"Take chances, make mistakes, and save souls!"

...this sign speaks for itself. #noonewaitsforthelights
#ifyoudonttouchthebumperyouwerentcloseenough

Hello again :)

Feels like we were just emailing but a lot has
happened this week!  First of all, we had transfers! We now live in Bensonhurst. It's a very nice and big apartment about eight minutes walking (at our fast pace) from the church. (We've got a nice little video tour of it for ya also assuming it can send...😁) Hopefully it'll serve us well. :) Moving in though, now there was a crazy time. We received a call from the assistants Sunday telling us we'd be going to transfers to switch keys but that we could leave our luggage at our apartment. So off to transfers we went! There were no train problems this time so we got there early enough to go to the new Chick-fil-a for lunch and even to do our drivers' tests

We got to see a lot of people when we were there, really we got to see almost everyone! It was cool. I also saw Sister Bugingo because her companion was being transferred. We were able to step aside and talk for about ten minutes and it was really good. She's doing great.

Anyway, the fun part of moving. We would have had to take three or four trips on the bus for a half hour if we moved by ourselves. But. This lady, Nancy, she is a china angel. She offered to drive us. She was literally a miracle. It took us less than an hour to transport all our stuff so then we began to move the sister training leaders' stuff (they were in mission leadership council). It took us three trips for all their stuff. She was a huge lifesaver. Such a blessing for us.

We woke up Wednesday and were both feeling like we were just there (in our new apartment) for a few days as like a little vacation or something haha. We tried to make it a little more "ours" by finishing unpacking and cleaning it up a little bit. Now we feel pretty at home though! We also had our first district meeting Wednesday! It was awesome! Elder Weisler did great.  The two elders who got added to our district are Elder Pavón and Elder Oaks. They both leave the end of this transfer and the next, respectively.

Now Thursday was adventurous. In the morning, Hermana Voss accidentally set off the smoke alarm, which happens to be a good twelve feet off the ground. I grabbed a chair and the broom to try and shut it off. Got it after a few tries haha. Then that night while we were trying to go to sleep she wanted to try and turn the blinds the other way to lessen some of the light coming in. That resulted in them falling loudly to the floor and letting in all the light haha. We got them back up pretty quickly though. We also had our lesson with our sister who is preparing for the temple on Thursday! She is planning on receiving her endowment on the 22 of October and we will get to go with her! She also told us yesterday she contacted the three missionaries who taught her (ten years ago!) and they can all come!! It's gonna be awesome. :)

We also did some killer seed-planting Thursday. (We had bumped weekly planning to Friday cause we had lessons set during that time Thursday so we got more time to find!) We were doing a lookup and ended up with two new potentials who we taught on the spot and will hopefully be seeing this week! Both ladies were super cool and will hopefully choose to continue learning about the gospel.

There was also this guy who was asking for money when we were talking to this lady and her daughter. We had just shared names with each other so as he came over Hermana Voss goes, "Hi! What's your name?" He was so confused. He goes, "uh, my name? No, I'm--" she cuts in, "Do you want a cookie?" He turned it down and continues to look at all of us for something. He wouldn't leave the lady we'd been talking with alone so I grabbed a Mormon.org card and held it out. He looked at it and said, "No, no I'm asking for money" (I mean he said it in Spanish but...) and I just held it out and said, "No, you want this! This is better than money; This is salvation!" Needless to say he left fairly
soon after that haha!

Oh! Also on Thursday we saw a guy wearing a Book of Mormon the musical shirt! First one I've seen. We gave him a card and invited him to check out the book if he liked the movie so much haha (we really gotta get ahold of some English Book of Mormons! ...or is it "BOOKS of Mormon, okay?" 😜)

Friday we had the most awesome lesson. This lady's name literally means "miracles" and she is one! We found her a couple weeks ago and finally got to meet. Probably the best first lesson I have ever had. She has been so prepared it's amazing. I love being able to see the Spirit testify to people and see them just get it. It's such a blessing to be able to see that desire work in others and see what is possible when we experiment on the word and act according to our faith. This lesson was a major contrast to the lesson we had last night where we ended up dropping the BoM on them. We could see the Spirit testifying of the truth to them, but they were choosing to be stubborn and hard-headed. They were denying the witness we knew they were receiving. Finally, we shared 2 Nephi 29. That was fun. :) We ended in good spirits and they know we are only there because we love them.
Hopefully next time we visit them they will have softer hearts. But all things in the Lord's timing. We will see when that is.

