We decided to try and catch up on all the photo's Elder Winters has been sending...Enjoy!!!

 



Looking out our Front Window

This is a random one of our calender that my companion likes to write stuff on sometimes.

Our desks. Guess which one is mine! The slightly less messy one. ;)

Our pin board. The orange ones on the top are blank and the yellow ones on top are recent converts and the row on the bottom are people that we have dropped, but other than that they are all investigators. It is nuts! 

My Companion

PRINGLES!!!!

Monday June 9, 2014

Crazy week this week! (Aren't they all?) 

We are now teaching a guy from Uganda which is so cool because that is where my brother Brandon served his mission!  He wanted to give us his number to call him, although apparently he gave us the number for his shop which he never answers :) Anyway, when we met him again last week he invited us into his little convenience store, gave us some juice, and we talked for a bit. We taught him a bit more formally on Saturday, and he was so excited to learn what we taught him about prayer! He has a Hindu background and he has looked a bit into Christianity since then, so it was so good for him! He came to church yesterday and loved it! We are so excited to be teaching him!

One other cool miracle this week happened just yesterday. There is a guy we met at the library a little while ago who just goes to the library and studies the Bible all day long! On Sunday when we saw him again I was really praying and asking Heavenly Father to guide us in what we said. We ended up having a wonderful, spiritual lesson with him! We learned that he is searching for something, and he thinks that somehow he is missing the baptism of fire described in the scriptures. He is so cool! Sadly he doesn't live in our area so we are going to have to try and pass him to some other missionaries, but the experience was great! 

Have an awesome week! Remember that the answers to our biggest questions in life can always be found by reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church! The words on the page or the things said at church may not answer your question, but as you do these things you put yourself in a position to receive revelation from God, and you will get your answer! 

-Kyle

June 2, 2014

Crazy week this week! (Aren't they all?)

We are now teaching a guy from Uganda which is so cool because that is where my brother Brandon served his mission! It was interesting how we met as well! The first time we met him was a few weeks ago, and at that point he was very drunk. Nothing really came of that. He wanted to give us his number to call him though, although apparently he gave us the number for his shop which he never answers :) Anyway, we met him again last week totally sober, and he invited us into his little convenience store, gave us some juice, and we talked for a bit. We taught him a bit more formally on Saturday, and he was so excited to learn what we taught him about prayer! He has a Hindu background and he has looked a bit into Christianity since then, so it was so good for him! He came to church yesterday and loved it! We are so excited to be teaching him!

One other cool miracle this week happened just yesterday. There is a guy we met at the library a little while ago who just goes to the library and studies the Bible all day long! The first time we taught him he just bible bashed us. Then on Sunday when we saw him again I was really praying and asking Heavenly Father to guide us in what we said. We ended up having a wonderful, spiritual lesson with him! We learned that he is searching for something, and he thinks that somehow he is missing the baptism of fire described in the scriptures. He is so cool! Sadly he doesn't live in our area so we are going to have to try and pass him to some other missionaries, but the experience was great!

Have an awesome week! Remember that the answers to our biggest questions in life can always be found by reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church! The words on the page or the things said at church may not answer your question, but as you do these things you put yourself in a position to receive revelation from God, and you will get your answer!

-Kyle

April 14, 2014

Hello everybody! What a week! There were a load of our investigators who couldn't meet with us this week, so a lot of our lessons were with new people. A couple of them are pretty cool, and I just pray that they will keep their commitments! 

 We had a pretty crazy lesson this week with two new people. The lesson was crazy because it was completely in Portuguese! I don't know if I just haven't noticed it before or if the Lord is just arranging everything that way, but since my new companion from Brazil got here we have been running into quite a few Portuguese speakers! This is the first time that we have been able to teach an actual lesson to someone in Portuguese. I admit in the back of my mind was the possibility that I would suddenly receive the gift of tongues and be able to help teach the lesson, but it didn't happen :) My companion and I have taught people about the Restoration many times and so I always knew about where we were in the lesson, but I felt pretty powerless and out of the loop! I was able to bare my testimony at the end of the lesson while my companion translated for me though, so that was really good. We have a second appointment scheduled with these two investigators this evening! 

