Brrrr

Hey!

Well, this week was quite the rollercoaster, I’ll tell you that much. We had a bunch of sweet appointments planned for after our pday on Monday, but they all fell through! So that was a bummer. On pdays (Ryan wants to know what we do on pdays…) we do laundry, email, go shopping, and then basically do whatever. We usually just go home and chill and take naps. Sometimes if elder Wessely is more motivated or what not, we go out and do something cool like go out on the break walls or on a hike or something. Or go walk around in the malls and look for cool stuff. But yeah, it’s always just great to relax for a solid 8 hours every week. I’ll take it for sure.

Tuesday was district meeting day down in Iron Mountain, it was good. I always feel like junk though after district meeting because there’s always so stinkin much I can and need to improve on to be a better missionary. But hey, I’m trying my hardest and that’s all you can do right? But I like district meetings, I learn a lot and need that extra motivation. After district meeting it was sweet…there’s this huge ski jump, the largest free standing ski jump in the world, in Iron Mountain, and a crazy member gave us a couple bowling balls and told us to go up and drop them off the top of the ski jump. Sounded fun to us! But holy cow, I thought I was overcoming my fear of heights, but now way jose. This jump was so high and I have a whole new different respect for ski jumpers. Those guys have got some guts. I’d rather do belly flops off the high dive 50 times before doing a ski jump. Way scary. I could only make it half way up this thing before I had to turn back. One out of the 4 of us made it to the top, but then again only 2 attempted and I was the wussy. Oh well but we didn’t even drop the balls, it was just cool being up there. On the way back from district meeting we always stop and see people that live far out from our area out there, one of these people being the Pendaz family, who unfortunately haven’t been to church in about 5 weeks. So that’s pretty sad. But they’ve all been way sick and going through hard times so we gave them blessings and hope to see them back soon. Tuesday nights we also go to institute, we need to get some of our investigators to come to that. It’s a sweet program for sure.

Wednesday was an interesting day to say the least. We talked to a lady we have talked to before in the past with bishop and she was way interested when we talked to her with bishop, but it was totally different with us just being there. She is a very liberal thinker and doesn’t think organized religion is right and she asked why the church has such strong viewpoints on homosexuality. We explained and tried to help her understand, I hope she did. But we were trying super hard to not say anything that would hurt her feelings because she is just the sweetest lady in the world. She isn’t gay or anything either, that was just one of her main questions. She thinks love is love and that whatever people way people want to do things is the right way for them. There is so much wrong with those two statements, but that’s ok. We just need to see here again with bishop. But this was nothing compared to our next appointment 15 minutes later. Last week, we met some sweet people by helping them move some stuff in to their apartment and they told us to come back. So we came back, and before we started teaching this married couple, they had a question. They wanted to know what the churches stand on it was and we figured that it was about alcohol or smoking or something, but they told us that they were BOTH bi-sexual, and not only that but they were looking for a third member to add to their relationship! It was so awkward, and we were both trying not to be grossed out or start laughing or anything and so we answered and told them the churches view on that and read the family proclamation to them. Then, we had a sweet lesson with them about the restoration. They’re way awesome people and they have a ton of potential, but we hope that we can convey to them that this is something that they need to work on fixing. But yeah, never been asked so many questions about homosexuality in my life in one day, that was crazy. And that same day, (Wednesday was a good day) we had an appointment with our wrestling couple Shaun and Brandy. Still awesome and still moving unfortunately. But we reviewed Adam and Eve and the Atonement with them again. They are still praying about things and baptism in particular, so we hope things are made true to them soon and they want to continue to learn when they move to Tennessee. We’re just making them golden and ripe to pick for those
elders!! Aren’t we nice?

And Thursday, Thanksgiving!!! What a great day. In the morning, we played in the churches Turkey Bowl and it was awesome. It was freezing and snowing pretty hard. There was a lot of people there too and it was just a lot of fun. I dominated too, don’t worry, I knew you guys were wondering if I did or not. But it was a ton of fun and super sweet. But man was I sore afterward, but it was worth it. Then we had our dinner with the Rayhorn family, and it was soooo good. KC, their 15 year old daughter, did ALL the cooking and it was all soo good. Impressive for sure. But they’re a great family and they love us and we had a great thanksgiving with them. I did miss apple pie though. That’s the only thing that I needed to make my life great. And I got some sweet Tobasco Sauce ties from Bro. Rayhorn, unfortunately I can’t wear them out here. So I’ll send them home. And then that evening we went to another members home and just hung out and talked with him about the work and about his family and life in general, it was good.

