Letter #6 10/29/12 Hurricane Sandy!

Hello family! And everyone else!! Hope you're all doing fantastic!!

 

This week has been pretty interesting haha very eventful!!

 

First off, we didn't do a very good job budgeting our miles for our car, so we've been biking a lot this week. My bike is amazing!!  Rockhopper with the 29 inch wheels.  I don't know how you got those, but the bike is seriously amazing haha!!  We probably biked somewhere between 70 and 80 miles this week, which doesn't sound very much, but it's not the same as biking for fun. There are cars along the road that tow boats and they don't realize how big the boats are and almost hit you. That's not fun... But I've liked biking a lot!! It's a great opportunity to talk to people!!! Unfortunately, I had two flat tires this week. It was pretty dumb. We're trying to budget our miles, and we end up having to drive 6 miles to get me a new tire for my bike on Tuesday. AND it was a stem leak, so I couldn't just patch it up. We tried :/ That was Tuesday. Wednesday we biked to our branch mission leader's house, about 3 miles away, and did our corrolation with him. When we packed up to leave, I had a flat again, but on the other tire. It was ALSO a stem leak. Luckily, it was at a member's house so we could get a ride, AND it wasn't while biking, AND he took me to Walmart to get yet another tire. So, I'll call that one a blessing :) haha but it's still weird to get 2 stem leaks on your bike in 2 days. :p

Next event, a Blitz with our zone leaders!! We went on exchange with our zone leaders, which means I don't go with Elder Adams, but instead Elder Macrae, and Elder Adams went with Elder Moore, AND we all stayed in the Southport area. So we had a lot of appointments and got a lot done. Our zone leaders are amazing!!! They're really excellent missionaries and I learned a lot from them.

 

Next event. The hurricane!!! Holy cow!!! We had like 70 mile an hour winds, and I couldn't see out the windows because of all the rain!! We almost had to evacuate, but we didn't. I even saw a witch on a bicycle when I looked out the window!! Crazy stuff!!!    Ha. I wish. It was pretty whatever. Not a lot of wind, a little bit of rain. Nothing we couldn't handle :) BUT there were several meetings cancelled, including our Sunday fireside :/ so that was sad...

 

Saturday we had a ward event, which was the trunk or treat combined with a chili cook off for our ward!! It was way fun!! All the kids were really cute in their costumes, and Elder Adams and I were the official judges of the chili!! Way fun :) We even got to have a costume!!! We found these pairs of glasses at Walgreens for about 2 dollars a piece that look EXACTLY like Men in Black glasses, so we walked in as missionaries to the activity, and halfway through we put on our glasses. Everyone was like- "They're so cool!! They look like spies!!"  "What are they, FBI agents?"  "Whoa!! That's smart!!" etc. Basically, we missionaries are a pretty big deal ;) bahaha. Nonetheless, it was a very fun night!! We also had 2 investigators there, one of which we met at the blitz. She's a cosmetologist and she volunteered to do facepainting. Very fun :)

 

So this week was all in all eventful. This Sunday was the Primary Program. We have about 20 kids in the primary, so they give everyone 2 parts, and some of the older kids give mini talks. The little kids are SOO cute though. Oh man. This one kid has a MAJOR southern drawl, and he says and does the funniest things!! His parents are recent converts, so we get to visit them almost on a weekly basis. Which is always fun :)  They come to church every Sunday. Great family!! The program was great all in all though, loved the whole thing :) haha!! We also had a lot of the less-actives that we've been trying to contact make it there!! Which is always good :) We're continuing to try to find people to teach.  We have about 8 in our teaching pool, but several aren't progressing and we may need to drop them... We'll just see how this week goes. We'll work our hardest to keep up with it!!

To answer Mom's question, we don't eat with members that often.  Most of the time we're cooking for ourselves.  We don't eat out often, mostly because we can't afford to. Haha.  We get $115 a month for all of our expenses, food, needs, whatever.  Glad you liked the souvenirs.  Food-wise, send healthy snacks :)  like the oat and honey granola bars, Triscuits, wheat thins, Chex mix.  Healthier.  :)  Because I can't afford them.  Special request for Grandma:  Could she make me some of those Rolo cookies?  I remember those being good...

 

I'm glad to hear Parker is home teaching!! I'm starting to realize I should have put more effort into that... I wasn't a great home teacher. But that just means I can be a better one when I get back. Eternal Progression!

Times up. Love you all!! Miss you!! Wish you the best.  For a spiritual thought you can read something in the Book of Mormon. I liked the Book of Daniel this week.  It was good :) HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!

Letter #5 10/22/12 Working hard in Southport!!

Hello family!!! I loved the letters and package I got this week :) It came perfectly on time!! I had taken my VERY last pill the day before haha so it wasn't a moment too late. I'm hoping to send home a package this week with some goodies from N.C. Hopefully you enjoy them :) Too bad about the camera... Hopefully you can get it working!! There's great pictures there!!!  

I'm glad to hear about Alisa!!! I'm sure she'll be a great missionary :) you can send this to her from me, but i'll also write her this week-- Alisa, I am so excited that you are going on a mission!  You will love it and you will be a great missionary!  Our awesome debate skills are super valuable.  However, you have to learn to use them to teach with the spirit.  My MTC district leader said to me, "Kameron, do not bible bash!  You will win, but don't do it!"  I think the same advice applies to you.  The Lord blesses us with gifts, but we have to use them to provide an opportunity for the spirit to teach our investigators and not rely on the arm of the flesh.  I can't wait to hear where you are going!!"

About this week--

We struggled this week. We taught very few investigators. A is still our all-star.  I think I talked about her before. She has a quad. And I don't know if I mentioned it, but she now has a desire to serve a mission.

G is a woman in our area. She came last week to sacrament meeting with us when I gave my talk. She seemed to enjoy it, but she didn't come to church this week. The only investigator we had at sacrament was A. :/ 

Another investigator is S. She's a friend of a member at an "assisted living" sort of center. The member is D, and she recently had her foot amputated. Pretty sad... But she met S at this facility. S is an older woman with Parkinsons and Dementia. She has a VERY strong belief and testimony in Jesus Christ, and so far has been VERY responsive to what we have taught her. She was going to a non-denominational church before, but with her illness I don't think she'll ever make it to church. I'm not entirely sure what will happen there but I hope for the best!!

Our focus of late has actually been reactivation. I counted our attendance again this week and we had 64. We can do better... Our branch roster is 9 pages long, about 12 familys per page, and we only have 64 people at church. It's pretty rough. But we taught a lot of RCLA (recent convert, less active) lessons this week. We're hoping that if we can get more member support, we can find non-member friends and help the part-member families better. So we're working on that :) It's a good start... But it's still discouraging to only teach a few investigator lessons, and only have 1 investigator come to church. 

Yesterday we were able to attend a baptism in Shallotte!! It's a great experience, really!! Its incredible to think now about the step toward Christ people take when they're baptized by someone who holds the proper authority!!

Another experience-- I went on my first exchange this week with Elder Blackwell from Whiteville.!! He's way cool. I really enjoyed the time I had with him :)  We were fortunate enough to teach a member in his area who they contacted very recently. Her name is Y. . She requested a blessing. For some reason, Elder Blackwell decided to have me give the blessing. I forgot to mention this before, but I gave my first blessing about a month ago in the MTC to my companion, Elder Wagner. So this was my second priesthood blessing. It was really strange... I felt like I was just reciting something that someone was whispering in my ear. Super neat!! I'm not sure where things will go with her though. 

Sorry, I didn't really write a lot this week. Not a lot honestly happened... We're going to work harder this week though. Hopefully appointments don't fall through as much, and maybe we can have more investigator attendance at sacrament meeting :)

I think the letter thing works great!!! I loved having your letters, and it was a great opportunity to think about what to write throughout the week. Just a heads up, I think it takes about 6 days for things to get sent to me, not 3. Because it has to be forwarded from the mission home :/ So just keep that in mind. 

Spiritual thought comes from True To The Faith this week, on pages 74 and 75-- 

        "Alma said, 'All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a supreme creator' (Alma 30:44) 

          From time to time, ponder the beauties of creation: trees, flowers, animals, mountains, the waves of the ocean, a newborn child. Take time to gaze into the heavens, where the courses of the stars and planets are evidence of 'God moving in his majesty and power' (see D&C 88:41-47)

I would challenge everyone that they take a moment this week to ponder this message. To slow down in our busy lives and literally stop to smell the flowers. Something I have really missed out here is the mountains. But this message is so true!! Everything testifies that God lives and he loves us. I challenge everyone to look for examples of his love in their life this week :)

Well, it's time to go shop for food. I'll send a package. I hope everyone is doing ok!! Hopefully Kaiti's symptoms have decreased. She didn't email me this week, but that's ok. That's what repentance is for ;) 

I love you all, and I keep you in my prayers!! Keep me updated on life, I'm interested in the election so maybe send me a little something updating me on that would be nice, but otherwise I'm doing just great here :) I love Southport, I love my companion, I love the gospel, and I love the Lord!!! Best of luck to everyone. HURRAH FOR ISRAEL

PS Ask Kaiti for Joey's mission address, I desire to write him!! Much love :)  Tell Matt welcome home!! Love you!!!!

Letter #4 10/15/12 North Carolina Wildlife!

Elder Kilbourne keeping to the straight and narrow way!!

 

 

Alright, so this week has been pretty sweet!! So yes, I did end up playing piano at zone conference. I spent like 3 hours practicing "abide with me tis eventide" and "battle hymn of the republic." I got abide with me down, but DANG battle hymn is hard, so I didn't play that one at zone conference. It is nice to play the piano! Even if it's one of those electric ones like they have at the stake center. In any case it was nice :) I thought you would like that picture!! It's funny!! I would send home pictures, but I'm not sure yet if i'm allowed to use the wi-fi capabilities on my camera. The missionary handbook discourages use of wi-fi devices, and while I could easily justify it I figure I'll ask the president first, and if I can't I'll just send home the micro SD card and you can get them that way :) I forgot to ask him at zone conference, so I'll be sure to ask in the letter to the president this week.

 

Ok, so this week I'll have more time to write, and I won't be so rushed. The main reason I asked for letters is so that I can know what you want to know, and I can keep it in mind throughout the week, rather than having to come up with it on the spot. So, yes i'll appreciate the letters :) I got your package this week!! It was like thursday, the 11th (two weeks late for a welcome package haha) but it was still nice to receive!! I have like 3 pills left of my Lialda, so hopefully I get that package this week :/

 

 Oh! Funny story. They DO pick on the new missionaries. True to form, I was called wednesday night to give a talk on sunday about who I am and my experience with conference. Not just that, they wanted me to be the closing speaker. Ouch. So I prepared and what not. The sacrament (portion of the meeting) was super fast, it ended at like 9:15. The first speaker was sister ward, and she gave about a 15 minute talk, then we had a rest hymn. So basically, it was up to me to fill the time between 9:35 and 10:10. Yeah.... I gave a 25 minute talk and they closed early, but still. I was pretty impressed with myself. The branch is tiny!! I counted the members, and we had 63 people present at sacrament meeting, which is actually pretty good haha but they're all great!! I've been able to meet with most of them, and they're all great. I've had some neat experiences!! I've never really noticed until now how different the spirit in peoples' homes are. It's a very stark contrast to go teach a less active member who hasn't been to this branch, and then go meet with the Branch President immediately after. There's a different feeling, it's SO much more comfortable there, and you can just be happy. I dunno, I liked it haha. But it made me think a lot about our home and how amazing it is to be there!! We were actually talking about it with a family Saturday night that we ate with, the Kapu's, and Elder Adams talked about one of his friends who was always at his house, and when Elder Adams asked why, the friend said because his house feels different. It made me think of all my friends who were always over, and now I know why :) and also why I always loved staying home. It felt comfortable, it felt happy, it was a very open environment, and people could notice it immediately. So thank you family for having such a wonderful home!! Brother Kapu is hilarious though. They're Hawaiian, and apparently he was less active up until about a year ago.

 

I Really do love the members here though. The entire area in fact is just amazing!! It's different, but I love it!! Heres some info about the wild life here. There are bugs everywhere. Really. Like, just outside there used to be a hornets nest. We took some promethrin to the nest though, and watched the bees writhe in pain. It was great. :) There are red ant hills EVERYWHERE. those things hurt too, their bites sting. I've seen 3 cockroaches, 1 of which we killed in our apartment. No bed bugs yet. Mosquitos are nasty. They're rampant, but with winter coming I'm sure they'll die down. Every night little gecko frog things climb up the walls around the street lights and eat the bugs!! It's really cool haha I keep telling Elder Adams I want to send a frog home, but I just don't think he'd live through the traumatic experience :/ Let parker know I'm trying to get him something cool for his birthday though... Haha. We also have lizards!! They're cool, I've seen probably 5 of them. Supposedly there are alligators here, but I have yet to see one. We're going to sister mustards house this week though, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!

 

As I said before, this is an all car mission, but it's really hard. As of today, we've used up 450 something miles, so we're a little bit over budget, but we're going to try to bike more to keep that down. I love biking!!! It's seriously the best. It feels good, and you have a better opportunity of talking to people. Saturday night we were just biking around Southport, and we found like 2 potential investigators. One of whom we're meeting with tonight, and we think he's pretty elect. He had a best friend when he was in high school who was mormon and went to byu. He said he spent a lot of time with him, and that he loved the family environment. So, that's pretty neat!! We ended up dropping C's baptismal date because we couldn't get up to her. A is still awesome as ever. We're working little by little, but we're diligent and we're already seeing the effects!! We'll just have to keep it up, and i'm sure we'll reap the rewards!! I can feel and just tell that there's a lot of work to be done here, great and marvelous work, and it just gets me excited!! I want to be the missionary that turns this small baptist/catholic area around!!

 

You asked about my mission president. He's an awesome guy!! According to the other Elders, he has a lot more rules than the previous mission president, but he isn't as strict about them, and more loving about enforcing them. So, in that sense, he will likely be lenient on the camera thing, but I'm not entirely sure. Elder Adams is his favorite, even if he won't admit it. I'm pretty sure Elder Adams is going to be a general authority. So save this email in the case that I'm right, because that makes me a prophet too :D Elder Adams is awesome. He really is. He's diligent, he's obedient, and very spiritual. We work really well as a companionship. He says I'm an answer to his prayers, and that I came pre-trained. Hopefully I can live up to that!! I really just want to work out here, and do good. But we get along really well, we're both pretty easy to live with, and there haven't been any issues as of now. :)

 

12 week program isn't really anything big. It's just suggestions for companionship study, like read 3 pages of the missionary handbook, and study the lessons in chapter 3 of preach my gospel. Nothing major. I completely agree with the increase of missionaries! I'm sure it'll happen. ESPECIALLY sisters. BUT the quality of missionaries will go down I think. Sisters have a reputation of being amazing, and I think that is due in part to their 2 years of extended experience and heightened maturity. With the age going down to 19, I don't think they'll be AS effective as the current sister missionaries, but I'm sure they'll be a great addition!! I'm all for the 18 years for guys, but I really do value the year I had at BYU. I would encourage others to have a similar experience, there's no problem with waiting a year before you go out. I think it's better to be prepared to leave, than to be time-savvy and leave before you're ready. But, that's just me. I'm sure we'll be getting some excellent missionaries, and I think Jackson would be a prime missionary!! Seriously, that kid is the STUFF!!

 

I don't want to be THAT missionary, but if anyone wants a spiritually uplifting message I would encourage you to read Moroni 7 :) It's an awesome chapter. I read it this week, thought it was pretty amazing. It's uplifting and encouraging, but at the same time it's real. You have to keep in mind all the trials Moroni was going through at that time. Pretty sad, but he endured well and never lost his faith. Emulate his Example :)

 

Well I need to go write the mission president, if I feel like I missed any thing I'll just throw it in my letter later today, or I'll write next week. Can't wait to get your letters!! Love you all!! HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!

