WEEK #66 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

WEEK #66
10.31.16

On Monday, we drove all the way down to Alamosa again to spend our Pday there. We left early in the morning and got there at like 10 and did our emailing. We left for the sand dunes again and took a couple vans full of missionaries with us. We took a pretty epic picture of the vans haha. The dunes were so much better than last time! It felt a lot better being in a 5mph wind versus the 50mph wind from last time. We had a great time with everyone and made great memories.

After we got back, we went to dinner with the zone leaders and then worked in their area for the night.

On Tuesday, we had our first Zone Conference with the San Luis Valley Zone. It was a great conference and it is always interesting to listen to what President and Sister Rehm speak on and see how much it relates to what we had prepared. We gave a good lesson about coming to understand our mission. We took the Plan of Salvation questions (Where did I come from? Why am I here? & Where am I going?) and applied them to the mini-life that a mission is! On a mission, coming to understand and know these questions is vital. Where did you come from before your mission? Why are you here on your mission and how do you know that? and Where will this knowledge take you and who will it help you become? It was a great conference and there were a lot of great comments. I also got to see Elder Tallman again and that is always a treat:) We had dinner in Monte Vista with Sister Anderson and Sister Topham and then drove up to Pueblo that night.
On Wednesday, we had Zone conference in Pueblo. Again, it was a good zone conference and it was great to see all of the missionaries. After the conference, we went and got dinner with the zone leaders at Sunset Inn Grill & Bar and got Pueblo's classic Slopper. A huge hamburger covered in green chili. We went to some appointments that night and then begun our exchange in Pueblo. I would be staying there for the next day.
On Thursday, I was with Elder Stewart in Pueblo. We started our day by going and unloading food from the bishop’s storehouse to give to people who are in need. After we did that, we went and did some service at the Zoo in Pueblo. We went and hung up some Christmas decorations around the park and got them ready for display. They are already putting lights up and we haven’t even had Halloween!





When we got done at the Zoo, we did our studies and prepped for the day. We had a good full day of contacting and stopping by people to visit. Elder Stewart even got lost and ended up driving like 10 miles in the wrong direction trying to find this one address. We went and had dinner and then afterwards, we were able to find a really good potential investigator for their area. We then were part of a Just Serve meeting for a couple minutes before we had to leave and drive up to the Springs. We exchanged back that night and got some rest.
On Friday, I began my first full day back in Colorado Springs since Monday haha. It was good to be back. We had a service project as a district in the morning where we went and helped set up care stations for refugees. We set up tables and then brought pallets of rice and vitamins and other things down. Some of the pallets weighed over 5,000 lbs. After that, we went to the Mechams and had district meeting. We had to leave a little early to go attend the departing luncheon for the vehicle coordinators, the Tufts. They are being replaced by the coordinators that were here at the beginning of my mission, the Stokers. After the luncheon, we met with President and Sister Rehm to discuss a couple of things that we needed to do for the transfer. This transfer is going to be a little weird but a little easier as well. After we met with President, we had dinner with the Fosters and had pizza. It was a fun time being over there. In the evening, we had a lesson with Jesse finally and it went great! We talked to him about baptism and he accepted a date for November 26th! His wife is still thinking and praying about it but we are excited for them both.
On Saturday, we had a training call in the morning and in the middle of it, some Elders came to our apartment with a broken phone and so we helped them with that too. We got our apartment inspected too and passed! We went to see a lot of people and they were actually home. We met with Jose and Jimmy and got in contact with Joe & Ami and Anthony & Deborah. That night we had the ward chili cook off and it was great! Elder Stark and I even entered in and submitted our own chili! Tons of people dressed up and it was a good time. We had to be the judges for the cook off too and we got to try all of the good chili.

 Then we handed out candy at our trunk for trunk or treat. It was a fun day.
On Sunday, we had a great day at church. The lessons were good and we learned a lot. Afterwards, we had lunch with Mike and Randi. We definitely left stuffed.

