April 21, 2014: Canyon Lakes Area: EL DOMINGO DE LA RESURRECION!

Hola hOla HOLA 

     Ok so before  forget and get to the meaty stuff, haha jk, but real fast! I got 2 packages from home today! A little package from Mookie, a package from mamacita! and an envelope package from mommy!! Just letting you know if anyone was wondering they got to me! and I am going to WAIT TO OPEN THEM UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!! YOU ARE ALL THE  BEST! I LOVE YOU! 

Anyway, I am sad not to see your faces on my birthday! But I know it's ok because it's the only birthday I'll have in the field! and I'll be sharing it with my Savior!! 

This week was GREAT! It was definitely interesting... first of all I will warn you, that there aren't any updates on our lovely wonderful people that we are teaching :/ We haven't really gotten to see anyone this week! But we are doing a lot of finding! Walking is the best thing known to man! 

AND I NEVER IN MY LIFE THOUGHT I WOULD EVER SAY THAT AS WELL AS I DON'T THINK ANY OF YOU THOUGHT I WOULD EITHER ahhaa 

BUT it is so awesome. When you walk you get to talk to everyone! One night we just dropped our car off at 6 and decided to walk to all of our destinations and we had a goal to give out at least 2 Book of Mormons and we ended up giving out 3 and then we didn't have another so we got someones address and took it to them later! It was really fun :) 

WALKIN WITH A PURPOSE.  

Another highlight of the week! WE WENT TO A SEALING!!! The bishop's wife in our ward is soooo wonderful. She and all of her siblings and parents were sealed in the TEMPLE!!!! :D IT WAS SO AMAZING!! They invited us and it was the most glorious experience of my life!   I don't have any words! JUST MY TESTIMONY BURNING IN MY HEART. That I KNOW that families are eternal! That because God loves us He allows us to use His power here on earth to seal us together so that we can be happy FOREVER and live with our families. I love my savior and I know that because He was resurrected I know that we all, every one of us that comes to this earth, get to be resurrected too.

This easter Sunday I realized that Easter really is my favorite Holiday. I mean I love a lot of holidays, but it really touched my heart, if you think deeply about Christ being resurrected we realize that we are celebrating so many things. His love for us, eternity, eternal families, perfection, perfect bodies, the atonement, the hope we get that we know the glorious Sunday always follows the dark Friday! etc etc There are so many things! It all hit me for some reason when I was looking at the way you can say easter in Spanish. 

One of the ways is el domingo de la resurrecion. My heart just melted, it translates into the Sunday of the Resurrection. I just love the Spanish language. Instead of saying easter, if we were to say the Sunday of the resurrection every year I feel like it would hit our hearts so much more deeply. I felt like through the entire day the spirit was so strong, I could cut it with a knife like cheese cake. It was incredible, I could feel in the air that it is a HOLY day. I wrote in my journal last night how grateful I was for that spirit. I feel like the Lord just covered the world with a blanket, piercing every soul with that sweet hope filling spirit. I love my Savior and I know He loves me. I know He lives. 

Last night we went and visited a family and did the easter egg lesson with all the days of Christ's life that mom sent me and one of the little boys is like 7 and He said, I can't wait to see what Jesus looks like, I cant wait to see HIM. And I just looked at him and said, me too. me too. 

I can't wait and I testify that that day will come. And He will greet us with love and a smile. 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!! 

HERMANA KOCH! 

April 14, 2013: Canyon Lakes Area: YOU IS KIND YOU IS SMART YOU IS IMPORTANT

Hola hola my loved ones!

I hope that all is well! I don't have a ton of time but I'll just get the point across!!! 

SO sadly we haven't seen Yesenia and her family at all this week :( Jorge and Teresa!! 

And awesome! We watched the restoration movie and it was awesome! They said it was beautiful but they don't think that anyone has seen god. I bore my testimony and cried, and I think he thought he hurt our feelings haha whoops! Then! Right after we took them on a real church tour! It was my first one! Definitely not how we wanted it to go, but it was awesomeness! 

SUNDAY HERMANA JENSEN AND I GAVE TALKS!!! Pure Spanish... I spoke for like 15 minutes. I gave my talk on President Uchtdorf and Elder Bednars talks mixed! It was happy :) I don't have to explain now but I will next week! 

