Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Bolder Boulder, VIP and Kyle!

Hey! So this last week has been pretty crazy. I had such a good memorial day. They have a huge 10k race here called the ''Bolder Boulder'' which consists of about 60,000 runners. So we spent Memorial day in Boulder walking around. There were so many crazy people a lot of people dress up and run. We got a lot of interesting looks ha there were a lot of members there too it seemed like every minute someone was yelling ''hey elders.'' The race ends in Folsom Stadium (University of Colorado's stadium). Well we got the hook ups from the family we live with and got V.I.P passes to the stadium so we spent the afternoon in the clubhouse enjoying good food and watching the races. It was awesome to watch the main race and an Ethiopian won he ran it under 30 minutes. They had jets fly by. They honored two Navajo code talkers as well. It was so awesome we spent the rest of the day walking around boulder and The Hathaways fed us the night so had some good BBQ. Last week we only taught Kyle but we taught him 3 times. He is doing so well, We talked to him about the Holy Ghost and he said that he has felt it before but he didn't know what it was at the time. He came to church and we taught the Gospel principles class. He is starting to make a lot of friends at church so he is getting a good support group. We are hoping we get a baptism date set this week. We had a BBQ with him this week as well. -- Elder Pedro Img_0072 - Hanging out at Kyle's BBQ Img_0100 - I look goofy but thats me up in the clubhouse. Img_0103 - This is the Family we live with. Check out the FlatIrons behind us!

Monday, May 28, 2012

Transfer #4, Steak, and a Bonfire

Hey, So my third transfer has just come to an end. Last Saturday we got a call from our zone leaders and they told us that both Elder Holliday and I were staying in Coal Creek another transfer. That will make six months or 1/4 of my mission serving here in the Coal Creek ward, the members have said that's the longest they have had a missionary stay in this ward. I am in the Boulder Zone and I have been in the zone the longest now too. Last week we taught Kyle and it is still going way good, we don't have a set date yet for his baptism but he still is committed to being baptized. Something Interesting last week was we ate steak three nights in a row at members houses, and we had it for lunch last week. IT was so good. Last night for p-day we made a huge bonfire with the Hathaways and the Fire Department showed up it was pretty cool, we had to stay 50-60 feet away because it was so hot.

-Img_0031 - Transfer guesses as district meeting.
-Img_0035 - District Photo
_img_0042 - Building a fire :)
img_0048 - me standing in front of the fire! It was so hot.

Monday, May 14, 2012

5/14/12 - Mother's Day

Man I am almost done with my 3rd transfer. It has gone by so fast. I am pretty excited to find out what's going to happen to me next transfer, I am pretty sure that I am going to get transferred. I just hope I stay in a Vehicle, I hear the summer months are brutal on bike. It was a rainy week this last week. So everything is green! I went on exchanges twice this last week so that was fun. On Tuesday I went with Elder Nielson who is from Idaho he is a really small guy and a lot of people asked if he was old enough to be on a mission while I was with him. We got to go to the temple, it was such a great experience I love going to the House of the Lord. We took a belt route to get there so I got to Denver from the outskirts and it was pretty cool. We passed by the Airport too! Elder Nielson made them comment that I probably won't see it again for 19 months haha. Wednesday we did almost no missionary work because the Vehicle Coordinator called us and gave us a laundry list of stuff we needed to fix on our truck, so we spent the day driving around and making the repairs. on Thursday/Friday I went on exchanges again this time with Elder Baker who is serving in Lafayette. We did service at the Rec Center and we also went to the Dentist! I hope my teeth survive the rest of my mission with all the desserts I am fed. We also taught Kyle again and we set hime with a Baptism date, so as of right now he is getting baptized on June 9th I hope everything works out because I don't think that I will be there for it. Sunday was pretty awesome too! I got to call home and talk to my family. It was so good to hear the voices again and to hear that they are all doing great. Church was good too beacsue Kyle came and had a great experience both the Gospel principles class and the Elders quorum's lesson was geared to him and He is really starting to get how this gospel is working. Well this time next week I will know where Im getting Transferred! -Elder Pedro

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

New Pictures from Elder Pedro

Mom mailed some matching ties to Elder Pedro and his new companion Elder Holliday. Don't they look handsome!

