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5/8/18
This week just seemed to fly by! The big things that happened were: the entire mission getting smartphones, MLC [Mission Leadership Council] on Friday, exchanges on Saturday, and then Monica coming to church on Sunday!!
On Wednesday of this week, the whole mission went through training because they were getting their smartphones! All of the technology missionaries (us included) went around to each zone and helped train the missionaries on how to set up their phones, use their new area book planner, and use Facebook as a missionary. Elder C and I went to the Arapahoe and the Aurora zones, working three hours with each zone. The whole mission now has smartphones!
On Friday, May the 4th (be with you), we had a miniature MLC. We came together as leaders to do a follow up on how the smartphone training went for all of us. We also needed to decide on a monthly mission baptismal goal for the month of May and to talk briefly about a mission tour our mission is doing next week. The meeting was held in the afternoon from 1pm-4:30pm in Aurora and was pretty effective. We decided that the goal for the month of May, for the mission, will be 35 baptisms! We have been averaging about 19 baptisms a month for this year and over the last 5 years. It is an average, so some months are higher and others lower. This goal will help us to really stretch ourselves. We are super excited!
On Saturday we went on an exchange with the zone leaders in Arvada; Elder Heiner, Elder Lytle, and Elder Schwabb. This was Elder Schwabb's first transfer as a zone leader, and we were excited to work with him. I went with Elder Lytle and Elder Schwabb in Arvada 2nd (my old ward!), while Elder Christensen took Elder Heiner to the Skylake area. Working in a trio reminded me of when I first came to the mission and we had a great day! It was super fun to be back in my old area. I even got to catch up with some people I used to teach, like Bryan Coffing. Both of the Elders I went with, were just fantastic, and showed great examples of care and concern for their companions and zone.
On Sunday, Elder Christensen and I were back together and at church around 7:30am for ward council and then prepped at 8:30am for the Sacrament. We were expecting Monica, who Elder Christensen had asked to come the day before on exchanges. We waited and waited, and then she showed up with all three of her young children around 9:20am. She really enjoyed the meeting, and we were so happy to have her there! That night we visited with her and Sister Savage, and she is showing some serious signs of wanting to join the church!! We are so excited for her!
For my spiritual thought, I thought I would tell you about the training I gave at the MLC. My training was on how we need to think outside the box and try new things if we are going to reach our mission goal of 35 baptisms this month and stretch ourselves. I have a cousin who likes to do the high jump. The high jump was always done as a run and jump face forward, until a guy came along named, Dick Fosbury. Dick Fosbury wasn't able to do the high jump the same way as the others, so he tried out a new technique by going over the bar backwards. No one had ever seen this before, but he was successful and today it is the only way people go over the high jump. It is known as the Fosbury Flop. Dick Fosbury changed the game by trying out a new technique and thinking outside of the box. I am super pumped for the mission goal this month to see what we can do. I hope I have the faith enough to push and fight and lead, and try out some new ideas to get some different results.
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” —Thomas Edison.
Thank you all so much for your love and support!!
Elder Bird
Pictures:
Stella the dog at a member family's home
Found a little door
The Aurora zone getting their smart phones
4/30/18
Hey everyone!
First off, I want to give my dad a little about out. It's his birthday today!! My dad is the best example of what kind of dad and person I want to be when I get older, and I am so grateful for his wonderful example. It is so funny as I get older, the more like him I am out here. Sometimes I say or do things and immediately think, "Wow, I'm turning in to my dad." Even when I don't have him around! I love you dad!!
This week was just a whirlwind of activity. I feel like I blinked and it is Monday again. A lot of the week was spent on Zone Conferences and prepping for them, and I am happy to say, it all turned out great.
Zone Conferences were on Wednesday and Thursday, for the South and North respectively. Both had the exact same schedule and trainings, running from 9am-5pm. The days started off with a little piece on "Give me this Mountain", which I talked about last week, and then we showed the video that we made. After, we heard from some counselors at LED services about how to tackle mountains in our lives. Then we broke out for 4 breakout trainings, with President and Sister Savage, and Elder Christensen and I each leading a group. My training was on how to act as a missionary at Sacrament meeting, to benefit the members, our investigators, and ourselves. I used the acronym "PLAY", telling everybody we need to come to Play at Sacrament. It was great! Great meetings and some really good trainings!
After the breakouts sessions, we had lunch and heard some administrative trainings about cars and how to pass off investigators. Then Elder Christensen and I were given some time to talk about smartphones and rules, because we will be rolling those out to the whole mission this week. After us, we headed in to departing testimonies and some testimonies of miracles happening around the mission. Finally, President and Sister Savage wrapped up the conference by talking about a Mission President seminar they attended last week. And then we finished!
