Monday, June 30, 2014

June 30, 2014: Conroe Area: Weeks flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy almost 5 months leeefffffffft :*******(




Hola hola hola how's it going? Everything's AWESOME IN CONROE!!!

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY AND I NEVER WANT TO COME HOME!!!!!!!!!!!
I mean I do..... because I love you all and miss you terribly BUT I LOOOOOOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!! AND I WANT TO CRY TO THINK THAT IT SO SOON IS GOING TO BE OVER! D: ................................. SO I MUSN'T THINK ABOUT IT. ("Emma"- Gwenith Paltrow voice)


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOOKIE!!! I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!! I hope you know how special you are!!! Also COLIE!!.......... wait I already said those things last week haha :)
Love you all sooo much! Oh wait, I haven't written the rest of my email ahha

Ok so this week was awesome! Just like every other week! Exciting things always happening! Satan always trying to tempt us away! But it doesn't work! Because we have the best defense ever! The scriptures, praying, and going to church! Even though this week was wonderful there might not be very many eventful stories :D sorry!


Monday: A beautiful restoration lesson with Sara and Carlos! The ones we met the Sunday before last Monday! It was so wonderful I just get so giddy and happy and excited before teaching the restoration! We have the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth! His power and authority to do ordinances on the earth today! And with that we can be sealed to our families FOREVER! :) Living with my family forever in a state of never ending happiness (mosiah 2:41) just sounds like the best goal ever! And it's going to happen! :)


Tuesday: We ate dinner with Kayleigh!! :) I love her so much! She's such a funny, pregnant woman. We went and saw Paula and Mauricio and taught them about faith and talked about how faith without works is dead. We had a lesson with Jenni and her husband!! :) It was AWWWESOME! We played the gospel game!  (a game hna Burnham's boyfriend Kyle, made up on his mission!) I made footsteps to do it and wrote on them! Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. Then you put one person on the earth and then their family in the Celestial Kingdom across the room! Then you tell them to get to them but they can't touch anything and they can't because they can't touch the floor, they try to jump, fly use the couch.. none of which work, and then you give them the steps to get them there! It's awesome :)


Wednesday: We sang with some other missionaries and some youth from the english wards at a funeral for such a sweet woman. I wish I had known her! It was such a beautiful missionary oriented funeral! We sang Come unto Christ the youth theme song this year! It's pretty much all solo parts so they had 2 boys singing and then another girl and then I sang and on one or two of my parts Hermana Buno came in and harmonized like an angel because she just, you know, does that without even practicing haha but it was really really beautiful. At the end we thanked her for allowing us to be there and sing and told her about both of our loses and how it was a tender mercy to be able to visit a funeral because both of us missed our family member's. The spirit was so strong and someone basically just gave a beautiful long talk about the plan of salvation!
We taught Jose the plan of salvation again, focusing more on the things we need to do in this life to keep us strong and the purpose of being here. We then taught Abraham a lesson! He is someone that is attending the english classes our ward does. The hermanas taught him the restoration on their last exchange and so this week we taught him the plan of salvation! The Barrera's were there and it was awesome! He just kept saying "andale" haha it was funny. We aren't exactly sure how well he recieved the message but the spirit was there so that's the important part! :)


Thursday: WEEKLY PLANNING!!! MY FAVORITE!! IT MEANS HERMANA BUNO AND I GET TO TELL EACH OTHER WHY WE LOVE EACH OTHER! hahaha :) We ate dinner at Kayleigh's and we got to see Paula!! :) We read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, just the first chapter and she was beaming!! She loved it!! And she really wanted to hold her book. Her mom kept trying to give it back to us and Paula was like uh-uh my book haha. I loved it, it was a really beautiful experience. I felt like I learned so many new things from the first chapter that I have read like 500 times haha :) My favorite verse is when it talks about God and the angels surrounding Him. Then we talked with one of the sweet teens in our ward that we meet with once a week. She's had a rough childhood and we just laughed about clean, happy, silly things and then taught her a lesson about how God wants her to fulfill her dreams and that He will provide a plan for her and that if she always does the little things she needs to in life that she can always have His guidance and help!


