This was a pretty great week:)

The Sisters meeting was pretty great wasn't it? I have to say though, that it made me a little homesick because we went to the church and all the moms and their daughters were there, but I survived. I love that we sang "Teach me to walk in the light" there. That is what we sang with those two little girls in church last week.  It made me realize Heavenly Father really is looking out for me. He knows me and he knows you all too!  We went to the broadcast with one of our investigators and her daughter. She has been investigating the church for about 4 years and is probably more active than most of us active members:) We love her!

This week has been pretty great! We had an incredible miracle! Sooo the mother of the family that came to church last week and the two girls that sang with us, called on thursday morning during personal study. She was asking about getting the Elders number to help her move some stuff and such, but then she just started talking about church. She told us that she had been really nervous to go to church last week because she was afraid it had been so long since she had attended and that she was going to feel out of place, but she said, "you know what, I felt so comfortable! I felt like I had gone home again" :) She wants to come back to church and she wants her daughters to be in primary and young women's. How incredible is that? I mean, I didn't even ask and she just told me. She had no idea how many prayers and fasts had gone into that! I am so excited to see where this all goes.  It was a huge miracle!!

Other than that we didn't have much of a teaching week. We really had one other lesson this week. All of the others fell through. That made the week a little bit hard. Saturday we helped a member take down wallpaper in her kitchen. I have learned I really don't like wallpaper. I am not sure who the genius was that came up with that stuff, he obviously liked to watch people suffer:) Hahaha We had fun though because we just love her so much :) She is the best!

We did have a funny thing happen this week though. We had been praying to get a referral and we got a media referral.  They are the best referrals! They are basically people reaching out to us!!!! We were so stoked. We went to the house with the movie and Book of Mormon and some lady answered and let us in. She gave us Girl Scout cookies, told us all about her life....we were actually looking for her son (he requested the visit), but he was not there. She was not interested, but it was hilarious. She had Obama everywhere in her house. When I say everywhere, I mean framed pictures and bobble heads.  Hahahaha, it was a really funny experience because she showed us her wedding album and tried to give us tickets to a concert. Haha, it was a good laugh that we needed and tonight we actually have an appointment with her son, so that is good!!! :)

President Wilson came this week and had companionship study with us. Which was soooo intimidating...but sooo good. It felt so good to talk to him and it kind of felt like I was talking to dad:) I love than man, he is so amazing! Mission Presidents are the best!

That is so crazy that Ty started his mission papers!!!! Yay!!! I am really jealous that spring break was great! I want to go snowboarding! Actually, I want sunshine! Today it has been a lot nicer than it has been lately. Yesterday it rained ALL DAY LONG!!! It is getting better at least there is no snow:)

Lately, I have finished the gospels in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and it has changed my life! First off, Jesus Christ is incredible and second off, there is so much we can learn from his life. His life applies to everything. Lately I have been thinking about my favorite story. It is in Mark 5:25-34, is says:

25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith had made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

What I love about this story is that this women just touched his clothes and didn't expect him to even know or talk to her. But Jesus Christ is so loving that he took the time to love her and to talk to her. As a missionary, I think others get super caught up in getting baptisms and getting numbers that they forget the people behind those numbers. I have decided that sure baptisms are great, but our purpose is to bring others close to Jesus Christ. If that is by baptisms awesome! If that is by saying hello or doing a little service for them, awesome! This story taught me a lot about my purpose as a missionary. I am supposed to represent Jesus Christ. I am supposed to act like he did. Cool, huh? I love being a missionary! It is so cool to see people as Christ sees them.

Well, I love you all so much and I miss you a whole lot! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Siepert :)

Happy Birthday to ME!

Hello,
I did have a good birthday and I loved all the birthday wishes! I have to say the best birthday present wasn't a present at all:) (Cheesy I know) But we had a crazy, miracle happen. Our investigators C and B came to church with their mom and dad and three cute younger siblings. They Came! Sister Rushton and I sang with them in sacrament meeting.  We sang "Teach me to walk in the light". They sang the first verse and we sang the second verse then we all sang the third verse together. Nothing to complicated but it was soooo good. They did soooo good! The spirit was so strong  and it was so awesome to see them all taking the sacrament together all dressed up. They we all glowing when they left, the mom mostly. She wants to be sealed to her husband so bad, but he is not interested in the church and his father is a pastor of another church. They talked about coming again even if their dad will not come. Yay!! It was such amazing opportunity and it was great how much the ward supported them. They all were so nice and kind to them. They all said hello and made them feel like they belonged. It was really a dream come true moment! :) Oh and funny thing was that after we sang, when we were walking back to our seats B says, "They didn't even clap for us". Hahahahaha, Heavenly Father sure does love them and loves us too!

Saturday we spent the whole day with the training sisters. They helped us out with the new planning guidelines because the mission department just came to our mission and introduced some new things.They are mostly a new way/better way to do things. It was great I got to talk to Sister Romney (my old companion). She helped me a lot. The last few weeks have been a bit rough for me. I have the best companion, she has helped me so much too! It is so cool how everything is such an inspiration even companionships! Sister Rushton is such a blessing to me!

Even when things are hard Heavenly Father blesses us with funny moments. One night while we were planning I looked down and there was a spider and we screamed. Then we ran back and looked by the front door and there was another spider and it was HUGE! When I say huge I mean HUGE! I have a picture and will send that to you....so we are screaming and jump on our coffee table and were fighting over who is going to kill it. Well, while fighting over who was going to kill it, we lost BOTH of them. So we cried and got the mop and we were pushing the couches with the mop and the mop broke. we then got a little more brave and go over to the shoes and look in them. Sister Rushton shakes my boot and the HUGE SPIDER COMES OUT OF MY BOOT!!!  The I start spearing it the broken mop and I hit it probably like for 5 minutes because I was not going to let that thing live! We killed three more spiders that night and our spider count is now up to 6. Yes it is so gross! But it was a funny moment that I needed because Heavenly Father loves me! :) Haha, we now call the mop the spider spear and my Companion calls me the Spider Slayer. :)

Devil Spider!

My Birthday was good and we had a mini birthday party in the morning for our studies and I opened my presents. I LOVED THE BLANKET!! What a great idea! I also loved the new clothes. Mom you did good! It was a good birthday and had a good birthday dinner at the A's house. They are AWESOME!! So that was really fun and spent the night with some members and finished planning. Yesterday was great! Kind of didn't feel like my birthday, but it was okay because it was like it didn't really matter all that much:) I love being a missionary because those things that used to matter so much don't really matter anymore!

Oh I almost forgot to tell you. I am staying another transfer and so is Sister Rushton! Yay! We are both so excited! Oh they changed the way they tell us about transfers. They now call us on Saturday nights and then the transfer happens on Tuesday. I like it way better!!  But yes six more weeks in good Ol' Goochland! I am really happy about that! :)

Love you! :)

-Sister Siepert

 Happy Birthday to me!

This picture makes me so HAPPY! My sister emailed this to me! My niece Kaylee and I in matching shirts!

 My Birthday blanket from my family!

Sweet Sister Rushton and Me:) Love her!

NINE MONTHS!! How did that happen?

I hit my Nine Month mark this week:)

Hello Friends and Family,

I hope you are doing well. I am doing sooo good! I am so happy and mission life keeps getting better and better! This week we had a successful week, with more teaching, zone conference, NEW INVESTIGATORS, mini splits with the training leaders, and lots of good stuff!!

Let me tell you about my week! March 5th (my 9 month mark), was probably the funniest day of my whole mission. So, we did all of our normal stuff with personal study, companionship study, language study and lunch. Since we didn't make time to clean our car on our last p-day we had to get our car washed for the car inspection at Zone Conference. All of the mission cars have these (dumb) bike racks on them and you can't have them on while going through the car wash. So, we were like we will just go take if off and it will only take a minute to take off. Well yeah it was a little longer than a minute. 2 HOURS, later we got it off. But is was so funny because we took the pin out and were just trying to pull it out of the hitch. Seemed easy enough, but it would not come out, we sprayed pam on it, we put hot water on it, I drove and Sister Rushton held on to it to pull it off. Basically we are sweating and no one was answering their phones to help us out. We are so frustrated, but then the Zone leaders finally called us back and were like, all you need to do is unscrew the cap on the front and what do you know. We did and the bike rack literally fell off. IT FELL OFF! We laughed sooo hard. It was a great day! Then as you know we ended the day with burning the skirt and the M's house. (FYI when Sister Missionaries hit the 9 month mark. We celebrate by burning one of our skirts. Just to celebrate the halfway mark)  It was such a good time! I love the members out here in Goochland! They are so fun! well, that was great!

One night while we were planning the Sister training leaders called us to go on a mini exchange that night. I was a bit stressed because our appointments that night had fallen through and we had not planned out what we would do next.  But when we both got back together that night we both had a new investigator! How awesome is that! We were so stoked about it! :) Then we went and taught this guy that I had talked to in the grocery store about a month ago, but we had not been able to see him ad it was sooo awesome! one of the best lessons I have ever been in. We taught with the spirit and he listened and loved it. I was so excited! He also has a sister he takes care of who is special needs and she is the sweetest thing! You could tell that she felt the spirit also. So, funny story, while we were teaching, they live in a trailer and Sister Rushton was talking about the First Vision and had just started to recite the First Vision and all of the sudden the lights went out in the trailer. Hahahaha, but we kept going. It was so great!

So 3 new investigators this week! We were so stoked because we have not had that many in a while....we also may have three more new ones. tonight because we may have found a new family! :) The work is going and it is so cool to see that people are coming unto Christ. One thing I have really learned this week is that you are the most happy on your mission when you are out there teaching. When we go and we try to find people to teach it can be so discouraging, but in the end it makes me so much happier to know that I am trying. Now people are coming out of the woodwork!

Can you believe that we are almost done with this transfer? I can't believe that! My mind is blown that I have been here in Goochland since Thanksgiving and now it is March! But I love it! It has been such a good week and I have been having a lot of fun while we have been working hard!

