Serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Monday, September 24, 2012

Hey there family and friends,

This week has been pretty good and we have had some good successes and a lot of referrals coming in from the ward.  I think i can attribute that all to the efforts that we have been putting into training/inviting the members to really pray and look for people to share the gospel with. It has been a really fun and productive area so far and I really hope i can be here with Elder Shannon at least one more transfer. we hopefully have 2 solid baptisms coming up. I say hopefully because one doesn't quite live in the mission yet but has plans on moving in soon. we are duke-ing it out with pres to be able to teach her here until then. I hope it all goes well.

We have a bunch of people to teach now after a lot of work.  It feels way nicer to worry about what to teach rather than where the heck were gonna find people to teach. haha. It was extra difficult, seeing as our brains were fried most the time from the over 100 degree weather. The heat has been killer but we put our shoulder to the wheel and got a bunch of people to visit. This week has definitely gone by faster and felt easier too.

Well, this week i heard some cool talks that kinda made me decide i have to vote. i heard them in this order. the first one was henry b eyring in the 2010 october 4th session Trust in God, and then go and the second one was President Monson, the 3 R's of choice in that same priesthood session. If you listen to them you will feel the same.

Well, really not much is new since the last Wednesday, just another day, another blessing.

I love you all and wish the best of luck to all you rm's out there, just don't forget what your purpose is and the lord will take care of all the rest.

Con cariƱo,

Elder Channing E. Winterrose

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

haha, yeah this was a pretty eventful week, like you said i did get the opportunity to meet Miranda and it was pretty cool. her Dad actually isn't a member and we gotta talk to him for a while. he works in our area from time to time but unfortunately he didn't know anyone who speaks Spanish haha. Besides that this week i have been trying to get my toiletry bag that was lost in zone mail but when it finally arrived (after being lost for 4 weeks now) it was empty except for my razor and shampoo! so I got a hold of president and he helped me out so i could find out where the rest of my stuff went. It seems it went to the wrong zone and an elder got it and decided to throw away everything he didn't want. I'm not gonna ask why i am just happy to find out what happened. I told him if he payed me so i could get new stuff then it would be all fine. Oh well at least it is all done and over with.

This week we have also been battling with over 100 degree weather and on bike it sucks. You are dehydrated most of the time for one, and two you have like nowhere to escape the heat if nobody lets you in. :/ so that has been kinda crazy. I took a look at my shirts the other day and they are the nastiest ever. hahah. i think i am going to send you all one i have worn so you can believe me. like some days the sweat manages to make it all the way across the shirt in the front and back and it gets through the whole collar. Gross right?




We have managed to see a couple of blessings this week through all of our efforts and we now have some good investigators coming through the woodwork. We also got the awesome opportunity to have stake conference this last Sunday and i got to see a bunch of the people from bell gardens ward including my buddy Chris. We had a couple of general authorities there, the area seventy over the stake as well as elder Johnson. Elder Johnson gave a great talk on how when trials come we usually don't recognize the blessings until after they have already passed. It was a great talk to soften the blow of the news we received. That the Huntington Park West stake was going to be dissolved and that the first ever Spanish stake in the united states was going to no longer exist. it is going to be a big adjustment as they are also changing the wards to have Spanish and English youth programs combined. They said the reason was to prepare them to be great leaders of the church and i believe it will do just that.  This should be a cool change and i am super excited for it.

Well, I love you all and thank you for all the support. If you have been waiting for a letter, well, I'm a loser and need to get better at writing them. but i will do it soon promise.

Con carino,
Elder Channing E. Winterrose

Monday, September 10, 2012

Hey there Family,

Well this week has been kinda crazy. We had splits twice so i wasn't in the area for two days. We have been doing a lot of work but we still haven't really found anybody who is "prepared". :/ So the search goes on. I bought some new cleats with my birthday money because we play for like a couple hours each week. they are pretty sick and they should last a pretty long time. they're the orange and silver mercurials with the laces covered. now i think i might get some new basketball shoes cause mine don't have any tread.

I took the ACT after splits on Saturday morning. Dang that is a long test! it was pretty cool though. they told us we had 5 hours to do it and we can take as much time on each of the sections we want. I think it really helped with the study book too because on the questions there is a bunch of crap you don't really need to know and i just cut right through that. Hopefully one year from now i will be hittin' up byui or even better byuh.

Well, besides splits the week has been a lot of work that hasn't lead really anywhere. Were just riding around Hollywood planting seeds for now. We are actually doing a lot of work training the members on how to better share the gospel. I hope it starts paying off soon.

One thing that really helps is we kinda explained to them that they don't have to be ready for baptism because that is kinda what we do haha. its also good to remember that when they start asking questions STOP answering all of them and just INVITE. because a lot of the time we get in the mode of answering all of their questions then they're left there satisfied and you still haven't invited them to do anything. so, i invite you all who read this to try and apply that next time your getting interrogated. :)

Jase, Congrats vato you dominated that mission.

I love you all and hope you take care,

Elder Channing Winterrose

Monday, September 3, 2012

hahaha, i see that the brothers have been having fun shooting lately. I just hope you all aren't blowing through all your money puttin' lead to the dirt.

This week has been pretty good, i have been super busy and we have been trying a lot of different stuff in an effort to get a big teaching pool. Today we went and played soccer with a bunch of the men from church and it was tons of fun. one thing you will never see in LA though is grass on a soccer field haha. It was lots of fun and a good way to get to know some of the returning members in the ward. I am really liking this area and there is always an abundance of members willing to help us.

man, I can't believe daino is already in high school! what is it like man? is it all you imagined it would be? i hope it is tons of fun. just remember it all is going to count later on so make sure you make good choices and work hard.

Preparing for the ACT has been pretty easy. That little book has a lot of information in it and i think it will help a boat load. I am a little more than half way through it and should finish it in time. I am gonna make sure i got everything ready for it so it will be a breeze. A lot of it is just strategies on how to manage your time and stuff while testing and i already knew how to do that. most of the actual questions are pretty easy though.

Well, this week we haven't really had anybody to teach but we keep looking. it is so dang hot here it is dreadful to just walk around and contact but, hey, what else can we do. we are gonna try and get an activity to get people ready for conference so they can use it as a missionary opportunity. this ward is pretty organized and i cant wait to have some investigators so they can really start helping us out.

Well, I miss you all a ton but try not to let it distract me. I am really hoping for more work to make it easier to focus, so if you can all send your prayers our way we appreciate it.

I love you all and send my wishes out to the cousins. :)

Take care,

Elder Channing Winterrose