Fill the world with Christlike love‏

Ok I'm real short on time this week.. so here are the highlights!

Monday we went Christmas caroling in the coolest tricked out trailer I've ever seen with members of our ward. It had 2 TV's hooked up to it that played the background music while we sang...We sat on hay bails and rode around the neighborhood knocking on doors and singing at the top of our lungs. It's interesting how many people answer the door when we're not the ones knocking...haha. It was really neat and everyone we sang was so grateful. Some cried, some recorded us. Man, I love the Christmas spirit. 

Tuesday we had an awesome lesson with Tiffany, who we've been teaching along with her husband for the past few weeks. She is so awesome! It's crazy how much love you can develop for someone you've just met. That's what the gospel does. Fills you with Christlike love for everyone!

Wednesday we taught some of our young little investigators. Stetson (7 almost 8) and Logan (9), along with a whole slew of younger siblings. Definitely my favorite lesson to teach every week. They are so smart, sweet, and cute! We had a lesson about following the prophet, and played a game of Monson says (similar to Simon says..). They loved it, and the spirit is always so strong with young kids!

Thursday we had a great lesson with Tawny, who wants to be baptized, we're just trying to get her husband Aaron on board. But speaking of Aaron, he helped cook $1000 of meat with some ward members for our ward Christmas party that was Thursday night as well. He's super awesome! The Christmas party was well attended with around 450 people there. The wards are huge here!

Friday we had MLC (mission leadership council) and received lots of revelation and innovative ideas. We always leave those meetings feeling like we're going to baptized the whole world!

We also met a guy named Ryan street contacting who said he's exploring the LDS church already, and that he goes to church a couple times a month in California with some friends.... our jaws dropped to say the least. However, he wasn't completely open to the idea of us coming over anytime soon, but said if we were in the area.. needed water or something, then we could stop in..I think we'll be in the area a little more then usual :) He said he's a cop and has explored lots of religions, and the LDS faith is the only one that he agrees with the standards. Pretty neat guy!!

Saturday we talked to lots of people, and lots of people weren't interested.. but hey.. it was still a good day :)

Sunday was my favorite day of the week. Our Muslim investigator Leila came to church for the second week in a row and is really starting to love it. We also put on a stake musical missionary Christmas fireside that night at 6:30 that turned out to be a huge success! We had 5 musical numbers put on by missionaries, then 3 talks centered on how Jesus Christ is the gift. Lots of missionaries brought people they've been teaching, and our mission president and his wife also decided to come! The best part though is that Leila also came and felt the spirit so strong during one of the songs that she had to leave the room and couldn't stop crying. Once she came back in, she asked us why she was crying, but felt so happy at the same time? We explained to her that it's because the spirit was bearing witness to her that Jesus is the Savior of the world. She gasped and her eyes filled with tears once more. She is also coming Christmas caroling with us tonight again! Wow, she is amazing :) The Church is true and Jesus Christ IS the Savior of the world. We are so blessed to have this knowledge. 

I love you all! Have an incredible week!

Sister Kraus

Complete Joy

Hello!

Ahh what a week. Seriously one of the happiest of my mission so far.

A few miracles that once again proved to me how aware Heavenly Father is of each of us.

First. Sister Mayfield and I were able to go to the temple on Saturday! (we get to go once every 3 months). One of the YSA members in my first ward, who is a convert to the church, had given me his aunt's name to take to the temple. We made our way down to the baptismal font to see if there would be anyone who could perform the baptismal ordinance for her. As we turned the corner, I ran into a lady who had been in my ward in Kingman. Whoa! So happy to see her. Turns out they were doing a ward temple trip that day. She also informed me that my recent convert Beth Childs was there as well doing temple work for her mom, grandma, and other relatives. My reaction: Get.out.of .town. I was so overwhelmed as I walked into the dressing room and saw her smiling face. My heart was filled with complete joy. It was seriously one of the best moments of my life. She stood there and hugged me for a good 2 minutes. She also was able to do the baptism for Kenny's aunt! I will be best friends with this woman for eternity. I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father orchestrated these circumstances to show His love for me and for Beth. 

