Great News!

Laguna Niguel

That's way cool about all the youth family history kids in the ward! Who is all a part of it now? 

So Rommel is doing pretty good. We had another lesson with him on Wednesday at the Caserio's home. Their dad is the one who can speak Portuguese so that's really nice. We read the B.O.M. a bit and he really likes it but we had him read 2 Nephi 31 about baptism and the Doctrine of Christ... He doesn't like all the rules and how we can't be saved unless we are baptized. So we are going to teach him the Plan of Salvation and I really think he will like that and it will answer some of his questions.

But that isn't even the greatest news of the week! So a member invited a guy to church 3 weeks ago who has a daughter on the same soccer team as his daughter. He really liked it and then I told you we would have a new investigator by the end of the week. Well we went to the member's house on Tuesday where Rob, the non-member friend, was coming to have a lesson. That night we committed him to baptism and he is really looking forward to it! The Lord really has been working on him for some time. His baptism date is April 11th (Hancock's birthday) and since Tuesday we have had 3 lessons with him. 

In church on Sunday he was asked to answer some questions about finding the church and other things as part of a lesson about the ward mission plan (it was a combined 3rd hour class). Rob killed it! He is an amazing public speaker and he nearly brought everyone to tears when he talked about how he felt at home the first time he came to church!!! All in all, I really can't believe this is happening! This last week we killed it on teaching lessons with members. We had a total of 6 member-present lessons which is a huge number for us. We usually don't plan on any during the week.

Thanks for all the little helps with my lesson on patience. It turned out really good. It was one of our better district meetings we've had in a while just cause of how good all of our lessons built on each other.

So have Clarissa and Drew come up with any names yet for baby? Or are they keeping it all a secret? I bet Tylee is just freaking out down there! hahaha:)

Anyways, that's just about the sum of my whole week. I went on exchanges on Thursday and I led our area for the first time. It was interesting. It's hard to try and fill the little time with productive stuff between appointments. I had to teach the Plan of Salvation for my first time to Rob without Elder Hancock :( The elder who was with me was a very shy guy so I did most of the talking. But the lesson turned out to be a huge success and it helped to have a really great member helping me out along the way. 

I love you all!!!

Kye

Eeeee! David Archuleta!

Laguna Niguel

I remember when those pics were taken! I am not going to lie, I look like a little kid in those pics, but dang I liked my hair looking long like that! I have had several people tell me I look like an actor named Andrew something or other from the new spiderman movies and I tell them they should have seen me when I could let my hair get a bit longer. 

Anyways, this has been a great week. It all sorta came together yesterday during church. We had a great lesson with Rommel at a member's house and we are getting really close to inviting him to the glorious waters that are baptism! But during church we had like 3 families come to us and tell us that we should come over to their houses and teach one of their friends that they invited to church. We are hopefully going to have one new investigator by the end of the week and get another a baptism date! The ward here is like super incredible at missionary work. We also had a less active invited to church by a guy in our ward and he just came and is already right back into things! He participates in all the lessons in church and he is a super intelligent man, it's awesome! I will keep you updated on all that jazz!

So thanks for all of the insights into patience. I think with what you have said I can add that to what I already got and teach a fetching good lesson! 

Yesterday we also had a mission training on our new Easter initiative. It's called "Because He Lives". There will be a bunch of stuff happening with it. On April 5th, the church will be the sole advertisement for their video for Easter on Youtube. Be sure to watch in cause it is incredible. We are going to start using that and a bunch of other things to do with it in our missionary efforts. On that day an estimated 250 million people will watch the video on youtube. 

Also at that meeting we had the privilege and honor of having DAVID ARCHULETA!!!! What!?!?!?! That's right! it was him in the flesh, come speak to us and then sing a bunch of church songs! It was awesome! He came just because he was in the area and he wanted to talk to all the missionaries. He found out we were having a meeting and called up our Mission President. He sang about 4 songs, one of which was Glorious. It was a new song he has that is awesome.   

I got to watch the last minute of the Utah basketball game. We were eating dinner at a local Mexican place and we sat and ate to watch the highlights. I really hope that they beat duke on Thursday. It would make my whole week. This is a chance to have faith that they can pull through! And I would totally wear a Utes tie if I could. I have gotten a fair bit of guff for my 2 Utes shirts that I wear to p-days hahah! 

Anyways, I love everyone and this gospel and the whole church for bringing me the most happiness I have felt ever! 

After the David Archuleta Fireside 

Group photo!

Family History Work

Laguna Niguel

Dang! I am jealous of your Seattle trip. That mall sounds like it would be so cool. I have an extreme desire to go shopping on my p-days. I just want to go out and buy new clothes all the time but I am holding back with all the will power I possess. I loved seeing your pics with the, "I see dead people" and I love your family history ideas you all have! 

I have been doing a fair amount of family history. We go on Tuesday mornings and I might go on Wednesdays too. I have found about 5 names so far and that has taken all I have to find them but I am still trying. Do you guys ever use the Hope Chest thing? It's way cool and can help with finding names to take through the temple. Elder Hancock has been using it a bunch and he has about 110 names already to take through the temple. Could I get mom's email stuff for family history so I could share some of my names that I find with ya'll? We have had some amazing contacts with people who have been centered on family history. People are just really interested in their ancestry and stuff and when they find out that I know some of the stories about how my ancestors joined the church they get really interested and it invites the spirit in real quick! 

Our lesson with Rommel went way good. We read the Intro to the BofM in Portuguese with one of the members of the ward translating. The whole restoration just sorta made sense to him and he said he was going to read more of it and pray. So we are going to have a follow up lesson with him on Wednesday and we are going to cover the concept of prophets and the apostasy and maybe get into the priesthood and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to invite him to baptism. He has already attended church like 3 times and he loves it, and we don't think he will have to much of a problem with the commandments. I am so fetching excited!!!! 

Other than that not much is happening. We have another hopeful baptism invite for the coming week! Our p-days are pretty much the best thing in the world! We do studies till 9 or 10 then go to the library for emailing for an hour or two. After that we go do what ever we want. There is a zone activity every p-day but you don't have to go if you don't want to. and then we usually go to dinner around 6 and then back to proselyting. Today I think we are going to go to a mall and hang with some other missionaries and I might buy a long board just for something to do. 

Do you guys ever have the missionaries in our ward over for dinner? I was just thinking about that the other day and I thought that would be something they would love cause mom's cooking is like the best in the whole wide world!

Anyways, that's just about life for me. Oh and I have been asked to give a district training on patience... not this week but next so anything you guys can think of that can help would be awesome!

I LOVE EVERYONE SO MUCH!!!!

The Life of a Missionary

Laguna Niguel

It's crazy just how much more you learn when you are teaching, I agree, I have learned so much more about the whole law of sacrifice and how that changes into a true and lasting conversion! 

On Sunday there were some people who were visiting the area from Hancock's home ward. They came in and just started screaming when they saw him. It was crazy funny! But one of the girls there was running up and it looked like she was going to hug him (sort of a  no-no). I was just about ready to dive in there and take a hug for the team! 

We have a few new things happening now that are exciting. We have a new investigator one of the members referred to us. He is a guy from Brazil who doesn't speak English very well, but he can. He has come to church several times with his friend/member that referred him. We are going to have a guy from the ward come to the lesson we have scheduled who speaks Portuguese; we will have him translate. Ya, it's going to be INTENSE!!!! 

We also had one of our potentials we have been trying to meet for some time now just randomly see us on the road the other day. It was crazy. We hadn't heard from her in weeks and she up and invites us to her house and stuff. She's super prepared for the gospel. We just need to find out a way to teach her cause she cant do it at her home. We hadn't been able to get anything going with her for awhile so we decided to start praying more for something to happen and it was a total answer to our prayers just running into her like that.

The Garners' used to live in Utah - in the Lehi area - but they are a way cool family. Their daughters went to a youth conference over the weekend and they also did a roadshow performance. We got to help out at the roadshow; we did prop moving and stuff. It was way fun! They are a cool family who sent a son out to the MTC on Feb 2 (so not too long ago). They had tons of questions about the MTC and it was fun talking to a family that actually knows Utah. 

I hope Josh ends up going up to Zion! Nothing prepares you more for this than spending a little time under the tutelage of Kevin and the rough work of that place. And that's awesome that Michael is going to go. 

I am so excited for the new addition to the fam, Drew and Clarissa! Have you guys figured out names yet? If not, I heard a real winner the other day....Avalon. HUH what do you think.....? 

Anyways that is cool, Drew, that you are in charge of an audit. You are going to be the top dog around there some day. All I can think is that you served a mission in Tahiti and never jumped in the ocean, and lived in some pretty ghetto places and stuff. You can do just about anything you want. Nothing can be as tough as that. 

I had a similar experience the other day. We were driving around town and went past main beach Laguna. It was packed with people and it was a Sunday. All I could think is that they all have no idea who they are or where they came from and just how insignificant all of our problems really are. I got sorta overwhelmed when I realized they all need the gospel. But God has a plan for all of them!! 

It makes me so trunky when I hear about Jennika. I miss that little cutie so much! But it's alright. Our ward mission leader has three kids ages 9, 7, and 3. They just love playing with us. Every time we go over it reminds me so much of playing with all my nieces. The other night we dropped of some stuff and we ended up being there for like an hour just playing with them. They just were jumping and crawling all over us, it was so much fun!! 

Well love you so much and have a great week! 

On My Knees Day and Night

Laguna Niguel

So it's been a long week. We are having a hard time trying to find the best way to help the whole Don and Alyssa situation. It's a longer story than I have the time or mental capacity to write down now but I will say, Don is doing good he goes into surgery soon and Alyssa is still fighting. Now the ward and some other people are pitching in to help out with meals and other stuff.

We are now teaching the inactive guy and his son who is scheduled to be baptized on April 4th by his dad!! YAYAYAYAYAYA!!! That's been a huge lift.

The book club sounds awesome mom, and it makes me happy to hear that you are connecting with the Kiwi family. They are awesome! I have been able to refer the Lincoln book to a book club and to a guy in the ward who just loves reading. I will keep you up to date on how all that goes.

I write most of my friends on missions; particularly Pryce and Corbin, James and of late, J Moore, and Kade every now and again. That's been fun.

This week we were at a follow up training meeting. It was cool to see all the kids I was in the MTC with. President Orgil talked to us about gifts of the spirit and the crazy thing is, I have been searching and pondering on that subject for some time now. He told us that as diciples of Christ we can have the gifts of the spirit but we need to pray for them and be faithful to receive them. He told us to be praying day and night that we might have the spirit of discernment. I have been doing that and since that I can't begin to tell you the profound feeling of joy I have been having during my study time.

Well, it sounds like you guys had a pretty crazy week of weather. The pic of the snow was incredible! And taking jenika to Mongolian BBQ!? That old lady there is like my favorite. She is so happy all the time and her origami is so cool. She made swans for me, Kade and James once. It was hilarious!

I love you all so much and I love hearing all that you are doing! Have a great week!