Being a missionary is Bomb Diggity AWESOME!

This week was a really good week! Sister Odom's Birthday was this week so of course I decorated! We had a really fun time celebrating. We were able to have dinner that night with one of her favorite members and we watched the Mormon message with them called Origin, it is AMAZING. I am pretty sure it is under youth Mormon Messages. We had a neat conversation with them about the power of questions as we learn more about the gospel. Questions are absolutely necessary to progress. However, it is how we go about finding the answers to questions that can make or break us. On my mission I have decided to not be ignorant to things I don't understand but rather to search them out in faith and prayer. I have been able to grow spiritually more than I could have ever, had I ignored those questions. It truly all goes back to "If any of ye lack wisdom let him ask of God" (James 1:5) Meeting with people this week has raised a ton of questions. We met with a guy this week at Wendy's who was a new investigator of ours. As we got into talking to him we realized that the poor kid was SO confused by so many ideas of religion and the world that it was clear he just wasn't ready to be taught. He talked to us about different corporations of religion and politics as well as things like the Luminoty and Rastafarian. The idea of God to him was convoluted and the Book of Mormon seemed like a conspiracy to him. On top of all that his Spanish accent was very heavy and Sister Odom could not understand him. As missionaries we could feel that the spirit was gone and it would not be in our best interest to keep teaching him. Come to find out later that he is involved with dark things in his life at the moment. We pray for him everyday and hope that someday his relationship with God with be clearer to him. That is how life is. The adversary definitely uses our intellect and our idea of choice to confuse us about something so simple as "we are children of a loving Heavenly Father." After that lesson I reflected on how grateful I am to have the simple knowledge of the gospel and how blessed I am to be able to share the key to Salvation with those who are ready. I have never felt more strongly that the Church is True and God is so aware of every single one of His children.

The Randoms:
SO MUCH ROADKILL here and tons and tons of skunks
We had Thai food this week....well Oklahoma's version of Thai
I miss Seattle Food and Landscape
Love the Sunsets even more every day
Definitely a city girl, love hearing the Sirens every day
We get to go to a Nashville Tribute concert in a few weeks :D
Priesthood blessings are so inspired of God
We had STEAK THIS WEEK!
Being a missionary is Bomb Diggity AWESOME!!!

He makes me exactly what I need to be

Okay, so I apologize in advance for the scatterbrained email this week, I am pretty sure I say that every week but that is pretty much me in a nut shell.

          Alright so this week has been so good and definitely flew by. The work here is good but unfortunately we have a lot of investigators that aren't progressing. We have been fasting and praying so much for them. It has been such a humbling experience. This week we started up our booth at the University of Central Oklahoma. It was such a day full of miracles! We ended up having to eat lunch at 10 in the morning because of the way our schedule was that day so when we got on campus we were starving. As we walked on campus we saw a booth that was giving out free hot dogs and snacks....PURE tender mercy. Needless to say we took that opportunity right away. When we do the booth we set up a table on campus with pamphlets and books of Mormon and Mormon paraphernalia haha and have the students take a survey about religion and restored truths. (I know my grammar sucks right now). Being on campus I am so in my element. There is so much diversity, I love it! There are tons of people from the UK and lots of Asians and African Americans, I am right at home ;) Something we do on campus is called OYM-ing. It stands for Open your mouth. We walk around campus and just talk to people. It is so good for me. I really like getting to know so many people as well. Another thing that I love here is the service we get to do every week at a place called "Hope Center". It is a place where people drop off stuff they don't want- just like you would with good will, and we sort through them and put all the different things on the shelves, mostly clothing. Poorer people are able to come in and pick a few things for no cost. I love going through the bags because if we see things that we like we can buy it for $1 each. It helps hope center as well when we do that and it's definitely a win win situation. The people there love us and leave candy bars for us, it is so nice to feel loved and wanted when a lot of people continually turn us away. This past Wednesday we went to teach one of our investigators at the Chiropractic place where she works and after we taught her we were able to get adjusted. Talk about getting adjusted with a skirt on....haha it was definitely an experience. Luckily the guy who adjusted us is LDS and he was careful to keep our skirts down. The weather here is quite insane...this past week it was 80 degrees and then today we woke up with 17 degrees and now 28 degrees. Definitely not a dull moment. Sister Odom and I have been definitely taking short stress breaks when we can find a minute at Starbucks...these are our cake pops from this week :D

