BREAKING NEWS.
I can email friends now! Every mission just received a letter from the first presidency that says we can email friends/priesthood leaders/recent converts just as long as they don't live in our mission boundaries. AND we get more time to email so our mission president is giving us up to 2 hours to email if we want it. No one gave any specific reasoning for this change but I have my suspicions/guesses.
Therefore, I'm going to advertize myself because I like having friends.
If you're good at life, you will EMAIL ME!
(I know, sometimes I forget my own name is Kathleen)
If you are the best at life, you will WRITE ME AN ACTUAL LETTER!
**I accept letters from dearelder.com just as much as the hand written ones since I get them during the week.
50 N West Temple Street
SLC, UT
84150
Unites States of America
I'm so excited for extra emailing time that I already wasted 45 minutes.. Woops.
Moving on... to the lastest from the square we call Temple. This week we had a mission ACTIVE SHOOTER training. We don't know of any threats coming our way but now every sister knows how to 1. Run, 2. hide, 3. (my personal favorite for obvious reasons) FIGHT!
Now on to people other than myself. Kind of. Our awesome investigator, Ashley who said yes to baptism for March 16th has lived a roller coaster for the last two weeks. Her faith has been mega tested because her parents are against her joining the Church. They fed her some anti-mormon material recently but now she knows better than to pay any attention to that garbage. She is 18 so she can legally make her own choice to be baptized but we are very careful not to encourage her to disobey her parents. Of course, I know she should be baptized and I want her to do it asap but we haven't pressured her at all since that's not our job, it's Satan's. Wow, no Satan doesn't want her to be baptized but yes, he helps people to feel pressured and tempted. So, we have been on a fun journey with Ashley and she is learning how to trust the Lord's will and timing. I'm not sure if the local missionaries have set a new baptismal date for her now but she is attending seminary and her faith is increasing. Bringing this back to my selfish self, I was frustrated that our perfect Ashely seemed so ready for baptism but got stopped by this huge parental roadblock. Buuuut I am learning too and it's obvious that Ashley has benefited so much by this roadblock. She wanted to get baptized pretty quickly because she felt the Spirit testify to her that this is the right Church but now her faith is incredibly solid and it continues to solidify. I'm sure she wouldn't have such amazing faith if she hadn't experienced opposition. But Sister Vach and I love putting her parents/friends crazy beliefs about mormons to rest. Boom.
Have I told you about our Jamaican? We are teaching Cleon from Brownstown Jamaica (stop laughing). He is amazing. Sister Vach met him on mormon.org chat and then I came into the picture in time for the first lesson. We have taught him 3 times now and he wants to get baptized. The hard part is that is local congregation is tiny and is at least 45 minutes away on public transport. He also mentioned yesterday that his other concern about attending sacrament meeting is that he teaches a Sunday school class at another Church on Sunday mornings. We were so surprised but I took the chance and invited him to get a substitute for his Sunday school so that he could go to a different Sunday school. He said yes! He also mentioned that the only reason why he teaches the Sunday school class is because the Church works closely with the school that he teaches at and they needed someone to take control of the Sunday school students. Precious, I know. Then he gave us one of his older students to call and invite to meet with missionaries.
There are a lot of changed being made in our mission about how we keep track of our progress. We used to count every lesson we ever teach on Temple Square but now we only count it if the people we teach accept a return appointment. This change is kind of freaky for some of the sisters because it makes us look a lot less hard-working. Mostly all of the success that we reort will be from teaching online even though the hard part of our missionary work is teaching on the square. I think everyone knows that this new way is very inspired and I have made the simple conclusion that this means that members won't be afraid of sisters so much anymore. It's easy for sisters on Temple Square to get carried away with numbers that is makes them seem more like sales associates (thank you Lindy for the someimtes accurate title) rather than representatives of Jesus Christ. This new way will help every sister breathe a little more and focus on what's really important. I love change.
Sister Vach and I had a really good tour with a nice, likely millionaire, 29 year old German. Germans are typically very closed when they interact with sisters on the square but this guy was a gem. He agreed to let me and Sister Vach call him over the phone and he wants to read the Book of Mormon. He was hesitant to meet with local missionaries but hey, that's okay. We talked a lot about prayer with him and it was SO GOOD. During the tour, I was thinking about how much I love my mission. Of course, every mission is always amazing but I am totally built for his one. I feel like I get to be an artist sometimes. Sometimes when I play sports and I help create an amazing play or something, it feels like art. Teaching on the square is so artistic, seriously. We found this German man drinking coffee while staring at the roof of the tabernacle. Sister Vach and I just started walking with him as he walked away from the building. We started up the conversation so smoothly and we put all our teaching skills to work with our making friends skills. It was beautiful, really. We taught the first lesson like regular missionaries get to do in a home but we have amazing visuals to help us on Temple Square. I love my job.
New favorite scripture of the week: Moroni 7:48. It's always been a good one about prayer but it has new meaning for me now because of all the filling-ness of love. Cute.
I LOVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!
SISTER KATIE KYLE
p.s my friend/fellow sister in the zone with the laser eyes has taken out her lasers and loves people now. We did a re-do pass off with her and it was SO GOOD. She told her companion that she knows now that she had to be humbled. Welcome to the mission. I'm glad that worked out.
p.p.s I'm going to Disney on Ice in T minus 30 minutes. Life it too good.
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