Hello All,
This last week has been a really great week. I have a companion
who really wants to work and we have been working our butts off trying to find
people to teach. With Elder Sio, this is the hardest I have worked my whole
mission. Elder Sio is my new companion. He is 28 years old and is Samoan, he
was born and raised in Sydney. But he is a work horse and we have been working
super hard. We taught 12 lessons compared to the usual 5 i had with Elder Kay
and we got 4 new investigators this week when we were lucky to get one. It
definitely makes a difference having a companion that wants to work just as hard
as I do. We are still on the bikes until after the new year and I have started
to lose quite a bit of weight. I am hoping to get back down to the weight I
left home. Anyways. The work is going great
We got a new investigator
we started to teach and his name is Donny. He is a Philipino man and he said he
needs to start doing something new in his life and he thinks the gospel might be
that thing. We taught him 2 lessons during this week but he was not able to
come to church, so hopefully he will be able to come next week.
We also
started to teach a 7th Day Adventist family. They are confused people. But we
made the agreement with them that if we come to their worship services on Saturday, then they will come to ours on Sunday. Basically what 7th Day Adventist believe is
that in the Old Testament God made the Sabbath day the 7th Day. But when Jesus
Christ was resurrected on the first day, he said to worship him and have the
sabbath on the first day. So basically what they believe is that Jesus Christ
cant change the day that we worship him. Jesus said to worship him on the First
day, but they 7th Day Adventists say that they don't believe that Jesus Christ
could change the Sabbath Day. They are really knowledgeable about the Bible.
We are teaching them about the Book of Mormon and we are hoping that it might go
somewhere.
We also found some Lost Less Active people. Since there are
600 people on our branch list where only 150 people are active we decided to
start visiting some of these people and we are now working with a couple of
them to see if we can get them to come back to church. I am excited for one of
the families we started to work with because it is a part member and the kids
are thinking about being baptized. So we aren't going to be meeting with them
again until the new year, but I am quite excited to see where it goes.
I am excited to talk to my parents on Christmas tomorrow! I miss you all and I hope you have a great
week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
December 17, 2012
Hello All,
On the 13th of December I hit my 6 month mark on the mission. I have made it far!! So I burned an ugly tie that I found in my apartment to celebrate the 6 month milestone on my mission! Pictures are attached. I have a video of it as well, but I cant email that one. My companion was saying that I am a pyro when it comes to burning things. oh well. It was lots of fun! We made sure we were safe and we had a bucket of water next to us. I have made it pretty far! I love being a missionary! It has been a great 6 months.
On Saturday I received a new companion. Elder Kay has been up here for 7.5 months, so it was his time to go back down to Brisbane. My new companion is Elder Sio. He was a missionary in my district in Ipswich, so now we are companions. He is a really good guy. He is a Samoan Australian, he was born and raised in Sydney. He speak fluent Samoan, so I might be able to start learning the language again! He is great. We have been together for 2 days now. He is my 4th companion and all my companions have been from different countries. Elder Oto was from Samoa, Elder Paia'aua was from New Zealand, Elder Kay is from England and Elder Sio is from Sydney. I wonder if my next companion will be from a different country. Who knows.
The work has been starting to move really slow because everyone is going away for the Christmas holidays. Most people leave Townsville for Christmas, so it is going to be a pretty bare place. Except for a few people.
We were able to teach the African girl again this week. Her name is Mire and her mum Marie sat in on the lesson. they said that they were going to come to church next week. So I hope it works out. They thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses til the 2nd lesson, so after that things started to work out better. We will hopefully be able to go see them sometime this week.
We also went around to lots of less active members and we decided to make Christmas card and drop them off to as many less active members as we could. It was hard since the branch list has 600 names on it with only 150 active members. A lot of the work we are going to be focusing on is getting those less actives back to church. I am sure there is at least one family that is ready to come back to church.
We also tracted into a less active member who was baptized in Townsville 16 years ago. We talked with her for about an hour and set a return appointment. She said that she will think about coming back to church, which is exciting news! Her name is Cassandra. It is exciting to run into people like this when you tract for ages trying to find people. My work is going really well up here and I am excited to see things to start taking off once the new year starts! I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
On the 13th of December I hit my 6 month mark on the mission. I have made it far!! So I burned an ugly tie that I found in my apartment to celebrate the 6 month milestone on my mission! Pictures are attached. I have a video of it as well, but I cant email that one. My companion was saying that I am a pyro when it comes to burning things. oh well. It was lots of fun! We made sure we were safe and we had a bucket of water next to us. I have made it pretty far! I love being a missionary! It has been a great 6 months.
