My last email.......I'M COMING HOME

Hello from Virginia!! For the last time!!!

Holy Moly, what has happened to my mission? I feel like I really just left, but at the same time it has been forever....weirdest feeling. I am doing really, really good. I am EXCITED!!! I am sad at the same time. I will really miss this place and the memories that I have made here....one minute I am excited and the next I am really sad and crying. I have been kind of an emotional mess. My poor companion..haha. I am excited to be able to see Megan, Eric, Kaylee and Colton today! I have been given permission to have dinner with them tonight. I am sure they are so big since I saw them last. I can't believe they can talk now! It will be really fun!

I am glad mom and dad that you had fun with Ryan in California for Thanksgiving! I am super excited to see him and all of you at Christmas! Christmas will be sooo much fun!!! Our Thanksgiving was...so much food. We had 4 Thanksgiving dinners. I wanted to die by the end of the day and actually the next day I was pretty sick. It was rough! It was a really great day though. We had dinner with 2 less active families, and investigator and a member. So we got to see so many people that day! I am just warning you I have put on a few pounds here. I can't wait to work on that when I get home. It is really hard to be skinny and be a missionary! People feed you and feed you and feed you until you want to die! Haha!

So Sister Bennet is transfering out of this area too. Yeah, how crazy it that? So the other sister are taking on our area and theirs too! So we have been introducing them to our investigators and less actives and such these last few days. It has been insane these last few days! I am exhausted..haha, but at first I was a little nervous to have them take over, but I am excited and think it will be good for the people we work with to have a fresh start and fresh eyes on them. Sister Bennet and I are pretty sad though, but excited at the same time. This ward is sooo sad to be losing a set of sisters. They announced it yesterday over the pulpit and there was a gasp...haha, but it will be good for the ward and the other sisters will be very, very busy!!!!!:)

So weird that my MTC companions get home earlier than me. I think the other sister and I here in Virginia that were supposed to go to Brazil will be the last sisters to come home.

The Temple was sooo good! I loved going to the DC Temple. We met up with the Mission President at 8:45am and all the sisters drove up in a 15 passenger van with the President, which was sooo fun! I didn't realize how close I am to the temple...but that was fun! These last 7 1/2 months I have been so close but so far since it is outside my mission boundries. We went up and had a special meeting with the Temple President. That was really special. It was so cool to see all of the missionaries going home in the temple dressed in white. When they prayed they said a special prayer for the missionaries in the room that were going home. Also when we walked into the Celestial room President and Sister Wilson were standing there and gave us big hugs. It was soooo coool!:) I just cried and cried. Then we went and ate lunch in the visitor center and walked around the visitor center. It was really fun! Then we had our adventure in D.C. That was really fun.! President just drove and told us what everything was. It was really fun! Then of course we got to run and take a picture. It was just an all around good day! :) I loved it!!!

The Missionaries that are heading home in front of the DC Temple with President and Sister Wilson. There are a lot of missionaries heading home this transfer!

Another picture of the departing Missionaries with President and Sister Wilson in the Visitor Center.

Sister Romney and me. She was one of my first companions here in Virginia!

Sightseeing in DC

President Wilson had to park kind of crazy and told us to run up to the Lincoln Memorial to take a picture. People were like what is happening when a van full of missionaries ran up the steps:) So funny!

This week has been a week of hard work and having so much fun! I am really going to miss this place and miss being a missionary. It has been so good. I have changed and grown so much. I have finally become that person I think I have always wanted to be all along. My testimony started as a little seed of just Jesus Christ and now has grown into this huge testimony of all the important things in the gospel. I know that this Church is true and that the true gospel of Jesus Christ  is on the earth and it is right here in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that the Book of Mormon  and the Bible are the words of God and will bring us so much closer to him if we take the time to really read and pray. I know that the simple things: praying, reading the scriptures and going to church really brings pure peace. I know that the Plan of Salvation is given to us so that we can have peace. I love teaching that to people and I am excited  to continue sharing it when I get home. I am forever a missionary and so excited to be! I am so grateful that the Lord prompted me to come on a mission because it has been the best 18 months of my life and the best 18 months FOR my life. I will be forever changed because of the changes that I have seen Christ make in the people I love and have worked with here. I love this gospel and I love Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.