Funny fact I have kept developing new sleeping habits....  in Gulf bank, I sleep talked.

With Han Rowe, I sleep talked and yelled in my sleep in Spanish and giberish and now with Hermana Jensen, I talk and SING hahaha my poor companions!! 

Mommy! I need my other brown leather mission journal I'm outta space!!! 

I love you all! I know this church is true!! I am so happy and so greatful for my trials! Through them with Christ I get stronger! I got a priesthood blessing on Sunday, and it was beautiful. It gave me real hope and I feel so close to my Heavenly Father, he told me that He is a real person and I can approach Him in every circumstance I know that is true. He really is our Father! Ask him! 

Love you all 

Hermana Koch! 

April 7, 2014: Canyon Lakes Area: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

 Just some of my favorite babies

It grows!!! 

Funny story... the other night I came home and the wind had blown the cloth on the table and my pot of baby sunflowers onto the ground and my dear little sunny was wrapped up in the blanket and I freaked out!!! and then my prayers were answered when 

Elder Anderson said that trees grow stronger with wind, fewf!! 

Hola Hola Hola,

This week was good just like all the other ones because the mission is so amazing! haha

Something rather dreary to start things off haha Sunday morning right before the morning session of the most wonderful conference ever.... Hermana Jensen says to me.... hey! you have less than 8 months left!...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Elder Barney laughed and was like well that wasn't a very nice thing to say. hahah I was just standing there with my jaw dropped... haha poor thing she thought she was being nice, I love her.  I was like ahhhh don't say that!! hah it's all good though. Life is moving the way it should. Damnation is stopping progression and I for sure don't want to stop moving forward.

 This week was great! I love being a missionary! We had amazing miracles all week! One afternoon we tried to contact some less actives in our ward, they didn't answer there door... sad day! BUT!! THE LORD STILL PROVIDED US WITH MIRACLES LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES!! We got this fire to decide to knock like the whole other side of the culdesac.... I don't know how to spell that. So we went knocking and talked to a few people but no one was really interested. We knocked in the beginning a house and a really sweet woman opened the door and said that she was muslim and that she believed in Christ being a prophet and didn't have any interest, we thanked her for her time and that was really it! Well on our way back to our car we saw two young men and new that one of them was her son and we could have easily told ourselves that they weren't interested! But instead we talked to them!! We taught them a brief restoration lesson and talked to them more specifically how we have a living Prophet today! We established our differences, but we testified of Jesus Christ being the son of God and our Savior and redeemer. We asked them if they would be interested in learning more about how we have a living prophet today and told them about general conference! They said that is something that they definitely want to understand because they thought that no one would want to listen to a prophet in these modern days! It was a really cool experience and it really taught us to TALK TO EVERYONE!! To realize that every person has the ability, agency and need to come closer to God! I love that no matter what the gospel can relate to anything! That even when your religions are very different you can still find common ground and then testify with love of the truth that you know. It was awesome :)

......................................

Well that's awkward I accidently sent that without being done... haha oh well! anyway!! We had some amazing stuff happening this week and conference WAS SO GOOD!! AHHHH sadly none of our investigators came :( but that is ok because hopefully a few of them decided to watch the conference on their computers! Because we can do those sorts of things!

SO I am just going to write down the lessons I learned from the Conference in case any of you missed it.. plus everyone gets different things out of it! so here goes!!

- When you defend your faith even though sometimes it seems un heard, you have stepped into the circle of nobel men and women.

- Christ- like love is the greatest need on this planet. Because righteousness comes with it.

- We all need love prayers and appreciation.

- Sometimes people mock you for being obedient, but when that happens, just remind yourself of the reason you are being obedient. For me, it's because I love my Father in Heaven.

- One of the reasons we are here on this earth is to learn how to control and manage our human bodies.

- Do we realize HOW MUCH CHRIST LOVES US?

- Challenges WILL come and your faith WILL grow stronger.

- We are infinitely more precious to God than a tree.

- If blessings appeared right away we wouldn't develop faith.

- God's laws must be our standards.

- Let your faith show.

- SERVE THE LORD FIRST

- When we love someone, they grow confident in our love and in return grow confidence in the Lord's love.

- FOCUS ON THE BASICS

- The savior cares what we are thinking.

