Happy and brightly beaming

Hello!

 

Well hey everyone!  Well, the week was pretty good.  We're unfortunately starting to get less busy than we were a few weeks ago, but regardless we're still keeping up on things pretty well.  Some of our investigators have progressed pretty significantly, others have sadly fallen off the face of the earth.  But hey, it happens.  AND we're still happy and brightly beaming :D

 

So Bo and Martin still have their dates set for April 10 and 24.  Both are progressing and doing awesome.  We have met with Bo pretty frequently this week, he's super awesome.  We have taught him the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the commandments.  All within a week!  Crazy!  But he is keeping up and remembers a ton from previously investigating last year.  There are a few times in the lessons we teach him where he totally misses the point, but that's alright, we're still working pretty closely with him and he'll understand all he needs to understand before his baptism in a couple weeks!  Awesome!!  He's a funny guy though.  He's a soft spoken guy as it is, but when he reads aloud from the scriptures or something, he practically whispers, it's funny.  So you have to listen really closely to see if he's even reading the right verse.  And he's overall just a really happy and gracious guy!  Always smiling, he'll laugh randomly, sometimes just because he's happy, not because anything funny was said.  It's really cool.  President Barrett told us to make sure he has a home before he's baptized, so he's starting on looking for one today and I imagine he won't have too much a problem finding one because there are several low income housing opportunities in Madison that he would be able to get one at. 

 

Martin is still as awesome and amazing as ever.  We helped him look around for a online job only to find out his computer is loaded with viruses!!  Computers are so lame...  Oh well.  But there are some members in the wards we cover who are looking to get rid of their computers/laptops so and they would be more than happy to have Martin take a look at them and stuff.  So that's moving along! Hopefully we can get things going a little faster just to insure that things will be superb and ready to go by April 24.  This date is TOTALLY set on faith, so we're praying and fasting super hard for him.  It'll work out for sure.

 

Tim although has disappeared and is possibly avoiding us.  Kind of a bummer after he came to the temple and baptism and all!  But we didn't see him at all this week and he didn't answer or return any of our phone calls.  Dang.  But he is probably doing like he said he would do, checking out other churches.  Hopefully he'll be able to tell a difference and a lack of feeling the Holy Ghost while he is attending and learning of those churches.  I know without a doubt that he felt the Holy Ghost with us in our lessons, some of the best lessons I've had out here have been with him.  And he went to the temple!  Of course he felt the Holy Ghost there!  But time, faith, and prayer will only tell.

 

Carol is super still.  We had a great lesson with her this week on agency and the word of wisdom.  She has a smoking problem that she's trying to boot.  She thinks it's crazy because she quit drugs cold turkey but she's having such a hard time quitting smoking.  But we taught her the word of wisdom and showed her some ways to quit and we also invited her to an addiction recovery program the Madison Stake does, she's totally excited for that. 

 

Donnette is kind of throwing us into a brick wall.  She doesn't want to be baptized until July 17!  So far away!  We've tried every tactic and scripture President Barrett has given us and we just can't seem to help her understand that baptism is better sooner, rather than later.  And she's actually moving, but just a few blocks away, but she'll be out of town for a couple weeks and we won't be seeing her in that time, but she did go to church in the town where she's at for a couple weeks!!  She's still a super great lady, we just want those blessings of baptism to come to her sooner than July and are sad that she doesn't understand it.  But hey, at least she wants to be baptized!!

 

We met with Fidentio again this week.  He is still rockin too!  We tried extending him a baptismal date but he said that he can't commit to a date yet, but he really does want to be baptized, but he can't commit to a specific date yet.  We talked to him about the word of wisdom and the plan of salvation.  It was a really good lesson.  He totally trusts us and loves learning about the gospel.  He just needs to clear some things up in his mind first and then I'm sure he'll be totally excited to set a date with us!  He's a great guy.

 

We also did some less active work this week too.  Elder Perry's ward mission cycle is finally starting to take effect in the wards we cover and we're starting to get some names!  These guys we visited were some of those names.  But we got a cool YSA member to come back out to church for the first time in a long time!  Like a year or so, that was really awesome.  And we're still working with the other guy.  We've got him out to Saturday morning basketball, but not church.  One step at a time I guess!!

 

Well we had a really cool experience yesterday that I actually wanted to tell you all about right now....  So last week that girl the sisters taught, Shylina, the one who got baptized, asked for a priesthood blessing yesterday.  She was at a conference talk read-a-thon at the institute and asked her home teacher if he could come over and give her a blessing and he asked us to accompany him.  So this blessing was done at her house, where Elder Roberts and I first met her a month and half or so ago.  It hit both Elder Roberts and I, which was pretty cool, while we were there, that the last time we were there, we were having dinner with her friend Ethan, an active member of the singles ward and she was there, a non member girl in her pajamas who seemed she could care less about the church.  But then yesterday, Elder Roberts and I were there, she just got home from the institute building and was in her church clothes as a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints asking us for a priesthood blessing.  How cool is that?!  It was one of those times on my mission where I wish I could just stop time and watch it for forever and ever.  But that experience is one of several that has been engraven in my mind on my mission.  And I was privileged to even give the blessing too.  It was a sweet experience.  It truly made me grateful and proud to be on a mission, serving my Lord and Savior.  Man, I love it.  And to make Shylina even cooler, she made me a tie for my birthday!!!  It's way cool.  

 

Well...that's about all the news I have for you this week!  It's been a great one.  I definetely love having a good companion and a good area to serve in.  It's a huge blessing to be out here and I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything.  I love this gospel and I know it's true with all of my heart.  This is the last letter you'll be getting from me as a 19 year old boy!  That's WEIRD!!!  Time flies, I'll tell ya that.  

 

I love you all!!  Choose the right ALWAYS and remember who you are.  And watch conference!!!  ALL of it!  I'm so excited!  Not everybody can say that they're going to watch a prophet and apostles of God speak this weekened.  But guess what?!  You can change that!  Invite your friends to watch conference with you!  It's going to be a great weekened!  Hooray for General Conference!!

 

Hugs, Kisses, and Love!

Elder Jesse Kissell 

 

picture (sorry!  I need to take more for sure.)

 

 

Me, Shylina, and the super cool tie she made for me.  Sweet!

Madison is definitely keeping its downtown elders busy!

Hey everybody!

 

Well this week sure was sweet.  Madison is definetely keeping its downtown elders busy.  We got ANOTHER solid investigator who has a date for April 10th!  This is such a cool story I don't want to wait to tell you about it.  So his name is Bo Khamphoumy, he is Laotion.  I'm tellin ya, I'm serving a foreign mission here!  Haha just kidding.  But Bo is super cool.  He was found by the Spanish elders at a bus stop reading the Book of Mormon!!  He checked it out from the library!  But some more background on Bo is he met with the sisters last year but they lost contact with him because he is homeless.  He is a younger guy, in his 20's, and you can't even really tell he's homeless.  But he is and that obviously makes it hard to keep in contact with him.  But he really loves the Book of Mormon and knows it better than some members I'm betting.  The Spanish elders met him on Thursday, he came to a singles ward baptism on Saturday morning (i'll tell you about that later), and he went to the temple with us on Saturday afternoon!  He said that he felt so good at the baptism and was really honored to have witnessed that and just felt really great there.  And at the temple, Elder Roberts went and helped with confirmations while I stayed in the waiting room with Tim and Bo (yep, 2 investigators at the temple!!!!).  While we were sitting in the waiting room, I just felt really strongly that I should talk to Bo about baptism and set a firm date with him to be baptized.  I said "Hey Bo, can I show you one of my favorite scripture passages in the Book of Mormon?"  "Yes yes I would really love that."  Then I showed him Alma 7:11-15, talking about the Atonement and about baptism.  When we finished reading that, I asked him how he'd like to be clean and feel the Holy Ghost all the time.  He said that he "would love that."  "Well Bo, can we set a date for when you will be baptized?"  "Oh yes, I would love to do that!"  "Well how about April 10th, that'll give you time to come to church a few times and recieve all the lessons you need to recieve."  "Oh yes!  That would be wonderful!"  So April 10th is the day folks.  He's pretty excited and willing to do all he needs to do to prepare himself for that day.  But it was so cool being able to set a baptismal date at the temple!  I can gurantee that that doesn't happen too often.  It was really awesome.  There probably isn't a better place to do it than at the temple, the spirit is always there!  And also Tim came to the temple.  He actually almost dropped us this week too, that was scary.  He just felt crowded by all the church stuff he does.  He really does spend alot of time with us and at church and FHE and institute and things like that, but he was pretty flustered that day and almost dropped us.  Thankfully he didn't.  But he too came to the baptism and the temple.  He thought the baptism was really neat and enjoyed witnessing that and he really enjoyed the temple too.  He did say at the temple he didn't feel anything different  unfortunately.  He is such a good guy though but we need to figure out a way to explain the Holy Ghost to him and help him realize he has felt it several times.  But he said he wasn't bored and that he enjoyed the peace and quiet there and thought it was a really neat looking building.  But I was one happy missionary that day, having 2 investigators at the temple and setting a baptismal date with one of them.  How cool.  I was a little sad though that I may not be able to do anything while I was at the temple but a member of the bishopric wanted me to be able to go through a session before we went home so that was really nice of him.  It was another spiritual and sacred experience for me.  I love the temple.  The Chicago temple really has found a place in my heart.  It's a good one!  

 

So the baptism this Saturday was actually the sisters baptism.  They cover singles ward with us and the girl they had baptized, Shylina, is a super cool girl.  So we actually were the ones who "sparked her interest" and caused her investigating to begin about a month and a half ago.  She's a very close friend of a guy in the singles ward and he felt that it would be better for the sisters to teach her, so they took the reigns from there.  But it was a really neat baptismal service and there were 4 other investigators there, 2 of ours, 2 of the sisters.  So cool.  There's some statistic, I have no idea what it is though, but regardless, investigators who attend a baptismal service are more likely to be baptized themselves.  So we're praying and hoping for the best!

