September 2nd Letter - Many Miracles!

HEY Y'ALL!!

Well, I need to be quick!!!

This week has been amazing!!  We have seen so many miracles!!  Especially just yesterday!!!  We got three new investigators! We had exchanges and both the High Point sisters came here!  It was truly amazing all the success we saw!!  And all in one day!!  Labor Day was probably my favorite day!!!  And they are all pretty solid!!! yay!!!  The work is moving forward in Danville!!!  (:

Tuesday we had interviews with President Craven.  i feel so blessed to be under his direction!  he is an amazing mission president!!  I know I am suppose to be here in Danville!  I love the people so much!!

Wednesday the ward had an open house for us sisters.  It was AMAZING!!!!  The ward got together and brought us everything we needed for our apartment and pantry.  Seriously EVERYTHING!!  Sister Blaney and I felt so loved!!  We know miracles are going to happen here!  It was also fun to get to see that text from mom through the bishopric!  Small world!!  i love doTERRA! ;) 

Thursday we got a new investigator named Jason.  He is actually our neighbor.  Dad, he's the one that told me about the BYU vs Virginia game.  We are trying to help him stop smoking.  He has the desire.  Just needs to do it now.  But we had an amazing lesson with him and a member yesterday.  He is progressing!!  I know he can do it!

Friday was a crazy interesting day!  But one funny thing that happened was that we visited a lady named Pat in the ward that collects coca cola everything and has a warehouse just full of coca cola stuff. anywho..  She offered us coca cola and I have learned here in the South, you do not turn down anything or the people here get offended.  I warned sister Blaney about it but she didn't listen.. haha.  So when Pat gave us one and sister Blaney said no, the whole atmosphere changed and Pat was so sad and offended!!  And then I became Pat's favorite! ha.  It was something you probably had to be there for.. but it was really funny!  Oh!  and she made me put salted peanuts in my coke!  It was actually pretty good! ha.  She said it was a "redneck southern thing" but none of members have heard about it.. so she was probably just pulling my leg.. oh well.. it was fun! (:

Lots more happened but I am out of time!!

I love you all and this work!!  The church is true!!!

Love, 

Sister Knell

August 26th Letter - She's in Virginia!!?!

Hey y'all!!

Transfers were totally different this time around!!  nobody knew what was going to happen.  President called it a "Box B" experience.  Which made it a little more stressful!  Ha.  Sister Reid and I cried a bit during transfers...  I am going to miss her!!  She is so great!!  She is training too!!  I am excited for her, she is going to be an amazing trainer!

Well, I am in Danville, Virginia!  Sister Blaney and I are opening the area for sisters!!  Sister Blaney is brand new!  And I will be training her!  She is the sweetest thing!!  I am excited to work with her!  She is from Carston-Alberta, Canada!

It is so weird to be in Virginia!!  I feel like I should be in North Carolina!  You would think I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but somehow i can.  The ward here is AMAZING!!  We got in super late on Tuesday night because the drive was three hours long because there were a few detours and such!  And the bishop and his wife and brother Evans were waiting for us with dinner and things for the apt. So so sweet!! 

The apt is so tiny!!  The town has a small town feel to it!  Downtown is BEAUTIFUL!!!  Main Street is full of Victorian homes that a HUGE and gorgeous!  I am in LOVE!! haha  Sister Blaney probably gets annoyed by how much I talk about the homes here. ha (: 

Interesting story:

At transfers I was picking up our "Danville" opening box and one of the Assistants comes up to me and says, "there is a new name for you in the mission office." and I am thinking, "Oh no!!  What did I do?!" he continues to say, "So we were finishing up transfers with President Craven and had everything all figured out.  President was having a hard time because he really wanted to open Danville up for sisters.  He kept saying, 'I wish we had just ONE more sister' and then we looked down and saw your name on the ground.  B/c you had fallen off the transfer board!"  So they did transfers without me!! haha I was like wow this is a great a story--y'all forgot about me. ha but then he told me they call me, "the transfers angel" 

For some reason hearing that really helped me be more excited about opening Danville.  B/c I was getting really nervous about being so far away from the mission office and leaving University City.  It was really hard.  But I know that this is where I am suppose to be!!  I am excited to serve here!  The people are amazing!!  We have had so many great experiences already!!  I know the work is going to grow here!!  I can just feel it!