On Saturday I received a new companion. Elder Kay has been up here for 7.5 months, so it was his time to go back down to Brisbane. My new companion is Elder Sio. He was a missionary in my district in Ipswich, so now we are companions. He is a really good guy. He is a Samoan Australian, he was born and raised in Sydney. He speak fluent Samoan, so I might be able to start learning the language again! He is great. We have been together for 2 days now. He is my 4th companion and all my companions have been from different countries. Elder Oto was from Samoa, Elder Paia'aua was from New Zealand, Elder Kay is from England and Elder Sio is from Sydney. I wonder if my next companion will be from a different country. Who knows.
The work has been starting to move really slow because everyone is going away for the Christmas holidays. Most people leave Townsville for Christmas, so it is going to be a pretty bare place. Except for a few people.
We were able to teach the African girl again this week. Her name is Mire and her mum Marie sat in on the lesson. they said that they were going to come to church next week. So I hope it works out. They thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses til the 2nd lesson, so after that things started to work out better. We will hopefully be able to go see them sometime this week.
We also went around to lots of less active members and we decided to make Christmas card and drop them off to as many less active members as we could. It was hard since the branch list has 600 names on it with only 150 active members. A lot of the work we are going to be focusing on is getting those less actives back to church. I am sure there is at least one family that is ready to come back to church.
We also tracted into a less active member who was baptized in Townsville 16 years ago. We talked with her for about an hour and set a return appointment. She said that she will think about coming back to church, which is exciting news! Her name is Cassandra. It is exciting to run into people like this when you tract for ages trying to find people. My work is going really well up here and I am excited to see things to start taking off once the new year starts! I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
December 10, 2012
Hello All!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
This week has been pretty good. First I would update you all on all the
crazy things that have happened to me here in Townsville in my first transfer
here. The transfer is almost over and have been an eventful 6 weeks. First, We
had a baptism and we had to empty out the font with buckets because the pump was
broken and the water would not drain. Then the next week our apartment was
broken into while we were asleep, they realized we were poor and just took my
wallet. I would of rather had them take anything else because they took my
drivers license and my companion doesn't have a drivers license so we had to go
on bikes until I could get something figured out. The same day I was able to
get a drivers license, the other missionaries crashed the car because the other
driver didn't yield in a roundabout. So we are on bikes for another 3 weeks
waiting for the car to get fixed. But after all one of the cops that came to the
crash was a lost in active member and we are going to try and get him to come
back to church. I believe all of this happened for a reason because we had many
opportunities to share the gospel with people while we were on bikes instead of
a car. We got to talk to more people on the streets and I was able to become a
better missionary because some pretty terrible things happened. Everything
happens for a reason. I learned great lessons not having a car, and we found
people we wouldn't have be able to find if we were in the car. None of the
people are progressing, but we hope to make them progressing sometime in the
future. I am kind of thankful that it happened because it has helped me grow
as a person. We are going to be on bikes for another 2 weeks, so I am going to
continue to lose some weight I gained from being stuffed by Samoans for 4.5
months. And we can share the gospel with people on the streets. So lots of
crazy things happened in the last 6 weeks and I am learning from them greatly.
Blessings can always be disguised in terrible things happening.
Anyways, This week has been a pretty slow week. We did a lot of tracting
with not too much success, but we were able to teach a couple of people. We
started teaching an African Girl. She is 15 and her parents told us we could
start teaching her. We have only taught her the first lesson, but she said she
would come to church next week, so we will see what happens with her. Her name
is Mira. We also taught Qayyum one last lesson before he left. All that need
to get done is his baptismal interview and then he can be baptized when he gets
back in January. I am really
excited for him. He already has plans on serving a mission and he isn't even
baptized yet. So he is going to be a really strong convert, and it is all
because A member invited his friend to come to church. I think sometimes
members are afraid to share the gospel with their friends because it might ruin
friendships, but we have to share is the greatest news that we have in this
lifetime. Many people don't know what the purpose in life and that the same
church that was on the earth in Jesus Christ's time is on the earth again today. I would love to encourage all of
you to at least invite your friends to come to church with you because Qayyum
just had to feel the spirit once in order to learn more. He knew he had to join
right when he felt the spirit in the meeting. So it is easy to just invite your
friend to church, because it makes missionary work a lot faster because
missionaries don't know anyone and they rely on the members to share the gospel
because conversions are so much greater when the members are involved.
