Transfers!

Well this week was a good one because I LOVE change. Always motivates me to work harder. After emailing on Tuesday it was weird to think about being in the area without elder Katoa because I felt like all the work was our work because we had white washed in. I had this weird feeling that I was being left alone in the area to be a missionary by myself. It was a weird feeling. Then I was just stressing that my companion wasn't going to be as hard of a worker as elder Katoa and I was stressed all of Wednesday. Wednesday we did our best to get elder Katoa all packed in as short of a time as possible so we could still proselyte. 

Sabrina told us that she didn't want to meet anymore and was going to take what she had learned and apply it elsewhere. In an earlier lesson she said that she felt like God had led us to her. So why was she pushing something that God had led to her away from her. She couldn't give us an answer. She realized that it wasn't the best idea and we seemed to be OK by the end of the lesson. 

Thursday morning we woke up all anxious to see what was happening at transfers. We showed up and took some pictures and then went and read the roster with the transfer news. Elder Katoa is the zone leader in Platte city so he is now my zone leader and I'll still see him every P-day. My new companions name is Elder Childress. He is 24 years old and has been out for 6 months and just finished training my MTC comp, Elder Barlow! Kinda crazy. He has been out in the boons in Trenton and was in a branch. Coming to Parkville; he said that he has been in shell shock every time we drive around because there are so many people. He is a very hard worker and loves serving the Lord. Definitely someone I'm glad to serve with. In fact at the mid-trainers meeting me and him were asked to do a role play and afterwards I thought to myself, "He would be an awesome missionary to serve with!  So far everything has been really good! We get along way good and we both are trying to figure out what can make us more effective and efficient in our area. Our goal this transfer is to begin to up the ward effort by working more heavily though the ward missionaries. He is from Gilbert, AZ and so we are both really enjoying the heat that is starting to come back!

Good - bye Elder Katoa, see you on PDay

Elder Barlow, Elder Kelly, Elder Childress

Elder Childress, Elder Kelly

I hope you guys are working hard back home to spread the gospel with others who need it! Be anxiously engaged in a good cause! Be an agent unto yourself!  I know that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holly Ghost are to be the center of our life. Pray to see how you can further center your life on them!

Love Elder Kelly!

Sent from The Alpha and Omega Mission

Elder Kelly, Jeanie, Chris, Elder Katoa

Chris said, "Your parents are going to wonder who googlie eye is."

Word Up

Transfers are this week. WHAT!? It'll be weird to see what all happens!

Weatherfby Lake near our apartment

This past week was a good one! We went on exchanges twice and that always makes the week fly by! Wednesday after District Meeting we exchanged with the zone leaders. Elder Heinrichsen (the kid from Vegas) came with me to my area. We had some lessons set up for the evening and lots of potentials to find during the day. Two of the houses we tried were just houses we drove past often and I had always wanted to go knock. One was a huge old looking White House and I just thought it was cool. The other one was a house that had this very distinct purple car parked out front that we see driving around town ALL the time. The purple car house was this guy who seemed genuinely interested to learn more and invited us back for next Wednesday after we shared the whole restoration on his door step. His name is Buck and was pretty cool to talk to. The big White House was an older man in his 50's or 60's (sorry if you don't think that is an old age). He was so kind and had a lot of land. The house had been built back in the mid 1800's by his wife's family. He redid the entire inside and seemed to love the house. He had rental cottages in the back lot and told us that he used to actually house missionaries in them. He and his wife had Thanksgiving dinner with the missionaries once and had them over for dinner frequently. Unfortunately he shut us down every time we tried to invite him to learn more or share anything with him. He said to come and talk to him if we ever needed anything. Then when we asked to share numbers he declined. LAME. He just already knew all the missionary tricks that we use to try and share the gospel. So he was almost as cool as Buck.

The District

Zone Training with Pres Vest

Then on Friday we exchanged with Elder Smith and Elder Attwood. I stayed in my area with elder smith. The interesting part of this exchange is we are the elders that aren't allowed to drive yet because we are both new. Well to make it even more interesting Elder smith broke his 5th Metatarsal in his foot on P-day playing basketball so we couldn't be on bikes because he was on crutches. We planned the day to visit every person that was in our area book that was within less than a half mile of our apartment. We headed off on foot and holy cow we met the coolest people ever and talked to the most people ever! I think in 3 hours we talked and had full conversations with 10 plus people which never happens! Elder Smith was a beast and smiled and laughed the whole day even though his shoulders and hands were killing him the whole time. It was a good day and I hope I serve with Elder smith in the future.

We have a new investigator named Youme who met a while ago but who we were finaly able to set an appointment with. We talked with her the night I was on the first exchange and we put her on date for May 21st!  She is very prepared and loves feeling the spirit. She told us that if she can just feel it in her heart she will do it. SO COOL RIGHT!?

Anyways I don't have much time left but the reason we emailed on Tuesday instead of Monday is because Elder Katoa and I went to the temple and if we go to the temple that is our P-Day but the temple isn't open on Mondays so Tuesday it was! We were glad we got to go before transfers were up and we might of got split. As I am emailing elder Katoa got a call from president and he is now going to be a zone leader so it's official. He is leaving :( I love him to death and I'll miss him.

At the Temple with Brother Stocks and Elder Katoa

I love the Lord! He is my light and King!

Elder Kelly :)

Some guy gave us this Anti Mormon literature.  

He said he felt in his heart to give it to us.  

The bug from Harry Potter 4 is real.

Service is the Best!!

Monday was a really weird day and I can't remember most of it honestly. Tuesday we went over to a less active's, Sister Vargas, house and did a bunch of yard work for her. She has a pretty large yard and it was really fun. We had to get this huge branch that fell off one of her trees to fall all the way down and then cut it up in pieces. It stabbed the ground and then the other end was like 60 feet up in the air. It took forever to get it to fall down and it was pretty sketchy because we couldn't get enough leverage on the top half of it and we couldn't tell where this super heavy thing was going to fall. We got an old dog leash and tied it as high up as I could get it while standing on an old wooden high chair we found in the back yard.  When we finally got it to fall it fell perfectly into the biggest opening of the grass with out smashing elder Katoa and I or anything else. After that we got her riding lawn mower to start after fiddling for a while and Elder Katoa cut the whole big area with that while I cut another area he couldn't get to with a push mower. We had a good time honestly and headed on home to shower and change pretty tired.  That evening we went and taught a part member family at the Guthrie's home; it was a lot of fun.

Elder Kelly and Elder Katoa after serving

Wednesday again we went over to Sister Vargas's home and worked on the front yard this time. We mowed, weeded, and cleaned out the gutters on her house. Honestly it never even crossed my mind that people do that.  That's what happens when you grow up in Vegas. That part took the longest because we had to unscrew all the gutter covers, clean it, then re-screwed them all back on trying to find each piece that matched with the random screw holes on the gutter. That night we went to dinner with a member at this place called Bone-Fish Cafe. It was bomb digity and I had some really good fish tacos. After that we went over to Emma Patterson's house again and taught Kandace E. The Doctrine of Christ by reading through 2 Nephi 27 with her. I always love the lessons when we read chapters from the scriptures.

Thursday was another sweet day! We taught Sabrina around 10 in the morning about temple and family history work. She is pretty interested in Family History so it was cool to explain that whole thing to her. Immediately after the member that took us to Bone-Fish took us out to lunch to this restaurant he owned. It is a Louisiana Kitchen/Marti Gras style kitchen and man the food is AMAZING! He owns 6 different locations. I think he said there is one in Texas and the rest are in Kansas and Missouri. The place is called Jazz and man if any of you are out here you have to eat there. We had Gumbo as an appetizer (had no idea what the heck that was) and I wanted to just keep eating it because it was so good. Then we headed home and did our weekly planning and it was probably the most efficient planning Elder Katoa and I have ever done. We got so much done. That night we taught Sharon (Emma Patterson's other friend) at the church before mutual about the plan of salvation. She has really close family who passed the last couple years and so it was really good to be able to teach her about eternal families and the spirit world.  The struggle with Kandace and Sharon right now is just getting permission from the parents. Both mothers aren't for it.

Friday was zone training and I just love those meetings so much! I felt so spiritually pumped! It was one of those meetings you leave and just want to go be like Captain Moroni and make the powers of Hell shake. At the end of the meeting we started exchanges and I went to the other area out in Leavenworth, Kansas. Their apartment is so gnarly. That night we helped a woman move for about two hours. We had to feed everything into an elevator to get it down stairs and it took a while. We were working as fast as we could so we could help her as much before we had to head home. I was sweating so bad.

