Letter #22 2/25/13 Another Awesome Week!!

Hello Family!!

Another FANTASTIC week in Jacksonville!! Well. Not quite as fantastic numbers wise. We had a lot of appointments fall through, but we still hit the standards of excellence :) We have three investigators right now with Baptismal dates, and we're setting another one this week. Of those four people, three are ridiculously solid!! We're expecting 3 Baptisms here in March, and probably several in April. We're so excited to see this work progressing so well!!! Jacksonville is AWESOME!!! And it's pretty nice being here with Elder Bentley!!! We get along SUPER well!! We both work hard. We're both obedient. But we both know how to have fun!! We get along too well. Like, really. It's been amazing. He has a very similar sense of humor, so we're ALWAYS sarcastic, but nobody ever gets offended. We yell at each other in a funny way. Like, you know how at home we yell at each other when someone does something, but we don't do it because we're mad, just because we're funny? Yeah, it's that sort of a relationship. We make fun of each other all the time. We beat each other up. But we're ridiculously tight. Like, it's all just fun. You know what I mean? It's kind of how our home relationship is :) haha! I love it!! The only problem is eventually I'll have a new companions and I'Il be comparing them to Elder Bentley the rest of the mission!! Here's a funny story.... Ok so we ride our bikes a lot because we have the car every other week. So we usually bike probably 10-15 miles everyday, which isn't that bad. It's not amazing, but we enjoy. Anyway, whenever we get bored we play a game... We call it bumper bikes. Yes, it's exactly as stupid and dangerous as it sounds haha while we're biking we'll lean over and kind of swerve into the other person. We don't hit hard, it's usually just a hit and run sort of a thing. VERY entertaining, especially when we swerve and almost fall. hahah WELL as you can imagine you can only play this game so long before someone inevitable falls off their bike. Well that happened. Haha We played the game... And I lost. :) I swerved to hit him, and he biked forward, my tire caught on the back side of his bike, and I lost control and fell. I have a couple big scrapes on my knee, and it chewed up a pair of my pants... But it was so funny!!! My only regrets are the pants got hurt and I didn't get a video of it!! Super depressing. Still funny though :) But that shows you a little bit about our relationship ;) haha

I've been taking a lot more videos and pictures lately!! You'll have to let me know when to send that home. I haven't received the other MicroSD card yet so I'll probably send this one when I get that one back. Oh by the way, I have some things I need to buy... Hopefully you're ok with me using the credit card today!

I know I had some other stories, but I can't remember them AT ALL right now. Kind of lame :p Oh well. OH yesterday I traded a Tie with Elder Black. the tie I got has DOLPHINS on it!! I'm super pumped about it. Like, the other Elders probably think I'm a retard because I'm so excited I have a tie with dolphins on it, but I don't care because I have a tie with dolphins on it :) bahaha

OHHHHH I did remember something!!! Ok so this week we were at a less active member's house and we're teaching her husband. But one of her kids had one of those cheapo Walmart guitars and so I asked if I could tune it for her and play it. So I did, and we ended up singing "Hey Soul Sister" by train. Basically member trust went through the roof, I had a fun time playing the guitar, and Elder Bentley thinks I'm a rockstar. 

On a similar note, I told Elder Bentley I play the Ukelele too and he said I need to get that sent out to me. I don't know how easy it would be for you to do that, but would you send me my Uke? :) Pretty please? :) And maybe a page or two with some hymns or something so i can relearn real quick how to play? haha We decided that we can come up with ways to incorporate song into our lessons.... Not really, that was more of a joke. But it would be an AWESOME stress reliever to have that with me :) Just let me know in your next letter if that's feasible or not! It would be awesome! :) Thanks in advance!!

I'm running out of things. Things are flying by SUPER fast!!! in like 2 weeks i'll hit my 6 month mark!! THAT"S CRAZY!!! I honestly don't feel like I"ve been out that long. I'm loving it so far though :) For real! It's been the best experience of my life!!! I'm so glad I chose to come out. I've honestly had so much fun, and I've really learned and grown a ton from being out here!!! It's seriously amazing :) I love it!!!

Weeeeelp. I'm out of things to say. I hope everyone is having a SPLENDID monday. I know I sure am :) It started off a bit rough with a Crossfit workout that was so hard I threw up, but now I"m good :) and today is ONLY going to get better!!! WHOOO hahaha If you can't tell I'm ridiculously happy right now ;) haha!! 

I love you family!!! Stay happy!!! OH Spiritual thought-- Do something out of your comfort zone this week. Bring a plate of cookies to a neighbor you don't know, or invite them to dinner. That's how missionary work starts!! So get to know your neighbors a little better this week. TAKE THE CHALLENGE!! And be happy :) 

I Love you!!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!

Love, Elder Kameron Kilbourne

Letter #21 2/18/13 Best Day Ever!!

Hello Family!!

Hope you are ALL having a FANTASTIC time at the Cabin. Not going to lie, i'm pretty jealous :) But i'll get over it. Jacksonville is doing GREAT!!! WE HAD SNOW THIS WEEK!!! Pretty much amazing. Fortunately, nothing shut down. Usually, if there's even a snowflake the entire base shuts down, but the roads were dry so everything went on as usual :) 

We've seen incredible success here in Jacksonville, compared to Southport. I swear every person we talk to has an interest in learning more. The members here are incredible! When we take them to lessons, they're pulling out scriptures and readily participating in lessons. It's phenomenal!! We've set up a ton of lessons, we've set VERY solid baptismal dates with a few of them. The work here in Jacksonville is progressing VERY quickly!!!

Mom-- For your talk. Something I did to help me prepare? I don't know. I can't think of a whole lot. I don't know that I really prepared all that much for my mission.. Well. No. I take that back. I learned how to have a good attitude. That is KEY to really anything, is learning how to have a good attitude. Another thing I did was I left everything behind. The mission call specifically states "you will also be expected to devote all your time and attention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs." One thing I said frequently before I left was that I wasn't ready, but I was willing. And I was! I actually chose to go on a mission. I would be devoted. I accomplished everything I needed to before my mission, and came out ready to have an "eye single to the glory of God."  "No man can serve two Masters", and I chose the Lord. I think those were two things that really helped me prepare. As per what I wish I would've done to prepare... Role plays and getting out of my comfort zone. To this day I STILL hesitate to knock on a door or talk to somebody. It's just naturally scary. Role plays help you get used to that. It's practice that actually helps. Here's an example-- You can watch basketball all day long to learn how to play, but it isn't until you start shooting and missing that you actually figure out the mechanics. The mission is very similar. You can hear stories about how missionaries talk and teach, but until you actually practice teaching, you don't get better. I wish I had had more practice teaching the doctrines of the church, and practice bringing up the church in everyday conversation. It isn't easy :) 

Hopefully that helps :)

On to the best day I have had on my mission... 

Ok so the day was Saturday. We started our day with studies as usual. Then we finished some planning we needed to do. Again, nothing special. After lunch, we went out to an area to spend an hour in the area contacting before we had a lesson. We talked to two people, super nice and hopefully develop an interest. They were good contacts :) Then for the lesson we watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" with the family. This man is ready to be baptized, he just has to pay some probation fees and he'll be good to go. Super good experience with the family, they loved the movie :) After the movie we went to another investigators home. I hadn't met him yet, but he had recently had his leg amputated due to Diabetes. Apparently North Carolina is like the diabetes capital of the world. For anyone reading-- DO NOT GET DIABETES. It looks terrible... Anyone, this guy has a pet wolf. Yes, Kaiti, You read that correctly. A full-bred PET WOLF. Crazy right? Her name is Tasha, and she is SUPER sweet. She's beautiful! I'll try to get a picture next time we see him :) But that was a good time spent with our investigator. 

Our next appointment was with a less active part member family. We had dinner at their home. Nothing special, but we spent like the whole time talking with them. They have a three year old boy who is SUPER funny. He already has a sarcastic sense of humor, it's hilarious. He'll like mimic them and everything, super funny. The Dad, who is a member asked about evolution and I was able to respond using my new information from dad. Thanks for that by the way :) Which led us into a conversation with the Mom, who is not a member. She comes to church when He does. She basically said that she knew it was true, but that her family was catholic and she didn't know how they would react. So we sort of coaxed her into taking the lessons again, and seeing where it goes. Basically, she's prime. She knows it's true. We're just going to teach, and I can tell she's ready. It was just a great experience and Elder Bentley and I are super stoked about it :) :)

Then, in the middle of Dinner, we noticed it was SNOWING!!! SO EXCITING!! So we went out for a second, then came back in. After dinner, we drove to the Church and had a snowball fight with the other elders here in Jacksonville. We were freezing cold, but none of us had seen snow in like a year and we knew we probably wouldn't see it again until we got home, so we just kept playing. We made snow angels, tackled each other and wiped our faces in the snow. Basically just had a super fun time playing in the snow. Made us all so happy :D :D :D Then we went home and planned. BUT IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER. Like seriously. It made me SOOO happy to be a missionary. Gah. Just so happy :) I still have that feeling!! I"M SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!!! like, for real. Best experience ever. EVERYBODY should go on a mission. They'll love it. :)

Ok I want to answer your questions:

1) Elder Bentley... I love this kid. Seriously. He's awesome haha he's super funny and we get along super well. He doesn't like tension, he's very friendly, he's 21. During his teenage years he was pretty inactive. He didn't go to church like at all. But then like 3 months before he got his mission call he got really active again. Neat story :) 

It's been like two weeks since we've been together and we haven't fought once. It's awesome!! It makes me so happy haha WE have like small fights, but they're playful. Like, I throw a snowball at him and he whitewashes me. No bitterness, no malice. Just fun :) and we both know it, so we get along very very well. He's very willing to work hard. The companionship is honestly completely even. The idea of a senior companion isn't even thought of. We both just work equally and do equal the work, and have equal say in what we do. It's great. I swear it's like the dream companionship, and it scares me because I doubt I'll have another companionship this great. But I'll definitely enjoy it while it lasts :) If there's anything else you want to know, just tell me. I'll try to answer those questions :)

2) Bike and Car. Yes, we still have a car. However, we trade it off every other week with the other Elders here. So, last week we had the car. This week we're biking everywhere. Which might not be very fun, because it is FREEZING down here right now. haha but we try to bike more. I know I've been biking more since I've been here than I did in Southport. But, we also drive a lot too. So... I don't really know. We've killed our miles this month. We have like 120 left. For the rest of the month. Yeah... NO bueno. 

3) It depends on the week when your letters come.. I got your February 4th letter on February 14th. I think that may have been delayed due to the Blockade from transfers, but I would say it usually takes between 7-10 days for letters to get here. P.S. your letter couldn't have been more perfectly timed with the Evolution stuff. Basically the DAY AFTER I received the letter, someone we were talking to asked about evolution and the church, and I was able to pull all these references and stuff about how the church doesn't have a specific stance, how some lean both ways, there are examples and evidence for both ways, and the church stands by basic doctrine and leaves science to science. I felt like an expert ;) haha so thanks for that!!

Scripture for the day-- "for this purpose have I come"   Happy hunting!! :)

I love you all family!! have a great time!!! I love you!!! :)

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!!!

Love, Elder Kameron Kilbourne

Letter #20 2/11/13 J-Vegas!!

Hello Family!!

 

Alright.  Well, first of all I had my first transfer!!! I'm now in Jacksonville 3rd ward, with Elder Bentley! Jacksonville is a military base with a focus on marines. EVERYONE here is a marine. Like, really. It's pretty crazy. VERY different from Southport, but I still love it :) The missionaries here refer to it as J-Vegas. Not entirely sure why yet. It might be because there are tattoo parlors and that sort of stuff everywhere, but we tend to overlook that :) Our area is actually still large, even though it's a ward. We cover half of Jacksonville, Hubert, and Swansboro. The members are amazing!! I love them already. Super great miracle-- Last night a lady made homemade Cafe Rio!! She didn't even know it was my favorite!! I WAS SO HAPPY!!! :D So far we have had a meal EVERY night with members. Again, very different from Southport. We have a ton of members, so we aren't having to budget how much we use them for exchanges. We have like 7 ward missionaries, and we've already had like 2 ward mission meetings so everything is very, very organized. Military might go hand in hand with missionary work :)

Here's a miracle this week. So, Tuesday night (the night I was transferred here) we had a meeting at the church. Well, maybe it was Wednesday. I can't remember but it doesn't really matter. ANYWAY we were biking home in the dark. My policy about biking is if we see ANYONE and we don't have a commitment to keep, we talk to them. So we saw this couple, and stopped and talked to them. These were seriously like the first people I'd contacted while here in Jacksonville. We started talking with them, asking them questions and what not, and they mention that their brother was a member and he was living with them. Awesome right? They said we could stop by the next morning and talk to him. So we did, stopped by at 10:30. Knocked, nobody answered. Rang the doorbell, nobody answered. THEN I remembered something else I was working on. I have a goal to say a prayer with my companion everytime we knock on a door. It's just really nice to have that added focus. I just like it. Well, we said a really quick prayer, knocked ONE more time, and right as we knocked someone opened the door. It was the member we were referred to. We started talking to him. He's an islander from Palaw (sounds like Plow) or something. Not quite sure. Anyway, while we were talking to him his sister pulls up in the car. We find out SHE is a member as well. They moved in about a month ago. We start talking with the sister too, and she said that she has a 13 year old daughter who isn't baptized, and she would like her to be baptized. We said we would love to, set up a time to meet with her, and invited them all to church. And both the sister and daughter came to church on Sunday, and we set a baptismal date for March 27!! Woo!!! SUPER MIRACLE!!! And it happened in less than a week!! CRAZY!!! Haha!!

