Scheduled Baptisms and Fencing

Hey everybody!

Another awesome week here in the Strasburg Ward. We had our District Leader Elder Goesch with us from Monday till Wednesday. He just got released as an AP and he is sweet. We Spent the day driving all over the area visiting and teaching people. We found one new investigator this week. We have two set for baptism this Saturday and we have another two set for baptism in three weeks. The work is going so well out here! We are coming to the end of the month which means we are pretty much out of miles, so we have to be very careful how we use our miles. Our zone did awesome this week, they found 71 new investigators the rest of the mission (11 other zones) only found 75. I also did my first fencing this last week, we spent 6 hours fixing a guys fence I got pretty sunburned too. on Wednesday we went to District Meeting which took up the whole morning and then visited Scott and Sandy, they have been meeting with missionaries forever but they aren't progressing, the husband and daughter love our message but the wife doesn't want any other scripture but the bible so it is hard to teach them. We also have been working with a younger less active kid and We got him to start going to Scouts so that's awesome. We taught our roommate twice this week, he is stoked for his baptism. He shared with us how great of an influence we are to live in the house. On Friday we met with a less active lady, and her daughter and we found out that her daughter wants to be baptized so we are teaching her now and have a date for later in August. We also set Oscar with a date he is excited as well. I got some other good news this week, Kyle from Coal Creek has a baptismal date set for August 25th. Man August is a good month! Man I had a ton of pictures to send but my usb thing is broken so I will have to get a new one.

-Elder Pedro

Aurora Shootings, a Catholic Priest, and Investigators

Dear Everybody, It has been a pretty crazy week over here. My companion and I both got sick so we were out for a couple of days. Last Monday, President Toombs came and played basketball with us he is quite the balla. Tuesday, we tracted out a town called Watkins with no success they have a huge catholic church so we decided to stop by. The Father ended up giving us a tour and started asking questions about our church and I pretty much told him he had no authority, I didn't even realize that I did haha but he was cool about it. He wants to meet with us again. We had an appointment with a family in a trailer park and when we showed up the cops had shut down the road and there were tons of officers walking around with guns it was quite the sight, we still don't know what happened. Wednesday we made our weekly trip down to Deer Trail and met with our investigators down there, We are still working on getting them out to church, but they are doing awesome. We also finally taught our roommates and we set one for baptism for August 4th. Thursday I was sick, and we got a call at 6 in the morning on Friday from a kid from the ward who is friends with our roommate, he asked if he was there and said that there had been a shooting at the movies which he was at and that he couldn't find him. Later that morning we got a call from the Zone Leaders explaining to us what had happened we had no Idea how big it was, we found out our roommate was okay. We found out that 2 girls in our stake got shot, but they are both doing good I believe. It is definitely some pretty big news over here because it is so close. Every time we go to Aurora we eat right across from that theater so its pretty crazy. ON Saturday we visited Less Actives who lived out in the middle of no where they were all super friendly. Sunday was good we had a lot of investigators at church. The Bishop's wife was out of town so he invited us over and we cooked frozen pizzas and drank soda, he is an awesome guy. Our district leader is coming out with us tonight and is going to spend two nights with us so that should be pretty fun. -- Elder Pedro

Investigators,Tracting, and Colorado Rockies

Another great week here in the Strasburg ward. Last Monday we spent the day in Aurora for P-day and played a lot of basketball, I am in a huge zone now so it is fun to play ball now. We worked way hard this week and got another 8 investigators which puts us at 16 in 2 weeks which is pretty crazy. We got two on Monday night they are African American and are sweet, we set her with a date for August 4th and the husband (who had consumed a few beers) took us over to his neighbors after the lesson and introduced us so we taught them as well it was sweet. We did get some lame news this week, Our investigator named Sam who had a date for August 4th left the country and is now living in New Zealand we don't know when he's coming back so hopefully soon. On Wednesday I worked harder than I ever had as a missionary. We didn't have any appointments planned and didn't have too much to go on, so we decided we would tract all day and that is what we did. We visited some investigators at 10 A.M. and talked to them a bit (reminded them to watch a video we left), then we started tracting we didn't get home until 9:30 P.M. and we took 30 minutes for lunch the rest of the time was spent knocking on doors and talking to people, we were pretty disappointed because we didn't get the opportunity to teach a full lesson. We were able to hand out 4 B.O.M's and have a lot of potentials now. Thursday we were working in the towns of Byers and Deer Trail. We met an older couple who let us in and talked to us about religion. The man is from England and had a lot of questions about the Bible he liked our answers and said that we could come back next week. The ward we are in didn't have a ward mission plan so we spent Friday morning putting one together, we came up with a pretty good plan and presented it at ward council and they all liked it. We started teaching a man named Oscar who lives in the middle of no where in a camper, he has been coming to church for awhile and wants to get baptized, he is a little handicapped so he doesn't remember everything that we teach him so we are going to go very slow with him. Sunday was awesome we got a ride down into Aurora and went to a fireside with Jeremy Guthrie who is a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies he was awesome and he signed my missionary planner. We spent the night in Aurora so we could spend P-day down here. We are aiming for 10 investigators this week so hopefully we get it!

First week in Strasburg!!!

Hey! This week was by far the best week that I have had on my mission. We found 8 new investigators and I think we can easily find another 8 this week. We set one kid for baptism and we will probably have 4 or 5 baptisms in the next month. The ward is awesome and are helping out a lot. On the Fourth of July we went to the ward breakfast it was sweet, I had a football so we got a game going with all the kids it was way fun. We had to drive into Aurora for district meeting and we did our shopping down there as well. We came back to our area and went up to one of the main houses of where we live, they had a kickball game going on so we played for awhile in the dirt field.

We went out to go do some missionary work but no one was home and all of sudden a storm came out of no where, It started pouring and I have never seen rain like that in my life, water was running down all the streets and all the fields were flooded, so of course we decided to go tracting. We were running from house to house and we were soaked. The second door we knocked on the guy felt bad for us so he let us in on the condition that we don't talk about religion, It wasn't long till we started talking about religion and we ended up teaching the first lesson ha ha. He is a big Glen Beck fan and a New York Dolls fan so he said he would read the Book of Mormon, it was pretty cool to get a new investigator from tracting like that, It pretty much rained all night and The thunder is so loud out here it is awesome. On Thursday we went to a town called Byers and visited members and went tracting the first house we knocked on a lady answered and let us teach her the first lesson she wants us to come back this week.

On Friday we had dinner with a cool family and they had a kid who just moved in with him When they had tried to talk to him about religion he shut them down but he opened up to us so we taught him as well. He ended up coming to church and we taught him again on Saturday he has a baptism date of August 4th :) ON Saturday we went to the very edge of our boundaries to a small town called agate the town was pretty dead, we talked to a guy named Tim for an hour and he was on a national Championship bowling team he reminded me of Chong Lee or whatever that guys name is he told us some crazy stuff but it was sweet.

We then took an old highway to a town called Deer Trail and we were walking around and this guy was out so we started talking to him in the street. He told us that he dedicated 2012 to God and Fishing he reads the bible a couple of hours everyday he said that the other day he was reading and he read something about the ''3rd heaven'' and asked if we had heard about that. He eventually let us into his home and we taught about the Restoration. When we told him that Christ had set up a church when he was here, he said that he had never heard of that, So We turned to Matthew 15 and he kinda just looked at us and wouldn't believe it. In his own scriptures he had written ''did Christ set up a church on earth'' It was so awesome he is going to start coming to church and we are meeting with him later this week. I have never met someone who is so ready to become a member.

We headed to a town called Bennett after that and we taught a family of 4 and they want us to come back as well. At church we had 5 investigators there, it was so awesome. One of the guys we lives with wants to get baptized and we are going to be meeting with him tonight. This ward is so awesome and the work is going very well, The storms out here on the plains are crazy as well. It pours every single night.

Img_0022 - a little water
Img_0027 - My comp
Img_0024 - We found a random telephone in the middle of no where
Img_0016 - at the temple with Holliday
Img_0035 - The Dimig family

7/3/12 - Transfer, Traveling Elder, and Teeth Marks

Aloha So I did end up getting transferred. President Toombs called me on Saturday and called me to be a 'traveling Elder' which basically means that I have a huge area and there is no senior companion. I am going to be in a town called Strasburg which is about an hour east of Denver and I am in the Aurora Stake. I am so excited the area has been closed for almost a year. The Aurora Stake is one of the highest baptizing stakes in the Country so they have pretty high standards (The stake has already had 50 baptisms this year) So there is a lot of work to be done. I am also the driver which is pretty sweet They let me keep the same truck that I have been driving in my whole mission. I haven't been out to Strasburg yet we are still in Aurora still trying to figure everything out. All I know is that we are living in an apartment and we have 2 non member roommates, I also hear they already have a couple of people ready to get baptized. There are about 15 towns we cover. My new companion is Elder Epps he is from Virginia and he is black so he is pretty cool. He just got released as a zone leader, We set some high goals for this transfer we are going to try and hand out 40 Book of Mormons and try to set someone for baptism every single week. Aurora is so much different then Boulder there is a lot more diversity. Elder Holliday got transferred up to Laramie and he is going to be with my MTC companion Elder Serrano. Yesterday was transfer day which basically means we play basketball all day, I went up to block another Elder and I smacked his head my elbow I have a couple of teeth marks in my arm now and I was bleeding a lot but it was pretty cool. Sunday was a weird day we had to say goodbye to everyone, the bishop asked us to bear our testimonies as well. Sister Dimig (Who we live with) stood up and bore her testimony about how we are like a blessing factory in her basement that bubbles up into her home. Kyle was pretty bummed that we were both getting transferred but there are some good missionaries coming so he should be baptized pretty soon. We went and said goodbye to Chip and he almost started crying it was crazy. It was weird saying goodbye to the Hathaways as well. Well I am excited to be in a new area it is huge and I am going to have a lot of fun, I did hear that it was 113 degrees the other day though. Last Friday we went to the temple and I saw Elder Gnehm who is already home. Sorry I don't have any pictures I can't find my camera.