Wednesday, April 27, 2016

April 25, 2016

I have been thinking a lot about what to write this week and honestly I am not really sure where to start. It has been one of the best weeks of my mission even with a couple of hard times thrown in there but overall it has been so great! This week has been very successful for us and we just keep seeing little miracles that are happening. It is just so comforting to know that no matter what, the work continues. We are only asked to do our best and then in the end it is the Lord who does the rest of the work. We are just helpers sent out into the field to plant the seed and give a little bit of water to it but the Lord does the real miracle. He is the one that makes the seed grow. It is only through Him that people will be able to make the changes they need in order to become members. This week was so great because we were able to meet with a lot of investigators and teach a lot of families. We now have 3 families that we are teaching and so far they are progressing. One family is now taking the lesson all together. When I was with Jargalsuren, we were only teaching their 13 year old son, but once Jargalsuren left, I focused on teaching the whole family. Every time we met I would make sure the whole family was there, otherwise we wouldn't meet because we made it a goal to teach families. Last week we were able to meet with them and teach them all together and they even came to church! However the real miracle was this week! Sister Ruu and I started teaching the plan of salvation. Because time was short and in order to get home on time, we decided to only teach the premortal life. As we were teaching the whole family was participating a lot during this lesson even the mom. The mom wasn't really interested before but something changed this last lesson and now she is talking a lot and interested in learning! It is so amazing to see the changes taking place already. At the end of our lesson we gave them a baptismal date which they accepted and so we plan to have them baptized on the 24th of June! So exciting right? They are really trying to do better and even came to church yesterday so they are doing so much better than they were before. This is just one example of what I am talking about when I said that this week was great! This week was full of experiences similar to this one. Han-uul is just full of a lot of great people and we are able to see a lot of success here! It is amazing being able to witness it all :) My companion in Khovd (countryside) right now for an STL split. The sisters out there are in our Zone and so the STLs had to go out and do a split with them before the end of the transfer. So she has been there for 5 days and I have just been with Sister Tao and then I have also been with Altantsetseg, one of our ward members so that I can cover my area and get work done in it and then sister Tao can cover her area. Going out with members for the whole day allowed us to get way more work done so it has been good! Man, as I am writing this and reflecting back over this week I just can't describe how happy I am and how great I am doing and how well things have been going!

English Teaching update: Yea things are still going pretty well at the University and the Secondary School. Summer is coming up and yes I do get a break from teaching which will be nice. This way we can focus totally on our mission work and we get a whole extra 12 hours to fill in with meeting people! IT will be great! School gets out around June and then starts again in September so we will get a nice little summer break and who knows, maybe I will get the chance to go to the countryside :)

Yea it is still getting warmer here. Except it is really windy now so all the dust gets thrown up in the air and gets in your eyes :( but other than that it’s nice and hopefully it will get greener here soon! I am told it is so beautiful during the summer so I am looking forward to seeing it!

Love,

Sister Kerby





This was the Mongolian symbol on their flag that they put on one of the mountains here in han-uul area.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

April 18, 2016

So this week was good. I will start off by just talking about my area. I am not in the countryside despite what the pics may look like. I am still in the city, my area is just about 40 minutes by bus from the city so we go out to areas that are less populated with buildings and it is more of just communities with the ger type buildings. Yea the ger is just one big room; they eat sleep and do everything in just that one area. It is sad sometimes because when we teach, they basically have us sit on the nice couch/bed that they have which is what they sleep on but there is nowhere else to sit and that is just how it is and they don't mind and they want us to sit there. They then will sit on the stools and we sit in a nice circle and just teach them. It is a lot of fun and I love teaching in ger's. I am realizing this week how much I do love the people and how much I am going to miss living here. My mission is going by way too fast and I try not to think about it but it is also hard not to think about it. haha.
So this week I was reading in Philippians 2 and verse 7 it talks about how Christ took the form of a servant while on Earth. Out of all the things that he could take, he decided to be a servant. The Son of God, The Almighty, took the most humbling form while on Earth and it just made me start thinking about What form will I take? I also would encourage you all to think about this as well. What form will you take? Who do you want to be? Who will you be? We have all been blessed with certain gifts and abilities while on this Earth and we all need to develop them and use them in ways that our Heavenly Father needs us to. If you aren't sure what you have been given or not sure how to use your talents then I encourage you to think about it. Because first of all, there are many talents that we have all been given that sometimes we aren't always aware of but as you think about it, you will find what they are. Secondly, how can you use the talents? Well pray about it. Try to think of ways that you can use what you have been given. There are so many ways that we can use them to serve others and help lift others up. I was giving a spiritual thought in our district meeting and I came across D&C 18:17-18 and it says "Ye are little children and not yet understood how great the blessings the Father hath in his own hands prepared for you. Ye cannot bear all things but be of good cheer for I will lead you along, The kingdom is yours and blessings thereof are yours and the riches of eternity are your." Isn’t that so great? We have so much to look forward to in this life and the life to come. We have no idea what he has in store for us but whatever it is. It is going to be great! So don't worry, as we continue to do our best, there are great blessings that await us!

