I love Temple Square and I want the snow to melt.

Okay change of plans.  Forget everything I said about Sister Dieujuste being my companion.  I've been with Sister Vach (one of the District leaders) and Sister Whisler for the past week and now Sister Vach has moved to zone leader with me for the rest of the transfer.  The Russian and Dominican missionary combo weren't having a ball together this week so that's why things got shifted.  But it's all good in the hood because Sister Vach rocks.  She's from Maple Valley Washington and so far we're on the same page for everyone we teach and everything we have to do as leaders so we're having a party. 

 

One thing we do in this mission as ZLs is take the new sisters in our zone and their companion on a role-play tour of the square.  It's never a set tour; we just play the part of visitors and the newbie/her companion show us a good time for 40ish minutes and teach to our concerns.  The greenie in our zone was super eager to pass off with us because when she does, she can take tours in the other languages that she speaks.  So, we did the role play with her this week when we were still in a trio companionship.  I played the part of myself, Katie from BYU-Idaho who brought my 2 non-member bffs from home for a tour around temple square.  The tour ended up being very, very un-good.  All three of us were offended within the first 5 minutes; it all happened so fast.  They didn't get the names of my friends or know anything about them and one of the first things they told us is that they can't go inside the temple because their baptisms (in other Churches) were invalid.  Awesome.  They just preached to my two friends for forever without telling them any facts about the historical site that we were on.  I got ignored for a while until I made it super obvious that I was getting bored.  The sisters never lead us inside any of the buildings, we just kept walking nowhere until we finished.  Of course there were some things that they did right.  They testified very powerfully at the end and had good balance between the two of them.  Really, they are strong teachers but it isn't an easy task to do everything you're suppose to do on a Temple Square tour and have it flow smoothly.  We chatted after the fake tour and asked the new sister how she thought it went and she said, "Great!"  Oh no...  So we had a good long conversation about the things that they did well and about the things that were missing.  They realized that their invitations at the end weren't good because they had zero relationship of trust with the guests.  And it just wasn't enjoyable for anyone.  Temple Square is the best and hardest mission, I'm sure of it but the missionaries that serve here learn to be rockstar teachers.  Sister Vach and I are going to do a redo pass-off with the same sisters so that we can all see the improvements.  In the meantime, I'm scared for my life because the new sister has lazer eyes.  We're off to the dollar store today to try and buy her love.  Hopefully it's cheap. 

 

When there were 3 of us in the companionship we decided that it would make more sense to have just 2 people teach over the phone to our investigators.  I taught angry/deep-doctrine Jeff with Sister Whisler (I wasn't taking any of his anger so we had to drop him), Sister Whisler and Sister Vach taught many people together since they were the original companionship, and Sister Vach and I taught Ashley.  We found Ashley on chat and since I had no investigators because I ran away to California, Sister Vach told me I could keep her and teach with Sister Dieujuste.  Ashley is our miracle.  I can't even remember what her question was for us on mormon.org chat but we taught her online and she said that we could teach her again over the phone.  The first time we taught her we just got to know her and answered a few more questions.  She is 18 and got introduced to the Church by an aquaintance who invited her to go to early morning seminary and she went!  She's a better woman than me.  We invited her to go to Church for the first time and she told us she was too nervous to go.  We just talked to her on Wednesday and she told us that she ended up going to Church!  We were so surprised and happy.  Our lesson on Wednesday was amazing.  Sister Vach and I were on the same page with the Spirit to teach her.  Both times we've taught it's been very powerful because she has an open heart.  She often feels bad because she never knows what to say but we know what she feels.  We invited her to meet with local missionaries and she said she wasn't ready.  Further into the lesson, we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!  We extended to her the baptism date of March 16.  She freaked out for a little while and then told us that it's actually the perfect day.  Yahoo!!!  She told us over and over how happy she feels and how thankful she is that we were the two missionaries that answered the mormon.org chat.  Sister Vach and I could not get rid of our smiles for the rest of the day but I was worried about having to teach Ashley with a different companion.  While we were on the phone with Ashley President Gillette called and asked the three of us to come meet with him.  We didn't know if we were in trouble or we thought maybe Sister Dieujuste was going to stay in Wisonsin for the rest of the transfer.  He told us that Sister Vach and I would stay as companions and we were so happy because we both thought of Ashley right away.  Our little Sister Whisler was less than excited to part from us.  She told us that this week had been her week to heal because her last transfer was hard.  But she knows how to love and now that she's healed she's going to heal the Russian.  So we all know that Sister Dieujuste being stuck for a week in Wisconsin was suppose to happen so that we could all be with the companions that we now and have and teach the people who need us the most. 

