So many amazing investigators in Memphis

Walk week*. We walked a ton this week. It was an amazing week. We walked all over Memphis a couple times, and we have so many amazing investigators in Memphis. Those people are ready. We are teaching this amazing awesome family of a mom and six kids and the husband (yes they are married) is coming back in  town his week. We have yet to meet him, but that whole family is amazing. They are "dry Mormons" in every sense. They have the Spirit in their home like no other investigators do, even a little more than some members. They all read scriptures together and are just a cute happy family. They also came to church this Sunday!! They are incredible! We also had another little girl at church, she is part of a less active/part member family in the ward, and she is so excited to be baptized. She set her own date for next week. We found a lot of other awesome people being on walk week. And Sister Purser saved our lives so much this week. First was letting us Skype at her house since our first idea fell through last minute. Then she signed up to feed us twice this week because no one was feeding us this week. Also Lisa Boone saved our lives by picking us up when we got stranded at the church and in Memphis and feeding us one night as well. The members are so cool here. We are working on getting more people out with us, and they are so willing, just coordinating is so hard sometimes. It's been a really good week.

Love Kimber

* We learned during our Mothers' Day Skype call that the four missionary companionships in their district share three cars, (or something like that,) so every fourth week is "walk week," and they have to get around either on foot or catch rides from members. Crazy when some appointments are far away, but develops character, right?

Mothers' Day Call!

We sent her a list of questions to be prepared for. Here's the email I sent her, and some of the discussion we had with her about the questions on Skype.

~~

A few questions we have come up with for today's call...I'm sending them to you now in case you want to think about some of the answers before then. Can't wait!

Do you do all your cooking or do you ever eat with the members? How often.... (Regularly, nearly everyday eat at the members'.)
Do you eat traditional "southern"foods? Like jambalaya or hominy or grits or chitlins or catfish? (Some, but since there are so many Utah natives here for the dentist school, many of the members serve what we are used to.)
You're really eating potatoes too?! (Discovered that it's mainly baked potatoes I don't like.)
What are some of the unusual things you have eaten and how are you handling it?

How often do you meet with the ward mission leader? How closely do you work with ward and stake leaders? (We work with them A LOT. At least weekly, but usually more.)
How often do you get referrals, from locals, from far away?
Have you had any obvious results from The Book of Mormon Musical experience? (So far we have only heard of one story...)

What is your study time like now? How long? What do you study? How do you decide what to study? (Having Sister Havran with us now, we have added an hour of language training (ASL) to the routine which includes personal study, companionship study, language study and planning.)
What is your daily schedule like? How does transportation affect planning? (There are three cars for four companionships, hence every fourth week is "Walk-Week," and that week takes a lot of extra planning and counting on members to help them get further places.
On an average day, how many people do you talk to for the first time?

How does your system of goals and reporting work? What is it called? (Dad's was Standards of Excellence - SOEs.) What is easiest? Most difficult? (She showed us their planning program on her IPad, and how long their contact list is - HUGE, including contacts from previous companionships. She said that they hardly have time to follow up with former investigators though, because the new ones are so ready so quickly.)
How often do you talk to your mission president? The DLs? The Zone Leaders?
What are the STLs role in the mission?

What have you learned from Sister Herschi?
What are you learning from Sister Havran? (We don't know anything about her yet, where she is from, how long she's been out...are you all doing ASL work with her there too?) (She's from Oregon - Salem? - and has been out longer than either of the others, I think...can't remember exactly what was said. We did get to say hello to both of them, and Sister Herschi told us that she goes to BYU, so we will definitely be able to meet her someday.)

How often do you teach? What is it like? (Several times a week, and lots of visiting opportunities.)
Describe the best & most unusual. What is difficult?
Dad has more questions about teaching...he'll ask later

You often comment that you have many people you are working with who "are so ready for baptism". Why do you think that is? (We touched on that a lot earlier in the conversation.)

Are there/have you had any situations where you wish you could counsel with your parents?

Uncle Dan-What us the biggest difference between the people of Mississippi and Utah? (That the people in the South talk so openly about religion and especially about Jesus Christ. She LOVES that, and encouraged all of us here at home not to be embarrassed to bring Him and the Gospel up in everyday conversations. AWESOME advice.)
Isaac-Are more people there taller or shorter than you? (Similar...)

Talk to you SOON!
Love, Mom

45 minutes went very quickly, and it was lovely to be able to talk "in person" with her again!!

Busy Trio On

Super short letter this week, but that's okay - Sunday is Mothers' Day - 40 minutes Skype!

