Elder Christofferson and Easter

April 22, 2014

Hello friends and family! 

First off, I just wanted to say thank you all for the birthday support, I felt so much love this weekend, and I am just so grateful for the people that Heavenly Father has put into my life, you are all such a blessing to me. 

I had the most incredible weekend ever. We drove to regina on friday, which is really long and really flat, so that was... fun, and then we had our meeting on saturday with elder Christofferson from 930 -1130. I was asked to play the opening and closing hymn, and then about an hour of prelude, I just played some arrangements of hymns that I've done, and arrangements of hymns that I know well, so it was nice, because I haven't had the chance to play that kind of stuff in a while. I played also while everyone shook Elder Christofferson's hand, and then I was the last one to shake his hand once everyone was done and he thanked me for the music, which was really great. Elder Soares of the 70 was the first to speak, and he spoke on pages 3-5 of the white handbook, and how we can receive the spirit power necessary for our missionary work. Then Elder Christofferson spoke. He is so kind, and humble, and funny, it was such an icredible experience. He essentially opened up the meeting to questions from missionaries, so we were able to discuss specific things that we could to do improve, and it just went so well. I am so grateful for men who are called of God to lead and guide us today. Easter was also incredible, We had 12 people at church which is actually a good turnout, and a lady named eva who was invited by megan showed up, which was really great, we will be teaching her and her son this week.

I am just so grateful for the easter season, for a loving savior who was willing to give so much for me so that I could return to my Father in Heaven. I know he has done the same for all of you, and I am just so grateful for the gospel in my life. 

We have baptismal dates with Elli and Lett on may 10th, and if you could keep them in your prayers that would be great. Also, Pray for Joanne, Nettie, Eva and Her son, and Peter, a young man we tracted into this week who really needs to know that God is there for him. other than that, pray that we will continue to find prepared people, especially prepared families that we can share the gospel with.

I love you all, thank you so much for the support, I hope you have a wonderful week!

With Love,
Elder Kendall

A day in the life of Elder Kendall

April 15, 2014

Hey friends and family! I am doing super well, we have two baptismal dates set for may 3rd with Elli and Lett, the Filipino family, and so that is super exciting! it will be the first ever baptisms in morden and winkler! I am so grateful to be serving here, Elder Petersen and I will be staying together here for the next 6 weeks, so it will be great! I love serving here, it is really hard, but really worth it.

So. Here's a day in the life of me. Wake up at 6:30, work out, breakfast, get ready for the day, and then at 8 I study Preach My Gospel and the scriptures, and then 9 we do our companionship study and practice. once ten rolls around, we get out and work! following up on potentials, teaching a couple less actives, tracting, street contacting, and teaching lessons to investigators is usually what our days involve, and then we have service here and there. I am so grateful to be serving here, I wish I could tell you more, but I am running out of time! I love you all, thanks for the support, this weekend Elder Christofferson is visiting our mission and so I will let you know how that goes. I love you all, thanks for everything!

Love,
Elder Kendall

The Winkler Life

April 8, 2014

Hello friends and family from the actually relatively warm area of Morden and Winkler!

It is 60 degrees outside today and I am so happy to be here, I am loving serving in this area! When president Thomas called me here he told me to pack my bags and go establish the church. So that's exactly what we are doing! I want to tell you all a little bit about my work.

The area- The area has a combined population of close to 20,000, and is pretty rural on the outskirts with a lot of small suburbs in the city. really nice neighborhoods, if there were mountains around it would seem very much like some spots in utah to me. It is nice and flat, and the people are very friendly, and also very devout for the most part in their beliefs, which is interesting in terms of missionary work, but it is still great! The predominant religion is mennonite, and there are a lot of people here who have immigrated from places like germany and german-speaking areas in mexico (who knew?) so that is exciting as well!

The Work- We are encouraged to meet with a lot of members, which works for about two hours out of the week (megan and the valdez family) so the rest of the time we are seeking/doing service (as encouraged by our mission president), street contacting, and tracting. Tracting is actually decently effective here, most are nice christian people who, even if not interested are willing to let you in and have a pleasant conversation, so we are able to talk to a lot of people, and we have found two new investigators in the past week while tracting, which I'll tell you about in a bit.

Investigators- Elli and Lett have baptismal dates (the Filipino family the valdez family introduced us to) and we found three new investigators in the past week, Joanne (referral from President Palmer) who is a retired woman and wants to join but is facing opposition from her husband, Jake, who is 80 and is slightly confused but is fun to talk to, and nellie, who we just tracted into yesterday. It is really wonderful to work with all these people!

Companionship- We are doing super well, Elder Petersen is from roseville, california, and he is just a good, hardworking guy. We get a lot of work done and have fun doing it, so it is tons of fun!

I am doing super well, loving every minute of my mission, and I am just so grateful for the love and support! I am nearly out of time, so I will have to go, but let me know what details you would like and I will be happy to give them to you!

Love,

Elder Kendall

Baptism Dates!

April 1, 2014

Hey friends and family!

I am running out of time, but here's a couple updates:

We set two baptismal dates with Elli and Lett, and we got a new investigator yesterday

Elder Christofferson of the quorum of the twelve will be attending our zone conference on april 19. I am so excited!

I love you all, thank you for everything, I am doing super well!

With Love,

Elder Kendall

Life in Winkler!

March 24, 2014

Hey there friends and family from the still cold area of morden and winkler! I am doing super well, I am loving the mission, and we had a pretty great week, so I am really excited! 

Elder Petersen was sick, picked up what I had, so we were inside again. It was the worst. So, by saturday we had a lot of ground to cover (literally and figuratively, our area is pretty big, we have to drive a lot of places.), so we set out and got to work! We had two less active appointments, which were really great, and then the one member family that we have, the valdez family, invited us out to a tiny place called st. joseph to meet his friend named darius and his wife arlene, who moved here from the Philippines. He also invited his friend Elli (who is a man) and his wife lett. We started talking with Darius, and he didn't seem very interested, and then got up with the wife and the valdez family to prepare dinner for us, so while they were we just started talking with elli, and shared with him a little bit about the Book of Mormon and why we have it, and he said he was super interested! so we taught he and his wife a bit, and then set up a return appointment for wednesday! I am so excited to have new investigators, that even though it was tough with Elder Petersen being sick, The Lord still provided a way for us to find people to teach.

Saturday night we had a fireside in our church/home, given by our branch president, president palmer on "why he's a mormon", and all our invitations fell through to come to that, but we had a lot of members vist from surrounding areas, so that was nice. He is very missionary minded, and although he is serving in another area, he is a big help to us. I am so grateful to be serving here, there are going to be a lot of good things happening soon.

I love you all, thank you for the support, I don't have time for a spiritual thought, but just know that I am grateful for all of you and I hope you have a wonderful week!

With Love,

Elder Kendall

The Winkler Life

March 18, 2014

Hello Friends and Family!

I am doing super well here in Winkler, I ran into a bit of a nasty cold last week, so we were inside a lot, which was the worst, but I am ready to go out and hit the pavement this week!

a couple things:

1. Church. So we still hold church in our home, and this week there were only four of us, and Elder Petersen and I spoke. I chose my own topic, and it was on making our own environment a personal temple. It went really well! Hopefully we can get more people to church soon.

2. No appointments this week because I was sick, but we have one set up with angele and her three sons, so please keep her in your prayers!

3. Please read mosiah two if you have the chance, a lot of my talk was based on that, and it was a really wonderful chapter to re-study!

I love you all, not much else to report, just thank you so much for the love and support that you offer to me, it means a lot! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

With Love,

Elder Kendall

Morden and Winkler

March 11, 2014

Hello friends and family from the incredibly flat area of Morden and Winkler!

I am back with elder petersen, and after a prep transfer in the area he and I are officially opening the area of Morden and Winkler for the church! I am so excited to be a part of this, it's going to be hard, but it will be well worth it.

1. The area- the population of this area is about 17,000, so relatively the same as Kenora, but it is much more flat, and a lot better established. (well established families, and people in general.) It is very religious, about 80% is Mennonite, and the rest are baptist, catholic, etc. it is definitely the bible belt of the mission.

2.The Work-There is only one member family that lives in Morden and Winkler, it's the Valdez family who are a family of 4, and then we have 1 YSA age young lady named megan, who I haven't met yet because she was on a trip. We hold Sacrament meeting in our 5 bedroom home every sunday, and a senior couple from the mission home makes a trip down every week to help preside over that meeting, because he is the 1st counselor in the branch presidency to the portage branch, about an hour and a half away from us. We are literally starting with a clean slate, so it will be interesting to see how we can add people to our teaching pool. The work will be old fashioned, lots of walking around, talking with people on the streets, and potentially a lot more tracting, so it will be interesting.

3.We had one appointment at the valdez home where we got into a bashing situation with some baptists, but we were very calm and cordial and did our best to just testify of the truthfulness of the gospel. This is going to be fun :)

4.Please pray for our potential angele, and her three sons stephen, nathan, and gabriel, that they can accept the gospel and become investigators.

I love you all, I have to go, but thank you for the support and I hope you have a wonderful week!

With Love,
Elder Kendall

Goodbye Kenora!

March 3, 2014

Hey there friends and family from the lovely yet super cold area of Kenora Ontario!

 

As you can tell by the subject of this e-mail, I am leaving Kenora! I just found out on Thursday, and I am actually pretty sad. Most of you know I had a rough go at the beginning of my service here, but I will really able to just buckle down, get to work, and we saw a lot of miracles and blessings as a result of our service here! We were teaching a lot, getting more and more support from the branch, and I am just so grateful that we were able to make things happen. I am grateful for the lessons I learned, and I am excited to head off to serve in Winkler Manitoba! (ha ha it sounds like such a dorky place, it will fit me well). Winkler was just opened a transfer ago, so it is practically new, I will be the third elder to ever serve there, and I am going to be serving again with my previous companion Elder Petersen! That will be really great, he and I were working really hard in Gateway, so I am looking forward to what the area has in store for me, and what I can do there. I cannot wait to serve there, and I know that as I turn to the Lord, we will see wonderful miracles!

 

1. The People- Tyson is doing super well, he got a bad cold and wasn't able to come to church, but we taught three member present lessons to him this week, committed him to quit smoking, and set a baptismal date! I am sad to go now, but I know that he will continue to progress in the gospel, and that he will be able to see the blessings that come from it. Greg and stephanie are doing well, they didn't make it to church because their ride bailed on them (no one has cars in Kenora), but we committed him to read the book of mormon and we came back two days later and he had read 50 pages! He is loving it, and I think he will continue to progress nicely. Stan dropped us, which was unfortunate, but hopefully we softened his heart and that he will be receptive in the future. Everyone else is still coming along slowly but surely, so keep the work in Kenora in your prayers so that this people can continue to progress in the gospel!

 

2. Fun stuff- So this week we went out on the ice roads in Kenora with our Branch President. Guys. I drove on a lake! It was so much fun, we were passing huge snow drifts and islands, I don't know how many of you have driven on and off an island onto frozen water with a car, but it was pretty great! Also yesterday we had a weird 2nd and 3rd hour for church, all we did was watch 17 miracles. It was super strange, but hey, you know what they say, sometimes you watch two hour movies in church!

 

3. Siritual thought- This week I learned a lot about loving our neighbors as ourself. I think we sometimes overlook loving ourselves the way God loves us. I have found that I am very self-critical, and that as a result I get upset with people, and impatient, but I know that if we are able to look at ourselves the way God looks at us, we will be able to then turn outward and love others the way God loves them. I have been focusing a lot on this lately and it has made a huge difference. I invite you all to pray to see yourself the way God sees you, and you will then be able to see others the way God sees them.

 

I love you all, thank you so much for the love and support, I hope you have a wonderful week, you are all in my prayers!

 

With Love,
Elder Kendall