Elder Jesse Kissell

Hey everyone!

Well, this week was a little bit slower paced than usual due to transfers week, but, I still of news to tell you so never fear!

So Elder Barker got transferred to northern Milwaukee to the Lake Michigan area, which is actually Blakes first area. And speaking of Blake, guess where he went?! Marquette!! So that’s pretty crazy, I totally loved it up there and I know he will too. He was pretty excited about it, I talked to him for a little bit on transfer call night. But my new companion is Elder Roberts, he’s from Alpine, UT, he was last up in Manitowoc, and he’s been on his mission 20 months. So he’s an older missionary and there’s a possibility I could “kill” him/be his last companion. So that’d be sweet. He isn’t trunky and wants to close his mission out strong so that’s sweet. He’s a cool guy too. It’s a requirement I think to be cool to serve on campus, so he is cool. We’ve got quite a bit in common, we like doing things outdoors and mountain biking and such, so we have stuff to talk about.

So Elder Barker and I at the beginning of this week bid farewell to some members and he wanted to go see a few touristy things before he left. But we made these little trips legit for missionaries because we talked to lots of people and even got some potentials out of it, so that was cool. We went inside the capitol, it’s way sweet in there, and went to some cool stores around there. I’m pretty sad he’s gone though, I liked Barker quite a bit, we had fun and got a lot of work done. Transfer day was crazy though and super unorganized, the transfer bus didn’t get to Madison til 8:30 in the evening and we were with a couple who absolutely loves the missionaries and she is mega pregnant and is in pre-labor right now. She’s actually on bed rest, but she was sad elder Barker was leaving and wanted to see him off, but she was ticked the bus wasn’t there with elder Roberts at 5:30 when it was supposed to be and so we went out to dinner with them. Coolio!

So Martin is still doing well, great actually! On Wednesday there was a stake priesthood meeting and some members took him to that and he thought it was really great. There was a man from Africa who spoke and he really enjoyed that. And we also had a dinner with him on Thursday night. Some members had us and him over and they absolutely loved him. We watched the Restoration DVD afterwards and he thought that was really awesome. It’s a great show and really makes everything make sense. So he thought that was really awesome. He also asked a question that really surprised us: how do I pay tithing? Yup, he is really that awesome. We hadn’t mentioned anything about tithing to him but he figured that there must be some way that the church gets money and he wanted to know how he could contribute. We actually weren’t planning on teaching him about tithing till later, but he asked so we won’t deny him that! We told him what tithing is used for, temples and church buildings, etc. And he goes “so that’s how that beautiful temple in Ghana was built then?” He really loves the Accra temple. He’s way excited to go inside someday. He still hasn’t been able to contact his kids’ caretaker yet to talk to him about the missionaries, so hopefully he does that, we really want to get missionaries over there. He is still working on getting days off on Sunday’s from Walmart, still hasn’t happened quite yet, but, keep those prayers coming!! He’s great though, reads and prays every single day and is still just golden. He said a really awesome prayer at the end of that lesson we had with him Thursday night too. The spirit is always so powerful when he prays, he will be a great priesthood holder. HE ROCKS!!!!!!!

We weren’t able to contact other potentials we had this week. That Russian guy that sounded like Mrs. Doubtfire wasn’t home and a couple others turned out to be not interested. That’s ok though, we’ll find the ones who are ready. Something else I’m really excited about is that there’s a new sister missionary here who has worked on several other campuses in the mission and really knows how to work with them and has some sweet ideas how to get more singles ward investigators, something we really need! So I’m excited to work with them and get some work in that regard goin. We do a lot with the singles ward like playing basketball and going to the temple and FHE’s and Institute, so hopefully things start coming of it. Basketball has actually proven most effective so far! It’s fun and we meet lots of non members! Cool!

Oh, so something that was way spiritual and sweet this week just came to my mind that I wanted to talk about. So, Barker and I, after that priesthood meeting, went with our zone leader to a member families home who needed blessings because lots of them were sick. We helped the father administer and bless his kids and it was just really really sweet. We gave blessings to his 9 year old daughter, 6 year old boy, and 18 month year old daughter. This experience just made me way excited to be a dad and made me proud to hold the priesthood. Each and every one of those blessings, you could tell the dad was being directed by Heavenly Father. They were each so powerful and individual to the child being blessed. It was really sweet giving the 18 month old daughter a blessing. She was scared to have 4 big men around her, so she sat on the moms lap, and since her head was so small, we just put one hand each on her head. It was a way good blessing and all in all just a great experience. I love being able to hold the priesthood and do miraculous things such as this. Just another event that emphasizes the truthfulness and awesomeness of this church. I love it so much!!!

Well folks, I don’t really have too much more to say. The weather has been “warm” here this week at a steady 30ish degrees. I have not been impressed by these ferocious Wisconsin winters yet!!! I think it’s colder and snowier back home!! Oh well, I won’t complain about the warm since I have to walk around in the stuff.
Love you guys!!!!
Elder Kissell

pictures!