I also had a miracle occur this
Saturday when we were tracting. We came to a door where this guy was
smoking on his front porch, He told us he had a lot of problems, we gave him
a pamphlet and gave the regular sh peel about the restoration. We gave him the
pamphlet and went on our way. As we got to the end of the street I felt like we
needed to go back and talk to this guy. So we went back and talked with him and
he said he just needed someone to talk to, So we talked with him for about an
hour while sharing the restoration message. We all got along really well and
formed a friendship fast. He said that he wanted to continue taking the lessons
and he said that we came just at the right time and he recognized that God had
sent us to him and that he needed to come to church. The only thing was that
the next day he was flying and moving to Sydney. So we referred him to the
missionaries down there. So if I ignored that prompting to go back and talk to
him, he would have moved away being in a terrible mood about life, and since I
followed it and went back to talk to him, he wants to learn more about the
church and I hope that the missionaries down in Sydney will do a good job with
that. I will never know if he gets baptized, but I hope that even though he
moved he can still learn more about the gospel. This strengthened my testimony
that the God does give missionaries promptings. And it is important that we
stay worthy to receive those promptings. I love being a missionary and doing to
work. That experience is just what I needed after a very long unsuccessful
week.
Yesterday I had to chance to
go to a small town named Ingham which is about 1.5 hours north of townsville.
They hold a sacrament meeting up there once a month, so once a month a member
of our bishopric and the missionaries go up there. I gave a talk in the
sacrament meeting and the spirit was really strong. There was a total of 6
people at the sacrament meeting and there are 2 investigators up there the other
missionaries are teaching. And they are great people. Some people who live in
small towns are pretty crazy though. I guess this is good but one of the crazy
old ladies said that she saw angels as I was giving my talk... so I guess I did
a good job. It was a good experience to help out in the places where the church
is just lingering, and growing slowly. North Queensland really struggles with
the church, but with the influx of missionaries coming in, more missionaries
will be able to go to North Queensland and some of the small places will be able
to grow. I am excited to see what is going to be happening up here in the next
couple years because there are going to be so many missionaries up here soon
because of the age changes.
That was my week. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week. I
attached some pictures of me on Mt. Stuart overlooking Townsville, a picture of
me on Santa's lap at our branch Christmas party, and a picture of the tree we
made out of wood, chicken wire, and garland.
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
December 3, 2012
Hello All,
My week has been pretty good. It has been starting to get really hot here in Queensland and I have been drinking water a lot in order to stay hydrated. It is December and is hot. So whenever I hear the song in the shops that says it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I think it is insane to play that song. But it Australia it starts to get really hot when it begins to look like Christmas. My week went really well. And I am really excited to see what is going to happening here in Townsville. Both companionship's here have really increased with success. We just had a baptism and both of us are going to be having baptisms in January, so things are going really well for all of us. Last Sunday we got a referral from our district president for his brother in law who is not a member who wanted to start taking the lessons. They were so excited they had us teach him 3 times in a week. So it was pretty exciting. He is from Thursday Island (and island between Australia and Papua New Guinea) and they don't speak proper English. The English they speak is broken up, so we can understand the jest of what he is saying, but he can't really understand what we were saying, so our district president would translate for us. He let us know that he wanted to be baptized and we had some really good spiritual lessons with him. We were going to set a date for baptism this week, but they just told us they are going to move to Cairns tomorrow, so we told the missionaries up there about them and told them that they are going to be teaching a really good guy with lots of faith in god. It is going to be exciting to see what happens. I hope he will be able to get baptized up in Cairns. It is always exciting to be able to teach people with so much faith. He was just in a car accident and it was a miracle he survived, so he said only God was the one who kept him alive and that the gospel is what he needs right now in his life.
For our other investigator Qayyum, We taught him the last missionary lesson before he get baptized in January. He leaves to go to Tasmania this week to go visit some friends for the Summer Holiday off of school. He is really good and ready to get baptized. He faith in God is really strong for such a young boy. He told us that he is going to be reading the Book of Mormon in all his free time while he is away and he is going to grow as much as possible while he is away for a month. It has been great seeing him grow and seeing how much he has learned. The first lesson we taught with him, he knew it was all true after that lesson, so he has loved learning about the gospel. I wish I studied the gospel as much as he does at his age, 16. I cant wait for him to be Baptized on the 5th of January.
Then on Saturday we had our Branch Christmas Party which was a lot of fun. All The Auxiliaries had to make a Christmas tree out of recycled materials. We made a tree out of wood, chicken wire, recycled garland and egg cartons. I will send a picture later. It was really cool. We did not win the contest, but it was definitely the one that looked more like a Christmas tree compared to the rest of trees that were made. I also got to sit on Santa's Lap (Our Branch President) I will also send a picture of that. It was a really good party and I was able to get to know some of the members a little bit better.
