The downfall is that I've become inactive from Church

YoYoYo

Today's stories feature a couple follow ups. 

Exhibit A: Keith and his precious family.

Two weeks ago I wrote about a perfect family that we met at the temple model.  We got their address in Virginia and sent the missionaries there right away.  The Church is still true in Virginia because the family has been contacted.  They met with them twice and even invited the fam to play football.  Yeah!  We talked to Keith (the Dad) over the phone yesterday and made sure that the local missionaries are doing their job then we committed him to have family prayer.  They're moving to Utah in two weeks which is a bit of a bummer because I wish they could be a strong family for the ward in Virginia but it's all good. 

Exhibit B: Alexander a.k.a Bulgarian who had a visit from the missionaries while we were on the phone with him.

We finally got a hold of him after a week.  We tried to teach him more but he wasn't feelin' it.  We asked him his beliefs about God but he told us that he didn't really want to be taught.  He just wanted to talk about other things with us.  Wha?  We asked him what other things we would talk about and he said Canada.  Boooo.  We are not here to talk about Canada.  Then he asked us if we ever get breaks in the day and if we ever go to the mall across the street.  This brought us to feel kind of creeped out so we had to end the conversation.  He told us that he may show up on temple square again.  So we decided that we shouldn't call him again at least for a little while since he's not interested to learn about the gospel plus he's creeping us out.  THEN on Monday we went to the Harmon's grocery store during lunch.  We were just walking along, doing our own thing and all  I hear is, "Kyle!"  We look and see Alexander standing behind the deli counter.  I'm pretty sure he thinks my legitimate name is Kyle.  We didn't know what to do when we saw him and it took a few seconds to register who he was; luckily he had a name tag on.  It was even weirder because that morning in our district meeting we were talking about how we were sad that we had to stop teaching Alexander because he didn't want to learn.  So one awkward conversation later, we were in a really weird state and went to find our food.  I guess we can't completely drop him now since we'll see him every so often.  So we'll just tell all the sisters to say hi to Alexander at the deli counter when they go to Harmon's.  Basically, he can't get rid of us and there's no way out.  I'll let you know when he gets baptized though we're still not going to teach him because of the creep factor.

West Gate is super busy but it's still a dream.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have the same assignment for next transfer.  The downfall is that I've become inactive from Church.  yes.  As a missionary.  We usually take the sacrament at 7:30 on Sundays then ditch out of Church to serve the Mandarin motor coaches.  Shoot.  Some days are very mentally draining and I'm perma-tired but that's not compeletly new for me.  I'll be a no-nap zombie for another year but it's worth it. 

While we talk to so many non-members of the Church everyday, obviously a lot of members come so we get to teach them too.  On Sunday, we found a young guy and his wife.  We stopped to talk to him only because he was wearing a canadian shirt.  I think it was inspired that he wore that shirt that day.  The two seemed uncomfortable to talk to us but we're missionaries so we kept talking through the uncomfort.  We showed them the temple model and it was obvious that they hadn't gotten married in the temple.  I knew right then that we had to take them to watch the presentation of God's plan for families.  We walked over to the North VC and waited in line for roughly a billion years.  We had planned to go home for dinner at that point but we knew we had to teach this member couple.  Another member family jumped in and watched the presentation with us.  At the end, we committed both families to have family prayer every night for the whole week.  The second family didn't hesitate to say yes.  The young newlyweds just looked at eachother.  The husband seemed to be on board and finally the wife gave in and said yes.  We could tell that the couple hadn't been to Church in a while so it felt soooo good to help them get back on track. 

The Church is true.  The End.

LOVE, SISTER KYLE

Party in the USA

Hey kids.

 

