First off I truly hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas Holliday and had the chance to reflect your life upon Christ. The whole reason why we celebrate Christmas is to remember the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. Here in New York a lot of people don’t think about Christ or a lot about giving. I feel a lot of negative feelings flowing within people and thinking about how much they can receive compared to how much they can give to others. This was my first Christmas Holliday away from my family and I was filled with love for others and I was constantly looking for ways to serve others and I know that as I did that I was blessed with the Christ-like attribute of charity, which I know that I am still working on developing that charity. I know that as I did that I helped others understand the meaning of Christmas.
This Christmas I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to my family and a few of my loved ones back at home. I know that God truly does answer prayers. There have been a lot of things that I have sincerely been praying for in behalf of my family and loved ones. After talking to them I came to understand the love that God truly has for me and for each of us if we will pray to him with real intent and having desire to follow the path that Christ has set for each of us. I am so thankful to hear of the wonderful changes that some of my family members have made in there life since I have been away. I pray that they can continue to move forward with that same desire to grow closer to our Father in Heaven so that they can be eligible to receive those blessings that God has in store for each of them. I know that if they do that, then God will bless there lives with what they need in his own do time if they are continuing to move forward with faith and putting their trust in him. This week was a little hard for missionary work, considering that everyone was stressed out about Christmas. But we still did the best that we could to carry the gospel message into others homes and lives.
This week I was on exchanges with my District leader, for those who don’t know what exchanges are they are when you get put with a different companion for 24 hours. On this exchange my district leader came with me in our area that we have been teaching. There is an investigator that we have been working with for awhile now. His name is John Rivera he has come to church for the prior 4 weeks in a row. So on this exchange I felt strongly that we should call John and hopefully be able to commit him to baptism. So when we were about to call him, we received a phone call and sure enough it was him. I then asked him if we could meet him at the church and talk for a bit. So we went and we met with him and we ended up committing him to baptism for Jan. 17th. He was so excited to have a baptismal date. Also on this Sunday we confirmed Autumn as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and she received the gift of the Holy Ghost. I am so thankful for the success that I have had thus far on my mission, I constantly give thanks to God for that, because I know that it is not through me that these people are making these big steps in their life to come unto Christ and be baptized in his name. I know that it is through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost that they are making those changes, and the Holy Ghost truly does fill them with much comfort as they are learning of the restored gospel.
Ok so anyways I have never had Meat loaf in my whole life… To make a long story short my Dad seemed to eat meat loaf a lot during his life growing up. So this week we went over to a members house for dinner and they gave us some meat loaf. When I mentioned that I have never had meat loaf they looked at me as if I was crazy. It was actually pretty good. “Dad, you need to start enjoying meat loaf again because I thought it was actually fantastic.” Ha ha ha..
Well I don’t have that much to say today and that is the update that I want to leave with you all. I also want to leave one more thing with each of you that is to remind each of you to build and find desire from within you to follow Christ and to be willing to make those proper necessary changes in your lives to grow closer to him. I know that as you do that then each of you will find that eternal happiness that everyone desires to have. I also know that as you make those changes your lives will be blessed with the things that you desire to attain here in this mortal life. I love each of you so much and I am always praying for all of my friends and family back at home. I hope you all have a good week and can always look for ways to serve others and to not yield to your selfish desires, but to look for ways to serve.

Elder Doyle

Merry Christmas and a Happy Holliday season to all of my friends and family. I Love each of you so much, this past week I have been thinking a lot about all of my good friends and family over this Christmas season. I miss all of the great traditions as a family and also with my friends. This week was such a good week especially since our investigator Autumn Phillips was baptized yesterday! I am so happy for her and for her choice in being baptized she has such a big heart and a strong firm testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She enjoys all of the principals found in the gospel. She was always so excited each time we met with her, she was truly a daughter of God who has been prepared through the hands of God to receive witness through the power of the Holy Ghost. It has also been such a huge blessing in my life to see someone change so much as they apply the teachings in the gospel to her life.