The rest of my week was pretty much tracting. Anyways. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
My week has been pretty good. It has been starting to get really hot here in Queensland and I have been drinking water a lot in order to stay hydrated. It is December and is hot. So whenever I hear the song in the shops that says it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I think it is insane to play that song. But it Australia it starts to get really hot when it begins to look like Christmas. My week went really well. And I am really excited to see what is going to happening here in Townsville. Both companionship's here have really increased with success. We just had a baptism and both of us are going to be having baptisms in January, so things are going really well for all of us. Last Sunday we got a referral from our district president for his brother in law who is not a member who wanted to start taking the lessons. They were so excited they had us teach him 3 times in a week. So it was pretty exciting. He is from Thursday Island (and island between Australia and Papua New Guinea) and they don't speak proper English. The English they speak is broken up, so we can understand the jest of what he is saying, but he can't really understand what we were saying, so our district president would translate for us. He let us know that he wanted to be baptized and we had some really good spiritual lessons with him. We were going to set a date for baptism this week, but they just told us they are going to move to Cairns tomorrow, so we told the missionaries up there about them and told them that they are going to be teaching a really good guy with lots of faith in god. It is going to be exciting to see what happens. I hope he will be able to get baptized up in Cairns. It is always exciting to be able to teach people with so much faith. He was just in a car accident and it was a miracle he survived, so he said only God was the one who kept him alive and that the gospel is what he needs right now in his life.
For our other investigator Qayyum, We taught him the last missionary lesson before he get baptized in January. He leaves to go to Tasmania this week to go visit some friends for the Summer Holiday off of school. He is really good and ready to get baptized. He faith in God is really strong for such a young boy. He told us that he is going to be reading the Book of Mormon in all his free time while he is away and he is going to grow as much as possible while he is away for a month. It has been great seeing him grow and seeing how much he has learned. The first lesson we taught with him, he knew it was all true after that lesson, so he has loved learning about the gospel. I wish I studied the gospel as much as he does at his age, 16. I cant wait for him to be Baptized on the 5th of January.
Then on Saturday we had our Branch Christmas Party which was a lot of fun. All The Auxiliaries had to make a Christmas tree out of recycled materials. We made a tree out of wood, chicken wire, recycled garland and egg cartons. I will send a picture later. It was really cool. We did not win the contest, but it was definitely the one that looked more like a Christmas tree compared to the rest of trees that were made. I also got to sit on Santa's Lap (Our Branch President) I will also send a picture of that. It was a really good party and I was able to get to know some of the members a little bit better.
The rest of my week was pretty much tracting. Anyways. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson
November 25, 2012
Hello all
My week was pretty good. Nothing too interesting happened. Our
investigators all decided to go out of town for some reason. So we did lots of
tracting. We tracted for 20 hours in the hot humid heat and we found 12 people
who asked us to come back. So that was basically our whole week. This week we
have a lot of our investigators back in town so we can teach them. This Sunday at church. There is a
family where the wife is a member and the husband is not. The husband came to
church and has decided to start taking the missionary lessons. So we are going
to start teaching him and we will see what happens. We also will have to follow
up with all the potentials that we found. The work is moving faster here than it
has in years. So we are all really excited. We are all working hard. And some
imaginable things are happening here with us missionaries here. So good things
are in the future
Also another excited thing happened. We got a senior couple to come serve
with us here in Townsville. They are from Idaho their names are elder and
sister miles. They are really good and they are going to be doing a really good
job I love them and they are really good people and I can't wait to start
working more with them to see what we can do with the work here.
That was all the exciting stuff that happened this week. I miss you all and
I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson.
November 19, 2012
Hello All,
This week was a good week! We ended it with the first baptism in Townsville in two years! The person who got baptized was Sarah Drabsch! She has a really strong testimony and is going to be a really strong member in the church! She is a former Jehovah's Witness and she knows that the J-dubs are wrong and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the only church that has the fullness of truth on the earth today. The spirit was really strong at the baptism and you could tell that she was really committed and ready to get closer to God and Jesus Christ. She said the reason she knew it was true was because you could feel that it was true in her heart, and that it is the only church she has ever been too where she feels close to God and Jesus Christ. She has a strong testimony and she is definitely going to be a strong member. I just really want her to stay active. Most of the people I baptized in Raceview have now gone less active, so here I am going to make sure that the people have a strong testimony before they are baptized and make sure that there is a lot of fellowship, so they have reasons to keep coming to church. The Townsville branch has done a really good job fellowshipping Sarah and making her feel welcome which is good. I can tell everything is going to be good with her. Sarah's Daughter Anna has also been influenced by the church. When I first started going to Sarah's to teach her Anna would just go to the other room and ignore us. After Anna went to the Baptism of Sarah and felt the spirit, she has started really liking the church. She started talking to us. She is starting to come to church. And she came to the fellowship potluck we have at our branch presidents house every week. She likes our church more because no one is pushing her to do anything like they did in the Jehovah's Witness church, so we are going to take time with her and let her feel comfortable with everything before we commit her to baptism. But everything is going well with them. I am hoping to be able to baptize her sometime in the next 6 months while I am here, but we will see. It feels so good to have a baptism here. The branch had all of a sudden become more supportive of the missionaries and helping us out a lot more because they can see that we are actually doing work and not just sleeping all day like the last missionaries did.
