The Sweet Life of Elder Kissell

Dear Family and friends-

 

Howdy!  Well, this week was planned to be an eventful one, but unfortunately, it was not. :(  Martin wasn't baptized and neither was Donnette.  Martin was supposed to look for an online job this week and our lesson with him last Saturday was SUPER good and all who were present felt the confirmation that he would be able to find a job this week IF he looked for one.  Well, there's that IF.  He spent like 2 hours looking for a job the entire week.  So that was a pretty huge bummer.  And through talking to him, it seems as if he expects a job to fall right into his lap but it unfortunately won't happen that way.  Things like this especially you have to work for.  And right now, he isn't really exuding any effort.  So that was a crusher for sure.  It would be awesome if we could just spend an entire day with him looking with him, but we have other work to do and Pres. Barrett and ourselves agree that there is more work to be done elsewhere in Madison and it would be unreasonable to spend a whole day or two with him looking.  So keep Martin in your prayers that he will get that motivation to look and be able to get a job. 

 

Donnette wasn't swayed either by us bringing the fact up that her family was going to be here for Stake Conference and that she should be baptized then.  She REALLY wants to be baptized in a river.  And not just any river, she wants the Mississippi.  AHHH!!!!  And still on July 17.   She's one focused woman.  And Pres. Barrett was there for Stake Conference and was able to talk to her about baptism and that it is just as good, maybe even better, to be baptized in a font rather than a river.  Donnette just looked at him and nodded her head and just kept talking about rivers.  So, I guess it'll be the river unless something miraculous happens! 

 

Our contact with Bo is very minimal.  We see him once or twice a week.  He is really bad at keeping appointments now for one reason or another and he won't committ to finding a place of residency.  So that seems to be on hold as of now.  He's a good guy, strong testimony and all, I just wish that him and Martin would come to realize that they need to do just one more thing before they are baptized and ALL these other super great blessings will come as a result of doing just one more thing.  So keep these people in your prayers, they're oh so close! 

 

So needless to say, these events throughout the week have been trying my patience and I thought that my patience had been tested to the max when Martin disappeared a couple months ago.  Ahh!  But with every test, you learn something.  It's just like working out!  It hurts sometimes, but you come out stronger and by the end, you're super buff!  So right now, and throughout the rest of the mission, I imagine I'll be getting tested and learning and growing lots and lots and having my testimony strengthened and fortified.  Awesome! 

But some other things that happened this week were zone conference and an All Campus Party!  Zone conference was good.  And guess what?  I played piano for it!  That was scary, but surprisingly, I didn't make any mistakes.  But now my secret is out in the mission, I can play piano!  That's no good...  So now I'll have to play at everything.  But it's cool because I started out in Marquette being a really bad piano player who hadn't played in 4-5 years and now I'm able to play fairly decently.  Cool.  Zone conferences was really good though.  The theme this time was on prayer.  And strangely enough, the focus at stake conference was on prayer too!  So I had a prayer filled week/weekened.  Prayer is super awesome and can indeed work miracles.  Just think about it.  When we pray, we talk to our Heavenly Father, the father of not only us, but the father of Jesus Christ, the creator of worlds!  We get to talk to him whenever we want!  And when we pray, we are able to ask him questions of the soul (truthfulness of the gospel, Book of Mormon, etc.), we can ask him for help and guidance in our lives, and we are able to repent through prayer.  So many great things.  Repentance is especially amazing because think of how great it feels to truly repent and feel clean and feel that burden taken off your chest.  It feels great!  Only through sincere prayer can that happen.  And it's just so special because Heavenly Father knows each one of us individually.  I'm serving in a city of 210,000, Blake is in a town of 25,000, and Clark is in a city of millions of people and Heavenly Father knows each and every one of those people individually.  How special!  Prayer is awesome.  Elder Bradley Foster of the Seventy, he spoke at General Conference as well, was the general authority at the Stake conference and he had some really great words on prayer.  It was super!

 

The All Campus Party was pretty exciting.  It was a week long thing put on by the University since the semester is coming to a close and one day the main event was an obstacle course throughout all the churches on campus in Madison!  It started out looking like there was going to be 150-200 people participating but rapidly dropped for some reason and we ended up with around 30 people participating.  But the students would all go through the various churches and have to do an obstacle and then run to the next church and do something there.  So the Institute building is a really long ways away from all the other churches but technically still on campus, so it was funny because all these college kids are huffing and puffing by the time they get to the church.  The obstacle at our church was launching water balloons at gophers!  Wisconsins rivals are the Minnesota Golden Gophers, so we had these gopher things that they had to hit with water balloons, it was sweet.  Working on campus is so cool!!