Closing off the week with a bang, we had some great seed-planting and potential-making on Sunday as well as General Women's Meeting Saturday! Holy cow that was amazing. Beforehand there was a stake dinner and an opportunity to meet all these different women in the stake and share stories and such. It was great to visit with them all and feel of their spirits. But the session though. Wow. It was amazing. I learned so much and felt the Spirit so strongly. I was thinking back to where I was exactly one year ago from that moment.  Sitting in an auditorium at BYU watching the session before returning home and having one of the most spiritual personal experiences of my life. I changed so much that night one year ago and looking back at everything I can see how that was just the beginning. That night my heart was softened.  Now I can see so clearly and I know what the Light of Christ can do in our lives and am seeking every day to share that joy and light with everyone that'll listen. :)

This life can be pretty crazy and at times dark and lonely, but I know through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through His infinite and perfect Atonement, we do not ever have to walk in darkness or be alone. I think Elder Holland states it best: "Because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. ...Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: 'I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].'" Love you, have a great week :)

Tanto amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley


Forgot about Monday haha until I looked at the pictures I needed to send you!

We went to the bridge! It was raining Monday
#welooklikesunshineonrainydays

We went to DSW...we tried on heels...it was a good time :)

We got gelato! #totallyworthit

Stopped by shake shack to get lemonade...gave it to us for free. Said it was "on the house."
We were very confused haha!

We took this subway that was behind us and it was suuuuuper old
so we took a quick selfie after we got out

Dinner with Hermana Palomino! Her food is so good.
#toomuchofagoodthing #empanadas

Transfer season

Houston, we have a problem.

I'm afraid we have lost a transfer. Really though. I'm not sure where the last SIX. WEEKS. just went. I have no idea. I, I honestly don't know. I didn't think it could speed up anymore, I was so wrong. We are already half way done with our time together as a companionship in Dyker Heights. That blows my mind. This also means we have transfers tomorrow. Fun story: our stake boundaries are changing. Therefore they are moving some of the wards and which chapels they attend. Our ward is moving to the Bensonhurst chapel. This means we are switching apartments! Yay. We are moving into the sister training leaders' apartment (it's right by the chapel there) and they're moving into ours. It will be an interesting change, not to mention trying to take six bags and two crates full of books on public transportation thirty minutes both ways :) it'll be an adventure for sure! The other fun part is that Elder Weisler is going to be our new district leader! We will also be in a new zone. However, because there's only one set of Spanish elders and one set of Spanish sisters, they need to be bringing in another set of Spanish elders. We'll see tomorrow who is coming with us!

Anyway, enough of that. This week was great. We found a few really cool people to talk to while planting seeds this week, maybe something will come of one of them :) however, we know if not in our time, in the Lord's time.  :)

We got to teach one of our favorite families again. They are awesome, we had a great lesson with them. We also met with a less active family we were given as a referral. The youngest boy is eight and wants to be baptized so we have begun to teach them to help him have a better understanding of the church before he picks his big day. It's awesome to see him so excited about it, he really gets the significance of it.  Not fully of course, but he gets it.

Thursday morning we went to the church for some language study.  Later that day we had a lesson planned. She was supposed to meet us at the church. Never showed. It was a little frustrating for me but the soccer ball was in the gym. We went in there and during our dinner hour (which was supposed to be the lesson...) instead of eating much I kicked the ball against the wall to get a little bit out. Kinda hard in a skirt though haha. I was actually kicking hard enough that I bruised a bit (cause I was
shooting against the wall barefoot! Can't kick with those flats on! 😜). It was a good stress reliever though! #whatdoyoudowhenyouremad? #workout #bake #shoot

Another thing from Thursday was when we were walking down 86th street from the bus (this is one of the really busy roads with all the big stores) and we're walking along and we pass this group of younger men on my side and one of them goes, "Shoot. She Mormon!" It was a surprise to say the least!

