Pictures - Craig

September 27, 2010 - Craig

Buenas Dias mi bendito Familia!! ha. Well wasco is a great place. I love it. It is a small towna and we also cover another little town called shafter. It is great and i iknow we will have success here. My new companion is named Elder ray. He is from Highlands Ranch Colorado. Pretty cool guy ha. The ward i am in is great a bunch of farmers but such great people. We have to translate for sacrement because it is combined with spanish and english. Pretty cool. The 2nd counceler conducted and it was all in spanish to a majority whitw ward ha. However a lot of the men know spanish from work and missions which is cool. Well wierd story. When i left santa paula there was this 25 year old girl from the branch who said she was going to come to transfer meeting because she had something for me. So i was like ok cool. So she gave me a bag and i was like thanks a lot. Said bye and i was off. Well i opened the bag and there was like a way long letter and i was like hmm interesting ha. So i read it and it was just confessing her love for me. It was sososo wierd!!!!!!!!! She told me she would be waiting for me and that she would love to show me the possibiltites of the future hahaha. So weird. haha bUt she gave me chocalets from Switzerland so its all good. This past week in my personal study of the book of mormon my testiomny has really been growing. I love it. It is so true and it is truly the word of god. I am grateful for the blessing it is to my life and to missionary work. I was reading in 1 nefi 3 15 and it really jumped out how faithful and obedient and diligent he was. He understood the will of the lord and what he wanted for him and his family. He knew that the lord commanded them to get the plates for the benefit of the people. He was diligent and had trust inn the lord. It taught me the important principle of diligence. We must always finish what we start. No matter how hard it gets. Wee need to understand that when the lord commands we must do. We need to pay strict attention to the commandments and look at the big picture. We need to always be diligent and finish! I love the book of mormon. It will draw us closer to jesus christ and we will always learn something new from it. I love you all soooo much! Love Elder Bills!!!!!!!!!

Pictures - Kevan

September 27, 2010 - Kevan

Hello Family!

How is everything going back at home? It sounds like everyone is doing great (Except the football team. But it is alright for now). I loved the pictures! They are awesome! Kimmy looks so different it is crazy!

This week went great! So to let you know about my assignment a little more... I am a traveling assistant. There are actually 6 assistants in the mission. 2 who are in the offices and 4 of us who hit the streets and work. Basically we go to the areas and the zones that are stuggling a bit and animate them, bring them the Spirit and help them break the mental barriers that are in the way of them having success in there areas and in there missions. It is an amazing calling. this week we were in the zone San Martin. The same zone i started my mission in. We worked in San Martin 1 and i worked with Elder Porras from Peru. we had an amazing day together. We put about 5 fechas and found 13new investigators. Then The next day i went to Rivadavia with Elder Williams who went to Alta High school. I loved it because we put a few fechas and we found 8 new investigators in oneday. He was so excited and said he was never going to be able to do that. Then the next day, he and his companion found 5 new investigators! He came back to the pension and was so excited. I hope he can remember that with faith in the Lord and confidence that you can do all htings with him, any thing can be done. Then on friday through sunday i worked with Elder McClain from New Jersey. He has 2 weeks in the mission and is more home sick than anyone i have ever seen. He knows it and recognizes it. with him we did have success but it was a lot harder. We worked so hard. I was proud of him though and suprised that he kept up with the heat and for not having much time in the mission. So I hope he does better soon.

right now I am with Elder Frischnecht.He is here for the zone leader conferance. He says hi to everyone!

I am feeling really good though. Really tired, but really happy, full of the Spirit and really close to God. I am so grateful that I have the chance to serve God. We are so little who are holding to the iron rod. but as we just share and invite those who do not know to come unto Christ many will find what they are searching for. I am so happy to be serving Christ right now and truly do not want how i feel now to ever end. There are so many miracles suceding right now and truly the gospel of Jesus Christ is being spread through all of the world. I love it!

Family, Thanks so much for everything this week. for the prayers and support and everything. You are the greatest parents that I could ever have. i feel lilke i can say like the strippling warriors, that i never doubted, my parents always new it.

I love you all so much!

Love,Elder Kevan Bills

Kevan - On Bus, with Other Assistants, and in the Campo

Craig

September 20, 2010 - Kevan

Hola mi querido familia!

how is everybody doing! It is so great to hear from all of you! Thanks so much for the letters and prayers this week. It was truly a fantastic and very fun week!

