Third week in Texas!

Hi Mom,

The work in this area, is getting better. We have found six new investigators this week who were very receptive to our first lesson. We have return appointments with all of them this week. We also received a media referral who wants to take missionary lessons. These are usually the people who get baptized, because they actually tried to find us. It is the first media referral my companion has received since he has been here, and he has been here for 5 months.

The language is improving quickly. Sometimes, I can understand everything the people say, and at other times I can only catch a few words here or there. I can say pretty much everything I want to when teaching, because I have what is called a gospel vocabulary. I now just need to expand that vocabulary. For preparation days, we usually just hang around the apartment, doing all the stuff you normally do on this day. Last week though, we started a kick boxing class with a member from the English ward. It is a crazy class, but I love it! I was sore for days afterwards though. The next day, we then had the Texas Dallas Olympics for our zone conference. We had to do as many pushups as possible in 10 min. So the soreness continued until Thursday for me.

For meals, we eat with members almost ever day for dinner. And our branch president makes us breakfast on Thursdays. So we are well taken care of each week.

I completely forgot about the Baptism talk I was going to write, so I will do that as soon as I can, and send it to you in the mail. Tell her that I am very excited for her, and I can't wait to see pictures next monday. I hope everyone enjoys school, and good luck with college. I have been thinking and praying about Ashley, and I will probably fast for her this Sunday. I hope she is ok, and I would love her address if she decides to stay.

I love you so much, and miss you a lot!

Kyle

 

Hey Dad,

This week was much better than the last couple of weeks. My companion and I are doing ok. His B-day was good. I have never eaten so much food in my life I think. We ate at a buffet, and then Mary our investigator cooked food for us immediately after. It was all really good, but I was so full after words.

 

I have pretty much met with every member of the branch, since it is so small. We have eaten dinner at almost every member's house since I got here. We eat at a member's house every week, which is great.

 

I am definitely a lot happier. I am really starting to love missionary work. The work and the spanish is getting a lot better, but more importantly, I think I am just becoming more patient with myself and the language. My spanish really isn't bad. I can say pretty much anything I want to when I am teaching investigators, because I have a gospel vocabulary. I now need to learn how to say more normal everyday conversation stuff.

 

The work in this area is also getting much better. We found 6 new investigators that were all really receptive to our first lesson, and we have return appointments with them this week. Also the investigator I told you about, Mary, came to church yesterday! And some less active members too! I was so excited, and couldn't stop smiling.

 

So the amazing experience for this week has to do with the less active members, the Vargas family. The mom died awhile ago, and the dad had a stroke. This made the dad a little mentally ill. He became super protective of his two sons who are both in their 20s I think. Pretty much, no women can come in the house, and the boys can't go out without him with them. They come to church every once and a while, but recently their dad had two more seizures. So we decided to go try them and see if they would let us in. My companion has been here for five months now, and has never once been inside their house. He has tried almost weekly, and no one ever answered the door. So when we got there, one of the sons, who wasn't with his dad for some reason, was coming back from school he just started. It was perfect timing, because he allowed us to go into the house. We went in the house, and listened to the Dad talk about how the ward wasn't helping him out. We found out that the air conditioner was broken, and their was a hole in the floor of one of the bedrooms. No one in the ward knew about it, but the dad continued to tell us how the branch president wasn't being Christ like. I was able to say some things that I thought would help. We again invited them to come back to church. We left the house, went and bought a fan for the family and came back. When we knocked on the door again, they answered again. Twice in one day! Then to make it even better, they came to church! It was a great miracle that I was able to see.

 

When I was saying that we can't get second visits with people, it is because either no one is there when we go back, or the people make excuses as to why we can't go in. It is frustrating, but we keep trying. And we have some investigators, that I don't think will do this, so that will be good.

 

I am still getting really excited for BYU football as well, even though I can't watch any of it. I hope they do well this season. It also sounds like things are getting really crazy at home. That is what we are used to though, right? I am still excited to see and hear about Brooklynn's baptism!

 

Keep me updated, and enjoy this fall!

Kyle

 

Here are a few pictures Kyle sent, but they are from the MTC not Texas.