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12/14/2020
Howdy!
Tuesday 12/8/20
-This morning we were supposed to have a lesson with a lady named Margaret, over WhatsApp, but she had to reschedule. She is someone who has been taught previously by other missionaries, and hopefully we can start teaching her again.
-Then we had Zone conference pretty late in the day, which was interesting. It was a really good training though. The focus was on helping us to elevate the efficacy of our weekly and daily planning. The APs also did a roleplay of extending a baptismal invitation to someone who says that they don't think they're ready. It was pretty helpful, preparing us to act on our commitment to extend a baptismal invitation before Christmas.
-After our training we had an ugly sweater competition and did a white elephant gift exchange with the whole zone! Super fun! The gift I contributed was a swim cap, which I thought was hilarious! Everyone was going for it. Most of the gifts were super funny and I think everyone had a great time.
Wednesday 12/9/20
-This afternoon, we "helped" with some service for a person the Falcon sisters are teaching. I say "helped" in quotation marks because there was only one rake and my whole district was there, so we had to take turns raking the entire horse pasture haha.
Thursday 12/10/20
-We are having a bit of trouble reaching out to one of the members of the Limon Branch presidency. It's a really long story and I can't go very much into detail, but I figured I should include it, because these weekly emails are essentially my mission journal. It would mean a lot to me if anyone reading this could pray for me. I'm hoping Brother Allen will have his heart softened towards us and that we will be able to work with him. There has been a misunderstanding and it has been a bit of a stressor for me.
Friday 12/11/20
-We had interviews with President Eccles today. He did mine as we walked around the church building. He said he needed to keep his mind active haha. But we had a really great chat and he said he loves the work I'm doing, which made me really happy :).
-It also snowed today, so the roads were a bit slick. We're being careful though, don't worry.
Saturday 12/12/20
-We tried our first pre-recorded video lesson today for Donny and his family. It went really good I think! When we sent it to him, he said thanks, so we'll have to see if he has any questions after watching it.
Sunday 12/13/20
-We had our weekly lesson with Rusty and Dustin after church. We went through the baptismal interview questions with them to make sure they are prepared for their interviews this Tuesday. They are so ready! They have been extremely diligent in their studies of the Book of Mormon and talks from the prophet and apostles. It's amazing to see their progression in the gospel and in their testimonies. They'll definitely be ready for their baptisms next Saturday.
Monday 12/14/20
-Today we helped with moving all the furniture out of the Limon missionary apartment, which probably means they won't be putting any new missionaries in that area for a while. It was a good opportunity for Elder Ellsworth and I to see the town which is now part of area too.
Hope you all have a good week!
-Elder Bird
12/7/2020
Tuesday 12/1/20
-Today is the first day of "Light the World," a program that the Church implements every year during the Christmas season and for the month of December. Each day a service-oriented invitation is given to help remind us to help and highlight those around us! Today for "Giving Tuesday" was the invitation to give a donation to a charity or volunteer at a non-profit organization. For our donation, we collected up a lot of our canned items and some other bits and bobs that we could spare, and donated them to a local food bank.
-It was also the day of Transfers!! Elder Humphries finished up the last of his packing and we headed out to drop him off with Elder Alexander, who was supposed to drive him to his new area. But, it turned out that Elder Alexander's car didn't have a bike rack for Elder Humphries' bike. We checked in with the APs on what to do, and ended up just keeping everything in the truck and following the other car all the way out to his new apartment, which was pretty fun!
-Elder Humphries' new companion is a super funny guy and after meeting and talking with him, we said goodbye and hit up the newly built In-N-Out burger place that had just been finished about a week ago. The drive through line was insane! it wrapped so far around and even went through a parking garage. So we put on our face masks and waited in the standing line, which didn't take too long at all.
-Two more quick stops at other missionaries' places, and we finally made it back home just in time to get ready for our ward's mutual/young men's activity. We played a game of ultimate frisbee, always a good time.
Wednesday 12/2/20
-Today was a really great day because as the District Leader I had the opportunity to perform my first baptismal interviews. Two other companionships in my district have baptismal candidates, Hunter for the Falcon Sisters, and Chace for the Paintbrush Hills Sisters! What's even more exciting is that they both passed their interviews, and both seem ready, which means they are going to be baptized this Saturday!!! I'm super excited for them both and I'm grateful to have been able to play a small part in their individual conversion processes.
-Other than that, not much else today other than doing some rearranging of the cabin and taking out the third bed that we had needed for Elder Humphries. We also picked up a small table from the ZLs that we can use as a desk. That's the one thing we have been missing in our little cabin, is a good place to do studying, that's not on the couch. I've gotta say, it's really nice to rearrange every once-in-a-while. It gives us a fresh start, and right after transfers was a great time to do it.
