Elder Jesse Kissell: 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

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