Friday: SPECIALIZED TRAINING IN THE TEMPLE!
wow... What an incredible experience. We were able to go to the temple with President and Sister Pingree as well as the temple president and his wife and later we went to a room and had a discussion it was beautiful! I learned so many things through the spirit! It is so important to have the spirit so that He can lead and guide us and tell us what God wants us to know!!! :) We took our last pictures with them and got to hug both of them and I just cried. Hermana Buno and I gave them a song in a frame that we had written. It started with me singing it in the shower in my first area and then hermana Buno helped me finish it. It's just a version of I am a child of God.
Then we went to see Francisco for an appointment BUT he wasn't there.... great. Well instead his two roommates were and we taught them the restoration with Kayleigh!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!! THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG!! We later that night went to Jenni's and we talked about the differences she has seen in her life from the Gospel so far and it was really sweet and special! :) She wants to take us to the Zoo next monday!!! :D


Saturday: Nothing really exciting happened. Saturdays are REALLY hard for some reason. No one is home, it's hot and it's bleh ahha BUT! It's ok. We were also loopy because we had woken up at 4:30 in the morning the day before to go to the temple! So we were really not doing well. We didn't have a dinner appointment so the Ardmore's made us omlets and we had happy times together! :)


Sunday: I GAVE A TALK IN CHURCH! They asked me to share some of the miracles I have seen in my mission and then tie it back to being guided by the spirit. It was really an awesome experience to talk on that. It was so cool how the Lord gave me a week of miracles that I could share with them so that they could know about the amazing things happening in their area! I ended talking about how in one situation the only reason I could be guided by the spirit was because I was worthy. I shared the sacrament scriptures Moroni chapters 6 and 7. Then later in the 3rd hour that was combined the Bishop quoted my talk a couple times!! It was a tender mercy because I felt like I wanted to say sooo much and said like nothing... but then he told me that he loved it and quoted it!! :) I felt so happy and soooo greatful for the spirit. Jenni came to church and was sitting in the back and smiling at me sooo big! :) I was just the happiest little missionary alive! Jose came as well! :) It was a good day of church! :) We taught the youth the restoration! They are being taught the priesthood this month and so we decided to explain to them the restoration and the blessings we have! It was a surprise lesson after all... SOOOOO we went with what we know best :)
Later that night a young man we had found and taught the restoration texted us! He hadn't been texting us back so we thought he had lost his interest and we were a little bit bummed but then we got a text from a random number!!! SAYING IT WAS HIM!! AND THAT HE HAS BEEN READING AND THAT HE IS ALL THE WAY IN ENOS AND THAT IT TOUCHED HIM SO MUCH AND REALLY MADE HIM THINK ABOUT TRUE AND REAL FORGIVENESS!! It was the cooelst experience ever. We testified to him through text.... interesting experience and he said thank you for your words, they inspired me to read more!


I loved this week! It was the crazy, the funniest, or the height of anything, but it was still amazing. I can hoenstly say with my whole heart that every week of the mission is AMAZING. It is divine. It is sacred. It's incredible and it's the biggest blessing I could have ever recieved! I know that it isn't required of me as a young woman of the church to go, but I know me, and I know, a long time ago in the pre- existence, I told someone I would. I told someone I would love them and find them. I love this work. It is so special. If you ever doubt going or having your child go, remember "doubt your doubt before you doubt your faith"
THE LORD ALWAYS PROVIDES. HE ALWAYS GUIDES. If we are worthy of that guidance.

I know this gospel is true, I can feel it seeping deeper and deeper into my soul. It's ingrained in me, and for that I have to thank my parents. And it's all of me, for that I have to thank the Lord. I know He loves me, and I can honestly say I think I know that because He loves YOU. The more I feel the love of God for others the more I feel it for myself. WE are His light. WE chose before this life to come and fight and love and gain knowledge and help each other get back to Him. Let's do it.

I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!
Hermana Koch 




Our Pingrees! (Pres and Sis Anne Pingree)


My lovelies are going home!
(Hna Parry anda Hna Burnham)


 hermanita Buno and yo!

Lizzie is on the far right kind behind Sis Pingree.

(Taken from the Texas Houston Blog, one of the group pictures with Lizzie in the middle)


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning!

hola hola hola milagros milagros milagros!!! 

This week was WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Probably not more wonderful than any other week :) haha but my outlook is just changing! I don't know what got into me but I just feel like a bubbling fountain that spills out happy bubble blessings of truth and peace! I should get started right away because I feel like lots of things happened this week!!