As you can see with the pictures I sent we had to fill up the font with a fire hose and we had to empty it out with buckets. Funny story. We went to the baptismal font on Friday night to make sure everything was working well and it was really dirty because of the lack of baptisms so we cleaned it out and we thought everything would run smoothly the next morning when we went to fill it up. But everything that could go wrong with the font went wrong. The tap in the font was only at a trickle because the pump that put the water in was broken, so as a result of that we had to get the emergency fire hose and fill up the font with that. We got changed and got everything ready with 5 minutes to spare before the baptism starting at 10 o clock after getting to the chapel at 7 that morning. Then after the baptism we went to go drain the font and found another problem. Since the drain in the font is below ground level and the chapel is really old. They have to have a pump that will pump the water out of the font and drain in outside. So another thing went wrong, and the pump that did that was also broken, so we we had to empty the font out with buckets. One of us would stand it the water. Dip the bucket in. Had the bucket to the other person and then they would pour the water out the window. It took quite a while to do that. But it got done and everything was OK. They are going to fix it sometime soon, so the next baptism wont be so complicated. So it will make a great story to tell. Not many people can say that they had to fill the baptismal font with a fire hose and then empty the water out with buckets. We had fun with it and it was a good time!
We only have one progressing investigator now. His name is Qayyum and he is going to be getting baptized in January. He is amazing and has a really strong testimony. We also have a lot of really good potential investigators. So we are going to be working hard this week to find more people and make some of the potential investigators progressing. I love Townsville and everything about it. Its a harder area, but everything about it is wonderful. I hope you all have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
Elder Kay, Sarah and Elder Powelson
This week was a good week! We ended it with the first baptism in Townsville in two years! The person who got baptized was Sarah Drabsch! She has a really strong testimony and is going to be a really strong member in the church! She is a former Jehovah's Witness and she knows that the J-dubs are wrong and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the only church that has the fullness of truth on the earth today. The spirit was really strong at the baptism and you could tell that she was really committed and ready to get closer to God and Jesus Christ. She said the reason she knew it was true was because you could feel that it was true in her heart, and that it is the only church she has ever been too where she feels close to God and Jesus Christ. She has a strong testimony and she is definitely going to be a strong member. I just really want her to stay active. Most of the people I baptized in Raceview have now gone less active, so here I am going to make sure that the people have a strong testimony before they are baptized and make sure that there is a lot of fellowship, so they have reasons to keep coming to church. The Townsville branch has done a really good job fellowshipping Sarah and making her feel welcome which is good. I can tell everything is going to be good with her. Sarah's Daughter Anna has also been influenced by the church. When I first started going to Sarah's to teach her Anna would just go to the other room and ignore us. After Anna went to the Baptism of Sarah and felt the spirit, she has started really liking the church. She started talking to us. She is starting to come to church. And she came to the fellowship potluck we have at our branch presidents house every week. She likes our church more because no one is pushing her to do anything like they did in the Jehovah's Witness church, so we are going to take time with her and let her feel comfortable with everything before we commit her to baptism. But everything is going well with them. I am hoping to be able to baptize her sometime in the next 6 months while I am here, but we will see. It feels so good to have a baptism here. The branch had all of a sudden become more supportive of the missionaries and helping us out a lot more because they can see that we are actually doing work and not just sleeping all day like the last missionaries did.
As you can see with the pictures I sent we had to fill up the font with a fire hose and we had to empty it out with buckets. Funny story. We went to the baptismal font on Friday night to make sure everything was working well and it was really dirty because of the lack of baptisms so we cleaned it out and we thought everything would run smoothly the next morning when we went to fill it up. But everything that could go wrong with the font went wrong. The tap in the font was only at a trickle because the pump that put the water in was broken, so as a result of that we had to get the emergency fire hose and fill up the font with that. We got changed and got everything ready with 5 minutes to spare before the baptism starting at 10 o clock after getting to the chapel at 7 that morning. Then after the baptism we went to go drain the font and found another problem. Since the drain in the font is below ground level and the chapel is really old. They have to have a pump that will pump the water out of the font and drain in outside. So another thing went wrong, and the pump that did that was also broken, so we we had to empty the font out with buckets. One of us would stand it the water. Dip the bucket in. Had the bucket to the other person and then they would pour the water out the window. It took quite a while to do that. But it got done and everything was OK. They are going to fix it sometime soon, so the next baptism wont be so complicated. So it will make a great story to tell. Not many people can say that they had to fill the baptismal font with a fire hose and then empty the water out with buckets. We had fun with it and it was a good time!