Friday was pineapple carving day! :) the first week we were all together our elders had these pineapples they were leaving with during lunch. We asked what in the world they were going to do and they said they were going to fill them up at seven eleven! They did it and showed us pictures so we made a goal to do it this transfer. Well we did it three days before it ended haha! But we did it! I can now say for myself that pineapple slurpees are amazing --even better when the pineapple is only a dollar and you get to eat pineapple while practicing your knife skills.

We got back from 7-11 with our slurpees and the elders were in the kitchen...opening a seven pound can of tomato sauce for spaghetti. Our elders. They're something special :) I got my package Friday as well (THANK YOU! We opened it and we're taking everything out and my compañera goes, "I think you needed this today." Yup :) so thank you lots!). We gave Elder Creager a bag of muddy buddies and Elder Weisler the Oreos so that he wouldn't die. They went through those so fast haha.

On Saturday we had this emergency prep meeting we were supposed to go to. It was long but a good opportunity to meet some non-members and give them an impression of our members. We met a few really cool Dominican ladies who we got to talk to for a bit. One of their seven contacts :)

Right after the emergency prep meeting we had a chapel tour with our new investigator! She is so awesome. She was just taking everything in and was understanding so well all of the new information. We closed by showing her the chapel last and teaching her about the sacrament. She read the sacrament prayers and we ended with a prayer in the chapel. She even agreed to come to church with us the next day for the first meeting. Sunday we picked her up and walked to church together. I
think it was very new for her but she took it all very well and we know she felt the Spirit. She even sang the songs (she doesn't even know them but she still wanted to sing!) We were praying for her the
whole time to be able to feel the Spirit, and the talks were perfect. She left after sacrament meeting and we said we'd see her at two for our scheduled lesson. She sent us a message at twelve saying her mom told her our beliefs are too different from theirs and she can't go to the chapel or church anymore. I was so sad. We sent her our testimonies and some scriptures and invited her to pray to know what she's supposed to do. It's hard when you see so much progress and potential in someone and then they have a trial like that thrown in the way. We're not sure what will happen with teaching her, but we know she will come join with us again when it's right. She'll be in our prayers :)

We had a super cool experience Saturday however. We had a member present planned for our lesson with our little family. We called to make sure she was still good to come with us but turns out she was in Manhattan! We knew we couldn't do this lesson without a member present so we got creative. Facebook lesson (thank you to the new church videos for this idea!). We checked to see if it was alright with the mom of the family and the member and we put everyone in this nice little Facebook group chat. And we had a lesson. We recorded the prayers and sent them, sent little pictures, it was awesome! Everyone fully participated and our investigator opened up way more through the messaging than she ever had during lessons in person. She also got to "meet" a member, which was awesome #fellowshipping. God really does have so much more for us to do with this technology He has given us than we currently use it for. It was awesome to still be able to teach our investigator, allow her to open up more, and have a member there when before the lesson would have needed to be rescheduled. The Lord works in mysterious ways :)

Sunday we had all of our lessons canceled. That was fun. It was a little ironic and I felt like Job for a bit cause I happened to be fasting, particularly in gratitude of all the Lord has blessed us with this transfer. We came here with no investigators and not a single person to teach, now we have a thriving pool and our days fill themselves. It's been a huge blessing and testimony builder to me that the Lord does bless us to find when we seek and helps us do His work His way when we give all of our effort. So the ironic part is that on the day I'm giving thanks for all the blessings we've been given with the work here we end up literally on plan G. Every plan up to that point fell through. We got to see one sister after church, which was awesome (and plan C haha) but everyone else we tried to find, called,
had lessons set for, it all fell through. We headed to the church for our final plan and tried to contact some referrals. We ended up dropping a few who we finally contacted who very much were not interested. Sad time, but one day they'll learn and whether they accept it then or not will still be their choice. #anotheronebitesthedust

All in all it was a great week. I learned a lot and got to see the blessings we've received from our efforts here the last six weeks and how the Lord does His work. Sometimes it can be hard when you don't see what the plan is, but if you keep taking it one step at a time the Lord will guide and sooner or later you'll have climbed a mountain without even realizing it. Be grateful for the little trials, those
are what build our faith the most I think. Hope it's a great week! Next Monday we'll be writing from Bensonhurst! Love you!

