How GREAT shall be your JOY!

Hey friends and family! 

This week was fantastic! We are able to see Kevin Cho get baptized. Kevin was an absolute miracle story, it was SOOO incredible!

So. Kevin. We had been teaching him for a few weeks and his progression was going really slow. We met him mid december and taught him for the first time at the end of December, which is when we set his baptismal date for February 7th. He wasn't ready basically all of January, but he still said he wanted to keep his date for the 7th. So, we got to the last week of January. We taught the word of wisdom, and he was really shaky about it, so we went back the next day to follow up. That day we probably taught the most spiritually powerful lesson of my entire mission. We asked if he was ready, and then we just sat there in silence... He said yes! Then his recent convert sister said, "are you sure?". More silence followed, but his response was incredible. "Yes, I know this is true." Kevin was baptized on Saturday, I was able to have the honor of baptizing him, and it was just a wonderful experience all around. We have seen so many miracles since I have been in this area, it truly is a wonderful thing to be a part of. 

I know that this gospel is true, and I testify that there is no greater joy than participating in the salvation of another soul. I am so grateful to have met Kevin, I am so grateful to be serving my mission, I love this gospel so much and am grateful to have it in my life. Jesus Christ lives, Joseph Smith restored Christ's church, the Book of Mormon is evidence of that truth, and I know that as we come unto Christ, our joy shall be full forever. 

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

Elder Kendall 

The work goes on

Hey friends and family! 

It was a really great week for us! lots of ups and downs, but good things are happening in the area! I don't know how much you know about canada, but helping people progress towards baptism is quite the tough endeavour. (well, getting anybody to even listen to our message is quite the tough endeavour.) However, right now elder schmidt and I have four baptismal dates, and we should be adding two more this week! We feel truly blessed, we have put a lot of hard work into the area, and the Lord has really provided. we also were able to find two more investigators this week, and are looking forward to a couple more this coming week, so if you are praying for our finding thank you so much! 

We also got a new bishopric in the YSA ward, hopefully we can keep the momentum going with these great men and that we will be able to move the work forward! they're pretty funny, just a couple of old bald guys leading the YSA members, but they are the right men for the job! 

Also, we set a MARRIAGE DATE with two of our investigators this past week! Jarrett and Mckenzie. They are having their fair share of struggles right now, so PLEASE pray for them, that the spirit will soften the hearts of their families and that they will be able to make it to their baptismal date! 

Random thought of the week. Sometimes in Canada, people throw snowballs at you... fun times. 

I want you all to know that I have a testimony of this great work. God is so incredible, and so loving to allow us to be a part of bringing this great work to others. I have never felt so much joy in my entire life. Preaching the gospel brings joy, and I am grateful to have that joy in my life, and to be able to serve the Lord. I cannot give much but I can give my part, and as long as I rely on the Lord, I know that my part will bring miracles to the work. I love you all, I hope and pray that you are doing well, thank you all for the Love and support! 

Love,

Elder Kendall

19 months and counting

Hey friends and family! 

I am really feeling the urgency on my mission right now, I only have 5 months left! This whole mission thing really does go by fast, I think that now would be a good time to talk about some lessons that I've learned so far:

The spirit is the single most important element in this work. Period.

Complaining doesn't help. If you want things to change you have to make change happen! 

You have to work until you're tired, and then keep working. It's not always easy, but it's worth it.

sometimes you shouldn't tell Filipino people to feed you something crazy, because when you do you might end up with an un-hatched dead duck  on your plate. It's squishy, and feathers don't go down easy. 

The Lord is always your best companion. rely on Him, and you will ALWAYS be successful. 

Bible bashing is like... actually I don't have an analogy for that, it's just really stupid. 

I still haven't seen one stinking polar bear up here. or an igloo. or the Northern Lights. 

Nothing is more rewarding than serving a mission. This is the Lord's university. 

Our Saviour will never let the work fail. He is our master, and He is all knowing, and all loving, and all powerful, and the work will roll forth when we put our trust in Him, seek His will, and believe on His name and in His matchless power. I promise that when we do that, no matter what our endeavours are in live, we will succeed. True success, happiness, and joy is found in living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I testify of that truth, and know that when we come unto Christ, we will not fail. 

I am so grateful for my mission. I am grateful to be serving here, to serve for the Lord, and to help others come unto Him. Dustin, Kevin, Jarrett, and Mckenzie all still have baptismal dates, but could all really use your prayers!  also, please pray for Stephen and pray that we will find new investigators this week! 

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

Love,

Elder Kendall

Happy New Year

Hey friends and family! 

happy new year from up north! It was a great "holiday" for us, we had some great times with some member families, and have a lot of exciting things to look forward to for the new year, I am really just grateful to be a missionary for the next almost five months (wait... what?) in the mission field! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone, but I am really excited for what the rest of my time here has in store! 