Monday
- Zone activity at a park that was like an hour away from us and 5 minutes from others ahahha it was funny but it's whatever! We had just the amount of time we needed to be there! We played soccer and volleyball and it was lovely!...... NOT TO MENTION SO HOT. But that's besides the point :) Lucky for me I looked just gorgeous because I was given my dad's sweat glands and was dripping wet :) 

- Then our ward had a Father's day party that was at another park where we played MORE SOCCER and it was awesome. Still recovering a little from the heat stroke though so every time I exerted a lot of energy I thought I was going to throw up! But Jose was there so that was awesome! 

Tuesday:
- We had an amazing lesson with Jose! We talked to him about how his baptismal date was kind of rushed and he was feeling like he couldn't learn everything fast enough! So we talked about it and he picked a new date!!! July 26th! yay!!! Pray for him! He has such a sweet spirit! We shared with him John 8:12 :)

Wednesday:
- Kayleigh came out with us and we tried a bunch of people on the ward list! We only talked to one person and she was 18 and the daughter of a less active member! She is awesome! We are hoping to be able to teach her whole family! las familias pueden ser eternas!!!! Then we were having luck and our dinner appointment canceled I think and so we went with Kayleigh to Texas Road House and had a wonderful dinner :) 
- We later had an amazing lesson with Jose! and Hno Vasquez (our ward mission leader who is the nicest humblest and greatest guy who is 32 and not married! Crazy people!) came with us! We shared the message of the restoration again and Hno Vasquez shared how he came to know it was true when he was investigating and when he was done we asked Jose how he knows it's true and he said that he had the same experience as Hno Vasquez and feeling the spirit at church! He is so aweosme! He reads and prays every night! What an example!
- Then we had an AMAZING LESSON WITH JENNI!!! I LOVE HER SOOO MUCH!!! SHE IS PROGRESSING SOOO MUCH! She just seems happier :) We taught her about a specific commandment and she was so darling and felt the spirit so strong. She is so humble and repentant and really wants to do what's best for her children and family! :) The spirit was so strong! and she is really looking forward to baptism someday!

Jueves:
- Not much happened. We had a long session of weekly planning to prepare ourselves for the next week. It really is so stress relieving and allows you to feel the spirit directing you so strongly when you plan things out! (I feel like mom! haha) Cool story we plan who we are going to visit the next week that we know of and we planned a less active family that we were going to visit that night! So we penciled them in for the day we felt we needed to visit them during the next week, and when we visited them that night we asked them which day would be best for us to come back the next week and she said TUESDAY!!!! THE DAY WE HAD ALREADY PLANNED!!! inspired planning :) Lovely!... "isn't it just... tootitloo" 
- We later went out to the boonies to contact potential friends who might be interested in the church! That live right aross from some members! He came out and he talked to us for like 2 hours it was awesome!! He talked to us forever about snakes and scared me to death ahaha and then he talked about his life and finding God and he said that he and his family would be willing to listen to the gospel! We left him with a prayer. 

Viernes:
- We went and saw Paula!!! During the day Mauricio isn't home and he hasn't really been accepting us lately and so we went to visit Paula to answer more of her questions and bring her peace! We had a BEAUTIFUL! lesson and read with her 3 Nefi 17 about christ healing the people, it was so wonderful. We planned to read 3 Nefi 11 oh woops. sorry 3 Nephi 11 with her when we planned but as we were there reading with her about healing was what the spirit was saying.. I couldn't really tell hermana Buno, but she by accident flipped to it and thought she was in 3 Nephi 11 and we read out of 17 instead! It was so cool! She just gets me that hermana Buno. The spirit always prompts us the same things in our lessons haha. It was glorious. Paula paid more attention than she ever has. What makes me sad is when people think that when trials come people think that the person in the trial is being punished for something they have done. THAT IS NOT TRUE. That is not true and it hurts me to think someone would believe that a loving Heavenly Father would do that. Yes we have consequences, but trials come for our benefit. He gives us road blocks to exercise us and give us strength and get us to where we need to be. 

- We ate dinner at Kayleigh's casa and she made chicken enchiladas like almost the same as moms!!! SOOO YUMMY!!! 
- A lesson with Jenni!!!!! We watched The Testiment with her, the movie that takes place in the Book of Mormon times. haha It was awesome and she loved it! She's so cute! She asked us to come back the next day to do service with her!

Saturday:
- We went and served Jenni after doing some less active knocking! We helped her and then a MIRACLE HAPPEN!!!!! During the week I found a quote in preach my gospel about families and decided to make them cute and write them all cute on pieces of paper and laminate them and then hermana Buno glued magnets on the back! So we made these cute quotes for Jenni and someone else! and so we made them and thought, ok well let's have a peaceful reminder lesson of the importance of the gospel blessing our families. Well by MIRACLE, JENNI'S HUSBAND WAS HOME!!!! 

