Semana Santa and transfers

Wow...its been a crazy week haha, definitely a week of adventures. In Dolores everyone is suuuuper catholic and semana santa is the week of easter and vacations. They party really hard and sometimes is scary haha. On friday a bunch of people were walking around the streets carrying giant crosses, and everyone who doesnt go on vacation drinks a lot. A drunk scary guy tried to kiss me and one of my comps yelled at him for like 3 minutes  haha.

This week we got yelled at and kicked out of a house for the first time :/ We also went to give the law of chastity lesson to one of our investigators and right before we started, she told us that she is pregnant and that the father of the baby is one of our new converts...:( sooo crazy haha

On thursday we were leaving our house and a guy saw that we were missionaries and came up to us. He smelled funny and then told us that to have a better connection with God, we should smoke weed haha...so that was the funny smell.

But we also had really spiritual adventures haha. The whole mission got permission to watch The Passion of the Christ on friday and that was really cool. This week I read from all 4 gospels about jesus in the garden of gethsemane, the crucifixion, and the resurrection and it really helped my knowledge and understanding of the atonement! ( I recommend the book of john...start in chapter 17 and read until the end :))

Yesterday we found out about our transfers...and i got transferred again!! I am now in Leon. My comp seems pretty cool and I know some of the people in my district and zone, so i hope things are good!

I love and miss everyone...hope you had a great easter!

hermana knudsen

5 months down!

HOLA!! sorry i havent written for the last couple of weeks...I have been super busy!

First off, on Feb 26 i had my first baptisms! they are two brothers who had a crazy life and are full of tattoos and gangster stuff...but now they are like the most faithful people I have ever met!

It has been really cold here. On tuesday it rained all day and hailed a little bit. We had to visit a family who lives out in the middle of no where and their entire property is dirt. It was super muddy and cold, but the lesson was good and they gave us some hot water. The worst part was on the way home we missed the bus...so we had to walk 45 mins in the hail and mud...my first horrible mission adventure haha.

On friday i started teaching english classes haha. There is another american elder in my district and every friday we are going to teach classes to get more investigators!

Saturday was my birthday! 20 feels old haha. We didnt do anything special, but we had a really spiritual lesson and I got some cake from a relief society party! We contacted a lady on the bus and went to her house like an hour after. Her son came out of the house shirtless and full of tatoos and we asked if we could share a message with them. He said yes and the spirit was so strong! everyone cried and they both accepted a baptismal date!!

I hope everyone is doing ok! Only 2 weeks left of this transfer!

Love,

Hermana Knudsen

Busy Hermana

Mindy here. It sounds like Kourtney's new area keeps her super busy :) and doesn't leave her much time to email on Mondays :( - I asked Kourt how her week went and this was her reply:

it was pretty good. the last week of febuary i had my first two baptisms!! they are brothers and in their 20s and super gangster looking haha...it feels cool to have baptisms even though i didn't do anything to help them haha.

this week we traveled to leon for a multi zone conference and i had my first interview with my mission president...he totally ripped me apart, but in the most loving way possible haha. i kind of thought i was in this trio to become a leader but now i just think im here to learn how to work haha. he's a really good guy and im gonna miss him when we get a new president. after we went to costco haha!!

we also traveled to guanajuato for zone meeting and it is really pretty there!! dolores is like at least 2 hours away from everything so every time we travel we have to wake up super early.

last week we had splits with some hermanas because my comps are leaders. 2 hermanas came to our area for 3 days and lived and worked with us...5 missionaries in one house is a lot haha! one of them was my last comp who doesn't talk haha

i love and miss you soooo much!! please party for me on my bday...yesterday was one of my comps bdays and we did nothing haha}

tell people to save presents for me :P

sorry i dont have time to email a lot of people or send a mass or pics...apologize to everyone for me haha

DOLORES!!

Holy...my new area is suuuuper different. San miguel is only like an hour away, but it´s crazy how different it is from Dolores! Dolores is kind of sketchy hahaha. I am the ONLY American, we take bucket showers and live with cockroaches and lizards haha. But, the branch here is really helpful and good to us!!

My comps are super awesome missionaries! It feels sooooo good to be with people who know what they are doing! I have learned more in one week than I did in twelve weeks in SM.

On thursday there was a special meeting for leaders of the mission. Only zone leaders and sister training leaders were able to go. I guess when I came to the area, my comps had instructions to bring me to this meeting, so we woke up at 230 amand headed to queretaro! When I got there, we had new assistants to the president and I got kicked out of the meeting because Im not an actual leader hahaha, so I went with some other hermanas and worked while the meeting was going on. It wasnt all bad though because I got to see my homie Elder Ramirez from SM!!

Yesterday was a crazy day. Our gospel principles class is very diverse haha. Everyone there is either an investigator or a really old funny person haha. Half of our investigators are really sketchy looking haha. 2 of them come to church in jeans and snap backs and have tattoos all over their necks and arms, but they are really awesome and progressing a lot!

