Baptism By Fire

This week has by far been the busiest week of my mission, and possibly my life, so that was awesome. We met a lot of really cool people who are just searching for and have a desire to find the truth, now we just teach them and hope that they have the motivation to do something about that desire. 

Tristan was baptized on Saturday so that was sweet! It is really cool to see the amazing changes that she has made in her life, and it is so cool to see the power of the atonement work so quickly in someone's life. You can literally see a big difference in the light in her face, especially compared to when I first came to Sheboygan to now. She said that even the people that she works with have noticed it. She also said that as she reads the scriptures each day that she is able to have a lot more patience with her boys and with the people she deals with at work. She is such an amazing strong woman. 

When I left on my mission one of my sisters told me that people here will cook potatoes for me since I am from Idaho, except they won't actually know how to cook potatoes. I have had some fun experiences with this already, but the best one yet was on Saturday. So for Tristan's baptism one of the members decided to cook baked potatoes for afterwards, except they had a genius idea of putting butter in with the potatoes, well the butter melted in the oven and got on the bottom of the oven and smoked up the whole church and started the tin foil on the bottom of the oven on fire, so that was really exciting. This my friends is why you don't cook things in the church kitchen. 

We had an awesome worldwide missionary broadcast this week from some of the apostles and other various people, and they really stressed teaching repentance, which is awesome. I never really understood repentance until now. Everyone thinks that it is a big scary word, but it is just a wonderful gift. We need to repent everyday so that we are able to have the spirit with us. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Koyle

Me Tristan Marion and Sister Butler

We had some Lake effect snow, woo hoo.

​This is real life.

​We had to take a selfie.

We Tract in the Cold!

Happy Monday Everybody!

So I live with a different person now, so that is interesting. Sister Butler is awesome, she is from PG Utah and she is actually a Nauvoo visitors center sister, but since it is so slow in the winter they send the Nauvoo sisters on their "outbound" missions for 6 months, so she was called to Wisconsin. She has been in Wisconsin about the same amount of time as I have, before Sheboygan she was in Port Washington, but she was in Nauvoo for six months before that, so she is half way done with her mission. Confusing I know, but its really okay if you don't understand it all. Also, she is the driver now, so that is interesting. She is very "go with the flow", which is important because our plans are always changing so you have to be able to deal with it. It is fun to have a different companion, because then you get new ideas from them, so that is nice. 

As far as the work is going, it's pretty great we have seen some success this week, I think that we found another solid girl named Brittney, she was a referral from the Spanish elders, who tracted into her and she seems really interested. Also this guy named Adam who was a member referral has a lot of questions, so hopefully that goes somewhere good. And Tristan is doing great! she really misses Sister Carlini, but hopefully she will realize soon, just how awesome Sister Butler is. She is all set to be baptized this Saturday, so we are stoked about that. I never realized before all of the preparations that come with having a baptism, but I am learning. This is pretty much my first baptism, and it is Sister Butler's first baptism, so neither of us really know what we are doing, but its all good, we'll figure it out. The important thing is that Tristan is so ready to make a covenant with her Heavenly Father, and I am so excited for her.

It has been pretty cold here, but we are trying to suck it up and rub some dirt in it. Good thing I love the cold. D&C 76:22 is an awesome scripture, I love how Joseph Smith bears such a simple and powerful testimony about our savior. "That He Lives!" I know that as we bear simple testimony of our savior each day that we can be a great influence and a light to those around us. Have a Happy Martin Luther King Day!

With love from Sheboygan,

Sister Koyle

​Lake Michigan as of this morning, I am waiting for it to freeze. . . 

Last day with Sister Carlini

This is Sister Butler . . . isn't she cute? 

​Sunday morning steam on the lake.

 That little black dot in the distance is the light house.

That awkward moment when you are done training.....

Happy Monday everyone! 

So on Wednesday a missionary named Sister Butler is going to be coming to Sheboygan to be my new companion, I know nothing about her, but I hope and pray that she is awesome. Sister Carlini is being transferred to Appleton, and she is going to be serving with . . . . Sister Roskelley, my MTC companion! Except she is not excited about it . . . at all, which makes me sad because I am a tiny bit jealous of her because I love Sister Roskelley. But I am excited/nervous for my next adventures with Sister Butler. 

This week was pretty cool, I feel like we have met some really cool people that have a lot of potential, so I am excited about all of them to see how they accept the message of the gospel. Tristan is doing so good, she is still set for the 23rd and we even announced it in church, so it is totes official, and so exciting. But a little stressful because we have a lot to do before then, like teaching lessons and baptismal interview and inviting people and all that jazz. Also Sister Carlini gave a talk in church on Sunday and so Holly and Bennett came to church to hear her talk so that was super sweet. I just hope that I can still keep up all of these good relationships with people here even though Sister Carlini will be gone. 

This week we had at least two people ask us if it was possible that the Book of Mormon was true, but that Joseph Smith was not a prophet and of course we told them no. But it is so crazy to me that so many people have such a big problem with Joseph Smith. I was praying and basically saying why did Joseph have to practice polygamy, because I feel like a lot of people would accept the gospel if it weren't for that. And I got the answer that even if he hadn't practiced polygamy that people would still find fault with him, and they would reject him for some other reason. Jesus Christ was perfect and people still found what they thought was fault with him and people still killed him. So that kinda put me in my place and definitely broadened my understanding. But I know that Joseph was a virtuous man and that he was called as a prophet of God.

We were listening to a cool talk this week and it said that our mortal genealogy is so long and it goes on forever clear back to Adam, but our spirit's genealogy is one direct line, we are children of our Heavenly Father. I thought that was really cool and I had never looked at it like that before. Also the Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults is SOOO good, ya'll need to listen to it. Here is the link to it, I challenge you all to do the challenge left with us from Sister Nelson. I hope everyone has a great week. 

Love,

Sister Koyle

Just taking an evening stroll out on the lake. 

We almost made it all the way across and then we chickened out. 

​The District on Little Elkhart Lake 

​Last time getting Menchies with Sister Carlini, it's her favorite. 

​And this happened. 

Happy 2016. Good thing it's easy to change a 5 to make it look like a 6!

So last week when we came to the library to email there was no snow on the ground, but by the time we left the library everything was covered in almost a foot of snow. So Christmas wasn't white, but 3 days later it was. It was actually a pretty bad blizzard the snow was blowing completely side ways which made some nice drifts. We may or may not have gotten our car stuck in the snow a couple of times last Monday, but thank goodness people here are nice and helped push us out. And by the next morning the snow plows had come and all of the roads were clear, so it was great. 

But other than the weather, Amy, one of our recent converts, said something very profound this week, we asked her about the prophet and she said that she feels like the prophet speaks directly to her and that the prophet is someone who takes her hand and walks her over the bridge to get her to Heavenly Father. I thought that was the coolest analogy. 

We met with this less active and his girl friend this week, his name is Adam and her name is Ari and she told us that her goal for this year is to get baptized, I thought that was the coolest thing. I asked her why and she said because Adam's Mom has such a powerful testimony and that she has such a spirit about her and she is so happy all the time and she wants that. So that was awesome, it goes to show that we really can make a difference if we share our testimony with others. She wants to come to church, but she straight up told us that she is just too lazy, and she has insomnia. But she is going to try to change her sleep schedule and come to church next week. But I love her already and I am really excited about her. 

Also Holly loved church last week and this week Bennett told us that they aren't going to go to their church forever and that when they quit going to their church they are going to come to our church. Idk how soon they are talking about, but that sure was surprising and exciting. I was like did you just say what I think you said? So that was crazy especially since he has gone to that same church his whole life. Also they said that they are going to take a trip out west in Summer of 2017 and that they are going to come and visit me, so that is pretty exciting. And Bennett is now in Alma 5 in the Book of Mormon, and he is praying to know if it is true, I have definitely seen his heart be softened since I have been here it is the coolest thing and I know it is because he is reading the Book of Mormon, that book works miracles. Idk when, but they are totes getting baptized someday.

I hope you all have a great week and a Happy New Year!! Set goals, not resolutions!! If you don't set goals then you can't reach your greatest potential. 

Love,

Sister Koyle

p.s. I know this is crazy especially being in Wisconsin but I actually didn't see any drunks on new years or new years eve, but then again I'm not that great at identifying them.

 Well it snowed, and it looked gorgeous for a couple of days

Since nobody in Wisconsin knows what a snow cone is we made our own, it is just fresh Wisconsin snow mixed with crystal lite.

Silly picture from our ​last district meeting of the transfer . . . weird

 So the Polar Plunge is a thing here, this is the beach on new years day. It is Sheboygan tradition to jump in the lake on new years day, they said it was nice this year because they didn't have to cut any ice in order to get in, people here are CRAZY. Also, it is really weird to see a beach covered in snow.