Tanto amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley

PICTURES:  We did slightly better this week than the last haha.
We've got our pineapple carving and the end result #newfavoritething #randomselfies
A pumping party on fifth ave for Mexico Independence Day (the party went for literally ten blocks all down fifth ave. Needless to say, transportation was fun!)
And here pictures of us in Park Slope courtesy of Hermana Voss :)

"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!

"You can be skinny tomorrow, there's always tomorrow"

Hello hello!

¿Cómo estamos? :) I'm not gonna lie, this was a really rough week. I knew weeks like this would come but I still don't think I was quite prepared for them. It wasn't a bad week, there was lots and lots of good, but there was also lots and lots of frustration. I've decided I'm gonna start and end with the good though!

We've got quite a few highlights for you cause overall this was a good week! First, last Wednesday we had trainer-trainee meeting. You know what that means, we got to see everyone else! Yay! This was super fun and we got some pictures for you as well :) we learned a lot and I could feel the Spirit really strongly the whole time. I got called on three times though. Three. Times. Don't they know I didn't like speaking in front of large groups of people?! 😜 it was a super good meeting though. Now the story of getting there...that was a fun one! If you'd like to pull up a map of the MTA train system you can see what I'm explaining for yourself. We took the 5 train to Lexington Ave/59th to transfer to the R to go to the Woodhaven stop in Rego. Well, we get to the R and there's a bunch of people all waiting for the same train. The intercom turns on: "ladies and gentleman, due to a stolen train car, no N, Q, or R trains Queens bound will be running from this station..." Then they continued to give alternate route options. We didn't have time for this. We were going to be early; now we were pushing making it on time. We called our zone leaders and they said for us to just walk to the next station rather than wait for a train. So, three weeks or so into the mission and I've already taken my trainee walking through Manhattan.  She was having just a little bit of fun. We booked it to the other station at 53rd and caught an M train that got us to the meeting five minutes til. It was an adventure for sure (our elders had worse luck, they were a few minutes late). (And we didn't take any pictures in Manhattan, sorry! Not our purpose)

After the meeting we had a dinner appointment we rushed back to. We met at the church where the hermana had pupusas for us! She told us she had the little plates so that we could be "nice and skinny so that you can get married after the mission" haha! We were okay with that until we began to eat. We'd eaten two already and she looks at me, "Hermanita, quieres más?" I said no I was good, but she jumps up to get me more. As a last resort I said, "but I need to be skinny!" (Alluding to her comment from earlier, not any food problems here I promise!! 😜😆) She looks at me and goes, "oh honey, you can be skinny tomorrow, there's always tomorrow." Needless to say, we ate more pupusas...and also did more running haha. Moral of the story: Pupusas and skinniness are required to get married...but you can get skinny tomorrow :)

Another little tidbit, Friday we took the B9 (old faithful as Elder Broadhead deemed it) to a lookup. Then we took it back. Then we waited for it again four hours later to get home. All three times we saw this guy, the same guy at the last bus stop looked at us and goes, "are you followin me?" I said, "are you following us?" And we just laughed. Probably coulda shared a message with him. Darn. But that's okay, next time :)

Right before we saw our little bus friend for the third time we saw this little family walking up the dark sidewalk. One of the little girls came running up towards us and I knew I knew her. I asked her
name and I immediately remembered them. We had found her and her mom a few days before knocking. Now they were here again with the mom's sister and daughter. Turns out they're interested in learning English and want us to come by their house Saturday to teach them English (...and the gospel!! 😄) Hopefully we can see something happen with them, cause the odds of running into the same people a few days later in a different area and different time in this city are almost nonexistent. "Coincidence? I think not!" :)

Last Friday we also went to Chipotle for dinner cause a member gave us these gift card things for free food (yes!). It was good, but didn't help with the being skinny thing our members seem to be concerned with haha! (We had another dinner appointment Thursday where that hermana told us she was giving us water not soda to help us be skinny #arewegettinggordita?) We taught English class Friday as well. There was a part of the lesson on slang...#nohablamosslang
#whereiseldercreagerwhenyouneedhim?

