Pics from San Marcos

The first pic is a real life sighting that I serve in the boonies! LOL! We were driving up this road and saw this sign and just started laughing! So then we got out and took a picture next to it and bunch of dogs (friendly ones) ran over and started licking us and smelling us. Crazy stuff out in the country of Texas, anyone want a pig?

The missionaries of San Marcos and their new Fossil watches

Me on my BIG bed!! I added the extra mattress that was just leaning against the wall to my bed. SO now it is huge!! And oh so comfy! I have to jump to get up on it! he hee, I love my bed!!! :)

Texas is my Home!

Howdy Y'all!

So first off, I hope I didn't scare y'all last week, everyone wrote me kinda concerned. Ha ha don't worry about me! I am fine!! I am learning and growing. These trials stretch me and make me better all the while! I truly have learned a lot these past two transfers, I actually made a list of blessings I have received through the trials these past few months and the list is a pretty darn good one! I am so grateful for y'alls love and support! Thanks to mom and dad for the boxof awesomeness!!!!! Thanks gma for the custom jewelry. Thanks C, Adam, Lindsey Layton (that is so weird to type, lol) and Elder Yarrington for the letters!! :)

So as for this week we did get to work a decent amount. We spent some time at the apartment but it wasn't too bad. While we were out working this week we had some fun/cool/weird/exciting experiences. We always get a mix! lol So first off our investigators Sirenia and Aurelio, well they aren't so much progressing right now, they are kinda in a stand still, we have taught them pretty much everything, only a few more little things left, but they are not sure now if they are moving to Mexico or what and so they don't want to get married right now. That kind fo makes everything else not possible. They also have not been able to come to church again with work and stuff. So ya, they are not dropped as of now, but they are not progressing. We will see what happens. The cool thing is Aurelio was telling us how much he loves what we are teaching him and that he knows it is true and he has so much peace in his life now. He said he knows the Book of Mormon is true. Then sweet little Sirenia (she is seriously tiny, like 4 foot something) is always embarrassed to say the prayer but she will do it and the other night she said a beautiful prayer thanking heavenly father for sending these two angels to come and teach them and help them learn and grow. It was way cool!!! It was almost too sweet to be true so when we left their apartment I turned to sister Moran and checked to make sure I translated the Spanish right! ha ha Ya so they are way awesome and even though they might not join the church right now they will some day and their lives have changed so much! It is so neat to see the changes that have taken place in them!!! On to other things, we got a new investigator who is way SWEET! The Elders in Kyle (city to the north of us that is also in our district) met this guy who lives here in San Marcos but was up in Kyle doing something adn anyway they got to talking and this guy, derrick, is way interested in learning more. His brother joined the church when he was a senior in high school and he went on a mission and so now he's back and lives in Idaho and has been e-mailing Derrick about the church. We taught Derrick last week adn have another apt tomorrow with him! He is way cool!!!! So ya, that's exciting! Hey so Kev I have similar experiences to your being burned with a member present all the time. This week though the members felt bad for us and took us to get smoothies- sweet! :) So a funny thing that happened this week- we were out in down town SAN Marcos trying to find people on the streets to talk to cause we have to talk to at least 10 people on the street every day outside of our knocking time. So anyway downtown is the only place where people are usually on the streets. Well as we were walking around someone yelled at us "HEY GIRLS COME HERE!" So we turned around and there was a guy motioning for us to coem towards him. Well we looked around and there was a lot of people around so we figured it would be ok to go closer. SO we did and he told us he had found our website and sent for some missionaries to come but he lives up in Austin and they haven't come yet. Well we asked him if he had any questions we could answer for him. He said yes, I'd love to talk but I am meeting some friends at Valentino's (Pizza place across the street) why don't you come with. Hna MORAN and I exchanged glances and decided to go with him. SO we went and his two buds had already started on a pitcher of beer and he joined them and we sat and talked about the gospel as they drank. It sure was an interesting teaching experience!!! But anyway things are good here in Texas! Transfers are next Thursday!!! I am pretty positive I will be staying here and getting a new companion. I am excited!!! So ya our p-day is on Tuesday when it's transfer week, so y'all here from me then! Until then, have a great week!!

