Little Italy {4.28.14}

Ciao! 

We have an Italian investigator and she's teaching me to be Italian. Phrase of the week:
Oggi sono stanco!

It's true! It was also true for our investigator because her daughter just had a baby.. yay!

Anyway, this has been another jam packed week. Lots of responsibility makes for one tired missionary but one extremely happy missionary nonetheless (still on cloud 9 because I'm with Sister Fox). This week has not only been full of work, it has been full of tender mercies! Sister Fox and I have seen the hand of God in every phase of our work this week. His Grace is real. 

Let me tell you about it.. 

Monday: We found 4 new investigators! Miracle of all miracles because we only have 3 proselyting hours on Monday and we were stressing about finding investigators this week.. then Heavenly Father helped us reach our girl the FIRST day of the week.

Tuesday:3 more new investigators! Just from being in the right place at the right time (thank you, Holy Ghost). That night we slept in Cherry Grove because we had an exchange. On our way to the sister's apartment we decided to drop something off at the elders because they had a pretty rough day. We knew their apartment was around the Spanish elders. So, we were standing in front of Spanish's apartment (elder Marchello if you're reading this Aunt Sandi!) craning our necks to see if any of the doors above them have a picture of Jesus when I decide to take a step forward. Not realizing I'm standing on a step, I face plant it. OUCH.  I laid there for a minute and Sister Fox laughed at me, in a loving way of course. I hobbled to the car and we found their real apartment. We sat in the car for a minute to write on the sticky notes we would put on their door when they pulled up next to us! Busted. We tried to pretend we didn't see them, but it was pretty obvious, so I figured I might as well ask them for first aid. They all got me bandaged up and my knees are still in pretty bad shape. Why did I share this story? So you would all know that I am still me! I haven't changed too much :)

Wednesday: Exchange in Cherry Grove!! When we got home, the Blackham's let us have a camp out in their backyard! Yes, we are the most fun missionaries you will come across. Oh! At district meeting today we played scripture chase (that I was TERRIBLE at in seminary) and I WON. Sorry, don't mean to brag I was just so proud of myself because knowing the scriptures was one of my number one worries when I left for my mission and I've been working so hard to get to know them better! Woot woot.

Thursday:   A less active friend who we're activating, took us out to lunch! We love her a lot and have all kinds of crazy connections with her. She's definitely one of our mission moms. Tonight I headed to Owensville with Sis Ryan for another cousin exchange!

Friday: Exchange in Owensville! We also volunteered at the mobile food pantry that Sis Parker and I used to always go to and I got a very warm welcome back. It was a great day. Sister Ryan and I are always sure to make lots of memories to talk about at future family reunions. For example, we got the door shut in our faces by a lady who told the sisters they were preaching the kingdom of darkness. Yikes.

Saturday: Went to a baptism! Foxy and I taught the restoration. It was such a spiritual baptism and Miss Connie was able to be there! That night we saw our pal Tony. When we were walking to our car after, this guy walked past playing the guitar so naturally we started talking to him. He proceeded to get on his knees and serenade us and before we knew it there was a little gathering around us. One lady rushed over and told us, "I know who you are! You have to help me and my nephew. We need God" She then gave us her contact info and set up an appointment with us. Another girl nearby asked me if I had a pamphlet I could give her. It was crazy. I felt like the world flipped upside down for a minute--usually we're the one's trying to get people to take things from us! 

Sunday: I spoke in Church! My talk was on the Book of Mormon and I didn't write any of it down.. I just spoke by the Spirit! Dad would be so proud. I found out after the President Porter was in the hall during sacrament and listened to part of my talk! Here was the quote I based it around: 
“It is not just that the Book of Mormon teaches us truth, though it indeed does that. It is not just that the Book of Mormonbears testimony of Christ, though it indeed does that, too. But there is something more. There is a power in the book whichwill begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resisttemptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path. Thescriptures are called ‘the words of life’ (see D&C 84:85), and nowhere is that more true than it is of the Book of Mormon.When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance”

-Ezra Taft Benson

Well, I could go on and on today but this letter already seems to be exceedingly long. 

Ti amo!

Sister Rolfe
xoxoxoxo

p.s. this is our last week at the Blackham's :(

He is Risen! {4.21.14}

I think I forgot to tell you last week so,

Happy Resurrection Day!

I sincerely hope all of you had as wonderful an Easter as I did! It's been an absolutely beautiful week in Cincy so we've spent as much time outside as possible. FINALLY. Sister Blackham didn't have to work Good Friday so we spent the morning gardening! I pulled a GIANT bush out of their front yard. It was pretty impressive. Anyway, it was just such a lovely week leading up to the glorious Easter morning.

