Letter 2-18-2013

Elder Kyler’s letter                      2-18-13

Okay, I'm not sure how many letters you've sent, but I got one that had handwriting on the back, and I haven't gotten the package yet. Because the zone leaders get the mail on Tuesdays, and hand it out at district meetings on Thursdays. So, I guess it wasn't there last Thurs. but this time it should be! But, no matter what it is I'm sure it will be great!

But, first off, I have a story: okay, one day three missionaries were having a rough day, appointments falling through, people slamming doors in their faces, and just everything was going wrong. They called a less active family to go visit, the family said, "Sure come on by!!" so they went over. But, to their surprise, no one was home!! With all of the bad luck that day, they decided just to walk and tract, and talk to people as they went. But as they were walking, some people drove passed them and said, "are you Mormon missionaries!?" they said, "YEAH, what can we do for you?" Turns out they were home teachers on their way to give someone a blessing. And those missionaries were us! Ha ha. What are the odds that we were just walking towards this house at the exact time the home teachers were!?!? But, in that house, two families live. One of the ladies that lives there, her husband had slept around, got someone pregnant and left.. Left her with three kids. They were all pretty shaken up. But the spirit was our guide, so that we could be there and help them out. They were just as amazed as we were. We asked if they wanted us to leave, if it was too many people or something. But, they said, "no, there's obviously a reason why the spirit led you all the way over here." It was so awesome! With all of the bad things that had happened that day, that one appointment made everything worth it!

  

Our ward mission leader went to Brazil on his mission and wanted to see how good my Portuguese is, so we started talking. He was amazed.. He said, “you need to get to Brazil already”!! I feel the same way. I am starting to see little things every day though that help my testimony to grow, and maybe some things that I am here in California to do before I get to Brazil. 

 

I can’t remember how much I've written about the R____ family, the one where the Father only speaks Spanish. But we have been working with the kids; they all came to church yesterday and seemed to love it. We are meeting with them Tuesday.. Well I'm not. I'll be one a one day exchange with the zone leaders. I'm super excited. We have some awesome ZL's. We have some awesome investigators that are progressing nicely. And we've been focusing on less actives. It’s so funny, we have been trying to get a hold of a family for a week or so, and last night we just decided to go by. The wife answered the door and said, " it is so funny that you came by today, because just earlier I was saying to my husband that we need to get back to church." It's just awesome, the little miracles that we witness every day! =) And, the R____ family cancelled for now. But, tonight we're meeting again! Slowly but surely we are getting people to realize what they're missing! 

Tracting continues to not be fruitful.. at all! That's the problem, so many people here in orange county are wealthy, and have no desire to hear the gospel. But some areas that have a lot of Hispanics are open to learn. I love poor humble people. And I can sort of practice my Portuguese on them! It's super fun! :) But, continue to pray for my VISA, and for my Portuguese. And also pray for people for missionaries to teach, here, there EVERYWHERE! It’s hard without help from the members, but, it’s hard all the time. Just depressing with no referrals from the members! Keep on praying..

love you,

Elder Kyler Blane Farr.

Oh, and I haven't necessarily met any of the elders that you mentioned. But, I asked my companions about them and they know who all of them are! And, I have seen some of them around.

I can't wait to get to Brazil! but, yesterday we talked about language study, and I'm going to teach my companion Portuguese. It should be super fun. Just because, helping someone else learn it helps me to solidify it in my mind!! :)

Service is the best thing that we can do out here, just to show that we care about them!! People in California don't know their neighbors so that makes referrals hard!! ahh..... oh well! We are doing the lords will!!

If you see J____at sams club or anything, tell him I’m still waiting for a letter too!!

And I can’t remember if I told you about H____ sending me donuts in the MTC. But they did and it was super nice of them. But, I don’t have their address either. So, tell them thanks for me please if you haven’t already, I can’t remember!!!

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oh yeah.. I LOVE YOU!! :)

Sorry..... ha ha I keep forgetting stuff. Thanks to Tawni for the letter too!

And Coopers sent me a letter, so thank them for that for me please!! But I have like

no time in a day to write back to them. But I so appreciate it.

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One more thing I swear. That family that we met with and helped with the blessing.. The husband works for BLIZZARD!!! Ask Camron what that means!!!!! :) It's super awesome. He's a historian. We might be able to get a tour of the BLIZZARD building next p-day. Super awesome.. =)

Last one I swear!!!

I love you all..

ELDER KYLER BLANE FARR!

Letter from California Anaheim Mission President

6 February 2013

Dear Brother and Sister Farr,

We recently welcomed your son Elder Kyler Blane Farr. We feel so blessed to have Elder Farr serve temporally in the California Anaheim Mission for this short time while he is waiting for his Visa.