- Men and women are equal, but DIFFERENT IN RESPONSIBILITY.

- ARE YOU SLEEPING THROUGH THE RESTORATION?

- Acts of kindness can change lives and hearts.

Ok I can't do this there are too many and I didn't even get to my favorite talks on Sunday!! haha but it was all sooo incredibly amazing! What I got for myself was
TO BE GRATEFUL, ASK MYSELF WHAT ARE MY NECESSITIES, AND LOVE MORE!

My favorite talks were all of them but I just loved W. Craig Zwick in the Saturday afternoon session and President Uchtdorfs on Sunday and Well, just all of them!! I cant pick! anyway.

I love you all and I know that the church is true.

It burns in my heart as a way of life not just a choice of religion. I know it's true and I know that I can live with my family forever. I know that we all go through trials for a reason and even though I have gone through hard trials in my life.  I have to say the hardest thing I have ever gone through is being apart from my family. I have never felt a deeper love and a bigger hole in my heart being away from you all, but I know that the reason I feel that and have had this trial is so that I could truly appreciate and understand the Plan of Salvation and that I can really be with my family forever. And in turn it all goes back to how much God loves us. I know He loves me, because He has given me all I need in this life, and that is my family. I know that He loves me BECAUSE He gives me trials and wants me and gives me the opportunity to grow. Through my trials I have discovered that only the healing power of our Savior and His atonement, can the holes in our hearts be filled. I love you all so very much and so does God, don't ever doubt it because every day He gives you one more day to live.

What has He given you that tells you that He loves you?

Love,

Hermana Koch!

Ketchup accident

 hahah I love Hermana Jensen... no explanation needed... maybe another time

And this is what I got when I asked for a picture of her while she was e-mailing!

March 31,2014 Canyon Lakes Area: Just Movin' Along!

Temple Lovin' from a while ago.

Hola Hola.

This week was a good one, and the miracles are amazing. We decided that we were going to stop by old investigators that the hermanas had and they were both amazing! Margarita is darling! We went to visit her and we talk her the restoration again, she listened quietly and answered a few questions, but it was kind of hard to read what she was feeling. I was praying really really hard in my heart that we would be able to help her in the way she most needed it. As I was listening and hermana Jensen was talking I felt so strongly that she needed to be invited to be baptized on April 12! I was freaking out a little but just kept telling heavenly Father I am giong to trust you and do it, I dont know how, there isn't enough sunday's, but I am going to do what thee asks. I didn't know if hermana Jensen was feeling the same way and so I didnt know what to do, if she was going to invite her or not but I just sat patiently... and then sure enough! Hermana Jensen asked her if she wanted to follow Jesus Christ more fully in her life and be baptized! SHE SAID YES!!! I followed up telling her that we will hold a baptismal service on the 12th of april and asked her if she would like t prepare for that day! SHE SAID YES! and then God is so good... She tells us that she has already been twice and that she loves church! She wants to be an example to her husband and her family. It was amazing. and she is so darling. Awesome miracle that we need to always trust in the Lord even when we don't feel like it makes sense!

We got to help Nevie put in a backyard of grass!! it was so fun our whole district helped! I got sun! and my hairs got a little blonder haha. and we found bunnies!

We went over to previous investigators house and it was really awesome. We had a beautiful lesson on why we keep the commandments, mosiah 2:41 and I had the chance to bare my testimony that God is really listening, and its not the words that we use, but its what we feel in our heart.

I have really been trying to work on that this week, as I pray to just open Padre Celestial, and then just open my heart, and sit in quiet for just  a little bit of time. I have been feeling the spirit so much stronger in my prayers, I have been feeling that He is really there listening. Do it. It's awesome. I love my Father in Heaven so much and i know He is listening to all of us!

I took a study time to really just get down and study alma 42: 13-24 and just read it in depth word by word and used some of the footnotes... it changed my life. It is incredible. God is perfect, He is just and He is merciful and more than anything He loves us. So He gave us His son Jesus Christ so that we can be happy forever. I want to be happy forever. But every choice we make has an effect on our eternities. If we want to live with Them and our families someday, we need to do something about it now.

He lives. I know He does. He suffered so that we don't ever have to feel alone.

Love you all!!

Con todo de mi amor,

Hermana Koch

 We found bunnies!

 Just layin' some SOD!