Good News: I'm Saved!

Good news: I'm saved!

 

I got saved by an Anti-Mormon yesterday.  Well, ast least she tried to save me.  It's a lot scarier talking to an Anti-Mormon in real life compared to on the phone especially since you can't make faces at them in real life.  This one anti was disguised as a visitor too.  My companion and I went to talk to this girl and her husband.  We shmeh shmeh small talked some and asked if she was familiar with the Church.  She said something about innacuracies that the Book of Mormon had with the Bible.  I didn't quite catch what she said you I asked for clarification.  Bad move.  I didn't want her to specifically tell me why I'm the spawn of Satan, I just didn't understand right away what she was trying to say.  Then she started preachin'.  I'm guessing there's one specific Anti-Mormon website that they all get their information from because it's all the same.  She just whipped out like a million Bible references to prove that the Book of Mormon is satanic.  Shoot.  She did however, mention that mormons are the nicest people.  Weird, the two just don't make sense toegther.  And she just went on and on and we couldn't get two words in to even try to book it out of the conversation.  Obvi I wasn't going to Bible bash and prove her theories wrong but I just wanted to show her that I wasn't afraid of her.  I listened to what she had to say.  That may have been a mistake because I think she thought that she was getting through to me.  My super quiet companion finally got a word in and tried to read a verse from the Book of Mormon.  Obvi the anti wasn't listening.  Instead she whipped out a peice of paper and starting writing.  I knew she was writing a message to me.  So clearly the conversation was going nowhere on both ends so I say alright cool, well we'll leave you to look around the place but I don't want to leave the conversation without letting you know that I persoanlly know that the Book of Mormon is from God and brings me closer to Christ each time I read it.  Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God and Thomas Monson is the true prophet today.  I congratulated her on her knowledge of the Bible and her faith and said that I was thankful that she respected mormons as people (even though she was super rude and called us foolish).  So then she gave my companion an Anti-Mormon pamphlet [since mormons give out pamphlets as well] and then she handed me the peice of paper that she wrote one.  We walked away and I threw the paper directly in the trash without looking at it.  I wish she could have seen me throw it away for dramatic effect but I don't think she did.  I'm pretty sure I aged 5 years because of that conversation.  I mostly just wanted Jospeh to know that I got his back.  I like being on the offensive team by teaching people about the gospel but sometimes I guess I need to be a defender.  Also in our convo with the anti, she talked about the difference between Christians and mormons.  I interupted, "Mormons are Christian too."  She rolled her eyes.  Walk upstairs, grilfriend.  Who do you think that huge marble statue is of?  Now tell me I'm not a Christian.  Okay, the end.  I'm just baffled that poeple pretend to be Christlike and then try to kill the faith of others.  I wouldn't go visit the vatican and whip out my Book of Mormon to preach to everyone there about how foolish they are.  C'mon now.  Let's be nice people.  Anti's are going to be my new best friends on this misison, I can already tell. 

 

I answered an inbound call from a man named Doug from North Carolina on Monday.  He told me that he just wants a place to go to find out what mormons really believe.  Awesome.  then he told me that he had just met with two elders and that he was really unimpressed with them.  Shoot.  He was confused as to why they were called elders when they didn't seem to know very much.  He said he had no idea whether they were even going to come back and visit him.  I think Doug just really intimidated them with his questions.  He is a teen counsellor and has two Master's degrees.  Perfect, that's what I want to be so I feel like I can relate a bit.  He kept talking about how all the missionaries said was that you had to decide with your feelings if the Church is true or not.  Doug had big issues with this because as a counsellor, he knows that feelings lead to bad things.  Agreed.  However... Then the phone cut off and I was ticked.  I couldn't call him back for a few minutes and I was so antsy to try to explain what the elders were trying to teach him.  I finally got to call him back but the phone eventually got disconnected again.  Dangit!  I realize my competitive nature is still alive and well even as a missionary.  I was so glad when Doug answered the phone the next day.  We talked a lot about how he is searching for the truth.  He likes to talk a lot and make analogies to go with everything that he says.  He said that if he wanted to buy a car, he would find out all the information that he could about the car.  He would ask owners, previous owners, and critics.  The missionaries told him not to read anything aganist the Church but to read the Book of Mormon and trust his feelings.  True, but hard to believe.  So I explained about studying the scriptures and asking in faith.  He seems to think that I'm competant so I feel blessed that he wants to talk again.  He's definately my kind of investigator.  I know it's good to have question.  I can't wait to teach him further about the gospel.  I just came up with an analogy that hopefully explains how we shouldn't read the bad criticism bout the Church.  He thinks that finding a religion is like buying a car.  I'm going to tell him that instead, he should lease a car.  The only way to really know if you like the car and if it's right for you is if you drive it for a while.  People can tell him not to buy it or buy it but by leasing it, he can know for himself.  Sister Castañeda and I will teach him how to drive.  Deep, I know.  And hopefully at the end of the lease, he'll decide to buy!  Yeeeah.