I am always traveling. My companion is Elder Smith and we take buses to travel everywhere. i always think of Amy from K.C.s mission when i get on. I always told my self i would never travel around like that. now, that is all i do. We have 2 blow up matresses that we use to sleep on the floor and we live out of our suitcase. We are only here in Mendoza (or Godoy Cruz because that is where the offices are) on sunday night and all monday. I live about 5 blocks from the mission offices in Godoy Cruz on a street called Pizzurno. basically I dont have a home for the next few months! ha, it is great though. So me and my canadian comp are just living on the road. It is fun and interesting at the same time. This week i worked in Chimbas. We stayed with Elder Frischnect and his comp. For a few days but i worked with Elder Gomez, his comp. but igual we had a lot of time together and it was really fun. I worked with Elders huntington (Orangeville, UT) Gomez (Corrientes, ARG), Elder Cambell (Utah) And elder Rojas (Concepcion, Chile) and one night i worked with my real comp elder smith. So for this week these were my companions. I learned so much. I am so grateful for the gifts that God has given to all of us and i feel so grateful to learn more.

We are going great right now. The mission is amazing. We are preparing for many things in the month of October. In 3 weeks Elder Aidukaitis from the area presidency will come and we are also planning to reach a mission record of getting more than 125 baptisms in one month. The last month we we 3rd best in south america. (After Buenos aires north and Paraguay).

i am loving the mission so much. I feel like it is such a sacred thing and i do not want it to end. I think it is preparing me for so much. I am truly feeling that there is nothing more important than the gospel. Everything revolves around it. God is in all things and gives us strength in all things, work, school, sports, relationships, ETC......

i studied today and found a great sripture in the last two versus of Alma 3. All depends on our obedience. please read it. Also i studied in Juan 15 and found some great things about keeping the commandments, Love, and about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I know that God lives and that this is His work. Jesus Christ lives.

I cant believe that you are a teacher at timpview mom! how great! how are the kids? Thanks so much for the picture or Coach Wong and Van Orden. They are so great and such great influences in my life that have changed me. The BYU shirt and the schedule really pumped me up. Thanks!

Family I love you all! thanks so much for everything. I am so grateful for all of you and love you so much! Hold to the Iron Rod!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

September 20, 2010 - Craig

Hey everybody! How is everybody doing?? Well we had a baptism saturday and it was really great. I was able to perform the ordinance and itr was a great opportunity. I will send my chip tommorow with pics. Yesterday when we confirmed him it was awesome and the spirit truly was present. He got up and had tears in his eyes. Great experience. This guy in my branch told me i prayed wrong and so i had to correct him. I took him to the side and talked to him and shared with him john 17 where jesus prayed and the whole time i was thinking of d&c 121. I was nervous ha. But it was ok. I dont think he thought he was wrong still ha. He said i cant use padre more than once in the prayer. Oh well (same guy who said we can bless ourselves) ha. Anyway. I feel like experiences like that will prepare me for lifelong service in the church. So like i told mom and dad i am getting transfered to a city called Wasco, CA. It is the farthest you can go in the mission. So it will be a long drive. I am nervous so please pray for me. I need to excersize my faith right now. I will be working with both the English people and the Spanish people. I will miss Elder Soza. I learned a lot from him and really enjoyed my time with him. I finished the Book of Mormom this morning. It took three months. I know without a doubt it is word of God. I prayed to know it was true and while i was reading the last 4 chapters today i juist know without a doubt it is true. I love the direction it gives me. The guidance it gives me and the love i feel when i read it. I am so grateful for all of you and your example to me. I see all you have done for me and it makes me so happy. I see Kevan and the success he is having on his mission and the man he has become and i cant help but to feel so grateful for him and all my brothers. And my parents. Its truly awesome. I feel like the more i study and try to become like the savior the harder it gets. But honestly i love searching and havning to rely on heavenly father for strength. I am nervous for the change in my mission right now but it is for a reason. Keep me in your prayers. We had some good expereinces in Santa Paula. I know i have grown a ton here! I love this place and i will miss it. But another place and more challenges. Thank you all for everything! This gospel is true. We have the priesthood of god and we have the fulness of the gospel of jesus christ on the earth with us, leading and guiding us. I love you all so much. Love Elder Bills

