March 29, 2010

Dear Family,

Hello! The First week of the transfer is gone. Wow, that is crazy. So this week was pretty good. Let me tell you about it.

So, we are still working with Kyle. He still has a date for this weekend on Saturday. We are hoping that it will still go through. He went on a band trip to Florida this weekend and he called us and told us he brought his Book of Mormon and that he was going to read it.

Roy is still planning on getting baptized on Sunday as well. He went to the Collierville ward this last Sunday and seemed to enjoy it but he wants to be baptized up in Bartlett because he has a lot of friends up here. So we are going to baptize him up in Bartlett, which is good. He will transfer his records in the future to the Collierville ward.

We got in contact with an old investigator of Elder Murdock’s named Glenda. She is a Spanish person. So we got the Carnahan’s, some members that know her, to come and talk with her in Spanish. She can speak English really well but she prefers to speak in Spanish which isn’t really a problem.

A lot of ward activities went down this weekend. The Ward had a ward talent show which was quit

e fun. A lot of the kids from the families in the ward did stuff, like play the piano or sing. A lot of funny skits where included as well. Then on the weekend, there was an Easter egg hunt activity. There were a lot of Non-members around so we mingled around and talked to people.

This mission is definitely changing. We are trying to achieve the goal of 712 baptisms for the year 2010. I hope that we will be able to make it. I won’t be here for all of it but I will do all that I can with the rest of the time I have left. I love this gospel, I know that it is true. It brings happiness to all those who embrace it and live it. What a great honor that we have to have a living prophet on the earth today and we get to hear from him this weekend! Jesus Christ lives and loves us. We must strive to follow his example. I love you guys so much, thank you for the support and love. God bless you.

Love,

Kyle

(Elder Parker)

Pictures include: Me and the Easter Bunny, Me and Elder Grigg

March 24, 2010 (New Companion)

Dear Family,

I just thought I would send you a quick e-mail to update you on my situation. Elder Murdock has gone to Walnut Grove area. That was actually my greenie area so I hope that he will have some fun there.

I have a new companion. His name is Elder Bryce Grigg. He is from Boice, Idaho. He has actually served with Elder Cortez in Jackson at one point so that is cool. I think that we will get a long. I have learned that it is all about attitude. You have to decide for yourself whether or not you are going to get along with a companion. I am sure that we will do good, I will make the best of it. Come what may, and love it!

Well, I love you and hope that you are doing well. Talk to you next week!

Love,

Kyle

(Elder Parker)

March 22, 2010

Dear Family,

Hey hey hey! How are all y’all doing? I hope well, I love you so much and had a good week so let me tell you what is going on.

First of all, I have 4 more months left. I know, I shouldn’t count but it is so hard when everyone else around is and they are constantly asking you how long you have been out so that doesn’t help either. Elder Murdock is getting transferred. So I will get a new companion on Wednesday. I have a good guess on who I am getting. I think I am getting someone by the name of Elder Grigg. He is currently serving in Jackson and I just think that I am going to get him. We shall see if I am right on Wednesday. I will miss Elder Murdock. We had a lot in common and we taught well together. I hope that he is happy where ever he goes. Random mission news update. I don’t know if you ever new Elder Prete who came out in this mission about over a year ago who I went to High school with, but he just got made Assistant to the President. The really weird thing is that we are now going to have 3 assistants. It will be interesting to see how that works this transfer!

This week was a really good week. We had a lot going on and things of that nature so yeah! It was full of exchanges. I went to Lakeland and did exchanges with Elder Ulrich. That was good to see how the other missionaries in the Zone are doing. Later in the week, I got to go on exchanges in Jackson. I got to see Big Mama, the lady that I baptized while I was there. That was really neat and we set up a bunch of missionary activities, like a bible study, while we were there. We gave Jackson a jump start, which was much needed. I was happy with that.

Kyle has a baptismal date once again which is awesome. It is actually for Conference weekend. So if everything goes as planned, we should have 2 baptisms that day, one for Kyle and one for Roy Bullington. We are excited about that.

We have been teaching new people as well, like one we met at a Christian bookstore. He is an Ex-marine who is now a Christian. He actually gave us his website: Marine4christ.com. Check it out, if you ever get the chance so you can see who we are teaching. He is well versed in the bible so it is very interesting to talk to him. Good guy though, really powerful testimony on his website, we looked at it with a member.

Well, that is all that I have for this week. I will try to update you on Wednesday so you know who my new companion is. Thanks.

Love,

Kyle (Elder Parker)

Picture included: Our District for this last transfer

March 15, 2010

Dear Family,

Hello, hello! Good to hear from y’all this week. We had interesting week so let me tell you about it.

We had the chance to see Zach Taylor, one of my recent converts. We had President’s interviews and I talked to President about Zach. He is in St. Jude’s fighting cancer. Bless his heart. We went down on Tuesday and we read the Book of Mormon to him about the Stripling Warriors. Then he went to sleep. The Spirit is so strong at St. Jude’s. There are tons of kids battling cancer and so there is just a great peace and respect for the people there. You feel it as soon as you walk into the building, you feel the spirit.

Kyle is not doing so well. He is very discouraged. He doesn’t feel ready and his Brother seems to be giving him a hard time. But, we really think the problem is his Dad that he goes and visits every other week. For some reason, he has to go to his dad’s this week as well. I hope that he isn’t feeding him anti. He is such a good kid and he knows that it is true. So we will continue to work with him this week.

We have started to work with a new family. An ex-communicated member started to come back to church. Well, his wife and daughter are not members of the church so we are working with them. They are pretty solid so we are excited to see them progress in the next couple of weeks!

Saturday was a day full of service. We helped a part-member family move into a house so that was fun. Then we tried to remove a stump in a recent converts backyard. His name is Benji Sawyer. We had some fun and got really muddy.

We have also started to teach a marine dude that is interested in what we believe. We had a lesson with him on Saturday and he had a sheet of paper that was full of anti. We will see if he will go anywhere in the future.

I am saddened by the death of Alex Amundson. I did know him when we would visit with the Amundsons. My prayers go out to the Amundson family.

Thank you for all the prayers, love, and support you have given me, I love y’all! Talk to you next week.

Love

Kyle (Elder Parker)

Pictures included: (The Stump!), (Brandon Yarbrough came and visited and we all played Frisbee golf last p-day), (Elder Wilson had come back to the mission with his family and Girlfriend (I knew Elder Wilson when I was in Jackson, TN))

March 8, 2010

Dear Family,

Well, this week was a good week so let me explain.

On Wednesday, we went down to Little Rock and went to a meeting for all the leadership in the mission. It was kind of cool because I got to see the majority of my companions that I had served with so it was kind of a mini reunion. (Elder Cortez, Lyman, Hansen and Murdock.) It was really educational. Some people from Salt Lake from the missionary department came and showed us how to be better teachers and how to follow the spirit when you teach. Really powerful and it was fun to learn that and it has been working really well, when we teach investigators.

We have been focusing right now on a less-active list that we got from the Bishop. We have been trying and going around to the less-actives and seeing if there are any part-member families. Kyle is going to be baptized on the 20^th. I guess we have to wait because this weekend he is going to his Dads so he can’t get baptized this week. Roy Bullington, a man that was going to get baptized at the beginning of February, came to church on Sunday and told us that he wants to get baptized Conference weekend, which is way exciting! So we are excited for that.

Matthew and Madison White, a family in West Memphis, came up on Friday and took us out to lunch. That was really neat to see them and very nice of them to do that. We were grateful. Not only that, we were visited by Brandon Yarbrough, from Jackson, and we played Frisbee Golf today and he took us out to lunch too. So, overall, it was a fun day. We had a lot of fun.

So, that was my week. Thank you for all the prayers in my behalf. Hopefully we will get some new investigators soon! I love you and hope that you have a good week.

Love,

Kyle

March 1, 2010

Dear Family,

Oh my gosh, it is already March! Time is just speeding by. I realized the other day that I only have 3 zone conferences left and then I go home. Scary! Don’t know if I am ready yet. I will definitely cherish the time I have left.

This week was good. We had Zone conference and Me and Murdock were conducting. Well, we must have eating something the day before because both me and Murdock got food poisoning. After we gave the announcements and stuff, we b-lined to the bathroom. We spent the entire Zone conference in the bathroom on the toilet. We were both just dying. When lunch came around, we got permission to go home and just rest so that is what we did. We were better the next day so that was the good part.

We talked to Kyle about his baptism. We were going to have it this weekend but his mom wasn’t going to be in town so we moved it the 12^th because he will be available that week. We are excited for him and he is excited for himself. We had a good lesson with him yesterday about the “Armor of God”. It was fun.

This weekend as well, we went to a member’s (Brother Rayman) birthday party. We have done some service for him the past couple of weeks so we got invited. It was way fun and made me think of y’all and all the good times we have as a family. I sure do love y’all and you mean so much to me. Family is really what God wants us to have. We find happiness in knowing that families can be together forever in the Temple. I am grateful to have parents that are faithful to their covenants so our family can be together forever.

Speaking of temples, we had a neat opportunity to help clean the temple. We did about an hours work vacuuming and stuff. It was cool because you get to go into every room in the temple. Even when you are cleaning t

he temple, you can still feel the spirit. I loved the chance we had to do that.

I know this gospel is true and I know that it brings happiness. I know Christ is my savior and that he is the Savior of everyone. Love y’all and hope you have a good week.

Love,

Kyle (Elder Parker)

Pictures Included are of Sherry Kasaitis' baptism (picture coming soon!)