Transfers! A New City and Companion!

Hi Mom,

Well, transfers are tomorrow, so I hope you haven't sent the package yet, because I am getting transferred. I will be going up to Sherman, Texas, and my new companion will be Elder Duce. I actually don't know anything about him yet. I now know how hard it is to have to leave an area, and to make it even worse, I was very sick yesterday, so I didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to anyone. So much for pictures. I will send some of my district and stuff like that next week.

This week has been very eventful. On my birthday, we went on exchanges, so no I didn't really do anything really special. Exchanges are great though. Actually that night after the exchanges, my companion and I went over to Mary's house, and like always, she made us food. Which was great! I am going to miss her a lot! We should be going over to her house tonight though, and I will send pictures of her and her family. Then on Friday, we were out tracting at a trailer park. We came to one house with a dog sitting under a tree about 10 feet from the door. Me, being as fearless as I am, didn't really care about the dog and decided to go knock on the door anyways. I walked slowly passed the dog staring it down, until I got close to the door. The dog didn't even flinch. When I had gotten to the door, I slowly turned around to knock, when the dog ran up behind me and bit me hard on the leg. I turned back around to kick it, and the dog ran away. This dog was a genius. It didn't come after me until the moment I turned around, and when I turned back around to face it again, it ran back away. Then to make the story even better, after he bit me, I limped away back to the street as the man of the house comes out. I then go through the whole door approach as if nothing happened, and the man had no idea. My companion just sat there laughing as I was trying to get us into this man's house. The Man said he couldn't at that time, so he closed the door and we walked away. The moment he shut the door, my companion burst out laughing again. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. It really wasn't too bad for me, just a little painful. And now I have a pretty good battle scar, which again I will send you a picture of next week.

Saturday we had transfer calls which was very stressful, because I really don't want to leave this area, but I am excited for something new. We will see what happens.

Then I woke up Sunday morning and felt so sick. So, we stayed home all day sleeping, watching church movies, and my companion cleaned the whole apartment. It was terrible. Being sick isn't fun, but especially when there is missionary work to be done. I am luckily feeling better now though.

I will send you my new address, once I found out what it is. I love y'all very much, and I hope that you continue having a good time.

Love Kyle

Hey Dad!

 

Well first of all, I am getting transferred tomorrow to Sherman, Texas. I don't really know much about it other than it is North of Dallas. I am excited, but also very sad to be leaving my area. I now know what everyone was talking about when they say it is so hard to leave an area, but I am still excited for something new.

1. For my birthday, we actually went on exchanges, and we also went over to Mary's that night, which she always cooks us food. I love Mary, and she will probably be the person that it is hardest for me to say goodbye too.

2. My branch is doing so good. I love all of them as well, and unfortunately, I don't get to say goodbye to any of them.

3. We haven't done much to try and receive referrals from them.

4. The other Elders in our district, are so much fun to be around, and I loved the 3 months I had to get to know them.

 

5. What does meet as a Zion mean?

6. Sister Durrant is very nice.

7. This week, you can continue to pray for Jesus Hernandez if you want. He is so solid, and I hope will be baptized this next transfer!

8. It is getting a little colder here, but it is still up in the 70s. It is so nice! I love the weather right now. I have also heard that it will be like this until December.

9. Going to Sherman.

I am very excited for this next transfer. I have learned so much this last transfer, and my Spanish has improved so much. I can now understand most of what is said, and say just about anything I want to. Really now, I just need to work on expanding my vocabulary. I feel so blessed to be able to learn Spanish.

Thanks again for the BYU updates, and for all the spiritual thoughts. I love your thoughts of the week. Thanks for all your love and support!

Love,

Kyle

A Funny Story!!

Hi Mother,

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes, and the packages, I loved it! I especially love the coat, it looks like it will fit me perfectly, or at least I really hope it will. I am now going to be a normal 19 year old missionary. Oh well. I am very glad that I was able to come out on my mission early, and not have to worry about school. The timing now will be perfect!

I loved your story about sitting next to Kassie's mom in the concert. I am glad that Haley is doing well and loving choir!

This week again was a little slow. We had so many dropped appointments. It is a little discouraging at times, but at least we know that we are doing our part. We do have some solid investigators though, and I really hope that they will come around. Again, nobody came to church this week, but we had some people tell us that they will for sure be coming next week, and if they do, they will be our first investigators who actually come to church. We also have an investigator named Jesus Hernandez, and he is doing so well. He is our most solid investiagator. The first time we left him a Book of Mormon, he read 3 Nephi 11 all the introduction and testimonies, and the first four chapters. He has a really tough background, so he really needs the gospel in his life, and I really hope he will continue to progress, and be ready for baptism some day!

The change in weather is really nice, and I have seen a glimpse of how cold it will be in the winter with the humidity. I am very glad that you sent me all the winter stuff, because I am definitely going to need it.

