The Baptism of Jewel and Christopher Barbier
Monday, September 28, 2009
Baptism Central!
Hey Y’all!
So once again I am super busy and I have like no time to write but I will do my best to give y’all a quick update on what’s going on here. First off- Jewel and Christopher were baptized!!! It was a beautiful baptism and everything went well. After Christopher came out of the water he exclaimed “that felt good!” ha ha it was cute! Then after the Holy Ghost talk Jewel bore her testimony, it was amazing! She had the room in tears, she is so solid! On Sunday they were confirmed and after sacrament meeting I went up to give Jewel a hug and she was in tears and was like, “how can I ever repay y’all?” I said the only way we will ever let you repay us is by your activity in the church- I said all you gotta do is stay strong in the church the rest of your life and we’ve been repaid! :) So ya that was great!
I love y’all and won’t have time to write letters this week but know that I am thinking of you and hope y’all are doing well!
Smiling All The While
Sister Kleisler
So once again I am super busy and I have like no time to write but I will do my best to give y’all a quick update on what’s going on here. First off- Jewel and Christopher were baptized!!! It was a beautiful baptism and everything went well. After Christopher came out of the water he exclaimed “that felt good!” ha ha it was cute! Then after the Holy Ghost talk Jewel bore her testimony, it was amazing! She had the room in tears, she is so solid! On Sunday they were confirmed and after sacrament meeting I went up to give Jewel a hug and she was in tears and was like, “how can I ever repay y’all?” I said the only way we will ever let you repay us is by your activity in the church- I said all you gotta do is stay strong in the church the rest of your life and we’ve been repaid! :) So ya that was great!
I love y’all and won’t have time to write letters this week but know that I am thinking of you and hope y’all are doing well!
Smiling All The While
Sister Kleisler
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Sights of Encino Park
I only have two pics for you this week:
-The super sweet sisters that the Encino Park area gets to see Daily!
-The super sweetest building that we get to see weekly as we drive around!
-The super sweet sisters that the Encino Park area gets to see Daily!
-The super sweetest building that we get to see weekly as we drive around!
Busy, Busy, Busy!!!!
Hey Y’all!
It has been a busy week, actually scratch that, it’s been a busy transfer! Things are going well in Encino Park. First off Jewel and Christopher are on track to be baptized this Saturday! Yay!!! They are both very excited and so are we! We taught them every day last week and it was great. One of the days we had prepared a lesson on the priesthood and we got there and Christopher opened the door and said that his mom did not feel well and maybe we could come back later. So we were like uh, ok. We had a member with us so we were like well I guess we could take you to teach someone else. We hadn’t made a back up plan because Jewel’s lessons never fall through. So we sat in the members car trying to figure out who we could go visit and then the phone rang. It was Jewel. Sister Davenport answered it and Jewel told her how sick she was, Sister Davenport then explained about Priesthood blessings and asked Jewel if she would like one. Jewel said yes, so then we had to get to work trying to find a priesthood holder who was home at 1 o clock in the afternoon on a weekday! Luckily the member helped us out and within 30 minutes we had two worthy priesthood holders at Jewel’s door. They gave her a beautiful blessing and then we all left. That night we got a phone call from Jewel. She wanted us to thank the men for coming, she said that she felt so much better and she knew that it was because of the power that they hold and that it is from God. She started crying on the phone to me and telling me that she knew this church was true and that it really was God’s church on the earth today. Sweet!!! I got off the phone with her and then told Sister Davenport what Jewel had said. I then told Sister Davenport that Jewel got the best lesson on the priesthood that day! We didn’t even need to teach it! ha ha So ya they are doing great and will be in the water this weekend!
We taught a lot of other lessons this week as well and have just been busy beavers all week long!! I wish I had more time but once again, I am so busy that I just don’t have much time to tell y’all about much of anything!
