WEEK #87 - Pueblo Zone

WEEK #87
3.27.17

Hey everyone! This has been a pretty crazy week!! First of all, I want to give a shoutout to my Brother Mckayd! He got his mission call and is going to Singapore! I am super excited for him. Also, I found out that I will be getting transferred! Tomorrow I will be packing up and going to the Northern part of Springs to serve in the Cheyenne Mtn. YSA (Young Single Adult) Ward! It will be a new experience.
On Monday, we had a great time with everyone in the zone. We met up at the outlook building and had a barbecue with everyone. We brought some nice hot dogs to grill.

We also played some scatter ball and that was super fun too. Dinner was at the Avery's again and we had a great time there. We were going to see an investigator that evening but they canceled on us.
On Tuesday, our day was completely packed. Which was awesome. We first met Brother King out for lunch and he took us to this Thai restaurant that was awesome. Then we went and helped him lay some sod down and move some rocks at their mom's house. That was good and then he came with us to a lesson with Hannah. Brother King has known Hannah for a while and really got bold with her about the church. It was awesome. We also gave her a blessing before she left on her trip to Washington. We then had a good lesson with Francis and Josephine and then went to a lesson with the Hansons. They are super awesome and Brother Hanson is a pretty recent convert. We had dinner out at the Dougherty's and that was awesome. Their kids also gave us some ugly ties that they had found at the thrift store haha. After dinner, we met Brother Cluff over at the Ward's house and helped him home teach. It was a really good lesson too.
On Wednesday, we went and helped out the Parks and Rec. people clean up trash around this lake.

 Then, later we went to the nursing home and helped with the tenants there. We did some drawing with them. We came home and did our weekly planning and then had dinner at the Smiths. Later for the lesson, we had Brother Avery come and teach with us. He was really excited to come with us. That night we went and exchanged with the other Pueblo West Elders.
On Thursday, I spent the day with Elder  Pope. He came out with Elder Perrins. He is from Cokeville, Wyoming and he is a very quiet person. We had a good day and started off by doing service at the Pueblo Zoo and raking leaves for them there. Then we went and checked out the lions and the penguins before leaving. Afterwards, we got to visit a couple of families and were able to have some great lessons. I kinda like being in an area just for like a day because you can be really bold and loving to the people and not be worried about it. We had a good evening too and then exchanged back. That night, the wind started to blow like crazy. We are on the bottom floor of our apartment complex and the whole thing was creaking and shaking. It was a little hard to sleep.
On Friday, we woke up to the damage of the wind storm. The people in Pueblo are saying that It's the worst one that they have ever seen. The wind was getting up to 75mph. That's almost hurricane level! There were tons of shingles and siding laying all over the ground and a couple of members in the ward had roofs damaged and balcony's ripped off just from the wind. It was pretty wild.

We went and saw the Thomsons in the morning and had a good lesson there. Then we had district meeting and after that, we went and helped out the Pueblo Parks and Rec. again. This time, we were tearing down a hobo camp! it was so dang nasty. There was trash everywhere and It looked like everything a ghetto hobo camp would look like.

Later, we went to dinner with Brother Nanto and he took us to this awesome mexican restaurant that was apparently was the restaurant that Obama ate at when he came to Pueblo. I don't know what he would come to Pueblo for but he did haha. We had a good lesson with the Bullens too. They are a young couple that just moved into the ward.
On Saturday, we went with the Bullens to lunch and it was awesome. We were going to go work on the barn again but Alex wasn't there. So we went back to the apartment and finished the final things left for training! Elder Perrins will do great. Dinner was with the Cluffs and it was super good. They are way funny and Brother Cluff always tells awesome stories. Then, we went out to the boonies in our area and visited with Brother Butler. He is like 88 and lives in an old home that he build himself. It was a good visit haha.


That night, we found out that I would be getting transferred. It's crazy because this is the least amount of time that I have spent in one area.
On Sunday, we had a good ward council in the morning and then church started. We had a lot of less active members come and it was awesome! Then I packed up all of my stuff afterwards. We had dinner with the Martellaro's and was surprised by the former Elder Constantine coming back to visit! It was good to catch up together and he is doing great! Then we went to a fireside where they talked about improving the community we live in. Pueblo is #1 in the nation for most Heroin overdoses, so they talked about combating the drug epidemic. It was a really good fireside.
Well, it has been a good run here in Pueblo and I have meet some pretty awesome people. Have a good week everyone!