Friday, this was cool too! We tried to find some referrals we had out in the boonies and we had a trusty GPS system we borrowed from a member, but it was not so trusty. It took us down some crazy backroads that turned into 4 wheeldrive roads and roads that reminded me of when I got my truck covered head to toe up on Burch Mountain, but nowhere near as sweet, but it was pretty fun! I had to teach elder Wessely how to drive in it too because he has never driven off road, so I helped him have his first off roading experience!! Fun huh? But that GPS was lame and took us to the completely wrong spot so we drove to where we were pretty sure it should be and lo and behold, that’s where it was. So that was fun stuff for sure. And that evening, we went to see Zach with the elders quorum president and he’s still working to overcome his problems, so keep him up in your prayers.

Saturday we were all over the place in our area. Lots of driving and lots of finding. We tracted in one area in Negaunee and finally we found somebody home who told us that this area was where retired pastors/ministers of various faiths lived. These houses were HUGE! It’s just ironic to me that these pastors live in these huge houses. And it was funny because the next 3 people that we caught home were born again Christians, Methodists, and Lutherans. The head of the home was in all 3 of these places, a retired preacher. It was great. And all these men were not nice to us at all. I would at least think that they would have the humility and kindness to be at least somewhat nice to us. Oh well, life goes on. Needless to say, our tracting time that day was unfruitful at the moment, hopefully some seeds were planted. But that evening was not sweet at all. We talked to a less active lady who is bi polar and she talks so much and always about herself and nobody else and won’t let anybody have a word in edgewise. I just don’t have the patience for these people and I tried to talk and calm her down a little bit but then she just lit me up and yelled at me nonstop for about 10 minutes. She was so mad at me. She was telling me that I didn’t know what the real world was like and that I was rude and inconsiderate and just all this stuff. Not cool. But then I finally was able to talk and related with her on a few things and then she apologized and was humbled by what I told her, so that was good. But it was not a fun hour that we were there.

Sunday was good. Sadly, no investigators were there again. But our recent convert Ernest came finally after a 3 week vacation of not being at church. So that was good to see him. And it was cool, 2 young women in our ward went to a country concert this week (Lady Antebellum) and they told me about it earlier in the week and I was telling them that I was jealous and to tell the singers hi for me and stuff like that. But guess what?! They made me a shirt and got it signed by one of the singers!! So sweet. I was pretty decently happy for sure. But the young women around here are funny. KC, the girl who made thanksgiving for us, says that the young women always talk about the elders. Great to know! But they’re all awesome girls and we get referrals from them sometimes to go talk to their friends. Referrals are sweet!! Have you given your missionaries any recently?? Pray about 5 nonmember friends you know and pray that you will be able to refer at least one of these people to the elders. You’ll be greatly blessed and the elders will love you!! I promise. But our lessons were really good this Sunday. We learned about the Living Christ thing that the first presidency issued in 2000 and we got into the “Christmas Spirit” of things. I’m pretty excited for Christmas and teaching people about Christ. The elders say there’s something special about this time of year so I’m pumped for sure.

Well, life is good for me. Keep us in your prayers though, we need all the help we can get! I love you guys and I hope you know I pray for you every night. Hope everybodys Thanksgiving was good too!

Love
Elder Kissell

the massive ski jump

sweet huh?

i look like a turkey after the turkey bowl :)

you know you're lost when the road youre on looks like this...

muddy missionary truck!

:)

our nasty dishwasher. gross huh?

Lady Antebellum shirt

Lady Antebellum shirt

Summer weather in wintertime!

HEY fellow loved ones!

Well, this week was wwwwaaaaaarrrrmmm! We're talking like 55 degrees!! That’s how warm it was here in July!! So it’s pretty strange. All the Yoopers up here are stressing out because last year at this time there was over a foot of snow here in Marquette. Well, I guess things change for sure. But I guess it’s supposed to snow this week on Wednesday and Thanksgiving, so that’ll be sweet. I want to see at least a little snow before I leave.

But, the week went very well. We had a fun and exciting pday last week. The Houghton missionaries came down and spent the day with us. We played monopoly and the guitar and hung out and fun stuff like that. But the cool part was that Wessely and I had planned to go out to a members home for a few days to work in the area out where they live. They live in a little town, not even a town, out in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes away from Marquette. They have 40 acres of property and a very nice home. So it was a lot of fun that night. We just went there that night and spent the evening chatting with them. Didn’t have any time to do any work that evening unfortunately because we got there so late. But that’s ok, the following days were much better. Tuesday, we had our district meeting and then we came back that afternoon and started working the area. We basically went out there with the intentions of contacting all the less active members who live out there, and there are quite a few, about 15-20 or so families out there that are less active. But this was an exciting guy…the fun thing about seeing less active people is you never know what to expect. It’s almost like tracting! And that’s what makes it fun. But this one guy we came in contact with, his name was William, and he was 80 years old. Guess how long he hasn’t been to church? 57 years!!!! So insane. But he was a fun guy and was a pretty big smart alec, so we had a little bit of fun teasing each other back and forth. And as we were talking he says “hey come on now, help us unload all this booze out of our car.” And looking into the back of the car and seeing tons of boxes and also keeping in mind that this guy was a smart alec, I didn’t think it would be booze at all. So we helped him unload a bit, but then after a while I got curious. He wasn’t lying! Each box held 6 bottles of vodka and he had 20 boxes AT LEAST that we helped him unload. That’s a ton of booze. So I asked him what the heck he needs all this booze for and he told me that if you drink 2 glasses a day you’ll be so much more healthier than what you are and you’ll live longer. I don’t really think he drinks 2 glasses a day though, maybe 2 bottles! Oh well, but wouldn’t that make a great missionary picture? “Mormon missionaries in Marquette help unload boxes of vodka to help reactivate members.” Good thing he lived in the boonies and nobody could take pictures of us…but this guy was a nice guy. After talking to him, he still loves and respects the church, it’s just not his “thing”. He says he even tries to convert Jehovah’s Witnesses when they talk to him! I don’t get it…but oh well, he’s still a good guy. Then we went and saw another less active member not too far away from him. I believe I’ve already talked about this guy in the past before, but his name is Terry and this summer he miraculously overcame kidney and liver failure. He was poisoned by some fumes in his work and they caused his kidneys and liver to shutdown but after receiving a few blessings, they made a complete recovery. Unfortunately, the rest of his body was affected by this stuff too and his body is not totally recovered yet and he still has some not so good health problems. He has also lost all his money due to medical expenses, he can’t work, he lives in a small trailer with no running water, his family lives in downstate Michigan, he’s weaker than weak, he has no transportation, he has nothing. He is struggling pretty bad right now to say the least and is pretty miserable and down. I think I would be too, life has dealt him some heavy blows. But we helped him split wood for a while, that was a lot of fun. And we gave him a blessing and just talked to him and gave him comfort and encouragement. But this experience humbled me so much. I definitely needed it. It helped me to realize all the billions and billions of thing that I have everyday to be thankful for. I have the strength to wake up everyday and get up out of my comftorable and warm bed and go study in a comftorable and warm apartment. I can also go and get food out of my fridge and I can take a nice warm shower and I can then put a clean shirt on my back and sweet tie and get ready to go and serve the Lord. I have so much to be thankful for in just the first few minutes I wake up.

So my challenge for you this week is to think to yourself, maybe even write a list of things that you are grateful for. This is a small list of mine…

1. I am on a mission. I am serving the Lord.
2. I have an amazing family who love and support me.
3. I have amazing friends who love and support me.
4. My best friend is in the same mission as me!
5. I am a member of the only true church on earth.
6. I can read the Book of Mormon everyday and be uplifted by everything I read.
7. I have a comftorable bed and a warm apartment.
8. I serve in an amazing ward who loves and supports us.
9. I was called to serve a mission by a PROPHET who is called by the Lord.
10. I have good health.
11. I can help people be happy.
12. I have warm clothes that will help me be warm when it snows.
13. I am grateful for music that makes me happy and feel the spirit.
14. I am grateful for education that helps me become smarter and excel in the church as well as in life.
15. I am grateful to wake up each and every morning and see a beautiful world.

That is just a small list that took me only a few minutes to make. But there is so much I have to be grateful for.