I am missing all of you very much as well, and I wish I could spend tomorrow with you too, but I am glad I am able to serve the Lord. I love all of you very much, and thank you again so much for the love, support, and birthday packages.

Love, Kyle

Hi Dad!

 

I am so grateful for such great parents! I love reading your emails, and thank you so much for the packages! I am happy to represent our family and Jesus Christ as a missionary. I loved hearing President Monson's announcement also, and I love being able to say that I am a missionary.

 

Being a missionary is a great thing, but I sometimes get discouraged. I know that I am doing what I am supposed too, and that I shouldn't be disappointed, but after all our investigators aren't home, and then others drop us, it can be hard not to be. I guess I just really haven't seen any results yet, so I don't know if I am helping. All disappointment aside, I still know that we can baptize here, and that we can help bring others closer to Christ. Right now, we just need to find the people who need this gospel in their lives.

 

Answers

1. We do service at a food pantry, and also at a thrift store. I have met some of the nicest people ever at these places, and so I am more than happy to help them out when they need us.

2. We are definitely working hard, and trying to have fun! I am always dead tired when we come home each night, so hopefully that is a good sign.

3. We don't play basketball on Preperation days, because the English elders in our area don't want to, so we just relax all day.

4. We lost a lot of our investigators this week, but the few we still have are very solid. We received a refferal about 6 weeks ago for a man name Jesus Hernandez, and he is progressing very well. He read five chapters and all of the introductory stuff inbetween visits. He works every day 12 hours a day, so the thing we have to worry about the most is church attendance for him, but we are so excited for this man, and we can't wait to see him progress.

5. Yes! We found Mary's records on Tuesday! Now we are going to start working with her husband, and hopefully he will follow her example.

6. We did, but it wasn't a good time. We are going back by again this week.

7. I actually had interviews with my Mission President this week, and he is doing really well! His birthday was yesterday.

8. I have a better funny story now from this week. We were tracting one night, and knocked on a door in the middle of town. A little boy, five years old, answered the door. We heard a voice from with-in the room say, "Let them in, Luke!" The little boy, Luke, told us to come in and when we did, there was an old man who was about 58 sitting in a recliner that looked as old as he was. When we first saw him, his feet were already a little above his head. He began to try to get up, and as he swung himself forward to straighten the recliner, it actually went a little backwards. He repeated this until all at once the recliner fall all the way to the ground, and he is just sitting there almost upside down. I said to him, "Do you need some help?" and his response was, "No just give me a second." So we sit their awkwardly, as we watch him flip himself over backwards. He was definitely now a young man, and when he finally got up out of the chair I am pretty sure he was sweating. We again just kind of sat their awkwardly as he tried to fix his chair, then we did our door approach and left. As soon as we shut the door behind us, we began to burst up laughing. It was one of the funniest things we have seen so far on our missions.

 

I am still doing good. I am happy and I just figure if I keep working hard it will all get better. I hope it will. This transfer has gone by so much faster than the last one. I feel like it went by twice as fast, and I have heard that it just gets faster from here on, so we will see how it goes.

 

I love y'all so much and miss y'all a lot. I miss my BYU and golf buddy too. Thank you for your help in preparing me for a mission! Have a great week!

 

Love

Kyle

This week was so tiring and so long!

Hey Mom,

This week was so tiring and so long! Then my companion got sick on saturday, and we left the apartment late, which means that we weren't able to get 74 hours in. We also thought we would get a lot done this week, but it was our slowest week of the transfer so far. It was really difficult to be working so hard, and to not have much happen. It made each day seem so much longer. Instead of teaching lots of lessons, we tracted all day long with only taking a few breaks. We are really hoping that the blessing will come the next couple of weeks. At least this week, I could honestly say that I have never worked harder on something in my life.

The baptismal dates that we have set are all in November spread through out the month. We are working hard to try and get all our investiagators progressing, but there is always the challenge of them not being home when we schedule our return visits. At times I wonder if we are doing something wrong since we are both new.

All challenges aside, we are still really happy all the time. Honestly the only disappointment and sadness that we have comes from our investigators not being home or not progressing. We are still working hard and loving it. We are still just waiting to see some success, and we know that it will come.

Honestly I am not really missing anything from home. I would love some pringles though. Please! And everything else that you were talking about sounds good. I would like a long sleeve sweater vest as well if possible. Thank you for your support.

I have been trying to keep in touch with all my friends on missions. They are all doing really well now. It is crazy to think that we were all in high school five months ago, and now we are all over the world. It will be exciting to see them all when they come back from their missions.

I am glad y'all had a great time in St. George this week with all the family. I love all the pictures that you send, and I promise that I will start taking more pictures, and hopefully send some next week. I am doing really well out here, and I love being a servant of Jesus Christ.

I love y'all very much!

Kyle

Hey Dad!

