Week 92: The Work Moves On

We had a really cool opportunity to get in contact with an awesome part member family called the Squires. He has been a member his whole life but she grew up never attending a church at all. We are pretty much starting from scratch with teaching her so that will be so awesome. They had us over for dinner on last Tuesday and they are having us over for dinner again tonight. We will start the real lessons tonight.

We had a really good lesson with a guy named Victor Ewing. We have been visiting with him for a while. Missionaries, in general, have been visiting with him for a long time but now he is getting really close to being ready for baptism. He was talking about how he believes in the messages that the Book of Mormon contains but is not quite sure yet if Joseph Smith is a prophet. For me those, go hand in hand so we are just needing to help him realize that one.

Saturday was a total downpour and we had to help a family move. It was not the most exciting move and it was actually extremely cold. I had to come home after the move and take a hot shower just to warm up. The rest of the day we had members who were willing to go out on visits with us and to see people in our area. When we do splits on Saturdays we focus on part-member families and less active members. It was nice to stay our of that weather.

Elder McMinn

“My dear brethren, you were chosen to come to earth at this crucial time because of your premortal valor. You are among the finest, most valiant men who have ever come to earth.”

-President Russell M. Nelson

Week 91: General Conference

This was a really great week. On Monday we had a day filled with trying new potentials. We had a great lesson with this girl named, Brandie Wright. She told us that she wants to be baptized she just wants to know some peeps in the church first so we are bringing sisters with us to the next lesson. Then she will be at church this next week! We had a good meet up with the wife of one of our potentials. She has some family members who are members of the church. She was very kind and willing to let us come over again. We are going over on Wednesday this week for a lesson.

Thursday this past week was our interviews with the president. While we waited for our turn to be interviewed we played a role play bingo game where you are given a topic and then have to explain it and set a return appointment in 5 minutes. Some of the topics were, explain the Trinity, how do I recognize answers to prayers, what's so special about your church?, etc.

We had exchanges with the district leaders right after. We had a really cool opportunity on Friday to get a tour of a Catholic Abbey. It was so cool to see the insides of another church building and learn to appreciate their religion. We had a friend of ours, who is a monk there, give us a tour. It was cool to see.

General conference was incredible. There were so many powerful talks and so many that had such powerful testimonies of the Savior. The testimonies are my favorite part. I don't know if I have a favorite. I love Conference. This was the last General Conference for me in the mission. It was a great week.

Elder McMinn

“All Heavenly Father asks of us is to do the very best we can every day.”

-M. Russell Ballard

Week 90: Still in Shawnee

 

This week, we did not have any lessons sadly and our contact with new people was really slow but it was still a really good week. We had an opportunity to go to a multi-faith convention on how we, as Christians can come together in a divided world. It was a very exciting forum and it gave everyone present insight on how to interact with each other. We were hosted at a Presbyterian church so it was also fun to have the experience of being in another church.

We had two people come to church this week. Megan and Riley. They both have come quite a bit in the past but it was nice to see them there again and for us to have someone at church again. In all, it was a really good week. 

Elder McMinn

"Of this be sure: you do not find the happy life. You make it!"

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"To testify is to know and to declare. The gospel challenges us to be 'converted.' Which requires us to do and to become."

-Dallin H. Oaks

Week 89: Shawnee (Week 2)

 

This week has been filled with lessons and return appointments. We had 8 lessons and 11 return appointments in 3 days (Friday - Sunday). We have 4 people now who are praying about baptism and when would be a good day for them (Tanner, Riley, Megan, and Brandi). We have had a lot of lessons with new people and have been getting a lot of referrals from people on who to go see and not even just from members.

We had a lesson with Brandi this week. She is a single sister whose husband passed away 7 years ago. He was a member. She loves the church and loves how they reached out to her after his passing but then she slipped through the cracks. We found her. As we have been visiting with her, she has brought up baptism and how she feels that it may change her life for the better. She is currently praying about it.

“God is determined to make more of us than we thought we could be.”

-Jeffrey R. Holland

There has been a lot happening out here and I love it... Obviously.

Elder McMinn

P-Day at the Zoo in Oklahoma City.

Week 88: Shawnee

Our missionary has moved and has a new address.

Elder McMinn

1810 N. Harrison St. Apt# 165

Shawnee, OK 74804

For the last few days in Lawton, we had a few good lessons set up on Tuesday. The first was with Michael. He was the one who said the only way that he would allow us to go over the plan of salvation with him would be if he could feed us dinner. It was such a good lesson. We went into it and both he and his wife were engaged the whole time. They had a lot of questions so it was really great.

Shawnee is really a cool area. For the first full day, we contacted 3 new people that were interested in having us come back and taught one impromptu lesson which led to 2 new investigators. We have been using the survey tracting out here and it has been working extremely well also. It is easy to see people's concerns and to understand where their foundation starts.

Shawnee is a smaller town filled with a lot of different factories that employ most people in town. There is also a strong Native American influence in the area. The casinos are the second largest employers in the area as well.

It is a really fun area and I look forward to everything here. 

Elder McMinn

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

-Muhammad Ali

Week 87: Leaving Lawton

Elder McMinn has a new email address:

kyle.mcminn@missionary.org

This Monday we had a Tri-zone P day. We drove up to Oklahoma City and went ice skating. At first, I thought it was a silly idea until I actually did it and then I realized how much fun it actually was. After we were finished there we went to the Moore Church building and played a ton of other games and had a HUGE Spikeball tournament. Spikeball is something that our mission takes very seriously! The winner of the championship would play against President Mansell, who is extremely good. It was one of the most fun p days I have had in a while.

Tuesday was our interview day. I always love interviews with President Mansell. They are the best. The role plays that we did were really fun too. We had to have a 20-minute discussion where we only asked questions. It was hard but really fun.

We had a really cool experience on Wednesday. We went back to see a potential investigator that we knocked into about 2 weeks ago named Michael. He let us right in when we showed up and we sat down at his dinner table with him and had one of the coolest conversations. We eventually gave him the survey that we had been using for tracting. We got to one question that talks about what happens to those people who never hear about Christ? It sparked his interest big time and we told him we could come over another time to share the whole plan of salvation. He stood up and used an authoritative way of speaking and said. "under one condition..... You allow my wife and me to cook dinner for you!" That blew our minds so we are going over tomorrow to have dinner with him.

Fort Sill was a lot of fun too. We had one baptism interview with Broadhead so next week he will be getting baptized! I taught the restoration and it was a great class. Only 3 new people this week but all 3 participated a lot so that made it fun. I really have felt my teaching skills and testimony grow from teaching at the post. I love the atmosphere of it there and I love the soldiers.

I am getting transferred out to Shawnee this week. This may be my last area. I loved Lawton a ton but I am excited about the new area and to see what it holds. 

Elder McMinn

"Don't wait for happiness to be thrust upon you. Seek it out in service and learning."

-Dallin H. Oaks

Week 86: Low temperatures in Lawton

Only three more fast Sundays!!

This week we had an awesome lesson with James. He started to bring up concerns like polygamy and faith vs. works but we dug in and found out that those aren't the real concerns at all. It all goes back to his testimony of the restoration because either it happened or it didn't. Either the church is Christ's church or it isn't. Once he finds that out those concerns that he thought were concerns will either fade away or it will be easier to address. He promised that he would read and pray with sincerity this week.

It seems like with all the cold weather here that people just don't want to have lessons with us. I know those two don't correlate at all but I think maybe there is something to it. We have been doing a lot of finding this week with a new method that we call survey tracting. With this new approach, we have a survey with 10 questions to see the investigator's religious background. The questions are questions we ask about the plan of salvation and the restoration. It is easy for us to elaborate on the questions and it gets the people interested in it more. We have already set 5 return appointments with it. We used that method all of Sunday to find people.

Kyle loves Risk but nobody wants to play with him at home so I am sure that he is loving the fact that somebody will play his favorite game with him.

This past Sunday on post I taught the plan of salvation. We had a group of 6 investigators in the lessons and 8 members. We have one on date to be baptized, Broadhead, and 3 invitations for baptism, Flinn, Guajardo, and Carter. Teaching on Fort Sill is the coolest thing ever because people come to basic training ready like Broadhead had been meeting with missionaries at home in Blackfoot, Idaho and has had all lot of the lessons but figured now is the time for him to join. 

Still loving Lawton.

Elder McMinn

Kyle still has a love for a really cool car.

"His invitation 'Ask and ye shall receive' does not assure that you will get what you want. It does guarantee that, if worthy you will get what you need, as judged by a Father that loves you perfectly, who wants your eternal happiness even more than you do."

-Richard G. Scott