August 26, 2008

Hello,

First off, I'm sorry for not having written last week, it was quite the busy week.

Next, Happy Birthdays and Anniversaries to everyone! Dad and Ian and Grandma!! I'm very happy for you and I did think of you this week. I hope that everything went great!

Well, last week as I said was very busy. The transfer ended and instead of staying in Gonález Catán 3 as I expected, I was called to my 6th area but this one is in the offices. I´m now serving in the offices as assistant to the President and serving in the area of Caseros 2! (That may sound familiar because I started my mission in Caseros 1 which meets in the same building).

Sunday, we went to church in the same building and I got to say hello to all the members of that great ward. It was soo excellent! I couldn't believe that people remembered who I was. And the BEST part was that one of the part member families I found and started to teach, the husband was baptised!!! It was so excellent to see him and see how happy he was. We talked for a few good minutes and perhaps I´ll be able to visit their house in a couple of weeks when things in the offices settle down. It was so nice to be able to see the fruits of my labors even though I wasn't there for them to blossom.

Anyways, three days ago Elder Scott came here for a leadership meeting and was in the building right next to us, so us six missionaries from the offices were able to go over there and see him. We sat in the fourth row away from him and it was incredible. The spirit was so strong and testified of the truth of what he was saying. There were only about 100 priesthood leaders there so it wasn't too overcrowded.

Also in attendance were Elders Bowen, Zivic, Adukitis, and Gonzalez of the 70 and 10 mission 'presidents who sat right behind us. It was great company and I really enjoyed basking in the spirit that was there. I also got to shake Elder Scott´s hand, the first time for me shaking an apostles hand.

Well anyhow, Things are going great, I thank you for your prayers but please keep praying for me that I can fulfill this great responsibility that the Lord has blessed me with.

Love you all!

Elder Kelly
Caseros 2
Misión Buenos Aires Oeste

August 12, 2008

Hello Family,

Great week in Catán. We had a great time running around the zone doing divisions and working hard. We are now entering the last week of the transfer and we´re hoping to survive another transfer meeting! We´ll see, the next email we´ll know who my next companion will be or if Elder pollock and I will continue rocking out in Catán.

We are very close to the baptism goal for this transfer with the baptismal dates for 25 and the goal is 26. In our area we lost a couple of baptismal dates due to the lack of church attendance but we had some excellent experiences anyways.

We went to the house of a recent convert and the sister who is not member who we are teaching to teach a lesson and we brought brownie mix to cook in their kitchen. It was excellent but the only problem was that we brought the brownie mix in a bag with the recipe to make a lemon cake and we didn't notice until the brownies were in the oven. It came out brownie lemon cake and was... interesting. It kind of had a weird texture but it tasted alright.

We all laughed.

I found out that I still haven't learned how to cook on the mission. I doubt I ever will.

This week we have 14 baptismal interviews to do and two meetings with the area president do we will be running around from now until next Tuesday. Ah yes, Elder Bowen the South America South Area President will be coming to our humble chapel in Catán 3 this Thursday for a meeting with three zones in the mission. We are very exited.

Even more exciting is that on Wednesday all the zone leaders have a meeting with Elder Bowen. I'm excited to hear what he has to say.

Well I hope I haven't bored you and that my email was inspiring. This is the work of the Lord and it is a blessing for me to be involved in it. Thanks for your prayers and I'm Praying for you, till next week....

Go USA!!

Elder Kelly
Catán III
Zona González Catán

August 5, 2008

Hello Family!

What a stellar week. We´ve been working very hard down here in Catán Buenos Aires. The area is going great and the Bishop and Elder´s quorum president who previously were upset with the missionaries are very excited with the work we are doing. Apparently the less active members who we´ve visited called them and said how we passed by. Now we are able to do divisions alot more with ward members and it is a huge blessings.

Also we have a new program we are testing in our ward called the "Mission Catán 3", where the ward missionaries go out and do missionary work and then report to us references and contacts. It has already born fruits! We had a meeting on Saturday and did some practices, it was way fun and is helping the ward get pumped up about the work! We have 2 investigators who have baptismal dates for the 16th and Sonya and Brenda are excellent and progressing very well.

Sunday was a great day as we had 3 investigators and many less active members in church. Later on that day we had a meeting with the Stake President the AP´s and the Mission president, and the meeting went great! We discussed the statistics about the stake and the programs of the mission. The stake has been improving in almost everything.

President Benton is improving greatly in is Spanish as is the sister Benton. Even so, it was tough to understand so the APs had to translate a bit of what Elder Pollock and I were saying. After that, I rood to the offices with the President and the Aps to record "Oh that I Were an Angel" for the mission CD. It went well except that during the recording I had to cough, so I will go down in mission history as the guy that coughed during that song on the mission cd.

I will be a legend.

It was way fun. It's weird because the Sisters were there and the ones I was in the Mtc with go home at the end of the next transfer. Crazy....

Well I love you lots, I will send pictures soon I expect. Thanks for your emails...

Elder Kelly,
Crazy Catán 3
G. Catán
MIsion BAO

July 29, 2008

Hola,

Hello family, how are you doing? I just saw erynn´s blog and it makes me so happy to see the progress she's making! Congratulations Erynn, keep it up!

We had another great week in Catán, and I tell you this place is nuts. I would send pictures but my camera is hidden deeply within my luggage, it's just not something you bring out in catán. Mike and Jen sent me an awesome package and I´ve worn the mariners hat they sent every allowable moment.

In the area we are solidifying two baptisms for two weekends from now, one, Sonya, to complete an excellent family and the other, Brenda, a very faithful girl who goes with one of the ward´s grandmas!

We went on splits with the ward on Sunday and I went out with a rather timid brother named Hernan. Elder Pollock and I were behind on our weekly goals and we wanted to achieve them so we had a lot of work to do and we only had one hour till our meeting. So I talked to literally everyone I could see and one right after the other!

I think Hernan got a little flustered because we would literally finish talking to one guy, turn around and start talking to the next immediately. We also had to run/walk to be able to teach the lessons I wanted to within one hour. By the time we got back to the chapel for the meeting poor hernan was sweating and almost exhausted.

I felt young =) and thought, "you still got it, old stevo".

Yes.... That night the meeting went excellent! We organized the before unorganized ward missionary efforts. We called new ward missionaries, put them in companionships and assigned them families and goals for contacts and references. It felt so productive as the ward was rather stagnant when it came to missionary work. We will see how it turns out. We called in Project "Mission Catán III" with our ward mission leader as mission president.

Not too much else to report other than hollowed out horse carcasses, terrential downpours, and close call encounters with the "youth" of BA, but those are stories for another day. I love you all and thanks for your support... till the next time,

Elder Kelly
Catán III
Gonzalez Catán
MBAO