Hello from Canada!
It has been getting a little colder. Today it was -2 degrees Celsius but still pretty chilly. But it is funny how you do not worry about the cold when you are busy in the work. This week was a little busy but it was hard too because a lot of people cancelled their appointments with us and all the potentials were not home when we stopped by. It is difficult to plan our days out perfectly because our area is so big and we are teaching people on all sides of our area. But I am learning so much about everything that is going on in the mission and all the areas as well. Spanish has been coming along better every day and I am trying to grow a little bit every day as well. Elder Ez said that when he got out here he studied so much that he burnt himself out and did not want to speak Spanish very much anymore. So I am taking his advice and trying to take it day by day and talking with a lot of Spanish people. But it has been fun to learn such an amazing language. It is going to be hard in Edmonton because I am not being immersed in it, but the Lord will provide. He wants me to learn Spanish and he will provide a way to do so.
This week we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and we are going to do it again this Wednesday. But I spent the day with Elder Skousen and he is in the same transfer as me. He is great! We worked really hard all day and met some pretty amazing people. But I especially loved the experience I had talking to a woman. It was the last woman we talked to that night and we started a conversation about her religious background. I then found out that her son had autism. I got the chance to relate him to Cassidy. She was very interested and I knew that I was supposed to talk to this woman about Cass and the incredible miracle she is. She became really interested after we talked about this and hopefully she can meet with the other missionaries. But It is amazing how much the Lord's hand truly is in the work. My testimony is growing of this every day.
Yesterday we went to the North Stake center to meet with the Castledowns ward. Their bishop is from Mexico and is really enthusiastic about the Spanish work. But we are going to meet with him in the next few weeks and try to get his input and ideas on what we can do. But when we got to sacrament, we were pleased to find out that it was the Primary program. I was like "Sweet!" I have so many memories of the primary program in the San Diego ward and how amazing they were. This program was so great and the Spirit is so strong when children and running the meeting. But they sang my favorite song, "I Like to Look for Rainbows". I was brought back to the day that I was baptized.
We met with this old man that week that is a less active member. His name is Mario. He is such a funny man and has a problem with drinking. But he still comes to church and has a firm belief in El Libro de Mormon. I love talking to him because I can’t understand everything he says and I get lost sometimes and he just laughs at me. But he is great man and I hope we can continue to teach him every week. He is the kind of person that you just need to stop by and see how he is doing. We are also still teaching Vianney. We watched the Restoration video with him yesterday and I feel like he got a lot out of it. We are going to teach him the plan of salvation next week and see if he wants to get baptized and when. His girlfriend is at BYU Idaho and is really supportive of him. I pray that he can find that desire to continue to change his life. This next week is going to be very busy because we have dinner with a Spanish member every night and have several appointments.
But all is well in Canada and the work is growing on my heart. Thanks for everything!
Mucho amor y bendiciones,
Elder Kipp
PS: I have a joke. How did the canadians name Canada? C-eh-N-eh- D-eh
ha ha
First Days in the Mission
Elder Colby Kipp with President and Sister Campbell
Monday, October 24, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
3rd Week in Canada
Hola. Como estan?
Hello from cold Edmonton Canada! It has started getting cold in the city these past couple of days. It hit negative 2 degrees yesterday. But don't worry - that's in Celsius. So probably only about 30 farenheit. It is still cold and people keep telling me that it is going to continue to get colder. Last year they had the coldest winter they have had in about 10 years. So hopefully it isn't as bad this year. But I am actually excited to see how much it is going to change in the next few weeks. I will send you pictures of how much snow there is when it comes.
It has taken a little while to get things situated. It is difficult because our area is so big and we have so many wards to look over. But I am meeting a lot of members that speak Spanish and have been teaching some people as well. I have been learning a lot about the logistics of the mission and how things work. We are just so different than the other missionaries because we do not have a centralized ward and no ward mission leader. So we are kind of on our own. But we are getting things going and I know that we can make a difference and help people out.
We met a young man named Vianney from Mexico the other day. We started talking to him over the phone and seeing if he was interested. We found out that he had been going to the church for three weeks and he is dating a member. We met with him for the first time yesterday and taught hime the first lesson. He had so many great questions and was very interested. He just seems like the Lord has prepared him and he is ready to change his life. He is Catholic and shares many of our beliefs. But when we started to talk about prophets and Heavenly Father's authority on the earth again, you could just see a light turn on in his eyes. We are going to keep meeting with him every Sunday and hopefully he can progress.
