March 9 2014

Hello friends! I hope all of you are doing well. I'm sorry if some of you email me and I'm not able to respond. I have about what feels like 1 minute to get 20 emails sent off. BUT thank you all for your emails, I do read them all, and I thoroughly enjoy them. 

Okay so this week was the hottest week in the world. It is so dry here that they are turning our water off every two days for the next month. So it will be off for two days and then on for two days. It's a bit obnoxious, but you do what you gotta do. 

This past week FLEW by. The best part of the week was visiting my favorite Pakistani family, and getting them on date for baptism for April 13th!! Also it is the best thing in the world when you teach the word of wisdom and you get to the part where they can't drink tea. Their eyes pop out of their head, and then after a minute of consideration they say, "okay, can lah." Being a missionary is the greatest thing in the world. I am humbled everyday to be here working along side our Master. It is the best feeling in the world when you are able to share with someone what you know to be true. I need to go, but I hope all of you are happy and healthy. Have a good week! The Lord loves you and so do I. 

Love,

Sister Krivanec

Missionaries totally know how to have fun

March 2 2014 letter

Hello everyone!

My email will be a short one today. Things in KL are just peachy. I am teaching the cutest family in the world. They are from Pakistan, and they are refugees here, because their Christian village that they lived in was burned down by Muslims. So, they are now here, and they love this gospel so much. They won't let us do any service. I tried helping their baby put his shoes on once and they freaked out because I'm "too good" to be doing stuff like that. They can be a bit frustrating, because I'm like, I'm just a human!!! I am so humbled by them, they lost everything they had, and are still so happy and willing to serve God. They are the definition of converted

Life is so cool. We get to decide what we want to be every day when we wake up. We are not cast in stone, every situation we are in gives us a chance to apply the teachings of the Savior. Do we want to be happy or miserable? It is really as simple as that, if you want to be happy, then do everything you can to be happy. You are your own master. 

Well I must go, I love you all and hope you are happy and healthy. Have a good week :) 

February 23 2014 letter

Mkay. So I everyone should cheer because I made it through my first transfer!!! whooo. I'm still here with Sister Schriever and the work is picking up for us quite a bit. We got three new investigators last week, and we should have 5 more this week. We were told last week in Zone Meeting that President Mains has set a goal for the Singapore mission to reach 542 baptisms by the end of this year; and 100 of them need to come from my district in Kuala Lumpur, because we are trying to get the very first stake in Malaysia. We only have 14 companionships in KL, so that number is pretty large, but it is very attainable. We are all working harder than ever to reach this goal. Since I have been here I have had a total of 25 new investigators, and we started out with only 2. It has been such a humbling experience for me to rely so much on Heavenly Father. He will show unto the children of men that he is able to do his work, and it is by our faith in Him that miracles happen. This is the most true statement in my life right now. All of my success comes from Heavenly Father and my trust in Him. This is His work and He is down here laboring by our sides. 

Anyway, yes the work is going so so well. I am blessed beyond measure.

But in case you wonder if anything funny happens with me the answer is yes, every. single. day. As you all know  I hate chicken. Hate is an understatement actually, and guess what I get to eat it. every. single. day. It has been an adventure for me trying to eat 3 plates full of rice and chicken every time I go to a members house. But I will tell you. I would take chicken over Durian any day. It is the smelliest most disgusting fruit in the world. It is actually the number one cause of death in Malaysia because it falls from the trees and kills people. 

Also I have about 100 marriage proposals a day. It is sometimes amusing and other times, I am just like TIDAK BOLEH LAH!! which means CANNOT! Yesterday this investigator picked up my personal book of mormon and kissed it. WHAT THE?! 

Okay so I have to go I love you all. Byeee

Love sister Krivanec 

oh and this is a dress a member made for me for a wedding it's beautiful. (also I know I look like I'm 12 years old)

February 16 2014 letter

Hey everyone! Everything here is going super well. We have two new investigators from Pakistan named, John and G-John. We call them the Johns. But they are great and so full of questions and we committed them both to be baptized. We have no idea how they got our number, but they called and said they wanted us to teach them and so we met and had an amazing lesson about the restoration, and they also came to church yesterday and loved it. Miracles are happening like this constantly for us. When we pray for specific things, specific blessings happen.

