FW: how to repair

Dear Mom and Dad 25 April 2010

Things have gone well this week all things considered. We have
made a lot of progress that was very much needed. This week is week number
one of the transfer and we are doing all the necessary preparations for
weeks 2 through 6 and even for the next two transfers.

We were able to teach Amy this week. She is sweet,
nothing can get her down. She has received a lot of opposition these past
few weeks but she is so resilient. We have been helping her along through a
very long and tiresome repentance process. The way she came in contact with
the church were not in the normal conventional ways of watching a television
ad, or having missionaries talking to her. It is a miracle that we are even
teaching her. In my second transfer here Elder Hancock and I made the
choice to start going to the Riverside ward on Sunday along with our normal
ward. The reason we deceived to do this was so that we could inspire the
Riverside ward to be more missionary minded; we hoped that by having
missionary leaders in the ward that they might see it as a chance to utilize
the missionaries and get more organized. So, on the Sunday that Amy came to
church wanting to learn more about the church she talked to Elder Hancock.
We were at the right place at the right time, for the right person.

This week we were interviewed by some high school students for
an AP English project. It was an amazing experience. They were doing some
comparing of the different churches here in Tulsa. They brought with them a
video camera and sound equipment and filmed the whole interview. They said
they are going to send us a DVD next week with their final project, so I
will send that home so you can see how things went.

We had 11 new missionaries come into the mission this transfer.
All 11 of them are outstanding, they are defiantly better then I was when I
first came out. As we sat down with them and did some role plays it was very
apparent that they were prepared and ready for the people they are called to
serve here. New missionaries always bring a new excitement into the mission.
As you sit in the room with all of them you can just feel their faith and
anxiety. It's good to know who the mission's hands will be in a few months.

We are focusing the mission now on being better planners and
using daily and weekly planning as times to show the Lord that we are
prepared disciples that He can send His prepared people to. We have created
several power points that we are using to teach and instruct missionaries on
how to better use goal setting and plan making principles that some of us
older missionaries have learned to use. 75% of our mission is missionaries
who have only been out under a year. The younger the mission the more time
you spend training and that's what we have been doing these past six months.
In the next three transfers we are going to be losing the bulk of our
leadership and its going to require younger missionaries to step up and take
on some of the responsibilities. We older missionaries have the
responsibility to pass on what we have learned so that the mission can
continue to grow. I am excited to see how Zone Conference's goes this
transfer and to see how the missionaries apply what is taught.

I love you and thank you for all that you are doing. I will be
writing another tape this week filling you more in about things.

Love your son,
Elder Kelly Conrad

Charity Elder Kelly Conrad

Mom and Dad 19 April 2010

Hey family, things have gone well this past week. I went to the
Tulsa Zoo today with the elders here in Tulsa. So I have some pictures of
that as well as a picture that was taken at a marriage this week end. One of
the Riverside elders had one of the couples they are teaching get married on
Saturday.

We just finished week five and we are now on week six of this
transfer. The next transfer starts on April 26; which will bring me back to
week number one of the next transfer. It's been decided that I get to stick
around here in Tulsa a little longer. I will be Elder Hancock's last
companion that he will ever serve with here in the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission. I
am excited for the next six weeks. Elder Hancock and I have some big plans
for the mission; our goal is to get the missionaries to regain the
missionary spirit that they have once had by helping them live the
principles of personal sacrifice and obedience. The mission has a lot of
faith and it's now time to test that faith.

I have really been working on charity and honesty this past
transfer. I have worked on charity before but after I heard a talk given by
Elder Holland and after reading some scriptures I wanted to come to a deeper
understanding about what it means to have charity. The scripture that got me
interested in charity again is Moroni 7: 44 "if a man be meek and lowly in
heart, and <http://scriptures.lds.org/en/moro/7/44d> confesses by the power
of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for
if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity."
Basically what I get out of this verse is that I need charity in order to
testify of Christ. Paul explains more in 1 Cor 13; that a man without
charity is nothing, even if he has faith to move mountains. So, I am working
on making sure that I have charity. Charity runs deeper than merely saying
and thinking that you love someone.