This week there was this kind lady in the Spanish ward that hand made a scarf for me. I wore it in the picture that I sent to some of you for the holidays. She is such a nice lady that cares a lot about Gods work and the missionaries doing all they can to fulfill our purpose here in NYC. This week end was the first big snow storm on my mission with 18 inches, which happens to be my first experience of snow outside of Utah. The snow is a bit different because of the humidity here. It worked out perfect, because on Saturday when it first began to snow we got all of the missionaries in our zone to sing Christmas Carols on a busy street with a lot of people shopping. Of course I wasn’t one of the missionaries singing because I don’t have quite the singing voice, but I love to talk to people. So I talked to people as they walked by and reminded them of what Christmas is all about. I loved reminding others of Christ and what he has done for each of us. That day I talked to a lot of people and most of them were very nice. Also I was able to find a few new investigators out of that whole experience. There is a sister missionary in my district her name is sister Unga. She is from Hawaii and happens to be cousins with Harvey Unga the running back for BYU. Anyways she is from Hawaii and this weekend was her first time seeing snow in her life. It was cool to be there when she got to see snow for the first time in her life. On Wednesday we are all getting a Christmas present from President Nelson, we are all getting the Swine Flu shot. I am so happy for that one! Ha ha ha. This week was also the Ward Christmas party. It was fun we got Margaret, one of my recent converts to come to the party and attend church this weekend. It was so good to see her at church finally. I love her so much she is such an awesome person that has had a lot of rough experiences in her life. I am continually striving to become the type of missionary that God wants me to be. I am still learning and growing so much and developing skills as a person that are going to help me throughout the rest of my life. I know that I am changing only when I am working hard and doing all that I can to help bless the lives of others.
Family: keep your phones with you all Day on Christmas I am not sure exactly what time I am going to be calling so be ready for Christmas I cant wait to talk to each of you. I love you so so so much and miss you during this Holliday season. I don’t have much to say this week, I kinda feel like I say the same stuff every week. Well I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love Elder Doyle

Hey everyone! I am not sure how many of you actually read this every week, but I am guessing that not many of you do. Ha ha ha, But that doesn’t mean that I am going to stop doing my weekly updates. I am seriously loving NYC! I have such a great love for the people here, and I know that God has such a great love for his choice children here in New York City as well. I am currently doing all that I can to bless the lives of many people to bring the spirit of Christ in there homes over this Christmas season. This past week there has been a few changes I now have a new companion, his name is Elder Werner from Bountiful, Utah. He has been out for almost 18 months. So he is going to be going home soon. He lived with me the previous 2 transfers before this one. So I have been with him the whole time, but now we are companions. He is such a cool kid I am learning so much from him. The crazy thing about this is that we have the whole house to ourselves which is very rare in the New York New York South Mission. We also have one of the biggest pads in the mission, it has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I love it! We do get lonely at times having only us two, but it is good in many ways. It keeps us focused on our work as a companionship. So yeah, now him and I have the whole ward area to cover, so now my area has doubled in size. I haven’t had a baptism for awhile, but now we finally got another one coming up on this Sunday the 20th, her name is Autumn. She moved here from Cincinnati, Ohio. I am so happy for her and I love her very much. Her life is truly about to change forever and she is so happy and excited to take this big step in life and to make these sacred covenants with our Father in Heaven. Ok so this week I received the coolest gift in the world from my Dad and family. Ha ha it was so funny when I opened the box. We actually got it on video. I was so surprised to open the box and find 2 live lobsters crawling around in a box, It was hilarious. Elder Werner and I had no idea what to do with these lobsters. So we read up on the instructions and found out that we had to boil them alive it was kinda sad, but at the same time it was such an awesome experience ha ah ha ha. It was so funny! Right now we have a lot of investigators, but only 3 of them are really solid and progressing towards baptism. We have Autumn who is getting baptized on Sunday. Then We have John, When we found John he was the most depressed guy that I have ever met in my life and he was so negative about everything. He has now come to church the past 4 weeks in a row. He has totally changed as a person and he seems to be so much happier than he was when we met him. We are going to maybe commit him to be baptized on a certain date this week. So pray for John for us so that he can be able to enter into the waters of baptism. He is such a great guy. Then we have Connie I remember telling you a little bit about her last week. She was a Jehovah’s witness for 25 years and now she left that church. She is totally eating up the Book of Mormon and loving every bit of it. There is only one problem, she is going to be going to Brazil for 3 months starting in January. So we are going to do all that we can to get her in touch with the missionaries in Brazil. I don’t know if you all remember Margaret? She was my first baptism back in October. Well she hasn’t been coming to church for awhile and I am very worried about her. She didn’t seem like that she was going to do this, she seemed so committed and ready to always come to church. I have been praying for her like crazy and I know that she is going to come back to the church in the next little bit. I have a lot of hope for Margaret she is a strong person and has been through a lot in her life.Well I don’t have much time left so I have to get going. I love all of you and I miss good ol’ Utah so much!
Love Elder Doyle

Hello to all of my wonderful family and friends. I love each and everyone of you. I am so lucky to have P-day on my B-day ha ha ha. I am not going to write any letters today because we are going to go do something for my b-day and I really just want to relax. I enjoy all of your prayers for me. I can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost really blessing my life, and filling my words with such great power as I speak of the gospel to others. I want to share with you about this past week. First off we have been working on a list that was truly inspired so that we can strengthen the saints here in NY and also to find people as we are teaching. We went and we knocked on a ladies door in our ward, (which was the last door of the night and we had no idea who she was) it was almost 9:00. So we knocked her door, she was so very willing to let us in. She began to cry and the spirit filled the room with such great comforting power. She told us that today she went to a funeral and her x-boyfriend had just recently committed suicide. I was so sad to hear that, but I knew that we were supposed to knock on that door for a very important reason, that reason is…. She has been prepared through the loving hands of God to again receive the restored gospel and the blessings that come from applying the teachings to her life. She told us that she was ready to come back to church and that she was going to remain strong for the rest of her life. I was so happy for her, I was filled with an instant love and care for this her.
The past few weeks my companion and I hit a dry spot, which was a little bit discouraging and a test of faith. On Saturday I had enough and I prayed for inspiration so that I can find people to teach that would be willing to accept us to come and teach them. So on Saturday we went tracting and we found 2 new investigators on the first floor we knocked in that building. These two new investigators are what missionaries like to call “Golden Investigators,” Which means that they are just so willing and open to feast upon the words of Christ. I was so thankful for that day on Saturday and the success that we had. I was sure to thank our Father in Heaven for that blessing as a missionary.
Yesterday I received a great birthday gift from one of the ward members, we got to go over to her house and she taught us how to make sushi. It was amazing and home made sushi is bomb. So yeah I know how to make my own sushi now.
Unfortunately last night we heard about transfers and I am staying in this area for probably another 2 transfers, which means that I am going to be in this area for 6 months. I am going to find out who my new companion is on Tuesday. So right now my companion is packing up all of his stuff and moving out tomorrow to his new area. I love this area though and right now we have 1 baptism coming up on the 20th of Dec. I feel it to be such a blessing when I have an opportunity to help others receive the restored gospel and for them to make the decision to be baptized.
That is all that I really have to say about this week. I am so thankful to have such a sure knowledge of the gospel to be true. I know that through the power of the Holy Ghost and through the power of prayer I have come to know that. I love each of you and I am thankful to have each of you as a part of my life. I love this gospel and I have such a great love for the Book of Mormon, by how much closer I feel the love of God as I read that book. I also testify that there is no other book on the face of the earth that man can draw closer to God, but by that book, which restores the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Until next week I will miss you all!
Love Elder Doyle