We did a little more preparation for Zone Conference and then had a great dinner at the Hess’ home. We came back and got some documents prepped to be sent out and then took call ins that night. It has been such a great week! Love you all


Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #65 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

WEEK #65
10.24.16

Hello Everybody! It has been a great week
On Monday we had a good day going to some stores and then meeting up at a park to play some flag football. The football wasn't that effective because too many people showed up but it was good to be around everyone. After we played some football and a little bit of rugby we decided to have dinner at Costco with Elder Ward and Elder Filips. The thing was, we didn't plan well enough and forgot to bring our white shirts and slacks. So, in order to be obedient to mission rules, we borrowed Elder Ward's clothes and then went and got some Costco food:) We started our exchange that night and I went with Elder Filips in 5th ward.

On Tuesday, We had a pretty good day lined up. We went to the Hospital in the morning and saw Shannon. She is pregnant and due this week so we went and saw her to keep her company. We then went and saw Jose, who had just returned from the hospital. His stay made him a little depressed but he was really interactive and upbeat in our lesson which is good. He seems to be coming out of his slump. For the rest of the day, we went and stopped by a ton of people that we needed to visit. For the whole day, nobody answered. BUT, right before dinner we were tracting on a street and a door opened for us! The family invited us in and we were able to have a return appointment with them! The wife doesn't speak English but we are excited to have had that blessing come our way. We had dinner with the sisters that night and then went to see the Fosters after that. We met up with our companions and then headed home.
On Wednesday, we spent some time getting ready for zone conference. We thought about a topic to teach all the missionaries and let that sit in our brains for a little while. We did some service for a less active member that is going to be going to the temple and helped him lay some gravel in his driveway. We got to see some more people that day and then had our own philly cheese steaks. It was a good day.
On Thursday, we did some weekly planning for the week ahead of us, and it looks pretty busy haha. We nailed down a topic for zone conference too! We are going to be talking about Fear and overcoming our fears through Jesus Christ. We want the missionaries to be confident and excited in their teaching and in other aspects of missionary work. So then we went and did research on that topic. We met up with a couple of missionaries to tackle a taco truck that is super good. The Mexican food is really good here in the southern springs. We also got a text from the ward secretary that day asking us if we could give 10 minute talks in sacrament meeting on Sunday.  So we also prepped for that a little bit too.
On Friday, we had our district meeting and had a good lesson from Elder Kunz about the Book of Mormon. We followed the Mechams to their place to have lunch with them. We had really good hamburgers After District meeting, we exchanged with the Soaring Eagles elders and I went with Elder Johannesson in his area. He is a really cool guy. We went to dinner that night and taught them a good lesson.

On Saturday, we had a good productive day in the Soaring Eagles ward. We taught a lot of less active members and helped them understand the importance of coming to church. All of them said that they would make an effort to attend too so hopefully they come and have a good time. We exchanged back that evening and then got ourselves some dinner. So for my talk, I cheated a little bit and modified the talk that I gave in Connecticut for Seminary Graduation. Then we headed to bed.
On Sunday, we had ward council in the morning and then grabbed a quick breakfast and then went to church. There was a good turnout at church too with some visitors who stopped in. We gave our talks and got a lot of compliments from members. Mike and Randi were there too and are doing great. After church, we grabbed some lunch and then went and stopped by a couple of people. We stopped by Tim and he asked for the address to our church so he could come by when he wasn’t busy! So that was great. We had dinner with Mike and Randi that night and then started the recent convert lessons with them. After that, we had to run some errands for the Emergency Transfer we monitored that night.
It was a great week. There was a lot of preparation that we had to do this week but we are excited to be teaching the missionaries in the mission. Love you all and hope this week is great for yall.


Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #64 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

WEEK #64

10.17.16

Wow what a crazy week!

On Monday, we woke up early and went and played racquetball with Erich, our investigator. It was really fun once I got the hang of it. I went and got a haircut as well and then we did our emailing and stuff. At 1:30, we met with President and Sister Rehm to pair up the trainers with the new missionaries coming out. We headed to the airport and picked the newbies up:) It's always fun to see all of them coming off the plane just grinning. After that, we had dinner with all of them and then took them to the mission home to sleep.

