Back to the City

From 2/2/2016...

Hey everyone! So a month ago or so we found out that we aren't allowed to have transfer meeting anymore. So the way they do transfers now is the Assistants send out a call sheet to the Zone Leaders that have all the new companionships. Then the Zone Leaders send it to us and call us and tell us who is leaving and who is coming in the zone and where everyone is going and then Tuesday morning all the missionaries that are dealing with a transfer meet together and exchange companions.

So yesterday we found out that i was being transferred toWSan Diego East Zone in the Del Cerro ward With Elder Pimsuwan. He is from Thailand. I also became a Zone Leader this transfer. The cool thing is that President and the Assistants live in the zone and we are super close to everything. the down side is since we have 3 sets of sisters and 3 sets of Elders and one of the sets is the Assistants and the other set one of them is a district leader. That means Elder Pimsuwan and I are Zone leaders and District Leaders. Yay responsibility again haha.  

Last Tuesday we went to Camp Wildwood and had a BBQ and played sports with another zone. After P-day we had dinner with Julie Stites she is recent convert and her husband isn't a member so when we meet with her she usually takes us out to dinner which is awesome! She struggles sometimes because she wants to be sealed to her family forever but she can't yet since her husband isn't a member. I testified to her that I know God has a plan for her and that everything will work out.

Wednesday was a pretty busy day! Elder Barnes had a meeting to go to and so did some other missionaries so we went on exchanges and I was with Elder Seavey for the morning. We went and did service for the guy with all the sand bags which was awesome! The rest of the day we were able to meet with a couple less active families and a couple part members families which was awesome. 

Friday we did service most of the day! Its crazy how much service people need done up here. In the morning we filled up sand bags for a family that had some flooding problems last time it rained. Luckily we had a jeep for the day since we were low on miles we borrowed another set of missionaries car because they had a lot more miles. We ended up filling about 40 sand bags and had to stop because the Jeep couldnt hold very much more. After that we went to a horse therapy place and did weeding for them. They do therapy for special education kids and wounded veterans.

Sunday was a crazy day! For 5th Sunday in 3rd hour the 2016 ward mission plan was announced and then there specific people that spoke about certain topics. Elder Banes and I talked about creating a Family mission plan and setting goals as family to do missionary work. Since we were focused on missionary work for 5th Sunday our bishop thought it would be a good idea to invite President Schmitt to speak in our sacrament meeting. He did a super good job though and it really got the members pumped up to do missionary work.

This past week we also found out that Nathan has to wait until he is 18 to be baptized because his dad wont let him. He turns 18 in October so its not too bad. He is an awesome dude though, he is super committed and wants to get more involved but his dad wont let him. He still is able to go to seminary in the morning and he has read Preach My Gospel and everything. It's really a bummer that he can't be baptized though.

Yesterday we had dinner with the Sommers. The Sommers are awesome missionaries. They invited a less active family and a part member family to meet us. We were able to get to know the two families better and hopefully start teaching the kids in the part member family!

Well I think that's it for this week! Love you guys!

-Elder Chris  LaRochelle

Misc Photo Ops

Sand Bags and Degraded Granite

From 1/19/2016...

Hey everyone! This week was pretty normal. Nothing to exciting happened.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Cloes to his area. He is a Spanish missionary so I had no idea what was going on all day haha. We had a really good day though, Elder Cloes is a super good missionary. The cool thing is that he grew up in Escondido which is right outside our mission so he already knows a lot of people.

We also did a lot of service on Wednesday. We helped the guy we met last week. We ended up climbing up the canyon and pushing boulders off on to his property to help keep the water and "DG" (degraded granite) off his property. We also did service for him yesterday and we filled sand bags for him. He told us that after we filled the sand bags that he has a total of 1950 sand bags on his property! It's pretty crazy! He needs a lot of help.

After service we were going to go sing in their branch choir. Before we went we stopped by their recent converts house because we were going to walk with her to the church because she wanted to listen to us sing. When we stopped by the lady told us that she couldn't come yet so we decided to walk around until she was ready. We were talking to people and we said hey to these two guys that were smoking, they didn't look like the best guys so we just kept walking but then I felt prompted to go back to talk to them and I told that to Elder Cloes and  he said he felt the same way so we went back and talked to him, he told us that he didn't want to hear a message. He said " I can't focus on anything because I'm so hungry."  After we finished talking to him we went into the store and bought them some chips and a drink. When we gave it to them they were so surprised, they looked like they were about to cry. I know God led us to them to help them. There's a quote that I like that I heard on my mission it says "you can't live a perfect day until you do something for someone that they can't repay you for."

