Nov 9 2011 Email

Ward History: I’ve been on my mission for 3 months now and it’s been a great experience. We have had 3 baptisms and 3 on the way. It is incredible the challenges that are out in this world and even the challenges that I have on my mission. I know that this will be the greatest time of my life though and that I will never regret serving a mission. I know that the Lord does provide for us missionaries and for everyone that will accept him and keep his commandments. We just need to trust in the Lord.

Well the last week and a half has been pretty good! Not so much last week but this week is going super good! We have just been packed with lots of people to teach and new people to meet. I’m finally getting better at knocking on doors. It was hard for a while because I just wouldn’t know what to say but we have 2 return appointments with people we met knocking on doors. We had one funny experience this last week where we knocked on a door and this darker lady answers the door and glares at us and I introduced us and she said she knew who we were and then asked if we had read the sign on the window. I looked around at all the windows and saw no signs anywhere and she came out and angrily pointed at the window and then noticed it wasn’t there and just felt dumb and went back inside and told us to leave hahah. It was really great! We also had a funny moment while we were walking past a bus stop. I walked toward a Hispanic guy and said "hey how're you?" and he just put his hands up and said "I didn’t do nothin." over and over and I kept trying to tell him we weren’t the police we were missionaries and after about a minute of this he put his hands down and got a big smile and then said "hey guys how’s it goin?" and shook our hands haha. He wasn’t a member but he knew who we were and we talked to him for a minute and he seemed really interested. Now it just depends on if he actually calls to get the Book of Mormon or not. Those are our two funny stories! As far as awesome stories there’s one involving J of course because she is just awesome! She is completely committed to the church already and it’s just super awesome. She said she had a dream about us one night and we were dressed in white just smiling at her and the next day was S’s baptism and she came to that and the first person she saw when she walked through the door was me dressed in all white just like in her dream and she said it was basically a confirmation to her that this is what’s right. We continue to have amazing lessons with her and we found out that a member came to her house (we aren’t sure who but we have an idea) and was talking about how tithing is a pain and asked her why she wanted to get baptized and just saying stupid things and J replied by telling her that she sure wasn’t sounding very Christian and that paying tithes is the least we can do for God for all he has done for us and just stood up for the church! She isn’t even a member yet!! This last time she also told us how much of a blessing we have been to her life and how much she loves us and it was just super awesome! We had an awesome dinner last night at the part member’s house. The kid who I’m with in the picture dressed as jack sparrow. It’s his house. That family is just really awesome I love being over there and being with them! Their kids are the greatest! It’s really crazy that Christmas is coming up so soon! Well that’s about all for this last week and a half. We had some good days and some not so good but that’s how it goes! I love you tons!!

We finally got pictures!!!!

 Kevin at the Provo Temple when he was staying in the MTC

                                                Elders at the MTC

Still an amazing artist!!!

 The view from the house where he is living.

 Yikes!!!!!!

 Kevin loves girls of ALL ages :)
(That's a soccer tatoo on his cheek)

Picture from the mission president's wife of Kevin getting his flu shot - does he look excited or what????

Oct 31 Email

So for this week! It was pretty eventful!

Tuesday: there was a new missionary meeting for the newer missionaries and so the district leader sent his greenie to go with a car full of missionaries and came with us for the day. It was pretty fun and we got to teach J again like every Tuesday. She just seems so much happier than she was when we first met her; it’s incredible. Anyways we planned on teaching her about the Word of Wisdom because we knew that she drinks coffee and tea. We got there and just talked for a bit and then she just said "oh yeah and I haven’t had coffee or tea for a week... why is it that we can’t drink those?" I was super shocked and we explained it and she accepted it and said she won’t drink either of them anymore! It was amazing! Our dinner that night fell through - luckily the district leaders’ dinner didn’t so we went with him! yay! After dinner the mom that lived there pulled out a bunch of stuff from a church class she took awhile back and taught us a ton about like how the temples were back in the day and about where the new temple is supposed to be built before Christ comes again and it was super awesome.