The next day we were still out in that area. We decided to drive a little ways and go up to another part of our area we’ve never been to that was very close by. It was in a nice little town called Munising. We caught some people home and invited them back out to church. I hope that they felt our love and that the ward misses them. There’s a cool little town up there called Christmas! I thought it was neat. Everything thing there is Christmas oriented with Santa and Mrs. Claus and elves and reindeer and stuff like that. It’s pretty neat. Yoopers are weird. But yeah, our time out there was productive and we saw several less active people.

Thursday we were back in Marquette and saw several potentials that we had and talked to some of them. I think things will pick up here soon. We just need to excite our potentials that we have now. It’ll happen sometime. We talked to another older man who is a potential and he was giving elder Wessely a hard time because he never talked. I thought it was funny because he always gets mad at me for telling him he never talks, so I’m glad an investigator did. So he started talking. Hooray! Now I don’t have to talk nonstop. So that was good for him.
Friday was spent here in Marquette and Harvey too, we saw more potentials and even taught a few people. So that was great. Helped some recent converts move a couch and taught them some things. But nothing really too noteworthy or spectacular happened that day.
Saturday was a great day though, we went out to Ishpeming and saw our people out there. We had an awkward conversation with an investigator out there who told us about how her son is going through puberty…great! So, we quickly changed the subject and talked about the scriptures instead of that. A topic I appreciate much more. But hopefully we have some progression with her. She believes that the Book of Mormon is true, believes in the apostasy, believes in everything, BUT, she doesn’t believe the church has the true priesthood authority. So that presents a problem. She needs to read and to pray with faith and humility and she’ll find out that what we teach is true and that this is the only true church. That evening we also saw Ashley and Ben!! They’re awesome. We were going in there with the intention of just finding out there interest level, but we ended up teaching the plan of salvation. So that was good. They still haven’t kept any commitments or anything, so that is frustrating. And they didn’t come to church yesterday either. So, we really hope the ball gets rolling with them.
That’d be so awesome. They would be a perfect little Mormon family.

Sunday was a good day. Fun fact about elder Wessely is that he plays the flute really well, and today, he played in sacrament meeting. It was very nice. But now the scary thing is that everybody is asking me if I have any hidden talents and elder Wessely mentions every time that I can play the piano and other members have said that I have a very nice voice singing the hymns in sacrament meeting. By the way…I have been regaining some of my piano skill. I’m certain that that makes some of you happy. But the scary thing is that the ward music lady has eluded to the fact of a piano/flute/singing trio for a sacrament meeting around Christmas. But, I will more than likely not be here so I won’t have to worry about it!! But we’ll see, I’m a little nervous though. But church was good because a few of the less actives we saw the other day came to church!! Yay! And one of them was Terry, so that was awesome. But still no investigators. Sad. The talks were also really awesome, strangely, talking about gratitude! And the member we stayed with out there, the Simpsons, she was one of the speakers. She started naming things off in the middle of her talk that she was grateful for and one of the things she was grateful for was “Elder Kissell’s appetite.” And everybody laughed and turned around and looked at me. It was funny. But I just thought it was a weird thing to be grateful for. But thinking about it, I did eat a lot out there. I put down 4 potatoes one night because they didn’t want any leftovers, so I guess that’s where it came from! So now I’m known as the missionary who eats a lot! Sweet. But Sunday evening we had a really good appointment with the husband of a member in our ward. He’s a dry Mormon, and he loves us but just doesn’t feel comftorable being baptized yet. We asked him to pray about it. So hopefully that goes well and he has good news to tell us next time. I want to be baptized! That’d be so sweet. It could happen though.

But this week was great. I am excited for Thanksgiving and I hope all will go well with everybody elses holiday back home! We have been invited to several members homes for Thanksgiving and have been invited to participate in the Turkey Bowl, so all is well is Jesse-ville! And we’ll also be teaching some sweet people too probably.

Love ya’ll!!
Elder Kissell

pictures (kinda lame this week...sorry)


1. Christmas in Michigan!!!


2. Signs of a working missionary :)

Mid November Excitement

Hey everyone!

