November 29, 2010 - Craig

Hey family! Thanks for all of the emails! I love hearing fromyou guys! Thios past week was pretty good. we have this investigator named randy and he is this blackj guy. He has corn rows and tatoos ha . He has eye problems sowe said we would get him a magnifying glass to see ha so we brought one and right when we openede the door i had it in my hand and he said in a way southern accent, iz dat magnifyin glass fo me??! Ha it was so funny he was so happy and loves us. He wants to get baptized but he has to come to church first. So i have short time so i will just tell you what really impressed on me this weekend. In elders quorom we read a talk from president uchdorf -what matters most. it was interesting he said do the simple things in the gospel. Reading pondering praying everyday and going to church and fasmily home evenings. Something hyrum smith said once was to this affect- As you teach the first principles of the gospel over and over again it will amaze you what you learn. Its true as we do the simple things in the gospel like reading and praying everyday we are qualfying for the holy ghost and concentraing our thoughts on jesus christ. The promise in the sacrement prayer is very real. As we do our part by remebering him and being obedient we will have the spirit always! I love you all so much thanks for all the support!!!!!!!!! Love Elder Bills

Kevan

My area and mission are BEAUTIFUL!!!!

November 29, 2010 - Kevan

Hello Family!

Wow, what a crazy weekend! We had some incredible miracles! We baptized 4 people this last weekend. The other missionaries in our ward who serve in Santa Lucia baptized 8. So we had a huge Blanco Baptism! It was amazing and the people especially the bishop was sosososo excited! I felt the Spirit so strong there. One bad thing that happened is that we had 3 other people who were going to get baptized as well but did not show up!!!! Our area is so far away from the chapel and there few buses on saturday and so we could not get hold of her. Sadly they couldnt go because the mom was working. But she is still doing amazing and this saturday she will be getting baptized with hopefully her 2 kids. We have a few other people that we want to see if they´ll get baptized. So it will be a pretty good way to end the mission, with baptisms!!! The people who got baptized are Gustavo Bravo (25), Nancy, Nikolaus, and Florencia Pelayes. It was amazing! THese people are so happy and I love them tons! I hope the best for them. The Pelayes family was baptized by there son who was baptized 3 months ago. They are so happy to have the Gospel and it is amazing to see the unity that they have with this knowledge of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Last night we got to go to visit my converts in Retiro; Americo Gonzalez and Dolinda, Mariana and David Pelayes. It was amazing! We walked in and I gave a huge hug to Americo and he was just Crying! These people are so amazing. Now in January they are going to THE TEMPLE!!!!! YES!!!!! Also if you remember Gisela is getting sealed in January too!!! YES! I cant even explain how good i feel. I read Alma 29 this morning and many of those verses explain how i feel much better than i can. We ate some Chori Pan and pizza with them and just talked. They are great. Mariana bore her testimony to mat the end and she was just crying. Some of the things that they said make me feel like they were talking about someone else. I was thinking, What? I did that for you? I know that we can all make little or big differences in everybodies life. I think the important thing is that we can be so close to Heavenly Father and be so intune with the Spirit so we are instruments in HIS hands. He will truly put us where we need to be and use us to perform this great and special work among His Children. God understands. He knows. We just need to trust and follow Him. His plan is so perfect and so simple when we think and expirement with it.

We had a great expirence with the power of God and the Priesthood on Tuesday. I can tell you all later about it though.

I bought some stuff for you all today. I hope you like it. I have only spent about 300 pesos. President invited me to go to Acongagua this week so one of these days i will go down and buy some good stuff for everyone.

I love you all so much family! I think this might be the last letter I will write before i see everyone. It is so wierd and i feel really strange. I am grateful that we have baptisms this weekend so we will keep working hard si o si. But it is still strange to say that we´ll be seeing eachother next week! I think it will be a hard change. ha, i wanted to bad to have the gift of conversation and better conversational skills given to me on the mission. I really feel like God has blessed me with that. But... it spanish. ha, I am not sure how well i can carry on a convo. in english. It might me a little akword. Just have patience with me. ha

Have a great week family! And stay safe! I love you all tons!

See you next week!

Love Elder Kevan Bills

P.S. Our zone won the mission Cup and broke the recored for most baptisms in one month! YES!

