Laurel's Missionary Journey

Hey friends! Sister Kitchen has had the flu since Thursday night, so nothing has happened really. I have written 70 pass-along cards, read 250 pages of the Book of Mormon, reorganized our entire apartment three times, read 100 pages of "Jesus the Christ", and deep-cleaned our apartment 5 times. Sister Kitchen is doing okay, and so am I. We are keeping in really careful contact with our mission doctor and we are resting and staying inside so no one else gets sick. So far I haven't gotten it and I don't have any symptoms, but we don't have much time to email today because of the situation. Because of that, I will only be able to email back a few people- mostly family. I love you all and I will talk to you next week! Thank you for all your love and prayers, and hopefully I will have more news next week. :) And hey! Read the Book of Mormon?!

Everyone- My girls have been baptized. I cannot even describe to you all my feelings as I watched Hayden and Janea enters the waters of baptism. Sister Adams and I first knocked on their door back in September, and on January 20th they became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They made promises with God that they will always remember Him, and that they will follow Him their whole lives. They were then confirmed on January 21st, and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. In all of this I have reflected back on God's great love for me. This right now are not perfect, far from it. We all continue to struggle every day, and there are so many things around us that could bring us down. But this work is worth it, because we get to see miracles. We get to be around people like Hayden and Janea Burton. We get to love them and be there for them and teach them, just as the Savior would if He was here. He knows that we are not perfect, and yet he still chooses to allow us ...

Howdy All! Interesting weeks always make for interesting memories. We are continuing to work and do all that we can to help the Lord move His work along here in Fox Run! Some very wacky medical things happened that made this week rather difficult. On Wednesday I started to feel really shaky and dizzy. It got to the point that I really couldn't talk much and the right side of my body was getting numb. This was a little bit of a source of alarm, since I generally enjoy being able to move and think clearly. We called the mission doctor, Elder Labrum, and he told us that it was most likely a hypoglycemic attack? Crazy stuff. The result of that is that I am totally fine! The reason I bring this up is because when we started realizing that this was going down, we were literally walking into an appointment with a new investigator family named the Kempfs. I had no idea how we were going to be able to help or teach them, and they are at a pretty desperate place in their lives. They needed s...

Friends! Family! Various Loved Ones! This week has been one for the books! So much is going on and we are so so blessed.  Update on all the amazing people we are working with: -The Burton girls are still on schedule for their baptism on the 20th! They didn't get to do their interviews because they got sick, but they will do it this week and it will be wonderful. I love them so much, my heart just about explodes every time I think about it!  -Autumn Herndon now has a baptismal date for March 3rd! (Sister Adams' birthday!!!) She is so amazing and I love teaching her. It feels like I am sitting across the table from my Sister Jessica and testifying to her about God's love for her and how important she is. I want them to meet and I want them to be best friends and I told Autumn all about Jessica and she says she is down to be besties. I am just so honored to be a part of Autumn's story, and it is such a tender mercy of the Lord to send us someone that rem...

Howdy Y'all!  First of all, happy 2018! It is so weird to be typing that. I remember when I first got out last May, thinking that 2018 was so far away and would never really come and yet here we are! It is officially a new year.  This week has been full of adventure. The Burton girls are really excited for their baptism! We had to move the date to January 20th because our Ward will be having a regional broadcast on their orignal baptismal date. That does not worry us however! The girls are going to be having their baptismal interviews this week, so extra prayers would be wonderful.  We also started teaching an AMAZING girl named Autumn Herndon this week. She reminds me so much of my sister Jessica. She loves music and singing, and she has been in choirs basically since she could walk. She is really good friends with Daniel Kern, a member in our ward. She has been coming to church for a few weeks now. Originally she came to sing in our choir for a Christmas p...

Howdy Everyone! This week has been completely, as Sister Burton would say, wack-a-doo! So much has changed in just a short amount of time. I met my new companion- her name is Sister Kitchen. She is from Utah and she is very excited for the work and to be a missionary.She is also a fan of Dear Evan Hansen so we are pretty good friends already. Being a trainer is a very different challenge than I was expecting. There are lots of positives to it, like remembering a lot of the basic training I got when I was in the MTC, and revisiting a lot of fundamentals of missionary work. It's almost like in English class, when you feel like you know English and you speak it really well and then they start talking about grammar rules and you realize maybe you didn't understand English as well as you thought. BOOM that is what training is like. Sister Kitchen is doing really well though. In her very first lesson she set a Baptismal date with Shelia. Shelia is going to be baptized on March ...

Hello all of you lovely people! This week has been full of so many good things and so many hard things! But life is like that, so it is all good. :) Haley Burton had her baby! We got to go see little baby Christopher Mason this Wednesday, and he was absolutely adorable. He had fire-truck red hair, which was unexpected because his mom is African-American and his dad is a blond Caucasian. I wish I had my camera because I would have taken pictures! He was so cute though. We also started teaching an amazing lady named Shelia this week. She is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese, so if you are keeping track that means that I have now taught in English, Gaelic, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Portuguese. Who says going state-side means you are going to only teach Americans?! She is amazing though. She got interested in the church because her father recently was baptized, and when he was his entire life changed. He became much happier and loving, and Shelia wanted that positive change for her ...