We met together and after an orientation and interview he met his new companion and they went to work in their assigned area.

We have found that we have the best success in mail delivery if you send Elder Farr’s mail to the office address –

Elder Kyler Blane Farr
California Anaheim Mission
2500 North Bristol St.
Santa Ana, CA
92706-1409

We will forward his mail, and it will get to him sooner. For packages, our recommendation for the best service is to send them by Priority Mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

We are confident that Elder Farr will be an influence for good in the lives of those he contacts concerning the gospel and his fellow missionaries and that he will enjoy his mission experience here for as long as needed.

Elder Farr will grow and mature in countless ways while serving here. We feel blessed to be associated with each of our missionaries and hope to help them reach their highest potential as servants of the Lord.

We appreciate your faith and trust and we assure you that we will do the best we can to help your son fulfill his potential as he begins his journey as becoming a missionary. Thank you for preparing your son to represent the Lord Jesus Christ and to act in his name.

Sincerely,

B____ C. B____, President

Letter 2-11-2013

Dear Family,  

                    

P-day is Monday as you can probably tell by this letter :) But the mission field is so much better than the MTC! So, we wake up at 6:30, Get ready till 8, then personal study for an hour, then companion study for 2 hours, then I have language study for an hour! I wasn't sure if I was going to get any language study time or not, but I'm so happy that I do! It's great. And whenever I speak in English they say "what, I don't understand you." They make me talk in Portuguese first, then translate it into English. It gets kind of annoying sometimes, but it's helping me learn much better.

So, they have me in a trio, I have two companions. One (Elder C____) is from Kansas City, Missouri. And Elder H____ from Virginia. They're awesome; they're super helpful with everything. They have all of the new missionaries on a twelve week program of learning and studying, so that if needs be, we can train new missionaries after the twelve weeks. That's why companionship study is two hours instead of an hour. We don't even leave our apartment until one in the afternoon because lunch is right after language study. Our mission president thinks that's more important right now. Knocking doors isn't very effective in this area, so we only do it if we have nothing else to do, or if it's a backup plan. Which is okay. But, No one seems to respond to it, they're pretty stubborn.

But, the weather is awesome. We can definitely get away with short sleeves. But, it rained/hailed yesterday which made it cold, but still not cold enough for our coats. I love it here, it's beautiful and the weather is much better than Provo, or probably Flagstaff for that matter right now.

This area is pretty much dead. I think we have like one or two investigators that are progressing, so that means we are focusing on part member families and less actives, and finding people. But since tracting isn't very effective it makes it hard! ha ha. So, my first day we chilled at the mission home for a little but( where I wrote the letter the first time) then the assistants to the President came and we ate lunch. He interviewed everyone just to get to know us a little bit better, then our companions showed up. After that, I was half way expecting to go home and unpack and settle in a little bit. But no, as soon as we left the mission home, we went to a lesson! I was so nervous, I had no idea what to expect! But the husband of the family only speaks Spanish, and the kids only speak English, So we turned the husband to the Spanish speaking sister missionaries, and we'll keep teaching the kids and the Mom. And, they had me pray in Portuguese, which was awesome

We went to a home last night of a part member family. There's the mom, 2 older sons and, 2 high school aged daughters. One of the sons is on a mission in the Philippines right now. Elder H____ has taught the mom once before ( with his previous companion). But when we went this last time, she had her daughters join us! It was super cool. We taught them the Restoration of the Gospel, and introduced the Book of Mormon. They committed to read, and the daughters are super interested in out youth program. I'm hoping they'll go to the mutual activity, and get a sense of what the church has to offer. They claim to be Catholic, but not very strong in their religion. We shall see. They invited us back for next week. I hope they live up to their commitment! We can preach about these things all day long, but until they act on their mustard seed of faith, and pray about it, they can never know for themselves!

I love this work! I love helping others, and showing them the light. We witness so many miracles every day! All we need to do is ask for help, and there it is! All we need is faith sufficient. That's it, sincere heart, real intent, and faith. It’s easy!

and tell J____ and M____ to write me! What the heck! ha ha. That's so cool he's got his papers in! I can’t wait to hear where he's going. I'm so excited for him.

Thanks for sending the picture of K____! He looks good! I’m sure he’s doing good. I haven't heard from him, so hopefully he's busy. And what about N____!? I don't have his e-mail.