...not really sure what happened Saturday, but Sunday we had a dinner appointment and FHE with the Luna family. When I say family, I mean clan. We had literally half the ward there 😂 it was super fun & all ended well. We sang Hazme Con Migo and let everyone switch off who was the leader, the adults even had a lot of fun with that one! On the way to the FHE we met this super cool lady on the bus and she's here by herself. We were talking with her and I gave her a card after telling her we teach people about Christ and help them increase their faith in him. She perked up a lot when I said that and said as we helped her off the bus that she'd see us Sunday at church...? She also gave us her number. It was crazy. I really really hope we can see her again. That would be awesome.

So we had a few little tender mercies this week that really made it great. It just serves as another testament to me that your situations are what you view them as. This week could be summed up as:
#frustrationsgalore #patienceisavirtue #...thatidonthave or it could be #notexactlywhatweexpected #tendermercies #learningpatience #alwaysgrowing #nogrowthinthecomfortzone. I'll go with the latter. :)

Entonces, this week I will be striving to be more patient --and probably for a long time after that as well :) so I would invite you to look at yourselves and ask, what lack I yet? Then ask God. And when
He tells you, strive to improve upon that thing, that weakness. When we humbly submit to Him and allow Him to show us our weaknesses and areas of improvement, then can He make us strong through Him (2 Corn. 12; Ether 12). I hope you have a great week!!

Muchísimo amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley

Ps. I'm happy right now --happier than I think I've ever been-- but there were some intense moments for me of frustration I didn't think I would ever have. We added it all up last night. Over our four weeks here (we're starting our fifth week today, crazy!!) we have planted 619 seeds. And we have two investigators and two more hopefuls for maybe this week out of all those seeds. That, was frustrating to me. We taught eleven lessons two weeks ago, last week we taught three. That was frustrating to me. We have been doing everything we could possibly do to find people to teach and we have hardly seen anything come of our efforts. "No effort is wasted" says preach my gospel. We believe that, but when you think you've got a plan and you do your best to follow it and the Spirit, then still nothing comes, you think "we should've done something else" or "we wasted that time" or "we could've done this or that and found people who are actually ready", that can be frustrating. If you let it be. We got a nice little lesson in patience this week. I had a really rough time Thursday night in particular and Friday morning God blessed us with another little tender mercy --as He always does-- and we learned we are working to develop some patience and trust here during this time. Some trust in God and His timing, some faith that it will come in His timing, and some patience to be able to wait for that time. I love in PMG where it says, "when you are patient, you hold up under pressure and are able to face adversity calmly and hopefully." So that's the key here for me. The hope part. I didn't get discouraged, but I did get frustrated and I have to not let myself get to that place and remain hopeful. It's hard. No one says missionary work is easy. It's stressful and intense, but it's the best thing.

Pps. We have this thing called "one driver" for our use of Facebook. So we really don't use Facebook, we mostly just use messenger and Facebook is just to find the people. Therefore, when we use Facebook only one companion has it open and the other companion uses it --so we never open up our own Facebook app and use it. (I would use Sister Voss' and she'd use mine). Therefore, you can just add whatever you want to my Facebook thing cause I won't be doing it :)

"How do you cook your vegetables?"

Hello familia!

We got a long one today haha, it's been a good week! We will pick up where we left off...

Last Tuesday we had exchanges right after district meeting. On the bus to the sister training leaders' apartment we saw this darling little Hispanic boy. He was five years old and named Christopher. He was the cutest thing. We talked to him --or rather he talked to us-- for upwards of ten minutes about anything and everything. He was so darling.

Even after missing our stop we still arrived about fifteen minutes early for exchanges. We sat on the stairs of the building and entered in some reports and did a few findings. Once Sisters Shiobara and
Fields came we dropped off our stuff, split, and were off! I was with Sister Fields for the evening. We went out towards bay ridge and had a dinner appointment with a sister in their ward. To sum it up: Pasta (aka Mac n cheese) + salad + pasta crab salad + peppermint tea; #superold #yellingourprayers #hardcorecrazycutecatlady

After dinner we went to a park in the area to do some finding. I'd never done finding this way, but we literally talked to everyone. Like, there would be a line of people sitting on benches and we would
go down the line and talk to everyone. It was hilarious. At first I was like, "they're gonna get all weird that we're just going down the line" or "they'll think we're crazy". Well, we are a little crazy, and
we actually found a few people who were willing to listen for a bit. I learned a few things from Sister Fields about approaching people and just getting the job done. She approached everyone. Even if they
didn't speak English (the Russians, Italians, etc) we still gave them a card and invited them to look at the website. It was cool. Me and my compañera have adapted to do the same and I can confidently say we try to talk to everything that moves! (It's kinda funny cause we talk to more things that don't move! We always do lightning rounds with the cameras outside people's homes/in elevators haha.)

When we got home we shared what we'd done with the other companionship and they did likewise. As a result my companion and I have decided to download a few of the videos in Russian after all the Russians we both met who were so willing to talk with us but had a hard time doing so in English. We'll see if we get to use any of them :)

Wednesday we wrapped up exchanges. Me and Sister Shiobara were together and we went to service at prospect only I didn't have my shoes so I had to borrow hers. It was lots of fun, and I somehow
squeezed by without getting sunburned. Had NY pizza for the first time (like, for real NY pizza) this week too. Not bad. I also hit 6 months Wednesday. Crazy. I feel like I've been here so short a time then I realize I'm a third of the way done. That's a scary thought. I wanna get as much out of this time as possible. Living for today :)

On the way to a dinner appointment with a member we had a cool little experience on the bus. We were standing by these Hispanic women and struck up a conversation with one of them. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and then three of the other women around us asked for copies as well! It was super cool :) We finally made it to our stop and were twenty minutes behind schedule. We had the option of waiting for a bus to come in twenty more minutes to take us directly to our appointment or we could walk the mile we had left and try to beat the bus. This is where #olympicspeedwalking comes in. I don't think we've ever walked so fast for so long --in skirts nonetheless-- in our lives
haha! Needless to say, we beat the bus :)

Following our dinner appointment we had a lesson with a referral from the English elders planned. Turns out she's a less active returning member! She's got the cutest kids. We had an awesome lesson with them, their testimonies are so solid. We just gotta help them come back to church. Her son also has not been baptized so she asked us to teach him the lessons. We'll be doing so in FHEs over the next few weeks with them :)

Thursday started off great! We went for a run! Yay! We like running. We just ran a mile but we've decided people in the mornings are much more cheerful than during the day. We went for a run today as well. We're hoping to be able to have the motivation to go running everyday for the first part of our exercise time. We'll see what happens :)

We had weekly planning Thursday and it turns out our area book is still in rebellion, but that's okay, it's getting better. The tech people have emailed us a few times saying they're working on it and asking for more info about this or that. Hopefully it'll be in top shape soon! On our way to a lesson with a returning member and her family we met a darling mom and her two boys on the bus. Can I just say, I've never seen children with so much energy haha!

We switched buses for the final stretch to our appointment and had a rather interesting experience to say the least. The bus was very full so we were standing in the back near the door. We could feel the
stares, as we usually do, but one was a little odd. I look down and on the other side of the bus this Jewish (not strict Jewish, but very Jewish) middle aged man is sitting there staring at us. Again, this is not unusual. It was unusual when he spoke to us. We made eye contact and he said, "How do you cook your vegetables?" We were beyond confused. Everyone in the bus looked as confused as we were. Why was this Jew talking to us? Did he think we were Jewish? Was this some trick question to measure our Jewish-ness? Regardless, I wanted to answer this question right. It's not every day you get a Jew to talk to you! My compañera and I looked at each other then back at the man. He was still awaiting our reply. I looked at him and said, "...you don't." He laughed and said, "yes you do! How do you serve your vegetables?" I said, "you serve them raw...?" I was not about to have a discussion about how to season and cook your vegetables with this man on a crowded bus, but he was ready to! He laughed again and said, "no, you don't serve them raw! Don't worry, I'm not trying to hit on
you, I have a girlfriend." This just got weirder --if at all possible. The Hispanic man seated next to our little Jewish friend has about lost it at this point. Everyone within hearing radius remains as
confused as we. Our friend is not done, as he begins to tell us about Songs of Solomon. To make a long story shorter, he insists there are instructions for how to cook your vegetables within Songs of Solomon. I told him I like Isaiah and he said he likes the books of Moses. He told us all about how God called Moses twice: once to be a prophet and once to be a Jew, "cause he called, 'Moses, Moses' from the bush." It was an interesting experience needless to say :) #WearenottheJewsyouarelookingfor