 

Last thing, we had a leadership training on Wednesday morning so all the zone leaders had to teach a small portion of the training.  Sister Vach and Sister Whisler were nervous at first to do it with me since they were made zone leaders only for a week.  It ended up being so much fun.  We learned a ton from the other leaders in the mission and we had fun with our assignment.  We related the story of the Brother of Jared to daily planning in the life of a temple square missionary.  We created a costume for Sister Vach which included a beard so that was a crowd pleaser. 

 

One of the changes that happened to the mission while I was gone is that we have a releif socitey meeting every week now.  We don't have it on Sundays but we have it on Thursday mornings.  This week, we got to go to the R.S building and learned from Sister Stephens, a counsellor in the General R.S Presidency.  Attached is a pic.  Sister Vach is the brown haired woman and SIster Whisler is the blonde.   

 

That's enough words for one pday.

I love Temple Square and I want the snow to melt. 

 

LOVE YOU ALL, SISTER KATIE KYLE

I'M BAAAAAAAACK!

I did not want to get on that plane to come back to Salt Lake City but I did.  I tried so hard to stay a little longer in San Jose but the battle was already lost and I was being replaced by one of my Temple Square homies.  I didn't feel ready to come back to Temple Square but I came down the escalator in the SLC airport to a big group of some of my favorite people who were so excited to see me.  I'm pretty sure this was a huge forshadowing of finishing my mission.  Yikes. 

 

It's nice to be back.  Real nice.  I loved every minute in San Jose but Temple Square really is the best mission.  This transfer, I am a zone leader with one of my friends who was at the mtc with me, Sister Dieujuste.  Everyone at the airport was so excited to see my reaction when they told me who my new companion was because the two of us are pretty similar and we get along so well.  I was her roommate for like 6 months and we always went on exchanges in the morning to work-out.  Plus, she's crazy.  She's Haitian, born in the Bahamas, grew up in Florida and then was adopted by a family in Rupert Idaho so she has 3 different country flags to choose from.  The weird thing is though she's still in her outbound mission in Wisconsin for another week so I'm kind of flying solo.  I have no idea what I'm doing as a leader but it doesn't seem so hard so I just make it up and act like a know things.  That's what good leaders do, I'm pretty sure.  I love always saying yes when people ask for allowance to do things.  If you think you should, then do!  Wow, who put me in charge?  I'm tagging along with one of the District leaders in my zone and her companion for now so that I can still work.  I sleep on a mattress in between both their beds for now so it's a slumber party every night.  When I was in California, I had some awesome leaders as well as some less than suberb leaders so I am excited to use what I've learned.  I know that unity is so important in a group so I'm thinking of a zone motto that's something like, "Let's party!" Or, "Looking for a good time!"  We'll see what Sister D thinks when she gets back next week.  I love being old in the mission.  Some of the sisters who are now home were scary and I feel like there's a lot of new fire now to push our missionary drive. 

 

Let me recap some of my last week in Cali.  We went on a hike for my last pday and then I got to the Oakland Temple for a session and a look around the visitor center.  The VC was bizarro world for me because everything was a tiny version of what I'm used to on Temple Square.  The sister missionaries there freaked me out right when I got in the door with their intimidating greeting and smiles, so my apologies go out to everyone who has every experienced that.  I like to keep it real in the visitor center.  I also taught a nice lady in MOrgan Hill who lived in a halfway house so that was a fun time.  I finally had a really good street contact last Sunday.  My companion wasn't feeling so missionary that day but I made her tcome contacting.  There was almost no one on the streets so we stalked the only people we saw.  They ran away before we could catch up but we were lead to a little park.  We saw a young father pushing his little son on the swing so I took the change to talk to him.  Turns out, him and his wife were new in the are and they were in the market for a Church to go to!  Boom.  He didn't accept an appointment with us but I expect he'll be at Church at 11:00am next week. 