Two Fridays ago we met Alexander from Bulgaria.  Alexander is a young, not unattractive man who Sister Jardine may or may not want to marry someday.  We found him at the flag pole just outside the temple gates.  He was just sitting there by himself so we introduced ourselves and had a solid conversation with him.  He seemed friendly but not really interested in most of the things that we had to say.  We invited him to meet with local missionaries but he declined so we asked if we could call him to teach him over the phone.  He asked us if we were asking him out on a date.  Whatever works, right? He gave us his phone number so we were excited for another chance to teach him.  We called him at the time that we set up to talk to him but he didn't answer.  We called another time during the week but he didn't answer.  Finally he answered on Friday.  We wanted to find out if he sincerely wanted to be taught by us and we testified to him that the things that we can teach him will change his life for the better.  No matter what struggles that he has in his life, the gospel that we can teach him will help him specifically.  He wasn't really feelin' it since he said he already has a Church but he's not really active it that one.  We told him that we felt like we needed to teach him because he is so special.  "You think I'm special?"  We had to specify that he's not short bus special but the 'God wants you to hear this now' special.  Finally Sister Jardine just straight up said, "Hey, what do you have to lose?" That seemed to take so then we taught him the restoration.  As we were finishing the lesson, he put us on hold because someone was at the door.  We could hear peices of a muffled conversation in the background then he told us that the mormons were at his door.  He put us on speaker phone and we yelled hi to the elders that had just showed up at his door.  He read their names and said that one has a broken hand and asked if that rang a bell.  Nope, we don't know the elders in any of the Salt Lake missions and we don't even know Alexander's address to send them there.  So basically Sister Jardine and I were freaking out because WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?  Seriously, he's been living in Utah for 10 years now, that Friday was his first visit to temple square and this is the first time that missionaries have ever shown up on his doorstep.  He finally answers his phone and that's the time when the elders show up?  Yep.  Special.  We told Alexander to let the elders inside but he said that he sent them away.  Noooooo.  whyyyyyyyy?  He told them that they could come back later because he was already talking to the mormons.  So then we were freaking out over the phone with super mellow Alexander and we tried to tell him that God wanted us to call him and that God sent him the elders at his door.  C'mon, it's obvious!  Then we committed him to pray.  After an exhausting conversation about prayer, we asked when we could call him back so he told us to pray to find out when would be the best time.  Touché.  But God also gave us brains to plan things.  Apparently that wasn't good enough.  So we prayed a whole lot to know when to call him but our Sunday was super busy.  We called him at three different times but he didn't answer.  Laaaaaame.  We'll continue to call.  There were a lot of elders on the square on Sunday so we had the genius idea of trying to figure out which elders went to Alexander's door.  We couldn't remember their names but knew that one had a broken hand.  Within minutes, I outdid myslef again with my creeping skills.  We had a message sent to Elder Willis and Elder Jackson  (with a broken hand) to go back to Alexander's house and give him a Book of Mormon.  Yes.  We have so much hope for this Alexander even if he doesn't have any hope for himself. 

 

Sister Jardine and I got to be the helpers of another big motor coach.  These ones were mostly from New Jersey.  None of them wanted to learn more but it went a lot better than our angry Brit group.  There was one frenchman at the end who told me that I belong to a fantastic religion. And he means that. Presh.  I also had an neat conversation with one lady about how ghetto Camden is.  (hi Kenny)

 

Here's a follow-up story:

Remember James, the angry guy who called in and exhausted me with questions about the Godhead?  No?  Anyway, after that conversation, I found out that he's been calling in for years so his multiple numbers have been blocked.  He seems sincere so Sisters always try to teach him but get nowhere.  Yesterday at west gate I got a call from a laday at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  She had an investigator on the line with questions so she wanted to transfer him to me.  Done.  We started talking and within 5 seconds, I knew it was James but this time he had a different story that lead up to his same question about the Godhead.  So I said "James, I had this exact conversation with you months ago and you could not be helped.  I know that you call in all the time.  Nothing's changed.  I would love to help you but you don't accept any help."  Caught red-handed.  He hung up pretty quickly after that.  Since all of his numbers are blocked on our system, he needs to go through the JSMB to talk to us?  I don't understand!  But I feel sorry for his life. 

 

Party in the USA.  Love you all!

-Sister Katie Kyle

eeghlhgggbuodrbhgjklhzdf! (that's the sound of me being scared)

Holla my friends.

 

Missions are such great things.  Some days are incredible, some days are less than incredible.  It felt like we had a few lamesauce days in a row but then Monday came and boom goes the dynamite.  The day started off well because as a mission, we got to listen to an mtc talk by Elder Holland which got us nice and fired up.  He stressed the importance of personal study and companionship study because we need to know how to teach to everyone's needs and we can't if we don't know how the gospel can relate to them. 

 