I do want to thank you however for your support! I appreciate the letters and the love, keep it coming!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE,
Sister Kleisler
It has been a busy week, actually scratch that, it’s been a busy transfer! Things are going well in Encino Park. First off Jewel and Christopher are on track to be baptized this Saturday! Yay!!! They are both very excited and so are we! We taught them every day last week and it was great. One of the days we had prepared a lesson on the priesthood and we got there and Christopher opened the door and said that his mom did not feel well and maybe we could come back later. So we were like uh, ok. We had a member with us so we were like well I guess we could take you to teach someone else. We hadn’t made a back up plan because Jewel’s lessons never fall through. So we sat in the members car trying to figure out who we could go visit and then the phone rang. It was Jewel. Sister Davenport answered it and Jewel told her how sick she was, Sister Davenport then explained about Priesthood blessings and asked Jewel if she would like one. Jewel said yes, so then we had to get to work trying to find a priesthood holder who was home at 1 o clock in the afternoon on a weekday! Luckily the member helped us out and within 30 minutes we had two worthy priesthood holders at Jewel’s door. They gave her a beautiful blessing and then we all left. That night we got a phone call from Jewel. She wanted us to thank the men for coming, she said that she felt so much better and she knew that it was because of the power that they hold and that it is from God. She started crying on the phone to me and telling me that she knew this church was true and that it really was God’s church on the earth today. Sweet!!! I got off the phone with her and then told Sister Davenport what Jewel had said. I then told Sister Davenport that Jewel got the best lesson on the priesthood that day! We didn’t even need to teach it! ha ha So ya they are doing great and will be in the water this weekend!
We taught a lot of other lessons this week as well and have just been busy beavers all week long!! I wish I had more time but once again, I am so busy that I just don’t have much time to tell y’all about much of anything!
I do want to thank you however for your support! I appreciate the letters and the love, keep it coming!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE,
Sister Kleisler
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pics from Encino Park
So the first is me and Sister Davenport on bikes. We have a car, a very nice one in fact, but we also have bikes and we can use them if we want. So this week the weather was great so we took the bikes out and contacted a lot of people out in the neighborhood. Good times!
The next is me on weekly planning day. I erased the old board and we created a new one! Look at all those names- so many people to teach! yay!!!
Alright so we took these pictures right after a lesson with Jewel and Christopher. Can you guess what the lesson was on? That’s right, Word Of Wisdom!!!! We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and then committed them to live it. They said they were both big coffee and tea drinkers but that they would give it up. So I asked Jewel to get a garbage bag and put all of the coffee and tea that they had in their house in the bag. Without hesitation she did it and brought me the bag. We asked Chris if he would be ok with out his coffee, he siad he loves his coffee every morning but if God says it isn’t good for him, then he’ll stop. So we took the bag home with us, took some pics of course and then dumped it in the trash! Yay! Jewel told us that after we left they went and bought some herbal tea. So sweet!!! They now drink raspberry herbal tea in the mornings. I love seeing people change their lives because they know the gospel is true! Such a treat! Ha ha and as a side note, the Smith’s garage (that’s where they keep their trash can) smelled like coffee for days! Ha ha
The next is me on weekly planning day. I erased the old board and we created a new one! Look at all those names- so many people to teach! yay!!!
Alright so we took these pictures right after a lesson with Jewel and Christopher. Can you guess what the lesson was on? That’s right, Word Of Wisdom!!!! We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and then committed them to live it. They said they were both big coffee and tea drinkers but that they would give it up. So I asked Jewel to get a garbage bag and put all of the coffee and tea that they had in their house in the bag. Without hesitation she did it and brought me the bag. We asked Chris if he would be ok with out his coffee, he siad he loves his coffee every morning but if God says it isn’t good for him, then he’ll stop. So we took the bag home with us, took some pics of course and then dumped it in the trash! Yay! Jewel told us that after we left they went and bought some herbal tea. So sweet!!! They now drink raspberry herbal tea in the mornings. I love seeing people change their lives because they know the gospel is true! Such a treat! Ha ha and as a side note, the Smith’s garage (that’s where they keep their trash can) smelled like coffee for days! Ha ha
It's Raining, It's Pouring!