On Tuesday, it was transfer day. We began by going to breakfast with the new missionaries and then bringing them to the Aeroplaza building. We did some orientation to the mission with them and went through the mission policies. At 10, Elder Stark did the train the trainer meeting while I monitored the influx of missionaries to transfer. At one point, we had all of the sister missionaries come and transfer. That was bad planning on our part. It was like herding cats. I would try and tell them that they needed to get going and then they would hiss and me and then that was my cue to back off. Haha things actually went pretty smoothly. 

Then it was my turn to teach. We instructed both the trainers and the new missionaries and talked about planning and setting goals. It was a pretty good meeting. After everyone was out and heading home, we took the 4 departing missionaries to the mission home to have dinner. We had a lesson with Mike and Randi that night. We talked about missionary work and about service. He is so ready for baptism and is going to be a great strong member. That night, we got a call from some Elders saying that they had just gotten their car stolen! A man with a gun came up to them and told them to put the keys on the ground. So they did and he took the car. They called us asking what to do so we told them to call the police. What the robber didn’t know is that all of the mission vehicles are equipped with a Tiwi, which monitors your speed and driving through a GPS. So we knew exactly where the car was going. The police recovered the car and the man had ran away. Good thing no one was hurt. That all happened like 500 yards from our apartment too haha. Also, we had to drive up to northern Springs that night and help some elders fix their bikes. We crashed at the mission home because it was closer and hung out with the departing missionaries. Sister Rehm had me take some personality surveys and it turns out that my color is a White, I wear Autumn colors, and I am an ENFJ-A Protagonist. So if you can figure that out, congrats haha.

On Wednesday, we had a great day at the Temple. We did an endowment session and then a sealing session. I love being in the temple. 

Recently, we have gotten to go frequently. We came home and had dinner at the mission home and then President and Sister Rehm held a fireside. Then the departing missionaries bore their testimonies and prepared to go to bed.

On Thursday, we took the missionaries to the airport and said goodbye. We came back and conducted a District Leader conference call too. We got in some good weekly planning and then We spent a lot of time getting stuff ready for Mike’s baptism. There were a couple of conflicts that got in the way too like having to find another building to perform the baptism in because ours was booked. We would have baptized him in a river if we had to but we were able to get the Murray building reserved. That’s the building I started my mission at! We had dinner with the Sisters at the Armstead’s and had a great lesson that really helped Sister Armstead out. That evening, we had to monitor an Emergency Transfer. Somebody was going home so we had to move a couple people around, which meant that Elder Tallman got to stay the night with us. That was really fun. Since he is in Manassa, we don’t get to see him as often.

On Friday, we made the quick trip to the airport and then got ready for district meeting. We now have the 18^th ward elders in our district so it grew a little bigger. It was a good meeting and we learned a lot. Afterwards, we went and had lunch at the Mecham’s. We spent more of the afternoon getting things all solidified for the baptism and then went over to Mike and Randi’s to cover the final material. The district leader came over and interviewed Mike and he passed! Now we had to get things rolling so that he could get baptized and confirmed and receive a dedication recommend for the Fort Collins Temple dedication on Sunday.

On Saturday, we spent the morning filling up the baptismal font. At 11, a humble crowd wandered in and we had the baptism for Mike! He asked me to do that and asked Elder Stark to do the Confirmation.

 Randi also contributed by giving the talk on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. She did awesome! President and Sister Rehm also attended and gave their support. After the baptism, we went and had lunch with the Sisters and Michael and Marley. It was really good and they taught about the Plan of Salvation. After that, we went to see Cynthia, a referral we had received, but she didn’t answer when we showed up for our appointment. So we went and ran an errand for some other elders and then went and had a lesson with Jimmy Avila. At 6, we went to the church with Mike and Randi so that they could get their Temple Dedication recommends! They both passed and everything! We celebrated with them by going over for dinner and having some amazing food. They always spoil us when we go over there haha. It was a great way to end the day.

