Book of Mormon is like an Assistant Driving Device

Hola everyone! This week was so good! I have been so spiritually fed this week its not even funny! We had Zone Conference, Interviews with President and Sister Jackman, and Stake Conference! This week flew by!

I'll start with Zone Conference and Stake Conference! We as a mission were blessed to hear from Elder Teixiera from the Presidency of the 70 and his wife and also Elder Wright from the 70! Man oh man Elder Teixiera has been called of God! He focused a lot on the importance of the Book of Mormon and gave us a training on how we can use it better! He also talked about the importance of prayer and how praying with our friends that we are teaching is super important! He gave us a new way to find people naturally through having prayers with everyone that we come in contact with! It was so good! His wife talked about the importance of being bold and being obedient! She called all of us to repentance lol, that we need to be more humble! Something that I loved that she talked about was not giving in to the traditions of the mission or the norms of the mission! A lot of times missions have this culture that they can only get a certain number of baptisms a month! Her and Elder Teixiera both talked about that topic that we have to change something, we have to do something more if we want to have more converts and be better instruments in the hand of the Lord! The power of prayer is something that we have to use! 

Zone Conference was so good but Stake Conference was just as good! It seemed that the topic of the whole weekend was the Book Of Mormon! Stake President Hendricks gave his talk and compared the Book of Mormon to a Assistant Driving device or a Lane Departure Warning in a car! He talked about how life we have a path to get us back to our Heavenly Father and the Book of Mormon is our Lane Departure warning that pulls us into the lane! Even though in life we sometimes get by the edge the Book of Mormon will always help us get back to the straight path and ultimately that is where we are happy! After these conferences my testimony of the Book of Mormon has gotten even stronger!!! We are so blessed to have the Book Of Mormon! 

Interviews with President and Sister Jackman were good as always! I always come out of those feeling pumped to work harder and be a better missionary! Sister Jackman and I talked about the example we are as missionaries to everyone around us but especially to our family! Man I started tearing up when we talked about my little brothers! I realized that I not only am serving a mission to serve the Lord but to be a good example to the little bros and all my other little cousins that I love as brothers too! It was such a good interview that I won't ever forget! It has given me another fire to work harder and try and be a better missionary every day! 

Happy Birthday Shout out to Sistonz, Monique and Big Beav! Love you all so much! 

This week was so good! I love you all so much! 

Con Amor,

Elder Ka'ili

Following the counsel of the Seventy

The sun finally came out this weeek so you already know this week was super good! This week we had miracles on miracles! First off, because the weather has been so good we took the bikes from the other elders apartment and have been using them! Biking is so much better because we see and talk to so many more people. Everyone is out cooking carne too since the weather is good so we get some snacks on the road too! But the people here are so different than in Utah. Usually when you see missionaries riding their bikes around in Utah, you give them a good honk and a wave. Here the honk means "get out of the way before I hit you" and then we usually see a nice finger instead of a wave. Me and  Elder Englestead just laugh it off haha. But here comes the Miracle... So on Thursday we were riding around Toppennish heading to our next appointment and we passed this girl on the street. My comp and I both had the impression to go and talk to her, but sadly both of us didn't do it. Right as we passed her she yelled out to us "Hey what church are you guys from?" Oh man,  I squeezed the front and back tire brakes and flipped my bike around so quick, I almost hit Elder Englestead haha! She told us that she wants to come to church and wants to change her life. We taught her the first lesson and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! It was seriously such a huge miracle! This all took place on the side of the street as well and the spirit allowed us to still have a bomb lesson! Man I had to repent and say sorry for not following that prompting,  just because we had to bike around to the other side of town. It was definitly a testimony builder as I realized that everyone we see are put in our paths for a reason; and thats why it is so important to talk with everyone! Since that day me and my comp have been talking to everyone and finding a lot of success! But I think this miracle all traces back to District Council..

So we had District Council this past week on Thursday. We set a distrcit baptism goal! As we were all discussing trying to see what we wanted to set,  I kept getting the impression to set 5 for April! After a lot of discussion everyone finally agreed. A lot of the people in the district were scared because in the past we have been setting it for like 2 or 3. But when Elder Teixeira came, he told us if we want to have more baptisms we just need to work harder, pray and fast more. He also gave us a techniique we could use for finding more. He told us if we set our goals upon the past, or the norms of the mission, we will never improve. We need to have that fire when we set goals and then pray, study, and fast and we will see the miracles come. So after we all left the distrcit council some were hesitant, but I told my comp if we have to hit this district goal by ourselves we are going to do it! So we prayed before we went out and that's when we met Christina on the side of the road...Miracle #1. Then on Friday we talked with one of the people we have been working with so much and bang the Holy Ghost put her on date for April 13th(that's 2 people now that we have on for April 13th). Then on Saturday we met this family that just moved in and she wants to look put a date for baptism this month as well! So that's 3 now.  I don't say this to brag or anything but it showed me that when we really follow the counsel of the Seventy that comes and talks to us, and we don't have doubts or fears and we don't let the past goals distract us, we can see miracles! We just have to have that fire and do the things we know we need to and the Lord will direct us to the people he has prepared for us! So many more miracles have happened this week with the weather being good and me and my comp just going out and getting it, having no fear, and having faith that Heavenly Father is going to put people in our paths and it has been awesome!

I love you all and hope you all have a good week! General Conference is coming up too, so I hope you all have your popcorn ready! lol the rumors are going around! haha Los Amo!

Con Amor, 

Elder Ka'ili

Crystal got baptized....

This week was super good! Crystal got baptized and her service might have been one of the best services I have ever attended! The ward really helped us prepare for it and set it up! She has been meeting with missionaries since she was 17 and a lot of the missionaries in the mission have taught her so it was basically like a mini zone conference cause there was tons of missionaries there haha! But the spirit was super strong and everything really came together! When I was filling the tank I felt the water and it didn't feel too hot so I turned the hot water valve all the way up and let me just tell you I felt like I was for real baptizing her by fire lol! The water was burning my feet haha but it was better than cold so it was good! But yeah she bore her testimony and it brought everyone there to tears! She's had quite the journey to get where she is right now and I am so grateful that I could play a little part in it!

Something we are focusing on in our mission is the working with the youth more! Last night we took one of the young men out, Brayden! Man I wish i would've gone out with the missionaries before my mission because it was so fun with him last night! haha he's actually from Utah! But man he's a natural missionary! It was cool to see how much he looked up to us as missionaries though, it reminded me that as missionaries we have all eyes on us so its super important that we can be that example for the youth and for the ward!

For my personal studies these past couple of weeks, I have been really focusing on talks by our apostles and prophet because general conference is only one month away!!! So I want to end my email with a quote! "The Lord blesses those who want to improve."-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. Nobody is perfect all we can is try, try, and try again! Our savior has provided a way for us to try, try, and try again and that is the Atonement! I know as we seek to keep improving ourselves little by little we will be happy with our lives! Be better than you were yesterday and you will be good! I love you all and thank you guys for all your love and support!

Con Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

Definitely a week of miracles...

Man this week was so spiritual and definitely one for the books! Ill start this post with a story:

So me and my comp have been trying to work with this family that was dropped by some earlier missionaries before us ever since I gotten to this area! We've tried every week but every time we went over there it no answer, no answer, excuses and excuses! but for some reason me and my comp felt like if we can just talk with the mom face to face we can start teaching this family again! So on Monday night we had them scheduled but our lesson before went over super long and we needed to go home to be able to make it on time! After the lesson Elder Englestead asked me, "do we still want to go to the Llepes family?" looking at the time I just said, "No we can just try later in the week, its too late..". Right after I said those words an uneasy feeling came into my body and as we continued to get closer and closer to the highway it got stronger. As we stopped at the red light for the entrance on the freeway a voice as loud as my companion was talking to me said,"Just go to the Llepes house, just go." Right when I heard that I made probably the most illegal turn I have ever made and we started the other way towards the Llepes house! I told my comp, "lets just go to the Llepes house." As I turned around and saw that we were definitely going to be late... doubt started coming into my mind saying "you guys are going to be late for curfew and what if they aren't even there..." but we continued on and when we got to the house there were no cars there.. Me and my comp looked at each other and I just said, "well lets go knock on the door, maybe somebody is home". We went and knocked on the door and nobody answered but just right when we were about to knock on the door again a car pulls in and guess who it was!!!! It was the whole Llepes family and the mom!!! We finally got to see the mom face to face!!!! We helped them with there groceries and talked with the mom and the mom told us,"I have actually wanted to start taking the lessons again and work towards Baptism!" I kid you not I literally almost fainted because how strong the spirit was right there and then!!! After talking for a little with her and getting a return appointment, me and my comp got in the car and were literally shocked!!! All this time we had been trying to see this family and mom for the past 6 weeks and to be able to see them especially like this was a miracle!!! This experience showed me again how much we are just instruments in the lords hands and if we follow the promptings we receive from the Holy Ghost we can have miracles happen like this more often!!! Its super hard but its something that I am striving to work on more and more and the more I do the more I see the miracles and blessing that come from it!!! It was seriously crazy but an awesome experience!

On Thursday me and Elder Englestead had time to go knocking doors so we knocked around the neighborhood! We met this guy Martin and he let us in to share our message!! Man that lessons was so good! We used the Book of Mormon so much during that lesson and that was seriously the game changer!!! I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon! It is the biggest tool that we have as missionaries and I really didn't realize how much it can change a lesson! We were able to leave him with a commitment to read the Book of Mormon and he gladly accepted and now we have a return appointment with him this upcoming week! Going along with the power of the Book of Mormon... Yesterday we wanted to go by this inactive member named Sergio! He is from Monterrey so me and him are basically brothers... lol! haha but we went in there and he was telling us how he thinks he lost his faith and doesn't really know what to do with his family! After pondering on what I wanted to say... I decided to testify with boldness and love of the Book of Mormon and how the gospel blesses families! The Holy Ghost in the room was so strong that his whole demeanor changed and tears started to form in his eyes and mine! He told us he wants to start coming back to church and reading in the Book of Mormon! We invited him to read Alma 32, a great chapter about what faith is and he gladly accepted! He told us he wants us to start coming over more often which was weird because before he was trying everything he could do to get us to leave quicker! The Holy Ghost changed him and I'm so thankful I was there to experience it!!!

This week was seriously filled with so many more miracles big and small and the spirit that I felt this week during the lessons we had was crazy! I would write more about the other miracles but just like my little brothers would say,"My hand hurts, so I'm not going to write a lot" hahaha! Definitely a week of miracles and now we have a baptism coming up this week!!! The mission is seriously the best thing ever! Shout out to my sis and bro Ana and Peter for having there son Ala'imanu Amoni Brown aka Montonz Jr! haha I love you all and hope you all have a good week!

Con Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

Pictures:
Bdubs
Facebook lesson!
Montónz Jr
Snow so bad... Good thing I'm the driver lol