February 3, 2014

Hello All,

 

This week was great! We were able to see some miracles and see the work progress in the Helenvale area! Our investigator Suzanne is going to be baptized for sure on Saturday. Her testimony is really strong. She is going through a lot of trials at the time with her family life and other things in her life, but she realized that Satan is trying his hardest to make it so she couldn't be baptized. She told us for sure this week she is definitely not going to let Satan win and she will be baptized on Saturday. She said this experience has made her know for sure that the church is true. She has no doubts about it at all. Its great! I am really looking forward to Saturday! That was the biggest miracle for the week. We are also working with a Less Active family who has 2 children who are not baptized. Their name is the Waka family and we will be setting a goal for baptism with them sometime this week!

On Thursday we had a multi-stake cluster meeting to discuss what we need to do to bring the members and the missionaries together to Hasten the Work of Salvation. It was a meeting with the mission president, and the stake presidents and one of the area seventy. It was cool too because the zone leaders of the zones were sitting on the stand. It definitely brought the state of Queensland a lot of excitement for this next year. As a mission last year we baptized 600 people and the goal that was set for 2014 was to convert 1032 people in the Australia Brisbane Area. It is definitely a high goal, but there are more missionaries ever. We have the most missionaries in our mission than any other mission in Australia with about 260 missionaries, and now that the ward has been trained and committed to also find people for the missionaries to teach it should be easy to reach the goal. 600 baptisms broke the record for the number of baptism in a year for the mission. It was interesting because our stake president shared an experience where he was in a meeting with his high council and when they were making the goal for the stake, and he asked the leadership of the wards and stakes if they had brought someone into the church this last year. He said no one had raised their hands. He then went on to say if the members and most importantly the leadership of the wards and stakes put in an effort to find people for the missionaries to teach, then the goal that has been set will be easy. After the meeting there was definitely a lot more excitement towards missionary work. The bishop in our ward is now more engaged with us and success will come. I also feel that if everyone in the world will do their part and help the missionaries and share the gospel with their friends and apply what was taught by Prophets and apostles from our last General Conference, then the church will grow immensely this year as a whole. Now is a great time to be a missionary! Those people who read this who are thinking about going on a mission, Do it. It is an exciting time to be a missionary in the world today, because this time is the time for miracles.

I love being a missionary and I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

January 28, 2014

Hello All,

This week was really good. We saw many miracles. We were able to set 2 baptismal goals with the Jackson families kids, Tori and Troy, and they are really excited to be getting baptized in a few weeks. We also saw many great miracles from tracting this week as well!

On Thursday we went tracting. We had another Elder with us from the zone temporarily because of some things that were happening, Elder Saaid. But we received a referral from a less active member on the street we decided to tract, and one of the first doors we knocked on it was the referral we were looking for and he set up a lesson with us and he wanted the person who gave us the referral to be there for the lesson as well, so we are going to be teaching his family on Wednesday. After that we kept tracting and we tracted into a Fijian family who were all less active members except for the man of the house. They let us in and we had a lesson with them, and they are looking to go back to church as well, so we are going to be going back to strengthen the members and to teach the gospel to the non member man. After that we continued to tract, and then we found another part-member family where the husband was not a member. The cool thing about this is that the non member husband was the one who told his wife that they needed to start going back to church. He wants to receive the missionary lessons, and he will make a great member of the church. After we visited them, it started to rain. We were seeing so many miracles, so we decided to not let the rain win and we continued to tract. We knock on a door and a 17 year old boy named Asher answered to door. He was telling us that his grandmother wanted him to get baptized, and so he let us in and we taught him a lesson. He is really interested and we are going back on Wednesday! It was great to witness these 4 miracles and I am looking forward with following up on them this week!

