Labor Day

Well it has been a very fun week. 

Good bye Elder Wright

Elder Wright made this bomb dinner so I could 

finish packing.  Super yum.

Elder Taylor and I continue to find out weird things that we are very similar in. Life experiences, choices of food, etc. This new ward is so much fun and the people that live here super humble. We are right in the heart of where the "Community of Christ" and "RLDS" churches are the strongest. We have a lot of weird conversations with people who totally believe that the Book of Mormon is a real book of scripture but also believe that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet after translation, but also believe that Joseph's son was the next prophet, but also believe that the Book of Mormon is just a "good book" but not actually scripture. It is super weird. Satan is pretty cunning by taking the truth and just twisting it .0001% to make everyone disagree on things. So rude. 

The apartment we live in has been occupied by missionaries for a few years now and it is pretty obvious by the many hand prints on walls and doors that don't really want to come off. Gross. Thank you for teaching me how to clean and stay clean! Me and Taylor are pretty sure that we are 2 of 5 white people in the entire complex.

This last week Elder Taylor's trainer and family came out and took us to get some BBQ. We ate at "Author Bryant's". Its world famous and several presidents have gone there apparently. Pretty tasty stuff I'll say. 

Elder Monroe was just released from the MIM.  

He used to live here in Vegas and we knew his family.

Elder Taylor was trained by Elder Monroe a year ago.

We met with Cameron every day this past week and He was indeed able to come to church as well!!! He makes me and Elder Taylor so happy every time we meet with him. He is so faithful and holds tight to the Iron Rod. So far the adversary has worked really hard to keep him from getting baptized with a plethora of different temptations such as"

- old friend asking to have sex

- people telling him not to get baptized until they can come

- mockery by co-workers for his decision

- etc. etc.

The coolest part is that Cameron recognizes it is the adversary and Cameron just chuckles right in the adversary's face and keeps moving forward in faith. So exciting!!

This last week we had two lessons with him at the Visitors Center that he really enjoyed. We were able to learn a little bit about church history there in MO and listen to the testimony of the modern day prophets. We also helped him set up a study plan so he can begin to understand the scriptures more fully. 

PSA!!!

ALL OF YOU WHO DON'T STUDY THE SCRIPTURES EVERY DAY ARE LOOSING THE BLESSING OF KNOWING THE WORD OF THE LORD!!!! MAKE A PLAN AND READ FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! 

Anyways. Cameron had his baptismal interview last Tuesday and we found out that we might need to push his baptism back a little bit. There are some legality things that need to be confirmed and cleared before we can move forward. Even that didn't seem to make him skip a beat. He told us he wants to make sure it is done the right way and is willing to wait as long as it takes. 

In his studies he found a scripture that helped him out.

2 Nephi 6:7 

"and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me."

The zone we serve in here is so awesome. We cover all of the Visitor Center sister companionships so there are a lot of us here in the Independence Zone. Oh fun fact I forgot to mention last week. President Kato ,the stake president, is a convert from a restoration branch that was a break off from the Community of Christ church and he actually used to be one of their bishops. Super awesome man full of energy for missionary work. Oh another fun fact is that our bishop has the hobby of being an Elvis impersonator and he does it on the weekends for extra money. Kind of funny. 

We serve really close to down town Kansas City and so whenever someone needs a blessing and asks for the elders to do it we get sent because they don't want the missionaries from all over the mission driving super far. So we went to the hospital last week. The hospital is called Children's Mercy and it is probably the coolest most kid friendly hospital I have every been to. It smelled like cotton candy and other sweets throughout a majority of the building. Also all the halls had different names as did the Elevators.

Example: Purple Castle Hall (entire hall decked out it a purple castle feel to it) pretty awesome I'll say. The only down side.... is that this place is a labyrinth. There is no order to the halls it seems and it took us a good 30-40 minutes to navigate to where we needed to be. 

I hope all is going well with each of you!!!

- E. Kelly