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!