Grandpa & the Plan of Salvation

TERESA - Dear Family,

When I read about Grandpa Coombs and his stroke I just burst into tears. As I am writing this, I am still very upset. Do you think he will be all right? It sounds pretty serious, could he recover? I love Grandpa SO much and I am just devastated at the thought of anything bad happening to him. Please keep me informed, I need to know everything that is going on. I will pray for him everyday and for Grandma too, this has to be so difficult for her as well. I am so so sorry that this happened. I am so very grateful for the knowledge that we have of the Plan of Salvation, to know that I can be with my family forever after this life. Thank goodness for that knowledge. Without it I would have no clue and would be even more scared. I am so grateful for that. Even though I still am upset about the whole situation and don't want things to get worse, at least I have that reassurance. I hope and pray that everything will be all right.

I hope things are going well with the rest of the family back home. I am so glad that you guys were able to have a gospel discussion with Erika. I always wanted her to be better introduced to the gospel so that's great, but I just never thought it would be like this. But I'm glad it went well, maybe this is what Steven needs to get back into this too, who knows. We can only hope :)

So my week has been actually really amazing. Tuesday was Interviews with President and training. I really needed that. President Griffiths is so great, I'm really glad he's my Mission President! One hard thing that I've experienced on the mission is that, as a Sister, you leave your "fatherly" priesthood leaders. Your dad, grandpas, institute teachers, and Bishop are all gone and replaced with young Elders! My goodness, it is a shock to the system. So it is completely refreshing when you can talk to your priesthood authority who's older than 19 or 20 and more like your dad haha. Our focus in that training was on the Book of Mormon and how we need to "flood the earth" with it's message (as Pres. Benson would put it). That day when we went out to catch a bus (we were running late to an appointment) a man rode up on his bike and asked us, "Why doesn't God answer my prayers?" but he said it in a sincere way. We talked to him and he was asking us where the church was and if he could come! It was amazing! This never happens that often! Sister Daines and I were so happy that after he left we had to give each other a hug! Haha, What a wonderful experience :) We invited Marc, the man, to the Burns Supper and also to have a church tour. He came! And was very punctual, I might add. (Again, not used to that!) He wants to learn more and we have an appointment set up with him this week and so we are really looking forward to that!!

Oh, so a WHOLE lot has happened last I wrote. The situation with the Shorts has totally changed!  Brother Short is back on board and stronger than ever! YAY! And Angie unfortunately is gone. We are no longer teaching her because of the choices she is making. She's not really who we thought she was. So even though it's a shame dropping her, we are at complete peace knowing it is definitely the right things to do. She brought a lot of bad things into the Short's home and the day she left we met with the Shorts and had an amazing talk with them. They are so much stronger now because of this. Unlike others I've seen here, they didn't fall back and say "Why me? It can't get worse than this. I don't need the church." They look at this with a very positive attitude and face their trials with more courage. I am sooo proud of them!! Brother Short dedicated his home that night for the first time and the Spirit was so strong. We all got a little emotional :) but it was ok. I love that family so very much and I will be so very sad to leave them.

This next Sunday is the Restoration Fireside and so far everything is going accordingly! We are looking forward to it and we hope it runs smoothly! I have a feeling that it will :) The ward has really come together to make it work so we are excited.  Also this Sunday was Ward Conference and it was sooo good! I learned a lot and there were really good talks given. I am so glad I was here for it :)

And finally I have saved the VERY BEST for last!!! Aileen is going to be baptized on January the 29th!!!! The night before moves call!! I will be here for it! I can't even tell you at how overcome with joy I was at discovering this news. I could hardly contain my excitement. And she still wants me to give a talk so I am very happy about that too. I know a HUGE reason why I was here for these last two moves was because of Aileen. I know Heavenly Father wanted me to be here for this and I am eternally grateful! Aileen is amazing and her family is as well. I know that her family will be sealed for all time and eternity in the temple someday. She is a kingdom builder! I am sooooooooooooooooooooo happy! We are looking forward to this weekend with joyful anticipation! What a way to end a “moves” and start a new one, eh?

So who knows where I'm going, if I'm staying or leaving, I NEVER know and I always get it wrong so I'm not even going to try haha. But I will say something, I may end up leaving because I feel that I've finished what I was meant to accomplish here. Now I could be wrong, there still could be more things to learn here but those are just my thoughts. But you were right mom, I think that this mission has been a lot for me; in ways I didn't even know that I needed growing. I may not have been teaching loads but I feel the difference in myself especially and in the lives of those who I have been teaching. This mission is specific to my needs. I know that I was meant to come here for reasons that I'm starting to realize now. Rachel couldn't even have come here and I couldn't have gone to hers. We may be twins but we are individuals :) I am so happy that I am here; I wouldn't have learned half this stuff back home! It had to be out here.