Hey Y’all!!!
Goll-eeeee, it has been quiet a week!!! First, I will start with the weather…RAIN!!! It has poured here the last several days and the people are so grateful! We have been in a bad drought for awhile and the Lord has answered our prayers and sent us a TON of rain!!! Yay! It has been lots of fun for Sister Davenport and I because we are both not super used to rain so if it started raining while we were out knocking doors we were like “Hooray!” and then kept on going knocking. We had a lot of fun in the rain. But it was kinda scary cause Sister Davenport drives like a maniac in the rain! Ha ha At one point this week I was laughing hysterically as we were driving down the road to get to an appointment and Sister D had to swerve around all of these big blue recycle bins in the middle of the road! Ha ha Encino Park area is very hilly and so the rain created a heavy stream on the roads that pulled all of the garbage cans from the side of the curbs into the middle of the street! Ha ha Sister D was swerving around them all like we were on a test track practice course! Good times! When we got out of our appointment we were going to do some service and take the cans back to their rightful place on the curb, but someone had either already done it or all the cans floated away, ha ha I am not sure which! Lol
So yes the rain has been fun but also there has been something else that has kept a giant smile on my face all week… GOLDEN INVESTIGATORS! I up to this point in my mission have never come in contact with “golden” investigators, but well now I have. And it ROCKS! Their names are Jewel and Christopher and we have set them with a baptismal date for September 26th. Jewel is 59 and her son Christopher is 35 and is special needs, but he operates like on a 12-year-old level and is 100% accountable. Jewel has been trying different churches for years now. She went to the Episcopal Church for awhile and then joined a Baptist church and she just never has felt “at home” in a church. She was on facebook a few weeks a go and ran across an old friend she grew up with in the Episcopal Church and she started talking to him about religion. Well he told her that he converted to Mormonism years ago and then he bore his testimony to her and told her to check out mormon.org So she did, she went online and requested like every video and booklet offered on the website and we got a zillion texts from church headquarters, the last of which was my favorite. She had written in the comments section- “I want to learn more about your church and possibly join it” So you can imagine how stoked we were to receive those texts!! So we have been teaching her everyday this week and we have had members come to all of the lessons and things are going so well! They came to mutual on Wednesday to check out the building and meet some people, they loved it! Then yesterday they came to church and Jewel felt so welcomed and Christopher as well. We have taught them almost all the lessons, Jewel has read starting at the beginning of the Book of Mormon like on Tuesday and is already on Jacob. One of the ward members bought Christopher a copy of the Book of Mormon reader, as Christopher likes to call it “my comic book version” ha ha it’s cute. The neatest part of all of this was something Jewel said in our lesson last night. I was asking her how she felt about all of this and she said, “I have always been searching for the right church, now I’ve found it and it just feels so good. I get goosebumps all the time when I read my Book of Mormon at night and I always feel so good inside when y’all come over. It is hard to describe but it feels like I am changing, there is something happening inside of me, it’s like I am being changed by all of this. It feels so good, like I have been needing this change for a long time and it has finally come.” So ya when she said that I got the hugest smile on my face and said- Jewel that is why I am out here, to watch people’s lives be touched and changed by the gospel!! Ya man, being a missionary rocks!! Oh and Jewel is from New Orleans so she has a super cool accent! :) She is an awesome lady!
Well it has been a busy week, a part from having a lesson with Jewel everyday this week we have a few other investigators and a lot of work going on, we have been so busy!!! Sister Davenport and I are totally ok with that though, we say that being too busy as a missionary is the BEST problem to have!! Ha ha so ya things are going very well here. The Encino Park ward is awesome! They are so stoked for this baptism, they haven’t had a baptism in this ward in over a year and we are ending the drought!!! So two different types of droughts are coming to an end here in Encino Park, the rain drought and the Baptism drought!!!! Yee-haw!!