 This week we were also able to do some service for a part member family which was really good. They were filling in an old fish pond with old bricks and dirt so that they could plant a vegetable garden on top of it. We made quite a few trips with a heavy wheel barrow and I am still feeling it a couple of days later! 

I love you all and have a wonderful week! 

 -Kyle

April 7, 2014

General Conference was incredible!!!! I got to watch all of the sessions other than the Sunday Afternoon session. It may be quite a while before I get the chance to hear or read that one, but I was so happy to be able to watch the other sessions! I felt that one of the themes throughout the entire conference was a focus on how we need to separate ourselves from the world. I am on the streets talking to people every day, and I can testify to the fact that the world is becoming more and more secular and . . . worldly. The standards and laws set up by society just aren't enough to protect us spiritually in the world we live in today. With love we need to be forgiving of people who do not live the Lord's standards, but we can never, never seem to condone their actions or lifestyle. If we are truly Christlike we will not apologize for the standards which our Heavenly Father has set for us, we will encourage and help others to live those standards so that they too can be safe in a spiritually dangerous world! I hope that each of you will take the things you learned personally in General Conference and make the jump to apply them in your lives! The shelf life of a good talk is about two days if you don't write some goals down and decide to make changes!

We were able to see some incredible miracles happen this week! In fact, on Saturday one of the more unlikely miracles actually took place. We had just finished our exchange with the zone leaders and we were walking to where we had locked our bikes in town. A young man in his twenties saw us and walked up. He said "Hi Elders! Um. . . I haven't been able to find the church around here yet, but I need to be baptized!" Just so that you know, that doesn't happen very often! He was taught a few years ago by some missionaries somewhere near London, but from what he told us he just let life get in the way of taking the step of baptism. Then last Wednesday he was on a bus and he realized that he had left the book he was reading at his friends house. He just happened to have a triple combination in his back pack, so he pulled it out and began to read! He described the spiritual experience he had right there on a bus when he realized all of a sudden that he needed to be baptized! Only a few days later he bumped into us! We had to hand his information off to another team of missionaries because he doesn't live in our area, but that was just awesome for us!

Have a wonderful week, talk to you next week!

I am training an Elder from Brazil! He is seriously one of the greatest new missionaries I have ever met. If he needed to I think he could definitely train a new missionary after his first twelve weeks! There are a lot of things I need to teach him still, but I already look up to him so much! 

 

So just to get it all out there in the open, I was dumb and got my bike stolen this week. Didn't lock it up. Wow. We were in a kind of open area with a lot of foot traffic, one of our favorite places to talk to people. We were sitting on a bench with our bikes leaned up beside it making a few phone calls. We saw a guy sitting on a bench 30 feet away so we decided to go and talk to him really quickly, and when we came back my bike was gone. There was a lady standing right there who said she just saw a guy come up, get on the bike, and ride off. She assumed it was his. Man!

 

Other than that, things have been going okay. We have had a few random things we have had to take care of which have made it so that we haven't had as much time as we would have liked to, to do the work, but this next week is going to be sweet! 

 

Love you!

-Kyle

March 3rd 2014

Hello everybody! 

So this week we had HEAPS of appointments fall through, but we had some awesome miracles as well. First off, we had an INTENSE lesson with one of our investigators last week teaching her about the Word of Wisdom. She has a testimony of the restored gospel, but she has a few bumps she needs to get over before she can be baptized, one of them being a problem with smoking. In the lesson she told us that she really wanted to stop smoking, but she wanted to just finish her pack of tobacco in the next couple of days and quit then, but after about 15 minutes of trying different things and encouraging her, she allowed us to confiscate her pouch of tobacco! 

 

After that, the biggest thing keeping her back from getting baptized is that her parents don't like the idea. Even though she is in her 30s she is pretty decided that she doesn't want to get baptized without her parents permission, and she doesn't even want to come to church without their approval. After a lot of praying and a few lessons with her though, we got a phone call on Friday from her saying that she had talked to her parents and they had said they were ok with her coming to church on Sunday! She did, and she loved it! Things are going slowly with her, but I have hope! 

