Miracles Come in Interesting Forms

¿Cómo están?

 

Its -10 C right now in Edmonton and we are loving it. It is crazy to think that I would be absolutely freezing back at home, but being used to the cold I am not even wearing a coat. Sorry mom. Don't worry...I am staying warm. How is everything getting ready for Thanksgiving? A family that we are pretty close too are going to be having us over on Thanksgiving so we don't feel too far away from home.  We are all really excited to eat some pavo!

 

We had some pretty cool things happen to us on exchanges this week. Elder Schubert and I left to go to our district leaders area, which we cover as well, and we were with Elder Batchuluun. He is from Mongolia and one of my favorite Elders. He played on the Mongolian national basketball team so he can kick my butt. But he also drove for Ford in the Asia curcuit. Pretty cool eh? He is a really good missionary and it is a riot being with him. But we went tracting and he didn't know where to go. We were driving and I had an impression to go to this townhouse complex. So we did and we started knocking. Nobody really wanted to talk to us at first, but we kept going in the cold. We started talking to this cool guy that was not interested but he read our tags and told us that there were Spanish people that lived next door. We knocked on the door and started to talk to them. It turns out that we found an inactive member that I have been trying to locate since I got here! He is from Nicaragua and he was wondering where people from the church were. But we are going to be meeting with him this week. It is just amazing to me that the Lord knows were his people are. It is such a blessing that we get to be the instruments that he can guide to bring them back. We had another cool experience. Elder Batchuluun was driving and we started to slide on the slippery road...He moved into the other lane quickly to miss a stopped car. But the car behind us hit us when we stopped. It was pretty scary, but I was completely calm. I wondered why and then we met the guy that hit us. Turns out he was a Spanish guy! We started to exchange information and his family has all passed on and he is going to a local Christian church. So we are going to stop by this week and see him and really push the Plan of Salvation. Coincidence...I think not. Diosidencia hehe. It was a miracle in a stange form. They happen everyday we just have to look out for them.

 

We got 2 new awesome investigators this week. One guy found one of our cards in a Spanish shop that we left a long time ago. He sent a referral through Mormon.org and we got to meet him on Wednesday. The other one our stake mission leader in Bonnie Doon Stake met at school. She is from Mexico and is up here to learn English. She has had lots of evidence of godly preparation and we are excited to talk to her about baptsim this week. I feel like she will be very receptive. Make sure all you members are doing your missionary work. I know it can be hard, but the greatest situation for us missionaries is to teach your friends in your own homes. I read a talk about member missionary work and they were talking about if you give a talk in church to invite 5 friends. For a lot of other churches to give a talk is a big deal. It impresses your friends and gets them into the Spirit-filled chapel. Just a quick idea.

 

I send my love and a little bit of the cold from Alberta. Remember the Lord loves you and is always watching out for you. Lest we forget, love is the most powerful motivator. Cuidense y portense bien.

 

Elder Kipp

¡Háce frio!

Hello my friends,

 

Sorry for no letter last week. I was writing other people and realized that I didnt have anymore time left. Way to go me. But it has beeen really cold up here lately. We got a lot of snow this week and we are looking to get even more. We were able to talk to a lot of people about the gospel becasue of the snow. With a shovel in hand, we went trackting for some of the time this week. It is amazing how much more people want to talk to you after their walk is cleared off. Don't worry mom, we are being really carfeul driving in the snow. Especially because Elder Doxey is the one driving. But it has been really great to see the snow on the trees and in the river valley. We already broke out the Christmas music here, becasue Canadain Thanksgiving already passed. Boo Yah! Check out the David Archuleta christmas album, super good.

 

While being in the Christmas spirit already, Mormon.org is making a new page on their site to promote Christmas. Their people can request the christmas story told to them by the local,missionaries, a bible, or even download free MoTab Christmas hymns. It is going to be a really useful tool for spreading the gospel at this special time of year. We are going to be able to direct people to this site and really use it in our missioanry efforts. I encourage every one to keep thier eyes out because it will be uo and running in about 2 weeks. Mormon.org is such an effective way, especially for members to introduce the gospel to their friends. We had stake conference in one of our stakes and the stress was preparing for missionary work and getting everyone to participate. With this new site, (Mormon.org/christmas) will intoduce people to another side of our faith they probably didnt know about.

