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10/6/2020
Hey everyone!
Tuesday 9/29/20
-We had Zone conference today! There was a very heavy emphasis on us [missionaries] improving our relationships with the members in our wards, which has been hard to do these past few months. Overall it was a really good and spiritually uplifting conference. And President Eccles is so funny, he was cracking jokes for like the first ten minutes, hilarious.
Wednesday 9/30/20
-Today is the day our little Corolla is going in to the shop for a few minor repairs, so our amazing vehicle coordinators arranged for us to temporarily use one of the mission's newly bought 2020 Chevrolet Equinoxes!! We were finding some sweet features in it throughout the day, it is a great car!
-We were picking up a meal from a member this evening and she had a service project for us. A deer had broken one of her fence posts, and because our scheduled lesson got cancelled, we were able to do it right then. She was super excited! We were glad we could help her and take one less thing for her to worry about off her mind.
-This upcoming weekend is General Conference [a bi-yearly churchwide conference where church leaders give revelation, inspiration, and encouragement to church members.] The Tanners made some invitations to watch conference in their home for us to drop off to a few people. So we had a really great time driving around to drop those off, including our recent converts, AnnaBelle and Roy. While doing that we were able to have a little bit of a lesson with AnnaBelle outside her house. We also got to talk with Roy, outside his house, and he said one of his friends has a few questions about the Church. S0, we are excited to set up a time with them to answer some of her questions. We're really proud of Roy for doing some missionary work, he is just so awesome!
Thursday 10/1/20
-Today we worked on a video for our zone's FB page and we used some pictures of our family and friends. If you want to see it, visit our page [The Church of Jesus Christ in Fountain]! I invite each of you to look for one post on our page, give it a like, and share it with someone who you think might like to see it. I am grateful we missionaries are able to fill facebook with positive messages in the midst of so much negativity.
Friday 10/2/20
-Today we spent a lot of time calling the leadership of our ward (the Bishopric, Elders' Quorum President, Relief Society President, etc.) to set up lessons with them. We are trying to start the process of building the foundation of member-missionary unity in our ward. So, we were able to set up a bunch of lessons for next week. In the meantime, we had a few lessons cancel on us this past week, but it's alright.
Saturday-Sunday 10/3-4/20
-General Conference!!!! We streamed conference to one of our phones and watched/listened to Saturday's sessions with our district. For the Sunday sessions, we had the privilege of watching it together as a zone at the Stake Center! There were so many great talks! A couple that stood out to me was President Dallin H. Oaks' in the Saturday morning session where he talked about being peacemakers and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk in the Sunday afternoon session where he talked about the divine role of trials in our lives. I would highly recommend listening to the whole conference, but if you're lacking time, especially give those ones a listen. They are available on the Gospel Library app or through the churchofjesuschrist.org website.
Monday 10/5/20
-The main event today other than the usual P-day activities was that we went ice skating as a whole district this time! It was really fun!! I think I'm getting pretty good at it, or at least I'm not horrendous anymore haha.
That's all for now. Love you all, hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
Video about Family:
https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristinFountain/videos/832147200891214
Pictures:
-Zone Conference
-Service
-Our new car!
-Ice Skating
9/28/2020
Hey everyone! Pretty slow this week.
Monday 9/21/20
-My companions and I went ice skating this P-day. It was fun! We will probably come back here with the whole district in a couple weeks because of how cheap it was! Only 4 bucks total! I couldn't believe it.
Tuesday 9/22/20
-Today we talked with a few companionships in the zone about how they are feeling about making videos and stuff on Facebook (for our zone page). We lead that out now because we are the new admins for our zone's FB page.
Wednesday-Saturday
-Same old, same old
Sunday 9/27/20
-We taught the lesson for tonight's gospel principles class because the Tanners (who usually lead it) were out of town for a family reunion. It was a great chapter about Temple Work and Family History work. Roy has been wanting to get into that stuff so that he can do some ordinances for his mother who passed away. We are hoping to meet together sometime at the family history center at the stake center so that we can set him up on FamilySearch.
I'm getting really excited for General Conference this Saturday!
Love you all, have a great week!!
-Elder Bird
Pictures -
P-day hike to Garden of the Gods
9/21/2020
Hey everyone! Hope your week was excellent!!
Tuesday 9/15/20
-We had a great lesson in person with the Nash family in our ward. Brother Nash is the Elder's Quorum President, but we haven't actually met in person until now - haha. It was a great lesson, and I am coming to know that the in person lessons are just so much more enjoyable than over the phone or zoom. There is just so much more interaction, I love it.
