Life has been extra snazzy here in Dublin

Hiya!

Happy Birthday dad! I hope it was a good one and that you did everything you wanted to! Sounds like the ward back home has been awfully busy with all these new callings! Congrats to Christine for her new calling as well! I know she'll be great at it :) And mom the time difference plays a part in General Conference remember? We don't see The Relief Society Session until Saturday the 1st of October. So hopefully we will see it then! But I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

Ok so since I've been here in Dublin it has been real busy! And that is great! On Monday we taught Brenda Blackmoore, the friend of member Sister Mary Green. Mary Green had phoned us one day last week and said that she had a friend that was asking about the church and wanted to have us over! So this was the first time we met with her. She has 3 kids, 2 of them are older and out of the house and one is 8 and his name is Shawn. Her husband passed away about a year or two ago and she is from Ireland. We met with her at Sister Mary Green's home with Mary's inactive sister, Patti, also present. It went so well! We went in planning on teaching the Restoration and ended up switching to the Plan of Salvation! She wonders a lot about those kinds of things and the Plan of Salvation answered a lot of her questions! We had pictures and everything to give her and everyone else a nice visual :). She really liked it. Although there are a few things we really had to go over with her (she's Catholic so a lot of that is ingrained in her) she very much felt it was right. And Patti, Mary's inactive sister, said during the lesson that she liked it too and wanted to learn more and come back to church as well! Wow! Brenda said the closing prayer and in it she said that she was really considering about joining this church because it has provided answers her questions! Oh my goodness, this is amazing! Needless to say we immediately invited her to be baptized and she said yes! And we even set a date for her baptism, which will now have to be pushed back to the 28th. No worries though we are happy! And so we are excited about Shawn going to Primary as well and maybe even joining himself! How neat is that?!

On Wednesday morning we met with Chedu and taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Like all the other lessons it went excellent! She said it was what she wanted and that she knew it was going to be tough on the enduring to the end part but she wanted so much to return to her Heavenly Father. We reassured her that we felt the same way! The enduring to the end is that refining process but as we continue to follow the commandments then we will be set! It was so wonderful and I just love her SO much! She is sick with a cold at the moment so we haven't been able to see her since then but we will see her once she feels better! Then we had dinner at Bishop Green's house (this is a different Green, no relation to Mary Green! I guess it's a lot like the surname Smith in the States ha-ha) and that was really nice. They are some of the nicest people ever and they really cared about us as people, you could just tell. It's obvious when you go over to some one's home and they just feed you because you are a missionary versus because they want YOU over. Not a problem either way but it was just nice to experience that!

Ok so on Thursday we saw Aiofe and her family for dinner! It was so good to be with them all and see how they interact with each other. They all love each other very much! It was nice. That night as well we saw Helen and her husband Isaac from Zambia (remember the former investigator family? Yes, this is them). It was so nice to finally meet Isaac and to talk with them. They are such a hospitable people! We talked with them and Isaac is actually a Pastor for the Pentecostal church. We had a REALLY good talk with them. We asked them about why they stopped learning and it was because of the baptism thing and needing to be done by proper priesthood authority, they thought that is what they had. But they actually loved how men held the Priesthood in our church and how the men and women had different roles, and we all agreed that one was not more important than the other. He said it bothered him how he'd go to some churches and woman would have the Priesthood. He said that God was a God of order and that things had to be done the way He said they were to be done. We agreed and even pointed out that it was the same way for the proper Priesthood authority as well. That not just ANYBODY could have that authority, but those who were found worthy by God. He really responded well to that. Also my companion talked about how even just meeting with the missionaries for her (she's a convert of 2 years) that it helped her find out what she believed versus what her church believed. And then she started talking about the Trinity and how she never believed in it but that her church did. Now I'm not going to lie, I had no clue why she was talking about this and it seemed totally random, but she was totally inspired because she asked Isaac if he believed in the Trinity. And he sat there for a bit and said that his church did but he didn't! He went on to give scriptural examples of how it was false doctrine and how our doctrine of the Godhead (them all being 3 separate beings, but 1 in purpose) was correct! It was amazing to see the Spirit work before our eyes and see his mind being enlightened by truth! I truly believe that because of that he will be a lot more willing to meet with us now! It was fantastic!

