WEEK #86 - Pueblo Zone

Hey fam and friends! Another great week has gone by!
On Monday, we emailed and shopped in the morning and then Elder Perrins and I played some ping pong. After all of that, we met up with the missionaries in the zone at a park so we could play some football! I brought my flag football flags and put them to good use. It was a lot of fun. I was the QB for most of the plays and there was this one pass I threw to Elder Stark that was awesome. Elder Perrins and Elder Tallman were on the other team and they were running towards Elder Stark. They didn't see each other and ended up colliding and laying on the ground while Elder Stark caught the ball for a touchdown. I thought it was pretty funny haha. It was also Elder Garton's birthday and so I got him a Big Gulp from 7/11. (It's a Dumb and Dumber reference haha) We had dinner at the Avery's again and it was yummy.


On Tuesday, we had a really good day. This is the week in training that the new missionary takes the lead in all planning and teaching situations We had a lesson with the Burger family and they are awesome. He is a firefighter so his work schedule is pretty crazy and he doesn't make it to church all that often. Then we stopped by Hannah again and we met two of her friends and got to talk to them about the gospel. They were on their lunch break and so they didn't have a whole lot of time and so we gave them a Book of Mormon. Later, we went and saw Francis and Josephine and talked to them about baptism. They are still being as stubborn as ever. Dinner was with the Martellaro's and their daughter had just gotten home from her mission. She had been serving in the Rome, Italy mission. We had a good dinner and got to talk to her about her mission and stuff. it was pretty cool. That night, we went and exchanged with the zone leaders.
On Wednesday, I was with Elder Morgan in the Pueblo ward. We had a pretty full day planned too! We started the day off by doing some service. We picked up some trash around the river and then went and cleaned out a hobo camp. It's crazy to see people living like that.

We came back and had some good appointments with some people and then like all of our other lessons canceled on us. So we went and stopped by this one person, but only their mother was home. We asked her if there was anyone in the area that she knew that could use a visit from us. She referred us to this house across the street and so we knocked on doors around the block until we got to the house. It was cool! We met this really open guy who seems interested in what we have to offer! He was talking to us about his religious background and told us that he was cousins with the Christian rapper Lecrae. So that was cool, he gave us a book by Lecrae too. He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon too! Dinner was really good. We had it at this family's house who had invited an investigator over for dinner too. We taught the restoration lesson and it was really powerful. That night, we exchanged back.

On Thursday, Elder Perrins and I stayed together for the morning so that we could weekly plan and then in the afternoon, we went on another exchange. I went to the University ward for the day. We had a pretty good day full of lessons and got to see a lot of the people that they were working with. We went to this one person's house and when I walked in I almost got scared to death because there was this creepy looking thing in the corner of the room. I was first scared and then felt sad because it was a dog that was suffering from some sort of condition. It kept scaring me though. The dog couldn't walk and was losing its hair and stuff.


Dinner was at Chipotle and then we went and visited the McKinney family  It was good to see them again. They were the family that I went over to a couple weeks ago to do a baptismal interview. We had a good night and then went to the apartment.

On Friday, It was St. Patricks Day! We met up at district meeting with everyone and it was great. For the lesson, I made both of the Greenies teach haha so Elder Perrins and Elder Pope taught district meeting.

For our activity, we were playing this game with a football and were all trying to catch it at the same time. I went up to catch one and Elder Zoller's elbow collided with my eye and it hurt like crap. I went to the freezer in the church and took the bag of ice and put it on my face. About half an hour later, my eye turned purple and green. So I had a green eye on St. Patrick's day. 

We went over to the Thomsons for a lesson and that was awesome. We had Sister Graff, the one who just got back from Italy come with us. Brody, one of the kids had a loose tooth and Elder Perrins asked if he could pull it out. So we spent half the time trying to get his tooth out and the other half teaching the lesson. I got a funny video of Elder Perrins pulling out the tooth.


For dinner, we had corned beef and cabbage at the Sawyers and that was awesome.

