WEEK #18 - Colorado Springs Fountain Stake

WEEK #18
11.30.15

Hey fam and friends! This week was awesome!
Monday morning we met with Amy and Bode Wolin at an awesome breakfast restaurant called Wade's Cafe! It was really good food and it was also awesome to have them so close:) we then left to the library for emailing. When we finished, we went shopping around different places and I got a really warm jacket at Goodwill for only $8.00!! Then, we went to a park where other missionaries were meeting and had our own little flag football turkey bowl before thanksgiving. There were around 30 elders there to play so we split up into two teams and played. Elder Stark and I bought $10 receiver gloves especially for the football that we would be playing.

I was the Quarterback for my team and was telling everyone where to go and what to do. It was funny because I was drawing up all these trick plays in my head and running them. They worked pretty well too! Elder Hawkins was on my team and we worked well together. The Polynesians that were there didn't totally understand the concept of flag football and we finished with a couple of aches and pains. That night we met with Mitch and settled on December 12th for his baptismal date and he is getting excited:) I can't wait!
On Tuesday we were on track to teach a bunch of lessons but 2 of them weren't even there when we showed up :(. Our last lesson was with a less active member that I hadn't met before. His name is Brother Smartt and there are a lot of issues that he needs to take care of. He told us that he is taking are of his mother who was told that she only has 6 months to live. We offered our support and hopefully we will be able to help them in our next appointment.
Wednesday, we had to fill out the final things of the accident report form from a while ago and take it to the mission office. After another 2 of our lessons cancelled, we met with Kitana and taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ which is: faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We are continuing to invite her to church but she still hasn't come. We ha dinner with the Melvin's and assisted in giving Sister Melvin a blessing of healing for sickness. Then we went to our coordination meeting and played volleyball.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!! Thursday we woke up to snow and very icy roads. 

On our way to Sand Creek, there was nobody out and about, which was good because we were having fun drifting around the turns. Even the sidewalks were iced over completely, turning the streets into a skating rink. On thanksgiving, the Mission President allows us to watch a movie and so we went to Elder Stark and Elder Villaneda's place to watch The Master of Disguise. We also ended up playing card games and drinking our hot coco. After the movie, we went to the Sand Creek Ward turkey bowl. It was snowing and 19 degrees out the whole time! The sand creek members welcomed me back and it was good to see their familiar faces:) I was on the team with our young stake president as the QB. I caught a couple of touchdown passes and also intercepted a pass thrown to Elder Hawkins haha. We played for about 2 hours. Then we went and got ready for our turkey dinners :) Elder Hawkins and I went to Sister Duncan's and had dinner with her and her 2 kids and her daughter in law. The food was delicious! We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, apple pie, banana cream pie, and good ol pumpkin pie to full us up. After dinner, we went back to the sand creek apartment and stayed there to snack on eggnog and hot chocolate. Elder Villaneda and Elder Stark have become like brothers to us and it is so fun to be around them.

Elder Hawkins at dinner

On Friday, we held our district meeting where I talked about how to work successfully with the ward members. One thing that I thought was especially important was being a good missionary. When the members see that you are a hard worker and don't slack off, they are more willing to work with you and trust you with the names of their friends. 

after district meeting

After the meeting, we got a call from the Colburns asking if we could help them move. Sand Creek offered to help as well and so we went over there and helped them move all kinds of things. We moved a big heavy piano all the way down the stairs and into the moving van too. Next we got ready to go to dinner and a lesson with the Choate family, who has 3 kids investigating the church and not 6 minutes before we got there, the mom called and said that she had something else come up. It was pretty frustrating. So we decided to visit Mitch and he showed us some really cool pens that his brother in law makes from bullet pieces.

On Saturday, we were picked up to do service in Fountain, Colorado. We helped move a bunch of things to and from houses and that took out a good chunk of the day. That night, we had a less active family feed us for dinner! We encouraged them to come to church and they didn't :( but they are really nice and have goodness in their hearts.
On Sunday, we went to church and had a good time. It was the 5th Sunday so the bishop discussed with the ward about things that they could do to help the Lord's work move forward in the 3rd ward. He was asking for input so I got up and talked about how missionary work is changing. Tracting isn't as effective as it uses to be and the most effective way to be successful is have the members deeply involved in missionary work. The only problem is, our ward is so old in age that everyone is retired and is comfortable with where they are. Hopefully I said something that helped them gain a desire to help us out a little more. I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!! Love you all and can't wait to hear from you!

Kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

2605 Serendipity Circle E APT #251

Colorado Springs, CO

80917

MISSION OFFICE ADDRESS (use if close to Transfer time, they will forward to where he is at): 

4090 Center Park Drive Ste 4

Colorado Springs, CO 80916