An Amazing Christmas!

This week has been long but really good!!! Me and Elder Fraughton are killing it in San Diego 1st ward!

To start off this amazing week last Tuesday we were in the gym playing sports for p-day and our mission president walked in with our investigator Chris and he told us that Chris got approval from the First Presidency to get baptized!!! He's been waiting for a year and half to 2 years so we are very excited!! Our mission president is coming and hopefully previous missionaries that taught him can come too!

After p-day was over we took Janette to the Mormon Battalion to hear the sister missionaries sing for Christmas

On Christmas Eve we had a really good day! We had district meeting in the morning and then we had dinner with the Crandall-jennings. She is the stake relief society president and her husband just got baptized a little over a year ago and she has 3 daughters. One is on a mission and comes home soon and one is in college up in Irvine. I told her to look out for a Elder Johnson from Denver! :P

We had an amazing Christmas! We woke up and opened presents - I got a pretty sweet watch made of wood - and then we went over some members' house for breakfast and to Skype home! After that we went caroling to some recent converts and some investigators and stuff and we had a blast.

We had dinner with Janette, one of our investigators. She has been struggling going through the holidays without her husband so she really liked having us over. We're going over again on the 5th for her birthday!

Being a missionary on Christmas is weird haha. In a good way though. We did't see any crowded malls or even going shopping. We got to focus on the birth of our Savior. This Christmas I have thought a lot about the sacrifice it took from our Heavenly Father to let his son go and know what was going to happen to him. It must have been so hard. I'm just thankful for his perfect plan for us!

The day after Christmas we got to work at the temple and talk to people that were coming to see the lights! That was way cool!! A lot of people were like "don't they usually have sisters do this?" and we were like "yup" haha but they let Elders do it during Christmas with the sister missionaires. We talked to a lot of cool people and were able to tell them a little about the temple and stuff. We had to write down how many people we talked to. Elder Fraughton tried to tell me that it wasn't a competition but I didn't believe him, I'm pretty sure after they see how many people we talked to that they are going to have the Elders up there more often haha :P

The day after that I got sick haha and I have had a pretty nasty cold ever since. A member gave me some medicine and cough drops and tissues though, so don't worry Mom haha. Another member gave me a scarf so hopefully I start doing better soon haha :P

I think that's it for now! hope you all had a good Christmas!!

Love
Elder LaRochelle

San Diego Temple Lights

Deck The Halls!

Elder LaRochelle's Christmas Message

A small excerpt from our Christmas Skype call with Elder LaRochelle this morning.  A brief (very brief) message to his fans.

Mission Tour & Devotional

This week has been amazing!!! We started off the week with a mission tour from Elder Nielsen of the quorum of the 70! It was amazing. He talked about the atonement and he explained it so simply and so easy to understand that I feel more confident talking about it with my investigators. Another thing he talked about was prayer; more specifically, how the apostles pray. He told us that when the apostles pray in public they keep it very short. They want us to pray what's really in our hearts and it shouldn't be about trying to have a long prayer so people think you are good at praying. He also told us about how apostles send missionaries to missions and how they don't assign us to our mission but they assign us to our mission president so that was kinda cool!

The members here are just killing it!!! We have been fed everyday this month so far and we have so many sweets and cards its crazy!!!! I don't know how we are going to eat it all!!! Yesterday we had 2 dinners! I don't know how I ate all that food haha. After the first dinner I was full haha!!

Janette is doing a lot better. She is having us over for Christmas dinner and on her birthday!! She still has a lot of questions but it's OK. We are still working on her! Yesterday we added a guy named Flavio. He went to the temple to see the lights and meet some missionaries. He is from Italy and his girlfriend is a member and is from Mexico so teaching them will be interesting because English is their second language! 

Yesterday we had our missionary devotional! It's the only time the whole mission is together so I got to see Elder Nielsen again and I saw Sister Stewart who was the sister missionary that I came out with! There were a lot of people singing and scriptures and stuff and afterwards President Schmitt gave a special blessing over the mission. It was just extremely powerful and I could feel the spirit so strong. I know he has been called by God to guide this mission!

Elder LaRochelle, Elder Salmond, & Sister Stewart

I can't believe its already been 5 months since I left. These past 5 months have gone by crazy fast. I'm kinda scared to see how fast the rest of my mission goes by!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!! I know I will!!! 

Love,

 

Elder Chris LaRochelle

Amazing Members

This week was pretty boring. A lot of our appointments cancelled and what not.