As West Gaters, our teaching time on the square is quite limited so we really need to make the most of it.  This is where Monday comes into play.  We got to talk to an amazing older couple from England who were excited to learn about our beliefs.  Right after that, we went to the small model of the Temple in the south visitor centre and found 4 kids and their dad.  I noticed their layered shirts and bermuda shorts so I assumed that they were members of the Church.  So we started teaching them about the temple as if they were members.  All five of them were so in love with the beauty of the temple.  We found out that they are moving to SLC next month from a small town in Virginia and they know very little about the Church.  They were perfect.  We taught them about eternal families and then asked the dad if he would like to learn more.  He said yes.  We panicked.  Usually when people say yes to learning more, it's beacause I asked them 5 times already and they want to get rid of me.  We didn't know what to do right away since the family is moving but we decided to send the Virginia missionaries to them right away.  I also told them that we could have missionaries help them move because I know that's what elders are good for.  We are SO EXCITED for them to be taught.  Hopefully the missionaries in Virginia will contact them once they get back to Virginia, otherwise we will teach them over the phone.  My only worry is if the mom isn't as open as the rest of her family.  So for now, we pray hard for that special family.  And then in the last hour of our square time that day, we took a french tour.  eeghlhgggbuodrbhgjklhzdf! (that's the sound of me being scared)  It went alright.  I do believe I had some heavenly help with that one.  The couple from Belgium was super nice and super non-religious.  I was able to teach them everything I wanted to so that was a miracle, itself.  We ended at the statue of Christ and Sister Jardine bore her testimony of Christ that through him everything is possible.  The frenchies didn't seem to understand so I clarified that oui, tout est possible avec Jésus Christ.  They looked at me weird but hopefully it got them thinking.  Then they told us how nice we were and shook our hands.  The man didn't have a complete right hand so we basically held hands (my right, his left) to end our friendship.  Weird... I wasn't smart enough to use my left hand. 

 

And finally, IT'S MOTOR COACH SEASON.  Translation: bus loads of foreign people come to temple square for missionary-guided tours.  We have zillions of people come from China everyday so our mandarin/cantonese sisters are the MVPs of the mission.  We give all these groups complimentary copies of the Book of Mormon since they can't get them in mainland China.  It's amazing to see how the Lord reaches out to His children even when it seems impossible. 

 

Sister Jardine and I got to take a busload of 45 on a tour.  Since it was a large group, we had two other sisters help manage things while we brought them around.  I was so ready to feel like Dan Jones, one of the best missionaries of all time.  I was ready to stand in front of that large group, lift up my Book of Mormon and testify.  Our tour was a little less picture perfect.  Everyone on our bus was from the U.K. and were not very receptive.  Of anything really.  It started out fine but we quickly learned that it was going to be a tough crowd.  We taught the restoration in the tabernacle and most people were surprised to know that we read the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon.  We ended our tour at the Christus statue and that's where my head started pounding.  We testified of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon.  One man asked if ours was a universal religion, meaning: is it for everyone? Yes!  I got so excited and took the chance that he gave me to invite everyone again to read the Book of Mormon and pray to find the truth.  Then he specifically asked why all of the New/Old Testament paintings only show white people.  Ughhgh... It would be a crowd of white europeans to ask that question.  I would have told them, pshh.. I don't know.. ask the artists.  But we were saved by Sister King one of our helper Sisters who studied art in college.  She told them that most of the art of Christ comes from European countries and that was their own view of Christ's time.  Also, why would they have people of different races when all of these people originated from the same place?  Sweet.  Then I had a sweet couple ask me about the death penalty.  What the, where did that come from?  She told me that they use the death penalty in Utah.  So I told her that I was canadian and amercians are terrible people.  Just kidding.  I love Americans but I can't control their laws.  I'll leave that to Mitt.  We then gave them all referral cards but they did not like that.  We were surprised that they were so against even holding the cards in their hands.  In the end, they all thanked us for a job well done and congratulated us on our kind service.  I felt like we did our best but came out of it feeling defeated.  It was 33 degrees that day and my head was buring from the pressure of the group.  I'll still take every chance I get to testify to a big group.

 

Now my goal is to learn mandarin so that I can experience nice people in a big group. 

 

The Church is true. 

I love you all!  Write me more because I'm greedy.  I'm going typewriter shopping today so that I can respond faster to letters.  You're welcome. 

 

-SISTER KATIE KYLE

 

Also, I'm sad I missed out on Josh's phatty boom bladdy birthday party.  Bye!

Machetes! and NEW PICTURES!!!!!!

Welp, we just got fed for the week at Tucano's so I've lost the will to move.  Anyhoo, life is just grand in the box on Temple Square.  Sister Jardine and I have been a bit on the brutal side when it comes to talking to and teaching people on the square when we're allowed to leave the box.  We try to talk to so many people but most start walking away from us while we're talking to them.  So, we're working on our pick up lines.  Feel free to send me ideas if you have any about starting conversations with people who look angry/judgy.  