On Wednesday night, President and Sister Savage took Elder Christensen and I to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. That was super nice of them. It is always nice to spend time with them. They are such awesome, fun people! On Friday, after both zone conferences were done, we took a big sigh of relief that all went well and that our trainings were good.
On Friday, our zone leaders met with us because they were planning a big zone activity that we were going to do the next day. Each companionship in the zone were going to contact all day in our own areas, and see if we could try to break the mission record, which was set at 151 people contacted. They named the day after Wilt Chamberlain, who had scored 100 points in a single basketball game. They taught us that we could do hard things! Everyone was a tad skeptical, but willing to try. Elder Christensen and I set out on Saturday with no appointments, but one that we rescheduled to another day. We got out at about 9:45am and just worked, going to parks, apartment complexes, busy streets, tracting homes, anywhere we could go to contact people. We took only a 20 minute lunch and a 45 minute dinner. Other than that, we were on our feet and out and about, talking to people. We knew the zone leaders were going to work hard and we wanted to beat them - you know, a little competition among Elders.
The end result - we contacted 214 people!!! With about 15 people who said we could come back!! It was such a GREAT day!! But, we were so tired afterwards. We picked up some Ben and Jerry's to celebrate a successful day out! We felt so good about the day and thought we had the competition all sewn up, but our zone leaders did beat us. They had a total of 220 people contacted. Oh so close! BUT, the top companionship in the zone got 231 people contacted!! For a zone total of 1,566 people contacted in a single day, which was an average of 174 people for each companionship. What an awesome "Wilt Day!"
Sunday we had a good day out contacting again. It is funny, that we were out all day the previous day, but found the most promising family to teach, on Sunday! Elder Christensen and I felt directed to a particular area that day and met a man named James, who has a few kids. He's trying to flip his life around and it was the best conversation we had had in a while. We are super pumped to teach him next week, and possibly see him at church next Sunday. It just shows us, that really the only way to do God's work, is with His help and direction.
We had an awesome week full of great work. We love it out here and feeling God's love for all the people we meet (especially those 214). I love you all!!
Elder Bird
4/23/18
Hey howdy hey! Another week seems to have just flown by! I feel like it was seriously just yesterday when I wrote home.
This week was full of fun and some great missionary work! Elder C and I went on two exchanges with different sets of zone leaders around the mission. The first was on Wednesday, with the Elders over the Denver zone. I went with Elder Burt, a newly called zone leader, while Elder Christensen went with Elder Braegger. Both are super great missionaries! I loved to see Elder Burt's tenacity and love of the work as we got out and pushed hard. We did lots of finding and contacting, and attended a district meeting together. It was cool to be with him again, because I had gone on an exchange with him a few months back as his zone leader, when I was with Elder Call. The other exchange was with the Elders covering the Aurora zone. We actually went into a trio that day, me with both of those Elders, while Elder Christensen stayed home and worked on a video we are showing at the next zone conference. Anyway, that exchange was pretty fun. Both Elders are great missionaries and super upbeat and happy, which was a joy to be around for the day.
The video Elder Christensen was working on is called "Give Me This Mountain" and it is based on the theme of the zone conference, established by President & Sister Savage. The video is a compilation of interviews taken of missionaries in our mission, talking about "mountains" they have experienced while on their mission, and how they overcame them. In the background, is a song that two Elders in the mission wrote, called "Give Me this Mountain."
We were pretty busy with it all week trying to put it all together, while also prepping some other things for the zone conference. On a funny note, on Friday, we drove the two Elders who wrote the song downtown to get a good recording of them at one of the studios in the library. Little did we realize, the date of that day was 4/20, and that things were CRAZY downtown. What do Mormon missionaries know about 4/20? Anyway, there was a pretty "worldly" festival happening that we didn't know about until we were in the thick of it. People were kind of laughing that the Mormon missionaries would be downtown on this day, but we actually met some people and gave a card or two away! And we got the song recorded, and the video is looking great! I think it will be a cool thing for all the missionaries at zone conference.
The message of "Give Me This Mountain" is a cool one. There is a story in the old testament about how the Israelites were in the wilderness wandering for 40 years and how one man's faith was enough to say to God "give me this mountain," or in other words, "give me whatever trial and I will take it head on." It is interesting how many mountains seem to pop up in our lives, or for me, in the mission. But over time with God's help, they seem to become hills and then just paths to walk through, if we only have enough faith to start the journey. I know God is watching out for all of us and giving us mountains we can all climb.
