One of those Mission Miracles and an Iguana??

Excerpt from Kim:
Sister Hansen and I got to see a miracle this week! we were about to head home for dinner and we felt impressed to tract a street. Sister Hansen and I looked at each other and as I looked back at the row of apartments and they seemed to glow with this sense of "I have at least one person inside of me that wants to be baptized. You just have to get in here and find me!" So we rolled up our sleeves and tracted for three hours. In that time we found 6 potential investigators, 2 solid investigators, and we even got a referral. Not bad!

On Wednesday we went on exchanges and I got to be companions with Sister Breinholt, the English sister Trainer leader. She is awesome! In the morning we walked along lake Michigan and I found a little shell. It was so nice to be there, the waves were bigger than Sister Breinholt could recall them ever being before; I think that was for me. The Lord knew my soul needed a little ocean.

Oh, and as Sister Breinholt and I were out working, we walked on to this man's porch and sister Breinholt says: "Is that an iguana?" sure enough, there was an iguana. We got to share the gospel a bit with the owner, and all the while the iguana kept coming up to us and tasting us. It was licking our ankles over and over with it's little pink iguana tongue!!!

I'm an Aunt!!

Megan reports she is VERY excited that beautiful baby Anna has arrived and that she in an Aunt!

Kim reports "I never knew what proud was until I saw that picture of baby Anna. She melted my heart, she is so beautiful and her jaw looks like Sara's in the photos."

Keep up with Sara and Zach at: http://zsallen.blogspot.com/.The only baby pictures posted so far are on Sara and Zach's facebook pages. Sara and Anna are coming home from the hospital today.

I'm goin in! (Insert James Bond music here.)

Letter excerpts from Megan:

Trip to Barcelona:
 I felt like Harry potter when I got to the train station with my MTC group. There were 8 of us, the ride was beautiful! It was about 2 hours, but it felt like 2 minutes. When I stepped off the train the first thing I noticed was the humidity, it was like I had just taken a mouthful of fishy water! It is humid, but I love it!  (Side note: I heard about the train accident that happened transfer day. Elder Ward who was in our MTC group was injured in the accident. We have been told he would make a full recovery and will be able to stay in the mission field. The lord looks out for his missionaries. The elders said he was in the office the other day with his neck brace just cracking jokes...good for him.)

Companion Assignment:
President assigned us our companions like we were on a T.V. show. There was a room full of trainers, and the new batch of missionaries. I was called up first and President gave my brief intro and gave hints for where I would be serving and then paused for effect... "You will be serving just over the hill from Barcelona, how would you like that? How about...SABADELL!?" I had no idea where that was of course, so i just smiled as my trainer Hermana Barrera came up to give me a hug. Hermana Barrera is everything I could have hoped for in a trainer. She is from Texas, but her parents are from Mexico, she speaks Spanish perfectly. She is very patient, organized, humble, a great teacher and incredibly faithful. Sometimes In think she has more faith in me than I do. Her faith and excitement for the work is contagious. The very first day on our way to our Piso, we missed our train and I made a comment like, well I guess there's someone we are supposed to find who needs to get baptized. She lookesd me straight in the eyes and said "Hermana, that is exactly why." She is excited that I know Spanish, she openly compliments me on my Spanish every time we meet someone new, she gives me the validation I need to feel like I am doing well and can therefore progress faster.

First Day in the Field:
We had to wait in this government building for our residency or something and I got antsy. I told my companion I wanted to start talking to people and she egged me on, so I did. It was awesome. I talked to the man across from me and it was contagious, other missionaries caught up with our group and pretty soon we had the whole building talking. After 2 hours waiting for our turn we had talked to almost everyone sitting down. I decided to make a game out of it so we set the goal to get three people's telephone numbers and we did! I was going to give it to the AP, but he told me it would be better to give it to the president at lunch, so we did! He was surprised, smiled, and said that was a first. We were all way too proud of ourselves and just beaming!

A Few Random Things:
I will likely be training on my 2nd transfer.

There are no carpets here! weird.

Everyone here kisses on thee cheek, on on each side, I'm getting used to it, it is more personal and kind of nice.

I am enjoying using my Spanish.

I do stand out by the way, everyone thinks I am European, which is good, because If they thought I was American they would not talk to me (so my companion tells me).

This week has been hard, but very rewarding, the lord is helping me in very specific ways and I am grateful!
Love,
Hermana Bennett

Teaching Children

From Kim:
Our new apartment is way too nice! It was meant for a new office couple, but the wife didn't like the carpet and the fact that you need to go through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. So the mission gave it to us! I even have a queen- size bed! the office told me to go buy bedding for it so I got a cute quilt for it.

Sister Hansen and I are getting along great.
 
This week, we got to teach KIDS!
On the 4th of July we went into the courtyard of a complex where all these kids were playing and we sung a patriotic song to this man and one of the little girls heard us and asked if we would sing her a song, so we sang her a patriotic song, then sister Hansen got out her Hymnbook and we taught them primary songs. Soon we had quite the group of kids gathered around us- When it came time for us to go, the kids begged us to stay and when we told them "we can't, we have to go teach people," they all said: "teach my mom! Teach MY mom!" So they ran in to get their moms. We have 3 of their moms who agreed to a return visit! one of them is Erica's Mom, Theresa. We have returned a couple times since and the kids continue to swarm us.

Kim became a trainer at transfers

So Kim's area was split she is over one ward and her old companion is over the other and they both became trainers on 6/25. She has since moved into a new apartment. She also has a new mission president.

About transfers she said "I watched as the new missionaries were assigned their new companions, one by one, and when I looked into the eyes of the last 2 left I looked at mine and I thought, "please, no, not her." But as always, the Lord has a sense of humor and that is exactly who I ended up with. Her name is sister Hansen. And I only want to tell you how much I didn't want to be with her at first because I have already grown to love and appreciate her."

She also reports: "We have lots of less-active work to do, which is probably why sister Hansen is here because we visited a less active yesterday and he cried because she knew exactly what question to ask him. She's a lesson teaching machine."

I love you all. Thanks for your prayers.

Megan has been out a month!

I cannot believe I have been gone for a month! I feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful experience here at the MTC. The food is still awesome, the people are still fun and the language is still coming. I have been the one in my district with the most improving to do by ways of learning the language, but I am really coming along. We have been teaching more lessons in front of the class and now I really feel like I can teach to the investigator; I can understand and answer questions. I can ask questions, which believe it or not is harder than I thought it would be. I can also teach concepts and not just memorized phrases. These all may sound like small things but to me these are a big deal. I feel like I can teach a lesson and that was one of by goals for before I leave the MTC in a week and a half.

My Companions are so good to me. We enjoy every day together, we are all leaders which is nice because nobody has to do all the work and nobody is getting left behind either...its like the ideal group to do a group project with haha.

 My District.

My companion and I teaching a real live investigator.