On Sunday, we got our seats early for the Temple dedication. President Uchtdorf presided over the dedication and it was greatJ Mike and Randi loved it. They liked seeing the pictures of the sealing room. After the dedication, I saw Mitch! He is the older guy we taught and baptized when I was in 3^rd Ward. He was in tears when we came up to him and just kept saying “Thank you” and “I am here because of you guys” It was such a special and tender moment for me. People like Mitch allow the Spirit to tell me that the Lord is pleased with my work. He will be able to go through the temple in December and I am absolutely looking forward to that day. After church, we took a little bit of time to wind down from the crazy week and then went to the park to talk to people. We also made a couple of visits at Memorial Hospital and saw a couple of members that were in there. We had dinner with the Mechams and then had a good lesson with Greg. Shannon is one of the members in the Hospital because she is supposed to have a baby this week! It has been such a great week. I love being on my mission. Best decision ever. 

Love you all!

Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #63 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

Hey everyone! It's been a pretty hectic week!
On Monday, we made the beautiful drive down to Alamosa, Colorado. We met up with lots of other missionaries and I got to hang out with Elder Tallman again:) Our adventure for that day was going to the Great Sand Dunes National Park! They have some of the tallest sand dunes in North America there! We rented sandboards to take on them which are basically snowboards for sand. The only problem was that there were 40+mph winds with 50+mph gusts that day. But we all said what the heck and went anyways. It was the best worst decision of my life. The dunes were so much fun but we were getting sand blasted all the time. It stung our legs and bare skin. It felt like we were trekking through Tatooine about to be attacked by Darth Maul. It was a great day and we had a blast... haha get it?

After that, we did an evening exchange with the zone leaders down there. It was great! We were able to teach a lot of people and help bring the spirit into their lives. That's one of the things that I love about exchanges. You can go into a home and meet people that you have never met before and you can help them to feel the spirit. It was a great day haha.
On Tuesday, we woke up at like 4:45 in the morning to make the drive back to the Springs to get to the Mission Office in time for our Transfer Coordination meeting. We discussed the logistics of the upcoming transfer and afterwards had a good lunch. Then we met with President Rehm and finalized all of the people who would be training new missionaries. It was a good long day of meetings.
On Wednesday, we had another day full of meetings. It was Mission Leadership Council and we had a really good discussion. Lately, we have been finishing our meetings earlier than normal. It has been nice because we have additional time to do missionary work. We went on an exchange with the San Luis Valley zone leaders where we had both of them in our area. I was with Elder Hughes and we were able to teach a couple of different people. We went and saw Brother Jose, and he wasn't doing too well. He was feeling really depressed and we were able to go in and have a good lesson to cheer him up. We had dinner on base with the sisters at the Mismash's. It was great! That night, we monitored an emergency transfer and then got to bed.
On Thursday, we had the great opportunity to go to the Denver temple with the missionaries that were hitting their halfway mark! It was a good drive up there and being in the Temple is always great:)

We came back and had dinner with them and then sat in on their Testimony meeting:)
On Friday, we went to Zone Training and got to hear from Elder Ward and Elder Pexton. They are super great missionaries and it was a great training. I love learning from other missionaries. After that, we went and met with President and Sister Rehm to finalize everything for transfers. We went and had a great lesson with Jimmy again and showed him how to use lds.org with his membership record. It was great to go over and help him out. He is so excited about accessing the info on lds.org.
On Saturday, we spent like all day figuring out the transfer and doing travel arrangements:) It was kinda fun putting our heads together and making it work. The sisters were able to help us out and they has us over for dinner at one of the member's homes.
On Sunday, we had a good time at church. They had the fast and testimony meeting and put a little twist in there with singing more hymns. After church, we did a little more work on the transfer and then went to dinner with the Searings. They are the Just Serve missionaries for the mission. We went back to the office and collected statistics from the zone leaders. We were up extra late waiting on a couple companionship's calls but it was good. Looking forward to this hectic week ahead! Love you all so much!

Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #62 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

Hey Everyone! Can't believe another great week has gone by.

On Monday, we had a blast! We drove up to Castle Rock with Elder Ward and Elder Pexton and met up with Elder Lloyd and Elder Filips. We also met up with Noe who, if you remember, is an investigator that I started teaching up there. He is still meeting with the elders so that is really cool. So everyone jumped in our minivan and we drove up to the trail head to Devil's Head. It's a cool hike to a fire watchtower in the mountains past Sedalia. The road up there was really fun to drive because it was winding dirt roads. It was a nice short hike to the top and there was a sweet view from the top. We headed back to Castle Rock and then drove back down to the Springs.