The week before I also got to got to my first ward to play violin at a convert's mission farewell and was able to see Daniella, Stephen, and Cody (and his family) all at church! Made me feel like a proud little momma. There is nothing better then seeing how happy the gospel makes people, as they enter into the waters of baptism, then continue to live their covenants. 

I have also gained a testimony of fasting on my mission! We've been able to find lots of new people to teach lately, but haven't really seen them have the desire to progress lately. We had district fast so that we could help our investigators get set with a baptismal date.. and this week, 5 were set with a baptismal date and all but one came to church! David, whom we had met last week is one of them! He is so prepared and so excited to learn more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! We also started teaching an amazing couple named Jody and Tony. It's amazing how fast I've started to love these people! They are truly Heavenly Father's elect sons and daughters and we feel so privileged that he has entrusted us to teach them and allowed us to be a part of their lives at this time. 

I know this church is true with all my heart. I know that keep the covenants we have made with our Eternal Father will bring us complete joy in our lives and throughout the eternities with our families. He loves us so much and is so very aware of the details of our lives. We are so blessed to have the truth. Discover it, embrace it, and share it! #Heisthegift.

Love you all! Have an incredible week!!

Sister Kraus

pics. shout out to my momma for sending us sweet christmas advent calendars!

HE is the Gift! We're putting on a missionary fireside this coming Sunday centered around this video. It's awesome! Check it out :)

Roller coasters and a camel‏

Man it's December 1st. How nuts is that?

This week was sweet. We had 2 thanksgiving dinners (well one was lunch, the other dinner...  makes me feel a little better about the situation..) and lots of pumpkin pie! We also talked to loads of people! 127 to be exact.. and even though like 120 weren't really all that interested, we hopefully brightened their days! We also had a little game that we had to use the word 'turkey' in our street contacts on Thanksgiving, so that kept things interesting.

We also found 12 new people to teach! Man the Lord is just plopping people in our laps... our goal this week is to get all these new people progressing.. that was sort of our goal last week as well.. but lots of people were a bit busy with Thanksgiving stuff. We're learning really quick that you can't rush people here..

Soo I literally can't even remember what happened this week...but I know it was great, because i'm super happy..

Ohh  yeah, we had a lesson with a Chinese man named Mr. Park who has colon cancer. He was so sweet and mentioned that after we met him the first time (a few days prior), he took the picture of Jesus we gave to him, sat down on the couch and just prayed that his stomach would feel better and that he would be able to hold some food down. He said immediately after his prayer, he was able to feel better and actually eat! It was the day before thanksgiving as well, so he was beyond thrilled. We had a quick lesson with him and gave him a Book of  Mormon. You should have seen this man's face when we handed it to him. He was ecstatic and earnestly asked "is it for me??" He was so so grateful. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. 

On Thanksgiving day we decided to take a trip to the border of California after we quickly realized that no one in Henderson was interested in talking to us...Ok that sounds really apostate. We actually cover a town called Prim that is 40 mins away from our main area that we hadn't visited yet.. and soon realized that Thanksgiving day was the perfect day to venture over there. The town consisted of: 1 giant roller coaster, an outlet mall (which we can't go to...dang), and an apartment complex. We talked with about 10 people in the complex and actually found 2 people (Martin and Martin Jr.) that wanted us to come back and teach them more! Looks like we'll be going to Prim more often..

We had a super awesome lesson with someone we've been teaching named Liz. She also agreed to be baptized on January 3rd! We are so excited for her. We read Mosiah 18:8-10 with her and helped her realize that she really was ready to be, and wanted to be baptized. 

We met 2 people this week named Alma! One even said, yes my name is Alma.. like the guy in the Book of Mormon. We flipped out. She's clearly met missionaries before...

