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

Who's excited for Crom? We are! Conference/prom... that's right.

Who's excited for Crom?  We are!  Conference/prom... that's right.  The excitment is in the air and all the sisters are worried about what they're going to wear.  Many sisters are even dieting to fit into their conference costumes.  We already have our dates picked out and everything.  Now we just need to practice our sister missionary smiles to fool the mormon paparazzi into putting our faces in the Ensign.  I think my chances are much higher this time around. 

 

Life is swell in the wonderful world of Salt Lake.  My companion is a pro now; I really love teaching with her.  She experienced her first French tour with me this week and it went really well.  We were both surprised at how much the Spirit worked to communicate with the French.  Yesterday, we started an English tour with one couple and by the time we finished, we had 6 more couples who added on to our group.  One man asked about how the Book of Mormon differs with the Bible and so we took advantage of the chance to bring the group in and testify testify testify.  There was an angry catholic woman on our tour who refused to look impressed until the Spirit, through us, turned her frown upside down.  We could tell that her attitude changed during the tour because she realized that we weren't there to defend our religion, we were simply there to teach.  We ended up at the statue of Christ and learned from one of the guests about how he followed the example of Christ as a teacher at a public school.  He realized that Jesus was the best teacher so he learned from Him even though he wasn't teaching religion to his elementary school kids.  Grumpy woman added in about how she follows Christ as she teachers her kids as well.  I've learned to invite when the Spirit is the strongest so we invited them to meet with local missionaries and you know what?  They all said no!  But hey, we're used to it and we still expect miracles.  It was a great experience for everyone to learn and our re-invitation for them was to tune into General conference on lds.org in 3 weeks so hopefully they will. 

 

Our favourite miracle this week is Adam.  His best friend is on a mission and Adam promised that he would look into the Church while his friend was serving.  After an amazing online conversation with him, he committed to baptism on October 5th!  He asked all the right questions and was so receptive of the answers.  He says his mom is going to freak out in a good way when he tells her that he wants to be baptized.  He's pretty sure he's found the truth and I am so happy to be a part in helping find that truth. 

 

Last night we had an investigator lesson (lesson with a set of Salt Lake missionaries and their investigators) and we loved it.  The group consisted of a less active mom and her 10 and 11 year old daughters who want to get baptized, the mom's awesome friend and the mom's awesome friend's sister and the sister's recent convert but now less-active boyfriend.  Did you catch all that?  We knew we were going into a sensitive situation because the dad of the girls just left them and their mom.  We had a lot of ground to cover.  We needed to teach them about the hope that comes through Christ in hard times, we needed to teach them about the importance of Church attendance and we needed to help the recent convert know that he can gain strength to recover from his smoking addiction through Jesus Church and attending Church.  Piece of cake.  Also, our intitial plans of where we wanted to take the group on Temple Square had to be changed because of the BYU football team hogging the Assembly Hall for a fireside/autograph signing.  I was so surprised at how well the whole lesson went.  We showed the group a short clip from last year's conference from President Uchtdorf called, "You Matter to Him."  And then we went upstairs to the statue of Christ and finished at the God's Plan video about eternal families.  Everything that was taught applied to everyone.  You could say that we winged the whole thing but the Spirit really took a strong influence in teaching the lesson.  All of life's problems can be solved by remembering the love that God has for us and how we just need to trust Christ and follow His teachings to find happiness.  I realize that I'm not in the same situation as Stephanie whose husband just left her with 2 young girls but I know that she has the necessary hope to continue and find help, happiness and peace.  On a side note, I realized while teaching with the elders that my companion is awesome.  She's only been here two weeks but we teach together like we were born for it.  No one would have any idea who the senior companion is.  As for the elders... not so much... but I'm not comparing or judging.  The contrast made me so grateful for my samoan who never complained when I through her into the fire of teaching right when she got here. 

 

That's it.  That's all.  We get to go to Park City now and play at the likely mansion of one of the cousellors in our mission presidency.  This involves some BBQ, a hike and some outlet mall shopping with no money.  I'm the queen of the world!

 

LOVE, SISTER KATIE KYLE

What did Obama say when his wife left him?

September 8, 2012

What did Obama say when his wife left him?  "Don't leave me, I don't wanna be obamaself."  That, my friends, comes from our wondrous hours of teaching people the gospel on mormon.org chat. 

