Man, the things you see in Hollywood... I never thought i would see so many things till i came here hahaha. The other day we were walking to an appointment and as we were walking someone rounded the corner in front of us wearing a playboy bunny outfit... LIKE SERIOUSLY, "Ma'am it is about 2 in the afternoon could you possibly choose a weirder outfit????" So we avoided the scene until she walked into the same building as us and when we walked in she like stared at our name tags and said, "What are you??" Hahaha, like we were dressed up too! I was freaked out and almost asked the same to her! I blurted out," Missionaries!" and we ran away down the hall. ugh, sometimes this city can be super gross. yuck. anyways there's also ton's of the most awkward billboards all over the city. but you get good at ignoring them. This next weekend the MORMON musical is going on Broadway in our area. We drove by and took some pictures. there's a 50 foot banner that says I HEART MORMON. it was kinda funny. :)

Well, this week has been really weird. It is quite an adventure with both of us not knowing a single soul and trying to remember all of the faces, and names as well as constantly add more to the list. We are getting everything really organized and i have never in my mission had to rely so heavily on the Area Book, but it is truly serving as a real blessing and we are doing some good finding through it.

This ward is also a huge help. They are very supportive and i have gotten multiple cakes and they are always looking for ways to serve us which is like super awesome. Today we are losing the car as well so we will be on bike and definitely can use the help of the members now.

Well, besides that we have a few good investigators and i don't wanna count my chickens yet but i think they are pretty good eggs. :) this last week Elder Shannon started teaching me how to play piano. I can now actually play Nearer My God to Thee. and hopefully when i get home i will have a lot more learned. it is a super nice talent to have especially on a mission. Ahh, i don't have a lot to report besides what has already been said. Today we are going to go check out this place called the Bronson caves and it should hopefully be worth the short drive. :)

I love you all soooooooo much and I really appreciate the letters you all send me. If i have been a little slow i apologize and i will catch up soon! it has been a little busy lately but i haven't forgotten you! :)

Cuidense mucho,

Elder Channing E. Winterrose

Hola Familia!

This week was a little crazy and unexpected, I am sure you all wanna know how my birthday went but first I got some news!

I got Transferred! Even better my companion is Elder Shannon! And he is from none other than Kennewick WASHINGTON!!!!!!! He even used to work at the DQ down the street on Gage and he graduated in 2010 from Kamiakin! Small world eh??? haha we Both are given the awesome assignment of whitewashing an area that covers Hollywood. it goes from la cienega in the west to western in the east and the top of the mission in the north and Santa monica blvd in the south. it is a pretty sweet ward too. it is LA 4th ward and it holds a pretty good reputation of being the best one out there. So far it has been a blast figuring out the area with just an area book and a map and the members are soo great at missionary work. i really hope we can dominate this area so we can fulfill their expectations of the new missionaries. It was a little weird moving into the new area right before my birthday but after meeting a handful of people we already had a party set up!

Thank you all soooo much for the birthday wishes and I am so glad for the package. Pootie boy, the toys were super cool! The only thing is I either have an impediment and don't know how to use a kazoo or those things were kinda broken hahaha. they made for ton's of fun though. :) We got to have a little fiesta after church at this awesome member's house and it was super nice. I even got a cake! I am super excited for the changes that have happened and all the new work we will have to do.
The only cool stories this week would be that Elder Shannon and I are like super Engineers and made a pipe/HVAC looking thingy to pipe cold air to our bedroom. haha i think the pictures will show that better though. Also for our dinner list we made a "sunset" picture out of a few we took and cut and pasted together. it goes great cause the name of our area is Sunset.
Well, i love you all and gotta run!

I hope you all remember to look for opportunities to serve and share the gospel.

Love,

 Elder Channing Winterrose

Well, so last Monday we tried to go to the aquarium but it was closed. i think that is okay cause today we gotta see some dolphins in the ocean! We got to go and check out a cool light house in  Palos Verdes and there was a super cool Whale Museum there too. while we were outside we saw out in the distance a bunch of dolphins swimming and hopping around. it was super cool! on our way home we spotted this really nice little library in PV and that's where we're emailing.

I sent a bunch of pictures this time. In one of them I took one cooking next to a lady in our ward who is, believe it or not, almost average height. :) some times i feel like i'm on Gulliver's travels haha. The other ones are just a bunch of random ones from today and one of my new suit with my WML.