We only have one progressing investigator now. His name is Qayyum and he is going to be getting baptized in January. He is amazing and has a really strong testimony. We also have a lot of really good potential investigators. So we are going to be working hard this week to find more people and make some of the potential investigators progressing. I love Townsville and everything about it. Its a harder area, but everything about it is wonderful. I hope you all have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
November 12, 2012
Hello All,
This week has been spectacular in Townsville! Elder Kay and I have been getting lots of work done. Work hasn't been done in this area for a long time. There hasn't been any baptisms for 2 years and the last thing that has been done was over a year ago according to the area book. Lots of people have the conception that they can come up north and since they are so far away from the mission president they can just be lazy. Which is dumb. But we have started working hard and have set 2 baptismal dates. One which is this Saturday. The one for this Saturday is a philipino lady named Sarah. As we taught her she said she has never felt happier in her life. She grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and she told us that they worry about how everything is logically. I don't understand this because I have learned of many scriptures in the Bible that prove their doctrine wrong. We tracted into a Jehovah's Witness and all they ever want to do is try and prove us wrong. So what I do is try to prove them wrong. Which I did really well. There are so many scriptures in the bible that they just seem to ignore just because it proves them wrong. Whenever I brought a scripture up, they would forget what I just said and try another thing that would prove us wrong. They could never prove any of our doctrine wrong. But we could prove almost everything they said wrong. It was a big waste of time, but it was just so much fun proving them wrong over and over again. I was telling them the truth and telling them in a really nice way that their doctrine is incorrect, and at the end of being proved wrong many times they just told us to have a nice day and we left. They just don't make any sense. That what I like about our church. It makes complete sense. Now going back to Sarah, the Jehovah's witness went to visit her to try and get her to not get baptized, and she said that our church made more sense and that she felt in her heart that it was the truth. So, they left and she is getting baptized on Saturday which I am way excited for. You can tell that she has a strong testimony and is ready to become closer to God! It will be Elder Kay's first baptism. I have been really privileged to get as many baptisms as I have because most missionaries get less that 5 baptisms their whole mission. So I am glad I have had the experiences I have had. He has been out for almost a year. He is excited beyond belief because he has been working for a baptism for 10 months and now he is going to have one. I am really excited for the baptism. The branch is really excited and it is going to be a really good one.
As for our other investigator that we set a baptism date with. His name is Qayyum. He is a 17 year old boy. He friend is a member in our branch. And he is a really strong person. We have taught him 3 of the lessons so far, and he is really strong. The spirit is really strong in the lessons we have taught with him. When we committed him to baptism the spirit was really strong. Another time the spirit was strong was when we asked if he prayed to know if the book of Mormon was true. He then said something that most missionaries would not expect. He said that there was no need for him to pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true because he knew it was all true the first time he prayed with the missionaries. He said it was really calm when that happened and he knew he needed to join the church because he knew it was true. He is getting baptized on January 4th because he is going on vacation for Christmas, but he is really excited to be baptized afterward. I am really excited for that to happen!
As for everything else that happened. We tracted a lot. We found a couple potentials. And I am loving it up here. Even thought I am far away from other missionaries the members here are amazing. I feel right at home here. On P-Day last week while we were at our branch presidents house playing some board games with him and his family I just had the feeling of home and it was a great feeling. President and Sister Ferguson remind me a lot of my Uncle Delbert and Aunt Roxanne. They treat us like their own children and they are great people and I am so happy to be here. I love it in Townsville and I am looking forward to the 6 months I am going to have here. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
This week has been spectacular in Townsville! Elder Kay and I have been getting lots of work done. Work hasn't been done in this area for a long time. There hasn't been any baptisms for 2 years and the last thing that has been done was over a year ago according to the area book. Lots of people have the conception that they can come up north and since they are so far away from the mission president they can just be lazy. Which is dumb. But we have started working hard and have set 2 baptismal dates. One which is this Saturday. The one for this Saturday is a philipino lady named Sarah. As we taught her she said she has never felt happier in her life. She grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and she told us that they worry about how everything is logically. I don't understand this because I have learned of many scriptures in the Bible that prove their doctrine wrong. We tracted into a Jehovah's Witness and all they ever want to do is try and prove us wrong. So what I do is try to prove them wrong. Which I did really well. There are so many scriptures in the bible that they just seem to ignore just because it proves them wrong. Whenever I brought a scripture up, they would forget what I just said and try another thing that would prove us wrong. They could never prove any of our doctrine wrong. But we could prove almost everything they said wrong. It was a big waste of time, but it was just so much fun proving them wrong over and over again. I was telling them the truth and telling them in a really nice way that their doctrine is incorrect, and at the end of being proved wrong many times they just told us to have a nice day and we left. They just don't make any sense. That what I like about our church. It makes complete sense. Now going back to Sarah, the Jehovah's witness went to visit her to try and get her to not get baptized, and she said that our church made more sense and that she felt in her heart that it was the truth. So, they left and she is getting baptized on Saturday which I am way excited for. You can tell that she has a strong testimony and is ready to become closer to God! It will be Elder Kay's first baptism. I have been really privileged to get as many baptisms as I have because most missionaries get less that 5 baptisms their whole mission. So I am glad I have had the experiences I have had. He has been out for almost a year. He is excited beyond belief because he has been working for a baptism for 10 months and now he is going to have one. I am really excited for the baptism. The branch is really excited and it is going to be a really good one.
