Hello Everybody!

Well, this has been an exciting and eventful week!  First of all elder Shannon and i were granted a sweet surprise this Thursday while picking up some dinner at the market down the street! we were getting some cake and ice cream for his birthday on Friday and a guy came up and said "hey elders!" and we struck up a conversation. he was a member who had come home from his mission two years back and he told us he would be glad to come to appointments with us. when he gave us his phone number 5... 0.... 9..... !!! i was like, ARE YOU FROM WASHINGTON?!?!?! and he was kinda surprised and told us yeah, just a small city. I was like where!? he had a really funny look on his face cause i think i musta looked like a super goober with how excited i was. then he said, "Pasco" that's when i started laughing and we told him we were from Richland and Kennewick so he could join in the excitement. :) it is such a small world!  anyways, the next day we got to celebrate Elder Shannon's birthday and it was super fun. we started off by going with our investigators to a place called Mels, then afterword we went to a place called Frog......  one of like a thousand frozen yogurt places in LA.
It made for a really fun day.

Saturday we had some cool stuff going down in Hollywood. They had a giant fair/party thing at Hollywood forever where everybody dressed up like dead people. for Day of the Dead. it was cool

Well, i don't have much time but i love you all!

Take care,
Elder Channing Winterrose

Hey Family!

well this has been a good week. this week i remembered my camera, i got a bunch of pictures up there. Today we went to the Hollywood sign and i got a bunch of pictures but these are my favorite, the buddy with me in the picture is Elder Brenton Walker from Mississippi he's like my favorite missionary in this area if i had to choose. :)  so the other picture is of me "killing" elder Shannon because he is going home in like 2 weeks! we found a sword in one of the members houses and he let us play with it cause we "look like 2 responsible young men" :) The last one is the picture of our Bedroom/apartment. we decided to just give up a couple weeks ago and just move our beds into our living room because some "Brilliant Southern Californian engineers decided that that was the best place to put the air-conditioner. Now if i had the tools i would take care of that but alas, I don't.

Well, I think that is one of the new caves i have never heard of before.  Elder Shannon told me about some he went to near there called the Horse Cave. then there's another one called the Ice Cave and The Cheese Cave. i will have to add them to my list of awesome places to visit. I guess the Bronson caves up here are all closed down cause they found some dead dudes head or something in there. Crazy!

This week i am asking president baker if i can start working on my application to go to school so hopefully that will happen soon. I know my grades aren't the best so hopefully i can get by on good looks and a name-tag alone. :)

I love you all and i sent out some fatty letters this week so check your mailboxes!

Love,
Elder Channing Winterrose

Hola a todos!!!

Well, this week has been kinda crazy and i can say i am really starting to feel the pressure of the work in this area. We are at the point where we have a ton of different investigators to work with and it is harder than catching buster after a bath to keep them all on appointment and progressing.  The really cool thing though is that none of the stress comes from the teaching, it is just a manner of keeping all of the sheep in the fold with scheduling and everything.  You know you got a lot of work when out of nowhere your investigators call YOU and ask you when you have time to come over haha.

This week we had our ward Dia de Hispanidad and it was super cool. we got to have a booth from every country in the ward and ours was full of a bunch of proselyting stuff like books of Mormon, pamphlets and other things. oh yeah, and we had a Giant Book of Mormon suit to wear.
that was awesome. We had a really great turnout and we got a bunch of referrals out of it.

I also had some good luck this week, while taking out the trash i found a huge kenwood sound system by the dumpster and it works perfectly. now we can bump our Mo Tab until the AM. :) Today we gotta play soccer and we all had matching uniforms it was siiick. I know it sounds dumb but you gotta see the pictures. :) Well, I don't have a lot of time but i hope you all enjoy the pictures, I love you tons!

Elder Channing Winterrose

Dear Friends and Family,

well, this week has been a good one! for the past transfer elder Shannon has been playing the conference talks from previous conferences whenever we are sitting in the apartment. man, come conference day i was stoked to hear our prophet speak! We had one of our awesome investigators come to church with her daughter. after the first session was over and the daughter had to leave, the investigator told us that the greatest goal she had for her life that very moment was to be baptized! you can't imagine how excited we were! we also had some other investigators come and they could definitely feel the spirit very strongly and were receiving answers to their prayers.