Foxy and I studied the Atonement and had a powerful companionship study before joining the family (Blackhams + Sisters Ryan andChristensen) upstairs to color Easter eggs and even have an egg hunt! The eggs we found were filled with scriptures that we took turns reading. Then we had a little testimony meeting and the Spirit was so sweet. I am so grateful for my Saviour and my Heavenly Father who know and love me enough to bless me with the Blackhams this Easter. Church was revelatory. We watched Because of Him and I was thrilled even though I've been watching it all week. It is SO GOOD. I can't get enough of it! I really hope you all watched it at least 5 times this week and shared it with every person you know. If not, I would exhort you to watch it now! I promise it's a whole lot better use of your time than reading this email that will still be sitting here in 2 minutes 30 seconds when you get back. I even hyperlinked it for you!

Guess what else happened at church? Sister B, who has been coming back to activity herself, brought a friend to church! And her friend wants to meet with us! Tender mercy? Easter miracle? Yes and yes! Sister B is the perfect example of true conversion. She has struggled accepting the Church as THE true and living church on the Earth. But, she's been meeting with the Elders and is working on her faith because she knows how good the church is for her family. Last week she bore her testimony!! This week she was talking to Sister Fox and I and broke down in tears because she had received such a powerful witness that the Churcho of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints IS Christ's church on the Earth. WOW! How do I know she is truly converted, you ask? She is sharing the Gospel with her friends!! When we truly understand what we have, we want to share it and nothing can hold us back.

"A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race." -Joseph Smith

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1123

We had Easter dinner with the Eddy family. I had lamb for the first time and it was delicious! Then Sister Fox and I played Easter bunny and dropped of Eggs/candy/scriptures to people. All in all, it was a wonderful Easter.

I know this email doesn't look like much, but we only have 1 hour on the computer and for some reason this took me 50 minutes.. yikes!

Let me know what you thought of the video or cool experiences you had sharing!

I love you more than I love dying Easter Eggs!

xoxo

Sister Kayla Rolfe

P.S. we had a family history enrichment night this week and 2 of our investigators came.. woot woot! Remind me that I've decided to get involved with family history when I get home. I have such a strong desire to do it now, but can't, so I've promised myself that I'll get into when I'm home!

Oh and one more cool thing! We got to teach a lesson over Skype with Sister Blackham and Elder Blackham! It's amazing/mind boggling to see how the Gospel is spreading so quickly around the world through the internet!

Live After the Manner of Happiness {4.14.14}

This week I decided to be happy forever. 

I think I've done that most of my life pretty well, but this week I found the doctrinal background. You see, this crazy world has been making me question my "glass is half full" outlook on life. The world is ridiculously bad and is only getting worse. Missionary life is pretty stressful and I've recently been informed that life only gets more stressful as it goes on. Yikes. All of this negativity can add up sometimes! It seems as though most people are simply enduring life. 

But that doesn't sit well with me. What a waste! Is it naive of me to think that I can live a generally happy life-- not just experiencing fleeting moments of happiness, but actually feeling happy most of the time? 

NOPE! 

Craig P. Wilson tells us otherwise.  (check it out!)

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/04/young-adults/lasting-happiness?lang=eng

I have come to the conclusion that we are here to be happy! Life isn't meant only to be endured, but ENJOYED! Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy, right? Right!

We spend too much time waiting for some future event to come. How many times have we thought, "I will be happy when....." I am definitely guilty of that-- all the time! But, we aren't meant to only be happy in retrospect. That's just nonsense and robbing yourself of a whole lot of happiness. So, I invite all of you to join with me and find happiness in the little things. I promise you happiness is a choice. If I have learned anything on my mission that is it! 

CHOOSE to be happy this week! The only thing that is holding you back is yourself.

Let me share with you some of the little things that have made me happy this week:

-Sister Fox is still my companion!

- I can be 110% myself around Sister Fox 

- Our zone leaders have become our best friends and thanks to a friendly competition we both ended up having record numbers this week

- United Dairy Farmers exists

- We got to spend Saturday morning gardening with Sister Blackham!

- Magnolia trees and Cherry Blossoms are EVERYWHERE

- A less active family we've been working with came to church and brought their grandkids!!

- An inactive family we've been working with watched General Conference and is taking us to lunch this week! She said after we talked she realized the church is something she wants in her life. She saw a Count Your Blessings sign at Hobby Lobby and bought it because it reminded her of our conversation! :)

- We FINALLY got to see one of my favorite investigators from the first time I was here who has been very illusive since I got back!

- I ate Deer! 

- An investigator has been praying for Heavenly Father to help her quite smoking because she REALLY wants to get baptized.. please pray for her!! Mom and Dad, she loves her BoM. She listened to it for almost 2 hours the first day she got it!

-We had a BBQ with a family and they introduced us to Roasted marshmallows with peanut butter on them.. life changing!! We all stood in a circle around the campfire and sang families can be together forever. It was so precious.

