"How many grams of sugar have you had today?"

HELLLOOOOO FAMILIA!!!

Okay, first of all... WELCOME TO THE FAMILY LITTLE RAE BAUER!!! Seriously so stoked about life right now, congrats Kenzie and Colby!

Anyway, this week was great to say the least. We were going, going, going nonstop! It was great!

This week consisted of interviews with President, MLC, 2 exchanges, a baptism and just a bunch of fun stuff!

We had interviews on Tuesday-- that was really good! I just love the Miles' so so much! Plus during my interview President said that he was going to write a book... so when that book comes out y'all better read it cause it'll be fire, plus maybe since he got that revelation in my interview he'll dedicate it to me. Probs not but it's worth hoping.

Wednesday was MLC-- SUPER SOLID! We had some really good discussions. We didn't really have anything new, all of our trainings were just ones that we have had in the past, but it was still super good. He said that we need to continue with the things that we're learning and make sure we are doing well at that before we move onto something else-- so we talked about teaching repentance and baptizing converts, effective studies, patience and the Doctrine of Christ. It was just an awesome meeting. Plus I got to see all ma homies, so that was pretty chill.

We went on exchanges with Sister Poll and Sister Robison (the other sisters in Taber) and that was actually super fun! We definitely were able to see some miracles! So Sister Poll said that her whole mission she hasn't been able to pick up an investigator even though she's done lots of finding. So we said a super sincere prayer to be led to someone who is prepared for us. We made a list from their potential investigators in their area book then we headed out. We prayed and picked 2 names, we went to the first and got a return appointment with them :) then I really like to knock on the surrounding doors too-- so we did that and we got into this house with this cute Native couple. We ended up teaching the Restoration and they said that we could come back too :) MIRACLES PEOPLE!! Then we went to the second name-- ha she was NOT interested at all, but it's still good cause we knocked on the surrounding doors and ended up getting a return appointment with 2 other families!! Oh man it was such a solid day! After that we went to a baptism that some Elders in our district had.

Ashley Hofman. She's like our only youth in Vauxhall, we took her on splits with us to a couple lessons this week.

That night we went out and taught our investigator David. He is super solid! He is a mennonite but is dating a lady in our Vauxhall ward. We went and taught him the first lesson and he loved it! There is so much potential with him! The only thing that we are worried about is that his church doesn't really like us all that much and we're worried that they are going to start saying stuff to him... but the church is true and he has felt the spirit so we'll see what happens!

On Friday night we drove up to Lethbridge for our exchanges. I got to have Sister Barlow come here with me :) That was real fun! And we had a really, really good day. We met with the Neufelds and with our new investigator Na. OKay, Na is just the best! We gave her the Restoration pamphlet last time we talked to her and she went through it hard core and was marking things that she liked and answering all the questions in the back. It was just a really good lesson with her, she is so prepared to hear about this gospel it's ridiculous!

So pretty much it was a crazy week full of miracles! Ha one funny moment of the week was when we were over at the Neufeld's-- the oldest son, Abe, was talking to me and he said "Sister King, how many grams of sugar have you had today?" And I asked him why and he said "cause you're always laughing and smiling." Ha so that pretty much made my day cause it's true. I am happy and laughing all the time cause I'm so dang happy, but it's not from eating sugar :) It's from going and being able to make other people happy. Anyway, that was just a fun moment.

Exchanges with Sister Poll and Sister Robison

Exchanges with ma girl Sister Barlow :)\

Sister Taylor for the win. Sent me a tag, totally gonna keep it forever.

STLs at MLC

love her :)

Reunited with my fav. I don't like doing splits every Sunday... 

Tender Mercy of the week: yesterday at our supper appointment I was talking to Brother Williams and he told me all about the BYU vs Gonzaga game. Literally the best news :) So that was real fun!

ANYWAYY... hope that you all have a fantastic week! And happy March! Can you believe that February is almost over?!?

Quote of the week: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." -Albus Dumbledore (heard this in church yesterday and thought it was great)

Scripture of the week: Alma 26:14-15 Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell. Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

Love you all and have a great week!

Sister King

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!

Hello lovely family!! 

Okay, so lots happened this week. First things first, on Monday night I got a call from President Miles. He told me that he was making our area an STL area and that he wanted me to be an STL (Sister Training Leader). So that was pretty fun, but also pretty sad cause he said that Sister Barlow would be getting transferred :(

Our zone before transfers. You could say we're pretty cool.