I love you all with all of my heart and I pray for every one of you daily. I hope and pray that Grandpa will be all right. Please tell him that I love him and that I am thankful that he is my grandpa. Thank you to everybody for everything that you have done for Rach and I. I love you!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick

I love Grandpa!

Dear mom and dad,

Please tell grandpa I love him so much as soon as possible, I will write you next week... love you

-Rachel

Pray for a Missionary Opportunity

RACHEL - Hello family!

Our next transfer day is on February the 2nd, and I have been here in Chorley for a little while so I have a feeling I am going to be moving which I am very sad about but who knows I may get to stay with Sister Suaybaguio for another transfer! I know that there are a lot of Sisters at the MTC right now going to Scotland/Ireland Mission; about 5 I think so there is a very good chance Teresie may be training one of them!! There is only one Sister in the MTC going to my mission and she is the first sister missionary ever to be called directly from Mainland China to England! Amazing isn't it? Anyway I thought you would like to know that :)

I am so happy to be in Chorley and to work with the members and people here. I am especially grateful to be serving with Sister Suaybaguio. She teaches me humility and love. She is honestly the most pure in heart missionary I have ever met. There is literally not one bad bone in her body. This past week we have witnessed many miracles together by having 6 new investigators all by street contacting and teaching them on the spot right then and there!

One of our new investigator's name is Johnny Bailey, he is 18 years old. When I spoke to him on the street, he was so excited about the Book of Mormon and about what is after this life. He wanted to know more but he was late for work so we made an appointment later that day on the street to teach him more about this. When he arrived he brought two of his friends with him! It was amazing! We made an appointment to see him a day later at the church to teach him more.

There is another amazing experience that happened this week! When that time rolled around when we were going to have our appointment with Johnny he was late, but we called him and he said he was coming. We walked out to the temple entrance to make sure he did not get lost. We finally saw him and a friend walking up to the temple but then they actually turned around and started walking the other way. We were not going to let him go so easily so we ran after him and even ran across two busy streets to get to them on the other side. When I yelled "Johnny!" they turned around and I quickly realized it wasn't Johnny but two complete strangers who were around Johnny's age! I thought to myself “well they need to hear the message too”, so we went over and started talking to them. One of them really said it would mean a lot to him to know about the Plan of Happiness and how to be with his family forever and the other one was a less active! We then invited them into the church so we could teach them and they said yes! Everything went very well and now we had another new investigator all by "accident" ;) I know that there is no such thing as coincidences and accidents but that the hand of the Lord is in all things. We have still have yet to call Johnny to see what happened and why he wasn't able to make it but I know everything is all right.

We have something called the Family/Individual Mission Plan in the Chorley 2nd ward but our mission President loved it so much that he has spread it across our entire mission! It is really great; it is all about developing a Gospel Sharing home. It is at the individual’s pace and this is something I want to bring to the ward back at home because it is all about assisting the full-time missionaries in fulfilling their purpose! This work is what keeps the church alive. One of the apostles said that the very safety of the church relies on the missionaries. That made me think about my calling...  We are so blessed to have this knowledge of the Gospel. Can you picture your life and your family in your mind right now? Now imagine if you didn't have the Gospel in your life and that you were not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... how would that change your life and family? I can honestly say that everything good that has ever happened to me in my life I can trace back to my decision to be a member of Christ's church. This happiness that we have we must share to others, our brothers and sisters.  I know this work is not our work but the Lord's. We have promised him to be missionaries whether or not we wear a badge. So please I extend the invitation to you, do something this week. Pray for a missionary opportunity. Then act upon it.  Invite a non-member friend to come to a church activity. Invite your friend over for dinner with the missionaries. Just say how happy you are because of your belief in eternal families and Christ. Anything, it does not matter as long as you do something.

I love you all and hope all is well! Take care!

Sister Rachel Kullick

Hard Week

TERESA - Hello again!

Yes, I definitely got Brother Crozier's letter :) Thank you!! And thank you to everyone else who has sent me cards, I really appreciate it!

This week has been a hard week; I'm not going to lie. But despite all our setbacks we are making real good progress with Angie. Little by little we've been seeing subtle changes in her :) So we are happy about that. She has also met Sarah-Jane (YSA) from the ward and they got on fine so that's good as well! But unfortunately, something really bad happened and Brother Harry Short has fallen off the map as of right now. I am completely gutted about the whole thing. I won't go into details but things are not looking too good at the moment. Sandra (Brother Short's wife) is really distraught about the situation. But even though this unexpected sad thing occurred, it has, in a way brought some of the family closer. And Angie is more open to us and the message we share. So I know that when we have bad things happen to us, they are only to make us humble so that we turn even more to our Heavenly Father. I'm so glad I've seen that in Sandra and Angie. So glad.

Lately I've been seeing a whole lot of pride. It makes me so so sad to see people halting their personal progression. They think that they are above the rule, that they are the exception. But they are not. This relates to a talk in the conference Ensign by Elder Jario Mazzagardi called "Avoiding the Trap of Sin". It talks about how you don't think you will be taken over by sin just by neglecting so-called small things. He states, "What may appear to be of little importance, such as going to bed late, not praying for a day, skipping fasting, or breaking the Sabbath—such little slips—will make us lose sensitivity little by little, allowing us to do worse things." It is sooo true! I have seen that every time! And he ends his talk with a question that has really stuck with me. He said, "What are we willing to give to be clean and receive that joy?” The answer should be ANYTHING. I have learned a lot from these experiences and I hope to truly apply this into my life. If I want to be happy like I say I do, am I making the choices necessary to see that happiness occur? Just something to think about :)

And we visited Aileen the other night for the first time in a while! I was really starting to miss her. She made us both happy when she said that she wanted to be baptized ASAP! We told her when moves are (Jan 30) and she was like, "OK, I will tell my doctor that I have to be baptized on the 29th of January." haha Gosh I hope that works out! I'm so glad that she wants me there for it. Hopefully she is given the OK by her doctor because that would make my life if I could see her be baptized! But...I'm trying not to get my hopes up :/ It's at least a nice thought!

The snow is melting! YAY! Let me tell you how happy we all are! Usually I wouldn't mind but here's the thing; since we live out of our area in Menzieshill, we have to walk down into our area into Charleston. We have to walk down this hill (which I have named, ever since I've gotten there, as Dante's Peak haha) Now we have to walk this everyday and with the snow turned to ice on it, let's just say it's made things a little more interesting/treacherous. One day I thought it would be easier to walk on the ice covered grass instead of the pathway (I saw bits of green there, that's why haha) But my comp was smart and stayed on the path. I lost my footing and ended up sliding all the way down the hill backwards on my hands and knees! Haha There was nothing I could do, I kept picking up speed! And then I hit some grit salt and toppled over. But it was just sooo funny! I wish we had some live footage of that. What an amusing experience!

Well that's all I really have for the week so I will fill you in on more next week! Tune in next time! Hehe

I love you all, Sister Teresa Kullick

Pictures from Christmas!!

 The nativity at the Shorts with the Elders (Teresa is an angel! As usual!!!)

 Sis Sheffield and I at the Christmas Tri-zone conference

 Sisters eating dinner at the conference

 Sis Daines and I at the Christmas Tri-zone conference

 All our Christmas pressies! Thank you again!

 Christmas presents!

Me opening Rach's present to me, loved it!

Life-Long Commitment

TERESA - Hello Dearest Family!

First of all, I was so sorry to hear about the Empey's. I can't even imagine something like that happening and so suddenly. I am feeling so sad for them. Please send my love to them and yes, I will be praying for them.

I am sorry that I didn’t write last week, it was a bank holiday on the days we usually do it and then we didn't have time during the rest of the week so here I am now!

Let’s see.... what happened....

So things are moving steadily along over here. It looks like Aileen won’t be able to get baptized till March, because of her injuries from her C-section. Lame! So that means I will not be here to see it. It makes me really sad, I’m not going to lie, but whether I’m here or not, it doesn't matter. She will get baptized so that is ALL that matters. (I’ve just got to keep telling myself that)

Last week we really focused on teaching Angie (18yrs), Harry and Sandra Short's Granddaughter. It went really well but we are not sure if we can continue teaching her. Whenever we think she is progressing, she'll have a hiccup and then we aren't sure if she's ready to make a life change. She did have a baptismal date last week, but because she didn’t come to church on Sunday, we will have to push it back, or reconsider her willingness to commit. She is painfully quiet though so it can be tough to teach her because she won't say much. But last week I pretty much told her that to be baptized is serious and it’s not just baptism and then you are good for life. I told her it is a life-long commitment and that we promise to always live the gospel. I told her all this in a really nice, yet bold way though. Brother Short was funny when after I spoke, he said, "Basically, what Sister Kullick is trying to say in a nice way is that if you aren't serious about this, don't waste their time." Hahaha wow. Brother Short is so straight to the point, it’s great. But Angie said she knew and we still proceeded on with writing up her baptismal calendar. She was involved in the process so that she knows what she will be taught and when we will teach it to her. It went really well and we felt really good about the teach so we are looking forward to the future. But we have been changing what we decide to teach her as we go because of her few set backs.  Tonight we are going to have a fun Family Home Evening to lighten the mood a bit. And then the next lesson we are going to really talk to her about her commitment level. She still hangs around with people who aren’t doing good things so she needs to cut that part of her life out, which we know will be extremely hard. The Shorts think it is impossible. I don’t know but I hope they are wrong. I know it will be worth it for her. The happiness that comes from the gospel and true application of the principles to one’s life doesn’t fade with the music and the lights, and the crowds. All the other things do.  I pray that her heart will be softened to want to live the way her Heavenly Father wants her to live.