Well I hope Y’all have a fantastic week and I hope some of this rain heads your way!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE,
Sister Kleisler
Goll-eeeee, it has been quiet a week!!! First, I will start with the weather…RAIN!!! It has poured here the last several days and the people are so grateful! We have been in a bad drought for awhile and the Lord has answered our prayers and sent us a TON of rain!!! Yay! It has been lots of fun for Sister Davenport and I because we are both not super used to rain so if it started raining while we were out knocking doors we were like “Hooray!” and then kept on going knocking. We had a lot of fun in the rain. But it was kinda scary cause Sister Davenport drives like a maniac in the rain! Ha ha At one point this week I was laughing hysterically as we were driving down the road to get to an appointment and Sister D had to swerve around all of these big blue recycle bins in the middle of the road! Ha ha Encino Park area is very hilly and so the rain created a heavy stream on the roads that pulled all of the garbage cans from the side of the curbs into the middle of the street! Ha ha Sister D was swerving around them all like we were on a test track practice course! Good times! When we got out of our appointment we were going to do some service and take the cans back to their rightful place on the curb, but someone had either already done it or all the cans floated away, ha ha I am not sure which! Lol
So yes the rain has been fun but also there has been something else that has kept a giant smile on my face all week… GOLDEN INVESTIGATORS! I up to this point in my mission have never come in contact with “golden” investigators, but well now I have. And it ROCKS! Their names are Jewel and Christopher and we have set them with a baptismal date for September 26th. Jewel is 59 and her son Christopher is 35 and is special needs, but he operates like on a 12-year-old level and is 100% accountable. Jewel has been trying different churches for years now. She went to the Episcopal Church for awhile and then joined a Baptist church and she just never has felt “at home” in a church. She was on facebook a few weeks a go and ran across an old friend she grew up with in the Episcopal Church and she started talking to him about religion. Well he told her that he converted to Mormonism years ago and then he bore his testimony to her and told her to check out mormon.org So she did, she went online and requested like every video and booklet offered on the website and we got a zillion texts from church headquarters, the last of which was my favorite. She had written in the comments section- “I want to learn more about your church and possibly join it” So you can imagine how stoked we were to receive those texts!! So we have been teaching her everyday this week and we have had members come to all of the lessons and things are going so well! They came to mutual on Wednesday to check out the building and meet some people, they loved it! Then yesterday they came to church and Jewel felt so welcomed and Christopher as well. We have taught them almost all the lessons, Jewel has read starting at the beginning of the Book of Mormon like on Tuesday and is already on Jacob. One of the ward members bought Christopher a copy of the Book of Mormon reader, as Christopher likes to call it “my comic book version” ha ha it’s cute. The neatest part of all of this was something Jewel said in our lesson last night. I was asking her how she felt about all of this and she said, “I have always been searching for the right church, now I’ve found it and it just feels so good. I get goosebumps all the time when I read my Book of Mormon at night and I always feel so good inside when y’all come over. It is hard to describe but it feels like I am changing, there is something happening inside of me, it’s like I am being changed by all of this. It feels so good, like I have been needing this change for a long time and it has finally come.” So ya when she said that I got the hugest smile on my face and said- Jewel that is why I am out here, to watch people’s lives be touched and changed by the gospel!! Ya man, being a missionary rocks!! Oh and Jewel is from New Orleans so she has a super cool accent! :) She is an awesome lady!
Well it has been a busy week, a part from having a lesson with Jewel everyday this week we have a few other investigators and a lot of work going on, we have been so busy!!! Sister Davenport and I are totally ok with that though, we say that being too busy as a missionary is the BEST problem to have!! Ha ha so ya things are going very well here. The Encino Park ward is awesome! They are so stoked for this baptism, they haven’t had a baptism in this ward in over a year and we are ending the drought!!! So two different types of droughts are coming to an end here in Encino Park, the rain drought and the Baptism drought!!!! Yee-haw!!
Well I hope Y’all have a fantastic week and I hope some of this rain heads your way!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE,
Sister Kleisler
Monday, September 7, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)