I had the opportunity to speak in church, and I wrote my talk on faith, because that is the most basic principle of the gospel. Without it, not even the earth could have been made. The church here is like in the early 1900's. The members are unsure of how to run a church. So all the american's that are living here and the missionaries run the branch. My goal is to help these people become self-sufficient. Faith is the key to this. When these people have sufficient faith, they will desire to magnify callings, they will pay their tithing, they won't miss church because they want to watch tv. We learn things line upon line and precept upon precept. Faith is the bottom line. Without it, we cannot go up. Faith in Jesus Christ means that you accept Him as your savior and when you accept Him you will keep His commandments regardless of if you understand them or not. 

Okay my computer is about to turn off, (it has a timer) so I need to wrap this up. But I love you all and hope that things are going good for you. Remember that having courage, and faith in the person who made salvation possible will give allow you to change lives. You are all great. Have a fantastic week. 

Love,

Sister Krivanec

February 9 2014 Letter

Hey everyone, thank you all for your enduring love and support to me. It means a lot to me to hear from my family and friends. I love being in Kuala Lumpur so much! It is hotter than Hades, but I don't mind, because the work I do is worth it! I am not going to lie, missionary work is the hardest thing in the world. I knew it would be, but anyone who has served a mission knows what I'm talking about. People tear your testimony to shreds everyday, you exert all your energy on praying and preparing for your investigators and then they don't even show up! What? I hate that. I go to bed thinking about how to help those that I'm teaching, and I dream about those I'm teaching, and then I wake up thinking about those I'm teaching. It's so stressful feeling like their salvation depends on you, and then they don't accept what you have to say. oh my!! BUT, being a missionary is unlike anything else in the world. All the hard things don't even matter, because when I am testifying of what I know, my soul feels like it is on fire and I can't even think about anything else that is hard. When you can love someone you don't even know, that's when the mission is worth it. And when someone can understand the importance of what you are saying the Spirit brings the most peaceful feeling that, yes, this this right here, is why you came across the world. 

 The language barrier here drives me nuts, because the message I want to share would be so much more powerful if they could understand English, but I am learning how to talk like a cave-man and as long as the spirit is present they are able to feel of the truthfulness of what I'm saying. Without the Spirit I would be useless. 

I am having the time of my life here though. My companion and my housemates think I'm nuts, but I don't care, if I was serious 100 percent of the time I would literally go insane. But I make sure to have a time and place for everything. When it's time to get my personal study going I hit the scriptures hard. They are my favorite thing in the whole world, one hour is not enough time. PEOPLE the scriptures are AMAZING!! READ THEM!! okay okay, I already know you do. But seriously I can't say enough how important the scriptures are. We say that they are the word of God right? Okay then why don't we study them more frequently. It's like people wonder why God has abandoned them, but they neglect to read the words of God which will tell them what they need to do. 

Well today I want to leave with you something that I have been learning. I was asked in the MTC if when you are done with your mission and you had a plaque describing what you did what would it say? Mine would say, 2 Timothy 4:7. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my cousrse, I have kept the faith." I want to finish my mission knowing I worked my hardest, and that there is no more I could possibly do. 

But I also want to leave with you all some encouraging words. We all obviously go through hard things, but President Monson reminds us: "The difficulties which come to us present us with the real test of our ability to endure....we must each answer this question, shall I falter, or shall I finish?"

I am grateful for you all, I know none of you will falter, keep going the Lord loves you and so do I.

I hope you all have a superb week. Keep being a missionary, keep moving forward with faith. 