So for Tuesday and lots of Wednesday we were going around saying goodbye to everyone for Sister Barlow. On Tuesday night we got the calls from the Zone Leaders on what was going on. Sister Barlow is now in BC and my new companion's name is Sister Shields. She's from West Bountiful Utah and has been out on her mission for 16 months! So she's winding down. I've only been with her for a couple days but I already love her so much and I can tell that we're just going to get lots of work done here, I'm pretty pumped-- ALSO since they made this an STL area starting this week we get to have the car full time! Ha this past week was a little brutal. Apparently winter here starts in October... so we woke up on Friday to snow!! Not gonna lie I was actually super excited about it! Until I remembered that it was our walking week. Ha we made it out alive and it was actually super fun!

Walking around in the snow... it's awesome.

Okay, so today is Canadian Thanksgiving!! How neat is that?! Yesterday our Bishop had us over for dinner and boy oh boy,  was it delicious! Then we're having another Thanksgiving tonight with Sister English and Linda (OUR RECENT CONVERT!)

Oh my, I just realized that I may have completely forgot to tell you. Linda was baptized on Saturday!! Linda is the one who is special needs and is just the cutest person in the world. Saturday was a super special day-- the spirit at the baptism was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. It was awesome. Linda was crying through the whole thing-- there wasn't a dry eye in the place. That's one thing that has been super cool, she may not know everything or at least remember everything but Linda can feel the spirit more than anyone that I have ever met. And that is why she decided she wanted to be baptized, because she felt the spirit so strongly. 

Linda's Baptism

Yesterday, the confirmation was the sweetest thing as well. Honestly this whole situation has been a huge testimony builder... just all the obstacles that we had to get through to help Linda be baptized and then to see her face just beaming with happiness was one of the coolest things that I have ever experienced. This gospel is so true and it can help anyone. You can't deny that feeling. 

So we had the fumigation on Tuesday and we had to wash everything that we own...
so as a missionary this is everything that me and Sister Barlow own :)

I just think this is funny... there is road construction EVERYWHERE!

The biggest BOM of my entire life!!!

We were out walking around last night and came across this guy that was super, SUPER high. he saw that we had Jesus Christ on our tag then went into his car and gave us 2 paintings of Christ... they glow...

Anyway, so ya things are going great. We're heading to the mall today to get some more winter gear :) ha so don't worry I am staying warm. Yay for fleece tights :)

Quote of the week: "The light of Christ is a light that swallows the darkness, heals our wounds, and blazes even in the midst of the deepest sorrow and unfathomable darkness." -Uchtdorf

Scripture of the week: D&C 19:23 Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my spirit, and you shall have peace in me.

and one more scripture cause who could have enough scriptures am I right?? 

Hebrews 12:1 lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Love you all!! Hope you have a happy thanksgiving ;)

Sister King

2 new INFESTIGATORS

Hello lovely family!

So seriously get ready for the craziest story ever. The subject was not a typo... let's just say that this week the saying "goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" took on a whole new meaning.... Ha kind of a gross story, just warning you. But it turned out pretty cool.

She has an obsession with Elvis.

We woke up and there was this random poster outside of our apartment. We aren't complaining though.
 #yoda #yodalicious

So. On Tuesday literally ALL of our appointments fell through. It was pretty hard. So we decided that we would stop by this less active that we had been trying to meet with for a while. She was home, so we went in and met with her and shared a little message with her. While we were in there we noticed that there were these little red bugs crawling ALL OVER our legs... so gross. They were literally all over the apartment as well. So we made our visit a quick one then scurried on out of there. From her apartment to the car we were shaking out all of our clothes to make sure we didn't have any of the bugs with us, cause I was fairly certain that they were bed bugs... unfortunately I was correct... We talked with Sister Miles on the phone and she had us immediately go and wash all of our clothes and shower and everything just to be safe. So we did.

Waiting in the Laundromat

A bedbug :(

When you find out you have bed bugs so you take your second shower of the day and kick Satan in the boat and choose to be happy instead of upset about that fact that your place is now infested with bed bugs :)

Next day we woke up and Sister Barlow had a couple bites on her leg. Oh no... So we talked to Sister Miles and we had to wash all of our bedding and our clothes. We had to go to the laundromat and ended up spending lots of our day there. We were in the back studying our scriptures when all of a sudden we both got this craving for pizza.. Super weird, right? 

Luckily there was a Little Caesars right next to the laundromat, so that's where we headed. When we came back into the laundromat there were 2 guys in the front eating pizza as well-- they said that we should just join them. So we did. Long story short,  we ended up teaching them the first lesson. They have been trying to find a church that they want to go to and have just been exploring their options. PERFECT right? So we were like "that's literally what we do. just teach people about our church." So we ended up setting up a return appointment with them and we actually met with them on Thursday!! How neat is that? Their name's are Jody and Ammon and they're roommates. We call them our infestigators... too good right? So that was super cool because the day was starting out to be super crumby but apparently,  it was bed bugs that had to get us to find these two.  Ha as for the whole bug situation, our whole house and car are being fumigated tomorrow. Ha so that is just dandy. But It'll be great, the bugs will be gone.