It was so good to talk to you at the airport too! Elder G____was making fun of me for the rest of the day for crying.. But I don't care! I feel bad that I didn't have time to call everyone else! Make sure they know that I love and care about them too!! And I would love to hear from them!! I might not have as much time to write back as I did in the MTC, but I'll do my best!

And, my challenge for the week.. pray for the name of a person to give to the missionaries. Being out here first hand I know how hard it is to work without help from the members! Continue to pray for us too! We need all the help we can get!

And pray for my visa too please!! I feel like this is just the stop on the way to where I'm going. I will work hard as long as I'm here, but I feel like I just need to get to Brazil, where I am called. I'm ready to find out what I am here to do! Whether it be to find someone specific, or to strengthen my own testimony. I'm ready to find out! I love you all!! I'm happy. I love it here. I love the work.

Love, Elder Kyler Blane Farr =)

Email 2-4-2013

from Shannon - this is an "old" message that was sent the day before leaving the MTC but wanted to share it with you! I have been putting all his letters (those he writes and those written to him) in plastic pages in a notebook so they are safe and waiting for him!! We ended up getting to talk for 30 minutes - it felt like 3 seconds!! But it was wonderful and will carry us over to May! I'm behind on email - if you haven't noticed!

---

From: "Kyler Farr"
Sent: Monday, February 4, 2013 8:48:45 AM

I took some pictures of some of the things I do the most of here! I got some with the missionaries that left already, and I'll get some more with the others that I have gotten to know here! We're doing laundry and packing up right now! I found some extra time. I'm going to mail the package today, and a few little things. My Portuguese-English dictionary disappeared, so I'll grab another one of those. I'm so happy to get out of here and experience new things!! I can't wait to talk to you on the phone tomorrow. We have to be by our gate by 8:00 so I think I'll end up calling around like 6-7 ish. And talk for as much time as I have! I'm so excited!!! :) And I cant wait to get to Disneyland! =)

Elder Kyler Blane Farr

p.s. will you keep the letters I send home? I saw an instructor here that had like 30 months worth of letters in a book and I thought that was awesome!! I'd like to do something like that!!

Até mais! (until more)

Letter 2-5-2013

I'M HERE! :)

The plane ride was so fun!! I had imagined the plane to be bigger though. It was pretty small. I think the flight attendant said it held 76 people, which is way smaller than I had ever imagined.

I was sitting next to Elder B____, and we were in the very very back row, and the flight attendant had a little seat in the isle right next to us. She kept asking little questions about missionaries and what not, about what we're doing and what we're going to be doing. It was super cool. Elder B____ was like... I'm gonna give her a book of Mormon. So, he looked up a few scriptures and marked them. And some of the young women in his ward wrote their testimonies on some pieces of paper and sent them to him, so he put a few of those in the book. Just to get some other points of view :).. Then when we were about to land he asked her if she would accept this book of Mormon. She said, "Oh no thanks I’ve already got one." He said, "I just feel like I need to give this one to you, I’ve included some testimonies and a few scriptures I think you should read." she said : you know what.. I have been asked to accept this book from so many people and never taken one, but you are so sincere and I can tell that this is close to your heart, so I guess I’ll take it."

But Elder B____ wouldn’t leave without having a full commitment. He said to her. " For this to be right, I need you to PROMISE me that you will read these scriptures before the weekend.." She agreed :) :) It was so awesome to be a part of that. I included some words of my own testimony; he looked at me a few times because he didn't know what to say. It was so cool! Just to experience it :) And we didn't find out until after that the lady sitting in the row next to us was a member too! She bore a little bit of her testimony, which was awesome! I didn't even realize, she didn't look or act like a member.. I just think, what could really come from Elder B____ testimony to this woman. We may never know, but I hope she really reads those scriptures and comes to know for herself the truth! :)

I'm in the mission home right now! Everyone is awesome.. They cooked us a meal, which was super good! We get to meet our companions at 4. I'll be in a trio, meaning I’ll have 2 companions. I don’t want to take too much time, But I'm happy, I'm safe, I'm having fun and I love each and every one of you!! Glad I could talk to you too! Elder G___ is still making fun of me for crying.. I hope you know that's the only time I’ve cried since being there. That's how much it meant to me to be able to talk to you!! :)

I love you!

Elder Kyler Blane Farr!!

Elder Farr's new mailing address

From Shannon:

Hello all -- Elder Kyler made it to the California Anaheim mission home yesterday in good spirits! We had a lovely half hour on the phone before he flew out. He sent an "I'm here" email, which I will send out later (gotta get to work right now) so this is just to let you know he's there, he's happy and excited to get going!

Here's the Mission home address.

