I love hearing from Kaitlyn! She and Sis. Hansen are working hard and enjoying their time together. We are so grateful she is our girl!

                                                                                                March 3, 2014

Yay! I'm glad you are getting more interested in temple/geneaology work! Especially because I can't really do much at all because we have limited access to a temple. I might be able to go on March 15th, though, because hopefully K___ will be going to do baptisms for her first time, so Sister Hansen and I will try and get permission to go! :)

Anyway, this week we had Zone Conference where we learned more about family history and about how our missionary coordination meetings should go! It was a really good meeting!

I hope your home leave goes well! It sounds really fun! :) And France for Spring Break? Cool! I would really love to go to the Netherlands someday because I want to see where Oma grew up and I want to meet Anika. :)

Well, I've gotta go because I want to send you some pictures before I run out of time!

The scripture of the week is: 3 Nephi 18:18-21! Enjoy!

I love you all!!! :)
Sister Kaitlyn Tarr :)

Hello family!                                                                           10 March 2014

It sounds like you've been keeping pretty busy! That's good! I've been busy too! And this week we have a specialized training meeting on Thursday! AND we will hopefully be able to go to the temple on Saturday!
Savannah: Game night with the parentals sounds like it was fun! And you are trying out for softball?! Woohoo! That's really cool! I wish you the best on that! Way to go with being productive this week, by the way! I love feeling productive!

Emma: Good luck on your play this week! I wish I could be there to watch you perform! But I know that you will do awesome! That's lame that Sadie didn't bring the ball back for you!

Mom: I love, love, LOVE Sundays too! Because of the Sacrament, because we usually have lots of appointments on Sundays, because it's just peaceful and because Sundays are P-day eve, so that's cool! Haha.

That sounds like a neat lesson! And that's cool about the recent converts trying to get to the temple!

Also, today the training emails were sent out. I did not get one, which means I will not be training, which is relieving but also makes me wonder sometimes if I'm doing something wrong and that's why I'm not training...OH well. It does seem like I will be transferred next transfer, though,  because I've been here for 4 transfers and I won't be training or anything. We will see though! Transfers are on March 26th (Savannah's birthday!) and we find out on March 24th about who will be transferred where.

I would be happy to write to your seminary class mom, I will try to do it today when I get home from emails.

Mom, I really, really hope that talking to strangers gets easier, because it is REALLY hard! Some days I feel like I've improved a ton and some days I feel like a novice still, that I don't know what to say or do at all! But praying and reading my scriptures and asking for help and for courage and for more boldness is all I can do! The scripture you sent was really helpful, by the way. So thanks!

The scripture for the week this week is 3 Nephi 27:20 and Moroni 8:16. They are pretty uplifting! So keep those in mind no matter what happens this week and I will try to do the same!

Anyway, here is a story from this week: On Friday the AP's came to our District meeting, (which honestly was a little frightening), and they and our District leader gave us great advice about how to try and find new investigators because we have been struggling with that. So that day it happened to snow a TON (and then the next day it was 65 degrees and sunny, go figure) so we went service tracting with our snow shovels! We met a couple of people who seemed at least semi-interested. Then we had about 20 minutes before dinner, so we drove to the street that our dinner was on and decided to tract until it was dinnertime. So we prayed to know which houses we should start at. I had a very subtle impression to just start on the right side of the street and go down the line, and Sister Hansen had a very distinct impression to tract on the same side I had thought about, but specifically two doors down. Plus, after that impression she saw a car pull into that driveway. So we went and knocked on that door and the person was named Jesse and he said that he was really busy but that we could come back the next day at around 2 or 2:30 and he gave us his phone number to call and remind him about it. So we knew nothing about him except what he looked like. Then we also knocked on a few others doors and one lady named Carla asked for whatever we had, so we gave her a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and we will stop-by again. And when we went to visit Jesse he wasn't there, but his sister-in-law Rachel was, so we will try and visit her again. Anyway, it was just kind of neat to see how many miracles and how much happened in just twenty minutes right before dinner. And it was almost dark and in our mission we have an after-dark policy where we basically can't be out when it's dark unless we have an appointment (for safety reasons), and it was getting a little dark right before dinner when we were tracting and it was snowing pretty consistently and it was cold, but because we worked up until dinner we were blessed with finding some new people! Hopefully that made sense...

