Elder Jesse Kissell: What a Psycho Week

Hello everybody!!!

Well, it's true, it was a very pshyco week. On Tuesday we had zone conference in Marinette which is about 2 hours away from here. We here in the U.P. are way out in the sticks away from everybody and we have to travel at least an hour and a half to get to anything. So we spend a lot of time in the car. This month we were given 2350 miles, we are killing that. Unintentionally. We walk a lot and bike and stuff but just going to zone conference and district meetings kills us. So, we might be getting yelled at but it’s funny because they can’t take miles away from us since we are so far out and have such a massive area to cover. The U.P. district is the biggest district in the continental United States. Somethin’ to be proud of eh? But yeah, zone conference in Marinette on Tuesday. It was sweet. Pres. Barrett shared a scripture about baptism that totally is going to work for this “eternigator”, an investigator that investigates for eternity, and I’m super excited to use it. And the funny thing was is that I wasn’t even thinking about her, just when he said it, that scripture was perfect. So, maybe we’ll get another baptismal date. That’d be awesome. But zone conferences are always great, Pres. Barrett is always so in tune with the spirit and I always learn so much there. And it’s also great because you get to see all the other missionaries in the zone and I have developed some pretty great friendships with a lot of elders out here and it’s a ton of fun seeing and being with them. But then after zone conference, we had to wait for interviews. They always take forever and ever to get to us. But it was good to just hang out with other elders and take pictures and stuff. And elder Crossley and I played basketball with a golfball, it was quite difficult. But for some reason, I always seem to have the shortest interviews out of anybody, so I was done real quick and back to waiting. But Pres. Barrett said that he has great feelings about this transfer up in Marquette and is excited to have elder Wessely and I up here running the area. Sis. Barrett also told elder Crossley something I thought was pretty cool. Pres. Barrett only puts elders up in the U.P. he knows that he can trust. The reason being is that we’re so far away from everybody else and that we could do a lot of damage (bad damage) if we wanted to and nobody would ever know about it. So I thought that was neat. But then that night we had to drive back up to Marquette with 4 elders in the truck, us and Houghton, and try to get there as close to 10:30 as possible. What’s cool about elder Wessely is that he’s a real German who actually drove on the Autobahn and drove fast on it. So the road between Marinette and Marquette was turned into the Autobahn. It was sweet. But we decided that we should probably not be going that fast because we were disobeying and slowed down quite a bit, so probably a good thing. And another funny story is that in Escanaba (in between Marquette and Marinette) there’s a guy named Tommy Chicago who lives there and he’s a member and loves the missionaries. He’s a true Yooper, complete with no teeth, and he always buys the missionaries dinner and gives them stuff. He buys stuff at Goodwill and other thrift stores and sells it on eBay for what they’re really worth. So he always gives us sweet random stuff. It was hilarious though because he knew elder Wessely was German and he bought him some German pants back from a long time ago and he was all excited to give them to him because of that. I didn’t get anything that time but I have got some cool stuff from him. I got my pink Marquette shirt, a sweatshirt, and a pocketknife from him. Pretty sweet for sure.

Tuesday we spent up in Marquette, what a miracle that we spend a day in OUR area!! We did a lot of introducing for elder Wessely to members and investigators alike. People seem to like him quite a bit and he was even already asked to give a talk! Probably because of his accent. I haven’t even been asked to talk yet…don’t tell. But yeah, I think it’ll be great having him up here. He’s pretty blunt and straight forward with questions and doctrine we teach, something I am not good at and that our investigators need. I’m worried about offending them and stuff but he’s not worried, and that is what we are out here to do is to bring them closer to Christ, not just drag them along. So it’ll be a good transfer I’m sure.

