Walking the Streets of Cedar`

Well Just as the title implies, On friday the Missionary over the cars ond housing called us on Friday and said "We are taking your car for 6 weeks" WHAT???? Hmmm well it's for a good cause. The sisters in St george got crashed into and their car is in for repairs and because they share the car with another set of sisters we now have to WALK. Which was ok cause we were having great weather and Its great time to practice afrikaans while my comp prictises Portuguese (or as one of the families we teach says: Africanese and Brazilianese) In other words it takes us double the time to have a conversation lol but its good fun, I think I am slowly picking it up to understanding - NOT speaking.

So this week was slow, real slow cause I was a bit sick. So we saw our Colorado Baptism and He is now not sure if he can do it on the 12th cause he cannot get a plane ticket cheap enough. so we may move that one back but wow he is so ready and prepared for the gospel the elders in colorado have done a superb job. (Though he did go through 3 sets) But thats ok. The Church is still true.

So I was completely out of action on wednesday even though we had one lesson with a Recent convert but I could not do any more. And really feels unproductive. But sister allred cleaned the apartment and made me some chicken soup - yup I ate soup - been eating alot more of it out here, not too bad, still not my favoutite meal though. Thursday we had a SUPER great district meeting where we got to do some good role plays and sister allred was able to train us on using the pamphlets - we have not been able to put alot of the training into practise but its getting there I think.

Friday (besides getting our car taken away) was a GOOD day!!! We were able to teach 2 less actives and the members are so kind and feel sorry for us when we are out walking in the wind and gave us a ride - TENDER MERCIES cause we did not plan the day around walking - we planned having a car. Anyhow, we then had a lesson with one of our investigators that has a learning disability and so its been quite slow in teaching her - we are so used to asking questions the whole time to understand someones current beliefs but when we ask her questions she either says that she wants to know what we think or we go off on a completely different topic that has nothing to do with the lesson but she somehow see it as relating. But this time we taught simple and clear - using the pamphlet sort of and teaching her how to pray and really getting to the doctrine and it was so perfect and I asked if she would be interested in being baptized - she said that she would have to pray about it but she indicated that she felt a sense of belonging and a warm feeling in her heart as I invited her - we may need to teach her more about the holy ghost. But we were so excited! we actually made progress with her. Now to tackle her smoking addiction.

Then we contacted a house with a teenage girl who really wants to be baptised but she is never home so finally made contact with the parents who will help us set it up :) Super excited!!!

Now for the Funny part of the week. So we set up a time with this guy that wants to get baptised that lives in a motel at the moment, anyway so we go for our apointment (and we made it on time thanks to some members who felt sorry for us again - luckily cause it was on the other side of town, yet close to where we live) And well he was not there but he left us a note on a PAPER PLATE:

Funny Huh? It was EPIC!

Well we wanted to get sis Allred camera to also take pics but that was back at the apt so we walked back and luckily we were walking cause we started talking to some less actives that want to get back to church and sealed in the temple. And then we we got back to the motel the sign was GONE!!! WHAT??? I wanted to keep that... But there was a light on inside... So I wanted to knock on the door and see if they would answer.... grrr

Anyway walking has been crazy it snowed a bit yesterday and ag just been crazy.

hopefully going to meet a black south african who is feeling a bit home sick soon (if all goes well we do hope to start teaching her but we not even sure where she lives.) 

Conference is coming up I hope you all have your questions ready for a spiritual feast this weekend! I know we are! 

REad the first talk given of last conference about general conference.

But got to go - Feeding sheep today :)

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

Life in Cedar

So its been a rough week and I won't be sending a long letter. Life have been crazy. We had 13 of 22 set appointments fall through this week. But we have seen a few miracles.

Miracles:

Monday - Had a great lesson with an older couple, its fun when people ask us for reading assignments. Also we invited them to church and she said she will think about it and then indicated that he would not want to go but then he said he will speak for himself! hehe and guess what? They went to church on Sunday!!! Yippy!!!

Tuesday - One Recent Convert/Less active we are teaching is ready and excited to do family history and loved our lesson on the temple. AND went to CHURCH!

