Arizona Week 68 - Noah's Bicycle

Hello Everyone,

We had a great week: I got a 15 dollar suit from a thrift store that fits perfect, an investigator couple is going to get married soon so they can be baptized, we had the primary program, and Mesa was blessed with a lot of rain.

We're teaching a family of 8 that really loves the church. The parents aren't married yet, but we taught them the law of chastity lesson, and they are thinking of marriage so that they can get baptized. Their kids sang in the Primary program this week and the whole ward loves this family.

Speaking of the Primary Program, it was so cute. We had 8 investigators there and about 4 other nonmembers there for the first time. They all loved it. The kids did a great job and the spirit was in their words. One young boy had a short line to speak and when he had finished a small child in the congregation said very audibly, "Is that it?!"

Also it rained…a lot. We got drenched. There was a lot of flooding on the roads. Undaunted, we hopped on our bicycles and rode through the floods while the rest of the world perished in the floods. One intersection had so much water that it was half covering our bikes as we rode through them. This means that all of our pedaling was done under the water level. My shoes still have not dried all the way.

We are very busy. There are so many people to teach, and we find more each week. This is a good ward for missionary work. The Phoenix Temple Open House starts next week, and we are excited to take people there.

Also, next week, Meet the Mormons comes out in select theaters. It is a full length film that tells the story of 6 LDS families living throughout the world. We will view it tomorrow so next week I can tell you more about it. But I highly recommend that you go to see it if you are able to and that you tell others about it. I have heard great things about it already, and I know that it will help a lot of people to get to know who we are.

I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 67 - Coming out of the woodwork

Hey everyone!

It's been a really great week! People have been showing up all over the place. We just ride our bikes down the street, and people come running out to hear what we have to say and really want to come to church. Ok, so that is a little exaggeration but not much. We have found so many people that want to be taught and four of them have accepted the invitation for baptism in a couple weeks!

We had a mission conference with Elder Russell M. Nelson. It was great! We all got to shake his hand and hear his apostolic instruction. I found it interesting that the first thing he said was that our area of Arizona is the perfect set up for missionary work; there's no better place in the world. It's neat to hear from Apostles in an intimate setting like that. He was really able to just speak to us and it was really neat.

We had a bunch of people come to church this week. It was great! One of the ladies that got baptized somewhat recently has been finding us so many people. Every time we see her out and about she is talking to someone about the church and then calls us over, and we teach the restoration. It's so fun.

This ward is really great. There is a lot work to do here and it's wonderful. Things are good and we should have some baptisms coming up soon.

Love you all!

Elder Kirk

From Devin's Mom: 
Elder Kirk’s new companion is Elder Grenko. He is still in the Scottsdale mission but is in the city of Mesa. There are two Mesa stakes in the mission. He is currently serving in the Mezona Ward of the Mesa Maricopa Stake. He and his companion live in a member’s home. He is back to riding his bike again rather than having a car. 

Arizona Week 66 - Back to Work

Hey everyone,

I got transferred into Mesa again. In another super tiny ward. The people seem great. We got a lot of work done last night. It was great. 

We contacted a referral that we had gotten. The man is not a member but was almost baptized a number of years ago. His girlfriend grew up in the church. They had a lot of questions that we were able to answer for them. They had some concerns that we were able to resolve, and they are planning to come to church this week. We're going to help them get married so that he can get baptized. Things are going well.

I miss a lot of the people in the last ward I served in. Especially Brandon and Ainsley L. They are awesome people, and I love them. I'm excited about this new area. My new companion seems like a great guy.

I should have a few experiences to share next week.

Elder Kirk

A Letter from a Ward Member

My name is JK and your son has been serving in our ward for the last month. I just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know how great we think he is!

This last Sunday the Bishopric had him share his testimony as he is being transferred this week. I was so impressed with him and could tell that Elder Kirk has such a solid testimony of the Book of Mormon, I was so happy to see my children listening to him as he bore testimony of it's truthfulness. 

We are really going to miss Elder Kirk! Even though it has only been a month that he has been here, he has a special place in our hearts. He is an awesome missionary and he and your family will be in our prayers!

All Our Best!

Arizona Week 65 - Hour of Power

Hello Everyone,

This week went pretty well. The ward members are beginning to trust in the missionaries again, which is always a good thing, and we had some neat experiences.

So, we did what is called a "Miracle Window". We decide that we will be somewhere for a set amount of time, and we pray and ask that there will be people there that are ready to hear us. So, we picked a large park in our area to have our Miracle Window at. We got there around 9:00am and planned to stay about an hour and a half. When we first rolled in, we saw a woman walking on the sidewalk. We approached her and started to talk. She was kind but said that she was in the middle of her "Hour of Power" and that it wasn't a good time. However, she did accept a mormon.org card with our phone number on it. We parked our bikes and started to walk around. First couple people were not interested. We did talk to a young mother, and she gave us her address and said we could come back. We continued around and passed the Hour of Power woman a few times, always exchanging hellos. All the other people we talked to in the park didn't want to hear us. So, we took a break on a shaded bench because it was getting hot. After a few minutes, here comes Mrs. Hour of Power. She introduced herself as Sandra and asked if we wanted to chat for a few minutes. Well of course we want to! She sat down and said, "So I see you are Mormons, from your card. I'm a Christian. What is the difference?" We took this opportunity to share the Book of Mormon with her, and she accepted a copy. We also were able to answer her question about how a loving God would allow tragedies to happen. She gave us her phone number and seems excited to hear back from us. It truly was a miracle.

Also this week, we have been visiting member families and sharing one of our lessons with them. For 3 or 4 strong families, we followed our lesson by committing them to pray as a family to have a missionary experience that week and then invited them to share their experience in testimony meeting this past Sunday. It was a big success. Many of these people shared the experiences that they had in the testimony meeting. Even better, many that we had not invited came up and shared missionary experiences that they had and their testimonies of missionary work. Many people commented on how wonderful the meeting was and how great it was to hear all those experiences. As we had suspected, many people just didn't think that they could have these experiences. But now everyone knows that the Lord answers prayers to have those experiences. We feel this will help the work in this ward to start hastening. 

We are excited for all the good that is happening. I love you all and I hope things are going well for each of you.

Elder Kirk

September 8 Zone Conference

Arizona Week 64 - Meet the Mormons

Hey everyone,

Another slow week. We had a zone conference. There was a lot of talk on planning (boring). The fun part was watching clips from Elder Bednar speaking at Education Week (link on lds.org). He talked about the importance of using the internet for righteous purposes. He also showed a trailer for the new movie coming out in October called "Meet the Mormons". It looks really good. 

We've been telling everyone about this movie and it seems like a lot of people are going to be interested in seeing it. The missionaries get to go also.

The Phoenix temple is going to open soon; it looks really pretty.

Elder Russell M. Nelson is coming to visit the mission this month, so we are really excited for that. There are a lot of neat things happening soon.

There are two more weeks in this transfer. We are really trying to find someone to teach before then. It'll happen soon enough.

Things are going alright. I got to see some people from the wards I used to serve in. I really enjoyed that. The better part was that they remembered me. That's always fun.

Hope you all enjoy Labor Day

Elder Kirk