Centennial 18

Our half district photo

 You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone

Well I am actually going to be leaving the Littleton Stake.  I will be heading out to Craig, Colorado and Baggs, Wyoming tomorrow morning.  I am going to miss Littleton but I guess I had to leave eventually.  It is colder up there and I will miss the 70 degree weather. I do however get to be companions with Sister Herring.  For those of you who do not remember she was my MTC companion, so that will be crazy. It will be fun to see how we have changed in the last 6 months. We are being white washed by elders. [Whitewashed means all new missionaries instead of one that hasn't been there as long staying].

This week we taught Kamelena the gospel of Jesus Christ. She seemed to enjoy it.  The girls her age know a lot of information about the gospel and they love to share it.  I think Kamelena might find it a little intimidating.  She is quickly becoming friends with the other girls though so that is good. 

This week we taught Nathan the importance of coming to church, praying, and reading the scriptures. Spiritual CPR it works.  We also taught him about callings in the church.  Before he thought that they are kind of like levels that you work up too. The highest being the prophet. We figured we should clarify.  

We have been working with this less active named Carrie she is super awesome.  We have been teaching her the missionary lessons.  On Wednesday we felt like we should talk about the temple and families.  We ended up answering a question that she had asked her home teacher the night before. It was awesome. She even ended up coming to church on Sunday.  

I hope you all have a crazy awesome week.

 

The Massey family(members that we did FHE with every week)

Centennial 17

Bittersweet 

The dragon guy's name is Nathan.  He is actually currently our only investigator who is progressing.  A member of the mission presidency met him and thinks he is accountable.  We have taught him about priesthood and prophets.  He is also looking into pre-mortal life; he seems to like the idea that he might not be a dragon but he still could have been a guardian.  He also is a child of God so he is a prince.  He seems open to the idea that maybe in reality he is not a dragon and it would just be cool if he was.  We will see where it goes. 

Toby was sick this week, so he could not pick up Mebrahtu for church.

We taught another family this week.  The husband is a head pastor and the wife is in charge of music.  They are both open to learning but we will see where it goes.  She ended up liking the Book of Mormon because she has Native American roots.  She said that she always wondered why what they did seemed to have some form of Jewish roots so that it would make sense if the Book of Mormon was true.  She has committed to read it.

This week was also my last exchange with Sister Davies.  It was fun to be able to be her companion for one more day.  It is sad that she is leaving next week, but she has to go home eventually.  Hence why it is bittersweet. I will just have to learn how to function without my "mom" It was awesome though because we ended up eating dinner with Ariel.  It was Sofia's birthday so we had a Frozen ice cream cake. It was nice to be able to see them again. 

That is pretty much my super exciting life :)

Centennial 16

I Love Being A Barbarian --Sister Webster

 

I do not have much time to email this week so this will be very short and rushed.  

You guys remember that dragon guy? Well now he is back.  We found out that the Elders never really stopped teaching him so they passed him off [to the Sisters].  We have a lesson with him today and we are going to talk about the priesthood.  Right now he seems to have some idea that it will help him prove that he was a dragon.  We decided we should clarify.  

Mebrahtu is doing well.  He was sick last week but is doing better.  Our ward mission leader and him are really good friends now.  We are like the only friends he has and he has been here for 7 years which is kind of sad.  We found this Ethiopian restaurant which has a similar culture to Eritrea.  Toby and he went and got food from there so we all ate it together yesterday.  Mebrahtu wants Toby to come with him to Eritrea and Toby says there is no way because he would die.  Mebrahtu is a great example to all of us that we need to wash our hands before we eat; he is very good at reminding all of us.  He also lets us know that burgers, soda, coffee, beer, and smoking is "bad, no good" at least we know that the Word of Wisdom will be no problem.  I can now kind of say Jesus Christ in Tigrinya.  I am thinking I should learn "in the name of Jesus Christ amen" so in my homecoming talk I can say it in a language I learned on my mission.  

On Tuesday we were supposed to have a lesson with Kamelena but she did not show up.  The Gonzalez family did end up coming to church though so that is great.  Kamelena let us know that she is coming this Tuesday to activities.  We ended up just teaching the nine year olds that were there to help.  They are all now super excited to help us teach it today.  

This week when we were tracting we met this lady named Dorothy.  We knocked on her door and she said her pastor just died so she wanted a new church.  We told her when ours was and she was welcome. We went back the next day and taught the restoration she said to not be surprised if she showed up at church.  She also said we are super nice and that we should tell our parents they did a great job raising us.  She did not end up coming to church, but oh well it was still a cool experience.  

I think that is everything. Have a great week :)

Centennial 15

Last week I wrote Ana about some things I found for our youth group to go with the theme for the year and telling her what it is.  "Ask" James 1:5-6  and she wrote back:
I love the theme this year.  Something I have realized on my mission is that we are one of the few churches that believes it is okay to ask.  I feel like that might be because the church was started by someone just asking a question.  That has shown me that yeah I was taught this but I also need to ask and really know for myself.  We are always inviting people to pray and ask God if these things are true and a lot of people are like "no, I do not want to ask God."

Here's Ana's main letter for the week:

Is That A Bear

 On Monday we washed and waxed our car since zone conference was on Friday.  It was actually kind of fun because then our car was all clean and shiny.  

There is this family that we have been trying to get in contact with since I have been in Cornerstone Park.  Their name is the Gonzalez family.  The dad and two older kids are members and the rest of the family is not.  They ended up actually coming to church on Christmas and he said he wanted to come every week.  We ended up teaching one of the other kids a lesson on Tuesday while her older siblings went to mutual for the first time.  We thought she might be getting bored since she is nine but when we were done her dad asked if she liked it and wanted to be baptized.  She was like, "I can be baptized!" she ran allover the church screaming, "I am going to be baptized!"  The entire family came to church again on Sunday.  The dad woke up at 3 am so he could make it to church.  He works for Pepsi and has to go restock all of the vending machines.  

Wednesday it started to snow a lot which was fun.  Then on Thursday morning it was still snowing.  There was a lot of snow. The thing about Denver though is that it all melts really fast.  It is basically all gone today.  

On Friday it was Zone Conferences.  We went over rules pretty much the entire time.  We also talked about planning.  Sister Davies gave a training on how we can have more effective member lessons.  We are going to start trying to meet with members so they have a greater desire to do missionary work then when their friends are interested that is when we meet with them.  We will see how that goes, first we have to set up appointments with members.  We got out of Zone Conference and our car was gone.  We were like, "where is our car?" The vehicle coordinator was like, "oh, I sent it to the shop it must still be there."  We were about 30 mins late to dinner, but our car had new tires so that was nice.  

Saturday the craziest thing happened every single person who's door we knocked on was home and we talked to them.  No one was really interested, but there were some less-actives that we have been trying for a while that we actually contacted so it was crazy.  We also went and got Pho for dinner.  I had never had it before but it is literally every where in Colorado.  We were sad that we could no longer get tropical smoothies, but as soon as we walked in a Justin Bieber song started playing.  I turned to Sister Webster and said Sister we have been blessed for being obedient.  She was like, "I have never thought of Justin Bieber being a blessing, but okay Sister Holcomb."  Earlier in the day we saw this thing that looked like a pig.  As we got closer Sister Webster said, "is that a bear?" We drove closer and it was actually a pig that was just wandering around the suburbs of Littleton Colorado.  

On Sunday for dinner we went to President Sabey's house (the stake president).  The Seventy that came to stake conference is a potato farmer and brought them a bunch of potatoes.  They decided to make them for dinner.  We all decided they were super good potatoes and that potatoes actually taste better when they are fresh.  None of us had ever had a fresh potato before so it was exciting.  In case anyone was wondering, Elder Grow is a good potato farmer :)

 

Some replies to our family letter: 

I think William's report is sufficient.

 [excerpt from Brian's email:  In church each fast Sunday they have someone give a report in priesthood opening exercises on how missionaries are doing.  I’m never there since I’m in primary.  Isaac normally gives the report, but he is doing an orchestra thing the next few weeks and wasn’t there either.  He went to the Elm Creek ward at 9:00 so he could still go to sacrament meeting.  That left William to give the report.  He said, “Uhhh…..she likes hedgehogs.”  I think last week Henry said he liked hedgehogs and you said you like them to.  He later remembered Jose got baptized so he does read your letters.  We’ll have to make sure he is more prepared in the future.]  

Hopefully you can get back to normal soon and not be as busy. It was super exciting to go to Jose's baptism. The garage I do not think will ever actually be clean.  I forgot to say this a few weeks ago but I hope you had a fantastic Louis Tomlinson's birthday :)

I hope you have a great week and you are staying warm too.  The weather here is never the same it can go from the negatives to the 70's in the same day. You just have to bring everything with you just in case.  A reason I am glad I have a car to carry everything.  

XxoOxOXOxxo

Centennial 14

Jose Got Baptized!!!

 

From left to right: Back: Sister Davies, Sister Walker, Jesus, Brother Lathen

                          Front: Jovan, Bianca, me, Jose

One of the people that I was teaching in Bowles Grove got baptized this week on Saturday.  He asked if I could give a talk, so I got permission to go.  It was super nice. I spoke on the Holy Ghost.  I of course had to share Moroni 10:5 (my favorite scripture since forever). It says "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." It was super nice to be able to see him again and see how much he has changed and grown closer to Christ in the last three months since I got transferred.  That was definitely the highlight of my week.  

Ashley was super busy this week with work.  She works at Macy's and everyone was returning things and such.  She was so busy that we did not get the chance to meet with her.  We stopped by yesterday.  She was sick and was also watching her nephew because his mom was sick.  We played with her daughter for a little.  It made me a little sad that we are not allowed to watch kids because then she could maybe take a minute to sit and rest.  At least we know she still likes us and is still willing to meet.  She asked to have Sundays off so she can come to church.  She is hoping they let her now that the holidays are over.  

[We met with a refugee] named Mebrahtu.  We stopped by Saturday with the mission president's wife (Sister Gifford) We tried to talk about the Book of Mormon but it was hard because we could not really understand each other.  Now Sister Gifford is going to help us find a translator hopefully though.  Sunday he came to church again.  We taught prayer using google translate.  Hopefully google translate was accurate.  Luckily our ward mission leader has a device that we could look up google translate on or get a translator app.  *cough* *cough* ipad. 

This week on Wednesday a missionary from our ward got home.  We "heart attacked" her house [(usually means stuck paper hearts all over her front door sometimes with nice notes- Ana didn't specify)] on Tuesday night so that was fun.  Sunday she gave a very nice talk.  She also gave us a bag of clothes to look through because she did not want them anymore.  She is super sweet unfortunately she goes back to school on Wednesday.   

Happy New Year everyone!  I also learned how to say it in Spanish because Jose's family only speaks Spanish so I was going to say it to all of them :)