Yo yo!

Well hello!!!

Life here in the UP has been pretty sweet this past week. Although there were a few downers, but hey that's ok. The main one is that Zach and Sky didn't come to church yesterday and so we have to wait a whole other week for them to get confirmed... lame. But his kids got pretty sick at a party and then they got him sick so yeah, lame. But next week will be the week! Zach is being confirmed by the elders quorum president who is one of his pretty good friends, and i am confirming Sky! Scary! It'll be the first priesthood blessing i've done. I've done alot of consecrating but none of the actual blessings. But hey, it'll be quite the experience. Just gotta jump right in and get it over with! Kinda like jumping into the Icicle River haha.
But yesterday was a pretty funny day at church, besides the fact Zach and Sky didn't show. Bro. Cherry, 1st counselor in the bishopric realized he had forgotten to assign talks. Not good. So we had a mini testimony meeting pretty much. He had some of the youth bear their testimonies and share experiences from EFY, girls camp, scout camp, and high adventures. Of course that only lasted like 5 minutes with about 10 youth fitting in that 5 minutes, but that's ok. It was pretty funny listening to the boys talk about scout camp and their high adventure. They went on a 180 mile bike ride to the very tip of the UP and so there was a lot of complaining and such. But it was funny. And the youth leaders were asked to bear their testimonies and then we had the branch president from Houghton down here for some reason and they asked him to say something as well. He talks alot so we killed some time with that. But after he was done talking, he said "Well, i would really like to sing you one of my favorite patriotic songs." And i was just kind of in awe just like uhh...really? So he goes over to the piano, uncovers it, and starts singing and playing this really weird version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was so stinkin funny. I was trying so hard not to laugh. I had the biggest smile off my face and if it went just 5 seconds longer, i don't think i could've held it any longer. And just looking around, people had kind of the same looks on the face, it was just so random and so weird. Totally made my day and made up for Zach not coming. But the rest of church was good and we also had a stake priesthood meeting last night. Did you know that i am a part of the largest land covering stake in the U.S.? Pretty sweet. So we had to drive for 2 hours last night to get to that, kinda reminds me of how it would feel to drive down from Brewster or Twisp or something. Pretty crazy. But anyways, priesthood meeting rocked. We even got to take a nap on the way down! Elder Turney tells me you can usually tell how long a missionary has been out by how dead he looks because of sleep deprevation. So the nap was good. But the meeting was very good. Missionary work was emphasized a ton. They were pleased to tell us that this stake had the lowest baptismal rate in the mission but in the past year has risen to the top. So that's neat. There were also a ton of elders down there too so it was good to see them. It's crazy how well you get to know and like these guys. Awesome.

Had a few pretty cool/weird tracting experiences this week. So Turney and I were walking down the street and i heard some girl yell at us. So i turn and look and there's like 4 of them over there. But right then, Turney starts talking to this kid on the side of the road i didn't see. So we finish talking to him, and then head over to them. A couple of these girls were just W-A-S-T-E-D, beer cans all over, they were smoking, the whole 9 yards. And i was thinkin, is this really worth our time? But it got better. 2 out of the 4 were sober, so we could at least teach them. So we taught all of them. But they were all way interested in what we were talking about, except one, she might as well have not even been there she was so drunk. She was weird. But Turney ended up talking to half of them and i end up talking to half. We were both talking about the restoration and just answering some of their random questions. But then, this native american indian guy comes walking down the road with a beer and cigarette in hand. The girls were like "hey dude wanna come chill and talk to these mormon guys?" And he was like alright sweet. So he comes over, and just is totally trying to hit on these girls. Pretty weird. And they didn't even know this guy! It was so random and funny. I couldn't help but laugh, so i did. But we finally got through the lesson, which was only supposed to last 10 minutes at most, in about 45 minutes, and went on our merry way. But we got 1 technical new investigator, she was one of the sober ones, and one of the drunk (not as drunk) ones is very interested too. We'll try by her on a better day though haha. But yeah, funny stuff. We're teaching Stephanie, our new investigator one, tonight so i'm pretty excited for that. We've also finally been getting referrals from members! So we've found at least 2 new potential investigators we are going to teach later this week. So if they keep comin, we'll keep teachin. It's so much cooler getting a referral than tracting, believe it or not. So help out your elders by giving them referrals and not making them tract!!