Wednesday 9/16/20
-We did a big service project at Sister Hess' house with some of the youth today. She's trying to redo her whole backyard, but she has a ton of river rock all over the place. We helped shovel it all out and put it on a cloth she has laid down, then sifted it to get all the dirt out. We got a lot done and we went until it got dark.
Thursday 9/17/20
-Temple Trip!! Elder Whitesell has been preparing to go through the temple to receive his endowment, [a special ordinance/ceremony where you make covenants with the Lord] which missionaries usually do before their missions. Elder Whitesell came out during the height of COVID when temples were closed, so he didn't get a chance to go previously. The Denver temple has reopened for some limited ordinances, so today was his day to go!! Elder Miller and I weren't sure if we would be able to go inside the temple with him, but once we got there, President Eccles told us we could. He said we were some of the very few, lucky missionaries who got to go through with their companion, so we were super excited!! Elder Whitesell's parents flew in and were able to be there too. Afterwards we were able to spend some time with Elder Whitesell's parents and go out to dinner with them! It was a great day!!
Friday 9/18/20
-Today we helped Sister Brown and Sister Shipley [the sister missionaries] move into their new permanent apartment. They are very happy to be able to finally settle down, because they were in this kind of transition for a long time now. They have been living in a hotel for a while and they are glad they're done with all that now.
Saturday 9/19/20
-Today we had another car wash to make up for the one we previously had that got rained out. This time it was perfect - kind of overcast, which was nice so we didn't heat up too much, and it didn't rain at all. We talked to some members of the Church and a few non-members, so it was really good. One person said they wanted to come to church tomorrow and we were able to hand out a Book of Mormon to one guy, so we're hoping we made a good impression on everyone.
Sunday 9/20/20
-The woman we met at the car wash actually came to church today and brought her daughter too! We were able to have a good conversation with her right after church, so that was great!
-We heard at the last minute that our zone was to have interviews with President Eccles today. So we had to change our schedule while we were at church - haha. We had it all worked out by the time we had finished sacrament meeting [worship service].
-Every week I have a zoom meeting with my Brazilian district and the missionaries from that mission. We practice our Portuguese and it helps us stay connected. This week I had the opportunity to give the spiritual thought! Oh, my Portuguese is still so bad, but I'm constantly working on it and trying to improve day by day.
-We had our interviews with President Eccles around 6:00-6:30pm. It's nice to be able to have these interviews and check in with him and let him know how we are doing.
I hope everyone's week was super great! Have another amazing week!!
-Elder Bird
Pictures:
-Car wash
-One of the members of our Stake presidency brought his sweet Jaguar to our car wash
-Temple pics with companionship and President Eccles
9/14/2020
Hey everyone! Had another great week here in beautiful Colorado Springs!!
Tuesday 9/8/20
-TRANSFERS! Nothing changed in my companionship. I'm still with Elder Miller (for his last transfer of his mission) and Elder Whitesell! Woot woot! But we were asked by the APs [assistants to the President] to help pick up some of the rental cars for a few other companionships in the mission, so we stood out in the freezing cold whether for about an hour and a half waiting to pick those up.
-The prediction about snow came true! We got snow - snow in September! The high/low today was 39/28 (*F). It started snowing around 2pm, so we took a couple of hours for our outside time and drove through Cheyenne Canyon with the snow falling all around us. It was beautiful!! We stopped to take some good pictures in the mountains.
Wednesday 9/9/20
-It was still nice and chilly today with the snow still stuck to everything except the roads. It was the perfect atmosphere if you ask me. But it is getting warmer as the days go by, it got up to 46* today with a steady climb throughout the week.
-So there are a few missionary companionships per zone set apart as social media specialists, and yesterday, the specialists over our zone asked us to become the admins for our zone's Facebook page. That means my companionship has a ton of new responsibilities in terms of our Facebook page, including checking everyone's posts before they go up to make sure everything's kosher, being up-to-date with all of the stats in relation to our page, and being in charge of our zone's weekly meeting to discuss post ideas and themes for each week, to name a few. We were definitely not expecting that assignment, but we're glad to take it and keep ourselves busy and more motivated to be Facebook oriented.
Thursday 9/10/20
-We were at the church pretty much all day today because the Cimarron Hills Sister missionaries needed us to be there. They can't do much work from their hotel room, where they are staying until they can move over to their new apartment next week. So, I got to do a bit of piano practice while we were there.
Friday 9/11/20
-Today we went to the church and made sure that the right size baptismal clothing was there in preparation for Roy's baptism the next day. Sister Tanner also got the program all finished up, so now everything is squared away, and we are completely ready for the baptism tomorrow!!