 

Well, I'm out of news folks.  I think this is an average sized letter, maybe, hopefully I'll have some more exciting news next week!  Hopefully Martin finds a job or something awesome like that.  Thanks for being the best family and friends ever!

 

Love

Elder Jesse Kissell

 

pictures

 

1.  Elder Roberts has shin splints!  My hours of sports medicine is paying off!

 

 

2.  We found these in our storage unit.  And there was a Book of Mormon one!  Cool!

 

3.  Throwing water balloons at gophers and eating brats for the all campus party.  How Wisconsin-y!  Brats are goooood.  And super bad for you! :)

 

 

4.  A beautiful blooming tree outside the Institute building. 

Springtime in Madison!

Dearest familia and friends-

 

Hey everybody!  So this week was pretty sweet.  Somewhat of a rollercoaster, but rollercoasters are fun!  Although everynow and then you get sick on a rollercoaster and unpleasant things happen, but it wasn't that kind of a rollercoaster this time! 

 

So Bo didn't get baptized, in fact, we've lost contact with him which stinks.  He dogged several of our appointments and we lost contact with him at the beginning of the week but we miraculously found him again riding the bus!  We took a bus that we don't usually take and lo and behold, we find him at the transfer point that we get off at.  We set up a time to meet with him and he showed up to that appointment but we haven't seen him since.  Not even at church or anything. The lesson we taught him was faith as a principle of action.  It was a good lesson, but the intent we had and tried to make known to him was that he has a ton of faith and so he should now use that faith to find a home.  He didn't really get it, we tried.  So yeah, I don't know what we'll do with him and when we'll see him again.  Missionary work, isn't it great?  

 

We had a super great lesson with Martin on Saturday night.  His date for this Saturday stands!  Providing he gets an online job so that he can go part-time at Wal-Mart and remain active after baptism.  So pray super hard for him this week!  We had the same lesson with him as we had with Bo, faith being a principle of action.  He has this computer that works great, but he just doesn't take the initiative and look for a job himself.  He just prays that one will miraculously appear.  So that shows his great faith, but unfortunately it won't do anything because things just don't work that way, usually.  You have to do something about your faith.  After all, it is an action word!  And fortunately, he got it.  But we already have his baptismal interview setup for Thursday and even if he finds a job Saturday morning before his baptism, he'll get baptized.  But if he hasn't found an online job, he probably won't be baptized this Saturday, but the next one.  But after our lesson, Elder Roberts and I felt super strongly that he could find a job this week if he but put a little effort into it.  It was a great lesson.  We read lots of Nephi's stories and how he would always "go and do" not "sit and wait."  It was sweet.

 

Oh man!  So guess who made a little trip through Wisconsin on Saturday?  .....Elder Oaks!!!  Isn't that sweet?  And a new 70 came with him, Elder Reall.  We've had 3 apostles come to Wisconsin in the past 2 months!  How sweet.  And no, it's not because we're disobedient and a bad mission.  Elder Perry came to talk to the missionaries, the bishops and ward mission leaders about the new ward mission cycle, Elder Christofferson was here for a stake conference and wanted to hold a meeting with us, and Elder Oaks was here for a stake conference as well and wanted to take some time to talk to us too.  Super sweet!  But Pres. Barrett didn't want missionaries traveling from other areas than Milwaukee so only the Milwaukee elders got to meet him and it was broadcast to all the other areas of the mission.  I was kind of jealous because Elder Oaks actually like talked to the elders and got to know them a little bit and he gave some of them hugs and high 5's and stuff.  Elder Christofferson shook our hands and said hello.  But hey, I'm not complaining, I got to shake an apostle of the Lord's hand!  But Elder Oaks gave a really great talk to us.  He's a super funny guy too, not something I can say I expected.  He's kind of like a toned down version of Elder Holland in conference, direct and to the point, but in our meeting, he was cracking jokes and giving elders high 5's!  So cool.  But some really great advice he gave us was 2 things to help us be the best missionaries we can be.  1) Have holy and habits and 2) Have righteous routines.  He said we can make whatever we want of that, but what he said in conjunction with that was to have daily prayer and scripture study, develop charity and love for the people in the area you serve, and keeping the rules.  He also said we should train ourselves to not call missionary work missionary work.  We should call it sharing the gospel!  When you say missionary work, you make it sound hard.  As a missionary you share with people the thing you love most in your life, the gospel!  And of course you do service and stuff, but we're called to share the gospel and establish the church in our areas.  I thought that was really neat.  Elder Oaks is a great man.  I really took alot from that meeting. 

