Last week with Elder Hancock Elder Kelly Conrad

Dear Mom and Dad 30 May 2010

This was a very exciting week. We have had some pretty random
events happen that have brought a lot of learning. But first off, my new
companion is Elder Matthew Kelly Anderson, who is from Bountiful, Utah. I
get another Utah missionary to serve with to help bring to the light and
knowledge that Utah is not the only Zion. Elder Anderson served in Miami two
transfers after me and baptized the M's who I found while I was there. I
have been on many exchanges with him over the past seven months and know
that we will be great for each other. I can foresee that he might not want
to keep up with my eating and exercise habits, but that was one of the
challenges I had with Elder Hancock that I finally won after several months
of being persistent.

It always seem that in the last few weeks of serving with a
companion all my questions get answered and I begin to realize what it is
that the Lord has been trying to teach me through the trials. As I have been
serving with Elder Hancock, I have been taught how to get along with someone
who is the complete opposite of who I am. If you sat down and took both of
our life stories and compared them, you would see that we lived in different
worlds before we came out here. I know that it was only through the
inspiration from the Lord that we were supposed to serve together; I would
have never guessed in a million years that we could have served together,
much less for six months. I'm not complaining, but I'm just telling you how
it was. Sometimes the only thing that got me through the tough times was the
confirmation I got one day that Elder Hancock was called by revelation to be
my companion. Things were just started to come together this past week until
we got a call on Wednesday from the Tulsa zone leaders telling us about a
missionary companionship that had gotten into a little fight. The only
reason why I even mention this detail is to explain what I learned this
week. Before we got the call on Wednesday we had just gotten over some of
our communication differences and began to really become solid. We knew how
to better get along and we were really able to communicate. Well, after this
call on Wednesday we ended up with a third companion who brought a new
element to our companionship that we weren't able to handle at first. This
third companion came with a negative spirit that could be felt by us and
which really made it more difficult. Something happened during Wednesday
which created some resentment that we each kept bottled up for two days
because we couldn't find time to get alone and talk things through. On
Friday we had to make the time. I don't know how it changed things, but it
really did. It's hard to explain what I learned from this experience in an
email. It's been a lesson that has been culminating for the past six
months. I can sum up the whole lesson in one sentence taken from "The
Family; A Proclamation to the world." I read this one day after searching
for an answer as to what I was to learn from my time serving with Elder
Hancock. "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained
on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love,
compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." Of course I am not
married, but this companionship has been the closest thing I will ever get
until I actually am. I figured that if I wanted to have a successful
companionship with Elder Hancock I needed to practice these principles. I
have tried my best to put into practice these principles in my relationship
with Elder Hancock and it has made a world of a difference.

Well, to keep building off this story, today I learned in more
detail why I have had some of the experiences that I have. I learned that a
leader is going to go through special trials that will allow them to know
how to help others. I was sitting with my third companion today in church
and was thinking about what purpose I can serve in helping him. As I thought
about this, I began to understand that a lot of what I had been through with
my current companion has given me the tools and know how to help this
missionary. I think that's what Alma 7:12-13 teaches; Jesus Christ knew how
to succor us because he knew it by the Spirit, and his suffering for us that
he might know how to succor us according to the flesh; also blot out our
transgressions. I learned that a leader will go through that same process,
not to blot out transgressions, but to know how to succor those he serves. I
guess you can say that this is one of the greatest leadership lessons that I
have learned here. This helps me face trials and adversity with so much more
confidence. Every trial that I have had on my mission prepares me for the
future.

I can really see how my mission has taught me things in stages.
If I had learned this lesson with my first companion I wouldn't have had to
go through this, but I have had to go from line to line, precept to precept,
and be tested all the way.

That's all for this week, I got the Ensign you sent, thank you!
Now I have something to read while in the car!

Love

Elder Kelly Conrad

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goals and the future Elder Kelly Conrad

Dear Mom and Dad 23 May 2010

I'm going to have some time tomorrow to write a tape home, so I
will answer a lot of your questions from your email in it.

Leading up to this week I was actually very hesitant and nervous
for this week. I have been going on exchanges with the same missionaries for
the past seven months and on exchanges this past week I went on exchanges
with two elders who I have never served around or been on exchanges with. It
is always challenging to go on exchanges with someone that I have only had
limited contact with. I guess I could expound on all the reasons why it's
challenging, but basically I get to spend several hours with someone that I
really don't know and I am expected to be their friend and also a leader to
them and help them grow in their missionary abilities. It's quite the task.
But I learned something about myself this week, what I learned was that
before I have my greatest and happiest moments I am slightly timid and
nervous. It's been a cycle that I have been in my whole life that I am just
now realizing. Anyways, after my exchanges with these new elders I have
found two of my new best friends. Their names are Elder Evans and Elder
Liston. After spending several hours with them tracting and teaching with
them I feel a great friendship for these tow elders. Elder Evans is going to
be at BYU-I when I am there, so we made some plans.

