I love Christmas but I hate Samoan cocoa.

It's almost Christmas!!! 

Who's excited to skype?!?!

I can skype for a solid 45 minutos with family on Christmas day and I asked if I could have multiple skype convos with my family since they are dispersed in different countries/continents.  I got a yes and I asked how many convos/how much time I can use and my answer was to "be a good missionary." Translation, skype all day!  I kid, I kid.  So I don't know how all you Kyles, Danners, Possins, and Yams want to do it; that mess if for you all to figure out.  What are your secret skype combinations?

 

We have a lot of fun things planned for this next week including carolling as a zone, Christmas Eve steak breakfast with the whole mission and our Samoan unit Christmas dinner.  What I'm most excited for though is the Polynesian dance fest this Friday!  We get to go to all the fun events because we need to support our new unit even though we can't participate in the dancing.

 

It's so much easier to do missionary work during the Christmas season because even though people are stressed, the Spirit of Christ is in the air.  We have been reading a lot of Luke 2 with families and discussing the importance and significance of the birth of Jesus Christ.  There is one less active family that we have been focusing on for a while and finally, after many days of being barked at by their angry dogs, we got to visit with the mom.  She invited us in and we sat on some folding chairs that she found for us because the only other furniture around were matresses in the living room.  The house was a refrigerator because the heat wasn't on since it makes them sick.  We froze as we taught this sad widow.  She said that for Christmas, she wants her and her children to come back to Church and remember their covenants so that they can all live again with her husband.  We've been helping one of her sons to get back on track and even though he's kind of intimidating and has lips tattooed on his neck, he is doing all the right things to get his life back in order.  This woman told us about how she thinks everything will come back together with her family when her other son gets out of prison.  She said that he really didn't do anything too wrong; he just beat up his girlfriend.  Yikes.  Later, I found out that he beat her up with a knife.  Double yikes.  So, the mom just lives with one of her daughters and stays in her bed all day because the house is so cold and she says her sin is watching so many movies instead of taking the time to read her scriptures.  Most of her children are alcoholics and so she stays in bed most days, feeling the pains of their mistakes.  We got to help her remember Jesus Christ and His atonement.  We promised her as she got her life back in order now, she would see improvements with her family.  We ended our lesson singing Silent Night/Po Filemu to try and bring Christmas to her sad house.  Teaching this lady was really an answer to prayer for me because finally I felt like I was fulfilling my purpose in my new area.  The Church is true. 

 

I love Christmas but I hate Samoan cocoa. 

I'll email again on Christmas Eve.  Happy Christmas!!!!

Love, Sister Elva

1) me and my companion with ginormi lemons that we picked off a tree from a ghetto area

2) Islander marshmellows.  We dropped in on a member home and found THESE PIGS A COOKIN!  Living the island dream. 

3) Drinking a coconut, island style

4) my zone at the Christmas crèshe

Poly 4 Life

My people!  

My world has gone topsy tervy.  I now serve in Redwood City with my new companion, Sister Alaalatoa from Western Samoa.  

Sister Alaalatoa is a Spanish speaking missionary but we serve in the Samoan unit (it's hasn't been made a branch yet).  So we teach people in Samoan, Spanish, and sometimes English.  We mostly cover Redwood City, San Jose and East Palo Alto.

I am just a lonely palangi (white girl) surrounded by very very large Samoans at every Church function.  Church service is mostly in Samoan but there's some English here and there.  The Samoan people are so generous and so humble and the music sung in Church is impeccable.  The people are so nice- even the speaker blessed me over the pulpit when I sneezed in Sacrament meeting.  The hardest thing for me so far is having Samoans feed me like a Samoan.  I've never eaten so many carbs and so much dead animal in my life.  I miss vegetables.  I seriously don't know what to do about how much food they give me.  Even when we don't have a dinner appointment, we drop in to people's homes and they shove food at my face.  After feeling some consequences of eating like a Samoan one night, I decided that I was just going to be that bratty white girl and not eat any desserts that were given to me.  The next day we went to the home of some less-active members.  We talked to one young man then sat down on the couch and then a very large ten year old boy came out of nowhere and set up two tables in front of us.  The next thing I knew, I was eating a Samoan portion of spaghetti.  As soon as our plates were empty and cleared, they gave us each a big bowl of ice cream, two cupcakes and some milk.  I didn't even know where the food was coming from!  I didn't have the heart to refuse the desserts so now I'm in a pickle.  Should I make up an allergy?  Maybe I'm vegetarian.  I'll be in this area for five more weeks; I don't know if my body can handle this poly diet.  It's easy to refuse food when it's offered but people keep giving without asking.  I never thought this would be a problem of mine.  

Since our Samoan unit is still pretty small, we teach a lot of Spanish people in the area.  I'm in love with all the little ninos.  I watched loonytoons with some little kids who couldn't understand me the other day while my companion got a haircut.  I can understand about 20% of the Spanish conversations/lessons.  I'm picking it up pretty quickly because my roommates are Spanish speaking too.  Actually, my whole district speaks Spanish except for me.  Even my apartment is covered in espanol.  There are sticky notes all over the house labeling things in Spanish.  I tell people that I like their curtains because I accidentally learned "la cortina" because I study by the window every morning.  

Redwood City is no place like home.  We live in a pretty non-residential area, across from an Old Navy and a lot of Spanish restaurants.  90% of the people we teach live in dark, cold, tiny apartments.  I always knew I was spoiled in my circumstances growing up but it's different to see it with my eyes.  Most of the Spanish people we see escaped from even more poverty in Mexico, Peru or Guatemala to live in their humble homes here.  My new favorite couple rents out a bedroom in a nice house.  They are not a young couple but they have everything they own in the bedroom where they live.  They wanted to feed us so the husband went out and got some In N Out for us to eat in their room.  They kept offering us more food that we refused and then they sent us home with a Little Caesar's pizza.