 

I love my job.  The Church is true.  Last week, we talked to a semi long time investigator from good 'old Sault Ste Marie.  We had a really good conversation about what he knows and believes.  I love being straight up with people, I feel like I finally know what I'm doing on Temple Square.  I asked him if he has faith in Christ.  "Yes."  And how can you develop your faith further?  We talked for a while... so do you want to do all you can to follow Jesus Christ?  "Yes."  So, Pierino, will you be baptized into His Church?  "Yes!"  Man, it felt to good!  We told him to call up his local missionaries and make them visit him.  His reply, For you, anything."  ya... he also wants to find a wife at Church.  I feel like on Temple Square, we teach a lot of people that have fallen through the cracks.  It feels so good when you find them and they progress.

 

Well I best be off.  Thanks everyone for writing!  I hope that baby comes today!!!

Love, Sister Kyle

Pictures!

Morg/Sue... new baby yet???  I hear she's gunna be an 11 pounder.  Let me know when she comes!

Well I was lucky enough to see the Yamamotos on Sunday.  My district leader was worried that I might have weekly visitors since Gennie came last week but I reassured her that these ones drove down from Canada. 

 

My new favourite thing is stalking in the Beehive House.  Let's not lie, I'm good at what I do when it comes to creeping.  Since the sisters can't be alone with men, a companionship needs to follow the all male tour.  So we call it stalking.  You can't let the people on the tour know that you're following them so it's fun for me. 

 

I called a member referral this week.  I'm always scared to call because I don't want anyone to be annoyed at their friends for having the missionaries call them.  I called a 21 year old newlywed named Josh.  I secretly hoped that he wouldn't answer the phone but at the last minute I decided that it would be good for both of us if he was home and answered.  So of course he answered and I told him who I was and that his best friend wanted me to call him.  He told me that him and his wife already attend a Christian Church and I asked him why he thought his friend would want me to call.  (southern accent) "I dunno, ma'am.  I guess it's something special that he thinks is real important."  Awesome.  So he agreed to having the missionaries come and teach him.  He told me that his friend Andrew gave him a Book of Mormon before he went on his mission to Chile.  Even better.  So I called Andrew to tell him the good news and he was sooooo happy.  I could tell that he's been wanting to share what he knows with his best friend for such a long time and his friend took the first step to accepting.  Wooooot!  Andrew thanked me like a zillion times and I was so glad that I didn't chicken out by not calling his friend. 

 