And so we invited him to listen!! He was originally investigating and that is how we found Jenni. They have had a few sets of missionaries teach them and at one point he had a baptismal date! We testified to them and talked to them about the importance of families and having the gospel in our families and he was so interested, you could see it in his eyes and Jenni looked like her eyes were watering. It was awesome and we asked him if he would be home during the week and we could visit them both! They said yes so we are on Tuesday! Pray that the spirit will guide us and touch their hearts!! It was awesome!

- We had another lesson with Francisco! He had read the pamphlet about the restoration and had some questions! We talked to him alll about authority! It was good. The spirit wasn't very strong for some reason and so it didn't go super well but he said he wanted to come to church and try it all out to see if it was true. He really was interested when we introduced the plan of salvation to him. He wants to know why we are here on this earth! We told him that the plan of salvation answers the questions, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going and he said why are we here?! So we told him a little :) 

Sunday:
- Meetings and church and wonderful taking the sacrament. FRANCISCO ACTUALLY CAME!!! IT WAS WONDERFUL!!!!! I didn't really get to talk to him much because he left early and Hna Buno and I had to split with hnas so that she could be in gospel principles with him and I could teach the youth Sunday school class and he is a little quiet.
- We went to the Barrera's for Sunday dinner!! I just love them so much! They are so loving and welcoming and do everything for us. I love being with them and spending time with them!
- AMAZING LESSON WITH THE BONILLAS!!! Hermano was there and had us come in and we talked about everything!!! Trials and hardships!!!! He told us that "we were chosen to be doctor's of the soul" soooo tender. We talked to them about the importance in reading the scriptures everyday and how it allows the spirit to give us peace in our lives and heal us. Mauricio asked Paula if she wanted to get baptized and she said "I" over and over again and wiggled her finger yes and smiled! I LOVE HER SHE IS SOOOO STRONG!!!!!! They are so going to get there. We have a lesson with them for Tuesday to talk about the legistics and how she can be baptized!! She is nervous but still wants it!! yay!!!!! :) 

- We then had another miracle and were lead right to a house to knock and found a mom and son, and this mom is the sister of a member in our ward and used to come to church for a little and stopped because she was working! :) They want to know more and asked us to come back tonight!!! Like today is Monday and we are going back tonight! haha :) Sooo excited. They are awesome! It makes me so happy to share the message of the restored gospel!!

WE HAVE THE RESTORED GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!! His perfect church in on the earth today! God's power is restored on the earth and it is called the priesthood! We need it to seal our ordinances on earth AND IN HEAVEN!!! None of this till death do we part stuff. This is eternity my friends. If you want your best friends and neighbors with you in the Celestial Kingdom. Share with them the sacred truths that we have!! They have families and the same desires you do! Peace, happiness, and to be together forever. 

-We ended the night with some promptings of the spirit guiding us so that we could be safe as it was getting dark and we were finishing tracting. We truly recognized angels protecting us and the spirit guiding us and warning us :) What a beautiful blessing and protection! 


I love this gospel. As you can tell my days are full! And sometimes we forget to look at the miracles! I invite (so missionary of me hehe) you all to write down the little missionary experiences you have each day so you can see God working through you! It is really uplifting and even though it takes me forever to write this and no one probably reads it because it is sooo long ahhaha I am being blessed! Because I know Jan Jan loves it and I can see the success I have had in helping other's come unto Christ and choose His path! It's wonderful!!

I testify in the name of Jesus Christ that this IS the work of salvation. To bring souls back to Him. What an honor it is for us as Latter- Day Saints to remember our covenants  as we re-commit to remember Him each week in sacrament meeting by partaking of the sacrament. We are ALL His disciples. He loves us AND NEEDS us, every one of us, to fight this battle against Satan. Satan wants to pull people into darkness and with some people he is surrounding them in darkness! What a beautiful gift that we can be a source of light to them and pull them out. The Savior's team is our team. We are on that team. Are we going to sit on the bench or playing in the game! The number of players on the field isn't set. It's our choice. We need as many players as we can! I love my Savior and I am trying my hardest to become more like Him and help other's! I love you all!!! I AM SO PROUD OF YOU fam bam for wanting to study Preach my Gospel! I am so excited to be on the same study plan as you!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!! BESITOS!!!

