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

Week 85: Another good week in Lawton

This week we found 4 new people to teach. Amber, Richard, Joseph, and Sarah. Richard, Joseph, and Sarah are all from the same house. It is a really cool situation. Joseph's mom was a member but he didn't know that until after his mom passed away. It was a lot of fun teaching them all. They want to come to church but they have a wild schedule at Goodyear tire. We have been meeting with them for a good bit now but just barely started teaching lessons. 

Amber is really cool as well. She has a young family and she has a lot of questions for us. I call them the basic questions like "Why do we need another book of scripture?", "how do you know your prophet isn't false?" "I heard that you all are saved by works, is that true?" She had a lot of those questions. We had to hit the surface level with them all but we are going back Wednesday and going deeper into the answers of her questions. 

On post, on Sunday we had 3 baptisms, 3 confirmations, and 2 Aaronic priesthood ordinations. There were so many priesthood ordinances in one day. The work on the post is so fast but they are some of the most spiritual experiences I have had on my mission. I love going there each week.

It's been another good week in Lawton!
Elder McMinn

Week 84: Another great week in Lawton

This was a pretty stellar week. Monday was P day so we did our regular routine of emails and then we decided to go wander around the mall for a little bit. The rest of the week we had a pretty good flow of lessons. 

Two of the big ones were Joseph Schroeder and James McQuillan. With Joseph, he told us about his upbringing and how that had played a huge factor in his life. He told us that he later learned that his mom was a member of our church and she didn't tell him until she was close to passing away. He has had an interest since then but never too sincere. Now he told us that it is his time for finding out if it is true. We had a great lesson about how families can be together forever. In the past, his wife was the one most interested and Joseph stood in the background, now that has changed. We are going back Wednesday to go over the whole plan of salvation with him.

 

We had another great lesson with James. We went over last night and had a discussion on why bad things happen to good people. We found out that one of his big things is "I fully believe that Joseph Smith believes what he saw but I don't know. That is where faith comes in." His wife and he had a new years resolution to read the Book of Mormon daily so I reminded them of that and they are going to try and do better with that. He had a lot of questions of why did it come forth when it did? Why did it happen there? Why was it Joseph Smith and not someone else so Elder Hammond gave him the Why 1820? talk. We're going back over Wednesday to talk all about it.

It's been a good week in Oklahoma!

Elder McMinn

"Keep going and the Lord will help you".

-D. Todd Christofferson

Week 83: Fort Sill

We are trying to pick up our teaching pool this week. It is down a little bit so we are doing whatever we can to find more out here. We are still set on the date with Destinee this weekend.

 

There are a few recent converts on base that I am so shocked with their willingness to still come to church even though they are in Basic Training. It was really wild teaching there. My first week there I had to give a talk and honestly the material that I had was about missionary work and the notes that I had down were not what I gave with my talk. I was able to go a whole 15 minutes without hesitation at all so that was fun. I am definitely getting better at that so for that I am proud of myself. In my missionary discussion lesson that I taught, it was all about keeping the commandments and it went really well. There was a recent convert named Private Johnson and he opened up about the struggles that he is having in life and the members and non-members both gave him spiritual advice on how to help him. It was so awesome to see.  

Fort Sill

Caden Nelson

Elder McMinn   

“The Lord places no limits on our access to Him. But we, unfortunately, do. We limit ourselves when we sin, when we are lazy spiritually, and when we fail to ask and seek.”

-Sheri Dew

“When you feel hurt, lost, scared, upset, sad, hungry or hopelessly abandoned in life’s extremities, open the Book of Mormon and you will come to know God will never desert us.”

Brian K. Taylor

*Small world moment* The young soldier is a friend of Kyle's from Pocatello. They played football together for a few years and ran into each other at sacrament meeting on Fort Sill. Also, Kyle's new companion is from a family that his Uncle Ryan knew when he was on his mission in Sacramento (Rancho Cordova) a few years ago. Pretty cool!

Dinner with the Rileys

Open your eyes Kyle!!

Week 82: New Companion and Staying in Lawton

This was a really good week. Monday and Tuesday were used for dinners for Elder Hymer to say goodbye to the people in our area. They were pretty good days because we had an awesome lesson with Destinee. She wanted to make sure that she had fully followed the steps that it takes for her to be baptized because she wants to make sure that this one is the right one. Wednesday I drove up to Edmond to pick up Elder Hammond. He is from Sacramento, California and has been out on his mission one transfer more than I have. 

Saying goodbye to Elder Hymer!

He was so good for Elder McMinn!

Meeting the new companion Elder Hammond

Something really cool that we starting in our ward is a 40 day fast. We pass around a calendar that is marked for 40 days and various individuals sign up for a specific day to fast for the missionary work in the ward. We will send out reminder texts the night before. We will also include any cool miracles we see or the lessons we have in the text to the member(s) and let them know their faith was part of that miracle. So far we have seen a baptism date, double the amount of lessons, and double the number of return appointments in our area. 

Lawton Missionaries

Sunday we had only 4 hours to do regular missionary work but those 4 hours were the most productive 4 hours I have seen and some of the most rewarding 4 hours at this time of my mission. This was such an awesome week. 

Elder McMinn

“We grow closer to the Savior as we, out of pure love, serve others for Him.”

-Henry B. Eyring 

 Night Ride

 Transfer pictures

We got lots of pictures this week because of transfers. I get after Kyle because I want to see him in the mission pictures so this week he did his job!

Note to mom:

Did you like how many times I showed up in the pictures from transfers. I tried to make up for all the times I didn't and I will improve from here on out. Did you hear me in the video. I did that for you ;)

We love that missionary of ours... he makes me smile!