Happy 2010!

Happy Holidays from Madison Everybody!!!

Well, this letter probably won’t be, in fact it won’t be as long as they usually are because I talked to all of you just a few days ago in REAL LIFE!!!!  SWEET!!!!  But, this week really was wonderful and full of great fun and success.  We spent a lot of time trying to contact less actives and referrals yesterday and on Saturday.  We also tracted in a really awesome neighborhood in south Madison.  It’s a newer development area that we went to with the intentions of finding families and such.  We did find a few that are interested so that was sweet!!  It sure was freezing when we went though, well, not SUPER cold but I would rather be chillin inside by the fire or something.  But, the Lord does test our faithfulness and obedience in all things, even in tracting in the freezing cold!  Those scarves that you sent, mom, are lifesavers for sure.  The wind is what kills you though!!  It is just a bundle of fun being out there!

But for Christmas, we decided to forgo the ward Christmas party thing and just talk to our families.  It was well worth it.  After talking to ya’ll, we hung out with a YSA named Lyle and had dinner at his place.  We had broccoli soup and bacon sandwiches for Christmas dinner!  Beats out prime rib!!  Haha just playin, but it was a good dinner for sure.  Then we went to the church and closed the day out with some basketball.  Good times.

Gave a talk at church yesterday, it went great.  The 1st ward and the University wards are only holding sacrament meetings for the next few weeks because there are so many people home.  So that’s kinda lameo.  But the talk went great and got a lot of compliments.  Not like they’d tell me if I did a bad job anyway, but, yeah, it was a good talk I think.  We met a less active guy yesterday who believes in UFO’s, that was cool.  He is a funny guy.  He is less active because he was offended when the bishop told him he shouldn’t talk about UFO’s in his testimony.  Pretty funny.  There are some unique people in this world but God loves them all .

Well, can’t think of too much more excitement to tell you all.  But, I love you all very very much and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy 2010!!

Talk to you next year!!!!!!!!!!

Love
Elder Kissell

pictures

1. We walked around on a frozen lake!!  Sweet huh

2.  Ice...

3.  One of the many Christmas storms

4.  Caroling crew!

5.  The Stocks, the family we spent Christmas eve  with.

6.  Cool....

7.  Christmas tree and presents!!!

8.  Santa came!!!

9.  Presents!!! Thanks everybody!!!

Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!  Well, hello everybody, how was your weeks?  Hopefully they were great and groovy, like mine.  Got some pretty cool stuff and stories to tell you this week too.  I never fail to have good ones!!!
So this week, we got a TON of media referrals.  The way the referral system works is somebody gets a pass along card, see’s a commercial on TV, or some other way, and they call in for any number of things.  Usually, a Bible, a Book of Mormon, and DVD’s.  They call the number on the card or the ad, they’re transferred to missionaries at the MTC, they take down their info, send that info to mission offices, and the mission office sends us a text with all their info and item they want.  This week, we got a lot of DVD requests and Book of Mormon requests so that was cool.  But, one in particular stood out to me that I’d like to tell you about.  This was a missionary visit request, don’t get those too often!!  But these people were Charles and Pamela.  This couple lives in Madison and a close person to them passed away in Florida and they went to the funeral in Florida and they met the missionaries.  Charles is a former Deacon in the Presbyterian church and he left because he found so many discrepancies with the doctrine and has been searching for the truth and he knows he found it with this church and him and his wife want to be baptized!!  We haven’t even met them, I have just talked to them on the phone twice and they’re so excited to meet with us.  It’s going to be sweet.  The missionaries in Florida taught them the first lesson, gave them a Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11), and asked them to pray about it.  He says that they have read and they have prayed.  They love the Book of Mormon and he has prayed to know if it’s true.  He said it took him a few days to get an answer, but he got it and he says there was no denying that it was the Holy Ghost testifying to him.  SO SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!   We’ll be meeting with them on Wednesday and setting a baptismal date with them.  So, good news for Christmas time!!

Sadly, we haven’t been able to see Kristen ALL WEEK.  It was a bummer for sure.  We had an appointment set with her for Wednesday at 3, went over there, and she wasn’t home.  Her husband said that she was having a flair up with arthritis and needed to go to the hospital, so that was sad.  She doesn’t have a phone so we couldn’t call her.  That makes things majorly difficult.  The bus takes about 45 minutes to get to her house from our main area we are in and that takes up a huge chunk of our day.  The buses are so lame.  We really do need a car, but we really honestly probably won’t get one anytime soon.  But we would be able to get so much more work done.  We have a  ton of people to teach, but we just can’t get to them all the time.  It is really annoying.  The bus system is good, but we have to plan our schedule around the time we need to be on it.  A lot of the people we are teaching live in the ghetto, like Kristen, and it is not a great place to be.  Members are afraid of this area and won’t come too willingly with us.  We’ve tried and it’s hard.  If you want my opinion though, it’s bad, but it’s not bad enough that I would stay out of the area.  But maybe one of these days I’ll get jumped and I’ll have a different opinion, but hopefully not!  But, that brings up a funny story…  On Friday, we met with this couple who just moved from Liberia a few years ago.  They met the Spanish elders on the bus last week and wanted to meet with us since they were in our area.  We went over there and met them, they were way nice and very hospitable and caring for us and were excited to start discussing religion and things with us.  They are very strong Christians and they believe a lot of the same things we do and even believe that the church that they attend now is false and they need to find the right one.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  Well, moving on with the story, Elder Barker was discussing with them how to find out if what we teach is true.  He read them Moroni’s promise and testified and things, but before he did that, the man and woman we were teaching told us that they would come to our church in 2 weeks and if they liked it, they would make it their church.  And so this is when Barker did his thing.  They got way mad at him because they didn’t like the fact that we didn’t stop the lesson right there, we just encouraged them to pray and ask if what we teach is true.  It was really weird and I honestly have no idea why they got mad at us.  But they were yelling at us and right up in our face and stuff and it was way scary!!  This guy is not a skinny scrawny guy either, he’s pretty strong and could’ve inflicted some harm on us if he really wanted to.  So, we decided within the span of about 2 seconds that it was time to leave.  We hadn’t even got to talk about Joseph Smith!!!  But, we asked if we could leave with a prayer, they said yes, and after the prayer, they were happy again!!  It was crazy weird.  I’m just glad I didn’t get chopped to bits by a machete or something, it was scary.
On Saturday it was pretty neat, i went on exchanges with the spanish elders and we went caroling with them and the Hmong elders.  We were late to the main thing unfortunately, but we went to a family after we got there...this family is COOL!!  They got sealed that day in the temple.  The father used to be a very strong Jehovahs Witness and had a mighty change of heart and spirit to say the least and became a member with this church!!  He got sealed to his wife and family on saturday.  How cool is that?  THeir home had such a great spirit in it, they were all so happy and it was just amazing.