Wednesday - We asked a less active lady if we could practice teaching the lessons on her and she agreed :) and we received a referral for a man who is thinking about converting. And we were finally able to get a hold of this other referral who wanted to attend the single adult ward and HE WENT! but we were not able to speak to him :( But he does want to take the lessons :)

Thursday - A lesson we had to reschedule 4 times finally happened and he picked his own baptismal date!!! (But we are not sure if he will be ready by the 12th...)

Friday - Met a potential investigators mom and set up a time to teach the family (Part member family)

Saturday - Were able to speak to ALOT OF people and Had Estonian pancakes for dinner! (aka real pancakes, only with yogurt and jam and all sorts :)

Sunday - I was not feeling good at all, but were blest with so many investigators going to church and a referral for a baptism happening on the 12th of April but he has been taught in Colorado. Crazy cool!

Anyway thats that.

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

St. Pattys Day in Cedar!

Good Morning all!! Happy St. Patricks day... Yes I am wearing Green :P

So I have no clue WHERE the time goes!! This week FLEW by sooo fast. Thank you for all your emails, soory that I cannot reply to them all. 

So this week we found an amazing new investigator, well he has been going to church and he decided to meet with us with help from the members encouragement. We stopped by his house last saturday and he said he didn't need our help or anything. Well we are just glad that we were able to visit with him. So we put him on date for the 29th March!!! Yip a miracle and he is excited and ready to commit. Was crazy so we set up a time with him on saturday afternoon to teach him. So since our mile have been cut we have been trying to walk as much as possible. And so we were walking in the neighborhood in the morning and no one was answering their doors when we walked by this house and so I decide to say hi cause I want to learn to talk to everyone. turns out it was ANDREW! wow well I felt bad cause I didn't recognize him at first then turns out he was at our ward mission leaders house helping them out shoveling gravel.... WOW well we spoke to him a bit confirming that we will be coming at 3.... then the ward mission leader says oh and did you know it's Andrews birthday today. "WHAT? No! Did you know it's Sister Allred's Birthday today!!!?" Haha so luckily it was Pi day on Friday (March, 14 = 3,14 = Pi) so they invited us in and treated us to some apple crumble. Then the fellow-shipper who also lives down the street called our ward mission leader and asked him to go to the lesson which we had set up for later cause his baby sitter fell through. Well we looked around and were like well... could we just have it right now? lol So we taught him the restoration and it was good! A bit confusing cause he believes that Pres Monson is a prophet but he does not know for himself that the book of mormon is true. anyway we are working on that. So sister allred had this great idea that we "balloon attach his door" And so during our lunch we made this awesome surprise for him... well did I mention that Cedar city is also known for the wind! haha ok so we our awesome creation involves string... sounds absolutely crazy I know. well we were going to use double sided tape, and it wanted to stick too well to his car, so got hold of some other tape and our plans changed a few times of where we were going to stick it anyway, in the process of untangling... HE CAUGHT US!!!! AHHHHHH sooooo close we just needed 10 more minutes... Well it was good fun we stood talking to him for a good 30min outside. 

And we eventually put it up!

Look amazing right??? WORTH IT!

Oh and I am sorry you did not get the pictures I intended on sending last week... I think I may have closed the browser too sooon... these computers are a bit slow...

On other news we had Zone conference this week and wow there are alot of changes to how we should be teaching and planning:

Our nightly planning sessions now take an hour to and hour and a half as we use the "planning guides" in our planners/weekly planning points, it IS most effective in helping us to remember ALL our investigators during the week, especially those on date. They have also encouraged us to use our pamphlets more and more and literally use them as we teach with the pictures - short powerful lessons! That is the key! SHORT... lol still trying to get out of that habbit but I will get there. There are many changes... Change is good right? 

Oh an Sister Allred got her VISA!!!! at least she is going to stay till the end of the transfer and then she is off to Santos! She is Soooooooooooooooo Excited. we really need to work on her Portuguese now.

Oh and Happy birthday to dad for Wednesday last week! I did not forget I promise!! :D 

Well today I plan on doing some clothes shopping at the DI This will be my first experience So excited!

Anyways some of our investigators we are struggling to get them progressing but we are working on them - figuring out their needs.

