Mother's Day skype and pics

Here are a couple of pics we snapped of Kourt while Skyping on Sunday and a few she sent to us yesterday, along with a quick email from her. When we talked, she was waiting to hear about transfers and worried her companion would be leaving. 

From Kourt:

hey...miraculously we didnt have transfers!! my whole district is the same except one zone leader went home!

my super homie elder prado came to my zone and hes companions with elder marshall!!

1 year to go!

WOW...so on the 14th I completed 6 whole months, and if all of my calculations are right and the transfers go according to plan, I will be home in one year from tomorrow!!

This was a pretty good week, but nothing special happened. On Tuesday we had interviews with President and all of the missionaries in Leon and today we went to a buffet with the whole zone! We have been having super good lessons, but the investigators still aren´t coming to church :( We are also working really hard on finding more people!

I´ve really learned a lot in these 6 months I think that the biggest thing I´ve realized is how weird time is. I´ve learned that nothing is permanent and everything changes. Every single day I have looked forward to or dreaded has come and gone...the bad times dont last forever...and neither do the good times haha :(

I have also learned how to rely on the Lord a lot more and to trust him. His plan always turns out to be better than mine haha.

I have learned a lot about the scriptures and how much they can help us with any problem we have.

I think I have learned how to talk to people a little bit better...Im not as scared of people anymore, so thats good haha.

Also, I have learned so much from the people I have met in these 6 months. The people from the MTC, the members of the wards I have been part of, the investigators and all of my missionary friends are totally worth all of the hard parts about the mission.

Love and miss everybody! See yáll in a year!

Hermana in Leon

From Kourtney to me (Mom):

Hi MOM!!! i love you haha did you get the picture that my companion sent you of me next to your initials graffieteid on our house?? hahaha leon is so sketchy and i guess we live in a dangerous part and eveyone wants us to switch houses with the elders...but we have a washing machine...!

yeah i still love my comp! her camera has wifi, so at the church we can send pics to emails haha.

i got the packages!!! thank you so much!!!! tomorrow we have multizona with president! ugh were kind of frusterated with our investigators right now, we have like 4 that are really interested but they wont freakin come to church and we dont know why haha. and you cant get baptized unless you have 5 sacrament meetings!! but were trying haha. we dont walk as much here...we take like 5 buses a day and its so confusing haha and the buses here cost double the amount as in SM or dolores, so we dont have as much money haha. i wanna go to queretaro because e ramirez is there with my trainer hna cruz!! man my homies from san miguel were the best haha

Week 1 in Leon!!

Wow...it finally happened! I have a companion that I love!! Hna Paez is like my best friend and we work super hard together! She is from Equador and her city is going to get a temple!

Leon is super cool! I guess my other areas were like little towns, and leon is a big city, so it kind of an adjustment. I guess my area is the most robbed area in the mission and we cant take our cameras around or anything, but I like it here. Today we went to a mall and it was just like america! (But in spanish and with different stores haha.) Also a friend from the mtc is in my zone and we share a church for district meeting so I get to see him every tuesday! 

Conference was awesome! Most of the missionaries in Leon went to the stake center and I got to watch it in english with all of the other gringos in a room with a desk and comfy chairs!! I really felt the love of the leaders this conference and especially liked the talks from Pres Monson, Christofferson, and Holland. (and Oaks and Uchtdorf)

I think that the people are going to be really great. We dont have a lot of investigators right now, but the ones we have are really strong! I cant believe that I have been gone for almost 6 months! Spanish is coming along haha. I can understand everything, but I still have a little trouble saying exactly what I want to say. My comp speaks english!! It is so helpful! She can translate!!!

Love and miss everyone!! See you in a year!

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