A few nights ago, we went out to eat with a very large Tongan woman.  She forced me to get sooooo much food.  As we tried to end our conversation with a spiritual thought for her, we were interrupted by a man who worked at the restaurant.  He came to make sure we enjoyed everything but my Mormon-dar is so good that I knew he was a member of the Church and that he wanted to talk to us.  He told us that his brother is a member of the Church but after a little bit of conversation we found out that he's been a less-active member for 15 years.  He talked to us about how evil the world is and how hard it is to be good but as long as you know God lives, that's enough.  False.  I was pretty bold with him but he could take it.  We committed him to read Alma Chapter 36 in the Book of Mormon.  He said he would.  So hopefully reading about the blessings that come from repentance will help to heal his wounded soul.  

I spend everyday trying not to ask myself why the heck I'm here, serving in a ghetto area with people who can't understand me and want to make me fat.  I'm pretty solid at always remembering my purpose as a missionary and I know that everything in the Church, especially missionary work is inspired.  So even though my brain thinks I belong elsewhere, I know I'm where I need to be.  

Who's excited to skype with me in 15 days???  I love Christmas and Christmas on the mission is going to be a party.

I Love everything and everyone.  

-Hermana Kyle

New addy for the next 5 weeks.  

1033 Jefferson Ave #5

Redwood City, CA 94061

US of A

Surfin USA

Well, emailing in library is lots of fun.  I can't help but make friends everywhere I go. 

 

I've lasted two weeks in the San Jose area and I've adjusted pretty well.  I think I had a bit of a missionary culture shock when I got here but I'm more used to how things work out here so life is great.  I still think this work is 1000 times easier than missionary work on Temple Square but who's complaining. 

 

I'm being transferred away from this young single adult ward but I don't know where I'm going yet.  I just know that they need me to be a driver somewhere else which is good because I fall asleep everytime I get in the car.  So, maybe not good.  Pray for me. I'm joking, Dad. 

 

We have a really big area since we are over basically all the ysa here.  We went to the gralic captial of... the United States?  Gilroy.  Then we went and taught a couple lessons in Hollister.  Yeah, THE Hollister.  Like the Surf company.  We mostly made fun of it because it is not the surfer way of life like you'd imagine.  It's more farmish and golf course-y from what I saw.  I could very well be transferred there tomorrow. 

 

I can't get over how many members we teach.  Some members are less active and some are active and even return missionaries but they all need help.  I'm almost exhausted at how many people don't read their scritprures and pray.  They know it's the best way to live life, yet they don't do it.  Some of them even spent two years of their lives teaching people how essential prayer is and they don't pray themselves.  I never want to be like that.  One of my favorite videos that I've seen here is called God's chisel.  It's a good one, so go to town --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhfUzodLRvk.

 

We have two investigators who we taught this week.  One is super presh and covers his face with his hand anytime he thinks hard or feels the Spirit.  He's almost 19 and he's taking his sweet time learning the gospel but we love teaching him.  Our other investigator is so comfortable with his life that he doesn't see the need for the gospel.  He says he doesn't have any questions, not just for us but he has no questions in his soul about who God is or what his purpose in life is.  I know he's lying.  He's really caught up in his school work and he's convinced that his 20s are for him to work his butt off so that he can start working in his 30s and that's when he'll be interested to join a Church and focus more on religion.  Stupid.  I asked him if he ever thought that faith could help him in his school work.  He didn't seem to care.  Lame. 

 

I keep telling myself that Temple Square is hoarding all my letters.  Someone please tell me I'm right. 

 

Use this address for now:

California San Jose Mission

3975 McLaughlin Ave, Suite A

San Jose, CA.  95121-2631USA

 

BYE!!!  I Love you all.  Especially the little ones. 

We got more bounce in California.

Yep, I found the way to San Jose!!!

Here's the best address to contact me now:

5725 Calmore Ave #1

San Jose, CA, 95123

I LOVE MAIL!

 

I'm so excited to be serving in Cali but life is verrrrry different from the square.  I feel like a just went from attending an all girls prep school to a public school.  I haven't experienced enough of the real life mission things yet to be able to judge fairly.  I woke up after my plane ride nap on Wednesday and met my new mission president, President Watkins.  He's very Wall Street so I got intimidated pretty fast but turns out he's not so scary after all.  Life on Temple Square is very very strict compared to life outside the square.  I'm learning that there is both both good and bad to that. 

 

I'm in a trio for the time being with two awesome sisters from Boutiful Utah and Alpine Utah, go figure.  We are over the YSA in the stake which is a dream come true for me.  I love everything about YSA especially the awkward tension between everyone.  This mission is used as kind of a pilot mission in the Church for other missions.  We don't ever go tracting door to door which is a bit of a let down for me but also a huge relief.  I guess no one wants unexpected mormons dropping in at their doors anymore.  Instead of tracting, we go street contacting.  So far we've gone street contacting twice and I feel like it's a big huge waste of time and I think my companions secretly agree.  We basically just walk down the busiest street we can find and give pass along cards to people.  I'm so used to contacting people on the square and having really good gospel conversations with them.  I guess I can't ask people what they think of the huge statue of Jesus standing in front of them anymore since it's not there.  And I understand that people are always in a hurry but I feel like I need to combine the two worlds so that the street contacting is brief but effective.  So far I've had one good conversation with a man who rejected my message but I felt like it was more worthwhile than asking people if I can quickly give them a card that they're going to throw away in two seconds.  We also do at least 5 acts of service each week in 10 hours.  Service is like a party for me because we rarely got to do service on Temple Square.  It should be fun. 