Thursday 12/3/20
-In the afternoon all of us in the district went over to help, Winifred, a lady in the Falcon area again with some farm renovations. The main project was removing and rearranging some old fencing so that she could have one fully enclosed chicken coop. It was pretty fun!
-That night Elder Ellsworth and I joined in a video call with a couple other companionships in the district. We have been doing a Book of Mormon study group, looking for all the promises that God made to His covenant people, Israel. It was a challenge our prophet invited us to do during the most recent General Conference. It was a really good study group and we plan on doing it every night.
Friday 12/4/20
-This morning we had a devotional with the whole mission where we talked about a recent change to our mission rules. During the first few months of Covid we were allowed to call our families on P-day (Monday) and one other day of the week. But the mission department in Salt Lake just announced that starting on Monday, we will return to only calling once a week, on P-days. I think some people might see this as a negative thing, but I actually see it as a positive step forward. I think it means means things are in the process (even if it's a long one) of returning back to normal, and I'm very hopeful for the near future.
-During this same devotional, Elder Edwards, one of the APs [assistants to the president] gave us a revelation-inspired challenge, with the approval of the Mission President, for each companionship to extend a baptismal invitation before Christmas. That was kind of cool! It will be exciting to see how that invitation will affect the mission.
-I had another exchange with the Zone Leaders today as well. I spent time with Elder Norby, who has a lot of experience and it was great to receive some direction from him.
Saturday 12/5/20
-Hunter's and Chace's baptisms are today!! Elder Ellsworth and I were able to go to Hunter's baptism in the afternoon and it was a really amazing spiritual experience! Unfortunately, we weren't able to go to Chace's service because we had a previous appointment to pick up a dinner from someone in our area who lives pretty far away. But, we told the Sister missionaries to let Chace know that we are super proud of him for making such a great decision for himself.
Sunday 12/6/20
-After church we had another great lesson with Rusty and Dustin. Lincoln, a young man from the ward and the Priest Quorum 1st Assistant, came with us. It's always nice to have someone from the ward, especially someone their own age, come with us to teach! We finished the rest of the lessons and then planned out their baptismal program (like who will speak, what songs we'll sing, etc.) All that is left for us to do is to have their baptismal interviews with the Zone Leaders. Very exciting!!
-After the lesson, we spent some time whipping up a sweet-looking paper program for the service!
Monday 12/7/20
-It has been warm this week which is kinda weird considering how late it is in the year, but hey, I'm not complaining. So, for our p-day activity we decided it would be a great day to go golfing before it gets cold again. This was my first ever real golfing experience, and I feel like I did pretty alright for my first time!
-The rest of the day it was really nice to chill out a bit before picking up dinner from the Haynies.
-Funny thing, I received a certificate from the secretary of my mission in Brazil, which was interesting. It says "We are eternally grateful to: Elder Bird, For dedicating all you time, gifts and talents as a representative of Jesus Christ, for tireless effort and work done for our mission." Signed by by the mission president and his wife, President and Sister Acosta.
Hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
11/30/2020
Hey Everyone!
Tuesday 11/24/20
-Today I did my first exchanges with some of the Elders in my district, starting with Elder Duffin and Elder Omer (in the Woodmen Hills area). We did them one right after the other, which was pretty draining. I tried to build social and spiritual connections with each of them, and I think it went really well. I felt like I was able to connect with them both and give them the training that they needed.
-Then we had a lesson with the Hendricks tonight where we talked about gratitude in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Wednesday 11/25/20
-We were scheduled to visit with Matty today, to teach him more about the gospel and follow up with his reading, but he hadn't responded to any of our texts for the past week. Not a good sign. We showed up at his house anyway, but nobody came to the door. We made cookies and so left them and a note on his porch. Hopefully he was just really busy and forgot about the lesson. We're hoping he sees our note and we can get in touch with him again soon though.
-After that, we went to help out with a service project for a member in the Woodmen Hills ward. We helped a sister put in some peat gravel and some rocks for a pathway in her backyard. At the end, she gave all of us who came to help, loaves of homemade bread! So good.
Thursday 11/26/20
-Thanksgiving!!! It was a great day!
-Today we pretty much got the whole day off for the holiday, except for our morning studies, and we called it T-day (a P-day pun). After our work, we met up with the other missionaries in our district and we played board games and card games. I brought our newly-made three-player chess board, which is super fun! Around 3pm, we went and picked up Thanksgiving day dinners from two families in the ward, the Choates and the Kecks. We brought them back to the Meridian House (the house where the other two companionships of Elders in the district stay) to eat with them. We also called our families. At 6pm, we had a Zoom devotional with President Eccles and his whole family, during which he said he had a surprise for us. Then he put on a movie over the screen-share feature of Zoom, and we got to watch the "Fighting Preacher" together as a whole mission! It was was really fun and really cool. I now love holidays on the mission!
Friday 11/27/20
-In the afternoon we had exchanges with the Limon Elders, Elder Richins and Elder Emfield, and I was partnered with Elder Richins this time.
-On one of the Facebook groups out here in this area, someone posted about how they made way too much Thanksgiving dinner and was offering lots of leftovers. Of course being the valiant missionaries that we are, we saw it as a teaching opportunity and not just a way to get more food - haha. So I responded to the post and set up a time to pick it up. They were extremely kind and giving! They didn't end up having time for us to share a message or anything with them tonight, but they said to keep in touch and that they'll have plates for us for Christmas as well!! So nice!!! That was really, really cool!
Saturday 11/28/20
-Our county just moved into the red zone on the COVID scale, and so in turn we now have more restrictions in terms of mission regulations. Basically, while we're in red zone, we aren't allowed to enter people's homes for lessons and we can't gather as a district for non-religious related activities. We are still able to have lessons at the church building though, so that's what we will have to plan to do for teaching the Moyes Family.
-This week is the end of the last week of the transfer [happens every 6 weeks], and so we were anticipating the transfer sheet to come out this evening. When it came, we were surprised to see that Elder Humphries is being transferred out of the Calhan area and over to the North Zone. Elder Ellsworth and I will just be a duo now, staying here. We will both miss him for sure. I'm excited for him to see the less rural side of the mission and broaden his horizons a bit. We'll say goodbye to him next Tuesday when we drop him off at the church where transfers happen.
-Also, it turns out that the mission will not be sending missionaries out to the Limon area for now. Instead, we in Calhan will cover that as part of our area too, so that's kind of exciting! We will have one of the biggest areas in the entire mission, bordering the mission's north and east borders, and we've more than doubled our original boundaries.
Sunday 11/29/20
-Elder Humphries gave his testimony during church today as a goodbye to the ward. After church we talked with the Moyes Family and had another lesson with Rusty and Dustin. The date we have set for their baptism is coming up soon, just in a few weeks, so we're trying to teach them the lessons as quick as we can without rushing them. Both of their individual commitment to the Lord and to their testimonies of the gospel are of the utmost importance to us, and they are making a lot of progress as they are continuing to read the Book of Mormon and pray every day.
Monday 11/30/20
-This morning [p-day] we went mini-golfing as a companionship, as a last hurrah for Elder Humphries' departure tomorrow. It was really fun! The course we went to, had two cool Jurassic-Park-esque themed courses with a couple hilarious grammar mishaps on some of their dinosaur fact plaques. Hopefully the picture I took shows and you can read it. It seriously had me dying laughing.
-Afterwards, we stopped by the Meridian house to get signatures on Elder Humphries' Colorado flag and transfer journal by the other missionaries, and then we grabbed a few groceries at Walmart. Since then Elder Humphries has been packing up, and Elder Ellsworth and I are working on writing emails and journal entries.
Hope you have a great week!!
-Elder Bird
Pictures:
Thanksgiving Dinner
Mini-golfing & funny sign
Map of Col Springs mission with our new area in the top right corner - I'm the blue dot.
11/23/2020
Hey everyone, very exciting week again this week!
Tuesday 11/17/20
-We've been trying to get in contact with a family out here named the Moyes who we have heard that their kids (both high school age) were wanting to get baptized. But we have been unable to get a hold of them because they are super, super busy throughout the day, like from 5am-9pm, so calling and texting wasn't working. But just this past Sunday they came to church and we were able to talk to them and set up a lesson. The lesson was set up for tonight.
-We spent most of the lesson time just getting to know them and learning about what they like to do! Then we talked specifically with Dustin and Rusty about each of their individual commitment to Jesus Christ. We expressed to them that our purpose is not to baptize them as quick as possible, but to focus on their testimony of the gospel and help them to grow in their knowledge of Christ. They were both very adamant about their desire to be baptized and said they were willing to do what was needed in order to prepare themselves for that commitment and covenant with Heavenly Father. So we set up a baptismal date for them, as a goal to work toward and to keep them on track, for the 19th of December. Overall, it was a very spiritual lesson!
Wednesday 11/18/20
-We had an exchange with the APs [assistants to the president] tonight! (A missionary exchange is where a couple of companionships switch with each other. A normal one lasts 24 hours, but during Covid restrictions we just do 2-3 hours with each other.) It was really just the thing I needed! I went with Elder Edwards and we talked and laughed for a bit and then he did some training with me. It was really great! I'm excited to be able to do similar exchanges with each of the Elders in my district. [Nathan is the district leader.]
Thursday 11/19/20
-Did some service for Brother Clarke this morning. We helped him frame out some skirting for his trailer.
-In the afternoon we called all of the people on our ward's unbaptized children list. We wanted to see if the parents wanted to set up lessons for their children, to help them get ready for baptism. [In our church, children are not baptised until they are 8 years old.] We didn't get many responses.
-We had a really good lesson with the Choate family tonight when we picked up dinner from them. They are an amazing family which makes me miss my own, but I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be, here in Colorado.
Friday 11/20/20
-As many of you may know, President Nelson hosted a brief live devotional on Facebook today talking about the healing power of gratitude! It was really cool to hear from the prophet and to receive direct guidance from him on how we can continue to feel peace and the Spirit even through hard times. I have been following his admonition to post everyday about something I am grateful for.
-This evening we helped Sister Hamblin and her friend Billy clean out one of his sheds with the sister missionaries from Falcon. Sister Hamblin apparently is known as the Snack Lady, and she didn't disappoint. She came through with a ton of snacks to give us and the sisters, after we finished up.
Saturday 11/21/20
-This morning all the new missionaries in the mission had a really long training over zoom, so Elder Ellsworth tuned in for that.
-Later in the afternoon we had another missionary exchange, but with the ZLs [zone leaders] this time. I was paired with Elder Wilkinson and it was great to talk and get to know him. He gave me some tips about the best way I should go about doing exchanges with the Elders in my district. Because of our time with Covid and quarantining, I haven't had a chance to conduct any exchanges with my district yet. I learned a lot from him and got some good training.
Sunday 11/22/20
-We went to church today and had our normal church meetings. We did other missionary stuff too. I have been keeping up with my gratitude posts! Go check out the hashtag #GiveThanks on Facebook if you want to see some positive content. The prophet promised if we expressed gratitude and found things to be thankful for, we would all feel the peace of Christ. I believe that is true.
Monday 11/23/20
-Today we went and walked around the Garden of the Gods with our district for all the new missionaries who haven't seen it yet. It was beautiful as ever! Then we checked out the trading post (which is basically just a gift shop).
-After that we went and did another hike up Pulpit Rock which is a really cool rock formation in the northeast part of the Springs. I got some good pictures from there.
-At 6pm we picked up dinner from the Haynie family and then headed over to the Moyes house again to continue with the lessons for Dustin and Rusty!
-Rusty and Dustin are really starting to open up and talk easily with us. Our lesson was on the Plan of Salvation, which is one of my favorites because it teaches where we came from, why we're here on this earth, and what happens after this life. I like this lesson because it gives so many people hope that they will see their loved ones, who have already passed away, in the life to come. That's definitely been a comfort for me and my family as well. Anyway, it was a great lesson and we can see that they are really feeling the Spirit. Rusty also told us that he sleeps better when he reads the Book of Mormon, so that is a really cool testimony of its power.
Hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
-Last P-day we did the incline again! This time in the evening.
--Pics at bottom of stairs and top!
-Garden of the Gods
--Sign, District in Cracks, Me Pointing
-Pulpit Rock
--Full district on top, me on highest point
11/16/2020
Hey everyone! I want to share briefly something really exciting that happened to us this week!!
Wednesday 11/11/20
-As you know, because of Covid, we as missionaries have had to find other ways to share our message, other than knocking on doors. So, we have been asked to share via Facebook, messages, videos, songs, etc. Elder Ellsworth found a guy on Facebook in our area named Matty, who has a mutual friend with him. Turns out that their friend is a member of the church from Elder Ellsworth's home ward who cohosts a podcast that Matty is really in to. It's a podcast in which they talk a little bit about their faith. Elder Ellsworth asked Matty if he would be interested in learning more about that faith mentioned in their podcast (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and he said yes!
-Today was our first lesson with him! We went over to Matty's house and also invited, over zoom, the member from Elder Ellsworth's ward that does that podcast, Brother Sorensen. In this first lesson we got to know Matty a little bit and talked about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Matty is a super great guy and was super engaged throughout the whole lesson, especially whenever Brother Sorensen shared his thoughts. It was really cool to see that Matty was feeling the spirit while we were teaching. We gave him a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and ponder for the week, and then we'll have another lesson with him soon!!
It's not often that we find new people to teach, especially out here in Calhan where everyone is so spread out. Being able to find someone as a result of being diligent in our Facebook work was a real miracle. I'm confident that we would not have been able to find Matty if it wasn't for our new missionary tool of Facebook. I have a testimony that missionary work still goes on even in the hardest of times, and I have a newfound witness that Facebook can be an effective tool for our missionary work.
Love you guys, and hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
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