May 11, 2015

Hello family!
How is everyone doing? It was so good to talk to you over Skype and be able to hear your voices and see your cute, smiling faces! Ah! It was wonderful. I am already looking forward to Christmas when we get to do it again! This time you guys better be out of church. :) I hope that you all had a good week and a good Mother's Day. Mom, especially you. My whole heart and soul was with you all day. I hope you know how much I love you and how grateful I am for you. There is not a better mother out there! Yes everyone, I have the best mom and I will argue with you until the day I die. Not kidding!
We had a pretty good week here in Waxhaw! The weather is heating up and the humidity is starting to rise. I am not super excited for it, but I am loving the sunshine! I am just grateful that I am in an area with full car. I think I would be dying if I had to be on bikes right now! This week Sister Ekstrom and I were able to go to the doctor and check up on her foot! She is finally off crutches and just has a little brace so we have been able to walk a lot more and I know that she has really enjoyed that! We are still pretty slow, but getting rid of the crutches was the best thing ever!
We were tracting for a few hours last week and came upon this house. A really nice lady answered the door and her English was kind of broken. Come to find out she is from Russia and speaks mostly Russian haha. Of course I got super excited because Kaiden served there! We began to tell her what we do as missionaries and I told her that my brother served in Russia and speaks Russian. She was very impressed and wanted to learn more. She doesn't know any religion words in English, but we told her we would come back another time and help her understand. We were able to get a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets in Russian and there is one member in our ward who speaks Russian and said that he would be willing to come out with us and translate so we are super excited for our lesson with her!
We also had a really neat experience last night! We were going over our weekly goals and needed 1 more 'other lesson' and so I looked over at Sister Ekstom and I said "Sister, we are going to get this one other lesson, no matter what we do." She looked at me and laughed because it was 8:45 and curfew is 9:00. We said a prayer right there in our car and waiting for a few minutes. All of the sudden, we both came to a conclusion that we needed to go visit this one house. We had never been to this house before, but when Sister Ekstrom broke her leg, this lady who lives at the house gave her and her other companion a ride to their house because she couldn't walk and so we knew that she was a nice lady! We decided to go over there and give it a shot. There was a cop car in the driveway so we were a bit worried because police men aren't the most loving people in the world, but I was all about it because of my love and interest in prisions and cops and all that weird stuff, so I was like, I got this. We knocked on the door and the cop answered. He was shirtless and had tattoos all over. We were scared, but he shut the door and came out on the porch. We asked if his wife was home and he said that she was asleep. We ended up talking to him on his porch for 25 minutes and totally having a full on lesson with him about the Restoration and about the Book of Mormon. He had lots of questions and was super excited to learn more. He claims that he has never felt the spirit in his life and that he is an Agnostic Christian. (If that is even possible) Anyways, we testified to him and invited him to be baptized, and everything was just amazing! We were able to get a return apt. and we teach him tomorrow night! He even prayed at the end of our lesson! He was so nice and so friendly! We walked away feeling so happy and edified. It was such a testimony builder to me because I truly had a desire to get 1 more lesson and I KNEW that if I truly wanted it that bad and if i truly had strong enough faith, that the Lord would answer me. It was such a simple thing, but yet it meant so much to me that the Lord answered my prayer and led us to a house where someone was actually willing to listen. I know that the Lord will truly bless you with whatever you may stand in need of and he WILL answer your prayers if you put your FAITH in him and you truly pray with REAL INTENT and a DESIRE. It works, I promise you.
Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week! We had zone meeting and that was really good! Our monthly fundamental is all about planning and how we can become a better, diligent missionary. Diligence has had a whole new effect on me. President Craven told me when I first got into the mission field that diligence is the perfect use of the Lord's time and I have truly seen that come to pass. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, is the Lord's time. I need to make sure that I am using every minute of my day the way that the Lord would use it. It just gave me a stronger desire to try to become a better missionary and do my very best with the time that the Lord has given me. We also had a bishop come speak to us about the difference between Careful vs. Casual and that was really good! It amazes me how casual we are. How casual members of the church are in their language, actions, thoughts, everything. Myself included, we are so casual and we need to step it up! As missionaries here in the NCCM we aren't allowed to say the words "awesome, cool, yeah, crap, and you guys" and man, it's been a transition, but an eye opener for sure. You would be amazed at how many times you say the word "cool" and "yeah" in one day. I was blown away! I am doing lots better now but we are just so casual in our language and everything that we do and I have been really trying to work on that! I finally got all of D&C 121 memorized and all 10 'how to begin teaching' bullet points of Preach my Gospel so that's been really fun to recite it and actually have it memorized now! That is only something my mission does, and I love how President Craven is helping us become extraordinary missionaries, not just ordinary missionaries! I truly feel like I am set apart from all other missionaries. I'm sure every missionary says that they are in the best mission and have the best mission president but they don't know anything until they come to North Carolina and have President & Sister Craven to work with! Ah! They are unreal!
Mom, couple things from you! First off, I hope you have a wonderful birthday on Wednesday!! You better party hard without me! Dad, you asked about what I typically do on P-days and honestly it’s nothing haha. Today we actually get to go out of our area and go bowling because we have a district activity! I am super excited for that! That will be the first like "fun" thing I have done on the mish thus far haha! We usually wake up, study, go to the grocery store, wash & vacuum the car, clean the apartment, have lunch, go email, and then be ready to proselyte from 6-9. We actually studied outside today so that was really nice! We put a blanket out on the grass and had a good time being in the sunshine, although I was sweating my face off. It was good to change it up a bit though! Mom, one of the members here has family in provo and all over Utah, here name is Melissa Marsh, Estes, something like that.. she has been married and divorced twice but she is single with like 7 kids and her maiden name is dahly? or something like that and don't we have some neighbors with that last name? idk she just wanted me to ask haha. Anyways, see if you can find anything out about that. Second, If you could send me those EFY CD's or Motab, that would be wonderful... :) Third, could you send me the banana bar recipe. Fourth, could you make sure that Harmony & Dawn are getting my emails, and or give me their emails. Fifth, could you send me the family email/birthday sheet. Sixth, I love you and can't think of anything else I need right now! haha sorry i have lots of favors this week! Thank you for all of your love and support! Seriously, I feel so blessed to be able to have you all in my life. I don't know where I would be without you! CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK: watch the Mormon message entitled, "Earthy Father, Heavenly Father" and I want you all to let our daddy know how much you love and appreciate him this week. I also want you to get down on your knees and thank your heavenly father for everything that he has blessed you with. Say a prayer of 100% gratitude, and that's it. Dad, I love you so much. So much. thank you for everything! I want you to know how much I love you and how grateful I am to call you my father. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Choose the right, keep doing what's right, and keep saying your prayers! I am about to go bowl my life away so wish me lucky! Bowling shoes and a dress is gonna be real cute! I can't wait to hear from you all next week! I know that our Savoir lives and loves each one of us perfectly. He has a plan for us and knows exactly what we need, when we need it! Turn to him and use the atonement every single day and you will succeed! I love you! Sending all my warmest hugs & kisses your way!

Sister Kyla Worthington