October 29, 2012

Hello All,

My week has gone pretty well. It was also a really busy week with other things that wasn't missionary work. But I will just let you know of some of the cool things that happened this week. On Friday we went as a zone to our temple trip. It is always good to be able to go to the temple. I love going to the temple. We continued to teach Braxton. She is getting baptized on the 17th of November. I don't know if I will be here for that or not. Transfers are going to be this week. I will find out if I am leaving or staying on Wednesday, and then I will find out where I go on Friday. So this week will be a week of mysteries. I hope I can stay, but I also want to see what the rest of the mission is like in different areas. There were also 2 miracles that happened in the work this week.

The first miracle of the week was a testimony builder that the priesthood can heal people. Sandy, one of our recent converts was really sick and had a low blood count. The next day she was going to be going to the doctor to receive a blood transfusion. So that night she called us and told us she was really sick and that she wanted to have a priesthood blessing. I was on tradeoffs at the time and Elder Sio was with me, so we went right away to her house and gave her a blessing. Elder Sio did the anointing and I did the blessing. The miracle occurred the next day when she went to the doctor. The doctor said that he had no idea how it happened and was in amazement. The doctor told her that something he could not figure out happened and that she didn't need the blood transfusion anymore. So priesthood blessings work! The priesthood is so powerful the doctors cant even figure out how it heals people. So that was a great experience for me and definitely strengthened my testimony of how the priesthood can heal people!

The next one happened when we went to visit one of our investigators, Navy. He wants to get baptized, but he isn't married to his partner, so that has been a struggle for us. He lives with members in our ward. And Sister Le Pau the member's mom was visiting from Samoa. We shared a spiritual thought and had a prayer and afterwards Her mom said that she wanted to get baptized. Sister Le Pau said that she opposed the church when she joined and that it is a miracle now that she wants to join the church. We were going to try and teach her and baptize her, but she goes back to Samoa on Friday. In order for her to be baptized she has to attend church twice. So we sent a notice to the mission office to send missionaries to her moms house in Samoa. But it was a really good experience for me.

Anyway, that was my week. It was really good. I will let you all know what is happening with me this week next Monday to see if I am transferred or not. I miss you all and hope you have a great week

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

October 22,2012

Hello All,

This week hasn't been too exciting. But there was one really good thing that happened. We found out that there was a girl coming to church for 4 weeks and had been asking about the church and things to the Young Women Leaders. So the 4 weeks we were at church we thought she was a member who was visiting. So after 4 hard weeks of hard work and tracting and having to drop some of our investigators, we were able to start teaching this girl. And we set a baptismal date with her for the 3rd of November. I don't know if I will still be in the area, but there is a high chance that I am going to be transferred on the 2nd of November. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. The girls name is Braxton. (Braxton is a girls name in Australia) I thought it was kind of weird at first, but then I accepted the fact that it was a girls name. I really love it here in Raceview. I have been able to get lots of things done while I was here. But it seems like it is time for me to leave and have a new adventure.

Another miracle happened with my Recent Convert Sandy. She was going through a hard time and was trying to leave the church. She was saying that she wanted us to delete her phone number and never visit her again. Hearing this made me pretty sad and it made me want to do anything I could to bring her back and change her mind. So me and my companion did not give up with her. We kept calling her and visiting her. She let us in her house and she let us show her one of the Mormon message videos. And the one we showed her applied to what she was going through at the time. So she decided to not leave the church. She started coming back to church again. At a later appointment we taught about temples and we are trying our hardest to make it so she has the ability to get her limited use temple recommend and go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. She said she really wanted to go. And she started telling all her friends that she was going to go to the temple. So she is really excited for her chance to do that. She watched the conference talks and loved it. And everything is going really well with her again. It makes me happy to see that everything is going well with her again. It is crazy to see the growth of someone from the time we knock on their door, to the time they get baptized, to the time that they are going to go to the temple for the first time. In a year she is going to be able to be sealed to her family, and I hope that she makes it that far. That experience made my week really good!

