Happy 2010!

Happy Holidays from Madison Everybody!!!

Well, this letter probably won’t be, in fact it won’t be as long as they usually are because I talked to all of you just a few days ago in REAL LIFE!!!!  SWEET!!!!  But, this week really was wonderful and full of great fun and success.  We spent a lot of time trying to contact less actives and referrals yesterday and on Saturday.  We also tracted in a really awesome neighborhood in south Madison.  It’s a newer development area that we went to with the intentions of finding families and such.  We did find a few that are interested so that was sweet!!  It sure was freezing when we went though, well, not SUPER cold but I would rather be chillin inside by the fire or something.  But, the Lord does test our faithfulness and obedience in all things, even in tracting in the freezing cold!  Those scarves that you sent, mom, are lifesavers for sure.  The wind is what kills you though!!  It is just a bundle of fun being out there!

But for Christmas, we decided to forgo the ward Christmas party thing and just talk to our families.  It was well worth it.  After talking to ya’ll, we hung out with a YSA named Lyle and had dinner at his place.  We had broccoli soup and bacon sandwiches for Christmas dinner!  Beats out prime rib!!  Haha just playin, but it was a good dinner for sure.  Then we went to the church and closed the day out with some basketball.  Good times.

Gave a talk at church yesterday, it went great.  The 1st ward and the University wards are only holding sacrament meetings for the next few weeks because there are so many people home.  So that’s kinda lameo.  But the talk went great and got a lot of compliments.  Not like they’d tell me if I did a bad job anyway, but, yeah, it was a good talk I think.  We met a less active guy yesterday who believes in UFO’s, that was cool.  He is a funny guy.  He is less active because he was offended when the bishop told him he shouldn’t talk about UFO’s in his testimony.  Pretty funny.  There are some unique people in this world but God loves them all .

Well, can’t think of too much more excitement to tell you all.  But, I love you all very very much and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy 2010!!

Talk to you next year!!!!!!!!!!

Love
Elder Kissell

pictures

1. We walked around on a frozen lake!!  Sweet huh

2.  Ice...

3.  One of the many Christmas storms

4.  Caroling crew!

5.  The Stocks, the family we spent Christmas eve  with.

6.  Cool....

7.  Christmas tree and presents!!!

8.  Santa came!!!

9.  Presents!!! Thanks everybody!!!

Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!  Well, hello everybody, how was your weeks?  Hopefully they were great and groovy, like mine.  Got some pretty cool stuff and stories to tell you this week too.  I never fail to have good ones!!!
So this week, we got a TON of media referrals.  The way the referral system works is somebody gets a pass along card, see’s a commercial on TV, or some other way, and they call in for any number of things.  Usually, a Bible, a Book of Mormon, and DVD’s.  They call the number on the card or the ad, they’re transferred to missionaries at the MTC, they take down their info, send that info to mission offices, and the mission office sends us a text with all their info and item they want.  This week, we got a lot of DVD requests and Book of Mormon requests so that was cool.  But, one in particular stood out to me that I’d like to tell you about.  This was a missionary visit request, don’t get those too often!!  But these people were Charles and Pamela.  This couple lives in Madison and a close person to them passed away in Florida and they went to the funeral in Florida and they met the missionaries.  Charles is a former Deacon in the Presbyterian church and he left because he found so many discrepancies with the doctrine and has been searching for the truth and he knows he found it with this church and him and his wife want to be baptized!!  We haven’t even met them, I have just talked to them on the phone twice and they’re so excited to meet with us.  It’s going to be sweet.  The missionaries in Florida taught them the first lesson, gave them a Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11), and asked them to pray about it.  He says that they have read and they have prayed.  They love the Book of Mormon and he has prayed to know if it’s true.  He said it took him a few days to get an answer, but he got it and he says there was no denying that it was the Holy Ghost testifying to him.  SO SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!   We’ll be meeting with them on Wednesday and setting a baptismal date with them.  So, good news for Christmas time!!

Sadly, we haven’t been able to see Kristen ALL WEEK.  It was a bummer for sure.  We had an appointment set with her for Wednesday at 3, went over there, and she wasn’t home.  Her husband said that she was having a flair up with arthritis and needed to go to the hospital, so that was sad.  She doesn’t have a phone so we couldn’t call her.  That makes things majorly difficult.  The bus takes about 45 minutes to get to her house from our main area we are in and that takes up a huge chunk of our day.  The buses are so lame.  We really do need a car, but we really honestly probably won’t get one anytime soon.  But we would be able to get so much more work done.  We have a  ton of people to teach, but we just can’t get to them all the time.  It is really annoying.  The bus system is good, but we have to plan our schedule around the time we need to be on it.  A lot of the people we are teaching live in the ghetto, like Kristen, and it is not a great place to be.  Members are afraid of this area and won’t come too willingly with us.  We’ve tried and it’s hard.  If you want my opinion though, it’s bad, but it’s not bad enough that I would stay out of the area.  But maybe one of these days I’ll get jumped and I’ll have a different opinion, but hopefully not!  But, that brings up a funny story…  On Friday, we met with this couple who just moved from Liberia a few years ago.  They met the Spanish elders on the bus last week and wanted to meet with us since they were in our area.  We went over there and met them, they were way nice and very hospitable and caring for us and were excited to start discussing religion and things with us.  They are very strong Christians and they believe a lot of the same things we do and even believe that the church that they attend now is false and they need to find the right one.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  Well, moving on with the story, Elder Barker was discussing with them how to find out if what we teach is true.  He read them Moroni’s promise and testified and things, but before he did that, the man and woman we were teaching told us that they would come to our church in 2 weeks and if they liked it, they would make it their church.  And so this is when Barker did his thing.  They got way mad at him because they didn’t like the fact that we didn’t stop the lesson right there, we just encouraged them to pray and ask if what we teach is true.  It was really weird and I honestly have no idea why they got mad at us.  But they were yelling at us and right up in our face and stuff and it was way scary!!  This guy is not a skinny scrawny guy either, he’s pretty strong and could’ve inflicted some harm on us if he really wanted to.  So, we decided within the span of about 2 seconds that it was time to leave.  We hadn’t even got to talk about Joseph Smith!!!  But, we asked if we could leave with a prayer, they said yes, and after the prayer, they were happy again!!  It was crazy weird.  I’m just glad I didn’t get chopped to bits by a machete or something, it was scary.
On Saturday it was pretty neat, i went on exchanges with the spanish elders and we went caroling with them and the Hmong elders.  We were late to the main thing unfortunately, but we went to a family after we got there...this family is COOL!!  They got sealed that day in the temple.  The father used to be a very strong Jehovahs Witness and had a mighty change of heart and spirit to say the least and became a member with this church!!  He got sealed to his wife and family on saturday.  How cool is that?  THeir home had such a great spirit in it, they were all so happy and it was just amazing.

We went tracting in an area one day because both our appointments we had fell through and turns out a member lived in that area that Barker failed to tell me about.  So, on this doorstep, it was his door, but he rang the bell and said “ok Kissell, it’s all you man.”  And I was like “ok man whatever, this is your door but ok.”  This old man answers the door, late 60’s or so, and I start talking to him.  I tell him who we are and what we share and I ask him if he believes in Christ, he says no, and I told him some ways he could develop a belief in Jesus Christ by meeting with us and reading a little of the Book of Mormon.  Then he says, “Well, Elder Kissell from Wenatchee, WA, I met you on Sunday, but you did a fine job with that door approach, would you and your companion like to come to Culvers with my wife and I?”  I felt SO dumb, you have no idea!!  But it was pretty funny for sure.  Elder Barker was pretty happy with himself and gave me some guff about it, but it was pretty funny though, and plus I got us a free lunch!!  So no complaining here.
We had a great week though.  And also on Thursday we had our zone conference.  It’s sweet being in Wisconsin because you only have to drive an hour maybe to get to those, up in the U.P., we’re talkin like a 4 hour drive sometimes.  So it was great to be so close.  But this was a great conference, we learned about how to ask better questions and interact with investigators in lessons and such.  It was good stuff.  And we also sang carols and did Christmas skits and stuff.  It was fun.  And Blake was at the zone conference!!  They combine zones for zone conference and so he was at that one.  It was sweet spending several hours with him.  It is just even more crazy to me that we came to the same mission.  Nobody believes us that we’re best friends and have known each other for 13 years.  It’s sweet though.

Well, it sure was a good week.  I’m excited to talk to you this week, well, some of you.  Sorry to those of you who I can’t call!!  I still love you though for sure.   I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and remember why we celebrate this wonderful holiday.  How about this…how about for an amazing Christmas present to one of your nonmember friends, you get a Book of Mormon from your missionaries, write your testimony and put it in there, and give it to your friend.  Your present to them will be eternal happiness if they choose to accept it.  Remember, they have their agency and will still be your friend even if they don’t accept the gospel in this life.  You’ve got nothing to lose, so try it!!  You’ll be blessed greatly and we can all use the blessings.

I love you and Merry Christmas!!!
Elder Kissell

pictures

1.  So this picture is really gross i know, but let me explain...  this is a Hmong dessert, i have no idea what it's called.  But what it is is this tapioca stuff with things in there that have the texture of gummy worms and noodles.  It was the grossest texture of anything I've eaten in my life.  A combination of tapioca balls, gummy worm texture stuff, and noodle texture stuff.  ANd there was also something in there that was like bean sprouts.  It was so weird but super good.  It was something you drank too.  But it tasted like coconut and tapioca pudding...with gummy worms...and noodles.  But, remember that they weren't gummy worms and noodles, it was just weird!!!!!

2.  Our nasty tub...we're going to clean it soon.  Was not happy when i saw that.

3.  Yay for tracting in the snow and in the dark

4.  Elder Barker, i forgot i still hadn't sent you a picture of him so i just took one right now.

Welcome to Madtown Elder Kissell

Hello Everyone!!!

Well…do you all wanna know where I’m at??????? I am now serving in Madison on the campus! It is InSaNe!!!! Here’s the rundown…Madison is the states capital, there are about 350,000 more people here than in Marquette, I live in an apartment right smack dab in the middle of the city, I work in a singles ward and in a regular ward, there are like 6 different companionships in the area, and there are just a ton of people here!! It’s so crazy. I’m basically going through culture shock right now, it’s crazy. I went from Wenatchee (25,000 people) to Marquette (25,000 people) to Madison (400,000 people)! It is nutso. But I love it here. It’s a very clean city, it reminds me a little of like Salt Lake or something. The University of Wisconsin is here obviously, so there are a ton of college kids. There is a pretty sweet and nice little institute building here, so that’s a plus. There aren’t a ton of LDS kids attending but there are enough to have that building. There are about 40 or so active college students. The ward we work in is all super busy graduate students with young families. It’s pretty nuts.

And I guess I should tell you about my new companion, Elder Barker. He has been out one transfer less than me so that puts me at senior companion! So that’s interesting and new. Really, the title of senior doesn’t count for much. Basically you just get the last say in things and make executive and important decisions. And if we had a car, I would get to drive it. But we don’t and have to take the buses, so I don’t drive. The bus is so lame. A car would be so useful. We would be able to get so much more work done and would be able to spend more time in areas but we have to base our schedules around the bus system and schedule. Oh well, life does go on somehow. But the bus is a good place to talk to people and meet people, that’s a plus. I just need to stop being a chicken and talk more. Afterall, that is what I’m here to do! But I really do love this place.

On Friday, just the second day I was here, we got a referral from a member in one of the wards here and told us that she would be golden and asked us to go meet with her. Her name is Kristen, a 47 year old black woman, and she is just lost and going through some pretty hard times right now. The member who referred her to us gave her a Book of Mormon and she was very excited about it. She is going through hard economic times and is a bit depressed about things in her life and how they’re going. We’re the ones to talk to about that!!! But we had a great first lesson and she was excited to read and to pray about the first lesson and the Book of Mormon. We set up a return time for the next day and we went with a super awesome member/ward missionary, Sis. Elisberg and taught the plan of salvation. This was the person I’ve been waiting to meet on my mission. Her mother died 4 years ago and is still pretty sad and emotional about it. Just like me with dad. Elder Barker and I discussed who would teach what in the lesson and I would be teaching about Adam and Eve, the atonement, and the resurrection. I knew from the beginning of the lesson that I needed to tell the story about dad and bear my strong testimony of the atonement when I taught it. The spirit was so so strong. I wish you all could’ve been there. I started to cry, Sis. Elisberg started to cry, and Kristen started to cry. Afterwards, Kristen gave me a big huge hug. Easily one of, if not the best feelings and experiences I’ve had on my mission so far. She committed to come to church and guess what? She did and she loved it!!! She even says she wants to keep coming and she even signed herself up on the dinner calendar. I’m so stinkin excited. We will be extending a baptismal commitment to her and seeing what happens with that this week. So please pray for her and her continued development and growth. We’ve also just received a ton of referrals these past couple days for some reason. We stopped by another and met him yesterday and he is an Indian guy, former Hindu, and wanting to quit that and learn about Jesus. He ordered a Lamb of God DVD that we delivered to him. Unique huh? I have not taught anybody yet who doesn’t at least know a bit about Jesus and so this was a definite first for me. It was cool though. He came to understand the need and reason to pray, the meaning behind the Godhead, and what the Holy Ghost felt like because he was there for sure. We also challenged him to fast and to pray to quit smoking, right from the first lesson!! It is going to be sweet. I love it here, there will be a lot going on this transfer, I can feel it. The ward is so much different than Marquette. Tons of young families. There are no young men or young women, the oldest person might be in their 60’s here, and yeah, it’s just weird and different. They all seem very nice, but very busy. Elder Barker tells me we won’t see a ton of the members a lot because of that, so we’ll see.

But this week has been nuts. The beginning of the week was crazy because of all the packing I had to do and goodbyes I had to say and stuff. Tuesday was a great day. It was the day we had district meeting and the day we were supposed to go to Green Bay and from there down to Milwaukee the next day. Well, we go out in the morning to drive to district meeting and there’s a huge nail in our tire!! So, I spent the morning changing a tire. Fun. I also smashed my pinky trying to get the dumb spare off, but don’t worry, I didn’t swear!! And so, we had district meeting over the phone, that was different for sure. After that, we get a call from the zone leaders that we had to drive to Milwaukee that day!!! Keep in mind that it takes about 8 hours to get to Milwaukee from Marquette and that a huge storm was coming in that day. So, since it hadn’t come yet, Elder Wessely turned the highway into the Autobahn. Hooray!! We were hauling, but we needed to get to Milwaukee and pronto because of Presidents orders. He wanted us to be down there because of that storm. And good thing because by the time we got to Milwaukee, it was dumping snow. Milwaukee got about 10 inches I think. We driving in the worst of it too and got lost. That was great. But we found our way and thank goodness for 4 wheel drive. It was insane weather and snow. Wednesday, I bid farewell to Elder Wessely who would be training this transfer and spent the day with the office elders. They basically do errands for the president and arrange transfer info and fun stuff like that. It was nuts. They’re so busy and I’m grateful to be just a regular missionary.

Thursday was transfer day and guess who I finally got to see!!! BLAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome. It has been forever since I’ve seen him and it was a happy reunion. Also Tucker Chapman, from the 3rd ward, was there!!! So we had a little Wenatchee reunion. Sweet! It was pretty cool seeing 3 people from Wenatchee serving in the same mission in one spot. Doesn’t happen too often for sure. But Blake will be serving in a different zone than me again, but I will see him at zone conferences now at least. They combine zones for those things. But yeah, I was happy to finally see him. I’m excited for the day that I can either be in his district, or better yet, be his companion. But nobody thinks it will happen. I think it will. Gotta have some faith!!!

Well, I’m all about out of news. Oh, Madison has a ton of snow and it was super super cold for a few days. Madison shut down on Wednesday because of all the snow. That’s saying something. They got pummeled with about 17” of super heavy snow. And it was in the negative and single digits for a few days. That was fun!! Welcome to Wisconsin!!!

Now I’m out of news… I love you guys!!! Have a great holiday season and I will talk to you next Monday!! I will be literally talking to you mom in 11 days!!!

Love
Elder Kissell

pictures


1. the most yooper picture you'll ever see!! A Stormy Kromer hat and a pasty. And some other dumb stuff.


2. Elder Crossley, love this kid.

3. Look!! Wenatchee kids!!

4. Look who it is!

5. Wisconsin Campus action


6. Yup, it did


7. More campus action

8. On State Street to see the Capital


9. Sweet!!

December 7, 2009

Greetings family and friends!

Well, this was an exciting week. Another rollercoaster one. But hey, rollercoasters are fun!!
But, I am getting transferred. Called it from the start of the transfer. I don’t know where I am going yet. We get 2 calls. 1 to tell us if we’re leaving, and the 2nd is if we are leaving, where we are going and who our new companion is. And I should be receiving that call later today or tomorrow sometime. But I do know that I will not be going anywhere in the U.P. because nobody else got transferred in our district, so Wisconsin, here I come! And when Pres. Barrett talked to me, he said that he had a “new, exciting, and important mission” for me to do. I’m pretty sad that I’m leaving Marquette though. It’s basically my second home because I’ve been here so long and the last place I was was home. But I’m fine with leaving, it would be sweet to see some more of the mission and to get to meet new and exciting people and great stuff like that. So it’ll be an adventure!! And elder Wessely is training this next transfer for his first time. He’s going to be training a guy from the Czech Republic!! And he doesn’t speak a lot of English and it should be an interesting transfer for the both of them. He’s not too excited about training though for some reason, he’s been in a bad mood the past few days. I think it’d be awesome to train, so hopefully someday I will.

But this week was actually the first week that it was actually cold! It was consistently in the 20’s and it snowed and is currently snowing. The weather is so weird here though. At our apartment, we only got about 2” of snow, but just across town they had about 6” and down by where the church is about 5 miles down the road, there was about 8”. So weird. We had to do a lot of tracting this week too because unfortunately some of our appointments fell through and we partially just felt like it. So it was my first time tracting in the snow! And definitely not the last. We found a new investigator this week off of tracting and a few potentials off of it as well. So I would consider it successful. Tracting is fun if you make it, if you don’t, it’s miserable. And so basically you just learn to laugh and move on with life if they slam the door or something. And really, people aren’t mean ALL the time, you meet some really nice people tracting too.

Thursday was my 6 month mark!!! That’s pretty crazy huh? I think it’s nuts that I’ve been out this long already. But that day was a pretty good day for tracting and we had some good appointments too. And as missionary tradition goes, it’s your choice to follow or not, but 6 months means you burn a tie. So, if your name happens to be Jesse Kissell and you LOVE burning stuff, then you have to! So I burned a few of my old and junky ties that have ripped or gotten stained beyond reason.

But we had a really good lesson with Shaun and Brandy this week on the Gospel. The spirit was very much there and it was a very interactive lesson and we feel that they understand that message very well. We noticed that our lessons lately have not been very interactive so we have been developing questions that are deep and cause some pondering and tried that that night and it worked amazing. They’re so cool and I am going to miss them a ton. And we also met with our investigators, Cory and Crystal and watched the Restoration DVD with them and that went great too! It was a bummer though because they had to leave almost right after the lesson and we couldn’t discuss it too much. But they liked it a lot. They love us too. They honk and wave at us when they see us walking, they give us food, and they just feel good about the church and love it thus far. Unfortunately they didn’t make it to church yesterday because Crystal had, and still does, have a really bad migraine, so that’s no fun.

Yesterday was a very good day though. Church went well and I was asked to do 3 things in sacrament meeting it was crazy. I was asked to do prayer, pass the sacrament, and bear my testimony. It was pretty cool, but I felt like I was being seen too much and was a little weird. But that’s ok. But the ward is sad, or seems to be sad, that I’m leaving. We stopped by a few members after church to bid adieu since I’ll be leaving Tuesday probably and don’t have much time to do that. And we also had 2 dinner appointments yesterday…not fun. That’s all I gotta say. We had dinner with the Collins family (Bro. Collins is really good friends with Zach) and with Zachs family for one dinner and then we went to the Carruth family to teach one of their daughters friends and have dinner. I’m really going to miss all those people though. Zach is doing really well this week and has been in good shape and was at church with his family yesterday. So I’m pumped about that.

Marquette has been an awesome place and I’m sad to leave but excited to see what my next area(s) have in store for me. I have a pretty strong/bad feeling that I may be serving in the middle of a city because in my last interview with Pres. Barrett I asked him to keep me in the country, not a city. So maybe he wants to see what a country boy does in the middle of a huge city. We’ll find out soon enough!!!

This week has been an awesome week, I have learned and grown a lot I feel and am getting to be a better person and missionary. I hope to keep that going and be the best I can be, that’s all I want. I want to serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength in my next area. I’m not perfect, so a few of those were lacking every once in a while. So pray for me, pray for the investigators, and have a wonderful December week wherever you may be!

Love
Elder Jesse Kissell

pictures!


1. Snow!


2. 6 months!


3. Yummy yummy venison made by Jesse


4. Early Christmas present!


5. Th Collins Family (missing 2) and the Boyle Family


6. The Carruth family! They're short :)