November 24, 2014: Woodland Area: The Last of Everything Starts...

Hellooooooooo out there!

This week was just wonderful you can guess why.... well for lots of reasons hahaha but Cory and Noel got married!!!!! ahhhhhhhhh and lots of other wonderful things. 

We had a zone conference all about the Plan of Salvation and it just strengthened my testimony ten fold and then we had lots of amazing lessons after that! The gospel is sooo true! We talked all about it and how sometimes if we have been members our whole lives we take this knowledge for granted because we don't realize that people don't know what we do! I love God's perfect plan and it just seems just so right, that He would give us a perfect road map, the gospel of Jesus Christ, a Prophet, His true church with real authority to help us get back to Him! AHHH so wonderful!!! I gave my last testimony. It was really sad and I cried pretty hard but I recorded it so you can hear it :) It's in english so no worries! This next Sunday is my last one and they are having me give a talk because it's a fifth Sunday so it's missionary work! Suuuuper excited haha :) 

Well you probably want to know... Cory and Noel got married!!! :) We went to the temple with them and took pictures before their wedding! :) It was so precious! We talked about marriage and how Christ talks about them becoming one flesh. They are so darling! Please pray for them! Cory is getting baptized on Friday and we are so happy! MY LAST FRIDAY in the mission!  We love their family sooo much! We are going over there on Thursday for Thanksgiving! And we are going to do that fun turkey activity that Le Anne sent me! :) So excited! They came to church on Sunday and loved it!! :)

(m) We had lots of miracles this week! Cory and Noel got married!! It was so beautiful and before we took pictures with them at the temple and taught them a lesson outside of it. It was such a miracle to talk to them about it and to hear them say that in a year they were going to be in their! Also after our amazing zone conference about the plan of salvation and after we increased our understanding of it we were able to teach someone and talk to them in depth about who they are and where they come from! He later responded that he was going to change and he came to church again this week. It's amazing me the things that people realize and connect with as they hear about true doctrine and their spirit recognizes it. When we help people really feel and understand that they are God's children, their lives change! I love the gospel and the perfect plan God made for us!

"Your trials are yours and mine are mine, but yours make you a stronger you and mine make me a stronger me. They fulfill their purpose when every night we all kneel down in unison to approach Diety." - Hermana Koch- 

This is a quote I made up and sent to Haley. haha it's not that impressive but I liked it. 

LOVE YOU ALLL SOOOOO MUCH!! YOU ARE IN MY PRAYERS ALWAYS!!! 

BESOS,

Hermana Koch 

Fountain outside of the temple.

They are hilarious, this is Cory trying to show him how to do it right. haha

The rings!! <3

November 17: 2014: Woodlands Area: Another week

Fluffy pillows at Walmart..... there is a point you get to where sleep is just a distant dream and anything soft and fluffy has reached a whole new level of tempting. 

Hola buenas tardes,

    This week was wonderful :) I'm absolutely loving the Woodlands. The people here are fantastic and it is amazing to see how much more we can learn everyday! 

We see Cori y Noel everyday!!! WE LOVE THEM SOOO MUCH!!! THEY ARE SO AMAZING!!! They truly are amazing people. I really really admire people who humble themselves and leave everything behind to follow God. They are so incredible and all that matters to them is the well being of their family! They tell us that they consider us their family and this week was soooo awesome because so many members came to visit them with us! Everyone loves them because they are so nice and happy :) 

On Monday we had a wonderful FHE with the bishop and his wife at their house and the bishops wife made us all dinner and we talked about the steps of the gospel!!! It was wonderful!!! You can feel the spirit sooooo strong in their house!! We love them!! We seriuosly do. They are from Argentina and so funny and so cool. Anyway.... but it was awesome!!! 

FRIDAY THEY (Cori and Noel) FINALLY GOT THEIR MARRIAGE LISENCE!!! YAYYAYYYY :)))))))) SO ON WEDNESDAY THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED AND WE ARE THEIR BRIDESMAIDS WOOOHOOO HAHHA :) We seriously love them. They keep saying they are going to come and visit me when I go home which I am not oposed to at all... I hope ya'll are ok with a bunch of people visitng at some point because I invite everyone haha :)

I love being a missionary. It is so wonderful and I really don't have any words to express it. But I do know that the atonement is real. And I will express that to the best of my ability. On my mission I have seen the most beautiful faces and eyes. And those are the ones who have become someone completely different than they used to be through the atonement of Jesus Christ. It changes us, refines us and gives us the strength to over come who we once were and change completely to be in the service of our God. The windows of our soul are our eyes. I love to look into peoples eyes and testify of our Savior and see their countenance change. I love the Gospel, their is no other way to happiness. I love you all so much and I hope you can feel the strengthening of your spirit as you study your scriptures every day and pray to our Father in Heaven. The only way to help people and to help them find happiness in this life is to show them the light in your eyes that you get through having a healthy spirit. 

LOVE YOU ALLL!!! BESOS!

Hermana Koch 

Ps: I'm really sorry I don't have any pictures of really anyone but my companion and I this week. I promise I'm not self absorbed haha it's just that I couldn't really get my camera out a lot and I'm really lazy, but you have my promise that I will have more next week ahhaa 

A very small fury friend.. this reminds me of ALL-Y pop 

bc we always took pictures of small animals haha

Hermana Hill adjusting to the cold hehehe

Loved finding this on FB the other day.

Once again, somemone got a hold of someones phone and had a good time. 

I found these on FB....I hope that's ok to steal!

Looks like it was a great day at the Temple back in Oct!

Nov 10, 2014: Woodlands Area: MIRACLES

Once again, I love getting text from people on her mission!

Another farm-working day!

Holaaa,

   This week was wonderful!! Below is a CRAZY MIRACLES THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!! 

Cori and Noel are getting baptized!!! We met them last week Monday we had our first lesson with them and invited them to be baptized and they said yes. Tuesday we had our second lesson with them and invited them to be baptized on November 28th and they said yes! And then we invited them to get married before then and they said this coming week!! :) 

Then Thursday we had an amazing lesson with the first part of the Plan of Salvation and then the next day the second part of it and family history and now they want to be baptized so that they can go to the temple!!! It has been such a wonderful week, and in between our lessons they have read suuuper far into the Book of Mormon and love it!! They are so wonderful we love them so much. Tonight we are going to have a family home evening with the Bishops family!

I love them so much! Hermana Hill and I both felt very strongly that we are specifically here for them!! We love them so much and we have so much fun teaching them! They are like our best friends!! Cori is from Mexico and Noel is from El Salvador :) 

I love the gospel. I know that it is true. It just is and it's a fact. I can't imagine living in a world believing that their wasn't someone watching over me and loving me forever and ever and unconditionally. The same Being who created everything cares about me and how I feel. That is pretty amazing and sometimes hard for people to believe. But when we open our heart we can feel Him there. I believe that agency comes down to even choosing to believe. So I choose to believe :) 

I love you all I love you so so much have a wonderful week! Choose to see the miracles!

Hermana Koch

The Barrera's celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary and many of the missionaries that served in the area 

were so excited to get to see them. The Barrera's made t-shirts and had a small reunion. 

They saved one for Lizzie when they came home and gave it to her.

I think they will always feel like family to each other. We love them for loving our missionaries.  

Mission Leadership Training.

What great, fun and loving mission presidents the Mortensens are.

Nov. 3: 2014: Woodlands Area: Another glorious week in the woods!

Jocelyn entered the temple! :) 

 The peace sign is to represent the peace in the temple... yes I know it's cheesy haha

Hey Family :) 

Ok so I am truly sorry for all the the hectic no emailingness but fortunately that is over. Ok so a little bit of info... Hermana Hill is from all over. haha She has lived in lots of places. She is darling and I just adore her and love being with her. She is such a crack up and just gets me and so she master teaches me and all of my problems that go on in my little freaking out head of mine. 

This week was awesome! The area I am in is Woodlands north. We just switched around and made new areas in the ward so all of us companionships (the south hermanas, hna Carbajal and Medeiros and elders Christensen and Perez) are white washing new areas basically. haha I have never white washed before and I have to say it is a fun adventure, en serio. I love it :) So this week we don't have a ton to report because we are just trying to find people to visit! But I do have a few miracles I can share :) 

