Mission Email

Dear Parents,

 

It was a joyous week to welcome your missionary to the Kansas Wichita Mission. We are now 244 strong! I wish you could feel the power that is in the room when we gather together with these dedicated and consecrated missionaries.

 

We are thrilled to have them join us. We are grateful that they are eager to be a part of the work of the Lord and are willing to serve wherever He sends them. We have put them right to work.

 

Currently our missionaries are not able to door or street contact. They work a lot with the members. The majority of their teaching is done using technology.

 

Please remind your missionary to obey our mission guidelines with exactness:

1) They are not to shake hands or have physical contact with anyone.

2) They are to wear their masks in public. This is Kansas mandate. This includes church services and all missionary meetings.

3) They must maintain social distancing.

4) They are not to go into homes, nor into the apartments of other missionaries.

 

In some of the zones the missionaries are allowed right now to teach person to person lessons, but they must do it outside, wear their masks, and maintain 6 ft. distance.

 

Thank you for helping us help them to realize the importance of these guidelines.

 

The missionaries are doing a lot of outside service at homes and in the community. Please remind your missionary to be aware of poison ivy. Also remind them to spray themselves with Deet especially if they are going to be working in the brush. We’ve had some issues with ticks.

 

The weather is hot and humid. We are encouraging them to hydrate before, during, and after they are outside exercising and doing service. We know it is hard for them to spend time in their apartments, so we ask them to get outside as much as they can several times a day. They are not on quarantine, but the majority of our teaching takes places in their apartments.

 

All of our teaching is done using technology. We are seeing the blessings of teaching this way. Missionaries are able to teach more lessons since they aren’t spending their time driving to people’s homes. The other blessing of teaching this way is that right now they are allowed to teach family and friends from home. We have several missionaries who are teaching their inactive siblings, non-member grandparents, cousins, and one Sister is teaching her mother. These are amazing times in the work. We invite you to experience missionary work with them!

 

We hope you will visit and engage in our mission Facebook pages. Our missionaries are making incredible videos and sharing insightful posts. They continue to make Facebook a part of their weekly missionary work. Share our pages and specific posts with your non-member family and friends. This is another great way for your family to do missionary work!

 

Visit our pages:

Church of Jesus Christ in Lawrence Kansas

Church of Jesus Christ in Wichita Kansas

Church of Jesus Christ in Topeka Kansas

Church of Jesus Christ in Derby Kansas

Church of Jesus Christ in Garden City Kansas

Church of Jesus Christ in Manhattan Kansas

 

The best way for your missionary to receive your mailed letters and sent packages is for you to send them directly to their apartment. Make sure that you stay in touch with them to find out if they are being transferred before you send a package.

 

A reminder that they can communicate with you on Monday and currently for 30 minutes on Friday. They are not to text or email you on other days unless given permission from President Ernst. If you have an opportunity for your missionary to teach your family the lessons, please keep these calls purpose focused and save your personal conversations for the other calls. Thank you!

 

We hold a weekly mission zoom call devotional. If you personally know someone who might be a great teacher and speaker for our missionaries to learn from please feel free to contact me and I would be delighted to reach out to them.

 

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

 

We love your missionary. They are a blessing to the Kansas Wichita Mission!

Thank you for your support and prayers.

 

Sister Ernst

316-308-7245

Week 7 Colly Creek, Kansas

Oi! This week was really great! I was sent to Kansas on Wednesday! I was pretty busy early in the week. I got all packed and flew from Baton Rouge to Dallas to Wichita! And about two hours after landing I was on my way to Colly Creek. It is basically the south half of Topeka and a lot of the surrounding country side. It is a great area and I am so excited to be serving here. My companions name is Elder Walden. He has been about like 14 or 15 months. He is from a small town near Spokane, which is cool. He has a lot of experience too. There are 4 other missionaries in our area. 2 sisters and 2 elders. The two elders are living with us. There is elder Cherrington, from San Antonio, and Elder Lloyd, from SLC. They are awesome and we all get along pretty good with each other. 