Love, 

Sister Krivanec

ps Since grandma doesn't get my emails, please share this with her :) k thanks byeeeeee

pps since it's Chinese New Year here, a tradition is to give mandarin oranges, so this is me giving you all an orange. enjoy :)

Letter February 2nd 2014

HIEEEE!!! Sounds like you're doing so good! It's good to know that people back home are okay. I love little hunter, every time I see a baby I want to snatch them and hold them. haha bad bad bad. Yeah so I live in the coolest place. Malaysia is suuuper different than Singapore, I really like it here. It's Chinese New Year, so I have received a lot of random gifts, like random food. It's nice, and sometimes weird. I got four new investigators last week, and they are all from Pakistan, and they love me and my companion. Being a missionary is the coolest. It is unexplainable. Everyday when I bear my testimony I can feel the Spirit validating to me that what I am saying is true. It is hard with the language barrier, but the spirit can do things that I cannot, it can witness to them truth, even though they can't understand what I'm saying very well. This is truly the coolest mission. When they say that you will preach to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, that is totally my mission. I am surrounded by different races, and languages. I love it more than anything. But it is SO hard. Everyday I'm exhausted beyond belief, and people are frustrating, and the weather is SO miserable. But the miracles I see outweigh everything. When you see someone light up, because you have just let them know that through Jesus Christ they can be relieved of burdens, nothing else in the world matters. When they figure out that they can live with their family forever, they change, because they want that so badly. My favorite part of being a missionary is being able so see people as God sees them. The love I have for these people consumes me. I want to hug them all, and let them know that they have a loving Heavenly Father that is by their side, waiting for them to let Him into their lives. I am honored to be here, to be useful to Heavenly Father, to learn, to change, and be fully converted. This is the most humbling thing of my life. I teach people who have no furniture, who live in squalor, and they are the most grateful people I have ever met in my life. They would move mountains to serve the Lord. I am inspired by them, and I continue to learn from them everyday what it means to be like Christ. I love this Church, God's plan is perfect. I am grateful to every person who has gone on before me that paved the way for the Gospel to be spread to all the world. Truly without them this work would not be possible.

 I love you and hope you're doing okay. I am sending a letter, and it will be there in a couple of weeks, keep an eye out for it. Welp be good, and healthy. Kiss your children for me. I pray for you every day.

Love,

Sister Krivanec

Letter January 26th 2014

HELLLEEEWW!! Okay so I have 3 new investigators and they know like everything about the bible. They were like Joseph Smith couldn't see God because God can't be in his presence....Would God change himself or would Joseph have to be changed? Then they were asking all this stuff about Lehi's heritage, and about tribes. They committed to read the Book of Mormon though and to pray about it, so we'll see how it goes after I see them this week. Man I need to study the bible, but I'm learning so much. Today I read from 1 Nephi 12 and it is AMAZING!!! The revelation was perfect and exact. I am also trying to connect the bible and the BOM as much as I can. The scriptures are so cool, before my mission an hour to study seemed like a life time, and now an hour is not near enough time. People ask me the toughest questions and about specific references, and I'm like uhhhhh so I'm working on memorizing though. But my branch president couldn't think of a scripture and I quoted it for him, and that's how I knew my studying was paying off. After emailing today we're gonna go to the zoo to ride elephants, I'm stoked! Last p-day I got the dead skin eaten off my feet by fish...it was the nastiest and weirdest thing I have ever done, I didn't enjoy it in the least! (I'll send a photo) My area is progressing greatly. Everyday we have been praying to find investigators that will be kingdom builders, and who possess the qualities of a leader, specifically someone who can hold the priesthood. We're trying to get members to be self sufficient because they rely a ton on expat families from the states, and we have so many inactives so we're looking for those who will be truly converted. It's tough but I love it. On the bus this week a whole family came up to us thinking we're nuns and they said God bless you sisters. We struck up a conversation and they are inviting us over for Chinese new year and we're going to teach them a lesson, I think they'll love it!

 

ummm I don't know what else to say my days feel like weeks and my weeks feel like days. I am growing so much, and feel honored to be apart of the Lords work, He loves us so much. I can feel the blessing pouring out from faithful prayers, from not only me, but from all those who pray for the missionaries. When we're diligent and obedient we are promised blessings, and I am a witness that those blessings come. Well I love you daddy, thank you for being a good teacher, when I get home we'll have to have some good doctrine discussions. Have a good week, thank you for all you do for me, your hard work has not gone unnoticed. 

Love,

Sister Krivanec