WEEK #86 - Pueblo Zone

Hey fam and friends! Another great week has gone by!
On Monday, we emailed and shopped in the morning and then Elder Perrins and I played some ping pong. After all of that, we met up with the missionaries in the zone at a park so we could play some football! I brought my flag football flags and put them to good use. It was a lot of fun. I was the QB for most of the plays and there was this one pass I threw to Elder Stark that was awesome. Elder Perrins and Elder Tallman were on the other team and they were running towards Elder Stark. They didn't see each other and ended up colliding and laying on the ground while Elder Stark caught the ball for a touchdown. I thought it was pretty funny haha. It was also Elder Garton's birthday and so I got him a Big Gulp from 7/11. (It's a Dumb and Dumber reference haha) We had dinner at the Avery's again and it was yummy.


On Tuesday, we had a really good day. This is the week in training that the new missionary takes the lead in all planning and teaching situations We had a lesson with the Burger family and they are awesome. He is a firefighter so his work schedule is pretty crazy and he doesn't make it to church all that often. Then we stopped by Hannah again and we met two of her friends and got to talk to them about the gospel. They were on their lunch break and so they didn't have a whole lot of time and so we gave them a Book of Mormon. Later, we went and saw Francis and Josephine and talked to them about baptism. They are still being as stubborn as ever. Dinner was with the Martellaro's and their daughter had just gotten home from her mission. She had been serving in the Rome, Italy mission. We had a good dinner and got to talk to her about her mission and stuff. it was pretty cool. That night, we went and exchanged with the zone leaders.
On Wednesday, I was with Elder Morgan in the Pueblo ward. We had a pretty full day planned too! We started the day off by doing some service. We picked up some trash around the river and then went and cleaned out a hobo camp. It's crazy to see people living like that.

We came back and had some good appointments with some people and then like all of our other lessons canceled on us. So we went and stopped by this one person, but only their mother was home. We asked her if there was anyone in the area that she knew that could use a visit from us. She referred us to this house across the street and so we knocked on doors around the block until we got to the house. It was cool! We met this really open guy who seems interested in what we have to offer! He was talking to us about his religious background and told us that he was cousins with the Christian rapper Lecrae. So that was cool, he gave us a book by Lecrae too. He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon too! Dinner was really good. We had it at this family's house who had invited an investigator over for dinner too. We taught the restoration lesson and it was really powerful. That night, we exchanged back.

On Thursday, Elder Perrins and I stayed together for the morning so that we could weekly plan and then in the afternoon, we went on another exchange. I went to the University ward for the day. We had a pretty good day full of lessons and got to see a lot of the people that they were working with. We went to this one person's house and when I walked in I almost got scared to death because there was this creepy looking thing in the corner of the room. I was first scared and then felt sad because it was a dog that was suffering from some sort of condition. It kept scaring me though. The dog couldn't walk and was losing its hair and stuff.


Dinner was at Chipotle and then we went and visited the McKinney family  It was good to see them again. They were the family that I went over to a couple weeks ago to do a baptismal interview. We had a good night and then went to the apartment.

On Friday, It was St. Patricks Day! We met up at district meeting with everyone and it was great. For the lesson, I made both of the Greenies teach haha so Elder Perrins and Elder Pope taught district meeting.

For our activity, we were playing this game with a football and were all trying to catch it at the same time. I went up to catch one and Elder Zoller's elbow collided with my eye and it hurt like crap. I went to the freezer in the church and took the bag of ice and put it on my face. About half an hour later, my eye turned purple and green. So I had a green eye on St. Patrick's day. 

We went over to the Thomsons for a lesson and that was awesome. We had Sister Graff, the one who just got back from Italy come with us. Brody, one of the kids had a loose tooth and Elder Perrins asked if he could pull it out. So we spent half the time trying to get his tooth out and the other half teaching the lesson. I got a funny video of Elder Perrins pulling out the tooth.


For dinner, we had corned beef and cabbage at the Sawyers and that was awesome.

Then, the Strouds invited us over to play some games and so we were able to have some fun with them too.
On Saturday, there were two more yard sales that we stopped by and we got to talk to some cool people. We stopped by some more people and then headed out to the Dougherty's to work on the barn some more. We were put to work digging our these holes for the water line to run to the barn. After we worked on the barn, we went and had a lesson with Wendy. The lady that we had met last Sunday. She is really cool and seems interested in learning more! We taught her briefly about the Restoration of the gospel and she was really accepting and received it well. Dinner was over at the Martins and that was awesome. We had some good hamburgers and then talked with Brother Martin about the missionary work. We always love being over there because the kids really love us. After dinner, we had a great lesson and then the kids broke out the Nerf guns and it was war. We spend a good while shooting back and forth at each other and I got a couple of headshots in haha. It was great. Afterwards, we went downtown to the riverwalk to meet up with Hannah and her friends again. We had a pretty good talk with them about the need for religion.
On Sunday, we had a good time at church and I really learned a lot. As a missionary, church begins to have a new meaning to you. I find that I have gotten so much out of church since being on my mission. It really has become a necessity to go to church and be uplifted. Dinner was with the Viehwegers and it was great haha. After dinner, we went with Brother Martin to teach the Sefciks. It was way cool. Then we had a great lesson with the Maurello's on forgiveness. Their little kids are super cute an one of them was cooking lunch for us on her little fake kitchen thing haha. It was a great week.
Thanks for everything and hope all of you have a great week too! Love you all
Elder LaRose