I love you all!
Elder Bird
My new suit
4/16/18
Oh my goodness, what a week! This has been one of the busiest - haha! I know that I keep saying that, but they just keep getting busier and busier every time! What made this one so crazy is that we had transfers, MLC [Mission Leadership Council], and another "I Believe" fireside on Sunday. All of which Elder Christensen and I were in charge of!!
The beginning of our week revolved around transfers. We finished with the new assignments on Monday night with President Savage, at about 1:30am. With that all done, the next two days were spent calling all the zone leaders and letting them know who was being transferred and who needed to pack. We also put together a new way to run transfers, because the old way we were doing it wasn't working anymore. Also, we helped set up the smartphones that would be handed out at the leadership conference last Friday!
Transfers took place Thursday morning. We started at 9am getting everybody to their new areas and then finished around 11am. The new missionaries from the MTC came by then and we had an orientation meeting where they each met their new companions! All of the new missionaries are studs. We have 6 new Elders, and we got to spend some good time with each of them. We are super excited for their service here!! The Savages then took the departing missionaries to the temple and we drove some of the trainers and new missionaries to their new areas. We spent some time in the office after that, and then drove to the mission home to have dinner with the departing missionaries and help around the house.
On Friday, Elder Christensen and I helped load up the departing missionaries and their suitcases and headed to the airport. Then we went over to the church to set up for the Mission Leadership Council. We had a great meeting. It was separated into two parts: a meeting from 10am-1pm, followed by lunch, and then some breakout meetings from 2-5pm where we helped set up the leadership's new phones! For the first part, President Savage went around and told each of us what our spiritual gifts were, and how it helped each of us to be a leader. He said that I had the gift of administration, the gift to be healed, and the gift of faith. I don't really know what those mean, but I have been studying up to try and figure it out!
Saturday was the first day of the week where we were able to spend some time as missionaries! We taught Gloria, Monica, and were supposed to see Valerie too, but she got caught up in traffic. It was good to be able to do some teaching.
On Sunday Brittany came to church! She came to sacrament meeting and really liked it! Then we had the "I Believe" fireside that night, where we had a lot of musical numbers and all of us missionaries sang a song together. Things ran smoothly and it was a good meeting with the spirit very present.
Things are looking good for us this week, with some exchanges planned and some really cool people to teach. I am so grateful to be out here doing the will of the Lord! Thank you all for your wonderful examples and great support!
Elder Bird
4/7/18
Hello!
Such a good week this week! So much teaching happening! There were lots of highlights, but the biggest joy this week was watching the work grow like crazy in Skylake! We were able to find and add 4 new people to our teaching pool!
All of our finding and grinding has finally paid off from the last transfer or so. We have started to teach like crazy! We have Gloria, Monica, and Valerie. And, we have started to teach a woman named Brittany, a guy named Francis, a guy named Jay, a guy named Juan, and a young man named Dangelo. And we have lots of people with lots of potential to be taught in the future!
Valerie was out of town this last week, so we weren't able to see her. Hopefully we will be able to teach her this upcoming week when she gets back! The person we saw the most was Gloria, who is doing great! We taught her on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday!! We taught the Restoration lesson fully through and just finished teaching the whole Plan of Salvation. It is so cool to see things click when she hears truth. She is progressing really well and is working at gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon.
We also saw Monica this week, a lesson on Friday and a short visit on Sunday. With the lesson, it was the first time her kids were someplace else and the first quiet setting we had to chat. She really opened up and asked some really great questions. Then on Sunday, it was her cousins birthday and she invited us for a little stop by. They gave us some great food, bosoles and tres leches cake (I don't know how to spell any of that). Her cousin spoke no English, but was super kind to us in having us over. We sang Feliz Complionos to him :)
Brittany is kind of a cool story! She was taught by the sisters missionaries probably about 6 months back, but was a little offended by something one of the missionaries had said to her, so she stopped investigating. We met her and built up a good rapport with her on Thursday, joking around and showing her that we were fun Elders. Then we met on Saturday. She had a list of super good questions, and we got to talking about the Restoration and the Spirit came strong in to the lesson. She told us she would come to church the next day...and I had to pause and ask, "Wait, do you mean our church??" She laughed and told us of course! Unfortunately, something came up and she wasn't able to attend, but she said we could shoot for next week.
I love teaching and seeing people actually have things click and progress along the pathway to conversion. I feel like all our hard work really is paying off and God has seen our efforts to find people to help. I know this work is from God and I am just so glad that I get to be a part of something so great.
I love you all! Thank you for all of your support and love!
Elder Bird
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