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