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

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