last week before transfers

This week is transfers. I can't believe that the transfer is gone! Sister B and I feel a little bit jipped!! It's been one of the funnest transfers and it just flew right by! But despite that I'm excited for transfers.

We took the opportunity to fast yesterday and I made a list of things to improve on during this next transfer. I really felt the Lord's spirit and his guidance as I set new goals and plans to be a better missionary.

Investigators: V is FANTASTIC!! I don't know if she could get any more perfect. She is almost to 2 Nephi and wanted to bear her testimony at the Elders Baptism on Sat! I love her with all my heart. We found out her brother is leaving before he can be baptized which is sad but I'm grateful to have been able to plant a seed of faith in his heart. He is a good kid. I know the Lord will take care of him and help him come back in contact with the church after 2yrs.

I learned an important lesson this week -- Even "after all we can do", it is still "by grace that we are saved" (2 Nephi 25:23). So, if it's all about grace, why do we work hard? "If ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants" (Mosiah 2:21). So why do we bother to give our all?

As President Uchtdorf taught us in General Conference, it is out of a love for God! We give our all to serve the Lord because we love him, and we are eternally grateful for His Infinite Atonement! It is our Redeemer that makes us able to "stand blameless before God at the last day".

I love my Savior. And it's my testimony that keeps me going. I know that miracles come as a result of faith, and we can have more perfect faith as we more fully understand our Savior and His will.

Love,
Sister Kuykendall

gratitude and Sister Kuykendall's birthday!

Hey everybody!!

We did some fun service this week and had some good meetings with investigators.

​V- is doing so well! she has so many great sincere questions!! I love her so much. We were talking about the purpose of the priesthood this week and we noticed that eyes were full of tears. We asked her about how she was feeling/thinking. She said she couldn't explain it .. it was good ...then she asked if she was allowed to have a blessing. The Spirit was real folks.
She is the key for the rest of her family too. She was reading her BOM the other day and her brother walked in and asked her what she was reading. She explained all about the BOM and pretty much taught him a First lesson. He asked if he could have one to take with him to the Banak (army). Fingers crossed that he will progress before he leaves.

I think I read 3 Nephi 13:25-33 at least 10 times this week.

Gratitude is so powerful... just saying.

Whenever we feel like nothing is going right, that we aren't seeing the results of our efforts, as we make the effort to recognize blessings and enthusiastically express our gratitude for those tender mercies, we will have greater love for our Savior and our Father in Heaven, and we will have greater faith in their love for us. We will know with a surety that God is by our side, and it is that knowledge, testimony, and faith that will make us "mighty even unto the power of deliverance".

I have marveled this week at the tender mercies of the Lord. It seems that everywhere I turn, as I look, I see the Lord's hand in my life and in the lives of those around me. Every time I recognize a tender mercy, my love and appreciation for the Lord are strengthened, and I know with greater assurance how much he loves me and each of us, despite bummy weeks, and mean people :)

Love you!
-Sister K

Only selfies this week. Sorry

O

Cherry picking

Dear family,

So lately we've been trying to pick up one of our member's sister L as an investigator. She's super sassy but really nice. She's one of the cool kids and is a little TOO cool for school :). We have had progress though. She actually really likes us coming over to play games and we always sneak in a little lesson. She's a really nice girl and I know she'll come around eventually. Just maybe not this transfer.
V is one of our investigators. She is 16 years old but she is so mature and LOVES learning from us. She has so many questions! It's really great! She called us the other day and asked us if we would bring another BOM next time we came because her brother wants one. I guess he walked in on her reading it and asked her about it. She was a good little missionary and told him about it and he asked if he could have one. We're so stoked!! The sad part is that he leaves for the army soon. :( Their mom and younger sister also ask really good questions. We always invite the whole family to listen and they're all really great.

Last night we were not sure what to do. Our last appointment for the night had fallen through but we didn't want to just walk around. We said a little prayer to know where the Lord needed us to go. We then found out at church from one of our members that one of our former investigators's sons had just committed suicide the previous day. She really wanted us to come visit her so we arranged to go over with our member that night to pay our condolences. We were a bit nervous because it's a little bit of a fragile situation and we didn't want to mess anything up. We got to her house and walked into the living room and found 12 women all wearing black from ages 30-80. When we walked in, the 5 women that already knew us from previous visits immediately said, "These are those darling girls we were telling you about! They're from America. They speak Armenian better than we do! Ask them questions!" So Sister B and I found ourselves on different sides of the room teaching multiple groups of ladies about why we were here. They had so many questions about where their relative would go because he committed suicide. They asked about the after life and what our views were on it. We gave them our number and told them where our church was. They couldn't stop talking about how amazing and courageous and mature we were as we were leaving. We left with lipstick all over our cheeks. We felt good leaving a group of 12 mourning women with a little bit more hope in their hearts. We are just praying that they will find peace and comfort.

Well this church is true. As soon as I made that realization my life got 100 times better. I don't think it's a coincidence. If you don't know for yourself that this is the way to happiness, give it a try. There is a saying in Armenia that translated says this,"a try doesn't bring a trial." I love this gospel so much. I love my Savior, my Heavenly Father and my family. I have seen the difference that the gospel makes in lives and I don't know why anyone WOULDN'T just try it. Just try and see if it could be true. Because I KNOW it is and I've never been happier.

I love you!!!
-Sister Kuykendall

Cherry Picking 

Awesome meeting with Seventy/Area presidency

Alma 37:6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.... Love this one. We tend to forget who is in charge.

I loved the meeting with Elder Halstrom and Elder Bennett from the Seventy/Area presidency!! I had written down several questions that I had and planned to ask about them -- BUT others beat me to the draw. The cool thing is that the questions that were asked and the discussions that we had answered the questions I wrote down. I know that we were guided by the Spirit and blessed with revelation.

One of my favorite quotes was -- The Savior is pleased, don't choose discouragement. The world makes us expect immediate feedback but that is NOT the Lords way. Evaluate always but keep an Eternal perspective -- Hope.

I loved Elder Halstrom's advice too -- The mission is the time to establish our relationship with Heavenly Father, our foundation and figure out who we are -- to the CORE. This should not however be the spiritual peak of our lives. We should continue in the habits we create here as much as possible so that it continues to effect us forever.

-- The Lord truly blessed us this week -- Our finding pool is overflowing we picked up 4 new investigators and we are getting more support from our members (LA's too)!! Because we changed our hearts and made a conscious decisions to choose faith. It's the Key!! We trusted in His promises and He guided us to where we needed to be.


I realized that what Sister Halstrom said is true...."My heart was there first and that made it easier for the rest of me ..." This week I was filled with extra love for my mission. I got to spend time with all the people I love (members & missionaries) and learn by the spirit. Stake Conference was Great!!


Sorry this is kind of all over the place ... Have a great week!
Love, SIster Kuyk

Cascades

Huge Moth

zone conference

So good news first … H was baptized!! It was super stressful but in the end everything worked out. She is probably one of my favorite investigators up to this point … such a pure heart and spirit full of faith and desire to learn and to do what is right.

Zone conference on Tues was way good!! So much I wish I could share....
In (Mos 3:19) the Savior wants us to be Child-like. To me, when I think about being childlike, I think of simplicity, joy in the small things, accepting, honest, trusting and hopeful. No one of us is perfect at being child-like but there are things we can be perfect in if we choose. One of the things we talked a lot about is that Ingratitude is closely connected with Discouragement. If you are not happy in life, you aren't doing it right.

My wonderful companion and I have been trying to be more grateful and recognize the hand of the Lord in our work … in other words … recognize the daily miracles. It has been neat to see how they add up and how much the Lord really is in the little things in life - in the details. I encourage you all to start a Miracle List of your own -- I have found more faith and trust in him as I “seek him” at the end of every day.

I listened to a talk from Elder Holland this morning as we were cleaning the apartment. One of my favorite quotes was …

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. . . . Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27)…. That may be one of the Savior’s commandments that is, even in the hearts of faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed...

As concerned as I would be if somewhere in their lives one of my children were seriously troubled or unhappy or disobedient, nevertheless I would be infinitely more devastated if I felt that at such a time that child could not trust me to help, or should feel his or her interest were unimportant to me or unsafe in my care.

In that same spirit, I am convinced that none of us can appreciate how deeply it wounds the loving heart of the Savior of the world when he finds that his people do not feel confident in his care or secure in his hands or trust in his commandments.