#1 We had MLC on Tuesday and afterwards president Mortensen expressed a little bit of concern about the movement of the Spanish program in the mission. Afterwards hermana Hill and I were really contemplating and thinking on that and we were really confused as well. We thought a lot about how all of our missionaries are obedient amazing missionaries! How everyone is so loving and dedicated but not everything was adding up. We have lots and lots of people investigating the church and enjoying of the blessings but we have found that the large majority of them are not enjoying of the greatest and most relieving gifts of all, which is that of baptisms, being cleansed of our sins and really being able to repent. So hermana Hill and I were just really bothered by this and it had been on our minds for a while and we were just talking and praying about it and then I was texting sister Mortensen about something silly but as we were saying bye to her she told us to have a great day in the work of the Lord and I don't know what came over me but I was like before we text her back we have to make a goal!!! And hna Hill kept just loving me and telling me how amazing this last 4 weeks is going to be haha so we just said out of nowhere.... LETS INVITE AT LEAST ONE PERSON TO BE BAPTIZED EVERYDAY! and so we told sister Mortensen our goal and moved on with our day.... Anyway long story short we had all member lessons planned that day but our goal was in our mind and sister Mortensen said to trust that the Lord will put them in our path and that is what we did! We saw a huge miracle!! One of our less active wonderful members had a friend over named Mireya and she never had been interested before but we asked her if she would like to listen and she did! WE TAUGHT HER THE RESTORATION AND SHE SAID THAT SHE WANTED TO KNOW FOR HERSELF AND WE INVITED HER TO BE BAPTIZED AND SHE SAID YES!!!!!!! IT WAS AWESOMMMMMME!!!! Then the president called us and we were like ooo we are in trouble haha just kidding but anyway we called him back and then the first thing we told him was everything we just told you and he was so excited and I asked why he called and he said because sister Mortensen told him about what we said and he said that he called all the ZLs and STLs and challenged them to do it too! He said that we recieved revelation and that it is going to change the Texas Houston Mission and he said lots of other good stuff and we were so happy when we hung up the phone we just were baffled and were like.. I think that just made my whole mission.... and we have both been out for a long time haha. He told us something really special, he said that we will effect more lives that we can comprehend and will ever know. I just wanted to cry. And then I felt silly for thinking that goal/thought came out of no where :) The Lord works in mysterious ways :) 

#2 We made a phone call to a number in our area book trying to contact old friends who had been recieving the lessons from the missionaries and we called this number and it just happened to be a young man who lives in Orange County!!! and he is having a hard time because his dad has cancer and he said that he really wants to talk to the missionaries especially because all of his family has been baptized and he hasn't and wants to be... it was super cool :) 

#3 We got to go to the temple with Jocelyn, a future missionary in our ward! She is going to California!! I am so excited :) It was beautiful! and the whole thing was in Spanish and I understood it all and realized that I can receive so much more revelation in both languages. hahah 

This is to the president, the m is miracle and the p is personal

(m) We had lots of miracles this week! You already know some of them :) pero algo que me toco muy fuerte was when Hermana Carbajal came to do exchanges with me. Tuvimos una leccion muy especial con una de las hermanas en el barrio quien esta pasando por un tiempo un poco dificil con su hija mayor. Y realmente fue un milagro que la hermana carbajal estaba alli. Porque ella paso por las mismas cosas de la hija de esta mujer y cuando ella compartio su testimonio a este hermana desanimada, econtro una esperanza nueva. Me toco fuerte porque me di cuenta de que Dios existe y esta muy consiente de las necesidades de sus hijas quien son madres. Que El no queria dejarle a esta hermana en un estado de tristeza. Yo se que Dios esta en cada parte de La Obra, es Suya y yo se que hay MUCHAS razones que tenemos los intercambios pero mas que todo yo pienso que aunque sentimos que son para los misioneros, yo creo que son para las personas, Dios nos ponga cada uno de nosotros en el camino de algien quien esta sufriendo. 

(p) I don't partically want to talk about me... I feel weird and stuff and really heart broken but it's been great because it has added a new fire and desire to my work. I know miracles are real and I know that the Lord knows that I am trying my best and so He is going to do the rest. President Vasquez came and met with the missionaries in our ward and our WML and he repeated like seven times "You will have a beautiful life" and it was really powerful, it made us all want to work even harder which even though sometimes it doesn't feel like you can give more, you always can. I know the Lord is going to bless me in my endeavors but I know most importantly that if I behave myself ;) he can bless everyone around me. I want to bless the life of everyone put in my path, so therefore my missionary work won't end in a month, it'll go on for the eternities. I will always be a representative of Jesus Christ.  

Anyway there are lots of things to say and not enough time but just know that the Lord loves you. He protects us and cares about us. Read your patriarchal blessing :) Love it and appreciate it because we are made up of what He is made up of. We are all special! I love you all a million times a million times infinity! The work is real and you have the choice to participate or not, but life is much happier when you decide to :) I know that Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know that and I will never deny it. I will never be able to deny that God does answer our prayers. Every single one of us no matter how insignificant we feel. He exists. Don't ever let the intelligence of man block your vision of the glory of God. He created us and knows every one of us more perfectly than we can imagine :) 

Sincerely,

hermana Koch

First night out in the new area!! "Painting the town white!"

 Our driveway of our new little house... We live on the property of english members! 

They are so nice and have the cutest kids!

The chicken coop haha more pictures next week!

 Jake and Madelyn getting eggs :)

 My last zone meeting!

The whole zone :)