He got to do some sledding on Pday.

 

Christmas away from home.

 





 



Happy New Year! 2014

This week was awesome to see all of you and to talk to you again, it will be crazy to think that next time I will be able to talk to you face to face :) Everyone is looking good and looks like they are having fun. We had a great Christmas here as well, and the rest of the week was awesome!

The next day we went on exchanges to Lenox which is the longest distance away from our area, we spent a day there helping them out in their area. I went with a newer missionary, named Elder Shumate, from North Carolina. We had a great time and taught some great lessons. We meet with this one guy named D... and his wife. I have never seen a guy so prepared for the gospel as he was. The spirit was really strong throughout the whole lesson. That was a really fun experience for us that day and was a high light for the exchange. The next morning we went to Chariton an hour away, for our next exchange. ya back to back.. We again worked in their area doing our best to help them out with anything that they needed. It was a colder day and not as many people were willing to talk, but none the less we had a great time. I have been able to learn a lot from the new missionaries in the zone! It is such a blessing to be able to serve in a position that allows me to learn from so many missionaries. Right after Christmas we are right back to work sharing the Gospel and helping people out. Everything just seems to run smoother when that is what we are doing:)

This week is transfers again! We got our call this morning about transfers and the good news is.. I will be staying is Osky!! I am excited to finish here and for the last transfer that I start this week. There is so much to do and so little time. This New Year I would invite everyone to think of something they can give up or change to help you or someone else get closer to the Savior Jesus Christ. Remember the gospel is the only thing that will unite families forever! Never give up, Never give up!

I love you all and am grateful for all that I received this year! Have a great week!

LOVE ELDER KIRTON!



This is in the church parking lot.

Merry Christmas! This week! I will see you really soon!

Wow, It’s been the craziest, awesome and fun week ever! There is so much that has happened this week and so much to be grateful for. It looks like the snow hit you really good as well. We got about 4 to 5 inches on Sunday, which ended up canceling church here in Osky and as well throughout most of the mission. It’s kinda funny how easily the weather can affect everyone that is not use to the snow. Luckily we have a truck with 4x4! We are so grateful for that! I also got the package and the Christmas card for you guys! Thanks! And thank you to everyone else that has sent stuff this way:)

This week we had the most epic baptism ever! The baptism that was scheduled for N....... was to take place on Sunday after church. Well as you now know that church was canceled.. so we were super worried that it wasn’t going to happen. N..... has been waiting for this day for a while now, since last week we had to postpone it and all. The weather slowed down and the sun was out, so we called a few people up and got things prepared for the baptism. A little bit of shoveling and anticipation, N..... got baptized!!!! We were so excited for him. it was probably the smallest amount of people that I have seen at a baptism, but it was just enough to see it go through.

We are still working on getting the couple married so they can get baptized, it will be the last thing I do, before they have to ship me off back home! They are very close but just need a little more time and some nudging from the spirit and they will get there!

There is not much for me to tell you then, I WILL SEE YOU ON CHRISTMAS! the time will be at 4 your time and 5 my time! hopefully that will work, but if not we can most likely work something out:) You all have a great week and I will see you on the 25th!! love you all!

LOVE ELDER KIRTON!!!                                                                                                                

Good tidings of joy to you all as well!!

This week has been a crazy one, I guess the best way to describe it would be a roller coaster! Now most roller coasters are super fun, but a missionary one isn't always the best.. haha It’s been a great Christmas already and we still have plenty of days left in the year to do great things for other people. As a missionary it’s really easy to do things for other people, so I would like to extend an invitation to all of you that read this email, to find someone you can help this Christmas season. I am super grateful for an amazing family that supports in this work! I wish more people had such a great family to rely on too:)

On Monday last week, we had an awesome lesson with Q......... and K....... who are trying to prepare for the end of December to get baptized. They have to get married first before they can do that. I never would have thought that I would have to help someone get married as a missionary, but there is always a first for everything. On Tuesday we went with them to get their marriage license and that same day He purposed to her!!! That was just one step in this process. We waited all week for them to go and pick up the final copy of the license, but guess what that never happened!:( so we had a lesson with them the next day and talked about it. They said they ran out of time... so today and tomorrow we are going to do our best to help them get the license and get it signed so they can get baptized on Dec. 31.. but if they aren't ready then will have to wait till next year.. :p So that was a crazy roller coaster of the week.