        Embarrassing Moment: Yesterday at church in Gospel principles we were going around and saying our name and another name for Christ. The person before me totally stole mine and I got so flustered haha, I ended up completely forgetting to say my name so Sister Odom said "and your name?" I said "OH yeah hahah my name is...KARLI...UHHHH I mean Sister Engelbrecht" Super funny, the class definitely got a kick out of it. Sister Odom was like uhhh...who's Karli OH HAHAH YEAH.

       Story of the week: I went on exchanges this week with our STL, Sister McKenzie. We went tracting one day (which I...well... not my favorite thing to do) and it was raining outside, which I loved because it reminded me of home. We initially went to a specific house looking for a woman named Doris and no one answered. As we walked around I felt like we needed to knock on a house where a little blue car was parked. It caught my attention and I couldn't stop thinking about it as we walked. I told Sister McKenzie we needed to go knock on that door so we did and it ended up being the house of the woman we were looking for in the first place, because initially we had the wrong address. Honestly, God does not let His children fail. I am seriously just a girl trying to do what my Heavenly Father wants and I am not anywhere near good enough butHe makes me exactly what I need to be. Now every time I see a blue car I am going to remember that experience:)

Love,

Sister Engelbrecht

Give it all to God

Man these past two weeks have been a whirlwind. Everyday I love it more and more here. I have seen so many miracles and also been tested more than I thought was possible but I have learned that it is just an opportunity for me to lean on my Savior more for support.

Staying skinny here is stinking difficult, there are food joints every 2 feet and everything you could possibly imagine. The members here are really great though because they feed us every night. There is so much work to be done here that we are always always busy, we hardly have time to find new people.
1. One of our investigators, Mariah is progressing amazingly!!! Two weeks ago we set a final baptism date for her to shoot for and she and her boyfriend then came across racial issues in the gospel, "blacks in the Priesthood" and the curse of the skin in 2 Nephi Chapter 5, and these two investigators are black themselves.  Sister Odom and I got on our knees and prayed so hard for what we needed to do.It took a ton of faith to teach him and direct him to going to God with the lack of understanding. It is amazing how the adversary works on those who are just about ready to be converted to the gospel. However Mariah came to Stake Conference lately and the fasting and praying lesson that we taught her this past week made her light up. She has a crazy desire to do those things :)!!! We know she is so ready but she just needs to realize that she is ready as well.
2. Sister Odom and I were driving the other day and the sunlight was shining right in her face. We ended up brushing against the truck that was merging and he got out and looked at his car and said "It's okay, don't even worry about it"....SHEER MIRACLE!!! Our car has a few small scratches but everything is fine.
3. We went on the university campus the other day and we were talking to people about the gospel...yes I am actually doing that, I would've never done that before, I feel so blessed to be set apart and literally armed with the strength of God. Anyways, we were on campus and there were a ton of fire trucks and the alarms of all the apartments were going off. It was really bad timing for us to be there but we figured out that the alarms were just a drill the students didn't know about. Well as we began to walk to the car there was a girl standing outside in her slippers with a pan of eggs and her phone. We walked up to her and she had said she had no idea what was going on. Poor girl was freezing. We sat and talked to here for a few minutes and found out she was from Italy and she though that the reason there were fire alarms was because she was cooking. SO funny. She told us that she would call us. It was a huge blessing because she was so clearly put in our path and needed someone there to comfort her. I love being able to be the Saviors hands and feet so often.
4. Funny story!
Sister Odom and I were getting ready for church last Sunday and we heard this yelling outside of the door so we looked through the door peephole and someone was in an argument outside. What had happened is that there is a 65 year old woman who lives across from us but is in horrible health. Only 35% of her heart works and she cant walk AND she smokes...she also happens to be a member of the church. That is how a lot of people are here. They are members only on Sundays. Smoking is pretty big here. I have already taught two women who are pregnant and still smoking so sad. This woman lives with her son and I guess their bathroom was flooding because the people upstairs had been running there washer all night. So this woman and her son went up the night before at 3 am and knocked on the door to try to get them to stop. Well the fuss was I guess they "scared the wife that lived upstairs who was pregnant". The husband was outside of the ladies apartment screaming at her and threatening her with guns so we stepped outside and called the cops...it was insane because the cops came and told the woman that she shouldn't have taken it as a threat...SO FRUSTRATING. People are so silly honestly, fussy fussy fussy. That was an eventful morning.

