A bomb-tastic Sister P-day!

Dear Family and Friends,

I have to say I thought about home a lot this last week, with Ty graduating from High School. I can't believe my little brother is all graduated and stuff! He is old...haha. But I am so happy and excited for him to get to the next step of college and a mission. Both are so great! :) I loved seeing the pictures and I am super jealous that Ryan got to go. I felt bad because no one was going to be there, but I am glad Ryan and Grandma and Grandpa Siepert came! I have to admit I cried a few tears yesterday knowing that all this was going on at home and I wasn't there. I soon realized that it was all okay and just felt close to you guys because God is so good and he loves me. But Congrats Ty!

We had a pretty good week!

Monday: We went and had a sisters P-day and that was bomb-tastic! We went to a national park and played in the sand and walked across a dock that is half in Virginia and half in Maryland. Pretty Cool! It was also so fun to be with all the sisters because they are the best! :) So, that day was Great!

Look how happy I am!

I love it here!

Look I am in Maryland! The dock is half in Virginia and Half in Maryland:)

Sister P-day

 

Sister Bunnell and Me:) 

Sister Missionaries are the best!

Tuesday: We got to help a recent convert paint her bedroom so that she can move. It was really fun because all 4 of us sisters got to go and painting is fun, also exhausting, but mostly fun! We also got free lunch out of it and that is always great! Then we had a lesson with our investigator H and guess what!? She is on date for baptism! She is so awesome and really wants to be baptized for the right reasons, to be closer to God and to promise God all those wonderful things that we promise when we are baptized. It is great! Her date is kind of far....November 15th. But that is due to her father and she is going to Sweden for a million years this summer, but she will make it! :) It will be awesome to end my mission with this! :)

Wednesday: We had a district meeting and we were supposed to go on exchanges with the Sister Training leaders. One of them was supposed to come here with me and Sister Christensen was supposed to go with one of them to their area, but I wasn't feeling very well so we had to change things up a bit. We taught someone that night in their house and it was sooooooooooooooo hot, SOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOT! I almost seriously passed out and then when we got out of the lesson there was one of the classic Virginia down pours and so we had to run in that back to our car. Lots of fun, eh? Haha, but it was good:)

Thursday: MY YEAR MARK!!!!! That was an exciting day and also a really weird day.....I just could not believe that I was out a year. That just seems crazy to me! The Eng's were home this week and because Sister Eng is AMAZING she got us Cafe Rio! Yes I said Cafe Rio! We have it here, but it is right outside of our mission.....so members of the ward offer to get it for us and I had it! It was a nice treat!

I Love Cafe Rio!

Sister Christensen Loves it too!

Friday: I don't really remember much from this day...haha, I assume it was good:) That was the night that I got to burn a shirt for my One year mark! It was really fun because I got to do it at one of my favorite members house! The Hafleys! They take super good care of us and sometimes we make up excuses to go over and see them because we just love them so much! It was fun though and we got to make s'mores! It was a really fun night!

Saturday: This was a crazy day. Well, we found out in the morning that the Sisters said that we would sing the next day. So, I had the music for "come unto Christ" because I wanted to learn how to play it on the piano. We practiced it for like an hour and then sang it with the piano 4 times. It was really fun  to practice singing again and we all had solos. Sister Weber and I had more solo parts because we felt more comfortable singing alone. You would be so amazed how comfortable I now am singing solo's in front of people.  We had a lesson that night That Sister Chrisensen found on exchanges. It felt so good to teach again. Except this man was not interested in hearing anything we had to say. Those Catholics get you every time. Haha, He was so nice and I was super proud of myself because I just basically told him what our purpose was, and we did not want to bible bash. I just flat out asked him to get baptized, which he declined and then he invited me to be baptized into the Catholic Sacred Heart Church which I kindly declined. He was really nice, but didn't turn into a new investigator, which means we are still looking. 

Sunday: Well we sang in church. That was fun!  We found out that one of our investigators mom is having a really rough pregnancy. There is a really big chance that the baby or her mother won't make it through the delivery. It is really a hard time for her and our investigator is only 13. Please keep her family in your prayers. People have hard lives. That is one thing I have learned on my mission is that I have nothing to complain about. Other people have far worse problems than I do. Oh Sister B was sealed to her deceased husband and her deceased twins. That was so cool! It was a pleasure to help her prepare their names for their temple work. Kind of inspired me to want to do family history work! ...I know, weird right? But we are really happy and excited for her! :) Good week, right?! I have nothing to complain about!

Love you! Have a great week! :)

-Sister Siepert :)

ONE YEAR!! YEAH!!