We went tracting in an area one day because both our appointments we had fell through and turns out a member lived in that area that Barker failed to tell me about.  So, on this doorstep, it was his door, but he rang the bell and said “ok Kissell, it’s all you man.”  And I was like “ok man whatever, this is your door but ok.”  This old man answers the door, late 60’s or so, and I start talking to him.  I tell him who we are and what we share and I ask him if he believes in Christ, he says no, and I told him some ways he could develop a belief in Jesus Christ by meeting with us and reading a little of the Book of Mormon.  Then he says, “Well, Elder Kissell from Wenatchee, WA, I met you on Sunday, but you did a fine job with that door approach, would you and your companion like to come to Culvers with my wife and I?”  I felt SO dumb, you have no idea!!  But it was pretty funny for sure.  Elder Barker was pretty happy with himself and gave me some guff about it, but it was pretty funny though, and plus I got us a free lunch!!  So no complaining here.
We had a great week though.  And also on Thursday we had our zone conference.  It’s sweet being in Wisconsin because you only have to drive an hour maybe to get to those, up in the U.P., we’re talkin like a 4 hour drive sometimes.  So it was great to be so close.  But this was a great conference, we learned about how to ask better questions and interact with investigators in lessons and such.  It was good stuff.  And we also sang carols and did Christmas skits and stuff.  It was fun.  And Blake was at the zone conference!!  They combine zones for zone conference and so he was at that one.  It was sweet spending several hours with him.  It is just even more crazy to me that we came to the same mission.  Nobody believes us that we’re best friends and have known each other for 13 years.  It’s sweet though.

Well, it sure was a good week.  I’m excited to talk to you this week, well, some of you.  Sorry to those of you who I can’t call!!  I still love you though for sure.   I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and remember why we celebrate this wonderful holiday.  How about this…how about for an amazing Christmas present to one of your nonmember friends, you get a Book of Mormon from your missionaries, write your testimony and put it in there, and give it to your friend.  Your present to them will be eternal happiness if they choose to accept it.  Remember, they have their agency and will still be your friend even if they don’t accept the gospel in this life.  You’ve got nothing to lose, so try it!!  You’ll be blessed greatly and we can all use the blessings.

I love you and Merry Christmas!!!
Elder Kissell

pictures

1.  So this picture is really gross i know, but let me explain...  this is a Hmong dessert, i have no idea what it's called.  But what it is is this tapioca stuff with things in there that have the texture of gummy worms and noodles.  It was the grossest texture of anything I've eaten in my life.  A combination of tapioca balls, gummy worm texture stuff, and noodle texture stuff.  ANd there was also something in there that was like bean sprouts.  It was so weird but super good.  It was something you drank too.  But it tasted like coconut and tapioca pudding...with gummy worms...and noodles.  But, remember that they weren't gummy worms and noodles, it was just weird!!!!!

2.  Our nasty tub...we're going to clean it soon.  Was not happy when i saw that.

3.  Yay for tracting in the snow and in the dark

4.  Elder Barker, i forgot i still hadn't sent you a picture of him so i just took one right now.

Welcome to Madtown Elder Kissell

Hello Everyone!!!

Well…do you all wanna know where I’m at??????? I am now serving in Madison on the campus! It is InSaNe!!!! Here’s the rundown…Madison is the states capital, there are about 350,000 more people here than in Marquette, I live in an apartment right smack dab in the middle of the city, I work in a singles ward and in a regular ward, there are like 6 different companionships in the area, and there are just a ton of people here!! It’s so crazy. I’m basically going through culture shock right now, it’s crazy. I went from Wenatchee (25,000 people) to Marquette (25,000 people) to Madison (400,000 people)! It is nutso. But I love it here. It’s a very clean city, it reminds me a little of like Salt Lake or something. The University of Wisconsin is here obviously, so there are a ton of college kids. There is a pretty sweet and nice little institute building here, so that’s a plus. There aren’t a ton of LDS kids attending but there are enough to have that building. There are about 40 or so active college students. The ward we work in is all super busy graduate students with young families. It’s pretty nuts.

And I guess I should tell you about my new companion, Elder Barker. He has been out one transfer less than me so that puts me at senior companion! So that’s interesting and new. Really, the title of senior doesn’t count for much. Basically you just get the last say in things and make executive and important decisions. And if we had a car, I would get to drive it. But we don’t and have to take the buses, so I don’t drive. The bus is so lame. A car would be so useful. We would be able to get so much more work done and would be able to spend more time in areas but we have to base our schedules around the bus system and schedule. Oh well, life does go on somehow. But the bus is a good place to talk to people and meet people, that’s a plus. I just need to stop being a chicken and talk more. Afterall, that is what I’m here to do! But I really do love this place.

On Friday, just the second day I was here, we got a referral from a member in one of the wards here and told us that she would be golden and asked us to go meet with her. Her name is Kristen, a 47 year old black woman, and she is just lost and going through some pretty hard times right now. The member who referred her to us gave her a Book of Mormon and she was very excited about it. She is going through hard economic times and is a bit depressed about things in her life and how they’re going. We’re the ones to talk to about that!!! But we had a great first lesson and she was excited to read and to pray about the first lesson and the Book of Mormon. We set up a return time for the next day and we went with a super awesome member/ward missionary, Sis. Elisberg and taught the plan of salvation. This was the person I’ve been waiting to meet on my mission. Her mother died 4 years ago and is still pretty sad and emotional about it. Just like me with dad. Elder Barker and I discussed who would teach what in the lesson and I would be teaching about Adam and Eve, the atonement, and the resurrection. I knew from the beginning of the lesson that I needed to tell the story about dad and bear my strong testimony of the atonement when I taught it. The spirit was so so strong. I wish you all could’ve been there. I started to cry, Sis. Elisberg started to cry, and Kristen started to cry. Afterwards, Kristen gave me a big huge hug. Easily one of, if not the best feelings and experiences I’ve had on my mission so far. She committed to come to church and guess what? She did and she loved it!!! She even says she wants to keep coming and she even signed herself up on the dinner calendar. I’m so stinkin excited. We will be extending a baptismal commitment to her and seeing what happens with that this week. So please pray for her and her continued development and growth. We’ve also just received a ton of referrals these past couple days for some reason. We stopped by another and met him yesterday and he is an Indian guy, former Hindu, and wanting to quit that and learn about Jesus. He ordered a Lamb of God DVD that we delivered to him. Unique huh? I have not taught anybody yet who doesn’t at least know a bit about Jesus and so this was a definite first for me. It was cool though. He came to understand the need and reason to pray, the meaning behind the Godhead, and what the Holy Ghost felt like because he was there for sure. We also challenged him to fast and to pray to quit smoking, right from the first lesson!! It is going to be sweet. I love it here, there will be a lot going on this transfer, I can feel it. The ward is so much different than Marquette. Tons of young families. There are no young men or young women, the oldest person might be in their 60’s here, and yeah, it’s just weird and different. They all seem very nice, but very busy. Elder Barker tells me we won’t see a ton of the members a lot because of that, so we’ll see.

But this week has been nuts. The beginning of the week was crazy because of all the packing I had to do and goodbyes I had to say and stuff. Tuesday was a great day. It was the day we had district meeting and the day we were supposed to go to Green Bay and from there down to Milwaukee the next day. Well, we go out in the morning to drive to district meeting and there’s a huge nail in our tire!! So, I spent the morning changing a tire. Fun. I also smashed my pinky trying to get the dumb spare off, but don’t worry, I didn’t swear!! And so, we had district meeting over the phone, that was different for sure. After that, we get a call from the zone leaders that we had to drive to Milwaukee that day!!! Keep in mind that it takes about 8 hours to get to Milwaukee from Marquette and that a huge storm was coming in that day. So, since it hadn’t come yet, Elder Wessely turned the highway into the Autobahn. Hooray!! We were hauling, but we needed to get to Milwaukee and pronto because of Presidents orders. He wanted us to be down there because of that storm. And good thing because by the time we got to Milwaukee, it was dumping snow. Milwaukee got about 10 inches I think. We driving in the worst of it too and got lost. That was great. But we found our way and thank goodness for 4 wheel drive. It was insane weather and snow. Wednesday, I bid farewell to Elder Wessely who would be training this transfer and spent the day with the office elders. They basically do errands for the president and arrange transfer info and fun stuff like that. It was nuts. They’re so busy and I’m grateful to be just a regular missionary.

Thursday was transfer day and guess who I finally got to see!!! BLAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome. It has been forever since I’ve seen him and it was a happy reunion. Also Tucker Chapman, from the 3rd ward, was there!!! So we had a little Wenatchee reunion. Sweet! It was pretty cool seeing 3 people from Wenatchee serving in the same mission in one spot. Doesn’t happen too often for sure. But Blake will be serving in a different zone than me again, but I will see him at zone conferences now at least. They combine zones for those things. But yeah, I was happy to finally see him. I’m excited for the day that I can either be in his district, or better yet, be his companion. But nobody thinks it will happen. I think it will. Gotta have some faith!!!

Well, I’m all about out of news. Oh, Madison has a ton of snow and it was super super cold for a few days. Madison shut down on Wednesday because of all the snow. That’s saying something. They got pummeled with about 17” of super heavy snow. And it was in the negative and single digits for a few days. That was fun!! Welcome to Wisconsin!!!

Now I’m out of news… I love you guys!!! Have a great holiday season and I will talk to you next Monday!! I will be literally talking to you mom in 11 days!!!

Love
Elder Kissell

pictures


1. the most yooper picture you'll ever see!! A Stormy Kromer hat and a pasty. And some other dumb stuff.


2. Elder Crossley, love this kid.

3. Look!! Wenatchee kids!!

4. Look who it is!

5. Wisconsin Campus action


6. Yup, it did


7. More campus action

8. On State Street to see the Capital


9. Sweet!!

December 7, 2009

Greetings family and friends!

Well, this was an exciting week. Another rollercoaster one. But hey, rollercoasters are fun!!
But, I am getting transferred. Called it from the start of the transfer. I don’t know where I am going yet. We get 2 calls. 1 to tell us if we’re leaving, and the 2nd is if we are leaving, where we are going and who our new companion is. And I should be receiving that call later today or tomorrow sometime. But I do know that I will not be going anywhere in the U.P. because nobody else got transferred in our district, so Wisconsin, here I come! And when Pres. Barrett talked to me, he said that he had a “new, exciting, and important mission” for me to do. I’m pretty sad that I’m leaving Marquette though. It’s basically my second home because I’ve been here so long and the last place I was was home. But I’m fine with leaving, it would be sweet to see some more of the mission and to get to meet new and exciting people and great stuff like that. So it’ll be an adventure!! And elder Wessely is training this next transfer for his first time. He’s going to be training a guy from the Czech Republic!! And he doesn’t speak a lot of English and it should be an interesting transfer for the both of them. He’s not too excited about training though for some reason, he’s been in a bad mood the past few days. I think it’d be awesome to train, so hopefully someday I will.