N.... received his baptismal interview on Tuesday and passed!! We got everything ready for the baptism and finalized some things, with him and A..... A.... is C.....'s daughter and will also be baptized with N....... C..... is N......’s cousin and will be baptizing them both. Well Friday came around and everything was going super well. We received a txt message at 2 in the morning saying that C..... got stuck in Memphis Tennessee and won’t be able to make it back in time. We were like nooooo!!! It’s all good though, we just have to postpone the service till next week:) That was the last roller coaster of the week. Crazy right!

The lesson that I've learned this week, is that Satan really works hard whenever someone is trying to do something right. No matter the person or the good that he is doing. Whenever people are preparing to make a covenant with God, there usually is always some sort of opposition that stands in the way. It reminds me of the experience of Joseph Smith. A lot of time we just remember the wonderful experience he had with the visitation of the Father and the Son. If you read before that, you will know that Satan did everything in is power to stop his prayer, but Joseph exerted all his strength to call upon the Lord and he was delivered from that awful state. Jesus Christ suffered much before he experienced joy and peace. Before his resurrection he suffered in the garden and died on the cross. As we reflect upon Christ this Christmas season remember to give thanks for what you have and always know that there is light at the end of the tunnel whether in this life or the next, God will repay you for your struggles.

This past week was my last Zone Conference of my mission. :( I gave my going home testimony, just as everyone before has done. It was a weird experience to stand up there and do that. Before I just watched many other missionaries going home bare there testimonies and always thought that that will never happen to me. Well it did and now it’s past. During this ZC we watched a movie called Ephraim’s Rescue, I would highly recommend it to everyone! it is really good, but be careful because you will cry in it... The mission life is coming to a close faster than expected and I would like to thank all of you who have sent letters and packages these past few weeks! O and to answer your question mom, we can go to the mail box everyday:) I love you all!

Have a great week and I will see you next week! literally! LOVE ELDER KIRTON!!

 

His Zone.

16 Days till Christmas!!

Well it feels like Christmas was already here, with the week that we had! I am pretty sure that we drove more this week than I have ever driven in the past! I think we drove a total of 400 miles this past week, ya crazy right! There was so much that we had to do as well. We as well got snow yesterday, about 3 inches or so. But we definitely beat you on the coldness.. it’s about 3 degrees right now and was most likely colder last night.. haha!! I am so thankful for a truck:) It was pretty crazy on Sunday, we had to drive to Des Moines for another meeting and it was snowing. We made it there safely! but there is one thing that I found out while driving down there, is that Iowans!!! can’t drive in the snow! haha So I had to show them how a Utahan drives in the snow haha.. we had lots of fun.

We taught J... ward on Monday for the last time before his baptismal interview on Tuesday. The crazy thing is that we were all the way in Iowa City when J... got his interview. So when we got his call and heard that he passed we were so excited!! We got everything ready for his baptism on Wednesday night. We had a lot of people show up for it too, which is such a miracle! The baptism went so well and now he is the newest convert to the Oskaloosa branch:) see pics...

This week we keep working with N.... as well and he is already for his interview on Tuesday and his baptism will be on the 15th! We are really excited for it, because a fairly new member is going to be baptizing him, it is his cousin. C..... and C....'s 8 year old daughter is also getting baptized on the 15th, well that is the plan. So this next week is going to be super stressful. I hope and pray that everything is going go well and that the plans work out:)

Q..... & K..... need to get married this week in order for them to be baptized on the 28th of December. I am pretty sure this is going to be the craziest week of my mission. Everything comes down to this week, to finish strong before the end of the year! I am so grateful to be a part of the wonderful changes that all of these people are making! The Lord’s work is so true and that’s really all that matters!