November 22, 2010 - Craig

Hey Family! How is everything going?? I cant beleive that it is already thanksgiving week! Crazy. Next week i will be out for 10 months. Its hard to believe. I have loved every single second of it. I truly can tell you that i am so grateful for my mission. I love it so much. I love our Savior like i cant describe and I know this is the ONly true and living church in the world. I never understood the true happiness the gospel brings but now i know and I will never turn from it. This past week we had zone conference. It was great i learned so much! We have been working and praying hard to find those who are ready to recieve us and who are truly ready for baptism. We have been teaching this guy oscar and his wife.and last thursday we taught them and put them with dates for the 18th of December. The spirit was strong. We watched the Restoration and testified of it. I asked her what she felt while watching the movie and she said i know its real. I know god called him! So the spirit was there and we invited them to be baptized and they accepted. Then sunday came and they didnt come to church. I was really bummed yesterday. Its hard to see people not keep commitments. We will just have to be patient and do all we can to help them prepare for baptism. The lord has his way and his time for everything and everyone. I think that as i truly humble myself i will realize more how to deal with these peoples very needs. At any rate the work is going pretty well. I have been studying about the atonement pretty much every single day for about 3 weeks and it has been so awesome to understand more about our Savior and his selfless sacrifice for us. I am so grateful for him and what he did for us. It has been such a blessing to come closer to JesusChrist and understand how to apply the atonement in my life more. My favorite talk in conference was by elder patrick kearon. IN his talk he said we must give up our weapons of rebellion. We must cease fighting against god and instead give our whole hearts to him. Holding nothing back. THEN he can heal us. Then he can cleanse us. I love that! The lord suffered and died for us. He did the most important thing in world history all we have to do is give our whole hearts to Heavenly Father and come unto christ humble and submissive. He is always waiting with arms wide open to recieve us. I love you all so much. Thanks for all the support. Have a great thanksgiving! Love Elder Bills

Kevan

This week wwill be amazing. I think it will go by really fast beause we will be working very hard to get the interviews and the baptisms of these people. Some of these people are like the scriptures say and are hard of heart. But some are turly looking for the truth and need exactly what God does have for them. He Love them so much and i am so happy that I can be helping these people recieve these things right now in there lives.

Mom and Dad, thanks for much for helping me in everything this whole mission. I love you both so much and am so grateful. I love you and have a great week.

Me in a cave where they make champain and also in the middle of a plaza.

November 22, 2010 - Kevan

Hey family! How is everything going? It sounds like everything is great and pretty cold there in Utah. Here it was raining all night but other than that it is just soso HOT!

This week was fantastic. Church was amazing!

We changed the hours and we have church in the morning now. My comp. and i got to the house and we were the first ones there. The next people were a big suprise... the bishop of the main ward in Santa Lucia and the stake president. They were so happy and said that everyone had been talking about our area and they needed to come and see what was going on. Pressure.... ha ha. so no one else showed up for about 10 minutes. But eventually they all came! YES! We had an assistance of about 27 people! THey was no room to sit. We had 8 investigators there and the rest were inactives and 3 actives! Wow! We were so happy. The bishop and president spoke and it was perfect. I loved seeing the faces of our investigators after. THey just looked so peaceful and content. THey were excited as well. They left and were smiling and it was just perfect. We have 7 of them getting baptized this saturday. It will be an amazing day. Our goal for this month is 12 and with these people we will reach 10. So we will see what type of miracles God will give us this week. Hopefully we can reach the goal.

I love this last area. It is hard and tiring but i love it. I feel like we and the members are like true pioneers working in this place, establishing the church and letting all know about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing like it. It reminds me a little of Justo Daract. A tiny area with no distractions. A sacred place to focus a work!

Last night probably the strangest thing that has happened to me on my mission happened. I feel like it is the devil working against us now. We were waiting at the bus stop to go back home and we were contacting people that walked pàssed us. I started walking with some people and stopped and turned around becuase they would not even recognize that i was there. But before i turned around i saw a catholic priest running out of his church with his big robe on yelling a me! ha, i walked to my comp and asked if he was yelling at us and he was. So we turned around and he signaled us tocome over. We went and just wanted to be loving to him. This guy was rude though. I am glad my comp couldnt understand too much because this guy was saying some real inaapropiate things. But we testified saying that we are representatives of Jesus Christ here inviting people to come to Him. I asked him that if he was a man of God what his purpose was. And why he was so angry. But he just got more angry. So we left. It was strange. But so it was with the early pioneers and the persecution that they recieved while following Christ.

We had an amazing lesson with Nancy. I did not know what to teach. Then the Lord told us. Revelation is so real. We taught her exactly what she needed to stop smoking. Suprisingly it issomething i never would have taught for that problem, the law of chastity. but the Lord truly knows His children and know what we need. Since that day Nancy has not smoked a single cigarrete and is doing amazing! Her and her children will get baptized this saturday! Miracles are happening in 9 de Julio.