Thanks for letting me come. I know it is a had thing to let your daughter go for 18 months and you don't even really get to talk to her, but I am so grateful that you had the faith to do it. I love you both so much and can't wait to see you and give you big hugs! I can't wait also to tell you all about my adventures and funny stories!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!! SEE YOU ALL SOOO SOOOON!!!!

Sister Siepert :) 

Greetings from beautiful Virginia

Hello,

 It has been such a good week! even though I am still sick....yeah, coughing my lungs out. I hope it will end soon! I am sure it will:)

Well funny story to start my email this week. We were out tracting last Monday at like 6:30 pm and it was getting a little dark. We talked with this lady for about a half hour at her house. She was not interested, but told us all about her Jewish faith and it was very interesting. By the time we left it was pitch black out. As we were leaving she told us about her neighbors spotting wolves and a fox with rabies. That was very comforting since she lives at the end of a very long driveway and of course we walked all the way up to her house. So we stood there like 20 minutes taking a few steps then running back. Remember a couple weeks ago we were chased by coyotes. We tried to sing a Hymn and pray....yeah, we were just so scared, so we call the B family and asked them to tell us a funny story as we walked down this long winding driveway. We have Sister B on speaker phone and we get halfway down and just ran like crazy! So then of course Sister B meets us somewhere just to give us a hug. Haha, it was pretty funny...I just love the B's. I would love to come back and visit them someday after my mission! They are the greatest! Sister Bennet and I have been really good at embarrassing ourselves lately, but whatever!

We have such a great investigator named B. She is so golden and doing so good. We had two lessons with her this week. One of them we came in and she was like I need to show you a scripture I really love. (one of the scriptures we assigned for her to read). She pulled it out and explained all about how this was how she felt and how she knew that God was going to help her with her Word of Wisdom problems. So awesome! Then we also did a church tour with her. She has really bad anxiety, so leaving her house is hard for her. We ended the tour in the chapel. You could really see the calmness that she felt. Sad part of the story is that she didn't come to church :( Her anxiety just held her back. please pray for her. We want to see her tonight and adjust her baptism date.

Wednesday was Trunk or Treat! That was soooo fun! We had a really good turnout and someone that we had tracted into and invited the week came with her daughter! So cool! We didn't really expect that to happen, but it did and the members were so great and invited her to church. Soooo cool! Hopefully we can start teaching she and her family soon! I have a lot fun trunk or treat pictures to send soon.

Thursday was fun because we helped a less active set up a haunted house in their home. It was super creepy but super fun.  I will send pictures of that soon too! On Halloween we were on exchanges and we were able to stay out til 9.  We weren't allowed to tract after dark. We went and saw some less actives and did service for the family with the Haunted house. It was just a fun day! I am grateful for exchanges because I really learn a lot from Sister Taylor and we had a really fun time together. We will finish our missions together and it was fun to talk about that! It was just a good holiday for me.

Church was kind of crazy yesterday...we were walking to Gospel Principles a little late and one of the primary workers comes out really frantic and asked us to go help in nursery, so we did. It was really fun, but crazy....my heart goes out to the people who have that calling......haha, but the kids really loved us and they always love the missionaries, so that was fun.

Do you realize that yesterday was my last Fast Sunday as a missionary? Of course I bore my testimony because one of the recent converts asked me to push her wheel chair up to the stand....haha, but it was really cool. I just love bearing my testimony! I talked all about how much is possible because of Jesus Christ and about the power of repentance. I also talked about how many people in the world need the Gospel. We need to do Missionary work because people need the peace and joy that comes from the Gospel. It reminded me that we do missionary work not for numbers but we do it for the love of people. It is simple. We had dinner at a members home after church. Their parents were visiting and his dad happened to be a former Mission President in India and Nepal. I just love Mission Presidents! He knew the guy from the movie "Meet the Mormons" So Cool!