Anyways this week has been pretty good and REALLY crazy too. Just the other day we were in this crazy apartment complex that we usually do a bunch of work in when something wild happened. We were knocking at a door of a potential and we heard a bunch of yelling from the door right behind us across the hall (as usual.) but then the door flies open this lady we know shoves one of our investigators out the door. He was super drunk and arguing with her. Anyways, they went at it yelling and hollering and shoving each other when He then starts yelling at us. At this point i was on one side of him and Elder Cressman is on the other side of him just petrified. He starts eyeballing Cressman and I was just sitting there ready to take this crazy little drunk guy down to the ground if he tried anything stupid. Then he Charges at Cressman about 10 feet and stops. Whew! after about like 20 minutes of talking to him and him punching walls and posts and the ground and such we got him to walk home. So..... That was exciting enough to get my blood pumping.

I think that all happened on Saturday, but that morning we were sitting in studies and the house like jerked really quick and that was scary. probably just a hiccup earthquake.  One of our investigators was talking about how The Big One is coming and that we are all gonna be screwed and sink into the sea or something.....  I'll keep my fingers crossed. Sorry if this letter is super boring but i think a lot of the cool stuff or spiritual experiences are zapped from my brain lately because of how hot it is. Like really, it's flippin' 90s here batman. and we're on bikes ALLLLLLL Day with like 3 times the humidity.  I think that i have been in like a heat coma lately and it has just turned me into a zombie.

So before i forget, Did you get my request for the stamps? if you did then great! And for all of you waiting your letters, they are on my way, and btw my birthday is on Sunday but I DO accept late presents! ;) Just kidding!

But not really... :)

Well, I am super glad to hear from you all and i miss you tons I will let you know what happens next Monday for transfers. I really hope i can stay in this area for a good while because it really is a great place. Oh yeah and the new area i am in covers the cities of Lawndale, The west side of Gardena, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa beach and The north part of Redondo beach. Everything south of my last Ward or south of Rosecrans for those of you who really wanna know.

well, I love you all and send a shout out to all my Bomb cousins serving in Brazil who get guns pulled on them, Just remember, You could have been sent to Compton. :)

Much Love,

Elder Winterrose

Dear family,

well this week was pretty good and a little crazy. I am so glad to hear that you got my bike back! I got something cool for Ryan actually. There's this guy in my ward who made some needle's peak stickers and said he would love to sell him some for really cheap and that he can even ship them to Utah! I came up with the idea and i put one on my bike!  it worked out pretty legit and now like everybody is ordering different stickers from him. we all have bike names now like The Death Star or Penguin or Silver Bullet or mine, White Lightning. :)

anyways, so Monday we had a barbecue and we played football and soccer for like 4 hours and i got a pretty good tan/sunburn that i kinda payed for for the next few days. haha. this week i got to go on splits with elder Shumway, my old companion, and with the zone leaders too. it was a really cool experience. I think i have definitely come a long way from the last time i was with elder shumway so that was pretty cool to see.

This week i have had a sad thing happen. my super comfy bike seat is kinda dying on me. I think that is part of inheriting it from a garage and making it my own. but the thing is is that it is kinda just falling apart on the top and i think it may be like 25 bucks to get a new one so i kinda need a little help getting that... love you mom! ;) It makes it really hard to ride now because it like sticks to my suit pants and i cant really wear my new suit with it. :/  Bummer. anyways, its nice that even though it is super old I get a ton of compliments for it because it is pretty dang fancy. :)

There were a few other things i kinda needed lately while i was here. I have run low on stamps and i was wondering if y'all could send me some more.  also, I want to know if grandpa might have a copy of the First edition of Mormon Doctrine. by Bruce r McConkie. I really wanted one cause there's a bunch of cool stuff in there but there super old and hard to find.

Well, this week we had the super amazing opportunity to do a real life mockup of the Lehi's dream. it was super cool! We made a rod of pvc pipe across the chapel and it was sooo full of smoke from the kind of smoke machine they use in parties that it made it super realistic. we even had a great and spacious building with some of the young men yelling and stuff it was legit.

