"You two look like *sunshine*"

"Here comes the sun..."

...and there goes another week! The sun came out, the "tropical storm" fled, and we are happy and well building the kingdom! Last week started well as week five rolled up, my compañera finally has area book --which is beyond fabulous because mine still is not working! :) We also had a great lesson with a family Tuesday night for their daughter. It was on prayer, faith, and testimony. We showed them The Hope of Gods Light. One of my all time favorite videos. So powerful. The Spirit was so strong in that lesson, it was great. We're hoping it really helped her understand she can start from where she is and grow. It's not like there's some faith requirement before we can open our mouths to God and ask to be strengthened and lifted. I shared the struggle I had with that and prayer previously in my life, and I hope she was able to learn from the Spirit and allow her heart to be softened a bit.

On the way home from the lesson we saw our little friend for the fourth time. This guy, about our age, we met about three weeks ago. He's from St George. He stopped us and asked if we were missionaries and said he is from Utah and all his friends are on missions. He's not a member. We saw this guy again and told him, "okay, this is not a coincidence anymore!" We talked for a minute and the end result would be: we have a name now, #yourfriendsmustbeprayinghard, apparently he works at a donut shop, and #whenstrangersgiveyoudonutsyoutakethem. We saw him the next day from across the street as well #fourtimestoomany. We've decided if we run into him again we're giving him the elders' number or something haha!

Oh my, Wednesday!! "I just like service! Service is my favorite!" Let's sum this up here with two hashtags since that's the thing: #wechoppeddownatree #survivalskills. Yes. We chopped down a tree. We also learned how to tie an alpine butterfly knot. The guy in charge of everything really liked us and even gave us a piece of his rope to practice on haha! We first got to service and they said, "so, we're going to be doing some weeding!" *groans* "big weeding!" *confused expressions* We were weeding out all the junk trees that were "invading the area" so they pointed to where we were gonna start and said, "we also need to take down this tree..." I got so excited, I was like, "we got this, hermanitas, let's take the tree!" So the elder went and started uprooting these little baby trees while I got a XXXL pocket knife and took to the tree with my compañeras. Me and my compañera made the pie cut and after the other sisters had the tree secured with a rope on either side to control its fall we took to the back end to make it drop. It was so cool haha! No pictures though, sorry. Didn't have our iPads. After service it ended up being that all of our lessons fell through... Including our member present with a family.  We ended up visiting another sister instead but that was definitely a good time to see her.

THURSDAY. This was an awesome day. We had district meeting this day because Elder Brenkman had his temple trip Tuesday, and we found out there that we were having zone training meeting Saturday! Literally only the Chino Elders knew #wearebadatcommunication. Elder Weisler also got his package from his family Thursday. There were super cute pictures of his family that he showed us and then Elder Creager showed us a video he had of "the only one that really matters." His little sister Abby. It was the cutest thing I think I have ever seen. We were dying. He said he told his parents, yeah, if you could just send Abby in a package that'd be great." It was darling. I love seeing everyone's families!!

Later we had a lesson with two referrals. This lesson was amazing. They have been looking for a church to join and told us, "we are serious, this is not something we are taking lightly" and we said that was perfect because we are very serious and aren't taking this lightly either! That was awesome. They had literally every question that could be answered through the restoration and the plan of salvation out in the first ten minutes haha. We kept saying, "actually, that is exactly what our message is today!" They knew a little about the church & the husband goes, "you have a prophet right now, right?" We were like, "heck yeah we do and here's a picture!" He then goes, "also, you don't drink!" He then awkwardly pointed at their wine rack ten feet away, looked back at us and just laughed! The lesson was so strange because it was so good! They just took in everything we had to share with them and just soaked it all up. They had no questions about what we were teaching and were so eager to read the Book of Mormon. We closed with a kneeling prayer and afterwards they asked that we pray for them by name every day. We said of course we would do that. It was amazing. They are such studs. We will be seeing them this week again :)

We also got some good cardio in Thursday and a few other times this week while running to catch some busses! But we caught them. Friday we had weekly planning instead of Thursday. It was great because we actually got to plan for some people because we have people to teach!! ☺️ it was great. The elders also recommended this Dominican place up by where one of our sisters lives for dinner so we figured why not! It had been a few weeks since we'd seen her as we could not get ahold of her or find her home, but this Friday we did! We had a good lesson with her and tried to come up with a plan to help her read her scriptures. We'll see how that goes this week...

Friday night we also had English class we helped the elders with after our lesson got canceled. We ended up teaching this girl Sunday at five at the church. She is so amazing. She's young, just moved here and is so awesome.  She is the sweetest girl and we were able to give her a Christian foundation yesterday and teach her about God and Christ and their role in our lives. It was something totally new to her. Seeing how receptive she was and how much she wanted to learn was amazing. She is so prepared it blows my mind. We're so hopeful for her. I was realizing in myself that I have a bias towards some people about their likelihood of accepting our message based on this or that, but I changed my perspective yesterday and acknowledged again that everyone needs this gospel eventually. Everyone. So might as well start inviting them now! Even if they don't seem like "the type" at the moment, the gospel changes us and you never know who is prepared.

Sunday we also met with a family. That was an interesting lesson. It's hard when you see so much potential in someone and they choose not to live up to it. Hopefully we were able to reconcile the situation sufficiently that they'll give the word of God a try before deeming it false again. Contrite hearts. Soft hearts. Willing hearts. Without that, you're not gonna learn anything by the Spirit.

Saturday we had zone training meeting and a fabulous FHE. The meeting was awesome. I learned a lot and loved hearing from Elder Hwang and Elder Fowles. Elder Hwang goes home at the end of this transfer (next week!! Aaaaaaaaaah isn't that crazy??? "Ooooooh we're half way there, ooooooh livin on a prayer!") so he had some very insightful things in his workshop about getting ready to go home, looking back on the mission and everything. It was cool. He invited us to all write down something we learned and are thankful for from each companion. Well, I've had five now, and I am excited to do this. I've been thinking on it and what I'd like to say for each of them. I have definitely learned a lot from each of them, and I wonder if there's a consistent theme anywhere as well, as there was in his. We will see :)

On our way to the FHE, we had to walk through some of jewville. We're walking along, some of the Jews were very friendly then --must've been cause it was the Sabbath-- but one lady, not even Jewish, was very much on the less than friendly side. Taught me a little bit about myself and gave me an opportunity to celebrate some of my little victories that God has helped me to win! So here's what happened. So we're walking along and saying hi to everyone, this lady is siting there, probably mid forties or early fifties, and she's knitting the beginning of something. My companion goes, "hi! What are you making?" She says, "excuse me?" So I say, "what are you making?" (Complete with extra friendliness so she does feel awkward she didn't hear us the first time) and she replies with, "uuum, I guess it's none of your business??" Doesn't even look up. Sister Voss literally took a step back like, "wait what!? What just went down??" And I, without even thinking replied, "oh okay, have a good night!!" And walked away. She goes, "uh, you too." And I turned back around and said, "I will! thank you so much!" Then we just carried on. It was hilarious.

I was thinking about this experience and how this situation played out, my thoughts and actions during it, and how all of that would have been before my mission. Not gonna lie, if someone said something like that to me before my mission I would have snapped back with something rude and chastising so fast. Let's be honest, I probably would have said something like, "well excuse you, we were just trying to be friendly. Maybe you should change your attitude, have a good night." and then walked away 😂😂 I'm so glad this played out so much better haha! The thought of reacting in the latter manner crossed my mind, but it crossed my mind after I had already reacted in a more positive way. For me that is another manifestation of how much the Lord can change us when we allow Him to and seek to be "forever changed", as our mission vision states. I have changed so much because I have finally allowed my Savior to really guide my life and really mold me. I've never done that to this extent before. So to see something like this manifest so blatantly to me how much He is working to change my nature is amazing. It's a testament to me that we are never too far. We are never too lost. We are never so hard that the Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot touch our lives. We are never in such darkness the Light of Christ cannot shine and bring life. This is the beauty and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The change that we can all experience the ought Him. No matter where we are, we can improve, "poco a poco" as they say here :) So this was an awesome experience for me to reflect on how I am allowing the Savior to change my heart. I'd invite you to do the same!

The FHE lesson was great. We taught about prophets and played a little game. It was super fun. She is great. I love when you can see the Spirit coming back into someone's life and you can see the light back in their eyes. You see their desire to learn, grow, and come unto their Savior. It's a beautiful thing :)

It's been a good week, hopeful for another great one to come! And while we're at it, look this week for the ways that the Lord has been able to change you. Look back at the little victories and you will see just how much the Lord truly has been guiding you and shaping you all your life. He truly is always there. We never walk alone. I love you!

Muchísimo amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley

P.S. Also realized I didn't explain the subject line! Tuesday, we were walking down fifth ave on our way to a lookup and this guy as we passed him said "you two look like suuunshiiiine" and we both just busted up laughing. We were saying we should have stopped and said, "it's cause we have the light of Christ! Wanna learn more?" and handed him the elders card haha. Next time :)
#welooklikesunshine #radiatingeverywherewego

PICTURES...Sorry, we realized at the end of this week we had literally taken no pictures...sorry! We will try and be better!!
This is the road our chapel is on where we wait for the B9 bus.
Making pass along cards and singing to EFY music!
Waiting for the bus to Rosa
Our elders walking away down the road after zone meeting
My "model shot" as Hna Voss calls it 😂
Us when we realized we hadn't taken any pictures so we stopped and
smiled after getting off the train haha!