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 :)

A week in the life...

Hey everyone!!

 

Well, i'll be totally honest with you all, this week has been tough.  These past few weeks have been the toughest and hardest weeks emotionally so far for me.  I guess i'm starting to realize that not every week you find a perfect, golden investigator who has no obstacles in sight and baptism is right in view.  I'm also starting to realize that not everybody is ready for the gospel, as hard as you try to make it seem like they are.  Martin is still lost, Tim still doesn't have a testimony, and we just haven't been able to really find anybody new.  Well, i have somebody i can tell you guys about in a bit, but it's been difficult.  But i know that these weeks have for sure been for my benefit and my testimony and trust in the Lord will be much stronger than they were at the start of this transfer.

 

So Martin, I'm pretty sure, is still here in Madison.  We went to his apartment the other day, his car was there, his phone rang, and his apartment lights were on we are pretty sure.  But, he didn't answer his phone and didn't answer his buzzer.  He also didn't answer our ward mission leaders call.  That was on Thursday afternoon and kinda destroyed my day.  I have no idea what got to him but something obviously did.  Something i don't know if i shared with you guys about my previous temple trip was that i prayed to know what we needed to do for Martin and my answer was love and patience.  Love made sense obviously but patience at the time didn't make sense.  But thursday talking to Roberts about that, he was pretty confident and sure that he will still get baptized if i got that answer in the temple.  Definetely a confidence booster for me.  And i know that i myself am not a patient person, so i have faith that this will all work out in the end and not only benefit me, but Martin is probably working something out that may have hindered his path to baptism.  I really just wish that he would answer the phone.  It really stinks not having even talked to him for 2 weeks.  

 

Tim is still working on his baptism as previously stated.  He really loves meeting with us and learning, but just hasn't found out if it's all true yet.  He's doing everything that he needs to to get an answer including coming to FHE and Institute as well as reading and praying.  President told us that we should teach him about prayer though and make sure he is doing everything correctly, all the little tiny details.  So we went over that and we hope he will recieve an answer here shortly.  He opted out of coming to the temple unfortunately.  The sisters have an investigator who came to the temple and she absolutely loved it and has a date for the end of March.  I was pretty sad he didn't come because I have a strong testimony of the power of temples, which i shared with him, and i know he probably would've had prayers answered there.  He also wasn't able to come to church on Sunday, which freaked us out because we thought we may have offended him and he would disappear too, but turns out he went down to Iowa to see his mom and visit her.  That's a good thing though that he did that because he has had a bad relationship with his mom growing up and i imagine he was forgiving her or making restitution or something because he's awesome like that.  Luckily, he returned our phone call and told us that or right now i would be ultra bummed because both our golden's dropped off the earth. 

But let me tell you about one of our new investigators.  Her name is Dawnette and she was found by our ward mission leader on the bus.  He set up a time for us to go teach her and we went and did that Tuesday.  Well, i actually didn't go because we were on exchanges that day, lame.  But the appointment went sweet and we have an appointment with her tonight.  I still haven't even met her yet!  But the lesson rocked last time.  I guess she's been wanting to be Mormon for quite a while now, her daughter is a member in south western Wisconsin and her grandson is on a mission and she has listened to the Book of Mormon on tape.  That's pretty sweet huh?  She wants to be baptized but the only catch, she wants to be baptized in a river.  I wonder if she's forgotten that it's FEBRUARY in WISCONSIN? She wants to be baptized in a river because that's where Jesus was baptized, so that's sweet, but this water ain't gonna be warm here anytime soon.  This ICE won't be melted here anytime soon.  So we're going to see how she feels about being baptized in a font when we talk to her tonight.  I still haven't met her yet, so i can't really tell you too much about her, but i smell another golden investigator with her.  

 

On Friday we got to go to the temple again, definetely a perk about serving in the singles ward, President says that we should be involved with the singles ward as much as possible and go on the temple trips and stuff.  No complaints about that here!  The temple was great though.  I prayed that i would be comforted and calm and destressed in the temple.  It worked and it was awesome.  The temple is so sweet.  "I Love to See the Temple!"  It makes me happy and feel great.  I just wish there was more!!  We're workin on it.  