Well, that was about the highlight  of the week and it took a ton of work. it was great. Other things we got to do this week were meet a less active family and bring them to view a baptism.  They are also like the nicest family ever. then we got to have some really solid lessons that were super spiritual when i was on splits.

Well, I gotta say it is super weird to be 2 weeks from my birthday because it is weird to realize I'm like 2 to 3 years older than some of these people and they already have like one baby and one on the way. Sooooo weird. anyways. i'm sure when i get home like all the girls i knew will be married with children. ;) hahah.

so i just realized that britton is going to the home town of my mtc teacher hna Alvarez! so crazy he could actually run into her. i hear it is a small town.

Anyways, i kinda gotta run but i love you all and Invite you to ponder your scriptures and pray about them because they are the greatest things in this darn universe. :)

Love you all lots,
Elder Winterrose

Ps. That bike is still my baby. please take care of it!

Hello Family,

I don't think there is a busier and more fun family in the entire universe than the Winterrose boy's.  All the time when i tell people we are a family of all boys they give me this look all asustado (surprised) like, "that must be the craziest family ever" and the funny thing is they don't even know the half of it. dang it is so freaking awesome to hear the bros are going to efy, they will have the best experiences ever if they just really try to grow their testimonies. I am totally excited for them. If you guys think efy was fun then just imagine two years of being able to feel the best spirit ever just like at efy. Oh, and you get to be in places even more beautiful than Utah. haha.  Well, britton I think that you are doing a good job hooking me up with letters every week and it is never a boring pday knowing i have awesome letters to write! ps, you were totally right about how i would be broke by this time of the month and you totally spotted me laundry money hahaha. :) Love you bro.

Well, this week has been super crazy and on the side of stressful. but the best part of it was it was good stress. I am gonna start out with last Monday tho, After all of our crazy pday stuff we had dinner with this sister who is Tongan! She is a champ. She doesn't actually know Spanish super well but she is married to a man from Peru. She plays organ for church and she takes her daughter there so she can support her in learning her father's language! What a super cool family. They said next time they would make otai and osie and a bunch my other favorite Tongan foods haha. Only britton knows what osie is haha. :)  but i am super excited i finally got my own Tongan family!  Tuesday night we went to the visitor center with our investigator as well as the other missionaries and their investigators. We went on the temple tour around the grounds. It was a super spiritual lesson and visit and I think they all have a better understanding of why the temple is so important.

So Wednesday morning we were woken up by a strange experience! At about 3:00 in the morning I was woken up by what felt like someone shaking my bed really hard! After about like 10 seconds of this and me having no idea what was going on and kinda just laying there gripping my bed with white knuckles I realized what it was! But then i kinda just fell asleep again. hahaha! So that morning some of the members told us it was a 3.7 earthquake!  I guess i finally got to feel one! it was the coolest. :)

So, this week had some stress from the preparations for the baptism that was on Sunday but it felt good to be busy getting a lot done. We also had some stressful moments when we came upon one of our investigators who was struggling with the word of wisdom. That was Very frustrating. I guess when stuff like this happens though, it is more like a way to see where their desires are really at.

I love everything to do with bikes - what can I say!  Thanks Ryan!

Baptism!!!  She was absolutely Golden.

me, elder Olsen, elder Cressman, then elder Fransisco

Sunday was an awesome day.  I got the chance to baptize one of our coolest and most golden investigators we have ever encountered. The coolest part was that, that morning, elder Cressman told me that she was the sister of the member-lady we visit, and that I had been praying for her when she was moving here from Mexico. I guess i never connected those two dots before when she got here but that could be because i kinda forgot her name and just prayed for her as the sister of sister ___.  Haha. That was way sweet and a real recognition of how prayer has worked for me.

It is sooo nice to have baptisms because it really gets the momentum going. I feel like this area will work out really well for me as I continue to work hard with the members. This week we are having an awesome activity for the ward that we set up. It is going to be a real life run through of Lehi's dream. It should be a really fun and educational activity.

Well, Thank you all for the support you give me and the prayers in my behalf. I hope you all receive the blessings I try and send your way.  Congratulations Tyler! Elder Shannon says you're awesome too. Do work in the Philippines!

Well, I love you all and hope you have a good one down in Utah!

Love,
Elder Winterrose

ps, the picture of the four of us is me, elder Olsen, elder Cressman, then elder Fransisco. i took that like 20 minutes ago.