As for the rest of the week. We did lots of tracting and lessons for potential investigators. We didn't have much success with that. We have a busy week this week. We only have 3 days to work because on Thursday we have a training all day. On Friday we have our temple trip that will take most the day and then the things we do to prep for transfers is next week, and transfers are also next week. So I'm keeping busy and I am really enjoying my time in the Australia Brisbane Mission. I miss you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

October 15, 2012

Hello All,

This week was pretty good. Nothing too exciting happened this week, but that's part of missionary work. Hopefully things will start to get moving again this week. On Monday, We had our P-Day with all the missionaries in the district. We had a district lunch and then played sports at the chapel. On Tuesday, We had trade offs with the Zone Leaders. So Elder Marshall who is from Arizona came to Raceview and worked with me. We had a pretty good day. We had a lesson with a New Investigator named Sam. I cant tell how interested she is because we were only able to teach her a short lesson at her doorstep. We are going to go back sometime this week to see how interested she is. We then went and saw our other investigators named Pa'i and Ntarewa. He is a Cook Islander and she is Moadi. They really want to get baptized, but they aren't married, so this week we are going to try to set a wedding date with them and then a baptism date soon after that. We then had an odd experience when we went to visit a less active who is on our less active list. This man answered the door and he is a non member, his daughter was the less active member. But he invited us in and he said that we were not allowed to be in his house if we were going to discuss religion. They are still in contact with missionaries from over 15 years ago, but I guess they don't want to join the church. Soon realizing it was a waste of our time to visit them because we are missionaries and it is a waste of time to talk non religion stuff. That was our lessons for the day and it all ended good.

On Wednesday, We had a Zone Conference all day, so 5 zones in the mission got together and had trainings from missionaries and the mission president and stuff. It was good.

On Thursday, We went on splits with a couple of the YSA's preparing to go on their mission. We had earlier received a referral to a lady who lives at a mental disability institution. I was scared to go inside, but went in and tried to find the lady we had the referral for and found out that she no longer lived there. We talked to a guy who was interested in the gospel. He said he had short term memory loss, but we still decided to set an appointment for this week, he said he was going to call us later that night to talk about the gospel. I guess he forgot about it though because we never got a call from him. So i guess we will see what happens this week when we go back to visit him. We then went to visit one of the potentials we tracted into ages ago and he let us in and we taught him the restoration. It went really well. He said he was happy with the church he was going to now, but we set a return appointment after committing him to read and pray about the book of Mormon. So we will see how that goes this week.

On Friday, all of our lessons fell through, so we did some tracting and stuff. We were able to find a couple of potentials.

On Saturday and Sunday, we watch general conference and it was really good. I enjoyed it a lot.

That was my week. I miss you all and I hope you all have a good week!

 

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

October 8, 2012

Hello All,

This week was a pretty good week. It was the 2nd week with my new companion and we worked really hard. We have some new investigators we are working with and are hoping to set some more baptismal dates. On Sunday we had another Baptism. One of Sandy's kids turned 8 last month, and she was really excited to be baptized. Sandy is doing really great! She is active and she is going to be going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead in a couple of weeks. Her kids really like the youth program in our ward and really enjoy being with all the other members of the church. Her daughter Tijnara got baptized and she was nervous at first but we helped her build up the confidence to get into the water, and she did a really good job getting baptized. I was the one that confirmed her. A member in our ward baptized her. His name is Floyd and he leaves on his mission to Adelaide next month. Most of the people that go on missions here stay in Australia for their mission, or they go to New Zealand. Not many people go anywhere else around the world. He has been coming out with us all day everyday, and has been a really good help for us and being able to get a lot of things done.