 

On another note, here is some stuff about Elder Bentley. First of all, we get along perfectly fine. We have very similar senses of humor (sarcastic).  We're both willing to work hard.  We both want to be obedient.  We listen to each other. It's just like the PERFECT companionship I swear. haha Anyway, Elder Bentley is from Mount Pleasant, Utah. He loves baseball. His favorite team is the San Franciso Giants. He played baseball for a year at Snow College before coming on his mission. He has a girlfriend at home, and they basically are engaged. I think they have a date for next February or something. The letters are pretty dang disgusting. Haha but they make me laugh. Elder Bentley has been on his mission about 16 months, so he's farther in his mission than either of my previous companions. BUT here's the crazy thing. Elder Bentley has served in Jacksonville 3rd ward before. This was the first area in his mission, and he came back. OH another thing I need to tell you, we white washed this area. That means that both the elders that were previously in the Jacksonville 3rd ward transferred this past transfer. We're both new to the area. In a sense--since Elder Bentley served here a year ago. Anyway, that's crazy. Like, that NEVER happens. Nobody goes back to a previous area!! But I'm sure glad he did. So we've been SUPER busy trying to figure some things out. The previous elders left really good notes to help us out and get us situated, but I can tell that this is just going to be an amazing area. :)

 

So with that said, this past week Elder Bentley and I have gone and seen several of the contacts that he used to know, and was working with. We stopped by like 4 Less-Actives homes, and ALL of them came to church yesterday!!! This place is SERIOUSLY taking off!! It's incredible!!! Oh man I'm SOOOO happy to be here!!! :D Crazy stuff.

 

I'm not sure what more to say, so I'll just throw some random stuff out. There are two sets of elders in Jacksonville. One covers the 2nd ward, and we cover the 3rd ward. There is also a set of sisters that cover both wards. We don't live in the same apartment as the other elders, but we live very close to them and are in constant communication with both the elders and the sisters. District unity is THROUGH THE ROOF. haha  We're all super fun. :) Elder Bentley says that Jacksonville is the 2nd highest baptizing area in the mission or something. I don't know how much I believe that. And not that it really matters. There's work to be done everywhere. It doesn't have to be a baptism :p haha The people are very different from Southport. Southport had a LOT of older, retired baptists and catholics. So everyone was really nice to you, but nobody was interested in hearing more. Here, people are little bit rougher. But they're honest, and you can tell that a lot of them are looking for something and are willing to change. It's great!! Absolutely wonderful!! :) The marine base here is called Camp Lejeune. I think. There might be like 3 camps or something, but we specifically cover Camp Lejeune. The only way to get on base is to either ride with a marine living on base, or go and sign up for a day permit. It's basically like getting a new drivers license at the DMV, except only for one day. We try to get rides with the members as much as possible so that it is easier. When you pull up to the gate, there are like 4 Marines with assault rifles waiting to check your clearance. Pretty crazy stuff!! haha There's also some sort of artillery thing that the miliary shoots pretty frequently. We live several miles away from the base, but when they shoot it we can hear it and even feel a small shake (VERY SMALL, but you can still feel it). It's pretty neat. Hopefully nobody goes to war soon because if they do I can guarantee I would not be in the safest location! haha

 

Well that's really all I can think of about the area right now... If you have anymore questions I would love to answer them :) Just send them to me, and I'll try to answer them!!

 

Spiritual thought!! I was reading this morning and I found a passage. "Perfect love casteth out all fear".  For those who play my game, it shouldn't be too hard to find. But I love the reference!! If we have a perfect love of the Gospel, we don't fear to share it. If we have a perfect love for the Savior, we don't sin. If we have perfect love and charity toward our fellow men, we don't fear to share the gospel with them and help and serve them. The passage rings true!! So, my challenge this week is to try a little harder to have a little bit more perfect love towards somebody. I can promise it will bless your life!! :)

 

I love you all!! I hope you are all doing well!! Have a wonderful week. Know I'll be praying for you!!! :)

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!

 

Love, Elder Kameron Kilbourne

 

Letter #19 2/4/13 Transfer!!

Hello, friends and family!

I'm being transferred! In any case, I don't know where I'm being transferred, I just know that as of tomorrow I will no longer be in Southport. Next week I'll tell you where I am, and who my companion is :)

I'm sad to leave. I've really loved Southport.. Everyone is so amazing!! But I'm interested to meet more people in North Carolina. I know it's time to move on.  Speaking of Southport though, I have a question for you... A[Kam's first baptism] told me she is going to be in Utah later in February. She wanted to know if she could spend a night or two at our house? I told her that it likely wouldn't be a problem, but I wanted to check with you first. Would she be able to stay at our house?

Your Scripture this week-- "I never knew you"  I know there are two references to this phrase.  See if you can find them both :)

I hope you have a fantastic week!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!

 

Love, Elder Kameron Kilbourne