This leads to what I learned today while at church. But to give
a little background before I share it, I will begin with an experience I had
my first week of my mission. My first week in the mission we had a Mission
Tour by Elder Allen Packer. He pre-selected some missionaries before our
conferences that he wanted to interview. He had chosen my trainer, Elder
Harrison. So before the meeting, Elder Harrison goes into a room and is
interviewed by Elder Packer while I am in the chapel. After their interview
Elder Harrison comes and gets me and tells me that Elder Packer wants to
talk to me. So I sit down in the room with Elder Packer and we get to
talking. I can't really remember all of what happened, but I can remember
him asking me about my goals. I left and he interviewed and another
missionary and we then proceeded with the Mission Tour Conference. Later on
in my mission when General Conference came I was surprised to see that Elder
Allen Packer was giving an address. I have to say that I took more
particular attention to what he was talking about because I felt like I knew
him more than the rest of the General Authorities. His topic was on personal
revelation. It has been my goal my whole mission to learn more about
personal revelation and how it works with me, so I really enjoyed listening
to his talk and then later reading and studying it in the Ensign. One
principle that he taught has stood out to me the most, and that principle
was that in the future, personal revelation is going to be even more
important. Today, as I was thinking about these experiences and the studies
I have done on this, I learned something's. Basically, I learned that it has
taken personal revelation to know who I am, to know my potential, to know
God's plan for me, and also to know that Christ has atoned for my sins.
Personal revelation is needed in order to be saved. It's all about what you
know, not what the church knows. I think that's what the Lord means when he
says in the Doctrine and Covenants that he is happy with the church
collectively, not individually. The church contains absolute truth, but not
every member does. It takes personal revelation to obtain absolute truth.
Alma 12 sums the rest of what I learned while at church today.

That's it for this week. Thank you for all that you do for me!

Love,

Elder Kelly Conrad

FW: Sister P. and Brother W.

Dear Mom and Dad 16 May 2010

Thank you for your last email mom, it was really good.

The week went well, to let you know we weren't in Tulsa the day
the big storm hit, we were in Saint Robert, Mo and Springfield, Mo. We had
some phone calls from some elders who had been in it though. We had one of
the Spanish set of missionaries here in Tulsa call us and tell us that their
apartment had been hit by a tornado, and that they were alright. We didn't
even know about the storm until they called us.

So there are two experiences that I want to talk about today.
The first happened on Tuesday afternoon. We had a few short hours on Tuesday
to do some work in our own area, so we decided to pull out the ward roster
and visit those who are part member families. We had two solid contacts; one
was with an older lady who has her 14 year old grandson living with her, who
isn't a member; and the other contact was with Sister P. After contacting
the first Sister we went to the address of a Laura M. We knocked on the door
and someone came to it and peeked through the window and told us to hold on.
After waiting a few minutes she came out and we began to talk to her. We
told her that we were looking for a "Sister M." she corrected us and told us
that she now goes by Sister P. The name P. is familiar to us because there
is a Brother P. that we know who goes to the Riverside ward. So we talk to
her some more and get to building a relationship and we find out that she is
the sister to this Brother P. that we know. She tells us some about her
conversion and explains how she got to Tulsa. She said that She used to work
on Sundays and had a boyfriend living with her that stopped her from coming
to church, but that last week she got a new job schedule and had her
boyfriend moved out and that she is now ready to come back to church. We
committed her to come to church and set up an appointment for eleven on
Sunday, just before church, so that we could make sure she would come. After
that we left, but before she let us leave she gave us three boxes of food to
take home. She is such a good lady, bless her heart. Well, today we went
over at eleven with Sam and got to know her some more and taught her about
scripture study. It was a really good lesson, we kind of stumbled our way
through the lesson at first because our original lesson plan was voided out
by the way the conversation went, but we finally found what it was that we
were supposed to teach. She ended up needing a ride to church today because
her car broke down, so we called the office Sisters who are my two favorite
people in the world, and they came over to pick her up. Sister Nokes and
Sister Mills did a wonderful job fellowshipping Sister P. I'm going to keep
in contact with them after my mission. I really like Sister P. She is an
amazing lady. I have only really talked to her for a total of an hour and a
half, but I really respect her. She fit in perfectly at church and felt very
welcomed. She said that she felt cleaner and that a weight had been lifted
off her shoulders. I have no idea how it is that strong friendships and
relationships can be made so fast between people.

I had another experience where I got to perform an emergency baptism
interview while on exchanges with Elder Goodale in St. Robert, Mo. His name
was Michael W. I only talked to him for about an hour but I felt so much
love for that man. I was told several hours in advance that I was going to
be doing the baptism interview; when I was told I started to think about
what was going to take place and what it meant to be interviewing someone
for baptism. I did all that I could to prepare myself for it. I have gained
greater understanding about baptism and the interview for baptism since my
last time performing one, so I did all that I could to be ready. As we
talked the Spirit was there, and I could tell by looking into Michael's eyes
that he had a broken heart and contrite spirit and that he had received the
Spirit of Christ and was forgiven of his sins and was worthy to be baptized.
It was such a fruitful experience. I have really gained a greater love and
compassion while serving here.

I guess I can understand why it is that relationships are gained
so fast, because sometimes they need to, and also because when you are doing
the Lords work you feel the love that the Lord has for these people, and you
love them the same way the Lord loves them. Some of my most meaningful
relationships have been with those who are not investigators but rather the
members and less-active members. I have found that most of the less-active
and in-active people that I have taught have been the most faithful people.
Seeing how they grow as they exercise their faith to work through hard times
inspires me to work through my own hard times.

Today we went around to some hospitals and put our names on the
clergy lists in hopes that we can get to know more people and do more good
while we are here in Tulsa. We have already had two positive experiences
with some people as we went out and put our name on these lists.

I love you and thank you for all that you are doing for me.

Love

Elder Kelly Conrad

PS; the picture attached is what the sky looked like after that big storm
passed over us while in Branson, Mo. The storm that hit Tulsa and Oklahoma
City went acrossd our whole mission so a few hour after it went over Tulsa
we saw it in Branson. It was intense but it wasn't as bad as it was here in
Tulsa.

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