Hermana Koch

Ps: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HALEY DU AND HERMANITA HAWKINS!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU BOTH SO VERY VERY MUCH!!!!

PSS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOOKIE!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIVE IT UP POOKIE. be expecting a card….


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

June 16, 2014 Conroe: Hola! Happy Fathers Day and Happy Birthday Mommy!


Hermana Lizzie, Hermana Buno and Pres Pingree. 
(I don't know the others at this point)



Hola Hola everybody!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!! YOU'RE MY BEST BUD!!! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!!!! I LOVE YOU MORE THAN A MILLION SUNFLOWERS!!!!! YOU'RE SUCH AN ANGEL!!! I hope it's the best day ever!!!! Also Happy Birthday to Jake!! It's his birthday also! oh or Elder Agle haha
This week was wonderful! But when I go to email I ALWAYS seem to forget what happened ahha so I took mom's advice and decided to just write down some things from each day!

Monday:

    Well monday is P-day as you all know! So we start proselyting at 6 pm! But early during the day things were hectic I don't know why and so we didn't get to do our shopping until last minute at like 5 pm! But we now know why! God planned it that way! As we were running out paying as fast as we can so we could start proselyting on time and as I was paying I noticed that this young man next to me getting ready to pay was standing oftly close to me and he kept looking at me and I was like what is going on! This is wierder than the usual, I'm a missionary and people stare at me moments! haha So we got all of our stuff and we were about to walk away and we decided to give him and the cash register lovely lady pass along cards! And he said actually I have a question for you! And we said ok! So he paid and then asked us if we had a Book of Mormon! We pretty much died and told him we do in the car so he awkwardly followed us out and we tried to talk to him! Long story short his family investigated the church when he was like 11 and he wants to read the  Book of Mormon and study it but he didn't want us to have any of his information! ahha But it was cool! Somebody really wanted to read the beautiful, wonderful, incredible, miraculous Book of Mormon!!!
 
    We had a YSA, FHE later and Jose came!! We shared a message about the commandments and it was awesome!! We passed out cards with a commandment and scripture on it and then they had teams and had to talk about it to everyone and it was great! We had to think of a creative way to help Jose learn about the commandments before his baptism!

Tuesday! 

     We had an amazing lesson with Paula led by the spirit! We went over and Mauricio wasn't home yet but we got to go in and sit by Paula and talk to her and she was laughing and smiling as usual and her mom had to cook so it was mostly just us with her and we got to communicate with her!!!! She just wiggles her pointer finger for yes and then no the two fingers and it's so awesome! We had some feelings that she had some questions about baptism so we decided to ask her! We asked her if she had some questions for us and she fingered yes! And then we said ok we will try to follow the spirit to figure out what it is! And we were guided and knew what questions to ask!! It was incredible! 
I LOVE COMMUNICATING WITH HER!! SHE HAS SUCH A SWEET SPIRIT! 
And she still wants to be baptized! Sadly we haven't caught Mauricio home for a while and so he is kind of pushing away so everyone keep them in your prayers! PAULA IS STARTING TO SAY A COUPLE WORDS!! its amazing. :) 
     We had a lesson with Jose about some commandments and it was really awesome he has such a sweet spirit! He wasn't exactly ready to step into the waters of baptism so he wasn't baptized on Friday! But we are still teaching him and helping him so it's still all 
happy :) Pray for him too!

Wednesday:

     We went on exchanges! I went with the sister training leader to their area and it was wonderful! I got to be with her on her last exchange! She is so darling and humble! I got to testify so much all day and it really strengthened my testimony! I love the gospel and I know that we have the only true church of Jesus Christ! The son of God! Testify to someone at least twice this week so you can feel the spirit and so can they!

Thursday:

     We had a wonderful sweet lesson with Jenni!! We taught her about faith and we used Alma 32 to talk about our faith isn't perfect but we can grow it!! We brought a little target 1$ sun flower thingy and planted it with her! She was so happy and so cute! She ended the lesson with such a beautiful sweet sincere prayer and asking Heavenly Father to help her grow her faith using the same imagery and wording that the scriptures do in Spanish! She wanted us to come back the next night when we asked her when we could come back!