Yesterday was Australia Day so our P-day was moved to today (Tuesday), and yesterday morning we were in our garage doing our morning workouts. Now, the door from the garage to the flat locks if it shuts, and so we were working out and the wind blew the door shut. We didn't have our keys or our phone, and we were locked out of our flat. In most missionary flats I have been in there was some sort of way to easily great in, but our flat is pretty secure, which is a good thing. We called the housing coordinator and the mission office and they had no spare keys, so we had to resort to going to the agency. The only problem is that since it was Australia Day, everything was closed, so the agency was closed as well. We went to a members house who was nearby and we used their phone to call some of the other elders, and they came and picked us up. We went back to their area since our car keys were locked inside the flat. We were able to fit some of their clothes and we worked there for the day and we had to wait until this morning to get the keys from the agency to get back into our flat. It was an interesting experience, but now we have learned our lesson.

We are really looking forward to this week. We are having a meeting with all the local Stakes and an General Authority is coming and the Mission President will be there to discuss the Hastening the Work of Salvation, and the Zone leaders of the stakes that will be there are going to be sitting on the stand. So it will be an interesting experience sitting on the stand in a meeting with a member of the seventy.

I love being a missionary and I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

January 22, 2014

Hello All,

This week was really good for us and we saw many miracles. After District Meeting yesterday morning, we decided to tract for most of the day, we found no potentials after about 4 hours of tracting, so we decided to visit some less actives, we taught a couple less active lessons and we were able to teach one of our investigators and have a really spiritual lesson. At the end of the night at 8 we were heading back to the flat for dinner, but we decided to stop at the 7 Eleven to top up our go cards (a card we put money on to pay for our fares on the buses and trains in Australia) since we were taking the train to the temple the next day and as we did so, one of the workers wanted to talk to us for a few minutes, so we shared a 5 minute message introducing the Book of Mormon. He was really interested and we have a lesson with him on Friday. He is a Muslim, but he is very interested in learning about becoming a Christian, which is great. It goes to show that as you work diligently as a missionary, people are still placed in your path in places where you don't expect it, so it is always essential to talk with everyone. It was a great experience!!

Suzanne is still doing really good and I am really looking forward to her baptism on the 1st of Feb. We are having a lesson today with one of the part member families we are working with, and we will hopefully be setting a goal for baptism with the kids. It will be great!

Since I was recently called as a zone leader, I had the privilege of attending a 2 day training that was given to us the the Assistants and President Henderson. We even got to stay in a hotel overnight since our zone is a bit away from the city. I will share one of the many things I learned. In Preach My Gospel page 10 it tells us that our success as missionaries is not measured by the number of baptisms we have, how many lessons we teach a week, not by many things, but our success is measured by the commitment we have to Find, Teach, and Baptize. There are many missionaries who baptize very little people, but the commitment they had was great, so that made them very successful. Some missionaries don't have very much commitment and baptize a lot of people. Some people have any commitment and still don't baptize anyone. So, it is important to know no matter what we are doing as missionaries, or what is happening in our areas, We are being successful missionaries if we show great commitment to Finding, Teaching, and Baptizing the Lord's children on this earth today. Commitment is not measured by any numbers. That is one of the main things I learned that many missionaries can apply to them, but I know that it is definitely true doctrine given to us through Preach My Gospel.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

January 13, 2014

Hello All,

My week was really good. I am really enjoying my new area and my companion Elder Nelson. We are working hard and we are finding a lot of success. Between the Part member families we are working with and the unbaptized children in the ward, and the investigators we have at the moment we have set a goal to baptize 7 people next month. We have 2 on date at the moment, but this week we are hoping to get more of them ready to set a goal for baptism! It is great to see this much success coming. Our investigator Suzanne who will be getting baptized on the 1st of February is getting really excited for her baptism. She has been taught by missionaries for almost a year now, and has now decided to be baptized. It is great to see the excitement she has about the gospel. She is making sure everyone at church knows that she is going to be getting baptized on the 1st of Feb. I am super excited for it. The other baptismal date we have is for the 8th of Feb and his name is Paul. I haven't met him yet because Elder Nelson found him while we were on trade offs, but he said that he was already coming to church and that everyone already thought he was a member, but he told us that he wants to be baptized! Those are 2 great miracles for the week! We have been finding success from tracting which is great and we have been teaching a few people that way. I will talk more about them once they become more progressing, but it is great! I love Helensvale a lot!