We saw Brenda again and went over the Plan of Salvation again and talked about what the Book of Mormon is and what it contained. It was really great and we needed a refresher lesson. We also met with Patti as well and gave her the Smoker's Clinic. She loved it and it was a success! She has stopped for 3 days now and has committed to living the Word of Wisdom as well! We are so happy for her. Things are coming along nicely with them and they said they will be attending General Conference this weekend! Right on! Ha-ha

On Saturday we taught Aoife! We went in planning to teach the Restoration and then we ended up switching over to the Plan of Salvation as well! She had lost her dad to cancer and just lost her Grandma as well, so the Plan of Salvation is really what she needed. We had the pictures and everything and she loved it too! It was a very special experience we had. We talked about it and she kept saying that this was very eye-opening for her, that she felt really enlightened! She really understood it too and at the end when we asked her what she thought about it and most importantly, how she FELT about it she really opened up. She said that it really provided that hope (and she started to cry) that she would be able to see her dad and Grandma again. We really felt the Spirit strong so invited her to be baptized. She said that she would and that if she knew it were true she would have to be crazy not to be baptized! We felt we should try and schedule her for a date to see where she was at with that. She said setting a date would be too fast but that she would still want to meet with us to learn. We really made sure with her that she didn't feel pressured about it and she said she didn't (and knowing Aoife, she is REALLY honest) so that was good. But we left feeling like we were on cloud 9!! I'm telling you, it was an amazing experience.

On Sunday we gave the lesson in Relief Society and it went really well! In EVERY ward I've served in so far, I have always given at least one lesson in Relief Society! It's been a neat experience for sure. We taught on Elder Holland's talk from last General Conference called "An Ensign to the Nations", pretty much preparing you for General Conference. I incorporated the talk I gave in East Kilbride on coming to church with a question and we twisted it to going to Conference with a question. If I say so myself, we thought we did rather well! And nothing apostate was said during our lesson which is quite the accomplishment in Finglas Ward!! haha just kidding :)

So yes, life has been extra snazzy here in Dublin City and my goodness I am so glad to be here! My last moves call is coming up on Sunday so get ready for it! I desperately hope Sister Ring and I stay together in Dublin for at least my last moves here! It has been great and I LOVE it! Crazy this is my last moves! Ahhhh! No way!! Ha-ha. I love you all who have given love to Rach and I!! You are all the BEST!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick :)

Dublin Spire

My district family, the Mount Joy District!! At the Spire in the heart of Dublin :)
(The Spire of Dublin, officially titled the Monument of Light (Irish: An Túr Solais) is a large, stainless steel, pin-like monument 121.2 metres (398 ft) in height, located on the site of the former Nelson's Pillar on O'Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland.)

The work is SPECIAL!

TERESA - Heya Family!!

So this week...well let me see what I can share.

This week has been really good! OK so Monday is our P-Day and we as a zone went out to lunch with each other and a  YSA member named Clarissa came with us. She is soooo nice and she's from Brazil. I love her SO much already! She is very helpful with missionary work and she is just so full of love :) But then after I bought an Ireland football jersey and shorts. Now I have ones for both Scotland ans Ireland! I love them! And our District is REALLY tight. We are all best friends and it's like we are all a little family! I LOVE IT! So we all decided we really wanted to show our district unity by getting district T-Shirts!! So we had an idea and everything sketched out (as you know this is my specialty! hehe). And we went to this shop to get it done. The man's name was Igor and he was from Poland. He did exactly what we wanted and then some! He was so great! And the T-shirts looked AMAZING! We asked him how much it would cost and he said nothing, that it was free. We all looked at him in surprise and didn't believe him. But when he kept insisting that it was we practically begged him if we could pay him! Finally he turned to me  and said, "Are you proud?" surprised I said, "No?" and then he said, "Good. Then be quiet." hahaha! WOW! He was SO extremely nice we couldn't believe it! So now we have these literally priceless T-Shirts and they are wonderful! I will send a photo soon! This experience showed me true charity. We tried to get to teach him but he wasn't interested. All he wanted was for us to pray for him, well we could definitely do that!

That night we taught Chedu and it was excellent as always! I LOVE this girl!! WE taught her the restoration and she totally loved it. She said that this brought her so much comfort to know that God's authority is on the earth again. A YSA member was there as well, Ivanna, and she bore some powerful testimony! The spirit was so strong! Golly gee, it's times like these where you wish you could be a missionary forever! Chedu is still on track to be baptised on the 8 of next month! She is golden! You don't get many like her, trust me, I know!

On Thursday we had a Zone Conference. It was really good and kind of different from other ones that I've attended. WE had training by President and Sister Griffiths and then by our Zone leaders and we did a few training models. We talked about the importance of our role as missionaries and we also talked a lot about the atonement. Since this zone is smaller then all the other ones in Scotland (for example it was Dublin Zone and Limmerick Zone and that makes up about the same size as one zone in Scotland! Really weird), it was a lot more intimate and personal and EVERYBODY had a chance to speak and participate, so that was really nice. I received some personal revelation from that meeting! And I can usually tell if it is if it's a thought that has not much to do with what's being said but really impresses on my mind! It was great :)

OK so we taught Kevin, our other investigator but he's not progressing really so we are decided if we can keep teaching him or not. So we will see how that turns out. We hope that he will have read and prayed the next time we see him! But Anyway, I want to tell you about Aoife (I spelled it Eoifa last week but that's wrong, sorry! And it's pronounced Effa). Remember she is the one that is covered in tattoos and piercings and came up to me after my talk? Well we went and saw her and let me tell you, it was the best ever!! We really just spent time getting to know her and she is soo funny! By the end of our visit she told us that we weren't as scary as we looked and we thought the same! haha We all got on really well and were able to talk to her more about her feelings about the gospel. She said she invited us over because something in my talk really touched her and she felt like a light had literally switched on inside her. She said that she wanted to know more about what the church believed! Oh my goodness! She even said that this was a big step to invite us over. And it is because she had never been into the gospel although her family was. She hated the missionaries and was not into it at all. But she slowly and surely started coming to church, I guess just to be there with her family. And she would go week in and week out. But things still stayed the same with her until recently!  We scheduled to see her on Saturday and teach her and we are also having dinner at her house with her family as well! People will come up to us at church and tell us how happy they are that we are meeting with her. But it's different, it's as if we've struck gold and everyone is shocked and thrilled that we did it! That's the best way I can describe it. But I am so grateful for the spirit. I KNOW that that is how this has happened. It has NOTHING to do with us! I am so thankful to be serving here to witness it! I know I'm to be here for Aoife and Chedu. What a blessing and a miracle! I LOVE it here in Ireland. Dublin is marvelous. The work is special :)

Last night as well we taught Chedu the Plan of Salvation. And it was

excellent! She said how it made so much sense and how fair and perfect it really is. She said she was grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves us so much! I LOVE the plan of Salvation! It really is so simple and perfect. I know that these things are true. I know that Heavenly Father loves us with all of His heart and wants us to be happy. I know that we are so blessed with the living guidance and counsel from living prophets!! What a blessing it is to live in the last dispensation of the fullness of times! We are lucky! I am so happy to be apart of this work by serving a mission. It gets a little scary when I think about the end approaching (and it's unreal too) but I know I'm here to finish strong! I love this gospel and I love this mission!

Thank you to EVERYONE who has helped out my sis, Rach, and I! We owe you one! A BIG one! haha I love you all soooooooooo much!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Ann Kullick

P.S. What is different between Ireland and Scotland?