Wednesday, one of our service days, we had a ton of fun. Elder Wessely loves the snakes. He puts them around his neck and doesn’t take them off until we have to leave. It’s way funny. And he’s always saying that they’re so cute and he cuddles them and stuff. Makes me laugh. Wednesday was also the day we had exchanges because Elder Hatch (district leader) had to come interview Harlan for baptism. So we drove down to Escanaba and came back up and he interviewed Harlan and he passed!!! All the while I was having yet another weird/interesting conversation with the Pendaz’s. Then we discussed his baptism and what’s going to happen and where it’s going to be and stuff. He changed his mind about the lake, so we did decide to do it in the font. Reason for is because it’s already in the mid 50’s here. Pretty toasty…NOT!! The leaves are changing more now and some are already without their leaves. Brrrrrr
Thursday, exchanged back in Escanaba and had a mongo sized lunch with the family the Escanaba elders stay with. It was great. And they had a guitar with a beginners guide thing so I had fun with that. Then back to our world we go. We had a great discussion with some girls I have a lot of hope for, Ashley and Emmy. They’re very interested in the message and have lots of questions and they think church sounds sweet. So hopefully they come one of these times. It’d be great. Next time we teach them we are also planning on extending a baptismal commitment, so pray for good things to happen from that!!

Friday was a regular day, try by people, not home, try by some other people, they’re there, but don’t have time. Things like that. But we did catch some good less active people home and taught them a lot and encouraged them to read their scriptures and read a few scriptures with them to encourage/motivate them to do that. I’m excited to reactivate some of these people. There’s a lot of less active people around here. Kinda sad, but hopefully we will change that. Also Friday night we had a great discussion with bishop about missionary work here and things he’d like us to do and things he’d like to help us with. Bishop Johnson rocks.

Saturday was SWEET!! An awesome member family, the Carruths, thought it would be fun to take us hiking if they got somebody who wasn’t a member to go with them. Brittony, she’s a senior in high school, brought her friend and we went up Sugarloaf “mountain.” In all reality, this “mountain” was just a big rock. And it was a walk, not a “hike.” But it was a ton of fun and very beautiful. Even though it isn’t that big, you still get a sweet view of Marquette and the lake. It rocked. And surprisingly, the view from up there proved me wrong in the fact that like none of the leaves were changing. It’s going to be spectacular when all the colors are out. But yeah, that was a ton of fun. But that was only about 2 hours of our Saturday, the rest of the time we taught some pretty good lessons to some more less active people. I love being out here and teaching people. It’s WAY fun.

Sunday, BAPTISM!!! But sacrament meeting and the rest of church was great too. We had a RM sister give an awesome talk about member missionary work and how members are the full time finders and we are the full time teachers. It’s TRUE!!!! So do it!! You’ll be blessed greatly for your efforts, even if you are denied. Nothing wrong with blessings right? No way jose. So you tell your friends and neighbors who you love about the gospel and invite them to meet with the missionaries, and we’ll take care of the rest with you by our side. I’m way happy that she gave that talk though. Them members here rock, but we really don’t get a ton of referrals from them. So hopefully this talk kickstarted them a bit. And after church was baptism time!!! It was amazing. The Pendaz’s were so happy and Harlan was way excited too. Bro. Pendaz kept patting me on the back and kept telling me how grateful he was for me. It was really neat and it made me feel great that I could be the physical aspect for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christs teachings. It was a wonderful feeling. The baptism was awesome, lots of happy smiling faces. And before we started to change, Harlan said “hey, thanks for baptizing me.” It was so cool hearing that come from the mouth of a crazy 11 year old kid. And you could tell he meant it. It was awesome. So yeah, that all put a great cap on the end of a great week. No better way to close that one off. But then again, later that night we taught another lesson to this family that lives way down in Gwinn and got 4 new investigators out of it. It went great but the only problem is that they’re super busy until November and won’t be able to meet with us until then. Which is kinda lame, but we’re still going to stop by them when we are in the area and teach them what little we can with the little time we do have.

But, that’s my awesome week!!! It was great! I pray for all you guys back home and abroad, wherever you may be. I thank you all for your love, prayers, support, and letters. All are beneficial to me and the missionary work out here. Keep it up!!!

I love you!!
Elder Kissell

PICTURES!!