Oh!  And I spoke on Sunday!  All of us missionaries did.  The ward was having a special fast on missionary work and helping the work move along here in Danville.  I am excited to see whats going to happen.  The Lord is truly hastening His work!!

I love you all so so much!!!

Love, 

Sister Knell

ps, everyone says, "aunt" like Dee does!! haha LOVE IT!!

and mom and dad, one of you asked about letters to my comps families.  Yes, I do that (:

loves!

July 29th - Facebook Mission!

Hello Family and friends!!

Well this past week has been amazing!!  We have been so very blessed!  Jen Kramer got baptized Friday and confirmed Sunday.  We had another double baptism with the elders in our area.  The work is growing in University City!  I am so grateful to be apart of it! 

We found Jen through a pestcontrol guy named Trey.  He knocked on her door and somehow they started talking about the Book of Mormon.  He invited her to church and that is how we found her.  We started teaching her since that day and Friday she got baptized.  She is an amazing woman.  I am so excited to see her go to the emple and do her husbands work.  He recently passed away.  I know God had been  preparing her to hear the gospel.  Her live has changed so much because of the gospel.  I have been so happy and feeled with because of working with her!

I am so sorry this letter is going to be pretty short..

Real quick some highlights!

We went on exchages with sisters Webber and Jameson.  Sister Jameson worked at doTERRA for a while in the call center.  Small world!  It was so much fun serving with her for the exchange!  SHe has such a sweet spirit and love for the gospel!

We had a BBQ on pioneer day as a ward and we were all stuck under a pavillion b/c is was raining so hard!! hah but it was so much fun.  After the rain settled  we played a little b-ball with Nautykah's little Sister Nyemah.  She is interested in the church.  She came Sunday.  She is so sweet!  and AMAZING at b-ball.  It was a super fun night!  Jen was telling everyone about her baptism!  haha and just beaming!!  The ward has been so great with her!!  I love this ward!!!

My mission is now a facebook mission so I will be on facebook a lot more.  Everyday actually.  so don't be surprised if I message you! haha.  and please message me back!!

AH!  THere is so much I want to share but I am running out of time :(

I love you all so so much!!!  Thank you for all you do!!!

Sister Shoemake!  I love you and miss Stateville!!  How are the new sisters? 

Love,

Sister Knell

July 15th Letter - Facebook & iPads

Hello family and friends!! (:

 

This past week has been pretty busy with lots of meetings!!  First off some of you may have noticed my facebook page has had some recent activity on it!!  Well Guess WHAT!  We are testing facebook for our mission! AND...my district is one out of seven other districts to be piloting the new mini iPADS!!! President Wade from Church Headquarters came to our District Meeting Thursday and introduced the new iPADS.  Sister Reid and I each have our own ipads and they will replace our planners, areabook and ward roster!!  It pretty neat all that it can do!  We only have ipads no iphones.  Also, we only have wifi uses on it which is anther new thing they are testing because the other missions that are using them have iphones and a data plan so they can use them wherever they go.  But we can only use them in areas that have wifi which makes it kind of hard.  But we are excited about this new change.  We already miss our old white planners..  I was hoping I'd keep all of mine when I got home.. haha.  And I just liked how easy it was to quickly jot something down or I'd use it to write funny things that happened that I would write later in my journal.  A lot to get use to! 

 

Now facebook.  So we will be proselyting off of facebook too!  Which is very exciting!!  But I am still trying to figure out how it'll all work with my facebook page.  They said to use your old facebook page and to just modify it but I can't figure out how to hide things..  So if any of you can help me out with that, that would be much appreciated (:

 

So how it will work is Sister Reid and I will be able to teach lessons now over facebook, Skype and facetime.  We will be able to have member present lessons by having members Skype in or be apart of our facebook lessons.  They want us to have our friends and family apart of the facebook process so they can see how our missions are going and to hopefully interest friends and family who may not be members or are inactive.  We cannot communicate with friends or family over facebook unless it is for a missionary purpose, meaning a lesson being taught to a friend or non-member family member.  We are still learning a lot about it!  But so far that is the basics of it!

 

I hope I answered some questions!  I am running out of time!  Let me know if you have any other questions! (:  Pray for me!  I'm a little nervous about this online proselyting.. ha

 

This is an exciting time to be a missionary!! (:

 

I love you all so much!!!!

