2016 11/30 "It's me again!"

Hi! It's me again!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST MOM IN THE ENTIRE WORLD (tomorrow) I am so so grateful for you, Mom!! I hope you have the best day ever, you deserve it! I'll be sending ALL my love to you on your special day!! I love you!!💘

It sounds like the Ashby family is solid! Can Hunter sing at my homecoming too??😁 (I'll remind you when it gets a little closer.....)

SO Makail is getting married? Why didn't anyone tell me?! I got a wedding announcement or something in the mail. But! I. LOVE. IT. It looks so good! Also, thank you for choosing against the life size cardboard cut out of me. It's much appreciated. Less than a month until it's wedding time!!! ❤

I'm sooooooooooo excited to read Aunt Michelle's SECOND book!!! Aunt Michelle, I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR YOU AND ADMIRE YOU!! I always tell people here how blessed I am to have the best bonus aunt ever❤ I love you! (Ps- she sent me a cute Halloween card and I always forget to say thank you for it so this is me finally remembering to do that...oops. Sorry!)
Anywaysssssssssss-

"I am the light of the world" "Ye are the light of the world."

I know that Jesus Christ is the light of the world! I know that He lived a perfect life and set the perfect example for each of us to follow. I know that as we do all that we can to become more like Jesus Christ we find real and true joy. One way we can come closer to our Savior and be more like Him is by doing small acts of service. "...behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." I know that even the smallest acts of kindness can make the biggest difference. At the start of this Christmas season, everyone is so busy thinking of the gifts they're going to give and gifts they're going to receive. But the gifts you give your Savior Jesus Christ are the ones that matter most. What are YOU going to give the Savior this Christmas? What small acts of service are you going to offer to help yourself and others come unto Christ? I know that as we pray for opportunities to serve those around us, our Heavenly Father puts people in our path who need us and the hopeful message of the gospel!

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to participate in the church's new Christmas initiative! I'm excited to hear about all your experiences as you serve this Christmas season!! 25 days of service starts TOMORROW.

This Christmas season, #LIGHTtheWORLD 💡
In 25 ways. In 25 days.
Visit mormon.org to get started!

I love you! ❤

Trust in the Lord!
The gospel is true!
Love you forever,
Sister Bain 🍍

PS- I AM SO EXCITED FOR GARRETT TO GO TO THE MTC A WEEK FROM TODAY!!! HOW COOL. Give him a big hug for me and make sure he takes a water bottle with him- my water bottle saved me in the MTC. Seriously. I love you, Elder Sirrine!! You're going to kill it in WASHINGTON!! 

With Sister Day.

2016 11/23 Live in Thanksgiving daily!!

24 Days of Thanksgiving  🍗🍁
Happy Thanksgiving!! Here's a list of 24 things I'm grateful for (in no particular order😂)

1. I'm grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. Of course He is the very first one because without Him I wouldn't have anything. I know Jesus Christ lives. I know He is my Savior. Jesus Christ means everything to me and I am so grateful for Him and His atoning sacrifice for me.
2. I'm grateful for eternal families. HOW COOL is it that we get to be together for eternity? Good thing I love you all. #BainTrainForever Thanks for getting married in the temple mom and dad!! #CovenantKeepers
3. I'm grateful for our mission car. Winter has made its way to CT. The car heater is a life saver!
4. I'm grateful that Makail and KC are getting married in the temple❤
5. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to serve a mission! There aren't enough words to describe my gratitude for my missionary tag and the miracles I get to see every day. #Blessed
6. I'm grateful for the Hartford, Connecticut Temple! Connecticut's first temple was dedicated on Sunday! This was my 5th temple dedication!! (I've been sick at every temple dedication I've been to hahaha I had a fever this time...boo. But I'm fine now!) I know temple blessings are real. I was sitting in the chapel waiting for the dedication to start and I was thinking about Grandpa Bain. I've found myself thinking about him a lot lately and I can feel him with me all the time. I know my loved ones are watching out for me and helping me. I was promised as I was set apart as a full-time missionary that I'd have angels attend me in the mission field and I know that one of those angels is my sweet Grandpa Bain.
7. I'm grateful for my companion.
8. I'm grateful for members of the Darien Ward who give me really nice hugs every time they see me. They're not as good as mom's hugs, but they work😁
9. I'm grateful for the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the Prophet Joseph Smith. I know Jesus Christ's church has been restored on the earth and I know Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ in the sacred grove.
10. I'm grateful I get 8 hours of sleep every night.
11. I'm grateful for President and Sister Smith. I love them.
12. I'm grateful for Preach My Gospel!
13. I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon. I know it's true!💘
14. I'm grateful for New York City.
15. I'm grateful for new opportunities every day to share my testimony!
16. I'm grateful for trials! I know trials are given to us to help us become closer to Jesus Christ.
17. I'm grateful for Elder Sirrine (and Garrett-- 'Elder Sirrine' in a couple of weeks!! I'm glad his farewell talk went well! I've heard nothing but good reviews about him and Britt!) Elder Prestgard, and Hermana Gurney! It's so cool being able to talk to my cousins about the mission and share experiences with them and get advice from them. I HAVE INCREDIBLE COUSINS who are faithful to their callings as missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ.
18. I'm grateful for hot chocolate.
19. I'm grateful that I don't have to use a paper areabook and that I'm in a technology mission where I can just search something on gospel library in 2 seconds and it's easy. Dad, I don't even know how you did missionary work without an iPad😂
20. I'm grateful for my glasses so I can see stuff.
21. I'm grateful for my knee brace. I had to start wearing it again because my companion was backing up the car too fast and hit me....hahaha oops. My knee was knocked out of place or something, I can't remember what the doctor said. Anyway, I'm fine. Don't worry.
22. I'm grateful for the Connecticut trees.
23. I'm grateful for all the missionaries in the New York New York North Mission. I've learned so much for each missionary I get to serve with!
24. Most of all, I'm grateful for all those who have helped me get to the mission field! Mom and dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, YW leaders, bishops, the stake president, friends, the 5th ward....countless people have influenced my life and helped me become who I am today. So THANK YOU for your love, your patience, your support, and your testimonies. I will forever be grateful for each of you!

