July 5, 2010

Dear Family,

Hello! Happy 4th of July yesterday! I hope that all y’all had a wonderful holiday weekend. Let me tell you about my week.

We are still working with Lisa and we finally got to meet with her on Thursday. She is Jehovah Witness. She has a hard time believing that Jesus Christ is Jehovah so we committed her to pray about it and read part of the Book of Mormon. She is progressing well and hopefully we will be able to set a baptismal date with her soon!

We were working with Gary Begin but he doesn’t seem to be progressing very well. I actually got a call from President Drewes (The mission president) and he told me that we shouldn’t go see him that much anymore because he isn’t progressing at all and he knows him personally. He said that he isn’t ready yet, which is totally understandable. So other missionaries will look him up.

As we have been visiting Big Mama, she has a great grandson that has moved in with her and he is 9 years old. His name is Makaylynn(sp). It is pronounced like that, I know that much. So we are meeting with him on Tuesday for the first time so we are going to strive to set a date with him on that day because he has already been to church and has expressed the desire to be baptized! So we are excited there.

Our weekend was good. We went to a cookout with a whole hog! It was actually pretty good. Everything was good this holiday weekend, despite the fact that I have been coughing for several days. But, don’t worry, I have already talked to Sister Drewes and a doctor who is a member in Jackson who helps me get better, ok mom? I love you!

Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers in my behalf. I love y’all and have a good week.

Love,

Kyle
(Elder Parker)

Pictures Include: (The whole hog BBQ) , (A band that they had, sang gospel, Johnny Cash, etc)

June 29, 2010

Dear Family,

I am doing well! Things are doing good. Sorry I didn’t e-mail yesterday, we had a lot going on and we just ran out of time. Sorry! We had a lot of good things happen to us.

We are going to start working with a part-member family that has a lot of potential, the Kimbrells. We shall see when we meet with them on Thursday

So, we changed our mission goal. It used to be 712 baptisms for the year. But, we decided to change it to 505 baptisms with a 85% retention rate of new converts. We are working on following the council of President Monson of “going to the rescue” of the new converts, part-members, less-actives and non-members. It seems to be working and we are having a lot of success and finding more people to teach.

We have Zone Conference this week, which includes giving my farewell testimony. That will be really weird for me because I am so used to seeing other missionaries giving their testimony and now it will be me. Time has flown by. I don’t believe that I will see y’all in less than a month. I hear that Ryan is coming home already. That is exciting. I hope that he adjusted well back home.

Thank you for your support, love and prayers. I know that you think about me a lot and for that I am grateful. A person couldn’t ask for a nicer family. I am working hard and enjoy doing it. I love y’all and talk to you next week.

Love,

Kyle
(Elder Parker)

June 21, 2010

Dear Family,

I hope all is well with you. I am going to be brief because I am not feeling too hot right now. We went a played Frisbee Golf and about the 4th hole, I needed to cool off and sit down. So, someone came with me to the car and sat in the car with me while I was cooling off. While traveling to the car, I threw up. It was yucky. I think it was because I felt like I had a cold and so I took some Day-quil. Well, I forgot to eat something with it. So I think that is why I threw up. I feel much better now, now that I have food in my belly. So if y’all could, could you pray for me to get better? I would really appreciate it! Now, an update on the week.

So, Lisa Kimbrell, an investigator fell off the face of the earth when we tried to get in contact with her. She had a baptismal date at one time so she was very promising. Well, she came to church on Sunday and introduced herself to me and told us that she wanted to continue the discussions, which is great news! Hopefully, we will be able to set another baptismal date with her this week.

Other than that, we are trying to find more people to teach. That is always the hard part. Thank you for all the prayers and support you are giving me. Thank you and May the Lord bless you!

Love,

Kyle
(Elder Parker)

June 16, 2010

Dear Family,

Sorry, it has taken so long; we had to wait for Elder Peinamalie to get a library card. This past week went well, so let me tell you a little bit about it.

Angela Bishop did get baptized this weekend. I was so happy. She asked Elder Peinamalie to baptized her and me to confirm her. They both went really well. I am so happy for my companion because he has already got 2 baptisms in his first transfer! And he baptized both of them himself! That is great! I know that he is going to be a great missionary.

Transfer calls didn’t come on Monday so that means that I will spend the rest of my mission in Jackson, Tennessee. I am so happy about that. I sure do love it here and I plan on working very hard this transfer as it is my last.

Other than that, now that this baptism happened, we got to get some more things going again. Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers you are giving me in my behalf. May the Lord bless you!

Love,

Kyle
(Elder Parker)