yes and then she said where is your church at? so we told her and I would like to say that she came to church on Sunday, but she didn't, but it was still a really cool experience to see someone's perspective change like that so quickly. 

Also just a funny story, the Pollock family has this incredibly stupid tiny dog, normally I like dogs pretty well, but their dog is just plain dumb. So we were visiting this former investigator named Valerie about half a block away from the Pollock's and we were just standing at her door talking to her and all of the sudden out of no where this dog bolts between me and Sister Carlini, through the door that is barely cracked open and it jumps on Valerie's couch and pees on her couch and her clothes and her phone. It was the funniest thing, I could not with hold my self from laughing, me and my comp were just busting up. Brother Pollock comes up and is just so sorry and embarrassed and mad at this stupid dog and Valerie didn't really say anything, but I can imagine that she wasn't super happy about, but it gave us a great laugh and a good story. So ladies and gents that was my week, I hope you have a very happy new year and you make some awesome resolutions! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

​Made this awesome ginger bread house all by myself, I had to, it's just a tradition you know.

Christmas morning, opening presents. Thank you to everyone and anyone who sent me anything for Christmas, including Christmas cards, I really felt loved and remembered.

Merry Christmas!!!

Hello everyone, I hope ya'll are ready for Christmas. This week was pretty great, Heavenly Father gave us about four referrals about thirty minutes away from us, which is a lot of miles when you only get so many miles every month, but we figured we needed to go out to the Plymouth Glenbeulah area for some reason or another, so we did and some of the referrals weren't interested, or home, but one of them is an 11 year old boy named Shawn who lives in Elkhart Lake and he wants to get baptized, his whole family is baptized, but they have just been less active for about 7 years, but he has decided to get baptized, so we are going to teach him and hopefully get his Dad ready to baptize him, and hopefully reactivate their family, I am pretty excited about them. 

Tristan is doing pretty good, she came to church again with both of her boys, and also this week we taught her law of Chastity and she has already been living it . . . she is SOO prepared. She watched Meet the Mormons this week also and I think she liked it, the last lady on meet the mormons reminds me of her because Tristan has two black boys and she is a single Mom, but I hope (like on Meet the Mormons) that someday she can find an awesome Mormon man to marry and maybe someday her sons can serve missions. Obviously I have high hopes for her and her family, but that is a good thing right? 

Being a missionary around Christmas time is pretty much the best thing ever. I have really been enjoying it, you can be so much more creative around Christmas time with how you share the gospel, because you can carol, or wrap books of mormon, and give out Christmas cards and Christmas pass along cards, and people really are much more receptive. Also it is just great to testify of Jesus Christ and his birth. We were tracting and I asked this lady why she celebrated Christmas and she said because it is a national holiday and I was able to explain to her that it is because Christ was born. People, make sure your Children know the true meaning of Christmas, that it isn't about Santa Claus, but someone so much greater. Have a Very Merry Christmas! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

​You know your in Wisconsin when . . . there is a giant statue of a cow on the side of the road.

Decorating the Christmas tree at the Bingham's house.

Making cookies at the Relief Society President's house

Exchanges! back is Sister Kelley, Sister Carlini, Sister Dunlap, and front is me and Sister Hansen.

 District pics on the beach

me, Sister Carlini, Elder Low, Vang, Casagranda, Stokes

Proverbs 32:21

Well this week flew by sooo fast. We had zone conference all day on Tuesday in Oshkosh and so that was fun and motivating and all, but unfortunately we didn't get any work done that day. Wednesday was a great day we were able to see Tristan and set a baptismal date with her for the 23rd of January so a ways away, but that is the day she feels like she will be ready on Friday we were able to go on exchanges with the Sister training leaders, this time I went to Menasha with Sister Kelley and Sister Hansen and Sister Dunlap came to Sheboygan with Sister Carlini. They are in a trio right now because Sister Kelley is leaving 2 weeks early so that she can make it home in time for school. Exchanges were pretty fun, it is always nice to see how other missionaries do things differently and it was so nice to be able to get some good tips from Sister Kelley, she is so awesome. 

Saturday was so great we were able to teach a lot of people and to see a lot of people and we volunteered at this thing called Making Spirits Bright it is where they have a light show that goes to the music on your car radio and you just drive through it, it is pretty awesome and then afterwards you can go see Santa, and so that is the part that we were helping with. We also saw Bennett and Holly on Saturday and we found out that Bennett actually wanted to be a rock star at one point in his life and he actually made a legit CD, so he gave one to me and Sister Carlini and we had him sign it, you know in case he becomes famous someday. He is actually quite good, we told him that he could drop his job as a Pastor, join our church and become a musician like David Archuleta, or Alex Boye. 