We are also meeting with another man named Eric. He is unfortunately moving back to Mexico in a couple of weeks but we want to get him comfortable with the gospel and hopefully he can find the missionaries down there. He has been going to the English classes provided by some other elders and loves doing that. I hope that he can keep progressing and he can find the joy in the gospel that I have found.
Elder EZ and I also have been trying to meet with a lot of less active members. There are a lot of Spanish speaking less active members and we realize that it will be a great benefit to start getting them to chuch. My testimony has grown in the aspect that the Lord puts people in your path to talk to. We sometimes go tracting near our apartment and see if we can get things called QGC's (quality gospel converation). It is a really good way to introduce people to the church and we believe that if we can find people in English, than other missionaries will find people in Spanish.
Spirital Thought: I have been reading in Ether and the account of the Jaredites. I love the story when the brother of Jared sees the finger of the Lord. Because he has so much faith in the workings of the Lord, the veil is taken from him and he can see the Lord and many other things that we are not permitted to see because of the veil. I hope someday to have faith like this.
I send my love to all and hope everything is going well.
Cuidense mucho y tenga una buen dia!
Mucho amor,
Elder Kipp
Hello from cold Edmonton Canada! It has started getting cold in the city these past couple of days. It hit negative 2 degrees yesterday. But don't worry - that's in Celsius. So probably only about 30 farenheit. It is still cold and people keep telling me that it is going to continue to get colder. Last year they had the coldest winter they have had in about 10 years. So hopefully it isn't as bad this year. But I am actually excited to see how much it is going to change in the next few weeks. I will send you pictures of how much snow there is when it comes.
It has taken a little while to get things situated. It is difficult because our area is so big and we have so many wards to look over. But I am meeting a lot of members that speak Spanish and have been teaching some people as well. I have been learning a lot about the logistics of the mission and how things work. We are just so different than the other missionaries because we do not have a centralized ward and no ward mission leader. So we are kind of on our own. But we are getting things going and I know that we can make a difference and help people out.
We met a young man named Vianney from Mexico the other day. We started talking to him over the phone and seeing if he was interested. We found out that he had been going to the church for three weeks and he is dating a member. We met with him for the first time yesterday and taught hime the first lesson. He had so many great questions and was very interested. He just seems like the Lord has prepared him and he is ready to change his life. He is Catholic and shares many of our beliefs. But when we started to talk about prophets and Heavenly Father's authority on the earth again, you could just see a light turn on in his eyes. We are going to keep meeting with him every Sunday and hopefully he can progress.
We are also meeting with another man named Eric. He is unfortunately moving back to Mexico in a couple of weeks but we want to get him comfortable with the gospel and hopefully he can find the missionaries down there. He has been going to the English classes provided by some other elders and loves doing that. I hope that he can keep progressing and he can find the joy in the gospel that I have found.
Elder EZ and I also have been trying to meet with a lot of less active members. There are a lot of Spanish speaking less active members and we realize that it will be a great benefit to start getting them to chuch. My testimony has grown in the aspect that the Lord puts people in your path to talk to. We sometimes go tracting near our apartment and see if we can get things called QGC's (quality gospel converation). It is a really good way to introduce people to the church and we believe that if we can find people in English, than other missionaries will find people in Spanish.
Spirital Thought: I have been reading in Ether and the account of the Jaredites. I love the story when the brother of Jared sees the finger of the Lord. Because he has so much faith in the workings of the Lord, the veil is taken from him and he can see the Lord and many other things that we are not permitted to see because of the veil. I hope someday to have faith like this.
I send my love to all and hope everything is going well.
Cuidense mucho y tenga una buen dia!
Mucho amor,
Elder Kipp
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
I am in CANADA!
Hola!
How has everyone been these past couple of days. I haven't been able to write because we did not have a Preparation Day until Monday. But yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving. So, we could not get time to get to the library to write. But Canada is beautiful. It truly is. We live downtown on the eleventh story of an apartment building. It is a very diverse city and there are many different cultures here. I love being in the middle of the city.
But the Missionary work is a lot different than I expected. There are only 4 Spanish missionaries in the city including me. The city is divided into 2 areas. Each area has two stakes. Both of our stakes have about 7 wards and/or branches in each of them. So you can imagine how big my area is. We have a car because we are moving around all the time. And what is special about our area is that it was just opened after being closed for about a year.
My trainer's name is Elder Erhenzeller. Most of the other missionaries call him Elder EZ because his name is kinda hard to pronounce. But he is great and really committed to the work. He is from Virginia and his Spanish is very good. he told me that it was kinda hard for him to continue to learn Spanish at the beginning because he was not thrown into it. But he knows that I will be able to learn it better if I just commit myself to learning it everyday. I feel like I will be able to retain it easier once I am off my mission because I still have to use English a lot of the time. But I know that we are going to do great things for the Spanish speakers of this area.