I was telling my companion the other day about our little foam Thanksgiving trees we do every year so I'm super sad that we used our last one last year! But I'm glad Bryson now understands that mom is dad's best friend and I laughed real hard when Grant said he was grateful for rubber bands😂😂😂tell Jacob to write me a letter or something. I've been missing him a lot the past couple of days. Man, I sure love those boys. Give them a big hug for me!!

"But some might say, “What do I have to be grateful for when my world is falling apart?”
Perhaps focusing on what we are grateful for is the wrong approach. It is difficult to develop a spirit of gratitude if our thankfulness is only proportional to the number of blessings we can count. True, it is important to frequently “count our blessings”—and anyone who has tried this knows there are many—but I don’t believe the Lord expects us to be less thankful in times of trial than in times of abundance and ease. In fact, most of the scriptural references do not speak of gratitude for things but rather suggest an overall spirit or attitude of gratitude.

It is easy to be grateful for things when life seems to be going our way. But what then of those times when what we wish for seems to be far out of reach?

Could I suggest that we see gratitude as a disposition, a way of life that stands independent of our current situation? In other words, I’m suggesting that instead of being thankful for things, we focus on being thankful in our circumstances—whatever they may be."
--President Uchtdorf ❤❤

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We have so much to be grateful for and I know that everything we have is because we have a loving Heavenly Father! I'm grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the blessings I've received because of it.

Live in Thanksgiving daily!!

I love you and I'm SO GRATEFUL FOR YOU!!

Love always,
Sister Bain 🍍

The car heater is a life saver!

What are you Thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Sisters

2016 11/16 "God is so good" and "It snowed"

Hey y'all!
So. This week was a good week. We did missionary work and stuff so that was cool. Transfers were yesterday and GUESS WHAT!!!

.............DRUM ROLL PLEASE..............

I'm staying in Darien with Sister Larsen! Surprise! Haha I'm funny I know. I can't believe Sister Larsen has already been here for 6 weeks!! Where does the time go??? Aaaaahhhhh!!!! Sister Sam only has one more transfer left before she goes home!! (Insert a picture of me sobbing my eyes out because that makes me sad. I miss her)

On Sunday we had the Primary Program and it was AMAZING. Kids are so fun. (Ps. The boys school pictures are SO cute. Those boys are such studs. I miss them) Anyway. Primary Program.

1. Primary teachers are SO patient

2. I love how pure and sweet children's testimonies are. The primary kids write their own parts and I was reminded of how simple the gospel is! President Smith always reminds us to remember our primary songs and to start with the basics! #Truth

3. I was watching the sweet primary president, Sister Harrell, and she reminds me so much of mom!! Mom is so dedicated to teaching kids (especially her own kids!!!) the gospel and helping them gain faith and a testimony of their own. That's one thing I admire the most about mom- the way she magnifies her calling and her love for the gospel!! (That was two things but its fine) You're a rockstar, mom! I love you!

Random facts:
A girl in my ward, Sister Wilkins, has a sister getting married on December 29th in the Salt Lake Temple so I told her to find all of you since you'll be there at the same time and take a picture with you hahaha if a random girl wants to take a picture with you at the temple do it so she can send it to me haha

Sister Shumway made us dinner last night and it was so so good and she's also a Harvard graduate and goes to Cambridge right now so she's super cool and she told me she'd teach me how to paint yay

It snowed yesterday so please pray for us in CT we are actually freezing. (Don't feel too bad though. We have a car with a nice heater)

The Hartford Temple is being dedicated on Sunday!!! Connecticut's first temple!!!

For Thanksgiving...we are going to Rob's house!! I told you about him a couple of weeks ago (last week maybe?? I can't remember) anyway, he and his family invited us over. Rob also read Alma 32 which makes me HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY because Alma is the best ever. He's a cool guy (Rob. But Alma obviously is cool too) We also had some members (Sister Wilkins!!!) invite us over! ALSO!! If you have missionaries in your ward and they don't have a place to eat, INVITE THEM OVER. Missionaries are away from their families for the holidays and a lot of them will tell you they love it but it's still hard to be away from home....so make sure the elders and sisters have a place to go!! Relief Society presidents can't do it all so help em out!! :-)

We have a sweet investigator named Claire. She's so wonderful and we love her. She searched on Google about the after life and guess what she clicked on!!?? LDS.ORG!! She ordered a Book of Mormon and then we showed up on her doorstep. We taught her how to pray and man oh man....hearing someone pray out loud for the first time ever is a COOL experience!! God is so good.

So...I'm not really sure what else to write about. We have weekly planning on Thursdays and I always get sooooooooooo tired during that. But nothing happens if we don't set goals and make plans, right?? :-) I love it here.

I hope you all have a fun and safe week!! Emailing get harder and harder every week so I'm really sorry if they don't ever make sense or if I forget to answer your questions hahaha

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Trust in the Lord
The gospel is true
#LightTheWorld


Love always,
Sister Keauna Bain 

Gray Miles- he said I can marry his uncle hahahaha

BEAUTIFUL SUNSETS HERE

Stamford Zone

Bossy Lane- I want to live on this street hahahaha 

Sister Bain at Bossy Lane

2016 11/09 "PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED! "

Hello! Hello! 🍍
We went on Spanish Splits again and every time I get to go to the Spanish program I wish I had been called Spanish speaking! I went to Stamford with Hermana Nusink and she is so so wonderful!! We had an appointment in the morning with an investigator who speaks straight Spanish-- she doesn't understand any English at all. I was sitting in the lesson and had NO idea what was going on....but I was praying that Heavenly Father would help me understand something. By the end of the lesson I knew they had been talking about prayer and why it's important to pray! PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED!

We spent some time in Greenwich Hospital visiting some less-actives which was cool. (Not cool that they were in the hospital, but cool we got to see them....and cool that Sister Bain didn't pass out....) I kept praying for help to understand the language and I was also praying for the ability to teach simply so they could understand my English. I hope you know I have a testimony of prayer!! PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED!

Hermana Nusink and I ended our split teaching English class. I walked in and all these cute people yelled "Chinita! Chinita!" Which means "Asian girl" in Spanish😂so the Stamford Spanish Ward knows me as "Chinita Hermana Bain"😂 Esta bien, me encanta! ❤

This week was good! We saw a lot of miracles. It's the little things that seem to matter the most to me. I'm not really sure what to write about today, but I wanted to tell you a little thought I had this week. I've had some people email me and ask me what I've learned about the most as a missionary so far. I thought that answer would be hard, but it's actually a lot more simple than I thought. I've learned the most about Repentance. Repentance is change. It's being humble enough to make the small, but necessary, changes to our lives to live the way our loving Heavenly Father has asked us to. It's having faith that we can change through Jesus Christ. Repentance is recognizing the need for a Savior and more fully understanding the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for each of us. I always thought of repentance as something scary because it meant I did something wrong, but repentance is a joyful process of becoming closer to our Savior Jesus Christ. So if I've learned anything as a missionary these last few months, it's that repentance is our opportunity to become better every day. HOW COOL IS THAT!!??

What does Repentance mean to you? I hope this week you look for more ways to recognize the healing power of the Atonement! Read Alma 36 then send me your thoughts❤

I hope you all had a good week and that you exercised your rights and voted! I still don't even know who the next president is going to be haha missionaries know zero things about the election....all the people at the grocery store were in a bad mood today so....people here aren't happy about the outcome. I'm guessing Trump won but I honestly have no clue😂

Sorry this week is so short, but I'm happy here and I love Connecticut more and more every day! I wish y'all were here with me to see the fall colors!!

I love you!! 
"His plan is always the best plan and it'll lead to the most happiness." -Mom❤
#LightTheWorld

Con mucho amor,
Sister Keauna Bain ♡
New York New York North Mission  

A drive through the neighborhood to see all the Fall Colors

Fall Colors

My Friend

Was it something I said?

The gang and my Friend

Picture time - I said Smile

2016 11-02 "It's been raining like CRAZY here!! I LOVE IT."

Here we are again! Another week in Connecticut has come and gone! It feels like just yesterday was preparation day! Time goes fast.

Thank you so much for the pictures you took up in Logan!! They're so so cute!! I love you all.
We didn't do much for Halloween. We had to be home by 7:00 so that was lame. We had dinner at 7:00, a conference call at 8:00 and then we had nightly planning at 9:00....then we went to bed haha so yay Halloween is over! I'm glad Grant is learning the true spirit of Halloween😂
I got my flu shot today like you asked me to. It was awful and I hated every second of it and my arm already hurts but it's fine.

It's been raining like CRAZY here!! I LOVE IT. My companion doesn't like the rain, or the thunder, or the lightning, or the wind....she had me hold her umbrella the other day because she didn't want to get electrocuted while we were walking. hahaha

I had a good time this week! On Thursdays we serve at a food pantry called Person-to-Person and I LOVE IT. (I think I've talked about P2P before??) Anyway, there's a lady that serves there too named Julie. I LOVE HER. For some reason I'm super good at making friends with people who are a little bit sassy and have an attitude haha Julie is a little spitfire and I'm so grateful for her. Julie and her husband are moving to Florida today-- rich people in CT have winter homes in Florida haha so last week we gave Julie a Book of Mormon as a little "goodbye" present. I wrote my email and my testimony in it and told Julie to email me her thoughts. WELL. She emailed the next day and she told me she had read a little of the Book of Mormon and SHE ALREADY KNEW IT WAS TRUE AND THAT SHE WAS GOING TO WORK HARD TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WAS SAYING. I cried for a solid 10 minutes about it. WHAT A MIRACLE!! She told me that she wanted to keep in touch and that she wanted to continue to learn about what we do as missionaries. I LOVE JULIE. She said she'd visit me in Utah so she could meet more people like me. hahaha

My thought for the week comes from Mosiah 27 (my favorite part of the Book of Mormon) I've been studying up on the Atonement and Repentance this past week and I LOVE IT. What does Repentance mean to you? I was reading in Alma 36-37 these last few days and it's all about Alma telling his son Helaman his conversion story.  So, I went back to Mosiah to reread Alma's experience. An angel appears to Alma, Alma passes out, then Alma wakes up. When Alma wakes up, he shares a powerful testimony of repentance. He says in Mosiah 27:24 "For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold, I am born of the spirit." He goes on to say that as we repent, we "become new creatures." Isn't that so powerful?? As we repent, we become more like what God knows we can become. Verse 29 of Mosiah 27 is my all time favorite:
"My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more."

He was in the "gall of bitterness" and "repenting nigh until death" (v. 28) he felt Godly sorrow for all that he had done and when he repented he beheld the MARVELOUS LIGHT OF GOD. He felt the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know the Atonement is REAL. Jesus Christ paid the price for you and for me! In Alma 36, Alma is telling Helaman that he remembered his dad teaching him about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I remember all those Family Home Evening lessons, young women lessons, girls camp devotionals, seminary lessons, and firesides about Repentance  (I really was listening, I promise!) I know that through Jesus Christ we can find JOY in this life and in the life to come. Alma wraps things up with verse 24 (also my all time favorite) saying:
"Yea, and from that time even until now, I have labored without ceasing, that I might bring souls unto repentance; that I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste; that they might also be born of God, and be filled with the Holy Ghost."

THAT IS WHY I AM HERE AS A MISSIONARY! I've tasted of the exceedingly great joy that the gospel brings. I've tasted of the fruit and I've felt the JOY of repentance and the Atonement-- and I'm here to share that with those in the NYNYN mission! Repentance takes work. Alma was bascially in a coma for 2 days being racked with eternal torment. King Lamoni had a similar experiance. Enos wrestled in mighty prayer to be forgiven of his sins, but I know it's possible. I know we can truly be cleansed. I know we can find JOY in Jesus Christ. I have! Have the faith that through the Atonement, Jesus Christ can change you. #RepentanceIsCool

I hope y'all are having a good week! I'm still stoked to have KC as a brother-in-law.
Good luck with the wedding dress shopping adventure this weekend! It sounds like a good time! If I don't get any pictures I'm never emailing home again. (Kidding. But also a little bit serious.....) 
Read your Book of Mormon every day, kids! It'll bless your life.

Trust in the Lord.
The gospel is true! 
#LightTheWorld
I love you!!

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:8

---
Sister Keauna Bain ♡
New York New York North Mission 

Halloween Cupcakes - Birds

Halloween Cupcakes

Desk Wall - New Stuff (Water Colors from Makail)

Find joy in the journey

Julie

One more because Ruthie is so cute. I love love love Waveny ❤