So this week I got a letter from the Mission Office telling me about my departure plans....so weird! It kind of freaked me out:) In the letter it told me that I get to go to the Temple on the 25th! I am so excited! I will be sending a box home soon. Watch for it next week!

Well I love you so much! It has been a good week and I know that the weeks to follow will be just as great! :) I plan on working hard everyday until I come home! It is coming fast but I will put my head down and finish strong:)

LOVE YOU,
-Sister Siepert :)

Fall is here!

***Note from Katie's mom- So sorry I am way behind. I have decided to let Katie catch up what I missed when she gets home December 3rd****

Hellooooo!

I got an email from Ty and he sounds so happy!! That makes me so happy that he is happy! I am so proud that he is a District Leader. That is so cool! What I really can't believe is that he leaves for Canada tomorrow! Good for him!

This week has been good. Lots of finding and searching for those who are ready to receive the gospel. It has been tough with not finding people after we have tried so hard. We have been tracting more than I have my whole mission. I am actually starting to get good at it. I have finally realized that if we are happy and nice and invite and people reject us, that is okay because I know that I was doing what I am supposed to do.

We did have a cool experience with a less active 11 year old girl this week though. She had told us a while ago that she had a friend that she wanted us to go meet and that she wanted to introduce us. we have been trying for like a month to get that all worked out so that we could go,  well on Friday we went by and she actually could go, so we walked to her friends house and met her mom. We set an appointment to go back this Friday, so hopefully it all works out! But when we were walking back to her house a man was outside and we went and talked to him for a bit, he wasn't interested, but he told us to go see some people and so we did. They weren't interested, but D really enjoyed it and she was telling us to go to this and that house and such. We tracted with her and she loved it! She came to church this last Sunday (YAY!) and came up to us and asked us when we could go see some more of her neighbors. It was sooo cool! We are going with her again later this week! So despite the fact that we didn't get to teach anyone it was still really cool for her to experience! :)

We had a Sisters meeting this week and that was really fun to go down to Richmond. The theme of the meeting was the Young Women's Theme and we had classes on all the Values. I loved it! The only weird thing was that I am one of the older Sisters now. All the Sisters that I have been so close with are going home or are home now. It was so odd....but I loved the meeting!

We had dinner with a family this week that had a son just get back from his mission to Brazil. It was really fun to talk to him about Brazil since that is were I was originally assigned. I hope I can go there someday to check it out myself. It is so awkward to talk to returned missionaries of the opposite sex. I guess I better get used to it soon I will have to do it all the time. He is really great and wants to help us out. We are grateful for his help.

We met with a less active and his wife this week. They raise show cats. The cat shows are just like Dog shows. Who knew there was such a thing. If you know me very well, you know how much I loved this! He is also a Ballroom dancer and is really good. So that was so fun for me. We got to share a message with them. The spirit was so strong. We know they felt it but didn't say anything. I guess all I can say is it made us sad that they didn't say anything but we know they felt it.

It is starting to cool down now and that is really nice! I love fall here in the east! I am also really excited for the mosquitoes to go away.....I have so many bites and they itch like crazy! my legs look like a mess with welts all over them....haha

This week I have been really reflecting on my mission and all that has happened. I got a little discouraged. I haven't had as much success as I have prayed for and worked for. I haven't seen as much success bringing less actives back as I would like. It is really hard to watch missionaries having tons of baptisms and going to the Temple with less actives. One day I just kind of cried to my companion about it and then I realized that the Lord created my mission just the way that I needed to learn. He knew that I would have the trials I have had on my mission and he created those specially for me to learn and to grow. It has been a tough 15 or so months, but I am grateful that I had to go through them because as I did I became to really know my Savior and to really understand the power of the Atonement. He has never left my side and is always going to be there no matter how hard or dark the situation. He has knocked on every door with me. He has felt the pains of anxiety with me. He has felt the pains and darkness of depression with me. He knows how it is to work so hard all day and have nothing to show for it except my dirty shoes and my worn out body. He knows! As I get closer to the end I am sad to leave and sad to take my name tag off, but I am also so proud to say that I have really tried my best and I have really changed. I have grown a testimony. I have really become a disciple of Christ.