I love this Gospel. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that have so much patience with us. I love them and knbow that they live.

This is the truth. I love you all so much family! HAve a wonderful week!

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I forgot it was here because they do not even have it here in ARgentina. We´ll think of something to do!

I love you all and enjoy the week!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

Kevan

November 15, 2010 - Craig

Hey dad! thanks for the email! That is so great about kellys birthday! I cannot beleive that he is 26! I love him and emily so much! I cannot beleive kevan comes home so soon! Holy cow.It is crazy. The workis going good. We are really going to focus on getting investigators to progress. They need to have an inner desire. I need to be a better missionary! I need to help them understand the importance more and be a better teacher! I need to rely on the lord!! That is funny that people didnt follow the instruction in the handbook and did those things. Man some people are rediculous! Ha. I am really grateful for this church. I really cant explain it. We had a member of the seventy spek tothe stake yesterday and he said some INCREDIBLE things. I had an experience this last week that helped my testimony strenghten sooo much. We tracted into this bapstist minister.. Yepp ha so he just starts going off bashing on the prophets and on Joseph smioth and how our church is so worng and he kept saying how learned he was. I honestly was constrained by the sprit to just take it. It was one of the first times that the spirit truly restrained me. he went on for awhile and after we were juist like ok thanks have a great day. We were way nice and said nice things about his church building and stuff ha. My testimony truly was strenghtened. A true disciple will never bring someone down and make fun or bash on someones beleifs or feelings. I know this is the true church! Jesus Christ is at the head of it. The gospel has been restored to a chosen prophet of god. I love you dad! Thanks for everything. My email time is up but i will write the fam a big letter today ilove you dad!!! Thanks for the support.
Love Elder Bills

November 15, 2010 - Kevan

Hey family!

How is everyhting? THis week was a pretty great and also stressful work! But overall, GREAT! I was really suprised to get my travel itinerary. Pretty crazy!

So yesterday we baptized 3 people. Marta, Aurelio and Oscar Guardia. It was a great baptism and i felt the Spirit really strong. It was awesome. The little unity we have here is growing so much. The stake gave us 6 more months to see what we can do. So it all depends on the elders that serve. They need to have about 20 assist and 4 payers of tithing that have the Melquisedec Priesthood. yesterday we did have 20 assistances and 4 Holders of the Melquisedec Priesthood. But we need to help them really be active and actually pay tithing. That is the biggest thing they need.

We had 24 baptism fechas going into sunday. We were way excited. WE baptized Marta and her family in the morning and went to our meeting in the evening way excited ready for the people to come. We were execting 17 to come. Sadly, only 6 went. Those people are amazing though and truly will be blessed for what they did. I was so happy for them. The others ones just lied to us. I dont know why they did not come at all. They said they would. But hopefully they will keep gaining stronger testimonies to eventually assist one day. in the escuela dominical they taught about sacrifice. That is such a great topic. I think when we can truly realize what Jesus Christ did for us in the Atonement we will realize that He truly asks for us to do little things. Going to church here in 9 de Julio for 1 hour is NOTHING!! especially compared to Christ and even to many of the saints now and in the past. But we need to help them. It could be that they are not ready, dont want to commit or many other things. We will need to follow the Holy Ghost to know erally what to do with these people.

This week went by way fast though. We tried hard to focus on the people that we had fechas with. In the first 3 weeks we found about 150 new investigators. So we slowed that down a bit and wenty aroud to those people really get a firm teaching pool. Now we have done that and know who really will progress and we will start the finding process again this week.

My trainee is doing great. He is speaking so well and is being blessed. We get a long but really do not have much in common. But we both love teaching the gospel and we love God and that is what we really need right now.

Thanks for everything family! i hope that everything goes great this week. Know that i love all of you and am so grateful for the prayers and faith that you are all giving me and my investigators.

I know that this is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for and know that President Monson is the true prophet on the earth! What an amazing blessing for us to this in this despensation. The Restoration is amazing!"