We went on exchanges last week and we are again tomorrow. I had Elder Allred come up to Marquette and we made the rounds. Exchanges are way fun. All the elders in our zone rock. Elder Allred is an amazing piano player and just makes stuff up as he goes along. He's nuts. And tomorrow, Elder Crossley, who was actually Blakes MTC companion, is coming down to Marquette. He is a motocross rider. They're the guys who do crazy tricks on dirtbikes. He's way cool. I'm lookin forward to that.

It's been raining a ton here this week. It's pretty weird, sometimes it's like you're just walking around in a misting machine. It would feel good if it was HOT but it isn't... it's like 60 degrees haha. I pretty much miss Wenatchee summers, but i bet it isn't too comfy for them when they're all dressed up and stuff. So i'll look at it that way. I like it fine though...i ain't complaining. It was pretty funny one day though, there was this weird fog stuff that didn't look like fog, so we asked a lady while we were tracting and she said "oh that's just fog, it's not a bad omen or anything for you guys so you don't need to worry." Wow...thank you! But it got SUPER foggy that day, so it was way cool. It's pretty neat, we have a fox that lives in the trees behind our house. He comes runnin by with a bird in his mouth sometimes. I've never seen a fox before so i think that's cool.

Elder Turney has been here for quite a while, since February actually. So his time here could be coming to an end unfortunately. Transfers are on the 6th and i really don't want him or I to be transferred. I love it up here and i would be freakin out without him. He is way organized, i am not. We get along great, sometimes we have a clash with music but that's ok. He is kind of weird sometimes and says some things that you don't really know what to say back to. But besides that awkwardness, he's awesome. I think we'll be together for another transfer though. All 3 baptisms that have happened this year have been as a result from him. He has taught all of those baptized. So people here like him. Hopefully they'll like me too. I haven't done anything bad yet so i'm pretty sure i'm good haha.

I was pretty excited the other day though, at Walmart, they had STEMILT APPLES!!!! It was sweet! So i bought some and thoroughly enjoyed them. It's a pretty drastic difference between the taste of Washington apples and Wisconsin apples. I also for some reason had a ton of leftover money in my account today so i bought some hamburger and some ribs that i'm going to grill up in our CHARCOAL GRILL!!! I didn't buy that though, don't worry. So i'm pretty pumped. And Elder Turney is a health freak, again, so i won't have to worry about him eating any of my stuff. Maybe i've been given all these health freak companions for a reason? I
dunno... but i'm still eating the same!

Well.....i don't have too much more news for ya'll. Just keep writing me and i'll write you back!! It's that simple! It's great hearing from you and i love you and miss you guys all so so much.

I've found a pretty awesome scripture too that i think you guys will like. It's in Alma 38:5-6. I love it. It's just about how all we need to do in the hard times of life is just put our trust in the Lord and he will help us out. We all have hard times and it's just that simple. I love this church and i love being a missionary. This IS the ONLY true church on this earth and i am proud to be working for the Lord this next year and 10 months. It is SWEET!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
LOVE YOU MOM!!!!!!!!!
YOU ROCK!!!

Love,
Elder Kissell

by the way...could you send me my dad blanket? And also, it would be awesome if you could take my truck into toyota to have them do a FULL SERVICE on it. I remember that before i left it would come close to over heating, so that needs to be checked. Just have them run the works on it and it'll be good. Thank you!

PICTURES
sorry...there ain't too many this week. I'll do better!


1. the first picture are a couple of my young men buddies, Josh and Aaron

2. Elder Allred and I exchanging back in Sagola. Like my face? haha

3. Me

4. Trying to creep out/annoy elder turney in the bathroom haha.

5. Way foggy Marquette. You would usually be able to see Lake Superior down there, but nope. It was pretty cool though, all the ships were using their foghorns so it was pretty loud.

Howdy from Marquette County

Howdy howdy!!!

Well this week was SWEET!!! Yesterday was the big day for Zach and Skys baptism! It was super awesome. But, I will start from the beginning and save the best for last!

Well, Tuesdays are our district meeting days and we either go to one of two places. Either Iron Mountain or Escanaba, so far I have only been to Iron Mountain. But it is a really pretty drive down there and lots of things to look at. Probably about an hour and a half away or so. So like driving to Moses Lake. But it was a good one, we did it differently than we had done any of our other district meetings, we just discussed our investigators and how we can meet their needs. Usually we just talk about better ways to teach and stuff. But turns out that we ARE supposed to do them that way anyways so it was good. But on the way back, we stopped in a dinky little town called Champion. Fun fact about Champion, it is the horse pulling capital of the U.P. They might as well make it horse pulling capital of the world because nobody cares. But they do, it’s right on their welcome to Champion sign haha. But these people we visited here were honestly probably the weirdest people I’ve met yet on my mission. Elder Turney said that last time he went to visit this family, the guy answered the door with a machete around his neck so I didn’t really know what to expect haha. But they were all there and they were pretty weird. No machetes though. But they’re just one of those familys you just can’t figure out why they’re so strange. He said the reason they stopped coming to church 4 years ago was because a guy brought a gun to church and was cleaning it and pointing it at him. Yeah right! But that was his reason but we told him that that guy had moved and it would be ok for them to come now. But they still didn’t. But they have an 11 year old son who isn’t baptized and he wants to be but we don’t think they really understand what baptism is really all about. So we are going to try to address that and fix that problem and hopefully baptize him! But yeah, pretty weird. But one thing that Pres. Barrett has emphasized a lot, as well as our bishop, is reactivating less actives. That is just as important as baptisms. So we have been doing a ton of that. There are several less active members in Negaunee and Ishpeming we are trying to reactivate and not having a ton of luck yet but we have found some and talked with them for a while. Hopefully we’ll be seeing them more often. But the ward really isn’t that big here in Marquette so we are trying to get more of those people reactivated to ensure we don’t turn into a branch. That would stink.
Wednesday was a pretty sweet day. Did our “service” and taught quite a few lessons, some to members and some to investigators. Pres. Barrett has also emphasized teaching lessons to active members so that they will see our teaching styles and possibly give us referrals to their friends that they think we would teach well to. But no such luck there yet. It is pretty fun though to teach them and reaffirm what they already believe and such so fun stuff.

That day we also had a run in with some Jehovahs Witnesses…yup. Pretty awesome. We had a priest with us at the time and were knocking on our appointments’ door and the apartment next to us thought we were knocking on theirs and answered. But unfortunately, that was the Jehovahs Witnesses apartment. And our set appointment wasn’t home so we were stuck with these guys for a whole stinkin hour! It was retarded. Elder Turney doesn’t like being wrong, I can’t think super well on my feet, and this priest kid named James thinks he can negate everything that these guys are saying. So pretty much all I did was stand there and I said a few things here and there but mostly just listened and observed some bible bashing action. JW’s have some pretty interesting beliefs. I’ve never met one or seen one and I had no idea what they believed, but now I do! But when I did talk, I would say that we had to get going or I would invite them to visit our website, but Turney just kept talking! So yeah, huge waste of time but it was interesting and fun sometimes. But still pretty lame. But afterwards, Turney was pretty bummed about being there so long and kept on apologizing and stuff to me. But it was totally fine, I forgive easily. But he was pretty mad at himself for awhile until we went tracting again and had another sweet experience. We met this guy, I think I might’ve mentioned him last week, but his name is Tom Normand and he is a way old guy. He’s 76. But we taught him a restoration lesson that day and it was probably the best lesson I have taught. The spirit was totally there and he totally felt it. He asked really sweet questions and was very interested in what we were saying. We asked him to give the closing prayer and he did! It was totally awesome. He couldn’t read the Book of Mormon we gave him though so we had to find a large print for him to read. But the next appointment we had with him we read a chapter to him and he thought it was great. He said at that appointment he knows our message is true but he just wants to read more of the Book of Mormon before he comes to church. He is already talking about what happens after baptism so we know he is interested in that. Pretty sweet! Hopefully we can extend a baptismal date to him in our next appointment or so. But then later that night, the Zone Leaders came up and spent the night in preparation for the baptismal interview with Zach the next day. They’re super cool. So we went on exchanges with them for the night and went to some potentials and talked with some members and stuff like that. I really like them.

Thursday, we did our service again and had our weekly planning session. Not so fun. Usually takes 2 hours. But after that, visited a few more people and headed over to Zachs to interview him. But when we got there, only Zach was home, not Sky! So that was lame. But we just decided to have his baptism this week and hers next week or something. But Zach passed, hooray! And then the ZL’s and Elder Turney and I had to book it down to Green Bay right afterwards. There was a leadership training meeting down there that Turney had to go to in the morning. But after a solid 3 and a half hour ride we got there. Green Bay is a cool city. It is surprisingly small and pretty similar to Spokane. It has about 101,000 people. So not too bad. And it smells intensely of cows. Thus far, all of the stereotypes about Wisconsin have proven true. Pretty funny. But that night we just hung out with the other elders and went to bed because it was already about 9:30. They’re cool dudes down there in Green Bay. But we found out from the ZL’s that Sky could still get baptized on Sunday because a ZL could go up with one of the assistants on exchanges to interview her because the assistants have unlimited miles in their car. So we called Zach and told him that. He explained to us in what turned out to be an hour long phone call that he didn’t think she was ready yet. So we kind of had to agree with him. But after some discussing with the ZL’s we decided that we should call him back and have one of them talk to him. But just then he called back and Sky wanted to talk to Turney. She was pretty sad but after talking to her for a while, he thought she would be ready too. So the ZL’s talked to Zach again and for some reason he liked what they said and he decided that would be fine. So long story short, Sky was going to get interviewed!

Next day was pretty sweet. I went on exchanges with a Hmong and a Spanish elder. Usually if you are with another language speaking elder, you are called a “zebra” companionship. But since it was 3 totally different languages, people called us a “chameleon” companionship. Pretty funny. But these elders were super cool and a ton of fun. We did service for a member of the church and mowed their long and stuff. He rewarded us with a TON of cheese. He is an international cheese salesman…that’s right. I’m not lying. And he is pretty wealthy. Anyways, that cheese was awesome. I finally got my cheese fix! I finally got to drive that day too! Neither of these elders had drivers licenses because Elder Lokboj, he’s from the Marshall islands, didn’t get his record transferred. And Elder Alestia did street racing back home and that’s illegal so I was pretty happy. But yeah, we had a pretty good day. Visited some of their investigators down there and met some Hmong and Spanish people. Fun stuff. But these elders were awesome and way funny so it made for a great day.

Wisconsin weather is really weird too. It is raining torrentially hard one minute and the next, there is nothing. Pretty random and weird. But after exchanges we headed back up to Marquette to interview Sky. Got there just in time and she passed too!! Hooray.

Saturday was fun, we helped at a triathlon! Basically it consisted of us telling kids to go this way and telling them they were doing awesome. They do a thing like the Ridge to River in Negaunee here and we helped at the kids one. Pretty fun. And I got a free tshirt out of it! Can’t beat that! But we visited our members up there and got free food from some of them… can’t deny that. Helped a member move, did that pretty fast. And then we had another appointment with Tom again. He again was very accepting and loved it. Pretty excited for him.

Sunday was sweeet!!! The talks were about temples and Zach was way interested in that so that was totally sweet. In our gospel doctrine class, we have some “different” people that come and we usually get on some pretty strange topics. But Zach really focused on temples and that was pretty neat. He is pretty interested and excited to do that. And then Elder Turney and I had to teach Elders quorum which stinked because we had no time to prepare, but it went just fine. Then baptism time!! Elder Turney baptized both of them and I was kind of directing the thing. The room was packed and Zach and Sky were totally excited and pumped but pretty nervous too. They did awesome and the spirit was there hardcore. Zachs ex wife and his new girlfriend were there, both nonmembers, and thought it was really neat. His other 2 kids that are baptizeable were also there and seemed quite interested. We even had some of our other investigators show up and see what baptism was all about. Overall, it was pretty amazing and very successful. I was so happy and so proud of them all and loved every minute of it. But then afterwards we had dinner at Ernests house, the massive guy who likes to crush my hand whenever he shakes it, and it was actually pretty good. And then more missionary excitement with visiting people and trying by potentials. Pretty sweet week!!!!

My Culvers trip was successful. Pretty unhealthy though haha. Probably won’t do that again for a while. I suggest it whenever you are in the Midwest though that is for sure.

It has been another beautiful, comftorable week here in Marquette! Only 3 months of summer, if that, so I have to enjoy it! It is beautiful though!

Well, that is pretty much all my news for the week. But I enjoy your letters! Emails and snail mail! Keep them coming! Snail mail is pretty exciting though…hint hint. But either way, I love it!

And feel free to send me pictures over the email, I can see them, but you can send those snail mail to me too ya know! Haha.

I love you all!!!!!!!! I pray for all my family and loved ones every time I pray and if you are reading this email, that means I am praying for you and love you!!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!!!!! Haha..

Love,
Elder Jesse Merrill Kissell

The Marquette Weekly

Howdy ya’ll!

Well week 4! I’m already halfway over my first transfer! I only have 17 of these! Pretty crazy! But this week has gone pretty well that is for sure.