Hey all! It's been an awesome week. It's super fun having Sister Havran as part of our companionship. She balances Sister Hirschi and me out because we are so different. It really is the best. We have also been so busy. We keep finding amazing families who are so ready for baptism. It's so cool. The people here are so ready for the gospel. Twice this week we drove up to an appointment, and there were about twenty kids in front of the house playing. Both times! It was nuts. We have had such a fun time. And I'm getting better at teaching. It's so great

Love Kimber

P.S. And Claire, the rain has not really let up. Sometimes we get sunny days, but there are still a ton of rain showers. But it's not as heavy as it was a couple weeks ago.

Memphis Zone April 2016

Trio Two

Super short letter this week, but I can't complain - we got a letter in the US mailbox this week too, with lots of news for everybody! If I get to it, I'll try to share some of that too.

Bye Old Trio!

This has been an interesting week. We had a lot of lessons with our solid families fall through. But we had a lot of good lessons with other people and awesome families. That is really it in a nut shell. Sister Pochop ("Pokeup") is gone as of today. It is transfer week, so she got a new companion and is back to her area, so we'll miss her. But , as it is transfer week, we got another companion! So we're still in a trio. Her name is Sister Havran, and she is an ASL missionary. So as far as I know, we are a zebra companionship now, (like English with ASL, or English with Spanish, or Chinese with German - just two languages in a companionship). It's going to be really fun. She's really cool. We went up to the temple today and switched around companions and said goodbye to the departing missionaries. We also got to take a 5 generational picture with me, sister Hirschi, sister Wood, sister Pochop and sister Zent. That's the order. It was great. Super fun. It was a fun week.

Five generations:

Sisters Zent, Pochop, Wood, Hirschi, Beckstrand. 

All in order too!

Love Kimber

Zone leaders, district leader and his companion, and us.

Like my t-shirt? It's from the sisters leftover bag.

From her letter to Mom & Dad about Sister Pochop - this mom is so grateful she's had this experience!

I've been struggling to be more comfortable talking to people, but I'm getting better. I still don't like it, but I am praying and learning ways to get over it. So while Sister Hirschi has no idea what it's like not to have something to say, it's nice to see someone who has been out for a while (14 months) and is just as good a missionary without being as outgoing. God knew what He was doing putting her here for a bit. She has some really good input for the work and has improved my confidence as a missionary.

So lots of learning and lots of fun here. And Trios are fun. I love you guys...

A Trio with Great-Grandma!

This is the three of us, Sister Pochop, me, and Sister Hirschi

So, this week has been interesting. And the same as before. Lots of work. Not much to tell. One time we visited a member who's husband is less active, and he is into ham radio, we talked for a while about it. It was really interesting. Mostly because Grandpa is into the same thing and I got to make that connection and we had a really good conversation about it. This week we have been in a trio. Our other companion is Sister Pochop. She is awesome, and her outside opinion has been very helpful. She is only with us for about two weeks. She is my "great-grandma," in mission life/mission lingo. She trained Sister Hirschi's trainer. And she used to be an STL, (I looked this one up - "sister training leader"- The sister who is over multiple sisters,) so if we ever have questions about things, she's got the answer, usually. Also, this week, I was in charge, as part of, and the end of, my training. It's stressful, and I usually don't like it, but I'm surviving and getting better at it. Also we have exchanges tonight and tomorrow, and I'll be the one taking over the area for that. It's going to be fun, and interesting. And all the leaders, zone leaders and STLs and APs, are being switched and moved around. Lots of things going on. And we are teaching three awesome families that are all totally prepared to hear the gospel. Life as a missionary is seriously busy. And really rewarding. We had a whole family at church yesterday. A WHOLE family! It was awesome. Lots of good things in the Southaven area.
Love you all, Kimber

Exhausted, Soaked, and Blisters

Not much this week, and in fact this makes me tired just reading it! 

It was a very long week. And super exhausting. We were on walk week this week. And a lot of the people we needed to see this week live in Memphis. So we spent a ton of time walking around Memphis. We also got dumped on by rain, we were completely soaked. That's really all that happened this week. We walked a ton. I got a lot of blisters. A relatively new experience for me because I usually avoid situations where I could get them. But there was no avoiding it this week. However, I have found that I can walk pretty much all day and survive it. I don't even get too sore from it. But now we have a car again. And it's huge, at least compared to the sedans that we usually drive. I'm not sure what it is exactly but some sort of hatchback. It's taller and the doors are heavy, and the whole thing has more room to it. Not that any of that is important. Our district is getting so much done. We had another baptism on Saturday, it was the Elders though. We do have some people on date for the end of April and the beginning of May, and we are really excited about it. We have a bunch of awesome people we are teaching. A few families that really want it and are ready. Our next thing with all of them is getting them to church. That is always a struggle. It has been a good week we have kept busy and there are a lot of awesome people to teach. Southaven is totally the best.