While tracting this week was had a few interesting encounters. Fun Fact: Australia has the 2nd highest alcohol consumption per capita in the world, so that alone makes a lot of interesting encounters with people. Most people like to drink especially on the weekends and Sunday mornings. I thought I had seen it all until we went tracting yesterday morning before church since we have church at 1pm. We approached this house and it had one of those speakers where you press the button, so we pressed it and this lady answered it. She couldn't hear us and so she hung up. As we were walking away from the house an older lady came running out. So I went back to the gate, and I will just say she was wearing probably the most minimal amount of clothing, making the situation more awkward, she tried to invite us in, I just looked away the whole time and just gave her a pamphlet with our number on it, so if she was actually interested in the gospel she would give us a call. So now I have seen something I never wanted to see. That is one of the many crazy stories of tracting in Australia.

We see much success from tracting otherwise. I love being a missionary and I know that missionary work is one of the greatest works on the earth today and now is the day for hastening the work of salvation. I know the church is true! My testimony has only been strengthened the last 19 months while I have been serving the Lord. I have seen many miracles and seen so many people change because of the gospel and I cannot deny the witness I have received that the Book of Mormon is true. The church is true! I love being a missionary and I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Kyler Powelson

January 6, 2014

Hello All,

My week has been really good! I am really enjoying being in Helenvale! We are seeing a lot of success. To start the transfer off right we set a baptismal date with our investigator named Suzanne. She has been taught by missionaries for over a year, but has had some things holding her back, but those things are not holding her back anymore, and she is getting ready to be baptized on January 31st. I am really excited for it as well. We have been able to get some new investigators as well! We tracted into an older Lady by the name of Sue, and she is pretty sick and is looking for something in her life. We taught her about the Restoration and she feels that is what she needs in her life, so we are going to continue to teach her and see what happens. Elder Nelson has been out about a year on his mission and has been in the Gold Coast for his whole mission. His old area was the one just South of ours and we were walking down the street to visit a less active and he saw a Former Investigator family that he was teaching almost a year ago. They lost contact with them, and now he made contact with them again and we are hoping to set a baptismal date with them when we go around and see them tonight. Tracting has been really successful lately and we have been finding a lot of people who are interested, which is great! I am really looking forward to the new investigators we will get this week! The work is going well in Helensvale and I am really enjoying it here!

I have enjoyed my first week as a zone leader. There are 20 missionaries in the zone, 12 Elders and 8 Sisters. It is great having the opportunity to serve other missionaries too. Most missionaries just serve the people in the areas that they work with, but I am enjoying the opportunity to serve other missionaries and help motivate lift and inspire the missionaries in the Zone.

I love being a missionary and I am really looking forward to this next week and all the miracles that are going to happen. I miss you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kyler Powelson

                Elder Kyler Powelson Sister and Brother Bohem

                             Jay Gutierrez Grandparents
                      (aka Jayne Gutierrez Mum and Dad)

December 31, 2013

Hello All,

I am doing great. I got transferred today. I was both sad and happy to leave Kenmore. I have been transferred to a place called Helensvale in the Gold Coast. I have also been called as a Zone Leader. My companion is also a Zone Leader and his name is Elder Nelson from Arizona. I Don't know much about him, but I am really looking forward to the time we will have together. I am looking forward to the change of being a zone leader. It will bring forth great challenges that I am looking forward to. I cant write too much because we have to be back at our flats early because of New Years Eve, but I will write more next week about my new area. I miss you all and I hope you all have marvelous week!

 Love,

Elder Powelson