Con mucho amor,

Elder Kevan Bills

November 8, 2010 - Craig

Hey family how are things going?? This week was pretty good. We had a ton of less actives to church and we were way happy about this! My new companion is from spanish fork utah and he has been out just about 6 months. He is struggling really bad with his spanish so I have a good opportunity to helop him. We had some really cool lessons yesterday on the sabbath. One withthis guy named oscar who is about in huis 60's. He said he felt something very different after the first time we taught him and he felt calm and good. I explained to him it was the spirit and that the spirit testifies of truth by helping us feel comfort and enlightened, we then asked him as he came to know that the book of mormon is true and that jospeh smith was a prophet by the power of the holy ghost if he would be baptised and he said yes. it was a very spiritual experience. I have come to realize that when we invite others to be baptized it truly is a big deal. It should be prompted by the spirit and done with love because it is in fact their first step tio returning to live with our heavenly father and to becoming like him. I am SO grateful for the gospel. This IS the only true and living church on the earth. I feel it every day. I love you all so much and I am so gratefukl for your examples to me. Just a funny experience, we were eating last night at a members house and i saw something fall from the cieling but didnt pay attention to it. Then i looked down and there was a nasty bug crawling in my salad! HAHA i was like OH! Ha and i tried to work around it and the sister was like is there something in your food? And i was like no its great. I didnt want to make her embarrassed. So i just ate around this big bug ha. It was funny. Elder Ray was trying way hard not to laugh ha! I love you all sooo muh thanks for everythiong! My time is up but i love you all so much. Love Elder Craig T. Bills

November 8, 2010 - Kevan

Family!everything was great htis week. We ended with 24 baptism fechas and with many new investigators. We are being so blessed by the Lord here in our area. I working my comp way hard and we are jsut exausted. But it is so great. WE leave early and get back pretty late due to the buses. But we are being so blessed with many peoiple to teach. The family Guardia should get baptized this sunday. I spoke to their 9 year old kid on a bus and he told us where they lived. So that same day we went over and they were just sad and not doing well. We taught them and they came to church and also they are reading. They have changed so much and want to get baptized. It is amazing how the Lord prepares the people and makes the way for us to find them. Like making a nine year old kid sit next to me on the bus and talk to me. That never happens! ha

we only had church in Santa Lucia today. Sadly, none of our investigators came. I f elt like some of the people in the Book of Mormon when they felt paijn and sadness for the people who wouldnt listen. Yeah, it is 45 minutes away from our area. But they can all go to church. Next week we will start again the meetings in 9 de julio in the afternoon. The sacrament meeting was so great and i felt the spiri¡t really strong though. AFter the bishop brouhgt in all of us from 9 de Julio (we were 6) and pumped us uup. He talked about the pioneers a lot and helped the members realize their r esponsibility and what they are beginning now. It was us and 4 other guys. This kid named Gonzalo will for sure ser ve a mission in two years. After, the bishop gave us all a blessing to help us in the work and it was amazing. I loved the Spirit that we felt there. This week will be a great week and we just need to focus on these people that are going to now get baptized. Our goal is 12 baptisms for this month. We are finding about 30 new investigators a week. And we have tons commited to get baptized. But we just need to use the Spirit and help those who truly want to make covenants with God.

It is very nice and very hot here. I am going to freeze in Utah. Yesterday was Viento Zonda and was way over 100 d egrees.- bu it is nice to have it hot. I know that Dad would have loved it.

WEll that is sad about THS. Hopefully they´ll be back next year.- It still was a great run and feels good to be a part of when all that started-.

I am so excited to room with MArk and Mike and Aaron. That will be a blast. Thanks for doing all of that. It must have been a lot of work but thanks a lot.

I hope that everything is going great for all of you. I love you all tons. THis week will be a great week.

I know that Christ lives.

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

Kevan

November 1, 2010 - Craig

How is everyone doing?? I loved the pictures from Halloween!! The kids are so cute! Thanks for the email mom and dad! Well this morning we got calls from President Murri and they are splitting our area. I will be working in Shafter now which is about 8 miles from Wasco and i will be the senior companion to Elder Graff. Elder Ray is staying in Wasco and he is training! It is going to be a change but i am excited. We will now be a 4 man apartment so we will see how that goes ha. I loved the family history stuff mom! Its good to know how we were introduced to the church! And that I am sweedish! Thats way cool! I am excited to get more info about our ancestors. This past week was pretty good. We did some service and kept busy. This past week in my personal studies I had such an awesome experience/realization. I was studying about our heavenly father. I was reading the great scripture in Moses 1:39. His work and his glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, in other words to help all of his children become like him. I was really pondering on this. I was also reading in the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith and he has a lot of incredible statements about Heavenly Fathers relationship with us. He said all of his laws were created so that we would have the ability to become like him. As i sat pondering about this and truly trying to understand the scriptures and quotes i had read, I really realized that that is indeedhis purpose. That our heavenly father loves us more than we can imagine and that he truly wants us to become like him, to experience the joy and blessings he has and to be exalted as he is. I felt closer to our heaveny father than ever before, and since then i have been seeing people more and more and sons and daughters of god. It was awesome! I love Heavenly Father and we are so blessed. This life is SO important and we need to always have that goal in mind. To return to live with him in his prescence. This past week we taught some new investigators and i know that this is a huge blessing to spread this gospel! We are really working on helping investigators progress. There are a ton who have potential but really need to have an inner desire to come unto christ. There is only so much we can do. They need to commmit themselves to read and pray. We just invite and help them by showing them and truly loving them! You cant fake charity!I love you guys so much! Thansks for all you do !!!!!!!!!!! I love you all so much. Love Elder Bills