 

We had three back to back Thanksgiving meals on Thursday.  I paced myself pretty well.  The other missionaries kept telling me that I can't say no because I'm a missionary but I think it's dumb to have 3 groups of people thinking that they're my only Thanksgiving meal.  Either way, I Kyled up and enjoyed the ride.  

 

We had an amazing baptism on Saturday.  The sweetest 19 year olf girl has been wating months to get baptized.  She invited to many of her friends to come and she even spoke at her own baptism.  It's cool to be teaching people face to face in their own natural habitats.  The success of the missionaries definately comes from the members.  There are a lot of amazing YSA missionaries here who give us work to do. 

 

I keep internally freaking out when I see palm tress and citrus fruit on trees!  Citrus fruit on trees!  So far this place is beautiful.  I can't wait to visit the coast pretty soon at Santa Cruz or Monterray. 

 

I pray in every house I go to and in every meeting at Church because you can always count on the missionaries to pray and everyone wants to capitalize on the new one.  I love being back at a regular ward now.  I'm used to going to just sacarament meeting but now I get Sunday School and Relief Society again plus a thousand other meetings.  It's a bit strange though to feel like I'm living a normal life again yet I'm still a missionary. 

 

Temple Square is a very fast paced mission even on the slow days so now that I'm out, I feel like everyday is pday.  It's kind of nice to have breaks but it makes my heart hurt a little to know that I can be doing more.  I fall asleep easilly at night not because I worked so hard but because I'm full of turkey.  I'm excited to really get my hands dirty in missionary work here once I've got a good grasp on how the mission life works in San Jose. 

 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

-Sister Katie Kyle

I continue to sleep with a stuffed dog.

YAYYYYYY for another perfect child added to the fam!  I'm so excited to meet the new kitty.

This week Sister Savelio and I had a good chatting session one day with about 20 people who were trying to waste our time.  We got rid of them so fast.  One of them named Marty told us that he needs help because he thinks he's in love with his mom.  We can watch what the guests type before they enter it and he started typing about how there's a big man named Biff... but then he erased it.  I asked him if he had watched Back to the Future lately and he responded with some unknown words because they were *******ed.  So anyway, we briefly chatted with one man who seemed kind of obsessed with Mitt Romney and wanted to go to Church because of him.  We didn't get to know too much about this man but we told him where the closest Church was and what time they met.  We told him that we'd call him after Church on Sunday to see how it went.  So we called Rafiki (that's basically his name) and it turns out that he is the most prideful man in America.  He hated Church.  He didn't understand why there were kids running around and he didn't understand who was in charge.  He said there was no rhyme or reason to anything, there was a 14 year old talking at the pulpit, one woman cried during her whole speech so he couldn't understand anything, and no one connected with the audience.  He honestly went on for 30 minutes about how much he hated Church.  I have never known anyone to hate Church.  Right, sometimes people think it's boring but this man was ripping the worship service to threads.  I couldn't handle talking to him.  I tried but he cut me off so many times that I had to put the phone down for a little while to find my sanity.  If it was up to me, the conversation would have ended in 10 minutes.  I would have said, "Your loss" and ended it but my companion cared about him much more than I did.  She tried to teach him about Church but clearly he wasn't in any state to be taught.  He told us that he knew all about how this religion started out with one boy who thought up a religion and got a lot of followers.  Okay...  So, we scheduled an appointment with Rafiki to teach him the next day about how this Church really got started.  We did our best to get to know Rakifi on the phone the next day.  He told us that he doesn't associate with his family, he believes that life is a path that we just have to endure and in the end, we will choose what we want, and he believes that Moses wasn't a very good person with a bad temper.  We asked him what a "prophet" was and he said that a prophet is a poser.  Okay... He thinks that the people who voted for Obama voted for the destruction of America.  I think my favorite Rafaki line though is, "I think the average person is an idiot."  He told us about how he doesn't have a very good income but he spent 400 dollars on clothes to wear to the Church service that he hated.  He criticized everything we did and said and he always told us that we weren't giving him enough credit because he's such an intelligent 37 year old man.  After our lesson with him, I was a hundred years old.  However, he did commit to reading the intro to the BoM and 1st Nephi chapter 1 and praying about if what we shared with him is true.  We called him the next day and he told us that 1 Nephi chapter 1 was very boring.  He went off again about connecting with the audience.  Awesome.  So we read the intro to the BoM with him because he hadn't read it yet.  With the first sentence he said, "They spelled fullness wrong." I wanted to drop him right there but he kept telling us that he wanted to know the truth about our Church.  Then we had a- poke your eyeballs out conversation about faith with him.  He told us that you'd be an idiot if you didn't believe in Jesus Christ because there are so many evidences to prove that he was the most important man who ever walked the earth.  His definition of faith was that it is something that you believe in but you can't prove.  So we said alright so without all that proof, why do you believe in Jesus Christ?  There were moments throughout our conversation that his cocky mouth got shut because of something we taught.  Even though he was still being a big fat jerk, we recognized that he had become a softer big fat jerk with us.  We called him this morning and he essentially told us that he has decided to trust man instead of God.  We pleaded with him over the phone to find out the truth for himself instead of through inaccurate sources.  Even though he became a softer big fat jerk, he remains a big fat jerk.  I hate how much I love that man.  I did not want to teach him but I was able to poor my heart into teaching him.  I had a much easier time dropping him than my companion did but we did all we could with him and gave him back to the Lord for some severe preparing.  

Even though talking to Rafiki took years off my life, we were able to teach some amazing people.  We have an investigator named Endurance who i perfect.  Obvi he's African but he is studying in the Netherlands.  He asked the perfect questions at the perfect times and he even told us that we should start with a prayer when we first taught him.  We're also teaching a 13 year old girl from Utah.  She sounds like a really smart 7 year old on the phone.  Her best friend takes her to Church all the time so she has a really solid foundation already.  The square is slowing down and getting ready for Christmas but we have been able to take a lot of investigator lessons with Utah missionaries.  We love teaching those who progress and we love inviting people to go to the temple.  

