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7/27/2020
Howdy all!
Monday 7/20/20
-Last Monday we went on a hike to the Garden of the Gods with our district! We went on a hike and got to see some cool rock formations and take some good pictures! After picking up dinner from a member of the Church, we got some ice cream to finish off our Pday.
Tuesday 7/21/20
-Elder Miller and I started a new tradition of driving over to Palmer Park every morning and doing a lesson or two in our Ed App (which is like a training app for missionaries to know how to find and teach using technology and social media). It's been going really great so far, and we're starting to get into this new habit!
-We had a really good lesson with Earl today. He had kind of lost sight of his goal to be baptized, so we had a really good discussion about the next steps he needs to take in his progression and then we recommitted him to be baptized in September!
Wednesday 7/22/20
-I got an email from the MTC saying that people who are in temporary assignments are welcome to schedule times to meet with one of the instructors there to get some extra help in practicing their original mission language. I had my first virtual meeting tonight where we talked about my language study plan, and what things I might be able to be doing better to keep learning and progressing in my Portuguese.
Thursday 7/23/20
-In the morning we did two service projects for some members. For the first one, we cleaned out a garage so they could have people install a new garage door, and then we put all the stuff back inside. The other one we raked up some pine needles in a backyard and then did some weeding for a sister in the ward. Afterwards she insisted on buying lunch for us and it was so good!
Friday 7/24/20
-The city is doing some work on one of the main roads we drive on and some gravel/slur kicked up into one of our rotors. It was making a really horrendous grinding sound, so we tried to go to a car wash to power wash it out of there, but that didn't work. So we called our vehicle coordinator at the mission office, and he said just take it to Pep Boys and put it on the Church's tab with them. We did that, and it actually went really quick. We were only there for about half an hour and the guy we were working with said he wasn't going to charge us anything! That was cool.
Saturday 7/25/20
-We had another really good lesson with Earl today where we answered some questions he had about Adam and Eve and the Plan of Salvation. After the lesson, Elder Miller told me my teaching skills are improving a lot! That was awesome to hear from him.
-In the late afternoon we did our "outside time" with our district playing spikeball at a park. While we were playing, a kid came up and asked if he could play with us, so we let him join. It was really fun!
-In the car ride home from the park, we got a call from President Eccles. If someone is getting a leadership position or something for transfers, the mission president usually calls them one on one, but he said to put it on speakerphone, then he asked us both if we would be willing to train another missionary! We said yes of course!! At first we thought one of us might be leaving the area, but then we realized we were probably going to be in a trio, with both of us training a new missionary. It turns out we were right. The APs sent out the transfer sheet a little while later and we found out we were indeed both staying here and becoming a trio! So it looks like I will be training right out of my own training haha! That will be super exciting!!
Elder Miller and I are super excited to find out who will be our new greenie! Transfers are always super interesting times!
Love you all, have a great week!!
-Elder Bird
7/20/2020
Tuesday 7/14/20
-We finally got the treadmill out of our old Aviator apartment and handed the keys to Elder Bertola (the housing coordinator) so we are now officially done with that apartment for good.
-We had a really inspiring and motivating mission-wide Zoom training meeting with the Mission President and a social media representative from Salt Lake. It was really cool that we were able to do that and hear messages about fulfilling our purpose and increasing our faith. One thing they talked about was that missionary work is never going to go completely back to what it was before quarantine or Covid-19. Our finding efforts will be shifting from going door to door to finding online through social media, and he said the goal is to spend 4-6 hours a day on Facebook, so that we can search for the people who are really interested in hearing the message of the gospel (whoa, crazy)
-Elder Miller and I made a goal to go running in the mornings to help wake us up and get us energized for the day!
Wednesday 7/15/20
-As missionaries we have an app that we use as a tool for our missionary work called Areabook. Basically it keeps track of our schedule, addresses and phone numbers for people in our area, and contacts and lessons that we have. Today we did a TON of contacting on Areabook, and currently we are in the process of calling everyone under our "Not Interested" section because sometimes people change their minds over time. And this was the case for a guy that we called named Tony! He said he missed having the missionaries over and wanted to have lessons again!! Yeah!
