My last transfer is going to be a party!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD.

I have officially started my last transfer.  CRAZY!!!!  Buuuut I feel pretty normal still for a missionary.  I think it won't hit me until my last week; that's when I'll go nuts with every kind of emotion.  They're keeping me quite busy for my last transfer.  My new companion is Miss Canasia:  Sister Erika Takahashi from Calgary!  She waited for her Visa while she served her first transfer in Raymond and then went to the mtc.  She'll be in her 2nd transfer now at Temple Square.  I got to be her zone leader last transfer so I know most of the ins and outs of her mission so far.  At Temple Square, we typically get trained by the same person for our first two transfers but it's not terribly uncommon to switch after the first.  So, I get to be her follow-up trainer.  On top of that, I get to be a district leader for a small group of really amazing missionaries.  Sister Takahashi and I also have a specific assignment to serve in Guest Services.  I'm not sure what our schedule is looking like yet but we'll spend a good amount of time each week in a little booth in the mission office (the south visitor center basement) to practice our secretary skills.  It's a bit of a bummer that Guest Services isn't the most effective thing to do as a missionary but it's more of a service to get the rest of the mission going.  I think it'll just add a little spice to my square life.  I'll be doing things like setting up appointments for the Salt Lake elders to bring their investigators to the square, organizing motor coach tours, telling people to stop calling us but to call the Temple prayer roll, and other such things.  During the slow hours, we can take the time to call potential investigators or teach our progressing investigators over the phone.  I'm sure we'll be able to take the time to do companionship study in our little office as well.  I can also start using google again!  Though I hear google hates Christianity.  Shame.  But in short, my last transfer is going to be a party!  Sister Takahashi and I are already bffs.  Seriously, if I could choose my companion, I would have chosen her or my mtc friends. 

I would now like to take this moment to write about a huge miracle, the biggest I've ever been a part of.  Remember my investigator, Gerie from Scotland who should have red hair?  Well, she has been a faithful fighter of truth against soooo much opposition.  Sister Vach and I had just gotten off the phone with someone and then we got a call on our cell from our Thai and Mongolian Sister combo who had taken a chat online with someone who was asking to speak to us.  They transferred us the chat and then we started chatting with Gerie.  Gerie's name was spelled differently and though she was typing, she did not sound like herself at all.  She essentially told us that she was giving up with the Church.  She knew everything she learned was real and true but she told us that she was throwing in the towel.  Nothing seemed to make sense to Sister Vach and I.  The details of this story are super confidential so I'm going to have to be kind of vague is some areas.  We told Gerie that we would call her in the morning the next day but she kept telling us to give up.  She told us that her parents were threatening the one thing that she cared most about.  I guess they thought she was going through a rebellious stage by going to the LDS Church (pretty sure I know some better ways to rebel) but then thy freaked out when they realized that she was serious and wanted to get baptized.  Gerie's parents had threatened her with the one thing that was the most important to her besides her faith.  We typed a prayer over chat with her right there but she still told us not to bother calling her in the morning.  Sister Vach's tears were all over the keyboard and my heart was in shreds by the end the chat. 

The next morning, we called the sad woman up and had some real talk with her.  She sounded the same on the phone as she did over the chat- defeated.  We gave her some examples of people in the scriptures whose hard times compare to hers.  We asked her a lot of questions to find out what's important to her but she sounded so faithless.  She told us that she had to make a choice between the Church and the thing that was the most important to her.  As she gave us more details about her situation, I was shocked and had to mute my phone to tell Sister Vach my personal thought that Gerie needed to involve a social worker.  As missionaries, we don't have the authority to counsel people- that's what a Bishop is for so I suggested she speak to her Bishop.  I think I could have also spoken my mind to her but the situation was really sticky and I think I would have gotten into trouble if things went bad because of my suggestion.  We testified about miracles and how the Lord is in the details of her life and that she more than 2 options.  After a good long talk about some of the other options she had, we invited her to pray over the phone with us.  She prayed so sincerely while Sister Vach and I just witnessed her relationship with Heavenly Father develop in a very real sense.  I don't know that I've ever wanted a prayer answered more in my life.  She ended the prayer and after a couple minutes of thoughts, she told us that in her head, she saw a lawyer.  I praised the Lord!  We talked about how the Holy Ghost speaks to our hearts.  We told her that the very best way to receive an answer to prayer is by making the decision and then asking God if it's right or not.  We committed Gerie to fast with us for her situation and then hung up the phone. 

While I was fasting during my personal study the next day, I happened to read "Jesus the Christ."  Before I started my fast, I prayed that I would find something that would help Gerie.  I opened up to the page that I stopped on a few days earlier and quickly finished the chapter.  I looked down at the notes for the chapter and read, the paragraph called, "Faith in Behalf of Others."  *I tried to find it on lds.org but I just landed with the audio version here in the chapter "From Sunshine to Shadow."  This little end of chapter note took specific examples from Christ's life but it described exactly my feelings in behalf of Gerie.  After I read that note, I read the next one, "Power Developed by Prayer and Fasting."  WHAT THE?  How did they know?  And finally after that paragraph, I read the third note, "Nothing is Impossible to Faith."  You could say that this was my best fast yet. 

We called Gerie two days later to find out how her fast was and to see if the answer that she received to her prayer was confirmed.  As she spoke, Sister Vach and I witnessed the huge miracle that was beginning to take place in her life.  She ended up contacting a lawyer and she now has the freedom to make her own religious choices.  Her life is going to be completely changed but she is living on faith.  She even had to break up with her boyfriend of 2.5 years because he didn't support her.  We commented to her about how difficult that must have been to break up with him and she replied in her amazing Scottish accent, "Actually, it was quite easy."  Her life is insane right now and she still kills us laughing.  We also found out that her mom was breathing over her shoulder as we chatted with her on that one hopeless day so that's why she didn't sound like herself.  Yikes.  I wish so badly that I could be in Scotland to help this poor girl but the Scottish sister in our mission finishes her mission tomorrow and she'll get home right in time.  Miracle?  Yes.

That's the story of Gerie so far.  I am so invested in her and I'm amazed that the Lord gives me a capacity everyday to keep teaching other people and investing myself in them too.  I love my mission.

only six weeks left

LOVE, SISTER KATIE KYLE