August 30, 2010 - Craig

Hey family i hope all is going well back in Utah!! This past week was a pretty good week. We had two cool experiences with the lord leading us to where we needed to be. The first we had an appointment and it went a little over and when we got out we remebered the sisters said we could join them for dinner with some english members because they invited us but if we couldnt make it then it was ok. So we were about 30 mintues late and we were deciding if we should go to dinner or not and we were just like alright we will go. SSo we went and turns out the brother waas sick and really needed a blessing. So the lord guided us to go there so we could administer a blessing of health! It was awesome for me! Then we were driving on our bikes and we needed to be in ventra in 30 minutes and it takes 20 to drive to ven. from S.P, but we though that we could make it to this members house in time to just set up a time to go see them and find them all home. So we went there and the girl was leaving to college the next day and waa very nervous. And she was like i was goiing to call you guys to come give me a blessing but i forgot b/c i got way too busy. So we gave her a blessing of comfort right before she headed off to college. It was a blessing for me and a testimny builder that the lord will direct our paths if we are beinmg diligent and doing whats right. Also i taught the Book of Mormon class on thursday and the spirit carried me through the class. I taught Jacob5!! Hard in english to teach let alone spanish ha. I couldnt have done it without the spirit. Yesterday i had the opportunity to baptize this little boy in my ward. it was the first baptism i performed so i was nervous ha. there was a ton of people there becuase there was 2 kids being baptized. I really felt the spirit so strong during the service and as i baptized him. I know we have the priesthood of god! It is so powerful. After he was so cute i was like im happy fopr you buddy! And he was like oh i know elder! So am I! It was a great experience. I am so grateful for you guys and all you do. I cant beleive i have been in Santa Paula for 5 months! I feel like i have lived here forever ha. I am so grateful for the guidance that i have recieved and the comfort i have recieved for these first 7 months of my mission through the Book of Mormon. I know it is word of god. The lord will bless us, we will find never ending comfort in this gospel, if we do our part. I am so grateful for the time i have had so far and i am so excited for the time i have left. I love you all so much! I hope Everyone is well.!!! Tell Hailey and the boys i love them!! I love you all with all of my heart! Love Elder Bills. Mom I am going to send a letter to Max to you. Forward him this email please!!! Love you all!

August 30, 2010 - Kevan

It sounds like a lot of things are going on at home. Here there tons. We were going to baptize a little kid named Gabriel this last saturday. But his dad said he had to work in the night. It was a little frustrating. I do not know if he really had to work but oh well. He will get baptized this week. We are also working with a girl named Yanira Sosa. She is a good girl but is offended by some of the members and also said she got offended by a question in her interview. I dont know but we will see what we do with her. THe other family that we are teaching, THe family Miranda, is a great family. They are one of the poorest i have seen. Maybe just as poor as the ponce family from Arroyo Claro. They need so much help. We have had good lessons with them and really have promised them great things if they just keep the commandments. But i dont get it, they will not pray read or come to church! (Actually they dont know how to read so that is a good excuse). We will try again this week so hopefully they will accept.

I am reading in the book of John and it is amazing. I am studying a lot about the questions that Jesus Christ made to teach and help people understand. It is amazing how simple everything is that He did. I am using some of the questions that He did and trying to act like him.

After baptizing these people two weeks ago we are againg in the looking process to find the people who are ready. Some off the days this week were pretty hard. It was great though. I was just so tired. Really, throughout the day i didnt really think about how hard it was or noticed it. Then when we got back at night I thought about the day and realized how hard it was. I love it though. I studied the other day alma 17¡-26. THe sons of Mosiah! Amazing. THey had so much success but also along with that success came many many afflictions. It must have been really hard for them. But they understood and kept preaching and had so much success. I marked what they did to have so much success and noticed 3 things that it always talked about. THey FASTED and PRAYED and had CHRISTLIKE ATTRIBUTES: I love it. These are the things they did. I know that we can do these things too. what an amazing blessing we have to know the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now we can do these 3 things and do them in the way that Heavenly Father wants us to do them. We can become like Christ because we know who He is, We know how to fast correctly, and also we know how to communicate with our Father in Heaven in the right way. What amazing blessings! I love the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true! No doubt about it! I have met many lyers this week who attack 2 things always: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. And why, Because they are true! I hope that one day all can come to the knowledge of the things that will truly bless them and help them return to our Heavenly Father!

I love you all so much family! Thanks for everything! Say hi to all the fam for me!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

Go BYU!

August 23, 2010 - Craig

Hey family how is everybody doing?? This week was a Great week! We put our investigator with a date and his whol;e family came to church. On thursday we taught this lesson tyo these people who were just bashing the spirit wasnt there and i was just like kind of shakin up because theyu were like attacking us and the spirit was NOT there. We left and i was like oh man that was a bummer, my spanish didnt work because i didnt have the spirit they were just errogant and it was bad. Anyway i said a lot of prayers because wqe were going to this guys house to teach him. We got there and talk him the word of wisdom he accepted it. And said he had been thinking about that lately and how he wanted more dirrection with that!! Then he said i know its true. So we put him with a date and he was happy the spirit was there and it was awesome. That was the happiest i have been in any lesson my whole mission! I was so happy i literally felt joy through the spirit! It was awesome! The lord really does answer prayers! We tagught that guiy who has the byu jersey and he is reading and praying. He is awesome too! We asked him about his prayers and he said he gets a beautiful feeling and he feels peace!! We are going to invite himn to be baptized tonight on 18 of Sept. I have been really trying to thinmk act and look at things like Jesus did just like connor said. It is hard, but it really invites the spirit a lot. He is the perfect example. He gives us the way for everything in our lives. I am truly grateful for the opportuniy that i have to be a missionary and to be apart of this church. This is a time that i can develope attributes of christ, find the gifts that heavenly father has given me to bless others, and to use the priesthood that i have been trusted with. I am so grateful for the blessings i have recieved. When i take a step back, and look at the things that happen during the day/week, i can honestky see that this is the work of the lord and he is with us. It is hard work. But i love it. I am starting to really love the members and people in Santa Paula! I feel like i have been in S.P for a year ha. I love you all so much. Thankj youy so much for all of the support you give me. I know that this is the true church. I know that Jesus Christ lives. If we will truly strive and exort ourselves to become like him in every way we will have happiness, peace, and confidence. He is the Savior of the world. We need to look unto him in all we do and we cannot and wioll not fall. I love being able to testify of Him EVERY DAY. People might not accept us and our message of him all the time, but that doesnt change his love for them. Thats how we need to be! I love being a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints!! I love you . Love Elder Bills

Kevan's Baptisms

August 23, 2010 - Kevan

hey Family!

Yeah the pictures of Connor look great! Everyone looks pretty happy. Connor lost some weight too.

This week was great. It was a little crazy too. We eventually did have baptisms! That was awesome. We had 4 baptisms! We went to the house of these two girls that were going to get baptized on thursday and their family had had some problems with some of the members. And so them and the girls all told us that they were not going to get baptized this saturday. Ah, it was sad. So we talked to them and eventually left feeling a little down but also excited for the other 3 kids that were going to get baptized. So saturday came and we had so much to do. We were walking in the street and got a text message saying that Cinthia, one of the girls, was going to get baptized. That was so awesome! I was so excited! So she got baptized and her sister didnt. I feel that with the Spirit though Yanira will be able to get baptized this week. Also this week Gabriel Romero, a child of a part member family, will also get baptized! I got the oppurtunity to baptize all four of the kids and i felt great. I love using the Priesthood and being a part of helping these people come unto Christ.

This week has been beautiful. Just amazing spring days. I love it. This morning it rained but now it is just beautiful.

I began studying and reading the book of John. It really is amazing. I read Chapter six the other day and something popped out to me that i love and helps me understand God and His Son better. I counted 4 times when people talked to Jesus Christ or when He spoke to them and it showed that He really does know everything! He saw the disciple under the tree before he was chosen, He knew of what Judas Iscariot was going to do years ( i believe) before it happened, and other things. He truly is all powerful, the King of kings, all knowing, and it our Savior and Redeemer. I have such strong desires to just dig into the scriptures and learn about Him. It is such a sacred time to me right now that i have to actually act in His name and do what He would do. There is no better way to learn of Him than this!

This week we will travel to Malargue this wednesday to do some baptism interviews. it will be about 6 hours but i am excited to know that place. I here that it is beautiful.

I love you all so much family. thank you so much for the prayers and for the support i recieve everyday. Truly this is the work of our Father in heaven. This is His. Let´s be instruments in His hands and do all we can do to bring our brothers and sisters to the knowledge of the truth!

El evangelio es la verdad. Jesucristo vive!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

August 16, 2010 - Craig

Hey family how is everybody doing?? This last week was good! We taught 24 lessons! It was a busy week. On Saturday our car broke down though so we are walking everywhere now ha. It is tiring! But its ok. I am so happy to be able to have legs to walk! This last week we got a new investigator and taught him athe intro and gave hima restoration pamphlet. Then we came back to his house to teach him and when he opened the dopor he was wearing an old BYu jersey! Ha a Reno Mahe one! It was hilarious. This chicano wearing a byu jersey. He probably got it at a garage sale or something. But it was a great lesson and he basically taught himself becuase he read the pamphlet like twice. It was really great. This pat week i have been taking the advice of President Willis and praying every prayer for spiritual experiences. It was a week that was full of them! We were teachiong this recent convert and we were talking about faith and i felt the spirit so strong. Elder Eyring said that when you are teaching, if you are not learning too you arent teaching right, and in this lesson i was just learning so much fromo elder soza and this girl too. We were taliking how she can gain faith in Jesus Christ by reading the scriptures and also protection from evil through the holy ghost. When i said that i just realized when we pray, read, go to churcxh and do the things that the lord asks of us the holy ghost is literally our protector. He will shield us from harm and danger. We have all recieved the gift of the holy ghost. What a special gift! We need to stay worhty to recieve strength and help from him! I am so happy to be able to have this gift and have the ability to receibve revelatiopn and inspioration on a daily basis. I have also been praying every night to recieve inspiration in my dreams and revelation too. I wont tell you the whole dream i had last night but i learned so much. I woke up and was like wow cool! ha but i had a dream that i had to use the priestyhhood for something. And i remeber i was kind of lacking faith ansd said no i cant do that, but that thought was countered by the though , yes you can you are worthy and has the authority of god to act in his name to serve others, and as i thiought that i used the priesthood and saw a miracle. We recieve power form worthiness and we are worhty becuase we are obedient. Satan will always try to put doubt in our mind and in opur thoughts. We need to press forward with faith. Faith in the gifts and blessings we have from Heavenly Father! I love you all so much! Thanks for everything! La correcta autoridad de Dios es con nosotros. Tenemos el sacerdocio de Dios. El poder para actuar en su nombre. Presidente Thomas S Monson tiene todas las llaves! Les ama muchisimo! Love Elder Bills

August 9, 2010 - Craig

Hey family! Hows everybody doing? Well this week was pretty good. The work has been hard lately. Really slow! We dropped most of our investigators so now we only have 6 in our teaching pool. And we have 1 that is progressing pretty good. It is been stressing me out and been kind of discouraging for me. This weekend we only taught 2 lessons and we were walking on sunday night and i was just thinking to myself what is going on? We are working really hard. Why isnt anyone interested? I didnt really get any answers but I just remebered that one of Satans biggest things on missionaries is discouragement. I cant afford to get down or anything because that will slow my progress down and that wont let me have the spirit. I need to be patient and just keep working hard. I am staying here in Santa Paula so i will get to keep working here and hopefully the work picks up. I cant beleive how much success Kevan is having. That is crazy!! He is an awesome missionary. Our investigator who has come to church for 3 weeks straight came to stake conference yesterday with his daughter. It was an excellent conference. There was some very good talks. The president of the Los Angelos temple spoke and it was very good. I learned a lot from his talk and the stake Presidents talk. Our investigator after asked us to come do Family home evening tonight at his house! Which is exciting because we taught him a lesson on the family and the commitment was to do FHE. He said he would let us know on sunday. But he was excited to ask us. It was pretty cool. We are grateful we get to be teaching him. He is a great guy and is really humble and willing to learn. we tracted into the rudest human being i have ever met on Saturday haha. We knocked gave the "intro" then she asked you mormons?? and we said yesss. Then she went off told us to go fly a kite and take a hike ha and never come back.. Ever ha. She added some choice words in there too! I just smiled and asked her if we could do any service for her. She said no. We tracted a ton this past week. We are trying to find people to teach. We found a less active member from guatamala. It was sweet. We knocked this tiny house like way hidden on this street and he answered. He told us that that morning he had read his book of mormon and was like man i need to find the members so i can go back to church. And we knocked on his door that very day!! Very cool. We were happy to find him. I love you guys so much. I fasted yesterday to have more charity and love for the people and it was the hardest day to love the people! Ha . I learned that when we truly want a gift from the Lord that we need to be ready to do our part. Through dilgence, prayer, and fasting we can gain gifts from our Heavenly Father. I love you all so much! Thanks for everything! Love Elder Bills

Zone Conference - Kevan

KC in Craig's Apartment in California

August 10, 2010 - Kevan

Howdy Fam!!!
Things are going great here! It is such a nice day today! I am feeling great too!
I love you all so much!
Love,Elder Bills