Thursday 7/16/20
-We did some service for Sister Carlston where we took out some old and broken fence posts and replaced them with new ones. The fence is super old and malleable so it was a bit hard to work with, but we eventually got everything squared away.
-We had another lesson with AnnaBelle today, and it was kind of interesting because her foster mom joined in for the lesson, but said she would keep her opinions to herself.
Friday 7/17/20
-We were supposed to have a lesson with Tony (from our 'Not Interested' list) today to get to know him a little more, but it turns out we called right before he was gonna take his wife to the ER. He still wants to meet with us some other time though.
-Someone named Leilani referred herself to us for a Bible study from the Church's website, and when we called her, she actually picked up! (Most of the time these self-referrals don't actually answer and never get back to us, but she seems genuinely interested in learning more about God and Jesus Christ!!
Sunday 7/19/20
-After our church sacrament meeting, we had our Bible study with Leilani and she is way into it! She had started in the Old Testament and was already to Judges in her personal reading. We went through a little introduction to how the Bible was written and talked through some key attributes of God our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We mentioned that we as member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints read from more than just the Bible and she said she wouldn't mind talking a bit about the Book of Mormon for our next lesson.
-Two of the Sister Missionaries in our district got permission from President Eccles and asked us if we would be able to give them priesthood blessings of comfort. So Elder Miller and I both had the opportunity to exercise the authority of God's priesthood and gave them blessings. That was a really neat experience.
-Elder Miller and I hosted a (actually two) Facebook live event(s) for our zone Facebook page, The Church of Jesus Christ in Fountain. We went through the Restoration Proclamation that was just released this year by the First Presidency and the Apostles from our most recent general conference of the Church. It was going really great until we ran into some technical difficulties with our internet service for a few minutes, but we were able to start another live to finish up the second half of our presentation. Other than that, it was really good because we were guided by the Spirit for what to say and to talk about.
It's been a great week for me here, hope you guys are living it up as best you can while stuck inside!
Love y'all,
-Elder Bird
Copy and Paste the URL into your browser to see my video messages talk & song
Facebook Message Part 1
https://www.facebook.com/103015768038546/videos/287301279046052/
Facebook Message Part 2
https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristinFountain/videos/3147268225354480/
Song that Elder Miller and I sang
https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristinFountain/videos/1551564565023793
7/13/2020
Hey everyone! Everything's going great here (except all the time we have and don't really have anything to do - haha).
Monday 7/6/20
-Our p-day was filled as usual with doing laundry and going grocery shopping. I was finally able to get a haircut today, which is good because my hair was getting so long. I took a couple of pictures so you can see a side-by-side comparison. In the evening we went to the church to play some volleyball which we get to do every Monday night. At the church I also get to play the piano which is good.
Tuesday 7/7/20
-Elder Bryant is leaving today for his transfer. He got everything packed up and ready for when he will get picked up. He was a good companion and trainer.
-Elders Freeman and McPeak dropped off Elder Miller, who is my new companion. Neither of us had our DPs (driving privileges) yet, so they drove us to the mission office. We found out that the APs [assistants to the president] had the cards with them at a different church building, where they were doing an orientation for the brand new missionaries. So we drove over there and they had mine! I can now officially drive the mission vehicles. I'm so excited!
-We played volleyball again (we've been doing that a lot recently) for our district game night.
Wednesday & Thursday 7/8-9/20
-Elder Miller and I are getting used to each other now. We have been playing some chess, and I'd say we're about equally matched.
Friday 7/10/20
-We went to another Zone Conference in person to meet the Eccles family and get to know them. They are awesome, and I know they will do great for their three years of service.
-On our way home we saw a woman on the side of the road trying to push her car, so we stopped and helped her get it off the main road.
Sunday 7/12/20
-I think President Eccles' primary focus for the mission is going to be helping us get more active with finding and contacting people on social media. So, today I joined a couple of Facebook groups. One of them was for sales and stuff in Colorado, so I decided to post that we had a Book of Mormon to give away for free if anyone was interested. And oh boy I was NOT expecting the amount of attention it got. All the other posts on the page selling like bikes and other stuff had no likes or comments, but a ton of people commented on my post, mostly negative of course, but one person was actually really nice and mentioned that it changed her life. And another said they were actually curious, so maybe we can get into contactilact with him.
-The big news for this week is that we actually got to go to church in person today! The ward I am assigned to allowed Sacrament Meeting by following strict guidelines put out by church leaders. We had to follow certain cleaning rules, social distancing, keep the group to a certain number, and of course wear gloves and a mask. To keep the numbers good half the ward comes one week and then the other half comes the next week - alternating. We had every other pew sanctioned off to promote social distancing, there were ushers seating people in the chapel, we could only enter the building from one door on one side and exit from one door on the other side of the building, and everyone handling the sacrament had masks (of course) and gloves. All the hymn books were taken out and we just listened to the hymns rather than singing them. It was all very safe, and we cleaned and disinfected the whole chapel after we finished. But in-person church was very exciting because now we can actually see the faces of the people in the ward who we're trying to serve.
That's pretty much it. Hope you all have a great week!
-Elder Bird
-Hair comparison (haircut was definitely needed haha)
-Screenshot of some comments on my Book of Mormon post
7/6/2020
Monday 6/29/20
-I started watching a new show about Jesus' life called, "The Chosen." It's really good, but there are only 8 episodes in the first season, so I'll probably finish it pretty quick haha.
-We went on a really nice hike called Seven Bridges with the rest of my district which are Sister Missionaries. It was really nice to be able to chat and have fun with more people. Elder Bryant was a little worried that a couple of the Sisters wouldn't get along in their companionships, this transfer because apparently there's been some past beef, but it seems like they've put it behind them! It's just really nice that we can hang out together and be friends!!
-I was supposed to get a haircut, but we kinda ran out of time, so my hair is longer right now than it's ever been. It's kinda funny! If I comb it just right, it looks a but like an afro haha.
Tuesday 6/30/20
-We spent a lot of time calling people trying to set up lessons for this week. None of the people we're currently teaching wanted to meet with us this week, because of the holiday. So, we called a bunch of members in our ward to get at least a few lessons in for the week.
-It was Distinct game night and it was super fun! We played charades over Facebook messenger. It's really nice to see everyone be themselves around each other.
Wednesday 7/1/20
-Normally we do some service called "Care and Share," but it was cancelled today because they were doing inventory or something and didn't need any volunteer help. It's okay though, we got our fill of service in throughout the day with Brother Coon and Sister Hess respectively.
Thursday 7/2/20
-I finished the first season of "The Chosen!" It is really good so far! The season ended with the story of the woman at the well as the final episode. I'm anxiously waiting for season 2.
-The new Mission President, President Eccles and his family, came to our district, the Springs, today.
Friday 7/3/20
-Normally we have a District council meeting in the morning on Fridays, but it was moved to 4:00pm. Turns out the STLs [Sister Training Leaders] had an MLC [Missionary Leadership Council) meeting for like 7 hours (seriously, like 9am-3pm). I love how close our district is getting. Our District council meeting also went almost an hour past our meeting ending time, because we had so many random tangents that we talked about.
Saturday 7/4/20
-4th of July!!!
-The Missionaries in the Peterson area hosted a bit of a July 4th get-together at a nearby park. It started to rain really hard, but it actually worked out well with the game we were playing. We played this game where we stood in a circle and spun a bottle and whoever it landed on has to grab an egg and try to hit one of the other people who are all running away. It was really funny to see the egg explode and the yolk flying everywhere when it hit someone.
-In the afternoon we got a call from Mission President Eccles, and he asked Elder Bryant to be a zone leader over the North Zone. That was a big shock to us because we both thought that we would stay together this transfer, so he could finish up my training. But I guess I'm gonna have 3 trainers now haha. We don't yet know who is gonna replace Elder Bryant here in Sprins, but the (mid) transfer sheet drops tonight!
-In the evening we met up with our district again at a park to play some spikeball and watch the fireworks go off in the surrounding area.
-The transfer sheet dropped around 9pm and it looks like I will now be with Elder Miller, who was in a trio with Elder Freeman and Elder McPeak in Peterson, CO. He will finish my training and replace Elder Bryant as the district leader here in Springs. I'm a little sad to see Elder Bryant go when we were just getting super comfortable with each other, but I'm glad I already know the person who's going to replace him and finish out my training. We will both have some training to do - I'll train him in this area and he'll train me how to teach and stuff. It's kinda funny though because we both don't have our driving privileges yet, so it will be interesting trying to get around haha.