We are really trying to find people right now to teach. This may be normal for anyone else, but for the first time in my mission I had 2 joint teaches in one day! I was sooo happy about that! So hopefully things will progress. But we are really cracking down on finding because we don’t really have anyone else at the moment. But we are looking.

Guess what? We have a new Relief Society President! Sister Julie Williams!! The woman who loves missionary work!! I am glad though that I was able to befriend the last one, I learned sooo much from that! But the work will really progress now, she has a lot of new ideas and we are excited! We helped her family move into a new home last week and they are loaning out to us their exercising bike! Yay! Now Sister Daines and I can work out with out going out in the cold! Haha

We are also putting on a “Restoration Fireside”. This is going to be good!  That has been a real focus as of right now. The goal is to have members invite their friends and family who are not members or are less active in the church. Our ward is holding it and Bingham ward is invited to attend. The hard thing about it though is getting people to sing for it. Really though, people here hate singing! Guys here think that it is too feminine and refuse! Haha nooo! But slowly our numbers are creeping up. Our tactic is to get everyone really excited so that they will want to participate! But it’s looking good so far, the people who we choose to do certain things are agreeing to, so that is sooo good! We are really looking forward to this!

Also we found a potential investigator in the city last week. (That never happens!) Everyone we find in the Dundee City Centre lives out of our area. So it was refreshing to find someone who lives in Ardler! We are going to go by to visit him this week.

I can't even tell you how much I am learning out here. I have been going through a lot of stuff and have been experiencing a lot of different things out here. Experiences that can only come from being here. I LOVE Dundee and I know I will miss everyone here so much! My heart just aches thinking about it, so I won’t! I love you all and thank you sooo much for all the love, support and letters! They are very much appreciated! Thank you!!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick

The Mission Vision

RACHEL - Dear Family,

I was deeply sad to hear about the Empey's son who passed away. Please send the Empey family my love and know that I will be praying for them. I wanted to also say thank you to the Smith Family for the gifty they gave this Christmas to Teresa and I.

Debbie Smith (our recent convert) just received her temple recommend and will be doing baptisms for the dead on the 21st!! We are so excited for her to experience these wonderful ordinances!

This week we had Zone Conference and it was truly amazing. When I first stepped out into the field the first day in the Mission Home, I had a couple of key tools introduced to me. In the England Manchester Mission we have a Mission Vision that all the missionaries take very seriously which is wonderful because it helps us reach our true potential.

The Mission Vision

Pure in Heart

Exact Obedience

Preach My Gospel

We are always striving to be pure in mind, word and action with everything we do. To always be obedient with every rule and policy because we know that they bring freedom. To read Preach My Gospel at least 4 times on a mission from cover to cover as to help us to be very familiar with the doctrines.

I was also introduced to the Sacred Missionary Document, which shows examples of a Social Missionary, an Honorable Missionary and a Sacred Missionary in every single aspect of the work. Every missionary is striving to do just that, to become sacred and to become like Christ.

I was also introduced to the Quality Gospel Conversations that have completely transformed the Mission. We are to Teach, Testify, Ask a Question and Invite (it doesn't have to be in that order) when Street Contacting or Tracting. Because of QGC's we have been supplied with the tools to know how to talk to people and to help them come unto Christ. They have now introduced this into Teresa's Mission like she said and I am excited for her to use them! Since QGC's have been practiced in the England Manchester Mission there has been a 200% increase of souls being baptized by street contacting alone, it’s amazing!

I realized that I hadn't explained the culture of my mission to you and wanted to tell you how it has helped me strive to reach my true potential. I have a long way to go but I am always trying! This Zone Conference we learned about Moroni's Title of Liberty. The Standard he raised for the whole world to see with the things that they would live and die for and the things that if you were to read that standard you would know who they were. From this we spoke about what our Title of Liberty is for the England Manchester Mission. I have a picture of it on here and it has the mission Vision, QGCs and Power Statements, The Restoration and The Book of Mormon, Invite Others to Come unto Christ, and Pathway to the Promise (this was from my first Zone Conference ever which we know that the pathway, the Mission Vision leads us to the Promise, becoming a Sacred Missionary). At the bottom is what we all are striving to become. It is also on a "rent garment" just like Moroni's! haha I thought this was great! Then every single missionary made their own Title of Liberty and I placed in the middle what I want people to see and know that I am or trying to become. And in the corners are the things I would live and die for, The Restoration, The Family, Missionary Work, and the Atonement. And at the bottom what I'm trying to become which is like Christ.

I am so grateful for this wonderful time I have been given to serve the Lord! I love being a Missionary! Thank you to those that helped me get to where I am now! I love you all and will speak to you soon!

Love always, Sister Rachel Kullick