Gerald our investigator is doing good! When I was on exchanges Elder Barnes and Elder Matos had a lesson with him and President Collins (he is in the mission presidency). They set him with a baptismal date for January 30th! Please keep him in your prayers! So far he is doing great! President Collins promised him that if he read the scriptures and prayed everyday that he wouldn't smoke.

On Saturday our bishop came with us to see Gerald as well. As a mission we have a new rule that whenever an investigator accepts a date to be baptized the bishop or one his councilors has to meet with them within 48 hours. I love the bishop in this Ward! He is a stud!

On Sunday we went to a mission presidents fireside in PQ (Penasquitos). It was pretty cool, we had a lot of fun!

I think that's it!


Bye bye!
Elder LaRochelle

Snow In The Mountains

The Cat That Almost Got Away

From 1/12/2016...

Hey everyone I don't have to much time this week so I will give you some quick highlights of my week

1. Yesterday Elder Barnes and I went to go see a former investigator and when the old lady opened the door her cat got out. So we spent half an hour trying to catch this cat that climbed on the roof.

2. Yesterday I had an interview with my mission president we have an opportunity to meet with him once a quarter so that was pretty sweet. In the middle of my interview he got a phone call and he asked me to step out into the hallway because he was on the phone with Bruce R Mckonkie's son from the mission department.

3. This week we got a ton of rain! At one point there was a tornado warning.

4. We drove around on the reservation trying to find people but as one guy told us "house numbers don't mean anything out here." So it was kinda difficult but it's all good.

5. We did service for this nonmember this week that was pretty crazy. We went into his back yard and he just had walls and walls of Sand bags to keep the rain and debris from the rain. The walls went back like 400 yards. At the end of the walls of sand bags there was a like a 35 ft cliff up into the mountain. The guy told us that when it rains the cliff turns into a waterfall. Pretty crazy. He also had to dig like 5 foot holes in between his walls to catch all the debris. We are going over tomorrow so I will take a picture then.

This week has had its ups and downs but this week I felt the spirit guiding me so much. I know God answers our prayers we just have to pay attention because a lot of times He doesn't answer them the  way we think.

Love you all,
Elder Chris LaRochelle :)

El Nino

From 1/5/2016...

Hey everyone!

This week has been good. Elder Barnes and I have been doing great together. This past week we had to bike a lot which was good but also hard haha.

Last Tuesday we had to the opportunity to teach Leslie who is one of our recent converts' girlfriend. So that was cool. Leslie is of the Baha'i  faith which is pretty interesting actually. It's very similar to ours in some ways.

Last Wednesday we got together as a zone and had lunch and then afterwards we role played together which was cool. Recently when Elder Clayton came to the mission he told us that if we role played more we would baptize more so we are doing a lot more role playing lately.

Thursday we were planning on doing a lot of biking. But then the zone leaders told us that they talked to the assistants about our miles and they told us just to try our best to stay under but it's alright if you go a little over. So we didn't have to bike on Thursday :D


We had to be home by 6 pm for New Year's Eve though, so no partying here.:P

Friday was pretty normal. We had district meeting then service. Later we taught mike and Nancy who are doing good. Every time we teach them they have a lot of good questions. It reminds me of the Beitlers from Bostonia.

On Sunday we taught the Macintoshes. Boone who is the son was baptized a few years ago and is getting ready for his mission and his parents aren't members but are paying for his mission. So we met with them and answered a lot of there questions and taught them briefly.

Overall it was a decent week. No trucks got stuck in mud or anything but it is supposed to rain pretty hard this upcoming month. We are supposed to get this really bad rain storm. Everyone calls it "El
Nino" out here. We only get these types of storms every 10 years or so. Apparently last time we had one people were kayaking down the street haha so that's something to look forward to. But I think that's it for this week. Love you guys!


-Elder Chris LaRochelle

Stuck Truck

 

 

Christmas and the Millenium Falcon

From 12/29/2015...

Hey everyone!

This week has been pretty awesome and pretty eventful!

Last Tuesday during pday it was raining so we went to the stake center and played with nerf guns but before we did that we had to go help some missionaries that got stuck in the mud. The two elders weren't even companions but they wanted to go take the truck out and do dumb things in the mud. So they got stuck so we had to go save them. After pday we went with the bishopric and sang carols to 25 less active, recent converts, and part member families it was pretty awesome. We were supposed to go see 26 but the last one lived on a long dirt road and bishops minivan couldn't make it up the road since it was raining earlier in the day.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with Highland Valley Ward. Elder Scott came to my area. We had a pretty good day, we were able to talk with quite a few people.

Thursday was pretty normal we saw Gerald and a few other people. We also tried to go sing to the person we couldn't carol to on Tuesday night because of the rain. This lady lives in the middle of nowhere though. On the way we saw an emu farm which was interesting. The lady we were going to sing too wasn't there though unfortunately.