We had a nice young fellow fresh from the airport check his bag with us at the west gate last week.  He didn't say much but I remembered his multi-braided mullet.  His bag was left at west gate overnight and the next morning I wasn't on west gate duty but we found out that he made quite the rucus with security.  Turns out that his bag was full of machetes... MACHETES! and he had a letter that he wanted to deliver to the prophet.  MACHETES! He also claimed to be the angel Michael.  Swell.  Close call.  The next day he popped up at my window again and wanted us to check his bag so that he could listen to music and the spoken word.  Guhhhhh... He impatiently reminded us that he was the guy with the knives.  Yes, I remembered.  So we had security go through his bag and he was okay to go listen to MoTab.  After the show he kindly took his machete bag and was gone from our lives forever.  MACHETES, I say!

One of the many reasons why I enjoy my life on temple square is that I get to know so many different types of interesting people.  We showed two youngish girls around the square.  One girl was a member of the Church and the other wasn't.  It was actually pretty depressing because we got to know them by how they answered our questions for them.  They clearly had been scarred from a physically abusive environment growing up.  We could tell that they weren't all socially there and one girl had cuts all up her arm and scars on her leg.  She told us that she's been trying hard to be worthy to enter the temple.  We got to testify of the power of God and how everything good comes from Him.  Moroni 7:13. They have had hard lives but so much good is available to them in this life. 

We get to exercise outside now begcause it's light out in the morning and it makes my life complete.  There is an awesome little 3 mile canyon run pretty close to our apartments so we can run it if we get at least 8 companionships that want to go.  It's amazing.   I love running in a garage and all but I feel so alive now that I get to run outside like a real human.  The only problem is that we can only run as fast as the slowest person so we literally end up running circles around the slow pokes.  I'll take what I can get. 

For Mother's Day I get to call mom and dad.  If they so choose to figure out how to conference call the rest of the fam, I'm game.

Kyle family reunion 2013 sounds good anywhere with a poooooool and babies because I miss those.

I love everything and everyone.

-Sister Kyle

MACHETES!

Now for some pictures!!!

Running in the garage.

At East High

Brigham Young's hair bracelet. 

Inside the Beehive house.

Sister Kyle and Sister Jardine in their box. 

May!

Man, the family is just falling apart without me.  Happy gallbladder extraction and pinky-bot! 

 

I still love my new nest at the West Gate. Here's a few reasons why:

1. (I think) I'm allowed to steal from the snack stash for the bus drivers. mmm Doritos...
2. I get to listen to music while I work.  Some of it is actually pretty good.
3. I don't have to take french tours.
4. I get to chat online a ton more (see stories below)
5. People know where to come visit me now
6. I get to look things up on google when someone asks me an informational question (I missed google)
7. I get to be so many people's first impression of the Church (hopefully I don't mess it up)
8. I get to schmeh schmeh with people and make them love me (and the Church) while they wait for the other missionaries to show them around.
9. I only have to do the front of my hair now.  The back can look like a mess and no one will know.
10. We can get all the boring things out of the way (like planning and goal setting) while we're organizing tours and such.

My very favourite people to teach are youth or young adults.  We had thousands of them come for a national DECA marketing high school competition.  It was so much fun for us.  I loved teaching every one of these young people because a) they are honest and open, b) they are SMART, c) they are humble and respectful.  d) they're not boring. So many young people in the world have no idea what we believe and I felt so priviledged to be these kids' first contact with the Church.  We answered sincere question after sincere question while we showed them the sites.  I know a tour is going well when we've been talking for along time and then it feels natural to invite them to learn more either with missionaries in their area, by ordering a Book of Mormon or by keeping in touch with us specifically.  We testified of the Book of Mormon and how it changes lives for the better. 

 

My favourite group was a bunch of cute girls.  We showed them a 15 minute walk through video called God's Plan.  I've seen the movie about a zillion times by now but it's different for me with each group that we watch it with.  The first time I saw it was when I was fresh out of the mtc with the other newbies.  Everyone cried but I secretly hated it.  I thought it was annoying with bad acting.  Now when I watch it with people who don't have the simple truths about how families can be together forever through the temple, it's so powerful.  When I watched it with these young girls, the Spirit was soooo strong.  We were all so moved by the knowledge that happy families are centered on Christ and that we can see our deceased loved ones again. We invited this group to learn more but one of the teachers spoke up and said that they're only interested to learn about mormons and the history of them.  Shoot, woman, this is for youuuuu!  So she kind of ruined that one for us but I know that those girls felt the Spirit so I can only hope that they'll look into the Church later on in life when they have questions and need guidance.