Zach, unfortunately, was scheduled to have his baptism on the 11th with his kid Sky. But he felt a little unprepared still with his smoking and some other things. So we postponed it til this Sunday, the 19th, and he is doing great. He hasn’t smoked since the 4th and has promised his kids to not buy anymore packs and yeah, he’s doing awesome.

We also started teaching these kids who have been adopted by a family in the church. They live in a little town about 20 min away called Gwinn. But these kids Sam (girl), Robbie, and Steve, are all way cool kids. Robbie and steve are a little mentally slow but are a couple of the nicest kids you’ll meet. We need to teach really simply towards them and have been doing good with that. They’re going to be out of town for a few weeks so we won’t be able to teach them for a bit but they are reading and praying and doing way good. And the Dunklees, like I mentioned in my last letter, are rednecks. They’re super cool and the parents always have good insight and opinions during the lessons. The mom is active but the dad is less active. He is still a great guy but has made a few wrong turns in his life but is turning back around. They both told us after one of our lessons that we are not only helping Sam, Steve and Robbie, but we are helping them and bringing a good spirit into their homes and helping things function much better than before. We had dinner with them one night this week and it was pretty interesting. The dad, in his mid 50’s, also had open heart surgery fairly recently, was wrestling with one of his kids, the rodeo cowboy, in the kitchen knocking over chairs and stuff and everybody just acted like it was totally natural. It was pretty funny. But Elder Turney had to take a phone call from Pres. Barrett and was talking to him for about 20 min so I got to talk to them all by myself for that whole time. It was pretty fun.

Also this week, we had a couple of pretty cool experiences tracting. We were in Ishpeming visiting some members, and when we walked out the door and were walking back to the truck, a lady pulled over and asked us where the church was. We said “well it’s not here it’s down in Harvey.” And she told us that she had lived here for 3 years and was a member and had not seen any missionaries or other members of the church for her entire time here. She’s a return missionary but married a non Mormon and hasn’t been to church in years. She also introduced us to her 2 boys and said “call me next week sometime so we can set up a time for you to come teach us and you can baptize my kids!” Ok!! Actually no, we don’t do it that easy…just kidding! So yeah that was pretty amazing. I’m very excited. We will probably be doing this on Tuesday or so. We’ll see. Then we met a girl here in Marquette whose mom is a member downstate but she has never shared anything with her about the gospel and has been curious for quite a while. So I guess we answered her prayers! But she’s way cool and we gave her a Book of Mormon and she was going to talk to her mom about it and we’re also going to teach her this week sometime. It was sweet. Also talked to some pretty weird people tracting too…one guy started shaking and studdering when we started talking to him. It almost seemed like he thought we were satan or something. It was way weird. Then one lady said that we are terrible people and we don’t believe in God and that our church is blasphemous and a bunch of other stuff. She said she is not going to wish us luck because we shouldn’t be dragging people into our church but that she will pray for us. People are crazy I’m telling ya. We also had a fun experience trying to find a very less active guy who lives in the same place as the Dunklees in Gwinn. It was on this back country dirt road winding through a thick forest and lots of lakes and no houses. It was pretty exciting. We finally found the house but he didn’t live there anymore and they told us that if we wanted to talk to him, we would have to find him ourselves. Thank you!! But yeah, it was a nice little drive haha.

It has actually been pretty warm up here this week. Usually in the 70’s and no humidity. We had a thunderstorm one night when we were getting ready for bed that dumped a lot of rain on us so that was pretty cool. But it was pretty humid that day but nothing like Milwaukee. It has also been quite windy a couple of days too, I hate the wind so that wasn’t fun. But overall, this week was a beautiful week. Definetely you all would love it up here. It reminds me a lot of Pullman I decided. There are a ton of hills, no mountains, and there are a ton of trees all over the place. It is really pretty. But there aren’t any wheat fields or anything, just the in town part reminds me a lot of Pullman. Also there isn’t a massive lake right next to Pullman. I just think it’s amazing how stinking huge lake superior is. It is just like the ocean. There are a couple of members up here who have lakefront property and it is awesome. There are usually little swampy areas in between the house and the lake and there are boardwalks over that and then you get to the lake and beach and it is just like the ocean. Complete with sand, shells, sailboats, and waves. It is way cool. The waves get pretty big too depending on the day.
Service was pretty cool this week. They got a chameleon so I had fun with that. His name is Ozzie and he is a little veiled chameleon, kind of like the one I had. But the kids like him a lot. That place is always so fun. Sometimes, I don’t know how, but the parents think that I’m just holding a fake snake around my neck so when they walk by they totally freak out when the snake moves in their direction to smell them and stuff. It’s pretty funny. Why would I just be holding a fake snake? Whatever haha.

I went on splits with the elders quorum president and another guy in our ward. It was pretty weird being without Elder Turney. But it was awesome because I didn’t have to abide by my least favorite mission rule…whenever you back up, the passenger has to get out and back the driver up. It is pretty annoying. Especially if your companion is from Germany and is a very scary driver. He is not a good driver haha. But he is a good elder and that’s what matters. He isn’t very good at turning around either so that entails a lot of backing up. Oh well. But yeah splits were cool, we visited a lot of less active members in Negaunee and Ishpeming. There are a TON of those who live out there, kinda sad. But we visited a lot of them and just showed them that we still cared about them and that we would love to have them at church.
Church is still going great. It was pretty funny Zach and his family yesterday came an hour early because they thought it started at 9 but it starts at 10. He was pretty confused because there was only like 5 cars in the parking lot and nobody was there. But we told him the story and he came back when it actually started. The organist, who was actually just here for the week visiting, played the organ really loud. So that meant that people actually sang! But it was REALLY loud organ. Kind of annoying sometimes, but hey at least people sang right? There was this new guy there who Turney said was a very less active member who hardly ever comes and has some pretty weird beliefs and is just a weird guy. He still seemed cool and I went to talk to him for a bit after sacrament. He has long hair and a long beard and when I was talking to him, he seemed just fine, a pretty cool and nice guy. But then in gospel principles he started talking about some pretty weird things… I won’t go into it but it made me think twice about him, pretty strange. Then in priesthood, we were talking about baptisms for the dead and I guess he’s had issues with not being allowed into the temple and he was being pretty bitter and contentious about it during the lesson, to the point that Zach asked if we could leave and go somewhere else. So we did and we just went and taught him in another rooms about temples and about the things we can do in there. It was pretty cool.

We are gaining the trust of the ward members here, especially the bishopric and their families. We talk to them frequently and they are surprised with all the people we are teaching and visiting and inviting. They mentioned that we were making the most progress out of many of the missionaries who have been here so that’s always great to hear. I’m not trying to brag or anything but we are doing awesome! We have a ward mission goal of 8 baptisms a year and that is very attainable for sure. There is already 2, and with Zach and his kids that makes 4 so now we have 6, then throw in Steve and Robbie and Sam and that’s 9! So yeah, it’s pretty cool. I was also going to tell you that we are allowed to go to the temple twice a year. The next temple trip is August 8th and we are planning on going. It will be in the Chicago temple so I’m pretty excited for that. It’s going to be a 2 day trip I believe since we are so far away from everything. Milwaukee is 7 hours away and Chicago I heard is about 2 hours away from Milwaukee, so around a 9 hour trip. But it’ll be sweet!

Some people have asked me in letters if I have eaten any authentic Michigan foods. You may not think there are any but there are! I believe I mentioned pasties, they’re like tinfoil dinners in a pot pie. A lot of people don’t like them but I do. They are pretty dry, but just throw some ketchup on there and life is good. A story about pasties…they make them in pocket like crusts so when loggers go out in the cold, they can put a hot pastie in their pockets so they can be warm. And they also have a flat crust around the edges so you can hold onto that part instead of the center part that you eat and not get it dirty. Pretty neato. Also, they have things called cudighis, pronounced coo-duh-hee. These are just Italian sausages soaked in red wine. They are also very good. The last elder who was here bought like 5 packages of them but then he got transferred so now they’re all mine! Haha. But yeah those are good. And also another big thing in the Midwest area, including Iowa (I saw a few there) is a place called Culvers. Culvers serves burgers called butter burgers. They’re essentially just a burger with a slab of butter on them. I’ve heard they’re delicious but I haven’t had one yet, we are going later today so I’m excited! They also serve custard. Custard is ice cream essentially that is made from milk and eggs. Sound healthy? NO WAY!!! But it’s gonna be good! I’m pretty excited. I’m going to get the whole shebang so I can have the Culvers experience. And really, that’s about all the exciting foods I can think of.

But yeah, that is my week in a nutshell! I’m sorry I didn’t take a ton of pictures this week, I promise I will take more this week. I wish you guys could all be here with me and experience all the things I do so I don’t just have to cram all 7 days into an email. But I hope you are getting a sense of things and enjoying it.

I love you!!!

Love,
Elder Kissell

Hope you like my sweet lizard pictures! That's all i took this week i'm sorry haha.

Week 2 Excitement

Well Hello Again!

Well, week 2 has been pretty sweet! I finally got my package at zone conference which was last Tuesday, I think the thing I was most happy to see was my pillow, I didn’t think you would send that so thank you! That blanket is pretty scary though, it sill shocks me sometimes even after I ran a dryer sheet over it. Oh well, it makes things exciting.
Thank you all for your letters! I can receive letters from everybody on email, but have just been instructed to reply to moms. And mom, I got the regular letter before DearElder. Still haven’t got that one yet. Oh well. Also, I have not had time to mail those pictures out but I will today so they should get there sometime this week. There are A LOT of them and it cost a lot of money so I’m just gonna send some over email and a few in regular mail everynow and then from now on. And I did not get Jeremy’s letter ever.

But week 2 has been sweet. 4th of July was really hard for me though. I was having serious fire withdrawals and even though we only live about a mile, if that, away from the huge fireworks show, our windows are facing the wrong way! So at our curfew at 10:30, we just listened to and pretended what the fireworks looked like. So that was lame. But we got invited to this big BBQ a ward member put on, there was about 4 other families there so it was a lot of fun. Bro. Blotter, the guy who threw it, cooked lobster and put me in charge of de-meating it. So that was fun. But I didn’t get to eat the fruits of my labors because he was making a soup out of them that took several hours to make…lame. But we ate a lot of other stuff and had a great time. I finally met one person who knew where Wenatchee was too!! So that was good. They didn’t know much about it, just heard of it. But it reminded me a lot of the BBQ’s we would have at the lake and stuff, fun times. We also went to the parade that Marquette does and that was quite a bit of fun. A lot of the floats were playing country music so I was having serious issues with that. I miss my music. But yeah later that evening, we went STREET CONTACTING!!! My favorite!! Not…but it was interesting. We talked to some drunk Wisconsin-ites who thought we were awesome and talked to us for about 15 min so that was fun. We talked to a bunch of other people and taught them short lessons but when we invited them to learn more, they denied that. They always say that what we are doing is awesome and they are in full support so WHY DON’T THEY WANT TO LEARN MORE?!?! Ahh it’s annoying. But oh well. It was a beautiful evening and we had fun down there so nothing to complain about. Some guy tried to tell us that we were in a cult but Elder Turney is a crazy scriptorian and busted out a scripture that left him kind of speechless so that was pretty funny.

But unfortunately, 2 of Zach’s kids don’t want to be baptized yet. They just aren’t ready yet but that’s ok, they will be soon. They still want to but just not yet. Also Zach, may not be baptized this week either. He is a smoker but is doing very well at quitting, but Pres. Barrett called last night and said he can’t have smoked for like a week and a half in order to assure he has fully quit before baptism so we’ll find out today. But he is a great guy and has an amazing testimony. Whenever we go to teach at his house, we are usually just teaching his kids because he has already had the lessons before, but he always bears his testimony, even without us asking him too. He’s way cool. And he loves fishing and hunting too so we talk about fishing in Washington and Idaho sometimes. Pretty fun. We met about 4 new investigators last week too, and they all seem way interested. We already taught one and you could totally tell she was feeling the spirit. It was way sweet. It almost seemed to easy when we first met her. She was very receptive when we first talked to her and we asked if we could come back later that week and talk but she said “well I’m free the rest of the day”, so we jumped on that. It was way cool. She is about 24-25ish. And we met some others tracting by zach’s one night and she thought the BOM sounded so cool that she wanted an extra copy to send to her husband in Kuwait so that was cool. Her father in law is the other one we met at the same time and said it was a very neat and very convincing story and would like to learn more so we are going back to them on Wednesday I think. And the other is kind of interesting, for the past week we’ve been trying by this house and nobody has ever been home. Elder Turney says that these were some former investigators and we just wanted to see if they were still interested. So yesterday we went by again and asked if she was this person and if her and her husband were still interested. They are in the middle of a divorce right now and that was the last time she would be at home and was moving to another part of Marquette and would love to talk to us again. Turney said they stopped visiting with them earlier because the husband said “it was time to move on” so maybe she is interested but he isn’t. But I just thought it was cool that we just stopped by when she was there the very last time and that she is still interested!! So I hope something good comes out of this. And now that I think of it, we have a few others too. These are the kind of people I wanted to meet while I was in Wisconsin but they’ve got them in the U.P. too!.....REDNECKS!! haha. But these people are great, they come to church every week and love it. And the kids go to mutual and they love it too. They’re a part member family and they’ve got some cool stories. One of their daughters is a state champion wrestler, one of the sons is a bull rider, one of the other sons is in jail, the dad is missing his 2 front teeth and is a metal worker I believe, they all go paintballing and fishing all the time, they have sweet wallpaper in their house, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. I’m excited. And these aren’t people who will waste our time either, they’re pretty interested. Our first lesson is tonight and Turney and I think we might even be able to extend a firm baptismal commitment for the 1st, so we’ll see how that goes.