But this week was actually the first week that it was actually cold! It was consistently in the 20’s and it snowed and is currently snowing. The weather is so weird here though. At our apartment, we only got about 2” of snow, but just across town they had about 6” and down by where the church is about 5 miles down the road, there was about 8”. So weird. We had to do a lot of tracting this week too because unfortunately some of our appointments fell through and we partially just felt like it. So it was my first time tracting in the snow! And definitely not the last. We found a new investigator this week off of tracting and a few potentials off of it as well. So I would consider it successful. Tracting is fun if you make it, if you don’t, it’s miserable. And so basically you just learn to laugh and move on with life if they slam the door or something. And really, people aren’t mean ALL the time, you meet some really nice people tracting too.

Thursday was my 6 month mark!!! That’s pretty crazy huh? I think it’s nuts that I’ve been out this long already. But that day was a pretty good day for tracting and we had some good appointments too. And as missionary tradition goes, it’s your choice to follow or not, but 6 months means you burn a tie. So, if your name happens to be Jesse Kissell and you LOVE burning stuff, then you have to! So I burned a few of my old and junky ties that have ripped or gotten stained beyond reason.

But we had a really good lesson with Shaun and Brandy this week on the Gospel. The spirit was very much there and it was a very interactive lesson and we feel that they understand that message very well. We noticed that our lessons lately have not been very interactive so we have been developing questions that are deep and cause some pondering and tried that that night and it worked amazing. They’re so cool and I am going to miss them a ton. And we also met with our investigators, Cory and Crystal and watched the Restoration DVD with them and that went great too! It was a bummer though because they had to leave almost right after the lesson and we couldn’t discuss it too much. But they liked it a lot. They love us too. They honk and wave at us when they see us walking, they give us food, and they just feel good about the church and love it thus far. Unfortunately they didn’t make it to church yesterday because Crystal had, and still does, have a really bad migraine, so that’s no fun.

Yesterday was a very good day though. Church went well and I was asked to do 3 things in sacrament meeting it was crazy. I was asked to do prayer, pass the sacrament, and bear my testimony. It was pretty cool, but I felt like I was being seen too much and was a little weird. But that’s ok. But the ward is sad, or seems to be sad, that I’m leaving. We stopped by a few members after church to bid adieu since I’ll be leaving Tuesday probably and don’t have much time to do that. And we also had 2 dinner appointments yesterday…not fun. That’s all I gotta say. We had dinner with the Collins family (Bro. Collins is really good friends with Zach) and with Zachs family for one dinner and then we went to the Carruth family to teach one of their daughters friends and have dinner. I’m really going to miss all those people though. Zach is doing really well this week and has been in good shape and was at church with his family yesterday. So I’m pumped about that.

Marquette has been an awesome place and I’m sad to leave but excited to see what my next area(s) have in store for me. I have a pretty strong/bad feeling that I may be serving in the middle of a city because in my last interview with Pres. Barrett I asked him to keep me in the country, not a city. So maybe he wants to see what a country boy does in the middle of a huge city. We’ll find out soon enough!!!

This week has been an awesome week, I have learned and grown a lot I feel and am getting to be a better person and missionary. I hope to keep that going and be the best I can be, that’s all I want. I want to serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength in my next area. I’m not perfect, so a few of those were lacking every once in a while. So pray for me, pray for the investigators, and have a wonderful December week wherever you may be!

Love
Elder Jesse Kissell

pictures!


1. Snow!


2. 6 months!


3. Yummy yummy venison made by Jesse


4. Early Christmas present!


5. Th Collins Family (missing 2) and the Boyle Family


6. The Carruth family! They're short :)

Brrrr

Hey!

Well, this week was quite the rollercoaster, I’ll tell you that much. We had a bunch of sweet appointments planned for after our pday on Monday, but they all fell through! So that was a bummer. On pdays (Ryan wants to know what we do on pdays…) we do laundry, email, go shopping, and then basically do whatever. We usually just go home and chill and take naps. Sometimes if elder Wessely is more motivated or what not, we go out and do something cool like go out on the break walls or on a hike or something. Or go walk around in the malls and look for cool stuff. But yeah, it’s always just great to relax for a solid 8 hours every week. I’ll take it for sure.

Tuesday was district meeting day down in Iron Mountain, it was good. I always feel like junk though after district meeting because there’s always so stinkin much I can and need to improve on to be a better missionary. But hey, I’m trying my hardest and that’s all you can do right? But I like district meetings, I learn a lot and need that extra motivation. After district meeting it was sweet…there’s this huge ski jump, the largest free standing ski jump in the world, in Iron Mountain, and a crazy member gave us a couple bowling balls and told us to go up and drop them off the top of the ski jump. Sounded fun to us! But holy cow, I thought I was overcoming my fear of heights, but now way jose. This jump was so high and I have a whole new different respect for ski jumpers. Those guys have got some guts. I’d rather do belly flops off the high dive 50 times before doing a ski jump. Way scary. I could only make it half way up this thing before I had to turn back. One out of the 4 of us made it to the top, but then again only 2 attempted and I was the wussy. Oh well but we didn’t even drop the balls, it was just cool being up there. On the way back from district meeting we always stop and see people that live far out from our area out there, one of these people being the Pendaz family, who unfortunately haven’t been to church in about 5 weeks. So that’s pretty sad. But they’ve all been way sick and going through hard times so we gave them blessings and hope to see them back soon. Tuesday nights we also go to institute, we need to get some of our investigators to come to that. It’s a sweet program for sure.

Wednesday was an interesting day to say the least. We talked to a lady we have talked to before in the past with bishop and she was way interested when we talked to her with bishop, but it was totally different with us just being there. She is a very liberal thinker and doesn’t think organized religion is right and she asked why the church has such strong viewpoints on homosexuality. We explained and tried to help her understand, I hope she did. But we were trying super hard to not say anything that would hurt her feelings because she is just the sweetest lady in the world. She isn’t gay or anything either, that was just one of her main questions. She thinks love is love and that whatever people way people want to do things is the right way for them. There is so much wrong with those two statements, but that’s ok. We just need to see here again with bishop. But this was nothing compared to our next appointment 15 minutes later. Last week, we met some sweet people by helping them move some stuff in to their apartment and they told us to come back. So we came back, and before we started teaching this married couple, they had a question. They wanted to know what the churches stand on it was and we figured that it was about alcohol or smoking or something, but they told us that they were BOTH bi-sexual, and not only that but they were looking for a third member to add to their relationship! It was so awkward, and we were both trying not to be grossed out or start laughing or anything and so we answered and told them the churches view on that and read the family proclamation to them. Then, we had a sweet lesson with them about the restoration. They’re way awesome people and they have a ton of potential, but we hope that we can convey to them that this is something that they need to work on fixing. But yeah, never been asked so many questions about homosexuality in my life in one day, that was crazy. And that same day, (Wednesday was a good day) we had an appointment with our wrestling couple Shaun and Brandy. Still awesome and still moving unfortunately. But we reviewed Adam and Eve and the Atonement with them again. They are still praying about things and baptism in particular, so we hope things are made true to them soon and they want to continue to learn when they move to Tennessee. We’re just making them golden and ripe to pick for those
elders!! Aren’t we nice?

And Thursday, Thanksgiving!!! What a great day. In the morning, we played in the churches Turkey Bowl and it was awesome. It was freezing and snowing pretty hard. There was a lot of people there too and it was just a lot of fun. I dominated too, don’t worry, I knew you guys were wondering if I did or not. But it was a ton of fun and super sweet. But man was I sore afterward, but it was worth it. Then we had our dinner with the Rayhorn family, and it was soooo good. KC, their 15 year old daughter, did ALL the cooking and it was all soo good. Impressive for sure. But they’re a great family and they love us and we had a great thanksgiving with them. I did miss apple pie though. That’s the only thing that I needed to make my life great. And I got some sweet Tobasco Sauce ties from Bro. Rayhorn, unfortunately I can’t wear them out here. So I’ll send them home. And then that evening we went to another members home and just hung out and talked with him about the work and about his family and life in general, it was good.

Friday, this was cool too! We tried to find some referrals we had out in the boonies and we had a trusty GPS system we borrowed from a member, but it was not so trusty. It took us down some crazy backroads that turned into 4 wheeldrive roads and roads that reminded me of when I got my truck covered head to toe up on Burch Mountain, but nowhere near as sweet, but it was pretty fun! I had to teach elder Wessely how to drive in it too because he has never driven off road, so I helped him have his first off roading experience!! Fun huh? But that GPS was lame and took us to the completely wrong spot so we drove to where we were pretty sure it should be and lo and behold, that’s where it was. So that was fun stuff for sure. And that evening, we went to see Zach with the elders quorum president and he’s still working to overcome his problems, so keep him up in your prayers.

Saturday we were all over the place in our area. Lots of driving and lots of finding. We tracted in one area in Negaunee and finally we found somebody home who told us that this area was where retired pastors/ministers of various faiths lived. These houses were HUGE! It’s just ironic to me that these pastors live in these huge houses. And it was funny because the next 3 people that we caught home were born again Christians, Methodists, and Lutherans. The head of the home was in all 3 of these places, a retired preacher. It was great. And all these men were not nice to us at all. I would at least think that they would have the humility and kindness to be at least somewhat nice to us. Oh well, life goes on. Needless to say, our tracting time that day was unfruitful at the moment, hopefully some seeds were planted. But that evening was not sweet at all. We talked to a less active lady who is bi polar and she talks so much and always about herself and nobody else and won’t let anybody have a word in edgewise. I just don’t have the patience for these people and I tried to talk and calm her down a little bit but then she just lit me up and yelled at me nonstop for about 10 minutes. She was so mad at me. She was telling me that I didn’t know what the real world was like and that I was rude and inconsiderate and just all this stuff. Not cool. But then I finally was able to talk and related with her on a few things and then she apologized and was humbled by what I told her, so that was good. But it was not a fun hour that we were there.

Sunday was good. Sadly, no investigators were there again. But our recent convert Ernest came finally after a 3 week vacation of not being at church. So that was good to see him. And it was cool, 2 young women in our ward went to a country concert this week (Lady Antebellum) and they told me about it earlier in the week and I was telling them that I was jealous and to tell the singers hi for me and stuff like that. But guess what?! They made me a shirt and got it signed by one of the singers!! So sweet. I was pretty decently happy for sure. But the young women around here are funny. KC, the girl who made thanksgiving for us, says that the young women always talk about the elders. Great to know! But they’re all awesome girls and we get referrals from them sometimes to go talk to their friends. Referrals are sweet!! Have you given your missionaries any recently?? Pray about 5 nonmember friends you know and pray that you will be able to refer at least one of these people to the elders. You’ll be greatly blessed and the elders will love you!! I promise. But our lessons were really good this Sunday. We learned about the Living Christ thing that the first presidency issued in 2000 and we got into the “Christmas Spirit” of things. I’m pretty excited for Christmas and teaching people about Christ. The elders say there’s something special about this time of year so I’m pumped for sure.

Well, life is good for me. Keep us in your prayers though, we need all the help we can get! I love you guys and I hope you know I pray for you every night. Hope everybodys Thanksgiving was good too!

Love
Elder Kissell

the massive ski jump

sweet huh?

i look like a turkey after the turkey bowl :)

you know you're lost when the road youre on looks like this...

muddy missionary truck!

:)

our nasty dishwasher. gross huh?

Lady Antebellum shirt

Lady Antebellum shirt

Summer weather in wintertime!

HEY fellow loved ones!

Well, this week was wwwwaaaaaarrrrmmm! We're talking like 55 degrees!! That’s how warm it was here in July!! So it’s pretty strange. All the Yoopers up here are stressing out because last year at this time there was over a foot of snow here in Marquette. Well, I guess things change for sure. But I guess it’s supposed to snow this week on Wednesday and Thanksgiving, so that’ll be sweet. I want to see at least a little snow before I leave.

But, the week went very well. We had a fun and exciting pday last week. The Houghton missionaries came down and spent the day with us. We played monopoly and the guitar and hung out and fun stuff like that. But the cool part was that Wessely and I had planned to go out to a members home for a few days to work in the area out where they live. They live in a little town, not even a town, out in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes away from Marquette. They have 40 acres of property and a very nice home. So it was a lot of fun that night. We just went there that night and spent the evening chatting with them. Didn’t have any time to do any work that evening unfortunately because we got there so late. But that’s ok, the following days were much better. Tuesday, we had our district meeting and then we came back that afternoon and started working the area. We basically went out there with the intentions of contacting all the less active members who live out there, and there are quite a few, about 15-20 or so families out there that are less active. But this was an exciting guy…the fun thing about seeing less active people is you never know what to expect. It’s almost like tracting! And that’s what makes it fun. But this one guy we came in contact with, his name was William, and he was 80 years old. Guess how long he hasn’t been to church? 57 years!!!! So insane. But he was a fun guy and was a pretty big smart alec, so we had a little bit of fun teasing each other back and forth. And as we were talking he says “hey come on now, help us unload all this booze out of our car.” And looking into the back of the car and seeing tons of boxes and also keeping in mind that this guy was a smart alec, I didn’t think it would be booze at all. So we helped him unload a bit, but then after a while I got curious. He wasn’t lying! Each box held 6 bottles of vodka and he had 20 boxes AT LEAST that we helped him unload. That’s a ton of booze. So I asked him what the heck he needs all this booze for and he told me that if you drink 2 glasses a day you’ll be so much more healthier than what you are and you’ll live longer. I don’t really think he drinks 2 glasses a day though, maybe 2 bottles! Oh well, but wouldn’t that make a great missionary picture? “Mormon missionaries in Marquette help unload boxes of vodka to help reactivate members.” Good thing he lived in the boonies and nobody could take pictures of us…but this guy was a nice guy. After talking to him, he still loves and respects the church, it’s just not his “thing”. He says he even tries to convert Jehovah’s Witnesses when they talk to him! I don’t get it…but oh well, he’s still a good guy. Then we went and saw another less active member not too far away from him. I believe I’ve already talked about this guy in the past before, but his name is Terry and this summer he miraculously overcame kidney and liver failure. He was poisoned by some fumes in his work and they caused his kidneys and liver to shutdown but after receiving a few blessings, they made a complete recovery. Unfortunately, the rest of his body was affected by this stuff too and his body is not totally recovered yet and he still has some not so good health problems. He has also lost all his money due to medical expenses, he can’t work, he lives in a small trailer with no running water, his family lives in downstate Michigan, he’s weaker than weak, he has no transportation, he has nothing. He is struggling pretty bad right now to say the least and is pretty miserable and down. I think I would be too, life has dealt him some heavy blows. But we helped him split wood for a while, that was a lot of fun. And we gave him a blessing and just talked to him and gave him comfort and encouragement. But this experience humbled me so much. I definitely needed it. It helped me to realize all the billions and billions of thing that I have everyday to be thankful for. I have the strength to wake up everyday and get up out of my comftorable and warm bed and go study in a comftorable and warm apartment. I can also go and get food out of my fridge and I can take a nice warm shower and I can then put a clean shirt on my back and sweet tie and get ready to go and serve the Lord. I have so much to be thankful for in just the first few minutes I wake up.

So my challenge for you this week is to think to yourself, maybe even write a list of things that you are grateful for. This is a small list of mine…

1. I am on a mission. I am serving the Lord.
2. I have an amazing family who love and support me.
3. I have amazing friends who love and support me.
4. My best friend is in the same mission as me!
5. I am a member of the only true church on earth.
6. I can read the Book of Mormon everyday and be uplifted by everything I read.
7. I have a comftorable bed and a warm apartment.
8. I serve in an amazing ward who loves and supports us.
9. I was called to serve a mission by a PROPHET who is called by the Lord.
10. I have good health.
11. I can help people be happy.
12. I have warm clothes that will help me be warm when it snows.
13. I am grateful for music that makes me happy and feel the spirit.
14. I am grateful for education that helps me become smarter and excel in the church as well as in life.
15. I am grateful to wake up each and every morning and see a beautiful world.

That is just a small list that took me only a few minutes to make. But there is so much I have to be grateful for.

The next day we were still out in that area. We decided to drive a little ways and go up to another part of our area we’ve never been to that was very close by. It was in a nice little town called Munising. We caught some people home and invited them back out to church. I hope that they felt our love and that the ward misses them. There’s a cool little town up there called Christmas! I thought it was neat. Everything thing there is Christmas oriented with Santa and Mrs. Claus and elves and reindeer and stuff like that. It’s pretty neat. Yoopers are weird. But yeah, our time out there was productive and we saw several less active people.

Thursday we were back in Marquette and saw several potentials that we had and talked to some of them. I think things will pick up here soon. We just need to excite our potentials that we have now. It’ll happen sometime. We talked to another older man who is a potential and he was giving elder Wessely a hard time because he never talked. I thought it was funny because he always gets mad at me for telling him he never talks, so I’m glad an investigator did. So he started talking. Hooray! Now I don’t have to talk nonstop. So that was good for him.
Friday was spent here in Marquette and Harvey too, we saw more potentials and even taught a few people. So that was great. Helped some recent converts move a couch and taught them some things. But nothing really too noteworthy or spectacular happened that day.
Saturday was a great day though, we went out to Ishpeming and saw our people out there. We had an awkward conversation with an investigator out there who told us about how her son is going through puberty…great! So, we quickly changed the subject and talked about the scriptures instead of that. A topic I appreciate much more. But hopefully we have some progression with her. She believes that the Book of Mormon is true, believes in the apostasy, believes in everything, BUT, she doesn’t believe the church has the true priesthood authority. So that presents a problem. She needs to read and to pray with faith and humility and she’ll find out that what we teach is true and that this is the only true church. That evening we also saw Ashley and Ben!! They’re awesome. We were going in there with the intention of just finding out there interest level, but we ended up teaching the plan of salvation. So that was good. They still haven’t kept any commitments or anything, so that is frustrating. And they didn’t come to church yesterday either. So, we really hope the ball gets rolling with them.
That’d be so awesome. They would be a perfect little Mormon family.

