Chris-MISSING YOU GUYS ALREADY!

Man it feels like I was talking to you guys just yesterday :)

It really was so good to see you all! Just made me that much more grateful for the awesome family that I have. Love you guys.

Anywayyyy, this week has been awesome. On Tuesday we had a Christmas devotional with lots of the zones down here in the South. That was really good! They fed us lunch then we did a white elephant gift exchange. Ha I got a thing of sardines and some playdough. So pretty successful. After the gift exchange we had a devotional. President and Sister Miles talked to us and someone read the story out of Luke and we had a bunch of musical numbers from some very talented missionaries. Seriously it was so dang good!!

The live Nativity-- donkey and all

We were in charge of the mics at the Nativity, Sister Taylor only messed up twice.... :)

Elder from Czech Republic-- stayed with Ryan and family

The wind has been super crazy lately, hence the choppage of my hair

KEN AND LINDA!!!!!! They are doing so well!!!!!

Elizabeth-- one of my favorites in Lethbridge

Exchanges with Sister Messick :)

After that we did exchanges. I was able to go with Sister Messick in the Chinook and London Road Wards (my old area) That was seriously just the best thing of my entire life. It was really fun to go see my people! I miss my family in Lethbridge so I was able to see lots of them. And we had some really good lessons! We actually put one of their investigators on date for baptism! It was awesome!

We were also able to meet with our investigator Jen- she lives out in Vauxhall. And then she took us to her son's christmas performances. That was really fun! They put on this kind of play about Christmas and it was adorable! Her kids did awesome! And they really like us-- so that's awesome!

 We've been able to see lots of members because lots of the people that we are working with are gone for the holidays. So we got to have a ton of fun. On Christmas Eve we went over to Vera Jensen's house-- she's this super cute old lady in our ward. (Reminds me of Cynthia Dayton in like 20 years) She's super awesome! A family in our ward gave us this ginger bread village and we decided that if we're going to make it we might as well make it with Sister Jensen :) so we did. 

We also were able to go to the Andersons "Little House on the Prairie". Brother Anderson bought this land then built a cute little cabin out in the middle of nowhere! They invited us over there will their whole family, and that was really fun. There was a TON of snow!!!! It was awesome. He took us on a little carriage ride behind his truck. After the Andersons we headed out to be with the Torrie's. They invited us over for their Christmas Eve with their family. That was really fun! 

When we gave Pres. Miles some BYU stuff for Christmas.... best text of my life!

 Leif and Helen Erikson took us out for lunch this week :)

Got a flat tire on Christmas Eve-- a super nice member fixed it for us. #perksofbeinginSouthernAlberta

Vera Jensen's first ginger bread house decorating party!

Out at the Little House on the Prairie

 Out at the Little House on the Prairie

Little House on the Prairie

We did the Nativity-- me and Sister Taylor made for the best sheep ever :) Then we had a little christmas song thing. I was at the piano, Brother Torrie was at the organ, they had 2 grandkids playing the saxophone and the trombone, Elder Austin was at the drum, Elder Rodriguez had the bells and Sister Taylor had the cowbell. Ha it was so much fun!! Reminded me a little of our thing that we do, it wasn't the same but still really fun! Man these members are so great to us!!!

PJ's Sister Zuidhof got us... Ninja Turtle and Pizza. It's awesome.

Pj's from the fam :)

Anxious to skype

​best Christmas present... ever....

Opening our presents-- we did move our beds out to the living room and slept under the tree :)

Christmas Devotional 3 zones

Wasn't having Christmas on a Sunday so awesome?!? It was great to really remember what Christmas is really about. I'm so thankful for this time that I have had to be a missionary around this Christmas season. It has made me that much more grateful for the Savior and for the fact that I get to bear my testimony of Him every single day! 

Love you all lots, hope that you all have an awesome rest of Christmas break! And happy Boxing Day!!!

Quote of the week: "God's love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love, it is simply always there." 

-Pres. Monson

Scripture of the week: D&C 6:34, 36-37  Fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

Wind-ter Wonderland

Hey Hey Hey!!

So we're going to start out this email with an embarrassing Sister King moment. So last Monday we went to this Christmas concert out in Vauxhall. The whole town was there and our ward was singing in it. So we got up and sang then sat down. As soon as I sat down I got a real weird feeling.... I got up and tried to make my way to the bathroom... didn't quite get there but I did make it to a garbage can. I almost threw up on this group of Hutterites... Not one of my better days. So ya, I got the flu once again this week. But the good thing about it was that even though I felt completely awful me and Sister Taylor were still laughing and having a good time. It's the happiest I've been while being completely miserable. Ha hope that makes sense.