We haven't had that many lessons because it is hard when you open a new area. There used to be a Spanish branch about 8 years ago, but it was closed and there are a lot less active members. We are really working on finding people to teach as we go through our area books and meet people. I plan on working hard and at this point just being a support to Elder EZ as we preach. We are going through a new 12 week program for new missionaries. It is hard to get three hours of study in the morning but we need to do it. I feel like it really will help us in the end. I love getting my daily fill from the Book of Mormon. It gives me a burst of energy and I am learning so much. There is a lot of potential in this area.
I have to tell you a funny story. We were studying in our apartment one morning and being really quiet. We have a giant window in our apartment where we can see out to the city. All of a sudden a giant rope fell down and a man starts repelling from the the ceiling. He was washing the windows! He was smoking and had a very funny look on his face. But I had Elder EZ stand next to the window and I got a picture of them. I was wondering the whole time if he was going to fall.
One family that we have been seeing a lot is the Hernandez family. The father, Carlos, was baptized four months ago by Elder EZ and his wife was baptized about a year ago. They have two children and one is only 26 days old. I can feel his faith when we talk to him about his conversion and that his testimony has grown so much. He is from Mexico and spent a lot of time in New York. He used to be a gangster, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ, he has found true happiness. I have also met some of the members in various wards that speak Spanish. They have been wonderful. I have come to realize already that people really do notice us and they love talking with us. I am so ready for this new experience.
More great news to come. I love you all.
Tenga un buen dia!
Elder Kipp
How has everyone been these past couple of days. I haven't been able to write because we did not have a Preparation Day until Monday. But yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving. So, we could not get time to get to the library to write. But Canada is beautiful. It truly is. We live downtown on the eleventh story of an apartment building. It is a very diverse city and there are many different cultures here. I love being in the middle of the city.
But the Missionary work is a lot different than I expected. There are only 4 Spanish missionaries in the city including me. The city is divided into 2 areas. Each area has two stakes. Both of our stakes have about 7 wards and/or branches in each of them. So you can imagine how big my area is. We have a car because we are moving around all the time. And what is special about our area is that it was just opened after being closed for about a year.
My trainer's name is Elder Erhenzeller. Most of the other missionaries call him Elder EZ because his name is kinda hard to pronounce. But he is great and really committed to the work. He is from Virginia and his Spanish is very good. he told me that it was kinda hard for him to continue to learn Spanish at the beginning because he was not thrown into it. But he knows that I will be able to learn it better if I just commit myself to learning it everyday. I feel like I will be able to retain it easier once I am off my mission because I still have to use English a lot of the time. But I know that we are going to do great things for the Spanish speakers of this area.
We haven't had that many lessons because it is hard when you open a new area. There used to be a Spanish branch about 8 years ago, but it was closed and there are a lot less active members. We are really working on finding people to teach as we go through our area books and meet people. I plan on working hard and at this point just being a support to Elder EZ as we preach. We are going through a new 12 week program for new missionaries. It is hard to get three hours of study in the morning but we need to do it. I feel like it really will help us in the end. I love getting my daily fill from the Book of Mormon. It gives me a burst of energy and I am learning so much. There is a lot of potential in this area.
I have to tell you a funny story. We were studying in our apartment one morning and being really quiet. We have a giant window in our apartment where we can see out to the city. All of a sudden a giant rope fell down and a man starts repelling from the the ceiling. He was washing the windows! He was smoking and had a very funny look on his face. But I had Elder EZ stand next to the window and I got a picture of them. I was wondering the whole time if he was going to fall.
One family that we have been seeing a lot is the Hernandez family. The father, Carlos, was baptized four months ago by Elder EZ and his wife was baptized about a year ago. They have two children and one is only 26 days old. I can feel his faith when we talk to him about his conversion and that his testimony has grown so much. He is from Mexico and spent a lot of time in New York. He used to be a gangster, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ, he has found true happiness. I have also met some of the members in various wards that speak Spanish. They have been wonderful. I have come to realize already that people really do notice us and they love talking with us. I am so ready for this new experience.
More great news to come. I love you all.
Tenga un buen dia!
Elder Kipp
Friday, October 7, 2011
Elder Kipp Made It To Canada
Colby made it safe and sound to his mission this past Tuesday. He was greeted by his Mission President and Wife, President and Sister Campbell. I just checked the weather and it is a "balmy" 52 degrees. We feel so blessed and know that the Lord will keep him and protect him.
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