WEEK #52 - Colorado Springs Mission Office - "STRAIGHT CRAZY"

WEEK #52
7.25.16

Hey everyone! Pretty busy, but great week we had.
On Monday, we spent a little bit of time cleaning our van and going shopping. Then, We went and met with President Rehm to go over the new missionaries and assigning them trainers. There were some crazy last minute changes that we found out about that altered our plans for transfers. For example, one of the spanish trainers didn't have driving privileges and neither did any of the other spanish missionaries coming out, so we had to do a last minute switch of trainers, which in turn altered travel arrangements. So while doing that, we were able to get everyone assigned a companion and last minute travel plans figured out. After that, we drove to the airport and picked up all 21 new missionaries! It was really weird to be back in the airport and seeing all of those new missionaries come off the plane. It took me back to when I stepped off of the plane just over a year ago. I got to drive the big van with the trailer and transport the greenies all over the place.

the new missionaries

They had tons of questions to ask haha. We went and had dinner at the Meadowland building and took everyone's luggage to where they would stay for the night. After the meetings, we took the new missionaries home and then went home to make some extra calls about transfers.
Tuesday was transfer day and it was STRAIGHT CRAZY. We woke up and had breakfast with the new missionaries at the mission home. We then took them to the Aeroplaza building for more meetings. At 10:00am, the first wave of missionaries came to transfer. Elder Constantine left to teach Train the Trainer and I oversaw the transfers of the missionaries. Another wave of missionaries came at 11 and then 12. We then had lunch and things were going fairly well with transfers. There was just a small hold up about some missionaries not having a car. But in the end everything was figured out. Then we met with President to finalize the trainers and pray about the companionships, after which, I then taught the Trainer and New Missionary meeting. It was pretty cool but I felt like I could have prepared better. At the end of that meeting, all of the new missionaries met their companions and then headed out to their areas. After all of that mess was taken care of, we met up with the missionaries who would be going home and took them and their luggage to the mission home. We had dinner with them, went to see a couple of potential investigators, came back and stayed the night at the mission home.

Dinner with departing missionaries

 The departing missionaries get to watch a movie before they go home and we are allowed to sit in on that for our slaving over transfer stuff. It was cool to be there with the missionaries too.
On Wednesday, we had breakfast, and then got ready to go to the temple!

The departing missionaries (and us) get to attend the temple and do an endowment and a sealing session before they go. I also got to say goodbye to Elder Schilling, who trained me! I can't believe he is already finishing his mission. We returned and had dinner as well as a testimony meeting from those going home. It was really great to be there for that because I got to hear from a lot of people that I have served around. Specifically, Elder Taylor and Elder Jolley as well as Sister Tucker, who I served with while I was in Castle Rock:) We stayed the night there again because of the early departure in the morning.
On Thursday, We woke up early and got all of the departing missionaries packed and ready to leave. We drove them down to the Colorado Springs airport and watched them until they went through security. This week has provided a unique opportunity for me to reflect on my mission. I got to see the new missionaries come in and reflect on the past year that I have served so far. I also got to see the missionaries going home and ponder about the coming year that I have left. I am grateful for the great blessings that the Lord has given me and the many blessings to come. We came home and planned for the rest of the week. We also prepared for the upcoming Zone Conferences that we would teach in. Dinner was with the Sisters at the Nielsens! It was really fun and we had a good lesson.
On Friday, the office called us in the morning to help them with some things. We had to take a trailer to a shop in the Springs and drop it off for repair. Then we came back for District meeting. Our District Leader is Elder Clancy, an elder that I started my mission with and so it's fun to be around him. There are 2 of the new missionaries in our district now and that's Elder Scott and Elder Conrad. We had lots of good lessons that day. We stopped by the Wheelers as well as Francis and Rafael and had good prep lessons with them. We had a good lesson with Jose and are continuing our work with him. For dinner we were taken to a cool greek restaurant where they served some pretty good gyros. After that, we had a lesson with the Foster girls and prepped them for their confirmation on Sunday.

