21 New investigators, say what?!?‏

Hello! 

This week was awesome!

Monday. Started it off by having a delicious BBQ with a family we've been teaching for a couple months. Brother Knauls is an amazing cook!! His wife is a member, and he's read the Book of Mormon, but he's still got a few concerns/questions he needs to figure out before he'll commit to baptism. He loves missionaries though, and loves what the gospel has been doing for his kids over the past couple months! We also found 2 new people to teach! Kendra and Caesar. They are so cool, and excited to learn more :)

 

Tuesday. We had lesson with Amanda, a lost sheep we found the other day. She has had such a hard life, but it was so neat to be able to bear testimony to her of the power of the Atonement, and how Jesus Christ truly can heal her emotionally, as well as spiritually. She was so greatful we came by and is looking forward to coming back to church. We also found a new lady to teach named Adjanae, who is super sweet and said her boyfriend's cousin just passed away and that it was the perfect time for them to learn more about the gospel! Miracle!

Wednesday. Went on exchanges with the MSTL Sister Hope (aka Sister AP). We got to have lunch with my favorite companion ever... Sister Mayfield and her companion Sister Decoster! They are both out with Bronchitis, so we went and blitzed their area for 5 hours and visited some of their investigators. It was super fun! We had a couple super powerful lessons in the evening.. one with a lady who they street contacted into, who is now dating an active member of the church, who didn't even know she was taking lessons..haha. He was there at the lesson and was practically beaming. God's timing is so incredible!

Ohh, and Sister Robinson in our area taught a follow up lesson with 2 of they our new investigators, and they called in all of their family in the house... all in all, there were 12 people in the house, all baptism age, and they all said yes to baptism!! Talk about miracles...

Thursday: We found another 6 new people to teach. We seriously can't keep up... North Las Veags is exploding! Bobby and Leann were especially elect, and were really excited to start meeting 3 days a week. She just got diagnosed with cancer and is really looking for strength right now in her life. 

Friday: Had a pretty good lesson with our investigator Boogie. He's started reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. When we asked how his prayer had went, he explained that he tilted his head up to the heavens when he was listening for his answer and God didn't say a single thing to him. We had a really good lesson about how to recognize the spirit, and he was excited to keep praying and asking!

Saturday. Oh man. Started out as such a hard day. We had 9 lessons set up, and almost every single one of them fell through.. even our members flaked on us... I was on exchanges with our Brazilian Sister missionary Sister Morceli. We kept working, and around 7:30 at night, we street contacted into a middle aged woman sitting out inside the front of her house. As we talked to her for a minute, she expressed that she didn't speak much English. We asked, "well, what language do you speak?" "Portuguese!" Sister Morceli: *freak out for a minute* "NOOO WAYY!! I speak portuguese!" Turns out, the woman also had just moved from Brazil! She was super sweet, felt the spirit touch her heart, and is another new investigator! Another miracle!! Ahhhh. Heavenly Father is too good to us. 

And Sunday was splendid as always :)

Lastly, i'm getting transferred tomorrow morning (a week early) and am going to be with Sister Hope! I'm a bit overwhelmed, and not sure what to expect, but i'm excited for the new assignment! And can't wait to work more closely with President and Sister Snow  :)

Have a great week!

Sister Kraus

pics. saying bye to some of my favorite people.

pic1. Janelle! love this girl!

pic2.Delimonts..requested I played devil went down to georgia while they sang it via karaoke

I love people!

Hello!

It's been a blur of a week. But it's always just so fulfilling. Every single day, we get to meet more and more of Heavenly Father's beautiful children that chose to follow Him and His plan! How incredible is that? I. love. people. Sometimes we don't love their actions, but seeing the incredible potential in each and every one of God's children is truly mind blowing.

We had a really neat lesson with our investigator Larry this past Monday at our members house. We talked about the doctrine of Christ from 2 Nephi 31, then invited him to be baptized on May 23rd.. though he said he wasn't sure he would be quite prepared for that day, he definitely is progressing and feeling the spirit as he reads and prays, and he even stayed for all 3 hours of church on Sunday! 