We also met a really neat lady named Trish who wants to take lessons and be baptized. She's a personal trainer and a manager for a gym. She told us we had no excuse for not working out enough and not eating healthy. She said it's all about making a choice....she clearly doesn't understand what the life of a missionary is like.. being force fed desserts all the time, being too exhausted to wake up before 6:30.. ect.. but hey, she's got a point. We told her she also has a choice to increase her spiritual strength. We promised her we would help her with that, if she would help us with our physical strength.. Best of both worlds :)

Well I'm about out of time..have an amazing week!

Spiritual thought: Put your trust in the Lord..and ye shall be made fat! (spiritually I hope..) Proverbs 28:25

Sister Kraus

Pics: roller coaster and a camel..

Happy Thanksgiving!‏

Hey HEy hey!

What a week it has been. Filled with miracles of course! Heavenly Father is so good to us.

I went on 2 exchanges, so wasn't in my area for almost half the week.. but it was great getting to know the other sisters!

I don't have much time so i'll just do the highlights:

Street contacting at night with Sister Defreitas, and got a super strong impression to turn around and knock on a certain door. We don't knock doors unless we feel so inspired, especially when it's late, but this prompting was like..strong. So we knock. A young man named Jared opens the door with the biggest smile I've ever seen. We talk a little and ask if we could come in and share a message about Jesus Christ as well as a blessing in their home. He excitedly said yes of course. He is a foster dad of 3 kids and they were all there with him in the front room, bit smiles, eager to learn. The spirit was so strong, and the 2 older boys said they had been wanting to learn more about God and had actually been to an LDS church before and loved it. We left them with a prayer and testified of how much Heavenly Father knew and loved them. They all wanted to go to church the next day and to continue to learn more. It was incredible. 

We had a similar experience with a young couple named Keith and Brittney. They were so kind and welcoming, and so excited to read the Book of Mormon and learn more about our church. 

We met also left a Book of Mormon on the porch table of the Mavady family's home, after we had knocked on about 10 different potential investigators houses. Our member was in charge of giving out the Book of Mormon, and she was so determined to do so. Sadly, no one we met wanted it, or already had one...However, here's the miracle. We went back a couple days later, with the same member, and Mrs. Mavady was just driving up. She came and greeted us and was so excited to see us! She was thankful for the Book of Mormon and invited us to come back a few days later. They are so  prepared!

This area is seriously just exploding with miracles. There is one street that is literally: member, investigator, member, investigator, member, investigator. It's so awesome. 

We also went to an amazing fireside last week. I had the opportunity to play my fiddle again. What a blessing :) Also, I came up with a new band name....it's like the definition faith... Secret (of) Ambition, but i'll probably shorten it to Secret Ambition. Ohh yeah. 

Love you all and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Sister Kraus

Ｇｏｄ ｏｆ Ｍｉｒａｃｌｅｓ‏

This week was straight up nutso. But it was a great learning experience :)

First off, I just wanted to say once more how much I absolutely love being a missionary. I have never been so happy in my entire life. Honestly, my least happy days are P-days because we have to focus on and worry about ourselves ( and the fact that cleaning,grocery shopping, and doing laundry aren't my favorite). Interesting enough, at the start of my mission this was my favorite day. As I've looked back and thought about why this, I've come to a conclusion. This work isn't about me. Shocking I know. My whole life I spent thinking about what I could do to become better. Often times on the mission, we do the same thing. How can I improve my teaching skills? How can I get more investigators or more baptisms or more people at church? These things are all good, and we should be doing our best to improve ourselves, but life isn't about us..It's about others. When focus on helping others, loving others, and bringing others closer to Christ, then naturally we will come closer to Christ as well. Jesus Christ never went about His life trying to improve Himself. He went to serve and bless others, and because of that, He was the only perfect, selfless person who ever lived or will live. 

Ok. Rant over. I just had to get that off my chest. 

So like I was saying, being a missionary is the best.