Letter #3 10/8/12 I'm in North Carolina!!

AHHHH!!! I only have 15 minutes to write :( I'm so sorry!! Gah. Ok, i'll try to get out as much as I possibly can, but if things aren't spelled right, deal with it, i'm typing like a maniac now!! Ok so I have been called to serve in SOUTHPORT, N.C. which, is basically the farthest southeast point of North Carolina, RIGHT on the coast. Which is pretty neat :) Our area is massive, it might be the largest in the mission so we're fortunate enough to have a car!!! We can drive 900 miles a month. Which is ridiculous. Like, super hard. We have to get members to drive us everywhere so we don't go over. It's been 7 days since we got here, and we've already driven 180 miles up to today. Yeah... But we've been biking too!! I've gotten my companion to go out once or twice. i SWEAR i won't get fat. I don't care what you say mom :p I won't!!! So the area covers places like Southport, Oak Island, Bolivia, and Boiling Springs Lakes. Big area. Our church isn't a church. Neat right? We have church in an old warehouse that we have made our church. It's a cute little, baby blue shed ;) We're responsible for one branch. yes, a single branch for that entire massive area. Cool!! There are like 70 members. All of which are amazing!! Like, really, everyone is so helpful and nice, but there aren't a lot of members so that's hard. We have like 3 progressing investigators. One is C, who has a baptismal date set for Nov. 3rd. Another is D.  He keeps commitments, comes to church every Sunday, but he's been meeting with the missionaries for like 4 years. I actually haven't even met either of these people.  It's really hard to meet up with people here... It's crazy!!! But we try. So it's all good :) Another investigator, A, is prime. If we asked, she would be baptized, but her dad won't let her until she's 18. Pray for his heart to soften!! But yeah, she's great. She watched conference. She goes to church. She even has a quad!! Really!! If an investigator has a quad, I think they're prime ;) IDEA-- FAMILY CAN EDIT AND FIX MY SPELLING ERRORS. THANK YOU :D  Ok, so now for my mission companion!! His name is ELDER ADAMS. Elder Kevin Adams. He's from Pleasant Grove, Utah, and he went to Lone Peak high school, graduated 2011. Maybe Jackson knows him. He's been on his mission for 4 months. Yes, you read that correctly. He was a turn around missionary, meaning that he just got trained. Training takes 12 weeks, or 2 transfers, or 3 months. He only just got trained, and he is now training me. So he knows the stuff pretty well. He's been in the area for the past 3 months so he knows all the members, but he's still trying to figure things out and stuff. So we're working together to do it. We're being exactly obedient, at least striving to be!! OH sad news for dad!!! No classical music... Only music allowed is Mormon Artists, efy CDS, etc... So if you want to send some Mormon CDs, artists, or EFY music in the packages that would be PRIME!! :D sorry though... Um... He's a nice guy, really cool, we definitely get along well. He was into Pokemon before he came out so we definitely have some similarities ;) but he ran track in high school and played football and what not. He's a cool guy.  I like him. Conference was amazing!! Loved Uchtdorf's talk about living with no regrets. I thought about home, and before my mission and I can honestly say I lived with no regrets. I have fun with all you guys. I got to know each of you better, and I value the time I had with each of you. I also loved Eyring's talk about his sons. I don't really know why, but I just loved it. He was SOO sincere!! So emotional. So much love. I just enjoyed it. And of course, Holland blew it out of the water. He's amazing. So was Bednar!! I loved Bednar... Ah. I'm out of time. I don't think I answered all the questions, I'll try to be better next week!! I email from 10:15 a.m to 11:15 a.m. on Mondays, my Preparation day. (which means 8:00 a.m. for you guys) so be ready about that time to get my emails. I love you all!!! I'm so jealous about the cabin!!! But I heard from a member who was in Bear Lake this week that a major cold front came in this week, so it sounds like you were cold :) Nonetheless, I'm jealous, and I hope you loved conference and the cabin!!! Love you all!! Be obedient, LOVE CHRIST, and HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!! :)