The funny story of the week,

So we drove down to Osceola for a meeting that we had with the zone, and then soon after the meeting we drove to a town called Lamoni, which is about 30 minutes south of there. We drove down there because we needed to give a man that is planning on being baptized an interview. so here is the funny part of the story.. if you don’t know too much about the Community of Christ, I will tell you a little bit about them. They are a break off of our church and are all over the town of Lamoni and throughout Iowa. They have a college down there in Lamoni, so the sisters that were teaching him said that we would be giving him the interview at the college so we were like okay that we be fine. We get there and end up finding out that we were suppose to do the interview in the chapel of the Community of Christ.. I guess they didn't mind too much.. but there wasn’t really anyone around anyway.. the other funny part is that they had their baptismal font filling up there too... man it was such a coincidence.. I thought that it was super funny.. but everything went well and we drove 2 hours back home, it was an epic day!

The boys looked like they had lots of fun on their new sleds.. wish I could go sledding on some hills too... you will have to do it for me:)

To answer some of the questions. We always have a few new missions in the zone that we are working with, but I haven’t got a new missionary, nor will I get one since I only have one transfer let after this one. but it’s totally cool, because the zone is doing great and we have lots of fun doing missionary work, that is Elder Mattoon and I.. I hope you all had the chance to watch the Christmas devotional, because it was super good! even the kid that winked ;) haha super funny!

You keep having great weeks and I will also have great weeks as well! and I will see you all sooner than later:) love you all!

LOVE ELDER KIRTON!! /\

/ \

[] MERRY CHRIST- mas

Hey! Family!!

My thanksgiving was really good! We had a great meal over at a member’s house that is really close to where I live at. We were stuffed after that meal, which is good and bad!! haha I bet you guys had a great thanksgiving to! It feels like Thanksgiving happened like a month ago already, because time is just fast now a days. The boys looked like they had fun shooting the guns in alpine! LUCKY!!! so you can’t shoot there anymore? So we got a whole oreo pie, the other day from a member! Super good!

So this week is going to be really exciting for us! We will hopefully be having a baptism on Wednesday for J...! He has a friend that is leaving on Thursday, that he wants to be there, so we moved the date to the 4th for now. Super excited!! N..... also got up and bore is testimony again, man that guy is just something else! He’s got a date for the 14th!! It was such an awesome testimony meeting on Sunday! When investigators and recently returned members come back into activity and bare their testimony its super awesome!! Those are the experiences that a missionary lives for on a day to day basics:) We taught W.... on Monday about the stop smoking work shop! He read the word of wisdom pamphlet and stopped smoking after. he’s doing super well right now! Hopefully we will be able to help him get ready to be baptized soon enough! The week has been wonderful with all of the people that we’ve been able to talk to and teach! We are super busy this week, so I would imagine that it will go by really fast!

In order to teach someone about faith, you have to understand what faith is. Faith is- Believing in something that you cannot see, but is true as well as acting on that belief! Teaching someone about faith in Jesus Christ is the base to all that we talk about! In order to gain faith in something you first have to 1. learn it and after you learn it you have to be 2. willing to accept it. 3. you have to hope and desire to find out if it is true, which means you have to 4. Act on it! Than you will receive 5. a witness that it is true. This is a way that I have been able to understand faith a little better throughout my mission. Hopefully that will help you find out more truth! and most importantly have faith in it. Remember you really can’t have much faith in something that is not true.

I am as well excited to see you all this Christmas! Remember not to forget the true meaning of Christmas! I am thankful for you all and love you! Keep up the faith!!!

LOVE ELDER KIRTON, NOTRIK REDLE