Tracting is still not the best thing ever but I decided that I don’t mind it, I would just rather not do it. Members are full time finders and we are full time teachers! Not a lot of members get that. We talk to some interesting people and come to some interesting situations. Stoned college kids, yelling up to people on a balcony, teaching over barking dogs, fun stuff like that.

Church is still the same whisper singing, even worse this week they used the piano not the organ. So it was even quieter, but I think it gets louder the closer to the end of the meeting you get. But I bore my testimony so all the members whom I haven’t met yet, which is few, could see me and hear me. But we have visited the majority of the members and Pres. Barrett has instructed us to teach members the lessons too so we are working on that.
People up here talk pretty funny. Natives to the U.P. call themselves “Yoopers”. U.P.-ers, yoopers. Pretty funny. They say there vowels pretty funny and they say “nah”, and “yah”, “you betcha”, and “dontcha know?”, and “gotcha” and funny things like that. I’m getting pretty good at it so I’ll be able to do it for you. But there is a huge difference between a yooper accent and a Wisconsin accent. So hopefully I’ll be able to keep those straight.
The weather is finally summerish again. It has been around 70 degrees the past few days. The 1st of July guess how hot it was…50 degrees!!! It was lame. I bet it was like 100 at least that day in Wenatchee. But we were talking to one lady one day who says that snow has been documented on EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR up here!!! That’s crazy! And on average, Marquette receives about 300” of snow every winter. Pretty insane. They say it’s quite a difference between here and in Wisconsin. Crazy… But it is very beautiful here. I would totally live here in the summer time. And I would throw in a few mountains here and there but it really is a beautiful place.

Did I tell you about Ernest? He’s the newest convert up here. He’s about 6’4” and about 400 pounds. He’s massive. But he’s a cool guy, but he has got quite a few quirks. He is almost positive he is related to me and had me bring him my family tree (first time I’ve used it) and show it to him. He says that he is related to the Farrars in Wenatchee…whatev. But he hasn’t found any relations to us yet. But he thinks he’s pretty funny because whenever he shakes my hand he just crushes it and I can’t do anything about it because his hand is so stinkin huge. But I try to hide my pain until after we’ve left. Otherwise he just does it harder haha. But he’s a cool guy.

For food, we usually eat at our apartment, but we usually eat pretty good food. Walmart is a grocery store here and they have sweet deals so that’s where we get our food. About 4 or 5 times last week we ate with members and we will be doing the same this week, but we are taken pretty good care of. We had pasties too! Pasties (pronounced passed-ees) are like tinfoil dinners in a pot pie. So good. They are a treat from the U.P. I still haven’t had butterburgers or custard yet… yum. But real food is sweet.

I really have not had a problem with bugs but thanks for all the stuff you’ve been sending me if I do.

They have a lot of sweet country concerts up in this area that I REALLY want to go to. I always see posters and stuff it is driving me nuts. Ahh I can do this.
Hilary, Elder Turney does not have a german accent at all, he sounds totally normal. Those stories you told me about grace and ella made me laugh and your experience with the blast off ride. That sounds pretty scary. I probably would do it but it would be way scary.
Get on clarks case about the lawn!! If he can’t do it, find someone else to do it. He really can’t be that busy. I’m glad you have been getting rid of stuff and keeping things up pretty good around the house. Kiana says she called and offered her help so don’t be afraid to use her if she’s willing.

Hope you had a good time with Natalie and Paul, and hope you have a good time with Hilary decluttering! Just let her do thing and let her surprise you it would be fun for the both of you!

But I love you all!! Hope you have a good week this week and don’t forget to read and pray and do all the stuff you should be doing! I pray for you all the time! Especially you mom!

Love,
Elder Kissell

I hit my month mark on the 3rd!! Just got to do this 23 more times!

Some Pictures