I am happy to be here! I love the people in Virginia! I feel the time to come home is coming soon and I am excited about that too, because seriously I am exhausted! I am determined to endure and work hard to the end! I love you all and thank you so much for being great examples in my life!

Have a great week!

I love you,
-Sister Siepert :)

My amazing Companion Sister Bennett

My Trainer Sister Nelson just before she went home! I love her so much!

These are the crazy girls I live with! One of them just transfered:( 

Transfer week!

Hello,

Mom thanks for sharing my story in Young Women's on Sunday about the lady last week that invited us in and yelled at us and our reaction. It is so funny how moments like those just are forgotten and the really good stuff are remembered. Heavenly Father is cool like that. Can you believe next week I hit my 14 month mark. Crazy how fast time is flying!

Oh, by the way I a STAYING in the Woodbridge Ward! I am so happy to stay here for another six weeks! I will be here until Ty leaves on his Mission. Do you realize that is really only a transfer away for him!? All four of us are staying and we are happy about that. I love the Sisters in our house, so it will be fun and crazy to have us all stay! :)

This week has not been all that exciting. We are just working on keeping the people that we are working with excited about the gospel. The R family are doing so great! We had a lesson with them on faith and they loved that. Their 17 year old went to mutual this week where they had a whip cream fight and she had a lot of fun. We got to be there and introduce her to lots of people. I think she really likes the youth programs of the church. We had a lesson with them on Wednesday.  Then they went to the Ward Swimming Party! That was really fun! We went for a little bit because I mean it is kind of awkward for us to go to a swimming party. To top off a great week with them two of the kids went to church on Sunday! They read the Book of Mormon this week too! They are progressing and August 30th is getting closer and closer! I really, really pray that I get to be apart of their Baptism! It is so cool when you have investigators, they like become a part of you. I mean I just love them so much that when they are alone at an activity or something it makes me soooo sad. They are almost like my children…..weird as that sound, but I just love them so much and I know that this gospel will bless them and their family. :)

One sad thing happened this week J said he doesn't want to meet with us anymore:( I think the talk last week kind of freaked him out. I literally wanted to cry when I heard that, but we just know he will come around. Maybe it was something he needed to hear? Who knows, but God. There is a plan and a purpose we met him and maybe soon he will come around. We don't really have any other really solid investigators in the works right now….we are in the process of finding them.

We have an appointment tonight with a cute young family. We met them a couple of weeks ago. We invited them to the ward swimming party and the were like "yeah, we were invited already!" So come to find out they are friends with someone in our ward! They came to the party! They also live across the street from a less active family we are working with currently. So crazy huh? We are so excited to meet with them. They also have triplets girls. They are so cute. We are praying that it goes well and the spirit is there. Also the less active across the street from them that came to church on Sunday! They even stayed all 3 hours! Their kids hate us because we talk about God and stuff and act like they aren't interested at all. They however are going though lots of hard stuff. Their parents are divorced and their mom is currently not living the gospel standards at all. They get a lot of mixed messages, but their step mom really wants them to have the gospel in their lives. That way they can choose what they believe in. She is also talking about going to the Temple, so I hope she does and I hope she invites us so we can go through with her. :) We only get to go when people we are working with go through for the first time since it is out of our mission. We will see what happens there.

 Miracles are happening all over the place. We are trying our best to be obedient and to do the Lords work the way He wants it to be done and it is working out here. People are popping up and we are teaching more with the spirit. I have learned so much from Sister Bennett. She is a bomb missionary! She just works until she can't work anymore. She is helping to push me beyond what I thought was possible. We are doing so good together and I m trying my best to make it fun along the way! I make the fun and she makes us go-go-go, haha. I feel so blessed that we are staying together another transfer! I will learn soooo much more!