Heavenly Father loves you better than anyone. There is no one who loves you more than Him. I just wanted to remind you all of that. He knows you better than anyone as well. As we rely on him, we are strengthened and will be able to feel of his love that he has for us because we are indeed loved by him.

So this week we taught a great lesson while I was on a split with Sister Tao and it was to one of her investigators. We were teaching the restoration and the book of Mormon. Afterwards I bore my testimony and it was the strongest most powerful testimony that I have ever born and I felt the spirit so strongly during it and one of the people we were teaching started crying. We were teaching an RM and her husband who wasn't a member and so I was focused on her husband while I was speaking because what I had to say was for him. So she was crying because it reminded her of her mission and she said she just felt the spirit so strongly. We all did. It was perfect and amazing. I knew the Holy Ghost was helping me in that moment and giving me the words to say and I just said them. Nothing else mattered but what I was bearing witness to and testifying of. I just wanted him to feel of the love we had for both of them and how we knew it was true and that he could as well. It was such a great lesson and it made up for the fact that before we taught I had to eat buuz (the dumpling things) that were filled with intestines..... yea those were not good at all.... but we were able to have a great experience and you are right. Look for the little moments in our life that make is so wonderful and remember those as you go through the hard times. They will lift you up and you will be able to push forward!


I hope that you all have a great week!

LOVE YOU,
Sister Kerby

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

April 4, 2016




So everyone is talking about Conference! I am so excited to be able to see it! We have to wait until they translate it in Mongolian but this week they should finish and so we will spend Saturday and Sunday watching it! Let me tell you I am so excited to hear it! I can't believe it is already Conference again! I just heard it in the MTC and now I have the opportunity to hear it again! It just shows how fast time flies!

Okay so I remembered my planner :) Thank goodness! I cannot live without that thing! So the scriptures I wanted to share with you all from last week were John 14: 18, 27. These are so simple yet powerful. They remind me of when I say my testimony in Mongolian and even though it is really simple at times. I know with all my heart that what I am saying is true and that is what makes it powerful. Most of the things we say, no matter how simple they may seem, can make a bigger impact then we know. When we truly believe what we teach and what we say, it doesn't matter how it sounds, it is the feeling we bring and the Spirit that is able to testify of those things that matters.

The Lord tells us in these scriptures, "Peace I give unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." And he says comfort I will give you. I will come to you. Our Father in Heaven is always there for us and as this last week was Easter, we had the opportunity to remember our Savior and all that he has done for us and the miracle it is that we are able to live again and for all eternity not only with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ but also our families. What greater gift is there? So even though we have hard times in our lives.... it's okay because we have something even greater to look forward to. Sometimes we forget how small the amount of time is that we actually spend here on Earth. This is the most important time because here is how we learn and are able to become as our Heavenly Father but it is only a small fraction compared to what we will have after this life. We have so much to look forward to so we can't get caught up in all our hardships that we face right now. We just have to keep going forward, focus on what we have been blessed with and remember where our end goal actually is. Our goal is Exaltation and so all that we face right now is so tiny compared to the reward and blessings we will receive later as long as we are worthy and obey the commandments we have been given.
As I have been here, I have had a lot of experiences where I am just kind of like what the heck, why is this happening to me? But I know that during each of those times, I was given exactly what I needed to keep going. I have been extremely blessed on my mission and have been able to see a lot of great things and meet a lot of people. They are what make it all worth it. When I teach these wonderful people, that is when I am most happy. Seeing their faces as they hear this doctrine for the first time is something that I will never forget. Our Zone Conference was this weekend and Sister Benson, our Presidents wife, shared about how she worked at the English Learning Center back in Provo and there were some Mongolians there and she was there when they got the Book of Mormon for the first time. "She saw their faces as they opened this book for the first time in their life and started reading it and how happy and joyful they were and how they treated it like a special gift from God." How often do we treat the Book of Mormon as this special gift from God? Do we take the time to read it and study it each day? Even if we have read it multiple times, there are still new things we can learn from it. Coming here and seeing this people and how they treat the book of Mormon reminds me of how special it really is. The church is still really new here. The book of Mormon has only been here for about 10 years now. What a great blessing that we have been able to have this for our whole life.

We also had a fun experience this week being able to play some basketball with some kids while we waited to teach their families because they weren’t home yet. It was so fun! I can definitely cross that off my list :) Playing basketball in these old run down playgrounds with Mongolian kids! What could be better? I love them so much. Anyways we had a great lesson with them and as we were teaching, our new members older brother was there with his wife and kid and so we taught them and shared Alma 7 with them! It was great. The husband wants to learn more about our church and was very curious since his grandma and younger brothers always talk about this church and so he wants to know why it is so great! We are planning to meet with him this week! I am excited! This could be our family :) Anyways, this is all I have time for! I love you all and have a great week!
love,
Sister Kerby