As for our other investigator that we set a baptism date with. His name is Qayyum. He is a 17 year old boy. He friend is a member in our branch. And he is a really strong person. We have taught him 3 of the lessons so far, and he is really strong. The spirit is really strong in the lessons we have taught with him. When we committed him to baptism the spirit was really strong. Another time the spirit was strong was when we asked if he prayed to know if the book of Mormon was true. He then said something that most missionaries would not expect. He said that there was no need for him to pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true because he knew it was all true the first time he prayed with the missionaries. He said it was really calm when that happened and he knew he needed to join the church because he knew it was true. He is getting baptized on January 4th because he is going on vacation for Christmas, but he is really excited to be baptized afterward. I am really excited for that to happen!
As for everything else that happened. We tracted a lot. We found a couple potentials. And I am loving it up here. Even thought I am far away from other missionaries the members here are amazing. I feel right at home here. On P-Day last week while we were at our branch presidents house playing some board games with him and his family I just had the feeling of home and it was a great feeling. President and Sister Ferguson remind me a lot of my Uncle Delbert and Aunt Roxanne. They treat us like their own children and they are great people and I am so happy to be here. I love it in Townsville and I am looking forward to the 6 months I am going to have here. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
November 5, 2012
Hello All,
I have been transferred. I am both happy and sad about this. It is always good be able to see new things and have good experiences. My new area is nothing like my last one. I am in a town of 200,000 people called Townsville. It is in Northern Queensland. And I am far away from everything. To start off last Wednesday I got a call telling me that I was going to serve in Northern Queensland and that my plane will be leaving the next morning at 6 am. So I had barely any time to say good byes to the people in Raceview and I had to wake up really early in order to catch my flight to Townsville. Yes, I was transferred by airplane. That tells you how far away I am from the city, the mission president and most the missionaries in the mission. There are 4 of us missionaries in Townsville and the closes missionaries to us is a 4 hour drive away in Cairns. Basically its the four of us missionaries in a city that is in the middle of nowhere and you have to drive 4 hours to get to the next city.
There are two parts to the Australia Brisbane mission. There are all the areas by the city, and then there are some areas spread out in the north. Most missionaries who serve down south including myself think that it is a terrible thing to go up north. So I was not too excited at first when I got the call. But now that I'm up here I am enjoying it a lot. We wont have as much interaction with many of the other missionaries, but that is all good. The Branch here is pretty amazing. I love all the members here. The branch has about 100 people attending and is part of a district. There are not any stakes here. We might be travelling a lot because there are small branches we will be visiting that are 2 + hours away. There are some good sights and we might go look at the great barrier reef of a P-Day sometime now that I am up here. I am really excited to be here. The branch hasn't had any baptisms for 2 years, so lots of our work will be re activation except a miracle came to us my 2nd day here. A lady just moved up here to townsville from a small place called Mackay and wanted a lesson from us. We committed her to baptism and she really wants to get baptized on the 17th of November. So I am really excited for that. I am excited to work in the smaller branches. They treat the missionaries the best. The members are amazing and treat us like their own children. I feel right at home when I am here because the members always have us in their homes and are always so nice to us. So don't worry mom. The members are taking good care of me. I know I am going to love it up here. I know I am going to have a good time and working hard to find people who want to hear the gospel. The missionary work is a lot harder up here in the north, so they send the missionaries they trust and the missionaries they know will work up here. So the mission president decided to send me up here because he trusts me. Also, mail will take longer to get to me because the office will have to send it up here to me. The weather here is really hot and really humid. I think I am going to be losing lots of weight now because here it is tropical hot and humid. It gets over 100 degrees F without the humidity. So the Humidity in Iowa will be nothing compared to what it will be here. I am excited about everything though!