I've learned a ton of Church history since being here.  My companion thinks that the pioneers enjoyed making things hard for themselves.  For example, coming accross the plains with their handcarts, making crafts out of human hair, and painting the benches and whatnot in the tabernacle and assembly hall to look like fancier wood and marble.  Yesterday, we made things hard for oursleves by talking to a really interesting couple.  We saw them on the square and decided to get to know them and teach them a few things.  This was the most textbook hippie/drifter,/h-core/granola couple I've ever seen.  Like Halloween costume hippie perfection.  I thought they were so interesting.  Turns out she used to be part of a very controlling evangelical Church that left her super scarred.  He seemed to like talking about spiritual things but didn't beleive in an organized religion that wasn't political or money driven.  He spoke the way he looked and just kept saying the word organic.  Awesome.   It's so interesting to try and get into the minds of someone so different.  We took them over to the Assembly Hall (that other building on Temple Square) and talked about Sunday meetings and the prophet.  My companion invited them to learn more from the missionaries in their area but they just laughed at us because there is no way of contacting them and they clearly didn't have a home.  My companion was explaining missionaries in general and how they could stop at an LDS Church if ever they see one.  Then the girl somewhat blew up at us.  She said she couldn't take it anymore and had to get out of the building.  Shoot.  We didn't even see it coming.  She had a smile on her face as she was storming out so I don't know if she just needed an excuse for us to stop talking to her or what.  Sister Castañeda and I discussed afterward what we could have done better but I don't know if we did anything wrong.  I think any kind of religion brought back bad memories for her.  We tried. 

 

I got to play a super lame game of basketball this week.  I went with Sister Jardine from Raymond to play basketball with a group of sisters one morning.  I was so antsy to get on the court but it was pretty brutal.  There were already elders playing before we got there so we used half of the court with a flat ball and way too many sisters (with not a huge amount of skill).  My team consisted of a bunch of Canadians and so we killed everyone.  Hopefully we can play again with a smaller amount of sisters and an inflated ball.  It's either that or stick with running small circles in the garage while the polynesian sisters dance.  The sisters who wish they were polynesian dance as well. 

 

I'm off to a meeting with all the first transfers.  Thanks for the love!  A bientot!

-Sister Kyle

SOME PICTURES!!!

Word to All of Your Mothers!

One of these weeks I'm going to run out of things to say/stories to tell.  Not this week.  And go...

 

Gennie came for a visit!  We had a grand 'ole time in the Beehive House.  The mvp investigator this week goes to Russell from Liverpool.  We talked to him on chat for a little while and he said that he'd been reading the Book of Mormon online.  I told him that we could send him a real book and he got excited.  We asked him if we could call him sometime to see how he's doing and he said he was free right then.  So we called him up and it was 1:00 in the morning his time.  We knew he was an old man because it took him 500 years to type so phone was better anyway.  Russell has the best accent of my life.  We found out that he had actually been baptized in the 70's but stopped going because everyone gave him a hard time about what he believed.  I asked him if he knew that the Book of Mormon was true.  He said, (read this in a liverpoolian accent) "I read it sometimes but I did not get the burnin' in me bosom."  So for the rest of the night I couldn't help but talk in his accent after we got off the phone.

 

I am a lot more aquainted with antimormon literature thanks to my new friend Paul.  Paul called in with questions and we did our best to answer.  He wanted us to send him a copy of the book of Abraham because he was sure that he could prove it wrong.  We had a long conversation with him about all the misconceptions that he had been reading.  He said we could call him back too so we talked to him the next day as well.  The only thing we really could do with him was testify of the things we know to be true.  And everytime we did, he would bring up something like, "But how can you think that book is true when it talks about horses in America?"  Alright Paul, get over it.  Some people are prepared to receive the message of the restored gospel, others are not.  Paul was below the non prepared level.  Now he knows that the missionaries are nice people at least. 

 

My companion and I had a cool experience with an investigator over the phone this week.  Delphin is from the Phillipines and started investigating the Church in December.  The first time he went to Church, him and his family all fell asleep since it was the day after their Jan 1st celebrations.  But the Church is still true because Delphin and his daughter committed to be baptized on Feb 25th.  My companion teaches him in Tagalog while I sit there and sometimes listen.  Everytime we call, we hear roosters in the background so they usually keep me entertained.  This past time my companion asked me to write my testimony so that she could translate it.  Then I read Delphin my testimony in Tagalog.  Apparently it made sense to him because he told us that's exactly what he needed to hear.  He knows the Church is true but has trouble doing what he's suppose to do all the time and I was able to testify about the blessings of keeping the commandments. 

 

I've been answering a lot of inbound calls lately.  One lady that I talked to calls in about once a day for cousel from the missionaries.  I didn't know that when she called in and she didn't even tell me who she was but she just went into detail about a situation in her life right now.  All I could do was tell her to pray and talk to her bishop.  She called in and talked to a sister in my district the next day so I guess my advice wasn't good enough.  We talked to another lady on chat who asked us if it was bad that she doesn't want to get sealed to her husband.  She had been a member of the Church her whole life and was kind of in and out of the Church but her husband just got baptized and wants to be sealed to her next year.  She told us how everyone in their ward thinks he's a saint and she's evil.  She also told us about their marital problems and how she can't trust him so that's why she doesn't want to be with him for eternity.  That is not my place as a missionary.  I just told her to talk to her husband and her bishop.  Yikes.

 

Yesterday I went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders here.  Let me just say that Italy rocked my world.  Man, I couldn't believe how great of a missionary she was.  Everything that I had a problem with, she knew how to fix.  I still don't feel comfortable with calling people who's friends referred them.  I usually just call, tell them who I am and set myself right up for failure.  She knows how to open up the conversation and really understand why they do or don't want to be taught by the missionaries.  I thought I was getting the hang of this whole missionary thing but this sister showed me that I can do so much better.  We talked to so many people jsut in one morning.  We took two youngish men on a tour around and they referred after the tour.  I've already sent the Florida missionaries their way.  I'm just trying to remember everything she taught me so that I can be more effective.  I get scared of people asking about poligamy back in the day but this sister was able to make it make sense to them... and me.

 

And funny story of the week goes like this:

This tiny lady comes into the Beehive house looking for her necie, Sister Imazeki.  We tell her that her neice is outbound right now serving in Nevada.  This was news to her and confused her.  And just for the record, this lady was wearing a hat and a big coat and I was blinded by my missionary goggles.  Anyhoo so we talk for a while and I find out she's from Sandy.  Minutes later, I realize that I'm an idiot and I'm talking to Sam's mom.  Duh!  I told her who I was and she wanted to know how Linda and Sam were doing.  "No babies yet?"  Nope, no babies.  And then She gave me the gift that she brought for her neice (those pirouline stick things that are tasty).  So thanks, Sam for your mother's kindness!

 

Until next time, happy week after Valentine's Day!

 

Love, Sister Katie

 

P.S

Happy Birthentines day Lurel!  

And JENNA!!!  I'm so sad that I missed you! 

Hola my amigos,

 

I'm a real life missionary now and I'm starting to like it.  Crazy, I know.  The first five days here were pretty hard for me to adjust to.  My companion is awesome.  Unlike my twin Sister Eliott, Sister Castañeda is kind of the opposite of me in many ways.  She's super sweet, shy, sensitive, and a little robatronic when it comes to inviting people to meet with the missionaries or have their friends meet with the missionaries.  We are learning how to use both of our strengths as we teach.  Her English is pretty good but she just repeats herself a ton and sometimes this causes visitors to get sleepy and often causes me to get sleepy as well.  My job is to liven up the conversations.  We were having a pretty tough time finding people to teach for the first few days that I got here.  We were frustrated especially in the Beehive House because we didn't get trained a whole lot/at all.  So we were praying real hard for something good to happen.  This brings us to Jackson.   Jack is our miracle for the week.   He came to Salt Lake from Orange County for some kind of dramatic arts competition that he got selected for.  He was really outgoing and open-minded so we were excited to give him a tour.  We showed him the tabernacle and then explained about the temple.  After we looked at all the things that had to do with the construction of the temple we stopped at a manican of Brigham Young.  I asked Jack if he had ever heard of Jospeh Smith before and he hadn't so BAM out came a lesson on the fly of the restoration of the gopsel.  I loved teaching him and he was really perceptive of what we had to say.  Then we went over to the north visitors' centre and talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ.  After sitting and talking for a bit at the Christus, Jack told us that he wishes his family had religion growing up.  He just kept saying that everything was so beautiful, the buildings and the concepts.  So Jack checked the box to learn more from the missionaries in California.  Yeeeeh!  We were so happy and we'll keep in touch with him as the other missionaries teach him. 

