April 29, 2013

Hello All!
I have been transferred. My new area is a place called Redcliffe. It is about 30 kms north of Brisbane city. I love it here. It is great. It is on a pennisula, so the whole area is surrounded by the ocean. It is pretty darn cool! The weather is always really good because of the breeze. It is a perfect 25 degrees Celsius daily. I think that is somewhere in the 70's for Fahrenheit. My new companion is Elder O'Connor and he is from Idaho Falls Idaho! It is a great area. I am in a Zone again and have missionaries all around. I like being around more missionaries again. Its better than just being around only 3 other missionaries the whole time. We live in a flat with two other missionaries and their names are Elder Malifa and Elder Sualefai. Elder Malifa is from Samoa and Elder Sualevai is from American Samoa. They are pretty cool and we all get along great!
ELDER DALLIN H. OAKS CAME TO BRISBANE AUSTRALIA.
Elder Oaks on Friday came to talk to all the missionaries and we all got to shake his hand. So it was really cool. He gave a really good talk to us and it was very inspiring. On Sunday he also came to speak at our Stake Conference! We were waiting outside and a van pulled up and Elder Oaks came out. He came up to us missionaries, shook our hands and had a conversation with us. It was really darn awesome! I can now say that I have had a conversation with an apostle! He acts just like a normal person and is really humble. He is pretty much the man! He is really funny as well. I didn't expect him to have as many jokes as he did because he usually seems pretty serious when he speaks at General Conference. It was a really good experience and it was really cool to feel of his spirit! 
We have a couple of investigators who are progressing and are going really well. One of them is a 75 year old Lady and her name is Valerie Powell. It is really close to my last name, but it is even crazier because I also have a sister named Valerie. I thought it was pretty cool to see that my investigator has a really similar name to one of my sisters. She has a baptismal date for the 11th of May and she has a really good testimony. She knows it all is true and I am really looking forward to that day. 
Chrissy is also another investigator we have. She came to the stake conference with Dallin H. Oaks and she really enjoyed it. She also got to shake his hand as well. She said that she knows it is true. She doesn't want to be rushed into baptism and she set a goal for herself to be baptized in July. She has a partner names Yohanne who we are also working with. Our goal is for them to get married and then to be baptized. 
This week we also did a lot of tracting to find some new people. We had some success, but we don't really know until we follow up with them. 
The ward is very missionary minded, and the work is just awesome in this area. I am really looking forward to what is going to be happening here, and to see what I can do here. We are working really hard, and I love being a missionary. The work is going great and I am having a really good time. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Kyler Powelson