I learned something this week while teaching Amy. When I teach
something to someone about a principle of the gospel I have learned that if
I can first teach myself that principle and get myself to understand it then
I am more likely to teach it to someone else in order for them to understand
it. I tell you this so that my next few comments make sense. While in a
lesson with Amy on Saturday, we tried to teach her about the importance of
the family. We were reading with her "The Family : A Proclamation to the
World" and explained things paragraph by paragraph till we came to the
paragraph that reads, "Successful marriages and families are established and
maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect,
love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." I began to
teach myself what this sentence taught quickly so that I could explain it to
Amy. What I learned while teaching myself and then later teaching Amy was an
answer to my prayers. So in fine, what I learned was that I have
inadvertently lived these principles with in my own companionship with Elder
Hancock these past five months. Normally missionaries can build a
relationship really quickly through finding commonalities in things like
music, sports, or interests; but with Elder Hancock and I you couldn't have
miss-matched a companionship any more. So, we have strived to get along
through faith, prayer repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion,
work and wholesome recreational activities. I could go through each one of
those principles describing and illustrating how we have tried to live them
but that could take a long time; but we have lived them. I haven't had a
companion this long before, and it's really helped me come to understand
things about life and relationships. My whole mission has been sheltering me
from these lessons, with all my prior companions I was only with them for
two months or less, but now having to serve with one for six months has
taught me some of the most important things that God has had in store to
teach me while on my mission. It never ceases to amaze me how God works. If
I can conquer this companionship through these principles then I can conquer
any companionship, or relationship.

Church on Sunday runs from 9:00 am to 4:00pm, we go to two
wards. What if I were to call around 7:00 my time? That's not a for sure
time yet because we don't know our dinner schedule yet, but I would most
likely be calling you anytime from four to six your time. Hopefully that can
give us an idea of call timing.

Well that's all for this week. Thank you for all that you are
doing!

Love

Elder Kelly Conrad

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Flight! Elder Kelly Conrad

Mom and Dad- 11 April 2010

The week went by really fast this time. I am starting to see a
pattern here recently; when things are tough the time slows down and drags,
but when things are going a bit better time speeds up. Things went fast this
past week.

I remember when I was in the MTC sitting in a large group
meeting when we were shown a power point presentation that illustrated our
mission life. There was a graph that showed a line that increased steadily
till the middle of the graph where the line began to decrease steadily. The
graph was to represent one path that missionaries took while out on their
missions; they would apply themselves and progress till they plateau and
then they figured that they knew enough and stopped progressing. This
presentation has been on my mind these past few days and it has created a
lot of new desires and goals that I have set in order to avoid decreasing.

Things are now set in order and the errands that my companion
and I have been focused on for these past few months are completed. Policies
and procedures are now in order and we are on to other things. We will now
be consolidating our schedule and using the time spent on these past errands
on new projects and developments; a new challenge that I am way excited to
face and conquer.

Now that I have started my email with some very vague
comments...

Today I learned a lot from church. My favorite day out of the
week is Sunday because it is where all my studies for the week come together
to help me understand something about myself and the Gospel. This past week
I felt impressed to select six topics that will be my main focus of study
for the rest of my mission. These six topics are: 1. Charity/Discipleship,
2. Repentance/Conversion, 3. Revelation/Companionship of the Holy Ghost, 4.
Atonement/How to apply it in my life, 5. Priesthood/Keys, and 6. Ephraim. I
choose these topics because they are what I really want to learn more about,
and things that I can better understand so that I can teach it better to
myself, investigators, and missionaries. They might also help with
understanding my role and calling better and along with that they might help
in the transitions that are lurking in the near future.

I have studied the Atonement this past week and in Church the
topic of the talks was about the Atonement of Jesus Christ; what a
coincidence. One of the speakers explains something that was very insightful
that helped me connect the dots of all my past studies that I have done on
this topic. I have studied Section 88 where it talks about Laws that govern
all things and several other scriptures talking about the Law of Moses and
its purposes to not justify man, but to point us towards having faith in
Jesus Christ; which is the only way to be justified. Well, one of the
speakers today used an analogy that was very profound and taught me a lot
about the Atonement. The speaker was talking about laws and how we are
governed by them. She highlighted the law of gravity by holding out her
scriptures saying that the law of gravity required that the scriptures fall
when she was to let go of them, but then she said that by using other forces
and other laws she could make it possible to keep them in the air if she let
them go. My mind thought about all the ways that she could possibly get the
scriptures to stay in the air to defy the law of gravity and when thinking
about this I thought about how it is was possible that something could stay
in the air when the law of gravity required things to fall. I thought about
what makes it possible to fly an airplane. It is something that is very
heavy that should not fly, but does. I learned that an airplane does not
escape the justice of gravity; it uses other laws that are more powerful to
create flight and defy gravity. I applied this example to myself and
figuratively put myself into the planes place. I am bound to earth because
of the law of gravity. By the law I am not justified to fly, but by using
propulsion, air, and some uniquely designed wings I could use other, more
powerful laws to justify flight that would satisfy the demands of justice
that gravity would normally have. Simply put, airplanes are bound by laws
that are affixed, but its uses other laws to satisfy the affixed law of
gravity. We too are bound by affixed laws that demand punishment and justice
for our sins that separate us from the affixed happiness that we are
seeking. It is only through faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we
are able to be justified in returning back to Heavenly Father even if we
have sinned. Christ did not come to save us in our sins, but from our sins.
Christ has been given the power to save us only upon conditions of faith,
repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to
the end and everything that enduring to the end implies. It was a good
thought.