 

It's so much fun to compare outbound stories with my friends here and see how different yet similar our experiences were.  The Church is the same in the ghetto areas and in the ritzy areas. 

 

Gotta run!

LOVE, SISTER KYLE from Temple Square

Saying bye to my homies

pretending to be an Oakland VC sister

Oakland Temple

hike

Me and MoHill

last days of the popenator

Beach Party

Welp, we got back last night from our day vacation in Monterey.  I was in dreamland.  President Watkins is the man.  Sister Tapopo and I drove to the mission home on Sunday night for a sleepover with some of the sisters before we roadtripped to Monterey for pday.  Everything was perfect.  The trip started out as P. Dub's gift to me because I'm going back to Salt Lake in a week but it ended up being a much bigger party than me and my companion expected.  I think President invited extra missionaries who needed some TLC at the beach.  Some of the TLC was given to us in the form of dolla dolla bills to spend.  We shopped around for a while, visited the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant, sampled a thousand clam chowders, and played football on he beach.  I only have one week left of my mission in California and then it's back to work at Temple Square.  I'm almost ready to go back because I miss the busy life of the visitor center but I hate goodbyes so that'll be rough. 

 

Popo and I had a good work week.  We finally tracked down a less-active member of our ward.  We had a good long talk with her and we found out that she stopped going to Church 20 years ago because when her kids were young at Church, somebody told her that her ADD kids were behaved terribly.  Obviously that cut her deep so she refused to ever bring her kids to Church again.  Sometimes she would sneak in the back of the congregation alone then soon she started Church shopping but was never satisfied.  She had already told us that she knows the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true so I asked her what she thought she was going to find elsewhere.  She said that sometimes you do things you know are wrong when you are hurt so badly.  I couldn't believe that this woman and her family have missed out on years of joy found in the true gospel because of one unthoughtful comment. 

 

Working closely with members of the Church has been very eye-opening for me.  I have a hard time with active members of the Church who don't accept any challenge given to them by us missionaries.  I won't lie, it's mostly old people who give me the stress.  I'm not expecting the middle age/seniors to hand out copies of the Book of Mormon wherever they go but they refuse to use a particle of their faith by doing something simple.  So many members of the Church who we teach aren't teachable.  On Superbowl Sunday however, we had a perfect dinner appointment with the most precious family.  The family consisted of mom/dad, older daughter, and 3 rambunctious boys.  Our conversation during the whole dinner was about missionary work and what they could be doing better.  They wanted to hear our stories and they even asked us to follow up on the missionary work that they committed themselves to.  My hearrt just melted when they told us that were getting their family missionary plan together.  Adorable. 

 

We had a broadcated session of Stake Conference on Sunday.  It was real good.  Elder L. Tom Perry was the final speaker and I was so happy because he talked all about how the increase in number of missionaries throughout the world means that the members of the Church will have to play a larger role in finding.  Yes. Please.  Teaching is the best.  Finding is hard. 

 

I'm tired. 

The Church is still true. 

LOVE, SISTER KATEEZY KYLE

Roadrtippin to the beach

The rest of 'em

I made it to the Pacifica!

Me and my popo

This one's for Lurel.  The hike shot!

Clam Chowdair chowdair!

Happy End of January.

Hi people.