 

Since we're concentrating on tightening up the screws in our missionary work, we need to have a baptismal date set for all our investigators no later than the second lesson.  Our friend, Sambo lives in New York and has been meeting with missionaries on and off for a couple years.  He's read the Book of Mormon more times than me but when we invited him to be baptized at the end of this month he said no.  Actually, my companion invited him and her poor little new missionary heart may have been crushed.  Sambo doesn't think he's ready for baptism and we told him that he would be ready with our help by the end of this month.  I wish we could teach him in person so that he couldn't run away from us so fast but the Spirit still works over the phone.  We are going to get to the bottom of his concern this week because we know the eternal blessings that come from committing to the Lord.  The other hard part about teaching over the phone is that NO ONE EVER ANSWERS THEIR PHONE!  Seriosuly.  I don't blame them because I ran from people on the phone all the time when I was a regular human.  We are ready to teach people and commit them if they would just answer their phones. 

 

We are getting a lot of intrerest from people on the square and online because of Mitt Romney.  Of course there are always many crazies but some people are genuinely interested to learn about the Church because of the could be new Pres.  We took a precious Hindu couple from Seattle around the square last week who new nothing about the Church and wanted to learn.  The thing is that people don't know that the gospel is for them.  Temple Square is the perfect place for them to find that out.  My other favourite from the square last week was Matt.  We managed to acompany him to the Assembly Hall on the square and had a really good conversation with him.  He told us that he wasn't sure if God exists.  We taught about prayer and the power of the Holy Ghost and asked him if he would get on his knees that night and ask God if he was there.  Matt's response was, "Maybe I already have my answer."  Darn right, he does!  He just needs to keep doing good things and he won't forget God in his life so easily. 

 

Sister Savelio and I LOVE working at welfare square.  It's similar to the Beehive House because it's a place where people come to learn or re-learn about the gospel only it's diguised like a formal tour.  It's so easy to teach there too because you cannot deny the love that exists within the Church beccause of faith.  When there are no guests for tours, we serve people who need our help getting food in the Bishop's storehouse.  People come there who are in financial need and basically get free food from the Church.  Both members of the Church and non-members come for assistance and are invited to give service somewhere on welfare square in return.  This program is genius.  Someone asked how many hours these people need to give in service to make up for the cost of the food that they got but there is no answer to that.  Essentially, they will not get close to making up for the amount of food they received but it gives them those skills and that hope so they can provide for themselves one day.  It is easilly compared to everyone in the world and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  We can give all we can because of the things that the Saviour has given us but we will always be indebted to Him.  And that's okay because it's part of the plan. 

 

Conference is already in the Temple Square air!  We have a daily challenge to get us pumped and ready for the 2 day conference marathon.  Instead of having a large number goal for how many portential investigators we can receive from members, we will set a goal of how many baptisms will come from those member referrals.  It's genius.  I mean inspired.  This way, the temple Square sisters (i.e. me) won't be so desperate to find any random name to call, we will focus on getting quality contacts so that these souls can be baptized. 

 

And for the name drop of the week:  Sister Savelio and I went on the elevator in the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building last week and had a nice conversation with an elderly couple.  He asked my companion about a few people who live in Samoa and when we got off the escalator, he shook our hands and told us he was Elder Groberg.  That was followed by a, "Kolipoki."  Yep, no big deal, we had a regular conversation with John H. Groberg (The Other Side of Heaven). 

 

I love this work so much! 

 

LOVE, SISTER KYYYYLE

 

Also, my new favourite videos are a 3 part series with Elder Bednar.  Check them out...

 

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#patterns-of-light-the-light-of-christ

September 1, 2012

Hi friends, I love my life.

My new companion is a Samoan dream.  I have the pleasure of training Sister Savelio from American Samoa and I love her.  She's a lot like me except more knowledgable about the Bible and more afraid of heights.  She grew up Baptist and joined the Church when she was 16 so basically she's the man.  We get to serve at Welfare Square twice a week and the Beehive House 4 hours/week.  We hit the schedule jackpot but it is a lot of historical information for my new companion to learn.  I'm mostly excited to befriend the transients that come and go at Welfare Square as well as drin the chocoalte milk there.  Since Sister Savelio is new on the block, we got 2 half days to explore the Church sites.  When we got bored of the Church buildings, we took breaks to watch Church movies so it was a party.  I could not be more content with my job here.  The field is white, being harvested. 

Love, Sister me

me and my Samoan

the youje