We are doing really well as a companionship in terms of work, we currently have four baptismal dates coming up, which is HUGE for one companionship up here in Canada, so we are really excited about that, we feel like there is a lot of great work going on, and ask that you keep a couple people in your prayers! Dustin is getting baptised in march, he has a lot of addictions so he needs some strength to overcome that, if you could keep him in your prayers that would be great! Kevin is doing well overall, I think he feels overwhelmed because the church that he used to go to was very relaxed, and in our church you have to, well, do stuff! So he hasn't been very good at reading and as a result his desire seems to be a little stagnant. He'll come around though! The last ones are Mckenzie and Jarrett, they just need a witness that this is all true. They are ready to live it, but a personal witness from God will help them to REALLY want it! They came to church this past week, which for them was crazy because they NEVER come, so we are really seeing some progress from them and are looking forward to what the future has in store for all of them! 

Canada is cold. but seriously. it has been -44 with wind chill, and we can't go outside once it hits -40, so we are expecting some slow work coming up. Please pray that we will be able to keep the momentum going as we move forward into the cold months, and that we will continue to have people to teach! 

I want you all to know that I have a testimony of the far-reaching effects of the atonement. Lately I have been asked to give a lot of blessings to investigators, members, and other missionaries in my stewardship, and I just know that no matter what their struggles are, the gospel and take those weaknesses, and those struggles, and use them to mold us into who God wants us to become. The effects of the atonement are LIMITLESS, and I know that as we turn to Christ, we will see those miracles take place in our lives. 

I love you all, thanks so much for the support, you are all the best and I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Kendall

Don't Stand on a basketball

hey friends and family!

So, I know that it seems like the subject makes no sense, but it will once I tell you a funny story. Elder Hirschi and I got a call one night around 10:20 from our mission president telling us that he had an assignment for us to take two of our sister missionaries to the hospital, because one of them had broken their wrist. We picked them up and took them to the hospital, and got the story from them. Sister P was having a rough night, and was crying a whole bunch, and so sister L wanted to cheer her up. And, as we all know, when we want to cheer somebody up, we try to balance on a basketball while singing songs to the sad individual. So, that's what Sister L did, and she slipped and broke her wrist. we were at the emergency center of the hospital until 1 in the morning, and we ended the night with a nice little gift from the police on our wind shield. Moral of the story, don't stand on a basketball!

This week has been good, we went on a little road trip out to portage la prairie for exchanges, which was good because that was the branch I was in when I served in Winkler, so it was good to see some familiar faces. There's this one lady that REFUSES to talk about any gospel topics with missionaries, but also happens to love missionaries and has been feeding them very regularly for the past five years. Her husband got baptized six months ago, so it is a very funny dynamic in the home. I love trips to portage!

Also, on saturday we found out that Elder Hirschi is getting emergency transferred to the second most northern part of the mission for his final transfer! He leaves in two days, two weeks before transfers actually happen, and I will have a companion for that short time before I find out who my new companion is. It's all very confusing, and kind of stressful because I am still getting used to knowing where I am in this city, but hey, it should be an adventure! 

Please pray for Jones, Cody, and Shay, and pray that we can find more people to teach! We have been having a hard time in that department lately, so please pray that the work will move forward!

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

Love,

Elder Kendall

Winterpeg

Hey friends and family! 

I am so sorry for the lack of an e-mail the past... month... it has been a very busy time of year for me with a lot of meetings and performances to take care of, but since I am one of the very few piano players in the city I have had quite the workload with the holiday season! but here's a little update on the area:

YSA wards are the best. Everyone is so involved, they want to invite their friends and we have found a few investigators because of it! We had to turn over a couple of them because they are single sisters, so the sister missionaries will be doing the bulk of the teaching, but it is still going really well! Courtney and Hillary are the ones who are doing the best, and then for my companion and I our most progressing investigators are Jones and Jarrett. both of them have their fair share of struggles and things that they need to change, but we are doing all that we can to help them along the way! 

We just had a mission fireside, and it went really well! I arranged three songs for it, one was the lyrics of away in a manger sung to the tune of come thou fount, which one of the sister missionaries sang, another was hark the herald angels sing, which a recent convert played on her flute while I accompanied, and the final one was a song called stars of glory, which I did the piano arrangement for and than sang in a duet with one of the sister missionaries! It was really scary, that was the first time I ever sang I song for anything, so I was scared, but it actually went really well, so that's great! I will be doing a few more arrangements for our Christmas zone conference coming up on the ninth, which will be really great as well! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Speaking of which, all of you should know by now that the church came out with a new Christmas initiative, which involved extensive social media efforts, as well as special pass along cards for us missionaries to hand out! Our minimum effort is ten a day, and since winnipeg is FREEZING cold right now and lot of people aren't on the streets, we have been doing more tracting lately which I missed a lot! I haven't been able to do a ton of it in my previous two areas, lately we've done about an hour a day, maybe more, and it has been really great! The Christmas initiative is very well received, even when people don't want to learn more. We actually knocked on a man's door, and I noticed through his front room window that he had a nice piano, so we talked about it a bit and I asked if I could play him a song, and he invited me in, so I played him a tune! Then he and his wife did a piano vocal duet of amazing grace! Ha ha it was so great! I am just really grateful for the christmas initiative, it is making our work so much more productive, and I am really looking forward to how it will help our work this month! 