 

We had a great week this week, The highlight was definatly the Family Home evening (Latin Style) that we had for the members and our investigators. Actually 5 of our investigators and a few more new people to teach showed up. We had a little food and we played some fun games. At the end of the night we shoed Finding Faith in Christ and shared our testimonies. The Spirit was very strong and it was a great experience for the progressiong for many of our investigators. Actually Maria Cristina from Columbia, who I never expected to come to church came for all three hours and was able to make a lot of friends. She is one of my favorites and she has so much faith. She makes me smile becasue she puts ita and ito on everything. One of our members brought a friend from his Spanish club and she is super sweet! She wants to meet with us and talk about the miracels she has seen God bless her with. Her name is Marta and she was invovled with many of the dangerous things in Mexico. She is up here to learn English and get away from the problems. So we will see here this week and let you know. But overall the activity was a giant success.

 

We are still teaching Jesus. He has stopped progressing a little bit because he is having a hard time quiting smoking. Or rather finding the desire to stop smoking. He still wants to be baptized but it is hard becasue he works on Sundays and he never knows if he will get them off. We are going to meet with him tonight and see what we can do to help him. He is so cool and would be such a great member, but he needs to make sacrifices like we all need to. We have been really focusing lately on the principle lately that obedience brings blessings. Reading DC 130 20-21 seems to reall yhelp people and it has helped me realize that I have been blessed with all I have because I try and strive to be obedient to the commandments of God. We talked about that with Los Amigos last night. They are going to be leaving this Saterday, so it was really hard to see them off. But the Spirit was really strong when we were all sharing our testimonies and encouraging them to keep up the preperation in Mexico. We are pretty sure that Manuel, Joanna, and Jose Luiz will be going to continue to go to church and learn more. They already found their church and we are going to refer them to the missionaries down there. We had such a fun time with them and there were many reasons why Heavanly Father put us together on a little farm in Alberta Canada. I look forward to see how everything goes wtih them. I learned a lot from them and I know they were effected greatly by the message of the gospel.

 

I want to thank you all for the support and the prayers that I feel. I can't believe that time is going this fast and I am glad to see myself still pressing on the purposes of the Lord like all of you; and I am having a fantastic time doing it.

 

Mucho Amor,

 

Elder Kipp

 

HOLA!

Hey guys,   I wanted to start of with a couple of jokes that we have learned this week, sorry they  are in Spanish, but they are super funny:   ¿Que le dice una mama a su hijo para que lea?   -Hijolee ¿Que le dice una estufa a otra estufa que esta caminando con sus hijos (estufitas)?   -es tu familia?   Haha sorry but I wanted to remind you how missionaries can be easily entertained. It is really funny how weird you get as a missionary because you are so focused on other people all the time that you just become a really funny person with your companions. I remember that when I first came out that missionaries were perfect and they are just amazing spiritual giants. You can be a spiritual giant but still be a complete goober.   I dont have enough time to send off an email, ill get it out soon.   Tu Hijo Elder Kipp

¡La Nieve Está Aquí!

¿Como están mis hermanos?

 

¡La Nieve Está Aquí! We are getting snow and its really light and fluffy; the good kind. But it has been -7C so far and it's not even Halloween yet. The trick or treaters here are expecting to be going out in -4C and lots of snow. Its funny how it works out. On Wednesday we have to be in by 6 o'clock because a couple of years ago a buncj of delinquents (don't know how to spell anymore) dressed up like missionaries and did some stupid things. So, President wants to know that all his elders are inside for Halloween. It gets actually really dangerous up here that night. But we are going to carve pumpkins. We are going to carve Book of Mormons and the First Vison.

 

But I was really excited to hear of the influx of missionaries that are putting their papers in. It is so cool to see the work of the Lord hastening. It is so true. More and more people are getting prepared to receive the restored gospel. We received 6 new investigators this week. We are really seeing the hand of the Lord preparing people to receive his missionaries. Two of them we found in our apartment building. They are chilean and we brought them cookies to invite them to the building and they let us in and had a lot of questions. We are going back this week to give them a Book of Mormon cause they wanted to read it. Really cool experience and even cooler because they live upstairs.

 

We got to watch the Calgary temple dedication this past Sunday and it was super awesome!! President Monson, Elder Walker and Elder Ballard were there to do it. It was a beautiful expereince. Mauricio and Alexandra were both able to be there and they both loved it. I love the Hallelujah chorus and that whole thing. I wish we could have gone down to the tour, but it;s outside of our mission.The Spirit is so strong whenever we are talking about missionary work.

 

All of our investigators are doing well and we are hoping to have a couple of baptisms before the end of the year. Things are looking great!

 

Mucho amor,

 

Elder Kipp