I love you family, I'm sorry that I didn't get the memory card
out to you this week. I have it packaged up and ready to go tomorrow.

Love your son,

Elder Kelly Conrad

PS. I haven't gotten that book yet, but that's ok, I plan on just holding it
till later in the next few months to use.

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conference Elder Kelly Conrad

Mom and Dad 05 April 2010

The week went well. I was able to go on some exchanges this week
with three of my favorite missionaries' friends. I learned a lot from these
elders and had a lot of insight given to past events.

On Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Cosgrove in
Fayetteville. It was a great exchange and I overcame a lot. The situation of
the exchange was this; we were on foot all day because it was the end of the
month and the elders had no miles left to drive their vehicle. Fayetteville
is the home to the University Of Arkansas campus. When we got into
Fayetteville we met the elders at the institute building on campus and this
is where we started our long trek. We walked through campus and headed
towards the bus stop to get into town; it was very strange walking around a
campus with a bunch of people my own age that weren't in suits and ties.
When we had gotten to the bus stop we loaded up and headed to our
destination. When I walked onto the bus I was so overwhelmed by walking on
campus and getting onto a bus with a lot of people that I froze and didn't
know what to do. I can normally figure out what to do in most situations but
I have never dealt with a situation like this before on my mission and I was
caught completely off guard. While walking on I was so focused on not
looking scared and lost I gave up my opportunity to sit down in a seat and
ended up standing up in the middle of the row. As we drove off all I could
do was stare out the front window and pray to know what to do. A few moments
into the ride I tried to look around and see if there was anyone that I
could talk to and all I saw were people with their headphones in trying to
avoid eye contact with me. I kept praying to know what to do and for a
chance to talk to someone. We reached another bus stop where there was an
exchange of people getting off and on. I darted to the first seat I could
find near the front of the bus and sat down. I was so relieved to sit down
and get the chance to grasp all that was going on. Luckily I sat down next
to a lady who wasn't listening to a MP3 player. I told this young lady that
I was absolutely scared to be riding the bus and that I had only a small
experience with riding them back home when my friends and I would ride them
to the mall. I don't think that my confession of being scared was the best
way to start a conversation but it was all that was on my mind, so that's
what I talked about. We got to talking a little bit and I found out her name
was Emily and that she knew people from the church. We had a good little
conversation until the next bus stop where Elder Cosgrove and I got off. I
gave her a pass along card and encouraged her to go to the website on the
back. It wasn't the most successful moment of my mission, but it sure did
feel like it to me. These little moments are what I like most about being a
missionary. I like baptisms and I like it when someone is found who is
interested in the Gospel, but moments like these are the ones that really
test me and help me see who I am becoming. It's easy to be a missionary when
you have a suit and tie on and when you have a name tag on that bears the
name of Jesus Christ. These moments help me see what my mission has helped
me become.

I think the leaders of the Church are getting better and better
and this past General Conference is the proof. I thought Conference was
amazing and very insightful, clear and direct. I got a lot out of it and
took some good notes that I plan on studying. If anyone had any questions
about how to get through the afflictions we face they should have been fully
edified after Saturday and Sunday.

I remember reading one of your letter's Mom, which had a
question asking me about what I learned from my Mountain Home, Ar
experience; for some odd reason that line popped back into my mind over this
past week. I went on an exchange with an elder who served in that area just
four and a half months before I did. We got to talking about the area and
what experience he had there and the one I had there. It was very
insightful. He was being trained there by a great missionary and the work
was flourishing with success and with member support. That was surprising to
me because when I got there the area was dead and there was no activity.
What had happened? As I thought about it I learned what it really means to
be a part of a band of brotherhood. A missionary who served there in that
four and a half month gap had made some changes to the way the missionary
work was done and turned off the ward members and leaders to missionary
work. This missionary is a great missionary and is one that I respect, so I
mean no disrespect. But what I learned from thinking about the affects of
what was done because of this elders' choices helped me see that being part
of a band of brotherhood is more than supporting those around you, but also
supporting those that will come in the future. The consequences of choices
made now are going to affect the future in more ways than we realize.
Learning this has helped me view my service in a more serious way. There is
a lot of applications to this principle in my life.

That's all for this week; thank you for all that you are doing
for me! I'm mailing home another memory card this week, so be expecting
that.

Love your son,

Elder Kelly Conrad

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