After church we went to a house for our dinner and found out that our investigator´s (who is going to get baptized this saturday) baby died. We went to the hospital to be with him and when we entered the room, the mom of the baby was holding the lifeless baby and crying and yelling for the baby to wake up. It was one of the hardest and most powerful things i have ever seen.

Sorry my emails havent been very good, and i havent sent pics...next week haha!!

Love,

Hermana Knudsen

HOLY TRANSFERS!

Wow, these transfers destroyed our district haha. I am now in Dolores Hidalgo and im in a trio!! Both of my companions are sister training leaders (the leadership position for sister missionaries), and they are amazing!! One is from colombia and the other is from baja california and they are both super sassy and funny. One of them goes home after this transfer so I can tell that we are going to work suuuuper hard!! One of my neighbor elders got made a zone leader in Salamanca, the other is staying in San Miguel as a district leader and my companion also got transferred and they closed our area!

My new area is really big and we share it with Elders again...but I dont think they they are really good friends with my companions haha. San Miguel was wayyyy prettier than dolores haha, but my companions told me that the members here are super awesome and that they have 2 baptisms planned for this month!! woohooo!!

I am kind of stressed out to be companions with leaders haha. I had like 0 real training with my other companions and I have no idea what Im doing. With my first companion, I was just getting used to Mexico and the mission life, so I didnt do much to hasten the work haha. My second companion never talked...so I didnt learn much from her...but I learned a lot because of her hahahah. This transfer I am ready to help, teach, and love the people!! I can already tell that I am going to learn so much from them!!

This week was pretty good. It was my comps bday on wednesday, so we went to a hamburger place and she got free food! We said goodbye to a lot of people just in case we got transferred...and Im really glad we did that haha.

I am so pumped and scared for this transfer!!

Love,

Hermana Knudsen

Kourt added this to her letter to me (Mom):

i love my friends here sooo much! everyone ive met on the mission is amazing and totally worth all of the hard times. i remeber when i got set apart that the stake pres blessed me to be able to make friends, but i never imgained i would love everyone this much haha

Last week before transfers!

This was a pretty good week. We live in a new house now and its huge! We have two floors and its super clean haha. We dont have a washing machine like promised though :( we also dont have gas right now...so ive been taking freezing cold showers.

Our investigator who will be gettting baptized soon worked allllll week, so we havent visited her in a while and Im not sure when she can be baptized!

On Thursday we went to Querétaro to hear Elder Paul B. Pieper speak to us. He did a really good job and a got to see a bunch of missionaries! My friend from the MTC was there and I saw my old companion, Hermana Cruz! We had to be at the bus station at 5:50 am and then on the way home we found out that there is not a direct bus from queretaro back to San Miguel...so we had to take a train to Celaya...which means we got to go to costco haha! It made for a super long day,  but it was great! Elder Pieper taught us how to work with less actives and how to focus more on the work. I guess his lessons helped us because on sunday 2 less actives came to church!

This weekend was some kind of carnival in down town san miguel. Im not really sure what they are celebrating, but there are tons of flowers all over and the streets are full of people trying to sell stuff. Saturday and Sunday night people could buy painted eggs that are hollowed out and filled with confetti...you are supposed to crack them on people´s head hahaha, it was super funny to watch. My companion and I bought some and it was super messy haha...its also kind of painful, because the eggs are really sharp when you crack them, so i have a bunch of cuts on my hands.

On sunday night the whole district got invited to eat dinner with the lady who washes our clothes, and that was really fun. It was probably the last time we will all be together. This weeked we have transfers and I honestly have no idea what will happen. For sure some people will change, but we have all only been here 3 transfers or less, so it could be anyone! 

I love and miss everybody!

Hermana Knudsen

2 Baptisms!

This was a pretty good week. We had 2 baptisms in our ward! (It´s just too bad that none of them were because of me and my companion haha.) On friday an 8 yr old girl was baptized, and it was really cool because the family feeds us breakfast every friday, so it has been fun to see her progress. During the baptismal service, her 10 year old brother was asked to bear his testimony and he couldnt do it because he was crying so much, it was really sweet.

Saturday the Elders in our ward baptized an investigator and that was pretty cool for me too because the investigator speaks english and he always helps me out haha.

One of our investigators is progressing really well and we are hoping for her to be baptized on feb 13!! It will be really cool if I get to be one of the missionaries at her baptism because I helped find her and have seen her entire progression!

We are going to be moving houses tonight...its going to be sad to not have neighbor elders anymore haha :( We are also going to celebrate the birthday of a really nice member with the Elders tonight.

This week a general authority is coming to the mission, and I think on Thursday we get to go to Queretaro to see him! (which also means that we might get to go to costco! :P)

Love,

Hermana Knudsen