 

So some more good news!  Martin has a new baptismal date!  We're exercising our faith and praying that he will be able to get an online accounting job and only have to work part time at Wal-Mart, thus allowing him to come to church and be baptized into activity instead of inactivity!  His date is for April 24.  He's so excited.  He was so excited that when we were there at his apartment and he went to cut up some fruit for us in his kitchen and he was talking out loud "I need to be baptized!" as he was cutting up our fruit.  It was great.  But President Barrett really feels that this is the answer and that this will be the best thing for him and it will allow him to be baptized.  If President says that's the way, then that is the way! 

 

Hmmm what else...well Fidentio, Donnette, Carol, Abe, and everyone else we are working with are doing great too.  I can't believe how busy we are!  We had interviews with President this Friday and he is really excited to see so much happening in Madison and is really pleased with the way the work is going.  As are we, we can hardly keep up with it!  But thank goodness for prayer and for planners and awesome members.  We tried to set a date with Donnette for April 17 but she prayed about it and doesn't feel that that's right and she wants to be baptized in June or July.  Well, that's plenty of time for her to lose interest in the church and we don't want that!  So we're kind of at a brickwall with her that we can't plow through.  Fidentio still rocks, it's really annoying teaching him with that girl there though, she again threw our plans out of wack and started talking about deep doctrine that an investigator really doesn't need to hear.  But he thought it was cool, so luckily it didn't cause contention or anything, but it is distracting to our main focus points of the lesson.  Carol is still wonderful.  She wants to quit smoking and is starting to pray again.  She stopped doing that for a long time and is starting that back up again, it's great.  She is a strong and receptive woman, it is definetely great to be able to teach her.  And Abe, he's still the best non-member Mormon there is!!  Hasn't prayed still, but soon is what he said. 

 

And the weather sure has been sweet here!  It's been in the 60's a few days here this week.  We broke the bikes out and rode around finally.  That was sweet.  I like riding bikes.  The flowers are starting to come out and 99% of the snow is gone.  Spring is here!  New life and new exciting times and experiences lie ahead.  And even better, I asked President if I would be in Madison 1 more transfer and he said that since we have so much going on and lots of people we need to baptize, he feels pretty positive, but that he'll "leave it up to the Lord."  So hopefully I'll be here at least 1 more!!  Transfers are on April 15. 

 

Oh man!  So one more highlight of my week.  So in interviews, president turns his phone on and plays a message for me that he just got.  It was Elder Olsen (my MTC companion) and Elder Nygard!  Elder Olsen left him a message saying that they just set a date with a lady me and Elder Wessely found!!!  President called them back in my interview and turned the phone on speaker mode and i heard the whole conversation.  It was awesome.  And it's a pretty solid date too it sounds.  She has prayed to know if the church is true and has recieved the answer in the affirmative manner.  Man, I was so happy!  My seed planting up there in the U.P. is being harvested by my best friend and MTC companion.  How cool!!  And Blake called me on Saturday night and told me more about it.  It's so cool.  I love being a missionary, I'm almost always happy!  This is such a great work.

 

Well folks, I think I've scraped the bottom of the bucket on news.  Keep being the great people you are and know that you are loved. 

 

I love you!

Elder Jesse Merrill Kissell

 

pictures

 

 

1. Our version of a motivational poster.  COMMITMENT- Those that dare to venture experience the greatest rewards.  

 

 

2. Driveway of a "Mormon neighborhood" in Madison.  Nicknamed "Little Provo."

 

 

3. My companion is a creep!

 

 

4. Martins temple picture in his apartment!

 

 

5. So this was the day it started out at like 58 degrees and then the temperature dropped substantially and 

started snowing in the evening.  We were totally not prepared.  BRRRR!!!!

 

 

6. Me looking at the biggest snowman I've ever seen.  Even after a week of being 60 degrees!
 

 

7. Look at how massive this thing is.  We talked to a guy walking by and he said it used to be taller than the house.  Woah!!!

I LOVE MY MISSION!

Hey everyone!

 

So holy cow... this week has been crazy!!  Crazy awesome, crazy busy, and crazy spiritual.  Not even joking, we had appointments all day and everyday.  I have never been so busy yet in my mission and neither has Elder Roberts who is almost going home.  It's been so cool.  I really have no idea how we became so busy but it's so cool!  Just for fun the other day I counted all the people we are currently working with.  We are working with 13 different people.  10 of them are investigators!  Holy cow!  Talk about a busy set of elders without a car.  But this week we got some rides with the Spanish elders and some ward members, greatly appreciated.  The buses are still pretty lame and slow.  But when we did ride them this week, i wasn't punched by anymore crazy people!  Haha.  But let me tell you a bit more about our killer week.

 

Tommy, the cool YSA investigator we met last week, his appointment actually fell through.  But we did talk to him briefly about the church and set up a time for this week.  He seems like a sweet guy.  Bummer the appointment fell through.  But we met with Donnette twice this week, both times they were really wonderful lessons.  We taught alot about commandments, Chastity, Word of Wisdom, tithing, etc.  She's such an interesting lady and is so stinkin smart.  She reads and reviews everything before we come over in her Gospel Principles book.  She loves learning and really can't stop.  We tried setting a date for baptism with her again, but it didn't fly again.  We didn't really do it in a bold way though, so next lesson, we're going to be straight up and spiritual about a baptismal date when we teach and testify about the gospel of Jesus Christ lesson.  We know and feel it will go well.  She wants to be baptized, so we aren't being overbearing, we're just setting that date for a more motivational way to get her in gear to prepare herself for that huge step.  Tim is SO CLOSE to finding his testimony.  We also met with him twice this week.  We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and he said that he really felt something that day and felt like a stronger and better person because of it.  Yesterday we went over and just tried to help him find his testimony which he has.  He's starting to find it and this next week or so we'll be continuing to help him find it.  This Saturday the sisters have a baptism of a super cool YSA girl and Tim is excited to go to that and see what it's all about and what will be happening to him.  He says he will be baptized definetely, but he just hasn't felt/found his testimony yet.  But he's SO close.  Also on Saturday there is another temple trip that Tim seems more willing and excited to go on than the previous one.  So hopefully he chooses to go on this one.  Martin is still super.  I actually went with Pres. and Sis. Barrett and one of the assistants to his appointment on Thursday night.  They were all in town for zone conference.  But they all loved Martin so much and thought he was such a great man.  Pres. Barrett being one of the most spiritual and inspired men i know, said that he knows Martin will be baptized and that doors will be opened to him.  He doesn't know what, he doesn't know when, but he knows something will happen and that he will be baptized.  Martin was super excited to hear that and is waiting excitedly for that day.  We, elder Roberts, Pres. Barrett, Martin and I all had a fast for Martin to have doors opened for him and blessings to come to him.  It was really awesome and hopefully these doors will be opened quickly.  He's such a cool guy and so deserving of all these blessings.  Especially baptism and being sealed with his family for eternity.  Isn't the church awesome?  Fidentio, I think i told you about him, he is doing super great too.  He is a friend of a less active/returning member in the YSA ward.  He would actually be attending the first ward though since he is too old to be in the YSA ward, but he isn't really that old, in his mid 30's.  But he is so excited to learn and so accepting!  Yesterday we taught him and we asked him how and what he feels about the church.  And he goes "Well that's funny you bring that up because i was just about to ask you something right along those lines.  Whenever I read the Book of Mormon, go to church, or listen to church music, i get butterflies in my stomach and just get so happy.  Is that what the Holy Ghost feels like?"  You have no idea how big I was smiling right then and how badly i just wanted to jump up and shout for joy and give him a high 5.  He has changed his life drastically this week he was telling us and has quit groups and cut ties to people he knows have and will continue to lead him on bad paths.  We didn't even ask him to.  He just said that he has never felt so happy in his life since being introduced to the church and wants to do all that he can to keep that happiness.  We told him it could be increased and he thought that sounded pretty darn good.  We were going to set a date with him last night, but right when we were going to set a specific date, his friend said that it doesn't matter when you get baptized and that he should probably wait longer and investigate for a few months before he is baptized.  No, don't say that!!  We were a little annoyed by that, so we're going to pull her aside sometime and ask her to support him and encourage him to be baptized as soon as possible and to not wait.  Of course he'll do it when he's prepared, but he is prepared and there is no need to wait.  He's so cool.  Oh and he's a professional cook and he cooked us dinner last night, probably the best meal I've had on my mission.  It was mega good.  We also finally started teaching an "eternigator", an investigator who has been investigating for a really long time.  He's in the singles ward also.  But he's such a good guy, he comes to church, institute, and FHE every week.  He does opening and closing prayers every now and then, plays the piano for meetings, comments on lessons, answers questions, has a leather bound set of scriptures including the Book of Mormon, and really is like the nicest guy you could ever meet.  He was actually the one to set up the meeting because he has never really wanted to set up a time to meet with us when we do the asking.  So we were super excited.  We a really sweet lesson about praying to know if the church is true.  He says whenever he prays, he knows he needs to ask that.  He knows he'll get an answer too that it's true, but he always steers away from asking the question straight up because he knows he'll have to do something with the answer he gets.  He's such a good guy!!  He needs to be baptized!  But we committed him to pray specifically to find out if the church is true and he sat there silently for a few moments and looked up at us and said "soon."  Well, that is a step in the right direction!  But he will do it and he will be baptized, it's only a matter of time.  We also inherited an investigator from the Spanish elders.  I'll be honest, I don't know how far he'll go.  But I will give him as fair of a chance to accept the gospel as everybody else.  He is a guy that has and is definetely involved in the wrong crowd.  He is pretty messed up from marijuana and is really spacy and totally not with it alot.  He's a funny guy, but is really tough to teach.  He does read though, which is cool, and loves the Book of Mormon.  Whenever we read something with him he goes "wow!  Now that's deep right there!"  Every time haha.  He's kind of less accountable but accountable but accountable enough to be baptized.  

So zone conference was this week, it was really cool, probably my favorite since being out.  President talked alot about repentance.  Repentance not only for our investigators, but for ourselves.  One question he posed is how can we expect our investigators to repent when we ourselves haven't repented?  I thought that was a powerful statement.  So i really try my hardest to be a good guy and when i do slip up, to repent.  Even the little things I'm starting to feel ashamed of now.  I'm definetely seeing the blessings of being repentant.  Repentance is such an amazing gift to us.  I love the atonement.  

 

And guess what else happened this week?  I got to meet and listen personally to an ordained apostle of the Lord, Elder D. Todd Christofferson.  It was so cool.  Right when he walked in and was standing in front of me, i just got teary eyed and really just got hit by a ton of bricks how amazing and miraculous that standing before me was an APOSTLE of God!  And man, if that wasn't enough, I got to shake his hand!  And i sat about 10 feet away from him in our meeting in the chapel.  It was a really amazing message that he shared with us and it was so cool being in that room.  The thing that he said that really stuck out to me the most was that when we enter our missions (this can apply to everyone, not just missionaries), we enter in debt to the Savior because of his Atonement.  All of us had to repent and be worthy and clean to come out here.  The only way to do that is to go through our Saviors Atonement.  In our missions, we have really tough trials, like investigators dropping off the face of the earth for 3 weeks, and we have to rely on the Lord even more and use his Atonement even more, thus putting us even more in debt to the Savior.  He said that when we leave our missions, we will be in even more debt to the Savior and that we should continue to get even deeper and deeper as our life goes on.  Elder Christofferson said that this isn't very good worldy economics, but it is superb spiritual economics.  So we will never be able to repay the Lord, he loves us so greatly.  We will never understand.  

 

This week has been amazing.  I've loved every minute of it.  Lots of growth, lots of fun, a trial here and there to make me stronger, and really just a lot of thought on how grateful I am to be out here.  It's been so sweet and I've learned and grown so much.  I still can't believe how busy we are, but i surely won't complain.  I just really really wish we had a car, it would be so much easier!!  But, it's rocked and we hope to keep it going.

 

Hugs and kisses!

Elder Kissell

 

pictures

 

 

1.  Hey!!  Look who it is!  (there was a ton of missionaries at Elder Christofferson's thing and he got to come down!  Cool!)

 

 

2.  My MTC roomates!

 

 

3.  My mission mom and dad!  My trainer/dad, good old Elder Turney, and my mom, Elder Turney's companion before me, Elder Ferris.  And I'm their kid.  :)

 

 

4.  My MTC companion and now Elder Nygards companion Elder Olsen.  Talk about a big kid!

How do we get so blessed?

Well howdy folks!

 

So this week was pretty darn sweet.  We have been blessed with MORE super sweet investigators!  We now have Carol, Sidentio, and Tommy.  So cool!  Carol is a referral from the 2nd ward elders who found her on the bus, Sidentio is a referral from a member, and Tommy is a guy we found walking down the road.  They all seem super solid and excited to learn about the gospel.  Carol is an excommunicated Jehovahs Witness who is friends with a recent convert in the area who used to be a Jehovahs Witness.  She has had a pretty crazy life and is pretty lost right now, but she knows that she has found something (the church) that will greatly help her.  Sidentio is a friend of a less active YSA girl and is SO excited to learn about the gospel and is super accepting and just rocks.  He also says that he feels like he's coming home and that he has already made drastic changes in his life so that he can be more accepting of the gospel and baptism.  And Tommy, don't know alot about him, but he's a college kid, doesn't like being a Lutheran, and he wants to learn more about our church!  Isn't that sweet?!  So throw on 3 more super cool investigators to our already pretty full teaching pool and you have some busy elders named Elder Kissell and Elder Roberts!!

 

But i'll give you the low-down of our other investigators and then tell you a pretty sweet bus story, haven't had one of those in a while!  But Martin is still amazing, still a wonderful man.  We had a lesson with him Thursday and took Bishop over.  We told him in a message bishop would be coming but he didn't get that message and he was super excited and honored to have bishop in his place, it was pretty cool how excited he was.  But something we noticed very quickly is that he had hung his temple picture up in his apartment in plain view and when we read from the scriptures a little bit, i glanced over at his quad and he had been underlining and highlighting things already!  He's so cool.  I love Martin.  Still no Sundays off yet, we're praying every chance we get that he will recieve that blessing.  He knows he'll get them off someday.  

 

Tim is still great too.  We had some really sweet lessons with him this week.  We taught him twice actually this week.  The second lesson we taught him was probably one of the best lessons ever though.  We watched Special Witnesses of Christ, a movie i had never seen before, and discussed it afterwards and me and Elder Stribling (we were on exchanges) both started crying way hard when we were bearing our testimonies.  It was so cool and the spirit was so ridiculously strong.  I felt kind of lame though, i couldn't even talk for a few minutes without blubbering and spilling the tear buckets so luckily I had a little time to get ahold of myself and talk for a little bit, i still cried though!:)  But it was a super sweet lesson and movie and Tim expressed his love and deep appreciation for the Atonement.  He has really started to realize, i think, that he has a testimony of the gospel.  He says he has definetely seen blessings come into his life since he started meeting with us.  He still is a little weary of having a date, but we got significantly closer to one this week.

 

Dawnette is still crazy awesome.  We taught her twice this week as well.  We taught her the first time about the organization of the church and why it's so important that it is the way it is.  And the next lesson we taught her the first half of the plan of salvation.  She is so smart and so curious and SO COOL!  She really does have her mind set on being baptized in a river and so i guess we'll have to wait till they thaw out a bit!  But yeah, she's so on top of things all the time, always reading, always praying, and just doing super good things with her life.  She's an awesome woman.

 

Tessa and Derek, not really sure how they're doing, we weren't able to get ahold of them this week.  But Tessa did come to church yesterday, second time in a row!  So that's cool.  She's a shy girl and being able to see her come is a big achievement in and of itself.  

 

Alright, so cool bus story time!  So we had to catch a bus going northwest, so we got one at a transfer point and got on and there weren't very many people on.  There was like 2 other people on the bus.  There was a black guy who came up and started talking to us.  He was totally drunk and we could hardly understand a word he was saying.  Me and Roberts sat across the aisle from each other, so not on the same seat.  But anyway, he was telling us how disrespectful kids were these days and he was telling us a story of some that were just on the bus and they were being rude towards him.  We said that we were sorry about that and that it's sad that there's so much disrespect in the world now days.  And then he was just talking to us some more, couldn't understand anything he was saying really, so we just nodded our heads and smiled.  Then for some reason, he started trying to punch elder Roberts!  He was just trying to hit his upper arm, but he totally missed the first 2 times and then he hit his hand really hard on the seat the 3rd time and started cussing up a storm and clutching his hand, serves him right though!  A few minutes pass, then he asks me if the bus comes by the stop we were at again and i told him "yeah, it probably will eventually."  But apparently, i said the wrong thing because then he was just saying really rude things and cussing and stuff and he was just super mad for some reason.  Then a few more minutes pass in silence, and then, he punches me!!!  Not hard, but it was a pretty solid thump on the back of my shoulder.  It was so weird and pretty funny.  I didn't get too worried about it, he was drunk.  And then, some college girls got on and he went and sat SUPER close to one of them.  It was so so creepy.  I felt bad for her.  And then another one got on with a bag of grocery's, she put it on the seat next to her, and then he comes over, moves the bag of grocerys, and sits next to her!  Man, talk about a creepy guy!  But yeah, that was about the point where we had to get off.  What a crazy place Madison is.

 

So me and Elder Roberts started doing a thing this week to get us to open our mouths and talk to more people.  At first it started off as an individual competition but now it's a companionship one, so that's good.  But we started out by saying whoever gets the most invites in a week has to buy the other one lunch at the end of the week.  Those days that we were doing that  i was winning, but i kind of got the feeling we were doing this for the wrong reason.  So we revised our competition and made it a companionship deal and to set a lofty goal for the week of how many people we wanted to talk to, and if we made that goal, we would go somewhere good, but not too expensive to eat at the end of the week.  And also to get more sweet investigators.  In fact, this was the way we found Tommy, by talking to people walking down the road!  It really is intimidating, just to let you know, seeing thousands of college students walking the streets and you having the knowledge that you're supposed to talk to as many of them as you can about the gospel.  It's hard!  And alot of them could totally care less.  So it's easy to just walk down the street and not talk to anybody.  But that always leaves a bad feeling inside of you that is hard to take away.  So we'll be talking to more people this transfer and consequently having more sweet people to teach!

 

The weather has been getting warmer here!  42 degrees!  Woohoo!  And with the warm weather it seems that there are more crazy people coming out.  One guy came up to us downtown and told us that we were wasting our time worshipping Jesus and people like George Bush (random...) who he says is the son of Satan and that we should be worshipping the Egyptian dog God!  I'll be honest, it's really hard to not laugh when people say things like that to you and are being serious, but i did it without laughing though, luckily.  But we just told him that many people have conflicting views and ideas, just like this, and that we as missionaries were out sharing a message to the world about Jesus Christ, the creator of all things.  He didn't like that all too much, but luckily right then our bus pulled up and we had to go.  There was another guy too who took 25 minutes to tell us our church was a fraud.  It was annoying because he wouldn't let us get a word in edgewise and by the time he was done talking, we had to go.  I just need to keep reminding myself I need to love these people and to keep being Christlike.  

 

But, that was our fun week!!  Hope all is well back home and abroad, wherever you are.  Thanks for all your prayers and for being such an awesome family and such great friends.  

 

Love you!

Elder Kissell

 

pictures!

 

 

1.  Majority of the Madison zone.

 

 

2.  Dodgeball champs, Kissell and Hofmeister.  Oh yes.  Disregard elder Roberts in the background.  But let me explain our version of dodgeball to you.  It's every man for himself and you have to get EVERYBODY out in order to win.  It's super hard.  But boy is it satisfying when you win:)  We were playing for 3.5 hours last pday and only played 3 games.  I won once and Hofmeister won twice.  So sweet!

 

 

3.  The Campus missionaries. 

 

 

4.  I made this tie at FHE out of felt and hot glue.  Cool huh?

 

 

5.  My old district!

 

 

6.  Pink tie collection! (feel free to contribute.)

 

 

7.  Laundry on pday morning.

LOADED week!

Hey folks!

 

Well, this week was 110% better than last week!  Sorry i was so depressed and stuff in my last letter, but it was a really hard past couple of weeks.  I really wasn't myself for those weeks and it just wasn't fun.  I was always stressing and worrying about lost investigators.  But, let me enlighten you on our super bomb week!

So Monday, the day i sent my depressing email, WE FOUND MARTIN!!!!!!!  HOORAY!!!!! That night as we were planning, it'd been a while since we last tried to call him, and i figured why not call him?  So, i hit the call button, and as many times as it was ringing, i expected to get his answering machine.  But then, probably the last ring before the answering machine, he answered in his classic way, "Hello Kissell!"  Best 2 words I've heard in a LONG time!!!  But his story as to why he dropped off the face of the earth was he ran out of money to pay his cell phone and rent bills and so his phone was turned off for a while.  He saw that we were calling but couldn't take our calls but could listen to our messages and stuff.  But turns out I called on the day when his phone was turned back on and i called right when he got home from working.  Luck?  I think not.  But now sadly he has to work on Sundays again and won't be able to come to church.  He was able to come every other sunday and work afterwards.  But the few hours he would take off on those every other Sundays added up and he ran out of money to pay his essential bills.  So now we're back to square one again.  He needs to not work at Wal Mart!!  Lame place.  He is looking for other jobs and doing all that he can to not have to work on Sunday.  He is still just as golden and awesome as ever and faithful and God trusting as ever, so I know that the Lord will help him out and give him other work opportunities.  

 

Also on Monday, we taught our new investigator Dawnette.  She's way sweet.  She is very smart and knowledged in the gospel. She has listened to the Book of Mormon on tape i think twice now and she wants to be baptized.  She knows the church is true and is super.  The catch, i think i told you this last week, is she wants to be baptized in a river!  Well just for fun this week, we walked by a river and it's pretty darn frozen still.  You can walk on it!  So, we really need to find a way to tell her that she needs to be baptized ASAP and not wait for the river to thaw because satan is bad and can change investigating hearts in an instant and that could happen by the time the ice melts.  But she is really sweet and nice.  She's 58 and pretty blind.  Legally blind.  But she can still see things i think.  She was found by our ward mission leader, who's a younger guy, and she absolutely loves him.  It's kind of funny, she says that he has an aura around his face and that "he is a seeker of souls."  She paints and told us she's painting a picture of him.  I'm interested to see it!!

 

Our ward mission leader also told us Monday night that one of the recent converts in 1st ward, Bro. Ellisberg, found out that he had cancer in his spine, eyes, and lungs and had about 4-6 months to live.  Elder Barker, my last companion, was one of the missionaries that had a big part in his conversion.  He'd been investigating the church for 20+ years.  But i just got to thinking how special life is and how crazy it would be to know that you only had 4-6 months to live.  I also think it's super special that he was able to be baptized in November and recieve that saving ordinance.  Now, the bishopric has made a request to the first presidency to see if he could go through the temple and be sealed to his wife.  Converts usually have to wait a year to go to the temple.  But this is a special case obviously and i sure hope that he'll be able to.  But long story short, don't take life for granted.  Live life to the fullest every day and have no regrets.  I've been trying to do that this past week as a missionary.  Time continues to fly by for me and i don't want to look back on my mission and think that i could've tried harder or been better in any way.  So, try and do that.  Be the best you can be every single day and be happy about life!

 

So Tim is doing good too.  I think he's getting closer to knowing that he has a testimony.  We had a couple lessons with him this week and both rocked.  The first we had with him, we watched The Testaments and talked about Christ and his life and really the role and necessity of having a Savior.  He loved The Testaments and cried at the end, as do I.  It's a really powerful movie right there at the end and the spirit is mega strong.  The other lesson we had with him was all about the Atonement.  We brought a member with us who is super sweet with a testimony stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger.  We watched the Lamb of God which shows the last week of Christs life and shows alot about the Atonement.  Then we shared scriptures and the rest of the time, about 40 minutes, it was just straight testimony from me, Elder Roberts, and Todd.  Can i just say that the spirit was there so strongly you could poke it?  It rocked.  We told him that this church was the only true church and that baptism in this church was truly the only way to salvation and a clean slate, and you could tell that he felt something in that statement.  Still no date yet, but we're getting there, inch by inch.  

 

So guess who came to Milwaukee on Thursday?  Well, you'll probably never guess because it's so unexpected, so i'll tell you!  Elder L. Tom Perry!!!  Sweet!!!  The Madison zone WAS invited to attend, but there has been too many missionary car accidents this winter that President Barrett told all the other zones invited to attend to stay home and watch it be broadcasted at the stake centers.  Dang!!  So only 2 zones, about 50 missionaries, were in the same chapel as Elder Perry.  I was so pumped to go!  But President is an inspired man, so i'll listen to him.  There were other cool people there too like Elder Hansen (area authority),  Elder Hallstrom (presidency of the Seventy), and of course Elder Perry.  All there talks were super great.  President Barrett spoke on inviting with faith and love, investigators to be baptized.  Elder Hansen spoke on diligent service in the work of the Lord.  Elder Hallstrom spoke on that too in addition to how amazing it is to have priesthood authority and one of the most experienced and knowledgeable apostles in the room with us.  And then Elder Perry gave a super talk on priesthood authority.  Super awesome and spiritually packed 2 hours.  It truly is amazing to think, and know, that there really is a true, real, prophet on earth today.  5000 years ago it was Moses, today it's Thomas S. Monson!  So cool.  Elder Perry is a funny guy though.  He was talking about and telling us how a new prophet is called.  He told us that it was always the senior apostle that was called.  Elder Perry is second in line to only Elder Packer who is getting up there.  He told us "I watch Elder Packers blood pressure like you wouldn't believe!"  I guess being a prophet is pretty tough work!  He sure is an awesome guy though and has lots of wisdom and good analogys and stories.  Every time i hear a general authority speak, i just know that the church is true.  The thing that i love most about this church is that it just makes sense.  That's all there is to it.  I'm a guy who doesn't think too deeply and when i have a general authority reaffirm the fact in many different ways that the church is simple and just makes sense makes me feel better about myself and my way of thinking.

 

Friday was sweet too!  We started teaching some old investigators who are good friends with a member family.  It was a sweet lesson, although kind of hard to teach when there are 6 kids under the age of 10 running around!  But awesomely enough, right when I started talking about Joseph Smith, it got quiet and the spirit came flowing into the home.  So sweet!  But that lesson rocked there the last 20 minutes.  This couple, Derek and Tessa, really opened up to us and expressed concerns that they had not previously expressed to past missionaries and we were able to address those concerns.  It was a super awesome lesson.  And right after this lesson, we had one with Martin!!!  This lesson was sweet!!  We gave him a bunch of stuff just in case he disappears again.  We gave him articles about Ghana mom printed off for him a long time ago, Ensigns, Ghana temple picture, and the quad!!!  So we gave him the articles and Ensign first, he was pretty happy about those, excited to see what the articles were about Africa.  Then we gave him the temple picture, he was significantly surprised and excited to see that!  Then we built up the suspense and excitement about the quad for a few minutes and then pulled that out of my backpack.  Martin shot through the roof when he saw that!!!  Man!!  And then, he saw that his name was on it... Holy cow!!  He was so excited.  He was clutching it to his chest, flipping through the pages, raising it high up in the air, and everything.  He LOVES it.  He asked who got it for him and what he could do to thank them.  I told him it was all Mom but she was in Washington.  He then promptly asked for your number mom and wrote it IN HIS SCRIPTURES so he could call you and thank you for them!!  Did he call you?!?!  But after the excitement died down a little, we had an in depth discussion on faith to overcome trials. His trial right now obviously being work.  It was great.  He'll get a good job, we know it!  And so does he.  

 

Sunday was good, 3 of our 5 investigators were there.  Tim, Dawnette, and Tessa.  Martin and Tessa's husband Derek are the only ones who didn't make it out.  We'll work on that!!  They'll be able to overcome trials and worrys here in no time and sooner or later, will be baptized and brought to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Transfer calls came on Saturday...I'M STAYING!!!!  So i'll be here in Mad-town for at least another 6 weeks, but then i think i'll be out of here.  Who knows though.  

 

But i just wanted to thank all who have been praying for me and for my investigators.  I've absolutely needed those prayers and faith to stay and become happy once more and to be able to work harder.  Martin is back, thanks to prayers.  Tim is getting closer to baptism.  Dawnette is awesome.  And Derek and Tessa have been brought back into the teaching pool.  I'm going to keep the momentum we have rolling on through this next week and the start of this transfer.  It'll be rockin here in Mad-Town!!

 

Love you tons and tons!

Elder Jesse Kissell

 

pictures!

 

1.  so i figured that you haven't had any weird faced Jesse pictures for a while, i'll send you some today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  so the only reason i like this picture is that my eyes look super blue... cool huh?

 

 

3.  Outside the temple with Devin and Chia!

 

 

4.  the lamb stew we made last Monday.  Super good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Buffalo Wild Wings after Elder Perry, yum!

 

 

6.  Martin's bundle of joy surprises, complete with the testimonies of 4 missionaries.  Sweet!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.  The Chicago temple at night!  My camera stinks at night pictures...sorry!

 

 

8.  Elder Roberts' workout plan...revised by me!!  Haha :)