Running out of time.

Love you all!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

Pictures Part 2

Pictures Part1

Spring up to CEDAR WEST

AS the title implies I am officially in Cedar and Spring time is approaching and we experience loosing an hour of our day :( literally... Time change!!! I'm sorta glad I'm not in Kiabab for that one reason that you would always have to tell people we are doing things at 5UT/4AZ Always had to put t\2 times in there. crazy. But I don't have to worry about that anymore :P Now I just have to worry about my lack of sleep!

Last Monday was just full of tears! I did not want to leave the sisters there that I had gotten close to and something else real special happened. So there is this lady with a non member husband. He grew up in the church sorta but missed the group baptism they would have in those days. well he is not a church going man but he thinks that ALL kids should go on a mission after school. Well he is a great guy and the best way that we get to talk with him is at dinner but he seems to be picky with who he likes cause last time he did not eat with the missionaries. and we went there for dinner on monday to kinda say goodbye, now I had only seen him on 3 occasions prior. but he is such a great man! I love him. And her! She surprised me with making MILKTART!!! Man I miss the taste of that stuff! It was not perfect, it was a bit lumpy and graham crackers are a bit more sweet than tennis biscuits but it tastes like home. And I cried it was just too awesome. then he was crying. It was just too special! I will never forget him!

I LOVE Cedar, Maybe not as much as Kaibab but I think it will come. It was so fun I was able to go on the transfer VAN!!! Whoohoo!!! Was so much fun! My trainer was also transferred outbound (Which normally does not happen) but she went up to Moroni! (Land of the Turkeys) lol So that should be fun for her haha so I will include pictures seperately.

So I sent the day with Sister Massengale and Sister Allred (my new comp) till the transfer van came back to pick Sister Massengale up. We had a jam packed day as sister M was saying goodbye to everyone. But it was good, I got to meet alot of poeple they were  working with and now I am working with. But we found out that our car would be taking away from us for a week cause some elders needed it more than we do... so I drove for a total of 5min then it was walking. and wow that was an experience. Though it does help to get to know the area a bit. it does not however help when we have dinner in Hamilton Fort (the far out area that justifies us having a car) EVERY NIGHT. Thank goodness the elders called us on thursday and said we could have our car back. But our car needs to go in and be fixed cause there are a lot of issues with it. But we will see what happens. But I love driving!!! I thought that it would be a shelp to drive cause I have been passenger this whole time. But its good! I love driving! Utah drivers are crazy though, and it was a bit of a shock coming from lil kanab to driving in Big Cedar. We went on a tour of Hamilton fort last week, we were trying to find this one house but we just kept on going and going, it was getting draker and darker and the roads would not make any sense. (cause it all works on co ordinates... or the grid system) well it is strating to make more sense now that it is everywhere and I am starting to catch where N E S W are. But these roads would just end... anyway was an adventure... still don't know where the house is though. will try from the other end.

So my new companion!!! Sister Allerd!!! No not from the polygimst Allreds. She is originally from Utah, Moved to New York!!! How cool!! So that is where she is originally from but just before she went to the MTC her family moved to Southern Utah!!! What? Well her call is originally to Santos, Brazil! she is an amazing missionary! I love her to bits! But she found out last week that her visa has been approved now they are just waiting for delivery/collection or something. Well that kinda means that she will be shipped off to brazil probably next transfer. Well we get along real great! We are trying to work on her Portuguse this transfer to get her ready to go to brazil. So you may be thinking what about her parents being only like 2 hours from where she is currently serving??? Well she got reassigned here after they had moved so I think she is needed in this part of the world for a reason!

Well its crazy here. I cover one more ward than in Kiabab (7+1). The Cedar west family stake. well with one Single Adult ward (31-45). Its really fun. We don't teach YSA but, we had a YSA girl who wanted to be taught by sisters and so sisters have been teaching her. She is so great Her name is Mayra (Said Myda) And so she had her baptism this last sunday. She was so prepared! the spirit was SUPER strong at the baptism, even before she was in tears the whole time. We managed to get some pictures in. And like the whole track team came to support her.

Well the work is a bit slow in these parts, but we have a solid investigator that we are going to pick up this week!!! We are super excited!

Well unfortunately its that time again. Time is up. Hope I can say more next week about Zone Conference that we are having :) 

Love you all! 

Challenge: Read and Apply Elder S Gifford Nielsons talk - Hastening the Lords Game plan! 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/hastening-the-lords-game-plan?lang=eng

And see what you can do to help the work progress!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

"Snot en Trane"

Well we got transfer calls on Saturday.. Aaaaaaand I LEAVING :'( And yes there was much tissue used for my "snot en trane" But it was the perfect way to end my time out here! So I will be heading to CEDAR CITY WEST!!!! And I will be trading places with Sister Massengale who came out with me.

And I need to apologize in advance for the lack of pictures as I have left it at home. Been packing ALL morning and all evening so things are being misplaced all over!

So this week was great! Monday we went shopping at the Thrift store again and I got a few cute skirts and a cute top!! (Don't ask me where I am going to fit it all) I have accumulated way too much stuff in the space of 6 months at least I have bought a duffel bag to help out.

Otherwise we have been pretty busy. Tuesday was a bit of a disaster though! All our apts fell through before dinner (actually dinner fell through too), and we were stressing what we should do for the evening cause we were teaching in moccassin and there was a ward activity happening so a member invited one of our investigators to that and thats cool, she is on date for baptism and its good for her to be with the ward. Well she was told that the activity started at 6... But NO it only started at 6 30 and she was there a bit early. she was also told that it was a dinner. But NO it was just a talk about letting go. So like everything went wrong. But we were able to speak to her a bit before the activity (we were not able to stay cause we had some other apts) But we were in shock cause she was reading from this book she found at the thrift store about the second coming and the millennium. She also had read to ch 7 in the book of mormon. One thing that stood out to her in the book she bought was that she needed to pay tithing in order to obtain the celestial kingdom. So we gave her a tithing pamphlet. We should have committed her to live the law of tithing, but we were too scared. But anyway then we rescheduled a time for friday (which she did not go to... But then she was At CHURCH for all 3 HOURS!!! WHAT?? She surprises me EVERY DAY!) Well the rest of the evening was less stressful but we were able to teach Yvette and her brothers and Judith! Judith is so amazing!! she has many great questions. Deep questions!!! But she needs to start coming to church more regularly. I will truly miss her though. She gets so excited and just wants to learn more. but it is all in the Book of Mormon but she is not reading that either.... Sigh I know sister Hee will work hard with her though! She is ready just need to take that step of faith sometimes.

Well the rest of the week was less eventful in a way, except we had Zone training and we found out that our mission will probably not get facebook or iPads anytime soon cause we need to use the rescourses at our fingertips. Like the Members - we have sooo many members we need to use them MORE. We also have Preach my gospel and The District and They are really encouraging us to use it more and more in our teaching. rumour has it that the way we teach is going to change a bit - they want the lessons to be shorter and more powerful. I LOVE PMG but I know I have to repent and use it more and more! After Zone training we had exchanges again and it really was well worth it! I stayed in my area and Sister Hee went to Washinington feilds. I had sister sordes again. I love her so much!!! We have alot in common. Though she had to wait 10 MONTHS before she could come out on her mission!!! took her THAT long to get her Visa. (And I complained about the 6 months I had to wait)

Well It was crazy this week. On Wednesday we taught Sue and Jim the Word of Wisdom. we were a bit late because Jim had just recently quit coffee and alcohol and he quit smoking a long time ago. Sue on the other hand has NEVER had a problem with any of these things!!! She even is drinking ROOIBOS TEA!!!!! She is importing them from Swanson. But seriously!!!! I know I was meant to meet SUE!! we swapped tea to taste and things... she says mine tastes fresher lol I love Red Bush Tea!!!! But I miss Rusks and Green Cream Soda and Lichi Juice and Indian Curry... And really missing rice. All Potatoes....

Ahh there is still sooo much that I wanna say about Melissa and But time is almost up and I have to get packing so I can still say goodbye to some people. But know that Kiabab is a WONDERFUL Place with many many GREAT and marvelous people I wish all could experience what I have experienced.

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States