WEEK #85 - Pueblo Zone

WEEK #85
Hey everyone! This has been a pretty good week!
On Monday, we met up at the church and played some basketball and spike ball with all the other missionaries. Then, Elder Perrins and I grabbed our ping pong paddles and made a makeshift ping pong table out of a foldable table and a rolled up rug on top for the net haha. We started playing sting pong with everyone and I had a good amount of welts on my belly. It was super fun haha. We had a good dinner at the Avery's and then retired for the night.
On Tuesday, we went out and tried to find people to teach and met some people that said that we could come by again. We read the scriptures more with Sister Ford and then hit the streets again knocking on doors. As we were knocking on some doors, we met a less active member that we didn't know about! We had a good talk and she said that she really wants to go to the temple. So we are excited to be working with her. We kept at it a little more and then we knocked on this one door and someone came to the door but didn't open it or say anything. Then, a car pulled into the driveway as we were standing there and made it all the more awkward. But we figured that people think the missionaries are awkward all the time so we just waited until we got to talk to someone. When we did, we found out that this family was Vietnamese and that they had come in contact with the church before when they lived in San Diego. They were really excited to have us come by and said that they would love to have us come by again! So that was pretty cool. We then had a lesson with Francis and Josephine about the Word of Wisdom. For dinner, we went to sonic and got some grub from there.
On Wednesday, we stopped by Tori again who lives in what we call "Sketch City" It wasn't a good time for her and she said that she was feeling sick. I could see a couple of marijuana plants through the window in their greenhouse. It will take a lot to help them make some big changes in their life. Then we went and talked with the older people at the nursing home and helped them do some watercolor painting. I can't even remember the last time that I did any watercolor painting. We came back and had dinner with Brother Nanto and had some delicious chocolate covered cinnamon rolls for dessert. Afterwards, we had a good lesson with the Smiths. We are going through the temple prep book with them to help prepare them to be sealed as a family. After the lesson, Brother Smith took us out for a little joy ride in his Subaru STI. It was super cool and fast haha.

On Thursday, we headed up to the Springs to get a replacement key for our car and to pick up some Vietnamese copies of the Book of Mormon. It was weird to be back in the Springs haha. And we had to stop by Mike and Randi to say hi as well. Or else they would have been mad at me haha. We had a great talk there and it was good to see them. We came back home and planned out in detail the next week. As part of the training program, this next week is where Elder Perrins takes the lead in all planning and teaching situations. I am fully confident in his ability to do so:) We had a good dinner with the Doerr family that night too.
On Friday, we had a good district meeting in the morning. I talked about the 'why' of missionary work with everyone and it was really great. After that, we were driving around and saw that a couple of people had garage sales going on, so we stopped by them. It was actually a really great source to talk to people and have a good conversation! We went to 3 different garage sales and we came away with a potential investigator and a free picture frame for Elder Perrins haha. It was really cool. We kept at it all day with trying to find new people to teach but were met with no success. We stopped by the Burns and talked to the dad out on the porch for a little bit. Dinner was dropped off to us to we ate it at our apartment and then finished doing our studies that night.

On Saturday, we had a good day in the morning and went to go find more people to teach! We went to this trailer park to stop by some people we knew but none of them were home, so we knocked on a couple of the doors around the area. We knocked on this one door and this really nice lady answered and started talking to us. She made it clear that she didn't want to learn more, but kept on talking to us about random things. She even gave us a referral for someone who she thought we could visit. As we were talking to her, the property manager came up to us and stated to chew us out for being there but this lady saved our butts. She told the manager that we were visiting her and that there were no problems. So that was nice of her. We stopped by some more people and then went and helped the Doughertys on their barn. Alex wasn't there because he went to go "say goodbye" to his dad who was not doing well in the hospital. So we are sad for him but it's a good thing that our next lesson is on the Plan of Salvation.

After the barn, we had a lesson with the Bowmans. We had a good lesson with them and everything but they struggle with coming to church all the time. Dinner was with the Martellaro's and it was awesome. We were celebrating her birthday too. While we were there, they got a phonecall that their daughter would be returning home from her mission early sue to her health. Fortunately, the family has been aware of her health and it wasn't much of a surprise. They were just bummed for her. It was good for us to be there through that I think.
On Sunday, we woke up early (and extra early because of daylight savings) and went and had a meeting before church. Church was really great but there was like nobody there. We did however, have Sister Thomson and her kids come! That was so cool! After church we saw a bunch of people and tried to contact some part member families. Dinner was with the Ashtons, and we got to play a game with their autistic son Caleb. It was a great week!
Thanks for all of the support from everyone and SHOUTOUT to my cousin Jake for getting his mission call to preach the gospel in Spanish in the New York South mission! Love you all and have a great week!

Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #84 - Pueblo Zone

Hy everyone! This week has been a pretty good one!
On Monday, we played some good ping pong and then went to the stake center to play some sports. Elder Stark also gave me a haircut there. It's nice to have him back in the zone so I can get free haircuts haha. After that, we went over to the Avery's and had a good dinner. Then, Brother Martin came with us and had the lesson and we talked about the temple and the blessings of attending regularly. It was a really great lesson.
On Tuesday, it was the last day of the month and because it was a short month, we had a lot of extra miles to use. So, we went and explored the very borders of our area. The top of our area goes almost to the bottom part of southern Colorado Springs. So we made the drive up there and it was really out there in the boonies. There weren't too many houses to knock on, but we still went. We even got to the edge of Fort Carson, the military base and saw a couple of helicopters and some vehicles out there. 

We came back and had another good lesson with Francis and Josephine. They really aren't progressing towards baptism but we keep going over to bring the spirit into their home and to talk about the gospel. We had dinner at the Cash's and that was pretty good. We had a lesson on charity with them. They still have problems with the Word of Wisdom and we are working with them towards that.

On Wednesday, we started the morning by having a lesson with Sister Snyder about the word of wisdom. We think that she has a problem with smoking because we smell it sometimes when we are there, but she acted like she was over it. So we are going to have to pry a little more to figure out how we can help her more. In the afternoon, we went to the nursing home and got to serve all of the tenants ice cream. We then colored pictures with them while we were there. For dinner, we went to Texas Roadhouse and got some delicious steaks there. After that, we went and met up with Elder J Smith and Elder Heywood at Coldstone. They were driving down from a meeting in the Springs so it was good to catch up and talk with them.
On Thursday, we went to go have our appointment with this potential investigator that we had set and when we showed up, we knocked on the door. We could also see him through the door and when we knocked, he got up and went into another room and didn't answer the door. So after that, we went and helped brother Dougherty on the barn for a little bit. I dug the dirt out of 30 holes with the post hole digger and my shoulders were burning haha. We came back and did our weekly planning too. Dinner was with the Cluff's and it was awesome. They are super funny and it's good to be around them haha. We had a good lesson on missionary work with them. After that, we went with the spanish Elders and since I'm the district leader, I was able to do a baptism interview for someone that they are teaching. She was 10 years old and was super prepared and happy to be baptized. It was really neat to meet them and the family.

On Friday, we had our zone training in the morning with the whole zone and it was great! We talked about being spiritually self reliant. It is basically holding yourself accountable for your own spiritual growth. It was a good zone training and we learned a lot from each other. Afterwards, a good group went to Taco Bell for lunch. It was fun to sit and talk with Elder Stark and Elder Tallman some more :) As I was looking around the zone, I realized that we three are the oldest people in the zone! That was pretty crazy to think about. After that, we went and saw the Thomsons! It had been a while since we had gone over so it was really good. We had a good lesson with Sister Thomson about coming to church and building the basics back up again. She told us that she really needed that in her life. It was a great lesson. Afterwards, we were invited to the Pinewood Derby where they had a potluck dinner and then raced the cars. We were asked to be judges so we went and voted on our favorite cars and then sat at the end of the track and judged the races. It was a pretty fun night. Then we came home and cleaned our apartment up for the inspections.
On Saturday, our apartment was inspected and we got a Celestial score! Haha after that we went to the baptism of the girl I interviewed. Her name is Seneca and she was super happy. There was such a great spirit there. Then we went and helped distribute food into cars for people who were in need. We were at a food bank and were loading the boxes of food into people's cars. 

Then we took off and went to the barn to help Alex out. He had some more people from his work there and we got to talk to them which was good. We mixed concrete and poured it around these posts in the barn to hold them steady. Dinner was at Brother Nanto's and the Carters were there too. We had a good lesson about the temple and are starting the process of them getting temple recommends! We went over to see Francis that night because he gave us some awesome shirts too.

On Sunday, we had a good day at church and the testimonies given were awesome. The Thomsons were able to make it too!! So we were way excited about that. After church, we had an early dinner with the Boyers and that was awesome. Then we were invited over for cinnamon rolls at the Dougherty's and they were so good. We had our coordination meeting with Brother Martin after that and it was a good way to end the week. We are trying to find more people to teach because the investigators we have here have been flaking out. So it's time to start over again.

Love you all and have a great week!!

Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916