July 1, 2013

Hello All,

I have been finally able to email some pictures again. The first one is with Elder O'Connor and I with Valerie Powell at her baptism on May 11th 2013. The other one is of Elder Lao and I with President and Sister Langeland at their farewell training. President and Sister Langeland have gone home to Utah and we have received President and Sister Henderson as our new mission president and wife from St. George Utah. I have not met them yet because they just arrived today. They might come to our Zone Meeting next week but if they don't I will get to meet them next week. The last picture is of my first encounter with a kangaroo when driving. I wish I could have got out to ride on it. It was massive. It was about 8-9 feet tall. and massive. It was pretty cool.

As for the week. We found people to teach!!! A few weeks ago we tracted into a less active member who had been looking at coming back to church and she has a partner who is a non member. We started teaching him. He is not too interested, but he said he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and he said if he received an answer that it was true, then he would be baptized! 

About 2 weeks ago we street contacted this guy. We had a talk with him and he ended up not being interested then, but this last week we saw the same guy again when we went to visit a less active member who lived in a caravan park. We started teaching him, he came to church on sunday and he is excited to learn more about the gospel!!! It is pretty exciting. We are going to commit him and his daughter who came to church as well to baptism this week! It is really exciting. It was revelation that we were able to meet him multiple times because he did want to hear the message, it just took a couple of times for him to open up enough to accept the message. His name is Eddy and he is pretty solid.

Like always we did a lot of tracting, and we got a new ward mission leader who is keen, so missionary work is going to really pick up in Redcliffe in the next couple of months! I love being a missionary, I love you all, and miss you all, and I hope you have a great week!

 

Love

Elder Kyler Powelson

 

Elder Powelso Valerie Powell Elder O'Connor

 

Sister Langeland Elder Powelson Elder Lao President Langeland

 

June 24, 2013

Hello All,

It seems like I just wrote a few days ago. I guess I sort of did though. Not too much has happened in this last half week. We have been working hard in order to find people to teach. We decided that we needed to start from scratch because none of the investigators we had were progressing towards anything. So last week we tracted and put our efforts into finding people to teach. And it worked out pretty well. We were able to find and set return appointments with a lot of people. I am really looking forward to teaching some of these new people this week! We are hoping to build up a new teaching pool and have some success! 

This week we started a new program off for the Redcliffe ward that will make the missionary work in the ward blossom. One of our members shared it with me and I decided to show it to the bishop and he loved it. As a ward we are going to set a goal for each family in the ward to find 1 person for the missionaries to teach by the end of the year. The point is to get the whole ward excited for it and then to share the process to do so with them. There are 6 steps to go through. The first step is to pray for inspiration on who you should work with, or someone who might be interested it the gospel. The second step is to build trust with that person and help them become comfortable with you. The 3rd step is to bring them to church activities and help them be acquainted with the church. The 4th step is to ask them to question Do you want to meet with the missionaries? If they say yes we meet with them. Step 5 is to fellowship them in your home as we teach and then the 6th step is to lead them to Baptism. The statistics tell us that if someone is taught by missionaries in a members home there is an 80% chance that they will join the church. It a lot better than just getting referrals and contacting them because the chance of conversion that way is less than 1%. I am going to kick the program off this week and within the next couple of months there will be some success from it. I know it will work because missionary work is more about working with members than tracting. The only reason we need to tract is because people are found that way as well which I have done on my mission. 

I am working hard to make the Redcliffe area flourish. It is known for being an unsuccessful place, but I am going to change that and help the members to love missionary work! I love missionary work, and I love being a missionary. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love

Elder Kyler Powelson

June 19, 2013

Hello All,

I am writing on Wednesday this week because we had our temple P-Day. The temple is only open Wed-Sat, so when we go to the temple they change our P-Day to Wednesdays. I love going to the temple. It takes a little big of travel, but it is definitely worth it! Today I received some good revelation and prayed for some things. I have felt the spirit strong today! 

As for the work. It is going really well. We are in a stage right now where our investigators are moving away, or becoming not interested, so now we are in the stage of building up our teaching pool. We have some really good potentials from tracting this week, and have some good appointments. 

Valerie Powell, Our recent convert should put on a name badge and become a missionary. She is the best at sharing the gospel with her friend and family! She is inviting one of her friends over for a herbal tea tomorrow and we are going to go over and teach her about our church. Valerie says that she is very interested and that she has some good questions to ask us. I am really looking forward to it. Valerie has been sharing her testimony with almost everyone that she meets. Its great! She is starting to receive persecution from some of her friends, but she said that she knows the church is true and that her friends cant do anything to persuade her otherwise. I am looking forward to having a herbal tea party with some 75 and 80 year old ladies though! It will be great and I feel really good about it! 

We tracted into some good potentials and have some return appointments. You never really know how interested they are until the follow up appointment. The mission here is growing rapidly, which I'm sure is happening all over the world as well. It is exciting! I love missionary work! It is the best work in the world today! I did hit my year mark last Thursday. Time goes by so fast and everyone says the the last year goes the fastest. I love it and I hope time doesn't go too fast. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Kyler Powelson