June 11, 2013

Hello All,
My week was pretty good. We did a lot of tracting. And we did find a few potentials. We were tracting a street and we ran into an in active member who said that she was praying for an excuse to come back to church, and she said that us knocking on her door was a big enough excuse for her to come back to church. She is living with a partner who is not a member, and he is open to have us teach him and come around. We are hoping that we will be able to have them get married eventually to where he can be baptized as well and so they can have a chance at becoming an eternal family. I was happy to be able to knock on their door and have an opportunity to teach them. 
We got a media referral as well this week, to a family. We set an appointment to teach them this week and it will be great if things go well. It is always great teaching families because you can help them see the eternal aspect of it, and make them want to join the church as a family. I am really looking forward to teaching them!
We had our zone meeting yesterday where I gave my first training as a newly assigned leader and it went really well. It was a great experience because I know for a fact that the Spirit put words into my mouth that I never even planned to say, and it was great because one of the sister missionaries in the Zone came up to me afterwards and she said that some of the things I said touched her and made her want to become a better missionary. I love being a missionary and doing these things because I have never felt the influence of the Holy Ghost as strong as I have as a missionary than I have in my entire life. I love receiving revelation. I know that I am an inspired servant of God as a missionary. I hit my year mark this week, I know that the 2nd half of my mission is going to go by really fast and I am going to try my hardest to enjoy my mission because I know I am going to miss it greatly when I am done. My testimony has been strengthened so much as a missionary and to anyone that reads this who is thinking about going on a mission, Do it. You will never regret it, You feel Gods Influence stronger than ever, and you come to know without a doubt that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church on the earth today along with helping others receive the same testimony. I know with no doubt that this is the true church and that missionary work is the work that needs to come forth in these last days. The blessings are great! It brings me great joy and I love it!
I love being a missionary, there is no greater work. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson

June 4, 2013

Hello All,
My week was really good! Today was transfer meeting and I received a new companion. His name is Elder Lao and he is from Sacramento California. I was also called to my first leadership position. I have been called to be a District Leader! I am way excited! There are 4 companionship's in my District. It feels good to know that the mission president trusts me too! This is President Langland's last month and next month we will be getting a new mission president.
For the area this week was good. Leah moved, so she is going to be baptized in a different area, but it is great to know that she is going to get baptized! And when I was with Elder O'Connor we had another miracle. Since he was leaving we were going around saying his good byes to members and one of them worked at the coffee shop and we went to say bye to her. As we were talking to the member outside a guy from Taiwan walked by and he look at us with a very shocked face. It was weird to see how shocked we was to see us and then he yelled out "Are you the religious people?" "I want you to come visit me and teach me" Both of us were greatly surprised. Turns out he had family and friends in Taiwan who had joined the church. We have an appointment with him on Thursday and I am pretty excited to see what happens.
Besides that it was a pretty slow week. We tracted heaps. Hopefully we will be able to set a date with the Taiwan guy. I am excited to see how everything goes with him. I love being a missionary! I know the church is true and I love you all. I miss you all, and I hope you all have a great week!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson


May 27, 2013

Hello All,
This week was really good. We didn't have many crazy miracles like last week. This week we have been working a lot with those people though. On Tuesday we had a lesson with Matt and Saphirra, the 2 non members that showed up to church last week. It went really well and I felt the spirit really strongly as we taught them the Restoration. They are really interested and they want to take their time with everything, so we are going to let them do that and get baptized when they are ready to make that commitment. I love being a missionary when I have the spiritual experiences I had in the lesson with them. 
We also taught Candice, Rachelle and Leah. They were the people we met because I crashed my bike. It went really well and Leah will be baptized in June. It is exciting and we are teaching them again this Wednesday to set a specific date for that. She seems really excited and I can't wait to help her achieve what she wants to achieve to enter the waters of baptism. It was a miracle meeting them and it is going to be really great to continue working with them. 
A few weeks ago we visited a less active member and his non member wife. They were going through a struggle at the time and I shared a few scriptures at the time. Yesterday they showed up to church which surprised us greatly because it seemed like they weren't going to be coming back, but we then saw them again yesterday afternoon and he said that the scripture I shared with him changed his life, and after we left all he did was pray and read the Book of Mormon. He said that he found his answer and that he want to come back to church, to progress in his priesthood and to baptize his wife when the time comes. It is exciting to know that Me just sharing one scripture with them changed them so much after I left. I didn't think it was going to make that big of an impact on them, but it did. It strengthens my testimony and I cant wait to continue working with Tia and Paboy. 
This week was good and there will hopefully be many more good things this week. I love being a missionary serving the Redcliffe Ward. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson

May 20, 2013

Hello All,
I didn't email out last week because I skyped my family instead, and I didn't have time to send out an email. But for last week I had a baptism of a 75 year old lady named Valerie Powell. It went really well and she is a very strong member and she is already sharing the gospel with all of her friends and family, so hopefully we will have some more people to teach because of her willingness.