Love you so much! Thanks for all the prayers I can really feel them and I really have needed them! :)

-Sister Siepert

Well I think I am going to cut off my long hair this week. I wasn't going to cut it while I was on my Mission, but the heat and humidity is killing me! I may have a new look next week! We will see! :)

 Nothing like a BBQ in the summer!

 Pineapple party at night!

 Sister Bennett walking a bunny! Haha

My District!

Sometimes things get CRAZY!!!!!

This week was much better. It is kind of funny Sister Bennet and I tag team having hard days. We laugh we really should schedule our hard days on the same day. We are working on that! We just get along so well. I really love her! We seem to teach really well together too which is so nice. I have learned so much from her and I hope she has learned something from me. We try to laugh a lot and enjoy the ride!

This week has been quite hilarious. We ran into this crazy lady who so kindly let us in and then proceeded to tell us "everything that we be believe because she knows about our religion." She had so many things wrong and when we said that it was wrong she wouldn't believe us. It was crazy, we just sat there and took it because we were trying really hard to be Christ-like. It was quite hilarious. I don't understand people who say that they are Christian and they follow the Bible and invite us in to YELL at us. I just don't understand those people, how is that Christ-like at all: Whatever, haha.

We found a really awesome guy before her who had met with missionaries in the past but was going through really rough divorce and had to move out and lost all contact with the missionaries. It was really cool to talk to him about God and how much he loves us and he wants us to come back, so we are excited about him. We also taught the R Family this week and it was great as always! We taught the Plan of Salvation and they really seemed to enjoy it. We also sang, "Families can be together forever" and the mom started to cry. It was cool she said her husband asked, "why do they keep coming over?" and she told us that she just feels good when we come over and that she really enjoys the time we spend together. That was sweet time, we got to testify of the spirit and how it bears witness in our hearts what is true and what is good. She liked that! The kids came to church yesterday too!!! The mom had to work:(, but the 4 kids came to church. I even gave one of the daughters a skirt of mine to wear and to have. So, we get to church and we are excited to have them there and their fellowshipper is being awesome and introducing them to everyone. We are really exited, right? Come to find out it is Ward Conference and we are like okay, well that is fine. The Stake President gets up and what is his topic?……of course it was a super bold talk on chastity…..Sister Bennet and I were sweating and so nervous the whole time. In the end the kids were fine. The kids in the ward were great and just took them under their wings. It was a good day!

We also had a really funny experience this week while we were in a trailer park seeing someone. This hispanic man was yelling at us and was asking us if we had a lawn mower. We talked to him and said no we didn't have a lawn mower. He asked us where we were from. I told him I was from Oregon and he got really excited and was like, "LET'S CELEBRATE!" Then he proceeds to jump out of his car and hugs me. We ended up getting his information for the spanish missionaries. Whenever we would say something he liked he would always say "LET'S CELEBRATE" and proceed to hug us.  He was hilarious! I love the Hispanic people.

We helped a less active with a garage sale, it made me never want to have one ever again…..so much work! I was exhausted from that, but I did get a free guitar for helping. Cool, huh? It has been a good week, with hilarious things mixed in because Heavenly Father loves me! I loved the Otter Pops from home. Who knew amazon delivers otter pops! Thank you for all the mail this week!! It really helped after the hard week I had last week!

I love you all lots! Thanks for believing in me!!!

-Sister Siepert

My free guitar

P-day's are fun!

The sisters that live with me! Minus Sister Bennet:(

Helped make this at Pappy and Sue's woodshop! I love it!

Some weeks are harder than others:) 7/14/14

This has been a good week. To be honest it has felt like it was a year long! I don't know why but this has been an emotional week.  I don't even remember everything that happened. Even through it all I know some good stuff happened.

The family we met with last week are doing so good. We showed the restoration movie this week to the mother and her oldest son. They were the only ones home. She said she loved the faith that Joseph Smith had. They are excited to get toward their baptism date, yes I said BATISMAL DATE and it is August 30th right now. That is just the mom and son, but we plan on putting the rest on date by the end of this week! Yay! It was a really cool experience. I just love the family! They want to come to church too, but the mom works every Sunday, so that might be hard, but we are praying really hard that she will be able to get off work and come! I also am so very blessed that we have other sisters living with us because Sister Bennett didn't feel good, but we just went on splits and one of the other sisters came with me. We also met with our other investigator K and we taught the Plan of Salvation. She loved it and that me me really happy because you never know what yoga re going to get with that one. People either love it or they hate it…but she loved it! She thought it brought her so much hope in knowing that God loves her and would want the best for her! So that was cool, but last night we over and she didn't seem as excited, so hopefully she will make her baptismal date August 9th….we are praying really hard for her to quit smoking and stuff, so that would be nice if you could pray with us. August looks to be an exciting month! YAY!

Hopefully next week will be easier…I am sure it will. I guess everyone those kind of weeks from time to time!

I love you all,

-Sister Siepert

Happy 4th of July and Hitting my 13th Month! 7/7/14

This week, This week, THIS WEEK! This week has probably been the best week in Bristow in a long time! So many miracles happened this week!!! I don't know if I mentioned in my last letter that I was focusing on "perfect love castieth out fear" this week? I am and it has really helped. I also think that you and the families prayers on us finding new people really helped too! Monday night after we had dinner with a member we went to see a less active/part member family. What we didn't know is that it would take us all the way to the other side of our area. We knocked on their door and they weren't home. So we decide that we would look throughout he potentials in our area book and go see some of them. Well, this first one wasn't interested, so we went on to the next one. The next one was a family, the R family. They were a big family! We talked to the dad for a bit then talked to their mom for a bit and she said that we could come back and tech their family about Jesus Christ. We were pumped! so, on Wednesday one of the Sister Training leaders and I went to go see them (we were on exchanges). I was sooo nervous for some reason and I don't know why…but we went and had probably the most powerful lesson I have ever had on my mission. It was really good. They accepted to be baptized if they prayed and it was true and then as we left the daughter prayed that "we are excited to learn more and thank you for sending these girls to us." What a miracle! We plan on seeing them this Wednesday too! :) Then we also had another miracle on Saturday night. So, like 8:30 is always an awkward time to be out because like it is late-ish and some people get really mad when you knock on the door, but thank goodness it is summer. Well, we went to see a less active. His son (a former investigator) and his friend K were there. He let us right in and we talked for a bit. K then just broke down about how her day had been really bad and she felt that we were sent to her from God. It was awesome! We taught the restoration and promised her blessings. We are teaching her this Saturday. Look at both of those huge miracles!!! PERFECT LOVE CASTIETH OUT FEAR1 :) It has been really good week and things are really starting to happen in our area. On the 4th of July we were in a parade and that was a huge success. Our whole district came and members came too! They were handing out cards like crazy!!!! We handed out all of our cards before we were even at the end of the parade route! It was awesome to see all of the members being brave and handing out cards. It was really fun also and that day was a really good day to see people. I did get really sun burned…..Mom, I put sunscreen on but forgot my neck and the back of my neck, but don't worry. It's going away.

Well I love you a lot and I love all your prayers in my behalf. Things have really started to happen! I am scared though that I will get transferred right when things get really good….but we will see! Transfers are coming up….crazy, huh?

-Sister Siepert

The Parade Banner!

Another Banner Shot!

The Parade!

Look at those missionaries go in the 4th of July Parade!

Can you find me?

Ok this is a really awkward picture of me! You know me Awkkkkwardddd!

Sister Bennet! 

The Sister on the left is Sister Bunnell my old companion!

My house mates!

This is how Sister Missionaries celebrate the 4th!

We didn't see fireworks but we did have glow sticks!

Evidence of the sunburn! Oops!