Sunday was a good day. Fun fact about elder Wessely is that he plays the flute really well, and today, he played in sacrament meeting. It was very nice. But now the scary thing is that everybody is asking me if I have any hidden talents and elder Wessely mentions every time that I can play the piano and other members have said that I have a very nice voice singing the hymns in sacrament meeting. By the way…I have been regaining some of my piano skill. I’m certain that that makes some of you happy. But the scary thing is that the ward music lady has eluded to the fact of a piano/flute/singing trio for a sacrament meeting around Christmas. But, I will more than likely not be here so I won’t have to worry about it!! But we’ll see, I’m a little nervous though. But church was good because a few of the less actives we saw the other day came to church!! Yay! And one of them was Terry, so that was awesome. But still no investigators. Sad. The talks were also really awesome, strangely, talking about gratitude! And the member we stayed with out there, the Simpsons, she was one of the speakers. She started naming things off in the middle of her talk that she was grateful for and one of the things she was grateful for was “Elder Kissell’s appetite.” And everybody laughed and turned around and looked at me. It was funny. But I just thought it was a weird thing to be grateful for. But thinking about it, I did eat a lot out there. I put down 4 potatoes one night because they didn’t want any leftovers, so I guess that’s where it came from! So now I’m known as the missionary who eats a lot! Sweet. But Sunday evening we had a really good appointment with the husband of a member in our ward. He’s a dry Mormon, and he loves us but just doesn’t feel comftorable being baptized yet. We asked him to pray about it. So hopefully that goes well and he has good news to tell us next time. I want to be baptized! That’d be so sweet. It could happen though.

But this week was great. I am excited for Thanksgiving and I hope all will go well with everybody elses holiday back home! We have been invited to several members homes for Thanksgiving and have been invited to participate in the Turkey Bowl, so all is well is Jesse-ville! And we’ll also be teaching some sweet people too probably.

Love ya’ll!!
Elder Kissell

pictures (kinda lame this week...sorry)


1. Christmas in Michigan!!!


2. Signs of a working missionary :)

Mid November Excitement

Hey everyone!

Well, this week was ok for the most part. I went on exchanges and went up to Houghton again on Tuesday and Wednesday and that was pretty sweet. Exchanges are always alot of fun. Not only do you get to serve with another companion (i love mine, don't get me wrong) for a day, but you get to see how they do things differently and better in their areas. So it helps us to be able to incorporate some of that into our areas. But, you remember what's in Houghton right? One HUGE cinnamon roll!! And guess what? I finished it this time!! Round 2 was worth it for sure. Lets not talk about the calories in that thing though… But I learned some good things up there with our district leader Elder Ross. We tried to incorporate things we learned from those elders the rest of our week but we got a little distracted by other trials and challenges unfortunately…

But before I get into that, I’ll talk about some good stuff first We tracted quite a bit this week. We had some sound rejections and some not so cool people that we talked to. That’s ok, we still found one diamond in the rough. We knocked into a lady who had a pretty huge yard and had a bunch of yard clippings and leaves and stuff that she needed to take to the compost pile before 6 and it was 5:30, so we helped her out and loaded everything into her truck, suits on and all. We got pretty dirty, but it was sweet. And she loved us so we are going to go back soon and talk to her and her family. Perfect Mormons though for sure. We also had a sweet lesson with our investigator Brandy and her fiancé Shaun. They love us, they feed us, and they love learning about the gospel. I’m so bummed that they’re moving though. But we’ll make them all ripe and golden for the elders down in Tennessee because we’re nice like that.

Alright, so the bummer part of our week…Zach is going through a very hard time right now. I’ll just leave it at that. PLEASE keep him in your prayers though. He is struggling with past problems and is just going through a hard time in life right now in general. We did teach him about temples though later this past week. He is a super bright guy and loves learning about the gospel. It just breaks my heart to see him struggling. But him and his family were all there at church yesterday, even on opening day of deer season! So I was thrilled about that. Bishop is also talking to him about working with the young men, which would be amazing for him. He needs something like that.

We didn’t see Ashley or Ben all week unfortunately. Ben is a trucker and is gone usually about 5 days of the week. So that creates a very difficult teaching situation. We may just have to start teaching Ashley singley. We don’t really know, but we’re going to talk to Pres. Barrett about that. They’re awesome people, I don’t want to have these guys slip through our fingers. They weren’t at church though, so that’s a bummer. Basically, here in Marquette right now, we have SO much potential going on. We just can’t them from a “potential” investigator to a “real” investigator. So RM’s reading this, any sweet ideas, write me! We’re trying our hardest and best though. It’s part of the work though I guess. I’m not letting it get me down, nothing happens when you’re sad and depressed and lacking faith. So, I’m not going to be a bum like that.

We visited several less actives and recent converts this week too. It’s always good to see a less active you haven’t seen in ages and help him feel Christ’s love again and see it working on them. Pretty much, I love being a missionary! There is probably nothing in my life so far that I have felt so good about doing every single day. Serving the Lord is so awesome. Helping members learn how to serve is awesome too. We’re the full time teachers, all the members are the full time finders! So we emphasize that whenever we are in member homes. Usually they respond well and hand us a few referrals the next time we see them.

This week has flown by, lots of things have happened. We did spend a lot of time with Zach though, trying to help him out, so that’s where we spent a few hours of the week. We also are going to start teaching Zach’s brother. He expressed interest and asked us to come by! So, good things still do, well always, come out of bad situations I’ve learned.

Sorry this letter is shorter than the past, but in all seriousness, this week has been a great learning experience for me and I hope I helped somebody who reads this letter in some way or another. I love being a missionary and I love my family, I love my friends, and I love my Heavenly Father. I thank you all so much for your love, support, compassion, letters, random packages, and everything. I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better life. I love my Heavenly Father so much and I thank him for putting all of you in my life.

Love,
Elder Kissell

Pictures

1. Little kids love me!

2. Round 2

3. I did it!

4. Look at the sign!

Spring in November!

Greetings from Marquette!

