I love the sound of water running in the church

      My subject is the words to one of the many mission songs that we like to listen to. So the 19 year old that we have been teaching got baptized on Saturday the 13th. It was a really nice baptism. He actually invited a lot of his family and friends, AND they actually came. So that was a super cool, now they know a little bit about what he is doing and why he is doing it. He was also confirmed on Sunday, but we weren't able to be there for his confirmation because we had to go to Green Bay Stake conference. Which by the way was super great! and I was able to see my trainer, Sister Carlini, she is now the Green Bay Sister Training Leader. 

Transfers are this Wednesday and Sister Jenson is leaving and I am going to be TRAINING. I am SOO excited, my whole mission I have really wanted to train someone. Now since it is actually happening I am freaking out a tiny bit because of course I want to be the best trainer ever and raise the most spectacular mission daughter ever. But we will see what happens. 

A lot of things happened this week, I guess to start off, last P-day we went to Antigo for P-day and we were able to actually spend some time with our district for once. We had lunch and we washed our cars in the church parking lot which of course led to a water fight. I scrubbed the elders trucks so hard, they were pretty dirty, but it was a super fun P-day. Then on Tuesday we went to Wausau for a zone training, and the guy who got baptized on Saturday was there for his baptismal interview and I think he was a little overwhelmed with all of the missionaries every where. One of the sisters told him that this would be him in a year, or that he will be on a mission in a year. Hopefully that didn't scare him too bad, he still got baptized 4 days later so I guess he was alright with it. 

We also caught the bat!! AKA Sister Jenson screamed at the top of her lungs and bolted under her desk, and I caught the bat. It came into our house last week, but we didn't have anything to catch it with, so it ended up getting lost and we didn't know where it went, but then Thursday night it came swooping into our study room again, and after a series of events I eventually caught it and we let it go outside by the barn. 

Also last week we were street contacting and we met this 15 year old boy who was playing basketball and it ended up that he was good friends with a bunch of the Mormons, so we set up an appointment with him for Sunday, AND he actually showed up!!! AND we committed him to be baptized on October 15th and he said yes! Miracle!!! I am so happy to be a missionary, it is really great being able to meet new people and to help them to come unto Christ, through baptism. I am so grateful for the gospel and the knowledge that I have and I am so blessed to have been raised in this church and to have been taught these principles from the time that I was born. There have been a LOT of miracles since we got a new mission president, this is an exciting time to be doing the Lords work, and the great thing is that we can ALL be a part of it.  

Love,

Sister Koyle

P.S.This past week was wonderful and this future week should be interesting, wish me luck!

P-day in Antigo. Elder Velasquez, Elder Melle, Elder Wilcock, Elder Shepard, Sister Jenson and me. 

Wausau Zone training. Sister Katz, Sister Lamprecht, Sister Peterson, Sister Christensen, Sister Koyle, Sister Jenson, with elders photo bombing in the back ground :) 

It is really hard to take pictures of a bat, it kept crawling around all over the place. 

 This is Killian, he is awesome, he got baptized on Saturday.

 My trainer and I at stake conference in Green Bay.

This is one of the baby chickens that lives at our house, well actually in the barn behind our house. I meant to get a picture of them when they were tiny and actually cute and fluffy, but oh well.

A bat was flying around our house the other night . . . we don't know where it went

Someone texted this picture to Mom.  With this message:

"We were blessed to have your Daughter in our home tonight.  What a blessing to have her serving in Shawano. Thank you for sharing her with us."

Hello All! 

So super cool thing, one of our investigators is going to the Philadelphia Pennsylvania temple open house with his parents, we are praying so hard that his parent's hearts will be softened by going to the temple. Our other investigator is set to be baptized on Saturday at 4. So I am super stoked about that! 

We were tracting in Whitenberg on Tuesday and we were knocking some doors and we weren't having too much success, so I thought "where are we supposed to be right now", and I looked over across the street and saw this little blue house and I automatically new that was the house we were supposed to be at. So we went and it was this super nice lady, she invited us to sit down and she likes to talk a lot, but everything she was saying just made me think more and more that this lady needs the gospel and that it would help her so much. She is meeting with the JW's but she said that they won't be able to come for 2 weeks, so we are totally going to sweep in steal their investigator. We were able to share the first vision with her and the Book of Mormon and she totally agreed with it all and said that she would read it and pray about it, we will be seeing her again tomorrow. 

Also Yesterday we were street contacting in Shawano and this young kid was playing basketball so we went up and talked to him and turns out that he is friends with three super solid LDS boys, and he asked one of them for a Book of Mormon, but he never gave it to him so we gave him one and he said that he would read it, and we set up and appointment with him for next Sunday. It is so cool when the Lord really leads us to the people who he has prepared for the gospel, it is nice to know that we are being led by the spirit and that the Lord really has people for us to teach, we just have to go find them. 

We also went on exchanges this week, I went to Wausau with Sister Christensen so that was super fun. And today for P-day we are in Antigo with our district because it is Elder Wilcock's last P-day of his mission, so he wanted to do something fun.

Also there is a super awesome video that the church put out at the beginning of the year, you should totally watch it. https://www.lds.org/youth/theme/2016?lang=eng 

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope you all have a great week! 

Love you bunches! 

Sister Koyle

Exchanges!! Sister Jenson, Katz, Christensen, and Me. Sister Katz goes home in about a week :'( 

​I've been here for 9 months, but this sign is still awesome. 

Mom sent some apricot leather to Naomi

Where in the world did August come from?

I can't believe it is here, I feel like time is flying by. I never thought I would say that. When I was first being trained I would pray every day that the time would go by faster. I think Heavenly Father is just now answering my prayer. 

This week has been pretty great. We will have a Baptism on August 13th and I am SOO excited for it. This 19 year old kid that we are teaching has been so prepared by his member friends. It is amazing to see. We taught him about families and temple this week and his Mom passed away when he was 11 and he just can't wait to have his Mom baptized in the temple. During his prayer at the end of the lesson he started getting choked up. I always love it when the spirit brings grown men to tears. We also taught him law of chastity this week, that was interesting teaching someone my own age, but it actually went alright, the member couple that we were with bore hard core testimony :) thank you members! 

And the 16 year old girl that we are teaching set a baptismal date for September 16th. It is so cool when people set baptismal dates and they actually know what they are doing and are prepared for it. She was just so happy and smiley after she decided on a date. Now she just needs her Dad's permission. So if anyone wants to pray for that that would be awesome. 

I also found out this week that a 19 year old guy in Sheboygan that Sister Naughton and I tracted into when I was there got baptized recently. So that was pretty exciting, he is Hmong and so we referred him to the Hmong elders there and they could never get in contact with him, but after I left they were able to contact him and teach him, and now they are teaching his Mom.

This week it was raining pretty hard and I was driving and there were frogs jumping all over the road, I don't think I hit too many of them though, but it was super weird, I have never seen anything like that before. Wisconsin is really beautiful and green, and there are red barns all over, it is kind of nice. The gospel is true, the book is also true, so read it, and it will help you. Have a great week.

Love,

Sister Koyle

 I guess we played dress up . . . Grandma has been housing missionaries for ten years, for 7 of those years she had Elders, so in the depths of her house we found these old suit coats, and a fedora.

 So I tried on Grandma's wedding dress from 65 years ago, it actually fit pretty well. She told me she would let me borrow it for my wedding, hahaha she is a funny lady.

This road is called lovers lane, #TotesAdorbs

9 down 9 to go, but who's counting?

Well honestly nothing too exciting happened this week. We had interviews with President Williams on Friday so we got to drive to Wausau for that. It was nice to actually sit down with him to get to know him better. And the interview was great, I didn't feel rushed at all, so that was nice and much different from President Cutler. 

I also burned a skirt for my nine months mark. It was so funny when we went to burn it, Grandma Rekow told us to be careful because she didn't want us to start a huge fire because it is so dry outside. The funny thing is that it had rained that morning and it is NEVER too dry in Wisconsin. We have an Elder serving here from New Mexico and he said "In New Mexico we pray for rain. Here, they need to stop praying" I was laughing so hard, because it is so true. They don't even water their fields here, or their gardens, how nice would that be? I haven't seen any wheel lines or pivots since I have been here, but there are fields of corn 6 feet high everywhere you go. 

Sometimes we get to see this super sweet 93 year old lady. She was inactive for 60 years, but she has started to come back to church now. And she is the classiest lady I have ever met. Basically think of Audrey Hepburn when she is 93 and that is this lady. She always talks about her days of playing the violin and waltzing. She is always giving us tips on how to look young and what products to use, she is hilarious. This week she said in a very serious voice "girls, I have to ask you something, what does hashtag mean?" It wasn't that easy to explain it to a 93 year old. But I think she got the idea.

All of the people that we are teaching are doing well and are progressing, so that is great. We are just trying to find new people to teach now, so that we still have people to teach after these people are baptized. We have a recent convert working toward the temple so that is exciting. Hopefully I will be able to go with her. This nine month drought of temple attendance is going to kill me. We figured out another thing that CTR stands for, Current Temple Recommend. Even if the temple is too far away for you to go often, it is still important to have a recommend, and to be worthy to enter. I love the temple to much and I am so grateful for the peace that is there, and I am so grateful for the priesthood power to bind families together forever. I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Love, Sister Koyle

Here's to nine months! #halfway #Doesn'tFeelLikeIt 

Don't worry Mom this was my companion's old skirt that had holes in it

I had my very first kids meal this week, so that was kinda fun.

I am on a Quest!!

So we had a stellar zone training this week, a real kick in the pants. I needed it so bad, and I bet everyone else did too. The Sister training leaders shared this poem with us and talked about how Obedience is our quest. How the world puts limitations on things and tells us that we can't reach our goals, but with God nothing shall be impossible. All we need to do is have the faith, because God works according to our faith.  

"To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest"

This week we were going to set a baptismal date with this 16 year old kids for sometime in October, but when we asked him when he wanted to get baptized he said before school starts, so he set his baptismal date for August 27th, so we need to teach him all of the lessons before then. But that was a total miracle! We were so excited. The 19 year old kid that we are teaching is really progressing as well and he had so much real intent and desire to be baptized, we are aiming for the 6th of August with him if we can teach him all of the lessons and get him interviewed by then. And the 16 year old girl that we are teaching wants to get baptized in September, we just need her Dad's permission and his heart has softened, he has let the missionaries in Fond Du Lac come over twice now. So thanks to the Lord miracles are happening, we don't have many people to teach but the ones that we do have are AWESOME. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love,

Sister Koyle

 Sorry this picture is awful, but this is the Shawano Ski Sharks. Sometimes we watch them on Monday's when we have nothing else to do. In this picture there is a tower of 6 of them on water skis, it's pretty cool.

Nature is a miracle.

​a member showed this to us, I thought it was pretty cool.

Wisconsin is a wonderful place . . . if you can withstand the mosquitos

Well honestly this week has not been very eventful, besides the fact that I counted 16 mosquito bites on my legs. I guess I am going to have to start wearing bug spray instead of perfume. All day yesterday we literally tried to contact every less active and former investigator that we could, and no one answered their door. So that was interesting. We did have a really cool miracle this week though.

Last week at church a member told us about this less active girl who has been going through a lot of hard things and she is ready to come back to church, but she doesn't really know any of the doctrine because she was just baptized at 8 years old and that was it. So we contacted her and her husband let us right in, they are thee sweetest couple. And they both really want to be taught and they both want to come back to church. And he isn't even a member yet, so hopefully we can get him baptized. 

