Arizona Week 72 - Kirk and Jacobson

Hey Everyone,

This week was transfers. I have been transferred again and am now in East Phoenix. My new companion is Elder Jacobson. You may recognize that name from a couple months ago. He was the Elder that I got along with really well. Yes, we're companions now. It's pretty much the best thing in the world! We're super excited to be able to work together, and we know we are going to have some really good success.

I was sad to leave the ward I was serving in, but I know I will be back to visit soon. There are a couple of people that I taught who have committed to get baptized. These two should be baptized on November 8th so that will be very exciting.

We get to go to the temple on Friday. It's a new mission tradition that we are starting: to go to the temple on Halloween night. What better way to celebrate the dead than to save their souls through temple ordinances?

The new area seems like it will be pretty good. We live with four other elders in a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment. They are a fun bunch. I think that things will go very well here. I don't have any stories yet but with a companionship like this, we'll have some good stories to tell by next week.

I hope you all have a great Halloween.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 71 - Moved by the Spirit

Hello Everyone,

We had a great week. A ton of people came to church, and our Gospel Principles class was packed. Most of them are from one apartment complex, which happens to be one of the worst apartment complex for drugs, violence, etc.

One of the ladies we taught this week REALLY liked our lesson. We reviewed the restoration with a little object lesson involving cups. When we finished all she could say was "WOOOOWW...I never thought of it like that. That makes so much sense." She snapped a picture of it and said she wanted to show everyone at work and even asked us to make her a set of these cups, so she could really show people. She really liked it a lot.

Later this week, I went with one of the zone leaders for the day. After lunch, he decided that we were going to go to the home of some people that he had met recently and offer service. So, we grabbed some cleaning supplies and went over and cleaned the porch and the windows and the floor. They thought it was a little strange at first, but they were very appreciative when we finished. It's a 2 bedroom apartment that houses 10 adults and 3 or 4 children. You can imagine that it gets rather messy. Before we left, one of them, offered his service to us if we ever needed it. We told him about a stake service project this weekend, and he said that he would come and help.

The neatest experience this week came while we were knocking doors in an apartment complex. We had knocked on a couple and then decided that we were not in the right place; we needed to knock a different set of doors. So, we moved around the complex until we felt that it was right. The first door we knocked on was opened by a lady who used to be taught by missionaries. She didn't remember much but was willing to have missionaries teach her and her children again. The next door we knocked on turned out to be a less active man who had recently moved into the area with his wife and small daughter. It was great to be in a position where we could feel the promptings of the Spirit moving us to where we needed to be.

Experiences like this help me to remember that the Lord is in charge of the missionary work and all that happens in the church. I am merely an instrument that He can use to bless the lives of His other children. By allowing the Lord to work through me, I too am blessed.

I hope all of you are having fun making preparations for Halloween. Eat some candy for me.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 70 - Phoenix Temple and Kicking Pigeons

Hey Everyone,

This week has been really good. We were able to go to the Phoenix Temple Open House with a Lutheran Pastor from New York. My companion, Elder G, used to teach his mother, so he came down, and we all went to the temple. It is a very beautiful temple. They all enjoyed it a lot, and we did too. The pastor knows a great deal about the church and will likely join after he retires. We're going many more times with other people that we are teaching.

I hope that some of you were able to see Meet the Mormons. A couple that we are teaching went to see it, and they LOVED it! They really touches them that missionaries will leave their home to go teach and help other people like them. They are so grateful that we found them.

So, there are a ton of pigeons in our area. We set a goal, as a companionship, to kick a pigeon. Well, this week I met my goal. It was glorious.

This morning, we went to hike Camelback Mountain. It was a ton of fun. We ran down it (which was a little sketchy but it's OK). We're going again next week so that'll be a lot of fun.

I can't remember anything else right now. Hope you all have a great week.

Elder Kirk

Arizona Week 69 - Meet the Mormons

Hey everyone,

I know that I briefly mentioned Meet the Mormons last week but now that I have seen it I have a lot more to say. It was awesome! I hope that you can all go and see it. It is very inspiring. It helps to show what kind of lives we as members of the church lead. And it is not just here in the US but around the world. Tell your friends about it too.

I don't have a lot of time to write today, but I do want to share one funny story: We had an appointment with a recent convert that (because of past substance abuse) is not all together in his mind. On top of that, at the time of our visit, he was very tired. We could not understand a word that he said the whole night, and he kept falling asleep. All the while he was having great difficulty opening an Activia yogurt. It seriously took him 15 minutes. When he finally got it open, he started to eat it by just sticking his mouth in it. So, yogurt was all over his face as I was trying to share a scripture. Then, I begin explaining the verse that I read and he started falling asleep again but this time the yogurt fell out of his hand and landed upside down on his lap. At this point, we couldn’t stand it any longer; we lost it. Our laughter led us to tears. We left. I don't think I've laughed harder many times in my life.

That's all I got for this week.

Elder Kirk

                           Happy Halloween