My new companion is Elder Kay. He is from England. And he is cool. We are going to have a good time. I will try and send some pictures home. I don't know how soon it will be because the computers here don't have the slot to put the memory card in,
I am going to have some fun up here doing the work. I know it is going to be harder than it was before, but I am looking forward to the challenge ahead of me. My companion is really willing to work hard with me. So everything is going to be good! They keep the missionaries up here for a minimum of 6 months, so I am going to be here for a while. I am probably going to have some pretty good experiences while I am here. I am just excited to work as hard as I can. I think that the success I have up here will be more meaningful because I have to work a lot harder to have it. I am looking forward to everything that I am going to be doing here.
On Thursday I went Cane Toad Hunting. Cane Toads are a pest that gets into peoples lawns here and kills the grass and they are poisonous. So what we did to hunt them was we had to hit them with a bat to stun them and then we grabbed them by their back legs and threw them over the fence to the street, so the cars will run over them. We did this in one of the members backyards and was lots of fun. I will try and have the member email my mom some pictures of it.
Anyways, that was a little summary of my new area, I love it so far and I think things are only going to be getting better. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
I have been transferred. I am both happy and sad about this. It is always good be able to see new things and have good experiences. My new area is nothing like my last one. I am in a town of 200,000 people called Townsville. It is in Northern Queensland. And I am far away from everything. To start off last Wednesday I got a call telling me that I was going to serve in Northern Queensland and that my plane will be leaving the next morning at 6 am. So I had barely any time to say good byes to the people in Raceview and I had to wake up really early in order to catch my flight to Townsville. Yes, I was transferred by airplane. That tells you how far away I am from the city, the mission president and most the missionaries in the mission. There are 4 of us missionaries in Townsville and the closes missionaries to us is a 4 hour drive away in Cairns. Basically its the four of us missionaries in a city that is in the middle of nowhere and you have to drive 4 hours to get to the next city.
There are two parts to the Australia Brisbane mission. There are all the areas by the city, and then there are some areas spread out in the north. Most missionaries who serve down south including myself think that it is a terrible thing to go up north. So I was not too excited at first when I got the call. But now that I'm up here I am enjoying it a lot. We wont have as much interaction with many of the other missionaries, but that is all good. The Branch here is pretty amazing. I love all the members here. The branch has about 100 people attending and is part of a district. There are not any stakes here. We might be travelling a lot because there are small branches we will be visiting that are 2 + hours away. There are some good sights and we might go look at the great barrier reef of a P-Day sometime now that I am up here. I am really excited to be here. The branch hasn't had any baptisms for 2 years, so lots of our work will be re activation except a miracle came to us my 2nd day here. A lady just moved up here to townsville from a small place called Mackay and wanted a lesson from us. We committed her to baptism and she really wants to get baptized on the 17th of November. So I am really excited for that. I am excited to work in the smaller branches. They treat the missionaries the best. The members are amazing and treat us like their own children. I feel right at home when I am here because the members always have us in their homes and are always so nice to us. So don't worry mom. The members are taking good care of me. I know I am going to love it up here. I know I am going to have a good time and working hard to find people who want to hear the gospel. The missionary work is a lot harder up here in the north, so they send the missionaries they trust and the missionaries they know will work up here. So the mission president decided to send me up here because he trusts me. Also, mail will take longer to get to me because the office will have to send it up here to me. The weather here is really hot and really humid. I think I am going to be losing lots of weight now because here it is tropical hot and humid. It gets over 100 degrees F without the humidity. So the Humidity in Iowa will be nothing compared to what it will be here. I am excited about everything though!
My new companion is Elder Kay. He is from England. And he is cool. We are going to have a good time. I will try and send some pictures home. I don't know how soon it will be because the computers here don't have the slot to put the memory card in,
I am going to have some fun up here doing the work. I know it is going to be harder than it was before, but I am looking forward to the challenge ahead of me. My companion is really willing to work hard with me. So everything is going to be good! They keep the missionaries up here for a minimum of 6 months, so I am going to be here for a while. I am probably going to have some pretty good experiences while I am here. I am just excited to work as hard as I can. I think that the success I have up here will be more meaningful because I have to work a lot harder to have it. I am looking forward to everything that I am going to be doing here.
On Thursday I went Cane Toad Hunting. Cane Toads are a pest that gets into peoples lawns here and kills the grass and they are poisonous. So what we did to hunt them was we had to hit them with a bat to stun them and then we grabbed them by their back legs and threw them over the fence to the street, so the cars will run over them. We did this in one of the members backyards and was lots of fun. I will try and have the member email my mom some pictures of it.
Anyways, that was a little summary of my new area, I love it so far and I think things are only going to be getting better. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson
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