Vauxhall Ice Castles 

Anywayyyy... It has been so dang cold you don't even understand! And the weird thing is that the temperature is actually getting warmer but the wind is starting to really pick up and that makes it even colder. The other day we had a wind chill of negative 40... AWESOME. Let me just say that tights are not sufficient in that kind of weather. Ha but we are staying warm-ish.

So Taber takes Christmas very seriously. Last night and tonight the church puts on this live nativity for the whole town. They asked me and Sister Taylor to be in charge of the mics. HA that was fun! WE had lots of fun! There was a live donkey and sheep, it was awesome. Even though it was absolutely frigid! 

We did pick up a new investigator this week! So that was awesome! She's this older lady out in Vauxhall and she is really interested in family history. So we went over and taught her all about family history and then we ended up talked about the temple and eternal families, she loved it! She said that she would love to have us back again! So that was pretty exciting! 

Shawna took us out to feed her chickens, cows and horses :)

-29 with a -40 wind chill... awesome

Yesterday we were asked to speak in church-- everything with that went really well. We got to talk about the Savior's earthly ministry and just tie that into Christmas. Easiest talk I have ever written-- we just got to talk about Christ and Christmas! It went really well.

I can't get over how kind the people here are! We have had soooo many invitations for Christmas, boxing day, new years eve and new years day. Seriously I just love these people so much!

With the holidays just right around the corner everyone is really busy and doesn't really have time to meet with us, so we're doing our best to stay busy-- even with the weather being so cold you still gotta do missionary work.

One of our favorite people-- Amber Jensen

I lost a bet so Sister Taylor got to smash an egg on my head

Anyway, just getting so excited for Christmas and being able to talk to you all! Can't wait to see your faces!

Sorry this email is probs super boring but I promise we're having lots of fun and keeping busy :)

Love you all!

Scripture of the week: Colossians 3:16 

 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Quote of the week: "It seems to be human nature: as we become more familiar with something, even something miraculous and awe-inspiring, we lose our sense of awe and treat it as common place... we are surrounded by such an astonishing wealth of light and truth that I wonder if we truly appreciate what we have." -Pres. Uchtdorf

Talk to ya on Sunday :)

Sister King

Getting "hickified"

Hey there! Ha I feel like I was emailing you guys just yesterday!

Anyway, since Wednesday there really isn't too much to update you guys on. We have been doing lots of service with the Christmas initiative-- so that's been really fun. And we've actually had some pretty good opportunities to talk to people about our church. The other night we went Christmas caroling/shoveling. It was a complete blizzard but we walked around shoveling people's walkways. We were wearing Christmas lights too, cause ya know #lightingtheworld :)

Shoveling  #lighttheworld

The other day we went to help the Anderson's make pizza-- it's their boxing day tradition and Sister Anderson wasn't feeling very good so we got called on to go and help. They had their Mennonite friends over to help us with that, and then the girls liked us so much that they invited us to their Christmas party. Ha which is another story... 

Highlight of the week though was that we picked up 2 new investigators. So our Bishop brought some friends to our Christmas party. On Thursday we stopped by just to say hi and they invited us in (maybe cause it was like negative 27...) but we started talking to them. I talked to the mom, Adrian, and she seemed pretty sad. I asked her how she was and she just started sobbing and completely just opened up to us and told us all these things that they were going through, then she invited us in to share a message. There was a really sweet spirit there. They invited us back to share another message with them. It was just really cool! So now we are teaching another Mexican Mennonite family :) 

Our Mennonite family watching Light the World

Okay so back to the Christmas party. So the girls that helped us make pizza-- their names are Susie and Maria. The invited us to their Christmas concert. We went and holy smokes... I swear it was like every Mennonite in Southern Alberta... soooo many people there and I am 92% sure that we were the only ones there that weren't.

 But anyway, we snuck in and just sat down. The entire time everyone was eying us... for like 30 minutes. It was ridiculous. Ha then I took a hard look around us and realized that all the girls were sitting on the right side of the room and all the guys were on the left side of the room. And where were we sitting? Ha we were sitting right in the middle on the left side. #awkward but we just laughed it off cause what are ya going to do? It was pretty great. 

Lemme tell ya, Taber town knows how to do Christmas! I love it! We were able to go and help at our Vauxhall ward Christmas party. We were a shepherd and wise man then they had us be elves for when Santa came. Just to give  you a little perspective on how tiny the ward is, we pulled up and there were about 12ish cars and the Torries who drove us said "Wow, what a great turn out." ME and Sister Taylor just looked at each other..

​Vauxhall Ward Christmas Party

Anyway, life is good! Loving it here in Taber Town. They keep telling me that the longer I am here I am becoming more "hickified".   I love it.   Hope that you all have a fantastic week!

Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 25:25-- We are made alive in  Christ because of our faith.

Quote of the week: "All the Lord asks is that you give your best effort and your whole heart. Do it cheerfully and with the prayer of faith. The Father and his Beloved Son will send the Holy Ghost as your companion to guide you. Your efforts will be magnified." -President Eyring

Love you all!!

Sister King :)

Sister Taylor thought that it would be a grand idea to kidnap this cat for a sec...
he liked us cause it was about negative 25 at the time...

We got to go play ball with some of our awesome ward members, Don and Shawna.

Matching night gowns cause why not?

A member made me a christmas ornament... it is a snowflake with my face on it.

​Homemade chocolates!

Our do-rags... best day ever.

Sister missionaries turned elves turned shepherds:)

Merry Christmas to us!!  It is so sweet when people send us pictures of our missionary!!

This was sent from Jenn Ronald

These 2 pictures were sent from Judy Torrie.  Her caption:  Sister missionaries turned elves turned shepherds:)

TaBURRRR!

Have you ever had that feeling where you walk outside, breathe in, and your nostrils instantly freeze? Cause I have!! Ha hey there fam! It's a little weird emailing on a Wednesday, but this past week and a half has been real good!

The weather got real cold real fast. We had a meeting with our Stake President this morning at 7 and when we went outside it was -27... (celsius of course) but ya, it was real cold.

The past couple days have been pretty crazy. President and Sister Miles came down to Taber for our Stake conference. It was really fun to see them again. They both spoke at the Saturday evening session, and it was real good. We also went on splits with our Stake President's wife-- Sister Baldry. We went and saw this less active in our ward. Him and his wife are going through a lot right now but we talked about the Atonement and he ended up opening up to us and completely bearing his testimony to us-- it was really cool, the spirit was so strong! And Sister Baldry was the PERFECT person to bring with us!

Smiling through the pain-- it was frigid!

So we meet with this Mennonite family-- they've been taught by missionaries for a while, but they are really starting to progress. We went over there and watched the Restoration and the mom, Helena,  told us afterwards that she believed it was true, then she corrected herself and said that she felt it was true. SO DANG COOL! We can see the spirit working with her!

Anyway, on Monday we had zone conference. Elder Weatherford Clayton is doing a tour of our mission right now and he was at our conference. It was really good! We talked all about the Plan of Salvation and how we can simplify our teaching.  It was just a really good meeting. Then right after that we drove up to Calgary because of MLC the next day. President told us to go up the night before because the roads are starting to get pretty bad, but we made it safe and sound. And we got to stay with MAMA BLAKE! Seriously the best night ever. Brought back so many memories of when she was training me, I loved it.

Saying bye to Mama Blake-- she goes home at the end of December

Yesterday was MLC-- Elder Clayton was there for that as well. It was another really good meeting. We talked a lot about what the needs of the mission are for 2017. I can't believe that it's already December. Christmas is going to be here before we know it! 

Exchanges in Brooks with Sister Leonard-- she is the cutest!

Helping decorate some members Christmas tree :)

Our little Christmas Corner :)

​Got my Christmas package from the fam!

Ha got a couple letters in the mail this week-- this one was my favorite. Thanks Cubby!

WE GOT TO HOLD WEEK OLD GOATS!!! THEY ARE THE CUTEST THINGS IN THE WORLD!
 Plus, they're the fainting goats which makes it that much more fun.

This is what happens when you ask Pres. Miles to take a pic-- we about died.

Hanging with President and Sister Miles-- some of my favorite people in the whole world.

Anyway, lots of our week was just driving and meetings, but it was still really good. The people in Taber really know how to get you pumped for Christmas! I love it! Small town for Christmas!

Anyway, love you lots and hope that you all have a wonderful week!

Quote of the week:"Our Savior's Atonement does more than assure us of immortality... and give us the opportunity to be cleansed from sin by repentance and baptism. His Atonement also provides the opportunity to call upon Him who has experienced all of our mortal infirmities to give us strength to bear the burdens of mortality." -Elder Oaks

Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 10:23 Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves-- to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.

Love,

Sister King