These past couple weeks have been weeks of faith. LOTS of it. I gave a talk in church last Sunday on it and it was something I really needed. As we teach people I have began to realize how many things I don't understand and sometimes their questions can be offsetting but I have really relied on that faith especially this week. A specific thing that i have been struggling with is the Restoration and the translation and vision. I have never questioned that before but for some reason it has tried my faith lately. Last Monday was a really tough day for me and I had to give it all to God...I have never really understood the Atonement as well as I do now. When you don't have a choice but to rely on Christ your understanding is quite amazing. But the timing of those hard things were perfect because the next day we were able to go to the temple. I had such a special experience in the temple and as I sat in the Celestial room I could feel in my heart that Joseph Smith was absolutely a prophet of God and God's plan for me is something I won't be able to understand but that I needed to just trust. I am so grateful for that experience and I have gained such a love for the opportunity to serve my Savior.

Love,
Sister Engelbrecht

Missionary work is real life and miraculous.

Hey Everyone!
I flew in around 3 and then we went to an orientation. I was SOO tired and felt like I had been hit by a train and then had to sit through 5 more hours of training. President Walkenhorst and his wife were waiting for us at the baggage claim and MAN he is SOOOOO tall. Sister Walkenhorst told me in the car that there was only 1 sister that was English speaking that needed a companion and so I would be serving with her in the University ward. I am serving in the University of Central Oklahoma area in Edmond. We have a car too which is way nice in this weather. So we serve in a singles ward for the University. It is super fun. It is kind of a blessing and a curse to serve with only singles. I love it because we get to know the investigator on a deeper level because there is only one of them but I also am quite intimidated by girls my age. I am probably here so I can get over that haha. The sky here is amazing. The sunsets every night are to die for but it is super cold and REALLY flat. Our apartment is great. Definitely old but not as bad as I thought it would be. We each have our own bathroom and there is plenty of space for everything. I ended up having to buy a ton of stuff that I needed like hangers and a comforter and detergent and such. We get $135 a month which is CRAZY. There are so many restaurants and food places here it is crazy. The first night we got here we ate at this place called Braums and then the other day we had ice cream at a place called Freddies. The food here is way too good and the members have fed us every night which has been really nice and the food they make is delicious. We had taco soup, tuna pasta salad, pork sandwiches, and chili. I am in huge trouble. Working out in the morning is tough because Sister Odom cannot run she has a few health issues and so we work out in our living room at 6:30. I just feel like I don't get a good enough workout. We are working on trying to go to a gym. Sister Odom is honestly AMAZING. We click so well and have a ton in common. We are both HUGE girls when it comes to accessories and shopping and decorating our apartment. She wants to be an interior decorator. She is 21 on the 3rd of February so we are going to celebrate like mad :) Well I want to at least. She is from Indiana and has been out for 10 months. She was engaged before she came on her mission but they both decided to break it off so that they could go on missions. She is so loving and patient but treats me nothing like a new missionary which is great. When I got there she had decorated the apartment to welcome me and