Friday:

     We had an awesome specialized training about the restoration! President Pingree had some discussions with us and it was wonderful!! I felt the spirit so strong testifying to me that I knew the Restoration is true!! I know that through Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ restored His gospel on the earth!! I will write more about this at the end! 
      We ate dinner with the AMAZING Barrera family whom we love soooo much!!!! And shared a message with them about Christ. My heart was so touched when we started talking about what Jesus did for us, and the humble birth, family, and stable he was born into. It really makes you think about all the people around you, that what you have material wise doesn't mean anything. Jesus Christ came to this earth in the most humble circumstances and blessed us all and saved us. What a beautiful thought. 
      We had another lesson with Jenni!!! IT WAS AMAZING!!! we taught her about repentance! The spirit was so sweet as she poured her heart out to us and told us all about her hard life! She has already been repenting her whole life, with all the steps, without even knowing it! She is so incredible, humble, and prepared. I love her so much, she shared some deep things with us and as I was listening I was just filled with gratitude to my Heavenly Father that He gave me this opportunity. It really set in and my eyes filled up with tears when I realized I have less than 6 months to do this. The Lord is so good. He has truly given me the greatest gift I could ever ask for which is to be in someone's home and listen to them as a representative of Jesus Christ. At the end she thanked us for just listening to her because she has no one else to talk to like that. We explained to her that she can speak with her Father in Heaven like that and she then offered the most beautiful touching prayer of hope about her family having a better life that she knows God has prepared for them. UGH! I JUST LOVE HER!!! So incredible. The gospel is such and incredible, incredible reality that we have.

Saturday:

      SUCH A SLOW DAY!! It is summer, it is hot and no one is home haha nothing was really happening and we both felt like we should make cupcakes to bring to a baby shower for a cute girl who isn't very active and we went and when we got there she was so happy that we made them because she didn't have any and she had bought a cute cupcake holder and forgot!! Hermana Buno and I just looked at each other shocked at how soft and tender the spirit is that He would prompt us to go home and make those for her! 
       Right after that we took Kayleigh, she's the cutest, one of our friends, she's white, from Utah, served her mission in Honduras, she's 24, just married a honduranian and they are in our ward and she is pregnant! She always goes out with us! Anyway Hermana Buno and I were both prompted to go visit an investigator who we KNEW WASN'T GOING TO BE HOME because he is on vacation but we both felt it so we decided that we were just going to do it and bring Kayleigh. Well we walk up to his apartment and there are two young men standing above us at their apartment and we just started talking to them! Turns out one of them had heard a lot about our church! And had questions! So we went up there and taught them a really powerful restoration lesson! They are both so interested and have real intent! They took the Book of Mormon and are reading and praying! And they want to come to young single adult activities! IT WAS SUCH A MIRACLE!!! Kayleigh was so happy and on a spiritual high and we were just in awe that that had just happened! Lesson learned!! ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE SPIRIT!!!

Sunday:

      We ate dinner with the Barrera's!! They are so wonderful!! There was some more cream face smashing. ahaha I love them so much they just make this mission so wonderful!  
      Then the Ardmore's (the senior couple in our ward) invited us over for their special Father's Day dinner as well and we had roast!!!!! THEY ARE THE FUNNIEST!!! THEY CRACK ME UP SO HARD I WASN'T BREATHING!! We were laughing so hard I was silent... I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Them and the Barrera's do that for me ahhah. Elder Ardmore has a phone that records him and them types it in a message and lets just say it needs hearing aids because it types things out terribly wrong!!! haahahha

As you can tell this week was full and so happy! We have the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have EVER REASON TO BE HAPPY!!!!!!! Because of the Priesthood that the worthy men in our church hold that was directly passed down to them through Jesus Christ, we have the saving ordinances here on earth and as it says in Matthew18:18 only with this power can these ordinances be sealed in Heaven and on earth!!! 

I love you all so much! This is the true church and if you are doubting it, ask God. He will tell you!
Love you all!
Hermana Koch



The Ardmores

 Photo's from the Texas Houston Mission Blog from the specialized mission training this week.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

June 9, 2014: Conroe: ONE YEAR HERE. SIX MONTHS TO GO. DONT THINK ABOUT IT OR YOUR EMOTIONS ARE GOING TO BLOW.

 She's almost on the top row now!

HOLA EVERYBODY!

       How are you doing?!! I just want to start off my little email telling you all how much I love you! How supported I feel!! I really love everyone of you! I hope you know that I can feel of of your prayers. And most importantly I know God hears our prayers and so I know I am being blessed as well as you! THANKYOU!