On Saturday, we got a call from the Mountain Shadows sisters asking for a blessing. One of them went to the emergency room for some stomach pain they were having and were coming back from their visit. We showed up and then gave her a blessing. After making sure they were taken care of, we went home and had a lesson with Francis and Rafael about the Priesthood. Then we did some studies and a little preparation for our lesson with the Wheelers that afternoon. We had a really good lesson on the Plan of Salvation for their little girl and also talked to the parents about setting a day to go to the Temple. They both really want to be active again and that is so great to hear. While we were getting lunch a lady came up to us and asked us why we were so happy all of the time. Her name is Thanesia and we told her about missions and our purpose and then she told us to come over and teach her!! She lives in the apartment right above us and we went and had a great introductory lesson with her that afternoon about the gospel, how it helps us, baptism, and where we see the gospel leading her. She was super enthused about it and we are excited for her desire to know more. Dinner was with the Sisters on Peterson Air Force Base with the Mismash family.

Peterson AFB

They are super cool and love the missionaries. In the evening, we had a lesson with Greg and Shannon. We showed them the video about the Mormon battalion and talked with them about putting the Lord's ways above our ways. It was great to be over there.
On Sunday, we had Jimmy and Erich come to church. There was also the confirmation of Reygan, Kyla, and Kymber. Elder Constantine confirmed Reygan, Bishop Hendry confirmed Kyla, and I confirmed Kymber. It was awesome to be a part of that for them. The rest of church went well and we had good classes. After church, we went more in depth for our Zone Conference teaching portion and made a good outline of what we were going to teach. We had dinner on base again and then took call ins from the Zone Leaders that night.
It has been a great week this week and it is wonderful to see all the many blessings that the Lord has in store for those who work hard. I am ever grateful for his promise that he will lead us to those he has prepared or he will lead them to us. Have a great week everyone!

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

 kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #51 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

WEEK #51
July 20, 2016

Hey Family and friends! Things are going great here in Colorado Springs!
On Monday, we had to begin the day with helping someone move out of their apartment and into another. That took a little while so we came to the misison office to send out our emails. Because of our assignment, we are given laptops to have so we can create documents and manage different things so we used them for our Monday emails. After we went shopping, we didn't have a whole lot of time to do anything big until we realized that it was 7/11 day. So we went to about 15 different 7/11s where they had the promotion of getting a free slurpee that day. So we went around to as many as we could and filled our faces with slurpees. We ended up having close to 30 cups combined between us.



So we did that until we had dinner with a less active family. We had a great lesson and are working on setting a date with them to go to the temple!
On Tuesday, after our studies, we met with all of the office missionaries and with President and Sister Rehm to have a Transfer Coordination meeting with the upcoming transfer in a week. We had a good long meeting and talked about what needed to happen to make the transfer run smoothly. We are in charge of creating the travel arrangements for each of the missionaries on transfer day. We tell them where to go, who to meet, and so on. After that, we met with President and Sister Rehm to discuss transfers and who should go where. We had lunch at the office and then continued on.
We went to Memorial Park and talked with a lot of people. It was funny to see a lot of younger people out with their phones playing that new Pokemon game or something haha. We then went and helped Sgt. Bean, a nonmember who is stationed at Peterson Air Force Base, move out of his home with Elder and Sister Mecham, the senior couple over military relations of Peterson AFB. We had dinner with the Fosters and their girls and helped the girls set up the program for their baptism on Sunday. That was way fun.
On Wednesday, we did our weekly planning and I'm feeling comfortable with the new area and everything now. We had a good time preparing for the coming week and for the coming transfer!


We went and had a great time talking with people as we went contacting and then actually got a new investigator to teach as well. His name is Lewis. We had a good dinner and then went to the Family History center for a little bit.
On Thursday, We went up to the North part of Springs and met with the North and East zones for their Zone Conference. We did some training with the missionaries on the new dress and grooming standards. We also talked about contacting people through our own efforts and how we can be effective missionaries. After that, we went and had lunch with a member that Elder Constantine knows. So after we had lunch, we went and did the same training with the Colorado Springs and Fountain zones. That night, we had a great lesson with Jimmy. We planned on teaching him the Plan of Salvation and when we got to the lesson, we found out that his nephew had passed away only a couple of hours before. The lesson was really great for him and really spiritual! He is progressing along really well and said that he would set a baptismal date with us in our next lesson too.
On Friday, we had a good district meeting with the new district! It was good to get to know more of the missionaries, and there are even two senior couples in the district. After our district meeting, we went and had lunch at the Mecham's with the rest of the district. Then we met with President and Sister Rehm again to finalize everything for transfers. It was cool because we would put missionaries in different places and in different leadership positions and then we would kneel and pray about our decisions and wait for the Spirit to confirm our decisions. We got most everything finalized for transfers and then headed out to do work. We went and saw Francis and Rafael and had a good lesson with them. We talked about Christ's earthly ministry, the great apostasy, and about the restoration of Christ's true church. Dinner was with the Searings and we had a great time in their home. We then went over to Sister Zeigler's for some smore's with the sister missionaries.
On Saturday, we got all ready for the big transfer! We had to make the travel arrangements for each missionary that would be involved in transfers in any way. We had a big map on our wall with sticky notes for all the missionaries and vehicles that we needed to figure out. We need to factor in a lot of different things into the travel arrangements such as phones, cars, luggage, and missionaries. We were doing that for a lot of the day,

We went to a baptism that the sister missionaries had in our ward (There are sister missionaries that cover 5th ward with us as well). Then we did a conference call with some missionaries in training for an hour. We also had a good lesson with the Wheelers and also with Jose. We are really grateful for their progression.That night, we called each of the Zone Leaders and told them the missionaries that would be leaving their zones.
On Sunday, we had ward council early in the morning and had a good meeting. We then went to church and were glad to see Jimmy there. Reygan, Kyla, and Kymber and their parents were also there and the meeting went really well. After church, we grabbed a little bite to eat and then were asked to go give a blessing to someone's friend who was sick. We went over there and did that and then got another call for a blessing from one of the recent converts, Shannon. After we were able to help them out, we went back and worked on the travel arrangements for transfers. We then went to the church to fill up the baptismal font for Reygan (12), Kyla (10), and Kymber (9)! When everyone showed up and we got the pictures taken, we got things started.

I got to say the opening prayer for them and it was great. President and Sister Rehm came to support them as well. It was so wonderful to see them take this step of faith in their lives. We returned again to slaving over travel arrangements and making sure that every little detail was correct and that transfers would run smoothly. After call-ins and all, we got done with transfer stuff around 12:30am. Good fun.
I am blessed for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord. I love my mission and I hope that all of you can see the power that the Lord's true church and restored gospel to change the lives of those I've talked about, my own life, and even your own. Love all of you!

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

 kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #50 - Colorado Springs Mission Office

WEEK #50, 07.11.16

Hey everyone! It seems like this week started so long ago!
On Monday, it was the 4th of July and it was great. We started off by getting ready for a parade. The missionaries, each year, get to march in the Parade in Monument, Colorado! So we put on our patriotic ties and sung hymns as we marched in the parade. I got to see a ton of people from other areas and that was cool. 

After the parade, we had to go and pick up President Rehm because he got left behind on the buses haha. So we drove to the Monument church building and had lunch with the missionaries there. Afterwards, we went and changed clothes and then went and played basketball with some missionaries. My skills had gotten rusty being in Castle Rock haha. After that, we were invited by the Mecham's, a senior missionary couple in the ward, to Memorial Park to have a family home evening and barbecue. We had a good time there and stayed a little longer to watch the fireworks over Prospect Lake. It was a good night.


sunset at Memorial Park

On Tuesday, it was Tony's bday so HAPPY BDAY TONY!! Hope it was great:) So in the morning, we drove up to Castle Rock to have a specialized training with President and Sister Rehm for the zone. Our portion to teach addressed the new dress and grooming standards and also focused on the importance of contacting people. We headed back down to the Springs and met up with the Pueblo Zone Leaders to exchange. I went with Elder Buxton and Elder Bennett to go finding in the area and we had some pretty great success. We were able to share lots of lessons and get return appointments! It was weird having people that were willing to listen to you and willing to let you in haha. We had a good lesson with Eric on the plan of salvation and he really liked the whole concept of that. We met with a progressing less active Jose and that was good. He is really funny too. We had dinner and then went to teach a family that we have been working with. Erich and Christawnia are the parents and their three girls are Reygan, Kyla, and Kymber. We had a great lesson on the Holy Ghost and were able to have the girls get baptismal dates! Erich is not a member yet and is waiting on some job things for it to work out for his baptism date. The girls will be getting baptized on the 17th! We are super excited for them.
On Wednesday, it was McKayd's bday so HAPPY BDAY MCKAYD!!!! go kiss a girl or something. So we got up, got ready, and then headed to the Aeroplaza building for Mission Leadership Council. We had a good long meeting and we got a lot discussed. One of my new responsibilities was to pull up the Key indicator graphs for each of the zones. After that, we went to a park to teach a less active family and while we were teaching, a lady came up to us, asked us for a Book of Mormon, and asked if we could come and teacher. That was super awesome to have happen and it also helped the less active family we were talking with. Haha I was like what just happened?! That evening we had a lesson with another investigator and are working closely with him. It was an awesome day.
On Thursday, we went on exchanges with the Castle Rock elders. Considering I left that area a week ago, it seems like we have been up there a lot since then haha. We drove up in the morning and got there in time to do companionship study. After that, we got to go to lunch with Nana and Papa LaRose!!! They were in the area and were able to come down and treat us well. We had a great lunch at Applebees. It was so good to see them. After that, we said our goodbyes and got back to missionary work. 