had starbursts all over my desk with a little gift. I LOVE her. She and I laugh so so so hard every day and get along great. We are both really outgoing which makes lessons so much easier. My first night there she had said that she couldn't believe I was a new missionary. It is really easy to feel overwhelmed and inadequate but she has helped me a ton. A lot of people I have met have asked how long I have been out and when I say 5 days they are a bit shocked. I can be myself more than I thought which is I think why I felt at ease so much. Her style of training is more straight forward which is good. I was worried that a mission was going to be really strict just like it was in the MTC but it isn't. YES. there are rules we definitely have to follow but its a lot more realistic than I thought. I feel so much love for the investigators and less actives I have met. A lot of our investigators are have some really rough lifestyles and most of the girls here have teen or early early adult pregnancies and are on their own. There are so many I repeat so many churches here and most people are Baptist. That makes it a little difficult sometimes. I have learned though that there is no point in trying to master the bible perfectly though because there is always someone who is going to know it better. The first day I was here Sister Odom and I went to a couple appointments and one of them was with a couple and a baby. (they are newer wed so they are in the University ward and go to school there). Their last name is Sigastizados...harder then mine!, which btw is so hard for most people to say. One of our elders calls me sister Ankle Breaker. SO funny. ANYWAYS, this family was so sweet but the husband is less active and the wife is a nonmember. I guess the missionaries have been teaching them for a really long time, the wife wants to be baptized but won't do it without her husband who is really not there yet. However, the night we had dinner with them and taught them we asked them what is was about the gospel that draws them in and the spirit was so strong that they both opened up so much and all of us were crying. Mathew the husband had said that he really needed to trust in the Lord more and stop trying to get through things on his own and Ashley said that she wanted so badly for her family to be together. THIS IS WHAT IT IS ABOUT. Missionary work is real life and miraculous. It was a good way to start my mission in the field. Over the past week we have also met with a guy named Rodney. He is autistic and lives in the North side of OKC (which is still our area, we cover a whole stake). He is so funny, he is black and is so sassy haha. We have been reading the children's book of Mormon with him and then from the real one and he seems to get it. The city is pretty run down and really unlike something I have ever seen. Rodney's house was the same, but I really loved it. I loved that it was so humble and yet we were sitting there teaching him about Christ. Another one of the people we have been teaching is a return missionary who is less active. He also had a pivotal moment this week and decided after about 6 months with the missionaries that he needed to start coming to church again. He was really worried though because he felt like God didn't want him anymore. The Atonement is so real. I have never seen it like I have here. He came to church yesterday and I felt like I was going to cry when he walked through the doors. Yesterday we got 9 less actives there and 2 investigators. It was a serious miracle. The work here is so full and the University starts school today too so there will so many new people in OKC. I am loving it. Everyday I thank God that I can be a missionary. It really is the most humbling thing. I miss you all so much, but keep writing because I love hearing from you.

Love Sister Engelbrecht

God is so good!