We got to our lesson and it was great. She is so solid. We taught her and her kids for a bit and invited her to be a fellowship for our less-active member we are teaching. We think they'll be great friends. Her husband came home at the end of our lesson. He's less active and works a lot but said we could come by this Friday for an FHE with them. We're excited to see what we can help them with as a family :)

This Friday we finally were able to get in touch with one of our sisters again! She is so ready to go to the temple, it's not even a joke. We taught her the first temple prep lesson then and the second on Sunday right after church. She's so excited to go. She will probably move her date up because she wants to go as soon as possible and there's only four lessons left to teach, she could go through the he first week of October if we teach only one a week! I'm so excited for her :)

On our way to catch the train home from this lesson we had to transfer to the N going the opposite direction. We pulled in and saw across the other side the N was there. We ran so fast, we literally
sprinted up the stairs and around to the other side to try and catch this train. We came sprinting down the stairs just as the doers were closing. Hermana Voss stuck her hand in the door and opened it. We ran in and barely made the bus. Now, cause this was at night the trains come less frequently. Had we missed this train we would have had to wait for twenty-thirty minutes for the next one. We sat down and she looks at me, "I felt like we were in an action movie! That was so cool!" It was great.

Saturday we had another lesson with an aweseome family. We left them the video of the restoration to watch together. They were really excited to see it. We will see what they thought of it tonight at our lesson. To be totally honest I am very very stressed about this lesson with them tonight. Hopefully they have chosen to let the Spirit work in them and they have been able to come to know of the
truthfulness of the things we have taught them. We're praying for them.

And lastly, Sunday. We had church and did a few lookups, concluding the day with a lesson with one of our members! We haven't seen her since we've been here so it was great to see her and share a message. Her husband was there as well for the end. They have such strong testimonies. They also gave us two referrals so that was great as well. Hopefully we can find some more people to teach who need the gospel!

Today we had a district activity at the pier and park by our house. It was super fun! We ate together and played football a bit, even climbed some trees! We got some pictures at the pier and had a great time together. I honestly love our district so much! Hermana Voss asked me the other day what makes our district so great. This is it:  So I honestly believe that in a relationship of any kind if both people are trying to make it work and have the same goal then it will work. That's how I feel about marriage, companionships, and districts. All of us are here doing our best with the same goal in mind while sharing the hope that we can make this all work. Therefore, it does!! No one is jealous of each other, we can celebrate the success of other missionaries, and we all can work hard and play hard :)

This week I have grown a lot. I've also been frustrated a lot :) I think I can be frustrated without being discouraged, cause I don't feel discouraged at all. Just a little frustrated with some things. Last night and this morning were particularly rough for me and I didn't know why. I was a little angry even about old things. I tried to begin my personal study and I just could not. I thought, "forget it, we're reading the Book of Mormon." I opened up to 2 Nephi 4. Holy cow. This was exactly what I needed. Literally the exact experience I was going through I could see Nephi going through as he wrote those
plates. He expressed his frustration with himself, then he talks himself out of it by expressing all these thoughts about what the Lord has done for him. Then he talks himself out of the pit with action
words like awake and rejoice. I love it. I love how he then expresses his desires to the Lord and tells Him, "I trust You. I always have and I always will, so please help me with this." And then he bears
testimony. I dunno, I feel like I'm rambling, but it was just exactly what I needed cause it was exactly what I was feeling. He says, "And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy?" I was sitting there realizing I was giving place for this anger and frustration. What does that do? Nothing! So I've chosen to apply what I learned from Nephi and awake! And rejoice! And droop no more! Therefore, I am happy :) I encourage everyone to check themselves and choose to be happy. It's easy to sit and simmer over something, but why let it destroy your peace?? Choose Joy. Have a great week! :)

Muchísimo amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley

PICTURES! :)
Sorry fam, didn't really take many pictures this week I have realized...sorry! We've got exchanges, a subway car all to ourselves --never happens-- a radiate cheer and sunshine building, an overpass by our house, and a broken mannequin that just can't anymore. We will repent and be better this week! The days just go so fast they all glen. I feel like we've taken so many pictures then I realize we haven't taken any in three weeks, but it feels so recent! Sorry :/