We just started an amazing program on Temple Square with the producers of, "Savior of the World."  Savior of the World is basically a musical featuring the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The show starts today and lasts until just after Christmas.  We, Temple Square sisters, get vouchers for free tickets to give to Temple Square guests.  We don't give free tickets to greedy members but we find people, teach them and then invite them to learn something by watching the musical.  I am excited to start giving out vouchers and then we'll call the people to follow up on what they learned through the musical.  We got to watch the dress rehearsal last night to better understand what our guests will feel.  

Transfers are on Monday so I will likely part from my Samoan and I'll probably have a new pday too.  

I wish everyone well in holding the babies that I cannot hold while I continue to sleep with a stuffed dog.  

Love, SISTER KYOOOLE

I got permission to play full court basketball in the mornings for exercise!

Hi People,

What the- no baby Yam yet?

Well first things first- the most important thing that happened this week...
I got permission to play full court basketball in the mornings for exercise!  I know my life is ca razy!  The missionary handbook says that we can only play half court bball but then I thought to myself, hey, I'm not an elder and I don't play with competitive elders so we took it up to big man Gillette.  We told him that the sisters are getting chunky because it's too cold to exercise outside.  He agreed.  I'm kicking myself for not asking him sooner but life just got so much better.

In other news, the missionary work is fantastic.  On Saturday I got to go on exchanges with a fresh sister from the MTC who's headed to Independence, Missouri on her mission.  This was fun and made me reflect on how I was ten months ago.  Yeah, ten months ago; what the heck, time flies.  My Utah born and raised companion for the day was a mega stressball.  I probably enjoyed her pain too much.  Right away, I could tell that she was freaking out to be in the real mission field.  She told me about the goals that she had for our day together and what things she was struggling with in the mtc.  We got along well right away and she was almost mind-blown as we quickly planned for our day.  She continued to stress about particular things in missionary work and I basically told her less yak more action.  So we got on the square.  She was asking me if she was allowed to say hi to everyone and how we're going to know who to talk to.  I just told her to be a human.  We made friends with some nice old people and then we got a call for a tour with one man.  We met Nico, a nice young man who asked all the right questions.  He had grown up Christian but converted to Judaism a few years ago (I didn't know people converted to Judaism).  We had a grand ole time with Nico.  I could tell my companion was nervous at parts but she was brilliant at many parts throughout the tour too.  We evaluated our long tour after and she was thrilled to see how the different parts of missionary work fall together at a visitor center.  She also didn't realize that we could be our human-like selves as missionaries.  So that was great.  It's an important lesson to learn that as missionaries we don't know everything and we don't always know what to do or say but hey, we do our thing, follow the Spirit and enjoy the ride.  

Sunday was a crazy day for us.  In the morning we had a tour with 2 middle aged women and one man.  We quickly figured out that the women were mother and daughter, only 15 years apart.  We learned a little bit more about their Degrassi story and found out that the mom gave her baby up for adoption and they met for the first time this year.  The couple were members of the Church and the biological mom wasn't but had met with missionaries in her home a few times.  We took them to the model of the temple right away and I just kept thinking, "Okay, what scripture can I share for an estranged mom and her long lost daughter with her daughter's newlywed second husband?"  The tour went on even though these people kept boggling my simple brain.  We talked about how the Atonement of Christ can heal our pain as we pray and ask for help.  The husband in the group talked about how he was recently divorced and homeless just 5 years ago.  Eventually he trusted that the Lord would help him but he didn't understand why his life wasn't made better right away.  A year after that he met his current wife.  FYI the two have a blended family of ten kids.  Something that was confirmed to me in this tour is that we are not to just focus on the non-members on our tours.  We are here to teach everyone.  I know that everyone in that tour/lesson was taught something according to their needs and along the way we committed the ex-teen mom to baptism.  Coo.

Right after that tour, Sister Savelio and felt like we were on fire with the Spirit.  Our fire was quickly exterminated in our next tour.  We an older couple from Utah with their non-member friend who was visiting from the East Coast.  We got to know them all a little bit and told them what we'd do on our tour.  We got into teaching the restoration pretty quickly.  We hit the worst road block when I asked the member woman something about how she came to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and not just a crazy.  This 70 year old woman didn't know how to answer the question and just mentioned how she started going to Church at a really young age therefore she doesn't know the answer to my question.  Then this frustrating daughter of God turned to her Jewish friend and asked, "Is this the kind of tour you want? Or do you just want to know about the architecture? I feel like we're being pushy."  Her friend's response, "Well I have questions too like him (referring to Joseph Smith) and I'd like to learn a bit."  Then our favorite member woman told us that she thought we were just going to give them a regular tour.  My face dropped.  WHAT?  I didn't leave my life for a year and a half to be your temple square tour guide without pay.  Pushy?!  I'll show you pushy... I told her that in a nicer way but she completely through off our tour groove.  Members of the Church are either our best tools for missionary work or our worst tools.  We basically had the gospel on a plate for her friend to take and this woman took it away completely.  What the heck?  I should be used to bad member missionaries by now but I was still so shocked.  