First of all. God is so good!!! The blessing that I have recieved being here at the MTC are amazing and I am loving the MTC. Our progressing investigators are so great and also are real investigators. The miracle for this week is about an investigator named Lome (Lo may). We went into TRC expecting a different investigator but she didn't show up so last minute we got Lome. He is from Sacramento California and grew up in a strict Catholic home. He grew up in gangs and was kicked out of his house at 14. He moved to Utah a year ago so that he could get out of that environment. The investigators are hired at the TRC as an actual job and he is brand new to the job. As we talked to him he told us that he doesn't see a need for God in his life. He wants to be a motivational speaker and has an amazing outlook on life which makes it hard to help him see the importance of Christ. He is so down to earth and real so I was trying to be as real with him as I could but also inviting the spirit and testifying of what I know is true! We really struggled with how to help him after we walked out of there. We invited him to pray but had to convince him and he finally came to an understanding however it didn't seem too promising. The day that we had our second appointment with him we didnt know what to prepare because we figured the plan of salvation lesson would be too much and we had already taught the restoration. I felt like we needed to talk to him about faith and Ether 12 (READ IT ITS SO GREAT) Also read D&C 6. I was pretty worried and sister denney and I had said "this is going to be rough." So we got in there and asked him about his experience with prayer and this is what he told us. "You are going to freak out! I am dating this girl who has a 3 year old and so the father of the baby and her switch off taking care of him. The night I was at her house, the father texted her with a love emotocon and I got super angry. I scared her and stormed out because she wouldn't stand up to him. Laying in bed I felt so much anger and couldn't fall asleep. I remembered what you had told me about praying to God, so I did. I just said "God if you are there this would be a really good time to let me know". I felt this peace come over me and now I understand kind of that spirit you were talking about. I fell right asleep and i think God answered me. I woke up later at 3 am and felt this dark presence over me. I could literally see this shadow pinning me down, again I prayed that same prayer and instantly it was gone." Sister Denney and I were DYING and trying so hard to not get too excited in there and keep the spirit. BUT it was a stinking miracle. I asked him "if you knew God was there how would you feel" He said he would have lots of questions for God so the one thing we prepared for him Ether 12 was the exact thing that he needed. Walking out of there I was so humbled because I didnt feel like i deserved such a miracle because I had had a rough morning that morning and we did not prepare well enough. But God loves Lome and clearly knew what he needed. in turn I gained a greater testimony. OH MY GOSH GOD IS GOOD!!!!

One week in and loving it!

       

     The first day that I arrived here it was definitely overwhelming and I do not remember much from that day but that. I remember praying all the way to the MTC that my companion would be good and guess what guys....she is great! Her name is Sister Denney. She is from Salt Lake City and a serious goofball. Definitely quirky, I love her. There are things that drive me nutz sometimes but I have learned to try to just love her and ignore those things. She reminds me a lot of Sydnee as far as getting out the door goes but you know...patience is a virtue and my teachers worst nightmare. I am learning to not use sarcasm at all because she is a sweetheart and doesn't quite understand it. We work really well together and do well at communicating which is a huge relief. In our district (2 elder companionships and 2 sister companionships) we are the only outgoing ones, which makes class interesting. What is really exciting is that Sister Denney and I are Sister Training Leaders which is the same as a District Leader but for the sisters. Next week we get to train new sister missionaries. However, it is really neat because our district has set goals together and we have come so far and we all have a pretty tight bond. I am the only sister in my district going to Oklahoma City and the other 4 elders are going there as well. Sister Denney is going to Rapid City, South Dakota and so she is leaving the day before me. That means I will be a solo missionary for a day and I am not sure exactly how that works. The other sisters in our district are going to Houston Texas.

          Hallelujah there is Sprite, NOT 7up but sprite in the cafeteria which is such a comfort to me. The food here is pretty good but not healthy by any means. Sister Denney does not like to work out but I have been dragging her. I have been running and doing leg and arm weights as well as crunches. I am so proud of myself for throwing myself out of bed and staying motivated. Its more motivated to not be a chunky monkey but it is all the same right. Sitting in class all day is really hard but I also feel so grateful that I get to be able to learn for a straight 10 hours everyday. I know it sounds insane but it really is awesome. We have been teaching investigators here both real and non real which has been so extremely nerve racking, especially when our teachers play the investigators. I have already grown so well and had courage to do things that I was uncomfortable with. It has really helped me believe I can do this with the Lords help. There is definitely truth to the fact that I do things that I can't believe I do only because the spirit is with me. Its unlike anything I have ever experienced. We were told this week that, Elder Holland came to rededicate the MTC earlier this year and said that there would be angels at every window and every door of the MTC and around every missionary. SO AWESOME :) Anyways I will miss you guys this Christmas but I am doing so great (this does not mean it hasn't been hard haha but I have worked through it and become so much better I know that is so cliche but IT IS TRUE).

LOVE,

Sister Engelbrecht