September 14, 2009

Dear Family,

Wow, what a great week this has been. It has also been quite busy so that is good as well.

Well, we had Zone Conference on Thursday. It was good to see some of my mission buddies again and of course, President. It was a good, uplifting conference.

Deb Dunham, Brother Yarbrough’s sister, is doing great! She hasn’t smoked since Thursday! Her baptism is on Saturday. She asked her brother to baptize her. That is so awesome! I love to see that happen! It will be another busy and stressful week but it will also be very rewarding.

Ada Green (Big Mama) finally got baptized on Sunday after church. She asked me to baptize her so I did. It was such an honor and privilege to do that. She is such a neat lady and will always have a special place in my heart. She was hard to teach at times because she sure loves to talk. But when I talk to her, I love every minute of it. I wish y’all could meet her because she is an awesome lady with a strong testimony. She will get confirmed next Sunday.

This coming week is going to be busy which is good. I hope that I can get through it. I am grateful for the many prayers on my behalf. I really don’t think I would have had success without them. Thank you very much!

Love,

Elder Parker

Pictures include: (Elder Cortez, Ada Green (Big Mama), Me) (Me, Sister White, Martin, Elder Cortez, Maurice, and Big Mama)

September 7, 2009

Dear Family,

Hello! I am so happy right now. It is great. What a great past week this has been. We set another baptismal date with someone else. Let me explain.

Billy Yarbrough, a member here, has a sister that is a non-member. Well, at the beginning of the transfer, we started telling the members that they might lose us as missionaries because we had nothing going on for a while. Well, Brother Yarbrough said that he wasn’t going to let that happen. Well, he asked his sister if she would take the missionary lessons again (because she had taken them before). She said that she needed a week to think about it. Anyway, she had a week to think about so Billy called her up and asked her if she was going to get baptized and she said yes. So, we taught her on Saturday. We told her about the Word of Wisdom and she has a problem with smoking. She is quitting today and she is getting baptized next Saturday on the 19th. We are so excited for her and I know that she can do it with the Lord’s help.

Big Mama, or Sister Greene, is doing good. We are still hoping that she can get baptized this weekend. It is all dependent on her health. So please pray for her. She needs all the prayers she can get in order to get baptized this weekend.

We have had other good teaching experiences with a woman named Kim. She had a friend in Clarksville, TN that she went to church with. She really enjoyed it. Well, we shared the first lesson with her and she is very skeptical but she is willing to read the Book of Mormon. We are meeting with her tomorrow so let see what happens.

The Lord is truly blessing us as missionaries and the members of the church with missionary opportunities. Thank goodness! I love y’all and thank you for the love, prayers and support in my behalf. I love you!

Love,

Elder Kyle Parker

August 31, 2009

Dear Family,

Wow, a matter of fact, this was a good week that we had. A lot has happened, so I will fill you on in the details.

We saw Big Mama and it did well with her. Apparently, she has the occational tea so when we told her about the word of wisdom, she said that she will try and do what we tell her to do so I am super excited about that. It shouldn’t be too hard to overcome.

We found a new investigator this week. His name is Bernard. He is an old retired guy and he order a bible from our church. When we shared the first lesson with him, he enjoyed, so we came back and brought him a book of mormon. It was great. We brought with us, Bro. Yarbrough to one of the lessons and I think that it went great! Bernard has already told us that he believes in the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was a good day as well. The 5th Sunday is a combined meeting with the Priesthood and Relief Society. We were given the 3rd hour by the bishop, so we passed our Preach My Gospel’s and Book of Mormons and asked the people to write there testimony in them. I think the ward is really getting motivated with missionary work and that is great! I am really excited for it!

Other than that, I am pretty happy. I am grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What a wonderful day and age we live in to enjoy the blessing of the restored Gospel. I challenge all of you to invite your non-member friends to talk to the missionaries. The Lord will bless you, as I have seen it happen before. I love you and thank you for your love and support.

Love,

Elder Parker

August 24, 2009

Dear Family,

Wow, yesterday I hit my 13 month mark. 11 to go. That is so crazy how time flies. This week was a good week. Sunday was transfers and neither Elder Cortez or I got transferred so we are staying together for another six weeks. That makes me happy because I think things are starting to pick up here in Jackson.

We set a baptismal date with Sis. Greene, (Big Mama) and it went fairly well. We told her that we had been praying about this date and that we know that she can make it. She has a lot of health problems and sometimes can’t make it to church. The date is set for September 12. I pray that she will make this date and I feel like she will. I would appreciate all prayers in her behalf. We need all the divine help we can get!

We kind of lost contact with Sarah and we aren’t a hundred percent sure what to do with her. Apparently, members are pushing her too hard and she doesn’t like that at all. She knows it’s true but I don’t think that the members are treating her with love. We haven’t even asked the members for help and they keep pestering her about baptism. I hope we don’t lost her because of it. She is really solid.

I know that the Lord is blessing us. I really want success again. It is so rewarded and makes missionary work worth it! I am grateful for Christ’s atonement so we can be forgiven of our sins. I love you and hope all is well with you. Until next week!