 

Let me tell you a short tale about Jessica.  Jessica has been an eternal investigator of the Church for over two years now.  She lives with her boyfriend who is a less active member of the Church.  I visited them for the first time with my companion and our ward mission leader last week and it was neat.  We got to know a little bit about her background and why she's been meeting with missionaries for so long.  She has some kind of terrible past with getting booted out of her Catholic Church and then she lived in darkness and hated God for a while.  It appeared to me as though she still suffers.  So a few days ago, we went to read a Book of Mormon chapter with Jessica to help her better understand the gospel.  We read 2 Nephi Chapter 31 which is basically a -booya, this is the doctrine of Christ/feel good chapter.  After reading with her we asked her what were some of the things she thought about as we all read.  She asked about the name of Jesus that was used in the chapter.  She was concerned because she thought that the Nephites shouldn't refer to Christ as "Jesus" because in the Old Testament he is called by many other names.  Right away, she asked if that was something that Joseph Smith thought up.  We told her that Joseph Smith only translated the words.  This is the exact record that Nephi kept so if that's what's written, that's what Nephi, being inspired by God, wrote.  After a tiny discussion, I asked her if she reads the Book of Mormon, thinking about the possibility that it could actually be true.  Not surprisingly, she said no.  THEN WHY ARE YOU READING IT?  She told us that she has been waiting for so long for God to inspire her.  I asked her if she had ever been inspired by God before.  She thought for a while and then told us a never-ending story about when she was in Rome, she heard that the Pope was close by and she felt so inspired that her heart was beating and she started running after toward the Pope-contained vehicle.  She said that she had never run like that before and she was running on rocks and didn't feel anything (until she got a bruise on her foot months later).  Without thinking, I blurted out: "Adrenaline."  My companion laughed, and she continued talking about how it felt like she was being carried by angels.  In the end, she never saw the Pope and she didn't even see the car he was in.  I was very blunt and I asked her: "So what did God inspire you to do?"  Her eyes got teary and she just described how this experience was like perfect faith.  After all those hours spent worshipping at Church, I'm not sure if Jessica has any idea of what the definition of faith or inspiration is.  Then she told us about how a sister missionary in our misison who taught her is very inspiring.  "Alright, so how did this sister inspire you?"  Jessica talked for a long time without getting anywhere and then she decided that the sister missionary's example of faith is very inspiring.  Awesome.  And what did she inspire you to do?  So anyhoo, we talked for a while about the doctrine inside the BoM chapter that we read.  There are so many eternal truths that she overlooked in that chapter because she was busy looking for the possible errors.  I don't think I've ever been more bold with anyone before.  I told her: "Stop waiting around for inspiration from God!  It's right here!  You are holding it in your hands!  Soooo many of my prayers have been answered by reading these pages."  Then we talked about prayer for a little while.  She told us that she hasn't been praying as much as she knows she should.  She told us about summer retreats that her and her fellow Catholic youth leaders used to go on.  They exhausted themselves in prayer so much that people were crying, sweating and talking in tongues.  "Neat, so how is your relationship with God?"  She bi passed the question and told us about how she likes to do the Jesus prayer.  Alright.  She told us that the Jesus prayer is when you just say the word Jesus over and over and over again.  "Cool.  Meditation.  But do you pray?"  We read 2 Nephi chapter 2 Nephi 32:8-9 about what prayer really is.  By the end of the lesson, she committed to praying like a human everyday before she reads the Book of Mormon with an open heart and an open mind.  We'll see.  I'm a big fan of dropping people when they waste time.  The ward members can always fellowship Jessica and her boyfriend but I don't have patience for more "adrenaline" stories with no purpose.  So sue me.  Even though I found Jessica and her stories incredibly annoying, I noticed that I wasn't frustrated during the lesson.  As a regular human, I would have died but that is the power of the name tag/calling: it makes me love people.  So that's swell.

 

On Sunday, me, my companion and a few other sisters sang for a youth fireside on missionary work to kick off the mission prep classes for the youngins.  President Watkins, our mission president spoke with his wife and  it was amazing.  I thought I had the bright idea of serving a mission but I know now that my whole life has pushed me and prepared me for these 18 months and these 18 months are preparing me for the next forever.  Life is good.  My companion is a rockstar and we're headed to the beach next pday.

 

Adios.

LOVE, SISTER KYLE