We had a really interesting conversation on Sunday night with Dean from Alaska.  Dean was just passing through SLC but wanted to stop at temple square because he "knows a lot about our religion" and works with many members of the Church.  We showed him inside the cry room of the tabernacle.  We couldn't go into the main part because a flood of YSA were rushing in for the CES fireside.  Dean was a hilarious comedian who kept us entertained but he had it so wrong about the Church.  His argument was that there are few people who are deeply rooted in the teachings of the Church; most people just go along with it because life is easier that way.  We had a long, non-argumentative discussion about Mormon life.  He kept saying that he didn't want to tell us what we believe though he did keep telling us why we believe.  I corrected him so many times throughout the conversation.  He asked us the question, "Why should I become a Mormon?"  I told him that I had never gotten that question before and he couldn't believe it.  He thought our answer would be, "So that you can go to heaven."  Pshhh that didn't even cross my mind.  I thought a lot about why we do things.  We could follow the commandments (including baptism) to be obedient or because we want blessings but I think the real reason why I follow the commandments if because I love God.  I want what he wants for me.  Blessings are cool and eternal happiness sounds nice but that's not why I do this.  Dean then wanted us to teach him the plan of salvation and I said no.  I told him that it couldn't all be learned that night but we could call him to teach him.  He thought it would be weird to have two college age girls call him without his wife so he said no but we committed him to learn through his co-workers.  

Wow, that seems to be enough words for today.  I can't get enough of this work but I miss the fam.  

LOVE, SISTER KATIE KYLE

Seriously, it was child's play.

Happy Movember!

Halloween was so fun!  What costume do you wear when you want to dress up as something but still be a missionary?  Dress up as another missionary!  So, Sister Savelio and I dressed up as each other.  It was clever, I swear but I came to a sad realization of how white I am.  What can ya do?  We played the parts really well since we had been accidentally studying our characters for 9 weeks now.  We were hoping to see some precious costumes but the square was slow on Halloween.  Knowing this, our zone leaders developed a scavenger hunt for the 2 hours afternoon square-time.  The only rules were not to be dumb like you can't reject a tour if someone requests it just because you're looking for the next clue.  Sister Savelio and I hurried to our first clue but got stopped so quickly by a super friendly man with a lot of questions.  We spent time with him, taught him, invited him, then we ran to get back into the scavenger hunt game.  We caught up really quickly.  While we were searching for a clue, we talked to a nice member of the Church.  As we were talking about good things, my eyes caught sight of a tiny blue paper hiding behind a family history poster.  Genius.  We said bye to him and proceeded to destroy the other companionships in our scavenger hunt.  Seriously, it was child's play.  The other sisters were still hunting for clues after an hour that we had already finished.  So, that was nice of our zone leaders to make our lives fun.  The square closed at 5 on Halloween then all the sisters got together for some food and way too much candy.  I was so happy because we got to watch my favourite, Harry Potter the original one.  150 Sister missionaries is the easiest audience have ever seen watch a movie.  It was so much better than it usually is because we are so deprived of entertainment.  And of course, everyone related everything in the story to missionary work.  Even the troll in the movie represented one of our frequent visitors. 

I got to announce for French tours after MoTab's concert on Sunday.  The sisters in charge of announcing have changed things up so that it's not such a rote presentation.  They let us say whatever we want to invite our guests for a tour in whatever language we speak.  I was so close to singing a French Halloween song in the mic...  I shouldn't be trusted with a microphone.  They're lucky I just kept it to calling everyone "mes amis."

Sister Savelio and I open the Joseph Smith movie twice a week in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We talk to one man every week after the movie named freaking Brett.  He is a member of the Church and last week we tried to help him do some missionary work.  When we were talking to him this week, it was the first time in my mission that I pictured myself punching someone in the face while he spoke.  Alright that was harsh but oh so true.  He made me so frustrated.  When I had the urge to punch I thought, "What would Jesus do."  Of course Jesus would never punch someone in the face but he also wouldn't listen to this man complain about so many things in his life that he has control over.  It all comes down to his own faith.  He kept telling us that he has faith because he hit rock bottom many years ago and his faith is what got him out.  Awesome.  Except that was many years ago.  What are you doing for your faith now?  Did you go to Church on Sunday? He did not.  Did you bare some kind of testimony to your friend like you said you would last week? He did not.  Are you reading your scriptures? Why the heck not, they have life's answers inside them.  I almost couldn't believe how lost Brett was yet he has the gospel.  I don't know what I'm going to do when I see him next week.  I will pray hard that I can be a Christlike missionary when I see him' I just hope he follows through with his commitments.  Brett makes me appreciate teaching people over chat because at least there you can click the disconnect button.

Even though Brett angered my soul, we actually did find a lot of success this week.  We have a bunch of new investigators from member referrals and from chat.  I also got to talk to Virginia, an 80 year old convert to the Church as of 6 years.  We had a nice long conversation and by the end, she still called sacrament "communion."  I wanted to send her a General Conference talk but she doesn't have internet so I'm afraid I made a new pen pal.

I've got to run.  I love my life.
Thanks for the letters and the support!
Love, SISTER KYLE JR.

October 26

Happy Halloween week!

Hook me up with some tiny kiddling costume pictures please as well as Jon and Kate part 2?  I'm doing my best to come up with some missionary undercover Halloween costumes. 

We went to the Haunted Village 'round these neck of the woods for our zone activity last weekend.  Sister Galuvao, our zone leader had to warn all the sisters (mostly the international ones who had never been to a haunted house before) that we're extra sensitive to creepy scary things because we're so close to the Spirit and out of the world everyday so she reminded us that the people we'd see are actors so we shouldn't condemn them to hell.  It was pretty good advice.  I'll never look at some of the sisters the same after their freaking out to scary things.  I think we're going to watch some kind of mission allowed Halloween movie on Wednesday, we'll see.

We got to go to an 8 year old's baptism on Sunday at the Swahili Branch.  "Divine" was baptized and everything was perfect.  I need to go to Africa.  I love those people.  I especially loved the Lion King-ish hymn that Divine's mom and friends sang.  The best part was trying to make friends by giving out tictacs to the little people after the baptism.  Seriously, the Africans know how to throw a party baptism.  One of the men who spoke asked Divine if she wanted the President of the United States, the most important man in the world, to baptize her.  She said, "No!"  Why? "Because he doesn't have the priesthood like my dad!"  That was fun.