So we found a new sweet investigator for the singles ward this week.  His name is Ryan and he requested a Book of Mormon online and is pretty interested in learning more about it.  He's a busy guy with school and all but we taught him a restoration lesson and he committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.  We hope to be able to set up a time with him again, he says he really wants to learn but right now he's trying to get into vet school and that's really tough and stressful so he says this week will probably be better for him to meet with us.  Hope so!  Because he's sweet.  He says you have to have a 3.96 GPA to get into vet school here!  That's a pretty smart person!  But it was kind of funny, that day we met him we were riding bikes and we locked our bikes up to a pole outside his apartment and then we went and taught him and stuff.  But when we came back out, somehow the combination on Elder Roberts' lock wasn't working and unfortunately we had locked both our bikes together with his lock onto this pole.  So that stunk.  But we decided we could worry about it later and went and did some more "sharing the gospel", not missionary work haha.  But a few hours later we decided we should try to do something about it.  We called a guy in the singles ward who unlocks peoples cars when they lock their keys inside or whatever but this lock was heavy duty and we couldn't even scratch it!  He said we could cut the sign down, but that probably would've been a bad idea and our bikes would still be locked together.  But just for fun, I moved the combination around a little bit and it unlocked!  It was super cool!  Missionaries, we're inspired!  Haha.  

 

But we have a few more promising media referrals to contact this week, college students too.  So that should be fun.  We've been thinking about going tracting in downtown Madison where all the college students live so we can get some more investigators, but it looks like we may not have to do that since we are getting so many media referrals from them.  

 

Well folks, I think I'm outta news.  Enjoy the springtime weather!  Hopefully it's as beautiful wherever you are as it is where I am!  I hear Madison is really beautiful in the summer time and it shows, there's lots of trees in bloom and getting their leaves and stuff.  And it's sweet, I haven't taken any pitures of it yet, but there are lots of pretty tulips around the capitol that are planted in star shapes.  It's super cool looking.  

 

Love ya'll!

Elder Jesse Kissell 

 

pictures

 

 

1.  Some Jesus the Christ reading action... I'm halfway there!!

 

 

2.  Grilled up some Caribou!  Yum!

 

 

3.  Looking down University Dr.

 

4.  Other way

 

 

5.  Our super cool old district!

I'm going to be here forever!

Hello!

 

Well guess what?  I'm going to be staying in Madison 1 more transfer!!  And probably much, much longer.  Elder Roberts goes home at the end of this transfer, so I'll be "killing" him!  That sure is a long time to be with a companion, 4 and a half months.  It's a good thing we get along super good or else I wouldn't be too thrilled about that.  But yeah since he goes home at the end of the transfer, I'll probably stick around another transfer after him to train another elder on the area and stuff but by the end of that transfer the new mission president will be here and I hear that they don't like to make too many changes.  So I could potentially be here throughout the summer!!!  How crazy would that be?!  It's pretty crazy if you ask me.  And also it's a good thing I love this area because again, I wouldn't be too thrilled about staying here for 9+ months if I didn't like the area.  So by the end of my time here in Madison, Martin, Bo, and Donnette should be baptized!  How cool!  And hopefully more of course.  But this week was pretty snazzy, so let me tell you about it.  Lots of cool and funny things...

 

So it was pretty rainy this week and it SNOWED!  How un-cool... It was in the high 70's last week and then it is snowing when we wake up, how sad.  But it only snowed like an inch and melted pretty quick and now it's back to being in the 60's.  So life is good.  But something cool weather related that I saw this week was lightning without thunder!  It was pretty exciting, lots and lots of lightning with no thunder.  Strange, but sweet.  Anyway, it was pretty rainy and it was good because all the sand and salt and junk they use on the roads here got washed away and it is now super green and clean and beautiful.  Just like the primary song "When I am Baptized"!  The earth has been made clean again.  Man, what a good song.  That's a song that I can't sing all the way through because of how sweet it is.  But yeah, I've heard Madison is really beautiful in the summer time, so I'm pretty pumped.

 

We found a new investigator this week!  Actually, he more found us.  He requested a missionary visit online.  Those are media referrals that you don't want to ignore!  But his name is Landis, he moved from Dubuque, IA and was meeting with elders down there and he wanted to continue doing that up here, so he requested us!  He's in his mid 20's and is a SUPER quiet and shy guy.  In our first lesson with him, he said like 20 words.  19 of those were "yes" and "no" and the 20th was a "maybe".  But luckily he has already made quite a few friends in the ward and we have heard him speaking full sentences to them.  He's on disability from the Army, he says he has seizures sometimes.  Who knows what happened, but that's kind of sad.  He went to Institute and to another of the sisters' baptisms this week.  Some members of the ward also invited him to hang out with them on a couple nights this week.  So he definetely is liked and his presence appreciated, so now we just need to baptize him I guess!  

 

So it was pretty funny one day we were walking around contacting less actives and potentials and stuff and an older couple pulls over and says "you the elders?"  "Yeah!" "Well we're in the 4th ward and we're going to get pizza, get in and you will too!"  How exciting!  But little did we know that we weren't going to get pizza in Madison, we were going to go out to the middle of nowhere to this little town called Oregon of all names.  He said that this was the best pizza he'd ever tasted before in his life and has been going there for 50 years.  He must not get out much... but we appreciated the free meal of course!  It was just a funny situation though, he was listening to this Irish drinking music really loud and him and his wife were both rocking out to it and we were driving out in the boonies past cow pastures and corn fields.  Who knew what our fate REALLY was!  But then he started talking about Pres. Barrett and the church so we knew he was a member then and then we finally pulled up to the pizza joint.  Funny people...

 

So Bo was actually supposed to be baptized on Saturday, but he didn't because he has not found a home yet.  We don't really know if he understands the importance of this, so we pound it into his head everytime we meet with him.  His date has been rescheduled to this Saturday, but honestly, he probably won't make it.  But I know he will soon!  This transfer for sure, but maybe not this wek or next.  He comes to church and institute and FHE and thinks it's great.  He is a really nice guy too, as nice as they come.  He shakes EVERYONE's hand that is in the room before he leaves.  It's kind of funny, he'll just go up and tap the person on the arm and shake their hand.   He's a goofy little guy.  

 

The majority of our other visits this week were to people who are results of the "Ward Mission Cycle", people who have been chosen by the bishop for us to go and see/teach.  Since we cover 2 wards, we are starting to get pretty busy with people.  That's always good though.  We are working with a guy who fell off the deep end in his teen years and is back now in full force and wants to get the Melchezidek priesthood.  We are working with a YSA in a similar situation, I may have mentioned him earlier, but he's super super cool.  Proabably one of my faves here in Madison.  He totally went less active, moved to Idaho, got in trouble with the law, and is back in Madison now and wants to be close to Christ and regain his testimony.  With both of these guys, they're both SO excited to be meeting with us and learning about the gospel.  It's really a huge joy and excitement to see how excited they are to relearn the gospel and strengthen their testimony.  So sweet.  The YSA guy, his name is Jake, he gave a talk at the sisters' baptism the other day and it was a very simple, but super super powerful talk because you could just tell it came from his heart and it was all him.  The gospel really has the power to change lives and it's so exciting to see the joy it brings to people.

So one more funny story I had this week, definetely a sweet journal entry haha.  So yesterday we were in the area of a less active lady and we swung by her place and she was home!!  Yay!  But she let us in, we shared a message, and she asked for a blessing.  Uh oh, neither of us had our oil!  I had run out, and Elder Roberts forgot his for one reason or another.  She said she had some olive oil that we could consecrate so we figured we would just consecrate some there on the spot.  Another problem, neither of us had our white handbooks to tell us how to consecrate oil!  So we had to call the Spanish elders and figured out how to do that.  Next problem, what were we going to put the oil in?  Well, how about a shot glass?  Oh man...  But this lady reassured us that liquor had never been in the shot glass and she washed it super well before giving it to us.  So then we poured a drop in, I consecrated it, and then we gave her a blessing.  She thanked us and before we headed on our way she asked if she could give US a message.  We said of course!  Well, her message was short and sweet, BE PREPARED!!  So needless to say, my oil vial is now filled and on our key ring and my white handbook is in my front pocket.  So hopefully we will never have to be in that awkward and embarassing situation again!  It was a good experience and a good lesson learned for the both of us.  

Well Martin is still doing well, still trying to get his computer(s) fixed so he can get a job.  They're both slower than slugs and it takes forever and a half to do anything.  His friend is taking a look at them today.  We're keeping the faith that a miracle will happen so he will be baptized on the 24th!!  We watched Special Witnesses of Christ with him on Friday and he totally loved that.  That was actually a really neat lesson.  Halfway through the video, guess who called him?  His kids!!  He was super excited and put his phone on speaker phone so we could here all his kids talking.  It was really neat.  He sure has alot of them!  And he loves each of them.  It was really special to hear and feel the love he has for them.  I so totally want him to have an eternal family.  That'd be so amazing.  Ahhh I love the gospel!  But after he was done talking to his kids, we finished the video.  It is really fun watching videos and saying prayers with him and stuff because he'll talk.  During prayers, he'll silently say things like "oh yes, Lord" or "yes Lord Jesus" and things like that.  And during videos, he'll talk to the TV!  It's great.  When all of the apostles and President Hinckley were talking, he would shout in joy "Yes, that's right!" or he would just shout "Yes!" really loudly, he's so cool.  At the end of that video though, the song "I Know My Redeemer Lives" is sung.  Somehow, he knew every word to that song and sang along with it!!  The spirit was so strong and everybody was just so happy.  That's why I love being a missionary!  It makes me happy.  That was a moment, another one, that I will always remember as a missionary, Martin singing along with "I Know My Redeemer Lives".  So cool. 

 

Well, my amazing family and friends, I love you.  I love being a missionary.  As I just said, it makes me happy.  When I come home at night, my feet are killing me and I just want to go to bed, but then as I sit on our super comfy couch and think about the day we just had, a smile is brought to my face of how I am a set apart missionary of Jesus Christ and that I am involved in the best work in the world right now and that I am bringing a fulness of joy to these people that I love.  By that time, that joy and spirit I am feeling overrides the fact that my feet are hammered and that I'm way tired.  I love being a missionary and I love this gospel!  It's the only true gospel on this earth!  I love it and I know that if we stick to it, eternal life with Christ and Heavenly Father and our family is ours.  How amazing.  

 

I Love You!!!

Elder Kissell  

 

pictures

 

 

1.  The capitol building is orange!  Isn't it cool how they change the color?  I think it is.

 

 

2.  What a name for a street eh?

 

 

3.  Everybody loves the Book of Mormon, even the campus statues!

 

 

4.  Like my new haircut?  Just kidding, the top is cut off too...

 

 

5.  Costco poppyseed muffins.  Purchased at the only Costco in miles around.  I love Costco!!

Conference is so sweet!

Hey everyone!!

 

Man, so how sweet was conference?!?!  It was so good!!  Definetely the best way to have spent a birthday weekend.  The talks were all so wonderful and they totally filled me with the spirit and made me feel so grateful to be a member of this church, being led by a prophet of the Lord.  So easily and without a doubt, Pres. Monsons Sunday morning talk was my favorite.  In fact, it was the best conference talk I have ever heard.  It was so so so good.  It had me crying by the end.  I just love Pres. Monson and the way he speaks, the stories he tells, and the evident love  he has for every one of us.  It is so wonderful to have him as our prophet.  But the message he shared, about the resurrection and life after death, if we ever had doubts or wondered about that, we should know now with a surety that there is life after death.  I myself knew that there is going to be life after we die, but after hearing the stories, scriptures, and prophetic knowledge that our beloved prophet spoke to us Sunday morning, I know without a doubt that I will live again after this life.  IT WAS SUCH A GOOD TALK!!!! READ IT!!!  But we were blessed to have 2 of our investigators attend conference with us.  We watched it at the institute building where all meals for both days would be provided.  Bo and Abe came and were able to watch it.  Bo was there every session except for priesthood and Abe I think saw 3 sessions.  It was really great.  Martin was invited by a member of the ward to watch it in their home with them but he was really sick this weekened and wasn't able to watch it, so that was a big bummer.  But we will definetely have to watch it, at least bits and pieces of it with him later on.  He would love listening to Pres. Monson.  He prays for him in his prayers, it's really cool.  

 

But man, this week flew by.  It was a really really warm week too.  It was in the 70's all the way up til Saturday so that was exciting.  We don't have to wear our suit jackets when it is above 70 degrees and after conference.  But yeah, it is getting warm!  The trees are starting to bud and the flowers are coming up and lots of exciting new life!  So it's kind of neat in Wisconsin, there are a lot of cardinals, the little red cool looking birds.  Have you ever heard one of those things?  They sound like lasers!  So we call them "laser birds", they're really cool.  When there's like 4 or 5 of them in an area and they start chirping or singing or what have you, it sounds like there's an arcade war going on!!  It's awesome.  

 

So we didn't actually have a ton of appointments this week, something we haven't been used to, free time!  But free time isn't good as a missionary so we had to find things to do and spend more time out and about instead of inside teaching.  But that's ok.  This week is looking about the same too, but hey, that means we can go tracting or street contacting and find some new investigators!  I haven't been tracting that much in Madison, but that's fine.  Although it would be neat to get some new investigators.  So Tim unfortunately totally dropped us this week.  That was a big disappointment.  He hadn't answered or returned any of our calls and we were by his place the other day and decided to swing by.  He said that he just wanted to take a break for now and probably won't be interested in investigating for a while.  He also mentioned that he had been investigating Buddhism.  Hopefully he realizes that the Holy Ghost is not present there and that he isn't feeling it.  I hope he decides to investigate again, but only time and faith can tell.  We had lots of other appointments fall through too and that was annoying, especially when you are on bikes and bike a long ways to see these people.  Oh well, my quads are turning into iron!  Haha.  But we would really rather be inside teaching these great people rather than playing tag with them.  We'll be working on that this week!  We had  a couple lessons with Martin this week that were really wonderful!  So a member couple in the ward was actually trying to get rid of their laptop and they gave it to us to give to him and that was a huge blessing!  It's pretty old and pretty slow.  So we spent a little time fixing it and trying to make it faster.  Well Elder Roberts did it more so, I don't understand computers, they're dumb.  But we got it a little faster and took it over to him.  He was so excited!!  He was so grateful.  So now the online job search begins.  He is really computer illiterate, so hopefully we can find an easy, well paying job that won't confuse him.  And we watched Finding Faith in Christ, he thought that was awesome.  It was funny, he would actually talk to the TV when the movie was telling a story of Jesus or something and he would say things like "oh yes, tell me this story!"  or "oh my, how wonderful." and things to that effect.  Martin is so sweet.  

 

There's a really cool guy that hangs out with the elders alot, he's a Hmong guy named Chia, and he is leaving this week to go to BYU-I and he had a going away party for himself and a birthday party for me and Elder Campbell, his birthday was on April 1.  But it was sweet, lots of people were there and we made and ate lots of Hmong egg rolls.  Yum!  And for my birthday, Elder Roberts made me a cake (thanks mom!) and we played basketball with the singles ward and then went to the institute and had breakfast and watched conference.  Then it was super cool, the sisters, Sister Johnson and Sister Johnson, had made me chocolate chip cookies and they spelled my name out with them and everybody sang happy birthday!  It was a way cool birthday.  I definetely wouldn't have had it any other way!  

 

Huh...well I gues I'm not really full of new news this week!  Bo and Martin are still on track for baptism!  Bo although needs to find a place to live by Saturday...I don't know how that'll work, but hey, I'm a missionary!!  I have faith!  Martin is still going strong for the 24th.  

 

I love you all!  Thank you all again for your prayers in my behalf.  I am super blessed to have such an awesome family, friends and such an AMAZING mission that I love so much.  

 

Love

Elder Kissell       

1.  For all you Chris Farley fans, look who I found!  Look at the top name...  fat guy in a little coat!  :)

 

 

2.  Some cool members of the singles ward feeding us dinner!  By the way, Abe is the guy on the far left.

 

 

3.  Making Hmong egg rolls!  yummmm

 

 

4.  This kid was so cool, and yay for reptile/football lovers!

 

 

5.  The yellow crew!

 

 

6.  Sad day...

 

 

7.  Elder Roberts making me my cake!!

 

 

8.  The big 2-0.

 

 

9.  The Johnson sisters and my super cool cookies!  And my super cool new tie from mom!

 

 

10.  The Kissell cookies :)