August 27, 2012

Hello All,

This week has been a really busy week. We had a total of 7 baptisms this weekend breaking the mission record for the number of baptisms in a week by a companionship. We are going to have dinner with the mission president and his wife sometime in the next couple of weeks and our picture is going to be put on display at the mission office. It was a really good experience. I'm glad I have had some of the experiences I have had. I have attached some pictures of the baptisms we had this weekend. The Baptism we had on Saturday was Blake. Both his parents are less active members and he really wanted to get baptized when we tracted into him. So he was really excited to be baptized and his baptism went really well. Then on Sunday we had the baptism of Sandy and 5 of her kids. She has 3 more kids but they are under the age of 8. It was a really good experience. We tracted into Sandy and she said that the night before we knocked on her door she was praying for what she needed to do with her life. The next morning we tracted 3 houses and her house was the 3rd one that we tracted. She said we answered her prayers when two guys knocked on her door with smiling faces. So it was a good experience teacher her and all of her kids up to the point of being baptized. This is going to be a rememberable baptism for me. I baptized 2 of the kids and 2 other members in the ward who fellowshipped them baptized the others. The kids names are Tyrone, Liam, Tahlia, Melanie, and Jackson. So I baptized Tahlia, and Liam. I was really nervous doing this for the first time. I had to baptize Tahlia 4 times because her dress would not go under the water. She had to end up tying the dress in a knot so it wouldn't go to the top of the water. But eventually we got it worked out and she was baptized. The mission president and AP's came to the Baptisms and he said it was the biggest baptism he has had so far in the 2 years he has been mission president. There were 141+ people attending the baptism. Usually only about 20-30 people attend a baptism, but the whole ward wanted to support the great family. The ward said that they never have had a baptism that big. There were heaps of refreshments and the ward has a really good time. I will never forget this baptism or this family. The coolest part of being on a mission is that I will have a connection with this family forever. It was a really good experience. I will never forget it. So my whole week was spent preparing these people for their baptism. And this week we have no investigators with a baptism date, so we are going to try and set at least one more this week. Our teaching pool is once again low so this next week we are going to be doing lots of finding. I miss you all and I hope you all have a good week this week.
 

Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson

    Elder Powelson  Tyrone  Liam Melanie  Tahlia  Jackson Elder  Oto

                                                          Blake

August 20, 2012

Hello All

I had some more good experiences this week. We taught quite a bit of lessons this week. But the good experience for the week happened this Saturday. I was on a trade-off with the Zone Leaders on Saturday, so it was my first time in my area with someone who didnt know the area. So I had to lead every activity we did and get around. I did really well. I was surprised how well I knew the area. I never needed to get around on my own before. So I was with Elder Marshall who is another American from Arizona. In the morning we went to follow up on a potential who we had taught a lesson to and was really interested. We were planning on setting a Baptismal Date, but when we talked to her, she said she was not interested anymore and told us to go away. So we left. And as we were walking down the street a miracle happened. An older lady came running towards us saying "Stop! I have been praying and I think you two are the answer to my prayers." We were both really surprised and we went to her door step and taught her a 15 minute version on the Restoration. She said she had been praying for years to find a church to accept her, and she saw us walking and thought we were the answer to her prayers. The spirit was really strong as we taught her. She said she went from being in a really bad, negative mood into a very happy mood. She knew that God had answered her prayers. She said she never worked on her garden, but she felt like she needed to today. If she was not outside working on her garden, she would have never seen us walking down the street. It strengthens my testimony that missionaries are led to places and to people who are ready to hear the gospel. There is no way that it is a coincidence that she was working on her garden right at the time we were walking by. The Lord inspired all of us to be in that place at that time. She then went to church on Sunday and she also came to our baptism. She said it was all Amazing. We are going to try and set a baptismal date with her on Tuesday. It is true that God does inspire his servants. That was definitely a testimony builder. Her name is Kathy

So we had the baptism on Yaige Taito yesterday. His uncle baptized him and he is really excited for church and everything. This Saturday we have Blake's Baptism. Both his parents are less active members and he is really excited to be baptized. Then on Sunday we have the baptism of Sandy and 5 of her kids. They are all really excited and I am really excited! Well that is my week. I miss you all and I hope you all have a really good week.

Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson

           Elder Powelson  Yaige's Uncle  Yaige Taito  Elder Oto

August 14, 2012

Hello all,

This week has been pretty good. We have a baptism this Sunday which is really excited and then we have 7 more next week. I am really excited for them to happen. The one on Sunday is a 9 year old boy who is part of a part-member family who was never baptized. Then next week Sandy and all of her kids are getting baptized. It is really cool to see how much they have changed in the month that we have met with them. It is really cool having a miracle convert this early in my mission. If we were lazy missionaries and didn't tract, then we would have never found her and it would not have been as good of an experience. So hard work does pay off on the mission. Anyone who gets mission calls or has exciting news make sure to tell my mom so she can email it to me. We taught quite a bit of lessons this week. We have been doing lots of work to prepare everything for the baptisms we are having soon. The work is going well and Raceview is growing to become one of the better area in the mission. We had no one to teach when we got here, and now there are heaps of people to teach. We hope to keep finding more people and teaching more people so the work can keep getting better and better here. I am excited and I am having some of the most spiritual experience I have ever had in my life so far. We have a few potential investigators that are really interested, so we will see what happens this week. We have already had 2 lessons this week and we have 10 more planned for the rest of the week. That is really high for this mission, so we are definitely keeping busy. That is as far as the work goes.

Now for some good experiences that I have had. Last week I went to a Samoan birthday party. Since we were missionaries we were automatically guests of honor. So we sat at the big table and got served our food. The people kept coming and putting food on my plate. I don't have to worry about going hungry in this area. The members always make sure we have food. There was lots of people singing and dancing. It was all in the Samoan Language so I could not understand a thing, but the food was really good. Samoan food is really good.

So 5 years ago they took away all of the Samoan speaking wards and some people didn't like that because it is hard for them to understand English, so they decided to make a break off church of the LDS church. We call them the break-offs. Well we went and visited them and they started to realized that the spirit isn't in their meetings and that they didn't have the authority from god to do all the things they do, so some of them decided to come back to church even though it is in English. So that was a miracle for us to have people come back.

Well, that is about it for my week and I hope everyone else is doing well. I miss you all and I hope you all have a great week!
 

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

August 6, 2012

Hello all,

Not too much has been going on this week. Sandy and her kids came to church yesterday and are really excited about being baptized on the 26th. Blake who is a part of a part member family is also excited to be baptized on the 25th. We have been teaching them a lot this week to prepare them for baptism in a couple of weeks. It is really cool. But yesterday we had a surprise text. We talked to a member in our ward at church on Sunday and she said that she that her nephew wanted to start taking the missionary lessons. So we set up a time to meet with them on Wednesday. Later in the day on Sunday we got a text message saying that this boy wanted to get baptized as soon as possible and they set up the date on Aug 19th at 6pm. So it was really cool getting an unexpected text like that. Our zone is going to break the Ipswich Zone record this month. The record is only 10 baptisms in a month. and in our zone we have 17 baptismal dates set for the rest of August as a district. 8 of those are just from me and my companion. We also met with some other investigators that aren't progressing very fast. One of the biggest problems for people in Australia is that they live with their partners, but are not married. So one of our investigators named Navi really wanted to get baptized next month, but his partner doesn't want to get married for another year. Our investigator Rachel is still having problems with her family letting her be baptized. We found a couple of potential investigators this week. We have some lessons set up with them this week, so hopefully we will have some new investigators at the end of the week. That is about as far as the work is going. We are really busy and August is a really busy month for everyone one in the mission. I am privileged to start as a missionary in the zone I am in because people actually listen to us when we try to talk to them. There aren't very many rude people. I haven't learned much Samoan this week because we have been really busy with missionary work, but I have picked up on a few things. Who knows if I will ever be able to become fluent in it. But that doesn't matter as much as the work does at this time. The missionary work is keeping us busy. Even though all the Samoan people feed us a lot of food I have lost 6 kg's so far on my mission. I don't know how many pounds that is, but it is over 10 lbs. We are keeping really busy and I really like doing all the missionary work. One of my goals is to try and enjoy tracting as much as possible. the 7 of our baptisms were people we found by tracting. So even though everyone doesn't listen us there is that occasional person who will listen to us. Overall the missionary work is good and I am learning a lot. This is the last week of my first transfer (6 weeks) and so I only have 6 more weeks with my trainer. The mission president said I will probably be serving in Raceview until January. It has been getting down to 0 degrees Celsius in the mornings and so it has been pretty cold. The people who live here think the world is going to end at that point. But I have survived a lot colder. That is about it for this week. I will let you all know of my busy week next week. I miss you all.
 

Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson