Hey everyone! It's been a great week but super busy.
On Monday, we met at the church with some other missionaries and played a lot of basketball. It was really fun and competitive. I thought I did pretty good haha:) dinner was fun and afterwards, we met with the 1st counselor in the bishopric, Brother Smith and his family. It was funny because we typically leave a commitment for the family to work on after our lesson, and so in return, Brother Smith gave us some 'homework' to do haha. He asked us what the difference was between doing missionary work and being a missionary. I thought that was really neat and I think that we don't have to wear a white shirt and a name tag to be a missionary. Being a missionary means getting it into your heart that you want to serve The Lord and bring others closer to Christ.
On Tuesday, I went on exchanges with the Spanish elders! We had a busy day, which was awesome, and some of the lessons we had were in "Spanglish" but most of them were in Spanish haha. So I had no idea what people were saying except for a few words the whole day:). Our last appointment was dinner and it was a lady from Columbia and her family. Right when we walked in, she said "Oh my! Look how hungry their faces look!!" and then proceeded to fill our plates with food haha. Whenever I get close to finishing a plate, she would take it and plop a ton more food on it. I thought I was going to explode.
On Wednesday, I went over the work in the area a little more with Elder Mogle and we have a lot of room to improve that's for sure. We did service at a thrift store for a couple hours and if you volunteer, you get crazy discounts on stuff, so I got a cool Colorado avalanches (hockey) sweater. We had dinner with the bishop and his family which was really neat. I can tell that he is a great bishop and am excited to work with him. After that, we drove for about 30 minutes to a place called Elizabeth to do a baptismal interview for an investigator they are teaching. I was the one to conduct the interview and it was really cool. The lady they were teaching was so prepared and absolutely ready to be baptized. After the interview, we got to know them a little better and then had to take off for the long ride home.
On Thursday, we had to get some paperwork done for the stake and then visited some less active members around the area. Dinner was with a less active family and we were able to have a lesson and a good influence on them in their home. We taught 2 more lessons that night, both to active members and one to our ward mission leader, Brother Kendall! He is a really funny and cool guy to be around and he knows how to work well in his calling.
On Friday, we got ready for a Zone Training! Yeah I know, I've not been out here for 5 days and I have to teach a Zone Training. Haha no it was great; Elder Mogle and I prepared a great lesson and really felt good about what we were going to talk about. We decided that the zone needed training on studies. Elder Holland, in a talk to the MTC pointed out that there are 3 things that missionaries don't do very well, one of them being studying. So we focused on utilizing both personal study and companionship study. If you think about it, Joseph Smith was just doing some personal studies when he came across the verse in James 1:5 and look where that led. So are we making our personal studies worthy of such a change as Joseph's? The meeting was really rough. A lot of the missionaries in the zone are lazy, disruptive, and unfocused. For example, some elders showed up with no suits on, one showed up with a black dress shirt, one with flip flops on trying to be funny and it destroyed the atmosphere of the meeting immediately. It was a challenge to bring the spirit into the meeting because it didn't seem like anyone was paying attention. I shot them a question asking them if they were being the missionary that God wants them to be and if not, what will they work on? We kind of pushed our way through the meeting and pulled through at the end. There is going to need to be a lot of change in this zone and maybe I'm here to help with that. Right after that, we drove back to the springs to pick up our truck that was in the shop. I got to see Elder Hawkins at the mission office for a little bit which was super awesome. He says he misses me and I miss him too. We drove back and exchanged with the Perry Park elders. I went with Elder Jolley to his area for this one. Perry Park is a cool mountain town with huge homes and very wealthy people. The views are incredible too and it was fun just being there. We drove to an activity for their ward that night and it was actually a comedy show where some guy from Utah came and did clean stand up comedy! We were approved to attend because there were some investigators that showed up as well. He was really funny and had me laughing a lot.
The next morning on Saturday, we went on a small hike and got to see a little more of Perry Park. We then drove to Castle Rock to do some service for a member of their ward who was having a retirement party. Our job was to help set up stuff, make sure no kids climbed over the cool vintage cars that they had in there and help people find parking. It was a really cool place to have a party.
That night we exchanged back and I went with Elder Mogle to the Crabtree family for a lesson.
On Sunday, we woke up at 5:30 to get ready to go to a couple of stake meetings. We first met with the Parker South stake presidency for our missionary coordination meeting. President Rehm was also there to discuss the work. After that meeting we drove to meet the Castle Rock stake presidency for missionary coordination with them. That lasted for a little while and then we went and attended our ward council meeting that went for 2 hours!! I was learning so much through these meetings and have a page full of notes that I was writing haha. Right after Ward Council, we had our church at 1:00-4:00. there were so many youth I had forgotten how youth deprived my last ward was! it was a good change:) Dinner was really good and we went to the home of a single dad who is a chef! So we had some really good Chinese food that he made. We then had coordination with Brother Kendall and then went home pooped from the long day:)
On Monday, because it was a holiday, the libraries were closed so we met with some other missionaries in the zone and hiked to the top of castle rock! It was super cool.
We ran into some members there and they saw me climbing up this more difficult part of the rock. The dad then said to me, "You must be from Southern Utah - this is easy for you!" I thought that was really funny because that is exactly where I am from:) then we went and played touch football with some other missionaries. After football, we went to the Castle Rock outlet mall for a few minutes before dinner. Dinner was with Brother Pappenfuss and his family and I'll tell you, they are about as cowboy as you can get. They even know where Monticello is and know a cowboy named Mel over there:) Brother Pappenfuss had a beard with a nice curly mustache and everything. He even used to be a bounty hunter, or a fugitive retrieval officer, which is pretty much a bounty hunter. He told us all about these crazy stories and scenarios he was in with his job. It was super fun to talk with them
Well it's been a busy week and hopefully it only gets busier!! Love you all!
Elder Kyler LaRose
Kyler.larose@myldsmail.net
CURRENT ADDRESS:
4438 Buena Vista Ct.
Castle Rock, CO 80109
MISSION OFFICE ADDRESS:
4090 Center Park Drive Ste 4
Colorado Springs, CO 80916
Kyler.larose@myldsmail.net
CURRENT ADDRESS:
4438 Buena Vista Ct.
Castle Rock, CO 80109
MISSION OFFICE ADDRESS:
4090 Center Park Drive Ste 4
Colorado Springs, CO 80916
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