WEEK #48 - Castle Rock Zone

Hello family and friends! This week has been full of doing service and it's been pretty good.
On Monday, we hiked Castle Rock for Pday! It's always a fun quick hike.


The group was Elder Taylor, Elder Ashcroft, Elder Lloyd, and I. About halfway up, Elder Taylor and Elder Lloyd decided to bushwhack their way up to the base of the rock and Elder Ashcroft and I decided to race them using the trail. They beat us. We climbed to the top of the rock and took pictures. Elder Lloyd did a couple of backflips too. After that, we went to wash our car at the house we were having dinner at and then it started to rain super hard. It was pretty crazy because we were getting soaked and the lightning was striking pretty close to the house, making the thunder super loud. So after we washed the truck in the rain, we went in the house and dried off and changed into our shirts and ties. Dinner was great and we finished the night with a lesson with the graves.

On Tuesday it was Elder Lloyd's birthday! We started the day early to help out with the big Cub Scout camp. We directed traffic and helped people park their cars. There were probably around 300 cars that we parked. We came back and got ready for the rest of the day. Then we took off to HorsePower an shoveled stalls. That evening, We met up with Noe and he took us to Red Robin in celebration of Elder Lloyd's birthday. We had a good time with him and had some great food too. After that, we went to the Clements to have a lesson.
On Wednesday, we helped the Cub Scouts out in the morning parking everyone. Sometimes it was dumb because we were wearing these bright yellow vests but people still failed to see us. One car would go the wrong way and then like 3 more would follow and then they would have to turn around haha. In the Afternoon, we went to Task Force and they had us go with them to the Lone Tree library to grab some bookshelves they were donating. So for most of the afternoon we were making trips back and forth carrying these heavy metal and wood bookshelves to Task Force. I even smashed my finger pretty good and will probably have some cool scars. We had a good dinner with the Gatrells and wrapped up for the evening after that.

On Thursday, we had our final day waking up early to help with the Cub Scouts parking. It was pretty fun, I got to see Brother Jones who is the Parker South High Councilor over missionary work (which is no longer in our mission) so that was good to see him and catch up and all. We came home and then went to Task Force again to help them get all the rest of the huge bookshelves. It was definitely a good workout. That took a lot of time, but it was worth it because they gave us pizza afterwards for all of the hard work. We were busy all day so we didn't get to do weekly planning that day. Dinner was with the Buhlers and we were able to help Brother Buhler out a little bit. He seemed to like our lesson. After that, we went with the youth to the park right across the street from the church and played games with them. Then, we played water balloon volleyball, which just ended up into a water fight. We got a little wet and luckily it dried before our next appointment. That evening, we had an awesome lesson with Clint! Finally! After he got married to Susan, they were pretty busy for a whole month. We were able to meet with him and also got the chance to meet Susan. She will be really good for him in helping him get baptized. We took Brother Wolthuis with us and it was great. He contributed really well to the lesson. We addressed more of his concerns. He was wondering why baptism was absolutely essential and why he couldn't just believe and be saved. So all of us did a really good job of simply teaching it and bearing testimony so that Clint could be baptized. We invited him to be baptized on July 9th but he told us that he would like to come to us with a baptismal date. We encourages him to pray sincerely about the 9th and wrapped up the lesson. It was really good for us to see him again.
On Friday, we had a busy day as well. We had district meeting in the morning and had a good lesson on prayer. I need to be better at the prayers I say and at making them more specific. We ate at Costa Vida and had some lady come up to us and give us $10 each! That was really nice of her and I hope that the Lord blesses her. We came back and did service at Bonaventure where we colored pictures and talked with everyone there. After that, we went and had interviews with President Rehm at the Plum Creek building. It was good to talk with him and we got a little direction on what to do with Clint. We then went over to the Greenhalghs and had a fun lesson with their little kids. It was a good day.
On Saturday, we had breakfast with the Grats and it was really good. They are a pretty fun family and we had some good laughs. We then went over to Task Force AGAIN to finish moving and putting together those stupid shelves  we were only there for about 30 minutes and finally got it all done. Then we helped a new member move into the pines and knocked that out in like and hour. We have become pretty good at moving people haha. After that, Elder Lloyd had a haircut appointment and then we did our weekly planning. That night, we went over to the Reardons for a luau! It was pretty cool. They have a really cool house with a great view and the food was also great. They had roasted a pig and had it there on the table to take meat off of. It was pretty delicious. They have a cool pool there too, and since we can't swim; we just decided to have enough faith to walk across the water without getting wet and we actually did it! It was a good night.



On Sunday, we had a good meeting with the ward mission leader and ward missionaries. It was a little weird because the ward mission leader subtly accused us of not teaching good lessons to the members. So we were confused by that because we are trying hard and praying hard and having the faith for miracles to occur. We know that we have felt the spirit in our lessons. But it's up to those we teach to accept that same spirit. Other than that, we had a great time at church and Noe came to all 3 hours again. During gospel principles, we were teaching about the word of wisdom and then we were pulled out of class to talk to a young man who had just walked into the building! He had come to the church with some questions and we were able to answer them. They were some weird questions like "since ghosts and demons exist, doesn't that mean that God exists?" We answered that one by talking about God's love for us and about angels. He may have a slight mental disorder, but we were able to help him out. He didnt give us an address for a return appointment but he gave us a street name to check out. Hopefully he comes back with more questions. We left him with the restoration pamphlet and the plan of salvation pamphlet. After church we went to dinner at the Farnsworth's and had a nice dinner on the back porch. It had been a good week but there is still so much room to improve! I I'll try to be better this next week and hopefully keep progressing. Love you all!
Elder Kyler LaRose.

Kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4358 Sawmill Court

Castle Rock, CO 80109

MISSION OFFICE ADDRESS:

4090 Center Park Drive Ste 4

Colorado Springs, CO 80916