Sister Kyle: 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