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.