Well hey everybody! How is life for all ya’ll? Life here in Marquette is pretty good. This week went much better than the past we’ve been having and was much more successful. So, let me tell you about it!

On Tuesday at district meeting, President and Sister Barrett were there and taught us how to be more successful missonaries and we had our interviews. The training we received was awesome, about how to find families tracting and about how to prevent appointments from falling through. Exactly what we needed! So that was very helpful to me. My interview with president went awesome too. The first thing he told me was “Elder Kissell, you’ve been in Marquette quite a while.” So I’m taking that as a pretty heavy hint that I will probably be leaving after this transfer. But we will see! I’m not ruling anything out though. I love it up here so I’d be fine with staying another 6 weeks. But president Barrett is awesome. He is just very involved with the work and with us and our lives that it is just unbelievable. I don’t know how he does it, but he does. He is truly a worthy man called of God to do this. So I greatly respect him and how much he not only helps me, but how he helps our investigators. He knows ALL of our investigators by name and he asks about them whenever we talk. I just think that’s awesome.

Wednesday was a sweet day. We taught 2 way solid lessons that day to a couple of our investigators. We taught Ashley (one of the sisters with a baptismal date) and her husband Ben!! He was finally home and we taught him quite a bit. We helped get him from thinking, “oh these guys are cool but I don’t want to hear anything about their religion” to “man these guys believe in some sweet stuff!” They both had a ton of awesome questions and we answered all of them. Some questions I know I couldn’t have answered before my mission. It’s just so awesome teaching by the spirit and knowing that they feel it. We emphasized eternal marriage and eternal families a lot. They have a 2 year old boy. They were very interested and accepting and wanting to prepare for that. And Ben, a stubborn trucker, said he would prepare himself for baptism! No date yet, but we plan on setting a solid one with him and rescheduling Ashley’s this week. Ashley’s needs to be rescheduled anyway because she hasn’t come to church yet and needs to be there at least 3 times before baptism and it’s physically impossible for her to now with the date she has. So we’ll ponder and pray over that one. That evening we also taught our investigator Brandy and her less active fiancé Shaun. It was solid and awesome too. They’re such amazing people. We watched the Restoration DVD and discussed the restoration once more with them. They totally felt the spirit and we know that they love this gospel. We plan on setting a date with her this week. The only lame thing is that they’re moving to Tennessee in December! So we need to work fast for sure. But they’re awesome people. We took bishop over to meet them later in the week and he thinks that they’re amazing people as well.

We tracted a super rich street this week too. There are some crazy insane huge houses around this place. I almost died that time too. There was this huge dog that we didn’t see at one of the houses and as we are walking away, he comes out of nowhere, barking super loud and running full speed right towards ME!!! I had the deer in the headlights look, or the missionary about to get eaten by a dog look, and was about to deck the dog if he jumped on me. But he stopped like 2 feet in front of me and was just barking and stuff. That was my first bad experience with dogs on my mission. Not too fun!! Elder Wessely had a good laugh out of it though. And it seems like rich people are just as humble about religion as the not so rich people! So, we’ll try to tract in all sorts of places now that we found that out. Nobody was interested, but we planted some good seeds in some fertile ground.

Thursday we went out to Ishpeming and Negaunee and tried to set up some appointments there. Problem this time is that nobody wanted to make appointments! But, we talked to some less active people out there and shared messages with them and invited them to come back to church. No luck this Sunday though…sad. But we had another solid lesson that night with a less active guy and his girlfriend, not a member. He comes to church fairly often, but he is still a little on the rebel side. But this lesson was sweet, he said we could come over and teach him to “practice” our lessons. Halfway through, his girlfriend came and we turned the focus to her and she really liked what we taught and they committed to read and to pray together. So, hoping that they did! It rocked though!

Friday…this was a great day. You’ll probably get some laughs out of this one. We were at our recent converts Ernest place and we were there for quite a while. He called a less active lady who lives in the same building as he does and she wanted to talk to us, and this lady talks for everrrrrrrrr so we decided that we should probably go use the restroom before she gets here. Wessely goes first and then I go. There was a chain in there that I thought was for flushing the toilet and I thought that was sweet so I pulled it, nothing happened. So I looked a little closer and it said EMERGENCY written on it. It was engraved on a dark brown faceplate and very small lettering, and how I was supposed to know that’s what it was, I don’t know. So I was just hoping I didn’t do anything bad. Then right before I walked out, Wessely knocked on the door and said that I had just called the ambulance. WOOPS!! So the nurse had to call and cancel the ambulance since no emergency happened, just a dumb missionary boy was curious and pulled the chain. And there was a super loud alarm that was going off in the main nurses office, I felt like a dork. But hey, you live and you learn right? We also had a follow up visit with Ben and Ashley that night. We read 3 Nephi 11 with them. They thought it was awesome. They had already forgotten a bit about the apostasy and stuff. So we need to probably reteach the restoration and things before we move on. It’s all good. But it was sweet and they really like us and our lessons so they give us food.

On Saturday, nothing really too exciting happened. It was super warm though so that was awesome. We had our first dropped appointment of the week that day though, so that was a bummer, and it was a long ways away too. It frustrated us a little because we had called twice and she didn’t answer and we go out there and she was sick and didn’t have a reason for not calling us back. So that was a bit frustrating. Oh well, what can ya do.
Sunday, none of our investigators came again…bummer. Zach and his family came though despite the fact they slept in and missed most of sacrament meeting. But Zach learned a lot in Sunday school and in priesthood. He took lots of mental notes and asked us a bunch of stuff later on. He also kicked his girlfriend out too. So, he’s making some progress!! Yay! So, all in all, pretty good Sunday.

I had a great week. Hope yours went well too. I pray for you all!!! Family, loved ones, friends, etc. You guys all rock! Keep praying for the elders!!

Love
Elder Jesse Merrill Kissell

Pictures


1. Walking the break wall last pday!


2. Breakwall


3. Beacon at the end of the breakwall


4. View of Marquette/Lower Harbor from the breakwall


5. False, you cannot buy happiness. But we can GIVE it to you!