This week, Sister Mayfield and I went on a couple exchanges with the sisters in our Zone. I love these sisters! But wow, some of them have hard times. I had a particularly interesting experience where one of the sisters got super sick..right on our members doorstep.... (luckily the member wasn't home and we had time to clean it up before anyone saw).. I'll spare you the details, but yeah, definitely something we hope to never go through again. 

I went on another exchange with a brand new sister who has been out for 3 weeks! She was so excited to work hard, but still a little timid about talking with everyone, but she has an incredible testimony and a deep love for her Savior. Little did I know that she has been struggling with depression/suicidal thoughts for quite sometime now. She never knew her dad, is the only child and the only family she has is her mom and grandparents. She knew she needed to come on a mission to bless the lives of others. I have never realized how many people there are that have serious trials and hard times in their lives. 8 out of the 10 sisters we are over have had major struggles on their missions and back home, but you would never know it. My own sweet companion's parents are going through a divorce back home this very moment. My heart aches just thinking about it. The point of this email isn't to get you all depressed and sad.. the point is to help us all realize how much we need to lift each other. One of my favorite quotes from Richard G. Scott says "There are few things in life that bring as much joy as the joy that comes from assisting another improve his or her life." I know this is true. 

I also know that God is still a God of miracles today and He ALWAYS answers our prayers. 

Quick miracle of the week: Sister Mayfield and I went to Great Harvest Bread Co. for dinner on Wednesday and the restaurant is owned by a member of the church so we always get free food and are treated like royalty. It's amazing. Anyways, so the super cute Mormon looking cashier took our order. As we were waiting for our food, another worker came over to us and said "soo literally five minutes before you sisters walked in, my co worker had just asked me some questions about the church and is sincerely interested in learning more.." What a miracle! We were so excited. We talked to her afterwards and she was so sweet and said she would definitely call us. 

Experiencing these kinds of miracles every day is one of the huge blessings of serving a mission. I have been able to see how God's hand works in our lives more then ever before. 

Well I'm out of time and the elders are here to kick us off so I must be going. Have an incredible week!!

Sisterｋｒａｕｓ

ohhh. also, my dad paid me a visit this week (completely allowed by our new mission president.. fyi). It was the best. :)

9 months.. say what?‏

9 months to go! yikes

Hey hey hey!

Sorry it's been a couple weeks... there is never enough time to adequately express my thoughts/experiences from the week, so sometimes I just don't..but i'll do my best this week!

Soo, Anthem is like the promised  land. We've had so many miracles happen this week I can't even remember them all. Sister Mayfield and I have really felt that Heavenly Father is trusting us and is helping lead us to His elect! 

Our investigator Flora got baptized and confirmed this weekend and wow is she a special woman! The spirit was so so strong at her baptism, and all of her children were able to be there, as well as at church the next day. Speaking of church, 10 people we're teaching came! Sister Mayfield and I about fell out of our seats..it was amazing. And all of the talks were perfect for the people who came. I pretty much just sat there in shock the whole time. We also had a guy named Calvin come to church for the first time, who had actually walked a long ways to get here, and had taken lessons in Georgia for a while, then Paradise, and now here. He came in with his Book of Mormon and a big smile on his face, asking us if he was in the right place. We had to pass him off to the other missionaries, but he's such a cool guy and an incredible example of having a strong desire to find and know the truth, then acting on it. 

We were also able to find a ton of new investigators this week!! A couple of them have already said they want to be baptized and join the church. They are the cutest little newly wed couple ever..(though sitting next to them at church made me a little sick...). But yeah, they know the church is true and can't wait to continue learning more!

So I've started keeping a detailed study journal this week as well.. and oh my goodness..revelation station. If you don't keep a journal while you read scriptures, I highly recommend it! 

A few funny things for the week. We met a guy who told us his name was Dennis the Menace. We had a lesson with a member who started talking about Napoleon Dynamite, then Sister Mayfield and I realized he looked just like Kip, and could hardly contain our laughter, so I had to think of really sad/depressing experiences to keep myself from losing it. Works everytime. 