I think it funny that it didn't come as much of a shock to me when they announced that worthy boys could start their missions at only 18 years old but, when i realized that it meant that Morgan could go on his mission before i get home, i had a little mental freak out hahaha. It really is a great blessing because the sooner that those boys get out there the better off they will be. it is something i have come to gain a testimony of throughout my mission.

I really liked the talk that was given towards the welfare of children and especially how it focused on how the parent's biggest responsibility was not to each other, but to properly raise the blessed souls God has put in their care. When counsel like this is not followed there are always repercussions and serving in LA, a place very centered on the vain things of the world, i have seen the effects of broken families, abandoned children, infidelity and so forth.. for reals, Parents, If you love your children, love each other.  They reap the benefits of your example. As a little bundle of joy is very similar to a sponge sometimes. they take in EVERYTHING. good and bad.

I'm buying stamps today! letters will come out shortly.

Daino! i cant believe your 15!!! you are so dang big!  you gotta write me a letter telling me what you want boy! I'll go pick it up from the alley for ya.

Well, i would love to sit and chat a little while longer but we gotta run, I love you all and send my wishes for you.

Don't be a stranger, feel free to send a letter or three! ;)

Love,
Elder Channing Winterrose

Hey there everybody!

Well, transfers were this week and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with them. My NEW area i will be covering is called Fairfax..... but the cool thing is, I didn't get transferred! I'm still with Elder Shannon who will, after this transfer, be landing in the Pasco airport! If you all wanna give him a huge surprise show up and welcome my companion home! :)  We are still covering this area but we lost two elders out of the eight in the ward so we gained their part of the area. I am pretty sure it will only be temporary while we don't have the Spanish missionaries available to cover it this transfer and we will probably get more Spanish greenies this next transfer to fill the area. It is a HUGE blessing. Now we have 1/2 of the ward in our boundaries and we will never have to look hard for work if we do this right. Yesterday we had a great turnout at church. we had three of our investigators show up and two just popped in to visit the church for the first time! so now we have a great teaching pool of people who are amazing, aka, they keep commitments. :)

Man, speaking of commitments, i know i have been a real loser at writing people lately and I hope it isn't held against me at the last day cause this week i am gonna repent! hear me! i just gotta get me some more stamps hahaha.

This Sunday we had the great opportunity of speaking in church for 5th Sunday lesson.  Two other elders and I were asked to share our testimonies. I was really impressed to talk on the missionary work that goes into preparing missionaries in their home ward. On Saturday morning one of the members in the ward went through the temple for the first time. This guy has been the greatest help to our mission work in the last couple months as he has been preparing for his mission in Ohio. I don't remember what prompted me, but that morning i was sitting there with elder Shannon and i looked at my watch and thought to myself, "Holy cow! God is preparing another missionary right now!" while thinking of this elder.  At that moment i really thought about what i just thought. God is preparing every person who has been conferred with the gift of the Holy Spirit for their own missionary opportunities EVERY DAY.... When i thought about that, the number of missionaries in our ward just jumped from 6 to like 160. This was a bit of what i went ahead and shared at the pulpit that day - that really, each and every one of us has a great potential to be the missionary Heavenly Father has appointed us to be. As sons and daughters of an Eternal Father, we have been blessed with so much! 
Just like it says in Doctrine and Covenants Section 82:3

"For of him unto whom much is given much is required..."

It is sooo true. like really i cant think of a better way to say it. With all of this said, I have to say when i hear the stories of all of your missionary experiences i wanna be fist pumpin' like a champ. but i can't cause i'm in a library and that would be a little weird. I am so so proud of those stories.  It makes me wanna get out there in the heat and preach. :)

I love you all so much and i pray for you all every day. Even those who aren't of this faith. I have had so many people bless my life in different ways and i thank them all in my prayers to my heavenly father.

With this week coming up we have the wonderful opportunity to listen to a living prophet of God speak to us concerning our eternal salvation. We will be given much in these conferences. Thus this is my invitation, INVITE EVERYBODY. Just one simple thing to do; invite those you encounter this week to listen to a Prophet's voice and I can promise you that you will feel an increase of the spirit in yourselves, your home, and your family.

I love you all and thank you for taking the time to read these letters.

Love,
Elder Channing Winterrose