 

Don't worry about not writing last week. We didn't have much time to email last week anyways. And sorry I haven't sent any pictures. I promise I will do better from now on.

Answers:

2. Unfortunately, none of our investigators are coming to church except for Mary. She has been so solid, and we are thinking that we won't find her baptismal records, so honestly, she could be baptized with in the next two to three weeks if we don't find her records.

4. My companion and I are getting along great.  We are really good friends, and we are starting to work really well together.

5. The weirdest thing I have eaten was actually at a Mexican restaurant, that a member took us too. He said he loved the Menudo. I had never heard of it, so I decided to at least try it. My companion and the member knew what it was, and told me they weren't going to tell me, so I ate it. When I had finished it, they then told me that menudo is cow intestines, and it honestly wasn't all that bad. Wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad.

6. Nothing funny has really happened to us while tracting. We have been kicked out of about five different apartment complexes. Actually there was one day this week where all our appointments fell through, so we decided to go knock some doors in that trailer park. The first door we knocked, we were let in by a 40 year old man. He told us he wanted to wait for his wife to come before we taught him, so we just sat their and talked. When his wife opened the door, she had this really weird look on her face. She recognized us, and asked her husband why we were there. When we started talking to her to get to know her, she told us she had already been baptized into our church 18 years ago. Huh? So we began to ask her more questions, and we found out that she never really had a testimony, nor did she really know much about the church. She was baptized because her neighbors were baptized, but since then has become catholic. Very weird situation. Then after this conversation her husband said he never knew that she had been baptized. We will see what happens there... We are currently trying to find her records.

7. I can't really pick one time where I felt the spirit the strongest, but probably one time when I or my companion were saying the first vision. It is amazing how strong the spirit is when those words are said, and how it impacts the people being taught.

9. My money is doing great!

10. This week was really tough actually. Not a lot happened. We did though, teach a referral we received from Salt Lake twice this week, and he has such a humbling story. He was married somewhere about 6 years ago, and had a baby. His wife then began cheating on him, so he took the girl and left. He has been to Utah, and is now living in a tiny apartment, with almost no furniture. He works every day for a lot of time, and for every minute he isn't working, he is taking care of his daughter. It strengthened my testimony, or more made me so grateful for the family I have had and for the gospel in my life. I also realized how much I love this man, and I don't really know him very well. I want him to accept this gospel so bad!

 

I am honestly still doing fantastic out here, and I am so grateful for your love and support. I love you very much! How is the ward doing. Has anyone moved in yet? How are the Priests doing?

 

Thank you for always writing me! Have a good week!

 

Kyle

Conference Weekend

Hi Mom,

This week has been so good! We are being so blessed for our obedience and willingness to work hard. We are finding lots of people who are ready for the gospel. We set 5 new baptismal dates just this week. We also have 4 progressing investigators, and some more that will be coming this week hopefully. I have definitely learned the importance of being obedient and the importance of working hard.

Also, this next week to challenge ourselves a little bit, we are going to do what we call a 74 hour week. This pretty much means that we leave the apartment at 10, don't take any breaks for meals during the day, and return home after 9. It is going to be deadly, but we are excited to do it! We are really hoping that we can get a lot done this next week, and find lots of new investigators. If we do this, then maybe we won't have to go tracting all day long. We will see what happens...

I loved this conference weekend! Missionaries like to compare conference weekend to the super bowl, and I would definitely have to agree with them. It was so much fun to take a break and listen to the prophet. Conference has never meant more to me than as a missionary. I was able to think about what my investigators needed, and what I need to change in order to help them get there. Also, to make the weekend better, we decided to make breakfast before the Sunday morning session. This made watching conference away from home not so hard. And watching it at the church, really wasn't too bad. It helped me focus, and stay awake. This weekend was probably one of the best weekends of my mission so far. I loved it!

I am not in the need of anything to seriously right now, but winter is coming, so I need two more long sleeve shirts, a jacket, and coat. Besides that, I am doing good. So, I am not sure if you want to send me that stuff, or if I should just buy it myself on a Preperation day or something. I loved the package that you sent for conference. The bear claws have never tasted so good.

As for my investigators, we have taught this lady named Lupe Gabriolarosa a couple times in the past, and then stopped because she was always gone. Well, this monday we started teaching her again. She was very interested in the message we shared, and understood it all very well. It was very powerful lesson. At the end I began extending the baptismal commitment, and before I could finish, she was nodding her head yes. It was incredible! When we came back the next time that week, she had read in the Book of Mormon, and was still very interested. We invited her to conference, but unfortunately, she didn't come. I am still very optimistic about her though. She is probably our most solid investigator at the moment.

We then set baptismal dates with Laura, Henry Gutierrez, Roque Ricl, and Margarito Ricl. We are so blessed!

Thank you so much for all your love and support. I am really starting to be happier all the time, and I love teaching the restored gosplel. I am still very excited to see what we can do this week!

Have a good week!

Kyle