Lov Y'all!
Hermana Kleisler
SMILING ALL THE WHILE

Hermana Kleisler Pics

Hermana Kleisler and Hermana Moran in front of the San Antonio Temple on a rainy day

"Me feeling very much at home in my kindergarten teacher ways- reading a story to some members kids at their house"

"Me wearing the t-shirt that some of the young women made for me! It is so cool and it glows in the dark!!! Ha ha These girls are so awesome, the back has my name on it and the front has all kinds of random things including a b-ball on the stomach cause one of the girls hit me in the belly with the ball! It was funny, so next to the ball is an arrow and it says ouch! Then it says things like San Marcos represents. Man I love my ward!!!"

Emergency Transfer? Oh wait..um...what... Together Forever

Hey Y'all!!

So as you can prolly tell from the subject line this week has been confusing and CRAZY!!! But as my baby brother told me in a way awesome letter that I got this week (thanks so much for that Kev!) I always seem to find away to be positive and not get down by our situation. So no more guessing games, I'll tell you what happened.

Ha ha so my companion just read the subject line of this e-mail and she said : "so your going to tell them all about that huh?" I laughed and said well nothing else really happened this week! Ha ha so true. So anyway this is what went down. P-day last week was a blast we played slingshot paintball up in a vacant lot in Austin. We ran around shooting each other and trying to avoid stepping in the bum stool. Apparently there are a few homeless people that frequent this lot. lol SO anyway that was a blast and everything and then Tuesday came and Wednesday and things were not going so well with the work, we had a cool member present lesson with Sirenia and Aurelio but other than that we kept getting burned and stuff. On top of all of that Sis Moran was not feeling too good. By Thursday she was just out of it, not only was she hurting physically but now it was emotional too, she was frustrated and depressed. I did not know what to do and I had no clue how to help her because she would not really talk to me. So I did what my gut feeling kept telling me to do. Call President. So I called President Cutler (P-Cut as is his gangster name that we lovingly refer to him as, but not to his face) and he talked to Sister Moran. He gave her 3 choices, stay here in San Marcos with me and figure it out, Be Emergency transferred to San Antonio to stay with a sister missionary that just had surgery and would be on bed rest anyway, or go home to California. He told her that she had to sleep on it and call her in the morning. So that night was rough and she didn't feel like working but we knew if we stayed in the apartment together until bed time we would kill each other, so we called up a cool member and went over to their house and watched the sister missionary movie, "Errand of Angles" and the members fed us candy bars and popcorn- SWEET! lol Then we went home and neither of us could sleep and Moran wouldn't talk to me. Well the next morning she calls President and says that she doesn't want to end her mission laying around and she doesn't want to go home, so she will stay here. The whole time she was making this decision I was annoyed cause I thought I should have some say in it cause it effected me too. So anyway that went through and we had Friday and Saturday, normal not being able to work too much just going through the motions days and then Sunday came (yesterday) and I just couldn't take it anymore. I finally spilled it all to Sister Moran told her how I was feeling and that this not working and her not communicating with me thing was really killing me and bringing me down and I was losing my desire to work. I felt so lifeless and I hated it!!! So this time Moran picks up the phone and she calls President and says I think my companion needs me to leave, I think it would be the best thing for her. So we both took our turns talking to President and then he gave us the choice, told us to talk it over and decide with prayer whether we should stay together or if Moran would go to San Antonio and rest and the Sister who just had surgery's comp would come up and work with me. So ya we talked a lot and came to the conclusion that it would benefit both of us if we split up for like 2 weeks and then she came back and finished her last week of her mission here with me. So ya we slept on it and felt right about it, called President this morning and he then told us, I have been thinking about it too and i think you two need to stay together. We were both kinda like, What!? You told us to think about it and make a decision. But then he said it just didn't feel good to break us up and that we needed to stay together for some reason and it will make us stronger blah blah all those President type things. Ha ha so ya that is what is going on. We are now together forever to finish off the transfer, it really is only 18 days, it can't be that bad.