Love you all, hope you have a great week!
-Elder Bird
6/29/2020
Hey everyone!
We had a lot of opportunities to see and be with other missionaries in person this week, which is not usual because of our quarantine guidelines. It was definitely much needed and really fun! So, here is last week's happenings.
Monday 6/22/20
-It was Elder Bryant's birthday today!! Woot woot. We went over and balled up at the church like usual, [played basketball] and then we went to the Waffle House for breakfast.
-Squaded up [we met up] with Elders Freeman, Miller, McPeak, Guag, Mendoza, Dean, Brown, Whitted, and Allen and went on a really cool hike to the summit of one of the smaller mountains over on the edge of the Springs! (We were all allowed to be together because everyone in the district just entered into Phase I of allowances for quarantined missionaries which allows people in the same district to go on hikes and stuff together on P-days.) Because we don't have any other Elders in our district, Elder Bryant and I got permission to go with them. It was really weird to see a ton of missionaries together after being in quarantine for so long. But yeah, we hiked all the way up to the summit of Mt. Muscoco!
Tuesday 6/23/20
-We went to Caņon again today. Elder Bryant previously went to the hospital while serving there and received a bill for services. The bill was sent to the new Elders living at that address.
On the way over, we stopped by the Springs ZLs [Zone Leaders] to pick up some items to be delivered to a few of the Caņon missionaries. We did this so we could be efficient with mile usage for them.
-We got to Caņon and met up with Elders Olsen and Harris. While we were with them, they got a phone call from some kids that said they were looking for Elder Edwards, who was Elder Bryant's trainer while he served there. Elder Olsen passed the phone to Elder Bryant, who they did recognized. Turns out these were some kids who Elder Bryant and Elder Edward's taught a while ago and they were just calling to check in, so it was a blessing that we were there, so that Elder Bryant could talk to them a little bit.
-On the way home, we drove through a bit of a scary, super heavy rainstorm, with what looked like lightning striking right in front of us. We said a prayer that we would be able to make it back to our apartment in safety and the rain instantly stopped. Just another witness to me that God answers our prayers.
Wednesday 6/24/20
-We dropped off a Book of Mormon to a guy named Josh, that Sandcreek missionaries referred to us. The sisters were a bit unnerved to drop it off because there were a few kinda sketchy-looking guys standing outside the main door when they drove by. When we got there, the same guys were there, and they didn't give us any trouble on our way in. When we came back out, they stopped us and said they had a couple questions for us. It seemed like they genuinely wanted to know about our church, they weren't just giving us a hard time. We had a really gospel conversation with them, and in the end they actually expressed some interest in reading the Book of Mormon. So we went and got three more from our apartment and wrote our phone number in each one for them, so that if they had any more questions they could reach out to us.
Thursday 6/25/20
-We had our farewell zone conference in person with President and Sister Stevenson today at the AeroPlaza building. Many tears were shed especially during the musical numbers.
-We went to Buffalo Wild Wings after our conference and ran into the Caņon district, who had their conference later in the afternoon at the same building. We sat at different tables though.
Saturday 6/27/20
-We did some service for a member this morning with the Peterson Elders. We laid down some recycled turf in his backyard, which was pretty fun as far as service goes - haha.
-Elder Bryant has been in contact with a really awesome guy from California, and in the past few weeks, he's been on a big road trip. Today he stopped by the Springs to see us (well mainly Elder Bryant haha) in person! He took us out for lunch at a sushi place and then drove us up to the top of Pike's Peak!! It was a stunning view. Supposedly on a really sunny, clear day, you are able to see 6 different states from the summit, which is a little over 14,000 feet!
It was a good week. I just want to bear my testimony that our Heavenly Father does answer our prayers according to our faith, but he also does it on His timeline and according to His will for us. I know that everything happens for a reason whether it be good or bad.
Love you all! Have a great week!!
-Elder Bird
Pictures -
-Elder Bryant and I at Palmer Park one day
-In the car
-Hike with a ton of Elders
-Summit of Pikes Peak
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