Well, this week was ok for the most part. I went on exchanges and went up to Houghton again on Tuesday and Wednesday and that was pretty sweet. Exchanges are always alot of fun. Not only do you get to serve with another companion (i love mine, don't get me wrong) for a day, but you get to see how they do things differently and better in their areas. So it helps us to be able to incorporate some of that into our areas. But, you remember what's in Houghton right? One HUGE cinnamon roll!! And guess what? I finished it this time!! Round 2 was worth it for sure. Lets not talk about the calories in that thing though… But I learned some good things up there with our district leader Elder Ross. We tried to incorporate things we learned from those elders the rest of our week but we got a little distracted by other trials and challenges unfortunately…

But before I get into that, I’ll talk about some good stuff first We tracted quite a bit this week. We had some sound rejections and some not so cool people that we talked to. That’s ok, we still found one diamond in the rough. We knocked into a lady who had a pretty huge yard and had a bunch of yard clippings and leaves and stuff that she needed to take to the compost pile before 6 and it was 5:30, so we helped her out and loaded everything into her truck, suits on and all. We got pretty dirty, but it was sweet. And she loved us so we are going to go back soon and talk to her and her family. Perfect Mormons though for sure. We also had a sweet lesson with our investigator Brandy and her fiancé Shaun. They love us, they feed us, and they love learning about the gospel. I’m so bummed that they’re moving though. But we’ll make them all ripe and golden for the elders down in Tennessee because we’re nice like that.

Alright, so the bummer part of our week…Zach is going through a very hard time right now. I’ll just leave it at that. PLEASE keep him in your prayers though. He is struggling with past problems and is just going through a hard time in life right now in general. We did teach him about temples though later this past week. He is a super bright guy and loves learning about the gospel. It just breaks my heart to see him struggling. But him and his family were all there at church yesterday, even on opening day of deer season! So I was thrilled about that. Bishop is also talking to him about working with the young men, which would be amazing for him. He needs something like that.

We didn’t see Ashley or Ben all week unfortunately. Ben is a trucker and is gone usually about 5 days of the week. So that creates a very difficult teaching situation. We may just have to start teaching Ashley singley. We don’t really know, but we’re going to talk to Pres. Barrett about that. They’re awesome people, I don’t want to have these guys slip through our fingers. They weren’t at church though, so that’s a bummer. Basically, here in Marquette right now, we have SO much potential going on. We just can’t them from a “potential” investigator to a “real” investigator. So RM’s reading this, any sweet ideas, write me! We’re trying our hardest and best though. It’s part of the work though I guess. I’m not letting it get me down, nothing happens when you’re sad and depressed and lacking faith. So, I’m not going to be a bum like that.

We visited several less actives and recent converts this week too. It’s always good to see a less active you haven’t seen in ages and help him feel Christ’s love again and see it working on them. Pretty much, I love being a missionary! There is probably nothing in my life so far that I have felt so good about doing every single day. Serving the Lord is so awesome. Helping members learn how to serve is awesome too. We’re the full time teachers, all the members are the full time finders! So we emphasize that whenever we are in member homes. Usually they respond well and hand us a few referrals the next time we see them.

This week has flown by, lots of things have happened. We did spend a lot of time with Zach though, trying to help him out, so that’s where we spent a few hours of the week. We also are going to start teaching Zach’s brother. He expressed interest and asked us to come by! So, good things still do, well always, come out of bad situations I’ve learned.

Sorry this letter is shorter than the past, but in all seriousness, this week has been a great learning experience for me and I hope I helped somebody who reads this letter in some way or another. I love being a missionary and I love my family, I love my friends, and I love my Heavenly Father. I thank you all so much for your love, support, compassion, letters, random packages, and everything. I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better life. I love my Heavenly Father so much and I thank him for putting all of you in my life.

Love,
Elder Kissell

Pictures

1. Little kids love me!

2. Round 2

3. I did it!

4. Look at the sign!

Spring in November!

Greetings from Marquette!

Well hey everybody! How is life for all ya’ll? Life here in Marquette is pretty good. This week went much better than the past we’ve been having and was much more successful. So, let me tell you about it!

On Tuesday at district meeting, President and Sister Barrett were there and taught us how to be more successful missonaries and we had our interviews. The training we received was awesome, about how to find families tracting and about how to prevent appointments from falling through. Exactly what we needed! So that was very helpful to me. My interview with president went awesome too. The first thing he told me was “Elder Kissell, you’ve been in Marquette quite a while.” So I’m taking that as a pretty heavy hint that I will probably be leaving after this transfer. But we will see! I’m not ruling anything out though. I love it up here so I’d be fine with staying another 6 weeks. But president Barrett is awesome. He is just very involved with the work and with us and our lives that it is just unbelievable. I don’t know how he does it, but he does. He is truly a worthy man called of God to do this. So I greatly respect him and how much he not only helps me, but how he helps our investigators. He knows ALL of our investigators by name and he asks about them whenever we talk. I just think that’s awesome.

Wednesday was a sweet day. We taught 2 way solid lessons that day to a couple of our investigators. We taught Ashley (one of the sisters with a baptismal date) and her husband Ben!! He was finally home and we taught him quite a bit. We helped get him from thinking, “oh these guys are cool but I don’t want to hear anything about their religion” to “man these guys believe in some sweet stuff!” They both had a ton of awesome questions and we answered all of them. Some questions I know I couldn’t have answered before my mission. It’s just so awesome teaching by the spirit and knowing that they feel it. We emphasized eternal marriage and eternal families a lot. They have a 2 year old boy. They were very interested and accepting and wanting to prepare for that. And Ben, a stubborn trucker, said he would prepare himself for baptism! No date yet, but we plan on setting a solid one with him and rescheduling Ashley’s this week. Ashley’s needs to be rescheduled anyway because she hasn’t come to church yet and needs to be there at least 3 times before baptism and it’s physically impossible for her to now with the date she has. So we’ll ponder and pray over that one. That evening we also taught our investigator Brandy and her less active fiancé Shaun. It was solid and awesome too. They’re such amazing people. We watched the Restoration DVD and discussed the restoration once more with them. They totally felt the spirit and we know that they love this gospel. We plan on setting a date with her this week. The only lame thing is that they’re moving to Tennessee in December! So we need to work fast for sure. But they’re awesome people. We took bishop over to meet them later in the week and he thinks that they’re amazing people as well.

We tracted a super rich street this week too. There are some crazy insane huge houses around this place. I almost died that time too. There was this huge dog that we didn’t see at one of the houses and as we are walking away, he comes out of nowhere, barking super loud and running full speed right towards ME!!! I had the deer in the headlights look, or the missionary about to get eaten by a dog look, and was about to deck the dog if he jumped on me. But he stopped like 2 feet in front of me and was just barking and stuff. That was my first bad experience with dogs on my mission. Not too fun!! Elder Wessely had a good laugh out of it though. And it seems like rich people are just as humble about religion as the not so rich people! So, we’ll try to tract in all sorts of places now that we found that out. Nobody was interested, but we planted some good seeds in some fertile ground.

Thursday we went out to Ishpeming and Negaunee and tried to set up some appointments there. Problem this time is that nobody wanted to make appointments! But, we talked to some less active people out there and shared messages with them and invited them to come back to church. No luck this Sunday though…sad. But we had another solid lesson that night with a less active guy and his girlfriend, not a member. He comes to church fairly often, but he is still a little on the rebel side. But this lesson was sweet, he said we could come over and teach him to “practice” our lessons. Halfway through, his girlfriend came and we turned the focus to her and she really liked what we taught and they committed to read and to pray together. So, hoping that they did! It rocked though!

Friday…this was a great day. You’ll probably get some laughs out of this one. We were at our recent converts Ernest place and we were there for quite a while. He called a less active lady who lives in the same building as he does and she wanted to talk to us, and this lady talks for everrrrrrrrr so we decided that we should probably go use the restroom before she gets here. Wessely goes first and then I go. There was a chain in there that I thought was for flushing the toilet and I thought that was sweet so I pulled it, nothing happened. So I looked a little closer and it said EMERGENCY written on it. It was engraved on a dark brown faceplate and very small lettering, and how I was supposed to know that’s what it was, I don’t know. So I was just hoping I didn’t do anything bad. Then right before I walked out, Wessely knocked on the door and said that I had just called the ambulance. WOOPS!! So the nurse had to call and cancel the ambulance since no emergency happened, just a dumb missionary boy was curious and pulled the chain. And there was a super loud alarm that was going off in the main nurses office, I felt like a dork. But hey, you live and you learn right? We also had a follow up visit with Ben and Ashley that night. We read 3 Nephi 11 with them. They thought it was awesome. They had already forgotten a bit about the apostasy and stuff. So we need to probably reteach the restoration and things before we move on. It’s all good. But it was sweet and they really like us and our lessons so they give us food.

On Saturday, nothing really too exciting happened. It was super warm though so that was awesome. We had our first dropped appointment of the week that day though, so that was a bummer, and it was a long ways away too. It frustrated us a little because we had called twice and she didn’t answer and we go out there and she was sick and didn’t have a reason for not calling us back. So that was a bit frustrating. Oh well, what can ya do.
Sunday, none of our investigators came again…bummer. Zach and his family came though despite the fact they slept in and missed most of sacrament meeting. But Zach learned a lot in Sunday school and in priesthood. He took lots of mental notes and asked us a bunch of stuff later on. He also kicked his girlfriend out too. So, he’s making some progress!! Yay! So, all in all, pretty good Sunday.

I had a great week. Hope yours went well too. I pray for you all!!! Family, loved ones, friends, etc. You guys all rock! Keep praying for the elders!!

Love
Elder Jesse Merrill Kissell

Pictures


1. Walking the break wall last pday!


2. Breakwall


3. Beacon at the end of the breakwall


4. View of Marquette/Lower Harbor from the breakwall


5. False, you cannot buy happiness. But we can GIVE it to you!

November?!

Hello everyone!!

Well, we thought this week was going to be AWESOME, well it was, but we had about 9 fallen through appointments again. NOT cool. I just don’t see how hard it is to call us and say “hey, I’m going to be shopping at this time so can we reschedule?” But, I guess that is too hard, so we show up, lesson prepared, only to be greeted with an unopening door. So that is a bummer. And we do all that we can to ensure that they’ll be there. We call, we confirm with them the day before, and they even right down our appointment times. So, having no idea what to do now, we fasted yesterday for less falling through appointments and discernment to figure out how to help address peoples needs to make them excited to meet with us. So, hopefully I will have better news to report next week.

Ashley and Emmy, the 2 girls we have baptismal dates with, we haven’t seen for 2 weeks. We think they may even be trying to avoid us, even though we did nothing to offend them or scare them off. So that kinda stinks, we need to see them soon! This is my favorite dropped lesson story though…so we met this guy named Alex and his girlfriend Vanessa tracting last week and they told us to come back Wednesday at 3. So, around a quarter to 3, we went up to that area and since we had a little time, we went and saw a less active who lives right across the street from him. Alex was talking to some of his buddies outside his apartment and when he saw us he said “hey guys!” And we say “hey man, we’ll be there in a second!” We go see the less active for about 4 minutes, go across the street to Alex’s apartment, and he’s not there. So standing there in unbelief for a few minutes we knocked really hard again and his girlfriend answered the door and said that he’d gone to football practice and that she was going to go watch him. Why couldn’t he have said something?! Crazy people I tell ya. But, life goes on. But long story short, we had a potential to have a sweet, lesson filled week, but the lesson filled part didn’t follow through.

We started teaching a “dry Mormon” guy in our ward this week named Curt. He is married to the bishops sister. And the bishops mom and dad are still in the ward and have 11 kids, all active in the church, and Curt is kind of like the black sheep. But they still totally all love him, but just wish he would join. So, we tried our luck. He’s totally not interested in joining, but loves the church. So, don’t know so much what to do with him. And in the past, missionaries haven’t really been such a big influence on him. He says that they’ve stayed at their house all night watching concerts and on Sundays watching football with him…not good. So, we’ll see what we can do to change his views on the elders.

On Tuesday we had a super long companion study in the morning, 3 hours, discussing the atonement. It was sweet. We had a couple articles from Elder Bruce C. Hafen talking about the atonement and we had a sheet with questions we had to answer and we had a big long discussion about the atonement. It was very enlightening and helped me realize how beautiful and amazing the atonement really is. One of the things that is most special to me that I learned about the atonement is that after ALL we can do to fix the consequences of a sin, after ALL we can do to help somebody else out, after ALL we can do to be the best we can be, after ALL we can do, Jesus Christ will take care of the rest for us and wipe away our tears. I think that that is really special. I love the atonement.