ALSO!! Thank you if you have EVER sent me a letter or wished me happy birthday! I am so sorry that I wasn't able to thank everyone or get a message in the mail, I am really the worst at finding time to do that! I love you though and it truly made me feel loved. You helped uplift, and support and give me, a servant of the Lord, a little more fire to keep going! I promise that your love does NOT go unnoticed! It means the world to me!!


This week was the craziest week ever!!! I HIT MY YEAR MARK! ahhh. The Barrera's had us over and they did the classic Hispanic tradition of smashing your face, that they do on birthdays, because they missed my birthday! ahha This week was seriously full of miracles. I can't even explain them all, there were spiritually miracles, physical miracles, small, big, happy, peaceful, etc. The Lord loves us! It was the HARDEST week of my mission, and I survived it because the Lord is so good. This week started my 6 months to saludable, I don't like the other 's" word they use so I chose to change mine to saludable ahha it means healthy in spanish, I thought that was clever... any way it means you work out like CRAZY! So you can be normal when you go home :) I don't really care too much but it's nice to have motivation to keep working out harder and harder! It makes me happier :) that's what I figured out when Kate told me that and so I started hard on Monday and Tuesday and then... GOT HEAT STROKE. BLUGH. That put a dent in things hahha so I haven't been able to work out hard or really at all BUT this morning was the first one where I woke up normal! So I shall try again. ahha if only it weren't so hot in Texas. You'd think thered be some mercy in the morn's... NOPE YOU'RE WRONG.


Jose is getting baptized!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!! THIS FIRDAY THE 13TH!! He is sooo funny. We are so happy for him. We have to teach him EVERY SINGLE DAY! To make sure he gets taught everything because it was so fast! We have only been teaching him for like a week! haha it's so awesome :) He seriously makes us laugh SOOO HARD. He texts us all the time and he moved here from Mexico a year ago and doesn't like us to think he doesn't speak english. Which I am impressed that he seems to know quite a bit, and he is for sure going to learn super fast because he sometimes refuses to talk to us in the beginning of our conversations in spanish. So its going like this….

"-Hola jose! como esta!
- Hi :) good. whazup?
- estamos bien gracias! esta bien si pasamos y compartir un mensaje? 
- uh ya!"

hahha and then he will finally switch into spanish hahha that's when we talk to him...... when we text him ahhahaha he talks espanglish, spanish and english mix and it is so funny!!  We have to play mad gab with each other. Hermana  Buno will read it and then I'll tell her what it sounds like. ahha At first we didn't know what was going on and then we asked our ward mission leader and he quickly translated for us and we were in AWWWW like hermano, you seriously have a talent!! ahha and then we realized you just have to mad gab it out which gives a significant amount of entertainment! :) ahhaa example
"Hokey...nopoblema...hastatu..morro..baybay" --> "ok, no problemo, hasta tomorrow, bye bye" hahahha 
" hey.....keasen....yuenbor..kin" --> " hye, que hacen, I'm working"

It really makes us smile, he is a super cool kid. so so prepared! He loves everything that we teach and understands the first time we teach it! He is having Jonathan baptize him, one of the friends he made when he started coming to teach. The YSA, or here they are called the JAS, are so awesome! They bring everyone in under their wing! We are going to share a message tonight at the noche de hogar! "FHE" about the commandments! God truly prepares his people through the members! Jose already believed and felt the spirit at church, we as missionaries just get to fill in the blanks and that is the coolest part! Just pray for us that he will get taught everything and be excited!!

Jenni is really just one of my favorite people! I realized I haven't really explained her! Even though there isn't much to explain! She is so sweet and is a young mom and loves everything and accepts and believes everything :) She was having a hard time getting to church and the last Sunday I don't know if you remember but I said she came! and then... she came again this Sunday!! She is such sweet little mom. She finally is starting to keep her reading commitments too!! All because a sweet member in our ward came with us to her house!! She loves her! We kept feeling like it was right so we brought her and they are a perfect match! We brought her to 2 lessons at her house and the spirit was so strong and Jenni told US! That she would see us at church! and she did! It was so fun! She and the hermana just walked back to the class without us! We didn't even have to go get her and take her!

Mauricio and Paula are so sweet. They had their birthdays this weekend. We hadn't been able to visit them, only Paula and her mom but it's ok we are going to try tonight!!