We had another miracle right at the end of the week on Sunday. Like I said we have been having loads of appointments falling through (most of them first appointments) but on Sunday we decided to try just dropping by one of our potential investigators. When we got to the address he had given us we realized that it was a building with several different flats so we just started hitting doorbells for all the flats. The gentleman was in, and he invited us right in to talk to him! We have another appointment to teach him next week, and I think he could go somewhere! 

 

Our flat has been used by missionaries for years, and there are four or five retired bike frames from bygone missionaries. For our P-day activity today we took parts from all the bikes and tried to make a working one :) I think what we came up with is rideable, but the brake pads we found to put on it are pretty much useless! It was the sort of tinkering I enjoy anyway, so it was good. 

I love you all! Talk to you later!

-Kyle

February 24th 2014

Hey everybody! 

We had some awesome miracles this week and I got the chance to baptize one of our investigators yesterday! She was so prepared! She is from Romania, and a member from Romania introduced us to her. She is really humble, and we have been having the member interpret for us as we taught her. She felt the spirit very powerfully several times, and in the first lesson our member friend turned to us and said "she says she wants to be baptised!" We weren't certain when she would be able to be baptised because she was struggling to give up her smoking. We taught her on Wednesday and told her that if she stopped smoking there and then she would be able to be interviewed on Friday to be baptised on Sunday. Her english isn't very good, but she told us "ok, no more!" She was good to her word and was able to be baptised! 

 

I have to go for zone pday but I love you all loads! 

 

-Kyle

 

 

February 17th 2014

Really short one today! We had a district p-day at the church today, and I really feel like it improved the unity of the district which was great! My companion and I put together a game of jeopardy with some gift cards as prizes to make things more interesting :) 

Things are going really well here although we had a lot of appointments fall through this last week! I am expecting a lot to improve in that area this week though. 

I don't think I have mentioned to you yet our good friend in our area named Haggley road! It is a main road that runs right through the middle of our area. Our area is quite small, and we have found that there aren't really any good places to talk to people and share the gospel with them . . . other than Haggley road. Whenever we are not teaching people or going to meetings we go find people to teach on Haggley road. :) We see knew people every day which is fantastic, but my companion has been in this area for 4 months now and he says it is getting really monotonous! 

 

Love you all! 

-Elder Winters

February 3rd 2014

I just wanted to tell you all about one of the craziest days on my mission! All of last week it seemed like just about everyone we talked to seemed to be saying that we could meet with them to teach them on Saturday, so we were thinking that Saturday would be an epic day! Then on Saturday it seemed like our patience was being tested because a lot of things didn't go as planned! We didn't end up teaching any lessons although we had something like 8 of them set up! The people either called to cancel or they just didn't show up for the appointments. Then we got stuck on a computer at the church for a long time trying to get the program for the baptism the next day sorted out. When we left the church we accidentally locked the church key in the building, which was problematic because there were a few lessons planned to be taught in the church about 40 minutes later. After calling around for a while trying to find someone who could bring a key over, we got desperate and broke in using a shoe lace and a library card. Later in the day my companion got a flat tire and wiped out on his bike, and I realized that I left my waterproof trousers in the flat when it started to rain. I just couldn't believe all that was going on! I kept thinking throughout the day that I had a choice to be either discouraged or to be happy. I decided to be happy, and at the end of the day when we were out talking to people in the rain after the last appointment fell through, I found that for some reason I was happy to be there. Lesson learned, you can't choose the circumstances but you can choose to be happy or you can choose to be miserable!

 

Talk to you next week everyone! 

 -Kyle

January 27, 2014

Ok. . . so I got transferred. Wasn't expecting that one! On Wednesday I moved from Warwick to Harborne which is right in the middle of Birmingham! The ward here is huge in comparison to the areas I have served in previously, I think on Sunday there were like 170 people there at church! There are five sets of missionaries in the ward boundaries and the work is crazy here! We have several universities near by, and so we have loads of people from different nationalities walking up and down the streets all the time! We are talking to absolutely loads of people. . . it's just really cool. I will stop using exclamation marks now. 

 Everybody has been waiting for China to open up for missionary work, but it seems like at least half of the students at the universities are Chinese so we get the chance to talk to loads of Chinese people anyway! Three people were baptised on Sunday, two of which were actually Chinese students! It was pretty cool because within a few days of me arriving in Harborne I got to interview three people for baptism. 

Maybe it is because of the university and maybe it is because of the faith of the members and the missionaries in this area, but the work moves forward here way more quickly than I have ever seen before! Within a few minutes of arriving here my new companion  (from Grantsville) and I went to an appointment which flogged (wasn't there.) We went and started talking to people, and we set up an appointment to see the first person we talked to! The lesson went well, and we projected him to be baptised on Feb 16! We set up another lesson with him for a few days later which was a pretty strange one. He told us that all of us are equal, so we could teach him one lesson, and then the next time we meet he would teach us. (I guess he studied theology and he knows like 7 languages :) He says that we will just go back and forth like that. Hopefully he will be able to begin to move forward in the next couple of lessons. 

 That's all for now, talk to you all next week! 

 -Kyle

January 20, 2014

We are in Stratford Upon Avon (Shakespeare's birth place) right now as part of a district P-day. We weren't able to email before we came, so we saw a library and decided to pop in to let everyone know we are alive:)

 It was a wonderful week last week! We were able to find a wonderful humble Polish lady who invited us to share our message with her, and when we arrived at her house we found that she had invited two of her friends to hear what we had to say as well! There was a bit of a language barrier which made the lesson interesting, but we have an appointment to see her and possibly one of her friends again this week. 

In addition to that, we have a few wonderful members who we are working with to help them to return to activity in the church. The branch in Warwick really needs priesthood holders to strengthen it, and so we have been searching for ways to add to the number of priesthood holders at church. One of these members we have been working with is a 24 year old brother who grew up in the church and then sort of fell away in his teens. He has come to church for the last three weeks! 

Random thought of the week, don't leave your gloves on the bus when you get off. I have been gloveless for a few days, and it is getting colder so I am probably going to have to get some new ones soon. 

I will talk to you all next week! Thank you for your prayers! 

-Kyle

January 13, 2014

Quick one today, (aren't they always) we have a new investigator! Basically, we were planning to bus to Coventry last week for District Meeting and interviews, but we missed the bus we planned to take because we were talking to someone. We had less than 10 minutes before the next bus and I really wanted to just sit in the station and chill for a few minutes, but I felt like we should go and talk to some people for a few minutes. The first and only person we were able to talk to was what is now our investigator. He had a powerful experience a few years back which converted him to Christianity, and he invited us to share our message with him in his home. We did so on Friday, and he committed to read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was awesome! 

It is chucking it down with rain right now, and we need to head back to grab dinner before our next appointment, but I love you all! 

-Kyle

January 6, 2014

This week was awesome! And all over the place! For starters, I was all ready to teach my second district meeting and a few hours before we got on the train to go for the meeting the zone leaders called to tell me that my district meeting was being moved to Friday because we were going to have interviews with President Rasmussen. That was all well and good, but after finishing that district meeting I realized that with the things that have been going on I now have only a couple of days to prepare for another district meeting this Wednesday! You would think that when I am used to teaching lessons all the time whipping out a district meeting would be easy, but it seems not to be the case.

By the way, sad news, we have all been expecting to get iPads some time in January, but apparently our mission president has heard nothing more about it so we may have to wait for those a while longer.

We went to Coventry to have district meeting so that the mission president could interview all of us at the same time, and right after finishing district meeting I started to feel ill. After bussing home we went straight to an appointment and by the time we finished that I was feeling really weak. I really didn't even want to stand up! We had a nice bike ride home in the rain, and then I just sacked out. I still can't figure out if I caught a bug or if I got food poisoning somehow, but by the morning I was feeling a lot better! It just goes to show that nothing will stop the work of the Lord!

We have been talking to lots of people and setting up loads of appointments but they have all been falling through! A few of them have rescheduled for this week, so we are hoping that we will be able to seriously begin teaching a few more people this week.

That's all for now! I'm running out of time!

PS: My companion just touched a wall in our flat a few days ago and his finger went through it! It looks as if there was a hole in the dry wall and the builders just wallpapered over it :)

Have an awesome 2014!

-Kyle