Elder Jesse Kissell: Cold and dreary world of Marquette

Howdy!

Well, this week was pretty much the exact opposite of last week weather wise. Last week it was insanely hot and muggy, but this week it was cold and wet! It's usually this cold in October in Wenatchee! It’s insane. The worst day was on Friday I think… it was about 50 degrees and wet. It wasn’t raining, but it was this super weird mist stuff. Pretend like somebody was squirting you with a spray bottle on the mist mode all the time. And that it was constant and windy and cold. It was awesome. Luckily, elder Turney had the same idea as me that bikes were a bad idea that day. But I think that mist stuff is worse than rain. If you stand outside for a second, you are soaked from head to toe. And I had to do that a lot! My favorite missionary rule entails that I stand outside and back the truck up everytime we back up! Fun stuff. Another fun story about that is that yesterday we went to a referral and they had tons of dogs. Like they were jumping out the windows and stuff, it was nuts. And of course, I had to back the truck up with all these dogs jumping all over me and stuff. Love it.

But this week was pretty sweet. We went to the fair on Tuesday! That was way fun. We were there for like 4 hours running the booth that the church had set up there. It went pretty good. The Houghton elders were with us for that time too. But we walked around and looked at the booths and stuff and the cows and pigs and stuff. I stepped in a massive pile of cow poop. That was way nasty. And I got to touch the Budweiser Clydesdales and the dalmation! It was sweet. But the booth was pretty good. Talked to a good handful of people. But we were later told that the missionaries tend to scare people off. Oh well, we still had fun and were out and about and seen.

And we started teaching this black lady named D’andrea. She’s way awesome. She is a sister of a lady who goes to the church, but she’s kinda less active herself, so we’ll work on that too. But D’andrea has been to church before and loves it and knows that our message is true and that we are the true church and she wants to be a part of it. We extended a baptismal date for her but she wants to know more before the date that we had set. But it should be fine. We are planning it for mid September. But she’s awesome. We had dinner with her one night and she said that she just loves watching people eat her food, so that’s good because I’m an eater and the food was delicious! It was KFC and some potatoes that she made and biscuits she made too. It was good. But my companion is quite picky about his food. But she loved me. I made a friend through eating  hooray! But she’s totally awesome. We’re excited for her.

But, we had some fun tracting experiences this week! So one door we knocked on, a lady came to the door and said “are you here to praise Jesus?” and I was it was my door and so I said “well, uhh, yeah we are!” and she says “well alright come on in!” And right when we walk in, she grabs our hands and we stand in a circle and she’s like “ok who’s going to start?” I had no idea what was going on and I was about to bust out laughing and I just looked at Elder Turney and he said “well maam, how about you start?” And so then she said a prayer and thanked the lord for Jesus and for people that spread his word and stuff like that. I was so confused. I thought she was going to have one of us do it too, but that didn’t happen. But it was super weird, I was laughing for a while afterwards. But she was a very nice, very catholic lady. Not interested. Then another one was this super cool girl, probably college age, early 20’s, but we were talking to her for like 15 minutes about the church and stuff and she was just awesome. But come the end of our conversation, we didn’t know how to invite her to meet with us and learn more! And she seemed interested and stuff, we just didn’t know how to extend that invitation without making it seem out of place or anything. So we were kickin ourselves for that. And as if it was a slap in the face, she came back outside as we were getting on our bikes to say goodbye to us! I was going to say something but then elder Turney asked if she had ever heard of a “stroop waffle” (they’re these cookie things from Holland that his parents sent him) and she said no, surprisingly, and he gave her one and that was that. I was pretty mad that we STILL didn’t even invite her to meet with us. But we’re going to go back later this week and do it. Hopefully we didn’t miss a golden opportunity.

On Saturday, Pres. and Sis. Barrett came up to Marquette to spend part of the day with us. They’re so cool. But, we had a quick interview session, Sis. Barrett interviewed me, pretty much just how life is and how I’m enjoying my mission and such so far. And about my family and friends and if I am getting support….yes! Thank you! So she was glad to hear that. But then we tried by a few people with him. He wanted to meet the recent converts in the area, Ernest, Zach, and a lady named Marie Haas, the sweetest lady in the world. But we stopped by Ernest, that was good. Zach couldn’t do it that day. We had an appointment with D’andrea that we took them to, but that fell through, and luckily Sis. Haas was home. But Pres. Barrett is just awesome. There’s just something about him that makes him special and it makes me so happy. He’s the closest guy to a prophet I’ll probably ever get to meet. He’s so cool. I have the deepest respect for him and Sis. Barrett. But then they had to leave and go up to Houghton so we continued on with our evening.

But yesterday on Sunday, they came back down and did a fireside after church and about how special the Book of Mormon is and that we need to utilize this and share the blessings it has blessed us with with our friends. It was way good and the turnout was awesome. So hopefully that kickstarts member missionary work around here. Hopefully we’ll be seeing some results here soon. We’re pumped.

But yeah, this week was sweet. All prayers are wonderful and totally appreciated. The missionary work is going well, but can always be better. So keep them comin! Hope all is going well back in the Wenatchee world! I miss the HEAT! Weird saying that… but yeah, I pray for all ya’ll too and know that the savior is blessing you day by day. I know the church is true, missionary work is going forth wonderfully, the world will hear this wonderful message, and someday, we will all be in Heaven again with our eternal family. What a wonderful blessing. I love this church, and I love you guys.

Love
Elder Kissell
p.s. Protein powder is sweet!

PICTURES!!!