Oh it was also cool because Sister Hendricks came for the weekend to visit the mission and so we got to have lunch with her and the B_______'s on Friday and we got to see her! So that was fun!

Well, I love you all! Mom, Dad, Savannah, Emma, and Sadie!

I hope you have a wonderful week!!! Keep up the good work!

LOVE,

<3 Sister Kaitlyn Tarr :)

Hola familia!                                                                           17 March 2014

I'm glad your week was so good!

Emma: I love the pictures from your play! I'm glad it went well! Mom is right, you look stunning! :) I hope you enjoy having a little more time for regular stuff now!

Savannah: You got a CAR!!! Wo-oah! Lucky girl! That's so cool! It looks nice and durable. Enjoy it! Also, that's some adventure that you and mom had!

Daddio: This is the story of the upcoming transfer: I don't know for sure what's going to happen, but there is a pretty good chance that Sister Hansen will be transferred and made a Sister Training Leader and I felt like I was also going to be transferred, that the area was going to be flushed. But this last Thursday we had a Specialized Training with three zones and President Anderson was there. So Sister Hansen talked to him and she thinks that I am actually going to stay in the area. So, now I'm not sure...And I'm feeling a little nervous! But I'll find out for sure next Monday what will happen and, of course, I'll let you all know! Thanks for that advice about the whole "promotion" thing. I think it goes back to the fact that I'm very self-critical, so it's hard when I don't know what to do to improve and that even when I do I feel like I fail. BUT that is getting a lot better.

That's great to hear about the stake's push to have more missionaries!

Mom: To start off, I want to tell you and the whole family something really exciting!

So our mission has what we call weekly standards of excellence. They are what they want each companionship to achieve each week. So ours are: to have at least 20 lessons a week, to have at least 10 lessons with members present, and to extend at least 14 saving ordinance invitations a week (which means inviting people to prepare to be baptized, confirmed, to receive the Melchezidek Priesthood, to go to the temple for their own endowment, and to be sealed to their family). SO we have been able to hit some of those some weeks, but the member present one is tough! But this week Sister Hansen and I were able to reach all of them!!! YAY! And here's the miracle story: We were supposed to have some lessons with members present on Saturday, so we would get to 7 or 8 and then on Sunday we would reach 10, but they all fell through! So we were feeling discouraged because we were going to reach the lessons and ordinance standards of excellence but not the mp (member present) one. BUT we set-up appointments for Sunday anyway and we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help us, and *MIRACLE* yesterday we were able to have 6 lessons where members were present!!! It was so cool! Even though it was just a stat that we were trying to reach, Heavenly Father knew that we were trying to obey our mission leaders and that we were trying to spread the gospel as much as possible and he helped us achieve our goals!!! So that was really awesome and I wanted to share it with you!

This week we were also able to find a new investigator! His name is J______ and he was a member referral who we had stopped by a couple of times, but this time we were able to set up a time to come back and teach him!

K______'s baptism is supposed to be this Saturday, but it is looking like it'll probably be March 29th, so hopefully that will work! We're trying!

Oh! And also! I almost forgot to tell you! This Wednesday Sister Hansen and I got permission to go to the temple with a RC of two years who will be going through for her own endowment! So I am WAY pumped about it!!! I'm super lucky that I get to go!!! I'll let you know how it goes!
Anyway, I think that's all I have! I will try and send some pictures before I get off though!

LOVE YOU!
Sister Kaitlyn Tarr :)