Transfers

Well Elder Taylor was transferred on Thursday :(. But it's ok I can be a big kid and not cry about it. It is sad to see him go though. He was moved down to the Olathe zone where I used to be with Elder Bleak.  Elder Bleak's old companion, Elder Odland, is now my companion. So we basically just traded companions. It's like that weird family show that used to be on tv where they would switch spouses. Anyways.

Elder Odland came out on his mission from Maine where he went to high school. But he is originally from Layton as well. He went to middle school with Elder Taylor which is kind of crazy. First day we rearranged the entire apartment and it is so much better now. Elder Taylor and I were always to lazy to actually move it so transfers was a perfect opportunity.

Brother Fish has been really into the Book of Mormon this past week.

He came to the scripture study class on Thursday and then came to church on Sunday too! The gospel principles teachers didn't show up so we read through 3 Nephi 11 with the class and broke down the doctrine of Christ. We have some awesome members that were helping Brother Fish answer his questions he was asking. I love proactive members that actually live the gospel. It's so exciting to see.

I'm not sure if you remember James and Sivita but we taught James again at the Vistors Center. He wanted to know how to choose between the church he used to go to and our church and so we invited him to "experiment upon the word" and pray to have a manifestation from the spirit which one was the one he should go to when he came to church the next day. But he didn't come to church :(

On Saturday elder Odland went by this woman's house named Mary McMillen who we had told we would help out with some yard work a while back but never did go. So we went by and raked up all her leaves and bagged them. She came out and was very appreciative of our service.

She asked if she could get a ride to church and of course we set her up with one. But then she woke up sick Sunday morning and also wasn't able to make it out to church.

But that is ok the church is still true and I still love missionary work!

I think my favorite part of missionary work is that the success is in the invitation. We can invite, invite, invite and have no one come into the church but that does not mean we are failures. The Savior invites each of to come unto him and partake of eternal life but we know that from the beginning many of our brothers and sisters still chose to take the other road. Does that mean that the Savior failed in his mission as the Savior and Redeemer of mankind? No.

"We will come to understand that success in sharing the gospel is inviting people with love and genuine intent to help them, no matter what their response." - Dallin H. Oaks

Love you guys!

E. Kelly

End of Transfer #7

Only missing one companionship at morning

sports so we snapped a picture.

Well this week was one tiring week.

Unfortunately Brother Fish (mailman) did not make it to church this last Sunday so his baptismal date will have to be pushed back. We were able to meet with him twice last week. We taught the plan of salvation one of the times at the Visitors Center and the other lesson was at the scripture study class elder Taylor and I do every Thursday also at the VC. Elder Taylor and I go back and forth on who teaches each week and this last week was on chapter 6-11 of the Book of Mormon. We talked about how to receive personal revelation. It has been really fun being able to teach those every other week.

We received a bible referral and contacted them Monday night. Well the referral was for a woman named Adrain Taylor and she let us right in.

We walked into a bit of a shocking atmosphere for Raytown, MO. When we came in the house was extremely tidy and clean. Not just kind of clean but REALLY clean. That never happens. Elder Taylor, Josh Thieme (Vegas Missionary) and I were all so pleased when we walked in. We told her that her house is the cleanest house we had seen in a long time and we were so happy to be there. We gave her the bible she requested and introduced the Book of Mormon. Her niece was also there, Shae. As we taught the two of them Sister Taylor said, "Y'all just invite such a strong presence into the room. WOW I can just feel it in my stomach" *best words a missionary can hear*. She is already religious and she was able to identify that feeling as the spirit immediately. Shae wasn't quite as amped but that's ok.

We came back the following night and taught them again but we also were able to invite Sister Taylor's two kids, Ronnisha and Rannell, to join in with us. We invited the four of them to be baptized and they accepted! Unfortunately they were not able to make it to church this last weekend. 

:( But hopefully we will be meeting with them again tonight or tomorrow. Nothing is set yet but she told us to call her today.

Elder Taylor will probably be transferred this week :( hopefully I have a fun companion for the holidays and not a grinch like Erika did.  Haha. I am pumped for Thanksgiving this next week. We are eating with our ward mission leader's wife's family. She is a Polynesian  and they love food and they love family. We were told to meet at the church building and expect about 150 people there with the biggest spread of food you have ever seen. Polynesians really can make quite the spread of food. So it should be sweet.

Proud of my perfectly made bed.

There was an awesome miracle in the zone this week! I was on exchanges in the Inde 4th ward with E. Call on Thursday. There is an investigator there named Allen Perrin who is such a nice guy but has been investigating the church for 5 years now. He had various reasons for not joining the church that were always changing. Well we went by to see him and had a plan to invite him to be baptized two days later on Saturday. We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and how he was procrastinating the days of his repentance and missing out on the blessings. Well he told us that he was waiting for his Mormon friend to be in town in December to do it. But after a phone call to his friend and by the end of the lesson he accepted the invitation and was baptized two days later! We were all in shock and awe at how the Lord had softened his heart and how exciting it was to see Allen let the spirit in.

I know that we can all have peace in our lives as we let the spirit in. We have the power to choose between good and evil, happiness and sorrow each day. Those choices are what lead us to Heavenly Father in the end. What a blessing it is that the Lord has left it up to us.

Got to run!

Love

E. Kelly

Mailman Miracle

Preparation Day is great

Well last week was another very busy week. Tuesday full of administrative stuff, Wednesday a full day of meetings, Thursday exchanges, Friday zone training all day, Sunday regional conference.

Elder Katoa, Elder Kelly, Elder Childress, Elder Taylor

These are all of my companions so far.  Only Elder Wright was missing

Wednesday was almost 7 hours of training we listened to. It was good but at the end of those days for some reason I'm always pooped. A general authority came to our mission back in June and invited our mission to have perfect mornings. Well that has been a huge focus ever since and we still have elders and sisters who struggle with it in different ways. Well President Vest invited us as a mission to just start by making your bed. Make your bed every morning and make it good. Not to brag or anything but I have gotten pretty dang good and those "hospital corners" I must say. Are there any life time pros who always made their bed that could tell me some pro tips on how to make it all neat?

At zone training we had a discussion on how by small and simple means are great things brought to pass. D&C 123:16 came up and I love that scripture.

"You know, Brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept work ways with the wind and the waves."

 The small details really are what make things beautiful and orderly and set the pace of your day, life, eternity. I've become a little obsessive about it in some things now. I.E. Making bed, folding clothes. But it is nice having everything neat and in order. (Mom, Dad.. Can you believe this is coming out of my mouth right now? Yeah me either) But you should all try it. Make up a schedule for your mornings and try to make it perfect each day. Your days will be so much better!

On Sunday we had a lesson with a guy named Charlie I had never met before. Charlie is a mailman that elder Taylor ran into on two different exchanges. The second time they ran into him he informed elder Taylor that he had been reading the Book of Mormon and was about 20 pages in! We met him at the Visitor Center and taught the restoration. We invited him to be baptized on the 26th of November and he accepted. He is really enjoying the BofM. Apparently his grandpa is a member of the RLDS church and used to read it to him when he was young.

Still is probably the weirdest thing when you talk to people who think your church is false but love and hold sacred the BofM just like you do.

Zone training went sweet! Hopefully we can hit our goals we set!

 We got to see the new Christmas initiative that will be coming out on the 25th and it is AMAZING!!! #LightTheWorld.

Anyways I love you guys and hope and pray you are all reading your scriptures everyday. You cannot be saved in ignorance!!!!

Love E. Kelly

Got myself a copy of the RLDS Book of Mormon

Being Goofy

:)

Well sorry it's been two weeks but life gets crazy! Lots has happened between now and then so sit down and get comfy.

So two weeks ago we went on exchanges with the independence 2nd ward elders. I went to Inde 2nd with E. Haderlie. Their area is a bike area and I was a little skeptical considering I've only biked one day on my mission and never actually served in a biking area. Well E. Staheli went to Raytown so I was on his bike. E. Staheli however is 5'5" or less and so I was on a very tiny bike. We hit it that day and I actually had a ton of fun. I'm hoping some people driving by got a laugh out of a really tall skinny dude on a tiny bike.