SO ONE YEAR! SORRY THIS IS SO LONG! haha but I just felt like I needed to get everything down! Well as you know I pretty much had a break down on my year mark!! It was sooo hard! Satan is real! He tries to get us down! BUT! CHRIST IS REAL TOO. AND SO IS HEAVENLY FATHER. They can get us out of anything. They save us from our everyday battles including our internal ones. I chose again to serve a mission this week. I chose to keep going these next 6 months, and to me that was just the same and noble as turning in my papers! This is the hardest thing I have ever done but I have no complaints! I am so happy and so determined to help others with all my heart for my last 6 months! I know the Lord loves these people and so do I! I realized that sometimes we have to choose. well pretty much all the time. Agency that God gave us isn't just about physical choices but also mental. Am I going to choose in my mind to love myself? To keep caring? to love God enough to be obedient? Every day questions in life! Am I going to be nice and smile? Am I going to only think nice things about other people? Those little mind choices have an every lasting effect on our spirits. I learned a very valuable lesson that Dad has always said.   Don't be too long in one attitude! (Pride and Prejudice)

I learned to keep moving and to not dwell, to choose to be happy, TO CHOOSE Heavenly Father's light, in your MIND over satan's gloomy disruptive distractive darkness.
I love God, His power is real! His children, His worthy males have the abilitly to have the priesthood, the authority to act in God's name. That's pretty big. And it's REAL. I know it is, with every fiber of my heart. I know it's real. He is real. He is REALLY our Father. I testify of that in the name of Jesus Christ, our brother.

Love you all! have a wonderful week! Read your scriptures and say your prayers EVERY NIGHT!

CON MUCHO AMOR
Hermana Beanerbop Koch










Monday, June 2, 2014

June 2, 2014: Conroe: THIS WEEK!




Hola hola 

    This week was great, lots of good stuff going on in Conroe.
Ok birthdays really fast! Aunt Lori Happy Birthday!!!! Sorry I am a couple days late!!!! I love you I love you I love you!!!! and SAVY! Happy Birthday on Sunday!!!!!!!
MCKAY AND KATI! CONGRATULATIONS!!! I got your wedding announcement in the mail!! I'm so excited for you! You look beautiful! Goodness everyone is getting married haha 

MJJJJJJJJJJ!!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR MISSION CALL!!!! AHHHH SOOO HAPPY!!!! There is someone in my mission whose face reminds me of you and I just kept thinking about you our whole exchange! You're wonderful!
Miracles this week were plenty. Jessica and Amanda came to mutual and they painted nails for part of personal progress!! 
Mauricio and Paula didn't come to church :( 

We have a new friend that we are teaching and he is so nice! His name is Jose! and he has come to church like 10 times with a family that he moved in next to that are members! They have been bringing him and he has been coming to our sports night like every weekend and he loves the church! So we went and taught him this week about the restoration! We invited him to be baptized and he said he wants to! Later that night his friends that he has made at church went over to talk to him and they talked to him and went over things even more with him and he has decided to be baptized on the 14th!! it's amazing! :) 


I have a testimony that when we share the gospel with our friends that they can feel of the truth more fully in their lives because they have someone who is living it right next to them! This is our way of life! If we share it with those that we love they will feel the love of our Savior for themselves and for their families! :)

This week was over all great. We went out to an area in our area called "Cut and Shoot" and got SOAKED! hahha It's been raining like a mad man out here in Texas and it's really throwin off the groove. haha Not the rain.. because we love the rain.. It's just the humidity mixed with awful heat that decides to just say hi randomly. Gross. hahha But hey! It's ok! We were given this world to enjoy it! So that's what we are going to do! 

I love you all! You're always in my prayers! I am so happy that Weston is getting better. The Cummings family is in my prayers. I love you all! I know this church is true! The atonement is real! I love my Savior, without his sacrifice for us, without His atonement, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to change. I am so grateful that I have the agency that our Father in Heaven gave us to choose to wake up the next morning and do better. I love this gospel. I know it's true. There is no other source for true happiness. Only with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His true church can we completely access true joy in our families! 

Love you bunches!

<333 Hermanita Koch




1. Temple!! 8:00 in the morning... got up at 6... 30 minutes to early ahhaha 


2. Hermano Barrera locked us together


3. Completely soaked and had to change



4. car wet= wet dog smell haha 


5. Memorial day!


6. H5 REUNITED! Hna Koch, Hna Knappen, Elder Hamelou, and Elder Valdez


7. Hna Barrera


8. Sammi's graduation! Biggest pot ive ever seen!


9. Lucy is budding! (is that how you spell it? haha) 


10. Sammi's graduation