Craziest week of my life‏

Wowww what a crazy ride it's been these last 2 weeks! Sorry I didn't get an email out last week, we don't really get a P-day anymore I'm starting to realize.. but it's totally worth it! I've learned so much in the past 2 weeks and have absolutely loved getting to work so closely with President Snow and his sweet wife Sister Snow. And my new companion Sister Hope is a rockstar! We are so similar it's almost creepy! We get along great and love working together. 

So i'll do my best to remember the order of events this past week...

First off, we got to go to the temple with all of the departing missionaries! I couldn't have asked for a better start to this upcoming transfer. The temple is a place of absolute peace and joy! What a blessing we have to be able to enter into the Lord's house and receive extra guidance and revelation that can help us throughout every aspect of our lives. I love it. After the temple,we got to give a training to the new District Leaders and Sister training leaders,then we were able to sit in at the departing missionaries testimony meeting. Wow, talk about a spirit packed meeting! It's amazing how similar and simple each testimony was. Almost all talked about their Savior Jesus Christ and how His atonement had refined them on their missions, as well as worked miracles in the lives of the people they taught. Every single blessing we have in this life is because of our Savior!! It was a good reminder to me of how simple and pure His gospel is. 

Wednesday morning we had an early start (4 am) and got to take the departing missionaries to the airport! Oh man, that part was a bit hard let me tell ya. Some were definitely not looking forward to leaving their missions. Luckily I've still got a good chunk of time...

We also got to pickup 14 new missionaries fresh from the MTC! This was definitely my favorite part :) They were so wide eyed, sleep deprived, and excited to be here in Vegas! We brought them back to the mission home, cooked them some breakfast, then gave them a short training about the importance of obedience. It really is everything in life! When we are obedient, and work hard, we have the spirit and can truly touch people's lives, and in the process, we get to feel true joy and happiness! How cool is that? 

Thursday was a fairly normal proselyting day which was really nice! I would much rather do the ministering then the administering.. but this calling calls for lots of both, so hopefully i'll get the hang of it! We've been teaching so many cool people lately! I'll just give you a quick update on the investigators we've been teaching.

We're teaching an amazing mom named Kim and her 2 kids Kelly and Cody. They are so much fun to teach! Kelly always has the living room set up with chairs and they all have their Book of Mormons out and read to go! Kelly listens to it on the way to school and has already gotten to the middle of 2 Nephi in just a couple weeks. She's 11! Her mom is also really great and actually happened to start dating a guy who is a member, right before she met the missionaries! how cool is that? They'll be getting baptized June 20th!

We picked up a former investigator named Ed this past week also. The member out to teach with us knew him from a couple months ago and we ran into him outside his apartment. He already knows Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true! He came to church and is super excited to be baptized towards the ends of June. 

We've had lots of other little miracles with part member families and less actives. I have such a strong testimony of retention work! We felt prompted to visit a member named Sister Nash and her grand daughter happened to be there who is in town for the summer and has been really looking for a change in her life. She said she wants to know more about why she is here and wants to discover who she is. This girl is 15. She is amazing. As we were about to leave she said, "thank you sisters so much for conversing with me." Ha she's a smart girl to say the least. 

Sunday night we also had super neat experience at dinner with the Davis family. It was brother Davis' birthday so he had a lot of friends/family over. A large portion of them weren't active in the church, or weren't familiar with it at all. One of the guys there at the table with us whispered that he wanted us to share a 3 minute message with his sister who was there, who hadn't been to church in years. Whoohoo! Golden opportunity. We whipped out our handy dandy ipads we just got and had the whole table watch the Because of Him video clip after they had finished eating. We bore simple testimonies of our Savior Jesus Christ and His church, and prophet on the earth today. The spirit was so strong, and several of the guests who weren't members thanked us, or asked us where to find the video clip so they could watch it again. It was amazing :)

And last but not least, we went and visited a random family in the ward on Sunday night we had never met. They opened right up and invited us in. They had been flying under the radar in their new ward, but were super happy we stopped by and want us to teach them the lessons and help them strengthen relationship with Christ. Woohoo! Thank you Heavenly Father. He truly is involved in the details of this great work. Thank goodness, because we'd be a complete mess without him! 

I love being a missionary. I love Las Vegas, and I love my Savior. This is His work! And it is truer then true. How blessed we are. 

Love you all and have an amazing week!

Sister Kraus

pic. 1. Got to have dinner with Daniella!! An incredible girl I got to teach in my first area who has almost been a member for a year! 

pic. 2. The cutest human being I have ever seen. We're teaching his older sister Brandi :)