Also on Saturday we saw Sister Pollock who has been a member for 15 years, but has only been active for about a year and a half, her husband also just became a member about a year ago. They are the most amazing people ever, they have been through everything, heavy drugs, criminal activity, jail, teenage pregnancy, and a whole lot more, but they have completely and totally used the atonement in their lives and they have come such a long way. Sister Pollock was able to receive her patriarchal blessing this week and in it it said that she would be sealed to her family in the temple, and she is so looking forward to that and striving to be able to make that happen, she puts little pictures of temples all over her house. And they are making a special trip to Salt Lake in February to see the Salt Lake temple, I told her that if she is going to see it then she needs to see the inside of it, because it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life, so that is what she is striving for. 

We were able to teach Tristan about tithing on Saturday as well and I was really pretty nervous about it because she is a single Mom and she is always saying how hard it is with money. But I had received a prompting to teach her about tithing, so I prayed that she would receive it well and she did it was awesome, the Lord had prepared her way before hand, and she was ready for it. She willing accepted the law of tithing because she knew that it would bless her and her boys. 

Also sorry this is so long, but there were just so many awesome things this week. But Sunday there was a little 8 year old boy getting baptized from the ward and we invited Holly and Bennett to come see it, and Bennett was able to come and watch it, and watch the boy get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost as well. So that was a really cool experience and the spirit was really strong. Now we just need to get Holly and Bennett to do the same, he is reading the Book of Mormon, which is the converting power, so it will happen eventually. 

But I hope you all have a wonderful week and a very Merry Christmas and I hope everyone is enjoying the snow for me. 

Love,

Sister Koyle

Please pray for it to snow in Wisconsin

Dear Everyone,

I hope ya'll are doing great. Wisconsin is treating me well, except there isn't any snow :( But other than that it is great. This week Elder Miller left, but we were able to have some fun times with him before he headed off to Kenosha, so that was good. There is a guy named Joe that Sister Carlini used to teach. He had cancer and he was really into the gospel, but his wife, Adelle, didn't like the missionaries teaching her husband, so they quit teaching him. This week Sister Carlini felt like we should go visit Joe, so we did and turns out that he actually passed away in September from cancer. So that is super sad and we totally didn't expect that, but now Adelle has agreed to have us teach her and her children, so we are excited to teach them, I think they will be really receptive because they are at such a hard time in their lives right now. 

Also we went to Tristan's on Thursday night to have a lesson with her and as soon as we walked in I could tell something was wrong, so after the prayer I asked her what was wrong and she went off. She said that she didn't want to do bible study (lessons) with us anymore and that she just feels really alone and she doesn't have any friends and that she doesn't even know if God is real and that she just wants to go back to where she was ten years ago, and the only reason that she didn't cancel on us is because she is a woman of her word. So thank goodness Sister Carlini and Tristan are soul sisters and Sister Carlini is awesome at following the spirit, she was so inspired and said the perfect things to help her out. We also showed her a video called Why we need a savior, so good by the way, and we just let her know that satan is working really hard on her right now, because she is so close to making a covenant with the Lord and this is where he does his best work is when people are so close. And we committed her to reading and praying and coming to church. By the time we left, we were laughing and she was crying tears of joy, and she was so excited for church. We checked on her on Friday night and Saturday night to see how she was doing and she was great, and she said that she had read her scriptures and prayed and wrote in her journal and that she felt so much peace and she came to church on Sunday!!! TRISTAN CAME TO CHURCH! it actually happened. and she stayed all three hours AND SHE LOVED IT! It was seriously the most perfect church meeting ever, she said that she couldn't believe that everyone there is going through the same things that she is and that they are all so nice. She was so scared to come to church because she thought that people were going to judge her, I was just like, only satan would tell you that, because he didn't want you to come see how awesome church is. So ya that was pretty sweet! 

I hope ya'll were able to watch the Chirstmas devotional because it was great, and if you didn't, well guess what? it was recorded! so you can still watch it on LDS.org. Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Koyle

This is our Christmas decor, it brings me lots of joy.

I decorated my planner with the two most over used LDS pictures ever, but I love it.

Saying our goodbyes to Elder Miller.

​The bars here have the silliest names, there is another one called "that place on 8th street" I guess when there are so many of them it is hard to come up with a name that hasn't been used yet.