Tuesday we had exchanges with the Spanish Sisters, so I had yet another opportunity to expand my Spanish vocabulary... haha. I mostly ended up with a massive headache from trying to absorb it all, but it was a great learning experience! We also got to have a zone wide service project at a huge food bank, so that was pretty neat! There's a church wide Just Serve website that is getting started here, so we'll get to do other service projects in the future with different churches around the area! How cool is that? Also, Sister Espinosa and I street contacted a 7 foot tall man named "Big Beast."  He was standing next to a big black motorbike, wearing a cut off leather vest that had his name stitched in.. So when he said his name was Big Beast, I said "Ahh, I can see that. How'd you get that name?" He thought we were pretty funny and actually opened up to us and said we could have missionaries go visit him and his mom! Woot woot! 

Wednesday, Garebear went to the MTC! AHHh I'm so proud of him :) He'll be in Farmington New Mexico a week from today!!

Thursday we had Zone Conference. Wow. Just wow. So much revelation! President Snow gave us an amazing training about how special and sacred the scriptures are and how we can utilize them more in our personal lives and proselyting efforts. We watched a video called "Scriptures Legacy" which strengthened my testimony so much of the scriptures being preserved for us in these days. They are such a necessary part of our lives! I encourage everyone to look it up! :)

We also street contacted into a less active member who had just moved to Vegas and was wanting to come back to church. We saw her walking, right after we inspire knocked on someones door that totally wasn't interested. It was amazing to see how Heavenly Father works :)

The rest of the week was great, but i'm out of time! bit we had exchanges again Saturday and found a rastafarian man and his Jehovah's Witness wife that are interested in having us come back to teach them more! That should be fun.  Ohh and we started teaching a new guy named Boogie..nicknamed that because he likes music, not because he has a stuffy nose. 

Last but not least... I got to skype my familia on Sunday! love them to piecessss. :) 

A couple insights from studies/church: "Look up to God. Not around at what others are doing."

"Nothing will be with held from those who keep their covenants." 

"I have been sent to earth at this time because of who I am and what I have been prepared to do."

Love you all! Have a great week :)

sister Kraus

pic. 1. Our musical prodigy investigators Kaleeah and Josh

pic.2. skyping the fam!

I'm. super. happy.‏

Hello!

Yet another crazy busy week has gone by. Good news is, I've survived! And i'm getting better from my cold.. and i'm happy! Super happy. But super tired. Those two always go together on the mission. Because when you're working hard, you have the spirit, and when you have the spirit, you're happy.

So this week really was sort of a blurrrr...

We've been teaching an older man named Larry, and he is really starting to progress! We decided to  start one of our lessons with "Savior Redeemer, of My Soul" on the violin, then just ask him some questions to discern his needs and get to the root of his questions. It was so neat to feel and see the spirit working on him throughout the lesson, and at the end, he said he was really excited to start praying before he reads, asking specifically for understanding and to know the truth. He has never prayed out loud in front of us, or his wife (who is a member of about 3 years) but guess what.... HE DID! He gave one of the most simple, heartfelt prayers I have ever heard. It was beautiful. 

We had a lot of meetings this week... which are always really spirit packed, and therefore, I always leave feeling drained, and slightly inadequate, but it's always great to receive lots of revelation for our areas and for our missionaries! One of the main topics at our MLC was becoming a Full Purpose missionary. It was all about how we need to be fully converted, in order to teach others to become converted. We talked a lot about the WHY of the gospel, and the HOW. Why we are missionaries, why we want others to accept the gospel, and how we can teach more like the Savior so that others will fully understand WHY they must live His teachings. It was a stellar meeting :)

We then presented those trainings/councils to our zone the following Saturday, along with what ever we felt like they needed to hear. It's always such a humbling experience for me, being able to receive guidance and revelation as I prepare and study for the trainings Heavenly Father wants us to give. This really is His work! And He really does care about each missionary and their eternal progression, as well as those in our areas. He is SO willing to give us help, we just need to be open to it and earnestly seek it! 

The Elders had us all do a zone wide 3 legged race to build unity...so that was pretty awesome also! We've got a great zone :)

Welp, i'm about out of time once again.. but remember. THIS CHURCH IS GOD's KINGDOM ON THE EARTH TODAY., preparing us for the second coming. We must be anxiously engaged in missionary work at all times :) I love it!

Love you and have a great week.

Sister Kraus

ps. SHOUT OUT TO MOMMA KRAUS. happy 50th bday! :)

pics 1. Tiffany and James (recent converts from Anthem) came took us out for dinner! LOVE THEM!

pic 2. North Zone!