So ya the good thing is Moran and I really do love each other and get along it's just the whole work thing that has been hard. But we will figure it out and both be better for it!!! So in other news, on Saturday night we had a little Spanish party. Ha ha well basically it was a fellowshipping party. One of our Spanish members invited our investigators Sirenia and Aurelio to come over for some hot chocolate and stuff. So we ended up having 3 different member families from the ward and us and the investigators there! It was really great! Our ward is so awesome about fellowshipping! If Sirenia and Aurelio don't feel the love now, man they never will! lol Ok so as far as the work goes that is the only thing of interest that really happened this week. The rest is all burns and wrong addresses and sad depressing stuff that no one needs to hear about.

I know that this trial that we are going through right now is obviously for a reason. We will finish out the transfer and I will be sad to see Sister Moran go because we truly are good friends, but I will be thrilled to have a fully functioning, working, healthy companion! Ha ha

Alright well y'all have an awesome week now ya hear and I will do the same!! I will have some cool stuff to tell you next week I am sure of it! We are gonna rock San Marcos this week even if we can only work two hours a day!!!!

I love y'all so much!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE
Hermana Kleisler

Oh I forgot... PS I found out when my release date is, I had no clue so I asked President to check if out for me. My official release date is February 19th 2010!!!! Woah, can you believe it, only a month and a year from today and I'll be home!!! Crazy! The best part is I get to go home at the same time as all the sisters I came out with, including Bernie! Sweet!!!! Ok that's all now! Bye!!!

Wishing and Hoping and Loving the Mission!

This pic is with me and a bunch of children's books in Spanish! It has been helping me a lot to read things in Spanish and see the phrasing of things but it really helps to have pictures too so Sister Moran and I checked these out from the library last week! Ha ha the Aurthur ones are my favorite!


The second pic is of me out knocking, we were knocking doors in this one neighborhood and I saw this mobile of unicorns and laughed cause it reminded me of one of my comps in the MTC (the second time) and so I took a pic. :)


Hey Y'all!!

Things are good in Texas! I have lots to tell ya! Nothing super miraculous or anything, but some things I figured out, some cool things that happened and also me recognizing the Lord's hand in my life. So yea, I will start off with Sirenia and Aurelio. We taught them twice this week. The first lesson, on Wednesday we had a member come with us who is actually a Spanish teacher at Texas State, so her Spanish is perfect and she intimidates me a bit, but it's all good. Well we taught them the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity in a big boom- commandments lesson! I had to teach Word of Wisdom for the first time ever, adding to the fact that I know he drinks and also I had to teach it in Spanish! Let's just say that the Lord loves his children because some pretty awesome things happened!! First off, I was able to communicate and they understood what I was saying- score!!! It was the most Spanish I had ever said in one night, Sister Moran was very proud of me. The coolest thing though was after I explained to them all about the Word of Wisdom and then asked them their thoughts about it, Aurelio looked at us and said, it's going to be easy. I was like taken aback!! I was thinking what?!?!? We just taught you while you were drunk last week! He then proceeded to tell us that he and Sirenia had a talk just the day before that he needed to stop drinking and he agreed. I was so excited because the Lord was helping them and preparing them for what we would teach! Then Sister Moran went into the Law of Chastity and how they need to get married. Sirenia was all excited about that one, she has been wanting to get married forever now!! Aureilo wants to get married, but he wants to be more stable first financially and what not, he also wants to have big ole wedding with all his family in Mexico present. He said by the time they have enough money to go to Mexico it will be Dec. So ya it was a good lesson all in all the other awesome part was our member was just talking to them and asking them questions. And helping them talk about wedding plans and bearing testimony, it was SWEET! So yea then we had a lesson with them on Friday and talked about the importance of baptism and why it is important sooner rather than later. They both said they weren't quite sure yet and they needed to learn more. Well the icing on the cake was that Aurelio came to church this week!!!!!!!!! My first real investigator at church!! We drove over to his house Sunday afternoon and led them to church. As I was driving and he and Diego (his 18 month old son) were following in their car behind us, I looked at sister Moran with the biggest grin on my face and was like, so this is what this feels like?! Man it was awesome! Once we got him to church we shot looks at all the Spanish speakers in the ward and he was fellowshipped immediately! He sat by me and the Hatches (the Sister who came with us to teach them). Diego was being his typical self and making it difficult for Aurelio to listen. I happened to be sitting on the other side of the bench next to the members, and so I reached in my bag and handed a toy to Sister Hatch to give to Diego. Then when he got tired of that one I handed her another, then when he was getting really restless I handed her a granola bar to give to him. She then looked at me and said "I am impressed!" I smiled, cause I knew she wasn't too keen on me before, but after my awesome display of being prepared to help my investigators at church, she definitely has some trust in me! -Sweet sauce! My comp also was impressed, and I told her, Sister Moran there are a few things I do exceptionally well and kids are one of them. :) So ya that is what's up with our investigators. They are the only two we have right now, we have to get Aurelio and Sirenia BOTH to church, she works on Sundays. But ya Minerva has been dropped again. So we are now doing a lot of finding.

So on to more cool stuff. I had several epiphanies this week. The Lord really helped me to see His plan for my life. I have tried to be pretty positive in my e-mails and not let on too much but I had been having a pretty hard time with my companion. We get a long great and all, we are good friends, but when it came to the work I was having a rough time. I got out here on fire just ready to get to work and go!! Well my comp is at the end of her mission and everything and has lost most of her energy and desire for the work, so it was way hard on me. She also wasn't teaching me much I kinda had to stumble and figure things out on my own. I was having a hard time with that and trying to figure out why I would be given a trainer who didn't train me. Someone I had to motivate to work and be the example to. I just didn't get it. Then on top of that she got sick, and we couldn't work at all. Well this week Sis Moran and I were laying in bed talking and I had a little epiphany of sorts. She was saying that she knows she is slacking and that I have had to teach myself how to do a lot of things and I have had to train myself and learn for myself to be obedient. As I was thinking about that I realized how the Lord so totally knows me and he did this on purpose!!! With any other companion I might been trained so well, basically having my hand held the whole time. But with Sister Moran I have had to struggle, get on my knees ask for help and learn things on my own. This has been the absolute best thing for me!!! In my first two transfers I have gone through things that some missionaries don't go through for a long time if at all. I have been built so strong and the lessons I've learned ingrained cause I had to learn them for myself. The Lord knew that I needed this and I am so grateful for it. I have had to be the example for my senior companion, at times I have had to be senior companion and it has made me really really strong. Sister Moran told me that night we were talking that she knows that I have along road ahead of me having just started my mission, but that it will be amazing because of how much I have learned and grown and had to struggle with in my first 8 weeks! Oh how blessed I am to have a Father in Heaven who knows me and what I need!!! :) I am so happy to have the situation I do and the companion I do, I am all the better for it!!

So in other news, One quick little story before I go. On Saturday night we had correlation at the Church Building and when we got there we saw a zillion cars and heard loud music. Sister Moran and I looked at each other and said, uh I think we just entered Babalon!!! Ha ha we did not realize they had a stake dance there that night. So we had our meeting in the RS room and tried to ignore the music and then afterwords we walked by the doors of the dance and one of the girls from our ward saw me and came running out to see me. She and a couple of other kids from the ward came over and talked with me (Sister Moran was talking with a leader from her old area that was there) and I was just loving talking to the youth! Two of the girls who I have nicknamed T-Squared, trouble one and trouble 2 have decided they are going to make t-shirts that say t squared and they are going to make a t-shirt for me that says sister coach and has a basketball on the stomach cause on Tuesday on accident during practice one half of t squared passed the ball at me while I wasn't looking and hit me hard square in the stomach! It was pretty funny! So anyway I am getting very attached to the YW in the ward and I love being around them and it seems like they really look up to me! I was pretty surprised when they left the dance to come talk to a missionary- ha ha I guess they think I am cool. Sister Moran says she's glad she has me, I am good with the youth and the kids! I said what does that leave you, she said the old people! Ha ha I said DEAL!!! lol

SO anyways, life in San Marcos continues to rock!!! We have interviews with President on Wednesday and I am going to express my sincere desire to stay in San Marcos, we'll see what happens. Next Transfer is on Feb. 5th! :)

Love y'all!
Hermana Kleisler
SMILING ALL THE WHILE

PS Next Monday is a Holiday and the Library is closed so I'm not sure when you'll hear from me! :)

Hermana Kleisler's Christmas Pics!

You can send the skater on a mission, but you can't take the skater out of the missionary!! (They even loaned her the converse shoes to complete the look!)

Kristi on Christmas morning with her Christmas Jammies

Hermana Kleisler and Hermana Moran - all decked out for Christmas!

Rollercoaster woot woot!!!‏

Hey Y'all!!!

This week Hermana Moran's health has been on a roller coaster which means that so has our missionary work. At the beginning of the week we spent our time at the apartment and then on Thursday we were finally able to go out and work a whole day!!! I was so excited! We were able to work full days on Thurs, Fri and Sat! It was so funny cause I would be driving back from the day of work and it was like 9 o clock and as we drove into the apartment complex Sister Morna would have t o remind me to stop so we could check the mail!! That is a sign of how hard we worked that day- when the evening comes and we are going back home, and I forget to check the mail, MAN We WORKED hard that day and I am exhausted!! lol So ya we have been able to get some work in and that makes me very happy!! But then yesterday after church Hna Moran was not feeling well again and the evening was spent in the apartment. SO ya her health is a total roller coaster right now. The specialist up in Austin didn't really have a clue what was wrong with her but he gave her some meds and that has helped a little bit. So ya we will keep on trekking and if we have to spend some time not working, well that's ok, I've learned how to be productive at the apt. Ha ha the first attached pic is what I did in between my productive study time. I took a break and had some fun with my new scrapbook supplies (thanks mom) and with the old ensigns we have. I made us some fitting wall art for the year. lol

So when we were able to work this week we did a lot with the members and less actives. Since it's the beginning of the month we have the miles to go to the furthest parts of our area. So the other day we went out to visit some people that live way out in the boonies. The bishop being one of them. He and his family were shocked to see us, and man when we drive all the way out there ya just gotta let us in and listen to a message! ha ha SO ya we visited some far out there members and we wanted to visit this one family in teh ward that lives in Seguin (another city) but hey are still in our boundaries and in our ward. SO ya we got a sketched out map from bishop of how to get there and once we started driving we realized that we prolly should have gotten a more detailed map from Bishop! We ended up driving out to New Braunsfels!!! That would be the second attached picture! lol We were starting to feel like we must have past it and then when we saw that sign we knew we were WAY too far!! ha ha So ya we used a lot of miles this week! We did finally find this family's house and had a real great chat with them and got to know them better and it was so cute cause when we got there the mom asked her 4 year old son who we were. He looked at his mom and was like, mom there the missionaries!! It was so cute cause he was like, duh mom. And so then she asked him if he knew who we worked for and it was so cute cause he very matter-of-factly said "Jesus- that's who!" Ha ha so totally worth the accidental drive out to New Braunsfels. :)

So I will leave you with a thought- 1 out of every 1,000 doors we knock out here as missionaries has a person who will be baptized. But 630 out of every 1,000 member referrals we get will be baptized. Chew on that! lol Ya so for example this week we had 2 member referrals and we got to contact both of them and we were invited right in and taught a lesson! That was sweet!! We love member referrals!!! So ya we also knocked this week and out of all the hours of knocking we did we got an appointment
with this seventeen year old kid next week. SO ya it's not hard to guess which one is more effective!! So ya here is me pushing y'all to be member missionaries- cause we sure can't do this work on our own!!!!!

Alright well not much else to report now, we are still working with our same investigators, no one is progressing right now, but hey we will keep on working on them!!!

Ok well I love y'all and appreciate your support!!!

Much Love,
Hermana Kleisler

SMILING ALL THE WHILE!!!