Love,

Elder Kyle Parker

August 17, 2009

Dear Family,

Another week gone by. It sure is going fast. It is so crazy when you are working hard how fast the time goes. We had a pretty good week so let me explain just some stuff.

Lots of exchanges this week. First exchange, I went up to Dyersburg to see how they are doing up there. They were explaining to me the troubles that they were having in finding people home. Well, we went with a member to just go drop in on a bunch of their investigators and we found one home but they didn’t let us in because they were busy doing something else. So I definitely feel there pain because I have been there before. But I think things will start to improve there soon! They AP’s came and did exchanges at the same time I was up there so I was with one of the AP’s for about an hour. I didn’t know the area so we just kind of talked about what was going on in Jackson.

Next exchange was with Trenton. They are doing ok. The companionship up there isn’t doing so good so I hope that they relieved some steam by being separated for a day. They are doing ok. They are trying to keep busy and they have a fairly large area so they use a lot of miles. I think that if they planned smarter though, they could easily save some miles. But, they do what they want to do, I won’t stop them. I hope things start to improve there as well.

Things here are starting to improve as well. Sister Green (Big Mama) surprised us at church by coming to church. We had visited her that week and she wasn’t doing good health wise. But after sacrament meeting, we gave her a blessing and I think that really helped her. We had a good session in class as well. She mentioned that she wasn’t a member but she was seriously considering it. Bless her heart, I know the Lord will bless her for coming to church, as he always does.

Continue to pray for me and for our area. I appreciate the prayers that are already being said, we can definitely see the outcome of them. I love you and I hope that you are safe and happy! Until next week!

Love,

Elder Parker

August 10, 2009

Dear Family,

“I’m going to Jackson! I’m going to mess around!” –Johnny Cash

I hope all y’all are doing great. Sounds to me like everyone is all over the place having a good time so I hope all is well and that you are being safe!

We had a good week. We got to see some of our investigators and give a blessing to a non-member in a hospital. It was great!

We had a Bible study at a apartment complex with some members that lived there. They helped us set this Bible study up and we had a pretty good turn out. About 5-10 people, all non-members showed up. We decided to read out of John 3. We just read the chapter and talked about the verses and let everyone participate. We then ended with our testimonies about Jesus Christ. At the end, some people asked if us “Mormons” believe in Jesus Christ. I then asked the question to everyone “Do Mormons believe in Jesus Christ?” and everyone in the group said yes. So we definitely cleared up some misconceptions and felt the spirit. We are planning on doing this on a monthly basis so I think that eventually after planting some seeds, we will find someone that will be interested.

Adam Moore, a less active, has been coming back to church lately and he has been bringing his girlfriend(who is a non-member) to church with him. We will eventually begin to teach her and him again.

We are still working with Sister Green and Sarah. Sarah went out of town so she couldn’t make it to church and Sister Green wasn’t there because I am assuming that her health wasn’t too good on Sunday. But she is definitely doing better.

Continue to pray for us. We really need to find some more solid investigators and the prayers that you are doing for me are definitely helping! Thank you so much! They mean more than you know!

The gospel is true and I love to feel the spirit. Strive to live worthy of it every single day! Stay strong and be good!

Love,

Elder Kyle Parker

August 3, 2009

Dear Family,

Can you believe that it is already August? It is so weird. I am not to excited though because August is the hottest month in the south. Hurray! Not really… Anyway, we had an awesome week. I think things are definitely going to improve here in Jackson. Some highlights were this:

Thursday was Zone Conference. It was really good. We talked about how we shouldn’t procrastinate things both in missionary work but also things of our lives. He referenced a talk by Henry B. Eyring called “This Day”. It is a good talk and I suggest y’all read it if you are ever bored or want a good read. We had a good talk in our interview, President and I. In the interview, we talked about the work and then closed with prayer. During the prayer, I was thinking about Grandpa Parker and how his funeral was that same day and wanting to talk to President about it. After the prayer, there was a few seconds of silence and he asked how my family was doing. So I got to talk to him about it and it made me feel better.

Well, after the interview, we were the only missionaries left in the building because we were the last ones to get interviewed. Outside it was raining really hard and the tornado sirens were going off. It was bad. So all 4 of us, (President and Sister Drewes, Me and Elder Cortez) stayed in the building for a while. Then we headed out in the crazy rain back to Jackson. It was fun and crazy though. But we made it safely. Then we went to Don Pancho’s with the Yarbrough’s. They had a Mexican band playing some songs all over the restaurant. It was fun!

Sunday was a great day. We had both of our investigators there, “Big Mama” and Sarah. We did a fast over the phone with Sarah to help her parents have an open mind. I hope it touched her and her parents because they aren’t very happy with her desire to join the church.

Thinks are definitely improving here in Jackson. The Lord is really blessing us with more opportunities to share the gospel and find those who have been prepared by the Lord. I know this work is true and I am so grateful to be apart of it. Thank you again for your love and support. I wish you all the best and let’s have a good month of August!

Love,

Elder Kyle Parker