Then, the Strouds invited us over to play some games and so we were able to have some fun with them too.
On Saturday, there were two more yard sales that we stopped by and we got to talk to some cool people. We stopped by some more people and then headed out to the Dougherty's to work on the barn some more. We were put to work digging our these holes for the water line to run to the barn. After we worked on the barn, we went and had a lesson with Wendy. The lady that we had met last Sunday. She is really cool and seems interested in learning more! We taught her briefly about the Restoration of the gospel and she was really accepting and received it well. Dinner was over at the Martins and that was awesome. We had some good hamburgers and then talked with Brother Martin about the missionary work. We always love being over there because the kids really love us. After dinner, we had a great lesson and then the kids broke out the Nerf guns and it was war. We spend a good while shooting back and forth at each other and I got a couple of headshots in haha. It was great. Afterwards, we went downtown to the riverwalk to meet up with Hannah and her friends again. We had a pretty good talk with them about the need for religion.
On Sunday, we had a good time at church and I really learned a lot. As a missionary, church begins to have a new meaning to you. I find that I have gotten so much out of church since being on my mission. It really has become a necessity to go to church and be uplifted. Dinner was with the Viehwegers and it was great haha. After dinner, we went with Brother Martin to teach the Sefciks. It was way cool. Then we had a great lesson with the Maurello's on forgiveness. Their little kids are super cute an one of them was cooking lunch for us on her little fake kitchen thing haha. It was a great week.
Thanks for everything and hope all of you have a great week too! Love you all
Elder LaRose

WEEK #85 - Pueblo Zone

WEEK #85
Hey everyone! This has been a pretty good week!
On Monday, we met up at the church and played some basketball and spike ball with all the other missionaries. Then, Elder Perrins and I grabbed our ping pong paddles and made a makeshift ping pong table out of a foldable table and a rolled up rug on top for the net haha. We started playing sting pong with everyone and I had a good amount of welts on my belly. It was super fun haha. We had a good dinner at the Avery's and then retired for the night.
On Tuesday, we went out and tried to find people to teach and met some people that said that we could come by again. We read the scriptures more with Sister Ford and then hit the streets again knocking on doors. As we were knocking on some doors, we met a less active member that we didn't know about! We had a good talk and she said that she really wants to go to the temple. So we are excited to be working with her. We kept at it a little more and then we knocked on this one door and someone came to the door but didn't open it or say anything. Then, a car pulled into the driveway as we were standing there and made it all the more awkward. But we figured that people think the missionaries are awkward all the time so we just waited until we got to talk to someone. When we did, we found out that this family was Vietnamese and that they had come in contact with the church before when they lived in San Diego. They were really excited to have us come by and said that they would love to have us come by again! So that was pretty cool. We then had a lesson with Francis and Josephine about the Word of Wisdom. For dinner, we went to sonic and got some grub from there.
On Wednesday, we stopped by Tori again who lives in what we call "Sketch City" It wasn't a good time for her and she said that she was feeling sick. I could see a couple of marijuana plants through the window in their greenhouse. It will take a lot to help them make some big changes in their life. Then we went and talked with the older people at the nursing home and helped them do some watercolor painting. I can't even remember the last time that I did any watercolor painting. We came back and had dinner with Brother Nanto and had some delicious chocolate covered cinnamon rolls for dessert. Afterwards, we had a good lesson with the Smiths. We are going through the temple prep book with them to help prepare them to be sealed as a family. After the lesson, Brother Smith took us out for a little joy ride in his Subaru STI. It was super cool and fast haha.