One cool thing is we took Chris Garvos to the Mormon Battalion. He is way cool and has a good friend in Hong Kong who is a member and has been a big influence on him. We have only taught him twice and he has already read up to Enos and has read the whole Gospel Principals book! The hard thing is that he is always busy because he is a flight attendant so he's gone a lot. Hopefully we can set a baptism date for him this next week!!!

On Sunday Elder Fraughton and I sang in the choir that performed in sacrament meeting. We also sang "What Child is This" by ourselves and it was pretty good. Our choir director is pretty amazing. 

I'm really loving it here in the San Diego 1st Ward. The members are amazing and we are getting fed like every night! Sometimes two times a day! 

 

Elder Fraughton is a pretty cool guy and we get along pretty well!!! Sometimes I miss Elder Nielsen because we got along sooooo great but I have so much to learn from Elder Fraughton!

Janette is doing better. She is becoming really good friends with another sister in the ward that lives right down he street! We actually taught her at the members house this week. So many members want to come out with us. It's crazy!!!

We had our ward Christmas party this week. It was alright. A lot of people came and some Polynesians in the ward danced! 

Transfers weren't that exciting. This time only one new person came into the zone because a sister went home. But the new sister in the zone is a sister trainer leader so I think she will be a good addition.

I think that's it for this week!

Love 

Elder LaRochelle

 

Another Visit to the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center

Elder LaRochelle (by Elder Smith)

Elder Fraughton

Zone Meeting

Busy Week!

Wednesday we had Zone meeting and it was really good. Elder Ballard came to the mission recently and had meetings with our leaders. Our Zone Leaders told us what he talked about. One thing that stuck out to me is when he was asked what was required for missionaries to have success. Elder Ballard said "The first thing a missionary has to do is to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ" he continued and said "In our minds we must spend more time going to Gethsemane and more time at the cross and more time at the tomb." Hearing that was extremely powerful! As I have pondered about this and thought about the sacrifice that our Savior made, I am already gaining a more personal relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ

On Friday we had exchanges with 4th ward. I went with Elder Salmond to 4th ward. All of our appointments cancelled so we were just walking around and some other missionaries called and asked if we wanted to borrow their car so we did. We were able to go visit some referrals in a part of the area that is hard to get to and really ghetto haha!

When it got to around 7 pm and it was getting dark we went and saw this referral named Chuck. So we knock on the door and this nice guy answered the door and told us that chuck was in the back. So we walked through the house and in the back there were 2 other houses and in between them there was this old hairy guy that grunting and trying to slam this gate closed. The super nice guy was like "That's Chuck. Just wait here for him." As were waiting for him this older women with like 2 teeth sneaks up on us and walks past us. She had a limp and everything. It was pretty sketchy. Once Chuck got the gate closed he just ends up being drunk and slurring at us, but he lets us in. When we get in there are cockroaches EVERYWHERE. It smelled like something died inside. We thought we were going to die but we ended up having a pretty good lesson with Chuck's roommate who wasn't drunk haha!

Saturday was a really good day. I went to Sweetwater and baptized Peter. I taught Peter last transfer before he moved but I was still able to baptize him. I saw Elder Nielsen there and after the Baptism we went and got Golden Spoon and me and Elder Nielsen talked for a while. It was pretty sweet!!!

After that we had dinner with a less active part member family. They are really cool and we were able to do some service for them!

Then we had the adult session of Stake Conference. The spirit was so strong. President Schmitt was there and he shared He Is the Gift and then he talked to members about how they shouldn't have fear as they share the gospel. It was really good and I feel like it's going to really pump up our members to want to do missionary work!

After we got out of Stake Conference, we saw that we had missed a call from Janette so we called her back and she told us that she was really depressed. Me and Elder Fraughton were soooo sad and we just prayed for a long time that she would be ok, but we set up an appointment with her on Sunday to make sure.

Sunday we went to Stake Conference and President Schmitt was there with his wife. He asked me and Elder Fraughton to watch his kids so that was pretty cool. We saw a little bit of the Christmas Devotional then we went to Janette's and we brought Brother Kullberg with us who is a nurse. He told her that she needed to go the hospital right away, but Janette didn't want to so we convinced her to stay overnight at a members house. We called a member that lived down the street from her and when we got there the member was like "it's weird I made my guest bed earlier this week like I was going to be excepting someone". It's so cool to see the Spirit work like that. We talked to Janette yesterday and she is doing great! She talked to her doctor and got some things figured out and she is feeling a lot better now!

Well I hope you are doing great and enjoying the Christmas season. It doesn't feel like Christmas here with all the palm trees and stuff but it's all good I'm having a good time!!!! Love you all!!!

Love,

Elder Christopher LaRochelle

The District

Elder L. Sings! Whaaat?

