June 27

Well first off, nope! Hna. V and Hna. U stayed together in the Kaw Riv!!!! We were so happy! And our investigators and members are happy too hehe. Things got really shaken up at the VC tho, apparently. We took V to the VC on Saturday and all the sisters there were soooooooo happy to see me and it was fun to see and meet the newbies and the oldies. Two of my most favorite sisters go home this and next transfer.... but fear not. I will definitely hang out with them after the mish. Fo sho. Especially considering all your friends forget about you on the mission, haha, ya gotta get new ones lol.

YES! The fireflies here are amazing. Every single night by 8:30 they can be seen igniting and fading in any field of grass.
So it's kind of a give 'n take thing.... here you have fireflies... but there you have mountains.

So President and Sister Van Komen come back to Utah this week on the 29th. They and the new mission president have 2 hours together and then BAM. It'll be Pres. and Sis. Keyes from Ogden. He actually served in this part of the world on his mission! He was an area 70 before now. Maybe you saw him in the Church News...

Investigadores...
WT is doing well! He is progressing toward baptism. He again attended church yesterday (in his bright red suit) and continues to meet with us regularly. And then we keep running into him in downtown KC too haha it's funny. But he was so happy when we ran into him today. :) We also taught B again today! He is also doing well and progressing. We have him as a referral to the ASL elder, but they're somewhat far.... so we'll see.
The work was very good last week. We've been focusing on having a LOT of member-present lessons instead of so many other lessons (just us and the investigator) so that they'll feel more comfortable at church and get to know the members... and the Lord has helped us a great deal. Instead of 16 other lessons we had 9 member presents and 5 others and 7 rclas (recent convert/less-active/member lessons). Heavenly Father is so mindful of our goals and it's amazing how much He fortifies those when we apply ourselves. It's also neat to be able to look back and see areas where I've improved as a missionary. We "blew up our system" if you will in order to hold a greater capacity of investigators and lessons, etc. We do things differently now. Better. And hopefully we will make it a point to keep improving.

Both Spanish elders went home at the transfer change (I LOVED Elder C) but the 2 news ones are awesome too and one of em totally played a joke on me the first 3 days. But he's funny and helps us with Spanish (he's from Mexico) and the new English elder's cool too. It'll be fun playing with all these guys eh-hem elders after the mish cuz they're funny. But then again maybe it's one of those things that you only click cuz you're on a mission type things.... haha.

C (an investigator) surprised us this morning! We totally expected him not to have read or done any of the commitments... but he had not only read the pamphlet, he had answered all the questions in the back! Correctly. :) I love that. And we brought a young man Mexican convert team-up with us who wasn't sure about a mission..... and he did awesome and he's so going to serve! He was so nervous but he did great and it was interesting seeing the change. We taught with him at the beginning on last transfer and it was like night and day.

Well, it continues to be hot and humid and crazy and tiring and rewarding............
I've definitely learned a LOT about organizing time out here, efficiency, accountability, how I want to organize my time when I return to school, how I will run my home, how I will balance work/home/church/[school] and things like that. It's so obvious that no one other than the Lord Himself organized the missionary work. In NO other work will you have this many benefits in all aspects of life present and future and to all people involved, receiving and giving. It's interesting talking about how it's nothing like you expect. And I didn't expect anything, really. I had no point of reference other than like movies lol. But no one can anticipate their missions. At times I'll just step back from the situation I'm in and think, "Who woulda thunk... I'd be here... doing this.... with this person..." Like today... I was teaching a deaf person in broken sign language and writing on paper... Like helping someone like WT do not just a 180 but a 440 haha... like walking up to some guy in the street, giving a run-down of the Restoration and coming back to our appointment and finding he has taken extensive notes on his reading in the Book of Mormon (P.S. He's currently in 2 Nephi woot woot! He's SO getting baptized.... We had to have a member of the bishopric call his "jefe" to get him permission to not have to go to work so he can attend church.... he skipped out on a party because he knew there'd be drinking there.... love it. He's the one we brought to the VC)

Oh man. Too much to report. But know that I love you and pray for you every day.
Have a great week!