Wednesday: we went on exchanges and the district leader came with me to my area again and we had a very successful day. He interviewed the two girls for their baptisms and we got the program all figured out. We also got to visit two less actives we haven’t seen for a while, one of which actually let us come in and sit down and introduced us to his family, which he hasn’t done the last 3 times we had been there. I guess having the district leader with me was just good luck! We had a pretty full day and didn’t have much time to do anything else.

Thursday: was just a disappointing day but we did get lots of service in at the bishop storehouse because they had hardly anybody there helping and there were 89 orders to fill which is a lot above average.

Friday: we had president interviews and we just talked about better ways to bring in new investigators. We were there for a while because we gave two other elders a ride and had to wait for them to get finished. We then went and saw a member family and just checked in on how they were doing and if they needed anything from us and they were really nice. They are an awesome family! Later that night we went to go practice for this choir thing in Upland... well we got there and it turns out our zone leaders gave us the wrong date and so we sat there for a while and then called the APs and asked when it was and found out it was the next night... that took up the rest of our night.

Saturday!!! We woke up and got all ready for the baptism. I squeezed into my white baptism pants and we greeted everyone who came. It was a really good program. Brother J gave a talk on baptism that was really good and S’s nonmember brother read a scripture about baptism. It was really neat because there were a lot of non-members at the baptism from both families. After the talk I got the opportunity to baptize both S and M! It was a really good experience and afterwards you could just see how happy they were - it was really awesome. After that we just went and did some tracting and had lunch and everything and then that night we had our ward Halloween party! It was so much fun! I loved being with all the members! I sat down and got to know a lot of the youth that I hadn’t gotten a chance to really talk with at church and make friends with many of them. It was also awesome to see all the little kids in their costumes. I got lots of great pictures!

Well that’s pretty much all for this week! It was a really great week! I’m including pictures that I hope work this time! I love you!!

Oct 24 Email

Sounds like you’ve had a pretty busy week! That’s awesome that you get to talk in stake conference! I haven’t had to talk here yet but I’ve said the opening prayer in sacrament twice now. I’m sorry to hear Lyndsi was sick! Glad to know she’s better though. Yep Sister B is definitely a spiritual giant in this ward and I’m glad you’re going to get the opportunity to meet her! I can’t believe Stephen is leaving already! It’s crazy!

This last week was really good for part of it. We had lots of plans fall through and a couple of the days were just kind of bleh days. But on Saturday we went to see M, one of the 10 year olds getting baptized this Saturday, and we finished up the lessons with her and then we started asking her questions about who she wanted to do everything. We asked her who she wanted to have baptize her and she didn’t know. Then she asked if one of us could do it. We said we could and immediately after we said yes she pointed at me and said I want you to do it! It made my day and I’m really excited for this weekend now! Then on Sunday I was talking with S and her family (the other 10 year old) and her mom said that she wasn’t sure her grandfather would be able to make it to the baptism and that they wanted me to do hers. So I get to baptize both girls this Saturday!! I’m really excited about it. It’s going to be a good baptism! The only thing is that S’s family is from Hawaii and her full name is really long haha hopefully I get it right! 

We also got a new investigator which was a pretty cool story. We went to see a less active member we had never met and we knocked on the door and she wasn’t home but her non-member husband was and he invited us in, got us some water, and said if it was okay with us he wants to study with us and learn more about our religion. We talked for about 45 minutes then his wife got home and we found out she hasn’t been active in the church basically since she was baptized at 8 but she also wants to learn more. We set a date that they are going to feed us dinner and we are going to have a lesson also. It was really neat!

The last cool experience I had this week was on Saturday night we were about to go up to see a less active and a less active family popped into my head that was on the way and so I suggested we just drop by and see if they are home. Sure enough the mom was home who we had never met. Turns out it’s been quite awhile since she has been to church and she was talking about how she was taking care of her step father-in-law and he had passed away Thursday. It was very odd because we had studied Alma 40:11 that morning so we shared the scripture with her and she said that we were great missionaries because we had been an answer to her prayers because she wasn’t sure what would happen to her father-in-law after he died and that scripture answered it. It was a really awesome experience to see that and I know that the Spirit put their name in my mind and it wasn’t just a random thought. We also had a lesson on Wednesday with the couple that has a baptismal date but hasn’t been coming to church and we really pounded down why church is important and I told them that really if they wanted to get baptized it was really important that they are at church the next four weeks before they get baptized, annnndddd they came to church yesterday!! We actually had 5 investigators at church! It was all 5 with baptismal dates so that was very good. Other than that it’s been a pretty normal week. Sorry this email isn’t that long but I put in everything that was exciting/new about the week. This next week should be a really good one and then it will already be halfway through the transfer! I’m super nervous already because I don’t want to leave this area. Well I love you all so much and hope that everything is going great for you!!

Oct 17 Email

Sounds like your trip went really well!! Yeah I just saw that picture hahah. It wasn’t too bad (of Kev on the Mission Blog getting his flu shot)! My comp said that he hasn’t had any pictures of just him on the blog and I’ve had two already! haha I’m going to send my memory card home soon. It isn’t full yet but I have a cheap way to get it home and a very safe way... you’ll find out soon (: also you never told me that Sister E in my ward called you when she went to St George! She is a super awesome lady! She and her husband have the cutest little boy! hah it was weird because I found out a girl I was friends with in high school is her niece! Small world! Your letters are great. I loove them! It’s funny that you met some of the elders! I’ll have to try to find them now!

Well now for this last week.

So really this week up until Saturday was pretty much just a so-so week. Had a day that was just a bummer of a day where nothing happened. didn’t really get to teach many lessons.. Oh on Tuesday we did teach the 75 year old J and she is progressing like crazy! At first she had some objections to getting baptized and had some pretty strange ideas about things that had happened to her in the past but she is really just progressing really well and just understands everything almost better than I do. Her mind works really well and she completely understands scriptures that I had no idea what they meant and after she explained what she learned it just blew my mind! She is a painter and writes some books and I can see her in the future after her baptism sometime painting a VERY neat picture for the church about a story in the Book of Mormon or something like that or even writing a book that helps explain the Book of Mormon. It would be awesome! Then Wednesday we met with 10 year old S who this whole time I thought was 9... Woops. But yeah she and her mom are getting really excited for the upcoming baptism and her older brother who is about 13 told his mom that he wants to have a part in the baptism! He isn’t a member but goes to church with them and hopefully at the baptism we can talk to him about also taking the lessons! Thursday and Friday were ehh days BUT just a couple really neat spiritual experiences I had. First off, we made a goal to get 4 referrals and contact them all. Well part way through the week I was thinking "how can we reach this goal? We ask people for referrals but they don’t usually have any" so it was really up members and such to get referrals and I wasn’t sure how to reach the goal. Wellll what do you know. That night we got a phone call from some other elders and said they had 2 referrals for us! haha it was really great!

So I’m going to skip up to Saturday which was an awesoommee day! We taught 5 lessons! 2 to investigators, 2 to less actives and 1 to a guy preparing to go to the temple! One of the investigators it was our first real lesson with him and it went really well! I liked it because he asked some really deep questions and you could really explain things to him and it made sense to him. He really taught me a bit too just about some things that he believed. But awesome story… that morning I prayed that throughout the day that I could use the BofM to answer questions that people ask us. Well while we were teaching D and he was asking all these questions. Every single time he asked a question I immediately had a scripture come to mind. It was really awesome and I know that it wasn’t just me that my prayer really was being answered. The other investigator was the other 10 year old and we made it a really quick lesson and such because she has a very short attention span. The less-actives we actually called up a member to go with us because it is his home teaching family and he came and we had some good talks about church and just things going on. Then we went to his other home teaching family who is also less active and I’m not sure what they talked about because I was having a good conversation with her 11 year old son who isn’t a member who the missionaries worked with awhile back. So that was fun! Yeah I wish every day was like that with lots of lessons to teach! We are working on it.

Also on Sunday was the ward primary program and it was super cute! There was one little girl who stood in the front to sing and she wouldn’t hold still and she was singing SUPER loud! We were laughing so hard! I love primary programs! Also J the lady we are teaching absolutely loved it and came over and told us how much she loved the way the kids were being raised. I really love this ward I love all the little kids. After sacrament they all walked past me and I gave them all high fives haha. It’s also nice because there are a few families that are younger and the husbands are RM's of not tooo long and so it’s funny talking with them. I’m still pretty frustrated because we cants seem to get the less actives/investigators to make it to church. I just don’t really know what to do… oh well hopefully next week! I love you all and miss you!!

Oh also I forgot to mention..... I've gained 8 pounds!! hahaha

Oct 10 2011 Email

Well this week has really flown by! Last Tuesday we met with the lady we have been working with that we asked if she wanted to be baptized but said she had a few problems with the church. Well we taught her about personal revelation and how you can go to God with any question and He will answer you. We had a really good conversation and we talked about some of the Scriptures she had read and she got to Enos 1:27 and she started to cry and said that she had cried when she read it the first time and just how much she felt the Spirit when she read it. Then she just said that she thought about baptism a lot and she really does want to be baptized but not too soon. So we set a date for November 12th! We currently have 5 baptismal dates although 2 of them can’t happen which I will talk about in a little bit.
Wednesday it rained alllll day and it was awesome! I absolutely loved it! We worked at the Bishop’s storehouse again and its fun because I know a lot of the people that work there now so we just have a good time. After that we had our regular Wednesday appointment with S the 9 year old and she is still progressing toward baptism and her family is a lot more comfortable with us now and I got to talk to the son that’s a sophomore for a little bit and he doesn’t seem so nervous around us anymore. That night we visited some less actives and one of them we happened across said that he wishes he had never left the church and just doesn’t really know how to get back into it because it would have just been easier to stick to the normal LDS lifestyle than to leave and try to come back. We asked if we could stop by once a week though and just "practice teaching" the lessons so that we can get better and he happily accepted and said that he thinks his non member wife would like to sit in too! So that should be pretty good.
Thursday went great though we went around and tried to meet less actives. One lady let us into her house and was really nice but just hasn’t been to church because it was forced on her as a kid and she just hasn’t wanted to go back. We just got to know her and she loves to do embroidery or however you spell it and I was like "my mom loves to do that too!" She kind of opened up a little after that and she was fine with us coming over and it was a good thing we went at the time that we did because she said that she goes to sleep at 6 because she works at 3 in the morning in Orange County so we just happened to catch her at dinner which was 4 haha But yeah hopefully we will be able to visit with her a few more times. We went up by our house then and were trying to meet some other people and I had to go to the bathroom sooo we looked up a member’s house and decided to just stop by and use the bathroom, share a scripture thought, and ask for a referral. Well we knocked on the door, the lady answered and we just asked if we could use the bathroom and she just said "uhmmm yeah I guess... I don’t usually let people but I know what it’s like to go door to door." So we just thought okay sweet we get to use the bathroom. So I went to the bathroom and then came back and my comp used the bathroom and so I just talked with her and asked her what she did door to door and she sold Bible books for children, which is pretty neat and we just talked for a bit and I realized... this lady isn’t LDS... we then thanked her and were leaving and told us she wanted to give us some books so we were like alright. After she walked away from the door I told my comp that I didn’t think she was LDS but he just said he didn’t know and sure enough she brought back two 7th Day books. haha wow it was definitely interesting. Later that night we were supposed to go on splits but our appointments canceled and so did one of our members. The member we were with just asked what we normally do at night when we have nothing to do we told him sometimes we walk the streets and contact people at bus stops and stuff and so he was just like "alright let’s go!!" He turned out to be awesome!! He was soo good at talking to people it was insane and it taught me a lot! He would just walk up to a bus stop with people at it and say "hey how are you all doing? Would any of you like a card about Jesus?" and a couple would raise their hand and we would go talk to them and share our message with them. It was super awesome! We got 10 contacts (share a message about the church and leave a commitment such as call this number or look at this website) in 30 minutes which we had never done before! As of then I have loved street contacting and can do what he was doing. Not quite as well yet but I let people know what we are about and the people I’ve talked to seem at least more interested than ones we have contacted in the past.
Friday we had mission tour!! Elder Packer came and talked to us and it was awesomee!!!!!!!!! But.... it wasn’t THE Elder Packer. It was Elder Packer of the 70. President Packer’s nephew I think. It was still really cool though. It went from 8 in the morning till 4:30. He talked a lot about ways to become a better missionary, and a big one he focused on was dress and grooming. I’m doing fine though so it wasn’t really anything new or shocking to me. He also talked about how the mission president is called of God and we need to realize that he gets direction for our specific mission. It was good because he didn’t really beat around the bush about his topics really he just went right in and nailed them. After that is when I met Elder C my "brother" and waited for our flu shots. Yep they gave us flu shots, which is awesome! Lots of people actually didn’t get them but I decided it was worth it over getting the flu. My "brother" Elder C is really awesome and we are a lot alike. He is only one transfer older than me so he will be here for pretty much the whole time I am. I say brother because here with the companionships it’s like a family thing I guess. So my trainer is my father, my follow-up trainer is my mother, since my trainer trained someone already the last person he trained is my brother. My trainer’s trainer is my grandpa. It’s all just really crazy haha.

After that we went to visit a member that we visit every week who is still struggling with things. We were sitting in the car before going and wondering what we should teach her that would really help her and Elder T gave an idea but it didn’t really feel right and then I got the idea that it would be good to talk about the atonement. He didn’t really seem like he wanted to but when we went up and just started teaching her she led it into the atonement perfectly by talking about her struggles. She’s had and then she said something along the lines of "I’m trying to do better and I’ve repented why is it still so hard and why do I have to always feel this kind of pain?" So I just started in with the Atonement and she really liked what we had to say! It was a really good lesson and she just takes things in so well! Later that night we did a little bit more street contacting. It wasn’t quite so good but I still enjoyed it and we got a few contacts.
Saturday was good because everywhere we went I felt like it was the right place for us to be. We finally contacted a guy we have been trying to get a hold of and turns out he is really cool we talked for a bit and then he asked "so with your church how do they want the world to be? What do they want for the world?" We thought about it for a minute then I just said "well our church is all about family and what we would really like is a world that would be like a giant family." It was definitely the right answer he was looking for. He opened up and totally agreed and apparently that’s really what he wants for the world too.   He hates all the garbage in the world and the way people disrespect others. He thinks that "we are all humans and we should all just love each other and get along." We get to go back next Saturday and talk to him a little more. Also Saturday morning we got to attend a wedding in the Bishops office! Those two people we have been teaching that want to be baptized but couldn’t because they weren’t married are now married! But sadly they haven’t been to church enough to be baptized... So we just have to work on that now. Not really anything else to exciting for Saturday or Sunday.. yeah it was a good week though and went by really fast. We got transfer calls this morning only 1 person is leaving from my district and our district leader is going to be training somebody so I won’t be the newest in the district anymore! nah I’ve had multiple people tell me that if they didn’t already know I was a greenie that they wouldn’t think I was. That is always a good thing to hear. But yep that’s all for this week! I love you sooo much!!

Oct 3 2011 Email

Well this is the last week of my first transfer! Because of the new training program we are 100% guaranteed to stay in our area and with our trainer for 2 transfers so I’ll be here in Colton for at least 1 more transfer.

This week really wasn’t the best as far as mission work goes. So I’m not going to do the day by day because not a whole lot happened. I did get to see and talk with Elder S last Monday for a while during our zone football game and a little after and that was really good. Our FHE appointment canceled when we got there so that was pretty disappointing. As the dad was telling us that he would have to reschedule his little girls started to cry because they wanted us to play games with them haha it was cute. Tuesday we did absolutely nothing. We had district meeting, a big meeting with President G to see how the new missionaries are doing, went to pep boys again to get our brakes fixed and that took almost 3 hours, went to dinner kinda late, and by the time dinner was done we had to be home. It was lame. Wednesday we had a couple of good lessons. We taught the older lady J and asked if she wanted to be baptized and she said that she’s getting there she just doesn’t agree with a couple things like how "we don’t accept gays" sooo we are going to have to help her see that there’s just some things we kind of frown upon. After her we went to see the 9 year old S who is getting baptized and we taught her the 10 commandments with hand symbols for all of them. They changed the date of the baptism to one day earlier! haha yay! After that we went and helped an older member move from Colton to Grand Terrace. Everything was going pretty well except one lady was wearing sandals and she went to push the garage door up but it was one that comes out first and then up and it caught her toenail and ripped it straight up in the air. It was realllly nasty. Thursday we got to meet with a referral we got that was supposedly golden. Turns out they are in the Bloomington ward boundaries though. We went and met with them anyways because we had an appointment and they were pretty neat but had a couple weird experiences. Such as there is a ghost living in their house but don’t worry it’s a nice ghost. haha We told them about conference and hopefully they got to watch it. We then went to go see the recent convert that has been struggling pretty bad and it turns out he got locked up for a night and it had kinda turned things around. He got into an adult school so he can finish off getting his credits to get his diploma and he asked if we could come see him again this next week. Hopefully everything is still going well. We had dinner after and then went to see T and her husband. T being the one that was baptized last month. And taught a little more about the restoration and cleared up anything that was unclear and went a little more in depth on it. She really enjoyed it and it’s really fun going over to see them because they are so neat! Friday was a great day! Elder T and his trainer got to go to the LA temple and see someone they baptized get married. So I went with Elder T from Salt Lake to some visits. He is in the Samoan Ward and it was super awesome! We met with these 3 guys who are all pretty close to being drafted into the NFL and met with a recent convert who was really awesome. He is also the zone leader so we had to go pick up supplies and take them around to each companionship which took up a lot of time. But it was a really fun day. After we switched back companions we ate dinner and then went to see a lady who’s been really nice to us and we are trying to work with. When we pulled up she was outside with all her neighbors sitting around and she was preeetttyyy tipsy from her wine. Everybody else was fine and she came and had us sit down with them. All the neighbors were really nice to us but one and she just pretended we weren’t there. Oh well though hah we had a good talk and then left and went home. Saturday and Sunday were devoted to conference ha. Saturday for both sessions we were at the stake center with a bunch of missionaries and then for Priesthood session Brother J gave us a ride along with two other young men in the ward and then after that he took us to dinner along with two other people from the ward and it was really fun. Sunday we watched the first session at the house we are staying at and the second with a really cool member. Conference was definitely amazing and I got a lot more out of it here on the mission. I loved Elder Holland’s talk in Priesthood Session it was sooo good! I also loved Tad R. Callister’s talk on Sunday morning about the Book of Mormon and also Elder Cook’s talk about tragedy on Sunday afternoon. It seemed like the general focus of this conference was service, missions and being worthy/sticking to our morals. It was really good and I got a lot of notes! Well that’s really about it for this last week! I love you so much and am so glad to have all the support!