This is Katie's mom- Sorry I have gotten behind on her blog and will now attempt to catch up:)

ONE YEAR!!

The Sister's I live with are the best!!

One Year!

Did I tell you One Year?

OOPS I MESSED UP THIS IS A PICTURE FROM NEXT WEEK:) KATIE LEFT THIS TO ME HER MOM AND I MESSED UP:) HAHA

Keeping the tradition! Burning a shirt for the one year mark!

Burning a shirt and a smore:) Can't ask for anything more wonderful:)

Can you believe it has already been one year? When in the world did that happen!?!? I am still in shock. I bore my testimony yesterday and I talked about how I had no idea what I was getting myself into...haha. But that I was so grateful to be a missionary and it's true! I had no idea that my mission would be the way it is! I had no idea I would be re-assigned forever and that I would meet the wonderful people that I have on my mission, but when I look back, my mission has been even greater than I could ever imagine. I mean I have had some of the craziest weirdest, trials, but I have also learned so much from them and I think that a mission was the only place I could really understand what I needed to learn. I still look down at my badge and think, What the heck? I am a missionary? I am that primary kid that sang "I hope they call me on a mission" and never really thought I would be a missionary. Now I am one of those missionaries. Did you ever think that I would be a missionary? I sure didn't......look at me now:) I have been gone from home for a year... I haven't died yet! That's a good sign right? I may have gained a few pounds but I am still here!

Let me tell you about my week. I got sick and we had a sick day. It was kind of an uneventful week.  There is this virus going around that feels like strep throat, but without the fever and it's the devil.! It lasts like for five day, but I am officially almost over it, so that is good. One day it was so bad,  I literally slept all day. Three of the four sisters that live in our house were sick. We probably looked like we were playing hooky, but I promise we were sick. I guess the one bright thing is that we were all sick together.

With the sickness and stuff we only had one lesson this week. How lame is that? I really miss teaching more....but we will find more and get down to business. We taught H this week and we accidentally brought 2 youth with us. It was good but we decided that it was probably to many people and H seemed a little intimidated by so many people there. It was cool to have them there to explain things and answer her questions. They basically taught the lesson. In the long run it ended up being a good lesson. Then we helped Sister B with her family history, by the way it is a lot HARDER then it looks to do family history, but the church is so helpful. There is a lady in our ward that helped us out a bit, so that was good! We got her two deceased twins into the program and their information and then her husbands work is all done, se we set an appointment for the 4th (Wednesday) and she is being sealed to them! We wish we could be there, but we can only go with the converts when they go for endowments....lame! But when we went by yesterday to tell her the time and such, she almost started to cry. She was so happy and was like, I feel like I am getting married again, but to the same man. She was so happy:) It was a cool process to be apart of! :) Then Friday we had a zone meeting and our zone is soooo much bigger than my other zones and we have like 6 sets of sisters and it seems like we have 8 or 9 sets of elders. But President Wilson started this new thing where we have to prepare a spiritual thought for each meeting and, of course I forgot and then of course I get called on to do one. Oh, and I am going first! I prayed really hard and I was able to pull something out of the air and it was not all that bad, I think! So that was good and I will always be prepared from now on...haha, this week has been really good. The house has been great and I love all the sisters. I have felt like this week I have been trying to lead by example in the house by working hard. I have been out the longest and try to motivate and uplift the sisters I live with. I absolutely love the companionships in our house and will be sad if we get split up at transfers. It is so wonderful to help the other sisters  through this whole mission thing. We all get along so well and it is so good to be there for each other when we need each other.

So, yeah! That was my week! It was different and good! I still can't believe I have reached my one year mark. It kind of freaks me out talking to the recent High school graduates. Some of them talk about going to BYU-Idaho next winter. I realized I will be there too! How weird it that? I was thinking when I get home from my mission I just want to sleep. I am tired, so tired. I sometimes fall asleep during lunch, I don't mean to, but it happens sometimes. I am trying so hard to work hard  and be an example. I have faced a lot of fears on my mission and it has made me grow! Hey, remember when I hated talking to people? I love it now! I love talking to the kids the most though....so I am still working on the adult part. I love when the little girls come up to me in church and hug me and invite me over. There is a recent convert family that have not let the sisters in for a while and we went over last week and I played with the little girl and she LOVES me. So, she keeps inviting me over which is really cool! The way to the parents hearts is through their kids:) I guess that is how Christ did it, right? Well anyways, I love my mission and I am trying to work hard to the end. Hope you have a great weekend! It will be a busy one for sure with ty's graduation. please send me lots of pictures and know I will be there in my heart! :) Love you all soooo much! :)

Love,
Sister 1 year old Siepert