Later that day we were invited to a Christmas Eve party with some members and their extended family. We read scriptures and sang carols afterwards which was cool. After that we did a white elephant exchange which was really fun. I got a water bottle with a subway gift card inside which was way better then the cookie cutters that I thought I was going to get stuck with.

Elder L Stocking From a Fan

Friday was Christmas obviously haha! We started off the day by opening gifts and having  breakfast with the Sommers family which was awesome! After that we went to the church to call our families but when we got the church Elder Barnes realized that he forgot his iPad and we were thinking that he could just use my iPad to call home but we just had this feeling that we needed to go back and get his iPad, so we did and as we were getting in the car to go back to the church this lady called out for us and we were able to talk with her for a little bit and she told us that she used to meet with missionaries before but her mom didn't want her too. She told us that she was moving up to Idaho and she was going to live with her friend who is a member and she is going to be able to get baptized. She told us that she was already loving all the commandments and everything so that was way cool. After we called home we had lunch with the zone and then Elder Barnes and I asked if we could borrow some of their bikes because we were running low on miles. So now we are on bike! Biking in  Ramona is A LOT different from riding in Bostonia. Bostonia was pretty flat but Ramona is pretty much built on the side of a mountain so there are a lot of hills and stuff buts it's all good we are pushing through.

On Sunday we had Paul who is a recent convert bring his girlfriend Leslie to church and we had dinner with them at a members house that night as well. After dinner the members showed us the cool toys they got for Christmas and one of them was a Millennium Falcon drone! It was pretty sweet! So they let us fly it around!

Tonight we have a lesson with Paul and Leslie so hopefully that goes well. Leslie has already done a lot of research on the church and seems pretty open.

I think that's it for this week! Things are going great in Ramona! Hope you all had a great Christmas! :)


Love,
Elder LaRochelle

Merry Christmas!

From 12/22/2015...

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas!!

This week was pretty good!

Last Tuesday we found out that Elder Anderson was being transferred. We also went up to Camp Wildwood (a camp that the church owns) to play sports. After p day we had dinner with some recent converts (a mom and her daughter) at a Mexican restaurant. We have to meet them at a restaurant because her husband isn't a big fan of missionaries but he lets them come to church and everything.

On Wednesday we went to transfer meeting and that's when I became companions with Elder Barnes! He has been out for 5 months and is from bountiful Utah. He is a pretty cool guy. After transfer meeting we met with a returning less active. This returning less active likes to play jokes on the new missionaries. So he knew I was getting a new companion so when we showed up he pretended to be a nonmember and be kinda mad at us to scare Elder Barnes. I wasn't supportive of the idea but he likes to do it and Elder Barnes was a good sport. We also had dinner with sister Worthen. Her husband was working late and she is in charge of the cub scouts so we met at the church but there was still no male there so we set up a table outside with some chairs. It was pretty cool though.

On Thursday we had weekly planning which takes forever. It took longer with Elder Anderson though because he talked ALOT haha. Usually weekly planning takes 2 1/2-3 hours, but with Elder Anderson it took like 4-4 1/2 hours on a good week haha. So that was nice having a shorter weekly planning session.

On Friday Elder Barnes and some other missionaries in the zone had to go to a meeting down in Mira Mesa so I was in a trio for like 4 hours with one of my zone leaders elder Matos and my district leader Elder Seavey. We did studies together and then Elder Matos told us that he promised to give a member in the Spanish branch a haircut before he went on his mission. So we show up at the Spanish members house and we knock and no one answers but we know the member is there so Elder Matos pulls his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door and Elder Seavey and I are like what the heck and then Elder Matos told us that they do laundry here and sometimes they aren't home so they gave them a key.  After he unlocks the door we go inside and call for the member and no one answers so we go to his bedroom and his bed room door is locked as well. We were about to give up and wait for the member to come out but then I remembered that a member in San Diego 1st ward taught me how to unlock locked doors with a gift card or something. So I unlock the door with my library card and we find the member sleeping and then Elder Matos starts jumping on his bed haha. By the way the member is like 18 an is pretty close with the missionaries so he thought it was funny that we broke in.

Saturday was a long day. Saturday's are usually pretty long in Ramona because we aren't allowed to do service on Saturday because they want us out working and no one is home on Saturday and especially this Saturday because everyone was out of town or going out of town.

Yesterday we had a mission Christmas devotional. So the whole mission got together which never happens, it usually only happens on Christmas and there were missionaries that sang and stuff then we had breakfast as a mission and then we watched a slide show of pictures from all the baptisms that happened this year. So that was awesome!

I think that's it for this week! Pretty stoked for Christmas though! Tonight we are going caroling with the bishopric.

Love ya guys!
Elder Chris LaRochelle