- Foxy and I have been working SO hard to get member present lessons and have not been having a lot of luck. We had a goal of 12 this week and at midweeks we had 2. yikes. So, we prayed and fasted. Saturday night we had 7 and we had 1 lesson set up on sunday. We realized with church and all, 5 wouldn't be a realistic goal, but 3 would and it would still make us stretch. That morning our 1 appointment was cancelled! Luckily, we were able to set 2 more up! At 8:40 Sunday night we were at 9.. so close! We only had 20 minutes and we didn't have anything set up so we figured we had done our best (we really had tried so hard). Then we walked outside from  our last lesson (with a member) and one of our potentials just happened to be standing there. So we started talking and had a lesson AND she became a new investigator!!!! We got 10 member presents after we had only had 2 at midweeks!! Hallelujah! That is the grace of God. He really does make up the rest when we do our best.

Life is beautiful 

"Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you"

-Jeffrey R. Holland

Oh, and share this video! It's the church's Easter Initiative!
http://easter.mormon.org/?cid=HPTU041514694

xoxoxo

Sister Rolfe

P.S. What was your favorite part of conference??

-

You are infinitely more precious to God than a tree {4.7.14}

As always, I have absolutely no idea where to start. As I'm sure you've heard/seen all over Facebook...

FOXY AND I HAVE BEEN REUNITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't even know what more to say about that. I just looked to make sure she was still sitting next to me because I can't even believe this is real life.

Celebrating my birthday and half way mark this week, you can imagine I've been doing plenty of pondering. 

Here's what I've come up with:

Heavenly Father knows and loves me. I am infinitely more precious to Him than a tree. :) https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2014/04?lang=eng&vid=3435072633001&cid=10

Really, though. There is no other way to explain the unbelievable things that have happened throughout my mission. Like I said in my last email, transfers never cease to amaze and surprise me. How can I deny that God knows me when He has so obviously heard and answered my prayers. What missionary can say that they were trained in the one area of their mission they knew (thanks to blog stalking) and wanted to go to, their cousin came to their mission AND was trained by their trainer in their first area, they returned to their beloved first area and their cousin was STILL THERE, and then they were reunited with their baby/soul mate companion?! Not many, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around all of it and can't wait to talk to Heavenly Father about it some day.

As you can imagine, life is good.

Now, I'm sure you're dying to know about the transfer meeting. One of the first missionaries I saw when I got there was Fox's zone leader so I asked if she was coming. He said yes AND she is being transferred and made a Sister Training Leader. My heart skipped at least 3 beats and I told him she was going to be my companion. He laughed. I commenced to search the building for Sister Fox but she was nowhere to be found, so I took my seat in the chapel. I had my eye in the door until she walked in and I stared at her until we made eye contact (yes I am that creepy). We both freaked out a little and I tried to mouth, "We are going to be companions!!"

As I sat through the transfer meeting, I almost couldn't bear the butterflies in my stomach. I was trying SO hard to push the thought out of my mind that we could be companions because I knew I was setting myself up for devastation when we weren't. President Porter kept catching my eye, though, and I swear he had a mischievous grin. Finally, they started announcing the new companionships. I think I almost had a heart attack.

"In Eastgate 3 Sister Rolfe will be training a new Sister Training Leader in............. SISTER FOX"

The crowd went wild! Seriously. The next few minutes are honestly a bit of a blur, but I know I pushed a few poor sisters out of my way to get to Foxy. I think I almost broke her back. We finally stopped hugging and I turned to President Porter and said, "I love you so much!" By this point, I had embarrassed Sister Fox pretty bad so we took our seats. I couldn't tell you another word that was said the rest of the meeting. I just kept looking at Sister Fox to make sure she didn't vanish or turn into another sister. I was also holding my breath praying President wouldn't get up and say "April Fools!!" Because, yes, of course, transfers were on April Fools Day! But, he didn't! We're still together and it's been the best/craziest week!!

Every missionary we saw that day and the next day at Mission Leadership Council had a miniature reaction of ours. One told us, "I witnessed a miracle today!" I also can't tell you how many times I've been asked in the past week if Sister Fox was my sister.. even more than Kendallville, I think. One of our investigators even asked Sister Fox, "Did you just stare at Sister Rolfe while she was training you so that you could get down all of her manneurisms?? Now we have a blond Sister Rolfe and a brunette Sister Rolfe!" Haha. It is SO good to be back together!!

Also,

Conference was WONDERFUL. If you didn't watch it, WATCH IT NOW!! If you fell asleep, get out a pen and paper and WATCH IT NOW. https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng < click on it!!

I wish I could tell you all of my insights, but I only have a few minutes left. Ah!

Just know that I know without a doubt in my mind that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and I sustain every word he and the general authorities have said. One fun fact. The other day I was studying about God and realized that out of all the names we could call Him, He chooses to have us call Him Father. Then, one of the speakers said almost exactly that in conference! Wow. What a powerful experience. I loved how family centered conference was... the Plan of Salvation is a family plan!

All of my love,

Sister Rolfe

And thank you for all the birthday wishes!! I couldn't have asked for a better celebration than getting the whole church together to listen to the Prophet!