 

But definetely somethings i've noticed here in the past couple weeks is that missionary work is tough, time is FLYING by (kinda stinks), there's not a lot of time to do other things (like replying to letters, i have like 5 that i need to reply to!!  Sorry!), that i need to be obedient, and that i need to totally and truly apply myself and lose myself in this great and glorious (and hard) work to be totally and truly blessed by the Lord.  The mission has truly been life changing and i have learned and grown immensely, and still have alot of growing to do here in my time as a missionary.  I'm really trying to savor it all and work hard and reap the blessings that come from my work here.  They don't lie when missionaries say time flys!  Elder Roberts says that it gets worse too, so i'm not looking forward to it.  1 week seems like 2 days.  But i am looking to get the fire back and my happiness and optimism back here soon, it's no fun when you're down.  And that's what i'm all about is having fun while you work.  Madison is waiting for the gospel and we're going to find them all and give it to them!!!

I love you guys a ton and a half and am so grateful to have such a sweet and loving family and a ward family and group of friends back home to die for.  Keep on keeping the faith and choosing the right!!  We all go through hard times to shape us and make us into so much more better people.  A talk yesterday at singles ward really stuck out to me. This girl was talking about hard and difficult times and she said that these expereiences either make us into something so much more or they leave us really bitter and holding a grudge.  I think that if we let these experiences make us bitter and grudge-ful (is that a word) we become weak and useless and we lose alot of respect from others and from then on, lots of things will be hard and difficult for us.  So don't do that!!  Let these tests and trials help you become better!!  

 

Alrighty, well, i'm gonna roll out now.  Have a good week!!  You're in my prayers.

 

Love

Elder Kissell  

THE WEEK

Hey folks!

 

Well this week was a different one than what i'm used to.  The past few weeks things have been pretty high flying and sweet and nothing really going wrong.  But this week, we hit a few speed bumps.  Some were a little bigger than speed bumps, some were kind of like brick walls.  But never fear, i'm still smilin and goin with the flow of missionary work.  But, let me ellaborate a little on my week now...

 

So Martin unfortunately will not be getting baptized this saturday.  He wasn't at church yesterday and in fact, we have no idea where he is.  He has Thursdays and Fridays off, so we usually try to teach him on both of those days.  Thursday morning we talked to him and he said he had an appointment at the hospital where he was going to take care of some billing issues because he got medicine from the hospital a few weeks ago.  He was supposed to be done in the evening but he never called us back and he didn't answer when we called and Friday through Sunday, his phone was off.  The only thing we can really think of that happened was that somebody found out he was not a legal citizen.  His visa ran out late last year and technically is an illegal alien now.  So he may be suffering the consequences of that, but we really have no idea where he is.  We kind of figured that unless there was something seriously wrong, he would be at church.  But he wasn't, so that must mean that there is something not so good going on in his life right now.  It is pretty stressful and frustrating.  I really am pretty nervous and freaking out a little about the whole situation.  But i have faith that he'll be found soon and he'll be baptized.  My problem is that i want to know WHEN that will be.  So, pray for Martin and that things will work out for him, whatever his situation may be.

 

Tim still rocks.  We had a couple sweet lessons with him this week.  One about the word of wisdom which he is now living!  He drank alot of tea, but not anymore!!  Sweet.  And then the other lesson was the plan of salvation part 1.  He loved it.  But he did bring up the fact that he wasn't so sure about the whole baptism idea.  He hasn't found out if the church is true yet and isn't comftorable being baptized.  That's good!  But he really needs to come to know if it's true.  Patience i guess.  The Lord works in mysterious ways and those mysterious ways are always the best ways.  And when Tim does find out, i have confidence that it will be a super sweet experience and one that he can't deny and will love and cherish it forever.  That's usually the way it happens!!!  And he wants it to happen too, so do you think the Lord will deny him that blessing?  Nope, me neither.  But Tim loves everything about church, including FHE and EARLY MORNING institute!!  It's not that early actually, it's at 7, but if Tim can do it, so can I!  

 

We went to a hockey game this week!!  It was pretty sweet.  One of the sisters' investigators was playing and the singles ward decided to make a ward activity out of it to go watch.  So that was sweet.  Hockey is way fun, i would totally play it if i could skate.  

 

So this is cool...my hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows all froze this week!!  Not something you can say everyday eh?  And the cool thing was that it wasn't even that cold out.  And you want to know something that i've decided?  The cold feels good!!!  No more weird cold problems!!:)  And it finally snowed again this week, it's about time.  Our snow was old and gross but now it looks good out with a nice new layer of whiteness. 

We have another temple trip this week with the singles ward.  That will be great.  We are planning on inviting Tim to go and sit in the waiting room.  The spirit is so strong everywhere at the temple, even outside.  I think it would be a really great experience for him.  He has said before that he doesn't like big fancy buildings, but we'll explain the reasons behind the temple being so big and beautiful beforehand.  

 

Our ward mission leader found us a sweet new potential investigator on the bus this week!!  And i do smell another baptismal date coming up here this week.  She sounds pretty golden.  I guess her daughter is a member down in a small town in southeastern Wisconsin and her grandson is on a mission.  And she listens to the Book of Mormon on tape and thinks it is sweet!!!  So on wednesday, we should have a pretty awesome lesson i'm thinking.  The Lord does prepare people, this area has made that known to me and there are so many of them.  And this time, a member found us somebody!!  That means YOU CAN TOO!!!!  You love the gospel right?  You love your friends, right?  Well, how about showing your friends how much you love them by sharing with them the gospel.  You can totally do it!

 

The bus was fun again this week!!  I talked to one guy who said i looked like i was off of an MTV show and that i looked totally awesome!!  Not interested at all, but he thought i was pretty hot stuff and made it known to a couple other people on the bus...awkward!  I don't think he was gay though, i sure hope not!  And i talked to some businessmen and hippies and crazy black guys.  The bus is always an adventure!! 

Hmmmm....  well!  I must say that i'm quickly running out of more exciting things to tell you.  I love you all and hope everybody had a sweet V-Day!  Oh and happy Presidents day!!  No mail today!  Lame!!!  Speaking of which...don't  be afraid to write me!!!:)  I heard from somebody that every week was a "write your missionary" week!  

 

Love ya'll!

Elder Jesse Kissell

 

pictures!

 

1.  Frozen hair and eyelashes and eyebrows! Cool!

 

 

2.  Hockey!

 

 

3.  Out on a frozen lake at sunset.  Nice.

February 8, 2010

Hey family and awesome loved ones!

 

The week was great!!  We had some good success and great lessons with Martin and Tim.  We really weren't as productive as we could've been though, so that kind of got us down at the end of the week when we saw how terrible our numbers were.  We're out and about, not sitting in our apartment, but we just don't open our mouths.  I feel pretty bad and am going to step up my act this week.  Don't get me wrong though, we still had a productive week, our numbers just weren't sweet.  So let me tell you about it!

So real quick, Martin update!  He still rocks, still will be getting baptized the 20th of the month.  We had a really good night with him on Thursday when a member invited us and him over for dinner.  He loves the members, and he should, because they have ALL been so welcoming and loving to him.  We talked alot about Ghana and his life before america, so that was interesting.  Grandma, you should send me a list of all the areas you were in on your mission and dates and such so i can show him that!  I bet he would be thrilled.  We shared the story of Ammon with him and the members and he really thought that was exciting and at the same time very meaningful.  I think it's cool when investigators see the need and importance of missionary work.  Ammons story is all about missionary work and he realized that and made several more wise and thought out remarks and statements as he is so good at.  Still, no sundays off.  We fasted very hard for him to receive that blessing yesterday and hope that something comes of it.  He wants so badly to be at church every sunday.  Today is also the year mark since his wifes passing and we are planning on doing something for him like make him cookies or something.  I'm certain he'd appreciate that. 

 

Tim still rocks too!  He came to church yesterday and it was awesome.  You know how they say sacrament meeting either makes or breaks an investigator?  Well, this one totally made him.  He still hasn't found out if the Book of Mormon is true yet and we, including him, fasted and prayed that he will be able to feel and find that out soon.  Testimony meeting was great because almost all those who bore testimony mentioned something remarkable about the Book of Mormon and how it has blessed their lives and such.  Alot was also said about repentance.  He thought it was great.  I know he felt the spirit there and i imagine even his prayer about the Book of Mormon was answered.  We have another meeting with him Tuesday, so we'll be excited to find out then!  But we did have a really sweet lesson with him this Friday.  We talked all about repentance because he kind of needs alot of that before baptism.  We taught alot from King Benjamins address and bore testimony of it.  He didn't like the sound of it at first since King Benjamin is bold and fearless in calling people to repentance, but we showed him other scriptures in those chapters where the blessings of repentance were given and we asked him how he would like to feel and recieve those blessings.  He said that would rock. Then we committed him to repent, he said "of course i will!"  So yeah, Tim is pretty dang awesome. 