So with all of the missionaries working this one area, we have been surprisingly busy. Lots of teaching and contacting and serving. One of the non-members we have been teaching is named Jeff. Jeff is really awesome. He has had a rough past, but we are super excited to be helping him. We are also teaching "Yo Boy Brandon!" he is really cool, and is excited to work with us. By the way he refers to himself as "Ya boy" and only Ya Boy. So thats awesome. He also told us about how he was hitting dingers in his softball game. He is pretty cool, and I am excited to teach him. We are also teaching a woman named Connie. She has been taught by the missionaries for 2 and half years. So we are going to get to know her well and then try to push baptism with her. A lot of members thought that she was a member, so thats good. 

We went on a fun hike with our district and it was so beautiful. Kansas is different than I expected. i expected a lot of corn fields and flat land. But there are a lot of trees and hills and only a few corn fields. But I am in one of the biggest cities in Kansas. 

Elder Lloyd and Cherrington are spanish speaking and I listened in on one of their lessons on the phone and I understood almost the whole thing! It was awesome. I may not have been able to speak everything they were saying, but I understand it all, which was really cool to see. and hear. 

One of the service projects we did was painting a ladies front porch. It was pretty cool and fun to climb up her old, wobbly ladder. It looks really good and she was happy to see her porch looking so good.

Also, Covid is very serious here.  The ward I am in has had 4 deaths from Covid and one of them was one of the youth.  So send your prayers here and everywhere else.  It is much needed.  Thank you.

One of my favorite scriptures I read this week was from the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 13:8. It says "Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him." I really like this scripture because it shows Gods care and love for us. Heavenly Father really cares about us. He loves us and he knows what we need. He wants to take care of us. Sometimes life gets really hard and we wonder why God gives us these hard times, but he knows what things we need. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and so we should trust him to take care of us. 

Now it is time for the pictures! 

I will try to get the right order of pictures. 

1) the other missionaries on my flight to Wichita! We were the last of about 4 groups to arrive that week. The mission president and wife are on the front row. 

2) the service project I mentioned. I am on the ladder and some of my companions face is there. 

3) our socially distant dinner with our bishop. It was great Dominican food. 

4) our district walk. A cool lake, and garden. I am in the back, the guy out of line.

Hope all is going well for y'all.

Elder Sant 

Acreditar. Amar. Fazer.

Arrived Safely

Dear Parents

 

Your missionary have arrived safely in the Kansas Wichita Mission.

 

Sister Lincoln

Kansas Wichita Mission Office

Mission Secretary

316-260-1343

Week 6 CTM

Oi! This was the last week of the CTM! Yay! Now on to Kansas! And then Brazil! It's all happening so fast! 

This whole week we had grammar beat into our heads, and now we are pretty much just mush. Until the last day. So we wanted to invite President Terry, our MTC president to our last class, but we couldn't find him on facebook. And then, our techwizard, the man himself, Elder de Hoyos, found his email online. So Elder Schenk sent him an email and he replied! He said he would go to our last class! We didn't tell our teacher though and that morning our teacher was pretty surprised, but he handled it like a boss. 

So President Terry visited our class and gave us a one hour devotional! Just for our district. It was so awesome! He gave us so many good tips and tricks. I am so grateful that he was able to join us. 

Friday morning, before class, we had our last TRC with Isabella. We made a bomb prezi on the Plan of Salvation. It was great! She even committed to Baptism!(Even though she is already a member, and just pretending to not know anything.) We also took a fluency test! I got a 3.3/10. Yeah, it's not great, but the hispanic elder in our district got a 6, and, in my opinion, he speaks almost perfect portuguese hahaha  Also one of our teachers said that the highest score he has ever seen, even in native speakers, is an 8/10. So I'm pretty happy with my 3.3. Also it said that I am an Intermediate-Low speaker. 

Then we had our emotional goodbyes with our teachers, and our first teachers, who got sick, came back to our last class to say goodbye! It was great and really nice. 

I am happy to be done with the CTM, but I am also really sad, because I will be leaving the best district there is! I will really miss them and I hope that I will get to meet them in person! I should get to meet sister Snow when we go to Belém! And maybe I'll see the others on the plane. 