Our miracle this week came in the form of Jip from Thailand.  Sister Savelio and I were doing service for a couple hours at the Haunted Village on Monday and we hurried back to the square to find someone to teach.  It seemed like Temple Square was a ghostown but we hurried like we had an appointment.  We were lead up to the Christus statue where it seemed like Jason and his wife Jip, and Jason's mom and dad were all waiting for us.  We could see that Jason's mom was trying to explain the statue of Christ to her daughter-in-law.  She just looked at us and acting defeated, asked for our help to teach Jip about who Jesus Christ is.   It's interesting to teach someone who has a Buddhist background and knows nothing about Christianity.  So we started from square one.  We taught, shared some Bible and Book of Mormon verses, and had everyone in the group describe why Christ is so important. Jip's husband, Jason was a part of the conversation but clearly didn't have his own testimony about Jesus Christ.  We taught the two of them about eternal families.  Jip is so prepared to receive the message of the restored gospel and wants to learn through missionaries in Florida.  Jason is supportive so I'm sure he'll go back to Church with his wife this time.  The best feeling I think was to have Jason's mom thank us so genuinely because we know she loves her son so much and wants him to find happiness through the gospel again. 

Sister Savelio called a man named David on the phone because he was transferred to us by another sister.  I had her add me into the conversation but by the time I got on, it was too awkward to introduce myself so I just listened on mute.  David read the entire Book of Mormon in a week or so after his visit to Temple Square last year.  He says he believes it to be true.  He talked and talked about how the Mormon Church goes hand in hand with Christianity like the Book of Mormon goes hand in hand with the Bible.  What the heck? He doesn't know why so many people give us such a hard time.  Then Sister Savelio read him the last two paragraphs in the intro to the Book of Mormon about how everyone can read the book, ask God if it's true, and if they receive the answer that yes it's true that means Joseph Smith was a prophet and that this Church is true.  David listened and said yes, I agree with that completely.  That's beautiful.  What the heck?  No he doesn't!  You can't just agree with that and call it good.  I was so uneasy, listening to the whole conversation.  He said that he likes to learn but he still likes his cocktails at night.  He's never even been taught the word of wisdom, of course there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it if you don't know any better.  I couldn't believe how someone could read the entire Book of Mormon and not have a change of heart.  That's the problem though.  All he did was read it.  He decided it was true and that's it.  I really liked Elder Bednar's talk this conference about testimony and conversion: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/converted-unto-the-lord?lang=eng.  We're going to do our best to help David experience a change of heart by learning and experimenting on the words in the Book of Mormon but if he doesn't we will move on because there are more sheep to find. 

After dealing with so many people's problems all day everyday, I'm grateful to lead a simple life and to know what's important.  I'm happy helping people see how good and simple life can be through the good and simple gospel of Jesus Christ. 

My mission life is flying by too quickly.  In 3ish more weeks I'll find out if I'm staying on the square for Christmas or if I'll be booted out to Mississippi or worse, Wisconsin or worse case scenario, the Salt Lake City mission.  Knock on wood. 

LOVE, SISTER KATIE KYLE

Missionary Halloween costumes: They dressed and acted like each other all day. 

I never ever want to stop being a missionary.

Hello my people,

 

I never ever want to stop being a missionary.  I'm late to email today because I was trying to help save a marriage.  This man from St. George, UT came to the desk where me and my companion were and he told us that he's following Elder Nelson's counsel to "Ask the missionaries."  So he did.  He asked us, "How can I have a better relationship with my family, especially with my wife?"  He asked us if there was a video or something that he could see.  Perfect, so we showed him the God's plan for is Family presentation.  Before we watched it, he told us that he's having a really hard time in his marriage.  My brain kept thinking, "Who the heck am I to tell a man how to love his wife?" But I felt the weight and power of my calling as a missionary and knew that he did come to the right place.  What kind of man asks perfect strangers for marriage help?  A smart, humble man does.  So we had a very inspiring time with him.  There's nothing like talking to a bald, middle aged man with crying red eyes in the hallway of a vistor center.  He decided on some specific steps to take to help his family; we just helped him get there.  He told us about the repentance process that he was going through and that he had felt the healing power of the Atonement recently.  He thinks he tries too hard to fix his marriage that he's making it worse.  We reminded him that he's not alone in this.  The atonement heals all pain, not only pain felt from sin.  So now the test is to apply everything.  I'm sure we didn't say anything or read any scripture that he hadn't already heard or read but all three of us knew that his plea to the Lord for help was being answered. 

 

Right before our bald friend, we had a good 'ole tour with 3 nice people from Vancouver and 1 young man from Indianna.  The tour went really well and they seemed to take in a lot of what we said.  They had a lot of questions and we invited them to learn more, as always, through local missionaries or online.  All of them brushed our multiple invitations aside and thanked us for the tour.  We got asked to play the narration for the statue of Christ so then we had to quickly leave our group.  As we were standing there, listening to Christ, we knew we needed to hunt the young man down and re-invite him.  He thought he was safe and alone at the water fountain when we found him and told him that he NEEDS a copy of the Book of Mormon.  He was really shifty eyed and nervous looking throughout our tour but we leaned on him to teach in our lesson because he already has strong faith in Christ.  He goes to a Presbyterian Church so he knew a lot already but didn't know anything about the Book of Mormon.  We were very blunt and honest with him at the drinking fountain and told him why he needs this.  We're pretty convincing people but I know that the Spirit was present in our re-invitation to him.  So, we're sending him a Book of Mormon in the mail and we'll follow up with him in a week or so to see if his life has changed yet.  We felt so alive!

 

That was all just in a couple hours today.  The rest of the week was amazing too.  I got to clean the Salt Lake temple for a few hours this week.  They let us in to see the assembly room where usually only general authorities go.  It's a lot smaller than it seems in the model.  We had a typical French tour on Sunday.  When I asked one of the French women if she wanted to learn more about the gospel, she told me that she's not dillusional.  That was nice and respectful of her.  In that tour, they kept confusing our religion to Amish. 

 

Last night we tried to call as many referrals form Conference as we could.  I talked to two people who are interested to learn more.  One of the girls that said yes calls herself a pothead.  She has smoked pot every day for the last four years so I couldn't disagree with her.  She was almost too open with me on the phone but she does want to change her life around and I told her that the missionaries would love to help her with that.  You know, why not?

 

We have so many amazing investigators online this transfer.  One old lady just committed with us to be baptized and wants to bring her grandkids to Church with her.  She just needs to go to Church now and find the elders in her area to get her wet. 

 

Okay, time is money.

CTR

 

LOVE, SISTER KATIEEEEE

Conference weekend again, was a dream!

Bonjour mes amis,

 

Conference weekend again, was a dream!  Let me first start by FREAKING OUT about the new minimum ages for missionaries!  Sister Savelio and I got to listen to that first session in the conference center.  I almost couldn't pay attention to the rest of the talks after the prophet's because I was so excited for the new missionaries.  Sure, it makes me feel a little crusty but this means so many amazing things for the world!  After I found out that the age for girls to go on missions went from 21 to 19 and boys changed from 19 to 18, I started making a lot of calculations.  I have concluded that:

1. There will be a zillion more Sister missionaries in the world!
2. My companion will train a 19 year old, hahaha.
3. The youth really must be doing something right.
4. The world's coming to an end!  But really, the Lord is certainly hastening His work.
5. There will be a lot less baby weddings.
6. Now high school sweethearts can serve at the same time... good or bad, you decide.
7. Carson can serve a mission in 6 years... yikes.

This news quickly became my favourite pick up line at conference.  I went up to every young person and asked them if they're turning in their mission papers tomorrow.  So many of them said yes!  Serisouly, we talked to soooo many 19 and 20 year old girls who have been waiting fot this day to come.  So we loved giving them bits of advice for what to expect and how to prepare.

 

 I almost can't remember what else happened at conference.  I did my best to pay attention to the people I was talking to and not look for people I knew or look for Ensign-y cameras. 

 

We got a fresh batch of sisters on Temple Square which means many just went home or outbound to another mission for a bit.  Three sisters in my class went out and they were 3 of my very best friends here so that kind of stinketh.  I need to find new running partners in the morning.  Speaking of which... Sister Savelio and I are together for another 6 weeks.  We won't be serving at Welfare Square anymore but our new assignment is sports coordinators.  I knew it would come to me sooner or later.  It's not a heavy assignment at all, we're just in charge of organing early morning sports if we want to play some.  We'll be playing basketball pretty soon but I need to find a rugby ball so we can attempt some non-contact indoor rugby.  With sister missionaries.  Hmmmm.  We'll see if that happens. 

 

Since a lot of my homies went outbound, they transfered me a heck of a lot of their investigators.  It's actually perfect because we have a lot of online teaching time in my new zone.  So, we are excited to baptize the world this transfer!  Also, 3 of the best french speakers went outbound so they left 4 non native French speakers to run the carré (square).  The sisters also transfered me some French speakers to teach online which freaks me out because it's just so hard for me to speak french with people over the phone.  I already called a man from the Ivory Coast today.  The connaction was bad and my brain was bad becasue the only word I understood him say was "âllo?."  So it's safe to say Imma be contacting this many through email from now on.  Also a set of sisters already tried to schedule me a 40 people French motor coach but luckily it was on my pday.    I just need to endure 6 weeks before Sister Labbé from Québec comes back to Temple Square to save my French life. 

 

We have a new investigator over the phone named Linda.  She googled finding hope and landed on a number to call Church headquarters, where I answered.  The conversation was so intense.  Sometimes I wasn't sure if I was being a missionary of a social worker.  Probably both.  Crying, she told me about her specific struggles in life and we read a few scriptures and discussed the Atonement.  I told her that God is stretching her but she cried out loudly saying, "It's too much!"  Then I told her a story about one of the Hancart Pionners who came to Salt Lake.  He described his pain, walking for thousands of miles.  He would pick out a bush or somehitng on the side of the road and said that I soon as he got there, he would give up.  When he eventually did get to that bush he said that the cart started pushing him.  He looked back many times to see who was pushing his cart but he saw no one.  I did my best to apply this to Linda and set an apointment to call her after Conference.  When we called her back, she was so happy.  She said that our phone appointment was her "next bush" that she was trying to get to all weekend.  I honeslty had no idea what she was talking about when she said bush because my mind was so full of conference-ness but then I realized what she meant.  She told me that just the sound of my voice gives her hope to go on to the next bush.  I'm still super humbled by that.  Hopefully now she has already met with local missionaries; we'll find out soon.  The hardest thing in this for me is making sure that I am a missionary and not her social worker. 

 

I could keep going and going but time's up and I gotsta run.  I was so happy to hear about huge baby Henry! 

 

-LOVE SISTER KYLE

"Are you laughing at me because I'm going to hell?"

Hurrah for new Possin baby!!!! 

 

Sister Savelio and I could not be more excited for conference!  We are getting some new missionary pick up lines.  I'm taking ideas from the kiddlings that call in and try to mess with us.  One troller called in and told me that he's a representative of the Church of Joseph Smith.  I couldn't help but laugh through the whole conversation and I didn't feel like I had to hide my laughter because he sounded my age.  His response, "Are you laughing at me because I'm going to hell?"  So I laughed harder.  I was hoping I could get some more Obama jokes or some new material from him that I could use but he hung up abrubtly.  So I called him back but the second conversation didn't last very long.