-Tonight we had our first in-person lesson with the Bascom family and it was just so amazing!! It's crazy how different it felt to actually be with people in person rather than over a video call. We tossed a frisbee around in their backyard with their kids, and then had a quick object lesson with them. They even invited some friends over to hear our message, so that was just so awesome!
Saturday 9/12/20
-Baptism day!! Roy's baptism was at 2pm and everything went perfectly! Brother Lang and Brother Ricks, some of Roy's close member friends, gave talks about the importance of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost in our lives. Brother Tanner performed the baptism and it was a powerful spiritual experience for everyone who attended, and especially for Roy. He said he's going to write down all of his thoughts and spiritual feelings in his journal. That is such a great thing to do so you can remember that feeling you had forever.
-We had another in person lesson tonight with the LeCheminant family. We were able to do a little service for them too. We wrapped a giant pad under a crazy looking rig. It turns out that Sister LeCheminant performs with circuses doing all kinds of acrobatic stuff with silks and hoops. She showed us some neat moves that we could try and then we did. It was insane! Elder Miller really kinda had a knack for it haha. Later, we ended the evening with a quick spiritual thought from the Book of Mormon about unity and how we can be closer to Jesus and our family.
Sunday 9/13/20
-In the evening, there was a worldwide Church devotional for the young adults that all the missionaries were invited to watch. It was a Face-to-face event with one of our current apostles, Elder Rasband and his wife. They shared some awesome advice and experiences with us, and then answered some questions about the gospel. It was really nice to have that spiritual recharge for the rest of the week!
Hope you all are doing well!
-Elder Bird
9/7/2020
Hey everyone!
Tuesday 9/1/20
-Elder Whitesell has a temple preparation class every night this week over zoom, so that he and a few other missionaries across the mission can go to the temple soon. That is usually something that prospective missionaries do before their missions, but because of Covid, all of the temples have been closed down. But the Denver temple is opening up for us to do certain ordinances, so all of the missionaries in the area are getting ready to go there, which is so exciting!!
Wednesday 9/2/20
-Tonight we had our last lesson with Roy before he's ready for his baptismal interview, which is awesome!! His faith in Jesus Christ and his testimony of the gospel is very strong. He is extremely excited to be baptized and do as much service as he can in the church!
-The mission leadership had their big meeting today and our zone leaders and sister training leaders came back with some good news, we are now able to teach lessons in person again! It can be in people's yards, and not just at the church building!! Small steps forward, but steps nonetheless!
Thursday 9/3/20
-Today we had another lesson with Patti. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, so we asked her to pray to know of it was true. We followed up with her about it and she said she knows without a doubt that it is true! We asked her if she would like to prepare for a goal of being baptized, and she is all for it!! Very exciting!
Friday 9/4/20
-We had a phone call with Roy to prepare him for his baptismal interview. We just went through what questions would be asked real quick. His interview is set with the ZLs for Sunday, and we know he is ready.
-The Sisters in Cimmaron Hills called and asked us if we could come help their ward clean the church building with them because not a lot of people showed up. [The church members take turns helping clean the church building so that the responsibility is shared.] So, we went over and washed all the windows and doors at all the entrances to the building.
-After cleaning, we stayed at the church building so that the Sisters could use the wifi. Meanwhile my companions and I prepared a bit of an outline for a video that the Tanners (our ward mission leaders) want to do with the ward.
Saturday 9/5/20
-We had to be at church pretty much all day for both sets of Sister Missionaries [for protection]. So, we made good use of our time by making phone calls to members, letting them know we can now teach in their yards and were able to set up some appointments for the coming weeks.
-We had our Facebook training today too and then the transfer "drop sheet" came and we found out the changes that were happening for the next transfer. Elder Miller, Elder Whitesell, and I are all three staying here again this transfer, so nothing special for us. I'm really glad because I will get to be here for Roy's baptism, Elder Whitesell going to the temple, and being with Elder Miller for his last transfer in the mission! The district, though, is losing Sister Workman (because she is finished with her mission) and Sister Wolf (who's going to a different area).
Sunday 9/6/20
-After sacrament meeting, Roy had his interview with the ZLs, and they told us he passed with flying colors, so he's all ready to go! And we got the form signed by the ZLs and him, so all of that is done already too.
-Tonight at our gospel principles class, we planned the baptism program out with Roy and the Tanners, so everything is going very smoothly this time.
Monday 9/7/20
-For the past few days we've been hearing that it's going to snow here in Colorado Springs tomorrow. I was skeptical at first, but tonight it got really cold and windy, so we're preparing for 6 or so inches of snow tomorrow!
-Elder Bird
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