Merry Christmas!

Well Hello,

 

This week was busy and went by so fast as usual. My biggest piece of news is that we had a baptism! My very first one! It was so stressful because we wanted the water to be warm because she is a fragile woman. So we had to fill it up a little bit and then wait for the water heater to fill up again. BUT we didn't have enough time so we just had to fill it up with cold water. We felt so bad but there wasn't much we could have done about it. It was an adventure. But God is great and everything ended up working out smoothly once the service got started! (Except for the musical number that Sister Winkler and I sang. Maybe we should have practiced at least once with the piano...) God granted us another miracle and she was able to make it to church on Sunday so that she could receive the Holy Ghost. It was truly wonderful! She is so happy and was SO ready.

Deep Creek is truly picking up speed! We have started teaching this mom and one of her daughters. Finding them was truly a miracle. The mom had 8 children total! And they don't have a car. So that is an adventure. She came to church but only 4 of the children came so it wasn't too crazy. She is so golden and hopefully more of the family can become involved in lessons and church!She is great. During all of the church meetings she would say things like "amen" and "uh-huh" during the talks or lessons. It was awesome. Love it.

Our ward Christmas program was yesterday and it was really nice! Besides the confirmation the congergation sang a few songs and the primary sang a few songs and the 6 missionaries sang a song. I'm happy to say that it went better than when Sister Winkler and I sang at the baptism. Oh man. The Chirstmas program was nice.

I really can't believe it is Christmas. Maegan sent me a picture of the snow in Utah!Saturday here in Lake City it was in the upper 80s! Wow. It has even been warm at night! Last night I even got 18 Mesquito bites! I thought those little guys were supposed to die during the winter. No such luck. That is alright though. It is kind of nice to walk around without a jacket in December. It doesn't feel like December but it sure does feel nice!

So I was reading the story of the first Christmas in Luke 2. After the shephards were told that Christ the Lord was born and the angels sang "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men." The shephards said "let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And THEY CAME WITH HASTE and found Mary, and Jospeh, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, THEY MADE KNOWN ABROAD the saying which was told them concerning this child." (Luke 2:8-17) Wow. Isn't that amazing. We need to be like the shephards and come with haste to our savior. We need to make it a priority just like the shephards did to know him personally. THEN we need to tell everyone about it! We need to share the good news of the gospel with the people we love and care about. Because the gospel is the good news! "Behold I have given unto you my [good news], and this is the [good news] which I have given unto you--that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me." (3 Nephi 27:13)

 

Merry Christmas and I love Y'all!

 

Always,

Sister Kasteler

This week was great! And fast. And busy. On Tuesday we had a Zone meeting which was inspiring as usual. Also, lately we have had more and more sisters volunteer to come out with us to some lessons. Working with the members is so fun and a whole lot more successful!

Thursday was our mission Christmas Party in Orange Park (Jacksonville). And it was so wonderful! All 270 Florida Jacksonville missionaries were all in the same room! We had a wonderful dinner and a talent show that almost everyone participated in. It was so nice to see some missionaries that I hardly ever get to see! We had a musical devotional at the end of the night and it was truly wonderful. The last thing before we went back to Lake City is that we got some gifts from our stake along with some letters from home. It was so wonderful to have so many letters from my mom and from some ward members that I love so much!

Friday was our ward Christmas party and it was so fun! There were some wonderful people there and some delicious food. For some reason our ward thinks we are starving so they gave us loads of leftovers! We sure do appreciate it but I don't know how we are going to eat it all!

So I think I will tell you about a few miracles that happened this week!

We went to an investigator's house. Her dad works from home and often has clients that come over and wait for him to fix their phones. A couple times we have had pretty good conversations with the people in front of his house. This week we talked to a woman and she asked who the Mormons are. What a wonderful question for her to ask! We taught her about the restoration and she said she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. So we went to her house a couple days later. She wasn't home but her mom was and she asked the same thing! "What are the Mormons?" So we taught her the restoration and she is going to read the Book of Mormon! We are excited to go back and keep teaching both of them.

Another miracle is that an investigator texted us one morning and said "Good morning, I felt God's love last night and the Book of Mormon is true." We are so excited for him! He still has a little ways to go but we are excited to help him keep progressing!

And here's another one. An investigator was worried that she was going to have to start dialysis because her kidneys are bad. Well, she got a priesthood blessing and called us a couple days later and told us that she didn't need immediate dialysis because her kidneys had actually improved! And she attributed it completely to the power of God and the priesthood blessing that she was given. Wow!