We walked around alot this week and tried to talk to people walking and contact former investigators and such, we had some success.  Oh!  So we got a pretty sweet sounding referral last week, a lady went to temple square and really wanted a Book of Mormon, so we deliverred that to her one day.  We rang the bell, and both her and her husband got to the door at around the same time, she looked super excited, him, not excited at all.  But she opened the door and said "are you guys Mormons?"  "We sure are!"  "Come on in!"  We don't hear that too much!!  But after she briefly explained to her husband who we were, he remembered a previous conversation he must have had with her where we were discussed and looked a littlle happier.  But then she asked where the Book of Mormon was, we gave it to her, and then she started telling her husband about Moroni and Nephi and Joseph Smith and stuff!!  And then she asked us if Mormons really don't drink coffee, we said yes, and she said "well, we really love coffee, but i guess we might have to stop drinking that herre soon!"  Woah!!  How many times can i say sweet?!  But, unfortunately, she said she didn't want to talk with us then, but she did want to read the Book of Mormon first, talk to her friend in Utah, and then she would call us.  She seemed very sincere, so we are counting and expecting a call from her in the near future.  But that was a very cool and once in a mission sort of experience!!

 

Thank you all who prayed for me on Friday.  I felt your love and prayers with me exceedingly on that day, not even joking.  I asked for a blessing from my companion the night before just so i could be totally sure i would be ok on friday.  I know that Dad is with me, i really just need to stop and listen and feel and i will notice his presence.  Friday was a good day, taught Tim, did service at the food pantry, a YSA took us out to lunch, and we just kept busy.  I'm so grateful for the comfort of the Holy Ghost and i know that we truly can be blessed, healed, and blessed abundantly from the Holy Ghost.  I'm trying to make dad proud out here!

Well folks, I'm still doing great out here in Madtown.  We have sweet investigators, but want more!!  I'll have something to report back next week about that for sure.  We have a snow storm coming our way tomorrow that should dump 8ish inches on us, exciting!  Something cool i've learned about snow days is that they're WARM!!!  It has to be warm enough to snow, if it's super cold, it doesn't!  So that's something we look forward to on snowy days. 

 

Alright guys, have a good week and choose the right!!

 

Love

Elder Jesse Kissell

 

pictures!

 

 

1.  Meet Elder Roberts!

 

 

2.  Gazing off into the distance to find another golden investigator, where are you?

 

 

3.  Bus ride...dang.  Nobody to talk to.

 

 

4.  We had the not so sweet idea of trying to rearrange our kitchen to see if we could fit a table in there, but if your food cabinent is held together by packing tape, that probably won't go so well.

 

 

5.  The capitol is red for valentines!!  Sweet eh?

My amazing week of awesomeness!

Howdy folks!

Well, this week was a sweet one!  It’ll be a more exciting letter this week, I promise.

So, Martin still rocks the world and guess what?  We met a new investigator who is also pretty darn golden who ALSO has a baptismal date!!!  Sweetness!!  But, let me give you your weekly Martin report.  We were actually pretty nervous for a few days this week because he wouldn’t answer his phone or return our phone calls, but it turns out that he was fairly sick and just forgot.  But he did call our ward mission leader to ask if he could get a blessing.  How did he know about blessings?  Golden I’m tellin ya.  But we didn’t know til a day past that he requested a blessing due to miscommunication with our ward mission leader so we weren’t able to see him and give him one.  But, he finally answered his phone, feeling much better, and we set up a time to go see him.  We shared a lesson on faith.  We did this with the intention being to boost his faith that he will be able to get all Sundays totally off.  He already has plenty of it, so we just reviewed faith basically and shared some scriptures with him that he totally loved.  He really liked Alma 37:6-7, by small and simple means, great things are brought to pass, and Alma 37:36-37, counsel with the Lord in all that you do.  He was all over both those scriptures highlighting them and everything.  So it was a great lesson and he felt a lot and enjoyed it.  And church yesterday was another super great experience for him.  It was ward conference yesterday and the stake presidency gave great talks, I thought that they were some of the best sacrament talks I’ve ever heard before, and they really hit home to Martin.  He really felt the spirit and loved it.  In the second hour, it’s a new stake presidency and so we had sort of just an informal question and answer thing with the counselors of the stake presidency.  The majority of the first questions had to do with young couples asking what they should do with their kids so that they could attend the temple more frequently and still have a spiritual experience and questions a lot like that.  We’ve taught Martin a lot about temples, but he, like the rest of us, still had questions about the temple.  He asked another very profound and amazing question.  He asked “I am fairly new here still and I have heard a lot about temples, in fact, the most beautiful of your temples is in my home back in Ghana, I want to know what the temple is, what you do there, and how I can go inside.”  Whoa!!  The counselors answered his question perfectly and they asked “how long have you been a member for?”  Martin says “well, I am not one yet.”  “You’re an investigator!!  Wow!  Well you need to be a member first and it seems to me like you’re right on track to the temple!”  It was awesome.  Then there were more questions, but to finish up the hour, one of the counselors turned and looked directly at Martin, bore his testimony that the church was true, and closed the meeting.  SWEEEEEEEETTTTTT!!!!!!  It rocked.  We then had a linger longer thing afterwards, a potato bar, and Martin stuck around for that and bishop snagged him and took him to his office just to talk to him and get to know him a little better.   They were talking for 20 minutes or so and Martin came back out and found us and said that bishop made him feel very loved and special and that he was very touched and teary eyed.  He loves church and is so excited to be baptized!!  I talked to bishop about their discussion too and he is totally impressed and excited for him.  All Martin really needs now is to get Sundays off, so please pray for him.  He is so stinkin awesome.  I wish you guys could meet him.

So now, let me tell you about Tim.  Tim is a 29 year old guy who has had one crazy life.  He’s had the kind of life you only hear or see on movies.  He’s been involved heavily with drugs the past 12 years of his life, he had a very hard childhood, he has had some very bad friends that have gotten him into some bad habits, and yeah, his life has been something that nobody should have to go through, but he has.  On new years, he had an epiphone that God really did exist and that he was far from him.  He wanted to be closer to him and to feel clean again.  Since New Years, he has quit cold turkey drugs and alcohol.  He celebrated 30 days of sobriety and being clean just the other day and is loving life so much better now.  He met one of the Spanish elders on the bus and they referred him to us and we went and met him on Wednesday and saw him again yesterday and set a baptismal date for him for the 27th!  He is super humble and wants to be clean again.  He feels terrible for all the things he’s done and been involved with and wants to feel new again.  That’s the atonement baby!!  He’s had some pretty terrible experiences in his life with other people, who he has grown to love and accept and wants to use his experience to help troubled youth like himself stay away from the path that he followed.  He’s so cool.  He also came to church yesterday, only for the first hour though cuz he had to go to a meeting, but he loved ward conference and the messages that were shared as well. He really like the scripture in 3 Nephi 27:19-20 about how baptism cleanses us completely.  We asked if he wanted that and he said “yes, that sounds awesome.”

So yeah, we have some pretty sweet stuff going on here.  I am loving it here in Mad-town.  Despite the fact it’s huge, we are having a ton of fun, we are teaching great people that I am learning so much from, and I am totally loving my mission.  President is very excited about our success and is excited to meet these awesome investigators.  We are also getting to know more members here and they are excited about Martin and are giving us referrals and excited to be involved in the work.  Sweet sweet stuff folks.  Even though it was way cold this week, we were roastin and toastin with the spirituality!!!  Hooray for the gospel and hooray for missionary work!! I love you all!!

Love
Elder Jesse Kissell

pictures

1.  Meet Martin the Great and the card that started it all.  (the Jesus pass along card in the middle underneath the light.)

2.  Thanks mom!  He's gonna love it!

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!

1.  ohhhhh yeahhhhhh

2.  best sandwich ever

3.  walkin to el capitol

4.  inside the capitol, cool eh?

5.  the dome.  Sweet!

6.  worlds biggest water fountain, well, probably not, but still huge.

January 19, 2010

Howdy!
Well, I had a WAY sweet week this week.  Fun and spiritual, very spiritual.  I grew a lot this week in my testimony.  I love being out on a mission and learning, growing, and feeling so much every single day.
So, MARTIN UPDATE!!!  He still rocks.  We had a couple meetings with him this week.  We taught him the word of wisdom and it was a great lesson.  We figured that since he is as golden as he is, we might as well be bold and fearless.  I guess we should be that way all the time, but more so with him.  Anyway, he drank tea every now and then and he was concerned with the no tea part, brought out his box, we told him it was the bad kind, and he says “ok, don’t need that anymore,” as he threw it behind the couch.  Awesome!!  And he is having no problems with it and we don’t expect him to.  We also met with him Thursday night I think to just show him the chapel and explain church to him.  He loved the building.  The church here is really sweet.  It’s an old building and has some sweet architecture inside.  He thought it was great and was really really excited to come this Sunday.  When we were at the church, we showed him the baptismal font and said that that’s where he will be baptized in a few weeks!  He thought it was  very nice and is so excited.  We then just talked to him about life and got to know him a little better.  He is such a humble and great man.  He has made so many changes in his life and has grown so close to the Savior.  I just got to thinking how I can do that in my life, even though I don’t have problems with the things he did.  But, I still do have my struggles and all I need to do is put my trust in the Savior and have that strong of faith like Martin does.  He thinks he learns a lot from us, but I think maybe we learn more from him than he does from us!  He rocks.  Then on Sunday, he came to church and absolutely LOVED it.  That’s underlined and bold for a reason!  He was there early, a member he had met earlier this week invited him to sit with him and his family (AWESOME!!), and the bishopric gave great talks that must have been pre planned for Martin or something.  He thought the organ was really sweet too.  As do I…the organ is really big.  Anyway, gospel principles was also really awesome too.  We asked the teacher to prepare a lesson on eternal families because that is something we really really want for him.  It was a great lesson, but the better part was that Martin made comments and answered questions like a lifelong member would!!  Me and Elder Barker would just look at each other and go “dang man!”  He has been SO prepared by the lord, it is unbelievable.  Then in priesthood, visitors were asked to introduce themselves.  Martin was the only visitor and we just expected him to say hello I’m Martin or something, but, he told his whole story of how he found the church and met us!  He basically told the priesthood brethren how golden he was.  Some guys even turned around to Barker and I and gave us thumbs up and stuff.  It was great.  And in the lesson, he made yet more comments that were really deep and thoughtful.  It was amazing.  People were introducing themselves to him and talking to him, inviting him over for dinners, offering us their homes to teach him in, and just giving him a very good welcome.  He loved it so much.  He told me as I walked him out to his car that he felt like he was home.  It was very special.  But, as he has every other Sunday morning off, we are praying super hard that he will get EVERY Sunday off, or have another job opportunity arise.  So, if ya’ll would like to, keep him and that in your prayers.  That’d be sweet!

But, the rest of our week was great as well.   We did some more bus contacting, fun stuff I’m tellin ya.  I met this cool black guy and got talking to him about the gospel and had a pretty sweet conversation.  I gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and he was pretty stoked.  Sounds like I did good right?  Wrong!!  I forgot to get his information so we could go see him and teach him!!!  I felt so lame!  But, never fear, I redeemed myself the next day.  I met a Russian guy, I’ll be totally honest though, I couldn’t figure out if it was a guy or a girl, he/she sounded like Mrs. Doubtfire.  But we asked a RM who went to Russia if the name was a guys or girls and he said it was a guys.  Anyway, he was a Jew, but interested in learning more about the gospel as our message is for everybody.  I got his info and we will be trying to see him this week!!  Oh yeah, totally redeemed myself.  So yeah, I think I’m finally getting better at the whole bus thing.  The bus is fun!

We went to the temple on Friday night with the singles ward, it was really awesome.  It was a pretty late session that we went to, 7:30, so needless to say we got home late.  But, the temple experience was awesome.  Before we started our session and while waiting in the chapel, I prayed that I would be able to feel Heavenly Fathers and the Saviors love in abundance in the temple that night.  It’s kind of impossible to NOT feel it in the temple, but I really wanted to feel something.  Something more and something that I could totally not deny.  Kind of like praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true, when you get an answer, there is no way you can deny it.  Anyway, the spirit was very strong throughout and once again, the Celestial room was amazing.  Right when I walked in, it was like the love of our Father and Savior was just dumped on me by a bucket.  It was crazy.  But I just prayed for a really long time and was brought to tears by all the things that I have been blessed with in my life.  The 3 that really stuck out to me when I was in there was 1) My family.  2) The gospel.  And 3) Being on a mission.  Of course there were other things, but those 3 just stuck out a ton to me.  And thinking about it longer in there and on the way home, those 3 things are really what matter the most to me right now in my life.  There just seemed to be something resounding in my mind, and that was love.  Not the lovey dovey romantic kind of love, but just the sincere, heartfelt, gratuitous kind of love.  I felt it so strongly in the celestial room that night, probably more so than I have in my life.  I am so grateful for my family.  I would not be anywhere near where I am today without you.  I am so grateful for the gospel.  I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near Madison if I didn’t have that in my life either.  And I am so grateful for my mission.  The family and the gospel all lead up to this.  I am SO grateful to be out here, if I hadn’t, I’d still be being a bump on the log back home getting my truck covered in mud just for the heck of it.  But instead, thanks to my family and this gospel and changes I have made in my life, I am out here.  I am learning and growing and having so many experiences that are changing and molding my life to the way I want it to be, and it’s awesome.  I couldn’t get that anywhere else but here.  I LOVE my life.  I love everybody who is reading this.  This gospel is true and I am so grateful to be sharing it with Wisconsin-ites.

But, sadly, Elder Barker is getting transferred.  I got along with him really well and we had a lot of fun together and got a lot of work done.  I hope my new companion rocks too and that we continue the awesomeness we have going here.  I’ll be staying put!!  Scary!!  I still don’t have this crazy Mad-Town figured out!!  I’ll get it though.

But, love you guys.  You all rock.  Keep on keepin on!

Love
Elder Jesse Kissell

pictures!

1.  This is what happens to a missionaries math skills when he's out...uh oh.

2.  The whole Madison zone!  minus one companionship.

Crazy Madtown

Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!

Howdy folks!

 Well, second cold week of January, actually, it wasn’t too bad, but we got some snow dumped on us.  That was fun!  But… this week was pretty sweet, so I’ll get started in tellin ya!

Last pday was sweet because I’m in an area  now where there’s actually elders within driving distance of each other so that means we can hang out and do  cool things on pday!  So we went and walked around on State Street (the main street of Madison) and played basketball for forever and ever.  It was a ton of fun.  And we went to a weird Oriental Market place to get drinks because our district leader is Japanese and wanted us to try this kind of drink.  It had strips of aloe in it and looked nasty, but it was excellent.  But that evening was crazy because we had several appointments all far away from each other.  And since the bus system stinks, that meant a lot of walking.  But, we meant another sweet investigator that evening for the first time and this is HIS story.  So this guy is a media referral and he ordered the Restoration DVD.  We asked him why he ordered it and he said that he just needed some restoration in his life.  I don’t think he really comprehended what the movie was about, but that’s ok.  We taught a really good first lesson and by the end, we felt prompted to extend a baptismal commitment.  We asked him to prepare for his baptism on Feb. 6th.  He was a bit hesitant at first, but after us assuring him and reading him some scriptures promising great blessings from baptism, he accepted!!  But it wasn’t but a few minutes later that he told us something that scratched his date.  He stabbed a guy and is on probation til 2016!!!  So yeah….he doesn’t have a date anymore.  It stunk though because we had his date written down on paper and had already layed out the things he needed to do before baptism and yeah, we were just pretty far into it and he told us that.  We talked to the zone leaders that night and they said that he wouldn’t be able to, so we had to think of a way to tell him he couldn’t be baptized.  A few days later in our next lesson we did.  It was really hard to do, but he took it really well.  The lesson was a fairly in depth lesson on repentance and why it was necessary to be totally and completely clean before baptism.  He took it well and is committed to repenting.  We hope that we can just get him to start living a gospel based life and get him coming to church regularly and maybe he will get off probation soon and be baptized before 2016.

MARTIN update!!  Martin is amazing!  He unfortunately wasn’t able to talk to his boss all this week because she was gone and so he wasn’t able to make it to church yesterday.  But he is still golden as ever.  We call him everyday and see how he’s doing and how his reading is going.  Every reading assignment we give him, he reads it immediately after we get off the phone.  He fully comprehends everything and loves everything about the Book of Mormon.  We had a lesson with him this week about the plan of salvation and we took a member with us and when we walked in the door he gave all of us a big hug, even the member whom he had never met yet.  He’s so sweet!!  And we were talking for a little bit.  He told us that he’d been fasting and praying all day and had just ended his fast.  We didn’t ask what he was fasting for, but kind of assumed it was about the church.  Funny thing is that we hadn’t even asked him to fast about it!!  He’s so cool, but then he says “ok lets get down to business, I’m excited to learn what you have to teach me today, lets start with a prayer and I’ll say it.”  And then he prays immediately!!  It was so cool.  Never before have I seen or heard of an investigator this excited to learn.  It was a great plan of salvation lesson and the spirit was strong there.  He said that he really wants to read right from the beginning of the Book of Mormon and we found no problem with that because we know he will.  Next time we see him we really want to talk with him about how we can get missionaries in Ghana to go and teach his 6 kids, I’m certain he would absolutely love that.  Then they could all get sealed in the temple together!!!! That would be so sweet!!!!  Man…isn’t the gospel awesome?  I love it!!

We also met with our Indian Hindu friend again, Josh.  This was an interesting lesson.  We taught him the restoration because the last time we talked to him we just talked about developing a faith in Christ and about who he was.  It was a great lesson and he thought that it was sweet that there was a prophet here on earth today and would be excited to listen to him and hear the counsel and guidance he gives us.  He committed to do all that we asked him to and again, felt prompted to extend a date!  We read him a sweet scripture in Alma talking about baptism and the blessings that come with it and then bore our testimonies about baptism and how it has blessed our lives with the Holy Ghost and asked him if he would want to enjoy these blessings in his life by being baptized.  He said “no I sure wouldn’t.”  Wait, what?!  Did I hear you correctly?  And we basically asked him how come?  And he said that he was baptized as a baby and that his mom would be upset.  It’s just kind of annoying because Josh is in his late 40’s and probably shouldn’t be too worried about telling his mom about the church and that he would be getting baptized into it.  I dunno, I’m not him.  But we asked him to read Moroni 8 and to pray about being baptized by proper authority.  We’ll see how that rolls around, hopefully great!!

And the last crazy lesson of the week that we taught was to a chinese guy named Wayne.  This guy has to be the smartest, most logical thinker, and in depth person I have ever met in my life.  We had a 2.5 hour lesson on the first principle of the first lesson, God is our loving Heavenly Father.  I have never yet taught an actual sit down lesson to someone who doesn’t believe in God, talked to many people without that belief, but never an actual sit down lesson.  But Wayne is a great guy, but so so in depth.  He believes in science and needs actual physical evidence to prove that something is real.  He says he wants to believe in God, but needs physical evidence that he actually exists.  He says that he wouldn’t take the feeling of the Holy Ghost as evidence because it’s not something physical, just a feeling.  It amazed me.  I’m such a simple minded person and I couldn’t comprehend or understand half the things he was saying because it was all so complex and just crazy what he was talking about.  He doesn’t want to pray because he doesn’t believe anybody is listening so he would feel dumb doing it and yeah, I was just amazed and confused.  We had a member with us and he saved us on multiple occasions by giving his testimony and opinions on things that Wayne was saying.  But that was a super draining lesson and we were both so tired.  It was crazy.  But yeah, we don’t really know how to progress and move forward with him.  He needs to realize that he probably will not see God and if he wants to in the first place, he needs to have faith, something he doesn’t have.  So we need to address that issue again.

This week we also spent some time bus contacting, that was fun.  Basically you just get on a bus and ride and talk to people.  People are crazy, I’ll just say that much.  Bus contacting is difficult and I have some room to improve, it requires a good people person, and I’m not one of those yet.  Getting better, but not awesome.  We also spent a lot of time with a member who is in the hospital this week.  He’s from down by the Quad Cities in Iowa/Illinois and is up here recovering from heart surgery.  We have given him a few blessings and also gave him the sacrament.  His daughter and her husband and daughter were up visiting who were also form the Quad Cities!!!  They’re AWESOME!!!!!  Probably the coolest family I have met out on my mission and they aren’t even in my mission boundaries.  But they’re super cool and they took us out to eat and provided us with some much needed stress relieving time after stressful days.  They’re way cool.  I told them that Natalie and Paul lived down in the Quad Cities and they said that if I gave them their address they’d go and say hi!!  So Natalie, if an awesome couple randomly knocks on your door, take them out to dinner and become their best friends because they’re awesome!!

I gave a talk yesterday in singles ward about drawing nearer to Heavenly Father.  A scripture that stuck out to me about that was D&C 88:63, 67-68.  They’re great verses and I suggest reading them.  But, I know that if we keep our covenants and do the things we know we need to do, but probably aren’t doing, we will be super close to our Heavenly Father and we will be blessed greatly.  It was a great topic to speak on and I learned a lot from it.  I know that we can all improve on it, so that can be my little commitment I leave with you all.  Think of ways you can be closer to our Heavenly Father and start or stop doing things that will enable you to.

This week was sweet and I hope your guys’ was too!!!

I love you!
Elder Kissell

p.s.  for those of you who write me, my address is 425 Paunack Pl. #1B, not #113.  I have still been receiving the 113 mail, but just in case, start doing #1B!

pictures!

1.  my newest suit addition, grey!  I found it in our basement, sweet!

2.  Camp Randall on a snowy day.

3.  Large piles of snow on the side of the road

4.  The Mckune family (part of them) from the Quad Cities, they're AWESOME!!