Monday, May 7, 2012

Elder Pedro Letter: Clean Car Award, Sushi and a YES!

I was thinking about it... my brother is now 18 that's pretty awesome! That makes me feel old, I am turning into an old man, it seems like I am always sore too. We had zone conference this week. It was held in Arvada, it was cool going to a part of the mission that I had never been to before. Even though it was only 30 miles away it seemed like a whole another state, I wouldn't mind serving down there. Elder Holliday and I spent the night before cleaning our truck, We wanted to win the 'clean car award' so we cleaned every inch of it. We got a perfect score but so did some other cars, and since we didn't have the seat belts buckled when we gave them our keys we lost! so that was pretty lame. That night after zone conference we ate at the Hathaways and their daughter had a non-member friend over and we ended up teaching the first lesson, and she said it was inspiring and asked for a Book of Mormon, we are hoping to meet with her again this week.

We taught Kyle again this week and it went awesome, I asked him to be baptized and he said yes, we asked him to say the prayer at the end of the lesson and he did, his prayer was amazing, he thanked Heavenly Father for sending the missionaries his way, He came to church this last week and had an awesome experience, our ward does such a good job and fellow shipping those we bring to church. Because next week is Mothers day the Elders Quorum is in charge of primary and some how a member and I got in charge of music, so hopefully that goes well.

So one day we went to help the Hathaways and Sister Hathaway had gone to Costco and had bought me some sushi, she said that she was Emailing my Mom and she found out that I am a fan of Sushi and Mangoes, she is so awesome! There were some crazy lightning storms this week as well, they are nothing like the storms in Utah, It has been pouring the last couple of days. I guess I will end with a cool story; so one day we were walking down the road in this neighborhood to go and see one of our investigators we hadn't talked to for awhile. He ended up not being home, so we just walked around the neighborhood a bit more to return to our truck. When some random scruffy looking guy came up to us and said that dinner was on him and he gave us some money to get food and then he left it was pretty random, we have no Idea who they guy is, He did call us elder though.

Elder Pedro
Img-0002 - Cleaning the truck!
Img - 0019 - taking a break at service.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

5/1/12 - Grass, Prom & Reese Pieces

Hey Another good week in the state of Colorado. We ended up doing a lot of service this week. There are quite a few lawns in Erie and Louisville that look pretty good now because of us. We also helped set up the Broomfield High schools prom, I don't know how we got invited to this but about 10 missionaries helped set up their prom which was quite a bit of work. Some other exciting news is that we have a personal trainer now, We wake up an hour early each morning and we head up to a park in our area and we work out, They are really intense so Elder Holliday and I spent the last week pretty sore, but the trainer is a member so he isn't charging us which is sweet. We couldn't get a lot done the last couple of days, because there was an epidemic at a local elemantary school where most of our members kids go. We were eating at a members house and some of her kids were sick, she then got a call from the school saying that the school was shut down for a couple of days because of this stomach flu that was highly contagious and was spreading like wildfire, they had hundreds of kids who were sick. So at sacrament meeting there was almost nobody there, none of the speakers showed up and the bishop wasn't there either. I am pretty suprised they didn't call on us to speak, they just had the bishopric give last minute talks. We have been able to teach kelly a couple of times this week, she has recieved all of the lessons, and is reading the book of mormon, She told us at our last lesson that she knew that it was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but she just doesn't see the need of going to church, so We are going to focus on the importance of going to church this week. We both ran out of money this week so we had to rely on the grace of the members alot (mostly the Hathaway family.), we were supposed to get our monthly money today, but we just barely got an email saying that there is a glitch in the system and we won't be able to get our money for a couple more days so I don't know what wer are going to do, hopefully we don't starve haha.

-Elder Pedro
Img_0066 - Me trying to Slack line, this is pretty big in Colorado
Img_0054 - holliday and I
Img_0059 - So I was helping Jay do math and he made me take a test to see what kind of candy I am, by the way I am a reese pieces which means I have a suprise inside.
Img_0050 - Doing some more hiking.