This week was amazing!!!! Me and Elder Fraughton are killing it!!! We are teaching like crazy trying to teach 25 lessons a week. Thanksgiving set us back a little but this week looks promising!!

This is the last week of the transfer so next Tuesday I will find out if I'm staying or going. I think I'll be here for one more transfer but we will see!

The day before Thanksgiving we were going to see a referral and it was a home with someone living upstairs and someone else downstairs. Our referral was upstairs so we go up and we knock a few times but the lights were off and we assumed she wasn't home. We started walking to the car and we decided to go ask the girl downstairs if she knows where our referral is. When we knock on the door she comes to the door and she is super excited to see us. She was like, "Do you guys have a Book of Mormon!! I have wanted to read one for so long!!" So we gave her a Book of Mormon and we have another appointment with her tomorrow !!!

Thanksgiving was pretty good. We had dinner with the Carsons. They have a pretty big family and we had a lot of fun. Thanksgiving was kinda hard to meet with people because a lot of people were busy or not home but it's all good we stayed busy!

Janette is still going strong. She just recently lost her husband so she struggles sometimes. She told us that she didn't know if this was the right path she needed to go down and that she needed a break. We told her that was fine and the next day some members from the ward decided to go by her house to see how she was doing. It really touched her that people she barely knew were coming by to see how she was doing so she decided to come to church again. It's so awesome. We are seeing many miracles in our area and its so amazing!!!

So our choir director makes the missionaries sing in the choir which isn't a bad thing haha. I like it but she wants us to sing by ourselves in sacrament meeting, she bribed us with a dinner so me and Elder Fraughton are singing "What Child Is This" I'm pretty excited. It's one of my favorite Christmas songs!!!

Yesterday we got a call from a less active named Bo. She said she needed a blessing and that's it. So we went over and she just opens up with us and starts telling us all these things that are going on in her life. We gave her a blessing and she is going to come to church at the family ward and the YSA ward. We are going to start meeting with her every week. She is so amazing and I know our Heavenly Father has a plan for her.

Every other Friday we give service at a park and this week they had us picking up trash in a canyon and we found like half a car! Me and Elder Arnie carried it down the canyon to the pickup truck so the ranger could take it to the dump! It was pretty cool.

Well I hope you are doing well. I miss and love you all and I'm so thankful to be serving in San Diego. I know this is the true church I can defiantly see the Lord's hand in this work.

Love,

Elder LaRochelle

Exchanges And Stuff

From Tuesday, November 25:

This week has been amazing!!! Last Tuesday for P-Day we went to this park that has a lot of museums in it. We went to the Museum of Man which was pretty cool. We invited President Schmitt and he brought his 6 year old son with him. It was pretty cool, though some of the missionaries were kinda annoying because all they want to do is play basketball but whatever its all good.

On Wednesday we had MTE's (Missionary Training Exchange). MTE's are when a couple of zones get together and missionaries go with other missionaries to train or get trained. Me and Elder Fraughton both left 1st ward area and went and coached other missionaries. So I went to U.C. 1st ward with Elder LeMmon and Elder Hirst who is my zone leader. We were in Clairmont up by the temple. We had a really good day. Me and Elder LeMmon and Elder Hirst all got along really well and we had a lot of fun.

On Thursday I had ingrown toenail surgery. The doctor was LDS which was pretty cool. Elder Fraughton helped him a little bit haha just handing him things and stuff but it was pretty funny.

On Friday we went to the Mormon Battalion with Chris. it was my first time going through with an investigator and it was so fun.

On Monday we went on Exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to YSA Ward with Elder Yates and we had a blast. We didn't have a whole lot of appointments planned but it was all good. We got to go visit a ton of people and that night we went to FHE. I played pool with one of their recent converts, Toddrick. He is way cool. He got baptized like 2 weeks ago and he is already half way through the Book of Mormon!!! He really wants to serve a mission which would be way cool!!!! YSA work is really fun!

I don't know if you have heard about what the Church is doing for christmas this year but its a video called "He Is the Gift". We got to see a special preview of it and it is amazing!!! It's like the "Because of Him" video that they did for Easter except bigger! We are getting special pass-along cards for it and we only have enough to hand out 10 a day!!! The Church is putting pass-along cards in the Ensign and they are taking over the ads on YouTube on December 7th. The church estimates that 220 million people will see it on that day! Its going to be crazy!!! I hope you guys tell your friends about it. It has the potential to be huge and we want to make it even bigger!

I think that's it for this week. We don't have to much planned for Thanksgiving but we do have a dinner so it's all good :).

Love,

Elder Chris LaRochelle