18÷2 months!

 Hey yall! 

Today is the day. Half way! Been a long time coming but I've got a few more hills to climb. This week we faced a few trials but we persisted nevertheless. My companion is near-fearless in missionary work and I couldn't be more proud. 

I tried my first IOWA SWEET CORN this week and let me tell you what. It's nothing like I thought it'd be. I honestly thought it would just taste like regular corn but I thought the lady that made it had dumped a bunch of sugar into it. If you've ever had Midwest sweet corn I'm sure you can back me up on this one. 

We also met with a member Roger and his sweet mom Arlene. They are just two peas in a pod. We left with ice cream and "peach dessert" in hand...and water bottles...and smiles of course. 

Jon is a new friend we found this week, his is something of a cool story. We pulled up to him in our car and he said he was busy and not interested. We started driving away and rolling up the window when he started chasing us! He said he changed his mind and wanted to hear our message about Christ. (If you want to hear a message of Christ and want to make an anonymous request just visit comeuntochrist.org) ;) Anyways he joined us for church on Sunday and were meeting again Tuesday! 

Last night we got to watch Why I Believe and I got to hear the testimony of Sandy, someone I got to teach in my last area! It was so cool to see that the seed the Spirit had planted in her heart had grown so much. I kinda can't believe we went from hanging teddy bears from the ceiling and cleaning her fridge to her getting baptized! The Lord works in mysterious ways. 

My spiritual thought this week goes with the screenshot ill include below. The screenshot is of Alma 7:11 in the Book of Mormon in the Kinyarwandan language (not sure I spelled that correctly). Thays our friend Jean-Pierres first language and we were able to show him that he could read the Book of Mormon in his own language. He was excited about it and said "this is very good!".

"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people."

Jesus loves you, 

Sister Katie Troy 

kitten

chx dumplings 

grasshopper that stayed with us for 15 MILES

 monkey bread madness

Kinyarwandan

Lake Day

 Hey yall! 

What a time to be alive. We had beautiful weather this week, not too hot for the most part and we are getting lots of rain today! Happy farmers here. 

We were meeting a member at a lake outside of town but they ended up not being able to make it. It was sad but we kids did some work on a picnic table around the lake which was nice! 

Also we had zone conference on Friday! What an awesome one. It was all about the book of Mormon and how we can use it in our teaching. I got the chance to share my testimony, give a talk, and do a training on the missionary handbooks! It was a little stressful but "that which he shares, he keeps"! 

We started teaching our friend Jamielynn and this woman is ICONIC. She has been through some stuff seriously but she is so amazing. She's got incredible faith and is so excited to learn how to be like Jesus Christ. We also met Chrystal and oh my goodness where has this woman been? We found her through some old records and she was so excited to see us again. 

Our friend Matthew invited his friend Gabriel to join in on our lesson this week and that was a little chaotic (but the good kind). Matthew was excited to find out that the cool museum and temple he visited belong to our church! Gabriel had just short of 100 questions about everything religion so it was fun to keep up with those two. 

Yesterday we had stake conference in council bluffs and it was awesome. A couple kids shared talks on baptism and they did so amazing. Later that night we had Why I Believe! We planned to go with a part member family but they canceled last minute so we didn't get to stay :/ sad day. Very sad. But it's all part of God's plan, I know it!!

Today for pday we did all sorts of stuff including getting our nails done because sometimes you just gotta treat yo'self! 

Jesus loves you, 

Sister Katie Troy

Pics: , , , , , 

iconic porch

ballers for life

cicada

lake

fried something

rain

Party in L-Town

 Hey yall! 

Today for pday we stayed in our small town of Logan (not Longview sadly) to save some miles in our car since we'll be going back and forth quite a bit in the next couple of weeks. We also went to a cute 50s themed Diner for milkshakes. But anyways let's get right into it (wow I sound like a YouTuber that was cringey anyways). 

We had interviews and an apartment inspection on Tuesday which is always a blast (the interview with our mission president not the cleaning obviously)! Wednesday and Thursday we did some service for our sweet, genealogy loving friend Elaine. Elaine was recently baptized in January and she is just the cutest. Just as we were walking out the door she casually mentioned she made a banana cream pie AND rice crispy treats just for us. She is so amazing. 

On Friday we taught our friend Weston! His family are all active members of the church but he turned 9 a couple of weeks ago so he gets to take the missionary lessons! He's such a bright kid so we're looking forward to his baptism in September! 

Saturday and Sunday were downright chaos so buckle up. Honestly this whole email is chaos but oh well! Saturday was about 104⁰ but by 9am we already had a last minute call to help a member of the ward clear out some overgrown weeds in their horse pen. I swear I have never sweat more in my life. Later in the afternoon we helped our friend TJ haul some stuff from one building to another. He's from a super small town (think maybe 150 people) and he's on the town council so he volunteers to help clean up some stuff. The town has a lot of history so we cleared some 1800s Era school stuff from a shed into the actual school. I'm totally into that sort of abandoned thing so it was super fun! 

Sunday we had last minute dinner plans with the Bishops family and some more last minute plans to do splits with his daughter who starts mtc (missionary training center) today! She joined us for a couple lessons and knocking a couple doors before we gave her back. She'll be an amazing missionary down in Puerto Rico! 

Been thinking about the Atonement of Jesus Christ lately. I've been thinking particularly of a quote that I love but cannot find (and will now butcher). 

The Atonement was performed for everybody but if Christ had to do it all over again for just one of us, he would.

Particularly I've been thinking of a BYU devotional give by Brad Wilcox called "His Grace is Sufficient". Changed my perspective on Grace and the Atonement completely. Check it out! 

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/brad-wilcox/his-grace-is-sufficient/?M=A

Jesus loves you, 

Sister Katie Troy 

 1800s? shed find!

Elaine pie. Yes.

Penny's Diner

Facebook find of the week

OPRAH (and missionary work)

 Hey yall! 

Good week this one! Crazy busy. On Thursday we had exchanges with the council bluffs sisters! This time around I didn't get to go with Sister Arnold but I did get to go with Sister Stott! Sister Stott and i served in the same zone my very first transfer in the mission and did exchanges back then too! We spent the whole day in Harlan and taught a few lessons, went through some records, etc. 

Today was district pday! We got together and made tie dye shirts and played spike ball! I'll attach a picture of the finished tie dye next week when it's all washed and dried! Also my companion and I recently discovered a mutual love for the show Drake and Josh and so that's the title and also we've been saying OPRAH a lot. If you know you know. 

Most of the week happened on Sunday haha! After church we had a last minute dinner with some members (which was super good btw). A couple families were there and it was a party. The host family had a bunch of kittens and one had a bot fly so it was interesting to watch them get that out! Kinda nasty but the funniest part was watching the dad gag when it came out. It was pretty gnarly. 

What was even MORE gnarly was a deer we found in Missouri Valley (another town in our area). It must've got hit by a car or something because it had a badddd broken leg. We ended up calling someone and hopefully it will get some help soon.

BUT the point of these tangent stories were we spent a lot of time knocking doors and finding new people. We ended up finding a couple named Brittany and Evert and all their kiddos! They were excited to read the book of Mormon and even thanked God for sending us in their closing prayer. It was so sweet! What they were most excited about was reading about Jesus Christ's personal ministry to the people in the America's in the Book of Mormon.

One of my favorite verses (if not my favorite) verse from Christ's ministry recorded in the book of Mormon is 3 Nephi 17:5  "And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus spoken, he cast his eyes round about again on the multitude, and beheld they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them."

Basically Christ told the people it was time for Him to go now. He ended up staying a little longer to bless the people and I think we can learn from His compassion. Even if we are in a rush or you feel like maybe you have better things to do, tarry a little longer.

Jesus loves you, 

Sister Katie Troy

exchanges!

bass pro kinda day

 corn update!!

CORRRRRRRRN

the view from the Church parking lot!,

feelin ded Sunday night

repeat meme