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.

Dear family,

Well this week has been a little better than usual. Tuesday we had this thing called fundamentals. it is like an extra training on how to apply our teaching to our investigators. so that took until about 3 then we had the cool opportunity to go out with president Baker to work for a little bit. it was nice to see him teach and to learn a thing or two. so that was good.

this week we have really been busy getting everybody rides and such for the pioneer day activity that we were having on Saturday.  we have been having a lot of empathy for some of our investigators, There's sometimes stress that comes with making life changing decisions... well, what can you do. :)

Then the other day a member was brought to tears because she was having empathy for us - that all the time and efforts we'd spent wouldn't be fruitful. It was a real crazy experience because it gave me insight to the ministry of Jesus Christ - since he received persecution from the majority of the people that he encountered. I am sure that his apostles were frustrated when they saw him getting disrespected and ridiculed and what not for trying to share the gospel.  so that was kinda a cool experience that someone was so concerned about how we were being treated. It is so nice to know how much the members care about us though, they are super-servants of the lord. :)

well, then Saturday came around and i had an interview with President baker in the morning and he really helped me to have a better understanding of why i have been moved around and such. By this point i have kinda already came to terms with it and i am really trying to recognize the blessings I have in store for me in this area. I have already seen a bunch. :)

Man i feel like we as meadow springs ward are kinda losers when it comes to throwing a party! haha. The Pioneer day activity we had as a stake was probably the biggest celebration of that day i have ever seen outside of salt lake hahaha. :) it was super good and there were lots of cool people to get to know. the only bad thing though was that i started feeling a little nauseous and it quickly went downhill from there. anyways we spent the rest of the night in the apartment. :/ 

Well, it is pretty crazy thinking i have already been out for so long. i keep thinking back to what i was doing last summer before the mtc and how fun the Oregon coast was with the family. I will say though that i think the California coast might look a little bit better. ;) we should definitely have a little trip planned when i get back! :) Maybe britton and I could take a road trip from Juneau to Los Angeles together!

The other day i was asked by someone, "what is the meal you miss from home more than anything?" Well, months ago i think i could have had a better response, but this time i wasn't prepared haha. I think i might have forgotten what the food was like or something.  the thing is, i am just as happy with tortillas and carne asada, mole, pupusas, caldo, posole, sopes, tacos, arroz con pollo, panes, elotes, tamales, champurado or tortas, and lots of salsa as anything else hahaha.  :) (I still don't really love beans yet, but maybe i will warm up to it.) So, i think it should be a cool experience when i get back to try all of mom's cooking again and see what was my favorite. oh yeah, I almost forgot! Nobody knows how to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch around here so i think that would be my most missed food!

Well, I love you all and hope you keep having great adventures! Keep sending the news my way!

Les quiero,

Elder Winterrose

Elder Cressman (top) Elder Winterrose (bottom)

Elder Winterrose and Elder Cressman

Well this week has been kinda better. First i wanna thank you for the money, i fixed my bike up and now im gonna go buy a suit so i can be all spectacular. This week we found a bunch of cool people from referrals from the members. one guy we found and his wife are pretty much the coolest cats around. :)  it was a way cool experience. Wednesday we had a cleaning check and we didn't fail haha. that's good news. what else.... I fixed elder Cressman's bike. that was about it.

Thursday was super cool. we went to a member's house to help her move and we only had about 30 minutes before a meeting we had to go to and all we were really doing was taping boxes. then one of them said how are we gonna move this trailer and i looked over and there was a big 25 foot camper trailer like hugging the fence on the other side of the yard. I took one look and said. "this has gotta be impossible."  anyways, about 3 hours later and after pushing and shoving this thing like no tomorrow with me calling out instructions, we eventually got it over onto the driveway ready to go. Yayyy! so that was way cool.

Friday was mine and a bunch of other's year marks so we went to cafe rio to celebrate and it was delish. that night we went over to a members house by ours and i noticed he had a bunch of stickers that said Shimano.... so i asked him what they were for and he told us he makes them for a living. so i asked him if he could make me a sticker for my bike that said white lightning and he was like heck yeah! he did it super quick and it looks siiick. now my bike is official. :) after mine we made one for elder cressman that said Silver Bullet and he cut it out of reflective tape so it looks cool.


Saturday we had an awesome impromptu lesson with one of our new investigators and she just "got it" I love when we have those moments. :) it is always sweet when people understand the things we teach without a ton of explanation. so that was cool.  That night our dinner appointment was at the church for a wedding. When i heard this i was thinking a reception right? no it was actually a wedding! I think it was like my first real wedding I've been to. crazy right?


Anyways then Sunday was a super-bomb experience. it was like all of the themes were on keeping the sabbath day holy and i think it was just what our investigators needed to stay the whole 3 hours. We also had a member introduce us to her sister who had just moved here from Mexico who told us she had been going to church for 2 years and was never baptized and that she even held a small calling haha. She asked us how soon she could get baptized and i was like floored. haha I really just wanted to say, " Well, it takes 47 minutes to fill the font!!" :)

so that was cool. the ward in this area is really amazing and i hope the momentum continues. i have really prayed about things and i feel it will all be okay. I just really don't wanna keep being bounced around if it is possible but whatever God needs i will do.