 

I decided that my favourite thing about temple square is giving tours.  We aslo got to take two middle-aged women around on a tour.  They loved all of the principles that we taught them.  We showed them a little presentation of God's plan for families and they loved everything.  It's obvious that they were touched by the Spirit but they told us that they didn't want the missionaries to teach them.  I still feel like we did our job well and hopefully they'll remember what they felt here.  We focused a lot on eternal families in the tour and one lady is single so she asked if there were any single women in the church.  Then I bascially bore testimony of Sheri Dew.  She enjoyed that. 

 

Testimony meeting with 130ish Sister missionaries is so interesting.  I don't have a chance of bearing my testimony unless I get up just after the bishopric member bears his since there's a sworm of sisters that go up to the stand right away.  Man, there were so many tears in that room of women.   

 

I overcame my fear of talking on the phone this week.  I called like a zillion people the other day and talked to basically no one so there are a bunch of nice phone messages from me, out there in the world.  We also answer calls from people with questions who call in from mormon.org or lds.org.  In my first inbound call, I talked to a nice lady from Cardston.  I reckognized her canadian accent right away.  She's pretty sure she served in the Temple with mom and dad.  Her name's Linda Redd p.s.  She called in with a question about emailing her friend a link.  So I helped her with that and we had a forever long conversation about life.  We talked about how her niece also moved in her last year of high school.  I told her I hated everything for two seconds when we moved but the rest was good.  I also told her that it was my first transfer then I heard all the other sisters in the room turn and glare at me.  Yikes.  We're not suppose to tell people exactly how long we've been out.  I figured this woman wasn't going to find me and kill my family.  I keep breaking rules here that I never knew existed.  For example, I went on google to find the time zone where my investigator lives.  Bad move.  I figured I was allowed on google because it wasn't blocked.  I'm not used to having rules and just being trusted to follow them.

 

My next inbound call was basically a suicide call.  She wasn't telling me that she was going to kill herself but she just felt like her life was of no importance and that she didn't want to live.  She was really shaky and started to cry while she spoke to me.  She told me she's in counseling and isn't a member of the Church.  She fell asleep listening to BYU radio and said that when she woke up, they were talking about someone named Nephi.  She had searched the Bible looking for someone she could relate to but hadn't found anyone so she thought she could relate to Nephi.  She wanted to know a specific chapter and verse in 2 Nephi and I was panicing looking through my scriptures so find what she was talking about.  I'm no scriptorian and I knew this was a really delicate situation.  I read her 2 Nephi 4:17ish which seemed to be what she was looking for and we breifly discussed the power of the Atonement.  I directed her to lds.org where she could read the Book of Mormon online and that's all she wanted from me.  I have her phone number saved so I think I'll check up on her soon.  My heart was pounding through that whole conversation because there was so much that she needed to hear right then.  She seemed a tad better after our conversation.  So now I'm still scared of phones. 

 

It's so interesting having a companion from the Phillipines.  It's obvious that life is so different there.  I feel like such a brat for getting braces like it was no big deal.  She's still super nervous to be my trainer here.  She said maybe Heavenly Father fell asleep when he assigned me to be trained by her.  Nahhhh, she's solid. 

 

I haven't gotten any letters since the mtc so I'm just going to assume that my family still loves me and that the mtc is no good at forwarding mail. Oui?

 

Alright, that's it for this week.  DearElder me!!!!!!

 

Love, Sister Kyle

I MADE IT!!!