 

We had an exciting tour with an older couple from Utah who, let's just say may or may not have experimented with many heavy drugs in their lifetime.  They came to the square with the woman's sister from Michigan.  They were super weird at first but then we just decided to love them instead of trying to control them.  they just ate everything up that we taught them and they added some awesome stories about how we are the ship in life and God is the captain.  The best part though is when we went up the the statue of Christ the sister who was visiting was in awe about how beautiful the mural of the galaxy was with the statue of Christ.  On the way up, she told us she's was going to go kneel at Christ's feet and prayer.  I was excited to see if she was all talk or not.  She got up right close to the statue and stuck one hand in the air as she prayed.  She was there for a solid 3 minutes by herself and as she walked back to us she just yelled a "Halleluja!"  So, you could say Sister Savelio and I enjoyed ourselves on the tour.  I feel like we helped them come closer to Christ. 

 

We have an amazing new investigator over the phone named Evangeline who lives in Alaska.  She is the cousin of one of the sister's here and we are so excited to see her progress.  Furealz, I love my job.  We taught her the restoration but kind of backwards as we applied to her.  Seriously, I love my job. 

 

At Welfare square this week, we had a lot of member families come which we always enjoy.  But my favourite WS tour was with Mark from New York.  We quickly learned that Mark is a journalist who temporarilly moved to Salt Lake because of the presidential campaign.  He figured that everyone else in the media is either in D.C or New York so he came here.  I was so excited for the challenge of touring a journalist.  He was really cool and open with us right from the beginning but I wasn't fooled because I've seen too many movies where the journalist tries to be your friend so that you'll trust him with the real dish.  It's a shame the Church has not dirty secrets, nor do I.  We ended up having a really awesome tour with him.  I was so sweaty by the end because he asked so many questions and I didn't want to say anything wrong (TMI?).  I think he was pleasantly surprised to see the realness in us and we even made it a spiritual eperience for him.   He came to the right place to learn about the Church.  Then he drove off in his really nice car. I decided that if he studies enough about the Church then there's no way that he won't find it to be true.  We'll let him take his time.

 

Oh yeah... on the way home from our early run one morning, L. Tom Perry was walking along and stopped to ask a couple of us what we were doing up so early.  Then he said, "I'm going to tell you a secret.  It's a lot easier to run down the hill than it is to run up."  What a wise man.  He seriously just looked like a heavenly being as he walked down the sidewalk all by himself, dressed up nice when it was still dark in the morning.  The Church is true. 

 

See you all next weekend!  Riiiight?

Happy conference,

LOVE, SISTER KATHLEEN KYLE

Gettin' Jimmered.

The rumors are true!  We got Jimmered this week at Deseret Book Store.  I asked Jimmer if he had any friends who need the gospel in their lives.  He laughed and said he had tons.  He proceeded to give me no names.  Ruuude.  Then it started to get awkward so I just told him to write his name on the referral card.  Sister Nixon then thanked him for entertaining our lives sine we live on a square.  Crickets followed. 

 

Also this week, we got a sit down lesson about the tabernacle organ with Richard Elliott, the main MoTab organ man.  He told us all the ins and outs behind the tabernacle organ.  My favourite story that he told was when Helen Keller came to the tabernacle about 80 years ago and asked for them to play, "That song about faith that your members wrote." So, the organist at the time played, "Come Come Ye Saints" while Helen Keller put her hands on the organ to feel the music.  Then Brother Elliott played Come Come Ye Saints for us using only the pipes from the original organ from the time of the pioneers.  It was almost as good as seeing Jimmer.  The next day, a few of us sisters got a tour inside the conference center organ.  We got to see some of the thousands of pipes and see some of the secret passage ways that the general conference speakers use.  We then got the same kind of pipe tour in the tabernacle organ.  I'll send some organ pictures next week. 

 

Yesterday we had an amazing tour with 4 awesome women who work as paralegals in the U.S Army.  My favourite, Belinda was just so soulful and full of faith that she ate up everything we taught.  At the temple model, we taught her about baptisms for people who never got the chance to be baptized in this life and she loved it.  Be bypassed their questions about poligamy like champs so that we could teach what they needed.  Whe ended our tour at the statue of Christ and found out that one of the women is basically Church shopping.  Cha-ching.  Sooo, we be sending her the Book of Mormon with some missionaries where she lives in California and same goes for Belinda. 

 

Also yesterday, we took a tour with 4 members of the Church.  One man was from Toronto area and the other man was his missionary who served in Toronto and baptized him 30 years ago.  It was pretty clear that the Torontonian couple had been in and out of the Church since their conversion so it was cool to see them inspired by the pioneers and the history of Salt Lake.  Since we are missionaries and not tour guides, we knew we had to commit the members in our group to do simething to bring them closer to Christ.  Sister Savelio and I secretly discussed what we thought we should commit them to do and decided to give them referral cards so that they could do misisonary work with their friends.  Usually if I can tell that someone is less-active in the Church I think of something more focused on themselves that they can do like reading the scriptures everyday, having family prayer or going to Church but we knew that this group would benefit the most by doing missioary work.  The couple from Utah gave us a name of a less-active member to uplift and invite while the couple from Toronto almost couldn't stop with the list of people that need the gospel in their lives with the knowledge of eternal families.  Seriously, the more names she wrote, the more people came into her mind.  And I know that there's so much work to do in Ontario so that made my heart feel nice... especially seeing the "613" area code. 

 

We looove making friends at Welfare Square.  It's super humbling.  My new service missionary friend, Elder Briskey entertains us with his humour and constant lies. 

 

We're now reading the Book of Mormon as a mission because it's that good.  Six pages a day will get us to finish before the end of the year.  Anyone want to join?  Welp, I await some baby Possin pictures this week.  Number six shouldn't be so rough, right?  Thank you and goodnight.

 

LOVE, SISTER KYLE