I love you all and keep up the missionary work. Don't break too many bones this summer. :)

Love,
Elder Winterrose

Dear family,

Well, this has been kind of a crazy hectic week. On the 4th of July it was transfers.  I got my call Tuesday night that i was going to be transferred to the centinela area in the hermosa liahona ward... To be completely honest i was not very happy. not at all. I was COMPLETELY sure i was going to stay because i had just gotten here and i had already had been transferred every two transfers, and had a new comp every transfer, and it felt like time for me to just stay put for a while. also. going back to something that President Baker said in the last zone conference, was "Elders, don't be surprised if you stay in your areas for 7 to 8 months at a time." shortly after that i was transferred. so the other thing is that there are soooo many other missionaries in that zone that have been there longer than me and they got to stay so i was really mad. I honestly felt like the ugly stepchild that nobody wants and that if president actually cared he wouldn't have moved me because i need the chance to have more time in an area so i can actually have more progress. it was probably the most frustrating day in my whole mission. Today i will talk to him and see what is up. maybe possibly i can have an interview with him and see if he can give me something more that will actually calm my mind. I would like to be more humble and just accepting but this transfer was like the straw on the camels back. Now i kinda just really want to know the why behind my being moved like every stinkin' transfer.

So that was probably the biggest thing that happened this week and i am still reeling in shock as to transfers. Still super Frustrated. I don't even think there is a jcpennies in our area so now i will have to see if i can find a different suit or if someone will give us a ride up there.

We are in a bike area which is kinda nice. i finally get to use my fixie again. the only bummer is that it makes planning and proselyting way harder. As far as i have seen the ward is super good. but that is
based on one Sunday and maybe a handful of members but i have a lot of hope so maybe it is real. my area is directly south of my last area which ended at rosecrans and so now i have everything on the other side of that. My companion is elder Cressman. he is from utah. haha.

I don't have any photos yet but i will take some and send them next week.

I always love hearing from you guys cause it helps me get my mind off of a bunch of the things down here. It is always appreciated to get mail and things from you all and i really appreciate the prayers for me. i swear they work. :) It has been pretty cool getting letters from random people haha. keep em coming. :)

Oh yeah! i almost forgot, the fourth we went home early at like 7:00 because were lame like that haha. Prez Baker kinda told us nobody could be out later than that. it is kinda funny because it like doesn't even start to get dark around here till 8. but whatevs. We have our apartment on the second story and we have a pretty chill view so it wasn't too bad. it just would have been better had we been able to spend that time with some members. but i guess the mission isnt a time for that. :/

So yeah. i guess i will really really have to try and focus on the positive for the next week because right now i dont feel like all is going well and a lot of it is based on how we look at the situation. I
must not have a good point of view.

Well I love all of you and i hope you had a great 4th!

Love,

Elder Channing E. Winterrose

Hey family!

Well, the fourth is coming up which means we might get transferred. I really hope i get to stay here with my companion because i would like some consistency. Since Filiaga left i have had a new companion EVERY Transfer which makes the work really difficult. I also really like this area and there is a lot of improvement that can happen. But the work will nevertheless go forward.

This week was kinda crazy.  We were trying really hard to work with our progressing investigators and we had a bunch of really good lessons. Sad thing is though that the turn-out on Sunday wasn't very impressive. I guess the best we can do is invite though. it always ultimately relies on the person and their faith to act.

This Sunday we had an opportunity to teach the relief society class and i gotta say it might have been the most stressful thing ever hahah. We chose the topic of friendship in the church. which led into fellow-shipping and ultimately how gossip is a poison that can destroy the relationships in the church. Soooo I think the only way to describe how we felt was like Daniel in the Lions Den... haha, it was a much needed lesson though and it was prepared really well. My biggest fear was if the women became offended and we go hungry for the rest of our missions! We got to a part where we were transitioning into the things that can take away from the good relationships and nobody had said Gossip yet when the relief society president notified us that we had TWO minutes left... Let's just say that the next 2 minutes were maybe a little bold and frank but we definitely got the point across and a lot of them seemed to really feel the spirit. :)  Operation Lion's Den was a success.

Well that was about the highlight of my week and If there is one thing i heard is that In the amount of time it takes to gossip with someone you could have added 2 new friends to your list.

It is so weird my year mark is already coming up. I remember this time just one year ago i was at the Oregon coast skim-boarding with the brothers haha. That is so cool the brothers are already out at summer camp. That ATV merit badge must be a new one haha. cause i totally would have taught it if it was there. 

Well, i hope you all come home with some good stories and a good tan. :) oh, and of course a bunch of merit badges.

I love you all and don't forget to write a missionary during this busy time of year.

Elder Channing Winterrose