I was up with Elder Buxton to help Elder Lloyd with planning for his first Zone training. So we helped him map out what he wanted to instruct the zone on and remind him of things he needed to cover. After that, we went and visited Judy, a returning less active that is ready to get herself to the temple! She is so ready and is so excited about that. Then, we went out to Sedalia to contact some more less active members but none of them were home. So we decided to tract a part of Sedalia and got Elder Lloyd a new investigator! (right after I leave right) that was super cool. We were driving down the road and saw this huge looking castle thing and then were determined to find it. So we took a couple of roads and found the castle! we got some cool pictures and then headed to dinner at the Howlands. 

After dinner we were able to go and teach Noe! It was great to see him for one last time. We taught about the Word of Wisdom and committed him to live it. He accepted! It was a great last lesson. We drove back down to the Springs and then planned for the next day then crashed.
On Friday, we did our studies and then went to the mission office to meet with President Rehm and help plan for transfers. We made a couple of decisions on where people would go and stuff. That went on for a while and then we got lunch and then went to Zone Training for the Fountain Zone. The Zone Leaders over our zone are Elder Pexton and Elder Tibbitts! It was great to see them again. Afterwards we went and had dinner with them at Fargo's Pizza! it's a pretty famous pizza place in the Springs and it was good. We finished the night by working on the miles document for the mission.

​Fargo's and Elder Pexton

On Saturday, we had a lesson in the morning with Jesus who is a young Hispanic guy who we found tracting. He has a smoking problem so we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and committed him to work on that. It was a good lesson! Afterwards, we drove up to Castle Rock AGAIN via Hwy 105 because Elder Buxton left his phone up there while we were on exchanges. 

HWY 105

When we got back, we went and saw a really great less active family. The Wheelers have a desire to be more active and want to have a foundation in the Gospel. We taught a great lesson to them about how God loves us and about the compensatory blessings that He gives us. They are ready to progress and we are looking forward to working with their family. We tried to contact a couple more people and then went and had a lesson with Francis and Rafael. They are new investigators that have had missionaries in the past, but love to talk about the gospel. We are going to work on them:) We then had some dinner and then went to a lesson with a recent convert named Brian, who is deaf. It was cool to have the lesson taught through an interpreter too.
On Sunday, we went to Ward Council early in the morning and had a good coordination with the Colorado Springs 5th ward. I got to meet Bishop Hendry and am looking forward to working with him. We had a good amount of people come to church too! The Wheelers came and some other people that we have been working with. We then came home and had some lunch. Afterwards, we had to spend a good amount of time working on finishing the miles document for the mission. And speaking of compensatory blessings earlier, when we had time to go out and do missionary work, The Lord led the people to us. As we were walking along the sidewalk, a car pulled up next to us and a younger couple asked us where the church building was! They said that they had just moved in and were looking for where to go for church! They then told us their address and said to come by. They also said that they would be at church next week too! We didn't have to ask them for any of that haha. We just asked them what their names were and then they drove off. The Lord will lead us to them or he will lead them to us. We were in the right place at the right time and were able to see the Lord's blessing. We did some more contacting and had a quick doorstep lesson with John. He told us that he had read a little bit out of the Book of Mormon and that he would continue to pray as he read. We continued on after that and then had dinner and then went to a lesson with a less active family. We had a really great lesson on the Temple and about what we can do in there. We committed them to select a day by which they would be temple worthy so that they could be sealed to their family for time and all eternity. They accepted and we will meet with them next week to discuss a date. We then went and finished some more paperwork and then collected all the Key indicators from the zones.
It was a great week and I am so happy to be serving The Lord here in Colorado. What a great blessing. Love you all!

MISSION OFFICE:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916

 kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

WEEK #49 - Colorado Springs Mission Office - ASSISTANT to the PRESIDENT

It has been one crazy week this week! I have a new address too.
On Monday, we went fishing with a bunch of people! We took our investigator Noe with us and had a blast. We also took two of the youth in our ward with us. We fished for a little bit and then did a lot of hiking and cruising around. The views were awesome. Elder Lloyd did a couple of backflips too haha. It was great being out there with Noe and we had a great time.

That night we had a great dinner with the Wolthuis family. A couple months ago, we helped Brother Wolthuis renovate his house and paint some walls. It looked great this time we went over and was well done. We ended the night with a lesson with the Smiths.
On Tuesday, we had a good morning and got ready for Horsepower. It was not that bad cleaning up the stalls especially when you have friends doing it with you. We exchanged with the Perry Park Elders after horsepower and I went with Elder Patterson in our area. Elder Patterson is from Idaho and he is super cool. We got along pretty well and had a great day together. We had 3 evening appointments and we taught great lessons at the Karrens, Pierces and Kumpfs. The Kumpfs had a nonmember friend over and it was super great to get to know him in that brief time. It was also good for Elder Patterson to be there.
On Wednesday, we went to the computers after our studies to make a map of the area to concentrate our efforts. After that we went to Task Force and met back up with Elder Lloyd and Elder Tu'ifua. We helped out the thrift store and had a good time there. Afterwards, we had a good lesson with the Olers and had David Hess with us teaching. For dinner, we went to Crave burger with Brother Perez! It was pretty awesome. Elder Lloyd had a huge burger that had 14 items on it and then for buns, he put 2 grilled cheese sandwiches on it haha. I had what was called the Luther. It has bacon, a fried egg, and other crazy stuff. And then for the buns, it was 2 glazed donuts! It was pretty good too. We then headed out to Sedalia to meet with a less active member David. We had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon and encouraged him to read from it every day.
On Thursday, we planned for the week to come and discussed the work in the area. It was pretty good! We then went and collected stake information and miles stuff too. We didn't have a dinner appointment that night either and so the Spanish Elders invited us over to their dinner. Then we went to activity night with the youth and played some games there. There were a couple of nonmembers that showed up as well! It was a great night.


On Friday, we hopped in with Elder Taylor and Elder Ashcroft to go to district meeting. We had a good meeting and got to talk about our areas. After that, we went to Costa Vida for lunch. We came back and got ready to go to Bonaventure, where we played memory games with everyone there. After that, we had to collect some more info from everyone and enter it into the computers. Dinner was with the Howland's and we had some great food.
On Saturday, it was Mom's bday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! Also, we woke up to an interesting start to the day. About 15 minutes after we woke, we got a phone call from President Rehm. I answered and he said that I would be getting emergency transferred. He extended the assignment for me to serve as an Assistant to the Mission President. I was floored by this but accepted the responsibility. He told me that I would be leaving the next day and to get packed! Pretty crazy for being out 11 months. So all day I packed up my stuff and went to our appointments. We went to a baptism at the church for an 8 year old. After that, we went and helped sister Ward get some groceries. She is unable to get out of the house much and so we went to King Soopers and got her a ton of groceries. It was actually great because we ran into a former investigator that was open to have us back over again! Dinner was with the DeGolyers and we had awesome biscuits and gravy. We finished the night by going over to Bishop's house and having a great lesson with their family. They left me with a present too! They got me some Colorado socks and a Colorado keychain:) it was great to be with them.

On Sunday, we woke up and got ready. We loaded all of my luggage into the truck. We went to PEC to coordinate with the ward and had a good meeting. After that, we went to church and had a good meeting. It was fast and testimony meeting so I got up and bore my final testimony for the Plum Creek ward. I got a lot of thank-you's from the members and I am grateful to have learned and grown from this experience. Right after church, we drove down to Colorado Springs to transfer.

My new companions will be Elder Constantine and Elder Buxton. I will be in a AP trio for like 2 weeks until Elder Buxton gets reassigned. It's pretty funny because I replaced Elder Buxton as a zone leader and now I'm replacing him as an assistant. Elder Lloyd will be taking over Castle Rock with Elder Fillips. So as I started life in a new area, we went straight to business. We went to a fireside with a lot of missionaries and their recent converts and investigators. I got to see a bunch of missionaries there from past areas like Elders Hagman, Stark, Schilling, and more. We then had to go and take call ins from all the zone leaders.
So sorry for the late email but things have been crazy and will probably continue to be! And since I will be working closely in the mission office and stuff, my NEW ADDRESS will be:
4090 Center Park Dr
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80916
Love you all and have a great week!!

 kyler.larose@myldsmail.net