I have probably shared this scripture, but one of my favorite scriptures is Ether 12:27. I love the promise of our weaknesses becoming our strengths. If we humbly turn to God we will become better than we can even imagine. God cares about us and He will help us to become better. I have seen it in my own life, especially with this online MTC. A more obvious example for me is learning portuguese. In 6 weeks I have gone from not speaking portuguese at all, to being able to have some conversations. And teaching people. I have gone from struggling with a 20 minute lesson because I could not speak portuguese that long to struggling with a 20 minute lesson because I can't fit all I have to share in that lesson. I share this to show that God will help us to change and to become better. 

And now it is time for Pictures! Yay!

At the beginning of our classes we learn something else in another language. This time it was a prayer in french. Our teacher knows 5 languages, including french, so he has been doing a great job teaching us.

Our last class! Irmã Rivera and Irmão Rodrigo came back to visit our class! They both recovered! 

President Terry's special visit to our class! As I said, It was good.

Us joking with Irmão Zanforlin. He got a haircut and was hiding it from us for a big reveal. But he also looked like a pharaoh.

 Last class with Irmão Silva. He was a great teacher, and I will miss him.

 I don't know if you can see, but Irmão Z changed everyones zoom name to a character in the office. It was pretty great.

 A presentation from the sisters, I think, and I really liked this slide. It says "Because of Him" And I want you all to think about what you have because of Him, because of Christ. These were just some of the things on our list.

Family History! One of my companions found Jesus on his tree! But there were some errors on his tree, so who knows. But cool to see.

 More family History! I found Adam and Eve on my tree! and Enoch, Abraham, Noah, and Jacob(Israel) on my tree! Also some errors. It's kinda hard to go back to 4000+ years with any surety, but it's cool to think about.

A cool picture of Jesus Walking on water. 

Another cool picture of Jesus.

Some food brought over by some close family friends! Thank you! (Yes, my brother was shirtless so I covered his bare chest with batman's chest, cause Batman is a close second to my brother, and superman, hahaha)

Yay! More food! Vatapá! Authentic Brazalian food! And an authentic Brazil dessert, but I don't remember its name. It was like a fruity yogurt or ice cream. It was good! Both of these came from one of my young men's leaders who grew up in Belém, Brazil. 

Sorry for all of the pictures, but it was a pretty good week. 

This is all for now. Next email will be from Kansas! 

With all the love I have, 

Elder Sant 

Acreditar. Amar. Fazer.

Week 5 CTM

Oi! What a great week it has been! 

It certainly felt like a long one, but me and my whole district have learned so much. We are really progressing really fast in portuguese and it has been great to see how God has blessed us. We are getting pretty good at teaching the lessons and talking to people. 

I got my flight itinerary this week too! I leave the 22 of July for Kansas. I am very excited to get to serve the people of Kansas. Besides that it was a pretty regular week. We had some fun classes. We had some very hard classes, but they are also fun. Sometimes. 

One of the scriptures I have really enjoyed this week is Alma 7:12. It provides an answer to a question that I often think about: How can Christ be so merciful and loving to everyone around, even those people who want to kill him and how can we develop that same love? The scripture says “And he will take upon him adeath, that he may bloose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to csuccor his people according to their infirmities.” I love this scripture because it shows the love that Christ has for us and how He got it. It says that He took upon Himself their infirmities so He can be filled with mercy. To be filled with mercy, to be filled with that Love of all men, He decided to serve others. He gave his all to them and he grew to love, understand, and appreciate them. I know that as we serve our fellow man we will be filled with the same love that Christ has for all people.

And now it is time for pictures!

Our fun game of Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe. It was great. (I was stars!)

Also our fun game of pictionary. The word was caranguejo (crab)

This one was also our pictionary game. It was great until elder stocking ran out of space for the head it was supposed to be a canguru (kangaroo) 

Our fun game of "pictionary" in comp language study the word was pure de Batata (Mashed potato

This is our class practicing giving the first lesson in Portuguese in 30 seconds. But our teacher showed off by doing the first lesson in Portuguese, Spanish and English, in under 30 seconds each. But this was the result.

Well this is it for this week. One week left in the CTM! I love you all! 

Sincerely, 

Elder Sant 

Acreditar. Amar. Fazer.

Week 4 CTM

  Oi! Tudo Bem

This week was really exciting! 

On Wednesday, my district got our reassignments! I was reassigned to the Kansas, Wichita mission! I think that is really cool and exciting. My mission takes up most of Kansas and some of Colorado and Oklahoma. I will be reporting around the 21 of July! I am also excited because my cousin, Nate Hathaway, is serving there right now, and one of my friends, Austin Bascom, was reassigned to the same mission and is reporting the same day as me! It is so exciting to get out and start serving the people of Kansas and eventually Brazil. 

This is where the other people in my district were reassigned: Elder Stocking: Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Elder de Hoyos: Oakland/San Francisco California. Sister Burns: Oakland/San Francisco California.   Sister Snow: Tacoma, Washington.    Elder Schenk: Charleston, West Virginia.  Elder Montoya: Independence, Missouri. Sister Mendenhall: Fort Collins, Colorado.  Sister Jacobson: Los Angeles California. I was very surprised that no one in our district got reassigned to Utah or Idaho, considering most of us don't live in those states. 

Thursday was also my birthday! I am now 19 years old! And of course my amazing district helped me celebrate it by doing challenges, and I had to complete on to move on to the next. One of the elders had me do 100 pushups in 30 minutes. Then one of the sisters had me record my nieces and nephews singing happy birthday to me. Then one of the sisters asked which mission in Brazil is the best, which is obviously Belém, Brazil, haha, but seriously. She was called to that mission too, so no bias at all. Then one of the elders gave me a riddle, which consisted of a bunch of numbers. through some hints I was able to translate the message, which said who was going next. The next elder gave me a clever riddle about a prophet from the bible, and it would hint at who was next. The prophet was Jacob/Israel and so sister Jacobson went next. She had me guess how many fingers she was holding up, 3 separate times. Then her companion had me guess her first name, and I got it right. Finally, the last elder went, and he gave me a riddle from the Hobbit. The one with the answer of time. It was great. Then they all showed me a Powerpoint that they had made for me and it was super sweet and sincere. It honestly left me speechless. I will share the last slide, which was great. And then that night one of my companions, Elder Stocking, let me talk with his uncle, a retired professional powerlifter. It was really cool and a lot of fun to talk with and meet him. And then to take it one step further they ordered me a Pizza! It was amazing what they did for me. I really have the best district. They are awesome and I love them all so much. 

My family also gave me a great Covid-19th Birthday party! My sister made a wonderful cake, and I got beef stroganoff, one of my favorite meals! It was also really great to spend some extra time with them. 

So yeah, it was a really exciting week. Our whole district is improving so much with Portuguese. It is a huge miracle that we can learn so much in so little time. We are especially good at teaching the gospel. That is our specialty really. 

And of course my amazing companheiros went above and beyond all week. They are awesome, and I am so happy to have them as my companion.   

One of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon that I read this week is 2 Nephi 22. It is such a good chapter. It is short, but really awesome. It is one of Nephi’s many testimonies from the book of mormon. I love how he is just praising God the whole chapter. I sometimes feel this same way. God has done so much for me and I know that he will continue to do so. I know that he cares about each one of us and what we are going through. He cares and, if we turn to him and ask for help, he will help. He wants to, he is just waiting for us to ask for the help. I know that with him we can do things beyond our limits. 

Sorry for the long email! I hope that it was a good one though! 

Now it is time for pictures.

This was a really beautiful painting that we studied last week in class and I just forgot to send it, so I am now.

This was the last slide of the powerpoint they made for me! Irmao Rodrigo, our teacher with covid is in the top right corner. And yes, that is my companion on my right, O Bronco Rocha!

The middle mission is my mission! So excited to serve the Lord there!

This was my really tasty, and awesome Birthday cake! Thank you Sari! 

And then the attached file is our class playing charades to learn the animals. It was fun acting out animals. I know it is a long video, but my favorite parts were right around 13 minutes (he was trying to act out a squirrel, so he was playing the squirrel in Ice Age), and 26 minutes. They were so funny and great. 

I love you all so much! 

Sincerely, 

Elder Sant 

Acreditar. Amar. Fazer.