I have had the wonderful opportunity to be reading in 3 Nephi the past week and a half and it has been truly wonderful to study Christ's ministry to the people in the ancient Americas right before Christmas. 3 Nephi 12:48 says "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in Heaven is perfect." We have the potential to be perfect even as Jesus Christ is perfect! Isn't that truly amazing? It is going to take us a long time to get there but we can become more like Christ every single day as we study the scriptures, serve others, and make changes in our lives. As we make choices each day we should be thinking about whether or not they are making us closer to Him. Our trials and our mistakes make us better if we turn to God in that time and lean on Him. Because of Christ's atonement he can purify us. We just have to let Him.

Love Always,

Sister Kasteler

This was another crazy week! Also a week of funny experiences and miracles! Basically I wish you could read my journal from this week. I think you would be pretty entertained.

First of all, our car had been making some funny noises so we were instructed to take it to the dealership. It was under warranty so we took it there one morning. They wouldn't tell us how long it would take so we went about our morning studies. When we were done with studies and lunch they still hadn't called us so we decided to walk. We walked first to the library and spent an hour on facebook/blogging. (p.s. I started a missionary blog. I am just getting it started but feel free to look it up.nofearonlytrust.blogspot.com ) After we went to the library we called the dealership and he told us that there wasn't really a problem but that they were going to replace something because it was loud. Yeah...right. Oh well. So we decided to keep walking. Since we have 3 sets of missionaries in our ward we have to divide up the area between all of us. Well the library is in the elders' area so we had to walk and walk and walk to some where that we actually had people to see. It was an adventure. I truly love and appreciate the wonderful 2013 Chevy Cruz that we have. We finally got it back around 3:30.

That same day we had an interesting experience in the Library. We frequently see this little old man. We will call him Bernard. He is always very friendly and we started talking to him. We had a wonderrful conversation about how we need to trust and rely on God and how he won't give us anything that we can't handle. Well, Bernard is a little hard to understand so all of a sudden it occured to us that he wasn't talking about God anymore....I won't go into details but it wasn't appropriate. Let's just say that he might have been hitting on me...and it was awkward. Sister Winkler and I had a good laugh about it later.

Another very funny moment happened with a lady we met but I couldn't even begin to describe that to you so I won't even try. She was pretty old and we were completely confused about what she was saying. She ended up giving the mormon.org card back to us that we had just given her. That was after she spelled out all the words on the card like this "s-i-s-t-e-r m-i-s-s-this one- and that one-and some of those". Poor lady....at least she was happy.

There were just a couple of the funny experiences of the week. We also saw wonderful miracles. We set baptismal dates with two investigators! One is set for December 21with a lady who has been meeting with the missionaries for a long time but is always sick. The other one is set for January 4 and she is on fire! She just needs to come to church....

We had interviews with the mission president on Saturday. It was great. I love President Craig. He is so loving and so passionate about missionary WORK. He told me that he knows that I will accomplish big things on my mission and that I have already come SO far in the 12 weeks that I have been here. It was really nice to meet with him.

We had the chance to watch the Christmas Devotional last night. It was wonderful. I love this Christmas season (even though the weather doesn't feel like Christmastime here in Florida). And I get to spend every day testifying and teaching people about Jesus Christ! We all need to remember to keep Him the center of the season and our lives.

I am excited for this week! Our mission Chirstmas party is on Thursday and Friday is our ward Christmas Party. I love the people we are working with and I love Lake City.

 

Always,

Sister Kasteler

Thanksgiving

This week was a good one. Fast. As usual. Thanksgiving...well the food was plentiful. I had 5 Thanksgiving dinners. Oh my. At least they were split up. One was on Wednesday, three on Thursday, and a late one on Sunday. Wow. I have never been so full in my life. It was wonderful and I'm glad they were split up! I am gaining weight. Blah. I guess I should make sure that doesn't keep happening.

 

Also, Thanksgiving and the day before we went around and asked people to write down things they are grateful for. It was wonderful! We got more than 300 things! It was so fun! We wanted to get to 1000 but we should have started earlier....

One of the referrals we got from the fair is so wonderfully prepared! I am so excited to be teaching her. She is southern Baptist...very southern Baptist. But she loves talking to us and is so willing to make committments!

Friday was Sister Winkler's birthday! She's 21! It was great. A member took us out to Cracker Barrel for dinner and we saw lots of miracles that day! I am so grateful for Sister Winkler. She is truly amazing!

I don't have much else to say this week. I am so grateful for the Holiday season! It is truly wonderful to think about and celebrate our Savior. I love him. And I am so grateful for him.

Since I'm an online missionary I started a blog. (http://nofearonlytrust.blogspot.com/) Feel free to look at it. Also, if you have any creative ideas for sharing the gospel online, let me know.

 

Have a blessed day,

Sister Kasteler