For this week the start of the week was pretty rough, but we had some cool miracles near the end of the week. On Saturday we were biking to our dinner appointment for the night and my companion was riding right in front of me. He decided to stop and GQ these people walking on the sidewalk and me not really paying attention and not expecting him to stop, I lost my balance, my chain fell off and I flew off the bike into a pile of bushes. The two people he street contacted were a middle aged lady and a 13 year old girl, and the first thing I heard was "I want to be baptized" by the 13 year old girl. Her mom is an in active member and the girl has already started reading the Book of Mormon. We are going to start teaching them this week and hopefully set a baptismal date for June. The bike incident was an instant ice breaker, so it was easy to talk to them and start a good friendship. I am so excited to start working with them this week! The girls name is Leah and her mom is Candice. Candice told us where her sister lived who was also inactive, and since we had no records for them it was pretty cool. So on Sunday we went and visited the sister and turns out she was in real need for a priesthood blessing because she was diagnosed with a blood disease that might kill her. We gave her a blessing and she felt so much better right afterwards. We are working with the whole family now and it is going to be a great experience! All of this big miracle happened because we were willing to talk to people on the path. This strengthened my testimony in that people who are prepared and need us are put in our path so we can do good! 
On Sunday 2 non members showed up to church, and we are teaching them on Tuesday. They seemed really interested and we hope that we will be able to teach them and show them how the gospel can bless their lives. 
The work is moving forward in Redcliffe and I am really excited to see what will be happening the next few weeks here. I love being a missionary and doing missionary work. I can't put my memory card into the computers here, so I won't be able to send pictures via email. I wish I could, but we will have to go without it for a little while. 
I miss you and and I hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson

May 8, 2013

Hello All,
The reason I am emailing so late in the week  is because our P-day got switched to Wednesday so we could attend a temple session. And since the temple is only open Wed-Sat, they moved our P-day. We took the train to the city to go to the temple and then after we were done we take the train back to our areas to continue our P-day activities. The temple today was marvelous! It has been over 6 months since I have gone since I was 1100 kms away in my last area. It was great to go again and feel the special spirit of the temple. I loved it so much. 
This Saturday our investigator Valerie Powell is getting baptized which is really exciting. She is 75 years old and is progressing really well. You would think that it would be hard for her to learn everything since she is so old, but she is actually learning and remembering things a lot faster than most of the other people I have taught on my mission. Her testimony is really strong and she loves everything about the church and she said that it is one of the best decisions of her life. Her husband passed away a few years back, so we decided to talk about the temple and how she can be sealed for time and all eternity with her husband, and now she can't wait to go to the temple in a year! It is going to be really exciting. The baptism is going to be great. I am super excited especially since it has been 6 months since I've baptized someone, so I am really looking forward to it!!!
Another investigator we have is named Chrissy. We weren't able to teach her this week though because she is busy with University study all week. We are hoping to meet with her soon and help her to start to progress for her baptismal date in July. Her and her partner are really cool people, we are hoping that they will work together to progress towards baptism and make the choice to be married in order to be baptized. I am really looking forward to see how things go with them!
We went out tracting a street this week and it felt like it was the street we needed to tract. We were tracting this street for about 2 hours total and every door was getting slammed in our face. Australians sometimes are rude when people come knocking on their door. After this was happening we saw this guy cleaning out his car at the end of the street. So we went and talked to him. He asked us for a pamphlet and asked us if we could come back and teach him. That pretty much never happens. But it did! We went and taught him and we shared with him The Plan of Salvation, and after we were done he said that he believed everything we said and then he set the return appointment. We are going back to see him this Friday and we hope things go really well. He has a few problems with Word of Wisdom things, but we will work on that another time. We just want to build up his testimony, and when we bring up the word of wisdom he will hopefully have no problems giving those things up because of his testimony.
We have been working hard and I love working with Elder O'Connor. He is definitely my favorite companion so far. Time has been going so fast! We are already half way through the transfer. Things are going well with me, I love being a missionary and I hope you all have a great week!!!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson