April 26, 2010

Dear Family,

This week was good. We had a mission council to start the week off. That is when all the Zone Leaders get together with the assistants and President and talk about how the mission is doing. It was a good, uplifting experience. We talked about how we can invite the spirit into our lessons and how to maintain the spirit while teaching. It was great.

Later that day, we went to Dyersburg on exchanges. It was good to see how they are doing. They definitely need more going on but they are doing better than before.

Well, we have good news with Katie. She got baptized and confirmed on April 24, 2010! It was a stressful week making sure that she went through but she did. She is so solid and is doing really good. She came to the new convert meeting we had on Sunday because it was Stake Conference for the Memphis North Stake. It was fun; I got to see people from West Memphis, Pocahontas and Jackson. It was a fun little reunion for me. :)

Now, we have to working on finding more people this week. That is always the tricky part. But we will be doing well, I can feel it. It is already the last week of the transfer. Time is flying by. Friday was my 21 month mark. It’s so hard for me to believe that I have that long. I will work until the end.

I know that this gospel is true. Jesus Christ lives and loves us. If we do what He asks of us, He will bless us! I love y’all and thank you for your support.

Love,

Kyle

(Elder Parker)

Pictures include: (Elder Grigg, Brother Jared Ivie, Katie Newman, Me) , (Sister Ivie, Emma (There daughter with Cancer.), and Katie)

April 19, 2010

Dear Family,

Hey, things are going well here in Bartlett, TN! A lot of things happened so I thought I would update you on them.

So the beginning of the week, we met a new person. We met a less active named Steven Irwin. He was really nice. He had us over for dinner on Saturday. We went to his old address and found out that it was his wife’s house and

he was fixin’ to have a divorce so he moved out. Found out that he is our next door neighbor and we never saw him or he never saw us. Really good guy and he wants to get back into church. He wants to raise his teenage kids in church and in Jesus Christ. We are willing to help but we told him he needs to start to set the example and start coming to church. So, we are working on reactivating him.

We had another meeting with the missionary squad, a group of youth in both the Bartlett 1^st and 2^nd wards. It went well, we just discussed with them friends who are non-members who they want to invite to church and give a Book of Mormon to. They are sweet!

Katie is doing good. She still plans on getting baptized this weekend. She has a Word of Wisdom problem that she is working on so hopefully she will be able to stay clean for the rest of the week. Last night we found out that she was on probation for keying someone’s car. Well, she got a call from her probation officer today and told her that she was off probation. How awesome is that! She was so happy and told us that she knows that God is there and is answering her prayers! The timing is perfect! Please pray that she won’t mess up on her word of wisdom problem. Thanks!

The Russells, a member couple in West Memphis, was in Bartlett in the hospital. Bro. Russell was getting surgery on his artery so he could get it unclogged. We gave him a blessing before his surgery and he is now home and fine!

We have been contacting a lot of places and finding more people to teach, which is good! So things are going well there!

Saturday was called the day of service. We did a service project in Memphis and cleaned up the side of the road. Enjoy the pictures. Katie was there as well, so that was good for her. She is loving church so much!

Satan is working hard on Katie but also on Karyn and Nycole. We haven’t been in contact with them for a while now. They just “Don’t have time” to meet with us. We have tried everything. We even dropped off cookies but to no avail, it didn’t work. So, this week we are going to strive to get in contact with them.

So that was my week, it was good. Thank you for your love, support and prayers in my behalf! I sure do love you! Thanks again.

Love,

Kyle

(Elder Parker)

Pictures include: (The side that we cleaned up for our service project) , (The lunch we had after the service) , (Me and a member called Charles that went out with us. It was great!)

April 12, 2010

Dear Family,

Wow, I am definitely on a spiritual high right now. This morning we went to the temple. I haven’t been to the temple in almost 2 years, so that was very informative for me and I enjoyed very much feeling the spirit of the temple.

Thinks are definitely going good when it comes to the work of the Lord. He has blessed us with new people to teach and plenty of other good things.

Well, we found probably the most golden investigator I have ever taught on my mission. Her name is Katie Newman. She is 17 years old and she is way smart. She came to church with some members (The Ivies) who have a daughter who is battling cancer. Sweet family! Anyway, she came to church and she ate everything up. She is very out going and she asks tons of questions which is great because she wants answers. She feels like this church has the answers she is looking for. She is going to get baptized in no time. I am so excited for her!

Karyn and Nycole are doing good. Karyn is currently on the Stop smoking program and hopefully she is still clean. Nycole has been sick the last couple of days but we will see them tomorrow evening which I am excited about. If everything will go as planned, they will get baptized this weekend, which would be awesome! Yay!

We are doing good so far. We are trying to find more investigators and what not so things are going good. We had a Zone Conference last Thursday and that was good. It was weird to be one of the missionaries that everyone was receiving instruction from. It was a humbling experience. I learned a lot from the other missionaries in the audience so that was good.

I know that this gospel is true and I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I am so grateful for eternal families and I am grateful to know that I have a family that loves me! Thank you all for your love, support and prayers in my behalf. May the Lord bless you!

Love,

Kyle

(Elder Parker)

April 6, 2010

Dear Family,

Sorry I didn’t e-mail yesterday. I noticed that the South really likes to celebrate Christian holidays like Good Friday and Easter. So, they decided to close the library yesterday so I couldn’t e-mail yesterday so, alas, I am here today.

We had a pretty good week. We did some service for a guy that is not a member and he is actually moving to Salt Lake. He works for discover and so he got transferred out there. So as we were moving him, he had two memory foam beds that he couldn’t pack with him so he offered them to us. Well, we had a truck so we took them. I haven’t slept so good my whole mission. It is fantastic. It is the first time I have slept in a bed on my mission where when I wake up, my back doesn’t hurt. Yay for that!

We are working with Karyn and Nycole Nostrud. They have a baptismal date for the 17^th of April. We are pretty excited. The story there is that we found an ex-communicated member who came back to church who wants to come back. Well, he has a wife and daughter who aren’t members so we are currently teaching them! Hope all goes well, this coming week.

General Conference was great. I really enjoyed it this year. The common theme that I saw this year was about the Family and how you should raise your kids in the gospel and make sure that you teach them about Jesus Christ and stuff. My thoughts were towards Whitney, Brandon, Chad, Cindy, Danny and June. I know that all y’all have kids and that you are getting ready to have kids and so I know that a lot of that applied to you. It is so important that we raise our kids in the gospel because as the prophet and Apostles say, they are indeed the “rising generation”.

Roy Bullington did get baptized on Sunday in between sessions of Conference. It was a good baptism and he had a lot of support there which is good. It always is a good feeling to see someone get baptized.

I know that this is Christ’s true church on the earth. What a great time to live here when it is here. I am grateful that I am a missionary and am able to share the gospel. I love y’all and thanks for the love, support and prayers y’all have given me. Love you!

Love,

Kyle (Elder Parker)

Pictures include: (Me, Roy Bullington, Brother Richard Floyd, Elder Grigg) , (Easter Dinner at the Stewards)