On Thursday, we headed up to the Springs to get a replacement key for our car and to pick up some Vietnamese copies of the Book of Mormon. It was weird to be back in the Springs haha. And we had to stop by Mike and Randi to say hi as well. Or else they would have been mad at me haha. We had a great talk there and it was good to see them. We came back home and planned out in detail the next week. As part of the training program, this next week is where Elder Perrins takes the lead in all planning and teaching situations. I am fully confident in his ability to do so:) We had a good dinner with the Doerr family that night too.
On Friday, we had a good district meeting in the morning. I talked about the 'why' of missionary work with everyone and it was really great. After that, we were driving around and saw that a couple of people had garage sales going on, so we stopped by them. It was actually a really great source to talk to people and have a good conversation! We went to 3 different garage sales and we came away with a potential investigator and a free picture frame for Elder Perrins haha. It was really cool. We kept at it all day with trying to find new people to teach but were met with no success. We stopped by the Burns and talked to the dad out on the porch for a little bit. Dinner was dropped off to us to we ate it at our apartment and then finished doing our studies that night.

On Saturday, we had a good day in the morning and went to go find more people to teach! We went to this trailer park to stop by some people we knew but none of them were home, so we knocked on a couple of the doors around the area. We knocked on this one door and this really nice lady answered and started talking to us. She made it clear that she didn't want to learn more, but kept on talking to us about random things. She even gave us a referral for someone who she thought we could visit. As we were talking to her, the property manager came up to us and stated to chew us out for being there but this lady saved our butts. She told the manager that we were visiting her and that there were no problems. So that was nice of her. We stopped by some more people and then went and helped the Doughertys on their barn. Alex wasn't there because he went to go "say goodbye" to his dad who was not doing well in the hospital. So we are sad for him but it's a good thing that our next lesson is on the Plan of Salvation.

After the barn, we had a lesson with the Bowmans. We had a good lesson with them and everything but they struggle with coming to church all the time. Dinner was with the Martellaro's and it was awesome. We were celebrating her birthday too. While we were there, they got a phonecall that their daughter would be returning home from her mission early sue to her health. Fortunately, the family has been aware of her health and it wasn't much of a surprise. They were just bummed for her. It was good for us to be there through that I think.
On Sunday, we woke up early (and extra early because of daylight savings) and went and had a meeting before church. Church was really great but there was like nobody there. We did however, have Sister Thomson and her kids come! That was so cool! After church we saw a bunch of people and tried to contact some part member families. Dinner was with the Ashtons, and we got to play a game with their autistic son Caleb. It was a great week!
Thanks for all of the support from everyone and SHOUTOUT to my cousin Jake for getting his mission call to preach the gospel in Spanish in the New York South mission! Love you all and have a great week!

Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #84 - Pueblo Zone

Hy everyone! This week has been a pretty good one!
On Monday, we played some good ping pong and then went to the stake center to play some sports. Elder Stark also gave me a haircut there. It's nice to have him back in the zone so I can get free haircuts haha. After that, we went over to the Avery's and had a good dinner. Then, Brother Martin came with us and had the lesson and we talked about the temple and the blessings of attending regularly. It was a really great lesson.
On Tuesday, it was the last day of the month and because it was a short month, we had a lot of extra miles to use. So, we went and explored the very borders of our area. The top of our area goes almost to the bottom part of southern Colorado Springs. So we made the drive up there and it was really out there in the boonies. There weren't too many houses to knock on, but we still went. We even got to the edge of Fort Carson, the military base and saw a couple of helicopters and some vehicles out there. 

We came back and had another good lesson with Francis and Josephine. They really aren't progressing towards baptism but we keep going over to bring the spirit into their home and to talk about the gospel. We had dinner at the Cash's and that was pretty good. We had a lesson on charity with them. They still have problems with the Word of Wisdom and we are working with them towards that.

On Wednesday, we started the morning by having a lesson with Sister Snyder about the word of wisdom. We think that she has a problem with smoking because we smell it sometimes when we are there, but she acted like she was over it. So we are going to have to pry a little more to figure out how we can help her more. In the afternoon, we went to the nursing home and got to serve all of the tenants ice cream. We then colored pictures with them while we were there. For dinner, we went to Texas Roadhouse and got some delicious steaks there. After that, we went and met up with Elder J Smith and Elder Heywood at Coldstone. They were driving down from a meeting in the Springs so it was good to catch up and talk with them.
On Thursday, we went to go have our appointment with this potential investigator that we had set and when we showed up, we knocked on the door. We could also see him through the door and when we knocked, he got up and went into another room and didn't answer the door. So after that, we went and helped brother Dougherty on the barn for a little bit. I dug the dirt out of 30 holes with the post hole digger and my shoulders were burning haha. We came back and did our weekly planning too. Dinner was with the Cluff's and it was awesome. They are super funny and it's good to be around them haha. We had a good lesson on missionary work with them. After that, we went with the spanish Elders and since I'm the district leader, I was able to do a baptism interview for someone that they are teaching. She was 10 years old and was super prepared and happy to be baptized. It was really neat to meet them and the family.

On Friday, we had our zone training in the morning with the whole zone and it was great! We talked about being spiritually self reliant. It is basically holding yourself accountable for your own spiritual growth. It was a good zone training and we learned a lot from each other. Afterwards, a good group went to Taco Bell for lunch. It was fun to sit and talk with Elder Stark and Elder Tallman some more :) As I was looking around the zone, I realized that we three are the oldest people in the zone! That was pretty crazy to think about. After that, we went and saw the Thomsons! It had been a while since we had gone over so it was really good. We had a good lesson with Sister Thomson about coming to church and building the basics back up again. She told us that she really needed that in her life. It was a great lesson. Afterwards, we were invited to the Pinewood Derby where they had a potluck dinner and then raced the cars. We were asked to be judges so we went and voted on our favorite cars and then sat at the end of the track and judged the races. It was a pretty fun night. Then we came home and cleaned our apartment up for the inspections.
On Saturday, our apartment was inspected and we got a Celestial score! Haha after that we went to the baptism of the girl I interviewed. Her name is Seneca and she was super happy. There was such a great spirit there. Then we went and helped distribute food into cars for people who were in need. We were at a food bank and were loading the boxes of food into people's cars. 

Then we took off and went to the barn to help Alex out. He had some more people from his work there and we got to talk to them which was good. We mixed concrete and poured it around these posts in the barn to hold them steady. Dinner was at Brother Nanto's and the Carters were there too. We had a good lesson about the temple and are starting the process of them getting temple recommends! We went over to see Francis that night because he gave us some awesome shirts too.

On Sunday, we had a good day at church and the testimonies given were awesome. The Thomsons were able to make it too!! So we were way excited about that. After church, we had an early dinner with the Boyers and that was awesome. Then we were invited over for cinnamon rolls at the Dougherty's and they were so good. We had our coordination meeting with Brother Martin after that and it was a good way to end the week. We are trying to find more people to teach because the investigators we have here have been flaking out. So it's time to start over again.

Love you all and have a great week!!

Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #83 - Pueblo Zone

Hey everyone! This week has been pretty good.
On Monday, we went and played some Volleyball and Basketball at the stake center with a bunch of other missionaries. Elder Stark was transferred into the zone so it was good to hang out with him more. I was able to get some really good spikes in. We had lunch with the Viehwegers and Brother Bundy in the afternoon and that was pretty great.
On Tuesday, we spent most of the morning emailing and everything. We had a good lesson with Sister Ford and then grabbed some lunch. In the afternoon, we went and saw Francis and Josephine and had a pretty good lesson with them there. Lately, it has been really hard to get a hold of Vanessa. She isn't responding to our texts or calls, and we haven't caught her at home yet. We have no idea why she isn't talking to us and it's pretty frustrating because her baptism was supposed to be this weekend. We just have to keep trying I guess. That was pretty discouraging for us. For dinner, we were given money so we went and got a pizza. After that, we went on splits with Brother Martin and were able to visit some more less active members and have good lessons.


On Wednesday, we went and helped Brother Dougherty on his barn for a little bit and he fed us lunch. Then we went down to the nursing home and got to color some pictures with everyone and that was fun haha. Later, we had a good lesson with Socorro, Asa, and Zach about the Law of Chastity. They haven't been quite living the law so it was good for us to talk about it and we are helping them to live it. Dinner was with the Spencer's and we had a great dinner and lesson there. They also let us wash our car out there so that was nice.


On Thursday, we had a short zone conference where we got to hear from President Rehm and the family services guy, Bishop Stohl. Both talks were great and it was a good pick me up. Afterwards, we did our weekly planning for a while. For dinner, we went with the Coombs to a really good restaurant. Then we came back and prepared the 4 talks we had to write for Saturday.
On Friday, we had interviews with President Rehm and that was nice. Elder Tallman was also transferred into the zone so we all went to Wendy's for lunch. We had a combined district meeting and Elder Tallman and I taught together. Dinner was with the Avery's and we had a good time there.
On Saturday, we had a training call in the morning and then spent the afternoon stopping by people. We set a return appointment with this really nice guy named John and hopefully that goes somewhere! We then went to help out on the barn again and it was freezing! We dug some more post holes for the fence and then helped out Alex more. We had dinner with Alex over at the Dougherty's and we were able to teach Alex the first lesson! He accepted a Book of Mormon to read and we are excited to be working with him more!

On Sunday, we had ward council in the morning and then church was pretty good. We were able to meet with Sister Landreth and discuss some people that we could try to work with. Then we were going to go out with Brother Bundy to do home teaching, but he got into a car crash on his way to pick us up. Everyone was alright and so he just postponed the home teaching. We went and visited a couple of active members with him and it was great. Brother Bundy is this seventy year old Vietnam Vet. Who is a Purple Heart recipient. Haha he is a trooper. We had dinner with the Archuleta's and taught a good lesson with Brother Martin there. We are working on getting them sealed together. It was a pretty good week! Thanks for everything and hope that you all have a good week! Especially Keldon who is turning 16 this week! Happy birthday!! Love you all.

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #82 - Pueblo Zone

WEEK #82
12.21.17

Hey everyone! This week has been great! We have a new address too by the way. It is 4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103
On Monday, we had the last pday with the zone before transfers and everyone got together and played some basketball. Elder Perrins and I got our weekly ping pong playing in. Each week we play a couple games of ping pong and it is super fun. Elder Perrins is really good and usually wins. It was a good day and for dinner, we went over to the Biggerstaffs.
On Tuesday, it was transfer day for the rest of the mission but we stayed put. We also put stickers on our face per tradition.

It's crazy to think that training is already halfway over. We got news that we were moving so we started cleaning up a bunch of stuff and packing things away. We went and saw Linda Ford and read the scriptures. Later, we saw Francis and Josephine and talked about the temple. They were pretty frustrating because they said that we didn't need temples on the earth again. They really aren't progressing so we are going to have to go over less. Dinner was with the Martellaro's and it is always fun being around them. We
spent some good time there and had a good lesson too. It was a good Valentines day.
On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Sister Snyder and Brother Nanto. We taught the plan of Salvation and it went well. We went to the nursing home and played some more games with the tenants. Afterwards, we had a lesson with Asa, Socorro, an Zach about the Word of Wisdom. It was Elder Perrin's first time teaching about the Word of Wisdom and he did great. After that, we had dinner over at the Carters. Sister Carter was not feeling well so she wasn't present at dinner and her kids, Damon and Larae made dinner for us and ate with us haha. They made some pretty good bean soup and fry bread.
On Thursday, it was the big moving day. We moved out of the Cash's home and into an apartment. We met the housing coordinators there and got everything situated and moved in. I prefer to live in an apartment because I am less at ease in member homes but I am grateful for all of the members' sacrifices. We live on the bottom floor and it is a cozy one bedroom apartment. We spent a lot of the day moving in and then unpacking all of our stuff and finding a place for it.

We went and saw the Jim's in the later afternoon and that was good. It had been a while since we had seen them. Dinner was a pizza that was dropped off to us and so we ate it there and then did our studies.
On Friday, we had a good district meeting in the morning and have one new member of the district. Elder Koehler. I remember picking him up from the airport when I was an Assistant. Afterwards, we stopped by a ton of people that we just couldn't catch. Dinner was at the Sefcik's house and that was fun. She is from Russia and has and accent and everything. We had a good time being with their family and got to have a goo lesson with the kids. They commented on how they like having Elders in the ward again. We have gotten that from a couple of different people too so that's good.
On Saturday, we started the day on a weird note. Francis had been inviting us this whole time to a Christian Men's conference at his church. Well, we went to the Saturday part of it and it was pretty wild. With our white shirts and ties, Elder Perrins and I stuck out more than an Amish man working for Microsoft. There were a lot of people here and we got a lot of looks but a lot of friendly welcomes as well. After we checked in, we went into this amphitheater thing and it was something that I wasn't expecting at all. After this really long prayer, a band came out and started singing songs and everyone was jumping and swaying with their hands in the air saying "praise Jesus" and everything haha. I was like "What the heck is going on right now?" It was really different but neat to see people gathered for a good cause. Then they had this preacher guy  come and give a motivational speech on making decisions.

We left after that and then went to go and help bishop move some of his furniture around.  Then we went over to the Dougherty's to help Alex on the barn. This time, we were digging trenches for the electrical and water lines. It was hard work and at some points, we were digging out dirt with our hands.

Afterwards we went and saw Cass Bailey and talked to him for a little bit. He needs to get back to church more. Dinner was with the Ashton's and it was super fun. Te food was good and then we got to help their autistic son Caleb with his social skills by playing different interactive games with him. That night we had a good coordination meeting with Brother Martin and then retired for the night.
On Sunday, we had church in the morning. It was good because Asa and Socorro and Zach came again! Asa is feeling like he has lost all hope but he is still coming to church so that is good. We had a good talk with him too. We went and stopped by a lot of people after church and were able to find another less active lady to work with. We had dinner at Brother Sawyers home and had some spaghetti. We had a good fun lesson where we talked about cool things found in the scriptures. It was a good week! Hopefully this week goes even better.

Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

CURRENT ADDRESS:

4753 Eagleridge Cir. Apt. #103

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #81 - Pueblo Zone

WEEK #81

Hey everyone! This week has been a good one!
On Monday, we did some emailing and then we met up with the APs! When they pulled up, it was Elder Stark, Elder Lloyd, and Elder Pexton! Elder Pexton will be replacing Elder Stark this Tuesday. So we got to have a good little reunion and then we went and got some lunch. Then, we picked up the zone leaders and then drove all the way out to Rye, Colorado. We went to see this place called Bishop's Castle. Y'all should look it up. It is this man made castle that this guy named Jim Bishop has been working on for years. It's pretty big and is basically put together with rocks, cement, and welded metal. There are a couple of metal spiral staircases that lead up to the top of the towers and you can look out across the mountains. The castle is definitely not up to code and there's not much between you and a big fall sometimes, which made it awesome. We got a lot of good pictures and it was great to be there with everybody.

 We drove back and then went to Goodwill to check out what they had. Dinner was at the Nanto's with Socorro and Asa and Zach. We had a good night with them and had a good lesson on enduring to the end.
On Tuesday, we had another good day. We had lunch with the Harrison's and that was really good. Afterwards, we had a lesson with Linda Ford and continued to read in the scriptures with her. Vanessa had to cancel her lesson with us because she was busy dealing with family stuff. I think an uncle of her's just passed away so they are going through all of that with the family. We went and saw Francis and Josephine and had a better lesson with them. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that has a lot more common ground. We had dinner at Burger King before we met up with Brother Ashby and Brother Morgan for splits. I went with Brother Ashby and we visited an active family while the others went to this less active home. It was great! We both got in and shared good messages. Afterwards, we met up and then went to the Maurello's. He is a less active member that told us that he only got baptized so he could marry his wife. So it is a little bit of a struggle trying to build his testimony up but it was good for us to be over there. We have their little girl a blessing before we left too. That night, we went and exchanged with the San Carlos Elders. I stayed in the area while Elder Perrins went to the other one.
On Wednesday, I was with Elder Riley for the day. He is a great guy from Yucaipa, California and we had a great day! He even has a little bit of a connection with my cousins the Salisbury's! In the morning, we went to visit Tori out in the sketchy junkyard part of our area. It was brief but good for her. We talked to her about prayer and she said that she was trying to get her life back in order. Her trailer smelled like Marijuana and pet poop. I could even see a couple of turds on the floor in the other room. Hopefully she does clean up and start over. After that, we went and did service at the nursing home. It was great to be with them and they all like having us come over. We had an ice cream social and then played a game with them. Afterwards, we had dinner with the Cooks and they are all awesome. They have 4 kids and we taught them about the restoration using the little cups that mom sent me haha. We then went over to the Coombs and gave them both a blessing because they weren't feeling well. It was good to be over there and we talked a little more about the priesthood. Later, we went over to the former bishop's house and had a great lesson there with his wife.
On thursday, we did our weekly planning through the morning and then went to go and help the Avery's move. They only moved a couple of apartments over so it wasn't too bad. Then we went and did some more tracting before we went to dinner with the Smith's. we had a good dinner and a lesson about enduring to the end and they are working on getting their kid adopted.
On Friday, we had a good district meeting where I talked about having better studies as a missionary. After that, we wet on exchanges and I left Elder Perrins in the area while I went with Elder Laga. Elder Laga is a great guy and we have a lot of things in common! His dad is the institute director at the University of Montana, he moved his senior year too, his first name is Kyle, and we both had 1970 jeeps. We had a good day together and went to see a bunch of people on our bikes. We stayed on the bikes for most of the day and that was great.

We did some tracting, and the first door we knocked on was a really big brick house. The people opened the door and invited us in! It wasn't totally what we were expecting but they invite us in and offered to take us around the house for a tour! Haha. So we did. We went around the house and it turns out that whenever the missionaries have knocked on their door, they have always shown them around the house. They said that they are happy with their own faith but always are kind to the missionaries. They even took us into a room where they have tons of Genealogy and stuff like that. They do family history work better than most LDS people haha! Then we went to dinner with this Filipino family and had a Filipino soup. It was great.

On Saturday, we were still on exchanges, so we woke up and did our studies and then went to go help a family move some gravel around their house so they could landscape it. Most of the houses in Colorado are landscaped with rocks and things like that instead of grass. Especially in Pueblo where it is more of a desert. We met up with Elder Perrins and Elder Pope again and then Elder Perrins and I went to go help Alex work on the barn. We had a good gospel discussion with him and made more progress on the barn. Dinner was with the Martins and we had a good meal and afterwards, we did our coordination meeting with Brother Martin.
On Sunday, we had PEC and Ward Council in the morning and then had a good time at church! Vanessa wasn't able to make it because of more family stuff but Asa finally made it! Church was good and after that, we came home and had lunch. Then I got to work on a essay for a scholarship. Dinner was with Willie Siddoway and his family. They are super awesome too! We had elk back strip steaks and they were delicious. We had a good lesson with their crazy kids and then got to mess around with them downstairs. We would pick then up and throw them at the bean bag and then roll them down the stairs on it haha. It was a great night and a great week. Elder Perris manages to find us a new investigator while we were on exchanges so that's pretty awesome.
Hope that everyone has a good valentines day and a good rest of the week. Love you!
Elder LaRose

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

ADDRESS:

4 Colt Court

Pueblo West CO 81008

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

WEEK #80 - Pueblo Zone

Hey everyone! It's been another good week.
On Monday, we got to email and then we went and played some tennis. Elder Perrins played tennis in high school and so did this other Elder, so they went and had some good matches  against each other. The rest of us just smacked the ball around and then played spike ball. It was a good day! We went over to the Avery's and had delicious enchiladas. Then we went and exchanged with the Zone Leaders. I got to have Elder Garton with me for the day.
 

On Tuesday, it was the last day of the month so we rode our bikes everywhere. We had to stay in town for most of our visits because the ride out to Pueblo West is pretty far for bikes. So we went and stopped by a bunch of people. We got to see David, someone that we had met when we first got to the area and had a good lesson there.  Elder Garton commented on how out of shape he was from all the biking we were doing haha. We had a great lesson with Vanessa! We brought Sister Cook along with us for the lesson and talked about the Plan of Salvation with her. Sister Cook was just awesome during the lesson. Vanessa understood very well and we set a baptism date with her for March 4th. That was awesome. It was funny because after we extended the baptism date to her she said "yeah, what time?" Haha she is really looking forward to that date. After the lesson, we got back on our bikes and did some finding. Dinner was out in Pueblo West with the Spencer's so we drove out there and got to share a message about the Plan of Salvation with the fam. We went and had another lesson with the Doerrs and talked about how the Savior's suffering for us motivates us to share His gospel. Then we went over to the Smith's for a lesson about temples and about being sealed. They have not been sealed in the temple yet, so we are working with them towards that. We may start going through the Preparing to enter the Holy Temple book with them. They are progressing really well and we are excited for them.

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Sister Snyder in the morning and taught the message of the Restoration. She is still struggling with her worthiness but still has a strong testimony of the gospel and that is what we are trying to build. Afterwards, we went into town for lunch and Elder Perrins had his first Slopper. It was pretty good. Then we went over to the Nursing home and got to play some games with the people there. They really like us coming over and it's always good to see them.

After that, we had a quick lesson with Socorro, Asa, and Zach about the Holy Ghost. We are working through the new member lessons with them and it's going well. Asa definitely has a pretty big personality and he is pretty jittery so  it makes the teaching fun. Then we went to dinner at the Cluff's and had some great hamburgers. They still have all of their little puppies and they're still cute. We shared a message with all 6 of the kids and they were awesome.
On Thursday, we drove our car to the shop to have the traction control serviced at 8:00am. Then we came home and did our studies and tackled our weekly planning. We biked to lunch and then did some stop bys. Finally, at like 4:00 we got our car back. We had dinner with Bishop Klemm and his wife. It was great. Our final appointment cancelled on us which was a bummer.
On Friday, we had zone training with the whole zone and President and Sister Rehm attended this one. It was good to see them again. It was a good training and we got to learn a lot.
Afterwards, we went over to Sister Ford's and helped read the Book of Mormon with her. Then we went and saw the Reed's and had a lesson with Brielle, who was going to be baptized on Saturday. Then we went and saw the Burns, who had a son getting baptized on Saturday as well. We had dinner over at the Bailey's and got to meet all of them that night. They are pretty cool. Both of daughters are returned missionaries.
On Saturday, we went to the stake center for the baptisms of the kids. That was super great. After that we went to an apartment complex to figure out our next housing situation. They are going to be moving us into apartments because the Cash's time is up for housing us. The rest of the day was pretty slow. We stopped by a ton of people that we had expected to be home on a Saturday but nobody was home. We had dinner with the Viehwegers at a Chinese restaurant. Then we came home and tackled more of our studies.
On Sunday, there was no ward council or anything like that, so we came to church. It was a great Sunday! The only thing that stunk was that Vanessa didn't come to church. We kept crinking our necks to the doorways hoping that she would come through. But it's alright. After church, we went and met with the Elder's quorum president, Brother Siddoway, to discuss some people that we could visit. Then we went and stopped by the Jim's but they weren't home. They were probably watching the Superbowl somewhere. Superbowl Sundays suck as a missionary. Nobody wants to let you in and it's hard to be completely productive. We saw sister Larson and checked in on her too. We came back and broke our fast by making breakfast burritos. It was a good rest of the day and training is going well.
Thanks everyone for the contact and stuff:) have a great week
Elder LaRose

MISSION OFFICE:

4090 Center Park Dr

Colorado Springs, Colorado

80916

kyler.larose@myldsmail.net

NEW ADDRESS:

4 Colt Court

Pueblo West CO 81008