Hey everyone, this past week was pretty awesome:)
On Monday, we had our preparation day where we played a couple of board games and played sports. Our investigator Clint was set for an appointment tonight, but ended up pushing it back to Wednesday. We had dinner with Bishop Rolfson and his family, and since the Broncos won the Super Bowl, there were orange and blue themed foods:). Our fruit salad was cantaloupe and blueberries:) both of our other appointments for the night cancelled on us and so we went and helped the Gann family move some couches into their apartment.
On Tuesday, we had our Zone Conference! Elder Mogle and I had to go early and set up tables and chairs. The meeting lasts from 9am to 4pm usually. Earlier I was asked by President Rehm to conduct the conference, and so during the meeting I told everyone where to go and what was next on the agenda. It was a great meeting and we learned a lot. First, we heard from a couple of missionaries speaking on different subjects and then we heard from President Rehm, who talked about the sabbath day and keeping it holy. It helped us see how important it is to make sure that our investigators know how to keep the sabbath day holy. Then, the Assistants and Elder Mogle and I pulled up a few graphs to talk about how the zone and how the mission overall were doing statistics wise. We talked about what we could fix and what we could do better at. We then heard from Sister Rehm and she talked about how we are all elect children of God. It was nice to hear about the basics again and to simplify down to who we are and the potential of who we can become. Then, we had a break for lunch and had some good Hawaiian haystacks:) After that, we were taught by the Assistants on using the power of the Holy Ghost when we teach. We, as members of the church, were given the Gift of the Holy Ghost through baptism and confirmation by the proper priesthood authority. Our investigators simply don't have this gift and so it is our job to make sure that when we teach they have a spiritual and uplifting experience. We wrapped everything up with a Q&A session with President Rehm and then heard the testimonies of the missionaries who were in training. Afterwards, we helped take everything down and put it all away.
It was good to see the zone and to see President and Sister Rehm as well. For dinner, we were taken to a pretty good Chinese restaurant and had good orange chicken. That night, after all our appointments, Elder Mogle and I drove down to Colorado Springs to start our exchanges with the Assistants. We got to their apartment at about 9:30 and rested for the next day's adventures.
On Wednesday, we woke up and Elder Buxton and I exercised a little bit before we got ready for the day. For exchanges with the Assistants, both Elder Mogle and I stay in the Springs and split off with one of the assistants to work in their area. So Elder Mogle went with Elder Buxton and I went with Elder Guerrette.
Exchanges wtih Elder Guerrette
We started off by driving to Memorial Park and looking for people to talk to there. We had some great conversations with some strangers, but no one was super interested. As we were walking back to the car, we started talking to a homeless man and as it turns out, the missionaries had really helped him out in the past. We gave him our phone number and he said he would call:) Later, we met up with Elder Buxton and Elder Mogle to go get some food at the food trucks in downtown Springs. The Sister Training Leaders also met us there and we all had some good Mexican quesadillas.
Eating at the food trucks
We continued to walk around and knock doors after that, trying to contact some people that had said they would be interested. At one point, we were walking down a street and when I saw the street name, I stopped remembering seeing it on one of the lists at the apartment. So Elder Guerrette and I turned around and found the house we were looking for. We knocked on the door and a younger guy answered and invited us in! We were looking for someone else, but it turns out that this guy was LDS and pretty inactive! We talked about different things and found out that he was a big time wrestler and is trying to make it to the Olympics. We then talked about why he was less active and he talked to us about that. We didn't put too much pressure on him, but stressed the importance if coming to church and stuff like that. He loved having us over and hopefully there will be mor progress there. We came home for dinner at around 6:00 and made our own meals. It was a great exchange and we learned a lot! Elder Mogle and I drove back to Castle Rock just in time for our lesson with Clint. We talked a little more about the Restoration of the church and he accepts it completely:) he believes that there is a prophet on the earth today and that The Lord truly did restore his gospel back onto the earth in it's entirety. It was a wonderful lesson and we are helping him to progress:)
On Thursday, we went and did service at the Horse Power Ranch and helped scoop out horse poop from all of the stalls. It was pretty smelly and gross, but I didn't mind it too much. Elder Mogle brought his horse mask and swooned a couple of females around the area haha.
That night, we had a bunch if appointments to go to and started with dinner at the Hess home. Later in the evening, we stopped by a less active member's apartment to see if we could get in and have a lesson. When they answered the door, they were hesitant to let us in, but then the father said "Ehh, we probably wouldn't let them in for another 3 weeks anyways, so come on in since you're already here." We found out that they just had one of their brothers pass away and were going through some hard times. They said that our lesson on charity really helped them out and were grateful for us coming over:) it was nice to sit down and talk with them. After that, we went down and saw the Gann family in the same apartment complex. They are really fun and we had a good lesson with them:) it was a great night.
pDay hike
On Friday, we went to our district meeting and had a great lesson. Because of some emergency transfers and things, we were moved from our original district into a different one. Elder Jolley is now our district leader and Elder Durfee, Sister Talili, and Sister Topham are in our district. After district meeting, all of us went and had lunch together. Then Elder Mogle and I drove to Parker to meet with Bro. Jones, the high councilman over missionary work in the Parker South stake. We had great discussion and talked about how we can help our zone and the stake as well. We got back in time to have a lesson with Bro. Dazey, who is a less active who is scheduled to have his temple recommend renewed this week, which counts as a re-activation for us:) our last appointment for that night was with another less active family and they had over a woman who was excommunicated from the church a while back, Sister Carlson. We had a good lesson with all of them and at the end, Sister Carlson said that she wanted to have the missionaries teach her the lessons again so that she could become a member of the church again. He also said that she had a neighbor who was interested as well and wondered if we could teach them both next week. We were like, of course!!
On Saturday, we went on exchanges and I was with Elder Taylor in the Plum Creek ward. We were invited by a less active member and his nonmember wife to have lunch with them and so we went over there and had hamburgers. After lunch, we sat down with them and had a good lesson:) Then, we went and helped Brother Wolthius on his house again, priming a couple more spots and laying down some wood floor. That night, we went to the Young's house to teach them and they were babysitting a couple of other families kids. So we showed up to an audience of 12 kids and attempted to teach all of them a lesson:) Elder Taylor and I did pretty well and got some good answers out of the kids. On Sunday it was Valentines day and as part of family tradition, put stickers on my face. I didn't get any box of chocolates but I did get a hairy box of jerky, which might be even better:) church was pretty awesome. We had a lot of less actives attend and it was great to see them there. There was even a young boy with his mom and older brother there who was doing a report on Mormons for his religion class. He picked the Mormons because his mom has a mormon friend in the ward :) After Sacrament meeting, we met with them and their Mormon friends in a classroom and answered some of the questions they had. They were in awe of how different everyone else views Mormons versus who members of the church actually are. We were able to clarify some misconceptions that were taught in his class and Brother Anderson, their LDS friend, taught them about the restoration of the gospel. They could totally feel the spirit confirming that truth. Their faces, as they heard the experiences of Joseph Smith, lit up with understanding:) we had a great time with them. We left them with a Book of Mormon and also the website LDS.org for any other questions they might have. It was a really cool experience. We went to dinner and they had chicken cordon bleu for us:) it was great.
Yesterday, it was President's Day and so all the libraries were closed. So we decided to go hiking in Castlewood Canyon State Park. It was a beautiful hike and it led us to an old dam that had bursted a while back. Then we went and played volleyball and basketball at the church.
So despite not being in our own area for very long, we saw huge success this week:) The Lord surely blesses us for the work we put in :) have a great week everybody!
Elder 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
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