I hope you all know that I appreciate all your love and support, I invite you all to seek out an opportunity to share the gift of our savior Jesus Christ with as many people as possible this Christmas season! I love you all, I hope you have a great week!

With Love,

Elder Kendall

The Piano Bench Mission

Hey friends and family! 

Guess what this weekend was? Yup, that's right, the best weekend of my mission. 

WE HAD TWO BAPTISMS! Their names are amanda clinton and Erika Cho, they were fantastic baptisms with wonderful talks, and I got to play piano for both of them! What a wonderful experience that was, I did all the hymns and both musical numbers, and I was really happy to be able to contribute in some small way to those baptisms. We also have another date on the way on November 8th, so please pray for Kamille! 

I also got to play piano for a mission fireside, they do them every month so that was great to be a part of, I did an arrangement of come come ye saints. by the end of december I will have played at least 12 musical performances for various occasions, and Elder Hirschi thinks it's so funny, so we pretend that I have been called to the piano bench mission. 

I love serving in YSA! It's very different, there hasn't been a sunday since I've been here that we haven't learned about eternal marriage, so that's a little strange, but hey, families forever are what the gospel is all about! We joke about the fact that we can't teach families in YSA, so we're working on helping others form families. :) ha ha Gotta love missionary work!

I don't have much time, but I just want to say thank you to all of you. I love your support, it means so much to me. I hope all is well back home, or in Guatemala, or wherever else you are in the world,and I hope that you all have a great week! I love you all!

With Love,

Elder Kendall

Saying Goodbye to Winkler life

Hey friends and family!

So, as you can plainly see, I am leaving Winkler! I spent 7 1/2 months here, and they have been months filled with a lot of growth and a lot of miracles! I am so grateful for the work that I have been able to be a part of while I was here, it was hard but oh so good, this place will always be a home for me, and I am just so grateful for all that I was able to do here. I have made so many friends and touched so many lives, and many people have touched my life as well. I know I was able to make a difference, and what a difference Winkler made in my life! I am grateful for the wonderful adventure that I had here, and I am looking forward to the new adventure in the YSA ward in Winnipeg! I am going to be serving with Elder Hirschi, he is one of my good friends out here in the mission field so I am really looking forward to serving with him, I know it will be incredible!

I want you all to know that I have a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that we teach His true gospel and that this is His true church! What a wonderful blessing it is to have the Savior on our side. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon, I KNOW that it is the word of God, our own personal handbook of instructions on how to find peace in this life and return to live with Heavenly Father and experience eternal joy. I am grateful for my opportunity to be a missionary, this work is incredible and there is no where else I would rather be. I love you all, thank you so much for the support, I hope you all have a wonderful week! You are in my prayers!

With Love, 
Elder Kendall 

40 Friends in Heaven

Hey friends and family!

I had such an incredible week this week, we were able to see a lot of miracles. I had a wonderful lesson this week with Eli (the spelling has changed again... I am not quite sure why...) and Let, they are doing well, and we were able to have a powerful lesson on the Book of Mormon and the power that it has to change our lives. Eli seemed to really enjoy it and we should see some great progress from him, PLEASE PRAY FOR HIM! We also had a really great lesson with Trevor, he works security at the fossil center, and we had been chatting back and forth while we volunteered, but we finally got into his home this week! We are hoping to see great things out of him as well.

So. The title of my e-mail is in reference to my trip to the Regina temple this weekend. We attended with the Portage branch, we drove down with Elder and Sister Menlove, the senior couple that works with us in Winkler every sunday for church, and it was just such and incredible trip. The spirit in the temple was so strong, it is just the tiniest little temple but it was so incredible, not only did we get to attend with portage, but the Gateway ward (the first area I served in) was there as well. It was wonderful. I got to see so many people that I had been serving, and a tender mercy happened when a less-active young man that we worked with in Gateway named Alfredo attended the temple, and I was able to perform the baptisms for the names that he brought there. Wow. What an incredible experience! It was my first time doing baptisms in the temple as the baptizer, and I loved it so much. I got to do forty baptisms, and I just know that those people were in attendance and were so grateful for their ordinances to be performed.

I want you all to know that I know that this is the only true and living church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I testify that Joseph Smith did see God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, that the gospel was restored through him, and that the Book of Mormon is the fruit of that restoration. I have read that book cover to cover and I KNOW that it is true. I love you all and I am so grateful to be supported by such wonderful friends and family. I hope you all have a great week! 

With Love, 
Elder Kendall