This week we also had a mini missionary. A mini missionary is someone who lives nearby in a different stake and they come and spend a week with the missionaries to see how it is. Floyd's brother Brandon also came out with us a lot and we went on splits almost all week. Most weeks we only get 5-8 lessons in, but this week we had 16 lessons between the two of us going on splits, so lots of things got done. The members are starting to like the missionaries here more and we have started to get lots of referrals from the members. We got a referral for a Samoan family, who doesn't speak English. In a nearby area we have a missionary from Samoa and he is going to teach the family the lessons and then we will have someone translate for them at church. Another big thing this week is we received a Media referral which means that someone went to mormon.org and requested the missionaries to come and teach him. We were able to teach him one lessons and we are going back to see him tomorrow and try to commit him to be baptized. He was really receptive to everything that we taught him and hopefully he will start to progress. I am really excited to see where he goes. His name is Nick.

Another good experience that happened this week is when I went tracting with the mini missionary. I didn't know where to go to tract, so I gave him the map and told him to pick a street to tract. So he picked a street and so I drove to that street and we started to tract. Across the street from where we were tracted there was a house with screaming kids running around, and something kept telling me to go across the street and tract into that house. So a lady answered that door and listened to everything we had to tell her and we set a return appointment for tomorrow, so I hope all goes well with her because it was a good experience.

We are also working with two couples who aren't married, but want to get baptized. So we are trying our hardest to have them set a marriage date or start to try and get married, so they can be baptized. I hope they start to think about getting married soon. A big problem with people in Australia is that they think it is OK to start a family and live together without getting married, but they have to be married if they want to get baptized, and some people don't understand why. We will keep working with them and we hope good things start to happen with them soon.

As for conference, it isn't shown in Australia until next week, so we cant watch it until then. We did hear about the missionary age lowering. That is pretty crazy. I would have gone on a mission a year ago if I was able to. I like how women now have a chance to go when they are younger. So go on missions everyone! It is a good experience and you can feel all the blessings that come from it. On my mission is the only time I will receive blessings for waking up at 6:30 every morning. The blessings are felt by yourself and you family at home. Since the age requirements were changed I would like to see more of the women going on missions.

So those are the good experiences I have had this week and hopefully I will have some more experiences soon. I miss you all and I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Kyler Powelson

                                          Kyler and Elder Paia'aua

             Elder Powelson, Sandy, Tijnara, Floyd, Elder Paia'aua

 

October 2, 2012

Hello All,

The reason I am writing today instead of yesterday is because yesterday was the Queens Birthday, since it is a holiday the library was closed, so we had to wait another day to do our emails. My week was really good though. I received a new companion. His name is Elder Paia'aua. He is from New Zealand and is Samoan. His Samoan isn't the greatest though, so he won't be teaching me much more of it. It doesn't matter though. All the people we teach speak English anyways. So its all good. He is a really good companion. We get along really well, and are becoming really close friends. I get along with him a lot better than my last companion, so I am really excited for the next 5 or more weeks. We will just have to see what happens with next transfer. Anyways this week went alright. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we just went around the area having my new companion meet some of the members and our investigators and just helping him become familiar with the area and everything in the area. Then on Saturday we did a service project at the chapel. We whacked the bush weeds out of the grounds of the chapel. It took a couple of hours to do, but it was not too bad. Then on Saturday afternoon we went to a Joesph Smith Musical fireside and took one of our investigators. It was really good. It was people playing music and singing and telling the story of Joseph Smith. I really enjoyed it. Then that night we got a mini missionary. He is spending this week with us and he is pretty cool and we are having a good time with him. Then on Sunday we had church and taught some lessons. This week we are hoping to turn some of our potential investigators into progressing investigators. This next Sunday we have another baptism with another one of Sandy's kids which really exciting. She is really excited and I am really excited for her. I will make sure to send a picture of it next week with my email. Nothing too exciting happened this week, but we are hoping for some exciting things to happen this next week. I miss you all and I hope you all have a great week

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson