Conference is this Saturday and Sunday!! Watch it, and apply it!

Mom got this text:

We were blessed to be able to have your daughter in our home. What a wonderful spirit she brings. We are lucky to have her serving in Shawano.
With love The Henning's

This week has been pretty good, had district meeting in Antigo, we met with a few people, and we had 3-6 week training on Friday. The Assistants and the President and his wife were all about an hour late, so the 8 of us missionaries just sat in the chapel studying for an hour and a half, so that was fun. The actual training and things were really good though, very needed. Satan was getting really good at getting me down, but President Williams took care of that. Also Friday we missed out on chicken butchering, I was actually pretty disappointed about that, I wanted to cut a chicken's head off just to say that I did it, but oh well. Saturday was great, we were in Bonduel most of the day and then that evening we had a Birthday party for Sister Helen, with a bunch of the Relief Society and then we all went and watched the Women's Conference at the church it was great! I really loved Bonnie L. Oscarson's talk, she was very straight forward. I need to be more bold like her. Yesterday my comp and I both gave talks in church which was pretty fun, it was only like 7 minutes long so it wasn't too bad. And the primary kids all wrote us cute little letters that say cute things on them, so that was nice. Other than that nothing too exciting is happening here, we just keep knocking doors. 

This one Lutheran man that we met tracting told us that we are working way too hard because all you have to do is believe, you don't have to do anything else, and that really bothered me. I keep pondering that and I was just thinking even if I didn't have to do anything else besides believe, if I really believed wouldn't I want to do something because of that. If I really believed then I would want to share that belief with others so that they could also believe. To me it just makes sense, it's not like we are forced to knock on doors all day, we do it because we want to, because we love our Savior and our Heavenly Father and we want to serve them. Just like it says in Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." This is my Father's will for me at this moment, I am in the right place doing the right thing, and it's wonderful.

Love,

Sister Koyle

P.S. I hope everyone is super stoked for conference because I know that I am.

My District this transfer: Elder Melle, Elder Bennett, Elder Velasquez, Elder Jorgenson, Me, and Sister van Overbeek 

So the Rekow's butchered over 100 chickens on Friday and we missed it, but grandma likes to can the feet just to freak people out, so she had a bucket of chicken feet in her kitchen so we had some fun taking pictures with them. 

This is Grandma Rekow, the lady that we live with, she has bad eyes, so she often wears these sun glasses, aren't we stylin? 

This is Sister Helen, she turned 91 on Saturday so the relief society threw a birthday party for her on Saturday night, she was lass active for 60 years, and she recently started coming back to church, she is the most tender, classy lady I have ever met. 

I wonder if the Provo jail makes our name tags . . .

What a week! Tuesday night to Wednesday I got to go on exchanges with Sister Naughton, we served together in Sheboygan during April and May. But now she is serving in Wausau as my STL. She is a really great missionary and I was able to learn a lot from her on exchanges. We had a bomb restoration lesson with that native couple, he had a lot of really great questions that he asked us. We just need to get them to come to church, and get baptized :) 

Apparently Friday was a crazy day, here on my mission, and at home. I got an adorable new nephew (that makes me an aunt 12 times), it was my sister's birthday, we had zone conference, and a baptism! We were at the church for 11 hours straight on Friday. We went early to practice a song we sang at zone conference. My companion forgot her name tag, she was freaking out, she said "the only day we see president and have a baptism, and I forget my name tag, I'm such a greenie weenie" Hahah so she borrowed the pocket one on my scriptures. Since our house is 30 minutes away from the Shawano church we couldn't go back and get hers. Then we had an awesome zone conference. It was actually both the Green Bay and the Wausau zones together, because they had a guy from Salt Lake come and update all of our Tiwi's (the little box in our car that tells us to check our speed). President Williams gave a training on the infinite atonement it was really cool. And our zone leaders had a super great training about living up to our potential, and they showed us this great Mormon Message with President Utchdorf. Check it out!  https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/your-potential-your-privileges-1

Also on Friday morning when grandma was making us beakfast she had made some grape juice and she wanted to mix it with apple juice, so she unthawed some from the freezer and and mixed them together, then she drank it and realized that what she thought was apple juice was actually chicken feet broth. So she just drank it anyways, my comp had some and said that it didn't taste awful, but I didn't feel adventurous enough to try it. 

Saturday was Bonduel founders day so we went around to all of the people selling things and we would talk to them about the things that they were selling to get to know them a little bit and then we would hit them with the gospel. We have a goal each week to teach the first vision 14 times. On Saturday as we were in the act of sharing our 14th first vision we got a text message for a media referral for a girl who lives in Clintonville who ordered a Bible, so we called her and set up an appointment with her, so that was a blessing. 

I love you all! Happy Fall! 

Sister Koyle

Kayleen's baptism

 Wausau zone conference is Shawano.

​I got to go on exchanges with my old companion Sister Naughton, she is my STL now!!

It doesn't matter if you have the truth, it matters what you do with it.

That moment when you walk out to the garage and there are two dead chickens laying on the car with blood dripping from them. Just another day at Grandma Rekow's house. On Friday night we had fresh chicken for dinner though, it was walking around that morning, but by dinner time it had been fried and was ready to eat. 

Well we tracted a lot. I shared the first vision with more people this week than I ever have before. We found this one lady who was super prepared, so we are excited about her. The 16 year old girl that we are teaching is getting baptized this Friday, it is a long story, we made a lot of phone calls and talked to a lot of people and we did a lot of praying and fasting, and she is getting baptized. So we are excited about that. I think she is more excited than anyone though. This is something that she wants so badly, it is so cool to see that conviction within someone who is so young. 

Someone gave a talk in church yesterday and he was talking about Elder Cook's talk called See Yourself in the Temple and in that talk he says, "Church leaders organize stakes, wards, quorums, Church auxiliaries, missions, and so forth in our chapels and other buildings. The Lord organizes eternal families only in temples." And I just thought that was so awesome. Families are so important and eternal families are of the utmost importance that they can only be organized in the House of the Lord. Thank you all so much for all that you have done, thank you for reading my emails each week. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Love,

Sister Koyle

We actually took a few pictures this week :)

We saw this sweet sign on the way to Tigerton. 

Grandma's son got twelve little chicks, they are so cute. 

Tracting in the rain.

Alma 29:9-10

So we were tracting, as usual, and this lady came out of her house to let her dog out. And we started talking to her and she was so prepared for the gospel, she seemed like our best friend and she seemed really genuinely interested in the gospel, she has been going through some hard times and she was just the perfect investigator, we gave her a Book of Mormon and she told us to come back the next week. So we came back the next week, and just as we were walking up to the house her husband came out of the house to let the dog out and we talked to him and taught him the first vision and gave him a Book of Mormon. He seemed even more interested than she was and we set up an appointment to come back and teach them. We showed up for our appointment and Sister van Overbeek says "How crazy would it be if they let their dog out again when we show up" And sure enough just as we approach the house the lady lets her dog out, and then she turns and sees us, and she yells at her dog to come back in and she goes back inside and closes the door. But we still went and knocked on the door and rang the doorbell twice and she never answered. That my friends is why everyone needs to share the gospel with their friends so that the missionaries can actually have people to teach, because when someone has a friend in the gospel they are way more likely to meet with missionaries and if they have questions then they have a friend to ask their questions to. That is why we should all be praying that we can have missionary opportunities, and looking for missionary opportunities and acting upon them when they arise. Because there is a better way to do missionary work than knocking on doors all day and that is through your friends. We have the truth, the means to salvation, we need to share it with those around us.  

On a lighter note, the 16 year old girl that we are teaching is supposed to be getting baptized on September 16th, but it is kind of up to her Dad, so we will see if he allows her to be baptized. 

On Sunday the spirit was like hey you should go see that one potential investigator. So we did and turns out that they wanted to come to church that day but they weren't sure where it was at or what to wear. So they are planning on coming to church next week and we set up an appointment with them to teach them. They are a cute native couple with a little boy and I have high hopes for them. She already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood because some elders in the past gave her little boy a blessing a while ago when he was really sick.

Labor day was just a regular proselyting day, so we tracted a lot, and the ward had a picnic for lunch, so we went to that and that was pretty fun. We have had 3 new families move into the Shawano ward in the past month, so basically the ward doubled, which is great! 

I hope you all have a wonderful day and a wonderful week! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

Life in Gresham . . . nothing too exciting

 This is where we go running every morning

 Roxy

and pigs . . .

3 Members of the Seventy in 3 days

Well Friday and Saturday and Sunday were really great! We went to Green Bay on Friday for a mission tour with Elder Ringwood and Elder Cordon of the seventy. Elder Ringwood is Russell M. Nelson's son in law so that was pretty cool and Elder Cordon is from Guatemala. Everything that they said was just super good, they are very inspired men. We basically had a Q&A with them for about 2 hours, it was so cool. There was this one question that someone asked and Elder Ringwood said "well I'm a general authority, which means that generally I know what I'm talking about, but I'll let President Williams take that question." 

Then Saturday night and Sunday morning was Wausau Stake conference and Elder Ringwood and Elder Sinclair of the seventy were there, because Wausau got a new stake presidency. And me and my comp got to sing in the choir so that was pretty fun to be able to do that. Something that really amazed me all weekend was that these three members of the seventy had to give several different talks, and they had to speak several different times, and yet each time they didn't have any papers in front of them. They used personal experiences and they used scripture, but most of the time they didn't even open their scriptures they just quoted it off of the top of their heads and explained all of the different aspects of the different scripture stories without looking at them. It was pretty amazing. You could easily tell that when they spoke they spoke by the spirit to say the perfect things that would touch the hearts of the different people that were all there. There were many things that touched my heart, I wish that I could share everything with all of you. 

Somethings that really stood out to me was Elder Ringwood said that he had studied compassion a lot and in every instance that Christ had compassion that there was a miracle that happened, someone was healed or something. Except in Matthew 9:36-38. Then he said that he comes to these mission tours and sees all of these missionaries and realizes that we are the miracle that it is talking about in those verses, that missionary work is full of miracles and that we are so blessed to be part of this great work. I am so grateful for this gospel and for the Lord's church on the earth today and for all of the order that is in this marvelous church and gospel. Christ himself really is leading and guiding his church on the earth today.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Have fun at school! 

Love,

Sister Koyle

P.S. if you sent me an individual email or letter and I don't respond to you, I am sincerely sorry, but there really isn't much time for anything except for missionary work when you are a missionary :) I only get this chance once in my life, but I still love all of you!

 Three generations :) Sister van Overbeek, Sister Koyle, Sister Carlini

 These are a few of the sisters that I came out to the field with. Two of them were in my district at the MTC.

​Sun-drop

Training :)

Well this week was interesting to say the least. There were a series of different events that happened. For one I got to drive to Pewaukee and drop off Sister Jenson, and then I went down to Milwaukee and picked up my new trainee, Sister van Overbeek. She is from California and went to BYU for a year and now she is here, she is super awesome and she is a super great missionary. I seriously don't even feel like I am training because she is just so prepared, and so ready.

Also when we went down to Milwaukee we got a new car, they gave me the keys and there wasn't actually a key, you just push a button to start it. So that is kind of fun, I am still getting used to it, and it has a back up camera, so we were joking about not having to back each other anymore since that is one of our rules, but of course my comp still backs me. #obedience

We had some crazy things happen between some people whom we are teaching and some members and people's parents not giving them permission to be baptized or taught. So it was pretty rough due to that, but we had some great learning experiences from it, and we are starting to get things figured out. The 19 year old who got baptized last week passed the sacrament on Sunday and his friend came to one of his lessons this week, so that was awesome!! He is already being a missionary.

Nothing super exciting happened this week, all is going relatively well here, I think my comp was pretty surprised when she found out where she was going and where she is living, but she has adjusted very well to it and to grandma's cooking. We have also been challenged to read the Book of Mormon in her first 6 weeks, so about 13 pages a day and so far we are doing good, we read it out loud to each other every day. And we are praying to gain a testimony of it, just like Moroni's challenge. The Book of Mormon is amazing, it is definitely for our day and I am so grateful for it. Read it!

Love,

Sister Koyle

This is my trainee, Sister van Overbeek, from El Dorado Hills California, She is AWESOME! And also President and Sister Williams, my mission president and his wife. 

 Also this week I got to see Elder Low, we served together for my first 6 months and we were training at the same time, and we haven't seen each other for 4 months. It was so good to see him again.

And CORN + the Book of Mormon = mission life in Wisconsin

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.