Hey Guys!

How is everything going in the big bright world??

 

Well, here in Canada, all is going well. We are really excited becasue Alexandra is going to be getting baptized on Saturday. Chris will be recieving the priesthood and he will be baptizing his newly married wife. It is so cool to see this story continuing on. It is going to be at 3 o'clock and she has taken the initiative and invited a lot of her family and her nieghbor too. But I will take a lot of pictures and be sure to send you guys a lot. We went over everything that she has to feel, understand, and know before she gets baptized. She is soo solid. Oh I can't express how happy I am. It's going to be awesome.

 

Mauricio passed the sacrament for the first time this week. He looked so nice in his white shirt and tie and he was just glowing. He was a little nervous but it all worked out for the best. Pretty crazy thing happened yesterday as well. They made one of the wards in one of our stakes a Married Student ward. So any couples that are married and attending some sort of schooling of secondary training, even if they have kids, they will go there. We were joking around that thae primary is going to be absolutely huge. Hopefully it all works out because there are so many. I don't know how the missionary work is going to go. "Are you married? Are you a student? Sweet we can teach you!!!" he he

 

We got a sweet new investigator last week. She is an older woman from Peru and she went to church there a while ago. A member across the street referred her to us and she welcomed us in with open arms. She wants to be baptized, but she doesnt know if she wants to do it here or not. We are going to keep talking with her and hopefully she can make the decision so that the blessings can start coming into her life. Elder Doxey and I are doing superb. He is such a good guy and we are having so much fun. Our mottp is "choose to be happy". It is really easy to get sad but it is our choice if we want to be happy or not.

 

But I love you all and hope everyone is excited for General Conference.

 

Mucho Amor,

 

Elder Kipp

¡Hola mis amigos!

Sorry for no email last week. We have just been so busy. Which is a great thing. But it's true, Elder Crocco is a dead man. He went home Thursday the 6th of Sept. and he was pretty sad. He told me that when they took his tag off, that it was one of the hardest days of his life. But he was a great companion and I will really miss him. But the new generation has arrived. Elder Doxey has arrived in cold Canada speaking the Spanish language. He is from Virginia and a sporty little guy. He is so ready to go and just what this mission needs. He is awesome already! His Spanish is pretty good, a lot better than when I came out, but he is having a hard time understanding people right now. A lot different than the MTC. I reassure him everyday that it will come. My Spanish abilities have shot up since he got here, it is pretty cool how the Lord truly qualifies us for the job. The district is doing great and I have no complaints. Its really fun getting to know them even more and talking to them about how they can improve their areas.

 

Mauricio received the Aaronic priesthood last week and he asked the bishop to ordain him. It was a great experience even though he was a little nervous. But he is doing great, and he has already been doing his home teaching (remember how important that is guys). Alex and Chris are also doing super good. He has his last interview to get the Aaronic priesthood on Tuesday and then the baptism the next weekend. It is going to be so amazing!! We are teaching them tonght and it's amazing to me to see how much they are changing. They are accepting so much more and Alex is so ready to finilize her repentance. I truly love them with all my heart.

 

All of our other investigators are moving along slowly and we are trying to come up with more creative ways to teach them all. We have two that are close to baptism but they just need some time. Leo and Manual are both from Mexico and they are working and sending the money back to their families. This is why they are so humble. When they hear about families they are really responsive. But we also found a guy named Nixon, that lives with Vianney, who is doing awesome by the way, and he is really interested in reading the Book of Mormon. We are excited to keep teaching all these guys and hopefully they can pull through and choose to make the right decisions. We also got into a less actives house and they want to start making the steps to make it too the temple. Super Exciting!

 

But I love you all and hope everything is going great. May the Lord continue to bless you. And remember that tortillas are made in heaven!

 

Elder Kipp

Crazy Week!

¿Como estamos? This week it actually started to get a little colder. I am bummed. The summer is going away. But its all good. Man this week was crazy! Elder Crocco leaves tommorow and it is crazy. We have spent last week gettting everything situatedwith everyone we are teaching and saying goodbye to all the members. It was cool to see the mixed emotions that he has been feeling. He is about 50% super excited to go home and 50% really sad to leave his new home. I am not looking forward to that day. But he had a great last week in my eyes. Yesterday for preparation day we went glofing with a member in the north part of the city. It was really fun and I never realized how bad I am at golf. It is really hard and it gave me a new respect for those that golf. But I was getting the hang of it by the back nine holes. We also went to West Edmonton Mall. It is one of the biggest malls in the world and it has the biggest indoor roller coaster in the world. We were there for about 5 hours and we didnt even hit half of it. But it was super fun and a good thing to do for Elder Crocco before he goes. So I got a very interesting call on Friday night. It was President Campbell and he was informing me that I would be training, which I already knew, but also that I would be a new distict leader. It was very surprising because Spanish missionaries rarely ever go leadership in this mission because of the size of area they cover. So I am excited and a little overwhelmed to train and be a district leader. It will be super fun and I am looking forward to getting my new companion tommorrow. Saturday was a crazy day too. I had leadership training in the morning and then we had a big Spanish activity. We had a lot of people show up. There were probably 60 people that made it out and we played soccer and ate some delicious food. It was good because we had quite a few investigators there. Mauricio was there and he is actually super good at soccer. He definitely beat on me. But Alex and Chris were there too. She is still going good for the end of the month to be baptized and Chris is working hard to do his best. We then had Mauricio's baptism. It was so good. It was small, only about 20 people including Alex and Chris. But the Spirit was super strong and he was so happy. It was more a celebration of all the changes that he has made. I am also happy that I am sticking around in my area so that we can keep tabs on his progress. It was a great day ending with an amazing man making an amazing covenent with his Heavenly Father. I am excited to get a new guy and keep the work going up here in the North Side. I love this work and I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. And its not just satisfaction, but its true joy. Its crazy how that works. I heard someone say the other day "I am glad to hear that life is stressfull. I know that that is not what you are expecting but I know that through all the stress comes growth. How ever much we hate it, life helps so much". Let life become a blessing rather than a burden!! Mucho Amor Elder Kipp