This is Yee and Meow. They own the laundromat that we went to.
Got to know them real well cause we were there almost the whole day :)

Ha anyway... wasn't conference just the best thing of your entire life?!? I seriously loved it so much! Literally loved every single talk, but I think that the one that really stood out to me the most was President Nelson's. Men are that they might have joy. It's so true. I feel like just being on the mission I have really seen how life can be pretty hard sometimes, but it makes it so much harder when you don't choose to be happy. Choosing to be happy sounds so simple but it's so dang hard. When we focus on the Savior we will be able to find that happiness that we are looking for-- even when times are difficult. He also mentioned that us missionaries aren't out here just to make our number in the church bigger-- we are out here to bring more joy to the world. I have the biggest testimony of that. Seeing someone embrace the gospel is great but it's that happiness that they have which makes it totally worth it.

We watched priesthood session during our dinner at Sister Leonard's house. We had this yummy Indian food.

Our lovely zone

Our lovely zone

I just loved conference a lot and there is too much to say about it. I'm so grateful that we have a living prophet and apostles on the earth today. 

Love you all very much!! Hope you all enjoyed conference as much as I did. And remember, don't let the bed bugs bite :)

Scripture of the week: Romans 8:37 We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Quote of the week: "He is perfectly positioned to lift us and give us the strength we need to endure our afflictions. We have only to ask." - Elder Oaks

Have a fantastic week!! And good luck to Kathryn and Trevor :)

Sister King

"Last door, 4th floor"

Hello hello!!

So it's Monday again... crazy how fast Monday's come.

But anyway, first things first. The subject line-- this was my favorite pun from this week. There is this super cute old lady in our ward named Sister Longbotham (not to be confused with Longbottom from Harry Potter) but there is this less active guy named Rex who is pretty much wanting to marry her... but for her there is no rex-ual attraction... ha I laughed too hard at that one.

Linda is adorable and made me this super cute vase :)

The world's largest shower-- it's like 2 by 2...

Just a cute little house we found this week

Ok so these "car2go"s are all over the place here. I don't know if that is just a Canada thing or if it's in the states...

downtown 

In case you are ever wondering what fun things are going on in Calgary, this is the information board!

I forgot to mention how cute Sister Francis is. Somehow it came up that Grandma King always had
lemon drops and how I loved them... she gave me a bag before I left Lethbridge.

But anywayyyyy this week was pretty good. We didn't have the car so there was lots and lots of walking. It also just so happens that it was the coldest week thus far on my mission. YAY. But no it was actually super fun. Accomplishment of the week; it was HORRIBLE weather on Wednesday-- super rainy and cold, and yet we were still out and about doing things. We walked 15 kilometers. So even though it was a long and wet day we still felt like we had given it our all. When you get home at the end of the day and you can't keep your eyes open, that's when you know that you worked hard :)

So ya, this week was definitely us finding the tender mercies cause it was pretty rough... But hey, we met some very VERY interesting people while we were out tracting and street contacting. On Tuesday we were just having a super slow day, honestly just wanted the day to be over and we were just sitting on the bus when this little girl named Betty came and sat next to me. She was just super cute and had the most energy and I just loved her. I felt like that was the Lord just giving me one little confidence boost to get through the rest of the day, and it totally worked. That day I helped Sister Barlow give away her first Book of Mormon while out on her mission. That was pretty sick and she was super excited about that! Going along with the bus tender mercies we made it a point this week to try to talk to more people on the bus and just make them feel good. We aren't allowed to proselyte on the busses unless they ask about it, but we have been trying super hard for people to just feel uplifted after talking to us. And when we got to our stop the bus driver talked to us before we got off and said that he was listening to us talk to people and he just wanted to tell us to keep smiling because we really are making a difference in people's lives. So again, the Lord coming in clutch with the confidence boosts!

So we have started this fun game where we see who can give away the most pass along cards/ BOMs/ pamphlets and whoever wins at the end of the week the other person owes them a treat. So that has been a fun motivation for us both to just talk to literally everybody! We have been killing the street contacts this week! It's been pretty awesome.

We met with this less active in our ward-- that was also super interesting. The first thing that she says to us when we walked in was "I'm looking at 2-10 years in prison and I'm totally content with that." Ha so that goes to show you what an odd meeting that was. Don't worry I think she'll be fine.

We had some good lessons this week with Linda and Dara. Linda is on date for October 8 and Dara is on date for October 15! So we're pretty excited for what we got going on. They are both super adorable and you can see the difference in them from the first time I met with them to now... it's incredible!

Lastly, WASN'T WOMEN'S CONFERENCE LIKE THE BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD?!?! I seriously just ate the whole thing up, it was so good. Leave it to President Uchtdorf man! His talk was amazing! All the talks were great but I especially liked his. When he talked about going to the "last door, 4th floor." Never has a little statement like that been so relatable. It just makes me feel like pressing on even when it's hard because eventually you will find that person that is so ready to meet with you. I'm so pumped for conference this week you have no idea!!!

Anyway, this upcoming week is going to be great. We're just going out and finding more people to teach :)

Love you all and hope that you have a fantastic week!

Quote of the week: "If you're going to serve others or worship the Lord, you're the happiest and most effective when you do it with all the joy and energy you have."

Scripture of the week: D&C 123:17-- Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

-Sister King :)

Canned-ada

HELLLOOOO FAMILYYY!!!

To say this week was good would be an understatement, things are starting to happen here!

Okay so this week we were heavily involved with the Calgary Canned Food Drive (hence the subject line). Lets just say that was so much fun. My arms and legs are so sore from moving all the food-- which is good cause that means that there was a lot. 450,000 lbs to be exact. All of us missionaries here in Calgary got to help out with it, and the Mayor of Calgary actually came to the station that we were at so we had the opportunity to meet him... ha or he had the opportunity to meet us. I've heard it both ways :) Anyway, he's like this super cool guy who is voted like best mayor in the world or something like that, and I've heard that he is one of the only Muslim mayors in the world. How neat is that?

The food drive-- the mayor is the one in the middle. 

So ya this week continued to be great, we had zone conference on Wednesday. That was SUPER good!! President and Sister Miles are seriously the best! It was one of the best meetings I have ever been to. We discussed the talk "None Were With Him", by Elder Holland, and just had this super awesome discussion on the Atonement. It just made me that much more grateful for my Savior and for everything that He has done for me and my family. Seriously we are so blessed. Left that meeting just feeling like I could do anything! 

Zone conference :) Our zone is bombbbb

Ha on a completely different note, I've seen a LOT more this week than I wanted to. Ha we went to dinner with this cute old couple in our ward and the guy was having trouble getting into the car so I went and helped him and his pants fell completely down.... ha so that was super weird. And also, we went tracting this week and tracted into this naked gay guy.... ha also pretty weird. But hey it's stories like that, that make the mish right?

 

Okay so there was also some super awesome teaching going on this week. First cool story was when we went and taught our investigator Linda. She's the one that is special needs and doesn't need to be baptized but she wants to so badly. Anyway, we were there teaching and her guardian apparently was having a super hard day, and I felt like I should share one of my favorite scriptures with her: Isaiah 41:10 and 13. So, I shared that with her and as soon as I started reading she just starts crying. That apparently was the scripture that the missionaries shared with her when she was choosing if she wanted to be baptized or not. Holy smokes, the spirit was so dang strong, it was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. What are the odds that is the scripture that comes to my head?? Seriously the spirit is just the coolest.

Second cool story from the week; yesterday we met with this guy named Tony. He's a less active member in our ward. He got baptized when he was 16 but then didn't really stay. He's now like 30-something and is wanted to realign his life again. So we met with him and had a super awesome discussion with him. Halfway into our lesson he just kinda breaks down and said that he didn't plan on telling us but he completely opened up and told us what he is dealing with right now. He's going through so much and it was cool to see that he really trusted us. He said that he didn't plan on telling us that but that he felt like we could really help him, so that was awesome!

This week we also were able to go on exchanges. So our STL's are actually the Spanish sisters. Ha so I got to go and teach some Spanish families. Ha man I should have taken Senor Bingham more seriously.... no but that was actually way fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

When you see a pink couch on the side of the road, you have to sit in it.

We got a car!!! Also, found this creepy santa and had to take it :)

So pretty much this week was just packed with awesomeness. It really was such a great week. Oh and fun fact: We get to share a car with the Elders! We switch every other week. Ha so that is pretty exciting as well!! 

Anyway, just love you lots! Miracles are happening here in the Calgary 5th Ward!!

​EXCHANGES!!!

                 ESL with Hermana Ratliff!! Fun fact: I worked at BYU with her little Sister, Nicole. 

                                   The city is BEAUTIFUL!! All the leaves are starting to change.

Quote of the week: "No matter how often or how far we fall, the Light of Christ ever burns brightly. And even in the deepest night, if we but step toward Him, His light will consume the shadows and reignite our souls." -President Uchtdorf

Scripture of the week: Omni 1:26-- And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. 

Love ya and hope that you all have a fantastic week. I pray for you guys every day! :)

Sister King

This is the Myer family. They always give us the "evil eye" So we had an evil eye competition. I won.

A new elder in my zone was in Haylee Harrison's district in the MTC!