When E. Haderlie and I had planned the night before we set a goal to find someone to baptize in November. There was a return appointment with a guy named Brian who they had met miraculously the day before. I guess Brain saw them as he was driving and felt like he should talk to them but drove away. He felt the prompting again so he drove back and found the elders and asked if he could visit with them. We taught him the restoration and when we invited him to be baptized on the 12th he immediately without hesitation said yes. So cool how the Lord helps us hit our goals.

I have told Elder Taylor about Canes and how 

good it is....look what we found just outside Independence!

Elder Taylor and I were discussing how we often receive Bible referrals from online requests but not once on either of our missions have we received a Book of Mormon referral. Literally, later that day we got one! And the following day we got another! Small tender mercies are the best!  We contacted both but only one of them brought fruition. His name was Michael Perkins. (Brother Perkins I sent pictures of last week). When we met with him we quickly discovered that he had some sort of learning disability. He lives in an assisted living home and we get to visit him every day and teach him more. He is able to read and discern right from wrong so it is slow but exciting to see him begin to learn the doctrines of the gospel. We teach only one doctrinal point a lesson and often time back track to a point previously taught. He has one of the sweetest spirits and brings a lot of joy to E. Taylor and I. We asked him why had requested a Book of Mormon and he informed us that it just popped into his head one day. He was able to make it to church this Sunday (it was stake conference) and he seemed to really enjoy it. He told us he liked the music. No surprise there. The music was extremely good! John Davies was our organist and he is an RLDS convert that used to play the organ at the Community of Christ temple for their conferences. I'm pretty sure the organ there is built after the one in our conference center is SLC.

Teaching Michael Perkins about the 

Restoration at the Visitor's Center

Elder Taylor and Elder Kelly

We went to try and follow up with Deondre and Michael from a couple weeks ago and we were at their apartment door when a man outside saw us through the window. He walked up the stairs and told us to come teach him, "The Word". We gladly followed because after a second knock on Deondre and Michael's door they yelled at us to leave from inside.  The man that came and talked to us is named Henry Freeman. We followed him to his apartment and when we walked in it was quite the sight. The table had cigarettes and alcohol on it. It wasn't the cleanest apartment but none the less my attention was drawn to the wall that the front door was on. On it was a giant dark red splat. My heart sank as my first thought was that it was blood. We asked him what it was and he told us some teenagers broke in and threw ketchup everywhere and he hadn't been able to clean it all the way. Still not sure if I believe him. We taught him anyways and actually had a really powerful lesson. He was engaged and asked questions. As we testified of God's kingdom being on the Earth he asked when he could be baptized. In fact he asked us if we would leave a note on his door later that day of when and where he could be baptized in the following week. We informed him that he needs to learn some things prior to being baptized. He was fine with that and then we invited him to get rid of the narcotics because he would be closer to the Lord if he didn't indulge in those things. He said ok and then he also committed to come to church.  Sunday morning we got a voice mail saying that he had thought about what we had said pertaining to the narcotics. Brother Freeman said that he wanted to get some help with those things first so he wouldn't be at church that day. We will be following up with him tonight to see if he went and got some help! So rewarding to see someone act on the promptings of the Spirit.

Tony Murray is the ward mission leader's

son.  He goes out with us quite a bit and 

he is a lot of fun.

On Friday Elder Taylor and I went on exchanges with E. Katoa and E. Beyeler.   E. Katoa came with me to Raytown and we had a lot of fun talking about Parkville and all the funny stuff that happened out there. It was sad exchanging back but it is also nice not dreading to be with your real companion again. I have been blessed to never have that on my mission.

I know that God lives. I know it. He answers our prayers as we promise him to act and then do according to our promise. It works. I know that Christ died for us and that he rose on the third day. I invite anybody reading this to please read the Book of Mormon and the Bible. That is how God speaks to us!

Love Elder Kelly!

Cameron, who was recently baptized 

will soon be moving to Idaho Falls.