 

Love,

 

Sister Knell 

July 8th Letter - Baptisms & a Seventy!

This past week has been GREAT!!!  The baptism was AMAZING!!!!  I had never felt the spirit so strong!!  We had Nautykah getting baptized and then the elders in our area also had a baptism-the Valley family (4).  So there were 5 baptisms!  And over 100 people showed up!  It was beautiful!  Nautykah was just glowing!  Her mom and little sister came and now her mom is curious to learn more!  Sister Reid and I feel so blessed!  It was truly amazing!  Elder Parker from the seventy was there because he helped work with the Vallery family, he is one of the main reasons they got baptized.  When he heard they were going through with getting baptized, he changed his whole schedule to be there.  He also said so many amazing and powerful things!  he said that when you are released from your calling of being a Seventy your journals during that time period are put into church history.  He then said that, that night he was going to write about this baptism and that Nautykah and the Vallery family were going to be a bit of church history, which we all thought was pretty neat!  He then said toward Nautykah, "Nautykah, you will travel the world telling people about the gospel and through your example many of your family members will be baptized as well."  I thought that was amazing!!!  Many great things are going to happen in her life!  I am very excited for her!  And grateful I got to be a part of it.  President and Sister Craven came as well and President came up to Sister Reid and I and told us that he was very pleased with the work we were doing in University City and that we get to stay there and stay together(b/c it was transfer calls)!!! HAPPY DAY!!  It was a great finish to an amazing day!  OH! and President told us that Thursday we will be having a meeting for my district to introduce the IPADS!!! Our district is the one that gets to try them out!!!  WOOHOOO!! (:  SIster REid and I are super DUPER EXCITED!! ha (:

 

Then Sunday was just as beautiful!  The Vallerys and Nautykah got confirmed!  And her little sister and cousin came to that.  They sat behind us and it was so sweet to hear Nautykah teaching them about the hymns and sacrament.  It touched sister Reid and I.  We could already see her being that example.  After church we ate with our favorite family.  The Roisums!  Then later went to a Fiesta for the Spanish branch.  A YM was going to leave for his mission and that was his goodbye party I guess and they wanted us to sing with the Spanish elders Called to Serve.  It was a lot of fun!  It made me wish I new Spanish.. hahaha.  I love that culture!

 

The Lord is blessing this area and I feel so blessed to be here.

 

I love you!!

 

Love,

 

Sister Knell (:

-- 

July 3rd - University City Ward!

Dad,

I am still in my mission!  Do you remember my first night here I slept at another set of sisters appt.?  Well I am now serving in that area!  University City ward!  It is located in Charlotte, NC!  It's so pretty here!  I love all the buildings and greenery!  I am training Sister Reid.  She is from Sandy, UT.  She is super sweet!!  I am so blessed to have her as my companion!!  I know we are going to do great things here!!

This past week we had Elder Evens and Elder Nielsen from the seventy come and speak to us on Thursday.  It was AMAZING!!!!  He talked about the whole age change process and all the new changes that were the outcome of the age change and then some new things that will be coming out too for missionaries!!!  But we can't share them yet (; its a secret he said.  But it's exciting!!  The missionary work is growing so fast!!!!  I am so grateful to be here on my mission and be a part of this great time of missionary work.

The ward here is great!!  They are taking such great care of us!!  We live in a new apt from the one the other sisters use to live in and the scenery is soooooooooo pretty!!!!  Sister Reid and I saw out FIRST fireflies!!!!!  It was so fun!!  We tried to make videos... didn't turn out too great!  but it was fun!!  The ward has 600 members only 250 come on avg.  So we will be working with less actives.  They don't want us to really knock on doors anymore.  That's one thing Elder Evans said.  He said they are hoping to get rid of it completely and to work fully through the members of the ward. 

The city is a lot harder to drive in..  I;m the driver now and I keep getting lost haha.  We are driving a brand new 2013 Chevy.  Its nice!!!  I love it! hahaha.

Training isn't too bad right now but it's a lot of pressure.  Please pray for me to know what Sister Reid needs and how I can best serve her.  Now I'm the example... lots of responsibility...  freaks me out a bit!

I love you!!!

Love,

Sister Knell