Wednesday was one of the days where we had a ton of appointments, but all fell through, so we tracted in a couple places, Marquette and Gwinn. Nobody was interested in Marquette so we went down to Gwinn and nobody was home there! So, that was annoying. But we did have some funny experiences down there. One lady answered the door and said “oh hold on, my phones ringing, I’ll be back.” She was gone for like 5 minutes!! It was way awkward, and right when I kinda felt like we should ring the bell again, and did, she came out and was kinda annoyed with my impatience. Oh well. It just made me laugh that she just left us standing out there awkwardly. Then another lady said that the Book of Mormon was just a book full of garbage and that it is a terrible book and that the Bible is the only word of God. We asked if she had read the Book of Mormon and she said “no, and I don’t need to!” And she stormed off, funny how people are sometimes. But what was sweet about Wednesday night was that it was our wards Halloween party and we got to eat a ton of candy and a ton of chili and wonderful stuff like that. We didn’t dress up because we can’t, but that’s ok! Something cool still happened… At the end, awards were handed out for the best costumes. The scariest, most creative, funniest, cutest, etc. And guess what?! We got the award for the cutest adult costume!!!:) We’re pretty darn cute I guess. It made me laugh.

Thursday, more tracting, more fallen through appointments. And also the day we drove down for mission tour which was on Friday! Mission tour rocked. Bruce C. Hafen and his wife were there, President and Sister Barrett, and a Stake president were all there and spoke to us. In order for us to get Neenah, WI on time, we had to get up at 4:30 in Green Bay to get there. It was not my favorite thing in the world. And when we got there we were told he wouldn’t be there for another hour. But it finally started at 8 and went til 7 in the evening! It was super long. But it was 11 hours of solid awesomeness. And I knew that I had heard Elder Hafen speak somewhere other than general conference, and when he asked me where I was from, he said “oh, I’ve spoken at a stake conference in Wenatchee!” So, that’s where I’ve heard him speak before! That was neat. And it was sad because I was excited to shake his hand, but because of the flu he wouldn’t. So I got to elbow bump with a general authority and his wife! I thought that was kinda funny. But the talks were amazing and very enlightening. He spoke on the atonement predominantly and his wife gave an awesome talk on the plan of salvation with a huge emphasis on the atonement. Both emphasized that without teaching the atonement, there would be no need in even teaching investigators the lessons. Nothing would even matter about our lessons if the atonement wasn’t mentioned. So after 11 hours of hearing about the atonement, I think I am good to go. But I imagine we would probably still be talking about the atonement if we could. The atonement is so in depth and so intricate and so beautiful that days could be spent on it. I just think that it is a beautiful thing. And the fact that we don’t even know half of what took place during the atonement amazes me. The millennium will be an interesting time when we find out all these unknown truths and things. I’m pretty excited to learn more about it. In my studies, I think the best scripture for me that talks about the atonement is Alma 7:11-13. Give that one a looksy.

Saturday was our deep cleaning day! It’s a mission rule that we aren’t to go out on 2 days of the year, Halloween and Good Friday, and on those days we clean our apartment. I thought ours was pretty clean but it was pretty gross. I found about 4 inches of standing water in our dishwasher which we never use, so who knows how long that’s been there! Long enough for algae to start growing, so that was a disgusting discovery. And there was nasty grease stains on the ceiling which still won’t come off after a long time of trying to remove them. Fun times.
And Sunday yesterday, we taught an impromptu lesson in priesthood, which everybody told us afterwards was really amazing, so I’m glad they liked it. We committed them to read the first lesson in Preach My Gospel and to pick one principle in that lesson and share it with one of their friends this week. I extend this commitment to whoever reads this letter. Sound good? After you do both those parts, write me a letter and tell me how it went! And after church yesterday we tracted. Unfortunately we found out that there was a Packer game yesterday, and not only was it just a Packer game, it was the Packer-Vikings game, the most important of the year! So, we were greeted very unhappily at several doors before deciding to just go see members. So that was a bummer. Don’t mess with Pack fans in this part of the country, they’ll rip your head off!!

But, this week went ok. I’m still happy despite the bad luck we’ve been having with appointments. Continue to pray for me and the rest of the missionaries in the world, we need all we can get. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Kissell

Pictures!


1. Elevator mirror shot!

2. Cutest youth and cutest adult costume award winners!

3. Our hardware.

4. Our backyard.

5. My zone, the Green Bay, WI zone, with Elder Hafen and his wife, President and Sister Barrett, and the assistants. Sweet!!