Ohhh, last week we had a lesson at the Osmonds (nephew of Donny) and also got to play music with a member of Gladdis Knight's choir, so that was awesome! The members here are amazing and so helpful! 

Spiritual note for the day: Jesus Christ was the ultimate example of mercy. He shows everyone compassion and love, no matter what we've done, or how we've acted in our lives. All He asks us to do is love one another as He did :)

Have an amazing week and shock people with your love and kindness!

Sister Kraus

pic: 

Flora's baptism!

Called to Serve in Anthem!‏

Hello!!

Wow it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Only as a missionary has this much craziness in my life been so exciting and enjoyable.

First things first! I've been transferred..again! I'm going to Anthem (close to Henderson) and I'll be in the Inspirada ward. Me and my new companion (Sister Mayfield, who I absolutely adore) will be getting double transferred in, so we're both starting fresh without knowing a single person. Should be pretty exciting! We've also been called as Sister Training Leaders, which pretty much means we get to go on lots of sleep overs with the other sisters.. also known as exchanges. :) I feel so inadequate to be given this calling, but I know it'll help me learn to trust in the Lord more and grow personally and as a missionary. Life's all about growing and feeling uncomfortable anyways right? Hopefully being in Anthem won't also make me grow physically.. if you know what I mean. The members are pretty wealthy from what I've heard....cheesecake factory anyone? Also, Marie Osmond lives in Anthem, so maybe she'd like to do a musical number with me in church....? haha yeah we'll see. 

So in the midst of all the craziness of transfers, I had to go to Vegas for 2 days this week to be in a tri-panionship while some other sisters were getting trained on how to be Sister AP's. yes that's a thing now.. pretty awesome! On Thursday we taught this 10 year old girl named Shania who is amazing. She had been invited to pray to see if she should be baptized on November 8th by the Sisters. She already knew she wanted to be because she knows the Book of Mormon is true and knows the church is true, but she decided she wanted to hear what Heavenly Father wanted her to do. She decided to do it Joseph Smith style and went and knelt down in her backyard on evening. After she prayed, she listened for the answer and she felt her heart fill up with warmth, and heard a quite, yet piercing yes in her mind. As she shared her experience with us, the spirit filled each of our hearts and let us know that Heavenly Father does answer prayers. No matter how young, no matter how small, He answers. What an incredible tool we have in our lives. Shania also told us she wanted to be a missionary when she grows up. She will change people's lives for sure. 

We also had an incredible powerful lesson with Carlos and his 2 little kids on Saturday. We read through 2 Nephi 31-32 with him, and as our member Sister Turney bore her testimony about the power and joy that comes into our lives as we live the gospel, Carlos got real quiet and his eyes swelled up with tears. As Sister Turney was speaking, he was able to hear Jesus Christ's voice in his head and could picture him there with us. The spirit was THICK. I will never forget that experience. Carlos knows the church is true and is so excited to be baptized on Nov. 15. As I was bearing my testimony that I wanted him to know that I knew without a doubt that the gospel was true, he said right back with confidence: " Well I want you to know that I know these things are true as well." Boom. Amazing. The church is so true.

Also, we had an impromptu musical fireside on Sunday night in Vegas that I was lucky enough to get to a ride to by some members of my ward. We through it together, but man it was powerful! I am blessed to be in a mission with some incredibly talented people. Also, hopefully all the youth there will now choose to serve a mission. :)

Well I am off to play sports and have a jam session with some other missionaries. Yes my life is amazing. Being a missionary is simply the best. :) 

Peace and blessings everyone!!

Sister Kraus

ps. Did you ever realize, that the song Called to Serve applies to all of us? Not just missionaries....think about it!

pic1: Carlos's kids Santiago and Emma. They're the cutest!

pic 2: These musical people are amazing!