Mom, Dad and everyone. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! I can't believe that I have been doing this for nine months now and that is is halfway over. It has made me work harder to know that I am on my last half of my mission. I have to make the best of these 18 months! I think you would be shocked on how much I have changed. I mean I am still Katie and yes, I am still hilarious, but I have changed. I have learned so much about the gospel and about Heavenly Father. He loves me and I know that he is proud of me. He has always been there and is always going to be there. He wants me to be happy and he wants all of is children to be happy, so he has sent me here to tell the people in Virginia. He wants all of us to return home to him. I have thought a lot about the pre-earth life recently. I am pretty sure when he was presenting his plan he was like "this is the plan and in the end I want you all to return to me. I want you all to be with me again. It is hard for me to let you go into the world and I know for all of you it will be a bit hard sometime, but I know it is worth it. I want you to experience it all and I know it will be for your own good." I am sure he cried letting us go too because he knew. He knew it all, but was so proud of us to be so willing to go.

Well, I love you all! I hope you have a great week! :)

Sister Siepeeee :)

 Just burning my skirt with these lovely ladies:)

 Happy, Fun night!

HALFWAY THERE!!!!

Snow Snow SNOW!

Well sorry I didn't write yesterday but our cars were grounded due to the darn snow! It was so funny because on Sunday it was like 70 degrees and I was so pumped because we were finally getting warmer weather and that spring was coming. On Sunday night is started to snow and it didn't stop until about one on Monday afternoon. So we had to stay in last night and all day yesterday. It was so funny because it was p-day so we can do whatever we want, so we did all the normal stuff, like writing letters, and doing laundry, but it came to be about 3 and both of us looked at each other and we were like WE ARE SO BORED! We then watched the district...and watched some Mormon messages that we had on DVD, but really I don't think I have ever been that bored in my whole life. Haha, we were just trying to figure out anything to do. We came up with races across the tile and found some odd things to do. I also read the entire March Ensign. The whole thing. We were so bored...I also have a cold, so it was probably good for me. Now it is all in my forehead, so I hope I can get over this soon because I hate being sick. But basically yesterday was pretty funny and if you would have watched what we did you would of thought that we had no lives. Haha, but that is mission life!

Our week has been great and slow.  Not to much happened this week, because we came home a few nights early so that I could go to bed so that I could get over this cold. It helped a little bit, but it just won't go away. One of our investigators tried to drop us this week, but you know that we would not let that happen...goodness. I hate when people do that, but we are getting her back on track and giving her some time to think and such. But after she called us and told us that she just couldn't read the Book of Mormon anymore because it just doesn't work for her, I hung up. I just started to bawl. I had no idea what to do or how to help her, so I just prayed for like 20 minutes and Sister Rushton and I talked about it. She came to church on Sunday like she always does and talked to our Ward Mission Leader. She opened up to him and he filled us in. I know that she will basically be Okay. She has a strong testimony and we hope to see her moving and acting upon her faith soon! :) That was a definite answer to our prayers.

We also went and saw a recent convert and it was a good lesson. We helped her set up mouse traps......that was hilarious. Sister Rushton and I are such babies. Haha, but we figured it out and still have all our fingers.

Another great experience this week. A member came out with us and we really didn't have any set plans, but we made a list of people we wanted to stop by and we did. we ended up being invited into an investigators home. We had a lesson with her. The member that came with us was so awesome and helped us so much! She created this beautiful relationship with her and she opened up to her. We are excited to see where things will go. The investigator is such a great person and is slowly letting us into her heart! :) So that is so exciting!

We had a Zone meeting this week and guess who showed up? President Wilson! Haha, it was great and very unexpected! It always is so good to have his presence in our meeting and for him to bring such a strong spirit. We also get to see him again this week at our zone conference, so that will be fun! I just love him!

These are basically the highlights of the week. I have been feeling a bit stressed this week trying to plan what we are doing. It's okay though, because I know I am trying my best and that is all that matters.......

I love mom, that you were told that the long term Brazil Visa waiters were going to have a 2 week refresher language course at the MTC when the Visa comes.  Sounds like it may even be at the Brazil MTC!!! That makes me feel so much better because I feel I have lost so much of the language.

I am excited for Ryan and Ty. Both graduating, Ryan from BYU and looking for a real grownup job and Ty graduating from High School. I still can't believe my baby brother will be 18 years old this week! So many crazy thing happening...without me...Haha but that is okay because in 9 short months I will be home. Can you believe it? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ALL!!

I have been thinking a bit about what I want to do in college when I get back to BYUI. I definitely think I want to get back to dancing. I just don't have a clue what I want to do with the rest of my life....but that is okay! I have plenty of time to figure that out. I am so excited for Ty to go to college before his mission even if it is only for the summer. I will miss seeing him by probably 4 short months.  It's ok Missions are the best! College really teaches you a lot about being on your own and companions (roommates). I am thankful I had those experiences before coming out on my mission.

I love my companion to much and I also love this area!!! :) I feel there is definitely a reason why I am still here and I have work to do.........

Love you all and have a good week! :)

Sister Siepert :)