Heyo,

I made it to the square!  My companion is sister Castaneda (with a squiggly over the n).  She's from Quezon city in the phillippines (I can smell Morgan's excitement), she's 5'6 and weighs about 90 pounds.  So my goal for the transfer is to help her gain weight since she told me that was her dream.  So Kyles, I know you know how to do this.  Tips?  My zone does tours in the beehive house.  I am learning to love the Beehive House.  It's hard for me to feel like a missionary there.  Right now I feel like it's just a bigger pavillion in the Japanese Garden and I'm giving tours.  Except I feel like I'n not allowed to joke around as much because I'm suppose to somehow con the visitors into feeling the Spirit and teach them about the gospel through Brigham Young's house.  I have yet to accomplish this task.  I was frustrated the first day there because the other sisters had us read a small script and expected us to give a tour right away without going on a tour ourselves.  Not happening.  So the next day we got 2 kind sisters to show us around.  I've been exploring around T square with my companion for the last two days to familiarize myself with everything.  We watched the Testaments yesterday and my companion woke me up when it was done.  Oops.  But I do love Temple Square.  I like all the short clips to make our religion easy to understand for visitors.

I died laughing the first morning that I was here because all I heard were sisters running in the halls.  There were hoards of sisters just running back and forth for exercise in our apartment hallway.  Then we went to the garage and it was even funnier because there were even more hoards of sisters running basically in a line back and forth.  After a couple laps you feel like you've run a mile because there's barely any space to run.  I'm not sure if I can run outside when it's this cold but that would be much preferred.  My 2 other roommates are from Mexico and Tahiti.  I was excited to speak French to the one from Tahiti but she's not allowed because she strictly has to speak English.  So evernyight she sneaks a "Bonne nuit" in my direction.  To be able to take groups on tours, I have to pass off my knowledge by taking my zone leaders on a tour.  I can try to pass off in French too so that is the goal.  I told my mission pres that I can speak french but I don't know the Gospel terms in french so I bought a french book of Mormon.  He told me to read it everyday so that's what I'm doing.  I also got a french Preach My Gospel yesterday from the sisters' "D.I" closet.  The D.I closet is also hilarious it opens a few times a week and you can take whatever you like from a pile of old clothes and junk that the sisters have given away.  I yanked a couple shirts but I think I'm going to give some of them back already.  

On Tuesday at the MTC was the mtc's 50th anniversary.  For months people were talking about how the first presidency was going to come.  We were sure of it.  So I dibsed a spot in the choir.  I got to sit in the middle just infront of the rows of men.  Prime spot for a camera hilight.  No one was certain who actually was going to come and speak to us so I started a rumour that Obama was coming.  We got a few simple minded people going and we told everyone to spread it.   Turns out Obama never showed and neither did the first presidency.  However, Elder Nelson came with Elder Holland as his junior companion.  So good.  I wish Elder Holland could have spoke longer though. 

We had a fun last night with my 3 roommates.  We all got super close so now when we see each other on the square it feels like they're family.  The other sisters on the square aren't as friendly as I would have guessed.  I'm trying hard to make friends with everyone but everyone seems so focussed on their own companionships.  When we came to the square on Saturday, we got to go around teaching people with a senior companion.  I loved it.  I really love talking to the visitors.  My fears of being at a museum died when I got to speak to the people.  In the behhive house, I'm revisited with my boredom of museums.  I genuinely don't care if the chairs are original or not and no, I don't know what the material on the couch is.  So now I need to learn how to make the tour more interesting for the guests and also myself.  There's a creepy bracelet on display made out of Brigham young's hair so that's kind of gross and non boring. 

My pday is on Wednesdays again so that's when I'll be emailing.  Sending me letters on dearelder.com costs as much a stamp now but DON'T GET DISOURAGED!  Right me anyway.  I'm worth the 40 cents, I promise!  And dearelder letters will still get here a lot faster than the normal mail.  Unless you're Gennie (we need to make a secret mailbox.  I'm little women, you're Laurie)

fyi my mailing address is :

50 N West Temple St.

SLC, Utah 84103

(I think)

I'll update you further on Wednesday.  Thanks for all your support. (Spencer/Micki, you rock)

Love, Sister Katie

These are some pictures that Katie sent in the mail. They've been scanned, so feel free to ignore the quality.

Sisters Elliott, Kyle, Beller, and Reynders 

aka B.E.R.K. We love each other

Look! I'm pretending to study with Sister Elliott.

Hi.

Me and My District!