Elder Kyler Blane Farr
2500 N. Bristol St.
Santa Ana, CA
92706

Keep writing him!! He loves getting your letters!!! And thank you from the Mom!

Email 2-1-13 Visa Status

So... Elder Kyler's off tomorrow to the next part of his best 2 years!!

February 01, 2013

Missionary Department

Dear Elder Farr:

Visa Status

By now you are aware that your visa to Brazil has not yet been approved. While this is undoubtedly a disappointment, please know that we are doing everything possible to secure your visa. We will notify you immediately when it is received. We ask that you and your family members not do anything, such as call or e-mail the consulate, to try to secure your visa more quickly. Such actions may actually slow down the visa process already in place.

While you are waiting, your mission experience in the United States will prove to be a great blessing in your preparation to serve in Brazil. We encourage you to work hard, remain focused, and be involved in all aspects of missionary work. As you serve the people in the California Anaheim Mission, your testimony and ability to teach will increase, you will set the pattern of study and hard work for the rest of your mission, and you will come to love the people.

May the Lord continue to bless you and your family as you dedicate yourself to preaching the gospel to those who are seeking and ready to accept your invitation to come unto Christ.

Sincerely,

E____ G____

Assistant Executive Director

Email 2-1-2013

Querido Família, (Dear Family)

 

It was soo good to talk to you too!! =) I just wish we had more time! But we'll get to talk more in the airport.. For more time! =)

 

But yeah, I have all of the letters that I've received in a box in my room, but I'm not really sure what to do with it! I guess I'll just send it home? We can do it here at the mail room. I'm not sure how much it'll cost, but I want to keep them forever! So it'll be worth it. :)

 

I took a video at the Temple of the view and stuff. What I was thinking was to wait until I get to Anaheim then take a few pics there, then send home the SD card that's in it. So then you'll have all of the MTC pictures and some from CA. I'm going to take pictures of everything in the residence, classroom.. and a few other things :) :) just like you wanted... you'll see!

 

We have this huge Teddie bear that has been passed down from missionary to missionary, and we decided to put it to good use! We cut the back out of it and took out all of the stuffing, then put Elder Wadsworth in it! It was so funny. I have some pictures and video of our experiences! It was today (p-day) and during personal time. So don't think we were wasting time that was scheduled for something else! Haha.. There are definitely better things to do with your time here though! But three elders and a sister leave tomorrow afternoon, so we decided we better do something fun on our last p-day together!

 

We did sealings at the Temple today. It was amazing. I'm so glad we did, because there was a couple there with us, that had family names that we got to seal all together. That's one of the most amazing experiences I have had at the Temple.

 

We're still teaching and learning up until the day we leave. Our investigators that we've been teaching are real people that our teachers are pretending to be. (people that they taught on their missions) and probably today, we get to learn the real conversion story of these people. I'm so excited. It makes the teaching feel more real, because our teachers are answering questions, and following (or not following) commitments just like the investigator would or wouldn't do, in real life!

 

I'm super nervous/scared to leave here!! This whole thing still hasn't felt real, since we've been here! But last night it finally felt real! I feel super sheltered now too! We are actually going to leave the MTC, and go talk to real people in the real world about this wonderful Gospel. But, now I need to learn more of how to teach in English! I just feel like we are expected to know more when we teach in English. Because if you say something wrong, or mess up, or take a long time explaining things in Portuguese, people will understand because we don't know the language! But in English, we already know the language. I just feel like we are expected to know more, and be able to go into great detail about every single thing. Which means.. I have lots more learning to do! I thought nine weeks is so much time, I'll be able to learn everything there is to it. It just makes me realize that the MTC is only the start of it all! That we need to keep on keepin on. Learning, reading, memorizing, and teaching. I'm glad I found out all of this now! I can do all that I can to make sure I can do my very best possible, to present this Gospel to people in a way that is understandable, and give the people of California, then Brazil, the opportunity to know for themselves of its truth. I love it here. I'm so grateful for the experiences that I've had here, and for the people I've met so far! And I can't wait to have more experiences and meet more wonderful people!!

 

And, I go to the travel office here, at 5 Am. Go to the airport, then the flight leaves at 8:30. So I should have quite a bit of time to talk there. If you could, make sure that you are home, and able to talk between those times. like 6-8am. On Tuesday!! Feel free to e-mail me about it today, or in the next day or two, because I can check it fast to make sure I have all the information to you that you need to make sure everything goes well!! Or to answer any questions. :) Estou Feliz! (I'm Happy!)

 

Eu Amo Vocés!! (I Love You!!)

Elder Kyler Blane Farr!!

 

PS From Shannon - I will send out his new CA address as soon as I get it