November 1, 2010 - Kevan

Hola familia!

Happy birthday Dad!!!! How was everything? I was thinking about you yesterday and was hoping that you were having a great day. We were working way hard this week. So to tell you the truth i sort of forgot about halloween. Sorry! Ha, but Elder Hurst, in our apartment did buy a little pumpkin and carve it. Ha, They do not have halloween here. They dont have a lot of those holidays. But usually when the do have a holiday the people work on their homes or just have an asado and drink.

The ex pres. of Argentina dided the other day and the people are so sad. It is crazy. I will but a newspaper because it was a pretty big even this week.

How was church yesterday? It sounds like the stake conferance dad went to was great! That is so important about the inactive members. I have been thinking so much about how to help people with that my whole mission. I eventually came to the same point, teach them about the atonement of Christ and also teach them about the Restoration. The chruch here is growing and many people are just new to the church. once there ¨missionaries¨ get transfered they find them selves a little solo and some fall away. It is so hard to bring some back. But yesterday we had a boy named Gonzalo and also an ex missionary named Hugo come bakc to church after being gone for a while! I loved it. Hugo looked so happy and he is getting the spirit of his mission in him again. In just over 2 weeks his appearance has changed completly and he just looks way happy. They both brought a friend to church named Rodrigo and he is a great kid. I know that he´ll get baptized.

Yesterday was great. We went to 9 de Julio and to where we have the church (In La Villa). we were in front of the house where we have the meeting and it was us and hermano Sanchez. no one came!!! It was a little downer. but then we saw hugo and gonzalo and their friend walking up! Yes. So we started. Then after the sacrament him I was just about to kneel down to bless the sacrament when i heard a gate opening. I looked up and saw Marta and her children (Soledad 18, Oscar 9, and Vanina 7) walking in! I was so happy! They had walked a ways and got to church. So it was great!

Marta is amazing. We found her about 2 weeks ago and she was so sad. Now she looks so much happier and she has told us that he kids have changed completly as well. Truly the Gospel of Christ brings peace and joy to our souls. Those who are ready and willing to accept will find amazing blessings and be changed forever. Christ lives and truly did do the Atonement for us. I am seeing this in the life of Marta right now. Amazing.

We taught a lady named Lorena Villega the other day. She was mostly interested at first because of our accent and stuff like that. We eventually, like always, ended up talking about religion. Why do you think that people always end up talking about religion? So we taught her and it was amazing. Also we taught her family. She knelt down to say the prayer at the end and the Spirit was so strong. She was crying and stood up after and said, Gracias Hermanos. It was amazing how people humble themselves and then God wraps His loving arms around them. I know the feelings that she felt and it is true! I love this gospel.

So many great things are happening right now. The mission is doing so great. I am doing great too. We are in our area all day. I think I am losing a little bit of weight but it is alright. no problem.

I saw David Villalba the other day. It was so great to see him. I will visit him and Dolinda and Americo soon. I hear that they are doing great.

Also, You probably dont remember but i wrote a year ago about Margot, how her nephew called us in the middle of the street and we went over and taught her. She then got baptized. Well i am in her ward now and she is doing great. She stopped smoking and she and put on weight. It is amazing. Repentance is such a special thing.

About the apartment, that sounds great. It should be really fun. I would love to come home for the summer. I think i can train better too for the fall. Just do whatever is best.

I am thinking of a few things that some of you might want. But I would love if you gave me some limit of money. I hate spending and really dont want to spend a bunch. But if you want anything beside those shoes,, like jerseys, Mate, Poncho, gaucho stuff, etc., just let me know.

I love you tons family and am so grateful for all of you! Have a great week and we´ll be talking soon! This is the true church!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills