WEEK #71
12.5.16
Hey Everyone! It has been a fantastic week!
On Monday, we got up early in the morning to make the drive down to the San Luis Valley. We wanted to take the most scenic route we could, so we went through Woodland Park and then once we got past the mountains, took the road straight to the valley. It was such a gorgeous drive! The temperature didn’t rise above 18 degrees on the way there. We got there, emailed at the church, grabbed some Taco Bell, and then went to Zapata Falls! Since it is so cold in the valley, we were expecting the waterfall to be frozen, and it was! The drive there was great and we went with basically all the missionaries in the Valley. Our van made it up the dirt road to the trailhead pretty fine so that was good too haha. We had a blast at the falls. Most of it was all frozen and it was really cool looking. We took a bunch of pictures. At one point, an Elder decided it was a good idea to jump from the base of the falls onto the ice below. Sister Anderson was at the bottom videoing Elder Tallman and I at the waterfall, but when the other Elder jumped, he broke through the ice, which made the part Sister Anderson was standing on become weak and collapse. We were laughing at her when it went up to her knees, but when she slipped again and went under the cold water up to her chin, then we slid down the ice and helped her up. We immediately went to the car and I gave her the shirt I had packed for the night. She changed into dry clothes and we were sure to get all the victims warm so they didn’t get hypothermia. It was a pretty epic day. We went to some appointments that evening with the zone leaders and it was great!
On Tuesday, we started our rounds of Christmas zone conferences. These conferences are shorter and there is a Christmas lunch provided after each of them I have the special privilege of dressing up as Santa and handing the missionaries their gifts from the mission haha. It is humiliating every time haha. After the conference, we made the long drive back the way we came. On the way back, we saw tons of wildlife. We saw deer, antelope, buffalo, and elk herds! It was so cool. We made it back and grabbed some dinner and then had to go to the office after that.
On Wednesday, we got together with the district and practiced singing our special music number we would be doing at zone conference. We are singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” in English, Tongan, and Tagalog. It is going to be great. We then went to Peterson AFB and renewed our base passes to allow us to get on. We picked up the baptism record for Tyler Shumway and were able to get that officially turned in to the mission office haha. For dinner, we got to go to the Calls again! They are a family in the Sand Creek ward that is just awesome! It was great to be over there for the evening.
On Thursday, we drove down to Pueblo for their Christmas zone conference. It was really great! We got to hear from President Rehm, then he explained the #LIGHTtheWORLD initiative which is freakin awesome. I hope everyone does it and checks it out at Mormon.org It is completely oriented to doing small acts of Christ like service each day in December up to Christmas. Then we had some time to sing Christmas hymns and then a short testimony meeting. It was really great. Again, I was Santa, and that was pretty funny. I am trying to get a picture with President Rehm on my lap. We drove back after the conference and Elder Stark was feeling dead so he crashed. I then made some phone calls and was able to set up a bunch of lessons for the next day. We went to a place called George’s burgers and gyros and ordered some delicious gyros. It was Elder Stark’s first time having a gyro and he thought they were great. We ended the night by spending good time with this less active guy playing basketball. He had only said like 3 words to us whenever we would go over to the house, but now we are able to connect with him and he is friendly with us now.
On Friday, We had a good district meeting and then a good lunch at the Mecham’s. This was the last time that we were going to be able to have lunch with the Mechams! They are finishing their senior mission and are going back to Wyoming. After that, we cleaned up our apartment for the upcoming inspection. We then were able to go and see Anthony and Deborah. They are slowly and steadily progressing. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and they really liked it! They both committed to live the Word of Wisdom. We saw Jose again too and he is doing alright. He is still in a lot of pain that keeps him from doing much. So he is feeling a little worthless. Dinner was with the Mecham’s and the sisters and we went to Red Robin. After that, we went and met with the Rodriguez and were able to have a great lesson with them! They expressed interest about coming back to church and that was awesome. It was good to finally get in and have a lesson with all of them.
On Saturday, We conducted a training call, and I accidentally announced myself as Elder Stark. He started cracking up and had to leave the room for a second. After that, we had our apartment inspection and got a perfect score! Our hard work paid off. We then met with President and Sister Rehm and discussed the upcoming transfer. After that, we went over to the Puzzo’s and had a good lesson there. Dinner was at the Lieshman’s and it was hilarious. They are a super awkward couple and the sisters were over there too so it was a blast. After dinner we played this fun card game called Deer in the Headlights. Sister Lieshman is less active and so it was good to have fun with her. The sisters are going to be teaching her regularly now. After that, we went over to Greg and Shannon’s and helped them prepare for their lesson that they would be teaching on Sunday. It was good to be over there and they are doing really well. They are still going through a lot of crap, but they know the church is where they need to be. They are awesome.
On Sunday, we practiced our special music number with the district in the morning and then we went to church. Mike got to pass the sacrament for the first time too! Also, Michael Sheehan is another person that we just picked up teaching from the sisters! We have already been friends with him so he is excited to have us over. We went and met with another investigator James, we hadn’t met with him for a while because he was going through the process of being kicked out of his home and was a little busy with that. He is a pretty humble guy because now he is living in an RV and it is pretty beat up. But we were able to meet with him and to just listen to him talk. We talked about a bunch of different gospel topics and he is really wanting to get into the church. We are excited to be working with him more frequently again. We went and had dinner at the Churchills and that was great We watched the Christmas devotional at the church and sat by Mitch, who was there as well When it was over, we went and had our first round of District Caroling!! We sang like 2 songs at each door and then shared a message about Christ from the Book of Mormon. We were pretty successful and there were like no slammed doors because we were caroling. We finished the night with hot chocolate, brownies, and call ins at the office. It was a great week
Hope you all have a good week ahead of you! Love you all.
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