September 13, 2010 - Craig

Hey family! This past week was great! We had 3 investigators to sacrement we taught 23 lessons and we went to the temple. The temple was amazing! We took pacific coast highway to L.A! It was beautiful. The temple was incredible and i loved every minute. I though about you guys the whole time. The spirit is unrestrained there!! I was so happy and everything was so clear. I feel like i truly was strenghtened by going. We have a baptism on saturday and i am so excited. THis guy is so prepared and i have honestly seen changes in him because of the gospel. When we first started teaching him he was confused and kind of lost. Now he is confident and knows the direction he needs to take him and his family.He told us after his interview that his purpose is to bring his family to this happiness! So awesome! I loved all your letters today. they were alkl great! And KEvan being an assistant! Awesome!! I would love to have him as one ofmy leaders! Lately i have really honestly realized the truth of the Plan of salvation. Things are like lining up in my head ha. And it has come through study and prayer. I have really been understanding that the choices we make in this life honestly affect us after this life as well. OUr thoughts feelings wont change when we die. We will still be unbelievers if we are unbeleivers here and like it says in Alma we will be happy if we are happy. How sad will it be to stand before god with a perfect body but have a perfect concious of your guilt. But on the other hand how happy to stand before him and to know you did all you could to serve him! It is so important to serve and gaing knowledge and a stroong testimony in thislife so we can take it with us after this life and continue to serve and oreach. I love the restored gospel. I love yoiu all so much. I have to go i my time is up ha! I love you all soisososo much! Love Edler Bills. P.S SO sad about BYU but its Alright!!!!!!!!!!!!!

September 13, 2010 - Kevan

Hola querido familia,

how is everybody doing? Everything here on this side of the world is going great! I am feeling great too. Today is such a beautiful day. Right now the other elders are playing soccer and so when im done well go do that and eat an asado. We had a meeting with president and a planning meeting this morning and the rest of the day is pday. I am way happy here and am really excited for my new assignment. I am with Elder Smith and he is from Raymond, Alberta Canada. K.C., do you know that place? He says that there are tons of members there. We are traveling assistants. So every week we will be traveling to a different zone to train and work with the elders. I hear it is really hard and i am so excited for that. This week are going to Chimbas in San Juan. Tommorow we head out. So i will be working with Elder Gomez who is the conmpanion of Elder Frischnect. That will be great to spend a week with Elder Frischnect. I am way happy and this will be a great expirence for me these next few months. I feel way humbled to have this calling and am excited for the challenges and things which the Lord will give me. I keep hearing that He is preparing me for the future and I believe that. Thanks so much for your support and prayers.

this ended up pretty good in Alvear (Pacifico). I think that it was one of my favorite areas. I loved saying bye to the members there. You never really know how much of an impact you have on someone until it is time to leave or when they are not there anymore. One man, Juan Romero, has always been a tough type of guy. but as i said by to him he was just crying. I hope one day he can follow the example of his children and especially of Jesus Christ and get baptized.

I spoke with Elder LeBron yesterday. It was so great. I am so incredibly happy that he was able to visit with you. I love him tons. That is great. He said he loved being with you all and really enjoyed his time. So thanks for everything Family. I know that that really helps him alot.

I was studying this morning in Mosiah 29. I really love the Book of Mormon and I know that it is true. I thought that it was really interesting that God truly will bless us and make us free if we really become humble before Him and put all of our trust in Him. When people are not humble and do not have faith in Him they get farther away from Him. Not only I think will they be alone but they will be on satans side. As we all know that he does not want the best for us. But as long as we put our trust in Christ and become humble before God we will be made truly free and be blessed greatly by our Heavenly Father. I love this perfect plan of God. The Atonement is real and Christ is truly the way that we will be able to live together for ever in the Presence of God!

Please tell connor and Keaton and uncle steve and karen congrats! That makes me so happy!

Family, Hold tight onto the rod of iron. The path is made. Christ is the way. Keep the Spirit with you all this week.

I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Kevan Bills

p.s., that stinks about BYU. It sounds like they are lacking a Bills on the field.

September 7, 2010 - Craig

hEY Family i hope all is well. We are going to the temple tommorow and i am really excited. It is such a beautiful temple and its where this all began pretty much for this little ole family ha. But it will be awesome to be in the house of the lord and feel of his love and closeness. I was so happy to here byu won!!! I was so sosososoo excited and the t birds too. Yess. This past week we found 4 news and 1 new yesterday. The lord has blessed us and put us at the doors of these people to bring them this wonderful message of happiness and hope. I am so grateful that i can serve the lord and i am loving the mission more and more. It is very very hard. Ha i never expected it to be this hard. In every aspect. Physically, mentally and spiritualy hard. Its is great though. The more i try to become like the savior the farther i feel i am from this goal. But it comes day by day, action by action, decision by decision. Juoquin the guy who we are baptizing oin the 18th invited us to his sons party on saturday and it was fun. Ha They had some goood fgood. Carbe Asada tres leches flan and napoles(cactus eww) ha But anyway it was fun and he will be a solid member. In the branch there is a lot of confusion. Most are converts and dont qwuite know. In priesthood they were talking about blessings and someone asked if you can give blessings to yourself and this guy was like oh ya! And we said no you cannot. Then he like stood and testified that he has layed his hands upon his head and given a blessing to himself. OH boy. It was interesting. Dad Kc Kelly, why cant we do that?? I think that we have the priesthood to bless others not ourselves we can recieve blessings from others and feel the blessings of using the priesthood righteously but yeah ha. We can pray for ourselves with faith and hope. Anyway. I love you all. I cant explain the love i have for you guys. I am so grateful for the gospel. It is the path we need to take. Continual repentance and faith in the lord will bring us so much happiness and closer to Jesus Christ. I love you all and i love Jesus Christ. He is my savior and is truly the light of the world! Joseph Smith restored this gospel to the earth and we are so blessed to have this truth! I love you All!!!! We have all been blessed beyond measure! Thanks for all the support Love Elder Bills What is connors adress??

Eating Lunch and Waiting for the Bus

September 6, 2010 - Kevan

Hey fam!

I hope that everything is going great! It is so excited the football season I love it. Elder Fowler and I left a lesson the other day and were walking in the street and we were just like, ah no today is college football live! But everything is going great here. That is so great about andrew cusick. I cant even believe it. So that is fun though. that makes me want to play so bad. So you are looking for apartments? Where are they and are they good?

We had a baptism on saturday of a kid named gabriel Romero. He is 9 and all of his family is member. His sister is even going to Chile for her mission in november. I dont know why he never got baptized but he just turned nine and so we took over and he is now a member. I dont know why but he loves me. We asked him who he wanted to baptize him and he said me and is always just staring at me. He is a funny kid. So that was a big blessing. Baptisms always are for us and for the people. This week we are going to try and baptize the girl named Yanira who never got baptized. I tried putting a date with her yesterday but she still wanted to think about it. It'll either be this week or the next. We have transfers next week. I am sure that i will be going. I have just been a zone leader for way too long, 9 months. I love it and could end my mission doing it but I am sure i'll get leave this area.

I found probably one of my favorite stories and examples in the Book of Mormon this week. It is in 1 Nephi 16:9/31. It is when Nephi breaks his bow. To me it is a huge lesson of how our attitudes affect us and also of how we react in the situations we are in. Nephi was in the same situation as his family. Tired hungry, afflicted. I know that is was hard for all of them. But instead of murmuring, complaining and not doing anything, he went to work. He had to have been positive and had the Spirit. So he built the bow. Something that for sure anyone in his family could have done. but he listened to the Spirit and had a good attitude that he could make a difference. So he did. And he was an amazing blessing for his family as he trusted in the Lord and was guided to obtain food for his family. I love this story. This life is hard. but really our Heavenly Father has given us the easiest plan and has provided the perfect way to do it. He is so loving to have sent Jesus Christ to eart. He truly prepared the way. We have such an amazing family. All we have to do now is keep the commandments and our covenants. We can do it and Heavenly Father will bless us. LEts just be like Nephi and have all of the faith that He really will be with us, protect us, and fulfill His promises with us.

Este evangelio es verdadero. Se que Cristo vive. Estoy tan agradecido por la expiacion. Aun que no entiendo todavia lo que Cristo hizo por nosotros, yo se que es la manera para vivir con Dios un dia. Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador. El es el Hijo do Dios.

Family, I love you all so much! Thank you so much for everything. Make sure to tell everyone hi and that i love them! Have a great week!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

P,S. thanks for the red shirt and the BYU pants. THey are awesome. Also, I am pretty sure i have grown a little bit. My pants seem shorter and I tried measuring myself and it says i am just below 6 foot 4. So thats good!!!