Also there is a man who we have been teaching and he hasn't really progressed too much because his wife is anti, but this past Wednesday we got his wife to come to the church to do family history and they were able to find some good leads on her family history, so she is planning on coming back in a couple of weeks to do some more. Their son and daughter also came to the church and they both played capture the flag with the youth and we were able to give a Book of Mormon to the son. So that was pretty exciting. 

On Saturday we had a young woman come out with us because she wants to serve a mission and it was so funny. We were walking around the baseball park giving out cards and talking to people and she was just super freaked out, like she couldn't believe what we were doing. Then we tracted for a bit and when someone accepted an offer to pray with us she squealed, I think it freaked them out a little bit, but they still prayed with us :) We also helped a part member family with service and it was SO FUN! We basically just got to play in the dirt, and pull out weeds and vines and little stumps, I loved it so much. I hope you all have a super great week! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

This is what we eat for dinner every night . . . JK

They have nice sunsets here.

​​The Church oh Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is even on the welcome to Gresham sign.

So grateful for Religious Freedom and that I am serving in the states.

This week has flown by, so I guess that means that it has been a good week. It is weird to have P-day on Tuesday. I can't really remember what we did this past week. It was the end of the month so we were walking a lot. Friday we drove to Madison for three hours had a 2 hour meeting with President Williams and his wife and then ate dinner and drove home, so that took up the whole day. It was good to meet him though, he seems like a nice guy and like he will be good for our mission. Over the pulpit he said "do you think I'm nervous? ABSOLUTELY!! (with his hands in the air) But whom the Lord calls he qualifies." I took a lot of good notes from him, but I don't have them with me now. I remember that he said that a mission is a defining moment in life. That the decisions that I make here will affect the life that I will have after my mission. I thought that was really cool, and it really struck me. I need to "choose the harder right" as President Monson says. It is really cool because mission presidents spend like four days with the 12 apostles before they come out, so he was basically a spiritual power house because of that. He said that he and his wife really want to get out with the missionaries and actually do missionary work which is really cool. 

On Saturday Gresham had all of their festivities, so we street contacted before and after the parade (the only day of the year that you can street contact in Gresham) It was so nice to actually be able to have people to talk to about the gospel. We got to watch the fire works out of our bedroom window that night. Yesterday Bonduel had all of their festivities so we went to the Bonduel parade and the after party at the park and we contacted people. Again so nice to actually have people to talk to. We found a few kind of promising people. It is hard because almost everyone knows about the church already from unreliable sources. But that is why we are here, to try and straighten out some of those misconceptions, and to show people that we are nice people.

We had a super solid lesson with the 19 year old guy in Gresham. He is still praying about baptism on August 6th. We read 2 Nephi 31 with him and we related the gospel of Jesus Christ to golf, since he is a golfer and in verse 9 of that chapter it talks about the straitness of the path, and there is a Golf course that he goes to called The Whistling Straights. We have to have the faith to swing. Strait spelled that way means a narrow strip of land, so we have to follow that narrow strip of land until we make it to the hole, AKA endure to the end until we make it to the celestial kingdom. So it has been a good week. I know God answers prayers, the answer isn't always what we want to hear, but he does answer. I hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

P.S. 1 Nephi 13 17-19 totally talks about our independence from Britain, the Book of Mormon is amazing. What can I say more?

 We went fishing last Monday with a part member family and I caught this tiny Blue Gill, it is the first fish that I have ever caught with a fishing pole . . . but it was tiny so we had to throw it back. I also caught a tiny perch . . . that we also threw back.

But the people that we went fishing with gave us all of their fish, so we brought them home to grandma and she taught us her ways of butchering fish or whatever you call it. So I got to skin this bass. It was super fun, I would probably do it again.

Friday we drove three hours to Madison, to meet our new mission president. So we decided to stop by the capitol for a bit, because why not? I like Madison, it is a nice city, I wouldn't mind serving there in the future, just sayin.

AAAAND Happy Fourth of July!! Once again, my favorite holiday, good thing I am still in the states or else I might go insane.