Some pictures of Newton

May 27, 2014

Fearless Finder: OPERATION BAUTISMO

Hola!

     This week was full of meetings and tracting!! Tuesday we had Specialized Training down in Wichita and I learned so much!!! It was great!! The training was specifically given on finding people to teach and how to be a fearless finder. Now before this I thought that I was pretty good at being a fearless finder... and that's when Holy Ghost comes around to smack you in the face with some humility. I learned a ton about the things that I need to do more and how I can improve my attitude while tracting and how I need to help my companions who may have a harder time being comfortable with talking with and finding new people. During the Training Pres. Bell gave a talk about broadening our vision... I know kinda of a vague title but just wait it gets better. He talked about something that Kansas has a lot of, let's see if you can figure it out! It's not tornadoes... not churches.... not sunflowers... not squirrels... do you give up yet? Okay I'll tell you, it's Wheat!! Awesome right!?!? Haha, well it was to me. He talked about the gathering of Isreal and how we have to trash (so shake/beat really hard) the wheat that we gather to receive the kernels. So basically in not old bible/ or farmer lingo what that means is that to be able to find the people that the Lord has prepared to receive the gospel we have to talk with as many people as possible (filling our arms with wheat) and then from there once they hear our message (trashing) if they have been prepared (kernels) the won't turn away from it. So yeah I learned a lot!!

We also got to test this out a lot this week because we didn't have the car! :) So through the scorching hot and the tropical down pours we tracted and tracted and tracted. And we found a lot of potential kernels so this week we have a lot of trashing to do! It's gonna be awesome!!

     

So yesterday we went on a road trip to Pratt Kansas to execute OPERATION BAUTISMO. The Sister's in Pratt have an investigator who only speaks Spanish and unfortunately they only speak English. They have been teaching her using a member as a translator and everything was going great, she was scheduled to be baptizedthis Saturday, then last week she pulled the plug and said that she had some problems and didn't feel like she was ready. That's were we come in. The Zone Leaders sent Hna. Fernandez and I to go and figure out what was stopping her from being baptized and to give her the confidence that she could be baptized on May 31. So we drove the 1 hr and 45 mins to Pratt yesterday evening. The lesson went great and I would consider OPERATION BAUTISMO a success!!
That was pretty much my week, you know Standard Missionary Stuff. I hope you all have a great week! All is well here in Kansas and I am absolutely loving the mission life!

Hermana Kammeyer

Maddie with a Kitty!

The english family that we had dinner with for Easter has a farm and they had baby kittens!!! So cute!! I hope you like this pic! :)

May 19, 2014

I Believe in Miracles

Hola!

     So this week was really good! We didn't do very much on Monday because I let Hermana Fernandez choose what we were going to do because I felt bad that she kept on going to the church with me to play sports with the Elders even though she probably just wants to stay in our apartment. So that's what we did, stayed inside and wrote letters... not very fun but that's what she needed. And I kind of regret doing that because it was Zone p-day and they played rugby :( But oh, well I'll just have to learn how to play it some other time.

     On Tuesday we had some drama after District Meeting. While we were at Hermana Fernandez's lower stomach started to hurt really bad and we were worried so we went to the hospital to get it checked out. Well it wasn't anything too serious and she's doing much better now. But it was fun to do something different. Is it sad that I find it super exciting to go to the hospital for a stomach pain? Well, that's missionary life for ya, you have to find excitement in the little things. :)

     Fast forward to Thursday because this were the actual cool part of this week comes in. We had exchanges with The Sister Training Leaders!! It was so awesome!! On Wednesday Night I learned that I would be staying here in Newton and Sister Dean would come and be with me. And let me tell you I almost freaked out, because Sister Dean doesn't speak Spanish so I would have to do all of the teaching by myself!! I had visions of all of our investigators becoming so offended by my awful Spanish that they would drop us and never speak with missionaries again! So you can just imagine how hard I prayed Wednesday night. But none of my fears came to pass and it was a really good experience that totally strengthened my confidence and testimony. I was able to find new investigators, talk with the members on the phone to coordinate dinners and team-ups with them, and teach lessons all in Spanish!!! All of these things I had never gotten the chance to do before because Hermana Fernandez does it. I know my Spanish was no where near perfect but it was a huge blessing to be able to see that I can be a good and effective missionary even when I'm speaking Spanish. This whole experience was a miracle for me and I can't wait to see what other miracles are in store for me and my investigators during Miracle May!! :)

     Well that was pretty much the most important parts of this week. So onto the things that I learned during my personal study this week. One thing that kept jumping out to me this week was Courage. It came up three different days this week during my studies and I'm just starting to realize the importance of it. With my experience on Thursday I had to have courage and faith to speak in Spanish. The courage to open my mouth and the faith that Heavenly Father would help me testify of the truth. I'm still working on developing my courage and I want to challenge all of you to do it too. While having courage for a missionary may be a little different then for you to have courage I know that we all need to have the courage to always live what we believe. In President Monson's talk in the Priesthood session he quoted a Scottish poet named Robert Louis who said "Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name." Missionaries always get the praise for going out into the world to share the gospel but I know that you all have just as much courage to live your believes everyday!

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

 Hermana Kammeyer

May 12, 2014

It's Miracle May baby!!! :)

Hola!

     This week just absolutely flew by!! It feels like my birthday was yesterday! Bytheway (John ... get it... John Bytheway :D) thank you all for the Birthday wishes it really made my day!

     In my email last week I talked about our Investigator named Kelly and how right after we gave her a baptismal date things just started to fall apart with her plan to attend rehab. And it looked like she wasn't going to go to rehab for a long long time and we were super sad and worried because we knew that that was the only way that she was going to be able to stop drinking. So Sister Fernandez and I had been praying and fasting like crazy for her. Then on Tuesday Kelly called us and said that she had been fired from her job for smelling like alcohol BUT that her boss felt so bad about not helping her sooner that she called some places and got Kelly into rehab on Thursday!!! Heavenly Father is the best!!! Sister Fernandez and I totally freaked out, we were jumping up and down and running around in circles and everything! We had to say goodbye to her on Wednesday and that was a little bittersweet because she was the first investigator that both Sister Fernandez and I met on our missions and we meet with her everyday. But we couldn't be more excited for her and we know that she is going to overcome this addiction!

     This week we got to walk everywhere in the nice crazy hot Kansas sun, which wouldn't have been too bad if my shoes hadn't been cutting my feet and giving me blisters, but hey that's missionary life for you. :)

     We had Zone training on Thursday and it was really good and I learned a ton. I had to give a short training thanks to the Zone Leaders, this is what happens when you are in their district. I think it went okay. I talked about how we can align our will with Heavenly Father's and what it means to have a "broken heart and a contrite spirit." I still find it funny that they asked me to do it because I'm still doing the 12 Week Missionary Training program and had me give the training at Zone Conference?
Dia de la Madre was great!! I loved being able to see my family and hear from them. Before hand I had been praying that once the call was over Heavenly Father would be able to help me to not think about them and help me remain lost in the work. And what do you know he blessed me again! I was able to jump right back into the work and I didn't even cry when we said goodbye! Woot Woot score for team missionary! :)

     We had a crazy night last night! And it depends on if your asking me or Hermana Fernandez if it was crazy awesome or crazy scary. We had..... drum roll..... a TORNADO... warning. :) Haha, did I scare you mom! But two tornadoes did touch down outside the town where our district leader and half of the ward lives though. So here's what went down. We got home from Family Home Evening with the Hernandez Family and we finished our planning. Right after planning we received a text from the fire chief who's a member and lives in Hesston (the town right next to Newton) saying that we were going to have some extreme thunder storms that night and that McPherson was in Tornado warning mode. So I knelt down and said a prayer for the Elders and members in McPherson and when I finished I started to get ready for bed. No sooner had I put my PJ's on then we received a text from an emergency weather forecast number that said "Tornado Warning: seek shelter immediately." Phew, talk about adrenaline rush!! Hermana Fernandez was so scared but I calmed her down and told her what she needed to take with her to the shelter. Hermana Fernandez didn't feel safe in the shelter at our apartment complex so we called our district leader and he told us to go to a members house. On our way there we got a hold of the Zone leaders and they told us that Newton was safe and that we should go back to our apartment and just have our phone's volume all the way up so we could hear if something changed. I was like "Okay sweet, that was fun and now I get to go to bed!" Wrong, Hermana Fernandez was still really scared so I offered do scripture study with her until she felt calmer. So she snuggled with my teddy bear and I read the first three... yes three, chapters of "Our Heritage" to her. She finally calmed down and we got to go to sleep.

     Everything is fine with the Elders and people in McPherson the tornadoes didn't enter the town and we just got a lot of rain and some really cool lookin' lightening. So Yep, that's an average week in the life of a missionary in the Kansas Wichita Mission! :)
My Spiritual thought for this week come from Pres. Uchtdorf's preisthood session talk titled Don't Sleep Through the Restoration my favorite line was "Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not an effort on once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all." I know that this is so true! When we love our Savior and follow his teachings He will be in every action and decision we make. I challenge all of you to be a true disciple of Chirst! :)

Love you all,

                                           Hermana Kammeyer

May 5, 2014

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! :)

Hola, cada uno!! :)

     I can't believe how fast time flies on a mission. The first night I was here I was talking to a Sister Missionary who had been out on her mission for 12 months and she said something like this, "On your mission time is weird. But one thing that I've learned about it is that there is Celestial Time. When you follow God's commandments with exactness and lose your self in the work time moves faster because you are closer to becoming a Celestial Being." Cool, right?!?! I've been out on a mission for three months now, I know that's not very long but hey, and it feels like I just left the CCM yesterday and home the day before that! So I'm going to take that a good sign that I'm losing myself in the Lord's work. :)

     So this week we're finally off the improvement plan!!!!! We have a investigator named Kelly who has such a strong testimony and wants to get baptized so badly but she has a really strong alcohol addiction. But she was scheduled to go into rehab this week so on Monday we invited her to be baptized the week after she gets out, which is three days before Hermana Fernandez will leave Newton. She was so excited when we asked and she didn't even have to think about saying yes!! It was awesome!! So was so excited that she called to set up her entrance appointment into rehab right after she said yes. While she was on the phone she started to get upset. We she finished her call she said that they had told her that she because she had a job now, she's been to this rehab place before for drugs, they wouldn't help her pay for it. So she didn't end up going into rehab this week but she is still looking into different ways that she can get help with paying for it. So long story short they were not lying when they said that once you say yes to baptism Satan is going to come at you full force!!

     Transfers were this week and thankfully the Newton district wasn't messed up to much. We got two new Elders and only one Elder left (we had a trio of Elders if you were confused). So that's been a little weird this week but the new Elders are great and it's still a party in the Newton District! :)

     I've said this before but the weather here in Kansas is so weird!!! The beginning of this week was sooooooooo cold and then the end of the week was ridiculously hot!! (Yesterday was 102 degrees Fahrenheit) And since the trio split up we have to go back to sharing the car with the Spanish Elders so next week we get to walk around in this weather ALL DAY!! Oh, and we haven't had a tornado here yet! Every other state around Kansas has had a tornado but we are still tornado-less!!! What is this ?!?!?! Go home Kansas your drunk!!!
This week has been the attack of the old ladies week!! We taught so many old ladies with so many different problems it was ridiculous!! The funniest one was an old lady named Rosa. She speaks Spanish and English perfectly so she kept on changing between the two languages so that was fun but not the best part! Drum roll please .... she can't remember anything! Now I know exactly how Marlin from Finding Nemo felt when he was talking to Dory!! She asked like five times if we missed our family. The first time we were like "Not really," then it was "Every now and then," and then by the fifth time I wanted to say "I didn't before but I sure do NOW!!" But no worries all is well now and Hermana Fernandez and I had a good laugh about it afterwards.

     This month in the Kansas Wichita Mission is Miracle May!! So we did a mission wide fast on the first, for miracles this month and every night the Zone Leaders send out a voicemail from one companionship in the Zone that had had a miracle that day. It has been so cool!! The Lord has definitely prepared the people here in Kansas and I am so grateful to be here!!

     During my personal study this week I've been reading in third Nephi when the savior comes and visits the people there and I have also been studying from PMG (Preach My Gospel) about the importance of the Book of Mormon and two quotes really stuck out to me. The first is from Pres. Packer and it says "In a world ever more dangerous... the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ has the nourishing power to heal starving spirits of the world." The second one is from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, "Please do not take the Book of Mormon for granted. Pray for a vision of how the Book of Mormon can be used more effectively in your mission. I promise that as you do so, your mind will be enlightened with the direction that you should take." I know that the Book of Mormon is so powerful because it is the only way that we can know for a surety that this church is true. My perspective on the importance of the Book of Mormon has changed so much since I've been here on my mission. I've seen how it can change the lives of the people who read it and it is truly a gift from God!

     That's pretty much it for this week. Lots of lessons taught and lots of lessons learned! Pretty much your average week in the life of a missionary. Love you all and have a great week!!

                                                     Hermana Kammeyer

P.S.- Happy Cinco de Mayo!! AKA my birthday!! :) The Big 20!!! Woohoo!!! :)

  

April 28, 2014

Baptism, Baptism, anybody for a Baptism?!?

Hola!!

     This week has been so crazy busy and I have definitely grown a ton this week as a missionary!! I can't believe that I've been here six weeks already!! it's the end of my first transfer and I am still going to be in Newton with Hermana Fernandez, which I am super excited about!
So last P-day was great!! We had all the missionaries in our district come over to the church building and we played a ton of sports and games and it was a blast to run around and have fun with all of missionaries, well except Hermana Fernandez she's has a fear of playing sports because she thinks that she'll get hit which is pretty accurate because she did get hit in the face with a basketball just sitting on the side lines!

     Tuesday we had district meeting which was great and a lot of fun. Afterwards I was able to pass off lesson two to my District Leader. So for each lesson in Preach My Gospel we have to write our own outline with three bullet points for each section and have a scripture memorized to go a long with each section. Oh, and did I mention I did mine in Spanish!! (apparently almost none of the Spanish speaking missionaries pass it off in Spanish)

     Wednesday I there was a conference call for the new missionaries to see how their training is coming along. It was so cool!! First off I felt all cool and stuff 'cuz I got to be on a conference call like some professional big wig (Yes, I mean you Dad :D ). And Second I got to hear how Hermana Jennings and Elder Grow are doing! It was awesome it was like a little missionary family reunion! (In case you forgot Hermana Jennings was my old companion and Elder Grow was in my district in the CCM)

     All I can really remember about Thursday and Friday is that they were very hot and that my feet and legs hurt so much when we got back to the apartment! The miles that we are allotted for each month were almost all gone so we were walking all day those two days, like 7-12 miles!!!

     Saturday was a very exciting day for the Spanish Missionaries in Newton. An investigator named Rigo was baptized!!! He is not mine or Hermana Fernandez's investigator but we did teach him about the word of wisdom and get him to stop drinking coffee! Which was pretty cool. He is related to pretty much all of our investigators and his baptism really helped progress a lot of our investigators! Oh and hermana Fernandez and I taught about the Restoration of the Gospel in front of everyone at the baptism! It was so crazy and I can't believe that I made it through with out making some horrible mistake in Spanish! The Spanish members here were so nice and they all came up to me afterwards and said that I did really good and that my Spanish is improving really quickly. I'll have to take their word for it though because I thought that I would be much further along by now!

     So here in the Kansas Wichita Mission, best mission in the world FYI, we have something that's called the Standard. It's the amount of baptisms, people with a baptismal date, people attending church, member present lessons, and new investigators that a companionship needs to reach each week. And if you don't hit standard you have to go on a improvement plan. So all you really need to know is that you don't want to be on the improvement plan. But guess who has been on it for the last two weeks.... Me and Hermana Fernandez! Now don't think that Hermana Fernandez and I aren't working hard because that would definitely be the wrong conclusion. It's just that none of our investigators feel like they're ready to make that step and they let little things hold them back. Talk about frustrating!! But never fear we were not going to let this get us down so we doubled our efforts, prayers, and exercised our faith more. Oh, and we also challenged someone to be baptized everyday this last week! The results of all of this is.... Drum roll please..... still nobody with a baptismal date :( BUT a ton of spiritual growth on my end and in our investigators! So even though we are on the improvement plan, AGAIN, I have a stronger testimony that God is so aware of us and he will answer the righteous desires of our hearts even if it's not in our time or in the way that we would like (and not to play my own horn but we tripled the standard in everything other than baptismal date, so yeah we're working really hard).

     This week my studies focused a lot on how I could have the spirit with me on a much higher level so I could help my investigators progress faster. In Preach My Gospel it has a wonderful chapter on recognizing the spirit and I think it's my favorite chapter in Preach My Gospel!

     "Every Morning... missionaries should get on their knees and plead with the Lord to loosen their tongues and speak through them to the blessings of those they will be teaching. if they will do this, a new light will come into their lives. There will be greater enthusiasm for the work. They will come to know that in a very real sense, they are servants of the Lord speaking in His behalf. They will find a different response from those they teach. As they do so by the Spirit, their investigators will respond under the influence of the same Spirit." - President Gordon B Hinckley

     This quote has helped me so this week it was incredible!! I know that when we pray with faith we will receive an answer and the blessings of heaven will be poured out upon us!!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Kammeyer