 That night, we had dinner with Mike and Randi before they left for vacation. They are so great. Our lessons are always really productive and spiritually strong. We are excited for them. After that, we had to monitor an emergency transfer and then it was bedtime.

On Tuesday, we were able to catch up on some planning and stopped by a lot of people. That night, we went over to the Fosters to have dinner and a lesson. We had some great supreme nachos there and it was fun to be around them. They are still doing really well in the Gospel too. We had an appointment with another person we are teaching but they cancelled on us. That night, we went to Pueblo to exchange with the Zone Leaders. I got to stay in 5^th ward with Elder Stewart. The last time I was on and exchange with Elder Stewart, I was in Castle Rock and we spent the day up in Parker. Now we get to do it again!

On Wednesday, we had a super great day. We started the day by going to Memorial Park to walk around the lake. We talked to a lot of people and we were able to get a new investigator. After lunch, we went and stopped by some media referrals we had. We were able to contact both of them and both of them want to be taught more! They had just requested a delivery of a bible but we were able to testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and they accepted the invitation to learn more. We had a great dinner with the Bishop’s parents and we had a lesson on preparing for General Confrence. That night, we exchanged back and then monitored another emergency transfer.

On Thursday, we went to the park and were supposed to meet someone there but they didn’t show upL But we just went and weekly planned after that. We then had a meeting with President and Sister Rehm and got to discuss a lot of things for the upcoming transfer. Can’t believe it’s already that time again! For dinner, we went to the Sand Creek ward and had dinner with the Call family. They were excited to have the both of us back for dinnerJ They are such a cool family. After dinner, we had a lesson with 9yr old Tyler Shumway. It was a good lesson on prophets for General Conference and we challenged him to count how many times they say ‘Jesus Christ’ in the Sunday morning sessionJ

On Friday, we got up in the morning and went to Memorial Park to do out workout. We did a lap around Prospect Lake and stopped at the little workout stations they have around. Also, we went and had our interviews with President Rehm. It was a good interview and he asked me if my family were to visit me what change would they see in me? I’m not totally sure of that answer yet. Maybe my family can answer that better. After that, we went to a taco truck with our district and brought our food back for district meeting. We got some good tacos and they had super spicy salsa to go on top. It had Elder Stark and I sweating haha. District meeting went well and we had a fun lesson. After that, we went to drop off a bigger bible for our media referral because she couldn’t see the other one. We were able to talk to her about her beliefs and apparently she had met with missionaries in Ohio or somewhere and had lost contact with the church after she moved. She got in contact with us through an ad on her computer asking if she wanted a free bible haha. And now we are back in contact with her and her husband! It’s so cool to see the Lord’s hand work in other’s lives.

On Saturday, we had a great start to the day. We went to the church to workout with Michael, an investigator that the sisters are teaching. He is in the army and loves to work us hard. We did a jog and then did pull ups, pushups, and air squats until our muscles failed. It felt super good. We got to go and watch General Conference at their place tooJ I loved the Saturday session of General Conference! My favorite talk was by Dallin H Oaks at the end of the 2^nd session. He talked about our duty to share the gospel as members of His true church. Right before the Priesthood session, the ward has a tradition of having a barbecue before it starts. They call it ‘Prophets and Brats’ and everyone brings stuff to grill. I had my first Moose burger there and it was super good. For Priesthood, I loved Legrand R Curtis Jr.’s talk of the Book of Mormon and the power it has. Afterwards, we went and got ice cream at Culver’s.

On Sunday, we watched the Sunday morning session of conference at the church and then got to watch the next one at the Fosters. My favorite talk on Sunday was the one by President Nelson on Joy. I also like the talk by K Brett Nattress because he came to our mission just a couple months ago and I got to know him. We then headed up to the east part of Springs and had dinner with a family up there. We came back to the Springs to finish up typing some documents we had to email out and then took the call ins from the zone leaders. It was such a great week and I am so grateful for the guidance we receive from a modern Prophet and his Apostles. The words they speak are true. Hope you all had the same experience! Love you all.

Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net