• Well there is more diversity here for sure. More people from all over the world come here.
• The accent here is obviously different as well when you encounter the few Irish people here!
• It is not apart of the UK so it is not under the same government, so there is no counsel housing here (which is SO nice!) So pretty much everyone has a job and is working hard! Not always the case in Scotland unfortunately
• On all the traffic signs are Irish and English! Very fun :)
• At cross walks it makes a different sound when you are to cross. It's like a popping sound haha

Those are the only things I can think of right now! So yes, things are a little different!

Missionary work is WONDERFUL!

RACHEL - Dear Family and friends,

This past week was very very wonderful, but to be honest all my weeks as a missionary are very very wonderful! This past week we were very blessed to have 12 lessons with Investigators with a member present! We really focused on getting members to our lessons and sometimes there will just be miracles where we weren't planning on it and yet the Lord provided! Incredible! 

Jason Bickle was baptised on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was a wonderful experience! After his confirmation on Sunday I asked him how he felt and he just sighed and said, "Peaceful." What a beautifully sweet response that was to hear and I truly do know that he is going to do everything he can to always strive to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost throughout his life!  

I just wanted to tell you about a wonderful day called Friday. Friday was full of small miracles that accumulated into a a very wonderful and hard working day. It began by visiting a Recent Convert, Linda Preston, who lives right next to Castletown in Colby. We were teaching her something called the family mission plan that has been adapted to our mission to help missionary work with members. (It's great!) Well, she has been struggling a bit with some commandments and so we visited her first thing in the morning. Then we were scheduled to have lunch in the church before we would teach a Recent Convert, McKayla (who is Romanian) English in Douglas but the problem was we then were scheduled to have to drive all the way back to Castletown to teach our Investigator Zoe. (This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact we are very quickly running out of our miles that we are given for our car a month by the mission and we can't go over.) But then we received a text from Zoe asking if we could by any chance do it earlier. We jumped at the chance but thought to ourselves, we need a fellowshipper. So last minute we called Linda Preston and for the first time she went teaching with us and loved it! We taught Zoe part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then we went and dropped Linda off. After we called our other Recent Convert McKayla and told her we were going to be a little late. When we arrived, we thought we would have time afterwards to have lunch but then we saw Mckayla come in with all this food for us! (We told her not to do that ;)) But we enjoyed and taught her a little bit of English. And when it was about time to go, her husband (our Investigator) came in and so we taught him a lesson as well unexpectedly! After that we then had to travel to Ramsey which takes us about 45 minutes to get there from Douglas so we had no time to eat lunch but you see the Lord already filled our little tummies because He knew. We had a little of time to find in Ramsey and made two appointments. We traveled over to Jason Bickle's house to teach him and then afterwards to have tea with him and his family and close friend, Jodie. After that wonderful lesson and tea we then had to go to a lesson in Laxey and Jodie (who is a Recent Convert herself) came with us and we taught two YSA Investigators, Barry and David, who are originally from Ireland. that lesson went really well but then we were pushed for time to drive back to Ramsey to drop off Jodie and then travel all the way back down to Douglas to teach a lesson to a Potential Investigator, Cath, with a member, Linda Holden. Well, we arrived just right on time and it turns out that Cath's mother was there and was a former Investigator and Linda Holden knew her well! After we read a little bit from the Introduction of the Book of Mormon (and as I was trying to get this huge pit bull and a cross between what seemed like a bear from constantly almost sitting on top of me and cuddling with me. It seemed like George, the dog, really took a liking to me), we had to leave to go home which takes us about 25 minutes or so to head back to Castletown. So covered in dog hair we lefty and made it right in time for curfew! As I fell on my knees to say my personal prayer for that night, I was exhausted but completely and utterly happy. That's how I want everyday to be, full of miracles, lessons, and enough time to do all that we had planned! 

I thank everyone so much for all that has been done for Teresa and I to be here.  I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to be a full time representative of my Savior, I would have it no other way :) I have never felt as complete as when I have been wearing this badge and doing God's work. Love you all, take care!

love always, Sister Rachel Kullick

Liverpool Pictures and more

 Our Liverpool Church History Tour

 Ok so this is history just not Church History!

 3 cute sisters on the tour

 More tour...

 How many sister missionaries can you fit in a phone booth?

 Still touring...

 A Manx cat (they have no tail)

 A view from the Castle Rushen in Castletown

 Where we run every morning

At Jason's baptism

My first Castle

RACHEL - Hello Family and friends!

Today has been a very windy day because we are getting a lot of the effects from the Hurricane that is near by, but don't worry it's great here! Last P-day Sister Rothmund and I went and visited Castle Rushen in Castletown and it was great! Haha I had never been to a castle before and that was my first one on the mission! We gave one of the men showing us around a pass along card as well so I hope he gets a hold of us to learn more!

We are pleased to announce the baptism of Jason Bickle on the 17th of September! :) Our Investigator, Jason Bickle had his Baptismal Interview with the Bishop yesterday and passed with flying colors and we are Very excited! He has progressed so beautifully and we are very excited to see him grow stronger and stronger in his testimony. He also desires to serve a mission and we are very happy for the goals he has for the future! Because his parents are recent Converts and a very close friend of his is a member as well, he will be fully supported and taken care of! Seriously, member referrals are the best! They immediately have a friend that they can turn to for support, which is greatly important!

This week went pretty well for us! Sister Rothmund and I focused all of our attention on getting members to our Investigator lessons and so we succeeded with 10 of those and what a week it has been! We focused as well our time and attention to working with members and recent converts and less actives and we have been able to see a lot of progress and trust being gained to us by our Ward members. So needless to say that life here on the Isle of Man has been paradisiacal and we have been receiving a few member referrals and so by Sunday we should have another Investigator with a baptismal date for the 8th of October because of a member's referral! We are excited! I will keep you updated! As well, this week we have everyday already booked for a tea appointment with members in the Douglas ward! These are great opportunities to "encourage" them (not like they really need encouragement) to share the gospel with all those around them.

This past week we got a referral from the office saying an YSA aged woman ordered a Book of Mormon online! So she just so happens to live right next to us and she became our new Investigator! Her name is Zoey and she has recently been on a search for truth and has been looking into many different kinds of churches. We gave her a Book of Mormon along with a lesson and we are excited to see where this will go and she really desires to come to church as well! I will also let you know about that!

We have quite a variety in our teaching pool at the minute so it is definitely making teaching the lessons more interesting!

At this point there really isn't much more to say except for some really exciting news! I managed to make a few requests and was able to manage something really amazing. We are not able to serve with each other at the end. After prayerful consideration we feel this is how it is suppose to be. I then asked if perhaps on my last day that Teresa could be able to spend the night in My mission Home because she will have to be leaving from the Manchester Airport anyway and to spend just the late hours in the evening with me. Well apparently, Teresa's mission actually ends a day earlier than mine and so I was able to request and manage to have Teresa take a train from where she will be after her last day and first thing the next morning to travel and arrive in the Manchester Piccadilly Train Station in England on my last day! I asked my Mission President this who got in contact with her Mission President for the official approval. I fully intend to meet Teresa with a Senior Missionary couple there at the train station. What a special moment that will be... seeing my best friend after 18 months for the first time... I asked President if perhaps I could have maybe just about a couple of hours with Teresa to go finding, to work together and he said that he thinks he could manage placing us right in the middle of Manchester Piccadilly City and go finding together for the first and last time on our missions! What an experience that will be! This was supposed to be a surprise for Teresie as well but I have ordered special-made badges that say "Sister T Kullick" and "Sister R Kullick" for those couple hours of serving as companions together! Then she will go to the Mission home with me and we will then have my Mission Home farewell and she will then spend the night and we will then fly out together :) I was so excited about this and this will be the "sweet" to this bitter end.  President Preston is really excited for me as well! Haha

Thank you for those who helped and loved Teresa and I here, we thank you!

Love always, Sister Rachel Kullick

Manchester Zone

The Manchester Zone playing football!