Love Kimber

April Fools' Oreos, Squishy Pigs, and GC is all about Missionary Work!

This letter requires a preface - from my letter to her: "Our household has more than doubled now - Uncle Dan and Aunt Karen and family and all five of their children moved in this week, oh, and [their dog] is staked in the back yard.  It truly is joyful chaos. They put all their stuff into two storage units out in Lehi, and all but [one son] are sleeping in YOUR bedroom!" ... they don't plan to be here long, but oh, the joy and chaos we are enjoying for a time. These are the cousins - kids ranging in age from 17-4 - we get together with VERY regularly, and are big time favorites of Kimberly's. She'll miss this, so it's a good thing she is is LOVING what she is doing and where she is!

 

That all sounds like a ton of fun. Give everyone a big hug and kiss form me! And take a big family pic too ;p and mom, I'm not sure what album it is, but the one with count your many blessings. And go ahead and try emailing it, if that doesn't work then mail it I guess. Also, I am now able to read email all week long, just not reply until Monday, so don't hold back any time you want to write. And it's totally fine to talk to members and stuff. Just in case you didn't know. 

Brother Foote really is amazing. I was telling him and his wife about the book Uncle Karl wrote, Anna's Prayer, who is both of our ancestor and they said they might want to get it. That was really cool. 

Nothing big happened this week. We did give the Elders messed-up Oreos on April fools, and one of them actually ate one. We had replaced the cream inside with a mixture of soap and flour and toothpaste. It was pretty funny. Speaking of funny, Sister Hirschi has this rubber squishy pig that she plays with, and it's really fun to throw at the ceiling and see how long it sticks, but it only works on popcorn ceilings. A couple weeks ago she brought it to game night on accident, and we started this contest with the Elders to see how long it would stick. So after the last session of conference, we were all at the church and she threw it up at the ceiling. The. Brother Stone, second counselor in the new bishopric, made a joke about throwing it onto the chapel ceiling. It was pretty far away and looked pretty smooth. But Sister Hirschi wanted to try it, and it didn't look like it would work, and it was really far away, so she threw it really hard. And it stuck. For a long time. It was really stuck. Super high. We were all laughing really hard. Brother Stone, some young women who were still there, and all the Elders, and us. It was really funny. Then we had to find a way to get it down. It took about twenty minutes, we were throwing things at it, Elder Claridge was rolling Sister Hirschi's coat up into a ball and throwing it, we all tried throwing pens. Nothing worked. Then Elder Niko came in and threw a tissue box at it and it came right down. It was so funny. And now we know never throw things in the chapel. 

That is the most exciting thing that happened this week. We did get a lot of members out with us. We met some people that we haven't been able to see for a while. It was a good week. And this week is walk-week again. Our phone got wet a couple days ago, and it wasn't charging anymore, so we weren't sure if we'd have a phone this week, but we checked it out today, (had to wait for P-Day, I guess,) and it's all good, we just had to get a new battery. So no reason to panic, we have a phone with a brand new battery for walk-week. This week should be fun, we'll get a lot of members out with us hopefully. 

General conference was absolutely the best. Basically everything applied to missionary work. It was great. And being completely honest, it's nice to sit for four two hour sessions and do nothing but watch the tv and listen to the prophets speak. I loved all the talks, and I am definitly going to have to read all the talks over again. For most of the talks just put "investigator" in for all the people it's focused on, and it totally applies. Like the one about teaching children to pray, and Elder Bednar's talk about saving ordinances. And the whole thing really. It was amazing. It is such a blessing to have prophets and apostles today that can speak to us, and do twice a year. General conference is really the only holiday we have as missionaries, and it is so great! I loved it. 

Then, partly because it's spring break, I got her message just after she sent it, so we went back and forth several times, including a personal message from her 4 year old cousin who ADORES Kimberly and wondered why we can't just call her and bring her home right now. It helped, and I think Miri will be okay now. She also has a big foster brother who has been out on a mission for over a year now, so she kind of understands. This is kind of a perfect dichotomy having them live in HER bedroom,  her "best buddy" cousins she would be in heaven to be here with, but she wont' be joining us until they are VERY LONG GONE. But she is really okay with this! Her heart is exactly where it is supposed to be, and that makes us very happy!!

During conference, another cousin (Brandon/BYU) joined us too. Miri is in the center.