Just because God is God, just because Christ is Christ, they cannot do anything other than care for us and bless us and help us if we will but come unto them, approaching their throne of grace in meekness and lowliness of heart. They can’t help but bless us. They have to. It is their nature. … There is not a single loophole or curveball or open trench to fall into for the man or woman who walks the path that Christ walks. When he says, “Come, follow me” (Luke 18:22), he means that he knows where the quicksand is and where the thorns are and the best way to handle the slippery slope near the summit of our personal mountains. He knows it all, and he knows the way. He is the way."

I love that. We all need to trust Him better and Have Faith in His promised blessings.

Now some not so fun news … My companion and I had some uninvited/unwanted guests this weekend. Don’t worry … they left us shortly after they came but we were just "itching" to have them gone. haha

Also, as a missionary you can only read the conference ensign so many times so I picked up the March's New Era from the office and I was really pleased by it. I strongly recommend you all (not just the New Era aged ones) read it if you haven't already.

I love you all so much.

Love, Sister Kuykendall

Papik's garden

Hello!

So I don't know if I told you this, but a couple of transfers ago I went on splits to Hrazdan and we were cleaning one of our members windows. And because they lived on a busy street tons of people saw us. After that we were on the news for it. "2 Mormon missionaries cleaning windows."

Papik: So we have a perfect view out our window of a little papik's garden. For the longest time we would just talk about how cute it was that he was out there every day working. He would give us flowers from his garden and tell us to come over and play games. So we finally did. We went over there with the elders and did some garden work, played nardi and had a little gospel discussion. It ended up being so much fun. We've been going over there frequently to check up on his smoking. He's absolutely adorable and just wants to feed us all day long. We had to practically beg him to let us to work. I'll try and get a good picture of his garden soon and send it to you.

Happy day: We've been doing tons of less active work lately. As we've been going around visiting them we've picked up a few investigators. We've been so blessed lately with the Lord pointing us in the direction that we need to go in order to find those who are ready. I've never felt so blessed. An answer to prayers.

Love you all!
Sister K

Papik's garden

Khorovats (Armenian barbecue)

Mother's Day Skype with the fam!

Bus blessings

Momma and everyone,

Lately we've been doing service every Saturday. We've been going to one of our members house a lot to do his garden work. It's actually been a lot of fun!
The other night we were on our way back from service and we were riding on bus 33 (a funny story for another time) and there were a couple ladies on the bus with us who were just asking us all sorts of questions and just gushing over how cute we were (it was dark). They both had a bag full of lilacs and before they got off the bus we exchanged some of their flowers for a pass a long card with our number on it. It was so great. They were so excited and told us they couldn't wait to call us. Then another lady came and sat down next to us and did the exact same thing. She gushed over us and asked for our number. She talked at us for most of the ride. As she got off the bus she gave us some candy and a few finished sketches of flowers that she had been working on. Then 2 ladies from the back of the bus came up and sat next to us and asked us where we were from. I told them that my last name was from Holland because if you tell them you're from America they get frustrated and want to know where your last name is from. It's rather confusing. Anyway, the Bus driver heard that my ancestors were from Holland and got super excited because his daughter lived in Holland. As we got off the bus and tried to hand him the bus money he refused it and told us to have a great night....We walked home with smiles on our face and arms full of lilacs.

The Lord's hand in everything: As we were again on our way to Kharbert we were waiting for the bus 33. We had waited for a while and were excited as we saw it coming but then it just blew past us! We sprinted after it to see if we could catch it at the next stop. To our disappointment we weren't able to catch it. We were a little peeved that we were going to be late for service. We waited for a while longer and caught the next 33. On the bus we met a mom and her 2 boys. She said she was amazed by our courage to come to another country and learn a different language just to serve. She looked at our family pictures and asked for our number. She was absolutely amazing. She hasn't called yet, but we're patiently waiting as it was only 2 days ago. After she got off the bus Sister B and I looked at each other and smiled. We knew we'd missed that first bus for a reason.

Our investigators V and H are doing great and are on their way to meet their baptism date. They're both so excited and so are we!

I've really noticed the Lord's hand in my life so much lately. Since I've been new to this area it's been easy to get discouraged and feel like I don't have a purpose here. But as the weeks have gone on and I've gotten to know the area/people the Lord has really been obvious in my life.
I hit my year mark in country yesterday and it absolutely blows my mind. I can't wait to make the most of the next 4 months.

I love you!!!!
-Mads

PS - Can't wait to Skype this weekend for Mother's Day!!

A really pretty Gyugh outside of Kentron called Kharbert