 

I got to speak in a random Salt Lake family ward on Sunday.  Four of us went to speak and do a musical number.  The other three didn't let me play the piano since they needed my voice because they're even less vocally talented than me. The four of us sang I Need Thee Every Hour and two us us sang a few verses as a duet.  I think the last time I sang a duet in front of people was with Gennie at Sue's baptism.  I'd rather give 2 talks than sing but it was alright.  We all talked about learning from the prophets so I specifically talked about having courage like Abinadi.  The ward was so precious; most of the people there came up and thanked us so genuinely for coming and spicing up their Sacrament Meeting.  I'd do that every week if I could.  I only felt half bad for the angry Salt Lake Sisters that belong to that ward.

 

This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with a ton of trolls online.  They all had the same question: why aren't mormons allowed to eat chocolate on Tuesdays.  Since we have to treat these trolls like children of God, we tell them that it isn't a rule and invite them to learn more about the gospel.  One of them asked, "If Mitt Romney becomes the next president, will trolling mormons online be illegal?" Since we talked to about 10 of these trolls, I got creative with my answers.  When we end the chat, we mark it as "prank/troll" and then the next time they go online to chat, they are directed to "The honey pot" where they think they will talk to a missionary soon but it just plays uplifiting videos for them so that they don't waste our time anymore.  Duhyaya. 

 

That's it for me.  Mother's Day is soon so I have to figure out how to talk to everyone.  I'll get back to you on that. 

LOVE, SISTER KYLE

New Transfer

YOYOYO

Today is the first day of the new transfer so my whole world is new including my companion.  Before my zone leader read who my new companion was she said, "Oh, this just got interesting."  I'M SO EXCITED!  Kim called this one.  I'm with Sister Jardine from Raymond. I didn't know Sister Jardine before but I've definately facebook creeped her before my mission so I basically know everything about her (as well as through Kim).  And even better than that, our assignment is West Gate instead of the Beehive House.  Two tall blond canadians sitting in a box on Temple square.  You know, why not?  So now I get to have a party in the information booth by the tabernacle everyday.  We'll be pretty busy there in the summer because we are the eyes and the ears of Temple Square.  We communicate with all the other sisters when there are guests who need tours in a specific language.  When it's not busy in the booth, we call/teach our investigators, answer inbound calls or take a chat online.  So far I've been at west Gate for a few hours this morning and I'm so in love with it.  It's roomy with solid air condidtiong; I could even have a blanket in there.  I think we'll still get a good amount of time to teach on the square so that'll be swell.  The other sisters just laugh at the fact that the two of us are companions now because they know we'll have a good time.

 

In other news, I'll tell you about some good lessons that we had this week on the square...

 

We were lead to a super precious girl named Eva.  I thought it was a test at first because she invited us to sit down with her then asked all of the right questions.  She has so many questions and fears about life and eternity so we taught her about the things that will make us happy in this life.  After a long time of talking to her and then showing her around temple square, it was obvious that she knew enough about what she needs in life.  She has already been meeting with the missionaries in her area.  We straight-up told her that she should get baptized and she knew she should too.  Clearly this young girl's been through rough times because she has a 4 year old and her child's dad is in prison.  She's seen darkness and she's seen light now.  She knew it too.  She knows this is the right Church to join, she just needs to do the work to prepare for baptism (a.k.a marry her boyfriend.) 

 

Right after we said bye to Eva, we talked two three, young frenchmen.  We took them to the conference center and tried to teach them about faith.  They were all atheist so the conversation was a little rough.  Still, I hope that we were able to teach them that there is a specific purpose for them on the earth.  After that we started the movie Legacy for a middle-aged couple.  They told us that they were so impressed with the missionaries on temple square and that they love what we have to teach.  The woman asked us if it was all a show.  Are we just pretending to be happy people?  She said she wondered that especially with mormon families including Mitt Romney's.  They seem perfect but she wanted to know if it was all an act.  I told her that we ARE happy.  When you centre your life on Christ, you have joy.  Plain and simple.  Then I bore testimony about fighting with my siblings.  It happens. But at the end of the day, all is well. 

 

Last one.  Yesterday, Sister Castañeda and I stopped for a while to talk to two middle-aged men who just seemed lost and depressed.  It was intense because they shared with us about how the one got divorced last year and the other one is going through a divorce right now.  Yikes, I'm not a social worker yet.  I didn't know really what to say to them so I turned to the scriptures.  I landed on Moroni 7 so we talked a little about miracles (verse 37) but we mostly focused on hope (verse 40+).  I didn't plan on using those particular scriptures that day but it was cool for me to be an instrument used to teach them that there is hope.  The one man just talked about how people make mistakes and that it's so hard for him to see his four children now.  It broke my heart to just listen to him speak.  Remind me not to get divorced.  But still, there is hope for every situation and the Lord will help. 

 

That's it for me.  Come visit the box.

Love, Sister Kyle