Saturday morning I felt so gross working out and having to do push ups and sit ups on their floor. We did service that morning too. It was a kid's Eagle project and we moved a huge pile of mulch via wheelbarrow. Thanks to my concrete job of wheelbarrowing concrete the mulch was so easy. I was told like twenty times I was dumping the mulch perfectly so they didn't even have to rake it into place. If only the Latino dudes from work thought that way :P Saturday after exchanging back we went straight to the visitors center with a less active and her son. Then drove straight back to our dinner appointment and then drove all the way back to the VC to take Sabrina too! Both visits were really good and our mission is blessed to have both the visitors center and the Liberty Jail. Sabrina actually brought a friend so that was pretty cool that she did that. Her friend had a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and stuff. And the best part was we had a member ride down to the VC both trips! I love this ward.

Well I love you all so much! Don't forget to always be sharing the gospel with friends!

Love Elder Kelly :)

What a Week #AMAZING

This week has been AMAZING!!!

To start it off we met with a girl named Kandice E. She is someone that we met almost two weeks ago but she was very kind and stayed in contact with us through text. (That never happens) We met with her on Monday night with a younger couple. We taught the restoration and it was such a great lesson! We found out as we talked that she knew a laurel in our ward and was in fact very close friends with her. It was a very spirit lead lesson and at the end she told us that she has never felt so happy in her life and couldn't wait to share it with her sister and the girl in our ward, Emma. She texted us later that night and told us that she had called Emma on the drive home and was so happy she had the opportunity to meet with us. Emma of course testified to her that it was indeed the Spirit that was giving her those feelings of happiness! Emma contacted us later that night as well and told us that she had in fact been fasting and praying for Kandice the day before!!! AMAZING.

Tuesday night was our first lesson with Sharon. Sharon is one of Emma's best friends as well who has come to church for the last two weeks! We taught her the restoration and it was an equally amazing lesson. Sharon had in fact read the entire first book of Nephi, the entire children's Book of Mormon for better understanding, and knew more church history than I myself know. (Not kidding) She basically told us that this just feels like where she needs to be. she just wants to gain an understanding from the lessons first! AMAZING! Oh and she is also way good friends with Kandice!

Wednesday we met with Kandice E. Again. This time we met at Emma's home. We taught her the plan of Salvation and at the end we asked her what she would do to obtain the Celestial Glory. "Anything and everything honestly." We then committed her to work towards baptism!

Not a definite date yet but AMAZING!

Thursday we had to take Elder Harrod to the mission home for an emergency transfer because another missionary was going home for surgery and president had a hole to fill.  Very sad to drop him off.   It was a weird feeling.

Friday was exchanges and I was with a very sick, very sneezy, very coughy, very tired missionary. I didn't catch it though!! AMAZING!

Saturday we watched conference which is obviously AMAZING. The first session we watched with Sabrina and she seemed to enjoy it. The last session we watched it with Brother Hall who is a part member family. He just had some hip surgery and so it was good for him to have some company for a little bit. We also watched the priesthood session with him.

Sunday morning we get a text from Sabrina. She was pretty upset with herself for some decisions she had made the past night and she asked if we could come over and teach her a lesson between sessions (which by the way she watched both sessions). The first session we watched at the Guthrie's home with a less active and his non member wife who we have been trying to build a relationship with so we can teach the wife who hasn't had good experiences with missionaries in the past. Sister Guthrie made us some pancakes with eggs, ham, strawberries, homemade butter milk syrup and whipped cream. It tasted AMAZING! After the session we went to Sabrina's apartment and taught her basically the Doctrine of Christ again and testified a lot of the redeeming power of the atonement. The spirit was very present. She too, after reading the story of Alma the younger's conversion/repentance story in Alma 36, Said, " I will do anything to have this exquisite joy. We then committed her to a new baptismal date of April 23rd instead of May 21 and scheduled to meet three times a week from now until then to help her be prepared for the big day. AMAZING!

The last session of conference we watched with Kandice, Sharon, and Emma's whole family. In fact they had watched all of Sunday's conference and absolutely loved it! AMAZING!!!

I know God lives and this work is impossible without the help we have from His son, Jesus Christ. I know that as we strive to be obedient to the commandments that God gives us we will be able to see so many blessings poured out upon each of our lives. This gospel truly is AMAZING!